The driver’s window exploded inward and Church threw an arm up to shield his face.
“Boss!” yelled Brick as he leaned in to pop the locks. He yanked the rear door open. “Are you all right? What’s happening?”
Church looked at the fold-down seat. It was snugged neatly in place and he was alone in the car.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
We all watched the video clips Nikki sent us.
“John the Revelator,” murmured Rudy, absently touching the crucifix he wore on a silver chain beneath his shirt. “My God… I met him. But I don’t understand — that can’t be Nicodemus. It doesn’t look like him at all.”
“Church said he uses disguises,” I said.
Rudy shook his head and didn’t comment, but it was clear that he wasn’t thinking that this was a matter of colored contact lenses, a wig, and some makeup. Neither did I, but neither of us wanted to say what we thought it actually was. No way.
“I want to put a bullet into this trickster cocksucker,” said Top.
“I’ll load your gun,” said Bunny.
“Hooah,” I said.
Cole got up from her seat and walked over to the monitor, bent close, stared into the eyes of the prophet of the technological apocalypse. Then she straightened and stood in a thoughtful posture, lips pressed into a hard line, eyes half closed in calculating appraisal. Then she turned back to us.
“I grew up out in the sticks of South Carolina,” she began slowly. “If you’ve ever spent time there — spent time outside the cities, spent time in the woods — then you know how strange the nights are there. Lots of people think everyone from down there is a redneck hick. But, as that saying goes, ‘Country don’t mean dumb.’ We see stuff. We hear about stuff. We believe in stuff. Church stuff and other things that aren’t in anyone’s Bible. Maybe one of these days I’ll tell you about some of the things I heard about, and some things I saw, and some things that people whose word I trust have seen. The stuff that goes on around Crybaby Bridge in Anderson. The Boo Hag and the Ghost Hound of Goshen. The legend of Julia Clare and the Third-Eye Man they used to see in the tunnels under the University of South Carolina and the haunted Baynard Crypt. Hell, I know people who say they saw something like Bigfoot down there. Is any of that real? Who knows? I don’t know. But I have to tell you guys this much — I got five different good-luck charms and I say prayers to God and some saints in ways that aren’t exactly part of my good Baptist upbringing.” She paused for a moment. “And I saw some things when I was deployed that made me wonder, stuff that made me really scared, and made me question who or what was running the world and maybe the universe. Now, I’m a smart girl and a good cop and I’ve had education, so I’m not saying this because I’m some kind of hick girl from the middle of nowhere. I’ve seen things that I don’t usually talk about because most of the people I meet haven’t seen those kind of things. But I listened to what you said and I see the look in your eyes and… well… I know that you know. I know that you’ve been out there hunting more than terrorists with fancy bombs.”
“Terror,” said Rudy very quietly, “is a bigger and more comprehensive word than most people think.”
I said, “While I was being recruited for the DMS by Mr. Church, he told me that we’re very much in the business of stopping terror. He didn’t set the parameters of what that word meant, and after running with Echo Team for all these years I realized that any attempt to precisely define that word would be the same as closing my eyes to its potential.”
We all turned and watched John the Revelator on the screen.
“So… how do we kill this man?” she asked.
Bunny said, “Personally, I’ve found that if you put enough ordnance downrange you’re bound to do some good. Words to that effect.”
“No, I mean do we use silver bullets? A stake? What’s the play?”
“I’m going to try all that,” promised Top. “And then I’m going to burn the son of a bitch and piss on the ashes. Think that’ll work?”
Cole suddenly smiled bright enough to push back the shadows of the day. “Sounds like a good goddamn plan,” she said.
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
“He was in your fucking car?”
Church winced and leaned away from his phone as Aunt Sallie’s voice filled the garage with shrill outrage. There was fear and anger there, too.
“Not exactly,” said Church quietly when she was done yelling.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” roared Auntie. “Either he was or he wasn’t.”
Church stood by the elevator door and watched as a dozen DMS technicians tore his car apart. Forensics techs assigned to Jerry Spencer were carefully placing items on a tarp they had spread out on the floor.
“It was a new kind of hologram,” said Church. “Jerry’s people have found more than thirty tiny ultrahigh-res 3-D projectors inside the back of my car. It’s a kind they haven’t seen before, and the image was strikingly realistic.”
“Did you know it was a projection? No, let me ask it another way. How did you not know it was a projection? Don’t you have to wear some kind of big goofy glasses for VR to be that real?”
“The senior tech thinks that the projection was structured so that the tint of my glasses acted as the cooperative filter. He said that the projectors and my glasses are a precise match.”
“How in the nine rings of hell would Nicodemus know what color tint you use?”
“Unknown,” said Church, “but it would not be the first time Nicodemus has used superior intelligence-gathering to give the impression that he’s conjuring magic.”
Aunt Sallie said, “Not all of that is smoke and mirrors, Deacon, and you damn well know it.”
“I don’t want to have that argument again,” Church said. “Not right now. What matters is that he had access to my car, either here or at my home, which are the only two places it’s been recently. Otherwise the cameras would have been found in the last sweep four days ago.”
“Then we’ll tear this place and your place apart until we find out how he managed it.”
“Fair enough,” said Church. “You can see to that. In the meantime, we need to consider what he said and what it tells us.”
“Three to six billion people dead? Is Nicodemus bullshitting us or bragging? No, don’t answer that. He’s doing both, and he’s doing it to mess with your head, Deacon.”
“That is a given,” said Church. “But it does not mean that he’s lying. Nicodemus loves to taunt. This is some kind of riddle.”
“Oh, so he’s a Batman villain now, taunting us with riddles?”
“Whatever he is or is pretending to be, Auntie, his threats aren’t to be taken lightly. It’s clear that he has access to a new and radically advanced generation of technology. If he’s tied to what is unfolding in Maryland, then he has nanotech, advanced surveillance bugs, some new kind of attack drones, computer viruses, and more.”