He looked from it to me and tried once more to speak the name of his killer. No-not a name. A word, a description. Two toneless syllables formed by a mouth that could not even speak that word.
Monster.
It was a horrible word, but it was no surprise to me. All this damage, all of the signs of physical power and rage-doors torn from their hinges, these men brutalized. I wonder if Cyrus and his father had stared into glaring red eyes as they were torn apart. A knight had done this, and if there was a better example of a monster hunting the streets of this country, I couldn’t imagine it.
Cyrus sighed and his hand dropped away. I sat with him while all that had made up this little man evaporated into the red darkness. I hadn’t liked him when I’d met him yesterday. A boring little guy who hadn’t much liked me either. But now that was different. He would live in my heart and head forever. Cyrus Omidi. A victim of the very old war that defines the Middle East? Or a victim of something new?
I spoke his name aloud seven times. Don’t ask me why. It felt like something I had to do.
I got to my feet and walked into the living room.
Fariel Omidi was past helping. There was nothing I could do for him. But I said his name seven times, too.
While I stood there, my phone rang.
“Captain,” Church said, “sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you. Give me a sit rep.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Barrier Safe House
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 10:46 a.m.
I turned away from the dead man and stared at the floor. Ghost came and lay at my feet.
“I don’t know where to begin,” I said into the phone.
“Tell me,” said Church.
So, I told him. About Violin. About the Red Knight in my hotel room. About the dead men whose pain seemed to scream through the air around me. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but Church cut right through my words.
“Are you injured?” he demanded. “Do you need immediate medical attention?”
I paused. “No. No, I’m good.”
“Are you in shock?”
“I-” I began and then stopped, realizing why he was asking that. My mind replayed the last few things I’d said and there was a rising hysterical note to my voice. The room was too bright, the colors too vivid. And the smell…
I took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I’m good,” I assured him. “Been a bad day.”
“For all of us, Captain.”
We gave that a moment.
“You are going to need to get out of that location,” he said.
“I know.”
“Don’t go to another Barrier safe house. The Company has one close to you.”
“Soon as we’re done I’m out of here,” I assured him.
“The woman,” Church said, shifting back to my report. “Violin. Give me a read on her.”
“Hard to say exactly. She’s a voice on the phone and she’s probably lying to me.”
“Then give me guesswork and suppositions.”
I thought about it. “She sounds young. Late twenties. Her base accent is Italian, though she could be any nationality or race with an accent picked up by familiarity. She’s a trained sniper. She’s for hire. The people who hired her are connected to Vox, which is how Rasouli hired her. No idea whose side she’s on, though she doesn’t seem to like Rasouli. And she’s tied up with someone or something called Arklight.”
“Arklight,” he said, repeating the name slowly, seeming to appreciate it. “Interesting.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yes. Did she confirm that she was part of Arklight?”
“No, when I asked her about it she hung up on me. Why? What’s Arklight?”
He didn’t answer.
“Yo! How about a little help for the guy standing in a room full of dead people?”
“Captain,” said Church, “to tell you anything useful about Arklight would mean betraying a confidence.”
“I don’t care.”
“It could also put you in danger.” He paused. “And, yes, I know how absurd that sounds, given the circumstances.”
“You think?”
“I need to make a call about this. In the short term, I have had dealings with Arklight in the past. Most of the time those dealings were harmonious. Working together against a shared threat, that sort of thing. But they are not allies. There are no standing nonaggression agreements between us.”
“Can you try to vague that up a bit more? I almost understood it.”
He changed the subject. “The man who attacked you at the hotel, you said that he was winning the fight? Assess that. Are we talking about superior combat skill or something else?”
“We were pretty well matched for skill and technique. It’d be hard to put a label on his fighting style, but he wasn’t trying anything on me that he hadn’t done a lot of times before. Everything was very smooth, very efficient.”
Church grunted his understanding. At a certain level, when you’re fighting to kill rather than trying to win a belt or a tournament, all style is stripped away in favor of a selection of techniques that are the most practical and effective at the moment. Experts who engage in these kinds of fights usually rely on a small percentage of the skills they’ve learned; skills that they know they can use, and which they can use without thinking about it. At that level a kick is a kick is a kick; a punch is a punch.
“What about enhancements?” Church asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing obvious, no exoskeletons or combat suit with joint servos. Nothing like that. He was faster and stronger, but the weird thing is that he didn’t have the bulk for it. This was way beyond the limits of ‘wiry strength.’”
“In the absence of the sniper, would he have won the fight?”
“Coin toss,” I admitted. “We were hurting each other, so I guess it would have come down to who wanted it more. I tend to want it quite a lot.”
“Fair enough.”
“On the other hand, let’s not rule out enhancement. Something chemical, maybe.”
“I wonder what Dr. Hu would find in a blood test. I don’t suppose you collected any-?”
“I didn’t take a cheek swab or get him to pee in a cup for me, but I have plenty of his blood on my clothes.”
“I’ll arrange a pickup.” He paused. “The attacker… gauge his strength. Use Bunny as a yardstick.”
“Twice as strong. Easily,” I said. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but that knight was a bull and-”
“Wait,” Church cut in sharply. “You just called the attacker a ‘knight.’ What did you mean by that? You didn’t mention that earlier.”
“Oh,” I said, and realized that he was right. When I’d blown through the story the first time I had called the attacker “the goon.” So I backed up and explained what Violin had told me.
There was a long silence on the phone.
“Describe the symbol Cyrus Omidi drew on the floor.”
“I can show it to you. The knight had it tattooed on his arm. I took a picture.” I fiddled with the phone and sent the e-mail.
I heard Church hitting keys to open the e-mail.
When he spoke again his voice was tight and urgent. “Captain, listen to me very carefully. Get out of that house right now.”
“Why-what’s wrong?”
“Violin was correct. That was a Red Knight you faced in your hotel and another one who killed the Omidis. That means Arklight is involved. Get out of that house immediately and call me from the CIA safe house.”
“Why-”
“ Go! ”
Chapter Forty-Three
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
June 15, 2:25 a.m. EST
Mr. Church set the phone down and stared at it. His hands were balled into fists on top of his desk blotter.
Then he snatched the phone up again and punched a speed dial.
“Yo,” said Aunt Sallie after two rings.
“Auntie, the situation in Iran has just gotten significantly worse.”