Lilith’s laugh was ugly. “I’ve found that every man is willing to tell everything if you ask in the right way. One of my sisters asked the right way. Unfortunately the person we asked isn’t high enough to know much.”
She said that the Mullah of the Black Tent was working to unite the various factions of Islam under one banner, promising that the caliphate had a great weapon that was going to bring America to its knees. Normally such claims would be met with skepticism, hostility, or indifference, because there had always been threats like that.
“They started paying attention when there was a terrible accident at a racetrack. I think you call it NASCAR? The Mullah predicted that event and it happened exactly as he said it would. Then there was a similar event at a presidential debate. It is one thing to step up and try to claim responsibility for an event but it is entirely different when the event is predicted.”
“So this prophet has insider knowledge of the impending events,” said Church.
Lilith’s voice became intense. “Arklight is no more at war with true Muslims than we are with true people of any faith, as long as religion is not used like a knife. But this Mullah is dangerous. He is perhaps the most dangerous man alive today, because when he speaks there are Shiites and Sunni who stop to listen. Not merely a few, but many, and each time one of the Mullah’s predictions comes to pass his following grows.”
“Thank you for telling me this, Lilith. I will put resources on it and—”
“There’s more, St. Germaine,” she said. “Are you listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“The Mullah has made several predictions about a much bigger attack. Something so big it will bring America to its knees. Now, I know we’ve both heard threats of that kind before, but this is different. I did not know what it could be until my sources told me about the incident at the research laboratory. About the theft of the weaponized smallpox. SX-56, yes?”
“Yes,” he said, and his voice was faint. “What have you heard?”
He heard her take a breath. “The Mullah has prophesied that the hand of God will reach down from heaven and scatter pestilence across the land of the great Satan. The faithful need only watch, and from each finger of God will fall the seeds of punishment that will wipe out a generation.” She paused. “Do you understand what that means? Ten fingers, ten points of attack. Ten cities. And this pestilence has to be the SX-56.”
He said nothing.
“St. Germaine,” said Lilith, her voice softer now but more desperate. “You know who is most vulnerable to that disease. You know how fast it spreads. This weaponized strain is the Devil’s own design. Goddamn the men who conceived it it. Be damned to the people in your government for allowing it to exist. The Mullah and his army are going to launch a plague upon ten cities and slaughter a generation of children.”
Church closed his eyes. “Do you know when this will happen?”
“No. The men we interrogated did not know.”
“Can you find someone who does know?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps.”
“Will you?” asked Church. “I know it is a lot to ask.”
“I will not do it for you,” she said. “But tell me, St. Germaine, what do you think I would not do for those children?”
She did not wait for his answer. The line went dead.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
It was four to one.
Toys was in pajama bottoms and a plain white undershirt. No shoes, no weapons. The four intruders had guns, Toys could see the bulges under their jackets, but they came at him barehanded. Quick, quiet, deadly, all in a rush, wanting to smash him down and shut him up before he could call for help.
Toys never shouted.
He never called for help. It didn’t occur to him.
The man closest to him tried to end it with a vicious front kick to the groin.
Toys twisted and crouched, and as he did so hooked the attacking foot with the crook of his left arm and chopped down on the knee with his right elbow. The joint disintegrated and the attacker shrieked. Still holding the shattered leg, Toys rammed him backward into the others. There was an instant confusion of arms and legs as they tried to catch their friend and push him out of the way at the same time so they could kill their enemy. Toys didn’t give them the chance.
He jumped at them, using a leaping hip check to drive the wounded man more solidly into the others while lashing out at the two closest masked faces. He caught them both with solid palm-heel shots because there was no room for them to dodge. They crumpled under the force of the blows and the weight of their friend, and Toys landed beside the mass, pivoted to engage the fourth man, slapped the intruder’s hand away as he sought to draw a pistol, and chopped him solidly across the Adam’s apple. The man reeled backward, clawing at a crushed throat, trying to gasp in even a spoonful of air and utterly failing.
Toys turned again and kicked at the closest of the others, catching him on the temple with his bare heel. Toys was thin and looked skinny in clothes, but his body was all wiry strength and he knew how to hit and how to hurt. He rechambered his foot and swung a very short, very fast heel kick at the opening of the last attacker’s mask, catching the man in the left eye. Now there were three injured men on the floor, groaning and crying out in pain and surprise.
For the tiniest fragment of a moment Toys paused, not really wanting to do what had to be done. Not wanting to do what he’d already done. But behind him Job hissed once more, in mingled fear and anger, and that turned a switch in Toys’s head. A veil of dark red seemed to drop over his eyes and there was a sound in his ears like green wood being pulled apart.
He did not lose himself in the moment. His mind did not go black and he never for a moment lost control of himself or what he was doing. Not once.
Nor was he lost to some savage joy. No inner darkness took hold of him or owned him.
He beat them all into silence.
He broke them apart.
All the time he was aware that his cat was watching him.
And that maybe God was watching him, too.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Mr. Church spent the rest of the evening on the phone, disturbing some people as they settled in for the night, getting others out of bed, catching some late owls at their desks.
He called the White House and was told that the president was not able to take his call. He called thirty-four separate members of Congress and nine high-ranking military officers. He had friends who listened, and he spoke with friends who clearly did not believe him. And he spoke to many who were afraid of even talking on the phone with him. Many of them reacted with the guarded caution people reserve for the hysterical and the insane, proof that his credibility had been eroded.
He made calls to the Centers for Disease Control, to the National Institutes of Health and FEMA. He spoke with various friends in the industry. The ones he expected to have courage and vision listened and promised to help, but it was a smaller number of allies than he expected to find.
Aunt Sallie promised to put every available resource on it, but many doors had been shut to the DMS. Walls had been built.
With great reluctance Church brought Harcourt Bolton into the loop, and his new codirector surprised him by believing in this horrific new intel. Bolton hurried back to his office to see if he could get through to the people who had rebuffed Church.