The Vengeance of the Tau (40 page)

Billy jammed his key into the ignition and turned it. A click followed, but it came from behind him rather than from the steering column. He felt the cold steel of a gun barrel touch the back of his head. His right hand was already going for his pistol, and he had closed on the handle when a voice found his ear.

“Fuck you,” said Sal Belamo.

And Sal pulled the trigger.

Outside, the tanks had ceased firing. Before them, the remaining members of the Tau had begun scampering out from their positions of cover with flight on their minds. Some searched for still-functional vehicles. Others sought still-workable weapons. Still more simply tried to run.

None of them succeeded.

On cue, the men of No Town swept onto the ravaged, charred air base led by Sheriff Tyrell Loon. There was no real plan to their approach, no complicated pattern to adhere to. But there were enough of them to cover a spread sufficient to prevent the flood of armed and unarmed men from escaping. Loon held his M-16 to the sky and fired off a burst.

“Good idea if all you just stay as you be!” he yelled out to them. When they had obliged, he turned to share a smile with Toothless Jim Jackson.

And the Old One smiled back.

Tyrell Loon rubbed his eyes and held them closed, then opened them slowly.

She was gone. Jackson was standing a yard past where Tyrell thought he had seen her, grinning at him toothlessly, obviously not having seen a thing.

“Let’s round ’em up,” said Sheriff Loon.

Sal Belamo was watching the roundup in amazement, when Blaine and Johnny emerged from the hangar.

“Looks like we missed all the fun, boss.”

“My guess is you had plenty of your own,” Blaine said.

Johnny had helped him wrap some cloth around the neat slice in his palm from the glass shard. It had stopped the blood from dripping, but could do nothing about the throbbing. Sal’s shoulder, meanwhile, was a mess, bloody and shredded, a makeshift tourniquet doing the best it could to stem the flow.

“You find the White Death, Sal?”

“In a tanker big as a house. No sign of Rothstein, though.”

“I didn’t think there would be.”

“You don’t sound too worried about it.”

“Let’s see if I’m right first.”

Chapter 36

THE FIGURE THAT DESCENDED
under cover of darkness through the hatchway into Nineteen’s new irrigation works did so using his flashlight only sporadically; he knew this land well enough not to require its use any more than that. The hose he needed to perform his task was stored in a cabinet within. When all was ready, he would call for his trucks to make their way onto the property in the guise of the propane vehicles that provided the residents with most of their energy needs.

He slid by the massive tanks and was almost to the cabinet holding the hose when the thick fluorescent lighting snapped on. Arnold Rothstein stiffened and turned slowly.

“They’re empty,” Blaine McCracken said as he stepped out of the shadows.

“You were expecting me,” was all Rothstein could think to say.

“I also found your boxes containing the White Death already loaded into those explosive activators you’ve been using around the world. Excellent design. My compliments.”

“How could you have known to come here?” he asked McCracken, exasperated.
“How?
”

Just to McCracken’s rear stood Johnny Wareagle, Melissa Hazelhurst, and Sal Belamo with his arm held firmly in a sling. His free hand held a gun low by his hip. Blaine’s injured hand was bandaged as well, and his chin showed a gauze strip taped across it.

“I remembered Tovah saying that you had recently arranged for a system upgrade,” he said. “I figured you had your own plans for it.”

Their eyes wandered to the tanks simultaneously.

“How long since they’ve held water?” Blaine asked the old man.

“Since they were installed six months ago.”

“Backup system?”

Rothstein nodded. “Built at the same time.”

“With the groundwork laid well before that. I’d say dating back to the original construction of this kibbutz, because you planned to someday make use of it even then.”

“Apparently, Mr. McCracken, I underestimated you.”

“No, you just made it easy for me. The White Death we found at Livermore came exclusively from the empty crates you returned to Ephesus for. That meant the stockpile you were able to manufacture after you finally re-created the original formula was somewhere else. Here.” Blaine hesitated and took a single step forward. “At least was.”

Rothstein regarded him quizzically. “What do you mean ‘was’? What have you done with the White Death, McCracken?”

“Nothing.”

“But you said it was gone.”

“It is, Rothstein, but not thanks to me. You were too late. And so were we.”

McCracken had returned to Israel in the same jet that had brought him and the commandos of Nineteen to America, arriving a few hours before dawn on Monday. Accompanying him along with the survivors who were well enough to travel had been Johnny, Sal Belamo, and Melissa. Blaine’s numerous wounds had made for a very uncomfortable journey. Though none was serious, they all ached nonetheless, and the bandages and dressings had him feeling confined and restricted.

“Something’s wrong,” one of the commandos had said as they came within range of the front gate. “I don’t see the—”

She had stopped because suddenly she had seen, seen the security gate flapping slightly in the wind. Blaine had emerged from the lead car ahead of her. They had noticed the first of the bodies at the same moment. One of the guards had been dragged into the low underbrush rimming the entrance. Only her boots protruded. McCracken had swung round to find Johnny Wareagle inspecting the ground between their lead car and the gate.

“The killers are gone, Blainey.”

“How long, Indian?”

“Less than an hour. Three trucks, two of them heavy.”

“Tankers?”

“Possibly.”

Beyond the gate Nineteen had become a killing ground. McCracken had walked slowly with Johnny by his side, seeing things as they had unfolded. Women would have emerged from their houses at the first sign of trouble. But whoever had come in the trucks were well prepared. Bodies lay on porches or near them. Some of the rifles had been fired. Some hadn’t.

“You expected this,” Rothstein said before Blaine had finished his story. They were still standing in the cellar that held the works for Nineteen’s irrigation system.

“I feared it, thanks to you.”

“Me?”

“You tipped me off without even realizing it yourself. You said you lost me after the shootout with the Twins at the hotel in Izmir. That meant somebody else had to be behind the attack in Germany.”

“What attack? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“That’s the problem, Rothstein. Someone else was shadowing you all along, mirroring your moves. Waiting. And you played right into their hands.”

“And you’re saying they have the White Death? Impossible! A lie!”

McCracken slid forward and froze Rothstein with his stare. “The killings were no lie. Would you like to take a stroll with me and count the bodies? Eleven women were killed here tonight. It’s your fault, Mr. Rothstein. You used these women, and it cost those eleven of them their lives.”

“I didn’t know. How could I?”

“You didn’t bother to. Fanatics like you are convinced your vision is so pure that nothing can stop it from being attained. But it never happens. Sometimes you stop yourselves. Sometimes you get stopped.”

Rothstein tried to look strong. “And you are going to stop me, of course.”

“No, I think I’ll leave the rest of that task to someone else. …”

Blaine and Johnny moved to the side to allow Tovah to wheel her chair forward. It was all her bony hands could do to manage the effort. A shawl covered her legs. A 9mm pistol rested atop it.

“Tovah!” Arnold Rothstein gasped.

“You lied to me, Ari,” the old woman accused.

“Only to spare you.”

She shook her head. “No. Again, to spare yourself. You began planning this forty-five years ago. Everything else was just a stepping-stone. And what you have sown the seeds for, what you have done to us—to our people—without realizing. …”

“What?” Rothstein raised, dumbfounded.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Blaine asked him. “It’s right here before your eyes and you can’t see it.”

“Help me. Let me make amends.
Tell me!
”

As Blaine told his story, Arnold Rothstein sank to his knees and began to sob.

“Leave us,” the old woman told those around her sternly ten minutes later.

Blaine led the way toward the stairs.

“Tovah,” her brother pleaded, “part of what I did was for our own good, the good of Israel. I know you cannot see that now, but you will. I could have fashioned a world without fear for us. I could have ensured the safety and sanctity of our borders until the end of time.”

“And which end is that now, Ari? We have shared many, seen many. Tonight must come another,” the old woman said, and raised the pistol.

Blaine and the others were halfway up the steps by then and none of them looked back.

“Tovah, you
must
listen to me!”

“Ari,” Tovah muttered. “My poor Ari …”

Sal Belamo was the last one out of the underground structure, and Blaine lowered the doors after him.

“Listen to me, Tovah. Please lis—”

Rothstein’s words vanished behind the sealed door. The next sounds reached their ears as dull thuds.

A gunshot, followed by one more, and then another.

“Let’s go, Johnny,” Blaine said. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

The mansion high up on the Bokelberg where McCracken had met the toymaker and encountered the Tau was situated off by itself, with the nearest other
Villen
only vaguely in sight. There would be at least two dozen guards patrolling the grounds tonight, two or three times as many as the night Blaine had come here before. He was certain of that much, just as he knew that a frontal approach to the house was out of the question. How to get inside, then?

The idea had come from Sal Belamo, the necessary equipment obtained after a single phone call Tovah had suggested they make. The helicopter that was now closing on the house was part of that equipment. It was equipped with silent-running capability and infrared sighting that allowed the pilot to fly without lights. Because “silent” was a relative term in this case, it was arranged that an emergency repair crew would be jackhammering away at the road just down the street.

From a hundred and fifty feet above the house, McCracken could see little of the grounds below. He kept his focus on the roof as the chopper circled and tested the wind. To prevent being spotted from ground level, he had donned black clothes, gloves, and boots, and had smeared blackout cream all over his face.

McCracken checked his watch. Right on cue, Sal Belamo’s construction crew went to work. It was time.

Blaine dropped the black nylon line from the belly of the chopper. It uncoiled swiftly like a snake and dangled a few feet from the roof’s surface, swaying in the night. McCracken took one last deep breath and hoisted himself out onto it.

The slide came easily, except for the stinging pain it brought back to his bandaged hand. He covered the distance in less than four seconds and hit the roof with a
thump.

The sloping roof was formed of slate. McCracken eased himself to its rear, where the congestion of guards below was somewhat lighter than the front. He removed his pack from his shoulders and took from it pylons and black nylon cord. Then he knelt down and set about the task of wedging the pylons into the roof with a small hammer.

When this task was completed, he slid the nylon cord into the pylons and then ran it through the proper slots in his vest. He was now ready to rappel the short six-foot drop to the window through which he planned on gaining entry. McCracken stuck the handle of his glass-cutting knife in his mouth and eased himself off the roof. Popping the lock would have been simpler, but Blaine suspected that an elaborate alarm system would be triggered should any latch be opened.

He dropped off the roof and dangled briefly in front of the window before sliding over to the left of it. Pressed against the house, he held himself steady with his left hand and worked the blade along the frame with his bandaged right hand, gritting his teeth against the pain as he sliced through the putty holding the glass into place. He managed to do a little more than half the window before switching to the right side, and he used his left hand to complete the job. After a few more seconds of work, the lines of cuts were on the verge of joining up with each other.

Afraid of what would happen if the glass popped inward and shattered, McCracken maneuvered so that he was directly in front of the window. He affixed a pair of handle-equipped suction cups to the glass, and only then did he finish cutting through the window. He tugged slightly on the suction cups, and the glass came back with them. He lowered the large pane cautiously in through the now-vacant space. He set it to the side of the frame and then climbed into the room.

Blaine moved straight for the door of the darkened room and pressed his ear against it. Footsteps were approaching, a patrolling guard not in any particular rush. Blaine turned and pressed his back against the door. Gazing into the deep part of the room now, something about the far wall grabbed his eye. He slid away from the door and reached back for his flashlight. Its narrow beam found the wall and began tracing its length.

The wall was taken up completely by a map of the world that stretched from floor to ceiling. McCracken had never seen a more complete one. Major cities and their populations the world over were highlighted. Then, as he gazed at it closer, he realized it wasn’t a map at all.

It was a battle plan.

The cities highlighted were the centers of the world’s commerce and government. The White Death released randomly within them would cause chaos and panic on an unthinkable level as millions of innocent people were blinded. It would be done simultaneously, every part of the world thrown into total disarray at the same time. The chaos would feed off itself.