It was science, and not the grace of any god, that kept the man alive. Science and the will of so many devoted people. Many thousands of them, hidden in plain sight inside the government, in the military, in banking systems and universities. Hidden everywhere. Some of them knew about this man, but most of the cogs in the great machine had no idea they were involved in something illegal. A culture of secrecy and lies, of misinformation and disinformation, of corruption and coercion.
And this dying madman was the heart of it all.
The last beating heart, at least.
Most of the employees in the upper tiers thought that there were several people running things from the top. If not Seven Kings, then at least a majority of them. Doctor Pharos made sure they kept believing that. It was a useful fiction; just as it was useful not to let them know that their hopes and dreams, their plans of financial security and benefits, rested on the thready pulse of a rotting piece of meat tethered to life by eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of medical equipment.
And by Doctor Pharos, of course.
The loyal servant. The faithful and attentive doctor. The doting friend.
He had to fight to keep a sneer from his mouth.
The Gentleman was losing it; that was clear.
But he had not lost it all quite yet. Pharos knew for certain that the charred bastard still had certain secrets locked away. Not in vaults or encrypted onto computers. No, the bastard had them memorized. Long strings of numbers. Banking access codes and routing numbers. Beyond the millions on the organization’s operational accounts, there were billions—tens of billions—in offshore numbered accounts. And as the Regis project unfolded, many more billions would flow in as the global stock markets tore themselves to pieces. All of that money would flow into the accounts controlled by the burned man. After all, he was the last man—Pharos paused here in his musings. The burned man was hardly the last man standing. Merely the last man. His value as a human being, his total value to Pharos, and his sole protection from Pharos were in that set of numbers. Those banking codes.
Once Pharos had those—or even some of them—the burned man would be far less important. Pharos had a splinter of sentimentality left for him. So, maybe he wouldn’t actually abandon him to rot and starve. A bullet or an injection would be the merciful, compassionate, and companionable thing.
Once he had the fucking codes.
For now, though, they were all in that dying, demented brain. In the lump of gray that was being turned into Swiss cheese by the relentless march of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Spongiform encephalopathy. A degenerative neurological disorder, a human variation of mad cow. Prions. Misfolded proteins that led to rapid neurodegeneration, causing the brain tissue to develop holes and take on a spongelike texture. Incurable, untreatable, and fatal.
The fact that this man, in particular, should be dying from a prion disease was all the proof Pharos ever needed that there was not only a God but also one with a wicked fucking sense of humor.
Despite how amusing it was, it was also dangerous. If the Gentleman descended too far into madness, then those codes would go with him. Much would be lost.
Many billions.
And the world…?
The great plan, the project, would still unfold, even without this last King. It was a time bomb of procedure and process. When it detonated, this ugly world would continue spinning; however, the American government would cease to exist in any recognizable form. The dollar would be relegated to a footnote in history. There would be global war. There would be chaos, and therefore a delicious opportunity to plunder more wealth than had ever been taken in the history of larceny.
“The codes, the codes, the goddamn codes,” he muttered to himself.
Two nurses—one male and burly and the other small and delicate—came padding up, and he waved them inside. Then Pharos crossed his arms and watched as they managed the padded straps and pulleys as they moved the Gentleman from his bed to a special bathtub. They washed him with chemicals that soothed his burns and disinfected his entire body. Then they hoisted him out again. Water dripped from the man’s slack flesh, and steam coiled up from his chest like the heads of pale snakes. Pharos removed a package of cookies from an inner pocket of his sports coat. A small six-pack of Nilla Wafers.
It made him smile to eat them.
It reminded him of the people who were going to suffer—so much, and for so long.
It also calmed him, and he needed to be calm because of the impending arrival of Father Nicodemus.
“Good God and all His angels,” murmured Pharos as he chewed. He did not speak loud enough to be heard by the nurses or the bastard they were now arranging in the bed.
Father Nicodemus.
If there was ever a real boogeyman, then the little Italian priest was it. Pharos remembered the first time he had met the man. The priest had been staying at the house of Hugo Vox. Pharos had been introduced by Vox and had made the mistake of letting manners get in the way of his instincts. He’d offered his hand, and the priest had taken it.
It was the single most disturbing memory that Pharos possessed. The priest had clasped the proffered hand in both of his, and his hands were small and delicate and damp. And they were different. One hand, his right, was as hot as if he’d been holding a steaming cup of coffee; the left was cold, the skin icy.
Pharos had instinctively jerked back, but the priest, a man half his size and twice his age, had tightened his grip and would not release his hand. Instead, he pulled Pharos’s hand forward and pressed it to his own chest. Pharos could remember how that bony, meatless chest felt through the thin fabric of the cleric’s black shirt.
“Feel that?” asked Nicodemus, smiling at him the way the snake probably smiled at Eve on that distant misty dawn morning. The way the Roman soldier had before he unlimbered his whip as he approached a kneeling Jew in the governor’s court. As the German technicians had as they closed the iron doors to the gas chamber. Even at his most corrupt, Pharos had never before seen such a smile look back at him from the mirror. “Do you feel that, boy?”
Boy? Pharos had been thirty-five at the time. Tall and powerful.
“Stop messing with him,” said Vox from the wet bar, where he’d been building himself a Scotch. “He doesn’t understand your jokes.”
“Oh, he understands,” said Nicodemus, using his grip to pull Pharos closer. He dropped his voice to a whisper. His voice had been cultured and accented, but in the next sentence it changed to a backwoods drawl. “There’s a darkness in this one, Hugo. It’s a twisty-turny kind of darkness. You better watch this one, or he’ll be sitting on your throne one day.”
That’s when Hugo turned away from the wet bar and crossed to stand next to the priest. The big American and the strange little priest had studied him for a long, terrible time. Pharos felt as if his hand was simultaneously burning and freezing. Sweat ran down his face, and he almost cried out, almost begged for the priest to let him go.
Almost.
But he had not.
Instead, he ground his teeth and took the pain, endured the stares.
Survived the moments.
Then Hugo Vox reached down with his free hand and touched Nicodemus’s thin wrist. The priest looked disappointed, but then he smiled, shrugged, and released the grip. He turned away and began placing kindling into a cold and darkened hearth.
Pharos winced as he cradled his hand to his chest. Vox sipped his Scotch and regarded him.
“More things in heaven and hell,” he said. Then he winked and turned away.
That was the only time Pharos had spoken with Father Nicodemus. It was enough. He knew that he had been scarred by the encounter. Exactly as the old priest had intended.
Pharos ate the six cookies very slowly. Then he wiped the crumbs from his tie. The Gentleman was in his bed now. The burly nurse had switched on the iPod, and soon the subtle violin stylings of Gehad al-Khaldi flowed from the speakers. Violin Concerto no. 2 in E Minor, by Felix Mendel
ssohn-Bartholdy. The Gentleman had no particular passion for Mendelssohn, but this piece had been playing at the bank in the Seychelles when Pharos had accompanied the man there. Perhaps it would help him remember the routing numbers.
It was worth a try.
If it was a good day for the Gentleman, maybe today Pharos would coax him into giving one of the bank-account routing numbers.
Wouldn’t that be delicious?
Interlude Five
Ha-Nagar Street
Above the Stein Family Falafel Shop
Ashdod, Israel
Three Years Ago
“Scream if you want to,” said Boy. “Scream as loud as you want to. It’s okay. You probably should.”
Doctor Aaron Davidovich did.
He screamed.
He yelled.
He thrashed against the zip ties that bound him to the heavy wooden chair.
Boy sat crossed-legged atop the kitchen table. Jacob and Mason sat together on the couch. They were holding hands, fingers entwined. The CD player was working its way through a mix. Mostly electronic dance music, with a bias toward Deadmau5 and Daft Punk.
There was an open bottle of water on the floor in front of Davidovich.
He had not been given water or food for thirty-two hours. He had not been allowed to use the toilet. His legs, hips, and the chair on which he sat were streaked with urine and feces. The stink rose around him and filled the room. Boy, Mason, and Jacob occasionally rubbed mint ChapStick on their upper lips to kill their sense of smell.
The three of them waited with calm patience as Davidovich fought to get free and cried out for someone—anyone—to help him.
No one did.
Not that time, and not the five other times he’d been brought to consciousness.
The apartment was soundproofed. None of the people who came and went to the falafel shop downstairs heard a thing.
When Davidovich could scream no longer, when his throat was so raw he spit droplets of blood onto his naked thighs, when he slumped forward, weeping and spent, Boy nodded to the two men.
They rose as one, graceful and silent. Jacob picked up another of the heavy wooden chairs and carried it into the living room. He set it down in front of Davidovich. Mason went into the smaller of the apartment’s three bedrooms and returned carrying a body over his shoulder. A man who was secured by the wrists and ankles.
Jacob went and helped lower the man into the chair. They tied him in the same way as Davidovich, using the plastic ties to secure him firmly to the arms and legs of the chair. The man wore only striped boxers and a ribbed tank top. Both undergarments were stained with blood and spit, though the man did not look to be seriously injured. Merely unconscious.
“Wake him up,” said Boy, and Jacob nodded. He went to a closet and removed two items. One was a leather gladstone bag of the kind doctors once carried when making house calls. The other was a slim zippered vinyl case. Jacob handed the doctors’ case to Mason and unzipped the smaller case himself. From it he produced a prefilled disposable syringe. Jacob squirted some of the liquid into the air, tapped the barrel of the syringe with a fingernail, and then jabbed the needle into the unconscious man’s arm.
The effect was nearly instantaneous. The man jerked as if shocked, then began blinking and sputtering. He raised his head and looked wildly around.
“Oh God,” he said in a voice that was already cracking with fear. “No. No more. Please, for the love of God, no more.”
Boy unfolded her legs and walked over to the man, who cringed back from her. The man was in his early forties, with an intelligent face and bright blue eyes that were wet with unshed tears. Boy cupped his chin and raised his face to hers. Then she quickly bent and kissed him. It was a long kiss. She pushed her tongue against his teeth until the man opened his jaws, and then she stabbed her tongue deep into his mouth. She straddled him and ground her pelvis against his crotch. Despite everything—despite his terror and the bizarre circumstances—the man grew hard. His penis poked out through the opening in his boxers. Boy broke the kiss and slid off of the man’s thighs, sinking to her knees in front of him. She kissed the swollen shaft and then took it in her mouth, working up and down to make him harder still. Her head bobbed faster and faster, and the bound man moaned in equal parts fear and passion and horror and shame.
Then Boy raised her head, letting the engorged glans pop from between her lips, though she continued to stroke the man’s hard length. She turned and smiled at Davidovich, her lips wet with spit, her eyes smoky and glazed.
Her smile was a devil’s smile. Filled with the promise of so many wicked things. Her hand moved up and down, up and down.
“Now,” she said softly.
Behind the bound man, Jacob and Mason opened the gladstone and began removing their instruments. Skinning knives. Scalpels. Bone saws. The bound man saw none of this. Only Davidovich did. He began to scream a warning, but Boy put a finger to her lips.
“Shhhh,” she said.
Her other hand continued to move up and down, and the bound man’s back was beginning to arch as he neared an impossible, improbable, and entirely unwanted orgasm.
“Now,” she said again.
Jacob and Mason approached the man. Both of them wore identical expressions of complete indifference. The knives gleamed in their hands, reflecting the twisting figure.
Boy’s hand was a blur as it moved up and down, and the bound man cried out as he came.
He threw his head back.
And he saw the knives.
His scream changed in frequency and volume and emotional content.
Davidovich screamed, too.
He screamed so loud.
He kept screaming and screaming and screaming as the knives did their work.
The bound man screamed, too. He was able to, because he did not die.
Not for a long time.
Not for a terrible, long time.
Chapter Nineteen
Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa
849 Verdier Avenue
Victoria, British Columbia
October 13, 9:22 P.M.
“Is he here?” asked the burned man.
“Yes,” said Pharos. Fear sweat ran in lines down the sides of his face and gathered in pools inside his clothes. His hands were clasped with knuckle-hurting tightness behind his back. His buttocks and stomach muscles were clenched. His single word of reply came out almost as a squeak.
The burned man smiled. “Good. Then send him in.”
Pharos did not risk saying anything else. He was afraid a scream might bubble out. He bowed and scurried toward the door.
It opened before he got to it.
And he was there.
Smaller than Pharos remembered. Older. His skin as dry and withered as oak bark. Eyes whose color seemed to flow and change. A smile like some hungry thing from the pit. Pharos stood aside, and, as the old priest entered, he bowed again. It was more appeasement than respect, and in this one case Pharos did not castigate himself for acting like an obsequious toady. He kept his eyes averted until the priest had passed into the room. Then Pharos exited quickly and pulled the door shut behind him. The click of the lock was like a splash of cool water on his hot face. He leaned against the door, chest heaving, heart pounding, sweat running.
Then he licked his pasty lips, pushed away from the door, took two staggering steps, and stopped, fighting to pull the pieces of his armor back into place.
No one ever affected him like this.
He doubted anyone could, even if he was brought in chains to a private meeting with Mr. Church.
No … this man was different.
This little priest.
This monster they called Nicodemus.
Whatever he was.
Pharos, feeling faint, hurried away.
Interlude Six
Ha-Nagar Street
Above the Stein Family Falafel Shop
Ashdod, Israel
Three Years Ago
Boy s
at on the floor.
The floor was awash in blood, and she sat in that. In a lake of red.
Davidovich sat on his chair six feet away. Blood spatters painted him from hairline to toes. Mixing with his tears and with the muck that ran down his chair legs. He panted like a man who had run up fifty flights of stairs.
Behind Boy, the lumps of things that had been the bound man sprawled on, and over, and around the chair.
Jacob and Mason were in the shower, cleaning each other off. Their laughter and snatches of song drifted through the noise of the spray. They were always happy. After.
Davidovich was no longer screaming. That time had passed. All he could do now was stare. Not at the ruin of the stranger. At Boy.
“You understand now?” she asked.
The scientist was so terrified that he did not dare answer.
“Do you understand?” she repeated.
He nodded. Shook his head. Nodded. His expression told her that he was trying to tell her what she wanted, to agree to anything. A stalling tactic, but understandable.
She pulled her crossed ankles under her and rose. Blood dripped from her shorts and ran in crooked lines down her slim legs. She did not have any on her hands. She padded across the room to the entrance to the kitchenette, took her laptop from the table, and brought it over. She turned it toward him so that he could see the pictures on the screen.
Three people in small video-feed windows. An old woman seated at her kitchen table doing the newspaper crossword with a blue ballpoint. A woman soaking in a tub, a wet rag across her eyes, a glass of wine on the flat rim. A fifteen-year-old boy walking beside a school soccer field while he read text messages on his cell phone. It was obvious that they were being filmed, just as it was obvious they did not know it.
Davidovich goggled at them.
He found that he could scream again after all.
The three people in those three little video squares were his mother, his wife, and his son, Matthew.
The only three blood relatives Aaron Davidovich had in this world.
Boy stood next to the destroyed red debris that had been a man and showed the images to Davidovich.