God save my soul, he thought.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”
Interlude Twenty-five
The Seven Kings
Four Months Ago
The American sipped his whiskey as he watched the replay of the argument between Toys and Sebastian Gault. It was the fourth time he had viewed it. During each viewing he focused on a different aspect of the spat. This last time he had zoomed in to watch the expressions on Toys’ face. He found them very interesting.
He swirled the whiskey, enjoying the tinkle of ice cubes.
“Okay,” said Toys. “Okay.”
The American played that back with the sound up, listening for subtleties of intent and meaning in the young Englishman’s voice.
The King of Fear smiled.
Chapter Thirty-six
Fair Isle Research Endeavor
The Shetland Isles
December 18, 3:47 P.M. GMT
I stood naked in a decontamination chamber while antibacterial and antiviral agents blasted me from every possible angle. I scrubbed my skin until I glowed in the dark. Afterward they made me stand in a full-scale BAMS unit for five minutes.
“You’re clean,” Hu announced, though he sounded almost disappointed.
Everything I’d been wearing, including my sidearm, was sealed in a steel drum filled with some kind of acid. Even the fumes from the acid were vented through filters and stored in tanks. I was okay with the procedure. If this strain of Ebola ever got out it would make 28 Days Later look like a Pixar comedy.
I just wished that there was some way for all these gadgets and chemicals to scrub the filth off my soul.
I dressed in an extra set of Barrier BDUs and a pair of sneakers that were half a size too small. All I had left of my personal belongings was my anorak and my dog. Ghost came and sniffed me suspiciously a few times, confused by my lack of scent, but I rubbed the back of my wrist to coax some of the natural oils to the surface and when he took another sniff he licked my hand. I knelt down and hugged the furry monster for a while. If it was too tight, Ghost didn’t seem to mind. He wagged his tail and whined a little, sensing the hurt that I felt. Dogs are truly the best of companions. You don’t need to explain. They know as much as they need to know, and they are loyal no matter what sins you’ve committed.
As I got to my feet I looked at FIRE. It was draped in sheets of heavy gray cloth and men in hazmat suits were spraying the cloth with noxious-smelling foam. Above us, a dozen choppers armed with Hellfire missiles kept watch. Somewhere over the horizon Prebble’s chums in the Royal Navy were poised to turn this whole island into a memory of charred dust if the right word was given.
Church was waiting for me near our chopper. The winter sun was setting and a bank of clouds was rising from the horizon line like a curtain being cranked into place.
Church handed me a cup of coffee. “It’s instant,” he said, “but it’s hot.”
I sipped it and winced. It tasted like the stuff they’d been spraying me with.
“First,” he said, “a complete team from Nellis is on-scene at Area 51. The five remaining members of your team are fine and have been treated for minor wounds.” When I said nothing, he went on. “Jerry Spencer has taken over the Plympton crime scene.”
“He have anything to say?”
Church almost smiled. “He isn’t happy that you messed with the evidence.”
“I’ll cry about it later.”
“Other than that, he told me that he would call me if he had anything and asked that I stop bothering him while he was working. His natural warmth and charm are apparently unaffected by the scope of this disaster.”
I nodded toward FIRE. “What about Scofield’s mother and sisters?”
“Both sisters are already in protective custody in Newark and San Francisco. His mother is in a nursing home in Delray Beach. I sent Riptide Team out of Miami to guard her. We’re running background checks on every employee and patient at the nursing home. As soon as we can get a trusted gerontologist on-site we’ll move her to a secure facility.”
“And the shooter? The woman?”
“Nina Snow, assistant professor of infectious diseases from Johns Hopkins. Top marks, clean record. Considering how she ended things, it’s possible she was under similar coercion. She’s single and we’re working to locate family. Bug is coordinating the background checks.”
“That’s a lot of resources.”
“Yes. And if this continues to escalate we may be forced to rely on other agencies, and that opens us up to all sorts of potential complications.” He paused. “Tell me again what Scofield said to you. About the river of blood.”
I closed my eyes and found the words. “‘They said that if the rivers didn’t run red with blood, then the blood of my family would run like a river.’”
“Yes. That troubles me.”
“All of it troubles me. The phrasing doesn’t match the rest of what he said. He was clearly quoting, or attempting to quote, something that was said to him. It has a distinctly biblical structure to it. Rivers running red with blood. You’re going to need a different kind of specialist to sort that out. Not my kind of job … I’m just a shooter.”
Church glanced briefly at a flight of gulls flapping across the iron gray sky. “Walk with me, Captain.”
We walked toward the cliffs in the red glow of the dying sun. I hunched into my coat and kept taking sips from the coffee, mostly to let the steam warm my face. If Church felt the cold, or cared about it, it didn’t show. I’m not sure if I found his iron stoicism admirable or loathsome. It made him seem inhuman. He said nothing for five minutes, letting me sort through my shit.
Finally, he said, “That was hard.”
I said nothing.
“I contacted Dr. Sanchez and brought him up to speed. He thinks I’m a monster.”
I grunted, and he cut me a brief look.
“Do you need an apology for this?”
“Would you give me one if I did?”
“It’s unlikely.”
“Then, no.”
“Do you feel used, Captain?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think that it was unfair of me to put you into this?”
I stopped and waited for him to stop and face me. “Let’s cut the shit, Church. They don’t hire nice guys to do what we do, but I’m not interested in putting a Dr. Phil spin on this. Do I hate that I had to do it? Sure, who wouldn’t? Do I wish it had been someone else in there? Fuck yeah; I’d rather be with Megan Fox on a topless beach in the South of France. But I’m not. I’m here, and I was the right man for the job. Sucks to be the truth, but there it is.”
He studied me for a slow five-count, then nodded and turned. I fell into step beside him.
“One last question,” he said.
“Sure.”
“When you were in there … was that the Killer or the Cop?”
I had never told him that I had disparate personalities floating around in my head, but I knew that prior to hijacking me into the DMS he had his people hack my psych records. Rudy still wanted to skin him for it. I didn’t like it any more than Rudy did, but given the nature of the extreme threats we face, I could understand it. To a degree.
“The Cop.”
He nodded. “Glad to hear it.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The coffee tasted like vulture piss, but I drank it anyway.
After a moment, he said, “Tell me what we know now that we didn’t know before we got here.”
“We know the Seven Kings are behind this and the London Hospital. I’ll be mighty damned surprised if they didn’t do Area 51 as well.”