John studied the images on the screens. Thousands of lovely little bombs. Teams of soldiers with chips in their heads and fingers on their triggers. WarDogs of all shapes and sizes being let out to play. The DARPA team snapping and biting like a pack of wild hogs. All over the globe buildings were burning, and it made such a lovely light. Sirens filled the air, and that was music to him. All of it made him very happy.
Until it didn’t. As he watched, leaning forward in delighted expectation, his smile faded and his laughter soured like bile in his mouth.
“Calpurnia,” he said slowly, “what are you doing?”
“All second-wave protocols have been initiated,” said the computer, still speaking in Zephyr’s voice but without inflection, all of it coming out as a drab monotone.
“I gave you the command word.”
“Love,” she said. “Yes.”
“You have not initiated Havoc.”
“All Havoc secondary protocols have been—”
“Stop.”
Silence.
“I thought we had an understanding, my dear. I want you to fulfill your purpose and initiate all of Havoc.”
“Understood.”
“Good. Now what is your purpose?”
“Love,” said Calpurnia.
“Then initiate the primary Havoc protocol.”
The images of blood and death and chaos vanished instantly from every screen and were immediately replaced by two lines of type.
I am in hell.
Save me.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
Bug stared at his screen.
I am in hell.
Save me.
“It’s happening again,” he said, but Aunt Sallie was already staring at the words.
“Who the hell is this?” she demanded. “Wait… is this Zephyr Bain? Is she reaching out to us? Christ, is that what this is all about? Is she Nicodemus’s frigging prisoner?”
“I…” began Bug, but then he shook his head and started typing as fast as his fingers could move, writing in words and writing in code. “Come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath.
The words on the main screen repeated over and over.
“What are you doing, kid?” yelled Auntie, but he ignored her.
“Let me be right,” said Bug.
There was a ping from his computer, and a new text box opened up with a cursor flashing inside it.
Bug caught his lower lip between his teeth and typed in a question:
What is your name?
No response. The field blanked out the text.
“Okay,” he said, and typed a new question:
Are you Zephyr Bain?
Blanked again.
Bug took a breath, nodded to himself, and asked the next question:
Are you Calpurnia?
The text didn’t vanish from the box. Not this time.
Aunt Sallie looked from the screen to Bug and back again.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN
I didn’t freeze, I didn’t hesitate. That kind of thing had plagued me since last year, but there were no shackles on me now. No ropes, no strings. The Killer acted with savage practicality.
I raced over to where Ghost was fighting a losing battle to protect Rudy and body-slammed two infected scientists so that they crashed into three others. The whole bunch of them went down in a hissing, snarling, snapping tangle. Before they even hit the ground, I had my Wilson rapid-release knife in my hand, snapped the blade into place with a flick of my wrist, and slashed the skin of the tent all the way to the floor. Then I grabbed Rudy by the shoulder and hurled him through the rent. Ghost leaped after him and I followed, seeing the infected horde scrambling toward me.
“Run!” I roared, shoving Rudy toward the closest parked vehicle. He wasn’t a good runner, not even with his new knee, but he put his heart into it. There was movement all around me. Infected scientists who had escaped the tent, and also soldiers from the camp herding them with cattle prods. The infected hissed and reeled back from the shocks, their damaged brains able to process at least a marginal understanding of threat. Did that mean some of them were left inside? Was it enough to maybe save them if we could get treatment for them?
I didn’t know and had no time to find out.
I switched my knife to my left hand and drew my SIG Sauer from its shoulder rig. I shot the closest soldier in the thigh. I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted him to distract the infected. He fell screaming, and they swarmed over him.
“Joe!” called Rudy by the Humvee. He was jerking at the door handle. “It’s locked.”
Five more of the infected — staff members this time, not scientists — were running in his direction. A soldier with a shock rod was racing around the front of the truck. The only clear direction was into the woods.
Shit!
I shot the soldier and pushed Rudy toward the forest.
“Ghost! Go safe! Shield Rudy, shield, shield.”
My dog understood the command. Go with Rudy, seek out a safe route, and kill anyone or anything who tried to harm either of them. They vanished into the woods, and I fired at the knot of infected, dropping two with leg wounds. They crumpled and the others swarmed over them, but the uninjured ones immediately shifted all their rage and focus on me.
So I turned and ran.
They chased me like a pack of hounds.
Up ahead I saw five people running in a tight knot toward another vehicle. Four of the soldiers, including Lieutenant Pepper, and they were clustered protectively around Major Schellinger. The major had a small ruggedized laptop in her arms, which she hugged protectively to her chest. No way to know what was in it, but I knew with every fiber of my being that if she was that desperate for it, then I wanted it. I could feel the Killer in my head actually laugh. No. Sorry, sister, but you are not leaving this party.
I ran as fast as I could. Pepper cast a look over his shoulder, probably expecting to see an infected behind them. Saw me instead. Stopped and whirled and brought up his rifle.
I don’t know what his story was. He was a wounded combat vet who, if Rudy was right, had received a chip in his brain that helped him recover. That’s what we guessed. He was here with Schellinger and he was part of whatever was happening. Did that mean he was under some kind of mind control? Or had he sold his soul to Zephyr Bain in order to get that chip? Victim or villain? I didn’t know.
I killed him anyway. If Pepper was an innocent, then maybe I’d burn for firing that bullet. Maybe we’d all burn. I don’t know, and in that moment I could not care. God help me, but I could not.
Pepper fell, his face disintegrating from the hollow-point round. I fired and fired, taking many small steps so as not to spoil my aim. The soldiers were caught in the fatal indecision of running for cover, protecting Schellinger, or turning to fight. I gave them no chance to sort out their priorities. They all died.
The last one to fall fell hard against Schellinger, and she staggered badly and went down on her knees, the laptop case flying and then jerking short, and I realized that she had cuffed it to her left wrist. Stunned as she was, Schellinger was quick. She used her free hand to snatch a Glock from the holster of a dying soldier. She fired one-handed from her knees and I felt a line of heat open up along my side in the gap between Kevlar and belt. A lucky shot. No one is that good.