The King of Plagues (46 page)

Authors: Jonathan Maberry

BOOK: The King of Plagues

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The
Sea of Hope
December 21, 7:56 A.M. EST

Circe, Church, and I sat down at the stateroom’s dining table. In my absence it had been converted into a full-blown intelligence center, with multiple screens that showed images from the minicams and collected data streams from the sensors. Room service brought in heaps of food. Ghost sat with his head on my lap and I fed him bits of hamburger as we worked.

Circe also had access to the Generation Hope security network, so we prowled that as well. There was an insane amount of movement on every part of the ship. It was confusing and irritating, and probably the least useful scenario for accurate surveillance and assessment. Once, for just a second, I thought I saw Santoro … but when I played back the feed it was someone else. Damn. Wishful thinking.

Circe went over the schedule for the event and we looked for holes in it. There were plenty. We made a list of moments when an attack would get the most media punch. There were several of those as well but one that really glared.

“The event gets rolling at seven with the first round of musical guests,”
said Circe. “The prince of England will take the stage at eight to make his speech. It will be simulcast all over the world. They’re estimating an audience of at least three billion. More if China relents at the last minute and allows citizens to watch. After that the ship will head into Rio for a private party with the celebrities and their families.”

“How’s security for that?” I asked.

“Huge. Over a thousand Brazilian military,” she said, “plus three SAS teams and four times as many Marines and SEALs. Heavy support from ground vehicles and helicopters. Gunboats in the water. Plus Secret Service for one-to-one security.”

“Can we identify anyone who was vetted by Vox?”

“Way ahead of you,” Church said with an approving nod. “I passed along three names to Director Linden Brierly, and he is having them quietly pulled.”

“Pulled and detained?”

“Yes. Understand something, Captain … a lot of people were vetted by Vox, including Grace Courtland.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It complicates things.”

Circe touched my arm. “You … you don’t think that Grace was—?”

“No,” I said decisively. “Absolutely not.”

Church nodded. “That only complicates things, because it may well be that most of the people Hugo passed are trustworthy.”

“Do you think the attack will be in Rio?” asked Circe.

“No,” I said, “I think it’ll be when the Prince is giving his speech. Killing the Prince and his guests is a solid punch by the Kings. After all, the speech is about disease. It calls on the new generation to unite, to become a unified family, that share money and resources, effort and cooperation, with the goal of eradicating diseases that are perpetuated by extreme poverty. Diseases that did not need to exist, because cures and treatments exist in wealthier lands. That’s all key stuff for the Kings to twist. It’ll be on every TV in the world. It’s the stuff of legends, and we know that part of what the Kings are doing is myth building.”

“Agreed,” said Church, and Circe nodded. “Let’s work out how they’ll do it.”

Together we came up with about forty really workable scenarios, but the problem was that none of them stood out more than the others.

Finally I looked at my watch. Time was running out.

Circe pounded her fist on the table. “God! I wish we could simply make an announcement, cancel everything, and let the Navy ships take everyone off.”

“We could,” said Church, “and that would force the Kings into an even more desperate act than what they are planning.”

“On the other hand,” I said, “we have an obligation to the President, the Prince of Wales, and all of the other families who stand to lose children.”

“I’m open to suggestions, Captain.”

“We could sabotage the engines. Play it like mechanical failure.”

“To what end? That would leave us floating out here with no solution.”

I did some math. “There are sixteen operators on board now. Ten from Tiger Shark and my team. I could take the President’s daughters under my direct supervision; Top could take Prince William and—”

“And initiate a firefight?”

“Okay, then we cut the number in half and save the eight targets with the highest political value.”

Church considered it.

“That might work. But we would need the other teams in the air and in the water right as that happens. That way if you get pinned down or trapped, we’d know help was on the way.”

“And what if the ship is rigged to blow up?” asked Circe.

Church said nothing. Nor did I.

Circe sighed.

“Plagues,” she said. “This has to be coming from the King of Plagues.”

Chapter Seventy-four

The
Sea of Hope
December 21, 6:30 P.M. EST

The concert was thirty minutes away. A big, cold hand seemed to be clamped around my heart.

“I have to go on deck,” I said. I’d already changed clothes again, as had the rest of Echo Team. Circe walked me to the cabin door.

“I don’t know whether to wish you luck,” she said, “or to hope that you find nothing at all.”

“Nothing at all would be nice.” But we both knew that was unlikely.

She nodded.

Behind us, Mr. Church was speaking into the phone. “Mr. President …”

“God,” Circe whispered, “that’s going to be a painful call.”

“From both ends of the line,” I said.

“This is insane,” she said.

“Welcome to my world.”

But she shook her head. “I was born to it.”

Before I could ask her to explain that, she turned and went into her bedroom.

I patted my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed. Yep, everything but a goddamn clue. Then I clicked my tongue for Ghost, who bounded off the couch.

We went out to fight the impossible fight.

Interlude Forty-six

The Chamber of the Kings
December 21, 5:49 A.M. EST

Toys dragged himself across the floor and managed—with curses and tears and screams—to pull himself into one of the chairs. When he realized that it was the throne of the King of Plagues he laughed so long and so hard that his mind nearly snapped. And then he wept for so long that he thought he would never stop.

The tourniquet he’d tied around his leg was probably too tight. Maybe he’d lose the leg. Maybe he’d get blood poisoning.

Maybe he didn’t give a damn.

“Sebastian … ,” he said, and the tears started again.

Eventually they stopped. Everything stops eventually.

When he could breathe again he pulled the American’s phone from his pocket. He had recovered it during the ten thousand years it took him to crawl across the floor. The casing was cracked and it was sticky with blood. His.

He shivered and he knew that shock was setting in. With all the alcohol already in his system and now the bullet wound and the shattered femur, he figured that his system did not stand a chance against shock.

Toys opened the phone and punched in Hugo Vox’s number.

“Toys!”

In his delirium Toys thought he heard the phone ringing and Vox answering at the same time. Then there was the sound of footsteps and Toys turned to see Vox lumber into the room. The big man had a big gun in his hand and he fanned the barrel around the room with a professional competence that Toys admired. Toys tried to say so, but his voice was a slur.

The American holstered the gun and knelt beside him, his face grave with concern.

“Jeez, you’re a goddamn mess. Who did this to you?”

“Sebastian.”

“Yeah,” he said. “What I figured. Shit.”

Toys touched Vox’s face with the tip of his finger. “Are you … real?”

“You better hope so, kiddo.” Vox fetched the wheeled leather chair of War’s Conscience and gingerly placed Toys’ shattered leg on it. Toys screamed.

“Sorry, kiddo.” Vox adjusted the tourniquet, which was itself a moment of exquisite agony. He got water and a cloth and mopped Toys’s face and then brought over a glass of brandy. “This will help until we can get you to a doctor.”

Toys sipped the brandy greedily. It burned through him with a calm fire, pushing back the pain, restoring a measure of control.

“Now,” said Vox, “tell me what happened?”

“Sebastian shot me. And I … I guess I shot him.”

Vox looked around. The room was empty except for them. “The fuck is he?”

“I shot him in the heart. But … I think he was wearing Kevlar. Pity.”

“Clever bastard.”

Toys coughed and winced. “Shame he got away.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, kiddo. But … if you had the gun, how did he get away?”

“I … let him go,” said Toys. He drank half of the brandy, coughed again, and drank some more. It seemed to burn more of the pain away.

“Why? Why not put a couple of rounds through that face-lift of his?”

Toys shrugged. “Why bother?” His face was white with pain and trauma, but the brandy seemed to help him focus his thoughts.

The American sighed. “You got a good heart, kiddo. You’re lucky it’s still beating.”

“Sorry.”

“Screw it. It’s all gone to shit anyway. The DMS know who I am now, so I’m going to have to go way off the radar.”

“So where does that leave us?” asked Toys.

“In the wind.” He went and fetched the bottle of brandy and another glass. He refilled Toys’ glass and poured himself a generous shot. “Ah … maybe I’ve been playing this game too long. My blood pressure could blow bolts out of plate steel and I haven’t taken a comfortable shit in five years.”

“Well, thanks for sharing.”

“It’s all stress. I … don’t think I want to deal with it anymore.”

“So … what? You’re going to retire to Florida and raise flamingoes?”

“Oh, fuck no. I didn’t say I was tired of the Seven Kings. I like that shit. I have stuff I haven’t tried yet.”

“And your secret identity was holding you back?”

Vox chuckled. “No—or not entirely. Mom was the biggest cockblocker in the world. Now she might not be.”

“She might escape this.”

“Yeah, she might. She’s got a lot of clever up her sleeve, too. But you have to think that you’re vulnerable before you believe that you should run from danger. She thinks she really is a frigging goddess.”

“I know. I got the speech from Apollo.”

“Who? Oh … got it.”

A wave of pain hit Toys and he bared his teeth, then in a very conversational voice said, “Ow.”

Vox reached over and pushed a button on one of the computer consoles built into the big table.

“Chang and Kuo will get you to a doctor I own in Toronto. You’ll be right as rain.”

Toys looked down at the ruin of his leg. “Sebastian enjoyed it.”

“Sebastian’s a prick,” said Vox. “He may have been a great man once, but let me tell you a secret, kiddo: I think that without you he wouldn’t have amounted to shit.”

Toys said nothing.

“Which makes me wonder what
you
could have accomplished given the right support and freedom of action. Gault never saw you as anything but an employee.” He shook his head. “Small thinking.”

Toys studied him for a long time. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping me? What’s in it for you?”

Vox sipped his brandy. “I told you before, I haven’t been able to trust Santoro for years, and I need someone I can trust.”

“An ‘employee’?” Toys said with a wry smile.

Vox’s face was serious. “No. I can always buy more people. But you … I think you may have outgrown the point where you can be bought.”

Toys nodded and they sipped their brandy.

“I never thought I’d say this,” said Toys eventually, “but I hope Joe Ledger lives through all of this. He still has work to do.”

“For the Seven Kings,” said the American.

“For us,” said Toys.

“Sure,” said the King of Fear with a laugh. “Why not? For us.”

Interlude Forty-seven

Aboard the
Delta of Venus
December 21, 6:59 P.M. EST

Eris and Gault had a dozen laptops open so they could watch all of the major network feeds. They were naked, both of them covered in welts and scratches.

“This is what I’ve been working toward since I took control of the Kings from my son.”

“You do know with Hugo on the run from the DMS you’ll eventually come under scrutiny.”

“Eris will,” she said. “But that poor woman is going to die tonight.”

Gault nuzzled her neck. “So, who is it that I just shagged cross-eyed?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll have to think up a new name. Maybe Isis. Or Hera.”

“Will you shed a tear if Hugo is caught?”

Eris laughed. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Would he shed a tear if
you
were caught?”

“Silly questions, lovely boy. Pay attention.”

They snuggled together and watched the screen.

The show was beginning.