“I want your word. That’s the price.”
“My word on what?”
“That you won’t kill him.”
“Kill who? The person whose name you’re going to give me?”
“Yes. Swear to me that you won’t kill him and I’ll tell you.”
“How can I guarantee that?”
“You’re smart, Ledger. You’ll figure out a way. Do I have your word?”
I hesitated.
“Or,” he said, “I could hang up right now and you can watch the world burn. You think that what’s on the telly is the real news? Believe me, mate, this is the warm-up act. I want you to do something about it.”
“You have a lot of faith in me.”
“I should. I already have scars because of you,” he snarled.
“Whoa, slow down. Do I know you?”
His snarl turned into a laugh. “No … I doubt you even know my name. But you know his. You’re almost as much to blame as she is. Him and that slut Amirah.”
And that fast someone sucked all the air out of the chopper’s cabin. Amirah.
Holy Mother of God.
I knew the name he was going to give me. I knew it and I prayed like hell that I was wrong.
“Okay,” I said quietly, hardly trusting my voice not to crack, “tell me.”
“Give me your word.”
What could I do? I could lie, and it probably would be a lie. He would have to know that. So, what value did my word have to this man? On the other hand, what did I have to lose?
“Very well,” I said. “I give you my word that if I can take him alive and unharmed, I will.”
“Swear it.”
I did. I actually did.
There was a muffled sound. It wasn’t a laugh; I was sure of it. I think it was a sob.
He said, “There are Seven Kings. Gold, Fear, Lies, Plagues, Famine, War, and Thieves.” He took a breath. “Sebastian Gault is the King of Plagues. If he isn’t stopped, he’ll wipe them all out. And I know—I know—that he won’t stop there. She’ll keep pushing him and pushing him, filling his head with dreams of godhood until he creates another doomsday plague. I know he’ll do it … unless you stop him.”
I closed my eyes. God.
Sebastian Gault.
The man who tried to release the Seif Al Din pathogen. The man who came close—so very close—to destroying everything. It was because of him that I was sought out and recruited into the DMS. The last guy to hold my job had been killed. Slaughtered along with his entire team.
Sebastian Gault. If I had a personal bogeyman, then he was it.
After we stopped the release of Gault’s pathogen, a worldwide manhunt was launched. As large and as aggressive as the search for Osama bin Laden—and so far, just as futile. We’d begun to suspect that Gault was dead, his body burned in the same geothermal meltdown that had destroyed the lab where Seif Al Din was created. But now … Gault and the Seven Kings.
I felt as if I was falling through space. I pressed my back against the cold metal skin of the Chinook.
“Gault is responsible for the Hospital … for Area 51? Gault’s part of the Seven Kings?”
“Only for a few months. We were brought into this after … after …”
“After the Seif Al Din. A lot of people thought Gault died in Afghanistan.”
The man laughed. A small, sad sound. “Maybe he should have. Maybe we both should have.”
And that’s when I knew who the caller was.
“You said that what’s happening now was part of something else, something bigger?”
“Yes. Gault and the bitch. They’ve taken this whole thing away from the Kings and they’re going to bury us all with it.”
“Who is the woman? What’s her name?”
I knew that it couldn’t be Amirah, Gault’s former partner and the designer of the Seif Al Din pathogen. I knew for sure that she was dead. I’d pulled the trigger.
“No,” he said. “You don’t get that.”
“Then give me something else,” I said. “Give me Santoro.”
“Christ! How do you even know that name?”
“Give him to me.”
“Why?”
“If you know him, then you know why. Give me him and I’ll move heaven and earth to protect Gault.”
He was quiet for a moment. My cell had been running the trace for almost two minutes now and it hadn’t beeped the signal that alerted me to a successful hit. Must be the same technology Deep Throat used.
“Find Gault and you’ll find Santoro. That psycho prick will be in the thick of it. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see that much pain. Now, I’m sorry, I have to g—”
I took a risk. “Toys!”
I expected a scream or a yell of denial or a theatrical attempt to pretend ignorance. Instead he gave a small laugh. The risk had paid off. Gault’s best friend, valet, personal assistant, and maybe more. Alexander Chismer.
Toys.
“See?” Toys said shakily. “I said you were smart. That’s why they tried to kill you today. I’ll give you one more thing and you have to remember it; otherwise all of this goes to shit.”
“Tell me.”
“They are everywhere. The Kings, their agents, Santoro’s people. They’re everywhere. Even some of the people you work with and some of the people you’re going to try and rescue. Some belong to the Kings, and some will do anything to keep Santoro out of their lives. You understand what I mean? You can’t trust anyone. Or anything. Nothing is what it seems. It never is with the Kings. That’s it, that’s all I can tell you. Now figure out the rest.”
But he did not disconnect. I waited through several heavy seconds. This time I knew the sound I heard was a sob. Toys said, “If you succeed, Ledger … do me one more favor.”
“If I can.”
“If you save all the lives that are on the line … see if you can spare a little pity. Go to church and light a candle.”
“For Gault?”
“No,” he said. “For my soul.”
Chapter Sixty
Over Pennsylvania Airspace
December 19, 7:46 P.M. EST
I stared at my cell phone for a full minute.
“God Almighty,” I said aloud. Ghost heard the tone of my voice and came over to me and licked my face, looking into my eyes to see if the pack was in some kind of trouble. It surely, surely was.
And yet …
Toys.
It happens that way more often than people think. Cops spend 90 percent of a case gathering evidence, analyzing it, doing interviews, running computer searches, and building a profile of the possible culprit, and then they get a phone call from out of left field that tells them who, what, when, and where. Ten times more criminal cases have been solved by anonymous tipsters, people hoping for rewards or confidential informants.
Who in hell would ever expect Toys to be mine? Or to be the one who hammered a crack into the hardest case the DMS ever tackled.
I was sweating badly and I dragged a forearm across my eyes.
They are everywhere … . Even some of the people you work with and some of the people you’re going to try and rescue.
I looked around the cabin of the Chinook and inside my head the Warrior was drawing his knife and squinting through the gloom.
Who did I trust? I’d been away for months, and Santoro had more than shown that he could turn ordinary and trustworthy people into killers.
I thumbed open my sports coat. The handle of the Beretta was comfortably close.
Rudy?
He lay in a narcotic doze while Circe sat beside him, tapping away on her laptop. If Rudy was under Santoro’s thumb, I think I’d lose it. Rudy was my best friend. Closer to me than my own brother. He was the only person on earth I trusted completely. No … no, it couldn’t be Rudy.
Circe?
Who was she really? She worked for Hugo Vox at Terror Town. She was in position to know the security secrets of a lot of crucial operations, and that incl
uded probably access to security information on facilities like the London Hospital, Fair Isle, maybe even Area 51. After all, Church and Vox both trusted her. An unscrupulous person could exploit that trust. Sure, she looked beautiful and innocent and forthright, but she could also be a good actress. I’d met spies and moles before. They aren’t picked for that kind of work if you could just look at them and say, Yep, that there’s a spy.
And she was pretty handy with a gun. On the other hand, she didn’t pop a cap in my favorite head, so props for showing good judgment. Unless that was part of a plan to win my confidence and insinuate herself into the DMS.
Across the cabin, Circe brushed dark curls from her face; then she looked at Rudy and placed a hand very tenderly on his chest and kept it there for almost a minute while he slept. I didn’t want it to be her.
A few feet away, Top and Bunny were seated side by side. Bunny was dozing; Top was strip-cleaning his M4. He caught me looking and gave me a slow nod. I nodded back.
Bunny and Top had been with me since I joined Echo Team. We’d saved each other’s lives a dozen times over. They were brothers to me.
On the other hand, Bunny had four sisters and lots of nieces and nephews. He had parents. That gave the Kings a lot of dials they could turn. Same with Top. His daughter, Monique, lost both her legs in Baghdad two Christmases ago. A Taliban mine blew up under her Bradley. Top was divorced; his ex-wife was a nurse. I knew Top still cared for her, maybe even still loved her, and he certainly loved his daughter. If Santoro threatened them, especially Top’s wheelchair-bound daughter, was there anything he wouldn’t do to protect them?
That was a hard call. I’d like to think that both men would come to me, or to Church, with it. Of course … I’d been away, out of touch and out of reach.
What would I do if one of them had been turned by the Kings?
I’d try to save them if I could. Them and theirs. And if I couldn’t? If they came at me? Shit. I knew what I would do, and I could hear the Warrior grunt his dark approval.
That left Khalid, DeeDee, and John Smith. I knew them, but I didn’t really know them. We had less history. Smith was a closed book that nobody could read. Maybe Church, maybe Rudy. No one else.
DeeDee? She had no family, no close friends. If she was a rotten apple, it would be more likely in the role of a spy rather than a coerced victim.
Khalid? The doctor and scholar who was also a first-class shooter. I liked him and I knew that I trusted him. But it occurred to me that I didn’t know much about his family. He had a brother here in the States, but the rest of his family lived in the Middle East. Iran, Egypt, and some in Saudi Arabia.
I realized that I was not adding Church to my list. If he was a bad guy, then we were all totally fucked. I’m pretty dangerous, but he scares me. He scares everyone. You simply cannot imagine him losing a fight, and I doubt he ever has. He’s brilliant, cold, vicious, detail oriented, and largely a mystery. If it came down to a fight between us, I didn’t like my odds.
I flipped open my phone and called him. He picked up on the third ring. I told him everything Toys had said.
Church listened without comment and the silence continued after I was done.
Finally, he said, “What’s your ETA?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Talk to no one about this,” he said. “No one.”
I began to ask him a question, but Church hung up on me.
I settled back against the wall, my jacket open and the butt of my Beretta within easy reach, and stared into the middle distance all the way to Brooklyn.
Chapter Sixty-one
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 19, 7:57 P.M. EST
Mr. Church’s phone rang as he entered his office. He looked at the screen display. He frowned and let it ring twice more before he flipped it open.
“Deacon? You there?” said the gruff voice. “You got a minute?”
“Half a minute, Hugo. What do you need?”
“I’ve been hearing some scary stuff. Is Circe okay?”
“You heard about Starbucks? Yes, she wasn’t hurt.”
“Did I hear right that she popped someone?”
“Yes.”
“Her first time. Poor kid. I was kind of hoping she’d skip that milestone.”
“Life’s hard for a lot of people, Hugo.”
“I know … . I heard about Marty, too.”
Church said nothing.
“He deserved better than getting gunned down like a dog,” Vox continued. “Ledger’s a lucky bastard.”
“He might disagree. People keep trying to kill him.”
“He keeps not getting killed, though, Deac’. From what I heard about Starbucks, he’s the luckiest son of a bitch on two legs.”
Church said nothing.
“Did Ledger get any useful intel from the surviving shooter?”
“No,” said Church. “The man is critically wounded and we don’t expect him to recover. It’s unlikely we’ll get anything out of him.”
There was a pause at the other end. “Really? I heard that he was talking and—”
“You’ve been misinformed, Hugo. We’re getting nowhere with this. Now, I hate to break this off, but I have a meeting. I’ll be in touch when I have something fresh.”
Mr. Church disconnected and placed his phone on the desk. He walked around and sat in the leather chair. There was an open pack of vanilla wafers in the top drawer. He removed them, selected a cookie, and ate it slowly while staring at the silent phone.
Chapter Sixty-two
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 19, 8:19 P.M. EST
We came in low past the Gil Hodges Bridge and landed in a fenced-off compound near the Rockaway Inlet, just outside of Hangar Row in Floyd Bennett Field. There were six black unmarked DMS choppers lined up. Two AH-64D Apache Longbows, a monster of a Chinook like the one we were in, and three UH-60 Black Hawks. There were rows of Humvees and TacVs. Everywhere we looked there were armed guards. Everyone looked tense.
DeeDee and John Smith hadn’t arrived with Black Bess, but knowing the way DeeDee drove, they wouldn’t be far behind.
Sgt. Gus Dietrich met us on the helipad. He held out a hand. “Glad to see you boys in one piece. Well, mostly. Sorry to hear about Rudy taking a hit.”
“Could have been worse,” said Bunny.
“It could always be worse,” agreed Dietrich.
Nurses and orderlies arrived with two-wheeled gurneys. Circe O’Tree took charge of the wounded as if it was her right, and the nurses did not argue the point. I found that odd but didn’t comment on it.
The prisoner was hustled off with a pair of armed agents flanking his gurney. If he thought his day had been crappy so far, he was on his way to see Mr. Church, so it wasn’t like things were going to be sunshine and puppies.
Dietrich led Echo Team and me through the main entrance.
This was the first time I had visited the headquarters of the Department of Military Sciences. It was at least twice the size of the Baltimore Warehouse, which was pretty big in its own right, and even bigger than Department Zero, the massive office in L.A. It housed over six hundred scientists, soldiers, and support staff.
“Mr. Church landed ten minutes ago,” Dietrich said as he punched the code to open a side door. “Top, why don’t you take your team in for some chow? Ask anyone and they’ll show you where it is.”
Top nodded and peeled off with the others to follow the gurneys. Dietrich turned back to me. “The Big Guy’s expecting you.”
Dietrich led me into the Hangar’s operations command center. Ghost trotted along at my heels, eyes wide, nose and ears gathering data. The massive main room was circled with glass-enclosed labs and workrooms, and overhead was a latticework of steel walkways. There were more armed guards inside and a lot of people moving like busy ants in a nest. There were tiers of stainless-steel catwalks and elevated computer sta
tions. Metal gleamed; colored lights flashed. It was Christmas in Bill Gates’s head.
“Wow,” I said. “Nice to see my tax dollars at work.”
I saw Church, his head bowed in conversation with a short black woman with a round face, granny glasses halfway down her nose, and long dreadlocks. The person he was talking too made me do a double take. I tapped Dietrich on the shoulder.
“Okay … why is Whoopi Goldberg here and why is she talking with Mr. Church?”
Dietrich laughed and didn’t reply. I felt like I was going crazy. The woman looked exactly like the actress. She wore a blouse with an orange Sudanese print, a necklace of chunky colored stones, and rings on every finger except her trigger finger. She smiled as we approached, but there was no trace of humor in the polished black ice of her eyes.
Church beckoned us closer.
“Captain Ledger,” he said, “I want you to meet the DMS Chief of Operations—Aunt Sallie.”
I was convinced that this was some kind of bizarre practical joke. “Um … hello?” I said, but as I extended my hand the woman spoke and the illusion was shattered as if she’d struck glass with a hammer.
“Feel free to wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Captain,” she said in an accent that was pure back-alley Brooklyn. “I’m not her, so let’s just bury that nonsense right now.”
I am seldom at a loss for words, but the best I could manage was a mumbled, “Ma’am,” as I took her hand. She had a grip like a vise and she gave me one hard pump while she looked me up and down. Her gaze had the same invasive and impersonal precision as an X-ray.
Ghost sniffed her and then quickly backed up several paces and lay down.
Aunt Sallie studied me. “So, you’re the hotshot shooter from Baltimore.”
“I’ll have to put that on my business card.”
“The one who let Marty Hanler get killed.”
I did a slow three-count before I trusted my voice to reply.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”
“Are we going to have to make sure you have full-squad backup every time something gets a little rough?”