Shelton was weeping openly, tears and snot running in lines down the sides of his face. His face was beet red and I wondered what kind of a window I had before his heart burst or he stroked out. There was aspirin and other goodies in the stimulant, and that would help, but I was definitely pushing the envelope here.
“They’ll kill me,” he said one more time, but as he said it his eyes shifted away from me toward a wall on which was hung a portrait of Harry S. Truman.
I followed his eyes and then looked back at him. “Is it in there?”
His voice was tiny. “Y—yes…” He closed his eyes. “Oh, God…”
“Ghost—watch,” I said and hopped off the desk. There was a small electronics detector in another pocket and I ran it along the edges of the painting. All the little lights pinged. I strolled back to Shelton and patted his cheek. Maybe a little too hard. “Nice try. It’s wired six ways from Sunday, which means that if I sneeze on it your goon squad will be in here in ten seconds.” I leaned very close so that my breath was hot on his cheeks and eyes. “The first thing they’ll see is you die in ways that will give them nightmares the rest of their lives.”
Tears rolled from his eyes.
“Tell me how to bypass the security or what they’ll bury won’t even look like a man.” I bent closer still and described exactly what I’d do.
He screamed without me having to actually do anything.
And then he broke.
Like that.
“Okay, okay, please God, okay … don’t hurt me anymore…”
There was a lot of stuff like that. I had to coax him through the procedures to disarm the security measures on the safe. Some of them involved the same remote Shelton had used to activate the jammers. Others involved more complicated codes that I had to enter on a keypad that was hidden behind a carefully crafted panel on his desk. Lucky for him there was no retina scanner. I told him as much. He sobbed some more.
I left Ghost there to watch him while I made sure there were no passive alarms or tripwires. Dr. Hu’s little scanner was very efficient.
After five minutes I felt confident enough to swing the painting aside on its concealed hinges and enter the last set of codes on a second keypad. I’ve been to viral research labs and I don’t know that I’d ever seen an entry procedure as complicated as this. Fourteen separate steps. The safe set into the wall was a dummy. It was filled with stock certificates, bearer bonds, two jewelry cases, and at least five hundred thousand dollars in paper-wrapped bundles. I dropped it all on the floor. Once the safe was clear, Shelton talked me through the steps to access the hidden compartment behind the back wall.
The fake metal wall slid up with a hiss to reveal a space that was ten inches wide and a foot tall. There were three things in the compartment. A small metal cylinder the approximate size and shape of a cigar tube, a jagged piece of metal wrapped in bubble wrap, and a book wrapped in thick velvet.
The book was a little larger than a paperback novel and thicker than the Bible. Thousands of tissue-thin pages.
And, yes, it was black. I flipped through it. Lots of sketches of mechanical devices that I didn’t recognize. Page after page of notes written in a neat, cramped hand.
Bingo.
I tapped my earbud. “Package acquired.”
Bug made a strange series of falsetto noises and said, “I think I just came in my pants.”
“Never remind me of this conversation,” I told him.
Another voice cut in. Auntie. “Cowboy, confirm mission status.”
“Package acquired,” I repeated. “I have the Majestic Black Book.”
There was a sudden burst of static so sharp and loud that I almost tore the earbud off, but then it was gone.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
“I—don’t know,” said Auntie. “For a second everything lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“Well, whatever it was, don’t let it happen again. Near blew my head off. Cowboy out.”
Then I turned back to Shelton, who stared at the book in my hand. His eyes were wild.
“They’ll kill me for this,” he said. His face was greasy with agonized sweat.
“Who will?”
“Them!” he snapped.
“Who? Are we talking little green men?”
“No, you maniac … the others in the Project. They’ll kill me and now they’ll kill you.”
“Not a chance,” I said, smiling a smug little smile. “They won’t even know I was here. Give me some names,” I suggested.
He looked at me like I’d suddenly suggested we both dress up in dinner clothes and waltz through the halls.
“Give me some names,” I repeated, “and I’ll make sure that you get full protection.”
“You can’t offer any goddamn protection. The DMS is done, it’s gone. God, you’re really an idiot aren’t you?” he said.
Okay, that hurt, coming from a guy I had strapped to a desk.
“Do you think there’s any place you can hide me that they can’t find?” He was wheezing with pain and terror.
“Yes, I do,” I said, not at all sure if I was telling a lie.
“They’ll find me and kill me and then they’ll find you and everyone—”
“Yeah, yeah, they’ll kill everyone I love. My family, my dog, blah blah blah. You watch too many Scorsese films. They won’t find out about this unless you tell them.”
“Wrong, shithead,” he panted, “they’ll find out as soon as my people take me to the hospital. They probably have a spy here…”
I parked a haunch on the edge of the desk. “Why would anyone take you to the hospital?”
He stared at me, caught in a terrible moment of indecision. Was I making a joke? Or did my question carry an even worse threat.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said hollowly.
“Actually,” I said, “no. I’m not going to hurt a hair on your head.”
“But … but … I don’t…”
I reached across him, out of his line of sight and twisted my hand again.
The agonized expression on his face immediately changed.
“W—what…?” he stammered. “What…?”
I reached down and removed the tiny metal needles I’d inserted into nerve clusters on each of his fingers. They were like acupuncture needles, with wires trailing away to the small device in the leather case. I held it up for Shelton to see.
“Ta-da!” I said quietly. “Electric nerve stimulators. You can set these things to send all kinds of signals. I could make it feel like you just gave birth to a ten-pound baby, so severed fingers were easy as pie. All the fun of torture without the mess. Order now and you get a free at-home waterboarding kit. Fun for the whole family.”
He gaped at me, totally unable to speak.
Ghost dripped more slobber on Shelton’s shirt.
I bent close and tapped Shelton with the book.
“Now listen close, asshole,” I said. “I have the book and you have the thanks of a grateful nation and all that. Except that nation is going to put you in jail until three days after the end of the world.”
Shelton mustered enough of his wits and focus to say, “Fuck you.”
Tried to spit in my face, too, but I dodged it.
I laid the book on his chest. “Understand something, friend,” I said, “just because I faked you out doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of playing rough. It would be a real mistake to think that.”
“Go to hell,” he said.
Suddenly fists began pounding on the door outside. Not knocking. Pounding.
Then the door shuddered as something slammed into it. It wasn’t anyone trying to kick it in. This sounded like one of those heavy-duty breaching tools—a steel weight swung by a couple of big guys. Shelton’s guards were breaking in. Ghost began barking furiously.
On the desk, Shelton laughed. “Guess you’re not the only one who can play a hole card, you sick bastard. As soon as you opened that last panel a signal went
out to my whole team. They’re going to come in here and tear you apart, Ledger, and I’m going to piss on your bones.”
The heavy oak door began to splinter.
Chapter One Hundred Twelve
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 7:54 a.m.
There was another huge whump on the door. The stout wood panels were cracking. It wouldn’t take them long to break in. Shit.
I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Bug, do you copy?”
“Right with you, boss. We’re finding some crazy, crazy stuff on that—”
“Save it,” I said, “the big bad wolf is at the door. I’m going to have to get creative here.”
“Copy that,” he said, and there was a nasty little laugh in his voice.
I grinned, too, though there were still a lot of ways this could go south on me. Events already seemed to be spinning that way.
Whump!
I grabbed the right cuff of my jacket and yanked. The sleeve tore away easily. Velcro, baby. Then I tore off the left sleeve. When the Velcro fastenings ripped it exposed small strips of adhesive. There were similar strips inside the cuffs. With all four exposed I pressed them across the big crack that was forming in the door, affixing half to the oak and half to the heavy frame. I made sure to leave a lot of slack, though. I wanted the door to open, at least part of the way.
The adhesive was great stuff. In seconds it would bond with the wall and even Bunny couldn’t pull it off. Fun with chemistry. That would mean that all the bursting strength of the door would have to tear the material apart.
Ghost barked at me while I worked, but I whistled a happy tune.
Then I returned to Shelton. His face was gray and streaked with sweat. I felt his pulse and it sounded like machine gun fire. His skin was cold, though. He was going into shock.
Shit.
“Okay, sparky, here’s the thing,” I said amiably. “There are two ways this can play out—”
“Kiss my ass. In ten seconds my guys are going to—”
“I know, I know, tear me apart so you can piss on my bones. Yesterday’s news. No, what we need to focus on is what happens before they break in. They can find you alive and unharmed, or they can find you dead, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t need ten whole seconds to change your life. Or end it. If I’m going to hell, then you’ll be driving the cab, capiche?”
He opened his mouth to say something smartass or threatening, but didn’t. Instead I saw pain flicker across his face.
Uh-oh.
Whump!
Splinters flew into the room. Ghost stood wide legged and growled at the noise. He was fierce and he’d definitely get the first man through the door, but I had no illusions about our survival if things kept sliding downhill. Even so, I kept those concerns off my face.
I drew my piece and screwed the barrel into the soft underside of Shelton’s jaw. “No more jokes. I know you rigged the cyber-attacks and even killed your own people to make the authorities look elsewhere. I know you framed me and somehow got the president to shut down the DMS. I know you’re a governor of Majestic Three. I know you’ve been breeding alien-human hybrids, and I know that you’re building spaceships.”
His jaw went slack as I rattled all that off.
“Yeah, we’re smart, too. We know all that. We also now have two copies of the Black Book. The original and the pretty blond copy.”
His mouth worked like a silent gasping fish.
“But I really need to know what the end game is here. It’s not just to sell a new stealth fighter. You could have done that without all this bullshit. You didn’t need to frame me or kill my friends to accomplish that.”
Whump!
Whoever was hitting the door was serious about it.
Shelton found his voice and sneered at me. “You fucking idiot. You think you know a lot but you don’t know shit, but you don’t know what I’ve done to protect this country. You think I’m the bad guy? The fucking Chinese blew up the Locust bomber. They’re the ones who have a working T-craft. Not us. We’re years away.”
He sold it so well that for a moment I almost bought it.
Almost.
He was stalling, feeding me another lie, but why? He had things to bargain with.
Suddenly Shelton’s body stiffened and he arched his back as if I’d just Tasered him. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and he gave a single strangled cry. Then he collapsed back onto the desk. His breath rattled in his throat.
I felt for his pulse.
And didn’t find one.
Goddamn it.
“Bug,” I said as I dug into my pocket for another hypo, “we have a problem. Shelton’s coding on me.”
I jabbed Shelton with the needle and then started CPR.
Whump!
Shelton twitched and gasped, dragging in a ragged lungful of air.
Ghost’s bark jumped up a notch and I turned to see the door crack from top to bottom. The shattered wood bowed into the room, caught against the sleeves I’d affixed across the door, pressed them to their ripping point, and tore them apart.
I flung myself off the desk, hooked my arm around Ghost and dove for cover.
The wires inside the sleeves snapped, triggering the detonators in the cuff buttons, sending tiny electrical impulses into the chemicals that saturated the fabric.
The explosion was spectacular.
The force picked me up and threw me all the way across the room. It destroyed the massive door, turning the heavy wood into a death storm of jagged splinters that tore into Shelton’s men. Arms and legs flew everywhere; blood sprayed the walls and ceiling.
The screams were terrible.
Some of those screams were mine.
Chapter One Hundred Thirteen
House of Jack Ledger, three hours ago
Near Robinwood, Maryland
Monday, October 21, three hours ago
Snake Harris ran down through a gulley that was still bathed in shadows. Six men ran behind him, each of them with automatic weapons aimed toward the house. Snake was the only one carrying a handgun. It was boxy and awkward looking, with four prongs instead of a barrel; however, Snake had used that pistol several times. The last time was at Wolf Trap in Virginia while working a job under the name Henckhouser. He and his partner had painted the walls using those guns. Snake loved the effect.
He ran with the pistol in a two-hand grip, his eyes focused on the back porch door. The telemetry from the satellite told him that the four heat signatures inside were stationary. Probably asleep.
That was okay. If they wanted to take it lying down, then that was just fine.
As his team reached the end of the gulley he looked across the lawn and saw the second team move into position beside the front porch. Another six men. And a third six-man team was in the attached garage, ready to kick the door that led into the cellar. Eighteen men and himself, ready to close around this place like a fist.
The primary mission objective was simple. Secure Junie Flynn. If she was there. Everyone else dies.
There was a burst of very faint squelch in his earbud, the signal that the garage team was in place.
Snake whispered a single word.
“Go.”
The teams rushed their objectives. Snake’s sergeant, a hulking man, passed him and kicked the door. Almost in the same second Snake heard the front door bang in. And then they were pouring into the house, rushing from darkness into lighted rooms, weapons up and out, searching out the four lives whose time on earth had come to an end.
The closest heat signature was the den and Snake burst inside, his gun already firing.
Tok!
The curled form under a blanket on the couch exploded as the microwave pulse burned into it. There was a flash of colored blanket shreds and then the air was filled with feathers. In the confusion, his men opened up and tore the form, the couch, and the whole side of the room apart. Splinters flew from the floor, plaster
leaped from the walls, glass disintegrated out into the side yard.
There were shouts upstairs, more gunfire.
“Hold your fire!” Snake yelled. “Hold your fire.”
The chatter of automatic gunfire dwindled down to silence, the last of the brass tinkled onto the ground.
Feathers floated on the smoke and mingled with plaster dust.
The couch was torn apart. So were the two thick pillows that had been positioned under the blanket.
“Where’s the target?” growled Snake.
“Thermals are saying it’s here,” insisted his sergeant.
Snake whipped left and right, his team kicked over chairs, tore open closets.
They found the heat source.
It was under the couch. A device about the size of a TV remote.
“It’s a signal relay,” said the sergeant. “These fuckers are getting cute. They’ve forwarded a thermal signature here to draw us away from where they are. Christ, boss, they could be anywhere.”
Which is when the house blew up.
* * *
IN THE BARN, seated on a folding chair next to stacked boxes of Jack Ledger’s personal possessions, Gunnery Sergeant Brick Anderson tossed the detonator onto the floor.
“That’s for Baltimore,” he said.
Outside he heard a few sporadic shots. Birddog, cleaning up the leavings.
Brick switched off the jammer that hid the true thermal signatures. He stood up and walked to the barn door. The house was a burning pile of sticks.
“Joe’s not going to be happy about that,” he said.
A man moved out of the shadows.
“He’ll get over it,” said Mr. Church.
Chapter One Hundred Fourteen
VanMeer Castle
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monday, October 21, 7:57 a.m.
I landed on my side with Ghost cradled against my chest; the impetus of my dive sent us sliding fifteen feet across the polished floor. The shock wave kept us going until my shoulders slammed into a table on which was a huge bouquet of flowers. The blast flattened the table, withered the flowers and splattered us with splinters and chunks of masonry.