“You’re babbling again, Bug.”
“Sorry. Okay. So near as we can figure these scales move fast enough to actually change the molecular frequency of the person wearing them.”
“In English?”
“Okay. This is why I’m freaking out. These scales? Enough of them on the right sort of suit would make a person nearly invisible and allow them to walk through walls.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, seriously. The scales they found on the victim and in the victim? They weren’t shaken loose. They were left behind. They were pulled out of the suit, and we think that happened when the assassin shoved a hand into a living body and let it vibrate there for a few seconds.”
You ever hear the term my blood ran cold? I had a serious case of the shivers at that notion.
The last bit of research was as vital as the first. We had an idea of how it happened. We knew where it had happened. Now all we had to do was safely predict the next target and neutralize the threat.
Mr. Church didn’t say there had been ripples from the previous murders, but he didn’t have to. No one was admitting to anything, but everyone involved was tense.
The U.S. didn’t seem to be involved and that made them tense, too. All we had to go on was a series of meetings that took place in different parts of the country and even in other nations, between people with plausible deniability. No one could point a finger and prove anything. MindReader didn’t need to prove anything. It just needed to guess the next target.
Two of the possible targets were actually out of the country. One was in California getting ready to watch the premiere of the latest superhero extravaganza with his wife and three kids. That left two possible targets in D.C., and we had no reason at all to contact them and warn them of the possible dangers, except for the fact that we needed to alert them in order to save their lives.
That was where Mr. Church came in. Have I mentioned that he gives us the best toys to play with?
Instead of dealing with the massive NV goggles we used in the field, we got slightly clunky-looking eyeglasses that allowed for a “full spectrum” of visibility. Let me translate the way I made Bug translate. The glasses weren’t as good as NV goggles or UV goggles, but they altered the spectrum we could see enough that we could sort of see through walls. Not actual X-ray vision, but a modified ability to see body heat.
We could look through a wall that was nearby and see heat signatures for about fifteen feet. More important, they’d theoretically let us see the chameleon armor of our assassin. Why did Church have these things lying around? Apparently they were a failed experiment. I had my doubts. He never struck me as the sort to leave extra junk around to clutter his closet, if you see my point.
At any rate, it was me and Bunny at the Madison Hotel.
The Madison and the Dolley Madison are the sorts of hotels no one goes to, unless they’re diplomats. There are a lot of political figures who use the hotels for rendezvous or just to drop into town overnight. The security is good and the discretion of the employees is better. Somebody wants to hang out and play poker with some buddies? No one hears about it. Somebody else wants to call in a high-level escort? The press never knows. Allegedly there are tunnels under the buildings. I’ve never been able to find them.
What we did find, thanks to Mr. Church, was a vacant room on the left of Maurice M’Gombe’s suite. M’Gombe was in town for only one night. He seemed the most likely target.
I sent Top and Warbride to the Dolley Madison, where the other target was staying for a few days. It was always possible the next attempt would be at the other target or that the assassin would go for a twofer.
Dr. Hu — not the one from the BBC — called me on the comm-link with a final warning or two, just to make sure I was properly paranoid.
He said, “Cowboy, we have examined the hotel rooms involved in the previous assassinations and seen a disturbing pattern.”
“How so?”
“The walls of the hotels are structurally sound enough, but there are microfractures running through what we believe were the access and egress points for your assassin.” Sometimes I longed for the simplicity of a conversation with Bug.
“The walls were damaged when the assassin came and went?”
“Exactly so.” Lucky guess.
“What does that mean?”
“By itself it would mean nothing, but the actuality is that the structural damage to the walls actually gets worse if we visit the sites chronologically.” There was a pause while I was trying to translate that, and then Hu had a little mercy on me. “We believe the suit might be damaged. The scales are an indicator. Each wall has been more destabilized by the vibration frequencies used to ghost through them. Unless the creator of that suit makes adjustments or builds another suit, it’s very likely that the phasing issues will only get worse.”
“Worse how?”
“From a practical standpoint, we think the suit could cause serious damage to the wall and to the wearer if too many more attempts are made. We also believe that the scales that fell off are very likely having a destabilizing effect. Who can say how many scales have actually been lost? The suit doesn’t use very much power, but it definitely generates serious vibrations. If the suit were to malfunction or be seriously damaged, there’s a chance the vibrations could create the equivalent of a localized earthquake.”
“A localized earthquake?”
Bunny looked at me and shook his head. He wasn’t any fonder of that notion than I was.
“How big are we talking here?”
“Impossible to know, but certainly enough to level a story or two of a building.”
From our perspective that would only mean about ten additional stories of structure falling down on our heads.
“How do we avoid damaging the suit any further?”
“To be perfectly honest, I can’t be certain. I’d suggest a head shot or making certain that if there is a noticeable battery pack, or anything that looks like one, you avoid shooting it.”
The sound came down the hallway a few minutes after I’d finished my conversation with Hu. I was about to check in with Top when I heard it.
Have you ever placed a tuning fork near your ear? There’s a sound, of course, but it’s not really just a sound. It’s also a sensation. That’s the vibrations from the sound waves hitting your body. I mean, we’ve all been to a concert where the bass pounded through us, but this was different. This almost tickled.
There had been no reports of sounds before. Not at any of the previous crime scenes. Rather than open the door, Bunny activated his glasses and then nodded. Someone was coming down the hall and they were heading directly for M’Gombe’s suite.
The idea was never to let the assassin reach the target, so Bunny signaled and then moved into the hallway, his Glock tucked into the small of his back, and I followed after him.
The sound was clearer out in the hall. The air was distorted by vibration and our glasses saw something in the center of that distortion that fluctuated and shimmered. It was a form, but it was either a teenager or a woman if I had to guess. The figure seemed too small to be a man of even average size, but I couldn’t bank on that. The distortion was too much.
That shape reached for the door, not even bothering to look in our direction. Maybe it couldn’t see us clearly. Maybe it didn’t care.
Bunny drew, sighted, and fired one round. That should have been the end of the situation.
The bullet passed right through the ghostly shape and the air around it screamed at a nearly deafening volume. That wave of vibrations changed right then and there. Whatever Bunny had hit, it seemed to have caused damage of some kind. The ghost didn’t fall down and die, didn’t seem to be bleeding, but something had changed.