Harry pushed away from me, smoothing his clothes and looking scared and hurt. As he crossed the kitchen he shook his head as if unsure how someone like me could be one of the good guys. He had a lot to learn about how good guys win wars. It was always a mistake to confuse good with nice.
The cellar door turned out to be a fake. Beyond the wooden one was a steel security door. Top of the line and with a high-tech keycard scanner of a kind that is very tough to bypass.
A lot less tough, though, when you can pick the pocket of the assholes who were supposed to be guarding it. I used a bloodstained keycard to open the hundred-thousand-dollar lock. The door opened. No alarms rang.
“Ghost,” I said, “ready.”
The dog shifted to an angle where he could spring at anything or anyone who came out of the door I was about to open. He crouched, muscles etched like stone beneath his fur.
“Jester, watch my back.”
“Ready,” said Harry. He had his gun pointing down at the floor and he was sweating badly.
Chilled air wafted out at me from the stairwell and it carried a strange blend of machine oil, old meat, ozone, and mold. Ghost bared his teeth in a silent snarl. Fear or anger, it was impossible to say. Probably both.
Beyond the door was a lighted hallway that ran six feet to a set of stairs. I went in first, taking the steps quickly and silently, watching the corners as the stairs reached a landing and turned. Ghost swarmed down after me. I quick-looked around the bend and saw that the second flight took us down to a stone floor. The lights were on down there but I heard no conversation. Ghost came abreast of me and sniffed, then wagged his tail twice. No one in the immediate vicinity.
We went down into a room that was set up as a computer center, with twenty workstations and high-end electronics. Comfortable wheeled office chairs, a full coffee bar, area rugs over the stone, and even discreetly positioned speakers from which Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 in A Minor played softly. Nothing but the best for the employees of a supervillain.
We moved over to the computers. The screens all had the same display. It chilled me to the bone.
KILL SWITCH PROTOCOL
And beneath that was a digital clock.
Yeah. Actual ticking clock? Check.
Shit.
As I watched, the clock went from 14:29 to 14:28.
Harry grabbed my arm. “Wait, does that mean they input the code?”
“Yes,” I said. “It damn well does.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
THE BLACK TENT
HOME OF THE MULLAH
ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND ASH-SHAM
MOBILE CAMP #7
SEPTEMBER 11, 12:37 A.M. LOCAL TIME
Akbar had arranged ten laptops in a row, positioned so they could all watch as history unfolded before them. Each screen showed an image sent by a small fixed camera. Each of the video feeds showed cities viewed from a distance. Akbar had written the names of each in ink on the frame of the laptops.
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Houston
Philadelphia
Phoenix
San Antonio
San Diego
Dallas
San Jose
Ten American cities. Ten fields to be sown with the seeds of retribution, each by one touch of the fingers of God. On the bottom of each screen was a small digital counter. They were all in sync. 19:01:08. In less than twenty minutes the world was going to change. It was like raising a veil. A different world existed on the other side and nothing would ever—could ever—be the same again.
It made Akbar want to weep.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
THE COMCAST BUILDING
1701 JOHN F. KENNEDY BOULEVARD
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 11:38 A.M. LOCAL TIME
His name was Trey Willis and he had worked as building supervisor since the tower opened in 2008. He had a staff of thirty and they kept the building clean, fully functional, and efficient. Trey had worked in maintenance and building supervisions for nearly twenty-two years and taught management courses three nights a week at Philadelphia Community College. He had a wife and three daughters, the eldest of whom was pre-med at Jefferson. His wife was a nurse practitioner in the neonatal unit at Children’s Hospital. Trey had no criminal record and an honorable discharge after serving four years in the air national guard. He paid his taxes, went to church, had middling interest in politics, and planned on retiring to Ocean City, New Jersey, in five years. He already owned a little place there not two blocks from the beach.
Trey was absolutely the wrong person for the job he was undertaking. Which made him the right man.
All day he had felt a little uneasy and wondered if he was coming down with another migraine. He hadn’t had one in years but something was definitely wrong with his head. Concentrating on anything, even little tasks, became increasingly difficult as the day wore on. Eventually it got so bad that he told his assistant to take over and Trey went to his office to close his eyes for a moment. Leaving early was never his plan. He hadn’t taken a sick day in eleven years and wasn’t going to let a headache break that record. So he locked his office door and stretched out on his couch.
It was the wind that woke him up.
Not the breeze from the air-conditioner. It was wind.
He opened his eyes and very nearly screamed.
He was no longer in his office. He wasn’t even inside the building. Nor was he lying down.
Instead he found himself standing on the observation deck many stories above the busy traffic. He was alone.
Except …
Except that all around him were drones. The small kind that they sold at Target and Walmart. What were they called? Quadcopters? Like the kind that caused all that trouble last year.
Just …
… like …
… those.
And all of the little motors were humming.
Trey blinked, more than half sure that this was a dream, that once he woke up he’d still be down in his office. He blinked and blinked.
He was still on the deck but the drones were gone.
Of course they were. Why would he have drones? Where would he have gotten them? It was ridiculous.
Which is when he heard the buzz. When the sounds that were there registered in his stunned and startled mind. Trey turned and looked over the edge of the deck wall. The drones were there. All of them. Hovering like a swarm of hornets.
And then one by one they drifted away, going in different directions, flying to different parts of the crowded city. Trey felt something and looked down. Saw his hands. Saw his hands as they worked the controls of a device he held. He watched his hands move, saw his fingers manipulate the controls.
But try as he could Trey Willis could not stop his traitor hands from sending the drones out into the skies above Philadelphia.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
THE PIER
DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:39 P.M.
“Stand down!”
Three U.S. marshals came pelting down the hall, guns up and out. Top spun toward them, the bloody fork still clutched in his fist. Montana Parker and Brian Botley stood on the other side of him, each pointing their guns. Sam Imura lay on the floor, bleeding to death. The world had torn loose from its hinges and was tilting, falling, going sideways and down.
Then Montana shifted her gun away from Top and pointed it at the first marshal.
And fired. The bullet caught the man in the chest and knocked him backward. There was no blood even though the marshal wore no visible Kevlar.
“Top!” screamed Montana. “Run—they’re Closers!”
The other marshals raised their weapons and Top saw that these were not ordinary guns. They were MPPs. Microwave pulse pistols.
Tok!
Tok!
The world seemed to explode into fl
ames.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN
BOLTON HOUSE
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:39 P.M.
I tapped my earbud for Church’s. “Cowboy to Deacon,” I barked.
“Go for Deacon.”
“I am on site and have located a timer for the God Machine. We are on active countdown. Current reading is twelve minutes and fifty seconds.”
“Understood,” said Church crisply. “That confirms fresh intel from overseas.” That was the code for Arklight, for Lilith. “We have a list of targets.”
He read them off. He might as well have shot me. Those were the ten cities with the largest populations. The cities with the largest number of children. Total estimated population? Call it twenty-five million. How many kids? Half that, give or take. How many would be infected? How many would get sick? How many would die if the power was out? My mind did some ugly math. Conservative guess … a million kids. If we were lucky.
Lucky.
Good God in heaven. Ghost caught the fear that had to be surrounding us like a cloud. He whined. I plugged a MindReader patch into an open USB port on the console. The device flashed green.
“Deacon, is Bug online? Can he hack this system and shut it down remotely?”
Bug was right there. “Accessing it now, Cowboy.”
“Tell me something good.”
“Jesus, Cowboy,” said Bug, “they’ve got a lot of anti-intrusion software in here. I mean … this is cutting-edge stuff. Wow. Nice code. This is sweet.”
“Bug, do you see the timer?”
“Oh … crap. Yeah.”
“Tell me you can stop this countdown.”
He didn’t tell me anything for ten seconds. Felt like ten years. My heart was rattling like machine-gun fire.
“No,” Bug said. “There’s a firewall that’s going to take time to break through.”
“How much time?”
His voice was weak. “Too much. Three, four hours. Joe, you’re going to need to find Santoro or someone who knows how to turn the God Machine off.”
“What would happen if I blew the goddamn thing up?”
“How would I know? But if it comes down to the wire, Cowboy, go for it. By then we’d have nothing to lose.”
“Deacon,” I said, “if I can’t switch it off, I need you to back my play.”
There was the slightest pause. “I have two of our Apaches on station, but understand this—you’re too far underground. I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Shit,” I said. I holstered my gas gun and drew my Sig Sauer. There are times for subtlety and there are times to put hair on the walls. “Harry, how do we get to the damn Playroom?”
He spun and ran. I followed, setting my Scout glasses to show me the countdown. We ran as fast as we could.
And hell seemed to follow us all.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
FREETECH
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:39 P.M.
Toys tried to crawl away, but Junie ran after him, chopping at him with the screwdriver. He stabbed back with kicks, knocking her off balance, knocking her down, but each time she got back up and charged again.
Her eyes were dead and empty, but her lips were pulled back from her white teeth. Drool swung in pendulous lines from her lips, and she was muttering a guttural, wordless noise.
“Gah … gah … gah … gah…”
The screwdriver rose and fell, rose and fell.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
BOLTON HOUSE
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:41 P.M.
We ran down a series of halls, through multiple rooms. Wine cellar, bulk storage, a woodworking shop, another for metalwork, two laboratories.
We found two Closers in the fifth room. Neither was Santoro. I pushed Harry behind.
“Ghost,” I yelled. “Hit! Hit! Hit!”
He was a white missile. Fangs and claws and rage. It had been a long time since Ghost had been in a real fight. He was filled with nervous energy and the power that came with it. Speed born of fury and bloodlust. If you are on the receiving end of it, that is a nightmare beyond imagining. Ghost hit the nearest Closer and there was blood in the air before they struck the ground. Reinforced protective undergarments be damned. Ghost went for the throat. I shot the other Closer through the bridge of the nose. Protective undergarment, my hairy white ass.
I jumped over his body as he crashed down. Ghost straddled the flopping body of the first man. The Closer hadn’t been able to so much as scream.
I didn’t even look back to see if Harry was following. In the lens of my Scout glasses the digital numbers went from 10:45 to 10:44.
Ticking down to darkness.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN
THE PIER
DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:41 P.M.
The wall beside Top burst outward in a fireball of burning plaster and brick, showering him, driving him back, burning his hands and face and arms. Montana lay on the floor where she’d fallen, but she rolled onto her belly and aimed her pistol, firing, firing, firing. The ankle of one of the Closers exploded into a red mess as the heavy slugs destroyed bone and ligaments. He screamed as he toppled sideways, and his timing was tragic. He fell directly into the path of his partner’s next shot.
Tok!
The entire upper torso of the wounded Closer burst apart, hurling flaming meat everywhere. The flames slapped against the second Closer’s thighs and his pants caught fire. Montana changed her angle and shot him in the mouth, blowing out the back of his head.
Top slapped at the flames on his own clothes, stepped on a piece of debris, lost his balance, and fell heavily against the opposite wall. A bullet burned past him, missing his neck by an inch. Top whirled to see Brian Botley, his eyes glazed as he raised his pistol and pointed it and fired. Top was moving, ducking, rushing. And then Brian was falling, and Top saw that the fork he’d dropped was now buried into the instep of Brian’s foot. Brian kept firing as he fell …
… and he fell on the bucking gun. His body twitched once and then there was silence as a pool of dark red spread out beneath him.
Sam Imura, dazed and bleeding, lay there, his arm stretched for the long reach and stab. He reached over, rolled Brian onto his side, and took the gun. The weapon was smeared with blood, but Sam raised it anyway. His eyes were beginning to glaze over. Sam pointed the gun and had time to force out two strangled words.
“Top … Run…”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN
BOLTON HOUSE
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:44 P.M.
07:19
We reached the stairway down to the subbasement. There was another steel door, another keypad. And four more guards.
They were ready for us. No way they hadn’t heard the shots and yells. Four Closers, four pulse pistols. Me and a dog.
Short version.
They died.
I took a keycard from a dead hand and swiped it. The door opened. Ghost and I, both of us covered in blood, rushed inside. It burned me to know that the clock was ticking. It burned that I had no idea if there was even a way to stop this.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN
THE PIER
DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:44 P.M.
Sam’s shots were wild, hitting walls and floor and missing Top by inches.
Top dove, rolled, and came up with a pulse pistol, pivoted on his knees, fired. The wall beside Sam exploded, barraging the wounded sniper with burning chunks of sheetrock and shattered pieces of wooden studs. The force picked Sam up and flung him against the wall so hard that the sound of breaking bones was horribly sharp.
Then the air above Top sizzled as another Closer fired on him. He flattened out and rolled like a log, trying not to die, try
ing to bring the pulse pistol to bear. Nearby, Montana Parker crouched, the slide locked back on her weapon. She wasted precious seconds to swap out a dead magazine for one that might keep her alive.
Top saw the blast hit her.
One moment his friend and fellow warrior was there, raising her gun, ready to fight and kill, and the next she was gone.
Just gone.
The blast caught her dead center and exploded her. She never had time to even scream. Superheated blood and pieces of meat slapped against Top, getting in his mouth, burning his skin.
He screamed and screamed, even as he turned and brought up his own gun.
“Die, motherfucker!” he roared as he emptied the entire magazine into the Closers. Two of them went down, but more were coming.
More.
So many more.
And then the door at the far end of the hall burst open as a Closer came flying through, his limbs twisted, head twisted more than halfway around. The man struck the backs of the other Closers and dragged three of them to the floor. Everyone turned—the Closers and Top—to see two new figures enter the hallway.
A man and a woman. She was tall, with dark eyes that glittered like polished coal. He was a big and blocky man with tinted glasses and black gloves. She had two knives, one in each of her slim fists. He carried no weapons.
They each wore ungainly metal helmets.
The Closers raised their weapons.
And Violin and Mr. Church were upon them.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN
BOLTON HOUSE
RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2:45 P.M.
06:47
The corridor was exactly the same as the one in my dream.
That was freaky on a level that shook me to my marrow.
But at the same time it gave me a splinter of hope.
“This way!” yelled Harry, running ahead, but I was already going that way, running beneath rows of fluorescent lights. There were doors on both sides of the corridor, but unlike in my dream I did not stop to look in each one. I knew now where I was going. Maybe better than Harry did. He hadn’t been here since this was actually his playroom.