“Silence,” I said. “I keep coming back to the disinformation thing. It’s everything to these guys. Now factor in the fact that we now know Sebastian Gault and Hugo Vox are involved. We know that Vox used his position as a screener and all that, but he wore a lot of hats. He ran Terror Town, and he also had his think tanks. One of those think tanks was made up of—”
“Thriller authors. Like Martin Hanler,” Church finished.
“Right. Hanler told me that he talked about his Hospital bombing plot in front of a bunch of other writers. Maybe he mentioned it again—or one of them mentioned it during a brainstorming session at T-Town. I mean, think about it. A member of one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on earth has an entire think tank of novelists cooking up elaborate plots for him. Then he brings in counterterrorism teams from all over the world to run the plots and work out all the details. Sure, they’re supposed to be coming up with protocols for stopping them, but if you flip that around, they’re also creating worst-case scenarios.”
“Like the London.”
“And probably Fair Isle and Area 51.”
“And the Sea of Hope,” Church concluded. “I think we can safely assume that Hugo did not share all of the scenarios cooked up by the think tanks.”
Church opened his cell and called Bug to order him to hack all of T-Town’s think-tank records.
Under my breath I said, “Thanks, Joe … damn fine work. Couldn’t save the world without you.”
Dietrich snorted. “Really? You joined the DMS for all the pats on the back?”
Khalid sat down on the end of the couch. “That think-tank thing is pretty scary. All of those devious brains—authors, CT experts—working hundreds of hours to create the worst possible scenarios. And we’re supposed to figure it out by the time the concert starts tonight?”
DeeDee looked at her watch. “Thirteen hours.”
“Thank you,” he said. “A countdown is very comforting.”
“Okay,” I said, cutting in, “let’s get to work.”
That fast they were all business.
One of the suitcases was filled with canvas bags filled with devices the size of shirt buttons. These are one of Hu’s very best gadgets: sensors with a microchip inside and a tiny burst transmitter. Peel off the tape on one side and you expose a chameleon chemical. Press it to a wood grain door for five seconds and turn it over and the wood grain is imitated perfectly. Peel off the tape on the other side and press it to the door, and unless you know it’s there, you won’t see it. Especially if it’s set low, below the ordinary fall of the eye. The sensors were designed specifically for bomb detection, and when they finally hit the market it will be possible to position them just about anywhere and maybe give some warning before things go boom!
We each had a dozen multipurpose processor units as well. Those were the size of a pack of Juicy Fruit and had the same chameleon coating. Affix one to a wall or stairway or anywhere in the path of human traffic or airflow and the device collects and analyzes the air for radiation, nitrites, and dense concentrations of viral material. It wasn’t as sensitive as the BAMS unit I had at Fair Isle, but it wasn’t far behind. And the devices were networked for greater effect.
There were also a bunch of Minicams, and some booster units to collect the signals from the tiny sensors and uplink them to the DMS satellite.
“You each have assigned sections of the ship,” I said. They nodded and put their glasses back on, using the pocket mouses to pull up floor plans. “We have time, so place the sensors unobtrusively, but keep your eyes open, too. Report anything that looks hinky.”
“Hooah,” they said, and left one at a time.
I took my batch and followed my map. I headed over to the central main-deck area, which was where the concert would be. It was roped off and there were scores of workers laboring under a hot morning sun. Finishing the bandstand, doing sound checks on the massive speakers, hanging bunting, setting up tapes for line control.
The best angle to see the whole area was by the team working together to inflate several thousand red and white balloons. There were six men, all of them Mexican, seated on folding stools surrounded by big tanks of helium. Huge nets had been erected to catch any stray balloons as the men filled, tied, filled, tied, over and over again. Four other men took netfuls of the balloons aft, where, according to Circe, they would be released as the Sea of Hope sailed into Rio. The balloons were all biodegradable and would eventually burst harmlessly in the stratosphere, themselves acting as a symbol of green choices for a polluted planet.
I listened to the Mexicans chatter among themselves in Spanish. Nothing more sinister than speculation on next year’s World Cup. One of them noticed me looking and met my eyes. He looked from me to the thousands of red and white balloons and back to me; then he rolled his eyes. I gave him a sympathetic smile and turned away. A few seconds later I heard one of the men speaking in a strangely squeaky voice and turned to see that he had sucked some of the helium out of a balloon and was speaking like Donald Duck. Everyone cracked up.
Then a fussy-looking white man in a cruise line blazer yelled at him and the Mexican pasted a contrite look on his face and tied off the balloon. As I passed, I made a quiet remark about the fussy man’s personal hygiene, only loud enough for the six Mexicans to hear. They all cracked up again.
I moved on.
My credentials got me into the VIP area. Behind gates and decorative shrubbery was an entirely separate set of pools and waterside bars. I slouched around trying to look like I wasn’t looking. Everywhere I looked, though, was a paparazzo’s dream. Movie stars in thongs or Speedos that left nothing to the imagination. I saw Pink, wearing a bikini that could fit comfortably into a shot glass, lounging by the pool reading a Kelly Simmons novel. Two chairs away, John Legend was playing chess with that short guy from American Idol. Legend was kicking his ass. There were rock stars and R&B stars and rappers and celebrities from the movies and TV. Some of the Generation Hope kids—daughters and sons of the global power players—were peppered among them, either gawking in starstruck awe or pretending the kind of indolence that only teenagers can pull off.
I moved among them, placing the chameleon sensors here and there, taking my time so that I didn’t attract any attention.
I didn’t see anyone looking particularly sinister. It’s not like on the old Batman TV show, where bad guys wore shirts with HENCHMAN, THUG, and EVIL ASSISTANT stenciled on the chest. Would be pretty damn useful, though.
I drifted out of the VIP area and placed the last of my sensors on the major stairways, then headed back to the suite. The others were already there. All of the sensors had been placed, but no one had seen anything.
Interlude Forty-five
The Chamber of the Kings
December 21, 5:22 A.M. EST
“You traitorous bastard!” Gault screamed as he stamped down over and over again. “You Judas!”
Toys felt his broken thighbone shatter. The pain was so intense, so enormous, that he could no longer scream. His mouth was open, his lungs pushed air out, but the only sound he could make was a thin and nearly ultrasonic shriek that tore itself from each tortured nerve ending.
The world swam in and out of focus as clouds of black and red swirled behind his eyes.
Then abruptly the pain stopped.
The moment was suspended inside a crystal teardrop of time. Toys wondered if this was what it felt like to die. Had the jagged ends of broken bone severed an artery? Was he bleeding out and drifting into the big darkness? Or had he reached the end of pain? Was pain a finite thing, a line drawn in the mind that, once crossed, became an irrelevant concept?
He did not know and did not know how to think about it.
He lay in a cocoon of unfeeling silence for—how long? A second? Hours?
Then feeling returned to him, one unkind bit at a time.
The first thing he felt was a tear breaking from the corner of his eye and falling down toward his ear. It felt co
ld instead of warm.
“G-God … ,” Toys whispered. A whisper was all that he was capable of.
Darkness obscured his vision and he blinked. No. Not darkness.
Sebastian Gault stood above him, impossibly tall. Pale and blue-white in the glow of the wall of screens. Not the face Toys had loved for so long. This was Gault’s new face. Blond and angular and handsome. The work of surgeons. Nothing that was part of nature. He looked like Apollo. Like the god of the sun.
“God … ,” Toys whispered again. The pain was an unrelenting fire in his leg. “Please …”
Gault stood and looked down at Toys. With his head bent his eyes were in shadows. It gave his face a weird appearance, like a beautiful skull.
“We’ve had our suspicions, you know. The Goddess and me. She didn’t trust her son, and I’ve lost my trust in you.”
“ … God … please …”
Gault ran both sets of fingers through his hair. He removed a handkerchief and mopped sweat from his face. He folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.
“Last week we planted bugs in Hugo’s office. We heard him make a call to someone at the DMS. I wanted to kill him right then and there. We decided that we would let Santoro do it. Goddesses always need new angels.”
“ … Sebastian, please …”
“And then we heard you in Hugo’s office. You, on the phone. Not just with the DMS … no, you had to go and call sodding Joe Ledger!”
Gault darted in and kicked Toys in the stomach like a placekicker going for a thirty-yard punt. Toys screamed and writhed. Bloody spittle flew from his mouth and patterned the tile floor.
“I won’t ask you why,” said Gault, his mild tone completely at odds with what he had just done. “I know why.”
“L-love … ,” Toys croaked in a voice that was barely human.
“Yes. Love. You pathetic little faggot. Do you think I would ever lower myself to love a creature like you? All you’ve ever been to me is a convenience. Someone to get things. Someone to make sure the dry cleaning is picked up and the wet bar fully stocked.” Gault shook his head. “Love? It’s not love, Toys … it’s jealousy. You can’t stand the fact that I can love and you’re too damaged and twisted to be capable of it.”
Toys’ lips formed the word again: “Love.”
He braced his elbows and tried to heave his head and shoulders off the floor. Instantly there was a burst of unbearable agony from his shattered leg that tore a ragged scream from him. He tried to twist away from the pain, but as he did something hard dug into his opposite hip.
“Don’t dare use the word ‘love’ for what you feel,” sneered Gault. “I know love. Eris is love. I know the love of a goddess incarnate.”
Breathing through the pain took all of his strength, but Toys fought to get words past his gritted teeth. “You … don’t understand … you fucking idiot … .”
The words materialized as a snarl of unfiltered rage.
Gault smiled. “I understand everything.”
“No, Sebastian,” Toys snarled. “ … you never understood me.”
Toys dug his hand under his body, under his hip, to the hard thing that gouged into him. He wrapped his fingers around the pistol, and with a savage growl that was more animal than human he tore it out, pointed, and fired.
Chapter Seventy-three
The Sea of Hope
December 21, 7:56 A.M. EST
Circe, Church, and I sat down at the stateroom’s dining table. In my absence it had been converted into a full-blown intelligence center, with multiple screens that showed images from the minicams and collected data streams from the sensors. Room service brought in heaps of food. Ghost sat with his head on my lap and I fed him bits of hamburger as we worked.
Circe also had access to the Generation Hope security network, so we prowled that as well. There was an insane amount of movement on every part of the ship. It was confusing and irritating, and probably the least useful scenario for accurate surveillance and assessment. Once, for just a second, I thought I saw Santoro … but when I played back the feed it was someone else. Damn. Wishful thinking.
Circe went over the schedule for the event and we looked for holes in it. There were plenty. We made a list of moments when an attack would get the most media punch. There were several of those as well but one that really glared.
“The event gets rolling at seven with the first round of musical guests,” said Circe. “The prince of England will take the stage at eight to make his speech. It will be simulcast all over the world. They’re estimating an audience of at least three billion. More if China relents at the last minute and allows citizens to watch. After that the ship will head into Rio for a private party with the celebrities and their families.”
“How’s security for that?” I asked.
“Huge. Over a thousand Brazilian military,” she said, “plus three SAS teams and four times as many Marines and SEALs. Heavy support from ground vehicles and helicopters. Gunboats in the water. Plus Secret Service for one-to-one security.”
“Can we identify anyone who was vetted by Vox?”
“Way ahead of you,” Church said with an approving nod. “I passed along three names to Director Linden Brierly, and he is having them quietly pulled.”
“Pulled and detained?”
“Yes. Understand something, Captain … a lot of people were vetted by Vox, including Grace Courtland.”
I nodded. “Yeah. It complicates things.”
Circe touched my arm. “You … you don’t think that Grace was—?”
“No,” I said decisively. “Absolutely not.”
Church nodded. “That only complicates things, because it may well be that most of the people Hugo passed are trustworthy.”
“Do you think the attack will be in Rio?” asked Circe.
“No,” I said, “I think it’ll be when the Prince is giving his speech. Killing the Prince and his guests is a solid punch by the Kings. After all, the speech is about disease. It calls on the new generation to unite, to become a unified family, that share money and resources, effort and cooperation, with the goal of eradicating diseases that are perpetuated by extreme poverty. Diseases that did not need to exist, because cures and treatments exist in wealthier lands. That’s all key stuff for the Kings to twist. It’ll be on every TV in the world. It’s the stuff of legends, and we know that part of what the Kings are doing is myth building.”
“Agreed,” said Church, and Circe nodded. “Let’s work out how they’ll do it.”
Together we came up with about forty really workable scenarios, but the problem was that none of them stood out more than the others.
Finally I looked at my watch. Time was running out.
Circe pounded her fist on the table. “God! I wish we could simply make an announcement, cancel everything, and let the Navy ships take everyone off.”
“We could,” said Church, “and that would force the Kings into an even more desperate act than what they are planning.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “we have an obligation to the President, the Prince of Wales, and all of the other families who stand to lose children.”
“I’m open to suggestions, Captain.”
“We could sabotage the engines. Play it like mechanical failure.”
“To what end? That would leave us floating out here with no solution.”
I did some math. “There are sixteen operators on board now. Ten from Tiger Shark and my team. I could take the President’s daughters under my direct supervision; Top could take Prince William and—”
“And initiate a firefight?”
“Okay, then we cut the number in half and save the eight targets with the highest political value.”
Church considered it.
“That might work. But we would need the other teams in the air and in the water right as that happens. That way if you get pinned down or trapped, we’d know help was on the way.”
“And what if the ship is rigged to
blow up?” asked Circe.
Church said nothing. Nor did I.
Circe sighed.
“Plagues,” she said. “This has to be coming from the King of Plagues.”
Chapter Seventy-four
The Sea of Hope
December 21, 6:30 P.M. EST
The concert was thirty minutes away. A big, cold hand seemed to be clamped around my heart.
“I have to go on deck,” I said. I’d already changed clothes again, as had the rest of Echo Team. Circe walked me to the cabin door.
“I don’t know whether to wish you luck,” she said, “or to hope that you find nothing at all.”
“Nothing at all would be nice.” But we both knew that was unlikely.
She nodded.
Behind us, Mr. Church was speaking into the phone. “Mr. President …”
“God,” Circe whispered, “that’s going to be a painful call.”
“From both ends of the line,” I said.
“This is insane,” she said.
“Welcome to my world.”
But she shook her head. “I was born to it.”
Before I could ask her to explain that, she turned and went into her bedroom.
I patted my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed. Yep, everything but a goddamn clue. Then I clicked my tongue for Ghost, who bounded off the couch.
We went out to fight the impossible fight.
Interlude Forty-six
The Chamber of the Kings
December 21, 5:49 A.M. EST
Toys dragged himself across the floor and managed—with curses and tears and screams—to pull himself into one of the chairs. When he realized that it was the throne of the King of Plagues he laughed so long and so hard that his mind nearly snapped. And then he wept for so long that he thought he would never stop.
The tourniquet he’d tied around his leg was probably too tight. Maybe he’d lose the leg. Maybe he’d get blood poisoning.
Maybe he didn’t give a damn.