The video feed ended and the anchor came back and in contrast the gleam in his eyes was equal parts stark terror and dawning realization that this was possibly the biggest moment of his career.
Church replayed the video.
When it was over, Violin said, “The Mullah of the Black Tent. God. ISIL has owned the Houston and Rucker attacks. They’ve just declared open war on the United States.”
“He mentioned the children,” I said, my voice thick, my head filled with hornets. “Jesus Christ, Church, he has the SX-56 and he’s going to use the Kill Switch to hit us with it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY
The call came fifty-eight minutes after Mr. Priest left Dr. Kang’s office. During every second of those fifty-eight minutes Kang sat stock-still at his desk, his hands gripped like vises around the arms of his chair. He was too terrified to move despite the sodden stink in his trousers. The digital numbers on his desk clock had stubbornly refused to hurry through what felt like a thousand years of waiting.
When the burner rang, Kang screamed.
Very loud.
There was no one in the outer office to hear the scream. Mr. Priest had — either by luck or design — chosen a day when Kang’s secretary was out sick.
The ring was not particularly loud, but it shattered the silence in Kang’s office.
Kang snatched it up and then froze again, caught in the horrible indecision of wanting to hear that his family was unharmed and dreading a message to the contrary.
It rang again.
And again.
Then he began stabbing at the green button with numb and trembling fingers. Punched it on and then nearly ended the call. Finally he clumsied it to his ear.
“Yes, yes… are they all right? Please?”
“Dr. Kang,” said the smooth, familiar voice of Mr. Priest, “I appreciate your courtesy and cooperation. You are now free to do as you please. And rest assured, your family is safe.”
“You motherfucker, I’ll—”
“Shhh, Doctor. You’ve come up from the underworld, but don’t assume that you will ever be entirely in the upper world. Now is not the time to turn and look for Eurydice. She is as safe as anyone ever is in such a world as this.”
The reference to the myth of Orpheus was not lost on Kang, even with so much stress burning its way through him. “Orpheus” was the code name for one of the major defense projects in the databanks he had allowed Mr. Priest to plunder. One of many.
“You promised to leave them alone,” growled Kang. “You promised not to hurt them.”
“And I haven’t,” said Mr. Priest. “Good-bye, Dr. Kang. It has been a genuine pleasure.”
The line went dead.
For a terrible moment Kang did not know whom to call first. His wife or the security office.
He called his wife. She answered on the second ring. Kang almost screamed. He told her to get the kids and get out of the house, to come here to the lab, to do it right away.
Kang hung up before she could ask any questions. Then he called his control officer at the Department of Defense.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Harcourt Bolton came hurrying into the conference room.
“Christ!” he yelled. “Did you see it? Did you see that damn thing?”
“We saw it,” I said.
“I’ve been on the phone with the president,” he gasped, breathless from running from his office. “I assured POTUS that we have local teams inbound. Jerry Spencer and his forensics people are on their way, too.”
Church gave him a long, appraising look, but his only response was a small nod.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, standing up. “Echo is ready to rock.”
Bolton looked embarrassed and didn’t meet my eyes. “Captain Ledger… Joe… I think I’d rather have you here for, um, tactical support.”
It was awkward and clumsy. He did not come right out and say that he did not have confidence in me or in Echo Team, but it was right there burning in the air.
“If you saw the whole thing, Bolton, then you have to know they have the smallpox bioweapon. We need to move on this.”
“We are,” said Bolton, and he leaned a little too hard on the word “we.”
“What he’s trying to tell you, Captain,” Church said quietly, “is that this is still not our case.”
“Bullshit,” I snarled. “You’re using our people. My people. That makes it my case.”
“Look, Joe,” said Bolton, “I’m sorry, but the president was very clear on this. I can use DMS resources, and I’m happy to do so, but the Central Intelligence has operational control.”
“Then use me as a liaison.”
“I… can’t…,” said Bolton. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but after Gateway, POTUS doesn’t want you in play on anything this sensitive.”
I slapped his hand away. “This is bullshit and you know it. You’re treating Gateway like it was a failure. We shut down a bioweapons program that had gone off the rails and killed the whole staff. We kept it from getting off the leash. And now we’ve proven that Gateway is tied to Majestic. And that they were developing a psychic spy program that Central Intelligence said wouldn’t work. We’ve proven that there are Closers in the field trying to locate more Majestic materials. We’re close to locating the sequencing code to the machine that controls the Kill Switch technology.” I pointed to the screen, where they were rerunning the message from the Mullah of the Black Tent. “Maybe that master code sequence could allow us to stop this shit. Did you think of that? We’re closing in on it. Us, the D-fucking-MS. Not the C-fucking-IA. We’re already doing our jobs, Harcourt. What have you and your Agency boys done that’s worth a shit? Nothing. How can you bench us now?”
Bolton’s face slowly transformed from a look of embarrassed concern to a scowl of red-hot anger. He got up in my face, stepping toward me. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, Captain Ledger? I’ve been trying to be civil with you and the rest of the screwups around here, but quite frankly my patience is wearing thin. I’ve run interference for you and you want to throw it in my face? You are every bit as arrogant and pigheaded as everyone says. You think you’re a superhero, don’t you, Ledger? You think you’re the new face of government service, the top of the game, but you know what? You’re a thug who gets lucky sometimes. That’s it. You got too many people inside your head and none of them have any real chance of solving this thing. So, take it from someone who actually knows what he’s doing and stand down.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you, old man. You may have been hot shit once upon a time, but then right around the time you started losing your swing, early humans invented the wheel and you got left behind. And—”
He shoved me.
A really good, incredibly fast two-handed shove to the chest that sent me sailing backward. I lost my footing and fell, hard and clumsy. I scrambled to my feet but Violin and Harry were already up. The kid caught her arm as she went to swing on Bolton, but then Church’s voice cut through everything.