“The Order didn’t leave this,” Hayden said. “Not the Nazi war criminal part of it anyway. This means that the Order is—”
But then the laughter stopped.
Hayden froze, unsure what to expect. She stared down, ready to duck and cover. She moved in front of Lauren. She wished that Kinimaka, Drake and Dahl weren’t so damned close. She…
A logo flashed up on the screen, bright red on black, no more than a slash of blood to her mind.
“That’s the Order’s logo,” Alicia said.
I don’t understand,” Mai admitted. “How could they have put this screen in place? And how could it still function?”
“They didn’t,” Yorgi said.
The logo faded and Hayden banished all else from her mind. The black screen reappeared and an artificially-lowered voice began to grate from the speakers.
“Welcome to your nightmare, boys and girls,” it said and then paused for a burst of canned laughter. “Famine greets you, and you have to know that the last two Horsemen are the worst of all. If Famine doesn’t get you, Death will! Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha.”
Hayden took a moment to wonder what kind of a twisted mind and warped imagination came up with this shit.
“Straight to the point then. The third Horseman will destroy you all, rather than let you destroy each other. Famine does that, am I right?” the guttural tones went on. “And now that you’ve advanced into the electronic age it’s going to move much, much faster. You ever hear of Strask Labs?”
Hayden frowned, sent a quick glance around and included the base commander. He nodded and was about to speak when the voice went on.
“They’re one of the big conglomerates, hellbent on taking over the world. Power. Influence. Immense wealth, they want it all, and are starting to move into the big leagues. The American government recently took Strask Labs into its confidence.”
What does that mean? Hayden wondered. And how recently?
“In Dallas, Texas, not far from here, Strask own a bio testing facility. They manufacture drugs, diseases, cures and weapons. They run the whole gamut. If there’s a deadly infection out there, a world-killing virus, a canister of nerve gas or a new bio-weapon, Strask in Dallas have it. Literally,” he grunted, “it’s a one-stop shop.”
Hayden wanted to stop it right there. This was going in a very bad direction.
“The bio lab has been targeted. Famine will be unleashed. Your crops and those around the world will wither and die. It is a manufactured poison, deliberately targeting a specific strain of crop and it cannot be stopped. We are the Order of the Last Judgment. And like I said, this is your nightmare.”
The recording stopped. Hayden blinked and stared, the world and her problems entirely forgotten. If the Order were targeting a bio lab who’d made a precise crop infection and were planning to wipe out all reserves, then…
It was possible. And probable. No doubt the disease would be targeted toward the soil too, so that no edible crops would ever grow again.
Then, suddenly, the screen exploded into life once more.
“Oh, and now we’re in the electronic age let me tell you this. By opening this coffin, by starting this recording, you put the whole thing into motion — electronically!”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Fort Sill exploded into action. The base commander screamed for a techie to come over and take apart the recording, the screen and anything else they might find inside the coffin. Hayden saw bundles of old clothing and bones at the bottom and had to assume the Order had simply placed the screen inside and left it for somebody to find. Could a signal have gone out, piggybacking off the base’s Wi-Fi the moment they opened the coffin?
I have to believe so. The unsealing started the recording. Most likely, sensors were involved. Whoever did all this was tech savvy. Which threw up another question.
“Have we just jumped forward from Nazi war criminals operating fifty years in the past to right now?”
“I don’t get it,” Smyth said.
The team had backed away from Geronimo’s grave to allow others to get involved and now stood in a group underneath some trees.
“I thought it was pretty clear,” Hayden said. “The guy said we are the Order of the Last Judgment. They still exist.”
The base commander strode over. “Okay people, we’ve double and treble-checked our perimeter. No signs of your Special Forces enemies. Looks like they gave this one a clear miss, and I done blame them. Lots of firepower here.” He indicated the soldiers stood around the fort.
“That doesn’t mean the signal that came out of that grave wasn’t broadcast elsewhere too,” Lauren pointed out. “Any number of people might have seen it in one form or another.”
“Whilst that is true,” the commander nodded, “there ain’t a whole lot we can do about it. Now what we can do, is call Strask Labs and give those boys the proverbial heads up.”
He indicated a man close by, already with a phone to his ear.
Hayden knew she should call Secretary Crowe but held off as the soldier’s call went through on loudspeaker, the endless ringing tone making the SPEAR team glance worriedly around.
“This a twenty-four-hour manned laboratory,” the base commander said. “On call to the military and the White House. I cannot impress how bad this is.” He indicted the ringing phone.
“You don’t need to.” Hayden said. “Can you liaise with the local authorities? Get them to Strask and tell them we’re on the way.”
“Right away, Agent Jaye.”
Hayden started sprinting for the chopper. “We have to get to Dallas! Now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Karin took, what was for her, an immeasurable amount of time before even showing the flash drive to a computer terminal. She was well aware that somebody of Tyler Webb’s wealth and reach could have installed all manner of tech on his computer — especially the one containing every dirty little secret he’d garnered through the years.
So here she was.
A girl. A computer. A flash drive.
How many names have they monickered me with in the past? Data Girl. Web Head. HacKaz. Long ago, far away, but still relevant.
Dino and Wu stood looking on, surveillance around the house already as good as it was ever going to get. They had sensors at every approach, and plans with backup strategies for both hard and soft evac situations. All three soldiers were currently at a low ebb — battered, bruised, healing slowly from the San Francisco jaunt. They were also hot, hungry and lacking funds. On Karin’s guarantee, they had gambled everything on this. Right from the very beginning.
“Time to prove your worth,” she said.
The early years never left her, the long duration she’d turned her back on the world. Self-destruction was one way to redemption.
“We believe in you,” Dino said.
She smiled grimly as she inserted the flash drive and watched the large screen. She’d designed everything to work as fast as it was able and now there was absolutely no lag as a prompt flashed up onto the screen:
Continue?
Damn right.
She sat down and got to work. The keyboard rattled, her fingers flashed, the screen flickered. She didn’t expect to find or even understand it all immediately — there were many gigabytes of information — and that was why she’d made everything as ultra-secure as she possibly could before booting the drive up. She’d also prepped several offshore accounts and a couple of Los Angeles based ones, where they may be able to deposit some quick cash. Of course, she remembered everything from her time at SPEAR; it was what had happened since Webb’s death that may throw a wrench into the works.