We were all wasted, wired, and sick.
Really sick. And getting sicker.
Bunny suddenly staggered to his feet and ran in a stumbling lope toward the head. Almost made it. Then stomach cramps stopped him as solidly as if he’d been punched in the gut. He bent forward and vomited with terrible force all over the wall. Everything came up. Everything he’d eaten, everything he’d experienced, too. It was worse than when we’d first been hit by whatever had come blowing out of that machine. The force of it dropped Bunny to his knees and then forward onto his hands. Top and I rushed over, but we were losing it, too. Top wrenched open the door to the head and spewed inside. Into the toilet, onto the walls, the sink, the floor.
I threw up, too. Right where I stood.
The cramps really hit then. They dropped us and for a while all we could do was curl into balls and scream. The plane’s crew tried to help. Tried. But there was nothing they could do.
Not for a long time.
Not until the spasms passed.
Not until we were so spent that we wanted to die. It was like seasickness times ten. I’ve never experienced anything as sudden, as fierce, as painful. The cramps pulled muscles and tore cries from each of us.
What the hell had we breathed down there?
What the hell had happened down there?
The plane flew on, taking us home, but if it was flying anywhere in the direction of comfort or answers, that part wasn’t clear to Top, Bunny, or me.
Jesus H. Christ.
INTERLUDE SEVEN
BELL FAMILY ESTATE
MONTAUK ISLAND, NEW YORK
WHEN PROSPERO WAS TWELVE
“Dr. Greene?” said Oscar Bell. He stood at the window, holding his cell phone to his ear and cradling a glass of scotch against his chest.
“Mr. Bell,” said the psychiatrist. “Good to hear from you.”
“I need to cut right to it,” said Bell. “In your sessions with Prospero, has he ever said anything about where these damn books are? These Unlearnable Truths? Where are they?”
“Not directly. He said that some have been destroyed.”
“Christ.”
“But that the essential knowledge—the knowledge he claims that he needs—is repeated in sections in the other books. As long as one possesses certain key texts from that collection, then a critical truth can be learned.”
“His exact words?”
“No … I believe his exact words were that the books contained a message that would allow him to, and I quote, ‘solve the riddle of the stars’.”
“Which books would he need to do that?”
“Sir, this is—”
“Now, Doctor.”
Greene sighed and then there was the sound of rustling papers. “Very well, Mr. Bell. They are as follows: The Book of Azathoth, The Book of Eibon, The Book of Iod, The Celaeno Fragments, The Cultes des Goules, The Eltdown Shards, On the Sending Out of the Soul…” The list included fourteen entries and he read them all carefully.
“Is that all of them?” asked Bell.
“Yes. Wait, no, there was one from yesterday’s session. Here it is. De Vermis Mysteriis,” said Greene. “It translates as—”
“Mysteries of the Worm, got it. Anything else?”
“No. But, Mr. Bell, please understand, I researched these titles. They’re pure nonsense—”
Bell hung up without saying good-bye.
He finished his drink, poured another, and then called a man who knew a man who knew a man. One of those kinds of calls.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IN FLIGHT
OVER NEBRASKA AIRSPACE
AUGUST 20, 9:06 A.M.
Sergeant Brick Anderson sat across from Mr. Church. They were the only passengers aboard the Gulfstream G650 as the bird rocketed westward at mach point-nine-two, near the upper range of its fast cruising speed. Church was finishing a call with the president of the United States, and Brick had eavesdropped on some of it. The president was an unhappy man. He yelled. A lot. Captain Ledger’s name was taken in vain, and there were threats against his life. A lot of those. The jet had flown a lot of miles while Church tried to calm the commander in chief down and convince him that Captain Ledger had not taken leave of his senses and that the missile strikes against Gateway One were not, in fact, evidence that the man had become a global terrorist or simply a madman. Church had to do a lot of maneuvering to assure the president that the actions taken were well within the scope of the powers granted to the DMS as part of this mission. Church reminded him, section and verse, of the special powers granted through the Department of Military Sciences charter, particularly in cases involving an imminent and dire biological or technological threat.
Church had the call on speaker because, Brick suspected, why should he suffer alone?
Several times Brick had to turn away to hide a grin, even though they were painful grins. No matter how this ultimately played out, Captain Ledger’s ass was going to be in a sling. Church caught one of his grins and gave him a sour look, but then he smiled and mimed putting a pistol to his own head and pulling the trigger.
When the call ended Church looked ten years older. Brick poured them both glasses of wine and they sat drinking in silence for a few minutes.
“Is POTUS going to want Joe’s head on a pike?”
Church considered the deep red depths of his wine. It was a Homer pinot noir from Shea Wine Cellars in Willamette. Not terribly expensive but very good. Rudy Sanchez had sent Church a case some months ago and this was the last bottle.
“It would be in the president’s best interest to reread the DMS charter.”
“You’re saying he can’t order you to fire Joe?”
Church merely shrugged and sipped the wine.
The phone rang and Brick answered it, spoke quietly, grunted in surprise, and held the phone against his chest for a moment.
“Wow,” he said to Church. “It’s Harcourt Bolton, Senior. Says it’s important.”
Church held out a hand and took the phone, once more put the call on speaker, and said, “Harcourt, it’s good to hear from you.”
“Right back at you, Deacon. Listen, I have a couple of things,” said Bolton in his usual boisterous tone. “Heard you’re having a challenging day. POTUS said something about your boy Ledger blowing the ass off the world. Words to that effect.”
Church said, “No comment.”
Bolton laughed. “Wasn’t asking for one. Just offering sympathy. Ledger’s a good kid, but he’s still young. Not like us old dinosaurs.”
“I have complete faith in Captain Ledger.”
“Oh, hey, I’m not saying otherwise. He saved my bacon a couple of times. It’s nice to know that fogies like us have hotshot kids to send out tiger hunting. Makes me wish I still had the tools for that kind of stuff. Those were good days. Damn, we pissed on walls all over the world. Geez, remember that time in Madrid when I—”
“Harcourt,” said Church, “much as I would love to chat, this isn’t the best time for it.”
“Right, right, of course. You have some spin control to do. I know the timing sucks, too, ’cause you and your boys have had a run of bad luck lately. Big win against the Seven Kings but the last six or seven cases have turned on you. Bad luck can go in runs; believe me, I know. Sorry to see it happening for the DMS.”
Brick studied the red depths of his wine, not wanting to meet Church’s eyes. Bolton was right about the DMS hitting a rough patch. And it wasn’t seven cases that had gone south on them, it was closer to a round dozen. High casualties in firefights, some civilian casualties, too. Failed missions, questionable intel, squandered resources, wrecked vehicles, and hostiles that slipped through the DMS’s fingers. So far Joe Ledger’s Special Projects Office had managed to hold a near-perfect track record, but given the bizarre verbal field report and the lack of substantiating data—at least so far—the DMS all-stars were likely to lose their shining status. It was all very stressful and so strange. Brick knew a lot of the
team commanders and many of the field operators. It was not like them to be clumsy. Church didn’t hire second-stringers. So far, though, there were mysteries and questions and nothing even remotely like an answer.
Bolton said, “Hey, Deke, I’m sorry as hell that it was my intel that put Ledger at Gateway. I thought it would be a walk in the park for a gunslinger like him.”
“We’ll survive,” said Church. Brick knocked back the rest of his wine and poured more for both of them.
“Sorry, boy. Not trying to kick you when you’re down. I know what it feels like when you lose a step getting to first base. That’s why I stepped out of the field. Just commiserating,” Bolton said, then cleared his throat. “Listen, the real reason I’m calling is to ask if you’ve been tracking those power outages? You know the ones I mean, the racetrack mess and the GOP debate?”
“I’m aware of them,” said Church. His voice was as wooden as his face.
“You looking into it?”
“You probably know I wasn’t given that case, Harcourt,” said Church. “POTUS assigned a task force. Joint Homeland and NSA.”
Bolton snorted. “Then you know they found exactly nothing. That team’s a step down from a clown college. Their report concluded that the two incidents, though remarkable, are probably not connected. They’re calling the power losses a coincidence. What do you think of that bullcrap?”
“That report has not yet been forwarded to me,” said Church.
“Really? They filed it this morning. My people got it for me within half an hour. I’ll send you a copy.”
Brick winced, but Church merely said, “You have an excellent team, Harcourt. I take it you disagree with the team’s findings?”
“Findings? Ha! That bunch couldn’t find their asses with a laser-guided missile. Of course I disagree. Don’t you?”
“It’s not my case, Harcourt. Why are we having this conversation?”
“Geez, why are you so cranky lately? You didn’t used to be like this.”
“Harcourt…”
“Right, right. I’m calling you because it actually might be your case after all,” said Bolton. “I called the president as soon as I was done reading that piece-of-crap report. I told him that it was wrong.”
“And how did you come to that conclusion, Harcourt?”
“Easy math, Deke. I’ve been juggling a couple of investigations, you know, tapping my old network to see if I can shake some bedbugs out of the linen. There are a couple of case profiles I’ve been putting together to hand off to the young lions here at Central Intelligence. But as it turns out, two of these cases are different ends of the same case. First one is a real Dan Brown thing, you’ll love it. Somebody ought to write a book. Short version is that there’s a new black market that’s been operating on the fringes of the Middle East. Run by a guy named Ohan, who’s a non-Muslim Turk who’d cut out your mother’s liver and sell it back to you for ten bucks plus installation. Sweetheart of a guy by all accounts.”
“Ohan?” said Church. “I haven’t heard of him.” He glanced at Brick, who was already typing it into a MindReader search. Brick shook his head and mouthed the word “nothing.” “How did you come up with this intel, Harcourt?”
“Oh, you know what the kids are calling me when they think I’m not listening. Mr. Voodoo. I have my sources.”
Church made a noncommittal grunt.
“Anyway, Deke,” said Bolton, “this Ohan character has cornered a very specialized part of the global black market. He’s managed to obtain a lot of items from libraries, tombs, sacred sites, and university museums in areas overrun by ISIL. A lot of the stuff they claim to have destroyed because it doesn’t fit their version of Islam wasn’t so much ‘destroyed’ as sold. Ohan fences it for them and their cut goes into the Islamic State’s war chest. Somebody has to pay for all those bullets and beheading swords. Actually, from what I’ve been able to put together, it looks like ISIL is using that money to step up its game.”
“Step it up how?”
“That’s where this story gets really interesting, because I managed to get a partial inventory list from one of Ohan’s people. Call it a catalog page, or close enough. Some of the stolen tech had been in development by an international team of for-hire science nerds. Like DARPA, except they are completely mercenary with no specific national or political affiliations. Geeks R Us. Apparently some private labs in Syria had become go-to spots for off-the-books R and D. According to Ohan’s list, they had stuff in development for the Russians, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Egyptians. Fun stuff, too. Missile defense jamming systems. Laser-guided man-portable rocket systems designed to take out drones. Like that. This is quality science, Deke. This is the kind of thing that could cause real problems for us and for NATO.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Three items on that list popped out and that’s why I called. The first is something called a ‘God Machine,’ which I can only assume is a code name. I showed it to a couple of big brains. You’re not the only one with friends in the industry. Heh-heh. Anyway, one said that it looked like a portable version of a hadron collider, which is a contradiction in terms. Those things are huge. The other said that it was a component of a directed-energy weapon being developed under the code name of ‘Kill Switch.’ A kind of nondestructive EMP device, as I understand it.”
“Ah,” said Church.
“Now you’re interested, right? Ohan claimed to have partial schematics for the God Machine and a completed prototype of the Kill Switch for sale. My sources tell me that ISIL snapped it up, which means that they’re looking to take the fight to us. And get this, they didn’t buy Kill Switch with cash money. What they did is give Ohan a couple of tons of priceless ancient sculptures and rare books for it.”
“This is very interesting, Harcourt,” said Church, “and I very much appreciate you bringing it to me. I’ll talk to POTUS about having the power blackout case shifted to the DMS.”
“Good luck with that. You’re not POTUS’s favorite guy these days.”
“We still have a useful working relationship.”
“Sure, but for how long?” said Bolton. “Look, it’s no secret that he blames you for him not having a chance at a second term. He thinks you should have stopped the Seven Kings. He hasn’t come right out and said that the drone disaster was your fault, but it’s clear that’s how he feels.”
Church said nothing. Brick shook his head, wanting to say something but keeping his vitriolic comments locked inside.
Bolton said, “Geez, I didn’t call to kick you in the shins, Deacon. It’s just that this power outage thing is scaring the crap out of me. If I was twenty years younger I’d go after this myself. Guess you feel the same way. But, bad luck streaks happen in baseball and special operations, too. They pass. Shame about Gateway, ’cause this Kill Switch thing would have been perfect for your boy Ledger.”
“Captain Ledger is not the only team leader I have in play.”
“Oh, I know, but he’s the best now that Samson Riggs is gone.” Bolton sighed. “He was good, Samson. The only guy I thought could give me a run for my money. Now there’s Joe Ledger. But you know, Deke, if we’re going to be honest about this, you’d never have gotten the funds to open the Special Projects Office if the president hadn’t taken me out of the game. That’s a fact.”
Brick Anderson watched Church’s face as Bolton said this. Was there a flicker of annoyance there? Or pity?
“Harcourt,” said Church quietly, “this isn’t a cult of personality. You did a tremendous amount of good as a field operative and now, with your intelligence network, it’s possible you’re even more valuable to the war we fight. No one will ever say otherwise.”
There was a pause on the line, a heavy silence.
“Christ, will you listen to me?” said Bolton. “I sound like an old dog yapping at puppies. Sorry, boy. Let’s put it down to stress and not enough sleep. Don’t hold it against me, Deacon.”
“Of course not,
Harcourt.”
Bolton made a sound, somewhere between an uncomfortable laugh and a self-deprecating sigh. “I hate getting old.”
“We all do.”
“Yeah, well, it hits some of us harder than others. You never seem to change.”
“I feel my years,” said Church. “It’s why I stopped going into the field, too. I leave the gymnastics for younger men and women.”
“You left under your own terms, though. I didn’t leave the game, the game left me.”
“And yet here we are, Harcourt. You’ve brought valuable intel to me twice in one day.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re all superheroes. Got it,” said Bolton. “Listen, talk to POTUS. Run down that ISIL thing. Don’t back-burner it, Deke. If ISIL has gotten hold of some kind of portable EMP technology, then we are in deep, deep trouble.”
“Yes, we are,” said Church.
“Ohan knows who bought it. I passed this along to some guys I know in the field. Agency station chiefs who don’t have their heads up their keisters. I’ll send Ohan’s info to you, too.”
“I appreciate that, Harcourt,” said Church.
“And…,” said Bolton, drawing it out, “there’s one more thing. I don’t see how it could be connected to Gateway or ISIL or the EMP tech, but those ancient books ISIL gave to Ohan? I recognized some of them and it really gave me a jolt, too. Remember that op we ran about thirty-odd years ago? Belgrade?”
“Thirty-seven years ago. What about it?”
“That was the first time you and I crossed paths. I was hunting for a couple of Kazakhstanis who were trying to sell nuclear components from the old Soviet days. And you were doing that hinky little deal with Arklight to close out those shooters from the Ordo Fratrum Claustrorum? The Brotherhood of the Lock, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Remember what the Brotherhood were doing in Belgrade? Remember what they were after?”
Church said nothing.
“You never did find it. Well,” said Bolton, “someone else is looking for it now, and Ohan says he has it to sell. My sources tell me there are at least two buyers bidding on it right now.”