“Very well,” Burnett said. “I look forward to congratulating you in…” He glanced at the large wall clock. “… about thirteen minutes’ time.”
Westin looked away. “My eager anticipation knows no bounds.”
He let his eyes wander around the big room, which had been created years ago by knocking down a number of interior walls that had originally divided the space into classrooms. “But I remain unconvinced of the wisdom of conducting the experiment in the same place where it failed so spectacularly twelve years ago.” He sniffed theatrically. “This place smells of death.”
Burnett, in response to Westin’s unremitting insistence, had finally supplied a copy of the original project report. Westin was well aware of the horrors that had taken place within these walls.
“That’s your imagination at work, Doctor,” Burnett told him. “This room was scrubbed with great thoroughness after the late... unpleasantness. The walls were repainted—even the floor tiles were replaced. Any physical trace of the past debacle has been eliminated.”
I hope nothing similarly drastic is required after our work here tonight, Westin thought, but wisely kept the notion to himself. He and his team had done everything humanly possible to make this mechanism capable of achieving the objective. But scientists, except the mad ones, don’t believe in absolute certainty. Such conviction was the sole province of fanatics—such as the one who stood a few feet from him.
“There are many other existing facilities that could have been employed,” Westin said. “Given the generous budget you secured for the project, we could even have built something from the ground up in an isolated area, far from civilian habitation, instead of doing the work in what is essentially a suburb of the nation’s capital.”
“I don’t understand your concern for ‘civilians,’ Doctor.” Burnett’s voice again assumed what Westin privately thought of as the man’s SS Obergruppenführer tone. “After all, you have assured me that there is no danger this time.”
“My concern is not of danger to the community,” Westin lied, “but matters of security. Keeping our work secret, as we must, would be easier in an environment over which we had total control.”
“Our security measures are more than adequate. We are conducting the experiment here because it worked here the last time.”
“You don’t impress me as a superstitious man,” Mister Burnett.”
“My reasons for using the same location have nothing to do with superstition.” Burnett sighed, as if trying to explain to a three-year-old, for the twentieth time, why the sky was blue. “Do you know what ley lines are, Doctor?”
Frowning, Westin shook his head. “I do not.”
“Ley lines are invisible power channels of karmic energy that cross the earth in seemingly random patterns. There are numerous theories about where they come from—believe me, I’ve had the subject exhaustively researched. But one thing is certain—this area of Virginia is where six different ley lines converge, bringing with them immense natural power.”
“I see.” Westin kept his voice carefully neutral in the face of such occult poppycock.
“The presence of those lay lines here, where we’re standing, may have been one of the reasons why the original experiment succeeded. If they had built the original lab twenty miles from here, the whole thing might have been a bust.”
“Imagine the loss to us all, had such been the case.”
“You can keep your polished irony to yourself, Doctor,” Burnett said. “If ley lines are outside your purview, have you at least heard of Ulysses S. Grant?”
“The American President? Of course. Not one of the nation’s greatest leaders, as I seem to recall reading in school.”
“You’re right—Grant was a lousy President. But as a General in the Civil War, he was without peer. And do you know one of the reasons why Grant was so successful, Doctor?” Burnett went on, not waiting for an answer. “Because he took infinite pains before each battle. He wanted everything on his side that he could control. Everything. On the morning of a day his troops would face the Confederates, he made sure every one of his men got a filling breakfast. If they hadn’t received mail from home in a while, he made sure that the mail was located and delivered, no matter where his army was. Infinite pains, Doctor.”
“So, you believe these ‘ley lines’ are efficacious in the summoning of demons?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows for sure. But they might be—and that’s why we’re doing it here and not out in the boonies someplace.” Burnett glanced at the clock again. “Now, don’t you have last-minute preparations to attend to or something?”
“Indeed,” Westin said, and hurried away. Each man was glad to be free of the other’s company at that moment, but for very different reasons.
It was five minutes to midnight.
Chapter Forty-Two
“I STILL DON’T like this,” Libby Chastain said. She was sitting in the front passenger seat of a dark blue SUV parked on Sager Avenue. It was a block south of the laboratory building, close enough for the street lights to make visible the two large men in suits standing near the lab’s front entrance. There had once been a rear door to the building as well, but that was bricked over now, in flagrant violation of the fire code.
By mutual agreement, Colleen O’Donnell and Dale Fenton were not present, having instead gone to Minneapolis to run down leads on a serial killer who had struck in three states. In case they were ever asked under oath in front of a grand jury, the two FBI agents wanted to be able to say truthfully that they were a long way from Fairfax, Virginia on the night some very bad shit took place there.
In case something unforeseen should bring the SUV to the attention of law enforcement, Mal Peters had rented it under the name Richard S. Parker, and paid the deposit with Mr. Parker’s gold Amex card. The card was real, the account legitimate, and the balance due would be paid, on time, with a check from Richard Parker’s account at Chase Bank in Manhattan. Mal Peters knew all there was to know about building false identities.
“I’m not crazy about it either,” Quincey Morris said, leaning forward from the seat behind Libby so he could be heard without raising his voice unduly. “But none of us has come up with a better way to shut this operation down permanently—none of us, including you, Libby.”
“I know,” she said. “But innocent people inside that building are going to die.”
“Depends on your definition of ‘innocent,’ I suppose.” Mal Peters said from Libby’s left, where he was sitting behind the wheel. “All those guys in there are CIA, or CIA contract employees.”
“That doesn’t make them evil,” Libby said.
“No, but they all know what they’re going to do tonight,” Peters said patiently, “and what they’re doing is evil.”
“Perhaps, Libby, you can find comfort in the words of Arnaud Amalric, Abbot of Cîteaux and Papal legate, prior to the sacking of Beziers in 1209,” Ashley said from the back seat next to Morris. “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.”
Without turning to look at Ashley, Libby said, “Somehow, that doesn’t quite do it for me.”
Peters stared at her quizzically. Getting no response, he looked over his shoulder at Morris, who shrugged and said, “My Latin’s kind of rusty.”
“It means, Kill then all,” Libby said finally, her voice bleak as an Arctic sunrise. “God will know His own.”
Chapter Forty-Three
11:57 P. M.
DR. HANS WESTIN sat down at the main control panel and checked that his two technicians were at their stations. Glancing at the clock, he operated the series of switches that got the turbines going, up to half speed. At the same time, Jared Duncan, seated off to Westin’s right, pushed the buttons that brought the giant computer and its six monitors to life.
Fifteen seconds later, Westin moved a switch that set the turbines to spinning faster. He was slowly increasing the power to an electromagnetic field—a field that was flowing between the two poles
that constituted The Door. The amplitude and valence of the field were controlled by the main computer, which was in Duncan’s able hands. Westin nodded to Jim Hodges, who stood thirty feet to his left behind a console that was connected to a number of speakers about the size of those that people used to plug their stereos into—back when people still listened to stereos. Hodges flipped a switch and from each speaker began to issue a different chant—one in Latin, one in ancient Greek, and the other in Aramaic.
“Bring up Program Alpha,” Westin called, and Duncan quickly complied. “Program up,” he called back a moment later. He had to yell to be heard over the increasing noise of the turbines.
“Execute!”
Duncan pushed two buttons and then pulled a switch. “Done!” he called.
Chapter Forty-Four
QUINCEY MORRIS KEPT an eye on his watch, a Pulsar Chronograph that kept perfect time and which he had set by the Naval Observatory clock two hours earlier. As the second hand reached 11:57 he said, “It’s show time, folks!”
Immediately three of the SUV’s doors opened, as Morris, Ashley, and Peters got out. But Libby Chastain still sat where she was. Quincey Morris looked at her through the window, and she looked back. “Coming, Libby?”
After an agonizingly long pause that lasted at least two seconds, Libby grabbed her door lever and pulled it. “Yes, Goddess help me,” she said. “I’m coming.”
The four of them walked along the sidewalk toward the lab as if they were two couples. Morris and Libby held hands and assumed pleasant expressions, while Peters put one arm around Ashley’s shoulder and held her close, his other hand deep in his pants pocket. For once, Peters was glad to see, Ashleydid not use their physical closeness as an opportunity to mutter sexually obscene sweet nothings in his ear.
They walked slowly. Timing was important, and, besides, they had no wish to alert the two guards.
I hope everything inside is going on schedule, Morris thought, or we are all going to be well and truly fucked.
Chapter Forty-Five
11:58 P. M.
WESTIN PUSHED A lever forward, and the noise from the turbines increased. “Bring up Program Beta!” he ordered, followed a few seconds later by, “Execute!”
Westin pointed his index finger at Hodges, who immediately pushed two buttons own his console. From a fourth speaker another chant started, this one in Chaldean, a language that was considered ‘dead’ when the Roman Empire was young.
Twelve seconds passed while Westin watched the movement of LED monitors in front of him. Then: “Activate Program Gamma!” His command was immediately obeyed and acknowledged.
The sound of the turbines grew even louder. I should have thought to provide ear protection for us all. No matter—we are almost there.
The time was 11:59:25.
Westin grasped a lever between two fingers. Gently now. Gently. The lever moved a quarter of an inch, and the turbines went to 100% power.
“Eye protection on now!” Westin shouted, and followed his own admonition. Then he pointed at Hodges, and a moment later a chant in Ancient Hebrew was issuing from yet another speaker.
Hans Westin took a deep breath. “Activate Program Delta!”
Something was happening to the electromagnetic field that oscillated between the two poles with the pentagram-shaped filaments below. It appeared to be changing, shimmering, coruscating in a way that was now visible to the naked eye. Within the field itself, a shape could dimly be perceived.
It took a step forward, then another, and stopped—caught in the energy field emitted by the electrically-charged pentagram at its feet. It gave a cry of frustration that sounded something like a cross between the scream of a cougar, the roar of an enraged lion, and the bellow of a bull alligator.
Even with the sanity-saving goggles—which actually worked, to his immense relief—Westin had to fight the urge to look away. Trying to describe what he was looking at was an exercise in futility. There are no words in English, or any other known language that could convey, with any accuracy, what stood—if something can be said to stand that does not, strictly speaking, have legs—within the electrically charged pentagram. Take your worst nightmare—the one that wakes you up screaming, drenched in your own sweat—and amp it up by a factor of twenty. Then you would have the beginning of an idea of what was trapped within the pentagram.
But the technology worked! The part of Hans Westin that was not awestruck wanted to caper around the room like a little boy who has just received a pony for his birthday. They had summoned and bound an actual denizen of Hell!
Westin realized that Burnett was standing a few feet behind him. “I trust that congratulations are no longer premature, Doctor. You have accomplished what few other men have even dared to try. Outstanding work!”
Westin flushed with pride. He raised his arm, intending to make the gesture that would tell Hodges to cut off the recorded chanting.
From the rear of the building, there came the sharp sound of an explosion. Then the lights went out.
Chapter Forty-Six
12:01 A. M.
THE FOUR OF them had now approached within fifty feet of the two men—linebackers in Brooks Brothers suits—when Ashley said, in a perfect imitation of the little girl from Poltergeist, “They’re heeere!”
As a former—and perhaps future—denizen of Hell herself, Ashley had assured the others that she would be able to sense immediately the presence of another of the Fallen on this plane of existence. When that occurred, she was supposed to say, in a conversational tone, “Damn, I have a pebble in my shoe.” But Ashley, being Ashley, could not resist being cute
Nonetheless, Peters understood that he was being given the signal. He had half-expected Ashley to mess around with the game plan for her own amusement. But Peters understood her meaning and instantly triggered the small radio detonator he was holding in his pocket. The eight ounces of Semtex explosive that Peters had earlier attached to the base of a wooden power pole at the rear of the building detonated with a boom and the pole immediately toppled, taking with it the wires that fed electricity to the laboratory building.
As the two plainclothes guards whirled in the direction of the explosion, Libby Chastain pulled her free hand—the one not clasping Morris’s—from inside her big leather shoulder bag and flung a fistful of some green powder into the air just above the guard’s heads. The powder began to settle on them just as they turned back to the foursome, reaching for the holstered pistols under their suit jackets.
Libby pointed her index finger at them and cried, “Dormire!” That is the Latin for the command ‘Sleep!’ and the two guards complied instantly, slumping to the ground in a deep slumber that would last about an hour.
Ashley had wanted simply to kill anyone who stood between them and the building entrance, but Libby had insisted on this nonviolent method as the price of her participation in what was to follow.
Quincey Morris walked quickly to the building’s front door, and found it locked. Libby had her wand out by now. She touched it to the lock, muttered a word of power in some obscure language, and Morris was able to pull the door open.
“Ladies,” he said, “after you.” It was more than gallantry—the very different powers wielded by the two women would determine whether the demon inside the lab would be returned to Hell or turned loose on the world. But before they could pass through the outer door they stopped at the noises they could hear coming from inside the building—screams, and the sound of gunshots.
Peters murmured “Be right back,” and trotted off down the street. He was going to pull the SUV up closer to the building. There were things inside it that he was going to need—he hoped.
Chapter Forty-Seven
12:02 A. M.
WESTIN HAD COME close to panicking when the lights had been extinguished. But then he remembered that the building had, thanks to Burnett’s insistence, a state-of-the-art backup generator. The realization had barely occurred to him when the lights flickered for a mo
ment, then came back on with full brightness. All of their devices, which had also gone down briefly when the electricity was interrupted, were up and working again. The power had been off for fifteen seconds, at most.
Westin steeled himself for another look toward the monstrosity that had been confined inside the pentagram. His eyes behind the yellow goggles widened in shock as he realized the pentagram was empty.
He stared at the glowing five-pointed star at the base of The Door. The pentagram. The electric pentagram. The pentagram that needed electrical power to function, the power that had been withdrawn—but only for a few seconds, hardly any time at all.
The scientific part of mind continued to function even as panic was rising inside him, almost as if it was chastising him by putting into words what his central nervous system had already grasped: How much time do you think a demon needs, you idiot?
The answer was provided immediately by the voice behind him—which should have been Ted Burnett’s voice but manifestly was not—the voice that said, as if having read his mind, “Hardly any time at all.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
12:04 A. M.
THE INNER DOOR to the laboratory was not locked. Libby and Ashley walked in to find an array of unfamiliar scientific equipment, an odor that was an amalgam of gun smoke, blood, and shit, three men lying on the floor—apparently gut shot—writhing in agony, and a big man in a sport coat who was squatting over one of the victims with a long screwdriver he had found somewhere. The things he had already done to Hans Westin’s face with the screwdriver were obscene, but the big man was grinning, like a kid at Christmas who has received exactly the presents he wanted most dearly.
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