Blake trotted out of the room, fresh sweat staining the pits of his shirt.
Zach sat down again, feeling a little better.
An assistant wrapped in a short skirt emerged and told them, “He’ll see you now.”
Cade picked up the bag and stood.
Zach did the same. Too late to go home now, he thought.
WILL PRADOR, the new White House chief of staff, rose from behind his desk.
Prador was the guy Zach compared himself to when he really wanted to feel like a failure. He was only a couple of years older than Zach, but his résumé read like he’d been in politics for decades: coordinator of statewide campaigns before he was out of college; political director of a high-level think tank in the off-year; TV pundit; consultant; then a highly visible spot as the media director for Senator Samuel Curtis’s run at the White House.
And now, chief of staff. The job Zach wanted before he became caretaker for the president’s pet vampire.
Zach and Prador worked together on the same side of the same campaigns for years. But Zach had no idea who was sitting on the couch along the wall.
He didn’t rise. He was dressed in a very expensive black suit with a blinding white shirt and red tie. He simply eyed Cade and Zach with a kind of bemused hostility.
Zach immediately went into information containment protocol, which was standard whenever they dealt with someone who wasn’t in the loop.
“Nice to see you, Will,” he said, before Prador could greet them. Then he extended his hand to the man on the couch.
“Peter Tork. This is my partner, Mike Nesmith. We’re with the president’s Internal Security Service Office.”
The man didn’t take Zach’s hand. He just smiled a bit wider.
Up close, it was difficult to say how old he was. The suit was well tailored, but he was obviously fit underneath it. His hair, though white, was still full and thick. His face was a waxen mask, as if the years had polished it smooth. It seemed frozen in place, even as it moved.
But the man’s most arresting feature was his eyes. They were pale, milked of any color except a dull, reflective silver.
He wasn’t looking at Zach. His attention was focused on Cade.
Zach kept his hand out. “And you are . . . ?”
“You can cut the shit,” Prador said to Zach. “This is Colonel Graves. He’s inside the knowledge.”
Zach was immediately concerned. That meant this guy, whoever he was, knew about Cade. And nobody was supposed to know about Cade.
Zach noticed neither Prador nor Graves appeared too nervous around Cade. That happened from time to time.
With Prador, Zach wasn’t surprised. It was probably Prador’s greatest gift—he was never rattled by anything. Photos of the candidate in a leather corset show up on the Internet? No problem. Down by twenty points in the latest poll? No problem. A supernatural war against the United States, and a bloodsucking fiend was America’s only real weapon? No problem. If Prador had any emotions, he kept them in a secure vault controlled by a legal trust.
As for Graves, some people were simply so self-absorbed, so nonobservant, that they couldn’t feel the dread Cade regularly inspired in others. If they actually stopped and noticed the thing sharing their breathing space—
Then Graves got up and stood face-to-face with Cade.
He didn’t move like an old man: no muffled groan, no levering himself off the cushions with his arms. He just stood, and crossed the rug to Cade.
“Mr. Barrows,” he said. “Mr. Cade.”
Cade and Graves continued to stare at each other. Cade appeared troubled. “Do I know you?”
“I thought vampires never forgot anything,” Graves said. “I’m sure you’d remember me if we’d met.”
Cade didn’t say anything else. Zach was more alarmed than he wanted to show. He couldn’t remember Cade losing a staring match before. He didn’t even think it was possible.
Graves knew who they were. He knew what Cade was. And they’d walked in here without a clue.
Zach realized this meeting was going to be worse than he thought. He suddenly felt very conscious of the fact that he was wearing last year’s shoes.
Prador got right to the unpleasantries.
“You’ve really fucked the dog now, Zach,” he said in his usual, infuriatingly calm voice.
Cade sat down, placing the bag on the floor. Zach remained standing. Something was going on here, but Cade left this sort of thing to him. It was human politics, and it barely registered on Cade’s radar.
Zach, however, was born to it. He could find a hidden agenda in any conversation, and felt double crosses and half-truths like seismic waves. This was the division of labor: Cade killed monsters, and Zach dealt with politicians.
“Look, Will, we just got off a plane from Somalia—”
“I managed to figure that out from the half dozen news reports that have been playing every hour. Did you see the Fox headline? ‘Slaughter on the Water’? They’re writing it off as piracy, thankfully. Is that what you call being discreet?”
“It was necessary,” Cade said, his voice as dry and cold as winter air. Prador didn’t appear impressed.
“That’s not really your call, Mr. Cade,” Prador said. “I thought you were supposed to follow orders. That’s how it works, right? ‘Bound for all the days he walks the earth’ or something?”
“Something like that,” Zach said.
Actually, the blood oath sworn by Cade went: By this blood, you are bound: to the President of the United States; and the orders of the officers appointed by him; to support and defend the nation and its citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and to serve it faithfully for all the days you walk the earth.
The vodou priestess Marie Laveau had cinched those conditions tight around Cade back in 1867, shortly after he became a vampire. Cade’s blood was mingled with the stains on the bullets that killed Lincoln, and this small fetish anchored the pact. To this day, the bullet was kept in a small leather pouch in a safe in the Oval Office. Zach wasn’t sure why or how it worked—but it worked.
Still, it wasn’t always as magical as it seemed. Cade was loyal. He was dedicated. He was even a patriot.
But he was still a vampire. Zach had learned from hard experience that Cade could find a lot of room to maneuver between the lines.
Prador would probably find that out himself.
Zach nodded at Graves. “Before we get into anything that’s classified, you want to take a minute and explain who this guy is, and why he’s here?”
Graves turned his pale eyes on Zach. “I am someone with whom you should not fuck. That’s all you need to know.”
Zach blinked. “Fair enough.”
Prador continued as if there had been no interruption: “Forty-eight hours ago, we had a detachment of special CIA operatives tracking a compromised shipment going through Somalia,” he said. “We believed the Somali pirates were working with al-Shabab, and we were very close to establishing a connection with a direct threat to the White House.”
Zach looked over at Graves. “I’m going to assume that’s where you come in. You’re the CIA’s guy on this?”
“I could tell you . . .” Graves let the punch line to the old joke just hang there.
Prador picked up the story again. “Just when it looked like we were making progress, our CIA squad had to pull back. Someone dropped out of the sky and began killing everything in sight. Any chance we had of learning who compromised our supply chain was gone. In just a few minutes, you destroyed an operation that’s been in the works for months.”
“Wait,” Zach said. “That’s the big deal? Because the CIA has to put another one in the loss column? You’d think they would be used to it by now—”
“Shut up, Barrows,” Graves said, his voice flat. “The reasons don’t matter, at least as far as you’re concerned. This is need-to-know. And you are no longer among the needy.”
Zach had to laugh. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You and Cade walk away from this. Right now.”
“We don’t answer to you,” Zach said.
“But you do answer to me, Zach,” Prador said. “And I am telling you: you’re done with this.”
Zach turned to him. “Don’t you even want to know why we were there? What we found?”
“Judging by the impressive body count, I’m sure you and Cade thought it was important. But frankly, I don’t care,” Prador said. “Whatever it was, this operation takes precedence. I’m going to have to ask you to step back and allow Colonel Graves’s team to take over.”
Zach looked at Cade, whose mouth curled, just for a split second, at the corner. It was the only way anyone could tell the vampire was amused. Blink and you’d miss it.
Zach looked back at Prador. “No,” he said.
“No? I think you misunderstand, Zach. This isn’t a request. You’ve endangered an ongoing mission that has direct implications for national security. I can understand why you have a personal investment in this—”
“What he’s trying to say is now the grown-ups are in charge,” Graves said. “You can go back to chasing the boogeyman.”
“He hasn’t been spotted in over a year,” Cade said.
“We can settle this right now,” Zach said. “Let’s get the president on the phone.”
Prador shook his head, like he was almost sad at how badly Zach had read the situation. “He doesn’t want that, Zach. And believe me, neither do you. The shipment—the one we were tracking—it came through Archer/Andrews. They were doing renditions for us.”
And now Zach got it. He felt slow. He really had been out of politics too long.
Renditions. Such a clean and painless word, and for Archer/Andrews, an extremely profitable one. The military contractor charged millions of dollars to the U.S. government to make travel arrangements for a select group of unwilling passengers. The itineraries were always similar: a group of heavily armed men in black would board a Gulfstream jet in the U.S. and fly halfway across the world, then land at a private airfield in the dead of night. They would pile into a van and kick down the door of someone unlucky enough to be on their list: suspected terrorist, sympathizer, accomplice, or someone whose name was spelled the same as one of the above. The passenger would be bound and gagged, a black hood placed over his head, and taken back to the plane. Then he’d be delivered to another country, usually one where the authorities weren’t so squeamish about the use of cattle prods during questioning.
Archer/Andrews hired ex-military to do the rougher parts of the job. Starting salary: $150K a year. The ex-soldiers called themselves Archers. Everyone else called them Archies—but never, never to their faces.
Zach had met a few Archer/Andrews security contractors. Scary guys. And this was the judgment of someone who worked with a vampire on a daily basis. Unlike Blackwater, A/A wasn’t known for pulling the best of the best from the military. They hired from the disciplinary files—the guys who were benched, jailed, discharged or reprimanded for excessive force in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The company’s unofficial motto was “It’s a mean world out there; we’re meaner.”
It was a multibillion-dollar private army, and a big part of the War on Terror. Zach was fairly sure there was a photo somewhere of the president shaking hands with the CEO.
Prador kept talking, of course. He always felt it necessary to ram the point home.
“When we came into office, we gave orders. Close the secret prisons. No more extraordinary renditions. But the prisoners didn’t just stop existing because we said that. Somebody still had to transport them from place to place. Archer/Andrews stepped in.”
Zach turned to Graves; he understood now. “I thought that suit was too expensive for a guy from the CIA. You’re with Archer/Andrews.”
Graves gave him a slight nod and smile. “We’re assisting with the internal investigation. Anything more public could be damaging to both this administration and our shareholders.”
Zach couldn’t believe this guy. “Yeah, it would be a shame if anyone found out your kidnap-for-profit scheme was being misused.”
Prador frowned at Zach.
“The president has decided we need a little more distance—a little more delicacy—when dealing with you and Mr. Cade,” he said. “That’s the reason Colonel Graves is here. He’s going to make sure this is handled quietly.”
Zach knew what that meant: deniability. The most important protection in politics. Whatever had happened, it would be better for the president if he could claim he didn’t know anything about it.
Zach had known Will a long time. He’d never known him to bluff. If he said the president wanted this, he had to be pretty sure of the play he was making.
President Samuel Curtis was the most honorable, intelligent politician Zach had ever known. But he was still a politician. Zach realized that somehow, he and Cade had stumbled on something that made the White House look bad. He might even be turned into the fall guy, if necessary.
“This sucks,” Zach said.
“It’s an awkward position,” Prador said. “If anyone found out about our involvement with Archer/Andrews . . .” He trailed off.
“What are you worried about, Will?” Zach said. “Afraid the president will have to give back the Peace Prize?”
Prador had the grace to at least look apologetic. “You know how it is.”
Cade’s patience, however, was at an end. Zach heard him growl softly in the back of his throat as he stood, lifting the bag from the floor.
“Perhaps Zach does,” Cade said. “But I don’t.”
Prador started to speak: “Well, I’m sorry you feel that whaoooollly fucking shit! ”
He almost fell over his chair backing away from his desk.
All through the conversation, the leather bag had sat unopened at Cade’s feet. Now he unzipped the top and deposited the contents on Prador’s desk.
“This is what was in your shipment,” Cade said. “This is what makes it my responsibility.”
It was a head. Definitely not human.
BULGING, REPTILIAN EYES STARED at Prador from dead-center on his desk blotter. Scales, not skin, sloughed off the bones where it had been severed from its body. Its teeth peeked behind its lipless mouth in a jagged parody of a smile.
Prador’s nice, clean self-control was gone. He looked like he was about to have a stroke. His mouth opened and shut, but no words came out.
Graves handled it better. He flinched, but mainly looked annoyed.
“You always keep things like that in your luggage?” Graves asked, looking at Cade.
Cade didn’t reply.
“He likes to keep trophies,” Zach said.
Cade ignored them. He kept staring at Prador.
Prador closed his mouth. “What is that?”
“This is what’s left of the pirates. This is what happened to their victims.”
Prador looked baffled. “I don’t understand.”
“They were human. Until they were touched by something. Then they became these.”
“How . . . ?”
“We don’t know,” Zach said.
“No, I meant: how many were there?”
“Thirteen,” Cade said. “That is, when it began. It could have been as many as twenty-seven.”
Graves scowled. “You don’t have an exact count?”
“No,” Cade said. “I mean there were thirteen at the start. They spread their infection to an additional fourteen people. I had to deal with all of them.”
Prador blinked twice. “I’m sorry?”
“Whatever those pirates did to themselves—whatever was done to them—it spreads on contact,” Zach explained. “Could be from the bites, or maybe even the scratches, but if you’re attacked by one of these snake-headed things, and you live, then you’re going to turn into one.”
Prador looked down, as if the severed head might leap out and bite him.
“You can catch it?”
�
��Not from the corpses, as far as we know,” Zach said. “Still, you might want to run some Windex over your desk just to be sure.”
“Jesus Christ,” Prador said.
Zach winced. Although Cade didn’t show it, he was offended by anyone taking the name of the Lord in vain. Like the cross around his neck, it was just one of the vampire’s little quirks. Zach doubted Prador knew or cared, but Zach hated it when Cade got angry. Nobody needed that, especially not right now. He was angry enough.
Prador struggled to get control of the meeting again. “Well, that’s unusual, yes, I admit, but, uh, I don’t see how—I mean, there are still proper procedures . . .”
He trailed off as he realized Cade was staring at him.
“You asked about my oath,” Cade said. “Let me tell you what my oath requires. I swore to do whatever is necessary to protect this country. No matter what the cost. Failure to keep this oath is extraordinarily painful to me. And yet, at this moment, there are two men here with information about something that could, literally, end this world. Information they refuse to share. At this moment, these two men are the greatest obstacle to keeping my oath.”
It was nothing overt, nothing as blatant as throwing over the chair or slamming his fists on the desk. But his stillness was somehow worse, implying hideous violence barely restrained.
“Whatever is necessary,” Cade said again.
There was a long moment of silence. Graves and Prador glanced back and forth, as if trying to communicate in blinks.
Prador folded.
“Jesus, it’s just not that simple, all right?” he said.
Graves scowled. He buttoned it down quick, but Zach caught it. Prador was going off script.
Prador put his chair upright again. He almost managed to make it look like he had a lizard-man’s head on his desk every day.
“Please put that back in the bag,” he said to Cade. To his credit, his voice didn’t tremble.
Cade put the head away. Prador took a deep breath.
“I apologize, Zach. To you and Mr. Cade. I should have been more forthcoming. If we could all just sit down?”
Cade and Zach took their chairs. Graves took his spot on the couch again.
The President's Vampire Page 4
