Gault stared at the American. “Bloody hell.”
The King of Fear chuckled. “Life’s weird for us, but you get used to it.”
They began walking again.
A little while later Gault said, “If you disapprove of Eris’s plan are you outside of it? Or do all the Kings work together on everything?”
The American puffed his cigar before answering, “It’s one for all and all for one. For the most part. I have a couple of my own gigs running, but this thing—what we’re calling the Ten Plagues Initiative—is what everyone else wants to do, so I’m doing my part. But there are threads that could lead back to me. Granted, it would take some pretty damn creative logic jumps to connect the dots, but even so that’s more of a trail than I like to leave. The DMS are not as stupid as my darling mother thinks.” He cut Gault a look. “You know that firsthand.”
Gault touched the bandages. “Yes. But … tell me, is this the first time the other Kings voted against you?”
The American smiled. “Yeah. Kind of caught me off-guard, too.”
“Is this going to be a problem?”
“Nah,” said the American. “I got it handled.”
TOYS TOOK MICROSIPS from a glass of wine as he trailed along behind Gault and the American. Neither man had so far bothered to direct a single comment to him. Nor did they lower their voices to prevent him from hearing the conversation. He supposed that it was all meant to be a sign of trust, an unspoken acknowledgment that he was privy to all of their secrets.
But it didn’t feel that way to Toys.
He sipped his wine and digested everything he heard, and kept his thoughts to himself. In the darkened woods the peacocks screamed like damned souls.
Chapter Thirty-four
Fair Isle Research Endeavor
The Hot Room
December 18, 3:10 P.M. GMT
“Are you him?��� It was the same question his son had asked me. “I told them to send someone from Homeland Security.”
“Then I’m him,” I said.
“Where’s Mikey?”
“You know where he is, asshole.”
Tears ran down his cheeks. “Was it fast?”
“What do you think?”
“God.” He licked his lips. “It’s important that you understand. I need to make you believe me when I say that I loved my son.”
“Save it for Saint Peter. He likes a good bullshit story,” I snapped. “Right now I need to know why you’re doing all of this.”
He wiped his streaming eyes and nose with a forearm. I reached out with a foot and pushed the pistol out of his reach.
Grey flinched and clutched the beaker to his chest as if that might protect him from my anger.
“Why don’t you put that beaker down?”
“You’ll kill me if I do.”
“I’m already talking to a dead man.” I showed him the BAMS unit. “Ebola’s all over this place. Besides, after what happened to your kid, I’m not sure I’d do you the favor of giving you a quick way out. You should feel what he felt.”
“Yes.”His eyes were bleak but steady. “I should. I gave Mikey a little morphine first. But … not for me.”
“If you’re looking for admiration for your sacrifice, too bad. Now … put the beaker down.”
“No. I need something to make you stay with me until I get it all out.”
I tapped the chest of my HAMMER suit. “Sorry, but scary as that Ebola shit is, I’m covered.”
He shook his head. “That suit has polycarbonate components. This is filled with a rapid-action strain of pseudomonas bacteria. It eats oil. They use it for cleaning up oil spills, but this strain was designed for bioweapons use. It would dissolve the seals in your suit before you reached the first air lock.”
“Well, kiss my ass,” I said. “You’ve really thought this through, Doc. You earn the merit badge for Mad Scientist of the Week. It’ll look great in your obituary.”
I was calculating how fast vapors would spread if he dropped the beaker compared to how fast I could get my ass the hell out of here.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t buy much sympathy these days. This is your play, Doc, so … talk.”
He did.
I expected it to be about politics. But that wasn’t it at all. Instead Dr. Charles Grey told me a horror story. There were no ghosts or vampires in it, but it was scary as hell.
He and his family lived in a cottage on the other side of the island. A few weeks ago, while Mikey and his mom were preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for the American staff at FIRE, Grey walked into his study, felt a sudden burn on the back of his neck, and then woke up five minutes later tied to a chair with a hood over his head. There was at least one man in the room with him. A frightening, invisible figure who spoke politely but told of dreadful things that would be done to Grey’s wife and son if the doctor did not do exactly what the man wanted. The man stood behind Grey and pulled off the hood. Then he reached past Grey and began placing photographs on the table in front of him. Photos of women who bore a strong physical resemblance to his wife. And little boys who looked like Mikey.
“The pictures they showed me … the things that were done to those other children. And to the women. Inhuman things. It was unbearable to think that someone could do that to another human being. To innocent children. To women. Then … he placed pictures of Mikey and Alicia next to the others. He had pictures of my wife shopping, of her in the bathtub, of us making love. The thought that they had stolen our privacy, that they were somehow watching us all this time …”
“Your boy, too?”
“Yes. Pictures of Mikey sleeping. One of him using the toilet at school. God!” He gagged and I didn’t know if it was the first touch of the Ebola or the sheer horror of what he was remembering.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I demanded.
“They warned me not to. He showed me a picture of a little boy … I mean I think it was a boy. Had been a little boy. The man said that this was the result of someone else notifying the authorities. He said that if I told anyone, even my wife, then this would happen to my son. To Mikey. Even if they had to wait a month, or a year, or ten years. One day my son would vanish and if we ever found him at all there would be only pieces left to bury. He said if that happened, I would receive an e-mail with a video file showing everything that had been done to Mikey, and that the last thing the boy would be told before he died was that this was all my fault. He made me believe that there were worse things than death. Even the way Mikey died—” A sob tore its way out of his chest. “Even the way he died wouldn’t be a millionth as bad as what they would have done to him. And if I did this and let my family live, I’d go to jail and they would still be out there. How could I trust that they would leave my family alone? They might … they might …” He shook his head.