The King of Plagues jl-3

by Jonathan Maberry

  Jerry was the top forensics man I knew. He’d joined the DMS at the same time I did. His genius was in walking a scene and letting the evidence talk to him.

  “Absolutely. As soon as the ashes are cool enough to walk, I want Jerry in the smoke. It should all be over by the time he gets here, because at this point it doesn’t look like the fire department is doing anything but containment on this. It’s all going to burn down. What’s my play?”

  “Be available to the Brits. They’ll tell you what they need.”

  “Where’s Gog and Magog? Shouldn’t they be on this?”

  These were the two DMS teams permanently stationed in Great Britain. Gog was based at the Regent’s Park Barracks on Albany Street in London; Magog was hosted by the forty-eighth Fighter Wing at the Lakenheath RAF base in Suffolk. I worked with both of them on my second mission after signing on. We tracked a network of Iranian terrorists who were selling yellowcake by the hundredweight to terrorist groups. That’s not something you serve at birthday parties. It’s a uranium derivative used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors. Look it up in Terrorism for Dummies and you’ll see that there are all sorts of things you can do with it.

  “Gog is dealing with a critical matter in Prague. Magog is in Afghanistan dismantling a Taliban bioweapons team. At the moment you’re the only senior DMS agent in the U.K.”

  “Swell.”

  “The London counterterrorist offices have both accepted my offer of your services.”

  “Why would they want my help?”

  “Because I briefed them on the Seif Al Din, Mirador, and Jakoby cases. I’ll send them a report on the Seven Kings, and will send all recent data on them to your BlackBerry.”

  “Good. You know,” I said, “of the big-event terrorist attacks we’ve seen—the Alfred P. Murrah Building, both World Trade Center attacks, the London subway bombings—they were all one and done, followed by a lot of gloating via the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll throw myself into this with a will, but unless this is one of our playmates, then I’m just another pair of boots on the ground.”

  “I’m no more psychic than you are,” said Church, “but I believe that there is a clock ticking somewhere. Maybe the Kings, maybe Al-Qaeda. Besides, terrorism notwithstanding, this is a crime and you’re a cop. Work the crime. Somebody has to have survived. Somebody has to know something.”

  “Any chance you can send Echo Team over here?”

  “They are out at Area 51 and—”

  “Wait—what? There’s an actual Area 51? That’s so cool.”

  Church sighed. “At times you’re as bad as Bug and Dr. Hu. Yes, Captain, we have an Area 51 and no, Captain, there are no UFOs there. Nor are any alien autopsies being performed there.”

  “Damn.”

  “It is, however, a classified area, and Echo Team is providing backup for Lucky Team out of Vegas and the intelligence investigators from Nellis. Possible security breach, but so far no fireworks.”

  “Crap. Can you send them my way when they’re finished kicking E.T.’s ass?”

  He grunted. “Why? They’re not investigators.”

  “They can handle door knocks and Q and A.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He paused. “Bottom line, this needs to be handled with precision. We dropped the ball on 9/11. We reacted too slowly and often the wrong way. We have to do better this time.”

  “‘We’? This isn’t the U.S.A.,” I reminded him.

  “How does that matter? This is an attack on humanity. There are sixty million people in Britain.”

  Wow, I really was off my game if I walked into that.

  “What if Al-Qaeda or one of the other usual suspects steps forward to claim responsibility for this?”

  “Best-case scenario, we establish some fresh leads that will maybe result in a useful joint Barrier-DMS action.”

  “Worst case?”

  “We lose the thread of this and have to wait for something else to happen.”

  I looked across the road to where one of the brand-new towers was crumbling, the charred bones of the building collapsing under its own deadweight. More of the black smoke billowed up and turned a horrible morning into the very dead of night.

  “Damn … ,” I breathed.

  Church must have been watching the same thing on the news. I heard him sigh.

  “Welcome back to the war, Captain.”

  Chapter Seven

  CNBC: Breaking News Report

  December 17, 10:55 A.M. EST

  TRANSCRIPT OF THE FINANCIAL NEWS REPORT

  In the wake of the devastation in London, the Dow Jones Industrial took a drastic 7.19% dip and there are Wall Street rumors that the White House may suspend trading and close the New York Stock Exchange until the initial panic has subsided. This echoes the events of 9/11 which saw the NYSE closed for several days following a period of losses in the stock market. Airlines and tourism industries are also expected to be affected due to fears of another attack.

  In a preliminary statement issued a few minutes ago, SEC chief Mark David Epstein cautioned investors not to engage in a “flight to safety,” reminding everyone that panic produces a decline in financial markets but that the markets typically recover. “While there is certainly reason to be concerned over the events in England and around the world,” he said, “the best course of action in financial terms is inaction.”

  Epstein is expected to make a more detailed statement tonight following the President’s address to the nation.

  Interlude One

  Fair Isle, Scotland

  The Shetland Isles

  December 17, 6:31 A.M. GMT

  Rafael Santoro moved silently through the shadows of the garage. He came up behind Dr. Charles Grey and touched the blade of a knife against the man’s cheek.

  “No sound,” murmured Santoro.

  The scientist stiffened. Not so much from shock or surprise, but like a man who is suddenly aware that a long-dreaded but inevitable horror has finally come.

  Santoro bent close to whisper in the scientist’s ear, “It’s time.”

  Grey began to tremble. “Please … God! No … .”

  “Yes,” said Santoro. “You know what you have to do. You promised that you would do it.”

  Grey started to turn, but Santoro pressed the knife into his flesh. Santoro did not break the skin, but he made sure that Grey could feel the edge, could feel the quiet appetite of the steel. Santoro was an artist of supreme delicacy with a blade. With fast or slow cuts he was able to sculpt a victim into a masterpiece of crimson art. It was one of the many talents that made him so valuable to the Seven Kings, and to his patron, the King of Fear. Fear and the blade were both aspects of Santoro’s personal religion.

  “I can’t,” whimpered Grey. “Don’t you understand that? What you ask is impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible if the Goddess wills it to be. That is the nature of faith, yes?”

  “‘G-Goddess’ … ?” Grey stammered. “I don’t understand … .”

  Santoro leaned forward, rising onto his toes so that his lips were an inch from the back of Grey’s neck. “You told me that you were a man of faith, Dr. Grey. Do you remember? That first day when fortune brought me to you? When I showed you the pictures of those angels.”

  “Angels … ?” The pictures that this man had shown him were not of angels, but he understood what Santoro meant. Grey gagged at the thought of such horrors being described as angelic. They were images out of hell itself.

  The blade was an icy promise on his flesh. “Are you saying now that you were lying to me? Lying about faith?”

  “No! No,” pleaded Grey. “That’s not what I meant … .”

  “Then tell me what you meant, Dr. Grey. Tell me that you believe the All is capable of everything. Everything.”

  “Y-yes … .”

  “Say it,” Santoro growled. He raised the knife from Grey’s cheek until the beveled edge filled his vision.

  “Yes,”
Grey said hastily. “I believe, God help me, I believe, but—”

  With a snarl, Santoro withdrew the knife and with his free hand grabbed Grey’s shoulder and spun him violently around.

  “God may believe you, but you are a piece of shit in the eyes of the Goddess!” Santoro wore a black mask, but through the eyeholes his eyes blazed with dark fire. He then snatched Grey’s right hand and slapped the knife into his sweating palm.

  Grey sputtered with confusion and looked dumbly down at the vicious weapon he held. It had a six-inch double-edged blade and a handle wrapped in red silk thread. It looked as much like a tool of ritual as it did an instrument of destruction.

  “Do you know what faith is, Dr. Grey?” Santoro asked quietly. When Grey shook his head, the small man smiled. “Faith is my shield; it is the armor that covers my flesh and soul. I am a man of faith, Dr. Grey. I know that the Goddess protects me. I know that she has forged me into her sword.”

  “I … I … ,” was all that Grey could manage.

  “If you are a true man of faith, Dr. Grey, then you will believe that the Goddess lives in you. Use that faith. Prove its existence to me and to yourself. Cut me.”

  Grey looked at the weapon in his hand. His face twisted into a mask of horror as if he held a squirming scorpion.

  “Do it,” insisted Santoro.

  “I—can’t … No …”

  “Do it or I will go into the house and find young Mikey and show him the knife. Would you like that, Dr. Grey? Would you like to watch? I will leave you one eye so that you can see it, and I will leave you most of your tongue so that you can scream. You will want to scream.”

  Grey suddenly stabbed at the small man. He saw his hand move before he felt his muscles flex, the dagger point glittering as it tore through the shadows toward Santoro’s smiling mouth.

  But Santoro was not there.

  In the gloom of the garage he became a blur. He pivoted on one foot and shifted so that the stabbing knife pierced only empty air. His hands flashed out, striking and striking and striking, the movements unspeakably fast, the blows hideously powerful. He struck Grey in the groin and the floating ribs and the solar plexus and the throat. Santoro pivoted like a dancer and struck Grey in the kidneys and tailbone and between the shoulders. Then the scientist was falling, falling, all in a fractured second. His arm still reached for the stab, but his body crumpled within the cocoon of blows.

  He collapsed onto the cold concrete floor of the garage, gagging, gasping for air with lungs that seemed incapable of drawing a spoonful of breath. His mouth worked like a dying fish, making only the faintest squeaks.

  Santoro stood above him, composed, relaxed, not even breathing hard. He knelt and picked up the knife, cleaned away the surface smudges on Grey’s shirtsleeve, and stood. The knife vanished into its hidden sheath beneath Santoro’s jacket.

  “When you can breathe again,” he said, “I suggest you spend some time on your knees. Pray to the Goddess, yes? Pray for forgiveness for the sin of doubt.”

  He bent over and knotted his fingers in Grey’s hair and jerked the man’s head viciously back.

  “And pray that I forgive you. Pray that I will leave young Mikey alone. And intact.”

  Grey managed to squeeze a single word out of his tortured throat.

  “Please …”

  Santoro bent closer still, lips against Grey’s cheek. “Will you do what you have promised to do?”

  Grey nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes!” Grey gasped weakly. Tears streamed down his face. “Yes … .”

  Santoro opened his fingers and let Grey slump to the floor. “We will be watching, Dr. Grey. When you do what you have promised, you will have help.”

  Grey raised his head at that. “H-help?”

  “At work. You will not have to do this alone. You are never alone.”

  As the reality of that sank in, Grey buried his face in the crook of one arm and wept.

  When he stopped sobbing and looked up, Santoro was gone.

  Chapter Eight

  Park Place Riverbank Hotel

  London, England

  December 17, 11:43 A.M. GMT

  I went back to my hotel to change clothes. My dog, Ghost, met me at the door with a tail that stopped wagging as soon as he smelled me. Shepherds have extremely expressive faces, especially the white ones, and Ghost gave me a “hey, even I don’t roll in stuff that smells that bad” look; then he lay down with great dignity in front of the TV and licked his balls.

  I stripped and showered the stink of oily smoke from my skin and hair, and then leaned my forehead against the wet tiles and tried not to think about what was inside that smoke. Four thousand people. That was the current estimate.

  I cranked up the hot water and tried to boil the reality of that out of me.

  Four thousand.

  God.

  I have a little bit of religion. Not much, but enough to make me believe that there’s something bigger than all of this, and some reason that we’re all struggling through it. But on days like this, my faith takes a real beating. Or maybe it’s not my faith in God that gets pummeled. Probably it’s faith in my fellow man. I know I’m more than half-crazy, but it takes a whole lot of batshit insanity to want to blow up four thousand people. In the three and a half million years since our furry forebears started walking upright we’ve had more than enough time to clean up our act and get the Big Picture. The fact that we’re still killing one another doesn’t speak to an inherent ignorance or perceptual deficiency in the species. We do know better, so stuff like today is pure, deliberate evil. There’s no religion, ideology, viewpoint, or political exigency that can justify mass slaughter of the innocent. Not one.

  Feeling bitter and hurt by what was happening, I toweled off, dressed in my least wrinkled suit, ran a brush through my hair, and headed for the door. I was expected at Barrier headquarters for a briefing. Ghost was sitting in my path.

  “You’re not coming,” I said.

  He cocked an eyebrow. I don’t know if that’s something all dogs do or if Zan Rosin, the DMS K9 trainer, had taught Ghost the trick just to piss me off. I suspected that it was both.

  “Move.”

  Ghost did. He got up and moved closer to the door. He sat down again and looked up at me with the biggest, saddest brown eyes in town.

  We had this argument a lot. He usually won.

  He did this time, too.

  Chapter Nine

  Barrier Headquarters

  London, England

  December 17, 12:21 P.M. GMT

  The entrance to Barrier was via the Vermin Control Office. Cute.

  I produced my credentials and a separate set for Ghost. The receptionist barely batted an eye at the eighty-five-pound shepherd at my side. A rat-faced man who looked very much like he worked for “vermin” control came and led us through a series of interlocking offices until we finally emerged into the actual offices of Barrier. When we’re out in public Ghost plays the role like he was trained. He walks to one side and slightly behind me, head up, ears swiveling like radar dishes, nose scooping in trace particles of everything around him. A well-trained dog is a wonderful companion. Loyal, smart, and they don’t talk.

  “Captain Ledger?”

  I turned as a tall, hawk-faced man came striding across the lobby toward me.

  The man looked like a typical ex-military: thin, with great posture and eyes that were fifty degrees colder than his smiling mouth. I figured him for ex-SAS and maybe ex-MI6. He looked to be about sixty-five, but I’ll bet he could give me a run for my money over an obstacle course.

  “Benson Childe,” he said. “Director of this band of thieves. We were told to expect you.” He looked down at Ghost and held out a hand to be sniffed.

  Ghost looked at me for permission and I gave it. I use a combination of hand and verbal signals. With a stranger, a twitch of my little finger means it’s okay for him to approach. Ghost took the man’s scent and filed it away. I w
as pleased to see that Childe didn’t try to pet the dog. It indicated he understood K9 protocols.

  “I hope I can be of help,” I said. “This is a terrible tragedy.”

  “Yes,” he said as he led us into his private office. “By the way, Captain, your reputation precedes you. I’ve heard some very good things.”

  I laughed. “Somehow I can’t imagine Mr. Church gushing about me.”

  “Hardly. The Sexton isn’t one to gush. His brief on you was short but colorful.”

  The Sexton. Another of Church’s names. I’ve heard people refer to him as Colonel Eldritch, Mr. Priest, Deacon, and Dr. Bishop. I wonder if any of them was close to the mark.

  “No … Grace Courtland told me about you.”

  Grace. Dammit. Hearing her name now felt like an ambush. I tried to keep it off my face, but Childe’s eyes searched mine and I saw the precise moment when he saw and recognized the particular frequency of my pain. He nodded to himself, an almost imperceptible movement. Was he confirming a suspicion, or simply noting my reaction?

  I nodded but said nothing, not trusting my voice. Ghost must have sensed something, because he rose and moved slowly to stand partially between me and Childe. I scratched Ghost between the shoulder blades. If only dogs really could stand between us and our own inner pain. All dogs would be saints.

  Childe discreetly cleared his throat. “I think we’ll be able to find a use for you, Captain,” he said. “Grace said that you were a detective before you joined the DMS. And I believe you’ve worked several large-scale terrorist cases since.”

  “A few.”

  “That will be useful, because we have a laundry list of terrorist cells believed to be operating in the U.K. and an even longer list of persons of interest. My computer lads are coordinating with your lot to run their profiles through MindReader, but your personal experience may be invaluable.”