“I installed it myself.”
“You have established communication with it from here?”
“I have. We picked up that grid override in Central the moment it happened. In fact, we knew about it before it happened. I left an audio monitor in place. We’re listening to every word that’s said in that control room. Trust me, Mr. Hart, everything’s ready.”
“I should hope so. But I trust no one. In my life, I have found no human being worthy of my trust. Not one.” He again stopped talking for several minutes before continuing. “In fact, I have found very few even worthy of salvation from utter destruction. This world cries out for a new era.”
Despite the warmth of the summer sun, his voice chilled Dane to the bone. And then for some stupid, bizarre, irritating, nonsensical reason, the image of the teenagers in the truck in Mississippi flashed through his mind, laughing, screaming, full of life. Just like he and Riff did in another lifetime when they were teenagers in an old Ford, circling the town square, revving the engine at every guy they met, Riff always on the lookout for the next girlfriend. Baby brother could always get the babes. Now baby brother was buried in an unmarked Mississippi grave.
Hart turned and headed toward the bunker. He stopped and turned back toward Dane. “Oh, Mr. Christian, I have decided the woman you brought with you will make an excellent concubine. Have her delivered to my quarters by this evening. Be certain that she is dressed in white.”
Dane stood gazing into the peaceful sky long after Hart had gone inside, trying to recall the exact point in his life when his humanity totally disappeared. He could not remember, and swallowed four pills of some sort to ease the pain.
He swore he could feel the tumor growing now, pushing his brain out of the way to make more room for its deadly mass. Soon it would push too far. Would there be even one person to remember him as anything other than a monster?
8:36 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
HART COMPLEX, PRIVATE CHAMBERS
“You are a lovely lady. Always do as I say and you will live comfortably in my service. You will naturally enjoy the time we spend together, but you are never to let that show. You are a servant to deliver pleasure to me and to eventually bear my children. Is that clear?”
Jana’s life over the last day or so had been, to put it mildly, unsettling. She had found a dead man in her house, been kidnapped, watched the planting of a bomb near home, hauled across the country to God knows where, and now here she was in this black underground room with this freak laying out what, a job description for resident whore? As revolting as the thought was of actually fulfilling the duties, playing along seemed the safest way to proceed at the moment. If she could figure out what made him tick perhaps she could exploit a weakness. She smiled and nodded in response to his question.
“You know, you remind me of my mother. She was an American woman, blond like you ... ” Jana watched Hart as he stopped speaking in mid-sentence and stared into thin air. After five minutes or so, he said, “Yes, I think Mother would like you.”
Maybe Mom was the key. “Where is she now?”
“That, my dear, is a fascinating question.” He stood up and paced the room several times, finally coming to a stop standing in front of Jana while she sat on a long black sofa, his face alight with enthusiasm. “While I cannot be absolutely certain, there is a better than average chance that at this very moment my naked mother is lying face down on a raft of thorny brambles, floating on a lake of fire within the sulfurous scarps of hell. If that be the case, it naturally follows that she is being sodomized by a horde of beak-faced demons.”
Jana swallowed hard and forced herself to act as if it was the most logical thing she had ever heard. “Naturally.” Whatever Mom was the key to, needed to stay locked tight.
Hart smiled and sat down next to Jana. She swallowed hard and clasped her hands together.
“What about your father, is he alive?” she said.
“Come.” He stood up and extended his hand. She took it, all the while fighting the almost irresistible urge to puke all over the crazy bastard.
“Why, thank you.” Jana followed Hart through a maze of dimly lit black corridors and eventually arrived in a room the size of a walk-in closet. He flicked a switch and the room was bathed in the otherworldly glow from black lights hidden behind valances where the walls met the ceiling. He pushed a button and a panel opened up in one of the walls, revealing a cubbyhole about a foot cubed, also lit with black lights. In the center of the cube was a glass display jar filled with clear liquid. In the liquid was a pair of eyeballs. Jana felt a lump well up in her throat as her stomach roiled and her mind spun. “Is that ... I mean, are those ... ”
“Yes, my precious. Dear old Dad.”
Jana, being a natural conversationalist, instinctively said, “May I ask why you keep his eyes?” The moment the words left her lips, she wondered if she had made a mistake.
Hart looked at Jana, then the eyes, then back to her, his expression betraying nothing. This went on for two or three minutes before he finally said, “Come with me.”
After turning off the lights and locking the door, he walked farther down the dim corridor and into another dark room. He flipped a switch and Jana froze in mid-stride.
12
8:39 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
I looked up from my station and saw Skinny doing battle with a laptop at a corner desk.
“I haven’t had the pleasure. I’m Matt Decker.”
Unlike Stocky, she did shake my hand. “Julie Reynolds. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Decker.”
“Having trouble with your machine?”
“I can’t get it to connect to the Internet, which means I can’t file my reports.” She blew an exasperated sigh.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest.”
Her Dell was running the latest incarnation of Windows and I had her online through the Yellow Creek network in two minutes. “There you go.” I slid the machine back over to her.
“Wow, that was quick. Thanks.”
“No problem. How long have you been with the Bureau?”
“I’m six months out of the academy. This is my first serious case.”
“Well, I’m sorry we’re all in this mess, but congratulations on the big assignment.”
“Thanks. I was excited at first.”
“And now?”
She drew a breath as if to answer, then froze for a moment and said, “I better get back to work.” She ran her fingers through her hair. Other than being the size of a toothpick, she was attractive enough. And something was wrong.
“You seem frustrated. Anything other than the computer problem?”
“I enjoyed meeting you, Mr. Decker.” She smiled politely, spun her chair back around, and started pecking on the laptop. I said goodbye and went back to my station.
By eleven o’clock nine of Central’s sixteen states were back online and I had a rough draft of the manual override instructions. I started editing them into something distributable and Abdul kept working our remaining states. Rowe and Stocky, whose name I had learned to be Walter Potella, conferred a lot and said little to anyone else. Julie Reynolds pecked. The crackers were working on the email routes and making little progress. Far too little.
I laid my head down at my station to rest my eyes, but it ended quickly when my phone vibrated in my pocket and simultaneously my laptop said, “You have new mail.” After a quick check to be sure no one was nearby I brought up my mailbox. It was from him.
Return-Path:
Delivered-To: x7ijljAweRRv -deckerdigital:[email protected]
X-Envelope-To: [email protected]
X-Originating-IP: [66.156.171.40]
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Spam?
I have had a wonderful evening, Mr. Decker. For that reason I will ove
rlook your snide, childish, and insulting little email. But you will learn to treat me with respect. I guarantee it.
By the way, your performance thus far has been most disappointing. I expected better of you. Shall I claim tomorrow’s victory with equal ease?
Tark tapped me on the shoulder and I lowered the lid on the computer. “Can we talk?” I followed him outside.
“We have to stop this nut,” he said, staring at the stars that bloomed in the waning twilight. “This country’s in a world of hurt, and believe it or not, we’re the front line, you and me.”
I was having a tough time paying attention to what he was saying. The new email, with its clear warning of another attack, put me in a quandary with regard to keeping it to myself.
“The government’s spinning its wheels,” Tark continued. “It runs on bureaucrats and computers. Computers run on electricity. Bureaucrats run on rules and that approach isn’t working. The FBI’s investigation is running at ten percent of what it should be.”
That yanked me back into the conversation. “Where did you get that figure?”
“I heard Rowe and Potella talking in the lounge after Rowe got off the phone with Washington or Quantico or wherever. They can’t communicate. They can’t research. Everybody’s waiting for someone higher up to tell them what to do, and as a result nothing’s getting done.”
“What did you think of the email to the White House?”
“Had a biblical flavor to it. I still think the guy’s some kind of religious nut.”
“Most terrorists are.”
“No, this one’s different. Like I said, it had a biblical feel to it, not the Islamic stuff about infidels we normally hear. ‘Transgression’ and ‘iniquity’ are both used heavily in the Bible.”
“What does the Bible have to say about power grids?”
“Just telling you what my hunch is, Matthew.”
“I appreciate it. Didn’t mean to be a smart-ass.”
He tried for a smile but didn’t quite make it.
“We’re going to win this thing, Tark.”
“I hope you’re right, Matthew.”
So did I. “I am.”
Tark stood up when Sheriff Johnny Litman unexpectedly walked into the control room with a grim look on his face. “Tark, I’m afraid I’ve got some more bad news.”
“It’s not Peggy, is it?”
“No, no, calm down.”
Tark exhaled. “What’s the news?”
“Brett Fulton was killed in a car wreck last night out on 25.”
“Sweet Jesus, that’s three of my men in two days, Johnny. How come you’re just now telling me?”
“I’ve been trying to call you all day, but you can’t get through to anybody on the dang phone, and we’ve had our hands full trying to keep things calm.”
“Anything fishy about the wreck?”
“Nope, the wreck itself looks like what happens when somebody’s driving like a bat out of hell. They said he must’ve been doing near a hundred when he lost it.”
Tark cocked his head. “If the wreck ‘itself’ doesn’t look fishy, what does?”
“Well first, he had a forty-five auto on him. Not in the glove box or under the seat, but tucked in his pants like he might have been expecting trouble. We went to run the numbers on the gun and there weren’t any. Serial number filed off smoother than a baby’s butt.”
“You talked to Jana to see if she knew anything about the gun?”
“I’m getting to that. Say, ya’ll got anything to drink around here?”
“Good grief, Johnny. Finish the story.” Tark roared for someone to fetch the sheriff a Coke. Abdul volunteered.
“Simmer down, there’s a lot to tell. The hospital said Jana got off early last night, and I know she’s been staying over at Brett’s house a lot so I went on over. Jana’s car is there, right? I moseyed on up to the door, knocked on it, and it came open. I hollered for her several times, but the place was quiet as an Indian tiptoeing on snow. Finally I went on in.”
I saw Bob Rowe in his corner and it occurred to me he should probably be hearing what Litman had to say. I walked over and told him that he might want to join the conversation.
“I’ve heard every word. Local sheriffs usually don’t like for the Bureau to invade their turf and I’ve had enough head-butting for one day, so I’ll just sit here and take notes,” he said with a wink.
Coke in hand, Litman continued. “The house was a mess. Stuff busted all to hell and back. There was one humdinger of a fight in there. Lot of blood. No body, though.”
Rowe had spun his chair around to face us and was listening intently while he took notes on a legal pad. Tark asked the obvious. “I’m almost scared to ask, Johnny, but where’s Jana? I sure hope to heavens that’s not her blood. That’s one sweet gal.”
“I don’t know whose blood it is, Tark, and I don’t know where Jana is. We’ve sealed off the house as a crime scene, and we’re treating it as a homicide even though we don’t have a body yet.”
Rowe finally approached, hand out to shake with the sheriff. “Bob Rowe, FBI.”
“How do.” Litman took his hand, and the brief but crucial ritual of males sizing each other up took place. Eye contact. Strong-but-not-too-strong gripping. A contest that wasn’t really a contest. “You’re welcome to look around the crime scene, Rowe. If you think of something we’ve missed, let me know.”
“Will do, Sheriff. I have a bunch of agents around here busting butt looking for clues and hitting brick walls. If you like, I’ll be glad to put a couple of them on this for you. We can get some testing done on the blood pretty quickly.”
“Thank you, Rowe. Offer accepted. I’ll pass the word along to my people to cooperate with you. For now, I better get back out there on the streets and keep the peace.”
I re-joined Abdul and went back to work pounding the keyboard. At five minutes after three, the last grid in Central went hot. We managed to do it without any system damage that we could detect. Fifteen minutes later I emailed the override instructions to headquarters and the other three centers. After a glance to be sure no one was around, I printed both of 69’s emails to me and quickly retrieved them from the laser printer.
Tark was in the lounge, napping on a sofa, Rowe likewise in a recliner. I shook Tark and when he stirred I motioned for him to come with me. He unfolded from the couch with a mighty yawn and followed me down the hall, through the control room, and out into the starlit night.
“I need to show you something,” I said.
“Go ahead.” He yawned again.
“In confidence.”
“Go ahead.” He rubbed his eyes.
I pulled the printouts from my pocket and unfolded them. “Here. The first one came Monday night, the second a few hours ago.”
He read them in the light of a tiny LED flashlight from my keychain, and was suddenly wide awake. “I take it you haven’t mentioned this to anyone?”
“Correct.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t see that I have a choice. They need to know he’s planning another attack tomorrow.”
“What did you say to insult him?”
“I just told him to keep his spam out of my mailbox.”
“Sounds like he’s making this some kind of game between you two.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You can’t think of who this might be?”
“No clue. Like I said yesterday, I have my share of rivals but this—”
“You know, part of the first one sounds familiar but I can’t place it.”
“Which part?”
“This.” He pointed to the first line in the first email: Never more horror, nor worse of days.
“That’s not from the Bible, is it?”
“No, I can’t place it right now but it’s not that.”
“If it’s from a well-known source we should be able to find it. The Internet’s still crippled but with all the Central states back up, it’s
hobbling along enough for basic research.” “Dare I ask what the filthy secrets are?”
“I’ll explain later.”
He didn’t argue. We walked inside, turned on the light in the lounge, and roused Rowe. “What?” he said.
“You need to see these,” I said, laying the emails on the table.
He got up, stretched, and walked to the table. After reading them he looked up. “When did these come?”
I pointed to the first and said, “Last night, Monday evening,” then to the second and said, “tonight.”
“Did you reply to these?”
“Only the first one.”
“Probably best not to antagonize him any further.”
“Agreed.”
“It’s pretty obvious why you withheld these, Decker, but if you’ve compromised this investigation I’ll have your ass.”
“It compromised nothing. Let’s worry about finding this guy.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Rowe said. “For now.”
13
8:40 PM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
HART COMPLEX, PRIVATE CHAMBERS
“This is incredible,” Jana said, with complete sincerity. It was as if they had walked into a normal family home. A small foyer opened up into a living room complete with sofa, chairs, pictures on the wall, a television, magazines on the coffee table. The curtained windows appeared to be lit by twilight, though that was impossible since they were deep underground. A door in the back of the room led to a kitchen.
Hart smiled with pride. “Do you like it, my dear?”
Jana nodded and walked around the room, taking in more detail now. A few of the magazines were American, but most bore covers in a foreign language. Hebrew? She spotted a copy of Time and picked it up. June 1977. She laid it down and looked for more dates. They were all late seventies, most of them 1977. Even the style of the furnishings projected a retro atmosphere. It was a room frozen in time.
“Was this like the home you grew up in?” she said, hoping to draw him into a conversation where a useful weakness might be found.
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