“Will he live?”
“I believe so. It’s too soon to evaluate brain function.”
I closed my eyes.
Church pitched his voice to a confidential one. “I … have not contacted Circe yet. However, Aunt Sallie has agents en route to pick her up and bring her to Johns Hopkins.”
“Did anyone else get out?”
“No. The estimated body count is one hundred and sixty-nine DMS personnel. Seven of the eight FBI agents who came to serve a warrant on you, Captain. Two NSA agents who were with them. Sixteen civilians from the surrounding buildings.”
“Gus?” asked Top.
Church’s face was wooden. “No.”
“Ah, jeez…”
Gus Dietrich had been with Church for years. He was the big man’s personal assistant, bodyguard, aide, and friend. A good friend of mine, too.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Gus was a good man.”
Church’s eyes were black metal orbs. “Gus was family.”
“Yes.”
“They were all family.”
“Yes.”
“And we are going to hunt down the people responsible for this,” he said softly. “We will hunt every last one of them down and we will kill them.”
Chapter Ninety-four
House of Jack Ledger
Sunday, October 20, 8:43 p.m.
We gathered in my uncle’s den. Echo Team, Junie, Ghost, and Church. Brick and Birddog stood like tall bookends at either side of the fireplace. Church sat very straight and very carefully in an overstuffed chair. I later learned that he had two broken fingers, a separated shoulder, dozens of small cuts and over forty stitches. The bandage wrapped around his forehead hid a deep gash made by the same piece of broken metal that had nearly blinded Rudy. His tinted sunglasses were gone and I got my first real look at his eyes. They were so dark a brown that they looked black, and there was no mercy at all in them. He had to be in tremendous pain, but he endured it with grim stoicism.
“What about Mr. Bug?” asked Junie. “And the other man who was on the video conference. Dr. Hu?”
“They’re in New York,” said Church. “I’ve ordered all field offices evacuated. Staff has been moved to secondary locations while bomb teams are doing thorough inspections.”
“Why didn’t Auntie or Bug tell me you and Rudy were alive?” I asked.
“For the same reason I did not call ahead to tell you I was on my way. Given the timing with everything that’s happened today, I think it’s a safe bet that one or more of the DMS communication channels has been hacked. The very fact that a team was sent after you quickly enough to have arrived within a half an hour of you reaching the lighthouse makes that much clearer. The DMS is radio silent for now. I had Birddog bring one of the new prototype mike systems for you. You’ll swap that for your old stuff.”
Birddog used the toe of his boot to tap the equipment case on the floor. “Got you covered,” boss.
“What about the bomb?” asked Lydia. “What kind of explosive did they use?”
“Unknown. Detective Spencer and his team are coordinating with state and federal investigators to answer that question. There is a curious lack of residue. No nitrites, no radiation. No chemical signature of any kind that they have so far been able to detect. It may be that this is a new form of explosive.”
Church told us what happened. His voice was flat, dispassionate.
“Sir,” began Bunny, “do we know anything of substance?”
That question ignited a spark in Church’s eye. A small, cold flame. “We do not yet know who ordered the hit, though I suspect we are close to a name,” he said, “but we know who set off that bomb.”
Everyone came to point, eyes narrowing, mouths drawing tight into feral lines of undisguised hate.
“Who?” I said in a fierce whisper.
“He used to be a field agent,” said Church. “One of mine. One of the very best. He was already highly trained when I recruited him into a group I was running prior to the formation of the DMS. We brought him to a higher level of skill, but that statement doesn’t do him justice. He quickly became the go-to operator for any operation that required unparalleled combat and technical skills. Had things gone another way I have no doubt that he would have become a senior team leader. I would almost certainly have given him leadership of Echo Team during the seif al din matter … but he was gone by then.”
“What happened?”
“You cannot serve two masters,” said Church. “I think it’s safe to say that he was steered in my direction with the goal of my providing him with more advanced training than his true masters had been able to provide. It’s likely that he became a trainer himself.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “the Closers?”
“It would be my guess. Tull called me directly before triggering the bomb and—”
“Wait,” interrupted Junie. “What did you say? What was his name?”
“Tull,” said Church. “His name is Erasmus Tull.”
Junie made a sound. It was almost a gasp, but there was more to it than that. It was as if everything she was suddenly tried to jerk backward out of the moment. Everyone turned to her. Junie’s face was as white as paste. Her eyes were wide disks filled with an impossible amount of naked fear.
“Tull…,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”
She slid out of her chair and thumped to the floor, half unconscious from shock. I was up and across the room in a shot. I knelt beside her and took her by the shoulders.
It took effort. It cost her in ways I couldn’t immediately understand. She raised her face and looked at me, then at the others in the room, and finally at Rudy and Church. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and then broke, rolling down her cheeks.
“He’s my older brother,” she whispered.
Chapter Ninety-five
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sunday, October 20, 8:46 p.m.
Howard Shelton grinned like a happy uncle and held his arms wide as Erasmus Tull came through the door. There was a lot of laugher and back-slapping. Aldo drifted along in Tull’s wake, and Mr. Bones stood politely to one side.
“My boy,” Howard kept saying. “Well done, my boy.”
Then Howard turned and offered his hand to Aldo.
“And well done to you to, Mr. Castelletti. Fine work.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Aldo, a bit awed. He had met Howard Shelton once before, but the man intimidated the hell out of him. It was like meeting Donald Trump. “It was Tully’s call. I was there to tote barges and lift bales.”
“Aldo pulled his own weight,” said Tull generously. “Don’t let him tell you different.”
“It’s a shame that the teams sent to retrieve Junie Flynn and dispose of Captain Ledger were less successful.”
“‘Less successful’?” snorted Mr. Bones. “Ledger damn near wiped them out.” He cocked his head at Tull. “You trained that team, I believe.”
Tull gave him a long, unsmiling look. “What about it?”
“This must come as a crushing blow. The fruits of your labors being so easily stepped on. What was the total body count? Seventeen men and two helicopters? Only three survivors?”
“If you have a point, Mr. Bones, go ahead and make it,” said Tull.
“All right, all right,” growled Howard, “everybody stop pissing on each other and put your dicks away. Who gives a damn if Ledger is alive? The point was to keep the DMS occupied and on the run until we were ready to make our move. Done that, Mr. Bones, wouldn’t you say?”
Bones said nothing, but he wore a totally false smile.
“The DMS isn’t a factor now. It’s going to take them weeks or months to recover from losing the Deacon. We have a new set of challenges facing us.”
The other three men turned to face him.
“What challenges?” asked Tull. “The air show is tomorrow and—”
“The air show is canceled. That’s done.
”
“What about Specter 101? All the work you’ve put into it? Is that all scrapped now?”
Mr. Bones said, “My dear Tull, you are horribly out of the loop. I think it’s fair to say that the world has changed since you woke up this morning.”
Chapter Ninety-six
House of Jack Ledger
Near Robinwood, Pennsylvania
Sunday, October 20, 8:49 p.m.
“Erasmus Tull is your brother?”
“Yes,” said Junie. “And … no. It’s complicated.”
Top Sims leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees. “Miss, I would appreciate it if you would uncomplicate it for us. That man killed a couple of hundred people that I used to know.”
The room was dead silent. Junie looked around at everyone. At me. I hoped that the things I was feeling in my heart weren’t showing in my eyes. I knew the Killer was watching her.
“We were a year apart, but in the same orphanage,” she said, and immediately Church raised his good hand.
“Miss Flynn,” he said calmly, “credit us with some intelligence. We researched your history. You were never in an orphanage. Not in this country, and not under that name.”
Junie swallowed.
“That’s … only partly true,” she said. “I was in an orphanage until I was six years old, in Group Eight. Erasmus Tull was in Group Seven.”
“‘Group’?” said Bunny. “What kind of orphanage are you talking about, lady?”
Junie looked deeply frightened. I think that if there was a way out of that room she would have bolted and run. Instead, she took a big breath, forced herself to make direct eye contact with Mr. Church, and said, “I belong to a very specific group of children who were born and partially raised at a facility in Nevada. The site has no official name. The building I lived in was called Hive Two. There were ninety-six children in that facility, and there were at least ten facilities exactly like it.”
“Um…,” said Bunny, “are we talking clones?”
“No, of course not,” said Junie with a trace of a smile.
“Good, because I—”
“I’m pretty sure I’m an alien-human hybrid,” she said. “Just like Erasmus Tull.”
Chapter Ninety-seven
House of Jack Ledger
Near Robinwood, Maryland
Sunday, October 20, 8:51 p.m.
Bunch of people, mostly killers, sitting in a room.
Looking at the pretty lady, the civilian.
Who just said that she might be related to the man who killed the entire staff at the Warehouse.
Who said that she might be part alien.
All of us, sitting there with that painted on the air in front of us.
“That’s it,” Bunny said. “I quit. I’m going home.”
Mr. Church nodded to Junie. “I know.”
You could actually hear the sound of every head in the room whipping around from staring at Junie to gaping at Church.
“What?” I croaked. “You knew?”
Church nodded. Pain flickered on his stern face. “I read through all of Dr. Sanchez’s interview notes on the way here. Several of the experts mentioned the alien-human hybrid initiative, indicating that without an acceptable biological interface these T-craft cannot fly. A certain percentage of alien DNA is necessary, and so to ensure the success of their vehicle-design program, Majestic Three would have had to be ready with pilots who had that DNA signature. Hybrids.” Junie nodded, and he continued. “Among those persons who claim to be hybrids or who are suspected of being such, there is a high percentage of savantism. In some cases it is prodigious savantism, with deep memory and awareness of multiple areas. Math and numbers are common, but there are other areas as well. Many of these people have exceptional hand-eye coordination. And there is the issue if having both eidetic memory and hyperthymesia. The instances of that are so rare in the general population that to find it in any contained population suggestions a connection. I know for a fact that Erasmus Tull has those qualities. It’s part of what made him such an exceptional operator. Show him a building blueprint or let him read a mission case file and he has it all stored. Expose him to a language, a combination, a cypher, and it’s stored in his head.”
“Just like the Majestic Black Book,” I said.
“Yes,” said Junie.
“Holy mother of shit,” said Lydia.
“Wait, wait,” said Pete, “can we go back to the part where you two are related?”
“It’s an ugly thing,” said Junie. She took a tissue out of her sweater pocket and wiped her nose. “You’ve heard about all of those alien abductions? You know, people taken out of their beds and subjected to all sorts of tests? Well, as far as I know most or all of that is faked. It’s M3 using hallucinogenic compounds and some mind-control tech they developed. They implant a false memory using drug-enforced hypnosis.”
“That sounds military,” said Ivan. “I mean … I know guys in psi-ops who do that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” said Church.
“After the people are abducted,” continued Junie, “they are used as part of a breeding program. Early on they tried to get the abductees to mate. They even used date-rape drugs like Rohypnol, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, Ketamine, and even Ambien — because it had both sedative and amnesiac properties. But there were too many behavior problems associated with forced sex, and because it required the time and expense of monitoring the pregnancy after the abductees were returned. And, of course, kidnapping the child if he or she demonstrates useful qualities. There are some real horror stories associated with that, and the program began tripping over itself. So they changed tack and decided to harvest eggs and sperm instead. That way they can cut the parents totally out of the picture and raise the babies under controlled conditions.”
“Like the facility in Nevada?” asked Mr. Church.
“Yes. That was my home as a baby. There were nearly a hundred of us. We weren’t clones or anything like that. Each of us came from a human egg and sperm via in vitro fertilization. I was in the eighth batch of viable fetuses. Group Eight.” She paused and a shadow passed across her face. “There were problems with the previous batches. The first few were awful. I saw photographs. Birth defects of the most horrible kinds. That’s when they were trying to determine how much alien DNA to introduce, and at which point of fetal development.”
“Christ,” whispered Top. He was the only member of Echo Team with kids. His eyes were filled with sickness and anger. “What happened to those kids? The ones with the birth defects?”
Junie shook her head. “They were considered failed experiments. The same with the next batches. It wasn’t until the batch before mine, Group Seven, that they began getting an acceptable yield. There were still some problems, but they … allowed most of them to grow up.”
“Erasmus Tull was in Group Seven?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he have any ‘problems’?”
She nodded. “Behavior problems. He was brilliant and he had all the qualities they needed for the pilot program — enhanced coordination, perfect memory, total calm in high-pressure situations. But — he was hard to control at first. He was very violent, but in a strange way. He never picked a fight, but if someone else started one, his reactions were way over the top. Once a little boy shoved him in the playroom. Erasmus got up, walked over to the toy box, picked up a heavy net bag of building blocks, walked back over to the other boy and started beating him with it. By the time the staff heard the screams and came in, the other boy was dead and Erasmus was completely covered in blood.” She paused. “Erasmus was four years old.”
My mouth went dry.
“They put him through a battery of psychological tests, and he passed every one. After a while they determined that it was an aberration, a one-time event. Until it happened again. Seven months later two boys tried to beat Erasmus up because they were afraid of him. They caught him in the boys’ bathroom.”
“What happe
ned?” asked Birddog, whose face had gone as pale as everyone else’s.
“He killed them both.”
“So,” said Bunny, working it through, “are you saying that he was born without a conscience? Or he is too alien to understand right and wrong?”
“I really don’t know. I’m not sure if the people at M3 know either. However, they must have learned something from all the tests they did on him, because he wasn’t terminated for having birth defects. Erasmus and a few others who were a lot like him were removed from the program shortly after the incident in the bathroom. Actually a lot of us were taken out of the program and assigned to families.”
“Like Jericho and Amanda Flynn?” suggested Church.
“Yes.”
“Did they know where you came from?”
Junie gave me a brief guilty look. “Yes.”
“So, all that stuff you told me about your father was bullshit? Winning those science fairs, getting hired by DARPA … that was all crap?”
“No,” she said quickly and reached out to touch my arm. “Most of it’s the absolute truth, but…”
I pulled my arm away. “How about the whole truth? How about you stop fucking with my head?”
She nodded as tears rolled down her face. “What I said about my father was true. He didn’t know about any of this until long after he was working inside the Project. Even then he still thought he was working on a DARPA-sanctioned project. It’s where he met my mother. She was a developmental psychologist and … she was a key member of M3’s breeding program. She helped tie my father to the program. Did she ever really love him? I don’t know. Maybe, toward the end. I don’t know. But she grew me in a lab, Joe. All the adoption papers were handled by her. My father was in love and he was work-obsessed, so he believed everything his wife told him.” She paused and dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. “He was a good man, Joe. I think maybe he had some issues of his own. Asperger’s, perhaps. He was always focused on work and never really that connected to other people. He didn’t know where I came from or what I was. He tried to be a good father to me, but when it was clear that I didn’t want to follow his career path, we drifted. That’s when I started acting out. I tried to tell him about the ‘orphanage,’ but he wouldn’t listen. He thought they were silly stories. Until I told him about a kid I knew named Erasmus Tull.”
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