Extinction Machine (10 page)

“Send someone else,” said Tull.

“We can’t,” said Bones, and Tull heard a note of alarm in his voice. “There are complications.”

The doe spooked and bolted, vanishing into the woods. Berenice stood, the sandwich in her hands, her disappointment written in the lines of her body. Even so, the day remained beautiful. Bees and dragonflies flitted from flower to flower and far away a few white clouds floated like sleeping giants on the bed of the horizon.

“What complications?”

“
Religious
complications.”

It took a moment for Tull to grasp the meaning from the obtuse language. His pulse quickened. Religious complications.

Religion.

Church.

God almighty.

“Tell me,” he said. Mr. Bones told him.

With each word the colors seemed to drain out of the day. The music of the waves turned to noise; the sound of the songbirds became the discordant chatter of pests. It was how it always happened. It was how it usually was for him. Sadness crept into his heart as he felt the magic that defined this day, this place, this moment, slip like oiled flesh through his fingers.

Below, the princess turned and began walking along the beach toward their bungalow. Sunlight reached for her through the trees and dappled her breasts and shoulders. Tull sighed, and the sound of it, even to his own ears, was filled with weariness and sadness.

“Very well,” said Tull.

“You’ll accept the assignment?”

“Yes.” His voice was a soft croak. “Send me any intel you have. I’ve got a little travel time ahead of me, but I can be there soon. Have my jet fueled and the airport cleared. Call Aldo—I’ll need him. In the meantime, make sure there are some good people on this guy Ledger. See if you can put him in a box until I can get there.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tull. We have assets in play as we speak.”

The line went dead.

Tull finished his Scotch and set the glass down and leaned on the rail with both hands. It would be so hard to leave this place. To leave this woman. To leave this chance at being like other people. At being normal.

At being human.

Tull sighed again, and went inside to pack.

Chapter Nineteen

The White House
Sunday, October 20, 6:22 a.m.

Linden Brierly and a dozen agents moved in an armed wave to intercept the president from entering the White House. Before Brierly could say a word, William Collins pointed a finger at him.

“Don’t,” he barked.

“Mr. President,” said Brierly in a tight whisper, “this is extremely ill advised.”

The president stopped and looked around. His motorcade sat in the underground entrance, lights swirling, armed men and women everywhere. Security cameras were mounted on the walls, guards at the gated entrances.

He closed on Brierly, getting right up in the director’s face, and his whisper was every bit as fierce. “You told me you swept the building.”

“Yes, sir—”

“Top to bottom, every room, every possible hiding place.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“You ran scanners over every inch of wall space. There are no listening devices and no hidden compartments where the entire Al-Qaeda could be lurking.”

Brierly said nothing.

Collins had enough courtesy to lower his voice so that only Brierly could hear him. “Whatever happened this morning is over. Your own team has deemed the building safe.”

“Sir, I approved a memo saying that there were no detectable threats. That’s hardly the same—”

“I am the president, Linden. I know it pains you to accept that fact, but there it is. Now get the fuck out of my way while you still have a job.”

Collins glowered until Brierly reluctantly stepped back and to one side.

With his entourage in tow and agents fore and aft, the president went into the White House to lay claim to the Oval Office. Linden Brierly, defeated, followed in his wake.

Chapter Twenty

Camden Court Apartments, Camden and Lombard Streets
Baltimore, Maryland
Sunday, October 20, 6:23 a.m.

The two men in the black Crown Victoria watched the huge red-brick apartment building. The driver chewed gum slowly and methodically as he studied the building through dark sunglasses. The man next to him was hunched over a small laptop whose split screen showed him the feeds from several camera drones that perched as fake pigeons on power lines, light poles, and window ledges. From ten feet the drones looked entirely real. At close range their tiny black bird eyes were too dark, too lifeless, too unnatural to sell them as real. But they did not need to pass close inspection, and no one looks twice at a pigeon in Baltimore.

“Okay,” said the man with the small laptop. “The woman’s leaving, too.”

A tall and lovely young woman stepped out through the main doors and raised her arm for a cab. Both men paused to admire her legs and the way her clothes clung to her ripe lines.

“Ledger’s pumping that?” said the driver. “Lucky bastard.”

“Yeah, well his luck just ran out,” said the passenger. “Hope he got laid this morning, ’cause it’s going to be a long time before he sees a pair of tits again.”

“Ah, well,” said the driver. “Life’s a bitch.”

The other man laughed, then he tapped his Bluetooth. “The apartment’s empty. Send in the team.”

Chapter Twenty-one

On the road
Baltimore, Maryland
Sunday, October 20, 6:24 a.m.

As I drove I tried to make sense of things. On one hand, abducting the president made every kind of political sense—if you were a terrorist. If you were willing to die to make a point, this would be the biggest play of the game. Short of detonating a nuke on U.S. soil there’s no real way to top something like that.

On the other hand, abducting the president made no sense. It was on a par with kicking a grizzly bear in the nutsack. Yeah, you can brag about it if you live long enough, but how much do you like your odds? You’d have to know that once guys like me—and the thousands of other agents, lawmen, soldiers, and shooters who would be in this hunt—were on your trail, you were done, cooked. Dead, if you were lucky; in custody if your luck turned to shit. There are worse things that can happen to an enemy of the state than Gitmo. Hate to say it, hate it to be the truth, but there it is.

Who was the bad guy here? Who had either that much balls or was that crazy?

The U.S. of A has a lot of enemies, and some of them are supposed to be friends and allies. Friendship is every bit as illusory as the concept of alliance—it’s all really a balancing of mutual interest, mutual greed, fear, and barely concealed exploitation. And that math is skewed even more when you factor in that everyone hates the guy at the top. So, who among our bitter enemies or supposed friends would risk abducting the president? Who would think the rewards would outweigh the risks? Moreover, who was dumb enough to believe that a hostage, even one of such importance, is a genuine shield? In the short term, sure … but that kind of protection goes toxic faster than macaroni salad at a hot August picnic. Hold a hostage too long and that person’s political relevance diminishes. There would be a change of power in the White House—hell, the veep was already the de facto president. All the useful codes were already being changed. Pretty soon the hostage has symbolic value only, and I wouldn’t want to live on those terms.

Maybe this was political from a different camp. I mean, the loss of the president would tear down a lot of partisan structures. The president’s party would lose face and would likely be overwhelmed in the next round of congressional elections. The people most loyal to the missing president would be held up to scrutiny in case there was any possible chance that they were complicit in action or derelict in duty, and that stain of doubt would never wash off. Gradually everyone upon whom the president relied for swift, decisive action would be diminished, replaced, or otherwise disempowered.

And, of course, there was the issue of retaliation.

I couldn’t believe that any government was directly responsible for the abduction because this was an undeniable act of war. It was also a violation of our apparent strength and security. Once this was out we would lose face with the other superpowers; and the stock market would go right into the crapper. Our only response would have to be one of overwhelming military force. We would need to identify the culprits and utterly destroy them. If this was the work of a nonnuclear state, then they would be invaded and steamrolled flat. I’m not saying I agree with that, but I’m practical enough to understand the political philosophy of it. If you want to maintain the reputation as the absolute strongest, then when someone slaps you, you don’t slap them back. Instead you run them down with your car and make sure all four wheels bump over their bones. Barbaric? Sure. Spiritual? Of course not, because it is the exact opposite of the lessons of the enlightened teachers. But practical for a corrupt, illogical, and fiercely violent world? Sadly, cynically, yes.

I was nudged out of those gloomy thoughts when a black car shifted into my lane two cars in front of me. It was a Crown Victoria of the kind often used by government agencies. It caught my eye because there was one just like it behind me. We reached a light and the four of us sat there—the first Crown Vic, then a red Honda with a woman with two small kids, then me, and then the second Crown Vic. On another day I might have missed the cars, or noticed them but dismissed them. Today was not another day. Today was today and weird things were already happening.

The light turned green and we moved forward in a line to the next corner. The green light was about to turn and the lead car had just enough time to hurry through the yellow. He didn’t. The driver slowed and allowed the light to go all the way to red.

I punched a button on my cell and called Church.

“Boss, did you send an escort?”

“No,” he said, “what are you seeing?”

I told him and gave the tag numbers from the one behind me, transposing them from the reverse image in my rearview. “Can’t see the numbers on the lead car though.”

“Hold on,” he said.

The light turned green and we moved forward. The red Honda peeled left and went down a side street. That left my Explorer sandwiched between the two government cars. I gave Church the plates of the lead car, which I could now see.

Church came back on the line. “Both plates belong to cars in the general FBI fleet. Do you need to know who checked them out?”

The light turned green, but the lead car did not move. I was in a box. I had six feet between my front bumper and the lead car, but the follow car had crept up so close he was crowding my taillights. Some wiggle room if this got weird.

“I have a feeling this is about to go south on me, boss.”

“I’ll roll backup,” said Church. “Be careful, Captain.”

“Always am,” I said.

Doors opened in both cars. Front doors, both sides. Four men got out. All of them tall, all of them in black suits with crisp white shirts, nondescript ties, sunglasses. Their jackets were unbuttoned and there was a slight breeze, however each man used one hand to keep the jacket flaps closed.

“Uh-oh,” I said to Ghost. Actually I said, “Rut-roh,” in my best Scooby-Doo voice.

Ghost straightened and looked out of the windows, turning to look in front and behind us.

The agents closed in on my Explorer. Two on the passenger side, two on the driver side. The point man removed his identification wallet and held it out as he approached my window. Ghost growled softly, the ridge of hair on his spine standing as straight as a wire brush. He bared his teeth, four of which were made of gleaming titanium—replacements for the ones he’d lost on the Red Order gig in Iran. Ghost loves biting things with those chompers. He’s never hugely friendly with strangers at the best of times and right now he was picking up my tension. This car stop had “wrong” written all over it. It was weird, it was unexpected, it was improper and today wasn’t the day for that shit. I gave Ghost a couple of get-ready-but-wait commands.

I rolled my window down one quarter of an inch. Enough for sound, not enough for any hanky-panky. The glass is bullet-resistant. I’m not.

“Federal agents,” said the point man. He was a medium-size guy with a beaky nose and hardly any lips. All I could read on the ID were the three big letters that my boss insists do not stand for “Fart, Barf, and Itch.”

I slapped my ID against the glass. I’d dug a set of NSA credentials out of the glove box. Since these guys were FBI, I wanted to both trump them and also play home-court advantage—and the NSA is based in Fort Meade here in Maryland. The DMS doesn’t have ID cards or badges being one of those “we’re so secret we don’t officially exist” things.

Beaky Nose barely looked at my credentials. “Federal agents,” he repeated. Which, in the circumstances, was kind of a silly thing to say.

“Me, too, friend,” I said coldly. “I am responding to a matter of national security. Please move your car.”

He did not acknowledge my statement in any way. Instead he said, “Please step out of your vehicle.”

“Sorry, did you miss the part where I said that I’m with the National Security Agency? Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Bunch of officious pricks with way too much authority? Including the authority to tell you to back the fuck off and let me go about my business.” Just to be pissy I gave him a toothy smile and added, “Please.”

Beaky Nose opened his jacket and laid his hand on the butt of the pistol clipped to his belt. “Please step out of your vehicle, sir. Don’t make me ask you again.”

“You just did,” I said. “You made yourself say it again.”

Beaky Nose didn’t seem to know how to answer that. While he was sorting it out I opened the door and stepped out. He stepped back, his hand still on his pistol. I was wearing jeans and an unbuttoned Orioles shirt over a thermal undershirt. My Beretta was in a quick-draw shoulder rig, out of sight but in easy reach. The second agent, a beefy man with black hair and an Italian face came around from the far side of the car and stood a few feet behind me and to my right. My car door was still open, and it formed a nice barricade between us. The guys from the follow car, a scarecrow with sallow skin and a black guy with a precisely trimmed mustache and a gleaming bald head, stood behind me and to the left. Maybe six feet behind me. Almost but not quite the right distance to stay out of my range. Ghost stood up on the seat, but I kept him in place with a small hand sign. I left the door open, though, just in case things got creative out here. Ghost makes a great party crasher.