“What about Officer Cole?” asked Church.
“She’s good. No injuries.”
The sirens were getting louder now, filling the air with a banshee wail loud enough to drown out most of the piteous cries of the wounded and the dying. Bunny didn’t even dare try to triage the wounded. Neither Bunny nor Top had any idea what this was or whether it was contagious, and they didn’t have hazmat suits in the car. Leaving the wounded untouched, though, felt like a truly criminal act.
“Very well,” said Church, bringing Bunny back to the moment. “Remain there and liaise with first responders. Flash Homeland badges and make sure there’s no press access to the scene. Try to minimize the risk of cell-phone pictures of this going on the Internet.”
“Sir … no one here is in any shape to post a tweet.”
“Let’s hope not.” Church’s answer was covered in thorns. Last year video footage of the gas-dock massacre went viral. Luckily, Echo Team had been wearing unmarked combat gear and balaclavas with goggles. Lucky for them, that was. The people on the dock had been hellishly unlucky, and Bunny had tortured himself by watching those videos so many times that Lydia, his live-in lover, ratted him out to Rudy Sanchez.
“You want me to collect cells and tablets?” asked Bunny.
“Yes, once you have protective equipment. I’ll have Bug see what he can do to interrupt cell service in the area. Now, listen to me, Green Giant,” said Church, “you are very likely in shock right now. That’s understandable. We all have damage, we all have scars, and we’re all afraid. That is part of being human and part of doing what we do. But, Sergeant…?”
“Sir?”
“I don’t need two damaged humans out there. I need two soldiers. I need two of my top agents, and I need them working at their best. Are we clear?”
Outside, the first of the patrol cars came screaming into the parking lot.
“Yes, sir,” said Bunny “Crystal clear.”
“You’ve been off your game, as have many of our fellow operators. Today proves that we don’t have the luxury of letting our hurt limit our effectiveness. You and your partner have been going through the motions for months now. Do better.”
Bunny listened to the dead air on the phone, then he lowered it. All around him was carnage, hurt, and need.
“Yes, sir,” he said again, although there was only him to hear it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ATLANTA AIRPORT
We landed in Atlanta, and while we hustled to make our connection I saw that I’d missed calls from Top, Bunny, and Aunt Sallie. All marked “urgent.” I called Top first, and waved Rudy over so that he could listen in as Top told us a horror story.
“And you weren’t affected?” I asked.
“No,” said Top. “I was in the restaurant and Bunny was outside. Neither of us got hit. Maybe it was something in the food—a chemical agent, maybe. Nothing airborne or I would have gotten it, since I didn’t go outside with Bunny. Nothing in what we ate or drank. From what I can tell, Cap’n, this mostly hit the staff. All of them—cooks and waitresses—were aggressors. A few customers, too, and from what we’ve been able to piece together they were regulars, which fits if it’s something inside the place and there’s a lag between exposure and freaking the fuck out. Most of the other customers were fighting, but it was self-defense or them trying to protect other people. Our team is onsite and has been collecting samples of everything. There’s a lot to test, and they’re telling me that it might be hours before we can point a finger at whatever triggered this. We have a Bughunters team en route, and I’m going to have them pull the kitchen apart, look in the ventilation system, whatever. Could even be a bacteria or fungus on some food they had delivered. In the meantime, we locked down the whole area.”
“You want me there?”
“No, sir.”
“You want any other backup?”
“No, sir,” he said again. “Not until we know there’s someone to chase. Riverdog Team is on its way from Charleston, but right now it’s all on the forensics kids and they’re all over this.”
I paused, then asked, “How are you both doing?”
He knew what I meant. “It’s been a day, boss. But … believe it or not, we’re better than we been for a while, if you can dig that.”
“Actually, I can.”
I told him my arrival time in Baltimore and said to have Bug patch him through to the pilot if necessary.
“Cowboy,” Rudy said as I pocketed my phone, “we could turn the matter in Baltimore over to Sam and change our tickets.”
I thought about it but shook my head. “No, let’s stick to plan A.”
Neither of us liked it, but then again there was no part of any of it that felt comfortable. As he walked over to join the line of people preparing to board our next flight, he said, “Do you know how many times I wished I’d gone to veterinary school instead?”
“Preaching to the choir, my brother,” I told him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
INLET CRAB HOUSE
3572 HIGHWAY 17
MURRELLS INLET, SOUTH CAROLINA
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 10:46 PM EST
It took a while for Top to find a hole in the commotion to have a conversation with Officer Tracy Cole. The young cop looked scared, confused, and angry in equal measure, but Top liked the way she handled herself. She didn’t raise a ruckus about being pulled into something outside her experience, nor did she try to exit the scene to distance herself from the responsibilities attached to a catastrophe. Top had seen good cops and good soldiers do that, because they lacked the empathy necessary to help civilians through a moment that will forever gouge a mark in their lives. Cole helped as often as she could, and when the forensic teams asked her to step back she did so without question or protest.
He found Cole in the parking lot staring at the crab house, sitting on a low stone wall. She rose as he approached.
“As first impressions go,” she said, “this was a shit sandwich.”
“With cheese,” agreed Top. “I’m going to bet you have some questions for me.”
“Oh … one or two.”
“Ask what you need to ask and I’ll tell you what I’m allowed to say.”
“That deal sucks ass.”
“It’s what we have,” said Top.
Cole pointed to the restaurant. “What do you know about that?”
“You know as much as I do, and that is the God’s honest,” he said.
Cole studied him. “Would you even tell me if it was something more than that?”
“I’d tell you that I couldn’t tell you,” said Top. “I’d give you that much respect.”
She thought about it, nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Is this the sort of thing you people deal with?” asked Cole. “I mean, you have the most elaborate forensic collection team I’ve ever seen. Like, science-fiction stuff. Is this some kind of terrorist attack? A bioweapon or something?”
“I don’t know, but we have to react like it is. We’re frontline, Ms. Cole. We deal with a lot of extreme stuff, and, just like cops, we’ve learned that everything leaves a trace and that forensics is every bit as important to us as guns and reliable intelligence reports. Tools in the toolbox, you dig?”
“Yes,” she said. “I saw something, though, and you’re not going to like what I’m going to ask next.”
“I know what you’re going to ask,” he said. “You saw me freeze and you saw Bunny freeze.”
She nodded, and again her dark eyes searched his face.
“It’s been a bad year for the good guys,” he said. “Me and the Farm Boy have been through some shit. We almost got benched. Maybe should have been benched. Lot of guys we knew and guys we worked with got taken off the board, and maybe we all been feeling some of that PTSD. Maybe we lost a step getting to first base. This gig was supposed to be a way to work back up to speed. We’re out here scouting for new players because our roster’s pretty
thin. This—whatever the fuck this is—isn’t why we’re here. We haven’t been put back in the field yet, and I guess you saw why.”
“You snapped out of it, though,” she said.
Top smiled at her. “That’s a kind thing to say, Ms. Cole, but we definitely lost that step. Question’s going to be whether we broke through some kind of barrier or if we’re going to freeze again. No way to know. I’d like to think we’re back in gear, but wishful thinking don’t make it so.”
“And you want me to join this?”
He smiled. “Ain’t offered you the job yet.”
Cole didn’t smile back. “So offer me the goddamn job.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
IN FLIGHT
OVER MARYLAND AIRSPACE
While waiting for our plane to taxi, I called Violin and gave her some of the details on my case. She didn’t like the coincidence of sex workers and nanotech any more than I did.
“Is this an official DMS case?” she asked. “Have you opened a file?”
“Everyone keeps asking me the same thing, and until I get there I won’t know.”
“It will be connected to Prague, Joseph,” she told me.
“Maybe.”
She paused. “Mother tells me that your resources are paper-thin these days. Especially over the last forty-eight hours. Is that a pattern or something…?”
“MindReader says no.”
“I don’t trust MindReader to make that call.”
“What does Oracle say?” I asked.
Another, longer pause. “We’re having some problems with Oracle. Our system has been attacked, but we don’t know by whom. Mother took it offline.”
“Shit. Call Yoda or Bug—maybe they can help.”
“I’m waiting for a callback,” she said. “Joseph, we can both agree that my mother is a bit paranoid and—”
“A bit?” I echoed, but she ignored me.
“—and that she sees threats in every shadow.”
“To be fair,” I said, “she’s right a lot more than she’s wrong.”
“That’s my point,” said Violin. “She thinks that the failure of Oracle and the growing ineffectiveness of MindReader are connected. Just as she believes the sharp rise in major violent cases around the globe is connected. Take a step back to give yourself perspective. The two most powerful counterterrorism computer systems—the ones used by the DMS and Arklight—are functioning at reduced levels and producing questionable intel just when a rash of threats begin stretching the resources of virtually every special-operations team. Doesn’t that sound like a large coordinated plan?”
“An argument can be made that the whole world is for shit right now,” I countered. “And that terrorists are relying on social media to coordinate more effective hits, using technology that is readily available on the commercial market. And that this uptick in attacks has put undue strain on computer systems that were never designed for this level of demand.”
“Oh, Joseph,” she said after a moment. “The last few years have not been kind to you. When I met you, you would never have been this cautious or this naïve.”
“I’m not being naïve.”
“What, then? Have all the attacks on the people you trust made you afraid? In the last two years they’ve gone after Junie, killed Bug’s mother, nearly killed Aunt Sallie, forced you to injure Rudy, killed more of your team members than I can count, and revealed your heroes to have clay feet. It seems to me, Joseph, that someone has learned how to manage you, to manipulate you. If they can’t stop you, then they hurt you by harming those you care about. It’s true, Joseph, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Ask the man you work for. How many times has he gone outside of the Special Projects Office, outside of the DMS itself, and handed cases to other people?”
I said nothing for a long, long time.
“Joseph,” said Violin more gently, “even if this is true, even if they have done this to you, it doesn’t mean you have to let it stay true.”
“Yeah,” I said without enthusiasm.
She sighed. “Look, I’ll poke into the nanotech thing from my end. Please … please … consider what I’ve said. Stop fighting a defensive fight. Stop letting them dictate the rules of engagement to you.”
And then she was gone.
As I sat down, Rudy suddenly shivered.
“You cold?” I asked.
He gave me a strange smile, almost a frown. “You know that expression ‘someone just walked over my grave’? I just had the strangest and most intense feeling that we’re making a mistake.”
“Mistake? What kind of mistake? About coming here rather than going to South Carolina?”
He started to answer a couple of times, stopped each time, and gave a small wince of frustration. “It’s hard to say, because I don’t put a lot of trust in premonitions.”
“I do,” I said. “Try me.”
Even with that, Rudy took a few seconds before he spoke. “Joe, do you ever get the feeling that something very bad is about to happen?”
“You know I do. All the damn time. It’s a professional hazard.”
“No, I mean right now.”
I leaned close. “With what? The plane? Or with Top and Bunny?”
“No. And not to any of us directly.” He winced again. “I feel silly for even saying this, but I had a sudden powerful feeling that something very big and very bad is about to happen. Today, or at least soon. I don’t know where or what or to whom, but the feeling was so palpable, so urgent, that I had to say something.”
“And you have no idea what it is?”
“None. I know that’s not helpful, Joe, but I’m telling you what I felt. And I’m not saying this is real or that we should give any credence to what’s probably nothing at all.”
I studied him. “I can see the look in your eyes, brother. You don’t think this is nothing. You’re actually spooked.”
He leaned back, and I could see him trying to look inward, to capture what it was he’d felt. He shook his head, thought about it, shook it again.
“It’s gone. As I said, Joe, it’s silly, it’s nothing.”
“Do you at least know if it’s connected to Sean and all that? Or with the guys?”
He gave that real thought. “Maybe, but, to tell you the truth, Cowboy, it felt more like we were being”—he fished for the right word—“played, I suppose. Manipulated. I’m sorry, Joe, there just isn’t any more, and I urge you not to take it too seriously. Let’s let it go for now, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, remembering what Violin said about her mother’s paranoia. I got a chill up my spine, too. The plane’s big engines roared as it accelerated down the runway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ETHICAL SOCIETY OF AUSTIN
5604 MANOR ROAD
AUSTIN, TEXAS
THREE WEEKS AGO
“I don’t mean to sound rude,” said the graduate student after John gave him the nod, “but what you haven’t made clear is how a curated technological singularity could actually come about. It seems to me that there would be quite a lot of pushback on it, since it would require that whole sections of the global population accept a worldview that isn’t in keeping with their religious, societal, or political cultures.”
“Yes,” said John brightly, “that is correct. Two-thirds of the world, give or take, would object to this new model for our global evolution.”
“Exactly,” said the grad student, thinking he had just scored a major point. “Which means that they would prevent it from happening.”
“And how would they accomplish that?”
“Well … with political pressure. With reliance on their institutions,” said the grad student. “Their church, their local politicians—at least the ones who care about them as viable constituents. Through pressure from social-media outrage.”
“Yes, they would try all of that.”
“Well, surely they would do more than try.”
“Only if we assume that the curr
ent model for resistance to change is in full force and practice once the process of change begins.”
“It would have to be, wouldn’t it?” asked the young man, confusion warring with amusement on his bearded face.
“Ah,” said John, raising a finger. “That is rather the point.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
John looked around the room. There were nearly a hundred people gathered for tonight’s talk. Most of them students. Young, hopeful, intelligent faces.
“There is a way for it to happen, but you won’t like it.”
The young man shrugged. “Try me.”
“Remember that I said this evolutionary step would be curated. However, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s replace curator with gardener. We can agree that it is the purpose of a gardener to tend the garden. To plant, to till, to encourage growth, and to oversee the health of the garden as a whole. Can we agree on that definition?”
“Sure…?” said the grad student, though there was some caution in his reply, making it almost a question.
“If the garden is invaded by crabgrass, creeper vines, and kudzu, it would be the responsibility of the gardener to remove those threats. If the garden becomes overgrown, it is the task of the gardener to prune it all back in order to preserve it, even if that means cutting a rosebush back to sticks or cutting down a tree that has succumbed to root rot or blight. Allowing overgrowth is every bit as dangerous to the health of the garden as permitting the continued presence and dominance of parasites.”
The room was absolutely silent. No one spoke; no one even moved.
John smiled and nodded. “You see … I said you wouldn’t like it.”
PART THREE
WATCHING THE DETECTIVES
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away …