“Bug’s looking,” said Bunny. “Scott Wilson’s looking. And you can bet Mr. Church has put out calls to everyone he knows. Arklight, Barrier, Sigma Force, Kingdom, SEAL Team 666, the whole damned network. Someone’s going to find him.”
“If he wants to be found,” said Belle. “Only if he wants to be found.”
They fell silent.
A few moments later, Andrea repeated, “Alligator balls.”
“Yeah,” agreed Bunny. “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER 29
O. R. TAMBO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
KEMPTON PARK
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
The fat old blind man with the service dog deplaned with the rest of the passengers and headed to the men’s room. Not the first one, or the second, but the third lavatory in the terminal.
He loitered at the sink, washing his hands until everyone was gone, and then slipped quickly into a stall. More travelers came in, but if any of them took particular notice of a tall, middle-aged businessman with salt-and-pepper dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows, and a neat mustache, no comments were made. One exception was when a child in the terminal went to pet the man’s seeing-eye dog; a young mother scolded him and then apologized to the dog’s master.
“Quite all right,” said the blind man. His accent was a local one, and the woman took her child away.
The blind man and his dog went outside, caught a cab, and took it first to an electronics store, then to a pharmacy, a clothing store, and finally to the Reef Hotel on Anderson Street in the Marshalltown area of the city. He paid the driver and tipped well enough to pay for the man’s patience.
Once settled into the room, the man showered and changed into new clothes. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and set up the new burner phone he’d bought. He made several short phone calls, and then lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. The dog jumped up and sprawled next to him.
They both fell asleep at once.
They both dreamed.
Both twitched and moaned softly as dreams took them down and took them deep.
They woke when there was a discreet tap on the door.
The man padded barefoot to the door, peered through the peephole, and then opened it. The dog stood on the other side of the door. Ready. Always ready.
The deliveryman spoke only one word. A question.
“Paladin?”
“Charlemagne,” answered the man.
The courier brought in two large suitcases, set them down, and left without comment.
When the door was closed and locked, the man took the cases to the bed and opened them. He stood looking at the contents for a long time. At the equipment, the weapons, the sets of papers, and the laptop, each snugged into a special foam slot.
Then he took a pillow from the bed, opened the closet door, crawled inside, pressed the pillow to his face, wrapped his arms around it, and screamed.
He screamed for a very long time.
The dog sat vigil outside, whining softly, the hairs on his back standing straight and stiff, his brown eyes filled with pain.
CHAPTER 30
FREETECH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Junie sat in her office, looking out at the California night.
Starlight sparkled on the waves as they rolled onto the sand. Beyond that silver luminescence, the ocean became totally black. So intensely black that it seemed as if she were looking at nothing, just an empty vastness in the world. Or like looking into the deep darkness between stars.
She turned away from the window, forcing herself not to look at that nothingness. Afraid that it was some kind of omen.
Her cell phone was on the desk, and she picked it up but did not immediately make a call. After all, it was nearly dawn in Greece. Would anyone over there still be awake? She’d already tried to call Church, but it went to voice mail each time. Rudy and Circe had a young child, and Circe was having some complications with her pregnancy; Junie could not be heartless enough to wake them up.
Bug? No. He hated talking on the phone at the best of times.
And if Joe was on a mission, as she believed, then Top and Bunny wouldn’t be taking calls. She didn’t have Scott Wilson’s cell number, nor did she have much of a relationship with the RTI chief of operations.
Toys was gone. After her fainting spell, he’d lingered for hours playing nurse, but he was dead on his feet, and she finally called his driver, Mad Max, and had her take Toys home.
Who did that leave?
She could wait until it was morning in Greece and then call all of them. That was only a few hours away.
Movement drew her eye, and she turned to see a bird land on the windowsill. It was a raven. Common to California, though she was more used to crows. The bird was about two feet from beak to tail feathers and looked like he’d been freshly rinsed in gleaming oil. Black on black on black. The starlight traced the contours of his feathers and sparkled in the small black eyes.
Junie touched a finger to the pane. “Nevermore,” she said and immediately regretted the joke. It was the wrong word to use. “Pretty bird,” she said, trying to fix the moment and cancel any accidental jinx.
Then she picked up the phone and punched in a number. It rang five times, and just when Junie expected it to go to voice mail, a woman answered.
“Well, I guess I’m not the only night owl drinking too much coffee and burning the midnight oil,” said Doc Holliday. “How are you doing, sugar lumps?”
“Jane,” said Junie, “I’m just about going crazy here.”
Doc sighed. Long and heavy and dramatic. “Oh, honey, if you’re calling in the hopes that this ol’ gal has some news about your honeybunny, then I have to be the bad guy. I don’t know where Joseph is, and that is the God’s honest.”
“Is he alive?” begged Junie.
“I’d bet my whole stack of original Dolly Parton albums on vinyl he’s alive.”
“Is he safe?”
There was a pause, and when Doc spoke again, there was much less of her country girl affectation. “If you were someone else, I’d spin a big pack of lies, but I know you have enough sawdust for the straight truth, Junie-girl. The plain truth is that I don’t know. We don’t know. But that’s also the nature of the job.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing. Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Mr. Church can fire me if he wants to—which he won’t. Joe’s out in the field, and for reasons that he hasn’t shared, he’s gone off on his own. And before you ask, that is all I know.”
Junie covered her mouth with her hand.
“God…,” she breathed.
Outside the window, the raven opened his mouth and uttered a high, soft, sad cry.
CHAPTER 31
HÔTEL BYBLOS
20 AVENUE PAUL SIGNAC
SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE
Michael Augustus Stafford sprawled on the bed and watched her walk naked across the room.
Angelique was tall, slender, beautifully made, with lean muscles and good curves accentuated by skin that took an excellent deep-honey tan. And that tan was flawless except for a tiny white triangle around her shaved crotch. Everything about her was luxuriant. Masses of curly dark hair that fell like smoke around her shoulders. Green eyes filled with both questions and information. A smart woman who had the good genetic luck to also be exceptionally beautiful, even by the exacting standards of the South of France.
Stafford studied her as she moved around the suite. She was as unselfconscious as a child, but wickedly aware. Every now and then, she’d throw a tiny, knowing smile his way. She liked being watched.
“This was a lovely oasis,” Angelique said as she bent to fish for a lacy thong that had somehow made its way under the foot of the bed.
“Very,” he agreed.
He was satiated, tired, and happy. He’d met the woman at Gaïo, a posh restaurant-club on Rue du 11 Novembre 1918. They’d danced, dined, had a lot of very good drinks, a
nd then went back to his hotel rather than hers because he was alone, and she had a roommate. The fact that her roommate was also her fiancé did not seem to matter much to Angelique, and it didn’t matter at all to Stafford. They’d made love on the bed, on the balcony, and in the shower; then napped for an hour and made love again. And it felt like that to him—making love, more so than merely having sex.
Angelique was, he discovered to his delight, as much of a sensualist as he was. She liked all the little things—the slow process of discovering each other, the attention to small details of the landscape of their bodies. There was a mutual generosity, empathy, and creativity. Each of their four bouts of passion was on a different frequency, which resulted in a different kind of orgasm. When it became apparent that they both shared the dedication of sensualism, the whole evening had transformed from the potential of good sex between two healthy adults, and instead achieved beauty. Her first orgasm had been a screaming frenzy, but the subsequent ones had grown quieter, more internal as she focused on small details instead of grand gestures or a gallop to the finish line.
And there had been quiet moments of holding, of talking, and of a shared and companionable silence.
He was very glad he wasn’t on a job. He was very glad he wouldn’t have to kill her.
Stafford did not look like a killer, but that’s what he was. And he knew that among the right kind of people—men and women whose judgment and opinions mattered—he was considered one of the very best killers alive. Several other people who would have been on that list were dead. He had crossed many names off himself. Not as a vendetta or through an insecure need to be number one but because they had been given to him as targets.
Angelique was not a target. She was, for five delicious hours, his lover.
She thought he was an investor who’d gotten rich trading currencies.
The people who knew him back during his college days agreed that he looked like either a third baseman from one of the better teams or a tennis pro. Fit but not in any overdeveloped way. He moved like an athlete, one of the fast kinds. A springy step and easy grace. And he smiled like a sports star. Lots of white teeth, brown hair with natural blond highlights, and a tan nearly as good as Angelique’s.
He was considering whether he had the stamina for another round when his cell phone buzzed. Stafford picked up the device, looked at the screen display, and got out of bed immediately.
“I have to take this,” he said. “Business call.”
Without waiting for an answer, he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and sat on the closed lid of the toilet. He used a cable to attach the cell to a tiny device no larger than a cigarette lighter. A small red light glowed, flickered, and then turned green, letting him know that the scrambler was engaged. It used a sophisticated 128-byte cyclical encryption that was virtually impossible to crack. The device was specifically designed to foil the MindReader computer system. Satisfied that his end of the call was secure, he cupped a hand over his other ear and spoke one word.
“Line?”
“Clear,” said the caller. “What is on your business agenda for today?”
It was the right phrase, and he recognized the voice. All the screen display had shown was a number he didn’t know. A burner, a disposable phone. Very few people had his current cell number. Had the caller used any wording other than those nine words, Stafford would have hung up and fled the hotel, leaving most of his possessions behind, along with Angelique’s corpse. The fact that the right phrase was used told him he hadn’t been compromised.
However, it was not a phrase he particularly wanted to hear. Nor did he want to hear it from this man. Kuga. It was hard as hell to tell him to go piss up a rope. But he gave it a try.
“I’m enjoying my vacation,” he said, meaning it. Letting a bit of resentment flavor his tone.
Kuga snorted. “Yeah, well life’s a bitch, and then you die.”
“Nice. You should put that on a coffee mug and sell it thirty years ago. Look, boss, I haven’t had a full week off in three years. Three,” he insisted. “Years. And you promised me that my phone would not ring once until I checked back in. So, tell me why I’m talking with you right now?”
“Joe Ledger,” said Kuga.
Stafford closed his eyes for a moment.
“Ah. Of course,” sighed Stafford. “I suppose this was inevitable.”
“It’s become necessary. He is doing considerable damage to our network.”
“What kind of damage?”
“Do you remember Mislav Mitrović?”
“What do you mean, do I remember? Of course I do.”
Which was true enough. After Stafford and his small team handled the labor dispute in Java, the new staff he brought in to fill the sudden vacancies had all juiced up on a super eugeroic cocktail cooked up by Mitrović’s team of mad scientists. Even the laziest of them was now able to work thirty-six-hour shifts without sleep.
“Did you know Mitrović was dead?” asked Kuga.
Stafford sat up straight. “What? How…?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” said Kuga. “Ever since Java, you’ve been off the fucking radar. Ledger and his goon squad hit the island. Staff was wiped out, and we lost a shit ton of key research data for the next phase of the factory workers project. Unless we can get back up to speed, we stand to lose twenty billion in the next fiscal year because we might not be able to fill the orders that our friend Mr. Sunday is taking. Twenty billion. That’s billion with a B.”
“Holy shit.”
“Oh, there’s more,” said Kuga. “That cocksucker hit Van der Veer in Johannesburg. Gerald Engelbrecht is dead, along with all eleven of his staff. And god only knows what Mitrović and Engelbrecht might have told him before he put them down. We are in serious trouble here.”
“So put a team of Fixers at every lab we have. Your boy Santoro has enough of them trained by now. More than enough. He could invade a small country. No, let me correct that; if he gives them all the special upgrades, he could invade a large country. I don’t care how tough Ledger is, he can’t duke it out with those next-gen Fixers. Christ, did you see the footage from Java? It was like the police station scene from The Terminator. Those boys went through the crowd like shit through a goose.”
Kuga made a small sound of disgust and annoyance. “Yeah, well, that spooky bastard Church and psycho Ledger have a habit of winning against high odds. Ask the Jakobys, ask the Seven goddamn Kings.”
“You sound like you’re afraid of them.”
There was a beat. “Be real careful in your choice of words, buddy boy.”
“My point,” said Stafford, ignoring the implied threat, “is that they’re just a couple of guys. Tough or not, scary or not, they’re just guys. And their new group, that Rogue Team International? It’s not even a tenth the size of the old DMS, and besides, they don’t even have the protection of the U.S. government anymore. They’re freelance busybodies.”
“Which is why I’m calling you,” said Kuga, his tone harsh. “I want you to go find Joe Ledger, and I want him dead in a big way. Pieces all over the place. I want it to make the news. I want it to trend on Twitter. I want it so big, so ugly, and so outrageous that Eli Roth makes a movie about it.”
“I can do that,” said Stafford.
“Show me,” said Kuga. “I’m sending you a shit ton of data from our field analysis team and some notes Sunday put together specially for you. We think he’s in Italy now, but he’s likely to go to either Romania or Germany next. What we can’t allow—and I cannot stress this enough—is for Ledger to go back to the United States. We’re ramping up for the big play there, but there are a lot of moving pieces, and it’s very delicate. I need Ledger off the board.”
“What if he’s already in America?”
“Then pick up his trail. I’ve wired expense money to your account in the Seychelles. Kill him and anyone he even looks at over there.”
“You’re really hot about this,” s
aid Stafford.
“You’re damn right. Kill that bastard Joe Ledger, and I will quadruple your usual rate. Take out Church, too … and I’ll wire transfer five hundred million into your account.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not joking,” said Kuga.
And the line went dead.
CHAPTER 32
PHOENIX HOUSE
OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE
Bug shoved a handful of Cheez-Its into his mouth and crunched loudly. The latest H.E.R. disc was playing on twelve high-end speakers, with the bass turned high enough to make the various laptops, external drives, monitors, and a complete set of Wakanda Funko POP bobbleheads tremble. A row of alternating Red Bull and Monster cans was close at hand. The empties were in or near the blue recycling can. The door to his office was locked and the security system activated, ensuring that no one could walk in.
Bug brushed orange crumbs from his fingers before placing his hands on the keyboard. He was invariably messy.
With Joe Ledger missing in action and Rogue Team International engaged in the search for him and Santoro, there were very few actual field ops even in the planning stages. That gave Bug time to play.
The Kuga organization was vast. It was like an octopus with a thousand tentacles that stretched across oceans, across borders, and into so many sections of world governments, the private research and development sector, and criminal organizations. Kuga was also rich enough to hire the very best black hat computer pirates. Some gray hats, too, and, Bug suspected, some white hats who did some dirty work when no one was looking.
“Two can play at that game,” he said aloud.
They had the numbers, and they had some radical tech. That was the challenge. Kuga not only hired some of the very best, he gave them money and other incentives to encourage innovative thinking.
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