“Juice him,” I ordered, and DeeDee pulled a syringe from her kit and jabbed it into the screaming man’s arm. It wasn’t painkiller. His eyes rolled up and he passed out, sagging to the floor with a thump. Then she applied a fast field dressing to the critical wounds.
I tapped my earbud.
“Cowboy to Echo. House party is over. Got two sleepy guests.”
“Copy that,” said Khalid. “Area is secure.”
“Green Giant, talk to me.”
“Class trip is away,” said Bunny. “I got six police units inbound to your twenty.”
“Outstanding,” I said.
Khalid showed up at the door and I tossed him my keys. He brought the Explorer over and we loaded the prisoners, moving with haste and only marginal care. We needed them alive. Comfort wasn’t an issue.
By the time the cops converged on the house, we were in the wind, following Black Bess north along Route 611.
Interlude Thirty-four
The Seven Kings
December 19, 2:00 P.M. EST
Sebastian Gault set down his phone and stared at it for a long moment. Then with a growl of sudden anger he swept everything off his desk—phone, laptop, whiskey glass. It all crashed to the floor.
A moment later he was crouched over the debris, brushing ice cubes and broken glass off his phone. He dried it on the front of his shirt and then sat on the edge of the desk and opened the phone. It still worked. He punched a number.
“Yes,” said a soft voice.
“I just heard from Fear.”
“As have I,” said Santoro.
“Do you have a team in the area?”
“There is one very close; I can pull them off of that job and put them on this. A matter of minutes; however, taking action would be ill advised, yes? Things are not—”
“Don’t tell me what things are not, god damn it. I want you to do something right fucking now! And I want it splashed across the wire services. I want everything else wiped off the sodding news by it. Do you understand me?”
Gault’s voice had risen to a banshee shriek.
The ensuing silence was so complete that Gault wondered if Santoro had hung up on him. If that little Spanish prick had, he’d skin him alive.
“Is this also the will of the Goddess?” Santoro asked mildly.
“Yes.”
Another moment of silence.
“Very well,” said the killer, and he disconnected.
Chapter Fifty
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania
December 19, 2:38 P.M. EST
We rolled into the Willow Grove Naval Air Station. There were two DMS choppers already on the ground—a burly Chinook and an Apache gunship. Shooters from Broadway Team from the Hangar in Brooklyn had the perimeter secured. I shook hands with Lt. Artie Mensch, Broadway’s top-kick.
“Busy morning, Joe?” he said, offering his hand.
“Same weird shit, different weird day.”
We watched as Top and Khalid guided Amber Taylor and her kids into the Apache. Bunny and John Smith rolled the gurneys with two prisoners over to the Chinook.
Mensch nodded. “We’re taking the prisoners straight to the Hangar. They’re prepping the surgical suite now. Aunt Sallie’s going to want to talk with these boys.” He cut me a look. “You haven’t met her yet, have you?”
“No. Looking forward to it, though.”
He laughed. “‘Looking forward’ to meeting Aunt Sallie. That’s funny.”
“What’s the joke?”
“You’ll know when you meet her.”
He clapped me on the shoulder, whistled to his team, and within a few seconds the helos were sky-high and tilting into the wind to head north.
I saw Circe O’Tree standing beside Black Bess. She looked small and lost, so I headed over to her.
“You did good work today,” I said. “Mrs. Taylor needed someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Smart, steady—”
“And female?” Circe asked challengingly.
“I wasn’t going there,” I said. “You’re a doctor and a shrink. That woman needed that every bit as much as she needed my team of shooters.”
Circe studied me for a moment. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Circe nodded and pulled her winter coat more tightly around her shoulders. She shivered even though the wind wasn’t blowing. She stared at the choppers that were disappearing into the gray December sky. Her face was pale and her eyes had a jumpy quality.
I took a shot. “First time you ever saw someone killed?”
She nodded.
“Hitting you like a baseball bat upside the head, I expect.”
Another nod.
“You want to talk about it?”
She looked at me and shook her head.
“Would food and a whole lot of alcohol help?”
“Yes,” she said flatly, then turned and walked toward my Explorer.
She passed Top without comment. He watched her pass, pursed his lips, and came over to me.
“First time?” he asked.
“First time,” I agreed.
“She’s out from Terror Town, right? I read a couple of her books. Thought everyone out there was a vet of some kind.”
“She is now.”
He grunted. “So … what’s our next play, Cap’n?”
As if in answer to his question, my cell buzzed. I flipped it open.
“Sit rep,” snapped Church.
I told him. “We even have two prisoners en route to the Hangar. They’ll need a few million Band-Aids, but they have a pulse.”
“That makes a nice change,” he said. “For you.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Please extend my appreciation to Echo Team. Excellent work. Have your team refresh and reload there at Willow Grove. I’ll clear the paperwork. They’ll catch up to you.”
“Why? Where will I be?”
“Southampton. You know where that is?”
“Sure.”
“There’s a Starbucks at Street Road and Route 232. You are to meet my friend Martin Hanler. Do you remember him?”
“Yeah, he flew me out to Colorado during the Jakoby thing. Why am I meeting him?”
“He just called me to say that blowing up the London Hospital was his idea.”
Part Four
Conspiracy Theories
For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Chapter Fifty-one
Starbucks
Southampton, Pennsylvania
December 19, 5:35 P.M. EST
Circe and I pulled into the Starbucks in Southampton, where Routes 232 and 132 meet. I started to get out, but Circe opened her briefcase on her lap and removed her laptop. I sat back. “Aren’t you coming in?”
She looked at the store and made a face. “Marty and I never quite hit it off.”
“You know him?”
“Since I was a kid. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here and go over my notes. We have so much information … there has to be some answers buried in all of this. Besides … Marty will probably be more candid without me there, anyway. You’re one of the boys.”
I smiled. “Okay. I’ll give you the highlights of this when I’m done.”
“Can’t wait.”
I clicked my tongue and Ghost bounded out of the backseat, but before I could reach for the door handle a car beep made us turn. A rental sedan pulled into the lot and Ghost was wagging his tail so hard he nearly knocked me over. Rudy Sanchez parked and got out, smiling at us despite everything else that was going on.
Rudy is short and carries a couple extra pounds, but he’s tougher than he looks and he has the most intelligent face I’ve ever seen. He’s also the only person on earth who I trust completely and without reserve. I got out and we shook hands, and then he pulled me into his version of a bear hug. We s
lapped each other’s backs as Ghost yipped and danced around us. He loses all traces of self-respect around Rudy. Rudy bent and vigorously rubbed Ghost’s head and received a comprehensive face licking.
“Hello, you furry monster. You keeping Joe out of cathouses?”
Then Rudy looked past me and saw Circe step out of the Explorer. “Dios mio!”
“Keep it in your pants, Rude. That’s Dr. Circe—”
“O’Tree,” he finished, grinning hard enough to injure himself. “I know. I saw her on Oprah. My, my, but the good Lord was in a generous mood when he made her.”
Circe walked over to meet us. Before I could make introductions, she said, “Dr. Sanchez?”
“Dr. O’Tree.”
“It’s ‘Circe,’” she said, smiling brightly and extending her hand.
“Rudy,” he said exactly the same way someone would say “your slave.” Even Ghost seemed to roll his eyes. “I’ve read your books. Fascinating work. Insightful.”
“Thank you,” she said graciously. “And call me Circe.”
“Mr. Church said that you’d be part of our team on this. I’d like to share my interview notes with you.”
“The Nicodemus interview?”
“Yes.”
“I’d love to see them,” she said, “and I have some things I’d like to run past you.”
I said, “You two want to stay out here and copy each other’s homework while I go inside?”
Rudy looked at me with a charming smile. “Yes, thanks. Buzz off.”
They tuned me out and were deep in conversation as they headed to my Explorer. I glanced down at Ghost. “I do believe we have been snubbed, my shaggy friend.”
He had no comment, so we went inside.
As I reached for the door handle I shivered unexpectedly and looked suddenly back at Rudy and Circe. It was a weird feeling that was based on nothing I could name, but I felt as if there was a shadow cast over them both. I lingered for a moment, letting my ears and eyes pick apart the surroundings. Was something wrong? Out of place?
No. There was nothing. A goose had walked over my grave, as my grandmother would say. Gradually the shadow in my mind receded.
Ghost looked at them and gave a single, short whuf.
Interlude Thirty-five
New York City
December 19, 5:36 P.M. EST
Toys touched his fingers to the glass, feeling the cool caress of the December wind. Behind him, Gault and the American sat on opposite sides of the big man’s desk, heads bent together in a discussion on logistics for the newest phase of the Ten Plagues Initiative. On the wall a silent flat-screen TV showed a shot from an aerial view of the scene of a gunfight in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. The legend across the bottom of the screen read: Terrorism?
Below the window where Toys stood, New York was sprawled in gaudy splendor beneath a gibbous moon. Millions of lights. Millions of beating hearts. Toys’ own heart felt like a piece of broken crockery in his chest. As cold as the night and as removed from real humanity as he was up here on the fiftieth floor of the building that the American owned. One of the big man’s many holdings. Here, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta. The man was immeasurably wealthy. Toys smiled thinly as he mused that he, too, was now wealthy. He had millions of dollars of his own money in numbered accounts. A gift from the American.
So you don’t have to keep sucking on Gault’s tit. That was how the American had phrased it.
I could leave, Toys thought. I could walk out the door, get into a cab, and vanish.
How long, he wondered, before Gault would even realize that he was gone? Then how long would it take Gault, using the vast resources of the Kings, to find him? A week at the most. And what would Gault do? Have him brought back in chains? Forgive him? Kill him?
Toys could not pick which option was most likely. He sighed and leaned his forehead against the glass. Gault had become the King of Plagues in every sense. He was fully invested with the Kings. He was one of them, heart and soul.
Which left Toys … where?
He had no idea.
The last four months had given him new definitions for both “heartache” and “hell.” Although Toys managed to fake interest in the Ten Plagues Initiative, he knew that it didn’t fool Gault. Not completely, anyway. The only comfort, and it was a cold and dubious comfort, was that Gault did not grasp the nature of Toys disapproval. He thought it was cowardice.
Cowardice.
Jesus. Toys wanted to take a knife and rip Gault’s guts out every time he thought about that. Twice in the last month he had come into Gault’s room in the middle of the night and stood over his bed, watching Gault sleep, holding a knife in his sweating palm.
Cowardice?
How could Gault have wandered so far from himself that he could not recognize love?
Not for the first time, Toys wondered if Eris really was some kind of sorceress.
He and Gault barely spoke unless it was about incidental things. A second round of martinis, travel plans. Nothing of consequence.
Gault’s time was taken up playing the role of the King of Plagues. He had entered the world of the Kings with a will, and even though bombings were not under his purview, Gault had actively participated in the planning of the London event. He had also selected Fair Isle. Toys was secretly pleased that the Ebola release had fallen flat.
Rivers of blood my ass, he mused.
And the woman, Amber Taylor, had dodged away as well. Bloody good for her.
He knew that although the failures could not be laid at Gault’s feet, they were nonetheless failures connected to his overall plan. The failures were embarrassing to the Goddess as well, and that really pleased Toys.
Now they were poised for the next round. More killings. More death. And still they hadn’t reached the real centerpiece of Gault’s plan.
Toys wondered if they would all drown in a river of blood of their own making.
We deserve it.
The phone rang and the American answered, spoke quietly for a moment, and then hung up.
“I need to deal with something,” said the King of Fear as he lumbered toward the door. “You boys make yourself comfortable.”
He closed the door behind him.
Toys stood by the big picture window and looked out at the New York skyline. This was the fifth of the American’s offices he had visited in the last few months, and he marveled at the fact that despite the differences in locale, each office was decorated identically, down to the bottles in the wet bar, the brand of expensive furniture, and even the art on the walls. He knew that this all made some kind of statement about the man, but he wasn’t sure what that statement’s message was. On the surface it seemed to suggest a mind that possessed a single fixed image of the world, but Toys knew that this was not the case. He wondered if it was more misdirection on the American’s part. A statement intended to cement a certain limited view of who he was into people’s minds.
Behind him, Gault sipped a Scotch and soda, the ice cubes tinkling against his lips.
Toys turned. “There’s still time,” he said.
“Don’t start,” muttered Gault quietly. “I’m not in the mood to have this discussion again.”
“We haven’t had this discussion yet. Every time I try to bring it up, you growl at me or storm out of the room. I’m supposed to be your Conscience—”
Gault snorted, which shut Toys up as effectively as a slap across the face.
Toys rubbed his eyes. He felt old and used up. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said sharply. “I’m going to say it anyway.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” warned Gault.
Toys crossed the room and stood in front of Gault.
Gault took a sip, sighed, then said, “Okay. Have your say. Get it out of your system. I suppose I owe you that much.”
Ha, Toys mused sourly. If you paid what you owed me, Sebastian, we’ d be thousands of miles away from here and running fast.
Aloud he said, “When we escaped the meltdow
n in Afghanistan you were too badly injured to walk. I carried you out of there, Sebastian. Carried. On my back.”
“You want a sodding medal? Fine, I’ll buy you one.”
“Hush.” Toys said it softly, and something in his tone made Gault close his mouth on another barb. He gestured with his glass for Toys to continue. “When we escaped and we got onto the medical transport, that was the most frightening time of my life. Not because I thought that they would catch us. No … I was afraid that with everything crashing down I would lose you.”
Gault blinked in what looked to Toys like genuine surprise. “You didn’t lose me,” he said softly.
“Yes, I did. Not then, but since then. In bits and pieces. I lost some of you before, to Amirah. I know you loved her, but you have to admit that I did see through her deception all along. If you had listened to me, things would never have gotten out of hand. I know that I’ve said that before and every time I do you and I have a row about it, but it’s true. I was right about her.”
Gault shrugged and his tone grew harder. “Okay, you were right about her. Bully for you.”
“Given that,” Toys persisted, “why can’t you take a moment and step back from all of this? The Kings, the Ten Plagues, the Goddess—all of it. Step back and at least consider whether I might be right again.”
“About Eris?”
“Yes. In a lot of ways she’s as mad as Amirah was.”
“So?”
“I think she believes that she is a goddess.”
“Again … so?”
“She isn’t,” Toys said viciously. “She’s a woman who knows that despite good genes and some natural longevity, this is the last blast for her as a sexual icon. Once her beauty really starts to fade, the other Kings will lose interest. Remember that ‘glamour’ is another word for an illusion or spell. That’s what she’s cast. Because she acts the part of the Great Beauty of the Ages, she is taken as such. It’s affectation, and she’s charismatic enough to pull it off. She’s also probably scared out of her mind because she has to see, day by day, that she is nearing that line when, once it is crossed, she will become ordinary. A woman. Not a goddess. An old woman.”
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