“But—”
“I am authorizing Havoc.”
There was silence as the Concierge sat waiting for more.
“Did you hear me?”
“I did, sir, yes… but the protocol is—”
“For Zephyr to say it. I know, and I told you that she is too sick. She has authorized me to give the word for her.”
Still the Concierge did not move.
“Don’t fuck with me,” warned John.
“Monsieur,” said the Concierge, “it is my understanding that this entire program was set up this way so that it was Mademoiselle Bain who gave the go order. She and no one else.”
“That’s impractical and sentimental. How many ways can I say it? She is sick. She is too far gone to be able to give that order.”
“It’s a single word,” said the Concierge. “I have dedicated my life to her. She is my employer, and she is the only one whom I will accept that order from. No one else. Not even you, sir. Her, or no one.”
John drew in and exhaled a long, slow breath. “You disappoint me.”
“I am sorry, monsieur, but—”
“Shut up, you little toad. I’m tired of hearing you speak. No… I’m tired of you.” John turned to the wall sensors. “Calpurnia, transfer all of the Concierge’s operational controls to this station. Do it now.”
“All secondary operational controls have been terminated,” said the computer. “Station One is now in complete operational control.”
“Wait, no!” cried the Frenchman. “What are you doing?”
“Calpurnia,” said John, “initiate a flashpoint at Station Two.”
“No!” screamed the Frenchman. “You’re mad. Don’t do this.”
“Please clarify,” said Calpurnia, sounding alarmed.
“You heard me,” said John. “Do it now.”
The little Frenchman continued to scream and protest.
For one second more.
There was a flash of white light, and then the screen was filled with static and white noise hissed from the speakers. Then the picture changed to show a distant view of the cliffside where the Concierge’s house had been. Now it was an angry orange fireball that rose slowly toward the blue sky. Pieces of debris flew outward toward the sea.
“Station Two has been terminated,” said Calpurnia.
John gave the sensors a sharp look. Was there the slightest hint of regret there? Was there some disapproval?
“Thank you, Calpurnia,” he said. “Now, initiate WhiteHat. Initiate all systems. Initiate all drone launches. And… God, have I wanted to say this and mean it for so long, release the hounds.”
“Please speak the code word to initiate Havoc.”
John smiled. “The code word is love.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
The Junkyard didn’t look as if it was built for speed, but Brick Anderson and Mike Harnick had tricked it out with a new suspension system, weight balancing, and one hell of an engine. It burned north along Interstate 5, blowing past faster-looking cars. West of Star Lake, they picked up a police escort that began as a pursuit to give out a speeding ticket, but Top made a call and the cops fell into formation, a motorcycle up front and a state-police cruiser behind. A police chopper followed them from a thousand feet up.
Bunny, Top, and Cole kept themselves belted in and braced, because Lydia Rose drove like a maniac.
“She’s going to kill us all,” yelled Cole.
“Don’t want to play the man card here,” yelled Top, “but woman up.”
“‘Woman up’ is not a thing, you sexist freak.”
“Whatever.”
Behind the wheel, Lydia Rose laughed as she drove and the needle trembled around ninety-five.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE
“Coming up on it, boss,” said the pilot over the loudspeaker.
I looked out the window and saw a small landing zone in the middle of no-damn-where. No bells or whistles. I could see the telltale ripples that let me know there were camouflaged tarps covering small buildings and vehicles. Everything else was a sea of Douglas fir and western hemlock. I couldn’t even see a road from up here.
During the flight we changed into work clothes. Bird Dog, our logistics and field-support guy, was aboard and he always knows how to pack for a trip. I put on black BDUs, flexible and durable combat boots, weapons, and plenty of fun toys. Rudy stayed in his civilian clothes. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but this isn’t a raid. We’re going to DARPA to ask for help, aren’t we?”
I clipped my rapid-release folding knife into my right front pants pocket. “Sure,” I said, “but I want to get the right answers first time I ask.”
He sighed but made no other protest.
On the ground we were met by a lieutenant from the unit attached to the camp. He had a sergeant and five soldiers with him. He stood at the foot of the fold-down stairs. I clumped down to the bottom step and looked down at him.
“This is a restricted airstrip,” he said. “You do not have permission to land here.”
“We already landed,” I said.
“I’ll need to see your identification.”
I was wearing a pair of aviator glasses with no correction in the lenses. What I had instead was a high-def camera in the temple piece and a screen display on the inside of the left lens. The camera was synched with MindReader’s facial-recognition software.
“Lieutenant Pepper,” I said, and liked how hearing his name made the kid twitch. “You work for Major Carly Schellinger, correct?”
Lieutenant Joe Henry Pepper burned off three seconds trying to figure out how to answer that and settled for a brief nod.
“She’s your boss,” I said. “You know who her boss is? And I don’t mean the director of DARPA. I’ll give you a hint. Her boss lives in a big white house in Washington, D.C. with lots of roses in the yard, and he signed this.” I held out a sheet of paper embossed with the seal of the president of the United States. He took it with great reluctance. His squad tried to scare me to death with tough-guy stares, but it was the wrong day for that. I wasn’t the right audience for that performance. Beside me, Ghost was showing everyone his teeth. There was not a lot of love in the air.
Pepper handled the letter as if it was radioactive. “I… I’ll have to call this in.”
“You do that.” The lieutenant had no idea what my rank was, but he threw me a nervous salute and hurried over to a Humvee parked in the shade of a canopy, opened the door, and climbed in.
Bird Dog and his assistant trotted down the steps with a duffel bag and a locked metal case and set them next to the Humvee.
Rudy studied the soldiers and leaned close to speak. “Did you notice the sergeant?”
“What about him?”
“He has extensive facial scars.”
“So?”
“All of these men do,” said Rudy. I glanced over at Pepper’s men. I’ve become so used to seeing soldiers with battered faces, because the DMS tends to have that effect, that I didn’t notice that they were visibly scarred. It was an unusually high percentage.
“What’s it tell you?” I asked. “That they’re recruiting combat vets?”
“More than that,” said Rudy, “though I could be wrong. DARPA has been doing a lot of work with Medtronic, a Minneapolis firm that developed an implant for Parkinson’s-disease sufferers in a bid to strengthen short-term memory and even restore lost memories.”