Chapter Sixty-five
Tanglewood Island
Pierce County, Washington
March 30, 6:33 P.M.
“Your daughter,” said the Gentleman. “You know she’s totally daft, right?”
Pharos shrugged. “Look at us. How many people do either of us know who could be cited as a paragon of mental stability?”
The burned man thought about it. “Fair enough.”
After a moment, the Gentleman added, “She’s good, though. I’ll give her that. Mad as the moon, but she’s bloody good.”
Pharos smiled, his heart swelling with pride.
They watched the news stories tumble and spin.
A few small windows on the big screen were data feeds that provided text-message updates from field agents. Some of them even included digital images. They were every bit as entertaining as the news stories.
Below the cluster of windows was a stack of news crawls, each showing information from different markets. Not the American stock market, of course, which had been closed following the ballpark bombings, but real-time feeds from commodities markets around the world. Asia, the EU. Elsewhere. Even smaller markets controlled by China and Russia. Gold, wheat, pork bellies, orange juice, rice, technologies, pharmaceuticals. Many others. And oil, of course. Always oil. With each new story, each update from reporters who shared the latest death tolls, the prices shifted. Up and down, up and down.
Doctor Pharos and the Gentleman owned hundreds of people in the world markets. Commodities buyers and sellers who scrambled to find the profit foothold. Many people were panicking, thinking that another 9/11 was happening. Pharos had primed the pump with the release of the partial video; and now they let that engine run wild. The machine purred, and the product it manufactured was fear. No one wanted another Iraq, another Afghanistan. Not America or its allies. Not the Taliban or al-Qaeda, who, despite their bluster, had been devastated by the wars. America had withdrawn the bulk of its forces from Afghanistan and ended the thirteen-year-long war. No one wanted them to rearm and return. Especially not with their new generation of autonomous UAV weapons of war. Shooting down a drone doesn’t make the same kind of emotional statement.
So, the market shuddered and jerked as if continually punched.
With every staggering step, the brokers and bankers, buyers and sellers working for the burned man and Pharos made a profit. They bet on rises and falls, or steep swoops and terrified plummets. It was all a matter of being positioned long before the first tremor.
“As the American expression goes,” said Pharos, “buckle up. It’s about to get bumpy.”
There was a small sound from the other side of the room. A soft gagging sound. They turned.
Doctor Aaron Davidovich sat on a metal folding chair. Two broad-shouldered Blue Diamond Security men flanked him. Davidovich had one hand over his mouth and the other flat against his chest.
“Christ,” growled the burned man, “if you’re going to vomit, don’t do it in here.”
Davidovich’s face was the color of old milk, but he shook his head. The only sounds he made were tiny squeaks as his eyes darted from screen to screen to screen.
Pharos and the Gentleman exchanged a glance.
“I told you,” said the Gentleman. “I bloody well told you.”
Pharos raised both hands and made small pushing motions with his palms. “Wait, wait, let’s give him a chance.”
He got up and walked over to the scientist. Davidovich flinched back, but one of the guards clamped a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Shhhh,” said Pharos, holding a finger to his lips, “shhhh, it’s all right, my friend. You have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Nothing at all.”
“I—I—I’m not af-afraid,” stammered Davidovich.
“No, of course not. We’re all such good friends here. Everything is perfectly fine.”
Davidovich said nothing. He was sweating heavily and smelled sour and stale.
Pharos squatted down in front of him, still smiling warmly. He pivoted on the balls of his feet and looked at the screens behind him, then turned back to the scientist.
“Does all of that bother you?”
Davidovich said nothing.
“Does it?” prompted Pharos.
“N-no…”
“Doctor, please … if we can’t be frank with each other, then what do we have? Nothing. So, come now. There is absolutely nothing you can tell, nothing you can say that would offend or upset me. Truly, nothing.”
Davidovich said nothing.
“Doctor … listen to me and, please, hear me. I do understand what you’re going through. I am also a scientist. A doctor, not of computers. Of medicine, but even so. We are men of science. We were not trained for this. When we began our schooling, we did not have this in mind. I did not, and I’m sure you didn’t, either. Can we agree on that?”
Davidovich paused, then nodded. A small nod.
“We can also agree, I’m sure, that the view we held of the world when we were younger was much different from what the world actually is. Yes?”
Another small nod.
“Over the years, I became much less naive about the way things work. I looked at the play of politics. Right and left, one party and another, and I’m sure you know what I discovered when I stepped back to view it with perspective. There is no difference. Liberal and conservative, capitalist or socialist, first world or third. All of the rhetoric amounts to something less than a pile of old shit. We can agree on that. The promises of politicians has value only to them and the people who expect to benefit from seeing them get into office. The policies of governments are never actually for the betterment of anything but are truly only grunts of effort as they jockey for position and advantage in a giant global polo match. Even the so-called nonprofit organizations are either covertly funded by governments who want to exploit their access or resources, or they are even more naive than I was and are therefore inconsequential.”
Davidovich was listening. There was even a trace of a nod once or twice.
Pharos remained in a squat, positioned so that Davidovich was higher than him, ceding the nominal power within their shared envelope of confidence. It was a very useful trick. That and making statements laced with truisims tailored to encourage Davidovich to agree. It trained the scientist like a dog to agree and to feel powerful, moment by moment, because of those agreements.
“I did not set out to become a criminal, doctor,” said Pharos. “Truly I did not. Even now I don’t think of myself in that way. I don’t look into my shaving mirror and say, ‘You’re evil.’ Who does? A madman, perhaps? Or someone in a movie? No, what I see when I look in the mirror every single day and night is a man who has come to understand the way in which the world works, the structures that underpin what we call society, and the true meaning of our existence here. I know for a fact, from your reports, from what Boy has told me, from what you’ve done for us, that you see the same things when you look at yourself. You do not see a weak man. You certainly don’t see a failure. What you see, Doctor Davidovich, is a man who has awakened into the reality of this world. A man who has studied the systems, the blueprints, the schematics of society and decided that he would rather be a master of this game than merely a factor. You are not a subroutine of someone else’s game, Doctor. You are the game. You see that in the mirror. You look at that face, into these eyes, and you know the secret to winning this game. Because, oh yes, men like us have in fact discovered that secret. We know it and we act upon it. That secret, doctor, is power.”
Davidovich probably did not know he nodded. But he did.
“Power is what it’s all about. Money, of course, is the fuel that runs the great generator of power. Money protects us, it empowers us, it provides for us and those we love. Money is also the great truth serum. It opens hearts and minds. They say that everyone has a price. They do, that’s an old, old truth. If they have that price, then the so-called values and morals that they claim to pri
ze are meaningless. If morality was a genuine and powerful thing, then there would be no price at all to make men turn away from it. And yet every man and woman knows that they would if the price was high enough. I did. Boy did. The Seven Kings did. Everyone who works for us and with us did. Just as you did, doctor, when you realized that you were not a captive … no, hardly that. You realized that your brain, your talents, your insight were all demonstrations of the vast power waiting within you.”
Pharos touched Davidovich on the chest and then on the forehead.
“In here and in here. So much power,” said Pharos, shaking his head as if in wonder. “So much more than anyone else you’ve ever met. Until now. Until you met my daughter, Boy. Until you came here to this island. Until you met the Gentleman and met me. And what does that tell you? What does it say that you are here with us? With us, you understand? Not a prisoner. Not some lackey. You are here, at this time, in this place, at this moment, with us. With the last of the Seven Kings and with the man who runs their entire operation. Two giants. And you … a giant as well. A towering intellect. A person who should not ever allow his genius to be contained or marginalized by lesser, jealous, weaker people.”
Davidovich was listening. And panting. His eyes were fever bright.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” said Pharos. “Tell me I’m wrong about you.”
Davidovich said nothing, but his lips were wet and parted.
“Tell me that you’re a small man, a lesser man, a weak man. Tell me that you’re incapable of embracing power. Tell me that you are unwilling to taste it. Tell me that you are not a giant. A legend.” Pharos bent closer. “A King.”
Davidovich’s fists were clutched into white-knuckled hammers on his lap. His mouth worked and worked and finally spoke a single word.
Pharos loved that word.
It was the only word he could hear, the only word he wanted to hear, the only word that he would allow. And so, to his ears and to the Gentleman’s, it was a word of beauty.
“Yes,” said Davidovich.
Chapter Sixty-six
10300 White Palm Way
Fort Myers, Florida
March 30, 6:47 P.M.
DeNeille Taylor-Williams was on her exercise bike but her mind was racing far away from her house in Fort Meyers.
The bike, like the other gym equipment, the big-screen TV, and the whole house, was a gift from her son, Jerome. Known as Bug to her and everyone. He’d moved her out of the small house in which she’d raised Bug, asked her where she wanted to live, and then handled all the arrangements to move her to Florida. Bug’s stepfather, Terrence, had moved down here with her, though his health was bad and the good Lord took him last summer. DeNeille had grieved for him, but there were so many widows here in Fort Myers that she had a flock around her nearly all the time.
Bug, though, was rarely with her, and she missed him. Her son worked for the government doing something important and secret with computers. She didn’t know what it was, but the government must pay him very well. DeNeille never had to pay a bill, and Bug’s sisters were working on their advanced degrees on scholarships she was certain Bug had arranged.
The house, though, was quiet. DeNeille missed her husband, missed her daughters, missed her son.
As she pedaled the recumbent bike, she watched the travel channel and thought about where she would like to go. She’d never traveled with Terrence. He’d been a hardworking man who ran a dry-cleaning store, but right around the time he’d begun talking about retiring and going overseas with her, or on a cruise, the cancer had taken him. So fast. Too fast. The chemicals from the dry-cleaning. In May of last year, he was a two-hundred-pound man. Tall and proud. In August he was a stick figure who didn’t even know her name. Now his ashes floated on the waves, and DeNeille was alone with memories, money, and an empty house.
The show currently running was about the Viking Cruises. There was a woman at the hair dresser who’d been talking about taking one. Another widow. What would she think about taking a cruise together?
That’s when DeNeille heard glass break in the other room.
You get so you know what something is from the way it breaks. A falling vase sounds different from window glass.
This was a window.
She got off the bike and listened, but she did not immediately run into the other room. She’d spent too much of her life in neighborhoods where drive-by shootings were a fact of life. Her hand strayed to the locket she always wore. It was an Eye of Horus that Bug had given her a few years ago. Very pretty, very expensive, and very deceptive. The central jewel was actually a button. Like one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” devices, except this sent a signal to the people Bug worked for. He told her that it was a standard security precaution, though DeNeille knew plenty of other people who were family to government employees. None of them had something like that. Normally she scoffed at it even while making sure to wear it, but now … Her fingers closed around the pendant.
There was no sound now. No sound of gunshots. None of the shouts or laughter of gangbangers. Nothing.
She relaxed only a little bit.
What was it, she wondered. Had a bird hit the window? There were certainly no street gangs here in Fort Myers. No one who would throw a rock.
The gym was in the back of the house in a big Florida room that looked out over a large garden of palms, ferns, and succulents. This noise had found her all the way down the hallway. It sounded to her like it had come from the living room?
“Come on, woman,” she murmured aloud.
She nodded to herself and hurried along the hall, past open and empty bedrooms filled with boxes she had never bothered to unpack. She saw the glass glittering on the carpet before she’d even reached the living room.
She felt the fresh breeze from outside.
The window, for sure.
DeNeille came quickly into the room and saw that the big picture window was gone. Pieces of glass covered her couch, the coffee table, the rug, the side tables. It was everywhere. Only pieces stuck out of the frame like jagged teeth.
“Oh God…”
She did not enter the room any further, fearful of the glass. It was going to be a hell of a job cleaning it all up. Especially little splinters in the fabric of the sofa.
Thoughts of what to do and why it happened suddenly stalled as she saw something lying on the floor across the living room, jammed up against the TV cabinet. At first she thought it was a toy of some kind. A kid’s remote-controlled airplane. That’s what it looked like. She glanced out the window, looking for the kid who owned it. The kid whom she would be dragging to his parents in about five minutes.
The street was empty.
No kids.
“Ran away, the little bastard,” she concluded.
DeNeille stood there, angry and indecisive. Her hand fell away from the Eye of Horus. She didn’t call for help. She didn’t call Bug to tell him about this. It could wait until some other time. Her son worked for the government, and there was so much going on right now. That horrible thing in Philadelphia yesterday. More terrorists. She shook her head.
No, there was no need to tell Bug about this.
Except …
The news stories said something about the bombs yesterday being inside little machines. Like birds. Pigeon drones. That’s what Anderson Cooper called them.
This wasn’t one of those.
This was a little airplane.
But … even so.
She stood there, confused, trying to decide whether to worry or simply start looking for some kid in the neighborhood.
DeNeille Taylor-Williams was still fretting about it when the crumpled little airplane exploded.
Chapter Sixty-seven
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
March 30, 6:55 P.M.
I got out of bed and began pulling on clothes. The only thing available was a set of scrubs, so I put those on. I could chang
e later.
“I think I should head out to San Diego,” I said. “Two attacks out there, and Nicodemus is on the loose. I want to bag him and have a meaningful chat. Unless, of course, you think I’d be more useful at the ballpark?”
“No. That part’s over. Jerry Spencer and his team are doing good work. I’d rather you followed your instincts and went to California.”
I nodded and pulled on the cheap hospital slippers.
Church said, “Not sure if you caught Bug’s passing reference to the QF-16 program.”
“Didn’t want to interrupt him at the time. What is it?”
“The air force has been experimenting with AI and various software and hardware upgrades to retrofit decommissioned F-16s and turn them into drones.”
I stared at him.
“The initial idea was to have them remote-piloted so that more advanced fighters could practice aerial maneuvers against real aircraft. That part’s a good idea. The part we don’t like is that there is a deeper level to the project involving armed-combat fighter drones.”
“Armed but remote-piloted, right? I mean, they wouldn’t be that stupid…”
Church’s wordless look was enough.
“I hate this job,” I said. “What do we do about that?”
“There’s a unit testing them down at Eglin in Florida. Sending Top and Bunny down there to observe the test. They’re both sharp. If they see anything amiss, we need to know about it immediately.”
“You think the Kings would try and hijack some drones while every eye is on them during a testing phase?”
“These drones have the full Regis package.” He stopped me before I could say anything. “I’m not saying Regis is corrupt. So far, we don’t have any genuine proof of that. However, Regis is becoming a common factor. Due diligence and common sense require that we have eyes on this.”
I didn’t like it, but I made the call. Top and Bunny didn’t like it either. They were downstairs, and we’d all go the airport together.
Church nodded gravely. “I’m going to Brooklyn. Then, depending on how things go, I’ll meet you in San Diego.”