I smiled at him, but he held up a stern finger. “One word, Cowboy, and I will find a way to kick your ass.”
“Just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re feeling up to this. Can’t be easy.” He gave me an evil look. “Really? I find getting shot to be so invigorating.”
Circe left his wheelchair with me and ran over to give Aunt Sallie a hug. For me it was a real WTF moment. And not just because I couldn’t imagine anyone liking Aunt Sallie. It just seemed like such a surreal occurrence.
When Circe stepped back from Aunt Sallie, she saw that Church was there. Circe froze and her face went blank. No hugs there, just a formal handshake and a few words privately exchanged.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Church signaled for everyone to take their seats. I helped Rudy out of the wheelchair and into a seat next to mine at the table. Circe came and sat on Rudy’s other side.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’ll live,” she said. “Where’s your dog?”
“In my room eating his way through most of a large cow. At least that’s what I think the kitchen staff delivered. Might be an elephant. Ghost was in monkey heaven.”
“Glad someone’s in a good mood. I’m not, and I’m having a hard time processing all of this.”
“Doc … before this whole thing gets started, I wanted to say that I respect and appreciate everything you did today. You put your ass on the line twice. You may have saved my life and you definitely saved Rudy’s. That van would have run him over if you hadn’t fired on it.”
“I already thanked her, Cowboy,” Rudy said, but I ignored him.
Circe’s eyes glistened. “Does that mean I get to curse, get a tattoo, and say ‘hooah’?”
There was just the hint of a smile as she said it.
I grinned. “Yes, you do.”
“Hooah,” she said with dry irony.
“Hooah.”
We traded a fist bump.
“Dios mio,” Rudy breathed.
“Are you children done playing?” snapped Aunt Sallie from across the table. Circe and I whipped our hands back like we were caught going into a cookie jar.
On the central display, a dozen screens came to life showing the faces of directors of the various DMS field offices, most of whom I knew by sight or reputation. Church took his chair, but before he spoke he raised a small remote and pointed it at the door. There was a hiss of hydraulics and the clang of heavy locks.
“We are in full lockdown,” he announced. “I am hereby initiating a Class One security protocol. You are all hereby bound by Executive Order A-9166/DMS. All participating stations are to activate protocol Deacon Alpha Ten. Verify.”
One by one the DMS field commanders gave their verification. This was only the second time since I’d been with the DMS that we had gone to our highest security status. I understood why, but from the confused and concerned looks on the faces of everyone else they didn’t. Even Aunt Sallie frowned at Church.
“What’s going on, Deacon?” she asked, eyes narrowed. “We get something hot?”
“Red-hot,” Church murmured to her, but to everyone else he said, “I will say this, and I want each of you to understand why I’m saying it. It is possible that the Seven Kings have infiltrated the DMS. If this is so, then we will discover the name or names of whoever is on their leash. If any of you are under coercion from the Kings, now is the time to let me know. This is a closed conference. The secret will be safe and we will act immediately to protect you and your family. If you have been the victim of coercion, then I offer a complete amnesty as long as you tell me now. That offer expires in thirty seconds.”
We waited out those thirty seconds. Church’s face was as hard as granite. I could see several people begin to sweat. There was a plate of vanilla wafers on the table in front of him. Church selected one, bit off a piece, and munched it thoughtfully. His eyes were invisible behind the tinted lenses of his glasses. Everyone waited. Except for the crunch of Church’s strong white teeth on the cookie there was no sound.
“Time’s up,” said Church. “I direct each team leader to spread the word to their staff members. Same offer. Come to me directly and I will protect them. Failure to do so would be … unfortunate.”
Considering the circumstances, the statement was almost bizarrely dry and formal. Except that we all knew what lay beneath the calm surface of Church’s words. No one spoke. We watched him finish his NILLA wafer and wash it down with a sip of water. I cut a look at Rudy, who raised his eyebrows at me.
“Very well,” said Church. It was impossible to read his expression. It was somewhere between one of those giant rock faces on Easter Island and Darth Vader. “I’m going to play a recording of a phone conversation that occurred less than an hour ago. The call was made to Captain Ledger’s phone using the same anti-trace technology used by the confidential informant who has tipped us off to the Kings. I’ll play it twice. Listen without comment first, and then the floor is open to speculation afterward.”
He used the same remote to start the playback.
He need not have cautioned everyone to silence. Every mouth was slack with shock; every set of eyes stared in absolute horror.
Finally it was Rudy who broke the silence.
“Madre de Dios!” he said. “Gault?”
“Sebastian Gault,” agreed Church gravely. “The King of Plagues.”
Dr. Hu smiled like a kid on Christmas morning. “That’s soooo cool.” Everyone stared at him, but he gave an unapologetic shrug. “Hey, without guys like him this job would be booooring. That guy rocks.”
“Can I kill him?” I asked Church.
“Maybe later,” Church said. He sounded so convincing that Hu’s smile faltered. To the group Church said, “I want to review all of the pertinent information. You’re on point for this, Captain. Bring everyone up to speed.”
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the short course. We know for sure that the Seven Kings are behind this entire crisis. We know that Sebastian Gault has the designation within the Kings organization as the ‘King of Plagues.’ We know that there are also Kings of Fear, Famine, Gold, War, Lies, and Thieves. Beyond that, we don’t know anything else about the nature of their organization, including whether they are an ancient or modern secret society. We know that they use campaigns of disinformation and information manipulation, and in a minute I’d like Dr. O’Tree to talk more about that.”
She nodded.
I continued, “One of the methods used by the Kings is coercion, most or all of it perpetrated by a man named Santoro, who we’ve been calling ‘the Spaniard.’”
“Hold on a minute,” interrupted Hu. “Extortion? Not blackmail?”
“No,” I replied. “Blackmail is messy and it leaves a trail. MindReader would have tripped over that in at least one or two of our background searches. We’ve been constantly updating the search arguments for the victims, and we’ve hacked everything from their e-mails to their tax records. People are never completely pristine about their own wrongdoing; otherwise no one could blackmail them. Besides, it’s hard as hell to blackmail someone into murder and suicide. Death pretty much cancels the leverage, so some of the vics would have fessed up. No … each of the victims had a family, right? What better leverage is there than a direct threat to loved ones? The victims are told that if they don’t do it, then something far worse is going to happen. With that kind of pressure, people will definitely kill … or die.”
Church said, “The threat would have to be made in a way that leaves no doubt as to whether the extortionist would follow through.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “They would need to really mind-fuck their victims.”