Cotton smiled. “I say to you, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Davis looked to the helmeted agents sitting across from her. “This is going to be a long goddamned drive . . .”
• • •
Two hours later Davis saw Cotton awake with a start. He looked around, apparently uncertain where he was for a moment. Then he shouted through the wire mesh at her. “Why are we still traveling?” He rattled his chains. “What time is it?”
“Go back to sleep, Cotton.”
He seemed genuinely concerned, and Davis enjoyed a little private victory at the sight.
“We would have arrived at Stateville by now. Where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere. And I mean that literally: I am bringing you into the middle of nowhere.”
She could see the muscles of Cotton’s jaw tense. He thrust his face up to the wire and shouted, “You don’t have the right to do this! I’m supposed to be in Stateville!”
“Are you? According to whom?”
“Those were the terms of my cooperation. You’re violating the terms of my plea agreement.”
“It wasn’t my agreement.”
“You take orders from the federal prosecutor.”
Davis shrugged, enjoying his discomfiture. “Well, if you see him, be sure to mention it.”
The dull roar of jet aircraft came to them even over the engine noise of the armored van.
Cotton glanced up at the ceiling. “You’re not following the rules.”
“Suddenly rules are important to the terrorist bomber.”
The armored van slowed and turned, causing them all to lean.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Davis, but you’re risking my cooperation on this trial.”
“Duly noted.”
The tactical agents around her smirked, evidently pleased to hear someone putting Cotton in his place.
“It will vastly increase the length and cost of the proceedings.”
“No doubt.”
He examined her confident demeanor and apparently found it worrisome, but the van had now started to slow.
She smiled. “Looks like we’re here.”
“Where?”
Davis didn’t answer but instead turned away as the van stopped. Almost immediately the armored doors opened, and members of the security detail poured out. She stepped down as well, accepting Thomas Falwell’s hand as he walked up to greet her.
“Hey.” Falwell spoke over the thunder of distant jet aircraft. “They’re ready for you. And you weren’t kidding, these guys are serious.”
She looked around. “It looks like Bagram out here.” Stars filled the night sky around a crescent moon, but in the moonlight Davis could see what must have amounted to a mechanized company or two of heavily armed U.S. Marines in Stryker armored vehicles. Antiaircraft missile batteries were arrayed in defensive positions all around them. The hundred or so FBI agents who had escorted the motorcade this far were also disembarking and milling around with the soldiers.
There could easily be three hundred soldiers out there. The deep roar of jets still thundered above.
“We’ve got air cover, too.”
Davis turned to see the stunned face of Richard Cotton as he was lowered to the ground. He stared around in amazement at the military camp arrayed around them.
“What the hell is going on, Davis?”
He looked truly worried as she grabbed his waist chain and pulled him along. Falwell fell in behind her, as did the rest of the security detail. “Come here, Cotton, there’s somebody I want you to meet.”
“What in holy hell is going on?”
“Tsk, tsk, the Lord wouldn’t like you using that sort of language.”
“I demand to know what’s going on. I demand it!”
A Marine lieutenant directed her to a nearby Stryker armored command vehicle. As they approached, the rear hatch whined down to just a few inches off the pavement, revealing Jon Grady and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Bill McAllen sitting on cushioned benches in the LED light.
Davis shoved a stunned Cotton inside, his chains rattling against the steel deck. “Cotton, you remember Jon Grady, right? One of your victims from the Chirality Labs bombing?”
Cotton collapsed onto the bench across from Grady and McAllen as Davis and Falwell slid in behind him.
A marine sergeant in a command chair turned back. “Hatch coming up. Watch your fingers.”
The rest of the security detail took posts outside as the armored door whined back up and boomed shut.
Cotton stared at Grady, apparently uncertain what to say.
Grady stared back. “They know about the Bureau of Technology Control, Cotton. And they also know you’re a BTC agent.”
McAllen leaned forward. “Mr. Cotton, I’m the deputy secretary of Homeland Security. My name is William McAllen. I’ve informed the BTC that you’ve decided to turn informer and are now under our protection.”
Cotton’s eyes went even wider, and he nodded to himself.
“The BTC thinks you’ve betrayed them. I think you’d be wise to help us bring them down.”
What came out of Cotton’s mouth next surprised them all. He took a deep breath and spoke calmly and evenly for the first time in Davis’s memory. “This is unfortunate timing. It really is.”
“Mr. Cotton—”
“I know you think you’re helping, but it’s actually going to ruin everything.”
McAllen held up calming hands. “I can offer you protection, but only if you give us the structure of the BTC organization—who’s in charge, details of their facilities.”
Cotton sighed and shook his head, looking at Davis. “Is he serious?”
Grady cast a confused look to Davis.
Cotton turned his attention to Grady. “I don’t know how you got away from them, Grady, but you’d better damned well go straight back. If we all go back to the way things were, there’s a chance—a slim chance—that we might not be dead come morning.”
McAllen sighed impatiently. “Mr. Cotton, there isn’t going to be any bombing trial. We know you’re not a bomber, and we know there aren’t any bombing victims. What we need to find out is where those people are and who’s running the BTC.”
Cotton laughed ruefully. “No bombing victims? Well, you’re wrong about that. The harvester teams only take the people they want. Everybody else gets killed.” He studied their reactions. “No, not by me.”
Grady felt crestfallen. “So . . . my partners are dead?”
“I’m sorry to tell you that, but listen to me . . .” Cotton leaned forward in his chains. “You’re about to join them. We all are if you don’t stop this and put me back where I was.”
“Mr. Cotton . . .”
Cotton suddenly struggled against his chains, shouting. “Damnit! I had this all worked out until you idiots screwed everything up. I should be in Stateville!” He started banging his helmeted head against the bulkhead.
Grady grabbed Cotton’s bulletproof vest. “You’re saying they’re dead? Tell me!”
“Yes, they’re dead. Don’t look at me; I didn’t kill them. I haven’t killed anybody, but they’re not about to grab useless people. They grab the best and kill the rest. That’s their motto.”
McAllen eased Grady away from Cotton. “Look, we need to know everything you can tell us about Graham Hedrick.”
“Oh, man . . .” He shook his head vigorously. “You have no idea how far ahead of you these people are.”
“What was your deal with them?”
“The deal was I got to live if I was useful. That was the deal. But I had other plans—plans you idiots have well and truly fucked up. I need to get out of here.”
“We can protect you.”
Cotton laughed bitterly. “Look, I’v
e been crawling around in their world for a decade. I know what they’re capable of—and that’s why I want to get the hell out of this Styrofoam cup you’ve put us all in.” He gazed around at the armored vehicle.
McAllen nodded to a Marine captain nearby. “Get us under way.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cotton laughed again. “Under way? I’m sure that will stop them from frying our brains from orbit. Hey, did you talk to the others who’d tried to take down the BTC?”
“Others?”
“Oh, that’s right. You couldn’t. BECAUSE THEY’RE DEAD!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Now unchain me, and get me the hell out of this coffin!”
Suddenly all the lights went out. Electric motors whined to a stop in the blackness around them. Silence. No emergency lights came on. It was so black, Davis realized, it made no difference whether her eyes were open or not.
Cotton groaned again in the darkness. “There’s the HEMP. Great job, guys . . .”
Davis asked, “What’s a HEMP?”
“High-altitude electromagnetic pulse. They would have fired it from the edge of the atmosphere. Out there, the X-ray and gamma ray radiation interact—creates a massive free-electron maser. Any microelectronics within fifty miles are for shit now.” He listened carefully. “Don’t hear any fighter jets now, do you?”
“FBCB2 is down, sir!”
McAllen’s voice: “Captain, get this rear door open!”
“There are hatches over our heads, sir . . .” They heard banging around. “Hang on . . .”
Cotton’s chains rattled as he held forth. “You have no idea what you’ve done. If you brought ten thousand people, you couldn’t protect me. Just put me back! Let’s go back to the trial! It’s not too late. Come on—back to prison . . .”
Just then moonlight entered the vehicle as the staff sergeant opened an overhead hatchway up front. The captain opened another one near the rear and stepped up to look out, shouting down to someone. “Lieutenant, do they have power over there?”
There were muffled calls as Davis frowned at Cotton, who was busy groaning fearfully.
The captain came back down. “Power’s out in the entire force. And there’s thick fog coming in.”
Cotton nodded. “They’re lowering the dew point to mask their advance. And you no longer have night vision. Are you happy now? We’re all going to die. And I nearly had this solved. But you had to go and ruin it, didn’t you, Davis?”
She scowled at this strangely alien Richard Cotton. “Ruin what?”
Suddenly horrific sounds—like the fabric of reality tearing—reached them through the armored walls of the Stryker. Automatic gunfire erupted outside, with intermittent shouts and explosions. Then booms from a .50-caliber machine gun.
And then the deafening roar of a whole marine company opening fire shook the Stryker.
The staff sergeant poked his head up through the hatchway, shouting down, “We’re under attack, Captain!”
“From what direction?”
“I can’t . . . this damn fog. I can’t even see the tracers.”
Cotton nodded. “You’re blind, and they see everything. We’re sitting ducks in here.” He shook his chains. “Unchain me, damnit.” He looked to McAllen. “If we survive this, I’ll talk, I swear it—just get me out of here!”
Davis grabbed his arms. “Calm the hell down, Cotton. No one’s going to reach you in here.”
Already outside the gunfire had gone silent.
“There. They might have driven them off.”
Cotton just shook his head sadly. “You have no idea what’s coming.”
Then a blinding light and searing heat cut through the cabin—slicing the marine captain in half lengthwise even as it cauterized him. The last two feet of the Stryker fell away, the edges glowing red, as tons of steel and composite armor collapsed onto pavement. Night air swept onto the stunned faces of Davis, Grady, Cotton, Falwell, and McAllen.
Outside, they could see thick roiling fog and soldiers lying motionless on the asphalt. It was suddenly eerily quiet. No aircraft overhead. Not even the sound of crickets.
Davis turned back to see half of the marine captain twitching on the bench. She coughed at the combination of ozone and burned flesh and looked away, drawing her Glock pistol. Falwell and McAllen did likewise. The staff sergeant grabbed an M4 from a weapon rack and aimed it out into the fog.
He shouted toward the driver. “Captain’s down, Ricky!”
“What the hell hit us?”
“I don’t know!”
Davis glanced back to Grady and Cotton, only to see them both staring in horror out into the fog. She turned back again. “Thomas, we have to get Grady and Cotton out of here.”
Falwell shook his head. “This is insane. I don’t understand . . .”
Moments later three negative forms materialized from the fog. They were the darkest black Davis had ever seen. Their outlines swallowed light, as though they were living silhouettes.
Cotton covered his head with hands and cowered in his orange body armor. “Oh God! Morrison, it wasn’t me . . .”
Davis, Falwell, and McAllen opened fire with pistols, while the staff sergeant fired short bursts with his M4. In the confines of the Stryker the gunshots were deafening—spent cartridges bounced all around them—but they fired repeatedly until their clips were empty.
As she reloaded, Davis focused downrange, through the gun smoke into the dark fog. The three negative forms stood unmoving.
Finally a voice like that of God spoke: “Deputy Secretary McAllen. I bring a message from the director of the BTC.”
McAllen scowled as he lowered his gun. “What is it, you bastard?”
A tearing sound ripped the air again, and before Davis’s eyes, a white-hot fire swept from inside the tip of McAllen’s outstretched hand and down within his arm as he screamed in agony. It was as though some chain reaction was turning his body into fire. He started to burn like the glow moving down a cigarette. He barely got a second shriek out before his face and torso were consumed by the wave of glowing embers—the heat bursting forth from him singed Davis on the other side of the cabin. By the time the blinding flash ended, his form had collapsed into ash, his undamaged pistol clattering to the steel deck.
“Oh my God!”
Davis had reloaded, and she and Falwell opened fire at the dark forms again, but to no avail. When their guns were empty, they stared at the figures still standing, unaffected.
And then Davis heard the ripping sound again. Falwell turned back toward her as he burned. “No!” She grabbed his outstretched hand and screamed in agony as her skin burned along with his.
The unnatural fire consumed them both.
CHAPTER 23
Harvesters
Jon Grady stared, unbelieving, as Agents Davis and Falwell blew away into ash. He then turned toward the dark silhouettes at the mouth of the wrecked Stryker.
“Aaaahhh!” He charged at them. But one of the forms held up a hand, creating a force that swept over him, Cotton, and the staff sergeant, hurling them against the rear bulkhead. Dazed, Grady felt gravity shift, and they “fell” out to land roughly on the pavement—as if a giant had upended the Stryker and shaken them out like candy. Every loose object in the Stryker came along with them—including the remaining half of the captain, tools, and rucksacks. Grady and Cotton then floated up a couple of feet above the ground. Spent shell casings and trash levitated around them.
Several more dark forms floated down from above to join the first three, and they now stood staring at the floating men.
Grady turned to see that the staff sergeant was still breathing but unconscious. Apparently someone had noxed him—something Grady had seen many times before.
The fog was already dissipating as the summer breeze continued to blow over them, and now Grady could see just
how many marines were lying unconscious in the parking lot.
Cotton was babbling toward the jet-black center figure. “Morrison, I wasn’t working with them! Scan me! Go ahead and scan me!”
The same wrath-of-God voice spoke from the ink-black human outline. “How much did you tell them, Cotton? You piece of shit.”
“I didn’t tell them anything!”
As Grady floated in the air, helpless to move, he concentrated on the dark forms. They were menacing in a way he’d never felt before. Like demons from hell.
Morrison aimed his arm. “I don’t feel like scanning you, Cotton.”
A female voice spoke from the sky. “I’ll take the prisoners.”
The BTC warriors looked up to see Alexa descend wearing a black tactical suit of her own—although hers appeared much simpler. It was clearly not assault armor. She had a matching helmet as well with a crystalline visor across her blue eyes. Grady couldn’t help but notice a belt similar to the Morrisons’ woven into her outfit, and he assumed it must be the gravity mirror he’d invented—shrunken to absurdly small size and perfected.
As Alexa descended into Grady and Cotton’s gravity field, they joined her gravitational well, and now seemed to move along with her.
Morrison shouted, “Where the hell do you think you’re going, Alexa?”
“I’m taking these prisoners back to the BTC.”
Cotton looked over at her. “Thank God! Alexa, tell them I haven’t said anything.”
She eyed him. “Perhaps not, but you are going to tell me some things.”
She then glanced at Grady.
Grady looked to her. “They killed Davis. They burned her alive.”
Alexa looked visibly disturbed by this news, and she turned angrily toward Morrison and his gathered sons. “An XD gun? You didn’t have to kill anyone, let alone split their water.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Sometimes examples need to be made of people.” Morrison made no visible motion, but loose rocks and debris floating around him started to “fall” with him as his “down” edged toward Alexa and her new charges. “You’re not going anywhere. Hedrick ordered me to deal with Cotton just as soon as I learn whether he betrayed us.”