“W-what—?”
I started to say something, but Top Sims brushed past me. He knelt on one knee. “Look, kids. There’s something happening and we’re here to protect you and your mom. I’m a kind of policeman. We all are. We’re going to take you and your mom to a safe place.”
“But … but …”
“There are a couple of bad men in the neighborhood. We need to take care of that, and we will. That’s what we do. But I need you guys to be brave and strong and help us get your mom to a safe place. Can you do that?”
Their eyes were the size of hubcaps and their mouths were little round “ohs,” but they both nodded. Top gave them a warmer smile than anything his enemies would believe him capable of.
“Okay, now this man here is the boss. You can call him Cowboy. That’s his—”
“That’s his call sign!” declared young Mark.
Top grinned and patted Mark’s arm. “Well, look at you! I’ll bet you know all about cops and bad guys.”
“Are there terrorists out there?” Mark asked, his eyes huge with excitement.
“They are bad men,” Top assured him, not using the word “terror.” “But we got that covered, ’cause there are more of my friends outside. We’re all going to get into a big truck and drive away to a nice safe place.”
I turned away and smiled. Top was a dad; I didn’t have any kids. Right then, I’d have gone with him to an ice-cream shop or a ball game.
“Cowboy, Cowboy,” said Khalid, “be advised. Company in sixty. Looks like back and west side. Two and two.”
I tapped the earbud. “Chatterbox … Sergeant Rock’s coming out with friendlies. Keep ’em safe.”
“’K,’” he said.
“Green Giant,” I growled to Bunny, “we’re waiting on you. Bring Black Bess to the front door. Quick and noisy.”
“Rock and roll,” he answered.
To Top I said, “Get the kids into the car. Scream Queen, you’re with me.”
In the distance I could hear the rumble of a heavy engine as the big DMS TacV thundered down the street toward us. Ghost started barking like mad and I knew that he sniffed the hostiles.
“Now!” I yelled, and jerked the door open. Ghost stood at the edge of the porch, craning his neck around toward the back, barking with heavy monster barks. Bunny screeched to a halt and leaped out. The kids—and even Circe—goggled a little at the size of the driver, but he waved them on and opened the back door, fanning a big IMI Desert Eagle over their heads as they ran.
From inside the house I could hear glass breaking as the hostiles smashed their way in through the back door and side window. With the barks and yells and engine noise, they had to know that a rescue attempt was in progress, so they weren’t going for stealth. They opened fire at once, filling the house with hot rounds as they crowded inside, trying to flush us out toward the two men from the van. They apparently didn’t know that they were two head shots past the point where that plan was going to work.
I flattened out against the living room wall behind the couch with Ghost on the floor beside me. I told him to be quiet and ready. He looked ready to tackle Godzilla. DeeDee climbed to the fifth step on the staircase and crouched low.
The hostiles were working in pairs. Two out front, the others a room and a half behind them. Nice combat spacing. We could kill them all, but we couldn’t capture them all.
The first two men rushed through the TV room and into the living room, heading straight for the open front door. We let them pass; then DeeDee and I wheeled around the edges of the wall and opened up on the other two. It was a classic ambush and they didn’t have a chance. We put three shots in each and then spun off of that, closing to zero distance with the other shooters, who were skidding to a stop, scrambling to turn, realizing that they’d been mousetrapped.
DeeDee reached her target half a second before I did, so I got a peripheral view of how she handled him. She used the stock of her rifle to slap his AK-47 wide; then instead of checking her swing and bringing the stock back for a head shot, she continued the circular swing of the weapon and caught him in the face with the barrel. The guy’s nose and upper teeth exploded, but before he could scream DeeDee kneed him in the groin; as he bent forward she knee-kicked him in his broken nose.
The second guy was about my size and he knew that he was too close to use a long weapon, so he tried to slam me across the chest with the length of it. I checked my forward momentum so that his thrust stopped a half inch short. I didn’t have a long gun and didn’t need one. Ghost shot past me and under his gun and hit the shooter teeth first in the crotch. He screamed and tried to club the dog, but Ghost was trained to fight armed men. He released the first bite and jumped up inside the circle of the man’s arms, biting fast and hard, tearing muscle and tendon and cracking bone so fast it looked like the shooter had thrust his arms into a leaf shredder.
“Off!” I called, and that fast Ghost jumped sideways. He crouched and growled, fur up along his spine, mouth bloody, eyes fierce.
The shooter went down in a messy heap and curled into a fetal ball, wrapping his head with his ruined arms. I kicked his gun out of reach.
Outside, the TacV roared away.
I stepped back to offer cover while DeeDee slapped Speedcuffs on the two shooters. One was unconscious, the other screaming.
“Juice him,” I ordered, and DeeDee pulled a syringe from her kit and jabbed it into the screaming man’s arm. It wasn’t painkiller. His eyes rolled up and he passed out, sagging to the floor with a thump. Then she applied a fast field dressing to the critical wounds.
I tapped my earbud.
“Cowboy to Echo. House party is over. Got two sleepy guests.”
“Copy that,” said Khalid. “Area is secure.”
“Green Giant, talk to me.”
“Class trip is away,” said Bunny. “I got six police units inbound to your twenty.”
“Outstanding,” I said.
Khalid showed up at the door and I tossed him my keys. He brought the Explorer over and we loaded the prisoners, moving with haste and only marginal care. We needed them alive. Comfort wasn’t an issue.
By the time the cops converged on the house, we were in the wind, following Black Bess north along Route 611.
Interlude Thirty-four
The Seven Kings
December 19, 2:00 P.M. EST
Sebastian Gault set down his phone and stared at it for a long moment. Then with a growl of sudden anger he swept everything off his desk—phone, laptop, whiskey glass. It all crashed to the floor.
A moment later he was crouched over the debris, brushing ice cubes and broken glass off his phone. He dried it on the front of his shirt and then sat on the edge of the desk and opened the phone. It still worked. He punched a number.
“Yes,” said a soft voice.
“I just heard from Fear.”
“As have I,” said Santoro.
“Do you have a team in the area?”
“There is one very close; I can pull them off of that job and put them on this. A matter of minutes; however, taking action would be ill advised, yes? Things are not—”
“Don’t tell me what things are not, god damn it. I want you to do something right fucking now! And I want it splashed across the wire services. I want everything else wiped off the sodding news by it. Do you understand me?”
Gault’s voice had risen to a banshee shriek.
The ensuing silence was so complete that Gault wondered if Santoro had hung up on him. If that little Spanish prick had, he’d skin him alive.
“Is this also the will of the Goddess?” Santoro asked mildly.
“Yes.”
Another moment of silence.
“Very well,” said the killer, and he disconnected.
Chapter Fifty
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania
December 19, 2:38 P.M. EST
We rolled into the Willow Grove Naval Air Station. There were two DMS choppers already on the ground—a b
urly Chinook and an Apache gunship. Shooters from Broadway Team from the Hangar in Brooklyn had the perimeter secured. I shook hands with Lt. Artie Mensch, Broadway’s top-kick.
“Busy morning, Joe?” he said, offering his hand.
“Same weird shit, different weird day.”
We watched as Top and Khalid guided Amber Taylor and her kids into the Apache. Bunny and John Smith rolled the gurneys with two prisoners over to the Chinook.
Mensch nodded. “We’re taking the prisoners straight to the Hangar. They’re prepping the surgical suite now. Aunt Sallie’s going to want to talk with these boys.” He cut me a look. “You haven’t met her yet, have you?”
“No. Looking forward to it, though.”
He laughed. “‘Looking forward’ to meeting Aunt Sallie. That’s funny.”
“What’s the joke?”
“You’ll know when you meet her.”
He clapped me on the shoulder, whistled to his team, and within a few seconds the helos were sky-high and tilting into the wind to head north.
I saw Circe O’Tree standing beside Black Bess. She looked small and lost, so I headed over to her.
“You did good work today,” I said. “Mrs. Taylor needed someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Smart, steady—”
“And female?” Circe asked challengingly.
“I wasn’t going there,” I said. “You’re a doctor and a shrink. That woman needed that every bit as much as she needed my team of shooters.”
Circe studied me for a moment. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Circe nodded and pulled her winter coat more tightly around her shoulders. She shivered even though the wind wasn’t blowing. She stared at the choppers that were disappearing into the gray December sky. Her face was pale and her eyes had a jumpy quality.
I took a shot. “First time you ever saw someone killed?”
She nodded.
“Hitting you like a baseball bat upside the head, I expect.”
Another nod.
“You want to talk about it?”
She looked at me and shook her head.
“Would food and a whole lot of alcohol help?”
“Yes,” she said flatly, then turned and walked toward my Explorer.
She passed Top without comment. He watched her pass, pursed his lips, and came over to me.
“First time?” he asked.
“First time,” I agreed.
“She’s out from Terror Town, right? I read a couple of her books. Thought everyone out there was a vet of some kind.”
“She is now.”
He grunted. “So … what’s our next play, Cap’n?”
As if in answer to his question, my cell buzzed. I flipped it open.
“Sit rep,” snapped Church.
I told him. “We even have two prisoners en route to the Hangar. They’ll need a few million Band-Aids, but they have a pulse.”
“That makes a nice change,” he said. “For you.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Please extend my appreciation to Echo Team. Excellent work. Have your team refresh and reload there at Willow Grove. I’ll clear the paperwork. They’ll catch up to you.”
“Why? Where will I be?”
“Southampton. You know where that is?”
“Sure.”
“There’s a Starbucks at Street Road and Route 232. You are to meet my friend Martin Hanler. Do you remember him?”
“Yeah, he flew me out to Colorado during the Jakoby thing. Why am I meeting him?”
“He just called me to say that blowing up the London Hospital was his idea.”
Part Four
Conspiracy Theories
For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Chapter Fifty-one
Starbucks
Southampton, Pennsylvania
December 19, 5:35 P.M. EST
Circe and I pulled into the Starbucks in Southampton, where Routes 232 and 132 meet. I started to get out, but Circe opened her briefcase on her lap and removed her laptop. I sat back. “Aren’t you coming in?”
She looked at the store and made a face. “Marty and I never quite hit it off.”
“You know him?”
“Since I was a kid. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here and go over my notes. We have so much information … there has to be some answers buried in all of this. Besides … Marty will probably be more candid without me there, anyway. You’re one of the boys.”
I smiled. “Okay. I’ll give you the highlights of this when I’m done.”
“Can’t wait.”
I clicked my tongue and Ghost bounded out of the backseat, but before I could reach for the door handle a car beep made us turn. A rental sedan pulled into the lot and Ghost was wagging his tail so hard he nearly knocked me over. Rudy Sanchez parked and got out, smiling at us despite everything else that was going on.
Rudy is short and carries a couple extra pounds, but he’s tougher than he looks and he has the most intelligent face I’ve ever seen. He’s also the only person on earth who I trust completely and without reserve. I got out and we shook hands, and then he pulled me into his version of a bear hug. We slapped each other’s backs as Ghost yipped and danced around us. He loses all traces of self-respect around Rudy. Rudy bent and vigorously rubbed Ghost’s head and received a comprehensive face licking.
“Hello, you furry monster. You keeping Joe out of cathouses?”
Then Rudy looked past me and saw Circe step out of the Explorer. “Dios mio!”
“Keep it in your pants, Rude. That’s Dr. Circe—”
“O’Tree,” he finished, grinning hard enough to injure himself. “I know. I saw her on Oprah. My, my, but the good Lord was in a generous mood when he made her.”
Circe walked over to meet us. Before I could make introductions, she said, “Dr. Sanchez?”
“Dr. O’Tree.”
“It’s ‘Circe,’” she said, smiling brightly and extending her hand.
“Rudy,” he said exactly the same way someone would say “your slave.” Even Ghost seemed to roll his eyes. “I’ve read your books. Fascinating work. Insightful.”
“Thank you,” she said graciously. “And call me Circe.”
“Mr. Church said that you’d be part of our team on this. I’d like to share my interview notes with you.”
“The Nicodemus interview?”
“Yes.”
“I’d love to see them,” she said, “and I have some things I’d like to run past you.”
I said, “You two want to stay out here and copy each other’s homework while I go inside?”
Rudy looked at me with a charming smile. “Yes, thanks. Buzz off.”
They tuned me out and were deep in conversation as they headed to my Explorer. I glanced down at Ghost. “I do believe we have been snubbed, my shaggy friend.”
He had no comment, so we went inside.
As I reached for the door handle I shivered unexpectedly and looked suddenly back at Rudy and Circe. It was a weird feeling that was based on nothing I could name, but I felt as if there was a shadow cast over them both. I lingered for a moment, letting my ears and eyes pick apart the surroundings. Was something wrong? Out of place?
No. There was nothing. A goose had walked over my grave, as my grandmother would say. Gradually the shadow in my mind receded.
Ghost looked at them and gave a single, short whuf.
Interlude Thirty-five
New York City
December 19, 5:36 P.M. EST
Toys touched his fingers to the glass, feeling the cool caress of the December wind. Behind him, Gault and the American sat on opposite sides of the big man’s desk, heads bent together in a discussion on logistics for the newest phase of the Ten Plagues Initiative. On the wall a silent flat-screen TV showed a shot from an aerial view of the
scene of a gunfight in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. The legend across the bottom of the screen read: Terrorism?
Below the window where Toys stood, New York was sprawled in gaudy splendor beneath a gibbous moon. Millions of lights. Millions of beating hearts. Toys’ own heart felt like a piece of broken crockery in his chest. As cold as the night and as removed from real humanity as he was up here on the fiftieth floor of the building that the American owned. One of the big man’s many holdings. Here, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta. The man was immeasurably wealthy. Toys smiled thinly as he mused that he, too, was now wealthy. He had millions of dollars of his own money in numbered accounts. A gift from the American.
So you don’t have to keep sucking on Gault’s tit. That was how the American had phrased it.
I could leave, Toys thought. I could walk out the door, get into a cab, and vanish.
How long, he wondered, before Gault would even realize that he was gone? Then how long would it take Gault, using the vast resources of the Kings, to find him? A week at the most. And what would Gault do? Have him brought back in chains? Forgive him? Kill him?
Toys could not pick which option was most likely. He sighed and leaned his forehead against the glass. Gault had become the King of Plagues in every sense. He was fully invested with the Kings. He was one of them, heart and soul.
Which left Toys … where?
He had no idea.
The last four months had given him new definitions for both “heartache” and “hell.” Although Toys managed to fake interest in the Ten Plagues Initiative, he knew that it didn’t fool Gault. Not completely, anyway. The only comfort, and it was a cold and dubious comfort, was that Gault did not grasp the nature of Toys disapproval. He thought it was cowardice.
Cowardice.
Jesus. Toys wanted to take a knife and rip Gault’s guts out every time he thought about that. Twice in the last month he had come into Gault’s room in the middle of the night and stood over his bed, watching Gault sleep, holding a knife in his sweating palm.