Something came whistling through the air and struck the doorframe above my head; glass exploded and I was showered by splinters and a noxious-smelling liquid. Even with the intense stink of cordite in the air, I could identify the smell. Garlic oil.
Freaks.
They still thought they were fighting vampires. Suddenly I understood why they had sent so many. They were that afraid of the Red Knights. Maybe they’d found Krystos and his crew and thought that a Red Knight had taken out the whole team, so this time they sent two teams.
“Reloading!” I heard Violin yell.
I rolled onto my back and fired six shots downrange past where she crouched. I saw one figure fall and others scatter. As Violin slapped the magazine into place I heard feet crunch on glass, and I twisted out of the way as bullets chopped into the floor where I had been lying. I fired as I rolled away, sloppily but continually, and someone screamed.
But then several of them opened up at once and I had to throw myself behind the wall and curl into a ball to save my eyes from the glass and tile splinters that filled the air like a swarm of hornets.
Ghost kept barking, furious and frustrated.
Men began pouring into the building, running past me, unaware of the figure curled in the corner, hidden by smoke. They aimed their guns at the sound of the barks and I came up onto one knee and fired, hitting two of them and causing the others to skid to a stop. They realized their mistake and turned, but then Ghost hit them from the other side. He was among them like a white demon, and instantly it was all screams and blood. Guns were useless that close and already too late.
Beyond the melee I saw Violin rise up from behind the counter and kill three men in two seconds, her weapon switched to semiautomatic for accuracy and ammunition conservation. I’d only spotted two extra mags on her rig, and she had to be near the end of the second. I swapped out my own and slapped my last one into place; but as I came to my feet I pulled another fragmentation grenade and lobbed it outside. Just as it cleared the doorway there was a figure there and the grenade burst against the man’s chest, tearing him apart but effectively screening the knot of shooters behind him. I faded to one side and fired, but even as I pulled the trigger I saw three men fall. One flew backward from my bullet, but two more dropped with that distinctive rag-doll sprawl of men who had taken headshots.
Then a voice yelled in my earbud.
“No fire from the house. Friendlies on nine, twelve, and three.”
I knew that voice.
Top.
I tapped my earbud and yelled. “Echo! Echo! Echo! Be advised, friendly taking fire in front of store. Friendly is female and inside.”
Bunny said, “Got it.”
Immediately the street out front and the alley behind were torn apart by bullets fired from three separate positions. Men screamed and shouted. The Sabbatarians tried to return fire, but they were being ambushed by Echo Team, and that is a bad place to be.
“Violin!” I barked. “Cease fire. My team is outside. Hold your position.”
There was no answer, and when I risked leaning out to look, her shooting position was empty. Ghost stood panting in the hallway, but beyond him there were only dead Sabbatarians and a floor littered with bullet casings and blood.
Then it was over.
The gunfire stopped. There were no more screams, no shouts. Just the sound of running feet as Echo Team swarmed into the store from both sides, weapons out, eyes blazing with anger.
“Clear!” called Khalid as he checked the small rooms downstairs. He and Lydia ran for the stairs and cleared the second floor. No one had tried to come in that way.
Bunny’s monstrous form filled the front doorway, a combat shotgun in his hands.
“Hostiles are all down,” he reported.
Top Sims helped me up off the floor. He looked me up and down. “I can’t leave you on your own for five minutes without you getting into some shit, can I?”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Mustapha’s Daily Goods
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 7:49 p.m.
“Did you see her?” I demanded as Echo gathered around.
Bunny frowned. “See who, Boss?”
“The woman. Violin. She was fighting them from the store.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t see anybody but the bad guys. Lot of hostiles down out there. Saw a couple stiffs with their throats cut, too. Whoever she was, chick can fight. Who was she?”
“Long story.” I hurried into the store and checked the bodies, and though one of them was female, it wasn’t Violin. “Check everyone. Do we have anyone with a pulse?”
“Got one here,” said Lydia, who was crouched over a slender figure. Jamsheed.
“He’s one of ours,” I said. “Khalid—?”
“On it.” Everyone on Echo Team was a certified medic, but Khalid was an actual medical doctor with a specialty in traumatic injuries. He went to work on Jamsheed.
Top said, “This was a pretty noisy frat party, Cap’n. We’re going to be ass deep in police real soon.”
We listened for sirens but did not hear any yet. I wasn’t certain how reassuring that was. Special Forces and military SWAT units don’t roll with sirens.
“Who’s watching the street?”
“John Smith and he’s got night vision.”
I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Chatterbox. What are you seeing?”
“Nothing.”
He wasn’t the most talkative guy on the team.
“Stay sharp. You see so much as an old lady with a shopping cart give a yell.”
“K.”
I turned to Khalid. “Talk to me.”
He looked up from where he knelt by Jamsheed. I could read it on his face. “Blunt force trauma to the head resulting in a depressed fracture. Got some pretty severe damage to the cervical spine…” He let the rest hang.
I moved over and dropped to my knees by Jamsheed. His eyes were open, but they were bright and glassy with pain and one pupil was fully dilated, indicating a cerebral hemorrhage. Khalid’s eyes bored into mine and he gave a tiny shake of his head. I took a cotton square from him and dabbed at the blood and sweat on Jamsheed’s face.
Before I could say anything, Jamsheed spoke. His voice was hoarse, low. “You cannot stay here. The police…”
“I know, but we have to—”
“No, you don’t,” he interrupted. “You can’t take me with you and still do what you have to do.”
“You don’t even know what we’re here for.”
He smiled faintly. “Does it matter? You work for the Mujtahid. He called me to say that I should trust you because he trusted you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I nodded.
Jamsheed tried to lift his hand; I took it and his fingers curled as tightly around mine as he could manage. He looked into my eyes and saw the truth, but instead of panic I saw a peaceful expression settle over his face.
“I am so … tired … of war,” he said, and that said a lot.
I thought of the photos he had on his walls and the gentle way he had touched the frame of the one with the playing children.
“The little girl—?” I asked.
His lips formed the word “yes.” The hurt and loss was palpable.
“She’ll be waiting for you, brother,” I said.
He nodded and then hissed with the agony that it caused. When he opened his eyes he seemed farther away.
We regarded each other for a few moments, and then he squeezed my hand.
“Ma’assalama,” he said. Go in peace.
I returned his squeeze. “Fi aman Allah.”
Go with God.
Jamsheed died without another sound, a quiet man going silently into the shadows that stood between this ugly world of pain and the paradise he believed waited for him. I placed his hands on his chest and sat back, exhausted and defeated. Ghost came over and sniffed Jamsheed, then he whined and lay down as if in vigil.
From the storeroom b
ehind me, Lydia snapped her fingers. “Got another live one.”
My exhaustion shattered and fell away, and I turned, instantly hot and angry. Even Bunny took an involuntary step back from me when he saw my face. Top quickly closed in and knelt down, and I think he also saw my face and wanted to get between me and a hostile who was still conscious. The Sabbatarian was a young Spanish-looking man with a slab face and beefy shoulders. There was a ragged red hole on his right sleeve.
“Took one through the biceps,” said Lydia. “Arm’s busted above the elbow.”
The Sabbatarian glared up at us with a mixture of anger, fear, and defiance.
“You got one chance, friend,” I said through gritted teeth. “Cooperate with us and we’ll provide protection and—”
But the Sabbatarian suddenly snapped his jaws shut and grimaced. I could hear something crunch.
“Ah, shit!” yelled Bunny. “Poison tooth. Fuck…”
It was over in five seconds. The bitter almond stink of cyanide rose from the man’s mouth as his lips went slack and hung open. Bunny spun away and punched the wall hard enough to leave a hole the size of a softball.
“Spilled milk,” said Top. “And we got to go.”
“Boss,” said John Smith in my earbud. “Six units coming hard from the center of town. Black SUVs. Five minutes.”
“Copy that. We’re out of here. Watch our backs and meet us at the end of the block in two.”
“K.”
I turned to the others; they’d all heard the same info from Smith. “What do we have for wheels?”
“White vegetable truck,” said Bunny. “Two blocks east.”
“Let’s go. Lydia, my laptop’s in the bedroom. Grab it. Khalid, you’re on point. Let’s move.”
Less than two minutes later we were crammed into a vegetable truck that smelled of rotting cabbage and diesel oil, rolling through quiet streets, leaving another scene of bloody destruction far behind.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Near Mustapha’s Daily Goods
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 8:12 p.m.
“Oracle,” said Violin.
“Oracle welcomes you, Violin.”
“I need to talk to my mother. Now. Priority Alpha.”
This order bypassed the computer’s AI conversation functions and sent an urgent request to Lilith. It took seventeen nail-biting seconds before the screen changed to show a live streaming image of Violin’s mother.
“Status report,” said Lilith instead of a greeting.
“The Sabbatarians sent two full teams against Captain Ledger.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.” She explained what happened and braced herself for the scolding she knew would follow the admission of having stepped in to help the DMS agent.
“Good.” Lilith frowned and her gaze turned inward as she sorted it through. After a few moments she demanded, “What about you? Are you unhurt?”
“Yes, Mother.”
There was a slight softening of Lilith’s stern mouth. “Good. You did the right thing.”
The comment hit Violin like a punch; and Lilith caught her expression. “I…”
“Close your mouth, girl, before you swallow a fly.”
Violin took a steadying breath and said, “What do you want me to do next?”
“What do you think you should do next?”
Several seconds flitted past as Violin thought it through. Then she told her mother.
Lilith’s tolerant smile vanished entirely.
“What choice do we have?” asked Violin.
“None,” said Lilith bitterly. “None at all.”
Chapter Eighty
On the Road
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 9:17 p.m.
We drove for miles, killing time to make damn sure we weren’t being followed. Tehran is a massive city, bigger and more densely populated than New York. We avoided main roads where security checkpoints would be more common and instead threaded our way through the poorer outskirts of the town.
“Let’s find someplace quiet,” I suggested. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Another safe house?” asked Lydia, who was driving.
“Not a chance.”
Luckily there were plenty of abandoned buildings, and we found one with no squatters. It had once been a building-supply company but it looked like no one had set foot in it for decades. Lydia parked inside. We huddled inside the ruins of an office. Smith stood by the window and watched the access road that led from a little-traveled street to the loading bay.
“That guy back there,” began Lydia. “The Iranian guy. Friend of yours?”
“We just met, but he was one of the good guys.”
She nodded. They all did. At some later time we would talk about it. I’d want to tell them about the man and his kindness, about his photos, and the unspoken tragedy implied in those simple images. Such discussions are not for the battlefield. While they can strengthen us by connecting us to our shared humanity, to talk about it while we were still in danger was to invite in weakness. Everything in its place and time.
I straddled a crooked office chair that was missing its wheels. Bunny and Lydia sat cross-legged on the floor—near to each other, which is something they’d started doing a lot lately. Khalid sat on a crate and Top remained standing. John Smith was outside setting up an observation post and was listening in via the team channel.
Ghost flopped down in front of Bunny and Lydia and was getting his full share of petting.
“How much do you know?” I asked them.
Top spread his hands. “The big man was feeling unusually chatty today,” he said. “Told me just about everything you and he talked about. Nukes, Rasouli, Arklight, your girlfriend with the sniper scope.”
“Put laser sights on your nuts, huh?” asked Bunny. I ignored him.
“And he told us some weird shit about vampires.”
“Right,” I said, “and you met the fearless vampire hunters back at Jamsheed’s.”
Top ran a hand over his shaved head. “Cap’n, how much of this is happening and how much of this is Mr. Church having some kind of neurological incident?”
“It’s all happening,” I said, and gave it to them again from my side, filling in any details they might not have gotten from Church.
When I was done, my guys stared at me, at each other, and ultimately into the middle distance as seconds fell off the clock.
Top Sims was the first to speak. “Cap’n, I think I can speak for everyone when I say, what the fuck?”
“I hear you.” I looked at their faces. “Ask your questions.”
Lydia held up a hand. “Sir? Permission to return to reality.”
“Denied,” I said. “If I have to deal with this stuff then so do you.”
“Permission to shoot myself?” she asked hopefully.
“Let me get back to you on that.”
“Where the Christ do we start?” asked Bunny.
“Nukes,” suggested Khalid. “We have to start there. But … that’s problematic. I mean, do we have even a clue as to the players and their teams?”
“Lots of clues, but no idea where we stand with them,” I said.
Khalid shook his head. “Where does Rasouli fit into this? How does it make sense that he brings this to us?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
“Whatever it means, he seems to be the only one on our side,” said Lydia. “Kind of makes me feel dirty.”
“Good dirty or bad dirty?” asked Bunny, which earned him a hard elbow in the ribs.
“Okay,” Top said slowly, “all of this is fascinating as shit, but who has the damn nukes?”
“We don’t know,” I admitted. “Though the Sabbatarians seem to think it’s the Upierczi.”
“Why the hell would vampires want nukes?” demanded Bunny. “I mean … they’re fucking vampires, right?”
“Guess they want to blow something up,” answered Top. “S
ame as anybody.”
I told them about the conversation I’d had with Hu and Church about the Upierczi and my still-in-the-development-stage doomsday theory.
“Right,” said Top, “Okay, I’m with Lydia now. I’d like to catch a cab back to the real world.”
Bunny shot him a sour look. “Which real world would that be, old man? This time last year we were shooting zombies.”
“Yeah,” Top conceded. “Fuck me.”
Chapter Eighty-One
On the Road
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 9:59 p.m.
“That doesn’t answer the question of why these Upierczi want to blow up the oil fields,” said Khalid.
“No it doesn’t,” I agreed. “So when we get one of these pointy-toothed bastards in a corner, I want him kneecapped and cuffed and then we’re going to have a group therapy session with him, feel me?”
“Hooah,” they agreed.
“If Rasouli knows about the nukes,” asked Khalid, “isn’t this something the State Department and NATO should be handling?”
I said, “We are not in a position of trust. Rasouli came to us on the sly, and he clearly didn’t trust his own government.”
“Swell.”
Bunny leaned forward. “Look, I don’t like to be the one to piss in the punchbowl here, Boss, but how come we’re not all shouting the name Hugo Vox? I mean, vampires notwithstanding, does anyone really think that he’s not the Big Bad Wolf here? He’s already wanted by every law enforcement agency on the planet. Shouldn’t outing him to the authorities as the main villain be a natural next step to finding and stopping the vamps from triggering five sonofabitching nukes?”
“Seven,” corrected Khalid.
“Seven sonofabitching nukes. Jeez. My point is—”
“We can’t do much about him for now,” I said, “because we don’t know his exact role and we don’t know where he is.”
Top gave me a shrewd look. “There’s something else, ain’t there? I can see it in your face, Cap’n, there’s more to this.”
“There’s one more thing.” They all came to point, eyes sharp and focused, waiting for me to drop the last bomb. “When I took out the first Sabbatarian team today I obtained a briefcase which had, among other things, materials that had to have come from Vox.”
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