Hours burned away.
Lilith did not call back.
No one returned his calls.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
It would soon be a problem of logistics. Of concealment and disposal. Of constructing explanations in case anyone heard the scuffle.
Toys was aware that there were now so many details to be handled.
He was aware of it, but he didn’t care.
What mattered to him was the man who sat bound and bleeding on the floor. The man’s legs were wrapped with an extension cord. His wrists were tied with strips torn from Toys’s undershirt. He sat in a pool of his own blood. Not too big a pool, but enough. Pain had carved his face into an inhuman mask; fear had turned that mask to stone.
Toys sat on the small, wheeled desk chair. Job perched on the edge of the bed, watching like a vulture, or a jury. Also on the bed were four very strange pistols, all identical, all with a cluster of prongs instead of gun barrels. There were also four disposable cell phones, four rolls of twenty-dollar bills totaling two hundred dollars each. And four short fixed-blade fighting knives. Good knives, too.
The moment had stretched thin, quivering like a frayed guitar string that needed only a feather-light touch to snap.
Without saying anything, Toys reached back, stroked Job’s fur for a moment, then reached past him and picked up one of the knives. He weighed it in his hand, getting the feel of its size, its balance. Its potential. The blade was like many that he’d handled over the years and the bound man watched as Toys moved it in his grip, reversing the hold, learning it, making it his own. Then he bent forward and set the knife on the floor near the man’s right foot.
Toys sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and settled his bloody hands in his lap.
“You know the bloody drill, mate,” he said quietly. “The whole ‘there are two ways we can do this’ thing, right? We both know you don’t want it to be the hard way, so do us both a favor and let’s skip to the part where you tell me what the bloody hell you’re playing at. Why did you and these effing twats break in here, what are you looking for, and who sent you?”
The man clamped his jaws shut as if afraid that all of those answers would tumble out against his will.
Toys sighed.
“If you make me pick up that knife it’s going to force us to go down some very bad roads,” said Toys quietly. “If you know who I am, then maybe you know what I am. Is that true? Have they briefed you on me?”
The man tried not to respond, but his head nodded anyway. Just a little. Enough.
“Then why do you think that this will end any way except my way?” asked the sad young man.
The wounded man stared up at him, eyes wide, growing wider, filling with a dreadful understanding.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
“Deacon,” said the president, leaning back in his chair and holding the phone to his ear, “sorry to call you so late, but I just got off the phone with Harcourt Bolton. He warned me that you wanted to talk about something earthshaking.”
“Warned?” asked Mr. Church.
“A joke. Personally I thought you’d be licking your wounds and keeping a low profile.”
“Is that what you thought, Mr. President? I’d have guessed that a comment of that kind would be beneath you. I will adjust my expectations henceforth.”
“Now is not a good time to get high-assed with me,” snapped the president. “You don’t have the political currency needed to buy much goodwill. Not from this administration. I know you enjoyed a great deal of freedom with my predecessors, but times have changed. Your team in Wisconsin was supposed to find out who stole the SX-56. A simple interrogation. Instead what happened? They went crazy and killed our only suspect and then themselves. Now God only knows where it is. If it’s released, then any civilian deaths are on your head. Let’s be clear about that.”
“That is precisely why I wanted to speak with you directly. I have received reliable intel about the SX-56.”
“Sure,” said the president, “we heard about some of that. It’s rumor-mill garbage.”
“I assure you it’s not. I need you to act.”
“You need? You? Really?” The president sighed. “You used to be the best in the business, Deacon, but times have definitely changed.”
“Have they?”
“Yes, they have. I don’t have skeletons in my closet,” said the president, “which means you don’t have any dials to turn on me. Everyone seemed to want to give you a long leash and let you do whatever you wanted to do. That’s not going to happen. I’ve gone over the wording of your charter. It was created by an executive order and it’s a stroke of my pen to cancel that charter.”
“So you keep telling me,” said Church.
The president made a rude noise. “Harcourt tells me that you’re trying to establish a connection between the power outages and that Gateway debacle.”
“We believe we have.”
“Are you calling to get me to put you back in charge of that case?”
“I am. We have intelligence from a reliable source that the attacks are being directed by an ISIL leader who goes by the code name of the Mullah of the Black Tent. In the last few hours I have managed to obtain copies of two different sources, one in Central Intelligence and one in Barrier, that have mentioned this man. I can find no evidence that either report was taken seriously or that any actions were taken to pursue the investigation.”
“We’re looking at him,” said the president.
“We as in who, exactly?” asked Church.
“That’s none of your business. It’s not your case.”
“It is if the agencies looking into this are not filing reports or taking appropriate actions. Why don’t we have a detailed file on this man in the shared database?”
“It’s a developing case. We don’t know much about him yet.”
“Mr. President, would you care to wager how much information I can amass in the next twenty-four hours?”
“Let me say it again more slowly so you can catch the words,” said the president. “It’s. Not. Your. Case.”
“I see.”
The president wanted to hurl the phone out the window. “You heard me that time. Good. Is that all?”
“No. I have obtained additional evidence that may connect Gateway with the Majestic program. This evidence may also connect the Stargate project with Gateway, as well.”
The president laughed. “God, you’re really losing it. Why are you wasting my time with this crap?”
“Because I have reason to believe that Stargate was never shut down. I believe it was transferred internally to Majestic and from there to Gateway. And I believe the technology is being used to attack the intelligence community of this country.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“And you’re being obstructive.”
“I’m sorry… what did you just say?”
“Mr. President, I’m coming to you with new intelligence that, at very least, must make us reconsider our response strategy to a national crisis. We are talking about the pending release of a dangerous bioweapon on ten American cities. Even if you think I’m off my game, I can’t think of a single valid reason for you to dismiss it out of hand. Why would you, of all people, risk it? And yet you do. I find it curious that your response is to dismiss and mock.”