Deadly Weakness (Gray Spear Society) (42 page)

A chain-link fence with razor wire on top completely surrounded the field. A security gate was the only way in. Xavier drove over to the gate and stopped in front.

An old man wearing a blue-gray security guard uniform came out of a booth. He looked cold. Xavier put him out of his misery with a bullet.

Xavier jumped out, stuffed the body back into the booth, and grabbed a key ring. Then he threw a switch to open the gate. He drove down a narrow access road and stopped in front of the bunker.

His next obstacle was a heavy steel door that looked like it had come from an old fashioned prison. Xavier tried keys until he found one that unlocked it. He looked around and didn't see any sign of trouble. He went into the bunker.

Long shelves held boxes of explosives. There were all types, but the majority of it was simple dynamite. Xavier was hoping for something with more kick. After searching for a few minutes, he found twenty pounds of C-4, but it didn't seem like enough for the job. He loaded that box and two hundred pounds of dynamite into the trunk of the car. As he was walking back and forth, he discovered ten pounds of Semtex, so he grabbed it.

The harder problem was finding a detonator. There were blasting caps and detonation cord, but he needed something that worked at long-range. He wanted to be several hundred yards away from the explosion. Unfortunately, it appeared he would have to build a radio detonator himself. He knew how, but he also knew the things were notoriously fickle, especially when they were custom built.

He filled a box with useful parts and went out to the car. Nobody had noticed the dead guard, yet. Whistling a cheerful tune, Xavier drove away.

* * *

Hanley was standing in front of the hotel where the Special Missions Unit was staying. He carried a metal suitcase in each hand, and they contained several types of bomb detectors. He still wore his FBI suit, which was getting rumpled, but he had been too busy to change. He was shivering in the cold winter night. He hadn't thought to grab a coat and now it was too late.

A brown sedan drove up to the hotel. Aaron was driving. Hanley ran over and put the suitcases in the back seat.

"Get in," Aaron said. "You're coming with me." For some reason he was wearing a tuxedo.

Hanley furrowed his brow. "I am? Why, sir?"

"Listen carefully because this is important. When a commander tells you to do something, do it. Questions come afterwards. I shouldn't have to explain that to a military man like you."

"Yes, sir." Hanley quickly sat in the passenger seat. The interior of the car was warm.

Aaron drove away. Frost on the windshield glittered as he passed yellow street lights.

"May I ask now, sir?" Hanley said.

"You may."

"Where are we going?"

"We have a lot of out of town guests in Chicago tonight," Aaron said. "I'm throwing a party for them. Marina wants you to attend."

Hanley settled down. He could handle a party. There were certainly much worse places to be taken late at night. "What guests, sir?"

"Yule, who you met at the airport, the legate, her bodyguard, and Marina's entire search team. My team will be there, too. I rented an entire restaurant so we would have some privacy. Just be careful around the wait staff. They aren't with us, and if they overhear something, we'll have to kill them."

"Yes, sir." Hanley didn't like the rules the Society lived by, but he was coming to understand them.

"And also be careful around the legate," Aaron said. "She's not very... friendly. Just avoid her if you can."

"No problem, sir."

Aaron drove to the John Hancock Center. At night it looked like a black tower that reached all the way to the heavens. A valet took the car. Aaron and Hanley went inside and found an elevator. Aaron pressed the button for the 95th floor.

"Did you rent the Signature Room?"

Aaron nodded.

"Nice." Hanley raised his eyebrows.

"When the legate attends a party, it should be nice."

The elevator doors opened. Hanley walked into a dining room with glass walls on three sides. The view of Chicago at night was stunning. He had to force himself to look at the people in the room.

As he was coming to expect, all of them had the muscular bodies of professional athletes. Hanley believed he was in good shape, but he was a fat slug compared to this crowd. Everybody appeared normal otherwise. If they had physical oddities, they were hiding them well. Only Yule stood out as obviously unnatural. His big dark sunglasses looked out of place in the dimly lit setting.

A sign hung from the ceiling which read, "CONGRATULATIONS!"

"Who are we congratulating?" Hanley said.

"Marina," Aaron said, "for her promotion."

Hanley spotted Marina across the room. She wore a green evening dress and a ruby necklace. He had known she was a beautiful woman, but now she looked absolutely gorgeous. Even her too short hair was attractively arranged.

"Don't stare at my girlfriend like that," Aaron said. "It upsets me."

"Sorry, sir." Hanley walked over to Marina. "Congratulations, ma'am."

"Thank you." She nodded.

He noticed the legate. She was standing in the darkest part of the room, and her presence made it even darker. Except for her bodyguard, everybody else was a safe distance from her.

Hanley looked back at Marina. "The legate doesn't seem to be having much fun."

"She's not a very happy person. When she smiles, it usually means somebody is about to die."

"That's sad."

"It is," Marina said. "She paid a high price for her power."

Somebody tapped Hanley on the shoulder. He turned and saw Norbert's smiling face. He also wore a tuxedo, and Hanley was starting to feel embarrassed about his own attire.

Two identical young women were with him. They had long dark hair and tanned skin. Their features suggested a Middle-eastern background. One wore a spectacular diamond necklace with a pendant so large it had to be a fake. White shirts and pleated, red skirts looked very out of place in the formal setting. Their feet were bare.

"It was nice knowing you," Norbert said, "but I should say good bye while I have the chance. We'll probably never meet again. The cells rarely mix."

Hanley shook his hand. "I'm very glad we did meet, even if it was a little awkward at first. Who are these ladies with you?"

"The twins, Bethany and Leanna."

"Ah! The magicians who make debts disappear."

Hanley shook the twins' delicate hands. They had calluses on the tips of their fingers.

"No gowns for you?" he said.

"This is what we always wear," one of them explained.

"Always? You never change clothes?"

"They have many copies of exactly the same outfit," Norbert said. "They don't like variety."

"Oh." Hanley frowned. The twins could've been much more beautiful if they had just dressed better.

"By the way," one of the girls said, "we'll finish deleting you tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"Erasing your identity. You won't be able to go back to the FBI. Your badge won't work."

"How much will you erase?" he said.

"All of it. From your birth certificate to tonight's hotel bill."

"My military service record? My medals?"

"Gone," she said.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that news. He had paid for those medals with his own blood.

Norbert suddenly had an alarmed expression. He ushered the twins away.

"Do you know what you're supposed to do tomorrow?" a new voice said.

Hanley turned and found himself looking into the eyes of the legate. As before, it was a very disturbing experience. He grasped the price she had paid for power. God had taken away some of her humanity and had left a cold black void inside.

In a shaky voice, he said, "I believe so, ma'am. I'm supposed to keep my Unit from getting in the way of the real action. And when Xavier calls me, I'm going to ask for extra time before the attack. Aaron would like three hours."

She nodded. Her bodyguard stood behind her.

"If you don't mind my asking," Hanley said, "what is your role tomorrow, ma'am?"

"I'm the bait," she said flatly.

"I don't understand."

"Figure it out. Aaron's plan is elegantly simple, actually. His artistry is in the details. God's sublime wisdom is slowly imbuing him, and he's getting a little smarter all the time. He's already a different man these days than the one I recruited just a few years ago. I wonder what your gift will be?"

The legate studied Hanley's face. He stood before her and tried to appear brave, but it wasn't easy. Abruptly, she walked away.

He exhaled.

"Do you ever get used to that, ma'am?" he asked Marina.

"Get used to what?" she said.

"The eyes."

"I like her eyes. They make my venom flow."

She held up her hand. Drops of liquid decorated the sharp tips of her black fingernails.

He looked at her in disbelief.
Marina is a monster, too,
he realized. It wasn't a comforting insight considering she would control his life.

Waiters brought out a huge cake with gray frosting. The word "CONGRATULATIONS" was written in green letters. Sparklers showered sparks everywhere.

"My cake!" Marina said with a smile. "Let's eat!"

* * *

Xavier drove up to the front door of the closed cement factory. He hopped out to open a garage door, and then he drove inside.

He parked near one of the iron ladders leading to the huge overhead loft. He went to the trunk and grabbed a ten pound box of dynamite. Holding the box under his arm, he labored up the ladder.

There were a lot of good places to hide a bomb in the loft. It was full of debris of all shapes and sizes. He was constrained by the large size of the bomb though, and he also didn't want the location to be obvious. Somebody in the Special Missions Unit might inspect the loft.

As he walked along, he felt the old wooden planks bending beneath his feet. Falling and breaking his legs would be an ironic accident. He tried to step on the planks that still looked strong.

He came to a big pile of white plastic pails with blue lids. They were six gallons each and had once contained sodium hydroxide. He pulled off a lid. The pail was empty except for some white dust at the bottom. His nose suddenly itched.
This will work,
he thought. He emptied the box of dynamite into the pail.

It took him half an hour to bring up all the explosives and pack it into pails. By the time he was done, he was sweating and feeling tired. He paused to rest.

He had been on the run for a little less than a week but it felt like a year already. Lack of sleep, irregular meals, exposure to freezing cold, and constant anxiety had pushed him to the brink of total exhaustion. His injured thigh was also not healing properly. It needed antibiotics. He checked the bandage and saw fresh blood.

After today's operation, he would have to find a warm safe place to recuperate. He had no choice. It wasn't obvious where he would go though.

He drew upon his dwindling reserves of energy and got moving. He arranged the pails so they looked like they had fallen randomly. They didn't need to be touching each other. The explosive power of any single pail would easily set off all the others.

He went back down one more time to retrieve the radio detonators. He had spent most of the night building and testing two of them just to be sure at least one worked. The electronic components had come from model planes he had purchased at a hobby shop. According to the specifications, the range of the radio was a mile, but the bombs were inside a brick building. He would have to be considerably closer to be sure the signal got through.

He gently placed the fragile devices inside two buckets, one per bucket, and turned them on. The detonators were already attached to blasting caps and two-ounce blocks of C-4. He put the lids back on the buckets.

He stood back to judge his work. He noticed footsteps in the dust, so he used his hand to brush them away. He couldn't be too careful.

He went back to his car and sat inside. The warmth felt good. He allowed himself to enjoy it for a long moment. When his eyes started to close, he shook himself awake.

Better get back to work,
he thought.
Rhiannon is counting on me.

He took out a phone he had stolen before coming to the factory.

Chapter Twenty-three

Hanley was sitting in his hotel room at a desk. He was engaged in his usual activity: filling out forms and writing reports on a laptop. Being chief of the Special Missions Unit was a job that required an iron butt as much as anything else.

His fingers stopped.
Why am I doing this?
I don't exist anymore.