Two of Bartlett's men took positions near a set of stairs along a wall. The other man moved to the back and unlocked a rear door. The rest of Bartlett's men spilled in, the three of them falling in behind the first two near the stairs.
The soft luminescence of the shifting images playing across his face, Bartlett studied the room. Amy could see the tension in his mouth as he tried to resist a smile.
Bartlett walked to the stairs and two of his men sprang to forge ahead of him, ascending with brisk, quiet steps, rifles high and ready. He glanced over his shoulder and Amy followed, sensing one of the remaining men stalking after her.
The stairs fed through a railed opening to a second floor loft. It looked like a converted attic, with a sloped ceiling following the roof. Even less furniture than the ground floor. Half the room was crammed with stacks of boxes, ranging from small to quite large – electronics, mostly, multiple units of each, brand logos and product descriptions and pictures visible on the sides. The other half was open with a king-sized bed, unmade and recently used, plain headboard against the wall, framed print of Edward Hopper's ‘Nighthawks’ hanging above it. Wedged between a nightstand and the bed a shotgun rested against the wall, pointed toward the ceiling. Two armless chairs and a small round table filled the corner near the front window. The rear corner on that side was walled off into a separate room with its own door. The door was closed and slashes of saffron light blazed through the perimeter, brightest at the bottom. Amy could hear the sound of running water, the steady stream of a shower.
A dresser stood next to the door, a wide-screen television on top of it. The display showed a black-and-white split-screen image of the ground floor, one of the front doorway, one of the main area. The images switched after a moment to the exterior of the front door and the exterior of the rear of the building. Amy could see Bartlett's men in the main room, but only because she knew they were there. Their black tactical outfits made them almost invisible in the low light.
The first two men stationed themselves on either side of the door. The man behind Amy stayed near the stairs. Bartlett glanced around for a moment, then picked up one of the chairs and moved it the middle of the room toward the foot of the bed, facing the bathroom door. He retrieved the shotgun, studied it. Amy saw that it was double-barreled, over-and-under style, rather fancy. He opened the breech, checked for shells, shut it. Then he sat down in the chair and crossed his legs. He rested the shotgun across his lap.
Amy moved to a spot behind Bartlett, off to the side. She had no idea what was about to happen, but she definitely wanted a good view. Despite the general's assurance, she placed her hands on the pull tabs to her fanny pack.
The shower drummed on for another few minutes. Amy stared at the bathroom door for a while, found herself drawn to the painting on the wall. She'd always felt intrigued by that piece. Three late-night customers, two men and a woman, in a corner diner, visible behind the glass, soda jerk behind the counter. Empty city street surrounding them. A sense something is going on you don’t know about, some story beyond people with nowhere else to be at some ungodly hour of the night. The men were in suits, the woman in a red dress with red hair. Very red hair.
The sound of beating water tapered off with the squeaks and groans of plumbing being shut.
Whispers of dripping, wet slaps of feet against tile, the rustling and thumping of things happening behind the door.
Bartlett's men tensed and coiled, rifles inching up and forward. The door opened, flooding the room with directional light. A man stepped out, stopped midstride. He was on the skinny side, concave chest and narrow shoulders. His hair was still damp, toweled rough. His features were sharp, his mouth and chin a goatee surrounded by thick shadow. He was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.
His jaw gaped, revealing a crooked set of teeth. He stared at Bartlett, then shot glances around the room at everyone else. “Shit,” he said.
“Hello, Archie.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” Archie looked down, seemed to consider his options. Naked, unarmed, dripping wet, facing three men with assault weapons and one with a shotgun. And a nine millimeter in fanny pack that he wasn't even aware of. Not an enviable position, Amy told herself.
Bartlett uncrossed his legs, letting the shotgun rest easily against his knee, like a well-behaved Labrador. “We need to talk.”
“How did you find me?”
“Think, son. Did you really think you were our only source of information? Or, I should say, disinformation?”
“Look, I didn't have much choice, man. It was just, you know, what they wanted.”
“No doubt.”
Archie swallowed, swung his gaze from one rifle to another, then back to the general. “What now? You expect me to believe you're going to shoot me unless I help you? Seriously?”
“No. I expect you to believe that the people – and I use that term very loosely – you work for will be far, far less forgiving than I am when they find out about your betrayal.”
“What the fuck're you talking about? I'm not telling you shit.”
“That's not how it will look to them. I mean, how could I have possibly found you, if you hadn't run your mouth to someone? How are you going to explain it? That we're psychic?”
Amy felt her lips start to spread into a smile. She cleared her throat quietly into her hand. “They can't blame me for something I didn't do.”
“Really? Even with all that computer equipment gone?” The general wagged his chin, clucked his tongue.
“That stuff is boxed tight. Why do you think they trusted me with it? It's because I'm the best. You try to hack any of them, cut the power, remove the drives, it's all gone. Fried beyond retrieval.”
“Exactly. Which is why you're going to give us all the passwords and walk us through all the security protocols. Because if you don't, the only thing you'll have to rely on is their trust. You don't really want to rely on that, do you Archie? I mean, do you honestly see that turning out well? How hard would it be for me to let the word leak out about what a treasure trove of info you've provided?”
“They'll know it's bullshit. You can only pull that bluff for so long.”
“You're right about that. Question is, what are the odds you'd last long enough to enjoy an ‘I told you so’?”
Amy watched the internal struggle play out on the man's face, subtle shifts from one expression to another as each wrestled for the upper hand. She'd seen the same thing on suspects too many times to count. Always right before they broke.
Bartlett was good. She'd pegged him as some stuffy authoritarian, used to being in charge and good at giving orders but little else. She could see she'd been wrong. The man was sharp. Smooth, even.
“If you still think they'll believe you,” Bartlett said. “Think about this – how will they ever access this information again once we take everything? Think of all the hassle you'll be causing them. Who backs up the way they should? And everyone's paperless these days. I know we certainly are.”
“You don't know what they'll do to me,” Archie said.
Amy wasn't sure whether that meant that he actually did know, or if it was a comment on the horrible uncertainty of what lay in store.
“No, I don't. I only know that if you don't give me what I want, they will definitely be doing it.”
The man stared at Bartlett for several seconds. He looked over at Amy, seeming to notice her for the first time. “Who's the redhead with the legs? She your snitch?”
“I suggest you stop worrying about things like that and start worrying about your future. Particularly, whether you're going to have one. Like I said, it's up to you.”
“You'll guarantee my protection?”
“No. I'll guarantee you safe passage. I can't babysit you after that.”
“You think I'm crazy? They'll hunt me down.”
“Think, Archie. Wha
t gives you the better chance? A head start? Or trying to plead your case?”
Archie said nothing. He clawed at his goatee, weight see-sawing from one foot to the other.
“I suggest Anchorage. No intel has ever reported Carnate activity in Alaska.”
“Safe passage? All the way there?”
“All the way there.”
Deep breath, dip of the head. “Fine. You win. I give you access, you give me passage.”
“Access and context. That's a relay station you're running down there, isn't it? You'll need to provide us with whatever source codes we need, whatever cross-referencing data necessary for us to match up the call history.”
The man said nothing. He flicked his chin. Whatever.
“Corporal Wolf, take Mr Mancredo here downstairs and set him up. Specialist Rabbit, cover him at all times, eyes on target. If he makes a move for a hidden weapon, take him out before you even see it. Likewise if any of you get a hint of something being deleted or sabotaged. Or so much as an unnecessary keystroke entered. Have Fox supervise. Specialist Squirrel will tape.”
The men began to move in disciplined synchronicity. One barked for Archie to get going, which he did after one last sneer and a resigned snort, holding his towel together around his waist.
“Oh, and Archie...”
The men stopped near the stairs, Archie looking back as Bartlett stood and walked over next to the bed. He set the shotgun down and put a hand on the frame of the painting, checked behind it.
“Please be kind enough to tell me the combination.” He lifted the frame and lowered the print to the pillows, leaned it back against the headboard. Where the picture had been a three-by-three square was cut out of the wall, the door to a safe, complete with numbered dial, recessed within it.
Archie mumbled a few curses under his breath, then related a series of numbers. Bartlett entered them as he did. He gave the lever next to the dial a tug. The safe responded with a heavy clunk. The door inched open.
“Thank you, Archie,” Bartlett said. He gestured for his men to proceed. Amy could see a stack of bills inside the safe. Bartlett reached in and pulled out a pistol. It looked like a .45, but she couldn't be quite sure. He admired it for a moment, checked the chamber, then tucked it in his belt near the small of his back.
“Rabbit, Fox, Squirrel?” Amy said after the footfalls had receded down the stairs.
“Identities can be useful to an enemy. These men have families. Maybe not spouses, but siblings, parents... nieces and nephews.”
She looked at the opening to the stairs, heard the bumps and scrapes and steps of activity from below.
“You mentioned a relay station.”
“Yes.” Bartlett began to remove banded stacks of bills from the safe, placing them on the bed. “We've long known that the Carnates routed all their communications through regional hubs. Calls were transferred via computer through satellite links, data scrambled, false tower signatures appended. Tracing the source or the destination was next to impossible. Even favors I called in from the NSA weren't able to shed much light. All I could confirm was that elaborate countermeasures were in place. The calls themselves used sanitized language, with few exceptions.”
“But you've disrupted some things, haven't you? Jake made it sound like you've been a real thorn in their side.”
The general made a face. “Yes. But until recently, not much of one. We've identified the occasional client, tracked down a rendezvous here and there, shutdown a very localized operation in a few places, but we're talking drops in a bucket. Carnates only let you find out about things they want you to, like through our friend there. That's why Sahara Doyle was such a game-changer. She's given us truly actionable intelligence. And this relay station – this is the kind of coup that can really make a difference. If my guess is right, this covers the entire southwest, including southern California. It will take them weeks to get up and running again, and that's not even counting how much I hope to be setting them back in the near future.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
Bartlett paused, but said nothing. He gave the interior of the safe one more look, then closed the door. He reached for the shotgun and held it flat in front of him, inspecting it. The way he handled it showed deference.
“I can't believe someone would keep this kind of firearm next to their bed, like it was something you pick up at a flea market.” He looked up, as if it belatedly occurred to him he was speaking out loud. “This is a Caesar Guerini. It's a work of art.”
Amy glanced at the shotgun. It was nice, yes, but she didn't care. She looked over at the money. Almost a hundred grand, if she had to guess. The Nighthawk diners continued their enigmatic silence above it all, leaned back on a pillow. Maybe they'd just ripped off someone, also. Or were planning to. That was the thing about the painting, she realized. You just didn't know.
“What now, General? When do we set out to find Jake?”
“Let my men finish up downstairs, then we'll head back to the silo and get some rest. Believe me, I want to find him just as much as you do.”
“You think that Cult is connected to the Carnates?”
“In one way or another. We'll have time to go over what we know once we get the computers ready and clean up here.” He dipped a hand toward the stacks of bills splayed on the bed. “And send Archie on his way. May have to have someone stick him on a bus out of Albuquerque, just to keep him from being a pain.”
Amy nodded, not liking the pace of things, nor the business-as-usual approach, but not seeing what she could do about it.
Bartlett took a step toward the stairs, gestured for Amy to go ahead of him. “Why do you suppose there aren't any Carnates in Alaska?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh. I have no idea whether there are or aren't. Never told him I did.”
Amy hesitated at the stairs, assessing that information.
“Come now, don't look so shocked. This isn't a war we can afford to wage fairly. Besides, any man who uses a six-thousand dollar piece of handcrafted artwork like this for self-defense deserves whatever he gets.”
Chapter 18
“There's no point in mincing words. You're out of your goddamn mind.”
“I can appreciate why you would think that. But you're allowing emotion to cloud your judgment. Misplaced emotion, at that. If you would allow yourself to consider what I'm saying, you'd realize your reaction is irrational.”
They were standing in a room in a small square structure, something made of adobe or plaster. Rough walls, rough floors. There was a video monitor on one wall, a rectangle about three-by-two, a shelf of equipment below it on a narrow table, a few tools from the installation still lying about. Hatcher could hear the generator running outside, providing the juice.
An image glowed on the screen, like a frozen black-and-white frame. Only he could tell by the subtle movement of the subject it wasn't actually frozen, wasn't actually still, and as he watched the image he realized it wasn't even black-and-white, just flat and devoid of color. A sideview of a child strapped to a chair, camera pointed from a spot a bit rear of center. She seemed almost catatonic, staring off at an obtuse angle.
“You think I'm willing to use enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from a little girl? If you do, I'll say it again. You're out of your friggin' mind.”
“No, not a girl. That's what you're not getting. She's a demon. Through and through.”
“So you say. But either way, whoever it is, it's in a little girl’s body. I'm not even going to raise my voice to her, not for you, not for your cause. And you're really bat-shit whacko if you think I'd torture her, or whatever you have in mind.”
“Listen, Hatcher. Listen carefully, please. She is not a little girl. The little girl that was is dead. That's where you're shutting down and not hearing me. She died while the demon possessed her, trapping this unclea
n spirit in the body. Well, to be accurate, an enchantment is what trapped it, not her death. But I assure you, the little girl is dead. The demon came into possession the instant before she expired.”
“And just how did that happen?”
“A summoning spell. A rather sophisticated one. Its page torn from a book I paid a hefty ransom for.”
“No, I mean, how did the timing happen to be so convenient? Because it sounds to me like you killed a child to trap a demon, and if that's the case, me refusing to help you is going to be the least of your concerns.”
“No, Hatcher. I would not do that. I would never do anything like that. Life, all life, is sacred to me. The girl was terminal. Comatose. I would not have done this had I not been certain she would neither suffer nor be deprived of any time in her mortal coil. It is too precious a gift.”
“Here's where I'm calling BS. You don't need me to get some demon talking. My training was in extracting information using techniques that weren't lethal or likely to cause grievous bodily injury. When something even more extreme seemed to be called for, the techniques weren't exactly subtle. Or complicated. If that really is a demon occupying a corpse, you can do it yourself. Which is one of the reasons I don't particularly believe you.”
“You're wrong. In more ways than one.” Micah moved to the monitor, folding one arm over the other in a hug, his gaze drilling into the screen. “I can't go in there. Believe me, I would if I could.”
Hatcher said nothing. He sensed something was happening. Or about to happen. He wasn't sure which.
Micah continued to stare at the monitor. He reached over to the table and picked up a hammer. Simple, all-purpose type, with a clawed head on a fiberglass handle. He held the hammer in front of his chest, head out, horizontal as if it were still lying on the table. Then he flipped his wrist up and smacked himself in the face with it. Hard.
The young girl on the monitor flinched. Her head snapped back, then forward. Micah leaned a stiff arm onto the table next to the monitor, dropping the hammer. He touched his mouth. A few drops of blood fell to the floor. On the screen, the girl was looking down at her lap. She gave a couple of shakes to her head. She slowly raised it and looked back toward the camera. Directly at it, Hatcher realized. Her lip was bloody, with a dark streak running down the cleft of her chin like a burst of color. She smiled, showing teeth highlighted in crimson. It looked an awful lot to Hatcher like she was looking right into his eyes.
The Angel of the Abyss Page 16
