“Top—talk to me,” I breathed.
No answer.
I ran down the hall, pistol held up and out. There was plenty of blood. Red footprints on the carpet. Red handprints on the wall. A long smear as if one of them had leaned against the wall for support while he ran.
“Top,” I called again.
There was a sound. A groan. I slowed to a careful walk a few yards from where the corridor opened out into a small lobby. The lobby was empty, the doors open and smeared with blood. I slammed through the door and there was Top, flat on his back outside, eyes open and blinking, mouth working like a beached trout. An impact injury, not a gunshot wound. Thank God.
He had his pistol in his hand and waved it toward the side of the building.
“Go…,” he wheezed.
In my ear I heard Bunny say, “Out back!” at the same instant I heard gunfire.
Shit.
I spun around, reentered the building, ran down the hall, jumped through the open doorway to the loading dock, barrel coming up and out, seeking a target. Bunny was on his knees, firing at the black SUV.
As I ran past him into the parking lot I squeezed the trigger over and over again, hearing that silly little tok sound each time, seeing bushes explode into fire and a masonry wall detonate into a cloud of dust. I got one good shot at the SUV and the rear window exploded, but the wheels spun on the blacktop; plumes of rubber smoke rose in oily columns behind the SUV as it lurched forward.
Bunny limped out and a moment later a winded Top staggered around the side of the building.
The car vanished around a corner and was gone.
Bunny said, “Jesus Christ, boss … we just got our asses handed to us.”
Chapter Five
Shelton Aeronautics
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Thursday, October 17, 10:45 a.m.
Then we turned and looked at the building. At the lights, the open door. The utter silence. The thermal scans had told us that there was a mass of heat signatures on the top floor. Bug had thought there was interference from the structure because the signatures were fading.
But that wasn’t it and as we stared up at lights we all knew what it was.
The thermals were fading because body heat diminishes after death.
Bunny said, “Oh, man…”
We didn’t want to go inside. We knew what we’d see.
We went in anyway.
I wish I could say that there were no surprises, but …
Chapter Six
Shelton Aeronautics
Wolf Trap, Virginia
Thursday, October 17, 2:19 p.m.
We called it in. Police, FBI, Homeland, the coroner’s office.
As each new team of professionals arrived on the scene, we had to flash our NSA IDs and retell the same sanitized version of the story. Then we had to take the poor bastards up and let them visit the horror show.
That’s what it was, too.
There were sixty employees at this particular Shelton Aeronautics lab. Twelve top engineers and a lot of support staff. Everyone showed up for work that day. No one was lucky enough to have the flu or a broken leg or a sick child. Sixty people clocked in.
And then Henckhouser and Spinlicker showed up and destroyed them.
There’s really no other word for it.
Destroyed.
I stood next to the Fairfax County deputy coroner for almost five minutes, neither of us speaking, both of us staring at what lay inside the big conference room. If you caught it out of the corner of your eye you’d think it was splashed with red paint. Walls, floor, ceiling.
Then, when you took a closer look, you’d understand. When you smelled the stink of copper and feces and the thousand other odors released when a body is burst apart, you’d understand.
But, like the coroner and the rest of the people there, you would not understand how.
I thought I did. The clunky little gun—the one that looked like a Taser but wasn’t—was snugged into the back of my waistband, under my coat. Bunny had the other. They were mentioned in no official report that anyone outside of the DMS would ever read. I called in a full description to Mr. Church.
An EMT looked us over, put Band-Aids on minor cuts, gave us chemical ice packs for the bruises, and made sure not to look us in the eyes. He’d been upstairs already. He was dealing with that.
The only thing the coroner said to me the whole time was, “Jesus H. Christ.”
Top, Bunny, and I got out of there four hours later. We got into my Explorer, buckled up for safety, and made our way to I-95. Church called and I put him on speaker.
“What’s the status of your team?” he asked.
“Dented and dissatisfied,” I said.
“I passed along your description of the pistols you obtained and your account of the damage done. Dr. Hu tells me that they fit the profile of a microwave pulse pistol, an MPP.”
“How come I never heard of it?”
“Because until today it was a hypothetical weapon. Dr. Hu says that it’s never been practical because the energy output would require a battery approximately the size of a Subaru. His words.”
Top currently had one of the pistols, turning it over very gingerly in his hands. “Can’t weigh more than a pound.”
“Someone cracked the science then,” said Church. “I’m sure Dr. Hu will be delighted to study them.”
Dr. William Hu was the DMS’s pet mad scientist. He was way past brilliant and he had a pop culture sensibility that almost made him likable. But then you got to know him and it turns out he’s an asshole of legendary proportions. He’d have probably gotten a chubby looking at the damage the clunky little gun had caused. He was like that. He’d be sorry it hadn’t been used on me. Neither of us broke a heavy sweat worrying about the other guy’s health.
“What about the computer systems and research materials at the lab?” asked Church.
“Slag,” I said. “The computer room looks like melted candles, and the file cabinets are full of ash. This was a very nasty and very thorough hit.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“You talk to Shelton?” I asked.
“Briefly,” he said, “but remember we’re not running this show. There are, at last count, eleven separate investigative agencies working on this case. The president asked us to provide some extra boots on the ground.”
That was not entirely true, but the real reason wasn’t something generally shared among the overall task force. Yes, Church had put some assets—like Top, Bunny, and me—on the ground, but what the president really wanted was MindReader. Church had obliged, with reservations. All the task force’s data was being run through MindReader in hopes that its pattern recognition software would find something. A fingerprint, a lead, anything. Those requests were funneled through Bug and his geek squad. Church declined, however, to allow anyone from outside the DMS to even look at MindReader, let alone play with it. That’s no joke—MindReader was Church’s personal property and he guarded it with the ferocity of a dragon. We all knew what kind of damage someone could do with that system. As it was, only Bug had total access.
I said, “After today, are we going to be cut a bigger slice of this?”
“Is that what you want?” asked Church.
“Not sure,” I admitted. I could feel Top and Bunny studying me. “Part of me does. Part of me wants to have a more meaningful discussion with agents Henckhouser and Spinlicker.”
“I believe Dr. Sanchez has frequently spoken out against the need for revenge.”
“It’s not revenge,” I lied. “There are some, um … technical questions I’d like answered.”
“Such as?”
“They shook off a lot of damage. Physical blows, hard falls, gunshots.”
“That’s right,” said Bunny, speaking up for the first time. “When I patted them down I didn’t feel any heavy body armor, found microthin stuff. Those guys took hits they shouldn’t have been able to. We need that stuff, and we
need to know where they got it.”
“Maybe we’re looking at a new generation of body armor,” I said. “The Canadians have been playing with some ultralight stuff.”
Church grunted. “Let me make a few calls to some friends I have in the industry.”
We all smiled at one another. Church always seems to have a “friend in the industry,” no matter what industry happens to be involved in our investigations. He can make a call and suddenly we have whatever we need. Circus tent to use as a field biohazard containment command center? No problem. Special effects experts from Industrial Light and Magic? Sure. Next year’s prototype deep-water submersible? Pick your color. Church never explains how he happens to know so many people in so many critical industries, but as long as he’s one degree of separation away from whatever helps us do our jobs, then it’s all cool with me.
“What else?”
“They were strong,” said Top. “Even with gunshot wounds they were fast and strong. Maybe we can hijack the lab results on the blood work, see what kind of pills these boys are popping.”
“I’d like to see a DNA report, too,” I said. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve run into freaky-deaky gene therapy.”
“Noted,” said Church. “So, am I to infer that your only reasons for wanting to encounter these agents again is for the opportunity to take a full set of forensic samples?”
His voice was as dry as desert sand.
“Sure,” I said. “If anything else occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”
Church didn’t respond to that.
“So, again, I ask,” I said, “are we going to take a bigger role or not?”
There was a long silence. So long, in fact that I thought the call had dropped.
Finally Church said, “Actually, as of now we are off the case.”
“What? Why?”
Another pause. “There are two answers to that, Captain. The official answer is that now that Congress has doubled the task force budget they will be able to pay overtime for more FBI and NSA agents to participate in the investigation.”
“That sounds like bureaucratic bullshit. What’s the real reason?”
“No one will come out and say it,” murmured Church, “but some off-the-record sources have informed me that the task force has concluded that cyber-attacks of this level of sophistication could only be accomplished by a computer with MindReader’s capabilities.”
I nearly drove my Explorer into the oncoming lanes.
“What?”
“The report stopped short of accusing us of criminal activity, but there is language in there suggesting criminal negligence in—and I’m quoting from a report I am not supposed to have—‘mishandling security for the MindReader system resulting in person or persons unknown to use it for the purposes of cyber-terrorism.’”
I looked at Top, who closed his eyes and lightly banged his head on the side window. In the backseat, Bunny very quietly said, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Whose name is on that report?”
“Ah,” said Church, “that’s the other new development. The vice president has personally taken charge of the Cyber Crimes Task Force.”
“Well isn’t that just peachy,” I said sourly.
“I thought you’d find it amusing.”
Vice President Bill Collins was no friend to me, the DMS, or Mr. Church. A while back, when the president was having bypass surgery, Collins—in his role as acting president—tried to use the NSA to dismantle the DMS. We could never prove that he was doing so in order to help some crooked colleagues. Collins is a master at keeping shit off his shoes, but ever since that incident we’ve kept a wary eye on him. This task force nonsense was exactly his sort of thing.
“Are they going to file charges?” I asked.
Church gave us one more pause. “They are welcome to try,” he said.
“So—what’s the game plan?” I asked.
“No game plan,” he said. “Go back to the Warehouse, send those guns up to Dr. Hu at the Hangar, write your reports, and try to enjoy the rest of your vacation.”
I thought about what I’d seen at the lab. The red walls. The destroyed people.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
I disconnected the call. The three of us lapsed into individual brooding silences all the way back to Baltimore.
We thought it was over.
We thought we’d seen the worst of it.
We were out of it.
Sometimes you can be so totally wrong about something.
Chapter Seven
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Thursday, October 17, 7:22 p.m.
Howard Shelton loved to blow things up.
Everyone needs a hobby, a passion, and that was his.
When he was eight he did it the wrong way. Firecrackers duct-taped to the butler’s cat earns you a beating. A rather savage beating, in point of fact. When his mother was not in diamonds and a ten-thousand-dollar Dior gown she was a heavy-handed witch who knew where to hit and how to make it last without leaving visible bruises. And, thereafter, Howard was fairly sure that the cook—who rather fancied the butler—spit in his food.
So, Howard did not blow up any more cats.
Not unless he was traveling. Then, for recreation, to let off a little steam, sure. Fuck it, it’s a cat.
In high school they gave him awards for blowing things up. Science fair judges loved that sort of thing. People stood and applauded, they gave him trophies. Mom kept her hands to herself.
In college it was hit or miss. A lot of it depended on what he blew up, how controlled the explosion was, and who was in the lab when it happened. If it was Bryce Crandall—the math stud who was putting it to Howard’s girlfriend, then that was bad. That was a police report, black armbands around campus, and a bad breakup with Mindy who, Howard guessed, never quite believed that it was all an accident.
On the other hand, if the explosion was in the firing vault and the people in the lab were those cold-eyed men from the Department of Defense … well that was a whole different picture. That was pats on the back, job offers, and grant money. That was egregia cum laude, a level of graduation honors rarely seen even at MIT.
Mom actually hugged him that day.
The people from the DoD brought along a couple of stiffs from DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Lots of handshakes, more serious job offers, and doors blown completely open.
Not that Howard Shelton needed to work. Dad was two years dead by the time Howard got his Ph.D., and Mom was one shove down the stairs away from leaving Howard six hundred and twenty-two million dollars.
Shame about those steps, that loose bit of carpeting.
All things considered, though, Howard would have preferred to blow her up.
But … you can’t have everything.
On Thursday evening, Howard Shelton sat on an exercise bike in his personal gym, pedaling and sweating and watching the TV news coverage of the massacre at his laboratory in Wolf Trap, Virginia. There was different coverage on each of the four big screens mounted on the wall. Howard watched the news for two solid hours.
“Perfect,” he said aloud.
He never stopped smiling once.
Interlude One
New Technologies Development Site #18
One Mile Below Tangshan, Hebei
People’s Republic of China
July 28, 1976, 3:38 a.m. local time
General Lo peered through the foot-thick glass, his lips pursed, eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
“What guarantees do we have this time?” he asked. “I would be disappointed with another failure.”
Lo deliberately pitched his voice to be cold and uncompromising. That made these scientists jump. It reminded them that they worked for him and he was the face of the Party here. Just because they were afforded more personal freedom and greater comforts because of this project did not mean that they were untethered from the chain
of command. If they were as smart as they were supposed to be, then they would realize and accept that their comforts were the equivalent of clean straw and fresh water in a pet rabbit’s cage.
The scientists straightened respectfully even though Lo was not looking at them. But he saw it in the reflective surface of the window.
Good, he thought.
The chief scientist, an ugly fat man named Zhao, said, “Everything is working normally, General Lo.”
“You said that last time,” said Lo, continuing to study the machine that squatted in the stone chamber on the other side of the glass. It was a bulky device, awkward in appearance, looking more like a haphazard collection of disparate pieces rather than one integrated machine. And, to a great degree this was true. Only six of the machine’s ten components were original. The others were copies made from pieces or from schematics bought from the Russians or stolen from the Americans. The last of the ten pieces, which was one of the very best recovered components, was held suspended over the device by chains. It was the master circuit, a metal slab eight inches long and four inches wide; slender as a wafer but improbably heavy. Once that piece was fully inserted the machine would become active. It would growl to life.
The Dragon Engine.
Lo privately scoffed at the name. Dragons were part of the old China mentality. Hard to shake from the more practical and far less romantic communist way of thinking. But his superiors had liked the name. Ah well.
Ice crystals glittered like diamond dust on the Dragon Engine’s metal skin. Lo glanced at the thermometer mounted on the inside of the glass. Minus 160 degrees.
“Yesterday’s pretest was a—” began Zhao, but Lo cut him off.
“Yesterday was very nearly a disaster.” Lo turned to face Zhao and the other members of the science team. They flinched under his stare. “During each of the three calibration tests the well water in the local villages visibly rose and fell.”
“Yes, General Lo,” agreed Zhao nervously, “but it was not at all like what happened before.”