December 19, 6:04 P.M. EST
On Martha’s Vineyard, police cars and an ambulance were tearing along the winding back roads toward the mansion of H. Carlton Milhaus, CEO of Milhaus and Berk Publishing. The company published, among other periodicals, The Fiscal Conservative and Right Smart. Milhaus’s eldest daughter, Sandra, was using the estate for a combination holiday party for the company’s executives and fund-raiser for the Republic senator from Massachusetts.
As the emergency vehicles roared through the gates, the officers could see that every light in the house was on. Despite the cold, people in cocktail dresses and dinner jackets were standing outside on the patio and lawn. Many of them had hands to their throats or faces, and all of them had shocked eyes.
The first-in officers knew that everything they said, everything they did, here among these people would be scrutinized. A single misstep, a carelessly chosen word, could crush their careers. They’d seen it happen over and over again to their peers. Their former peers.
The first responders entered with as much haste as caution would allow. The EMTs were a dozen steps behind.
They stepped into a world of elegance and sophistication, of holiday cheer and conspicuous wealth, of shocked white faces and bright red blood.
Sandra Milhaus lay faceup, her feet on the second and third steps of the grand staircase, her arms flung wide with an inartistic abandon, her green silk gown twisted around her pale legs. Her eyes were open, as was her mouth. Her coiffed blond curls lay in the center of a pool of blood that, by perverse chance, spread around her like a halo and reflected the Christmas lights on the walls and banister. That she was dead was obvious, even from a dozen feet away.
The officers cut each other a quick glance, knowing they had just stepped out of a potential “incident” at the party of one of the richest families on the Vineyard and stepped into a crime scene that would be front-page news, even with all that was going on in London. When they were still five feet away they froze.
Sandra Milhaus was not merely dead. Every inch of exposed skin was covered with lumps like boils. Some of them had clearly burst and leaked blood or clear fluid that was tinged with pink. The others were pale knobs, the color lost from the settling of blood in her body after her heart had stopped.
They stood on either side of her, careful not to step in the blood.
“Who can tell me what happened?” asked Jimmy Redwood, the male officer. “Was she allergic to anything?”
There were a hundred people clustered around. On the stairs and balcony above, in the open doorway of the grand ballroom to their right and the dining room to their left. The officers recognized many of the faces from the news.
Redwood’s partner, Debbie Tobias, turned to the nearest person, an older woman. “Ma’am, do you know if she ate something she wasn’t supposed to?”
The woman shook her head and didn’t—or perhaps couldn’t—answer.
“Please,” said Tobias, pitching her voice for authority but not intimidation, “was she sick before the party?”
The EMTs came hustling in, carrying their heavy equipment boxes.
“What have we got, Jimmy?” the lead paramedic asked Redwood.
“I don’t know, Barney. Looks like allergic reaction.”
The EMT closed on the body. And stopped.
They looked at each other.
This wasn’t anaphylaxis.
“Oh, shit,” said Barney.
His partner, Paresh, cut a worried look at the crowd and then pulled Tobias closer. He whispered urgently in her ear, “Get everyone out of here, but keep them contained.”
Barney was already on the phone, calling in the visible symptoms. Neither he nor his partner made any attempt to touch Sandra Milhaus.
Tobias looked up at Paresh. “What is it?”
But the EMT shook his head. “I don’t know. But for God’s sake get these people contained, Debbie. Now!”
Interlude Thirty-nine
Feasterville, Pennsylvania
December 19, 6:05 P.M. EST
Rafael Santoro did not want to make this call. In all the years during which he had served the Goddess and the Seven Kings he had only had to make such a call twice. This was the third time he would have to report not one failure but two.
The King of Plagues answered, his voice mildly distorted by his scrambler.
Instead of a greeting, Gault said, “I’m watching CNN. I’m hearing a lot about an attack on a house in Jenkintown that ended with four dead and two taken. I’m also hearing about a bunch of trigger-happy wankers who shot up an effing Starbucks. I’m hearing about civilian casualties. I’m hearing about a dead sodding writer. Can you guess what I’m not hearing about? I’m not hearing about Amber-fucking-Taylor and her children being spooned into body bags. I’m not hearing about a dead federal agent named Joe-effing-Ledger. Want to fucking tell me why not?”
Santoro took a calming breath. He was deeply ashamed. “I have no excuses.”
“Who’d you send? The frigging Mousketeers?”
“I used local assets on both jobs.”
“Kingsmen?”
“Chosen. Trey Foster and his team out of Philadelphia were given the Taylor pickup. I used Sarducci and his team for Starbucks. That is the Jersey crew I’ve used for three situations for the Kings over the last year.”
“Did they screw those up, too?” Gault’s voice was loud and full of acid.
“No,” said Santoro calmly. “Both teams have done good work for us in the past.”
“God damn it, Rafael.”
“They were unprepared for the arrival of DMS field teams at both locations.”
“What?” Gault screamed the question so loud Santoro winced and held the phone away from his ear. When the King of Plagues was done shouting, Santoro explained what had happened.
“Such calamities are the price when action is taken without planning, yes? Had I been given more time, I would have scouted the area, set watchers on the perimeter, and listened for activity on our information stream. However …” He let the rest hang.
“Describe them to me,” snapped Gault, and when Santoro finished he said, “That’s sodding Echo Team. They’re Ledger’s team, but what the bloody hell are they doing in Southampton?”
Gault shouted more and Santoro endured it, sighing quietly as he drove. As much as he loved and honored the new consort of the Goddess and even though he would gladly die for this man, as he would for any of the Kings, Sebastian Gault could be a tiresome bore. And he was loud. Santoro, however, was never loud. Loud was crass—except for the loud shrieks and cries of his angels in their moment of transformation.
“How bad is this?” asked Gault.
“Nine of the Jersey team are dead, as are four of the Philadelphia team. Three operatives are in DMS custody.”
“Can you get to them?”
“Impossible.”
“What do they know?”
“Nothing of any value. Even under torture they have nothing useful to reveal.”
Which was only partly true. They knew Santoro’s name and that he worked for the Seven Kings, but Santoro did not think that this provided enough of a threat to risk having the King of Plagues lose his temper again.
“What would you like me to do?”
Gault sighed. “There’s nothing you can do. Let the DMS have them.” He sighed again, deeply and for a long time. Santoro could almost feel Gault’s blood pressure dropping. “Besides … and to be fair, I did ask for this to be splashed across the news feeds. It was. I was hoping that it would reinforce the threatening presence of the Kings … not make us look like imbeciles.”