Kill Switch

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Okay,” said Bell, “I get it. Put that in writing. All of the clinical support that you can find on it. I want a thorough report and I want it in seventy-two hours.”

  He disconnected before Greene could protest or ask questions.

  Bell used his heels to move the swing slowly forward and back.

  His second call was to Gunther Stark, commandant of the Ballard Military Boarding School in Poland, Maine.

  When that call was ended Bell sat on the swing for nearly an hour. Waiting for his son to come home from school. He sat there, slowly moving back and forth on the relic from a childhood that had never really happened.

  Bell tried to hate himself for what he was about to do. He tried.

  But no matter how far down he dug in the cold, hard soil of his soul, all he ever found was more darkness and more dirt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  IN FLIGHT

  OVER THE PACIFIC

  AUGUST 20, 6:32 A.M.

  I told Top and Bunny about Houston.

  It hit them like it hit me. Sick as we were, all three of us were ready to lock and load. We sat there, hurting and trembling with impotence as we watched a live news feed on my laptop. I thought it would look bad. It looked worse. Some of the fires were still burning. The power was back on and the sky was filled with emergency helicopters. News choppers, too, even though they were being pushed back beyond a safety zone. God, how many times would we have to look at scenes like this? In America, around the world? How had terrorism become so powerful while we seemed to be dropping to our knees? Or maybe that was the wrong way to put it. How many times could we be forced to our knees and still manage to get back up?

  “Funny,” said Bunny bitterly, “but I always thought it would be a nuke. After nine-eleven, after Atlanta and San Francisco, I figured the next step up would be a nuclear detonation on U.S. soil. Something smuggled in by a North Korean team, maybe; or some Russian cell trying to bring back the Soviet Union. Or the Iranians. But I never figured ISIL for being able to hit us this hard at home. Never.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s that old thing about assumptions,” grumbled Top. He turned to me. “Did Mr. Church really stand us down for this?”

  I nodded. “Right now this is someone else’s job. CIA, State Department, every intelligence agency we have, and Bug’s team. We have Jerry Spencer and Frank Sessa on the ground in Houston doing forensic evaluation, and Harcourt Bolton’s doing deep background for us. We all want someone in the crosshairs, but so far no one from the Islamic Nation has stepped up to own it. The president’s moving assets into play, though. If we can connect the dots to ISIL, then this will change the game.”

  “Third Gulf War,” said Top.

  “Jesus Christ,” murmured Bunny.

  I got up and went into the head for a while because my lower intestines wanted to crawl out of my ass. I sat there on the can and put my face in my hands.

  All those people. The fuse lit on another war. Where was the end to it? How could we ever hope to put the pin back into the grenade? Was it always going to be like this?

  Bad thoughts for a sick man to have. Bad, bad thoughts.

  I went back and dropped onto a seat between Top and Bunny. For a long time we sat there, each of us shivering and sweating. Bunny looked like he was falling asleep. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. Top’s brown skin had faded to a dusty gray. He met my eyes and nodded to me, conveying a truth, making an agreement. Top’s like that. We can say a lot to each other without words.

  Aside from the two pilots, we had six team members aboard the plane. Bird Dog and the other equipment handlers, as well as the general crew. All of them were trained as medics, but none of them were doctors. They were clustered together at the far end of the plane, looking at me looking at them. They looked worried, too.

  I staggered to my feet and stumbled to the intercom on the bulkhead beside the cockpit door, identified myself, and asked to speak to the pilot.

  “I can buzz you in,” he said.

  “Negative. Do you have active seals?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said crisply.

  “Okay, then listen to me, Captain,” I said. “I am initiating a flash-fire protocol. You are hereby ordered to seal the cabin. No one gets in.”

  A pause. “Yes, sir,” he said, and despite the typically bland way pilots spoke no matter what was happening, his voice had gone up a full octave.

  “I do not want this plane to land in San Diego. They have a biohazard response unit at the Naval Auxiliary Landing Field on San Clemente Island. Get clearance to land us there. But call the Pier and have our big bio-containment module flown over, too. The flight crew will need to be quarantined, too. I don’t know if this thing is contagious but no one is going to take chances.”

  “Captain Ledger,” said the pilot, “what’s happening back there?”

  I wiped sweat from my eyes. The interior of the plane was filled with too much light and it seemed to be moving sideways.

  “I really don’t know,” I said.

  INTERLUDE ELEVEN

  BALLARD MILITARY BOARDING SCHOOL

  POLAND, MAINE

  WHEN PROSPERO WAS THIRTEEN

  Oscar Bell did not enjoy writing checks as large as the one that kept Prospero out of jail, or the one that insured that his son would remain as a student and cadet at Ballard. With each zero his pen gouged deeper into the check and left deep impressions on all the checks beneath it.

  He tore off the two checks and tossed them onto the desk of the school’s commandant, a withered husk of an old soldier named Gunther Stark.

  “He stays,” Bell said flatly. He could afford the repairs, but he’d feel it. He would have to move some holdings around. Ideally he’d find a way to bill Major Sails for it, providing her group accepted his proposal.

  Stark glanced down at the checks, inhaled sharply through his nose, and exhaled slowly. Like a man dealing with physical pain.

  “Tell me, Mr. Bell,” said the commandant, “have you spoken with your son about this?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “Did he tell you what he was trying to accomplish?”

  “He … may have said something. What of it?”

  Stark said, “He used materials and equipment from our lab to build a small-scale particle accelerator. When it was turned on, not only did it destroy a considerable portion of the lab and the surrounding rooms—”

  “And you have a check that will make it even better than it was.”

  “—that device also knocked out the power in the entire school.”

  Bell’s mouth twitched. “What?”

  “Oh yes. There was some kind of power surge that canceled out all power. No lights, no computers, no alarms. It even shorted out the halon fire-suppression system and knocked out the cell phones. We couldn’t call the fire department.”

  Bell leaned forward. “Really? How long did it last?”

  “What does that matter?”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stark, annoyed. “A minute or two.”

  “How much damage was there to the wiring? What about cell phones? Were the works melted?”

  “No, nothing else was damaged. The cell phones and everything came back on. So did the lights, but—”

  “Everything came back on?” demanded Bell. “This is important. Apart from what was damaged by the explosion, was there any other damage to any electrical device?”

  Stark drummed his fingers. “We seem to be getting off the point.”

  “No, we’re not. Answer my questions.” Oscar Bell’s tone did not invite further quibbling.

  “No, sir,” said Stark, “there was no other damage. You are not liable for further reparations.”

  Stark grabbed his checkbook anyway and began writing a third check. This one was large enough to make the commandant stare in slack-jawed amazement. Bell tore it off, leaned across the desk, and slapped it down in front of Stark.

  “I—I don’t underst
and, Mr. Bell,” stammered the commandant.

  Bell pointed a finger at the man’s face. “Listen to me,” he said sternly, “and hear what I say. You are going to rebuild your lab and you’re going to get it done in one month. I don’t want to hear any bullshit about how difficult that’s going to be. One month. I’ll send some of my own people to oversee it. You will also build an extension that will be dedicated to my son and his work. You hear me? That addition will be Prospero’s. You’ll post two guards on it around the clock. If anyone sets one foot into his lab other than Prospero, his teachers, or you, then you will answer to me. I want you to tell me you understand.”

  “I … well, yes. Of course I understand.”

  “I will have my people set up a limited Internet access for Prospero. It will allow him to do research and to interface with other labs. I’ll arrange clearances. But understand, Stark, that Net connection passes through my own company’s mainframes. Nowhere else. And Prospero will have to log on and log off. I will give him a password directly. No one else uses that network and Prospero is not to have any access to any other Internet connection. None. That is an absolute rule.”

  “What is this all about? If you want your son to do research of this kind, why not move him to another facility? Away from the other boys.”

  “Fuck the other boys. And fuck you if you’re too stupid or inept to keep them away from that lab. Prospero is to have anything he needs or wants in terms of what will help him in this research.”

  Stark nodded. The check sat on his desk and it seemed to burn with real fire.

  Bell leaned back. “I’ll expect regular reports on my son’s activities. I’ll also send people out to inspect his lab and his work. They’ll call ahead to schedule times when Prospero won’t be there to interfere.”

  “Of course.”

  “If you have questions, ask them now,” said Bell. “Otherwise let’s get this in motion.”

  “There are, um … two things, Mr. Bell,” said Stark. “The first is so unusual that I don’t know if I should even mention it, but you’ve made it very clear since the beginning that you want to know everything concerning your son. However, this is somewhat tangential to—”

  “Stop pussying around the topic and just say it.”

  “It’s about the dreams, sir,” said Stark.

  Bell stopped breathing for a moment. “What dreams?”

  “It was the night of the explosion. Several of the boys complained the next day that they had very strange dreams. We had the staff psychologist interview them and as far as he can determine there were two very distinct types of dreams. Or, maybe they were hallucinations somehow induced by the energetic discharge of the machine.”

  “Who are you quoting?” Bell said sharply.

  “Oh. About the discharge? That was Professor Childers, Prospero’s physics teacher. After hearing from all those boys I called a meeting with our psychologist and everyone who had any connection to what your son was working on.”

  “Tell me about the dreams.”

  “As I said, they took two forms. For most of the boys they had nightmares about some huge monsters. Big blobby things with tentacles. The psychologist has drawings if you want to see them. What’s so strange about it, though, is that the boys mostly drew the same thing. Even boys who don’t socialize with one another. We did interviews to see if they shared experiences, and to determine if that polluted the memories through association. But … no.”

  Bell did not comment. “And the other kind of dream?”

  “That’s even stranger. A few boys had those. Only six of them out of the whole school. And though the dreams were similar, they were also different. In each case the boys dreamed they were somewhere else. In other places. One was at home in his room. Another was in a poker game in what he believes is Paris, although the boy has never been to France.” He ran through the others. “In each case,” he concluded, “it was like they were suddenly elsewhere, seeing things they could not possibly see. One of them was able to accurately describe the inside of the Tate Museum in London, even to a description of the ticket seller. The psychologist made a call and verified the accuracy of this. Isn’t that the strangest thing you ever heard?”

  Oscar Bell removed a pack of cigarettes from his inner pocket, selected one, lit it with a lighter that bore the Department of Defense shield—a Christmas gift from years ago—and smoked. He did not ask permission and he tapped his ashes into a coffee cup that sat beside the NO SMOKING sign. Stark said nothing.

  “I’ll want everything,” said Bell. “Copies of those interviews, the files on each boy, the minutes of that staff meeting.”

  “But, Mr. Stark, I can’t do that. That is confidential information.”

  Bell blew a long stream of smoke over Stark’s head. “You always struck me as a realist,” Bell said. “Do you want to sit there and tell me that in the version of the ‘real world’ as you see it that I won’t get that information? Or let me put it another way. You’re a career soldier. An officer. You’ve been in combat and led men into battle. Has none of that taught you how to pick your battles?”

  Stark sat in silent stillness. He did not answer, and they both knew it was answer enough.

  After a long time Stark changed the subject. “I have one more, er, question regarding your son,” he said. “Prospero is sometimes a difficult boy, as you are no doubt aware. He, um, acts out, and here at Ballard we have policies in place to enforce discipline and encourage proper behavior.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t be such a pussy. I’m not asking you to change how you treat the little shit. As long as he doesn’t have bruises on his face when the human services people come for their quarterly inspection I don’t give a flying fuck what you do to keep him in line. He’s always been an asshole and I have the feeling he always will be. Can’t change that. Kid has some bad wiring. So, sure, if you need to kick his ass every now and then, do it. Spare the rod and spoil the child. My old man had a heavy enough hand and I turned out fine.” He jabbed the air with a finger again. “But no head injuries. And nothing that will keep him out of the lab.”

  He stood up and Stark shot to his feet, as well.

  “I think we understand each other, Commandant?” suggested Bell, his dark eyes intense. He offered his hand and when Stark took it, they shook.

  Like gentlemen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE NATIONAL SZÉCHÉNYI LIBRARY

  F BUILDING OF BUDA CASTLE

  BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

  TWO WEEKS AGO

  Harry Bolt did not know that he could scream like a movie actress in a grade B slasher flick. It was not something he’d ever be proud of. Though at the moment he gave in to it as the only possible response.

  He screamed his head off.

  Then one second later he stopped. Because that’s what you do when someone presses the cold, hard, merciless edge of a knife against your throat.

  The figure came out of nowhere. One minute he was alone with the dead parts of his team and the next someone occupied the shadows to his right. Dressed in black, holding a knife to his throat.

  “Shhh,” she said.

  Harry Bolt’s body was a block of ice, but he cranked his eyes sideways to see her with his peripheral vision. Definitely a woman. Young, slim, very fit. She had long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and flexible combat clothes that clung to her. Even in that moment Harry checked her out. That was Harry. She was built like a dancer. Tall, though, with small breasts and long limbs. She was an inch or two taller than Harry, who was five nine. Her features were foxlike, with sharply defined cheekbones, thin lips, and intense eyes. Her clothes were fitted with lots of pockets and crossbelts for weapons. A compact Micro Tavor-21 Israeli bullpup assault rifle with an extended thirty-two-round magazine was clipped to one belt. A pair of sheaths were strapped to each thigh. Both empty. One of those knives was held down at her side, the other was keeping Harry on his tippy-toes.

  She said, “Who are
you?”

  “N-night watchman,” he stammered.

  The woman smiled. Very coldly. The knife pressed more deeply into his throat. “Try again. Are you with the Brotherhood?”

  “The … who?”

  She rattled off something that sounded like Latin to him. “Ordo Fratrum Claustrorum.”

  “I—I have no idea what you just said,” he admitted.

  She studied him. It was hard to tell if she believed him. Her expression seemed to be a mix of relief and disappointment.

  “CIA?” she asked.

  Ouch, he thought. “Wh-who are you?” he said, hoping to get a grip on this conversation.

  The woman lowered the knife and stepped back.

  “A friend,” she said.

  “What kind of friend? What agency?” He knew that she wasn’t American because her accent sounded Italian.

  “You won’t have heard of us. It’s above your pay grade.” She turned him into the light so she could take a better look. Her eyebrows rose. “Wait, I know who you are. You’re Harcourt Bolton’s son. You’re with the Hungary station.”

  “I—”

  “You’re one of the Three Stooges.”

  Yeah, well, that was like a kick in the nuts, though he tried not to let it show on his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  She ignored that and looked past him and he turned to follow her gaze. The heads of Olvera and Florida seemed to glare at him, their dead eyes filled with accusation. Harry’s stomach did a greasy little backflip.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to your friends,” she said.

  “Christ, did you—?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “Of course I didn’t do that.”

  “Then—?”