“Wow,” I said, “that would make it a prime target. Is the ship docked here in London?”
“No. It touched at Dover last week to take on supplies and has since sailed for Brazil. The fund-raiser cruise starts on the twenty-first, but the centerpiece is the concert on the twenty-second. A rock concert that will be simulcast to arenas and movie theaters worldwide. U2, Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Taylor Swift, a laundry list of others are aboard, and others will perform at venues in forty countries. A portion of all ticket sales to be donated, et cetera. All very noble, but also a logistical nightmare.”
I blew out my cheeks. “As I said, that would do it.”
But Childe shook his head. “Whereas I agree that it would be a terrorist event of epic proportions, it’s probably too big. If a shipload of celebrities and the children of world leaders were successfully attacked there is no ideology on earth that would protect the perpetrators from the wave of retribution. It wouldn’t be a snipe hunt like what we’ve been doing with the bloody Al-Qaeda—this would be a unified front of overwhelming revenge. Any nation that could be proven to have supported such an action would be disowned by its allies and attacked by everyone else.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Welles.
“Besides, the ship doesn’t return to England at all,” Childe said. “The concert is held at sea and afterward the ship docks in Rio de Janeiro for a private after-event party for the celebrities and their families. It’s bloody hard to attack a cruise ship, especially with the escort that will be sailing with it. The frigate HMS Sutherland will be with them as soon as Prince William is aboard, and they’ll be joined by the USS Elrod. And a couple of subs—one of ours, one of yours—will be ghosting them.”
MacDonal gave a fierce shake of her head. “Terrorists can’t attack ships at sea. They don’t have the resources for it and we’ve already provided for the unexpected. It’s the same reason that there have been no attacks on presidential inaugurations, the Queen’s public events, and so on. Too much security makes failure too likely, and failure weakens their message. My concern is that we are investing so much time and energy in the Sea of Hope that we are, in essence, distracting ourselves from other potential targets like the London Hospital.”
I nodded. “Even so, we have to be prepared for a group that isn’t sheltered by a specific government. A group willing to take a big risk no matter how ill considered. We need to make sure that the cruise ship is searched and searched again. Inside and out. Divers to check for mines attached to the hull, bomb sniffers inside, chemical analysis of the food and water.”
MacDonal looked at me. “Your man, the counterterrorism expert Hugo Vox, has overseen this since the beginning, and his consultant Dr. O’Tree is here in London to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. By the time the royals are aboard, everyone on that ship will have been vetted by Vox.”
That was reassuring. To have been “vetted by Vox” was the highest level of clearance. Grace Courtland had been vetted by him. I hadn’t met Vox, but he was one of Mr. Church’s most trusted colleagues.
“We’ll keep our eye on it nevertheless,” concluded Welles, “but for now let’s return to the London. What have we learned from the actual fire—?”
Deirdre MacDonal suddenly held up her hand as she bent over her laptop. “Excuse me, Home Secretary, but I believe we have something. My lads have been reviewing the CCTV feeds from the area and they’ve just red-flagged something. You’ll want to see this.” She looked hard at me. “You as well, Captain Ledger.”
She tapped some keys and transferred her video feed to the big screen monitor. “This is a bit of footage from the video traffic camera mounted on the wall across from the entrance to the parking garage. This bit here starts at three twenty-two A.M.”
We watched an empty stretch of brick wall for a few seconds and then there was movement as a man walked purposefully along the street. He wore jeans, gloves, and a dark hoodie pulled up and zippered so that none of his face was visible. The man stopped, looked up and down the street, then removed two small cans of spray paint from his pockets and sprayed the wall. He wrote a word in black ink, overlaid it with a red number, and then used the red paint to capture it all inside a circle.
“Son of a bitch!” I said. Beside me I heard Benson Childe fairly snarl; most of the others gasped.
It was the logo of the Seven Kings.
Interlude Three
The Seven Kings
December 17, 1:37 P.M. EST
The wall was filled with life. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, images of people in all their colors and costumes were animated by individual urgencies and passions. Newsreaders and statesmen, talk-show hosts and market forecasters, media experts and the man on the street. A hundred flat-screen OLED monitors brought every aspect of the crisis into the chamber. The seven men who sat on the ornate high-backed chairs were silent. The seven others—five men and two women—who sat beside them in less ostentatious chairs were equally silent. The voices that filled the room spoke from Wisdom Audio speakers, their many languages and dialects blending and swirling in the soft shadows of the chamber. A Tower of Babel, chatter and noise, and yet all of it saying the same thing. Everyone, on every screen, was absorbed in the event. The whole world shared this moment.
The Royal London Hospital was gone. As the fourteen silent people watched, the last stubborn wall yielded to the fiery Mephistophelean fingers. The foundation blocks, blackened from hours of inferno heat, cracked to hot ash, and the tower canted sideways. As it crashed down, imps and demons of pure flame capered in the clouds of smoke that billowed up.
That was how the King of Plagues saw it from his place at the table. Fire and heat. Melting flesh and screams from within a world of burning torment. He closed his eyes and felt an almost orgasmic rush.
On the screens, the whole world paused in horror, as if there had been some hope built into the mortar of that last corner of the old building. As if its resistance somehow meant that the whole event was not comprehensive, that it was poised to occur rather than already seared into today’s page of history. But as it bowed in inevitable defeat, the world’s voices coughed out a collective and broken sigh.
Acceptance is a terrible, terrible thing.
Each screen showed the thick pall of oily black smoke that erupted from the burning building. It was so dense that it blotted out the sky and turned day into night.
There was another moment of silence as the jackals of the media took a breath. Not in reverence, but in order to begin a fresh tirade that would be equal parts hysteria, greed for ratings or copies sold, and mindless chatter to fill airtime until someone fed them something of substance to report.
He turned to his fellow Kings. Three to his left, three to his right. He looked at the Conscience who sat beside each King. Every King and every Conscience smiled.
The King of Plagues recited a passage from Exodus, changing it only slightly to suit the moment: “‘And the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land, even darkness which may be felt.’”