Silvestri was still alive when the children found him. He lay on his back, blood bubbling from a hole in his chest. He watched it with fascination, each breath bringing new seepage. Silvestri touched it with his fingers.
Blood was warm, wasn’t it? Then why did this feel cold? He couldn’t wrap his mind around that, couldn’t puzzle it out. When the children appeared, he hoped that perhaps they could help resolve the conundrum.
“Help me,” he said, voice thick, wet, and somehow infantile. They said nothing, just gathered around, watching him very carefully. A Hispanic girl’s cheeks were scratched, smudged with soot and tears. Silvestri held his bloodstained hands out to her. “Help…”
“All right,” Destiny Valdez replied coldly, and raised her bow.
* * *
D’Angelo was on the run. It was over, everything was ruined, and he wasn’t even sure why, or how it had all come apart.
Then like an apparition from hell, Kelly Kerrigan rose up from behind the stump of a shattered tree, an ungodly huge rifle propped on the stump. Christ, was that Bob’s Buffalo rifle? D’Angelo had a quick, sickening thought of the damage the .44 slug would do ripping through his body, then shut that horrific thought from his mind.
She looked like a scarecrow, clothing smudged and torn, her golden eyes the only things alive in her face. Even eighteen feet away he could see that her hands were shaking. If he could only distract her for a few seconds, he knew he could draw and fire before she could pull the trigger. He knew her reaction time, knew he could beat it, even if she had him dead to rights.
Then he saw something in her eyes, and realized that she was already squeezing. D’Angelo threw himself sideways as the Sharps roared. He gasped, bowled sideways as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs. D’Angelo hit the ground hard enough to see stars, rolled, then realized that the slug had only grazed him. Incredible.
He rolled to his feet. Kelly was done, exhausted. She was having trouble moving her right arm. She had fallen backwards, and the Sharps was on the ground. She fumbled for the rifle with fingers that would no longer obey her. D’Angelo walked over and set his foot squarely on the rifle. She glared up at him, eyes seething with hate.
“Don’t blame me, Kelly. And when these kids start killing people, you’ll have only yourself to thank.”
“Damn you to hell,” she gasped. “You don’t give a damn about anything in this world.”
Tough old broad, even at the last. He grinned, wincing at the pain in his side, and drew his gun. “You’re right about that,” he said.
He squeezed the trigger, but at the exact same moment blinding pain flashed in his head, a moment of exquisite void that tore a moment free from the continuum of thought.
D’Angelo stumbled sideways, jerked around, realizing that he had been hit, he had been attacked, but by who…?
And saw the boy facing him, armed with a bow and arrow. D’Angelo looked down, realizing that a feathered shaft jutted from his own shoulder. He felt the strength draining from it, and fought to keep a sudden surge of panic from engulfing him.
The boy was black, skinny, scared. “Who the fuck are you, mister?” the kid said.
“Arizona Marshal,” D’Angelo said. “This woman is under arrest. Arson and attempted murder. And you’re under arrest for assault.” He gripped at the arrow, yanked at it. It wasn’t deep, only a flesh wound.
“Don’t believe him, son,” Kelly gasped. “He set this fire. He wants to kill all of you.”
The corners of D’Angelo’s mouth twitched upward. “Don’t believe it, boy.” He brought his pistol to the level, squared it on the boy’s chest. “Are you alone?” he asked quietly.
A Hispanic girl stepped out from behind a tree. She carried a bow and arrow as well. Her hands weren’t shaking at all.
And then a small blond boy appeared. And a taller redhead, carrying fist-sized rocks, eyes narrowed.
“We travel in packs,” Destiny Valdez said coldly.
“This is a gun,” D’Angelo said, and hated the squeak that had crept into his voice. More footfalls. God. Four, five, eight more children. All armed with rocks, or sticks. Or arrows. His arm ached.
D’Angelo whirled in response to a sound behind him. A blond boy was with Kelly, had helped her prop that big ugly rifle up. Now its bore was centered on D’Angelo’s chest.
Exhausted, Kelly managed to smile. “Well, Angel,” she said. “Do you think you can kill us all?”
His mouth worked silently, then stopped moving. His gun-hand sagged to his side, and the pistol fell from nerveless fingers.
* * *
The wind carried sparks and burning brands into the forest around Charisma Lake, and it boiled with hot spots. It took almost forty minutes for the first fire unit to arrive. It seemed that several trees had mysteriously fallen on the road leading up Mingus Mountain to the Folly.
In another hour, additional units began to arrive, by which time fully eight hundred acres were smoldering.
All forty-three surviving children had collected at the lake, where they were loath to stray from the safety of water. From there, they could see the fire as it encircled them. Still threatening, but not deadly.
* * *
There were enough kids to drag D’Angelo, and carry Kelly, back up to the lakeside boathouse. D’Angelo’s hands and feet were tied with belts and rope and twisted wire. Destiny stood over him, an arrow nocked and pointed at his right eye.
“I can watch him,” Kelly said. She sat on the ground with her back against the wall, holding D’Angelo’s Colt in her left hand,
“Are you sure?” Destiny said. Kelly nodded. Despite her evident pain, she seemed completely alert. “Good,” she said. “I need to find Patrick.”
When Destiny left, Kelly Kerrigan sagged back against the wall of the equipment room, pistol pointed unwaveringly at D’Angelo. “Why, you bastard?” she whispered. “And for God’s sake … how did you get those men to agree to kill these children? The Praetorians were never saints, but they weren’t monsters.”
D’Angelo’s tongue snaked out to lick his lips. He watched her craftily, perhaps waiting for her fatigue and injuries to numb her, increasing her vulnerability.
“How?” he said. “Not as hard as you think. Those six killed Alexander. They thought they were protecting his legacy, that he’d gone crazy. Once they stepped across that line, I had them. I had leverage, you see.
“Why? Simple, you silly bitch. The imprinting was working. The kids were turning into a thousand little Alexander Marcuses. What do you think will happen when they hit puberty? Do you honestly believe that some of the children you saved won’t take up Alexander’s special little pleasures?” His laugh was like a punch in the gut. Kelly longed to pull the trigger, but decades of discipline stopped her. Bobby’s memory stopped her. The fear of becoming like D’Angelo stopped her.
He seemed almost to know her thoughts, and gauged his words to damage. “Your cheap heroics have probably killed a thousand innocent people.”
Kelly shook her head. “You already tried that one,” she said. “You don’t give a damn about those children, or about innocent victims. Maybe you care about the truth being traced back to you—” she watched him carefully, saw the calm in his face.
“No,” she said. “That’s not it, is it, Angel? You’ve already got a cut-out. Already severed the connection between you and those kids, if I know you.” She leaned closer, squinting against the pain in her shoulder. “And I do. No. You did it because you could.” His lips curled. “Because you had your hooks in those five. Once you talked them into killing the man they admired most in the world, you had your hands in their souls. And you twisted.”
His smile was impenetrable as a glacier.
“God,” she said. The fatigue suddenly hit her like an avalanche, and her vision washed into black and red waves. “I wish I was strong enough to pull this trigger.”
“I wish you were, too,” D’Angelo said, his eyes shifting away from her.
�
�Finally,” Kelly murmured in disgust. “The truth.” Then exhaustion, pain and blood loss finally overcame her. Kelly slumped back against the wall, then slid sideways to the ground.
D’Angelo waited three frantic breaths, and then began struggling with his bonds. There was still hope. If he could just get his arms free, and then get his hands on that gun …
Before he could shuck even the first layer of wire and rope, a small pale boy in a sooty T-shirt entered the boathouse.
His face was smudged, and one lens of his wire-rimmed glasses was broken. He stared at D’Angelo as if he were a specimen of some kind, but didn’t seem hostile.
“Hey, kid,” D’Angelo said. “Your friends got it all wrong.”
“Did they?” Frankie asked. He examined Kelly briefly, saw that she was breathing, and then straightened. He seemed to be searching for something.
“Listen,” D’Angelo said. “If you’d just loosen my arms I’ll show you my identification. I’m a U.S. Marshal, and if you can help me get this all sorted out, there’s a reward in it for you.”
“Is there?” Frankie asked. He was peering into a shadowed heap of equipment. D’Angelo couldn’t see what the boy was looking at, and the kid’s expression never changed, but he seemed to make a small, satisfied sound deep in his throat. He reached into the equipment pile.
“Yeah. Big reward. Maybe a medal. This woman is conning your friends. She’s dangerous.” Frankie withdrew his hand, and D’Angelo saw what he now held.
It was two feet long, and curved like a question mark, rusted steel with a wooden handle. The point looked wickedly sharp. Boat hook. Frankie’s eyes roamed over D’Angelo’s bound body, as if trying to decide where to begin. A sudden, electric current of raw terror seized D’Angelo’s mind, dampening logical thought. “Wait!” He babbled as the boy halved the distance between them, hook raised. “I’m a U.S. Marshall—”
“Were you?” Frankie said, and then the hook descended.
* * *
Frankie emerged into the waning daylight, his hands smeared crimson, his face alight with a fire that burned everything, warmed nothing.
The children were waiting for him as he emerged, faces tense and accepting. He stared at them as if his eyes had lost the ability to focus.
Behind them the raging fires began to yield as planes and helicopters dropped their loads of retardant, and the firefighters coordinated their own lines of engagement. Fire companies from as far away as Phoenix had traveled at breakneck pace to the struggle.
But Frankie, looking down on the burning forest, the sky above him gone black with ash, saw none of it, nothing at all.
He brushed past the others and then kept walking, out into the lake, a strange, inarticulate cry winding its way from deep in his chest. At first the others thought that he was trying to wash the blood off, and then, when he kept going, they waded after him, and dragged him back, fighting and thrashing and sobbing.
Jessica held him, his head in her ample lap. The others gathered around but gave them room, exchanging glances. No words were said.
None were needed.
* * *
“What happened here? What happened here?” Sand screamed at the dozen children around the boathouse. Their utterly calm expressions were an unspoken answer. The door hung wide, and he saw it all, or as much as his shell-shocked mind would allow him to absorb.
Frankie lay in the middle of the kids, coddled by Jessica and Courtney. The bigger girl stroked Frankie’s head, but she watched Sand carefully as she did.
“I said, what happened here?”
Renny entered the boathouse, right hand clapped over his mouth. Kelly still lay unconscious, overcome by shock and exhaustion and exposure.
D’Angelo was another matter. What remained looked like something caught in the gears of a machine, something too raw for the slaughterhouse.
Renny staggered back out.
The survivors watched him, an unspoken question in their eyes. Vivian was right behind him, and she looked in the boathouse, and then ran back out, gagging. For almost two minutes she made sick, wet sounds without actually voiding anything.
When she straightened up, she saw Renny’s sooty, frightened face. For that moment, their nonverbal communication was almost like the strange bond shared by the children.
Without a word, they went back to the boathouse, and moved Kelly out to where the children could care for her. Renny searched until he found a half-filled gas can, then sloshed the pale pink fluid over D’Angelo’s corpse.
Vivian lit the match.
82
WASHINGTON, D.C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5
Centered in a pitiless cone of incandescent light, Kelly sat tall in her wheelchair, her unfrilled blue smock starched and pressed until it seemed almost military in function. Beside her, Sand wore a carmine sweatshirt and the same blue slacks that had carried him through the last two hideously fatiguing days. The room was very plain, with no windows and only a single door. In that room, six men and women had asked endless questions. Renny knew that the children and two surviving counselors, Janie Summers and Paris Tuckwil, had been similarly quizzed. But now, finally, it had come down to just Renny and Kelly Kerrigan.
The chairman of the meeting was Shannon McGuire, senior Senator from Indiana, a woman of iron hair and strong, sloping shoulders who seemed to have aged five years since the hearings began. “We have documents,” she said, “recovered from Advanced Systems in Palo Alto. Those in combination with deathbed testimony from a Sergeant Schott and Mrs. Kerrigan’s statement, give evidence of a conspiracy without precedent in our experience.”
And so the pieces were fitted together, and a lethal mosaic it was.
In 1988 serial killer Alexander Marcus had finally made a mistake, leaving clues that Martin Schott and Orren Silvestri followed to the gnawed corpse of his latest victim. Horrified, Schott and Silvestri took the information to D’Angelo, who pretended innocence. A decision was made. To save the reputation of the man they all admired, an accident was arranged, using a small fuel-air explosion, a method that would later be employed to destroy a Northern California research facility.
The Palo Alto research lab known as Advanced Systems had attempted to extract from Alexander Marcus the secret of his success, and implant it in children known to be at risk using repetition, physical patterning, and advanced hypnotic techniques. Initial success gave way to panic when a small group of them began to exhibit pathology, specifically the violent, sexually-charged dreams of the Columbia Daycare kids. Advanced Systems had called a halt to the programming, but continued to cautiously collate results.
When years had passed, and no further negative behaviors were reported, and the positive results became obvious, Advanced Systems prepared to go public with the results of what they called the Aristotle Project.
Unfortunately, the first person they contacted was the man who Marcus had listed as his closest friend and confidant: Tristan D’Angelo. D’Angelo listened to Advanced Systems’s description of the actual nature of their tests, and realized the danger of his situation. D’Angelo sent Wisher and Schott as representatives and liaisons to A.S., while he plotted and planned and worried: What could be done?
D’Angelo believed that if these children reached puberty and began to follow their role model’s darker side, that the pattern of death would eventually lead back to the preschools, and then to the Aristotle Project, and eventually to Alexander Marcus and Tristan D’Angelo.
Once the decision was made to destroy Aristotle, the next and most logical question followed: what of the children themselves? How many of the approximately one thousand kids might go over the edge? Two percent? Five percent? Between twenty and fifty kids, each capable of killing dozens of people?
D’Angelo might not have cared, but apparently his men did. They had fought and killed for their country, had destroyed their hero in order to save him. The children constituted an absolute nightmare: at least a dozen women had died at Marcus’s hand. What might a
thousand Marcuses do?
So the Praetorians conspired to kill the five percent of the children who would be considered greatest risk. Those from broken homes, with criminal parents, crack babies, those who might be on police blotters as young arsonists or animal torturers. God only knew their precise criteria, or how they had twisted Advanced Systems’s research to their own perverted end. But they had found those children, and cast their net, and drawn them in. Children unable to attend the death-trap summer camp were simply singled out and murdered by mobile hit teams.
And if not for a sixty-eight-year-old former Secret Service agent, D’Angelo and the six men who killed Alexander Marcus would have murdered every living thing at Charisma Lake.
The six senators comprising the special investigative committee looked as tired as Renny felt. Just possibly, the previous few days had been horrible for them as well. “Mr. Sand,” Senator McGuire asked, her gray hair seemingly whiter and more brittle than it had been just forty-eight hours earlier, “what do think we should do with these children?”
“Let them grow,” Sand said wearily.
Beside her, the junior senator from Arizona leaned forward. “According to F.B.I reports, Master Sergeant D’Angelo was found to have wounds inconsistent with death by fire. Can you explain those?”
The reporter looked directly at them. “Some of his own men must have killed him,” he said. “Before the fire began.”
Kelly Kerrigan spoke slowly. “There’s an expression about birds coming home to roost,” she said. “Beyond that, there’s really nothing we can say.”
* * *
Renny rode the limousine with Kelly to Dulles International. He pushed her wheelchair through the ticket lines, and then to her departure gate. She could have walked, but the doctors had been adamant that another week off her feet would greatly speed her healing.
They waited in the lounge, watching the clock creep along, listening to the faint echo of the announcer as she detailed the arrival of flights from New York, London, Los Angeles. He felt numb, and hardly felt it when her hand found his.
Renny sighed heavily. “So,” he said. “What now for you, Kelly?”
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