Church picked up the light, dropped it, picked it up again, dropped it. He took a breath and tried once more and managed to position the light. He could not actually feel the cell phone he was using as a flashlight. Almost all nerve conduction was gone from his fingertips. Where his fingers weren’t completely numb, they screamed with pain. Strange how the pain of frostbite could feel like fire.
“Can you see it now?” he asked, forcing his voice to be calm.
“Yeah. It’s not the green wire. It’s the blue one. Strip it and hotwire it to the white one. That should connect you to the battery and give you power to run the locking computer.”
“You’re sure, Bug? I won’t be able to do this twice.”
“Blue and white. Absolutely.”
Church began stripping the wire. His dying hands were clumsy, and the tools kept falling. Each time he picked them up and continued. He didn’t waste time with cursing or any of the dramatics of frustration. He worked as efficiently as the biting cold and thinning oxygen would allow. He could feel the beginnings of confusion at the edges of his focus. Carbon dioxide was building up in the cabin.
Bug said, “I … I wish I was there to do this for you.”
“You are here with me, Bug,” said Church.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-three
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 3:59 P.M.
“Ummmm, Cowboy—?” said Yoda, “I, ummm, think that’s it.”
“Wait … what’s it?”
“That page. No, no, the book you just put down. Let me see that one again. Second page. Hold it steady so I can take a screen shot. Got it. Okay, give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute.”
“Half a minute.” Yoda said, and then just hummed at me for what seemed like an hour. Probably only fifteen or twenty seconds, but it felt longer. Too long.
“Yoda…”
“Umm, holy shit, Cowboy,” he blurted. “That’s definitely it. Flip the page. No go to page nine. Davidovich said it was Pi and to work backward from nine. The value of Pi is 3.141592653. Keeps going from there to infinity. The ninth value is three. Hold it so I can see line three.”
I did, and I noticed that in his excitement he’d stopped humming.
“Let me input the code from the third line. Got it. Now page eight, line five…”
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-four
UC San Diego Medical Center
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, California
April 1, 4:00 P.M.
Rudy Sanchez took the elevator up to the floor where his wife lay pregnant and helpless. He gripped his walking stick with hands that were slick with sweat. He had to clutch his hands into fists to keep them from trembling. Never in his life—not even when the burning helicopter plunged into the brown waters of the Baltimore Harbor—had he been this terrified.
Circe.
Dear God, he prayed in Spanish, please … not Circe. Not her.
He could hear gunfire and screams. And through it all the bone-chilling howl of a monstrous hound.
Banshee.
Rudy had no gun. Joe had tried many times to teach him, but, even before he lost an eye, Rudy had been an indifferent marksman. Now, with the loss of depth perception that came with being one-eyed, he was worthless with any gun except a shotgun. He didn’t have a shotgun.
All he had was the hand-carved walking stick made of hawthorn and topped with an ornate silver handle. He had used that stick to try and fight back against Nicodemus and failed. He clutched it now and wondered if he was rushing to help his wife or to simply be murdered.
Dear God and all Your saints … not my wife. Not our child. Take me instead. If you need a life, take mine. Show them Your mercy.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened to reveal a scene from hell itself. Hieronymus Bosch could not have painted a more horrific tableau.
Bodies lay sprawled on the floor; the walls were pocked with black bullet holes and splashed with red blood. Shell casings glittered like discarded jewels. The combatants fought at close quarters. With guns. With clubs and stun guns. With knives. With bare hands. Rudy saw four DMS agents, including Agent Cowpers, lying dead. SWAT officers and agents of Homeland’s tactical response teams lay entangled with Kingsmen.
Lydia Ruiz knelt beside the nurses’ station, firing into the crowd. Across the hall, Rudy could see Circe’s room. The big window was gone except for a few jagged glass teeth. On the bed, Rudy could see one sprawled form. A man’s body. Bloody and inert.
He could not see his wife at all.
Oh God … where was Circe?
Please, God of all. Not my love. Not Circe.
A man stood directly outside the elevator car, and as the doors opened he turned toward Rudy. A Kingsman. He grinned as he turned. He had a marine bayonet in his hand, and with a cry of murderous glee he threw himself at Rudy.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-five
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 4:01 P.M.
“That’s the last one,” I said. “Do you have it all?”
“I do.”
“Then upload the rest of the fucking code. Do it right damn now.”
I could hear his fingers hammering on keys.
Then, “Oh Jesus…”
“Don’t ‘oh, Jesus’ me, man. Tell me it went through. Tell me you’re shutting this down.”
“No,” he said. “It’s, ummmmm, not working. There was a URL built into the code. It brought up an, ummmmm, Web site. Password-protected.”
“What’s the password?”
“How would I know?” Yoda protested. “I, ummm, don’t know it…”
Ever been punched in the face? Really hard? The kind of punch that knocks the air out of your lungs and all of the thoughts from your brain?
Yeah.
That’s what I felt.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-six
UC San Diego Medical Center
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, California
April 1, 4:01 P.M.
Rudy Sanchez fell back as the Kingsman rushed him. With a desperate cry, he brought his cane up in both hands to try and parry the fall of the knife. The Kingsman’s wrist slammed into the hawthorn shaft and rebounded, and the jolt—against all hope—hit the right nerves. The man’s hand sprang open, and the knife flew over Rudy’s shoulder and fell behind him.
The Kingsman looked as surprised as Rudy felt, but the killer recovered at once and swung a punch that caught Rudy across the jaw, spun him, and dropped him to his knees. Then the man grabbed Rudy’s chin in one hand and knotted the fingers of his other hand in Rudy’s hair. He began to twist, forcing Rudy’s head to turn on his neck. First to the edge of comfort and then past it.
Too far past it.
Rudy could feel the bones in his neck begin to grind.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-seven
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 4:03 P.M.
I staggered as if I’d really been punched and had to catch the wall to steady myself. I stared down at the stack of notebooks.
Then I stiffened.
“Yoda!” I cried. “I think I know the password. Christ—it’s Matthew. His son’s name. Matthew, type that in.”
“Cowboy, if you’re wrong, then the system could lock me out.”
“It’s Matthew. I’m sure of it. He wrote it on every single book, over and over again.”
“Okay. Putting that in now.”
I heard him type.
Then I heard a sharp, scolding ding of a computer-generated bell.
“Ummmm, Cowboy … that wasn’t it. I have a pop-up screen telling me that I have two tries left before it goes into permanent lockout.”
“How about his birthday. Matthew’s. We have it in our files.”
“Mmmmmm, okay. I have it.”
&
nbsp; “Put it in.”
He did.
We heard that same goddamn bell.
“Mmmm, one try left and then we’re dead, Cowboy.”
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-eight
Air Force One
In Flight
April 1, 4:04 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
It took Mr. Church five times longer than it should have to twist the wires together. He could smell how the electricity burned the skin of his fingers, but he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel his fingers at all. Even applying pressure was done through observation rather than feel.
“It’s done,” he told Bug.
“Good, now see that little gray switch? Hit that.”
Church took a breath and flipped the tiny switch.
Immediately, the control panel flashed with lights. At first they were all red, and then one by one they popped with a bright and promising green.
Church closed his eyes for one moment.
Then he punched in a five-digit code on the keypad.
There was a sharp metallic click as the locks disengaged and the cockpit door swung open.
“Thank you, Bug,” he said quietly.
“Boss, I can see your hands. You’re getting frostbite.”
Church didn’t comment as he rose shakily to his feet. His knees hurt, and his body was still with intense cold. He pushed open the cockpit door and stepped inside. The air from inside smelled of chemicals, and the members of the flight crew were toppled sideways in their chairs, unconscious. Solomon’s hijack-defense system had released the tranquilizers. Church opened and closed the door like a fan to dissipate the drugs, wafting it out into the main cabin. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose and mouth and then entered the cockpit.
As he expected, all of the flight controls were still locked by Solomon.
However, there were manual systems for cabin airflow, lights, and heat.
Church staggered forward and collapsed against the wall by the controls. His fingers were turning black now, and he had to fight with the dying nerves to make them work. In the end, he had to paw with the side of his hand, slapping sloppily at the switches.
Around him the cabin lights came on.
Air hissed from the vents.
Church looked out of the windows to see if the fighter escort was still there. And, if so, would they shoot Air Force One down to keep it from hitting its target?
The skies around the plane were clear. The jets were gone.
Where? Forced to crash by Solomon?
Or sent out to do more harm?
Church could feel the first tentative touch of heat rising from the floor, and he sank slowly to his knees and pressed his hands against the vent.
Air Force One, however, still hurtled through the skies toward New York City. The irony was not lost on Church that now he and the others would be alive, awake, and able to feel everything when the plane hit the World Trade Center.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-nine
UC San Diego Medical Center
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, California
April 1, 4:06 P.M.
Boy sent wave after wave of Kingsmen down the hall toward the room where Nicodemus’s prize waited. The pregnant woman. “The cow,” the priest called her.
However, Boy knew what she really was to the old monster.
Not a victim. Not exactly. Victims were a dime a dozen. Everyone associated with the Seven Kings was ankle-deep in the blood of victims.
No, Circe O’Tree-Sanchez, daughter of Mr. Church, key to the destruction of the DMS, was a sacrifice.
Nicodemus had plans for Circe. And for all of the psychosis that Boy knew she kept penned in her own soul, the things Nicodemus had planned sickened Boy.
Still …
It would help the Gentleman. It would help her father.
When this was over, when the fires of this world had burned down, then she and Pharos would walk away from it all. They would find a quiet, beautiful place to live. A place where they could be family together forever.
Off to her right, she heard the great wolfhound howl, though if it was a cry of triumph or of pain, Boy did not know.
She held the thought of her father and her in the front of her mind. As a shield against the fundamental disgust of what Nicodemus was going to do. As armor to keep her moving through this fight.
Boy set her jaw, raised her gun, and fired at the Latina who had foolishly leaned out from behind cover.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 4:07 P.M.
They say that the most dangerous person is the one who has nothing to lose.
I believe that’s true for some.
Not for me.
When Yoda told me that the second password attempt failed, I didn’t lose hope. No. That’s not how I operate.
When they try to steal away the last shreds of my hope, then I go cold.
So cold.
The kind of hate that lives inside me isn’t a flame. It’s an emptiness. It’s the deep arctic nothingness that once upon a time had been filled with my innocence. When Helen and I had been attacked, when they raped and brutalized her, when they stomped me and nearly killed me, they tore a hole in me. Innocence leaked out, and into that vacuum flowed an icy wind.
We couldn’t access Davidovich’s program. We couldn’t upload the reset code.
There was now only one way to stop this thing.
At the source.
I stuffed the notebook into my shirt and turned toward the door. Somewhere in this building were the Seven Kings. Some or all of them.
And some or all of them would know how to stop their own program. Solomon and Regis, the kings of destructive programs, had their own masters.
Here in this building.
I drew my pistol, checked my magazine, and looked down into Ghost’s dark brown eyes. I’ve trained him to obey hundreds of verbal and hand signals. He’s a smart dog. He understands his job, and he understands me.
However, I didn’t say anything to him. The killer in me looked at the killer in him, and the coldness flowed between us, more eloquent than any language.
I smiled at him. He snarled at me. It all meant the same thing.
Without a word I turned, and together we went hunting.
Killers with nothing left to lose.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-one
UC San Diego Medical Center
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, California
April 1, 4:07 P.M.
As he exerted his strength to crack Rudy’s neck, the Kingsman bent and whispered in his ear.
“I know who you are,” he sneered. “Your that doctor. The cripple. The husband of the sacrifice. You should be thankful you won’t live to see what the Trickster will do to her. And to that worm inside of her.”
Rudy Sanchez screamed.
It was a huge sound that tore itself from his chest as he raised his good leg and stamped down as hard as he could atop the killer’s foot. Smashed with the heel, grinding. Just as Joe had taught him. He felt the metatarsals collapse, felt the hardness of the foot become like a crushed shell. The Kingsman screamed, and in the same instant Rudy’s bad leg buckled. They fell together.
Rudy could feel his consciousness becoming separate from his body, and at first he did not know if this was death. Was this the separation of the spirit that is sometimes reported by those who are at the edge of the abyss? Do victims of murder get to watch their own slaughter?
However, his body was not collapsing, and it was not dying.
His body was fighting back.
He was still inside that body and yet standing apart from it, watching himself fight for his life.
Rudy twisted around and drove an elbow backward into the Kingsman’s face, hitting a blocking arm, hitting a collarbone, hitting a cheekbone, then a nose, then a mouth. He
felt punches hammering into his back. He felt his own ribs crack.
His arm kept hammering.
The Kingsman suddenly shoved him and turned to reach for Rudy’s walking stick. He laughed as he snatched it up.
Rudy felt something hard beneath his thigh. He snatched at it, swung it blindly. Saw the flash of silver.
Saw the look of triumph in the Kingsman’s eyes disintegrate as the point of his own bayonet punched through his chest. Rudy screamed as he drove the knife deep. The Kingsman screamed, too.
But the killer’s scream did not last as long, and it was filled with a gurgling wetness.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-two
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
April 1, 4:08 P.M.
I tapped my earbud and got Top on the line.
“Go for Sergeant Rock,” he said.
“The plan’s for shit,” I said. “Kick the doors.”
There was a brief pause, and I could imagine him wincing with the pain of it. Then he growled a single word. “Hooah.”
“Nobody here’s our friend,” I told him. “The Kings are mine. Kill everyone else.”
He said “Hooah” again. This time it held a different, darker meaning.
I ran on with Ghost ranging ahead. The corridor fed into a lobby, and as I entered I saw three people. A thin man behind a reception desk, a tall bearded man in an expensive suit, and a Blue Diamond guard standing just behind him.
Ghost shot forward and was in the air before I could say a word. The security guard shoved the bearded man and tried to pull his sidearm. Ghost hit the guard like a missile and drove him down into an overstuffed chair that tilted backward and fell. Screams and snarls filled the air.
I saw the guy behind the counter reaching down for something. Probably a gun or an alarm bell. I put two center mass, and he went down hard. That left the bearded guy in the suit. I figured him for midforties, fit, tanned, with Greek features and an air of importance.
Was he important enough to have some answers for me? It was his bad luck that I had to find out.