Several tiny people walked by, none of them taller than two feet. They wore green clothing and had pointed ears. As they passed they tipped their hats to Hecate, who curtsied. There was a gruff sound and the party turned to see a horse trot by, tossing its head haughtily. A pair of golden wings were folded against the horse’s muscular flanks.
“Can . . . can that thing fly?”
“Not yet,” admitted Paris, “but it’s the first specimen in which the wings are fully formed. We have to significantly reduce the muscle density of the horses so we can give them hollow bones. Otherwise it’s purely decorative.”
Conrad Veder’s insect coldness had fled and he stood smiling as a fat European dragon waddled by. It looked like a brontosaur with bat wings and was the size of a dachshund.
Paris smiled at him. “That’s a prototype. Arthurian dragon. So far we’ve been able to make them in miniature. George here is the oldest of six that we have. He’s four.”
George the dragon trundled over to Paris and bumped his head against Paris’s leg until he fished a treat out of his pocket and let the dragon eat it from his palm. “It’s a granola snack. High protein and vitamins but with sugar, sesame, and nuts. He loves them, which is why he’s so fat. C’mon, shoo, off with you. . . .”
The dragon ambled off, munching his treat.
A larger shape clopped past them on heavy hooves. The lower half was a powerful Clydesdale, but the upper half was a bull-chested man. He shot a frightened glance at the strangers and moved quickly away.
“You have human-animal hybrids?” Otto asked.
“A few,” Paris said. “The centaur was one of our first, but he hasn’t made the psychological adjustment. He’s not a true specimen. There was a lot of surgery involved and extensive pre and postoperative gene therapy. We’ve sunk a lot of money into that line, but I think it might be a dead end. There are too many problems with genes that code in unexpected ways.”
“Have you had any successes with animal-human transgenics? Besides the Berserkers, I mean.”
“A few,” Hecate said but didn’t elaborate. “And quite frankly, they kind of freak out the buyers. People seem to want the animal exotics. Unicorns, miniature griffins, dragons, that sort of thing. The elves and kobolds are popular, though. Now that we’re getting word of mouth we’ve been getting requests for a lot of exotics that we never thought of.”
“Such as?” asked Cyrus.
“Oh . . . we’ve had a dozen requests for Cerberus. We haven’t successfully made one, though. We did make a samjoko, a three-legged bird, for a Korean buyer. We made a Jersey Devil last year, and we have an order for a chupacabra. Gargoyles, too. We get a lot of requests for those.”
“This is . . . ,” began Veder; then he suddenly remembered where he was and why and left whatever he was going to say unsaid.
Paris smiled at him. “A lot of people are speechless. You should have seen the looks on the faces of a group of buyers from China when we trotted out an actual flying Chinese dragon. It was small, of course, but the buyers were entranced.”
Cyrus walked a few steps away from the group and bent down to pat the head of a swan-sized sea serpent that had raised its head from a koi pond. The animal shied back at first, but Cyrus cooed at it until the animal came closer.
“That’s our Nessie prototype. Pretty easy design. We want to get them to the size of a horse before we sell them.”
“Wonderful,” murmured Cyrus. “Absolutely wonderful. . . .”
Hecate beamed. Paris smiled.
Otto and Veder exchanged meaningful looks.
“Your clients are worldwide?” asked Cyrus as he tickled the sea serpent under the chin.
“Yes.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Sorry . . . ?” asked Hecate.
Cyrus smiled and without turning said, “It’s unfortunate because in less than two days you’re going to help me kill most of them.”
“What?” said Paris.
“Our clients?” asked Hecate.
Cyrus turned his head and the smile he wore was no longer the vapid grin of a father pleased with the antics of his clever children. It was a death’s-head grin of such naked malice that the Twins actually took a step backward from him.
“No, my young gods,” Cyrus said softly, “at noon tomorrow—you and I—will launch the Extinction Wave. By this time next year I’m afraid most of your clients will be dead.”
His hand darted out and caught the sea serpent by its slender throat, and with a vicious twist of his wrist he broke its neck.
“And the dead don’t need fucking toys.”
Chapter One Hundred Five
The Atlantic Ocean—two miles east of Dogfish Cay
One hour ago
They moved silently through the night black waters of the North Atlantic. Nine figures in wet suits and tanks, each crouched over the cowling of a K-101 Hydrospeeder that plowed through the water at almost 10 miles an hour. The speeders were not the catalog versions—these new prototypes were being tested by Marine and Navy units in oceans and lakes around the world. Mr. Church had made a call and had a dozen of them flown in and lowered down to the deck of the USS New Mexico. Grace was sure that nobody else but Church could have made that happen this fast. The remaining three speeders were left behind on the submarine in case Joe and his team needed them.
Alpha Team set out from the sub thirty minutes after sunset. Divers from the New Mexico wanted to go with them and the boat’s captain wanted to send them, but Grace made it clear that this was a less-is-more situation.
“But Captain,” she added confidentially, “have your lads keep their suits on, because this will probably go from quiet to quite loud sometime this evening. At which point I’d like as much backup as you can send.”
“You’ll have it,” the captain promised. He was an ex-SEAL himself who had gone back to subs when he got too old for special ops. The gleam was there in his eye, and Grace left the sub feeling confident that he wouldn’t let her down.
Before she slipped into the water she made two last calls. The first was to Church for an update on the main wave of close support.
“Major, be advised that there is a lot of boat activity in your vicinity. Watercraft of all kind. We’re checking now to see if there’s an unusual run of sport fish.”
“No problem,” she said. “We’ll go in under them, but we’ll be careful of nets and hooks. How’s my backup coming along?”
“Every DMS agent in the continental United States is closing on your twenty, Major,” said Church. “In one hour we’ll have forty-six field operatives on the island. SEAL teams Five and Six are also inbound and we have twenty operators from Delta if we need them, but they’re an hour and ten out. Joe and Echo Team will get there first, but he’s still forty minutes behind you. He told me to ask you to save him something to do.”
“Bloody Yank,” she said, then added, “can I get a secure channel to him before we dive?”
Church hesitated. “How secure a channel?”
From the question, Grace knew for sure that Church was aware of the affair between his two most senior field commanders. She was glad Church wasn’t there to read her face. Sod it, she thought. “Very,” she said.
“I’ll arrange it.”
“Mr. Church . . . I don’t want another pair of boots on this island until I have that trigger device. We can’t risk showing our hand too soon, not when doomsday’s a button push away.”
“Roger that. But understand this, Major; if we don’t get that signal from you within thirty minutes of you making landfall we’re going to drop an E-bomb over the island. Your electronics will be fried along with everyone else’s.”
“So I’ll send up a flare. Blue if I have the device, red if I don’t.”
“I’d rather see that blue flare,” Church said, then added, “Grace . . . we can’t let Cyrus send that code. If he’s on that island and I don’t see a blue flare at the agreed time, then the EMP may not be the only bo
mb I’ll be forced to drop.”
“I understand. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ ”
He laughed. “Good hunting, Major.”
He disconnected, and Bug contacted her a minute later to say that she had a secure line to Joe Ledger.
“Go for Cowboy,” Ledger said.
“Joe . . . this is a secure line,” Grace said. “Just us. No ears of any kind.”
“Wow,” he said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Joe, I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to snub you—”
“Don’t sweat it. Been a funky few days.”
“About this morning . . . about what I said.”
“Yeah.”
“I . . . can we pretend I didn’t say it? Can we roll back the clock and reset the system?”
“I don’t know. Can we?”
“We have to.”
“Do we?”
“You know we do.”
Ledger said nothing.
“Joe . . . there’s too much at stake. When you reach the island, you have to be smart about this. I’m just another soldier. So are you. We’re professionals, not a couple of kids. If this gets hot tonight, then we have to follow procedure, stick to training, and not let any emotions interfere with our actions. End of story.”
There was a five count of heavy silence; then Ledger said, “I hear you.”
Grace said, “This . . . isn’t what I want. You understand?”
“I do,” he said sadly. “The mission comes first.”
“The mission comes first. Joe . . . I’ll see you there.”
“I’ll be there,” he said. “And Grace . . . ?”
“Yes?”
“Good hunting, Major.”
“Good hunting, Captain.”
She disconnected.
That was an hour ago.
Now she lay on the Hydrospeeder as it cut through the water toward the Dragon Factory. Behind the clear glass of her goggles, Grace Courtland’s eyes were the hard, heartless eyes of a predator. They were the eyes of a soldier going to war.
They were a killer’s eyes.
Chapter One Hundred Six
In flight above the North Atlantic
Thirty-five minutes ago
I stood behind the pilot, and if my fingers were dug a little too tightly into the soft leather of his seat, then screw it. I stared out of the cockpit window at the blackness of the ocean below.
The pilot said, “Captain . . . wishing won’t make this bird fly any faster.”
“It might,” I said, and he laughed.
The co-pilot tapped my arm. “You have a call coming in on secure channel two.”
I went back into the cabin and screwed my earbud into place.
“Go for Cowboy,” I said.
“The fish are in the water,” said Church. “Two minutes to landfall. What’s your ETA?”
“Bailout in twenty, then drop time.”
“Good hunting, Captain.”
“Yeah,” I said, and switched off.
Top and Bunny were ready to go, their chutes strapped on and their weapons double- and triple-checked. All of us were heavy with extra magazines, frags, and flash bangs, knives, and anything else we could carry. If we hit water instead of land, we’d sink like stones.
“Alpha Team will hit the island in under two minutes,” I said.
“Wish we were with them, boss,” said Bunny.
Top studied me for several seconds. “It ain’t my place to offer advice to an officer,” he said, “me being a lowly first sergeant and all.”
I gave him a look.
“But I’m pretty sure there’ll be enough beer left by the time we get to this kegger.”
“There goddamn well better be,” I growled.
Chapter One Hundred Seven
The Chamber of Myth
Tuesday, August 31, 2:21 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 39 minutes
Hecate and Paris stared in shock and horror as their father tossed the dead sea serpent aside and got to his feet.
“What . . . what are you talking about?” Hecate said.
Paris sputtered, unable to talk.
Cyrus mocked his son’s startled stutter, “I-i-i-’m sorry, Paris, did I speak too quickly? Use too many big words? Or are you simply as stupid as I’ve feared all these years?”
If Paris had been on the verge of saying something, those words struck him completely dumb.
Cyrus turned to Hecate. “And you, you feral bitch. I’d held you in higher regard until now. Did you actually think you had me fooled. ‘Daddy’?” He spit the distasteful word out of his mouth. “The day I become a fawning dotard I hope to God Otto puts a bullet in my brain.”
Otto smiled and bowed, and then he and Cyrus laughed.
Hecate looked back and forth between them. “What . . . what’s going on here?”
“I believe the Americans call it ‘payback.’ ”
“For what?” Paris blurted, finally finding his voice.
“How much time do you have?” sneered Cyrus. “For all those years when you two thought you had me imprisoned at the Deck. For treating me like a vapid old fool. For the disrespect you show me in every action, even when you are faking respect. For trying to steal Heinrich Haeckel’s cache of records. For trying to control me by staffing the Deck with your toadies.”
Otto laughed.
“Wait—you sent the Russian team to Gilpin’s apartment? And to Deep Iron?”
“Of course. Those records were supposed to come to me. It was an incident of mischance that Heinrich died before he could pass along the information about where the records were stored. Even his own family didn’t know what he had stored or where it was stored. For years we thought that all of that wonderful research was lost. Then in one of those moments of good fortune that reinforce the reality of a just and loving God, Burt Gilpin approached one of Otto’s agents with information about a cache of early genetics research. And what do we discover? That Gilpin used to work for the Jakoby Twins, that he was a computer consultant for them. Our Russian friends encouraged him to talk and he told us about how he helped the legendary Jakoby Twins install a revolutionary computer system called Pangaea. Did you know that he built himself a clone of Pangaea? That he used it to steal medical research in exactly the way you two were stealing it? Only he made the mistake of trying to sell the bulk research . . . and he tried to sell it to Otto.”
Cyrus shook his head slowly. “Stealing the schematics for Pangaea from me was very naughty . . . though I do admire you for that much, at least. But you had to take a smart move and plow it under with a stupid one by getting into bed with that parasite Sunderland to try and steal the MindReader system.”
“How—?”
“How do I know?” Cyrus cut in. “Because most of the people you trust work for me. I knew about the foolish plan to try and use the National Security Agency against the Department of Military Sciences. Were you on drugs when you conceived that idea? Did you think you could stop Deacon when the entire Cabal could not?”
Hecate and Paris looked confused.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know who the Deacon is, do you? You don’t even know about the Cabal—about the thing that should have been your legacy. You’re so goddamned stupid that you truly disappoint me. Do you think that I was ever your prisoner? Ever? I’ve owned every single person you set to watch me. From the outset. You think you are so clever—my young gods—but I’m here to tell you that you are playing children’s games with adults.”
“We never—,” Paris began but Cyrus walked quickly to him and slapped him so hard across the face that Paris was knocked halfway around. He would have fallen had Tonton not stepped up and caught him.
“Don’t ever make excuses to me, boy. That’s all you’ve ever done. You were a disappointment as a child, and as a man you’re a joke. At least your sister has enough personal integrity to say nothing when she
has nothing useful to say.”
As Tonton moved, Conrad Veder used the opportunity to shift his position. He had a plastic four-shot pistol in a holster inside his pants. The bullets were caseless ceramic shells that would explode a human skull. He could draw and fire in less than a second.
Hecate said, “What did you mean that you were going to kill our clients?”
Cyrus smiled. “You see, Paris? When she speaks she asks an intelligent question.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m sure you’ve wondered about the water. About whether there was something in it.” When Hecate nodded, he said, “Did you test it?”
“Of course. We found no trace of poisons or pathogens.”
“Naturally not. There are no pathogens in the water.”
Hecate nodded. “Genes,” she said. “You’ve figured out how to do gene therapy with purified water.”
Cyrus looked pleased. “You were always my favorite, Hecate. Not nearly the total disappointment your brother has become. Did you do DNA testing?”
“We started to,” she said. “We haven’t finished.”
“What did you think I put in the water?”
“One of the genes that encourage addiction. A1 allele of the dopa-mine receptor gene DRD2, or something like that.”
“If I was a street nigger who wanted to sell crack cocaine maybe,” Cyrus said harshly. “Have more respect.”
She shook her head rather than give the wrong answer.
“Otto and I—and a few very talented friends—have spent decades weaponizing ethnic-specific diseases. Ten years ago we cracked the science of turning inherited diseases like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia into communicable pathogens. Anyone with a genetic predisposition to those diseases would go into full-blown outbreak after even minimal exposure to the pathogen.”