Then light filled the world. Bright as the sun, pure and perfect. And a voice bellowed louder than the motor.
“There!”
And another voice roared back, “Goddamn it, I can see him, Farm Boy. Why don’t you drive the boat like you ain’t drunk?”
I knew those voices.
Impossibly, I knew them.
When they got closer I knew the boat, too.
It was an XSR military interceptor. The boat Church had lent me, which had been stolen out from under me by Esteban Santoro. As the engine slowed to a muffled idle and the boat swung sideways toward me, I saw the faces of Top Sims and Bunny. Battered, worried, panicked, and relieved. I saw hands reaching toward me.
And they were real. No illusion, no wishful thinking. They were actually here. Somehow, impossibly, after all these hours and in all of this darkness, they’d found me.
I wanted to scream out their names.
A sudden swell picked me up and flung me toward Top and Bunny.
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
Top and Bunny told me the story of how they found the XSR drifting in the water, the key still in it. They called in for help and there were at least a dozen other boats out looking for me. How the hell I managed to drift right through them is a logistical puzzle none of us will ever figure out. Top used the radio to call Church. He told him everything. And during that call he learned about what had happened to our air support.
Church directed them to a private marina in San Diego owned by one of his friends. DMS support team members helped us ashore and took each of us into a different cabana, where medical teams treated our wounds but asked no questions other than what they needed to know. My soaked and salt-caked clothes went into a trash can and an EMT brought me a Walmart bag with fresh clothes. New stuff with the tags still on them. Socks and shoes, too. I just finished dressing when there was a light tap on the door and Mr. Church came in. It was a small room with a shower stall, a dressing table, and two chairs.
He came and stood in front of me, studying my face, looking deeply into my eyes. I knew what he was doing.
“I’m me,” I said.
Church made a small noncommittal sound and sat down on one of the chairs, waving me to the other.
“Tell me,” he said.
“We don’t have time.”
“Brick is on his way here with a tactical support vehicle. Until he gets here we cannot and should not act. And I need to know what happened yesterday. Tell me what happened, and I do mean everything, Captain Ledger.”
So I told him. Every single detail of what happened on the gas dock and on the salt. He listened without comment. When I was done he studied me for a long, uncomfortable time. Seconds cracked off and fell around us and the cabana was dead silent.
“And it is your assertion,” Church said at last, “that you were not in full control of your actions?”
I shook my head very slowly and decisively. “I’ve been in enough fights to know the difference between losing my shit in the heat of the moment and not being in my own right mind. I know what happened.”
Church nodded. “And what should we infer from that?”
“I had a lot of time to think out there,” I told him. “There are a lot of pieces to this, so that so far it’s felt like we were cruising the edges of things. Like we were catching glimpses of several different cases. ISIL and the Kill Switch. Gateway and all that interdimensional shit. The breakdown of the American intelligence community. The theft of SX-56. The Mullah of the Black Tent. The Unlearnable Truths. The Closers. The plague of… whatever you call it. Insanity, treason… the DMS falling apart.”
“Yes,” he said slowly.
“It’s not a dozen cases,” I said.
“No,” he agreed.
“This is all the same goddamn thing.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind it. I maybe even know why. It’s just that it’s crazy… and… I’m not sure I can trust my own judgment on this.”
“Even after all of that time floating and thinking?”
“Don’t joke,” I said.
“Believe me, Captain, I am not joking. There are eleven dead in Oceanside, and another sixteen injured. Three of the injured are critical, including a six-year-old boy.”
I closed my eyes because that hurt worse than any punch, knife cut, or bullet wound I’ve ever had. Much worse. I wanted to turn away from him, from those numbers, from the horror. But no matter where you turn, the truth is going to be right there in clear line of sight.
“There are videos of it on the Net,” said Church. “You three were wearing balaclavas, which means your faces are not out there. Police are looking for three men matching your approximate physical descriptions. Luckily for us there are conflicting statements and the cell phone videos are shaky and unreliable. If need be, Bug can create a tapeworm to find all copies of these videos and erase or modify them. He’s prepping that in case we need it.”
“Jesus.”
“I interviewed First Sergeant Sims and Master Sergeant Rabbit. They are both in shock and say that they don’t remember much about what happened. Dr. Hu can test them for drugs and neurological damage, but I don’t expect he’ll find much. Will he, Captain?”
“No.”
Church took his glasses off, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, and polished the lenses very slowly. He has very dark eyes. Brown with flecks of gold and green. They are not kind eyes. They are not forgiving eyes. And they are not young eyes. You can look at him and know — as I knew the first time I ever got a good look at him — that he is a man who has seen too much and who knows exactly how the world is constructed. He’s studied the materials used in construction and he knows when and where it will break.
“The person you’ve encountered in your dreams,” he said as he put his glasses back on. “You never saw his face.”
“No.”
“Do you think this is a real person?”
“Yes.”
“Key question. Is this the person who you believe has been influencing your actions?”
“Yes.”
“Is it your belief that he, and perhaps others like him, have used this technique to influence the actions of Sergeants Sims and Rabbit?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Is it your belief that this technique is responsible for the failure of other DMS field operatives?”
“Absolutely fucking yes.”
“Speculate for me, Captain,” said Church. “If such a thing as dreamwalking is possible, might it also be used to negatively influence field commanders and soldiers deployed in the Middle East?”
A day ago that question might have startled me. This wasn’t yesterday. I said, “Yes. And I think this explains why our entire intelligence network is for shit. This dreamwalking thing may have been developed as a weapon to let us spy on our enemies, but I think it’s pretty clear that it’s being used against us. It’s destroyed the operational effectiveness of the DMS and it’s opened us up to ISIL and whoever else might be on the inside track of this. Can I prove it? No. Not yet. But do I believe it? Yes, I do.”
“So,” said Church, “do I.”
“And I’ll go you one better,” I said. “That guy on the ISIL video, the Mullah of the Black Tent…? Did you see his eyes?”
“I did.”
“That was the same expression — the same lack of expression — I saw in the eyes of Top and Bunny. The same blankness I saw in Rudy and those surfer boys, and on some of the people on the gas dock in Oceanside. I caught a glimpse of it in Santoro’s eyes, too.”