“You look like hell,” Rez said.
“You’re not far off.”
“When will you get your strength back?”
“N-not sure,” he said. “Never been hurt like this before. Might be a while.”
“Good,” Rez said. She drew her Beretta and trained it on him. “Now, convince me that what happened back in Pensacola wasn’t…wasn’t you.”
Ghost’s eyes seemed to swim in their sockets. He blinked until he could focus his gaze. “You…you mean the inmates?”
“The inmates?” Rez practically shouted. “The inmates, the cops—they were…they were shredded! The whole place was a blood bath.”
“You think I did that?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I didn’t kill anyone in that police station,” Spector said.
“Then who did?” Rez said, swaying as she spoke. “Who did…all that? Who could possibly do…all that?”
“The same thing that nearly gutted me,” Ghost said. “But it’s hard to explain.”
Rez barked out a laugh. “Hard,” she said. “That’s funny.” She lowered her gun and sat suddenly in the sand. “What is all this? What…what are you?”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Don’t cry, Midge,” Carrie said as she stroked a brush through the weeping girl’s sandy brown hair.
“Carrie’s right,” Jack said. “There’s no reason to cry. You are about to make your grand debut.”
“What do you…mean, debut?” Midge asked, rubbing a finger in the corner of her eye.
“People,” Jack said in a dramatic whisper. “At last, people will see you…and like never before!”
“Like in the movies?” Carrie asked, her hand lingering on Midge’s shoulder. “Like the outside people?”
“Yes, just like that,” Jack said. “Only more people will see your movie tonight than you could possibly imagine.”
There was a muted thumping overhead, and Dr. Garrison Lacy descended the stairs. He wore dark all-weather gear that glistened in the cabin’s recessed lights. “We’re anchored,” he said. “But the surf is choppy. Storm’s coming.”
“Nothing that will hinder our event?” Jack said.
“Nothing will hinder our event,” Dr. Gary replied. “We’ve enough bandwidth, contingency server muscle, and redundant satellite coverage to broadcast from the bottom of the sea if necessary, though I rather hope it wouldn’t come to that.”
“Could I have another patch?” Carrie asked, rubbing the mocha colored skin of her bare shoulder. “I think I’ve lost the first one.”
“In a moment, sweet Carrie,” he replied. “You too, Midge?”
Midge blinked and smiled hopefully. “Can I?”
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Gary replied, sliding off his jacket. He eased into a bench seat and woke the sleeping laptop. “Tonight is a special occasion. Jack, would you see to their refreshments.”
Midge grinned and clapped.
“Thank you, thank you,” Carrie said.
“I’ll get the liners too,” Jack said, stopping just outside the fore cabin. “We can’t take chances, especially with two.”
Dr. Gary looked at Jack sympathetically. “We won’t be needing plastic this time,” he said.
Jack looked up sharply. “But don’t you think…I mean, if we return to the marina, we don’t want to be obvious.”
“It won’t matter,” Dr. Gary said. “The cop knew.”
“FBI,” Jack said.
“No doubt. They were sniffing around in feigned vagaries, but they knew.” He sighed. “We gave them a trail, and they followed. Even if they hadn’t, someone would very soon.”
“Isn’t it possible that we might have one day yet?” Jack asked. “Are you certain we cannot run? We’ve enough provisions to sail out of U.S. jurisdiction—”
“Our broadcast tonight will shine a global spotlight upon us. The authorities would track us down and apprehend us even before we return to port.”
“And if they do?” Jack asked, voice weakening to a whisper.
“We will let them board,” Dr. Gary said quietly. “As many of them as will come, and then, I will end it.”
Chapter 37
Deputy Director Barnes had seen a lot of carnage in his day. He’d served as a Seal and been employed in dozens of unfriendly, forward locations. He’s seen what an IED could do to a Humvee. He’d seen what a bomb could do to a shoddily constructed office building. Worse, he’d seen the dead and injured from the explosion at Dr. Lacy’s house.
But he’d never seen anything like this.
“For the love of God, go across the street!” Barnes shouted as he emerged from the Pensacola Police Headquarters. Several of his Special Agents and a score of other policemen were scattered around the property getting physically ill into and onto the landscaping. “Klingler, Culbert, you guys know better! C’mon, you’re contaminating the area!”
Klingler wandered away from a patch of bushes and unsteadily made his way to Director Barnes.
“Don’t you dare puke on my shoes!” Barnes barked, blood and sweat mingling on his face.
“No, no, sir,” Klingler muttered, wiping his mouth and chin with a handkerchief. “Nah, I think I’m okay. It’s just…well, I didn’t see any evidence of fire…no physical damage—to the interior, I mean. What…”
“What could do that to human beings?” Barnes said, his words empty of his usual ironclad certainty. “I…I don’t have the first damn clue.”
“What…what do we do with this?” Klinger asked, his eyes wide and shocky.
Barnes remembered himself then, remembered his job and his role. He took Klingler by the shoulders. “We do what we always do,” Barnes said, firming his voice as he spoke. “We are the very best in the Bureau. THE Federal Bureau of Investigation. We know what to do. We have the tools. Make it happen.”
Klingler stood a little more steadily. There was a bit of an arch in his back now, a trace of his cocksure demeanor had returned. “Yes, sir,” he said, whipping a radio from his belt as he walked away.
Whether the speech had cleared his mind as well, Barnes wasn’t sure, but he was thinking like an investigator again. He was thinking like a cop. And that’s what the victims in that blood-washed building needed. They needed someone to find out what happened in there, someone to make sure the guilty parties didn’t get away with it or, worse, repeat the massacre somewhere else. Director Barnes stood very still and ran variables through the labyrinthine possibilities. Nothing made sense, not yet.
But there was a variable sticking out like a weed: whatever had killed those police officers, whatever had happened, it had happened just after John Spector had been put in a cell here. And, as far as they could tell from the carnage inside, Spector’s remains were not among the others. His cell had a section of bars cut out.
Coincidence? Maybe. But Barnes never liked coincidences. Life was never as random as it sometimes seemed. This Spector fellow had turned up in some awfully interesting places. He’d known some details he shouldn’t have known. And, if Rezvani was right, Spector had done some pretty remarkable things. But murder all those cops? All by himself? That didn’t seem possible. Maybe the vid-techs would shed some light on it once they arrived to access the police department’s interior surveillance footage. But to Barnes, the details could wait. All the theories could be tested later, once they captured Spector and grilled him. Dr. Lacy and Gainer too.
They would find them all. Barnes would make sure of that. The bastards would answer for their actions. The call he was about to make would alert or mobilize every agent of law enforcement in Florida and every bordering state. With more than a dozen slaughtered policemen—their brothers in arms—the searchers would find John Spector, Dr. Garrison Lacy, and Jacqueline Gainer. They would find them or die trying.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Somewhere on the ghostly illuminated white sands along the Gulf
of Mexico, I found myself confronted by Special Agent Deanna Rezvani and…at a loss.
I rubbed at the loose flesh on my temples. The resetting had been far from complete. I’d need much more time in the water to accomplish that. But I didn’t have time. Any time at all. And to give Agent Rezvani what she wanted would demand time. It would also mean crossing a line.
“Agent Rezvani,” I said. “I—”
“Don’t ‘Agent Rezvani’ me, Ghost!” she said.
The gun was still at her side, but her words felt like a gun barrel pointed at me anyway.
“That’s what you do when you want to push me away. You make me sound like a professional contact as if you don’t owe me anything more than courtesy.”
“You are a professional contact,” I said. “But…you’re right. I do owe you more than courtesy. And I have one more favor to ask, so I’ll owe again. But, Agent—Rez, there’s only so much I can tell you, and we can’t spend much more time here. There are still lives hanging on our action or inaction.”
“So tell me what you can,” she said. “And talk fast. I’m all ears.”
“I really don’t think you want to know,” I said.
“Why not?” she said, her face a sarcastic mask. “Wait, let me guess: you could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me.”
“No. But it will mess with your categories.”
Rez shook her head as if I’d just insulted her mother. “After the last few weeks, Ghost, I don’t have any freakin’ categories! So tell me what you can, or so help me, I’m going to shoot something!”
I hadn’t realized how much recent events had pushed her towards the edge. It would be a thin line between revealing too little and too much. I’d need to tread carefully. “I told you that I work for a branch of government higher than the President,” I said.
“Yeah, I got that much before. Go on.”
“I didn’t explain how high.”
“Okay, so who? Black Ops? A deep NSA branch no one’s ever heard of? Or maybe the Illuminati?”
“None of those.”
“Then who? How high?”
I paused. “The Most High.”
“What?” she blurted, her brows knitting in frustration. “What does that mean, the most high? As in—”
“As in the Most High,” I explained. “I work for God.”
Rez muttered a curse and then began a low roll of grinding laughter. She bent over at the waist, lowered herself by collapsing her knees, and sat hard on the sand. “You…work for God?” she blurted, her voice high and thin, almost manic. “God’s detective, right? God’s private eye!” She covered her eyes with a hand and let out a series of breathy, gasping laughs.
“I am one of the Euangelion,” I said, watching her carefully. If she was going to crack, this would likely do it. “It’s a special force of warrior angels, and I—”
Rez coughed, and the sound was sickly and unpleasant. “Son of a—” she spat. “You…you’re an angel?”
She began to shudder out great waves of laughter, and I could just imagine the visions of little chubby, haloed cherubs dancing in her mind’s eye. “Rez,” I said. “It’s not what you think of when you…” I cut off my own words. Agent Rezvani’s laughter had changed tone and pitch. In fact, it wasn’t laughter at all. She was sobbing.
It was the low, aching cry of those who mourned. It was a desperate plea of emotion, gushing out from her soul. I took a step forward, but Rez shoved herself backward and held up a hand as if to ward off a blow. “Stay away from me!” she cried. “Just…stay…away.”
“Rez,” I pleaded, “I’m not messing with you. It’s all true. It’s—”
“You idiot!” she cried out. She was practically wailing now. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? I know you’re telling the truth. I know it’s true. I can feel it…like fire in my bones. I’ve known all along you were, well…other. It all makes sense, except…none of it…makes sense. You…you had wings!”
“I was unmasked,” I said. “You saw the reality of what I am. Back at the police station, did you see the other thing, the shadow being?”
She nodded. “I saw something,” she said. “A lot of darkness. Was it another angel or…a demon? Wait, are demons real too?”
“They are the Fallen,” I said. “But this thing is different. It is Nephilim. Stronger, utterly ruthless. It killed all those people back at the police department. It would have killed me…but I ran. I’m telling you this because it might come back. It’s chasing me. Do you see?”
Rez nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t covering all the bases. How could she? “What I’m explaining to you, Rez, is that so long as you are with me, you are in mortal danger. If the Nephilim returns, it would kill you without so much as a glance in your direction. I don’t know if I can protect you. I would try, you know, but…it’s out of my class.”
Rez’s tears had dried up. Her face became, not quite serene, but business calm. Determination was writ large in the set of her jaw. “What about Jack?” she asked. “We found the house, but they rigged it with some kind of bomb. No way to know whether they were in it.”
“I don’t think they would be,” I said. “Not yet. We haven’t heard their message.”
“What message?” Rez asked.
“The point of it all,” I said. “Whatever warped excuse for murder they’ve rationalized…they’re going to make it much more clear.”
“What will they do?”
“They’ll kill again,” I said. “And soon. They know they’re out of time. They know we’re on to them, and they know, sooner or later, they’ll be caught. Whatever their message is, they will have to get it out before they are caught or killed.”
“But where are they?” Rez asked. “They blew up their house. They eluded us at the convention hall.”
“I believe they’ve gone back to the Gulf,” I said. “Think of the body dumps, both just off the shore. And the killing photos. They kill out on the water. If I’m right, can you find them? Their ship will be registered.”
Rez didn’t answer but started dialing her cell. “This is Special Agent Deanna Rezvani,” she told the phone. “Branch confirmation code: 0-1-niner-alpha-foxtrot-zulu. Yes, that’s right…out of D.C. We’re in Florida investigating…uh, huh, right, you heard. Okay, so you know we’re in the middle of a lot down here, and I need you to do something for me PDQ.”
I listened as she went through one channel after the other. In three minutes, she had Dr. Garrison Lacy’s ship: a 62-foot Oyster 625, purchased three years before. In two more minutes, she had their berth.
“It’s the Four Season’s Marina,” she said.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “What about—”
She held up a hand and said, “Yes, for that, I’ll wait.” Ten ticks later, she said, “Yeah, I understand. But that’s pretty close to what you’d expect, right?” She paused again. “Okay, great. Can you give me the relative location, something I could—uh, huh. Exactly. Got it, got it. Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”
“What?” I asked. Did I mention that I hate to wait?
“I got through to the Mobile field office,” she said. “Seems like just about every office owes Deputy Director Barnes a favor, so I pulled some strings with the local Coast Guard. A couple of their cutters are picking up contacts that might match Lacy’s boat. It’s no sure thing, they said, but I’ve got the coordinates.”
“The Coast Guard’s not headed out, are they?” I asked.
Rez eyed me strangely. “Not yet,” she said. “Why?”
Before I could reply, her phone buzzed. When she answered, I could hear the deep-voiced shout from where I stood. Her face went sheet-white. “No, Sir,” she said. “No, now look…it wasn’t him. I was there, just after it happened. I saw…well, never mind what I saw. It just wasn’t Spector.” She held the phone away from her ear, and that was probably a good thing because a searing burst of curses erupted from the speaker.
When the tirade was over, Rez put t
he phone back to her ear. “Think what you want, Sir, but if you want to catch the Smiling Jack killers, if you want to get the guys who put down our team, you need to listen.” Remarkably, Rez paused, making sure she had a respectful audience. Gutsy move, considering who she was likely talking to.
When she spoke again, I was two seconds too slow to react. “Sir, the two killers are on a ship in the Gulf. I got the coordinates from the Coast Guard, and—”
I took hold of Rez’s wrist. I gently removed the phone from her hand, and then, not so gently, I heaved it far out into the water.
“What…Ghost?” Rez said, blinking like a startled doe. “Why did you—”
“We’re going after Smiling Jack and the doctor,” I said. “But we aren’t going there to arrest them.”
Chapter 38
It had taken us half an hour to hail a cab and another fifteen to drive to the Four Seasons Marina. We jogged passed the gatehouse. Rez had flashed her badge, but neither the Slickster or Redbuzz or anyone else seemed to be there. The gatehouse was dark. I guess the marina cared about their patrons up to a point but definitely not at o-dark thirty.
“Wait, the reason you ditched my phone,” Rez blurted breathlessly, as she raced a step ahead and tried to cut me off. “You…you’re going to just kill them?”
I sidestepped her and kept going.
“I thought angels protect people,” she continued, unfazed by my silence. “Guardian angels, right? You’ve heard of those?”
“I am quite familiar with Guardians,” I said, glancing over her shoulder at the flicker of heat lightning on the horizon. “But I am not that kind.”
“So, what kind are you, then? Are you like God’s hitman?”
That stopped me in my tracks. “If you had any concept of holiness,” I said. “Even the faintest glimmer of understanding of pure, untainted good, you would not even begin to suggest anything like that about the Most High. We don’t have time for me to explain.”