Assassin's code jl-4

by Jonathan Maberry

  “You aren’t the only one who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on,” said Church. “We know some things and Lilith and her people know some things. We have to hope that if we all put our puzzle pieces on the table it will add up to one clear picture.”

  “Thanks for giving me a heads up, Church,” I complained. He ignored me.

  Church looked at his watch. “What’s the status of your team?”

  “At the risk of sounding like a male stereotype,” I said, “Echo Team is cocked, locked, and ready to rock.”

  “Good. I have transport on the way. We roll in one hour. And, yes, Captain, that means all teams are on active standby. On the president’s order we will hit all five of the sites in one coordinated strike.”

  “What about the other two devices?”

  Church paused and I could feel the eyes of everyone in the place burning into us. “We don’t know where they are. We’re going to have to run the play with what we have. If we’re very lucky we may secure one or more of the people involved in this and see if we can encourage them to unburden their souls.” It was said offhand, but the intent beneath the words was lethal.

  “God help anyone who gets in our way, then,” I said.

  Church gave me a bleak stare. “I believe they will discover that God has abandoned them.”

  He turned toward Lilith.

  “Now,” he said.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Arklight Camp

  Outskirts of Tehran

  June 16, 2:10 a.m.

  “It all started eight hundred years ago with Sir Guy LaRoque, emissary for Philip II of France,” began Lilith. “He was a senior member of the Knights Hospitaller, which is a noble order dedicated to good works. However, Sir Guy created within the Hospitallers a second and very much more secret group which became known as the Ordo Ruber, the Red Order. The group was illegally sanctioned by Father Nicodemus, the senior Hospitaller priest in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.”

  “Nicodemus,” I echoed, and a chill raced up my spine.

  “Sir Guy brought his plan to his counterpart,” continued Lilith, “a man named Ibrahim al-Asiri, who was emissary for Saladin. These two men were much of a mind, and between them they shared the observation that it was remarkable that, during times of the severest strife between Christendom and Islam, people flocked to church in greater numbers and showed much greater fealty to God.”

  “No atheists in foxholes,” I said, but caught a reproving look from Church. I mimed zipping my mouth shut.

  “Exactly,” agreed Lilith. “They likewise observed that in times of peace, people strayed from the house and the word of God. LaRoque and al-Asiri found this intolerable and feared that extended times of peace would lead inevitably to the decline of faith. Understand, Captain, these men were religious zealots as well as political manipulators. They were ambassadors and spokesmen for great leaders, and also advisors. They could see things from what they likely viewed as a big picture perspective, and indeed history has shown that religions rise and fall. Few endure. So, seeing that this was a trend, and knowing that the Crusades must necessarily end one day, these two men decided to dedicate themselves to a course of action that would ensure the eternal preservation of their churches. They drafted an agreement between them that there should always be tension and conflict between Christendom and Islam. Nothing fills a church, or indeed a mosque, more surely than the need to pray for the confusion and destruction of the enemy, especially when the enemy is the enemy of one’s God.” She paused and fixed me with a penetrating stare. “Sir Guy, with the help of Nicodemus, founded his Red Order to oversee this work. Ibrahim created the Tariqa-the Path-to do the same for Islam, and within months of signing the Holy Agreement, they began a campaign of selective murder, arson, and desecration. There has always been strife here in the Middle East-but this was the birth of a new kind of conflict.”

  I goggled at her. “You’re talking about hate crimes.”

  “Yes, Captain, in a very real sense the Holy Agreement formed by the Red Order and the Tariqa was the beginning of terrorism as we know it. They invented hate crimes as we know that concept.”

  Even though I was standing still I suddenly felt like I was falling. “To get people to go to church?”

  In my earbud I heard a low whistle. Probably Top.

  Church murmured, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

  Lilith nodded. “It’s possible, I suppose, that Sir Guy and Ibrahim had the best intentions as they saw it, but it speaks to a very malecentric viewpoint that what a person can see or imagine is his by right to have.”

  My Y chromosome wanted me to protest, but anything I could say would be built on shaky ground. Lilith must have caught a look on my face and gave me a slice of a cool smile.

  “These secret societies operate totally without the knowledge or sanction of the governing bodies of their religions,” she continued. “Neither the Catholic Church nor the imams of Islam would tolerate such acts. They would decry them as blasphemous and heretical, which they most assuredly are, but not from the perspective of the Red Order and the Tariqa. Much like a shadow government will often act in opposition to, say, the Constitution of the United States or the Magna Carta, because they believe their vision, however illegal and unpopular, is the best course of action. It’s sophistry, of course, and therefore self-justifying. The leader of the Red Order became known as the Scriptor out of respect for Sir Guy LaRoque drafting the original Holy Agreement. The leader of the Tariqa is known as the Murshid, or ‘guide.’”

  “How did something like this fly under the radar for eight hundred years?” I asked.

  Her cold smile was gone. “You would be surprised and appalled to know how many dreadful things are unknown to the world at large. Your organization fights such things, as does Arklight.”

  Church nodded. “And assassinations are useful for more things than inspiring religious intolerance. Establish a pattern of swift and terrible retribution for the slightest act of betrayal and you can hide almost anything.”

  It was an ugly point, but I knew that he was right.

  “At first the Holy Agreement between Sir Guy and Ibrahim dictated that each side should carry out actions only against their own people. It was believed that this would allow each side to control the effect. Of course when one of Sir Guy’s knights murdered a pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem or burned a church, there was evidence planted to implicate the Muslims. Over time, however, men from both sides became sickened by committing atrocities against their own. Perhaps it was the last shred of conscience clinging to them, so it became necessary for the Holy Agreement to be amended to allow each side to commit murders and perpetrate the acts of desecration against the other side. These hits were strictly regulated and always agreed upon, but it was much easier for each side to strike with righteous fury at the other side. This became known as the Shadow War, and that has lasted all these centuries.”

  “Who did the actual killings, though?” I asked. “It isn’t easy to pull something like this off over and over again, and suicide bombing is relatively recent.”

  “These aren’t suicide attacks,” she said as she sat down once again on the overturned crate. “The Tariqa perfected the model first. There was already a group of highly skilled killers operating in the Middle East, an order of Nizari Ismailis founded in 1080 during the First Crusade. You know about the Hashashin?”

  I nodded.

  “That Order of Assassins was so effective that they tipped the balance of power in the Shadow War. The Knights Hospitaller were skilled fighters, but they were battlefield warriors, not the kind of subtle and nimble assassin who could scale a wall or pass stealthily past picketed guards. The Red Order needed something as effective, but Europe had no precedent. Not even the Roman legions were useful as a model for assassins of such high quality and effectiveness.” She paused and her face darkened. “This is where the story takes a darker turn.”

  “Darker?”
I said, half smiling. “How much darker can it get?”

  “Vampires,” said Mr. Church.

  “Ah shit,” I sighed. “I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t get back to that.”

  “This is the real world,” said Lilith coldly, “and they are a part of it.”

  “Are they supernatural? ’Cause that seems to be the big question.”

  Violin moved to stand beside her mother. Her eyes looked haunted, and her mother touched her arm for a moment. Instead of reassuring her, the touch sparked an involuntary shiver. Lilith sighed.

  “The Upierczi are monsters,” said Lilith, “and as twisted as they seem, they are a part of nature.”

  “You know this for a fact?” asked Church, beating me to the punch.

  Lilith nodded. “Arklight managed to obtain tissue samples from one-at a terrible cost, I might add. We did extensive testing. We ran a full metabolic panel-sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, BUN, magnesium, creatinine, and calcium. We did arterial blood gas to measure blood pH and bicarbonate levels. We did full blood count, Hematocrit, and MCV, ESR. We ran molecular profiles-protein electrophoresis, western blot, liver function. Everything. And we ran a full DNA. The Upierczi are genetically human, but they are not Homo sapiens and-”

  “I hate like hell to interrupt this Discovery Channel episode, but can we get back to the actual point? The Red Order used the Upierczi as assassins. And-?”

  Lilith nodded, accepting my rebuke. “The Upierczi are more than a match for the order of assassins, but their numbers have always been low. There were never many of them, thank God. They’ve tried to change that with breeding programs, however.”

  There was a murmur of deep disgust among the women.

  “The Red Order began this process. Capturing women, keeping them in pens, encouraging the Upierczi to rape them over and over again until they conceived. Most of the children were stillborn. Some few survived, and of those three quarters were normal babies that showed no significant trace of the Upierczi traits. Others were hybrids-dhampyrs-but attempts to raise and train them as Upierczi met with complete failure for the Order. A few-a handful-were born as Upierczi, and they kept their blasphemous bloodline alive.”

  Lilith paused and wiped away a tear. Violin placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and Lilith reached up and briefly clasped her daughter’s hand. I was clearly missing something here, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

  “For a long while the Upierczi tried another tactic. They kept the women who bore Upierczi children and forced them to produce child after child. This was not ultimately successful, so they tried another tactic. When a dhampyr was born, if it was female, she was kept and raised, and when she was old enough, she was raped and impregnated and forced to bear a child. This nearly always resulted in an Upierczi birth. For a while this seemed like the solution to their problems… but the vampires and their Red Order masters did not understand the nature of genetics. Not then, at least. Generation after generation of forced inbreeding did not expand the Upierczi-it nearly destroyed them. Children were born who were Upierczi, but who were mongoloid and severely retarded. Freakish births, a sharp rise in stillbirths. Lunacy, madness, a drop in physical abilities, reduced intelligence.” She took a steadying breath. “For a while it seemed as if their own attempt to breed a master race was going to result in the death of the entire species.”

  “I met one of the knights,” I said. “There was nothing genetically weak about him. What changed? What happened?”

  “The science of genetics happened,” said Mr. Church.

  I looked at him.

  “Gene therapy, artificial insemination, gene splicing. Rebreeding techniques. Science caught up to the needs of the Upierczi.” He turned to Lilith. “Am I right?”

  “Yes,” she said, tears glistening in her eyes. “The Red Order hired the very best scientists. They spent tens of millions to fund radical genetic research and development. They created a ‘rebirth’ process in the 1980s, improving upon it every year. Not just new births, but therapy to fix genetic flaws in living members. Understand, Captain, the Upierczi are not immortal, but their lifespan is exceptionally long. Some are more than two centuries old. And there is one who is rumored to be three hundred and twenty years old. Grigor, the oldest and by far the most powerful of the Upierczi. He is the father of the new order of vampires. His genes-never tainted by inbreeding-became the alpha cell line in a course of gene therapy called Upier 531. It was developed by Dr. Dieter Hasbrouck. Now, the new wave of Upierczi is stronger, faster, more durable-and many will live as long as Grigor. Hasbrouck did extensive gene therapy. He amped up the wound repair system so the knights heal much more quickly, and they have a greatly enhanced ultraviolet light repair system as well. I believe it was an attempt to make them better able to tolerate sunlight, which weakens them, but instead he gave them virtual immunity to cancer and a resistance to radiation. If these bombs go off, any Upierczi not in the direct blast radius might actually survive. That,” she said, “is what we face.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I breathed. My heart was pounding so hard that I wanted to scream. If Church hadn’t been standing right beside me, nodding as Lilith spoke, I doubted I would believe it. But his presence-the absolute solidity of everything that he was-made it all doubly real. Too real.

  I licked my lips. They were dry as dust.

  “You… left something out,” I said.

  Lilith nodded, clearly expecting the question.

  “You glossed right over the dhampyri. The hybrids. The ones who were forced to give birth to so many of the Upierczi. What happened to them?”

  Lilith stared at me with bottomless dark eyes.

  “I think you already know the answer to that, Captain Ledger.”

  “The Mothers of the Fallen,” I breathed, and those words hurt my mouth. I swallowed a throatful of broken glass. “And… their children? The girls, the dhampyri? What happened to them?”

  Violin had tears in her eyes, but her voice was fierce. “Our mothers escaped to save us.”

  “Some escaped,” said Lilith sadly. “Most died. The rest… we dedicated ourselves to a single cause.”

  “To destroy the monsters. The Upierczi, Nicodemus, the Red Order. All of them.”

  I tried to say something. Anything.

  All I could do was look into the eyes of these women. Lilith, Violin, each of them.

  Violin stared at me, into me. So did Lilith. Looking for my reaction, for my true feelings.

  But I simply could not speak.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  The Department of Military Sciences

  Worldwide

  The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

  For Rudy Sanchez it was like someone had driven a cold steel spike into his chest.

  All of the display screens in the mobile computer center were filled with pages of ciphertext and meters showing progress on other sections of the two books. But the central display screen had a different image, a real-time feed from a button camera worn by Mr. Church. It was all there. The Mothers of the Fallen. Lilith and Violin. Joe.

  The things Lilith said. The truths she shared.

  Rudy wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. To continue watching and listening and understanding was far more than a job requirement, however. To turn away would be the worst kind of cowardice-the kind that refuses to hear the truth. The kind that refuses to care.

  He touched the crucifix he wore beneath his shirt.

  He barely felt the pain from the crushing, desperate grip Circe had on his other hand.

  The Hangar, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

  Aunt Sallie stood apart so she could study the faces of her staff as they watched and listened to Lilith. She saw shock and horror. She saw tears. She saw jaw-clenched rage. She watched to see if any of them turned away, or sneered privately, or smiled, because God help them if they did.

  What she saw on the faces of her people, however, was what she
thought she would see. What she needed to see.

  No one was looking at her. They were unable to look away. So no one saw her nod her approval of them.

  Echo Team, outskirts of Tehran

  Top Sims heard a small sound. A wet sniff, muffled and discreet. He cut a look sideways, expecting it to be Bunny. But he saw John Smith pull back from his sniper scope to wipe his eyes and nose. Top grunted softly to himself.

  He had known Smith for almost a year, had been in every kind of fight with him, had fought to save the world alongside him, but he did not actually know him. The sniper’s file was filled with data but no insight. His psych evals were by the numbers, describing a quiet man with an interior life he did not care to share. Not uncommon for someone raised in an orphanage and bounced around from one foster home to the next. No criminal record, though. No politics, no religion, and if he had opinions he never shared them. He was a blank, a question mark except in one regard: he was the best sniper currently serving in the U.S. military. The best by a good margin. He killed whatever he aimed at. He never pulled a trigger in a questionable situation; he was patient enough to wait for a clear target and an unshakable reason.

  Seeing Bunny, Lydia, or Khalid cry would not have jolted Top. Not even surprised him. Bunny, for all his size and experience, was a softie who really did believe that the good guys won in the end. Lydia also had a lot of heart beneath the wisecracks and trash talk. And Khalid, the scholar of the team, was a deeply passionate man, very religious, strongly invested in social justice and ethics. They would cry. They were all probably fighting tears now.

  But Smith? Smith never showed a thing. Not a goddamn thing. Not when he killed. Not when his comrades went down. Not when he took a bullet. He was the only person who showed less on his face than Mr. Church.

  And yet this-what the woman Lilith was saying, what they were all finding out about the strange mission they were on-was turning dials on the man.