“It’s going to ground our air support and kill visibility for the weapons team,” Pell told them both. “I might be able to fly in it, but even I won’t be able to see anything.”
“Tighten the perimeter,” David ordered Narita. “Secure the ground floor, dig in. Assume we will come under attack.”
“Vampires?” Narita asked.
“Yeah,” David confirmed. “I don’t like this storm. It’s too convenient. Hellet!”
The Mage answered her radio after a moment.
“Yeah, boss?”
“There’s a storm coming in. Can you get a good look at it?”
“Sure, give me a sec.” A few moments passed. “Looks ugly, but…what do you want me to do?”
“Use your Sight,” David ordered. “Is it magical?”
Another pause.
“Fuck,” the ex–kindergarten teacher snapped. “The storm isn’t, but it looks like someone dragged it off course. Something in Seattle is pulling it to us.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” David admitted with a sigh. “Thanks, Kate.”
He turned back to Narita.
“Alston’s people won’t be here until after it’s dark,” he said grimly. “Those servers—can we move them?”
“No,” the Captain replied. “Too big, too many fragile components. We could grab hard drives, but we wouldn’t know which ones we needed. Alston’s people will need to review them in place.”
“We need to protect the civilians and guard those servers,” David ordered. “And while we’re doing that, we also need to be interrogating those civilians and seeing if we can sort out what Talon’s involvement was.”
He shook his head slowly.
“Let me know the instant you see signs of trouble.”
#
Van der Watt had lost a lot of his self-assured air by the time David and de Bergen joined him and Mulroney in the conference room the lawyer had picked out. Having read transcripts before of the type of briefing Mulroney would have given him, David could understand the man’s discomfort.
The stocky Commander laid the lacquered wooden box on the conference table and took a seat, holding the mercenary’s gaze as he did so.
“Do you understand the circumstances of this discussion as Miss Mulroney has explained them to you?” de Bergen asked as she took a seat next to him. “While you have not been directly charged with anything as yet, your company’s involvement in the current affair doesn’t bode well for you.
“Answering our questions completely and honestly will reflect well on you and will be taken into account when we decide who will be facing charges. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” he said grimly. “Let’s get on this, shall we? What’s in the box?”
“We’ll get to that,” David said calmly. “Mr. Van der Watt, I am legally obliged to inform that I am a registered aura reader, and that my assessment of your honesty and emotional state is admissible evidence in a supernatural court of law.”
“Are you trying make me think you’re all crazy?” he demanded. “This is all nuts.”
“I am trying, Mr. Van der Watt, to make certain your legal rights are respected despite the unusual situation,” David told him. “If you choose to dismiss the seriousness of the situation, Miss Mulroney can’t protect you from yourself.”
The older man put his hand to his forehead for a moment, then exhaled heavily.
“I understand, Mr.…White, wasn’t it?” he admitted. “It’s just all very weird.”
Nodding his acceptance, David gestured for de Bergen to start.
“Mr. Van der Watt,” she said calmly. “How about we begin by you detailing what your role at Talon Security entails?”
“I run our United States office,” he replied. “Everyone in the USA reports eventually to me. I negotiate our large contracts, deal with our major clients, make connections and try and acquire new clients…the general run of being CEO of a big company, but with a boss in Cape Town.”
“And how involved are you in the day-to-day operations of the company?”
“It depends on the contract,” van der Watt admitted. “I don’t keep my finger on every single operation we do; that’s why I have subordinates. Large contracts come through me.”
“How large?”
“Quarter million bucks or more than ten guys on the ground usually gets at least an eyeball from me,” he said.
“So…fifty guys, two helicopters, and a pile of mil-spec gear would have to go through you?” de Bergen asked.
Van der Watt’s aura was a mess—the man was beyond stressed, for all that he was presenting a relatively calm face—but that still triggered a visible flare of very real fear.
“I’m not aware of any operation of that magnitude carried out in the United States,” he said slowly.
He was choosing his words very carefully, and it didn’t help him at all. To David his aura screamed that he’d known—if not details, at least that something was going on.”
De Bergen glanced over at David, who met her gaze and shook his head. The man was lying.
“To your knowledge, Mr. Van der Watt, do any of your contracts involve clients of questionable legality, let’s say?” she asked.
“We’re bodyguards and security for hire,” he replied. “We don’t ask what people do for a living or any specific details of why they want protecting. Some of our clients may well be organized crime or otherwise involved in criminal activity, but our role in protecting them is not a crime.”
“That can be argued,” she murmured. “Those subordinates you mentioned earlier. You have regional operations managers, as I understand?”
“That’s correct.”
“What are their roles?”
“Much the same as mine, but with smaller geographic areas and a more hands-on focus,” he replied. “My ops managers keep their finger on the pulse of all contracts in their region of authority. They deal with all of the clients in their area: finding new clients and making sure existing ones stay happy.
“They’re the day-to-day commanders, the people who run our contracts and assign teams to operations.”
“Would one of them be able to launch an operation without your knowledge or permission?” de Bergen asked.
“Potentially,” van der Watt said slowly, his aura flashing desperate hope as he latched onto an excuse. “They coordinate a lot of material and manpower; they could theoretically pull together an operation without higher authority. What is this all about, Agents?”
“Your turn, Commander,” de Bergen told David, gesturing toward the box.
“Karl Adams is your northwestern US operations manager, correct?” David asked van der Watt.
“He is,” the Talon Security man said slowly. “Why?”
“We found this box in his office,” David told him, sliding the lid off with a gloved hand. They’d fully dusted it for prints now, but there was no point being careless. “The bag is about half a million in gems. The thumb drive has an even million in cryptocurrency.
“Why would one of your operations managers have a cool million and a half in a hidden compartment in his desk, Mr. Van der Watt?”
“I…I don’t know.” The director was staring at the box in unfeigned shock, his gaze inevitably going to the four hypodermics. “What are the needles?”
“Did Adams have an addiction problem you were aware of?” David asked gently. Van der Watt was silent for a moment. “Mr. Van der Watt?”
“Heroin,” the mercenary said with a sigh. “He picked up a heroin problem during an operation in Afghanistan. He got fired from his last company over it and ended up in debt to some…unpleasant people.
“He went into rehab, got clean. Has been clean for five years, or he would never have been promoted. What does that have to do with anything? That is not heroin! What is it?”
“It’s a magically stabilized solution of human red blood cells modified by the Noctus virus,” David explained. “Vampire blood. The Noctus virus
is removed from the cells via a combination of centrifuge and aging, leaving only the modified blood cells with no risk of infection.
“It’s capable of curing most human diseases, is instantly addictive, and if the blood is all from one donor, allows for a degree of what is basically mind control of the addict—also commonly called a ‘thrall.’
“Now, we’re going to go through Talon Security’s files with a fine-toothed comb,” David told van der Watt. “But given everything we’d already known, the presence of a vampire thrall in your senior management means I have a damned good idea of what we’re going to find.
“Adams had no real choice in his actions after he’d become addicted. The rest of you had a choice when he came to you with a deal you found irresistible but you knew was illegal.
“So, if you come clean, we might be able to make a deal. If you force me to dig this mess out of your files and your employees, not only is Talon Security going to cease to exist inside the USA, but you are going to jail for a long, long time,” David concluded.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Van der Watt was silent for a minute, staring at the wooden box.
“Vampire blood?” he asked finally, looking up at Mulroney as if the lawyer would tell him David was insane.
“Basically exactly what Commander White described,” she said calmly. “If he’s a thrall, it might save Adams from criminal responsibility. On the other hand, withdrawal will probably kill him.”
“Fuck,” the mercenary hissed. He looked back at de Bergen and David.
“I want immunity from prosecution and a guarantee that my personal assets will be protected when you take Talon Security down,” he demanded. “I’ll tell you everything I know, and testify.”
Everyone in the room knew Talon Security’s US branch wasn’t going to survive this. Its resources and personnel had been used to carry out an act of domestic terrorism such as had rarely been seen before. The company was doomed and a lot of people’s lives were going to be destroyed.
Instead of trying to protect his innocent staff from the consequences of his actions, however, van der Watt wanted to cover his own ass and finances. He sickened David, but…they needed what he knew.
“Done,” David said flatly. “Talk.”
#
Van der Watt hemmed and hawed for a few more minutes, making David confirm that the promise was on the recording, but finally settled down to silently stare at his hands for several seconds before beginning.
“Adams came to me…two weeks ago,” he said slowly. “Said he had a contract—a big one, a hundred million-plus if we played it right—but it was…dirty. The worst kind of wetwork, the kind of job we don’t do in the US.”
“But you do elsewhere?” David asked.
“We’ve done a lot of things for money around the world,” van der Watt told him. “Wiping out a business conference the client wants ended? Yeah…we’ve done worse.
“But never in the US. Pulling that kind of operation in a country with modern cops is asking for a headache—but Adams said he had it figured. Use sterilized gear. Bring in people from out of country, send them back out before too many questions got asked.
“Gear, guns, even the helicopters would have to be ditched and burned,” he continued. “We ran the numbers. What we were being offered… it wasn’t enough. So he went back to the client—and they tripled it.”
Van der Watt shrugged.
“Three hundred million dollars,” he said flatly. “That’s half our annual North American revenue—a fifty-percent increase for one op. We have the contacts that could launder it, run it cleanly into our books with no one the wiser.
“Yeah, we were willing to get dirty for three hundred million,” he admitted. “It was off the books. Everything that got moved into place was officially for something else. Adams ran it all through his division.”
“Fifty guys, two helicopters, a pile of gear,” David reeled off. “How did you bury it all?”
“Two dozen contracts where our records say we sent two more guys than the client’s records say.” van der Watt shrugged again. “Helicopters flagged as in use for internal corporate transport. There’d be an accident, helicopters gone down over the Pacific with anyone who died in the op aboard.
“Adams promised me he could cover our tracks completely. We knew there’d be security, but nobody told us it was going to be Feds and military. He had more info on who exactly we were hitting, but once he’d proven he could keep our noses officially clean, I was hands-off.
“I didn’t want to know too much,” he finished grimly. “Now I wish I’d asked some more damn questions.”
“Your operations manager threw fifty heavily armed mercenaries at a convention organized and protected by the Office of the National Supernatural Enforcement Teams,” David told him. “They came in with stolen vehicles, with bullets and shells designed to kill supernaturals.
“Your Adams knew a lot. Who knows what he’d have told you?” David shook his head. “Some of them escaped. What happened to them?”
“So far as I know, the evac plans went off without a hitch and they have all left the country with a million bucks in their pocket to salve their feelings,” van der Watt admitted. “We certainly weren’t going to hold them here.”
“All right.” David glanced to de Bergen. “Any more questions, Inspector?”
“Not for now,” she said. “As per our agreement, Mr. Van der Watt, you’re not under arrest. You will remain with the rest of Talon Security’s people here until we release all of the people we aren’t charging. After that, we will assign you a protective detail and we would be…unimpressed if you were to leave Seattle. You should keep yourself ready to testify upon request and to answer more questions if we have them.”
“Fine,” he said curtly. “Anything else?”
“We’ll need Adams’s home address,” David told him.
Chapter 20
The storm had fully swept in while they’d been interviewing van der Watt, and heavy rain was hammering the glass exterior of the building as David rejoined Narita in the reception area. His three ONSET Agents were scattered around the room, and none of them were looking comfortable.
“Air support is a no-go in this,” Pell told him.
“Heavy weapons are no better,” Narita added. “I’ve pulled all of my teams back inside the building. We’re digging in for an assault, but”—he shook his head—“we have no idea what we’re looking at.”
“Small teams, supernaturals,” Hellet said quietly. “With this storm, we’re probably facing at least one Elder with significant magical ability. She may not lead the assault—this storm is quite possibly all that she can pull off in a given day—but we’re probably best off assuming we’re facing a Mage-level opponent.”
“And vampire ground troops,” David noted. “Make sure your people have switched over to AG rounds. Do not hesitate to fire—hit them with everything. They won’t go down easy.”
“I wish we’d brought mines, but we know the drill,” Narita replied, but his eye was distant. “My people have gone ’round with fangs before.”
“You’ve gone around with newly blooded fledglings,” Pell interrupted. “Ones where some poor kid had a Mantle drop on him out of nowhere—like every other supernatural not born with it, no choice, no warning, just one day, wake up and you’re different.
“Only in those cases, you’re hungry. They can’t think rationally. They feed, they turn, they kill. These won’t be fledglings,” the pilot told them grimly. “These will be adult vampires. Ones who’ve survived long enough to think again.
“They’re smarter. They’re faster. They’re stronger. We don’t send the APs up against them if we have a choice.”
“We don’t,” David replied. “Whatever happens, they can’t reach the servers or the civilians. Stone? I want you on the ground floor. Take Becky, back up the troopers. Hellet, you too.
“Pell, take whatever you think will be
helpful and move down to the third floor. Protect those servers—we need the data.”
“What about you?” Stone asked in his oddly pitched voice.
David tapped the hilt of the sword at his waist.
“We’ll block the stairwells here,” he told them. “Lock the elevators down. The only way they’ll get to the civilians on the higher floors is through here. Through me.”
He bared his teeth at his people in what might technically be called a smile.
“Let them try.”
#
Almost forty stories above everyone else, David almost missed it when the attack finally happened. There was no warning, nothing visible in the streets outside. One moment, everyone was nervously waiting for the attack they knew had to be coming. Someone would quietly report every ten or fifteen seconds on the radio as Narita’s people swept for potential threats.
Then there was no one on the radio from the first floor for twenty seconds. Thirty.
It was almost forty seconds before the radio finally crackled to life with Stone’s gasping voice, punctuated by the loud stutter of machine-gun fire.
“They’re here,” he snapped. “At least two dozen, came out of fucking nowhere.” The gunner paused, a loud tear of gunfire interrupting his report. “EAT IT!” he bellowed.
A pause.
“We’re holding,” Stone said. “Barely. A lot of Narita’s troops are down…but I don’t think they’re pressing it.”
“Grenade!” a voice snapped.
An explosion echoed over the channel, followed by screams and whimpering.
“What are you waiting for?” Stone demanded loudly. “You’ve grenades of your own—use them!”
More explosions answered the ONSET Agent’s call, and more echoing gunfire.
“We’ll hold,” Stone repeated. “Narita’s down. Can’t tell if he’s breathing from here. There’s no Elders in this bunch, though, and they’re playing it safe. I don’t know what I’m missing, but these guys are the distraction.”
ONSET: My Enemy's Enemy Page 13