“Arrived where?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Their cargo is listed as parts and equipment to install a thermal venting system intended to regulate pressure buildup at the Yellowstone Caldera. Cowboy… they’re right there, right now.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY
People were running and yelling; alarms howled and the sprinklers hissed. A hotel assistant manager, responding to the crisis, reached room number 2301 and skidded to a sloshy stop in the doorway. The entire frame was ruined and the door lay inside, the dense wood splintered and pocked with holes. The whole room was in ruins. TV shattered, mattress torn and bloody, sheets scattered around, coffee maker crushed as if stepped on, and the big reinforced glass window completely smashed. The only consolation — and it was a small one — was that there was no fire.
He yelled at someone to shut the sprinklers down, but they twitched and sputtered and died anyway, the heat sensors failing to find cause. Water dripped heavily onto the soaked carpet. His boss, a stern-faced Asian woman of fifty, came hurrying into the room and stopped beside him.
“What happened?” she demanded. “Where’s the guest?”
All he could do was shake his head. They stared at the window and walked numbly toward it in complete silence, terrified of what they might see splashed far below. They leaned carefully out over the jagged teeth remaining in the frame.
A few people stood on the pavement, glancing down at the glittering shards of glass and then up to see where it had come from.
“Where’s the body?” asked the manager.
Six floors lower, in a junior suite with the blackout drapes closed and opera playing very loud, two women had a conversation in the bathroom.
One was dressed only in blood. The other wore white, disposable coveralls of the kind used by crime scene forensics technicians. It was a corner suite, chosen because there was no one on the other side of the bathroom wall. The soprano arias sounded enough like screams to convince passersby in the hallway, should other screams get too loud.
Lilith sat on the closed lid of the toilet, forearms resting on her thighs. She held the boning knife loosely between the thumb and index finger of her left hand.
“You disappoint me,” she said in a voice that almost sounded gentle. “From your reputation I expected more. But… I suppose it does not require much to stab from a shadow or fire a gun through a window. A pity.”
Gadyuka cringed in the tub. She was able to breathe, and weep, and talk. So many other things were beyond her now.
“You still have a chance, my pet,” said Lilith. “You have to make a very important decision now. What means more to you — your cause or your skin? And I am not speaking in the abstract.”
“Please…,” begged Gadyuka. “I… I… can’t…”
The head of Arklight cocked her head to one side. “Is that really true? I wonder.”
The aria playing was Maria Callas singing “Suicidio!” from La Gioconda. Very appropriate.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE
Church stepped away from Doc Holliday and Junie to take the call.
“Lilith,” he said. “How is Violin?”
“Alive. But that’s not why I’m calling. Do you know the name ‘Gadyuka’?”
Church stiffened. “Yes. Why?”
“We had a long conversation,” said Lilith as casually as if she were discussing yesterday’s news. “About earthquakes and green crystals and God Machines and destroying America. In any other circumstance I would think she was lying, but trust me when I say she was very earnest in convincing me of the truth of everything she said.”
“I believe you,” said Church. “We already know quite a bit and have made some guesses about more. Did she say anything about Wyoming?”
“Yes,” she said. “Tell me you have a team there already.”
“They are on the way.”
“Then they may already be too late.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO
“How we going to get there?” asked Bunny as he bent over a map. “Map says that you have to go all the way around the damn thing to get there by road. Four and a half damn hours.”
Top and I leaned down next to him. I grunted. “There’s got to be another way if they’re bringing in parts. A service road somewhere.”
“There,” said Cole. She tapped the glass on one of the windows. There, a few thousand feet below us, we could see a semi creeping along a dirt road through the rocky terrain.
“Not on the map,” said Bunny. “They must have put it in for the venting job.”
Since Nikki had found out about the truckers, she backtracked into state and federal records to find the details on the venting project. It was there, but it was hidden. Not under top-secret labels, but behind veils of what had to be deliberate obfuscation. Someone did not want it found, and by the time we were wheels down, Nikki came back to us with the name of the official go-to person in Washington.
“Who’s Jennifer VanOwen?” asked Smith.
“You’ve seen her,” said Tate. “Blond chick who stands behind POTUS and nods a lot.”
Smith shrugged. “She one of our bad guys?”
“I’m not liking her much right now,” said Top.
“She had the road built,” said Bunny.
“Jesus, Farm Boy, you took a nap on the plane and woke up stupid. Yeah, that road’ll get us there, but it’s how these motherfuckers have been getting their God Machine parts out there in the first place.”
“Just trying to make lemonade, old man.”
“Fuck you and your lemonade.”
The jet thumped down, jostling us all since none of us had bothered to buckle up for safety. By the time it was done rolling, we were locked and loaded. Tate disarmed and opened the door and deployed the collapsible stairs.
“Wheels?” asked Duffy, but the answer was rolling right toward us. A huge Toyota Sequoia painted in the colors of the National Park Service. “Well, there is a God.”
Shorthand is, we commandeered the truck, crammed enough weapons and ammo to storm the gates of hell, and squeezed all of Echo Team into the SUV. Top drove like the world was on fire.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE
It took too long for a call of this kind to make it through channels. In previous years, and even in the early days of this administration, the call would have gone straight through. Ultimately, he had to fudge the math and have Bug force it through the cell towers and security barriers and make it damn well ring in the president’s hand. While he waited for POTUS to answer, Church calculated the number of laws that call broke. Seven, he concluded.
“How in the hell did you call me?” demanded the president. “I blocked your number.”
“Mr. President,” said Church, “I need to inform you of a grave threat to national security.”
There was a beat and for a moment Church expected the line to go dead.