Hard, leaning into it, putting way too much mass and force into it. Destroying him.
Fojtik made a single, harsh, gurgling noise. It was the sound a plastic fork would make in a garbage disposal.
Then he sagged back, deflating as the rage and life fled from him. Leaving stillness.
And horror.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
THE WAREHOUSE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 12:01 PM
The door burst open and Sam rushed in, gun in hand. Alarm buzzers screamed and there were footsteps in the hall. I rushed over to Sean and tore his shirt open, saw an ugly red bruise that was already darkening to the color of a rotting plum. But no blood.
Jesus Christ … no blood.
I cupped my hand around the back of his neck and bent close to press my forehead against his. He resisted for a moment, then leaned into me. Ghost was still barking, but he had backed all the way into a corner. Sean and I pushed away from each other, and I gave Ghost a single, sharp command to be silent. He stopped barking, but a line of hair stood stiff as a brush all along his back.
Sam Imura looked from Fojtik to me to Sean and then back down at the dead man. He had seen it all through the glass, but when Fojtik attacked me we fell against the door, blocking it from being opened. By the time Sam got in, it was all over. It had happened that fast.
Seconds that felt like hours.
Without saying a word to me, Sam pulled out his phone and made an internal call, requesting a full biohazard team. Then he lowered the cell and looked at me, his voice low and filled with false calm. “Is this Seif al Din?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think it’s rabies.”
My cell phone was on the floor, and when I picked it up the text screen was blank, the message removed as if it had never been there.
Who sent it? And why?
“Jesus!” Sean suddenly cried and pushed past me and dashed from the room. I realized why and raced after him, but when we wheeled around and crashed through the door to the second interrogation room it was already too late.
It was awash in blood.
We stood there, staring at the body of Alexej Broz. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his mouth was open in a final, silent, eternal scream. The entire front of his skull was mashed flat, and there was a dark smear on the inside of the door from where he had slammed his head again and again and again. Bits of hair and bone were caught in the smear, and when I looked down at Broz I could see lumps of gray brain matter.
Sean came out of the room, grabbed my shoulder, and spun me around. His face was flushed with panic. “What the hell is happening?” he demanded. “Is this what happened to that girl?”
All I could do was stand there and stare.
INTERLUDE TEN
THE EDUCATION OF ZEPHYR BAIN
MCCULLOUGH CASTLE, CROWN ISLAND
ST. LAWRENCE RIVER, ONTARIO, CANADA
WHEN SHE WAS FOURTEEN
Zephyr loved staying at Uncle Hugo’s house in Canada.
Well, it wasn’t really a house. It was a castle that Hugo had bought from a bankrupt family in Scotland and transported, brick by brick, to be reassembled on an island in the St. Lawrence River. The castle had fifty-nine rooms, actual battlements, and—if Hugo was to be believed—a dungeon. She never got to see the dungeon, though. It was off-limits to her, and the elevator was guarded by a pair of mean-looking Korean men who never spoke or smiled and looked as if they’d enjoy cutting the throat of anyone who tried to get past them.
Hugo Vox was not her real uncle, but he was close enough. He and her father had done considerable work together and made tens of millions from government and private contracts. Hugo was the investment capitalist and H. Andrew Bain was the developer. They employed some of the top designers in the fields of robotics, genetics, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and a dozen different branches of technology. Although Zephyr was only a teenager, she was learning how it all worked, and while her father was reluctant to share the behind-the-scenes details, Hugo and John were notably frank with her.
Hugo’s mother, Eris, lived at the castle, and she was one of the most beautiful women Zephyr had ever seen, in movies or in real life. She had to be old, because Hugo was at least thirty-five or maybe older, but she didn’t look it. Zephyr thought she looked like an even split between Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon. She hoped she’d be that pretty when she was old.
If she got old. The cancer was gone from her body but never from her mind. Long ago, John had told her that he’d filled her up with more time. That was how he always put it. But he never said how much. Zephyr wondered if there was a clock ticking away inside her genes, waiting for time to run out.
Sometimes when she was alone for hours on the island Zephyr wandered the grounds and thought about life and death. She thought about the people she knew and the ones she saw on the news, and she wondered who among them really deserved to be alive. And who would do the world some good by dying. Zephyr often composed lists in her mind. It made her happy to add names to both lists. A lot of poor people were on her “No” list, grouped by country rather than race, because it was never about race for her. It was about who gave something to the world and who just took from it. Some of her father’s friends were on her “No” list, too. The ones who took other kinds of things—oil from the ground, purity from the air and the water, and the future from the earth through damage they did to the climate. They did that as if the future didn’t matter, and some of them had kids. It was nuts. John called them the Suicidalists, and Zephyr hated every one of them. She even put some of Hugo’s friends and business associates on her list.
Almost everyone in the fields of computers, robotics, and related technologies was on her “Yes” list. They mattered. They were doing something useful. So she whiled her time away making lists as if she were God. John told her that was okay.
She found John seated in one of a pair of heavy leather chairs that were positioned in front of a dying fireplace in a darkened study. She climbed into the other chair and sat in silence with him for a long time, watching the fire grow colder and then go out. When there was not even a trace of a glow, she turned to him. Without the firelight, his face was mostly lost in shadow and the strange lighting made him look old, almost ancient. What a strange thing that was, but Zephyr didn’t comment on it. She didn’t even think about it too deeply. Although there was much about her friend that she longed to know, some instinct inside her mind kept her from exploring certain corridors of speculation, and even of analysis. John was John. He wasn’t like anyone else. Even now, at the wise age of fourteen, she still thought that he might not be entirely human. Or entirely real.
“Have you been making your lists again?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Good. It’s going to matter.”
“What do you mean?”
That was all John said. They sat together for almost an hour, watching the logs burn. The logs burned and burned, but they didn’t seem to be consumed by the fire.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE WAREHOUSE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 12:47 PM
So, yeah, I opened a file on it.
Whatever was going on was a lot bigger even than a poor murdered girl in a Baltimore fleabag hotel. There were five dead teens and now two dead adults. There was surveillance, and someone was using exotic technology to hack my phone and send me warnings.
It was Sam’s shop, though, so he got on the phone with Mr. Church and Aunt Sallie. Sean and I were covered with blood that was almost certainly infected with rabies. Ghost had been spattered, too. The forensics team did a full biohazard lockdown on that part of the Warehouse, cleared all staff out of the interrogation area, and put anyone who had come anywhere near the dead men under observation. Ghost was put in a cage, and I gave him a complex series of commands to tell him to cooperate with anyone who to
uched him. He was still spooked, but having orders to follow steadied him.
Sean and I were separated and sent to individual quarantine rooms. Once inside mine, I stripped down and entered a small shower stall, where I had to wash head to toe with harsh soaps. The soap smelled like shit, but I didn’t care if it was shit, as long as it cleaned off all traces of the blood.
When I was done, I dressed in paper coveralls and was led under guard to an examination room. The guard looked nervous. I was his boss’s boss, but he was under orders to shoot me if I freaked out. The only good-news part of that was the fact that instead of a Glock or a SIG he held a Snellig A-220 gas-dart pistol loaded with high-intensity gelatin darts filled with an amped-up version of the veterinary drug ketamine, along with a powerful hallucinatory compound. We call it “horsey.” One shot and you drop like a rock and dream of polka-dot unicorns. The guard walked fifteen paces back, well beyond the range where an unarmed person might have a chance against someone with a gun. To make him feel a little better, I kept my hands in my pockets, though that was really to hide the fact that they were shaking.
I went down to the kennel to look in on Ghost. He’d been shampooed and seemed wretched and terrified. His reaction earlier was strange. He didn’t attack Fojtik, and I wondered if he could somehow sense the presence of a contagious disease? Was that even possible?
I squatted down outside his cage. “How you doing, you old fuzz monster?”
He wagged and whined and clearly wanted to be petted. I wanted to be near him, to curl up with him. Dogs provide more than companionship. Their uncomplicated love and total loyalty offers a comfort to the soul that helps flick the reset button. He’s been with me through some bad, bad moments, and even though I was the leader of our little pack, in some ways I felt that he was the stronger and I drew comfort from him. Not now, though. We were both scared and confused, and if there was comfort to be had neither of us knew where to look.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said to him. “It’s all okay.”
He gave me a trusting look that almost, but not entirely, hid his disbelief. Yeah, I know he’s a dog, but he’s not stupid. Ghost knew every bit as much as I did that it was not okay. Nothing was okay.
I got up and left with my two-legged watchdog in tow. The guard had barely said two words since he began his escort duties, and I wasn’t feeling particularly chatty. We went to the armory, and I told him to get me a new earbud and mic. He did. The mic is the size of a mole and is flesh-colored. I removed the film on the back to expose the adhesive and pressed it to my cheek near the corner of my mouth. The earbud was also designed to blend with my skin tone, and it went into my left ear. A signal booster and Wi-Fi charger that was half the size of a pack of Tic Tacs went into my pocket. I tapped the earbud to reach Sam. He was somewhere in the building, and I didn’t want to waste time looking for him in places where I might not be allowed.
“Go for Ronin,” he said, using his combat call sign. That told me that the building was on secure lockdown.
“I know this is your shop, Sam,” I said, “but I’m labeling this as a Special Projects gig.”
“I figured,” Sam said. “I’m prepping Alpha Team now, and they’ll hit Vee’s office on your go order. We’ve had bird drones in the trees and on the roof since you left there. Still the workday, so no one’s left.”
“Okay. Put some topspin on my blood work, because I want to accompany Alpha.”
“I’ll arrange for clothes and gear.”
“Send some guys to sweep Vee’s home. Hazmat suits and full safety protocols. Pull up the floorboards. Ditto for any other private or corporate holdings. Tear his world apart.”
“Understood. But until we get the lab results make sure you mind your keeper,” he said.
I quietly damned him to the corner of hell where they give the inmates daily red-ant enemas. Then I tapped the earbud for the central command channel. Church was on the line in two seconds.
“Cowboy,” he said, “Ronin gave me a sitrep. What can you add?”
“Is Bug on the line?”
“Right here, Cowboy,” said Bug. He sounded scared, too. “What do you need?”
“So far three of Vee Rejenko’s people were infected with whatever this was,” I began. “More, if the other kids were part of his operation. If Vee isn’t behind it, then he’s pissed off at the people who are. Maybe someone’s using this to crowd him out of his action. Maybe it’s a turf war between the Czechs and the Russians. I don’t know, but I want to know. This thing is sophisticated in two different ways, the nanotechnology and the pathogen. That gives us two separate starting places. Put as many people as you need to on this.”
“On it,” Bug said, and dropped out of the call.
To Church I said, “No more bullshit. We need to talk to Dr. Acharya.”
“He’s still out at the DARPA camp. They’re not putting anyone on the phone or allowing them Internet access.”
“Even with this?”
“This is an hour old, Cowboy. The Department of Defense has spent decades building its speed bumps, walls, and patterns of red tape.”
“Okay, okay,” I said irritably, “but that’s your problem. Sic Aunt Sallie on them. They’re all afraid of her.”
“I already have her on this.”
“Okay, here’s how I want to play it. I’m going to take Alpha Team and kick down the doors at Vee’s office. If he doesn’t have anything useful to tell me, then I’m going to grab Rudy and go out to the DARPA camp myself. I can’t wait for chain of command. If I have to, I’ll literally kick down some doors.”
“You may have to,” said Church.
“I’m in the mood to. And maybe kick some ass, too.”
“Wear heavy boots.”
“Count on it. Now, listen, boss, because I’m working on a wild theory, but I don’t know if the science supports what I’m thinking.”
“Which is what?” asked Church.
“That the nanobots are somehow causing the disease. Or, maybe, regulating it somehow. From what I know of rabies, it doesn’t hit this fast. That means it’s either weaponized or regulated, or both. The original report from the girl’s death at the Imperial said that she was screaming and coughing, and I saw that with Fojtik. Far as I know, coughing isn’t a major rabies symptom, but it makes one hell of a delivery system for a weaponized disease. Our bad guys are somehow keeping the disease in check until they need it to go active, keeping it chambered like a bullet. Rudy said that nanites can deliver drugs, right? And that they can be used to regulate hormonal secretions. Well, maybe that’s what we’re seeing here. Is that possible? A bioweapon with a nanite control system?”
“Possibly,” said Church. “There’s been research about using pertussis—whooping cough—as a delivery system for pathogens that aren’t in themselves airborne. I know for a fact that something like this is in development. Not with rabies, as far as I know, but with other things. The Czech nanotechnology being used to control their slave-labor force is built along similar lines. There are others, too. Nothing as sophisticated as you’re suggesting, but that’s the danger with cutting-edge technology. Eventually, someone cuts deeper.”
“Rudy said the same thing.”
“It’s the real estate on which we live,” said Church. “Ethnic-specific bioweapons weren’t possible until Cyrus Jakoby created them.”
“Right. Now, add the texts I’ve been getting to the mix,” I said, and told him about the warning I got right before Fojtik went nuts.
“This is disturbing on many levels,” said Church.
“They must have the Warehouse bugged.”
“Or they knew that the signal for the nanites to trigger the rabies was being sent.”
I said, “Sent by who? A mole?”
“Seems so. If they sent one warning, they may share more complete information going forward. Keep your phone with you.”
“I don’t have it. It’s with my gear in the biohazard unit.”
“Get it
back. The team can sterilize it for you, but for now don’t change any of the internal workings or remove the SIM card. We want that contact.”
“Yes, we do,” I said. “Christ, I wish this made more sense. I feel like we’re catching the smallest glimpse of something and missing the whole picture.”
“How is that any different from how we usually come into these things, Captain?”
“I know,” I said glumly, and I thought about Rudy’s premonition on the plane. On impulse, I told Church about it. He isn’t the kind to dismiss anything out of hand.
“Now, isn’t that interesting?” he said quietly. “About the rabies, Captain, this might be even worse than you think. If your theory is correct and the rabies is already in the victims’ system, then you do understand what that means?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes. When it’s that advanced, rabies is fatal in almost every case. Which means everyone currently infected is dead; they just don’t know it yet. Wait, I remember reading something a while back about inducing a coma and treating rabies victims—”
“The Milwaukee Protocol,” supplied Church. “Yes, there has been some limited success with that. A coma is induced to protect the brain from further infection and to allow the immune system time to produce antibodies. It can take days or weeks, and it’s unlikely it could be arranged to cope with a widespread outbreak. I’ll cycle Dr. Cmar in on this,” said Church, and then he was gone, too.