Predator One (35 page)

“Oh God,
I know. Poor Rudy!”

“How is he?”

She told me everything she knew, but it didn’t add much to what Church had said. The same with Circe. No changes. No news.

No goddamn answers.

Junie started to cry again. Deep sobs that threatened to break my heart. Unlike me, Junie got along with Auntie. They often spent hours talking on the phone. And, like me, she loved Bug.

“I’m coming out there,” I told
her. “Until I do … who’s there with you? I mean right there, right where you can see them?”

“Montana’s here. And the rest of the team is patrolling the hospital,” said Junie, sniffing. Montana Parker was the second woman on Echo Team. She’d joined a year ago during the Mother Night operation. A former member of the FBI’s hostage-rescue team. Tough as nails. I trusted her to look after Junie,
and felt relieved that she was on the clock.

“Good. You don’t go anywhere without Montana, you understand? Not even to the ladies’ room. Nowhere.”

“I know how this works,” said Junie.

I had to smile. Junie looked like a throwback to the era of flower power and love beads, but she had a complicated history that had made her neither naive nor weak.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Tell Rudy that I’m coming
out there, too. Let him know.”

“I will, Joe.”

When the call was over, I limped toward my jet. Ghost broke from Birddog’s side and came limping toward me. I knelt and hugged him to me, buried my face in his fur, and tried very hard not to weep like a child.

Chapter Seventy-six

Third and E Streets

Chula Vista, California

March 31, 11:44
A.M.

Jorge Qui
ñ
ones dug a fresh beer from the fridge, used his retro Star Trek
Enterprise
bottle opener to pop off the cap, took a long pull, and sighed. Life was good. So good.

He opened the sliding screen door and stepped out onto the concrete pad that served as a deck. His girlfriend, Jill, was stretched
out on a chaise lounge, earbuds in, sunglasses on, little rubber things separating her freshly painted toes. Jorge turned around and went back inside to fetch her a beer, too. He came up on her blind side and began to move the icy bottom rim of the bottle down onto the bare brown skin of her thigh.

Jill had great thighs. She had great everything. She was far and away the best-looking girl he’d
ever dated. Maybe the best-looking girl he’d ever spoken to. All the goodies in front and in back, eyes as black as coal, and lots of wildly curly hair. Greek-Spanish. Real Spain Spanish, too. Not the Mexican Spanish in his genes, which was probably half Indio anyway. She was fine.

He tried to see through her sunglasses to tell if she was asleep or not. If she was asleep, then she’d jump ten
feet in the air when the glass touched her. It was hot for late March. Some kind of global-warming thing, according to the news. Eighty-five degrees, and tomorrow was supposed to be eighty-seven. Nice.

Jill wore white short-shorts and a bikini top that was so skimpy he could see the little ladybug tattoo she had near her right nipple. He loved that tattoo. She had a hummingbird on her lower back.
Jorge would never call something so delicate a “tramp stamp,” though sometimes Jill joked around and called it that. He loved that hummingbird, too. He stared at it when she was on all fours and he was kneeling behind her. Her skin flushed when she was ready to come, and that changed the colors in the hummingbird’s wings.

Thinking about those two tattoos made him hard, and he paused in the act
of commission, the bottle not yet touching. She would be furious with him. No doubt about that. Yeah, he could charm her and they’d laugh about it, but was the laugh worth the yelling?

Nah.

He began to lift the bottle when Jill spoke, “And now I don’t have to cut your balls off while you sleep.”

He jerked backward. “Oh. You’re awake.”

She raised the sunglasses and squinted up at him. “You
know I’d kill you, right?”

“I wasn’t going to do it.”

“Yes you were,
bastardo
.”

“I swear,” he protested. “I changed my mind.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She glared at him, but she was smiling, too. “
Anda que te coja un burro
.”

“Hey, you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“That’s not all I do with that mouth,” she said, and darted out a hand, hooked a finger in the elastic waistband of his sunflower-pattern
swim trunks, and pulled them down far enough so the tufts of his pubic hair popped out. He danced backward, pulling them up, flushing red, spilling a little beer down his thighs.

“Crazy bitch,” he said, but now they were both laughing. “This is a family neighborhood.”

She batted her eyelashes at him. “How do you think families are made, Romeo?”

Jorge shook his head and circled the chaise so
he could sit down on his. He handed her the beer, tapped his bottle against hers, and they drank.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“I know. Me too. I ordered some stuff, though.”

“Oh?” she asked, interested. “Did you try that new place?”

“NachoCopter? Yes, ma’am. Couple of beef and bean burritos, nachos and salsa, and four fish tacos. Got two wahoo and two tilapia.”

“Jeez, are you trying to get me
fat?”

“More cushion, less pushing.”

“Ugh. That’s crude.”

“Says the chica who tried to pants me in my own yard.”

There was a buzz high away and to their left, and they both turned, shading their eyes with their hands, looking for the delivery drone. It came wobbling through the sky on four small rotors. It was an ungainly device, but it buzzed along at a good pace.

“It’s stupid-looking,” said
Jill. “Looks like a lawn mower had sex with a helicopter and this is what came out.”

“Can’t argue with that,” agreed Jorge. “But it’s bringing us our lunch. We don’t have to drive anywhere.”

“Works for me. Now if you can get one that delivers ice cream, I wouldn’t care if it looked like a Decepticon.”

He grinned at her. “You made a pop-culture reference. You made a correct pop-culture reference.
I think I love you.”

She snorted. “You love me for my tits.”

“You have great tits.”

“I do.”

“Great tits on a gorgeous girl who can drop Transformers references while wearing a bikini … that’s pretty much my definition of heaven on earth.”

She returned his grin, looked around for a moment, then hooked her fingers in the cups of her top and flashed him. Just for a second. Two beautiful brown
nipples.

“Oh, mama!” he said as he set his beer down and leaned over to kiss her on the lips and the side of the throat. “You are in so much trouble.”

“I’d better be,” she purred.

The NachoCopter soared toward them. Jorge’s cell phone buzzed to indicate a text. It read:

NACHOCOPTER
™
IS HERE!

Please wait for the NachoCopter
™
to land and release the package.

Do not approach the package until
NachoCopter
™

has taken off and is at least fifty feet in the air.

Your credit card has been billed for $32.18.

Reply if you received this message.

Enjoy your food and dine with us again!

It was the same every time. The little drone began flashing red lights on each of its four whirling blades. It hovered for a moment until Jorge replied.

Jorge did exactly as requested. He waited until the
machine descended to the grass on the far side of the yard, released its clamps on the canvas carry bag, then rose slowly, exposing the cardboard delivery container. With the empty canvas flapping, the drone rose into the air, buzzing like an overgrown bee, and headed back to the store ten blocks away.

Jorge retrieved the food, which was so fresh that the cardboard was almost too hot to touch.
He carried it to the picnic table, and when Jill joined him, they clinked bottles again and dug in. They ate almost all of it.

They slept in the sun for a while.

Then they went inside and made love for a lazy twenty minutes before falling asleep.

It wasn’t until the sun was sliding down over the western horizon that the convulsions began.

Jill fell out of bed, naked, shivering, her body covered
with furious red welts. She tried to scream, to call out his name, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a torrent of dark red blood.

Jorge could not help her. He couldn’t reach her. All he could do—the very last thing he could do—was to dial 911.

He said one word, “Help.”

It was wet and thick and nearly unintelligible. But it was enough to get the machinery in motion.

However,
when the police arrived, there was nothing to do but wait for the EMTs.

When they arrived, the EMTs immediately backed out of Jorge’s house and called their supervisor, who called the doctor at the local hospital. And it was the doctor who called the Centers for Disease Control. He forwarded a cell-phone picture of the two bleeding, nearly shapeless lumps that had been Jorge Qui
ñ
ones and Jillian
Santa Domingo.

Chapter Seventy-seven

Philadelphia International Airport

March 31, 2:07
P.M.

Top and Bunny flew out, but I had to wait several hours for my pilot to replace some pain in the ass little part and then get the jet fueled.

I watched it roll along the tarmac. It wasn’t a fighter, but it looked sleek and somehow dangerous.

Being the Big Kahuna of the Special Projects Division came with perks.
I now had my own personal jet, a sleek Gulfstream G650. It could carry all seven members of Echo Team, along with two logistics guys and the flight crew. It had a range of seven thousand nautical miles and could hit a maximum speed of Mach 0.85. It was soundproofed and had leather seats, and the interior looked like a yacht that might have belonged to a porn-industry mogul. Gold filigree, expensive
paintings bolted to the walls, a full-sized toilet stall.

It had once belonged to a Colombian billionaire who ran a bioweapons shop in the same lab he was using to make coke and heroin. He’d begun providing drug cartels with weaponized pathogens designed to kill ATF and Border Patrol agents and their families. Despite the fact that so many people flew high on his drugs, the billionaire plummeted
like a rock when I threw him out of the forward hatch. We’d had a disagreement over whether he needed to remain alive. Apparently, the world could still turn without him. Imagine that.

I loved the jet. I named her
Shirley
. Don’t ask why.

Usually being aboard her made me smile. Not today, though.

As I climbed the stairs to the hatch, I heard a voice in my ear.

Small.

Distant.

Lost.

So lost.

“Joe…?”

I stopped what I was doing and sagged back against a burned wall.

“Bug,” I said, and tapped my earbud to bring up the volume.

“Joe?” he repeated.

“Jesus, kid, I’m so goddamn sorry.”

It was true, but it was lame. Though, really, what part of the human vocabulary has words that will make a moment like this make sense? Which words, which phrases, actually help? How can sounds pull the
knives out of the human heart? What clever catchphrases or wise aphorisms can address in any adequate way the unchangeable reality of death?

Go farther. What can you say to a friend whose mother has been murdered?

Tell me.

What can you say?

He wept. A voice in my ear.

I sank down in one of the leather seats, put my face in my hands, wept for him and with him.

Chapter Seventy-eight

Eglin Air Force Base

Boatner Road

Near Valparaiso, Florida

March 31, 4:46
P.M.

Top and Bunny leaned against the side of a Humvee parked on the grass at Eglin Air Force Base. They had cups of coffee provided by one of Top’s oldest friends, Chief Master Sergeant Dilbert Howell of the Ninety-sixth Test Wing. The sky above them was a flawless dome of dark blue. Around
them, the trees of spring were coming alive after a hard winter. The temperature was in the midseventies, and there was a breeze filled with the mingled scents of pine and flowers.

It was the kind of day that could put a smile on a sad man’s face, but none of the men were grinning.

Top had explained why they were there. Even if the ties to Philadelphia were tenuous at best, it soured the day.

Howell sipped his coffee. “Your captain,” he said. “Ledger? He seems like a good man.”

Top nodded. “He’ll do.”

“From what I’ve heard,” continued Howell, “he really got into the thick of it at the ballpark. Took out several hostiles without backup? Is that right?”

“He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty,” agreed Top. Bunny snorted.

Howell nodded. “You guys been with him for a while now?”

“For a bit, Dil,” said Top.

“Aren’t you getting a little old for that kind of stuff?”

Bunny was in the middle of taking a sip, and a single laugh exploded out. He tried to hide it with a fake cough.

Top pointed a finger at him. “You secure that shit right now, Farm Boy.”

Bunny held up his free hand in a no-problem gesture. “I just swallowed the wrong way.”

“I’m just saying, Top,” Howell went
on. “You’re almost as old as me, and I stopped doing that yee-haw crap a while back.”

“You ain’t that old, Dil.”

“You know what they say. It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage. These knees can’t take the jumps anymore. Lower back’s a bitch ever since Iraq. And those early mornings? Nah, not for me anymore.”

“Which is why you’re getting fat,” observed Top.

Dilbert Howell had a stomach as flat
and hard as boilerplate. He slapped his gut. “Yeah. This is me getting soft.”

“The waistline’s the first thing to go,” said Top, shaking his head. “Then it’s the hair, man boobs, and suddenly you got no barrel left in your long gun. Keeping in the game is the way to keep Father Time from bending you over a—”