“Rudy killed him in San Diego,” I said.
“Did he? The evidence says otherwise.”
“Church… why are you doing this? What’s going on here?”
He said, “Hamlet had it right, you know. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth…’ It’s glib but true. Just as it’s true that the world is larger and darker than even you know, Captain, and you have walked through the valley of the shadow more than almost anyone else I can name. It has been my misfortune to be more aware of certain things than most. That knowledge led me to form the DMS and to become part of the organizations that preceded it. It has led me to form alliances with a variety of people who define darkness differently than you do. Or I do.”
“Like Lilith?”
“Yes,” he said. “I would like very much to say that Nicodemus is nothing more than a self-absorbed narcissistic psychopath — which he is — but he is far more than that. And, before you ask, no, we are not going to have that conversation right now. Trust me to know when it will be appropriate to discuss such things.” He paused. “Do you trust me, Captain?”
I got up and paced the few feet of the cubicle and considered — very seriously considered — banging my head on the wall.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Now… as to the message from the Good Sister. We don’t actually know that Nicodemus is involved. We have no way of measuring the reliability of this intel. It’s even possible this is a dodge meant to misdirect us or to try and frighten us.”
“Yeah, well, that part’s working.”
“Perhaps, Captain, but please bear in mind that we beat the Kings and we beat Nicodemus time and time again.”
“We were stronger then,” I said.
“Give us some credit for who we are now,” said Church.
“Okay, dammit,” I said, “but if this is Nicodemus then—”
“If it is, then it is,” Church said coldly. “It doesn’t give us a target, Captain. It doesn’t give us a starting place. Nicodemus is not an organization. The nature of a trickster is to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behavior. He is an influence. He is a polluter and a corruptor, but he is not the driving force behind this. That’s not how he works. Don’t mythologize this man, Captain. Don’t give him power by assuming it’s there.”
“But—”
“We can infer from the warning that someone is playing a game on us. Floating the name of Nicodemus could be one ruse among many. You’re the one who spotted the recent events as part of a larger game of misdirection. Stay focused on that, because I have no doubt that you are correct.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“I’m not,” said Church. “I’m endeavoring to keep you on point. Let Nikki and her team complete their pattern search. If anything comes up, I’ll call. In the meantime, keep working this. Trust your intuition. Trust your team. And then get some rest before you reach the DARPA camp, because you’re no good to me if you’re running on empty.”
And with that Mr. Warmth hung up.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
“Captain Ledger is in play,” said the Concierge. “He and his Echo Team will be at the Dog Park within a few hours.”
On the screen Zephyr Bain drowsed in her wheelchair, her eyes half closed, lips rubbery and slack, a line of spit glistening on her chin. Beside her, sitting in an overstuffed chair, a glass of dark wine resting on his knee, was John the Revelator.
“Good. Then he’s committed.” John sipped his wine and smiled a secret smile, his eyes cutting sideways toward the sleeping woman. Then they clicked back toward the screen. “Give me a status report. How well placed are we?”
“Shouldn’t we wait until the lady is awake so that she can—”
John put a shushing finger to his lips. “Let her sleep.”
“But—”
“Give me your report,” said John. His eyes seemed to swirl with strange colors. It made the Concierge flinch, because it didn’t look like a quality of poor video reception.
“I—”
“Now,” prompted John. He smiled, but it was the cold, anticipatory and predatory smile of a hunting crocodile.
The Concierge swallowed and nodded, then he ordered Calpurnia to open up small windows as he read out the information. He began with position statistics in the United States.
“There are thirty thousand four hundred and fifteen fire stations in the country. Of those, we’ve identified nine thousand three hundred and eight as critical to response in target areas. We have at least two bird drones at each location. As soon as the doors open during an emergency call related to Havoc, the birds will fly down in front of the door and detonate. They will each deliver payloads of eleven point three kilos of C4, equivalent amounts of Semtex, or one MI8 claymore mine designed to damage the doors and the lead vehicle but that will not blow up the buildings. The remaining equipment should be undamaged, but the response time will be slowed to within plus or minus six percent in our favor.”
“Good.”
“Of the eighteen thousand five hundred and six police agencies in the United States, approximately one-third are positioned in target areas. We have cockroach swarms in about a third of them, rat drones in a third, and bird drones in the rest. The cockroach drones with target call and dispatch centers, first-responder units, SWAT, and other emergency groups. We estimate that we can cripple the police response time by seventy-seven percent. Officers on the street will not be individually targeted, but without radio and backup they will be slow or reluctant to enter crisis scenes.”
“Good,” John said again.
“Of the nearly six thousand registered hospitals and urgent-care centers, all of those in the targeted areas will be hit by bird drones. Some of the largest emergency centers in poor urban areas will be taken out by WarDogs, using a combination of machine-gun fire and explosives.”
“Very good.”
“All registered FEMA offices will be targeted by commercial drones with explosive packages. All of the FBI regional offices will be taken out by large-frame bird drones, each carrying twenty-seven kilos of C4. A group of six WarDogs will be turned out on the Centers for Disease Control, and they will have on-site support from human operatives. Those operatives are all preconditioned with Swarm. Should the dogs prove insufficient, we can activate the rabies and let them off the leash.”
“So good,” said John. He dipped a finger into the wine and then licked it off. The way he did it was pointedly obscene.
The report went on and on. Military bases, power companies, turnpike entrances, bridges, subways, major arteries, dams and levees, cellular towers. On and on and on.
This program had cost Zephyr and her investors tens of billions of dollars. Every penny had been spent with care. It was, without doubt, the most comprehensive invasion, the most complete terrorist attack, the most sophisticated and well-orchestrated act of war in history. Nearly a quarter of the money had gone for bribes, for the purchasing of people — or their souls, he reflected — for donations and lobbyists and funding to make sure that the people watching the people who watched the people who put everything into place were all owned by Zephyr Bain and John the Revelator. It was the truest example of carte-blanche management ever.
And all that remained was the go order.
All that remained was for Zephyr Bain to speak the words.
As he spoke, the Concierge watched her sleep. And, despite everything, he secretly prayed that she would slip away, that the cancer would take her, that her dreams of changing the world would fade with her into the soft, deep black of forever.