“You think this is a signature?”
“Or a side effect of the dreamwalking,” I said. “Yeah, I do. I think it shows that the conscious mind of the hijacked body has been — not sure what the word is… displaced, shoved back. Something like that. I think our Big Bad stepped into Santoro’s body during the fight. I told you that his accent changed. That would make sense if the person doing the dreamwalking didn’t have the same accent.”
Church crossed his legs and then smoothed his tie. He nodded slowly. “Agreed. The Mullah was a cleric in a small village and his rise to become a leader and an effective military strategist happened too quickly to be reasonable. I would not be surprised to learn that the man himself is surprised by what he is doing. It’s likely he thinks he is having religious visions. The clarity and veracity of these visions, coupled with the undeniable military gains, has cemented him as a prophet of jihad. This is a very dangerous thing, because most of Islam is not unified in their hatred of the United States. Until now it has only been a vocal and violent minority. The emergence of someone who demonstrates knowledge and abilities that are seemingly impossible outside of religious visions could — and very likely will — change that. Even our staunch Muslim allies might question their alliance with us, and more so with neutral Muslims. Our enemy has found a unique way to shove the world toward an actual war with Islam.”
“And we can’t prove that he’s not a prophet,” I said.
“No. Dreamwalking and the whole Stargate project isn’t something the general public would either accept or believe.”
“But they’ll believe in a guy saying he’s speaking for God.” It wasn’t a question. We have about eight thousand years of history to tell us how effective religion — or its manipulation — has been in starting wars.
I sat up. I was windburned, sunburned, and sore, but I managed. Anger is a useful fuel. “You need to get on the phone with the damn president and—”
“Oh, believe me, Captain, I’ve had several long conversations with the president,” said Church. “As of two hours ago I am no longer the director or codirector of the Department of Military Sciences. I am no longer, in any capacity, an employee of the federal government. I am, in fact, likely to be under indictment by this time tomorrow.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
He said, “The DMS and all of its staff and resources are now under the management of the Central Intelligence Agency. Harcourt Bolton has been promoted to interim director pending reorganization. He will likely become full director of whatever the DMS will become, and it is likely to either be dissolved or folded into a minor department of the CIA. Our charter has been officially revoked. Federal marshals have been sent to each of our field offices to oversee the removal of personal items belonging to staff members. All employees and field agents are on unpaid suspension. Cleaning out desks and lockers was the only concession the president afforded me. Aunt Sallie has initiated a snowstorm protocol, which locks everyone out of MindReader except her, Bug, and me. Aunt Sallie and Bug are currently operating out of a safe house in Brooklyn.”
He could have stood there and pummeled me with a baseball bat and done less damage to me.
“No…,” I breathed.
“Oh yes.” Church gave me the strangest of smiles. “According to the president we are the bad guys, Captain Ledger. He has promised to file charges ranging from first-degree murder to conspiracy to commit treason. A warrant is already out for your arrest. Sergeants Sims and Rabbit will likely be charged, though right now POTUS does not know it was them on the gas dock. As team leader, you are in the crosshairs of a federal investigation.”
“This is bullshit.”
“It’s a reality. The Department of Military Sciences, as we have known it, no longer exists.”
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
“What are we going to do?” I demanded. “Are we just going to bend over and take it? Jesus Christ, Church, we keep getting blindsided. First Hugo Vox turns out to be a traitor, then we find out that Vice President Collins is in bed — literally in bed — with Mother Night. It seems that no matter which way we turn, we get stabbed in the back. Now someone is messing with our minds. How are we supposed to fight this? I mean… is this it? Have they won?”
Church smiled. He seldom did that, and it was almost never a comforting thing to see.
“Tell me, Captain,” he said calmly, “since coming to work for me, have you ever noticed in me a tendency for passive acceptance? Have you, in fact, ever known me to accept failure as an option?”
“No, but that’s because you had the DMS and MindReader and…” I trailed off. It was the wrong answer and we both knew it.
“Presidents come and go,” he said. “The war remains. I’ve been fighting this war for a very long time. Longer than you know. Over those years the war has taken a lot of different forms. Betrayal is not an uncommon occurrence. It is discouraging and it hurts, because the same optimism that gives us the will to fight also allows us to believe in the goodness of others. It is a tactical error to accept our own faith as a failing. That failure — the moral crime implicit in the betrayal — is owned entirely by those who betray our trust. By those who turn and stab the soldier fighting beside them. By those who take the sacred trust given them by the people they serve and use it as a sword against them. We can sit here and feel foolish and stupid for not having seen it, or we can waste time being awed by the sophistication and subtlety of our enemy. Neither choice, however, helps us get back up off the mat. And I, for one, have never been comfortable on my knees.”
The room was very quiet.
He said, “We have been forced outside of our comfort zone before, and we’ve been forced to operate outside of the law. In those times I tend to look at the bigger picture, serving justice rather than a statute. It’s been my experience that in moments of need you will bend a rule in order to accomplish what you know is right.”
I nodded.
“When you told me about your dreams,” he continued, “I found several items of particular interest. Having read the Stargate files, I know that it is possible, even probable, that the mental connection is not necessarily a one-way thing. You have certain aggressive tendencies, Captain, and you are a fiercely individual man.”
“So what?”
“So maybe your dreams are more than that. More than fantasies. You described a place, a laboratory, with people sleeping in capsules. You described scale versions of the God Machines beside each one. What does that suggest?”
I licked my lips and fought to reclaim that dream image. It came to me with surprising clarity. More like a memory than some wild construct of nightmare. And suddenly I understood where Church was going with this.
“There has to be more than one person doing the dreamwalking,” I said. “To control Top and Bunny, to slow me down, to manipulate the people on the dock. There has to be a… well, a team, I guess. A bunch of sleepwalkers.”
“That would be my guess,” Church said, nodding. “And they would have to be practiced at it. Focus your mind and tell me what else was in that lab.”
I told him about the guard wearing an aluminum foil hat, and the other hats on the table. And the sign. Church nodded. “That makes a great deal of sense.”
“It does?”
“During the Stargate project the researchers found that a helmet or skullcap lined with crystals, certain metals of low conductivity, and certain polymers blocked the psychic signals, even when a subject was in the presence of a person with pronounced abilities.”