He was tired of doing these things, but it wasn’t really him. He couldn’t stop it, because he wasn’t the one in control.
Everything was blurred. Everything hurt even more. The high-pitched noise was screaming now, and it seemed to be coming right from that man. He wanted very badly for this to end, and the only way to do that was to stop that noise.
Then he recognized the man. It was the president. What was the president doing in his dream?
He stopped. It took some conscious effort, like waking up from a deep sleep, but he stopped the body from moving, too.
Garcia just stood there, not knowing what to do next.
This was wrong. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew this was just wrong.
THE CREATURE PAUSED. Cade hissed a small prayer. He had time.
He moved between the monster and the president, knocking Curtis back into the wall. As he prepared to unlatch the case, he noticed something.
He looked into the creature’s eyes. Saw pain, and confusion, and the dawning awareness of something—someone—desperately searching for answers.
Cade saw something human in there.
He opened the case.
The glow from the Baptist’s hand bathed the creature in its light.
The effect was instantaneous. The spark in the eyes of Cpl. Ryan Garcia went out as his unnatural resurrection abruptly ended. The limbs went slack next, dropping and falling off. The body hit the floor.
Dead again. Returned to what they should have been, what they should have stayed: the empty parts of men long gone from this life.
The Oval Office was suddenly as quiet as a grave.
SIXTY-NINE
Cadre heard the faintest rasping of breath. He shut the case and went to Griff.
The older man lay like a bit of wastepaper that had missed the basket. Blood pumped from the wound in his midsection, but slowly.
He didn’t have much time left.
Cade leaned down, though he didn’t have to get closer to hear him.
“The president?” Griff whispered.
“Safe,” Cade said. “You did well.”
Pink foam poured from Griff’s nose and mouth. “It’s bad.”
“I don’t know how you’re breathing now.”
Griff coughed, as close as he could get to a laugh. “Thanks.” More pink foam.
Cade held the case before Griff’s clouding eyes. “This could save you.”
Griff looked pained, and it wasn’t the agony from dying. It was disappointment. Shook his head, as much as he was able. “Not right,” he said. “You know. It’s time.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Griff convulsed once, began trembling. It took long seconds for him to speak again. “Cade . . . Good . . . Bye.”
Cade put the case down. He took Griff’s hand in both of his, shook it formally.
“Tired,” Griff said. Then his jaw went slack as the life went out of him.
ZACH ENTERED THE ROOM, saw the creature’s remains on the floor spread over the presidential seal. He saw Cade, kneeling over Griff.
“Did we win?” he asked.
Cade reached down and closed Griff’s eyes.
“We didn’t lose,” he said. “That’s enough.”
Zach looked down at Griff and realized what had happened. His breath caught in his throat.
From behind the desk, the president lifted himself off the floor. He shook his head, as if to clear it.
Cade went to him and helped him stand. The president looked over at Zach, then at Griff’s body.
“I’m sorry,” the president told Cade. “He was a good man.”
Cade nodded.
The intercom beeped, a surprisingly mundane noise. Curtis answered. “This is the president.”
On the other end, a new Secret Service agent babbled with relief. Communications lines were back up. Reinforcements were here, along with the army.
Curtis cut him off, his voice smooth and easy with command. “Keep the airspace around the White House clear. Establish a perimeter on the street. And bring in medical attention. We have wounded.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. Are you all right?”
He clicked off the intercom for a moment and looked at Cade and Zach. “My family?”
“We just left them,” Zach said. “They’re in the panic room. Not a scratch.”
The president gave a long sigh. He pressed the button again.
“I’m fine,” he told the agent.
There was the sound of furniture moving. Cade assumed a battle stance, then relaxed. A second later, Wyman popped up from under a broken couch.
He surveyed the office as if measuring for drapes. Looked around at the destruction. The bodies. The blood on the floor.
He smoothed down his hair. He looked at Cade, and Zach, and then the body of Griff.
“I suppose you’ll want to say ‘I told you so,’” he said.
Cade was prohibited, by his oath, from doing what he wanted to do to the vice president.
Zach wasn’t. He swung a hard right fist into the man’s face, knocking him flat on his ass.
Wyman sat there, stunned, on the Oval Office carpet, blinking back tears.
“Not another word,” Zach warned him, his fist drawn back to hit him again. “Not one more word. Sir.”
Cade, despite himself, felt a small grin on his face. For the vampire, this was the equivalent of falling down on the floor laughing.
Sunlight began to pour through the windows. They could already hear the soldiers and Secret Service men downstairs, the sounds of panicked voices and barked orders. Sirens outside. The media wouldn’t be far behind.
Cade turned and headed for the elevator, back to the P-OCK and the tunnel out.
Zach looked to the president, who nodded. Time to go.
He followed Cade to the elevator. Wyman was still yelling at them as the doors closed.
EPILOGUE
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
“No, sir,” the man in glasses said into his phone. “The White House managed to keep a lid on all of it. They’re calling it an attempted suicide bombing. No evidence of the Unmenschsoldaten will ever reach the general public. Curtis’s approval ratings have even gone up.”
CNN, on mute in the background, played the same animation over and over: a graphic that said ATTACK ON THE WHITE HOUSE, which then exploded into a flare of light that filled the screen.
Angry words came from the phone. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I know this isn’t funny.”
More sharp words. He listened. “In my defense, sir, Agent Holt behaved exactly as expected. She did everything she could to help Konrad, and she believed it was her own idea.”
That didn’t go over well. He listened to the abuse again. He could be eliminated on the basis of this failure, but he’d learned to live with that. It wasn’t like they would tell him if it was coming anyway.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I apologize. I was wrong.”
His superior hung up, leaving him listening to the sudden quiet in the office. Dimly, he realized that it was past midnight, and he was the only agent working in this section. Everyone else had gone home hours ago. Again. His wife was going to kill him.
He sighed. Was it too much to ask for a little gratitude? He’d done his job. Nothing could be traced back to the Company. Holt never knew the real plan, or how he’d manipulated her into moving it along. Using her obsessive fear of aging and assigning her to Konrad, he’d almost been able to fulfill one of the Prophecies.
The really annoying thing was, it should have worked. And it would have, if Konrad hadn’t involved Cade. It was possible the vampire was becoming a serious threat. He’d have to run a cost-benefit analysis later.
The man in glasses sighed, and turned to his computer. With a click of his mouse, he opened his TO DO list. Moved “Dead Rising from Graves” back into the action items column, right before “Sky Turns Black” and “Moon Becomes Red as Blood.”
&n
bsp; He wondered who’d killed Holt—Cade or Konrad? It didn’t really make much difference to him.
Ah, well, he thought. Back to the old drawing board. Armageddon isn’t going to happen by itself, after all.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
President Curtis sat behind Wyman’s desk. The attack on the White House left him without an office, but not without work.
Wyman entered without knocking. Curtis gave him a sharp look.
“Sorry,” Wyman said. “Still used to thinking of it as my office. Forgot something. Be out of here in a minute.”
Wyman’s left eye looked even worse now, swollen with a truly magnificent shiner. They blamed it on the terrorist assault, part of the cover story, but Curtis stifled a smile as he remembered the punch. Who knew Zach had such a mean right hand?
“It’s fine,” Curtis said. “While you’re here, there was something I wanted to ask you.”
Wyman stopped at the door. Was Curtis imagining it, or did the man seem nervous?
“What did Griffin say to you? When he pulled you aside.”
Wyman’s face was blank. Then he seemed to remember. “Oh, that. He just told me to calm down. Not to panic. I believe his words were, ‘Show some balls.’ ”
Curtis looked at the vice president for a moment. “Nothing about the traitor?”
Wyman hesitated, then frowned. “Traitor?”
“Someone had to give up the location of the safe house,” Curtis said. “I think we can agree it wasn’t Griffin. I had hoped he might have said something to you.”
“Oh,” Wyman said. He shrugged. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Unfortunate,” Curtis said.
“Yes,” Wyman said. “Tragic.”
Curtis turned back to the papers in front of him.
Wyman turned to go.
“That means we’ll have to keep looking for him,” Curtis said.
Wyman stopped.
“The traitor, I mean,” the president continued. “Of course, now that we know he exists, he’d have to be fairly stupid to try anything again.”
Wyman nodded. “Or very determined,” he said.
Curtis stared at him; saw nothing but a perfectly blank expression.
“Good night, Les,” he said after a moment.
“Good night, Mr. President,” Wyman said, and left.
OUTSIDE ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
Konrad’s guide, a sullen young man in full beard and robes, showed him to the hut where he’d be working.
It was the most advanced facility in the small camp. It didn’t have a toilet or running water. A kitchen table, badly scarred and worn, stood in the center of the room on a floor of linoleum on top of dirt.
Konrad’s first lab, which had been in a medieval castle, was more sanitary than this.
This wasn’t the deal, but now Konrad had little choice. The facility he’d been promised in Dubai—within walking distance of luxury shops, malls and a five-star hotel—was now far too public. After the attack on the White House, the U.S. military was chasing down every possible lead to Khaled and his group. Banks froze their accounts. Khaled’s associates had been forced to retreat to the last safe haven—Pakistan. And Konrad had been forced to join them.
Well, Konrad could make it work. He’d done more with less.
Konrad surveyed the room and turned back to his guide. “So that’s the lab. And where will I stay?”
The young man stared at him blankly. Konrad spoke no Pashto, and his guide’s English was limited.
“Sleep,” Konrad said sharply. “Where will I sleep?”
The young man nodded, and pointed with his AK-47 to a corner of the hut. A cot with an old blanket sat there.
“Of course,” Konrad said. “Absolutely bloody charming.”
He dropped his bag on the cot. Lice began crawling on the blanket.
Oh, Cade would pay for this. He would pay.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Reyes knew he’d made the right move, especially once he saw the news. Almost buried in the panic over the attack on the White House was an item about a dead federal employee: Ken. Something about a mugging, miles away from the Federal Building. Yeah, right. He saw the Company at work there.
Well, tough shit, buddy, Reyes thought. You should’ve gotten out while you could.
He was packing a bag. The itchy feeling between his shoulder blades hadn’t gone away. It had only gotten worse. It was time to visit Mexico. Maybe explore his roots. Or go even farther south. Someplace without an extradition treaty, where even the Company would have trouble finding him. He’d heard good things about Venezuela.
He stopped folding his shirts. He thought he heard something.
Reyes was taking no chances. He took out his pistol, turned around and crept toward the front of his apartment.
He saw someone there. He fired.
The bullet went wide and tore through the arm of the intruder.
She didn’t even flinch.
He saw the gun. It was silenced, the wide barrel of the noise suppressor a black hole in front of him. He dropped his own weapon and raised his hands.
Only then did he notice who was holding the gun.
Helen Holt. But something had happened to her. She held the gun in her left hand, not her usual stance. The opposite side of her face was frozen, expressionless. In fact, her entire right side seemed . . . well, dead.
Maybe she’d had a stroke, Reyes thought.
“What happened to you?”
Only half of her face scowled.
She fired one shot. It hit him in the foot, blowing off a toe.
He fell back into a chair, mouth open to scream.
She shoved the barrel between his teeth. He got the message. He stayed as quiet as he could.
“That’s a question you’re going to learn not to ask,” she said, words slightly slurred.
He sat down. Tried to not to look at her right side.
“Did the Company send you?” he asked.
“I don’t work for the Company anymore,” she hissed. “And neither do you. You’re working for me now.”
Reyes was confused. “So what are we doing?”
Half of Helen’s face smiled. The other half remained expressionless. Cold.
“Oh, we have a lot to do,” she said. “More than you can imagine.”
Reyes noticed the bullet wound he’d just given her in the right arm. On her frozen side. It looked like a gash in a piece of furniture.
It wasn’t bleeding.
Once again, Reyes had to admit: he was more scared of Helen Holt than he was almost anything else.
THE RELIQUARY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
“What do you feed that thing anyway?”
Zach was pointing at the Allghoi Khorkoi, in its glass case.
“It prefers human flesh,” Cade said. “Griff got it to take hot dogs.”
After the attack, Zach showered the blood off, had his wounds stitched up and called his mother, who was frantic, watching the news about the terrorist assault. He told her he was fine. Then he hung up and went home and slept for twenty hours.
When he woke, he spent the day in bed, watching the breathless coverage on CNN. “A miracle that the president and vice president were not killed” is what the talking heads kept saying.
Underneath the constant yammering, the crawl ran a list of the Secret Service and White House staff killed in the attack. Every two minutes or so, Zach saw it scroll past: Agent William Hawley Griffin.
Some kind of miracle, Zach thought.
At dusk, his phone rang. Cade. Telling him to come to the Smithsonian, with instructions on how to open the hidden door.
He picked out another suit, put on his favorite tie and drove to the museum.
Now Cade was looking at him, his eyes measuring Zach.
“So what’s your answer?” Cade asked. “Are you taking the job or not?”
Zach was mildly surprised by the question. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.�
�
“There’s always a choice,” Cade said. “No one is ever a slave.”
“Griff said I’d have this job until I retired or died. He said turning it down wasn’t an option.”
“That’s not what he told you,” Cade said. “He asked you if you thought you’d be able to walk away. The question stands: can you?”
Zach knew the answer without thinking: “No.”
“Good,” Cade said. “Training is over. We have work to do.”
He turned away, walking toward the computer. Zach had another question, however.
“Am I going to end up like Griff?” he asked. “Is that how this ends?”
Cade stopped. “There are worse ways to go,” he said. “Does that change your answer?”
“No,” Zach said.
“Then why are we still talking about this?”
“Griff’s funeral is tomorrow at Arlington. I just thought—”
“Griff is dead.”
Zach felt a flash of irritation. “I’m sorry, did you have something else planned for us?”
“Yes,” Cade said. “We have one loose end.”
“And I bet we’re going to tie it off.”
“No,” Cade said. “We’re going to sever it.”
ONE WEEK LATER, ACAPULCO, MEXICO
Dylan sat in his family’s condo and drank beer.
All was forgiven. He’d gone home to his father and apologized. He told the old man about his trip to Kuwait, where he worked for the army. Dylan’s father actually seemed proud of him. He was just glad Dylan wasn’t hurt, he said.
After a year like that, Dylan needed a vacation, his father said. He gave him a plane ticket and the keys to the condo in Acapulco.
Dylan went back to the sun and the sand and the babes and the beer, but it didn’t feel the same. He watched the TV coverage about the White House attack and saw the faces of the men and women who’d been killed. Khaled had almost done it. He’d almost taken out the president. Dylan couldn’t believe he’d gotten away clean.
In the mornings, when he woke up hung over and faced the brilliant Mexico daylight without any chemicals in his system, Dylan thought about what he’d done. He tried to tell himself he was the real victim here. He was just along for the ride. Khaled was the bad guy. If Dylan hadn’t helped him, it would have been someone else, right?
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