Predator One (49 page)

“—another burner … they … oh, God…”

The call was nearly drowned by static, and Davidovich’s voice was thick and nearly unintelligible.

“Doc, what’s happening?” I yelled. “Are you injured—?”

“… oh, Jesus … I can’t stop it … can’t find the bleeder…”

After that, nothing but static.

But it was
the static of an open line.

“Nikki,” I said, “tell me something I want to hear.”

“The call’s still going,” she said. “I think he dropped the phone.”

I heard Bunny whisper. “Did he fucking die on us?”

The plane stopped rolling.

“What’s happening with the trace?” I asked.

Nikki said, “We’re closing in. Looks like it’s north of you. I’ll send you the location as soon as we complete the trace.”

Top spun around, and in a leather-throated voice bellowed at the flight crew. “Offload this vehicle. Do it
right goddamn now
.”

They did it right goddamn then.

We scrambled into Ugly Betty, and Bunny hit the gas. Despite the car’s size and weight, Mike Harnick hadn’t lied about its power. The machine leaped forward and continued to accelerate. The needle was tapping ninety-five when Nikki came
back on the line.

“Got it, Cowboy. Twenty-nine point four miles north. Signal is moving. It’s on Highway Eighteen heading northwest.”

“On Eighteen? Confirm?”

Brian found it on the map. “Eighteen spurs off from Route Five and cuts inland past Tiger Mountain State Forest toward North Bend and Snoqualmie.”

“The signal’s stopped moving,” said Nikki.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Signal’s steady
but—no, wait. Yes, confirmed the signal is heading southeast again. Looks like he’s heading back to the Five.”

“Get me a satellite, damn it.”

“No satellites in range, Cowboy.”

“Find me one.”

“Proceed south on the Five,” she said. “If you hurry, you might reach where it intersects with Eighteen before he does.”

“You heard the woman, Farm Boy,” said Top. “Stop driving like my Aunt Gertie.”

“Your Aunt Gertie’s dead,” said Bunny.

“Exactly my point.”

The Escalade roared down the road.

“Cowboy,” said Nikki, “Java Team has a drone in the air, and we’re waiting on a picture.”

“Gosh,” said Bunny. “A drone. How lovely.”

“At least it’s one of ours,” said Brian. “Got to be some irony in that.”

“Fuck irony.”

Nikki said, “Okay, Cowboy, we have the feed. Sending live feed to your computer
now.”

Top, Brian, and I bent over my screen. The gray-tone image from the drone painted a bull’s-eye on what looked like a landscaper’s pickup truck hauling ass along Route 18. There were two black SUVs with it, one behind and one in front, maintaining the exact same distance from the pickup truck.

“What are you seeing?” asked Bunny as he weaved in and out of traffic.

“Classic pickup,” said
Top. “I think our boy’s in the center vehicle, lead and follow cars have his truck boxed. Looks like they grabbed him and are taking him and the truck he stole.”

“Nikki, does our drone have thermals?”

“Switching to thermal scan,” she confirmed.

The lead SUV had four glowing dots; the follow car had five. The pickup had three.

“Count fourteen signatures,” said Nikki. “Maybe thirteen hostiles
and Doctor Detroit.”

“Copy that,” I said. “How many assets do we have from Java?”

“Four agents in two cars. Sending a detail map.”

My screen changed to show a map of the area. The three cars in the convoy were assigned green lights. Java and Echo Teams were yellow. We were all heading toward each other at high speeds.

“Thirteen to eight,” said Brian. “Pretty good odds.”

“Not for them,” said
Bunny.

“Thirteen to nine,” said Top, scratching Ghost between the shoulder blades. Ghost showed his titanium teeth.

Brian grinned. “Almost doesn’t seem fair.”

“Don’t get cocky, kid,” I said in a fair approximation of Han Solo. At least I thought so.

“Call the rules, Cap’n,” said Top as he began a final weapons check.

“Priority one is to retrieve Davidovich alive,” I told them. “I need to
ask that son of a bitch a few thousand very important questions. After that, try to bag some bad guys while they still have a pulse so we can get some idea of what the hell these ass-clowns are up to. But don’t take risks. We all go in, we all come out. Capisce?”

“Hooah,” they said.

Bunny crunched down on the gas pedal.

“Any ideas what the ‘big thing’ is that these Kings guys are about to throw
at us?” asked Bunny. “So far, this shit is already pretty frigging big. Not sure I want to know how much bigger they want to take it. But … not knowing makes my nuts want to crawl up inside my chest cavity and hide.”

Top grunted. “And all this time I didn’t think they’d dropped yet.”

“Blow me.”

“Point taken.”

I said, “We don’t know, but it more or less corroborates what the shooter at the
hospital said. ‘
Say good-bye to your world
.’”

Brian shook his head. “Seriously, where do they get this stuff? I mean, is there a class these goons take to learn how to drop cryptic messages while they’re bleeding out? Are they trying to die as clich
é
s?”

“Apparently they are,” I said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that we should probably be scared out of our bloomers. The pattern Top, Bunny,
and I came up with on the flight from Philly suggests that the Kings have been testing their systems and their efficiency. The nature of those tests did not, as far as we could see, jibe with the kind of attack they launched at the ballpark. That actually might have been either a last test or an opening salvo.”

“Yeah, but what’s the main attraction?”

“Let’s hope we can grab Davidovich before
we have to find out.”

Brian nodded. While we talked it out, he reached over to pet Ghost. Brian had only been out on two jobs with us, and Ghost hadn’t been part of either.

“Wouldn’t do that, son,” warned Top.

“It’s okay,” said Brian, “I’m a dog person.”

Ghost wrinkled his muzzle in what was clearly not a smile.

“He’s not a people person,” explained Top.

“And he had a bad day yesterday,”
I said. “But, hey, if you can shoot a gun with no fingers … by all means.”

“Taking it back,” Brian said, withdrawing his hand and smiling at my dog. Ghost continued to show his teeth. “Nice doggie.”

“No,” said Bunny, “not really.”

Chapter One Hundred and Twelve

Los Angeles International Airport

April 1, 11:32
A.M.

Air Force One taxied to the runway. Although the plane did not usually fly with fighter jets in escort, the current situation required a military presence. A pair of F-18s were already in the air, circling the airport to fly close support. Like Air Force One, the F-18s had been retrofitted to replace Regis
with the safer Solomon program.

Church found this significant but did not comment on it to the president. A better moment for that kind of observation would likely present itself.

Church and Linden Brierly sat with the president in the onboard conference room as the plane lifted off. The commander in chief looked worn and much older than his years. He had his jacket off, tie loosened, and there
was a sallow cast to his skin and red rime around his eyes.

“God, this is a nightmare,” said the president.

“We’ll get it sorted out, sir,” said Alice Houston, and Brierly gave a tight-lipped nod. The look in his eyes told a different story.

POTUS nodded but cut a look at Church. “You’re unusually silent, Deacon. Hope there are no hard feelings about how I ended the conference call earlier.”

Mr. Church offered a faint, bland smile. “You are the president. I work for you.”

That put a slight frown on the president’s mouth. As intended.

Brierly cleared his throat, but he said nothing.

“Tell me, Deacon,” said the president, “how confident are you that we’ll get in front of this? Brierly seems to think you do magic. Is he right, or is he just stroking my political fur?”

Church shrugged.
“Do you want a straight answer or a political one?”

Brierly turned away to hide a wince. Houston’s face became a slab of wood. Even the generals in the jet’s conference room seemed to wilt into the background.

The president leaned back and considered Church. “You really don’t give a damn about me or my office, do you?”

“My first concern is doing my job, Mr. President. All other concerns are
of less importance to me.”

“Damn, you aren’t afraid of shooting from the hip, are you?”

Church said nothing.

The room was silent for several heavy seconds.

“You really think this is the Seven Kings manipulating Regis?” asked the president.

“It is the leading theory,” said Church. “No other scenario holds as much water.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’m wrong. Fire me if it suits your needs.”

The president’s face flushed red, and he clearly had to bite down on something he wanted to say. Another few moments dragged by. The others in the conference room wore expressions like they were holding their breaths.

“You’re not going to let me off the hook on this,” said the president. “Are you?”

“I was not aware, sir, that you asked me aboard to massage your feelings. Perhaps I should be
sitting back with the press corps.”

“Christ, Deacon,” growled the president, “you’re more thin-skinned than I am.”

Church chose not to reply to that.

Brierly interjected and tried to change the subject. “Is there any word on Aunt Sallie?”

“Nothing new,” said Church. “And nothing new with any of my people who have been hurt by this.”

The president sighed. “Right. I’m sorry. I guess I’m being
an insensitive ass.”

No one commented. Church opened his briefcase and removed a package of Nilla Wafers. Tore it open, ate one.

After a moment, the president tried a different conversational path. “Will your boy Ledger get Davidovich? Alive, I mean?”

“As my psychic powers aren’t working at the moment, I won’t hazard a prediction. I trust, however, that Captain Ledger will do his very best.
His best is considerable.”

The president looked away for a moment. He was angry but also clearly frustrated. “I don’t know how to have a damn conversation with you today,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Church looked at the cookie he held, sighed, and set it down. “And I’m not making matters any better by my attitude. I apologize, Mr. President.”

The president grunted. “Wow. I was warned that you
never apologized.”

“I try to avoid having to do so, but I’m wrong here. I think it’s fair to say that we are all under considerable strain.”

“That’s generous of you.” The president looked at the tabletop for a moment. “I’ll give some genuine thought to Regis. It would be useful to have something more concrete to work with. My stock with Congress is at an all-time low right now.”

Church finished
his cookie. At no point did he offer one to the president.

After a moment, Brierly said, “I was reading over the report from the attack on the hospital in Chula Vista. One thing stands out for me.”

“Oh?” said Church.

“That pathogen. The fast-acting necrotizing fasciitis. My people tell me there’s nothing like it. Nothing that made it beyond the initial experimental stage. So I called your friend,
John Cmar, the infectious-disease doctor at Johns Hopkins. He said that the possibility of it was discussed once at some World Health Organization conference years ago and that an Angolan lab was raided that had been trying to develop it. Barrier shut them down, correct?”

“Correct. All notes and samples were destroyed. Nothing was kept.”

“Then how is it in California?”

Church said, “I think
we’ve figured that out. The conference was held some years before DMS first encountered the Seven Kings. Before, in fact, Captain Ledger joined the DMS. One of the speakers at the conference was an internationally known and respected pharmaceuticals manufacturer, a man who was also a brilliant pharmacologist. He gave a rousing talk about how all bioweapons research should be shut down, and those
seeking to develop new weaponized pathogens needed to be tracked, shut down, and arrested. The bulk of his speech was quoted verbatim in
Time
magazine, and it’s available on YouTube.”

“I vaguely remember that,” said the president. “That guy’s dead, though, isn’t he?”

“He is,” said Mr. Church. “He was killed by Hugo Vox.”

“Oh? Did the Seven Kings target him because of his stance against bioweapons?”

“Hardly,” said Church. “The scientist in question was a member of that organization but apparently had a fatal falling out with Vox.”

Brierly narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute … are you talking about the King of Plagues? Christ, are you talking about Sebastian Gault?”

“I am. Gault gave that speech back when his cover was that of a global power for good. This was before his true nature was revealed
during the
seif al din
matter, which preceded the Ten Plagues Initiative by nearly a year.”

“What of it, though?” asked the president. “Gault’s dead, Vox is dead, and as far as we know, all of the original Seven Kings are dead. Bin Laden was the last of them, and we damn well know he’s dead. For real, I mean.”

“Gault may be dead,” said Church, “but that doesn’t mean his research is.”

“Are you
saying that Gault developed this new strain of NF?”

“It seems likely. After the raid on that lab in Angola, there was such a fear of NF that several foundations and at least nine governments including Great Britain channeled millions into research for a treatment or some prophylactic measure. Gault’s company was one of several that led the way in research for those treatments.”

“Why would he
do that if he was behind it?” asked the president.

“Because it’s a very controlled way to do supply and demand. Create a demand for what you can supply. We’ve since learned that Gault created several pathogens—and in some cases introduced new viral and bacteriological strains—and then rushed to market with treatments so quickly that he was universally viewed as a great man. He was compared to
Salk. And he produced treatments for unfashionable diseases that afflicted isolated third-world populations. Treatments we now believe were invented for diseases he had developed or modified. In the case of NF, his company made tens of millions from research and development. In the case of, say, African river blindness, it was to elevate himself as something approaching a living saint. A great man.”