The King of Plagues jl-3

by Jonathan Maberry

  Then a fussy-looking white man in a cruise line blazer yelled at him and the Mexican pasted a contrite look on his face and tied off the balloon. As I passed, I made a quiet remark about the fussy man’s personal hygiene, only loud enough for the six Mexicans to hear. They all cracked up again.

  I moved on.

  My credentials got me into the VIP area. Behind gates and decorative shrubbery was an entirely separate set of pools and waterside bars. I slouched around trying to look like I wasn’t looking. Everywhere I looked, though, was a paparazzo’s dream. Movie stars in thongs or Speedos that left nothing to the imagination. I saw Pink, wearing a bikini that could fit comfortably into a shot glass, lounging by the pool reading a Kelly Simmons novel. Two chairs away, John Legend was playing chess with that short guy from American Idol. Legend was kicking his ass. There were rock stars and R&B stars and rappers and celebrities from the movies and TV. Some of the Generation Hope kids—daughters and sons of the global power players—were peppered among them, either gawking in starstruck awe or pretending the kind of indolence that only teenagers can pull off.

  I moved among them, placing the chameleon sensors here and there, taking my time so that I didn’t attract any attention.

  I didn’t see anyone looking particularly sinister. It’s not like on the old Batman TV show, where bad guys wore shirts with HENCHMAN, THUG, and EVIL ASSISTANT stenciled on the chest. Would be pretty damn useful, though.

  I drifted out of the VIP area and placed the last of my sensors on the major stairways, then headed back to the suite. The others were already there. All of the sensors had been placed, but no one had seen anything.

  Interlude Forty-five

  The Chamber of the Kings

  December 21, 5:22 A.M. EST

  “You traitorous bastard!” Gault screamed as he stamped down over and over again. “You Judas!”

  Toys felt his broken thighbone shatter. The pain was so intense, so enormous, that he could no longer scream. His mouth was open, his lungs pushed air out, but the only sound he could make was a thin and nearly ultrasonic shriek that tore itself from each tortured nerve ending.

  The world swam in and out of focus as clouds of black and red swirled behind his eyes.

  Then abruptly the pain stopped.

  The moment was suspended inside a crystal teardrop of time. Toys wondered if this was what it felt like to die. Had the jagged ends of broken bone severed an artery? Was he bleeding out and drifting into the big darkness? Or had he reached the end of pain? Was pain a finite thing, a line drawn in the mind that, once crossed, became an irrelevant concept?

  He did not know and did not know how to think about it.

  He lay in a cocoon of unfeeling silence for—how long? A second? Hours?

  Then feeling returned to him, one unkind bit at a time.

  The first thing he felt was a tear breaking from the corner of his eye and falling down toward his ear. It felt cold instead of warm.

  “G-God … ,” Toys whispered. A whisper was all that he was capable of.

  Darkness obscured his vision and he blinked. No. Not darkness.

  Sebastian Gault stood above him, impossibly tall. Pale and blue-white in the glow of the wall of screens. Not the face Toys had loved for so long. This was Gault’s new face. Blond and angular and handsome. The work of surgeons. Nothing that was part of nature. He looked like Apollo. Like the god of the sun.

  “God … ,” Toys whispered again. The pain was an unrelenting fire in his leg. “Please …”

  Gault stood and looked down at Toys. With his head bent his eyes were in shadows. It gave his face a weird appearance, like a beautiful skull.

  “We’ve had our suspicions, you know. The Goddess and me. She didn’t trust her son, and I’ve lost my trust in you.”

  “ … God … please …”

  Gault ran both sets of fingers through his hair. He removed a handkerchief and mopped sweat from his face. He folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.

  “Last week we planted bugs in Hugo’s office. We heard him make a call to someone at the DMS. I wanted to kill him right then and there. We decided that we would let Santoro do it. Goddesses always need new angels.”

  “ … Sebastian, please …”

  “And then we heard you in Hugo’s office. You, on the phone. Not just with the DMS … no, you had to go and call sodding Joe Ledger!”

  Gault darted in and kicked Toys in the stomach like a placekicker going for a thirty-yard punt. Toys screamed and writhed. Bloody spittle flew from his mouth and patterned the tile floor.

  “I won’t ask you why,” said Gault, his mild tone completely at odds with what he had just done. “I know why.”

  “L-love … ,” Toys croaked in a voice that was barely human.

  “Yes. Love. You pathetic little faggot. Do you think I would ever lower myself to love a creature like you? All you’ve ever been to me is a convenience. Someone to get things. Someone to make sure the dry cleaning is picked up and the wet bar fully stocked.” Gault shook his head. “Love? It’s not love, Toys … it’s jealousy. You can’t stand the fact that I can love and you’re too damaged and twisted to be capable of it.”

  Toys’ lips formed the word again: “Love.”

  He braced his elbows and tried to heave his head and shoulders off the floor. Instantly there was a burst of unbearable agony from his shattered leg that tore a ragged scream from him. He tried to twist away from the pain, but as he did something hard dug into his opposite hip.

  “Don’t dare use the word ‘love’ for what you feel,” sneered Gault. “I know love. Eris is love. I know the love of a goddess incarnate.”

  Breathing through the pain took all of his strength, but Toys fought to get words past his gritted teeth. “You … don’t understand … you fucking idiot … .”

  The words materialized as a snarl of unfiltered rage.

  Gault smiled. “I understand everything.”

  “No, Sebastian,” Toys snarled. “ … you never understood me.”

  Toys dug his hand under his body, under his hip, to the hard thing that gouged into him. He wrapped his fingers around the pistol, and with a savage growl that was more animal than human he tore it out, pointed, and fired.

  Chapter Seventy-three

  The Sea of Hope

  December 21, 7:56 A.M. EST

  Circe, Church, and I sat down at the stateroom’s dining table. In my absence it had been converted into a full-blown intelligence center, with multiple screens that showed images from the minicams and collected data streams from the sensors. Room service brought in heaps of food. Ghost sat with his head on my lap and I fed him bits of hamburger as we worked.

  Circe also had access to the Generation Hope security network, so we prowled that as well. There was an insane amount of movement on every part of the ship. It was confusing and irritating, and probably the least useful scenario for accurate surveillance and assessment. Once, for just a second, I thought I saw Santoro … but when I played back the feed it was someone else. Damn. Wishful thinking.

  Circe went over the schedule for the event and we looked for holes in it. There were plenty. We made a list of moments when an attack would get the most media punch. There were several of those as well but one that really glared.

  “The event gets rolling at seven with the first round of musical guests,” said Circe. “The prince of England will take the stage at eight to make his speech. It will be simulcast all over the world. They’re estimating an audience of at least three billion. More if China relents at the last minute and allows citizens to watch. After that the ship will head into Rio for a private party with the celebrities and their families.”

  “How’s security for that?” I asked.

  “Huge. Over a thousand Brazilian military,” she said, “plus three SAS teams and four times as many Marines and SEALs. Heavy support from ground vehicles and helicopters. Gunboats in the water. Plus Secret Service for one-to-one security.”

&nb
sp; “Can we identify anyone who was vetted by Vox?”

  “Way ahead of you,” Church said with an approving nod. “I passed along three names to Director Linden Brierly, and he is having them quietly pulled.”

  “Pulled and detained?”

  “Yes. Understand something, Captain … a lot of people were vetted by Vox, including Grace Courtland.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It complicates things.”

  Circe touched my arm. “You … you don’t think that Grace was—?”

  “No,” I said decisively. “Absolutely not.”

  Church nodded. “That only complicates things, because it may well be that most of the people Hugo passed are trustworthy.”

  “Do you think the attack will be in Rio?” asked Circe.

  “No,” I said, “I think it’ll be when the Prince is giving his speech. Killing the Prince and his guests is a solid punch by the Kings. After all, the speech is about disease. It calls on the new generation to unite, to become a unified family, that share money and resources, effort and cooperation, with the goal of eradicating diseases that are perpetuated by extreme poverty. Diseases that did not need to exist, because cures and treatments exist in wealthier lands. That’s all key stuff for the Kings to twist. It’ll be on every TV in the world. It’s the stuff of legends, and we know that part of what the Kings are doing is myth building.”

  “Agreed,” said Church, and Circe nodded. “Let’s work out how they’ll do it.”

  Together we came up with about forty really workable scenarios, but the problem was that none of them stood out more than the others.

  Finally I looked at my watch. Time was running out.

  Circe pounded her fist on the table. “God! I wish we could simply make an announcement, cancel everything, and let the Navy ships take everyone off.”

  “We could,” said Church, “and that would force the Kings into an even more desperate act than what they are planning.”

  “On the other hand,” I said, “we have an obligation to the President, the Prince of Wales, and all of the other families who stand to lose children.”

  “I’m open to suggestions, Captain.”

  “We could sabotage the engines. Play it like mechanical failure.”

  “To what end? That would leave us floating out here with no solution.”

  I did some math. “There are sixteen operators on board now. Ten from Tiger Shark and my team. I could take the President’s daughters under my direct supervision; Top could take Prince William and—”

  “And initiate a firefight?”

  “Okay, then we cut the number in half and save the eight targets with the highest political value.”

  Church considered it.

  “That might work. But we would need the other teams in the air and in the water right as that happens. That way if you get pinned down or trapped, we’d know help was on the way.”

  “And what if the ship is rigged to blow up?” asked Circe.

  Church said nothing. Nor did I.

  Circe sighed.

  “Plagues,” she said. “This has to be coming from the King of Plagues.”

  Chapter Seventy-four

  The Sea of Hope

  December 21, 6:30 P.M. EST

  The concert was thirty minutes away. A big, cold hand seemed to be clamped around my heart.

  “I have to go on deck,” I said. I’d already changed clothes again, as had the rest of Echo Team. Circe walked me to the cabin door.

  “I don’t know whether to wish you luck,” she said, “or to hope that you find nothing at all.”

  “Nothing at all would be nice.” But we both knew that was unlikely.

  She nodded.

  Behind us, Mr. Church was speaking into the phone. “Mr. President …”

  “God,” Circe whispered, “that’s going to be a painful call.”

  “From both ends of the line,” I said.

  “This is insane,” she said.

  “Welcome to my world.”

  But she shook her head. “I was born to it.”

  Before I could ask her to explain that, she turned and went into her bedroom.

  I patted my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed. Yep, everything but a goddamn clue. Then I clicked my tongue for Ghost, who bounded off the couch.

  We went out to fight the impossible fight.

  Interlude Forty-six

  The Chamber of the Kings

  December 21, 5:49 A.M. EST

  Toys dragged himself across the floor and managed—with curses and tears and screams—to pull himself into one of the chairs. When he realized that it was the throne of the King of Plagues he laughed so long and so hard that his mind nearly snapped. And then he wept for so long that he thought he would never stop.

  The tourniquet he’d tied around his leg was probably too tight. Maybe he’d lose the leg. Maybe he’d get blood poisoning.

  Maybe he didn’t give a damn.

  “Sebastian … ,” he said, and the tears started again.

  Eventually they stopped. Everything stops eventually.

  When he could breathe again he pulled the American’s phone from his pocket. He had recovered it during the ten thousand years it took him to crawl across the floor. The casing was cracked and it was sticky with blood. His.

  He shivered and he knew that shock was setting in. With all the alcohol already in his system and now the bullet wound and the shattered femur, he figured that his system did not stand a chance against shock.

  Toys opened the phone and punched in Hugo Vox’s number.

  “Toys!”

  In his delirium Toys thought he heard the phone ringing and Vox answering at the same time. Then there was the sound of footsteps and Toys turned to see Vox lumber into the room. The big man had a big gun in his hand and he fanned the barrel around the room with a professional competence that Toys admired. Toys tried to say so, but his voice was a slur.

  The American holstered the gun and knelt beside him, his face grave with concern.

  “Jeez, you’re a goddamn mess. Who did this to you?”

  “Sebastian.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What I figured. Shit.”

  Toys touched Vox’s face with the tip of his finger. “Are you … real?”

  “You better hope so, kiddo.” Vox fetched the wheeled leather chair of War’s Conscience and gingerly placed Toys’ shattered leg on it. Toys screamed.

  “Sorry, kiddo.” Vox adjusted the tourniquet, which was itself a moment of exquisite agony. He got water and a cloth and mopped Toys’s face and then brought over a glass of brandy. “This will help until we can get you to a doctor.”

  Toys sipped the brandy greedily. It burned through him with a calm fire, pushing back the pain, restoring a measure of control.

  “Now,” said Vox, “tell me what happened?”

  “Sebastian shot me. And I … I guess I shot him.”

  Vox looked around. The room was empty except for them. “The fuck is he?”

  “I shot him in the heart. But … I think he was wearing Kevlar. Pity.”

  “Clever bastard.”

  Toys coughed and winced. “Shame he got away.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, kiddo. But … if you had the gun, how did he get away?”

  “I … let him go,” said Toys. He drank half of the brandy, coughed again, and drank some more. It seemed to burn more of the pain away.

  “Why? Why not put a couple of rounds through that face-lift of his?”

  Toys shrugged. “Why bother?” His face was white with pain and trauma, but the brandy seemed to help him focus his thoughts.

  The American sighed. “You got a good heart, kiddo. You’re lucky it’s still beating.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Screw it. It’s all gone to shit anyway. The DMS know who I am now, so I’m going to have to go way off the radar.”

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Toys.

  “In the wind.” He went and fetched the bottl
e of brandy and another glass. He refilled Toys’ glass and poured himself a generous shot. “Ah … maybe I’ve been playing this game too long. My blood pressure could blow bolts out of plate steel and I haven’t taken a comfortable shit in five years.”

  “Well, thanks for sharing.”

  “It’s all stress. I … don’t think I want to deal with it anymore.”

  “So … what? You’re going to retire to Florida and raise flamingoes?”

  “Oh, fuck no. I didn’t say I was tired of the Seven Kings. I like that shit. I have stuff I haven’t tried yet.”

  “And your secret identity was holding you back?”

  Vox chuckled. “No—or not entirely. Mom was the biggest cockblocker in the world. Now she might not be.”

  “She might escape this.”

  “Yeah, she might. She’s got a lot of clever up her sleeve, too. But you have to think that you’re vulnerable before you believe that you should run from danger. She thinks she really is a frigging goddess.”

  “I know. I got the speech from Apollo.”

  “Who? Oh … got it.”

  A wave of pain hit Toys and he bared his teeth, then in a very conversational voice said, “Ow.”

  Vox reached over and pushed a button on one of the computer consoles built into the big table.

  “Chang and Kuo will get you to a doctor I own in Toronto. You’ll be right as rain.”

  Toys looked down at the ruin of his leg. “Sebastian enjoyed it.”

  “Sebastian’s a prick,” said Vox. “He may have been a great man once, but let me tell you a secret, kiddo: I think that without you he wouldn’t have amounted to shit.”

  Toys said nothing.

  “Which makes me wonder what you could have accomplished given the right support and freedom of action. Gault never saw you as anything but an employee.” He shook his head. “Small thinking.”

  Toys studied him for a long time. “Why?”