The King of Plagues jl-3

by Jonathan Maberry

  I gave her a hard look. “No, we damn well haven’t. The Kings are still out there. Just because they won tonight doesn’t mean that they’ll go away. We need to keep at this. We need to find a way to hit them back.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “If we go after them,” she said slowly, “if we can hurt them, then—”

  “Maybe we can stop them from winning the next war.”

  Rudy just turned his head away and said nothing. Circe sighed and pushed his wheelchair down the hall. I stood and watched them go.

  “Captain?”

  I turned to see Church standing a yard away. I hadn’t heard him approach.

  “Tell me, Captain, do you think that this is what Toys meant when he said that we had to stop Gault?”

  “No.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “I suppose nothing is what it seems with the Seven Kings. Get some sleep.” And as if to echo my own thoughts, he added: “The war isn’t over.”

  With that he walked away.

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  The Hangar

  Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

  December 20, 1:06 A.M. EST

  Ghost was lying amid a heap of gnawed bones, too stuffed to wag. I stepped over him and threw myself onto my bed with every intention of sleeping until sometime in midsummer.

  I didn’t get a minute of sleep. Not a second.

  I lay there for hours. I could feel each minute; I could hear each dry second crack off and fall away.

  As soon as I closed my eyes I could hear Toys’ voice speaking to me.

  You can’t trust anyone. Or anything. Nothing is what it seems. It never is with the Kings.

  When I’d asked about Santoro, Toys had said, That psycho prick will be in the thick of it. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see that much pain.

  And then it hit me.

  Nothing is what it seems. It never is with the Kings.

  My eyes popped open.

  “Holy shit!” I said. I think I yelled it. Ghost woke up and barked in alarm.

  Two minutes later I was banging on Church’s door.

  He opened the door almost at once. He did not look one bit surprised that I was there.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out,” he said.

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  The Hangar

  Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

  December 20, 1:19 A.M. EST

  This time the meeting was held in Church’s office. Rudy, Circe, Aunt Sallie, and me.

  Church sat behind his desk in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tie loosened at the throat. I think this was maybe the second time I’d ever seen him without a suit coat. It did absolutely nothing to make him look less official and imposing.

  “Why are we still flogging this thing?” growled Rudy. He looked terrible. His hair was uncombed and he wore pajamas that were too big for him. Circe, in sweats, was only marginally more composed.

  “It’s the coercion thing,” I said. “That’s been the problem all along. If the firstborn thing hadn’t happened, we might have gotten to it during the meeting. The clue to this thing is there.”

  “I sure as hell don’t see it,” Aunt Sallie said irritably. She wore a bathrobe that had little ducks on it. I knew it was more than my life was worth to comment on it.

  “Wait,” Rudy said slowly. “Maybe I do.” He rubbed his eyes and accepted a cup of coffee from Church. “There are only a few psychological subgroups that are acutely susceptible to suggestion. And an even smaller sub-subgroup who are otherwise healthy and functional. Call it one or two per fifty thousand.”

  Circe was catching on fast. “No … . To do the kind of thing we’ve seen, it’s even more rare. I’d say it’s one in two or three hundred thousand.”

  “Fair enough,” Rudy said. “So, measure that against the number of people in the professions that relate to these circumstances. Law enforcement, security, viral research. A few others we haven’t identified. That number becomes impossible.”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s only possible if we go on the premise that this is not random chance.”

  “Hold on, dammit,” growled Aunt Sallie. “Do you mean that they were deliberately sought or deliberately placed?”

  “Either,” Rudy said. “Both.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said. “The system is too good.”

  “Yes,” Church agreed. “It is.” But from his tone it was clear that he meant that Auntie’s assessment was wrong.

  She gave a stubborn shake of her head. “No one could hack all those records. Not unless they had MindReader. C’mon, Deacon; you’re not suggesting that Bug—”

  “No,” I said. “Not Bug.”

  Rudy and Circe exchanged a look. Rudy said, “The normal psych profiles used in this level of government work would red flag most of these people. Bug gave me the screener’s notes for Dr. Grey, Trevor Plympton, and that other guy. Scofield, the maintenance man from Fair Isle. None of the reports indicated the right kind of psychological vulnerability.”

  “Then it’s bad screening,” snapped Auntie. “Who did the screening?”

  “Three different companies.”

  “Same screener working at different companies at different times?”

  “No.”

  “Do we have the psych profiles of the screeners?”

  “We do,” said Mr. Church. He removed three profiles from his desk and handed them to Aunt Sallie. She opened the covers and scanned the contents. Then she did it again and her eyes were wide.

  “No fucking way, Deacon.”

  Church said nothing.

  Aunt Sallie wheeled on me. “Listen, jackass, I don’t know what kind of stunt you’re trying to pull here, but—”

  “Auntie,” said Church softly. “Please. I had this suspicion since the Starbucks incident. Very few people knew about that meeting.”

  She slapped the files down on the desk. I gingerly reached past her and picked them up, opened them, saw what she had seen.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “What?” asked Rudy, but I shook my head and held on to the files.

  “Dr. O’Tree,” said Church, “threat assessment is your specialty. Given the facts, work out a scenario for how this is possible.”

  She chewed her lip and shook her head. “I’ve been trying to do that,” she said after a thoughtful pause, “but I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Well … I can, but it’s impossible.” Circe looked like someone had slapped her.

  “We seem to be trading in impossible,” grumbled Aunt Sallie. “Speak your mind, girl.”

  But Circe shook her head and it was clear that she was in great distress. Her eyes were filling with tears; she covered her hand with her mouth. “I … can’t.”

  “Then I’ll say it for you,” I said, my voice more brutal than I’d intended. “There’s ten kinds of security on places like the London and double that for Fair Isle and Area 51. Everyone gets a background check that goes all the way to their DNA. The people who do the screening are as important or perhaps more important than the people they interview for these jobs.”

  “That’s my damn point,” snapped Aunt Sallie. “Every screener we use comes with ironclad bona fides. Every damn one.”

  Tears rolled down Circe’s face.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Church quietly. “And every damn one of them was vetted by Vox.”

  Circe O’Tree burst into tears.

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Headquarters of SecureOne

  Manhattan

  December 20, 2:18 A.M. EST

  The American sat behind his desk and smoked a cigar. Beyond the big glass windows the city glimmered with a million jewels. Stars above and streetlights below. He loved the city. He loved its size and its arrogance, its muscle and its swagger. It was like looking in a mirror.

  His phone rang. Toys.

  “You somewhere safe?”

&
nbsp; “Heading back to the castle,” said Toys.

  “Okay, but keep your head down and your eyes open.”

  “Why? Because of my call to Ledger?”

  “Partly. But mostly ’cause I’m about to piss in the punch bowl here. It’s not going to do Sebastian or Mom any good. Not going to do the Kings any good, either. Not in the short term.”

  He explained what he intended to do.

  “God!” said Toys, but there was as much admiration in his voice as fear.

  A light flashed on the phone unit on the American’s desk.

  “Look, kiddo, I got to run. Keep that phone handy. I’ll be in touch.”

  With that, the American pocketed the cell phone and heaved himself out of his chair. He lumbered over to a cabinet and removed a set of schematics. He placed them on his desk blotter, used a red pen to write a note, and then straightened. He cast a last look around the office, sighed again, and went into the bathroom, pushed back the curtain, and stepped into the shower. Then he pushed three tiles on the wall and waited as hidden hydraulics pulled the entire shower wall aside. The American stepped through, tapped another button, and let the wall close behind him. The DMS would find the elevator eventually, but by then he would be long gone.

  FOUR MINUTES LATER Sgt. Gus Dietrich kicked open the heavy oak doors of the American’s office and surged inside with Liberty Team at his heels. The red pinpoints of their laser sights danced on the floor, the walls, and the big desk.

  There was no one home.

  Dietrich ordered his men to do a thorough search, and while they were at it he walked over to the big desk and looked at the schematic. And at the note the American had left.

  He tapped his commlink.

  “Bulldog to Deacon,” he called.

  “Go for Deacon.”

  “No one home. But the big guy left us something. You’ll freaking love this.”

  Dietrich bent over so that his helmet cam projected a clean image of the blueprints of the USS Sea of Hope.

  Written across it in red ballpoint was:

  Merry Christmas!

  (Tell Circe I’m sorry.)

  It was signed: Hugo.

  Chapter Seventy

  The South Atlantic

  December 21, 5:17 A.M. EST

  I looked out of the helicopter window at total blackness. A full day had burned away since Dietrich found Vox’s parting gift. Now I sat in a helo with Circe, Church, Dietrich, and Echo Team. Ghost lay asleep at my feet, his legs twitching as he dreamed of the hunt.

  I still felt breathless from the double shock of Vox’s betrayal and the plans for the Sea of Hope. Vox was someone Church had trusted. Circe O’Tree had worked for the guy for years. Aunt Sallie regularly had Vox over for New Year’s Eve parties and the Super Bowl. Now the mask had been peeled away to reveal a villain. A monster. Possibly one of the Seven Kings, and certainly a significant member of that organization.

  They are everywhere.

  Vox had run Terror Town. He knew the inner workings of every counterterrorism team in the world. That knowledge would ripple through the foundations of world governments like earthquake tremors.

  After shock comes planning. We had to make a radical shift in gears with no time to pause at the sheer scope of the Kings’ real plan.

  “Can’t we just off-load everyone?” Dietrich had asked as soon as he returned from Vox’s office with the Sea of Hope schematics. “We got ships and subs ghosting the cruise ship. Why don’t we just frigging take it and worry about separating sheep from wolves later on?”

  “Because that’s the very first thing the Kings would expect,” said Circe, “which means it’s the first thing they’ll have prepared for. I think that if we order the ship to heave to, or board by force, then some kind of fail-safe plan will be initiated. Bombs would be the easiest.”

  “And,” I added, “we have to keep repeating the mantra ‘they are everywhere. ’ The Kings are going to have agents planted aboard. A firefight would work more in their favor than ours.”

  “Balls,” grumped Dietrich. He loved a plain and simple frontal assault.

  I nodded to Circe. “You worked security for the event, Doc. How are we going to get onto the ship?”

  Circe chewed her lip. “The problem is that everyone is prescreened.”

  “We have MindReader,” said Church. “Bug can infiltrate the system, plant security profiles, and exit without leaving a footprint.”

  “We’re using the MI6 encryption package,” Circe countered. “Not even MindReader can intrude there. Hugo told me—”

  “Hugo knew only as much about MindReader as I allowed him to know.”

  “Why? Were you suspicious of him before this?”

  “I’m suspicious of most people.”

  I hid a smile.

  “Then what’s our cover?”

  Circe gave me a considering stare. “That depends on if you can speak French.”

  “I speak a lot of languages.”

  “With the proper accent?”

  “Continental or Canadian?”

  Circe smiled. “What do you think of Avril Lavigne’s music?”

  “If it’ll get Echo Team onto the Sea of Hope, I’ll start a fan club.”

  “She was a late addition to the lineup. She’s probably already aboard, but a lot of stars have bumped up their security teams since the London event. You can be a cultural attaché bringing additional security. It’ll actually work for us, having DeeDee, because she can be the personal guard for Avril.”

  “What about the star?” I asked. “She’ll need to be briefed.”

  “Not really. All of the performers have additional security beside the entourage they know. Most of the guards are hired by their record label or studio, so these will be strangers. As long as you don’t get chatty with the stars, it’ll work.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “I’m more of a classic-rock kind of guy.”

  Church stood up. “Then we all have work to do. Circe, you and Auntie will coordinate with Bug to access the right security files.”

  She nodded and hurried out.

  “Captain Ledger,” Church said to me, “brief Echo Team and prep for the mission. I want to be wheels up in one hour.”

  NOW WE FLEW through the predawn sky for a fight that had worst-case scenario written all over it.

  The Sea of Hope was one of the largest cruise ships afloat. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand gross tons. One thousand, one hundred, and eighty-one feet long, with a 155-foot waterline beam and a 31-foot draft. There were sixteen passenger decks holding fifty-four hundred passengers and over twenty-one hundred crew members. Seven thousand, five hundred people in all. That was a thousand people more than live in the average American town. We had no way of knowing how many of them belonged to the Seven Kings. Of those, how many were unwilling slaves, how many were Chosen, and how many were Kingsmen? We did know, however, that scattered through the passengers, rock stars, comedians, and political figures were dozens of the children of the most powerful people on earth. A few were the children of Bonesmen, but most were not. The children of the current president. The two young princes of England. Children of not just the rich and famous but also the globally powerful. Some of these actually were children, the youngest being ten; the rest were adult sons and daughters who were using their parents’ positions to make a bid for social change, for compassion, and for basic humanity.

  If we made a single misstep, we could get them all killed.

  If we did nothing, that was a certainty.

  At least we had plenty of backup coming. Two DMS teams in a C-17 Globemaster a few hours behind us. If a fight broke out, they’d swoop down on TradeWinds Combat Motor Kites, which look like batwing hang gliders but with motorized flaps for steering and braking. The kites can support an operator and his entire combat kit. Operators can even fire small arms while flying them.

  A hundred feet below the cruise ship was the US S Jimmy Carter, one of the new Virginia Class attack subs
. There were two SEAL teams aboard, plus a platoon of Marines.

  “Coming up on her,” called the pilot. “Portside.”

  I peered out the window and saw it. The ship looked like a floating city, and even at night it was ablaze with lights.

  I looked over at Circe, who was curled asleep with her head on Dietrich’s shoulder. She looked very young. It hurt me to think that she’d be carrying the memory of betrayal and violence around with her for the rest of her life.

  I reached over and tapped her arm.

  “We’re here,” I said.

  Interlude Forty-three

  Chamber of the Seven Kings

  December 21, 5:19 A.M. EST

  Toys sat alone in the Chamber of the Kings. Now that the second phase of the Initiative was rolling, the individual Kings and their Consciences had all left McCullough for undisclosed locations. If something went horribly wrong tonight, none of them wanted to be in any predictable spot. Considering what was happening, it was too dangerous to congregate; and trust only went so far, especially bearing in mind the lengths to which Aunt Sallie or Mr. Church would go in order to get information.

  Rabbits gone to ground, Toys mused darkly, looking at all the empty thrones.

  Gault and Eris were on her yacht, far out to sea. Probably shagging like rabbits, too.

  Toys put his feet up on the table, crossed his ankles, and stared at the screens. The wall of screens showed ninety different news channels. The London Hospital bombing was no longer the lead story. Nor was the catastrophic drop in the stock market or even the massacre at the Starbucks in Southampton. Now it was the “Death of the Firstborn.” CNN was the first network to put the story together—fed, Toys knew, by agents of the Goddess—that the children of America’s elite families were being murdered. All of the other stations had similar titles, rife with biblical references. Most had nice graphics, and Toys wondered if each network had a graphic artist on standby or if titles of this sort were premade and ready for their inevitable use.