by Blake Banner
What I planned to do now was to pour myself a large drink, order in a pizza and watch a movie while I waited for Marni and Engels to turn up. Then we would finally resolve the problem. But till then it was pizza, whiskey and movie.
That was what I told myself as I put the key in the lock and opened the door.
Twenty Five
When death is a constant part of your life, you develop an instinct for it. I don’t know what it is, it’s like an odorless smell that permeates the air. It’s like a presence that is barely detectable to the ordinary five senses. You can’t smell it, taste it or feel it on your skin, and yet you can do all three of those things. Somehow, you know it’s there. And it was there as I stepped through the door. My mind raced through the list of people it could be, but they were all dead, there was nobody left.
Except Marni.
A wave of nausea flooded through me. I moved silently up the stairs. There was nothing in the bathroom, and nothing in the bedrooms. Nothing had been disturbed. There had been no ransacking, no search. I stood still and silent, listening, feeling.
I was wrecked, exhausted. Had I imagined it?
I went back down the stairs. The kitchen was empty and undisturbed, and the door was locked from the inside, as I had left it. I turned and looked down the hallway to the living room door. It was open a few inches. Had I left it like that? Dread made my skin go cold and the room seemed to rock under my feet. If she was in there, if she was dead…
I found strength from somewhere and took three strides. I shoved open the door and slammed on the light. The sofa and the armchairs were empty and untouched. The drapes were drawn across the front windows and across the French doors in the dining area at the back. They would have done that first, so that no one outside would look in and see the killing, or the body.
The body was tied to one of the dining chairs, hands and ankles. They had used wire coat hangers instead of rope or tape, to increase the pain. There was a lot of blood, mostly from where the throat had been cut, but also a lot from where the teeth had been pulled, and the fingers had been removed. The pliers were still there, lying on the carpet. It had been a bad way to die.
His head hung forward. I raised it by his hair. His eyes were squeezed closed and his mouth was badly swollen, smeared with dry blood, but he was easily recognizable as Engels.
So Engels had come back. And he’d come back to Marni’s house. But where the hell was Marni? My heart gave a violent jolt in my chest. She had killed my father. Had she killed Engels, too?
I’d put my father’s killing down to grief and hysteria when she’d discovered that he’d murdered her own father. But was there more to it than that? I had a flash of her in my mind, cool and calm, discussing her initiation into Omega, sitting at the table with Rho, Tau and my father, Gamma. They were discussing the wealth and power that she would enjoy as a member.
She had wanted me to believe that it was an act, that she planned to double-cross them and expose their conspiracy once she was on the inside. And there were times when I did believe her—I had played the same game with them myself. But if it had been an act, it was a damn good act.
And then she had killed my father.
My father, who had betrayed Omega. My father, who had sought to expose and destroy them. Who had wanted to help her, to be her ally.
Was that, after all, why she had killed him? Was that why she had killed Engels, or at least colluded in his killing? Had she gone over? It was hard to believe. But it had been so many years since I had seen her, apart from the fleeting contact in Turret. She had come to me in London, five years ago, wanting us to be a couple. I had sent her away. I had not wanted her to be a part of my life, of what I had become. I had no idea what changes she had gone through since then.
Her father’s research had put Omega at risk. The risk had been enough for them to order my father to kill him. It was not so hard to believe that, as she had started her own research, they might have moved in and taken control of her. That was, after all, their great specialization. Mind control.
I thought suddenly of the tracker. Was her rucksack upstairs? Had I seen it when I checked just now? Were her boots still there? A throb of pain in my head. I reached for the tracker. It wasn’t in my pocket. Somewhere between the Hawk’s Nest and the sheriff’s house I must have lost it. I swore violently under my breath as another wave of exhaustion drained through my muscles.
The doorbell jarred me. It was followed by a peremptory rap on the wood. I pulled my Sig from under my arm and went to stand against the wall, beside the door.
“Who is it?”
“Lacklan, open up, we need to talk.”
I knew the voice. I kept the automatic in my hand and pointed it in his face as I opened the door.
“Ben.”
He had two suits behind him. They looked like freshly scrubbed quarterbacks with sandpaper hair. One was black and the other was Aryan white, like the pillars of Solomon’s temple.
“That is not a nice way to greet somebody, Lacklan. Put it away. You don’t need it. And if you use it, these gentlemen will drop you before you can say, ‘Marni.’”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“These are agents Black and White…” He smiled and they showed me their badges. Agent Black was white and agent White was black. “May we come in?”
“What for?”
“I told you, we need to talk.”
“You need to talk.”
“You need to listen. Quit fucking around, Lacklan. Let us in. I know what you’ve got in there.”
“What have I got in here?”
“Engels, or what’s left of him, and a big problem. If we walk away from this door, the cops will be all over you like a rash, in minutes. Be smart for once in your damn life, will you?”
I turned and walked into the living room. I heard the door close behind me and went to the sideboard where the bottle of Bushmills stood. I poured the generous measure I’d promised myself earlier, took a long pull and fished a Pueblo out of the pack in my pocket. Ben and his pals stood in the doorway watching me as I lit up. I snapped the Zippo closed and jerked my head at Engels’ mortal remains in the chair.
“You did quite a job on him. What did he do to deserve it? Fail to learn his alphabet?”
Ben gave his head a small shake. “That’s not my work. My subjects talk, they don’t bleed.”
“Does that make you one of the good guys?”
He sighed. “Don’t be infantile, Lacklan. This is Hell, there are no good guys here, only bad guys and worse guys. I’m not one of the worse guys, and neither was your father. Neither are you.”
“Spare me your wisdom. If you didn’t do this, who did?”
“Worse guys, from Omega.”
“Why? What did they want to know?”
He narrowed his eyes, like he was trying to work me out. “Who says they wanted to know anything?”
“A punishment killing?”
“Half the point of punishment is to discourage others.”
I took another slug, inhaled deeply, and asked, “What do you want, Ben? You said we need to talk. So talk.”
“You’re becoming a real pain in the ass.”
“It’s what I do. I’m good at it.”
“You have to stop.”
“So stop me. You have Mr. Black and Mr. White here. Stop me.”
“It’s not that simple.”
I squinted at him through the smoke and let my smile crawl up the left side of my face. That’s my ironical side. “You want me to make it easy for you?”
“No. They want you in Washington.”
I stared at him. “Who wants me in Washington?”
“Omega.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Fuck them.”
“Like I said. It’s not that simple.”
“Let me make it simple for you. Fuck you, and fuck them.”
He closed his eyes a moment and sighed deeply. “You know, I like you, Lacklan. I do.
And I liked your father. I’m trying to do this nicely. I don’t have to, but I want to. You’ve had a bad few days, I know that. Let’s not make things any worse. We can do this two ways. We can tazer you, cuff you and drag you there. Or you can come in a comfortable private jet, have a meal, a martini, and sleep on a comfortable couch. We’ll even put you up in a five-star hotel for the night when we get there. You know? Just for once, you could do it the easy way. There is no merit in always doing things the hard way. They just want to talk to you, because you are your father’s son.”
I drained my glass. A martini and a meal and a five-star hotel sounded good. Maybe I’d got their attention. Maybe I could get some answers. Maybe I could find out what had happened to Marni.
I jerked my head at Engels again. “What about him?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
I nodded. “Give me five minutes to pack my stuff.”
“We’re not going anywhere without you.”
Twenty Six
He was as good as his word. We boarded a private jet at Tucson International Airport. After we’d taken off, they served me two large martinis and fed me a steak. Then they let me sleep for three hours on the leather couch. We got to DC’s Reagan National Airport at shortly before midnight and they drove me to the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue. I ordered a bottle of Bushmills, had a long, hot shower and lay on the bed, drinking whiskey and watching the TV.
The news was full of the Biosphere 3 conspiracy, the mysterious contents of the documents, and the assassination of the sheriff and the as yet unidentified academics from the University of Arizona.
The next morning, Ben came to collect me at ten AM. I’d had breakfast and I was waiting for him in the lobby, with less of a hangover than I deserved. I followed him out and down the steps to an official limo. Our driver had that hard, Secret Service android look, with a wire coming out of his ear and down his collar. He probably had instructions to shoot me if I sneezed too loud.
We took the George Washington Memorial across the bridge into Virginia, and in a little more than ten minutes, we were at the Pentagon north parking lot. Ben led me to the corridor 8 entrance, where we were met by another Secret Service android in a suit with a wire in his ear, who handed us authorization badges, then led us through rings E, D and C to ring B.
From there, he took us up two floors to room 32. There he left us, and Ben knocked before opening the door and letting me into a large office about twenty-five feet square. There was a flag against one wall and a portrait of the President, there were mahogany bookcases and black leather chairs and a sofa around a coffee table. A large, oak desk stood by a window that overlooked an internal garden. I knew enough about the Pentagon to know that this location, B 32, represented power, just about as high as you can go.
There was nobody sitting behind the desk, but there was a tall man standing with his back to me, looking out of the window. He turned after Ben had closed the door, and I saw his face, but I had already recognized him.
“Rho. This is a nice office for a middle manager.”
There was no humor on his face. “That’s what you said last time we met, Lacklan. You described me as a guy pissing in my knickers, and called me a middle manager.” He gestured around him. “There are almost eight billion people in the world. There are twenty-four letters in the ancient Greek alphabet. Each one of those letters relates to a member of the inner cabal of Omega. Twenty-four out of eight billion, and I am one of them. Middle management, Lacklan?”
“You’re still a middle manager pissing your knickers, Rho. What do you want?”
He sighed deeply. “Personally? I want you dead. And if it were up to me, you would be by now. But there are men more powerful than I who want to keep you alive for now, provided you will deal with us.”
“Deal?”
He pointed at a black leather armchair, part of the nest around the coffee table. “Sit. You want coffee?”
I shook my head and sat. “No. Deal how?”
He sat opposite me. Ben sat on the sofa.
“I’ve been watching the news. That wasn’t smart. Why did you do it? Who was that sheriff?”
I smiled, enjoying his discomfort. “The sheriff was a punk in a uniform, trafficking girls and coke. Why did I do it?” I gave a small laugh. “You’re all about smoke and mirrors, Rho. These stupid names you have, Tau, Rho, Omega. It’s all bullshit, illusions to make you look invincible, as though you wield absolute power. Well, I thought I’d stir you up a bit and see what happens.”
He and Ben were both frowning. Ben said, “What are you talking about?”
I studied his face a moment. I was genuinely surprised at the question. “Your masters claim to own the press, Ben. But there they were, with just a couple of hours notice, a chopper from one of the major networks, and a whole raft of smaller agencies.” I paused, letting it sink in. “And I made sure to give Omega as much notice as the media. But they still turned up.” I shrugged, turning to Rho. “And from what I could see on breakfast TV, the story hasn’t died yet. Within forty-eight hours it’s going to be all over social media, and you know what that means?” They didn’t answer. “It means that every congressman and -woman that you don’t own, every general and colonel, every politician and journalist, and every Joe in the street, is going to have a point of reference, somewhere to start digging, somewhere to meet and connect. That is a big part of why I did it.”
They were quiet. After a moment, Rho glanced at Ben before turning his eyes on me. He was trying to look intimidating, but he just looked scared.
“After this meeting, I am going to recommend that you be terminated.”
I laughed. “When you sent Ben and Brown to my house, that’s what they said you were going to do. So go ahead, do it! What are you waiting for?”
“We need to find Marni, and we need to find her research. You are our simplest way of doing that. But our patience is not endless.”
“Fuck you.”
Ben laughed. It was a tired laugh. “You know, your father was right about you. You are one obstinate son of a bitch.” He said it without hostility and I frowned at him. “Every single goddamn step has to be fought for with you, hasn’t it?” He gave his head a single shake. “Can’t you just for half an hour lay down your fucking battle axe and listen? Maybe, you know, just maybe, you are wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Wrong about us. Wrong about what we are trying to do. Wrong about your arrogant, opinionated, egocentric vision of the world. Just listen for half an hour. You don’t have to agree, and if you don’t, you can walk out of here and we’ll continue trying to kill each other.” He paused and they both stared at me for a while. Then Ben continued. “And if that happens, however good you are, you will lose, because there is one of you and there are hundreds of us, and we control thousands. Tens of thousands.”
“Yeah? Fuck you. We all lose in the end, Ben. You know that.” I sighed. “OK, I’m listening.”
Rho seemed to be doing some kind of breathing exercise to keep his patience. After a moment, he said, “We have known, all major western governments have known, since the ’70s, that there was no turning back as far as climate change was concerned. The cure, back then, would have been as destructive as the problem itself. Six billion people, back then, depended on mass production and mass distribution to survive. If we stopped using fossil fuels, that meant halting mass production and mass distribution, people worldwide would have died in their thousands of millions.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Rho.”
He ignored me. “The problem has grown exponentially since then. Not only are there two billion more people in the world, but we have gone well beyond the point where we could say, ‘all right, we’ll cease burning fossil fuels and take the consequences.’ That is no longer an option. Do you understand that? I am making a point here.” He gave a small, humorless laugh. “Whatever happens now, the outcome is irreversible. It will get hotter, there will be f
amine on a global scale, crops will fail catastrophically. Thousands of millions will perish. There will be global war, because with the population of the Earth at its maximum limit, the amount of earth—of land—able to sustain human life is going to shrink catastrophically in a matter of a couple of short years. This is going to happen—very soon!”
“What’s your point?”
“My point, Lacklan, is that there is nothing anybody can do about it!”
I spread my hands. “OK, so we’re done here.”
His face flushed and he exploded. “No! We are not done, Lacklan!”
I sighed and pulled my cigarettes from my packet. I poked one in my mouth and lit up. I breathed smoke out of my nose and waited. I knew I was being a pain in the ass and I didn’t care. I have an unreasonable dislike of people who think they own the world.
Ben leaned forward. I was surprised to see amusement in his eyes. “Humanity is not the best thing that ever happened to this planet, Lacklan. Your father understood that very well. We often talked about it. But we are not the worst thing that ever happened either. We have done good things. Maybe the greatest thing we ever did was to wake up…”
“Wake up?”
“Become conscious. The evolutionary step we took, as humans, is unique. It is…” he shrugged and shook his head, unable to find a better word to describe it. “How many billions, trillions of light-years would you have to go through space to find another self-aware species? We are a jewel in the cosmos. And brutal, fumbling and cruel as we are, we have used that consciousness to do great things. Mozart’s concertos, Van Gogh’s paintings, Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays…”
“I get the idea. Don’t patronize me.”
He ignored me, stressing his point. “Democracy, the declaration of Human Rights…”