The Devil's Game (The Game Trilogy Book 2)

by Sean Chercover

  Ayo shook her head. “It’s a step too far, Raoul. There must be another way.” She turned her appeal in Carter’s direction. “What about Daniel and Pat? Shouldn’t we at least give them more time? Daniel might be the key here. You’ve been saying that all along.”

  Raoul said, “Despite everything, Daniel is still a rookie, and he’s still made mistakes. We can’t bet everything on him . . . and frankly, what else can we do at this point? We’ve been dealt a bad card, but we’ve gotta play it.”

  “You’re both right,” said Carter. “All our indicators say Daniel is at the very heart of this thing—that’s why we scouted him so intensely. We don’t know when it’s going to happen or what it’s going to look like . . . but perhaps this is the time.”

  Raoul started to protest, but again Carter raised his hand. “If it were any other operative down there, we’d already be taking action. But it isn’t. I want you to brief Contingency, have them prepare our response. Don’t deploy without my order. We’ll give Daniel a little more time and see how it plays out. But we’ll be ready to shut it down.”

  Ayo’s expression softened, and Raoul reluctantly nodded acceptance. Raoul said, “What parameters should I give Contingency?”

  Carter Ames let out a breath. “If we go, we go all the way.”

  52: SAFE FROM HARM

  Daniel and Pat got off the elevator and strode into the Marriott’s parking garage, Daniel leading the way, car keys in hand.

  They were twenty feet from the car when Evan Sage stepped out from behind a concrete pillar, pistol aimed straight at Daniel’s chest.

  “Either of you moves, I will put Daniel down.”

  Pat said, “Easy there.”

  Daniel said, “We don’t have time for this.”

  Evan said, “Fuck you.”

  Daniel said, “Coming as it does from a waterboarding torture monkey, that doesn’t wound me a whole lot, Evan.”

  Pat said, “Man’s got a point.”

  Evan said, “You think you’re off-limits? Nobody is off-limits, not while my country is under attack. So you two bastards are gonna tell me exactly what you know. Right now.”

  Pat shrugged. “I thought the Yemenis were behind it. Saw it on TV, must be true.”

  “Put the gun away, asshole,” said Daniel. “You wouldn’t be standing here asking us if you had a goddamn clue.”

  Evan Sage held his position.

  Daniel said, “Can’t live with the company line, huh? Can’t swallow the big lie? You’re off the reservation and you need my help. Again. You won’t get it at the point of a gun.”

  Evan thought about it. He looked tired. He holstered his pistol.

  “Good,” said Daniel. “Here’s the deal: Conrad Winter is at the triage center at Williams-Brice right now, but I don’t know for how much longer. You wanna come with us, fine, we can use an extra man. You don’t wanna come, that’s fine too. But you try to stop us, we’ll have that gunfight right here.”

  Evan Sage said nothing.

  “Make a decision. You wanna find the truth or not?”

  Sage looked from Daniel to Pat.

  Pat said, “What he said.”

  Sage thought for another minute, then decided.

  “I’ll follow you in my car.”

  “Gerald, we’re about two minutes out, what’ve you got?”

  Daniel checked over his shoulder as they burned rubber around the corner onto Bluff Road. Evan Sage was having no trouble keeping up with Pat’s daredevil driving.

  “I see you,” said Gerald So, no doubt watching a satellite feed. “Just past the stadium hang a left onto Berea, then another left on Key Road. Last van pulled out a few minutes ago. Right now the loading docks are clear.”

  Daniel relayed the directions to Pat and a minute later they skidded to a stop in front of the football stadium’s vacant loading docks. Evan Sage skidded to a stop in formation beside them. All three men approached the loading docks with guns drawn.

  Pat turned to face the lot, covering their rear. Daniel hopped up and inside the building, moving slowly as his eyes adjusted to the light. There was something on the floor near a stack of shipping crates.

  A body.

  Evan Sage jumped up and moved to Daniel’s left, toward the hallway.

  Daniel walked closer to the body on the floor.

  No no no no no . . .

  Please no. Don’t let it be—

  —Kara, curled up on the concrete floor, blood pooling under her torso.

  Oh, God no . . .

  Daniel dropped to his knees and gently rolled Kara on her back and cradled her head in one hand.

  Looking for any rise and fall in her chest, seeing none.

  “Come on, baby, come on, please, I know you’re in there . . .”

  Searching for a pulse in her wrist, finding none.

  “Kara, stay with me, don’t you dare leave now . . .”

  Blinking away tears, dropping her wrist, moving his hand to her neck.

  “Come on back, baby, you know you’re not done yet . . .”

  Searching her neck for a pulse . . .

  not finding a pulse . . .

  then finding it.

  Weak.

  Slow.

  But beating.

  Behind Daniel, Evan Sage ran into the hallway. “Medic! We need a medic here!”

  Daniel tilted Kara’s head back and put his mouth on hers and breathed air into her lungs.

  53: BULL IN THE PEN

  Conrad Winter walked through the blazing sun and into the air-conditioned warehouse. He tugged at his clerical collar to let some cool air in, then thought, What the hell? and just pulled the thing off completely.

  Bobby McCue greeted Conrad just inside the door. McCue had been Michael Dillman’s trusted right-hand. With Michael gone, he was now ranking officer of the mercenary teams.

  The warehouse held ten rows of army cots—thirty per row—and most were occupied. Rich and poor and middle class, black and white and brown, young and old, all lying side by side in neat rows. The plague did not discriminate, and neither, it seemed, did plague-triggered AIT. It was of no consequence what god you worshiped or didn’t, what moral code you lived by or didn’t.

  The plague was the great equalizer.

  Fifteen former army medics in gloves and splatter shields moved along the rows, tending to the infected herd. In addition to the medical carts, there were about fifty camcorders set up on tripods and connected to laptop computers, each camera pointing down at a patient in a cot.

  “A lot of them are babbling,” said Bobby McCue, “so we’ve started recording the ones saying anything we can understand.”

  “One of the men just brought in is speaking French. I want a camera on him without delay.”

  “What’s so special about him?”

  “He’s talking about the near future.”

  “Roger that, will set it up, stat.”

  Conrad scanned the rows of cots once more. “What’s our current total?”

  “Including the ones you just brought in, we’re at 263.”

  “I thought we passed 270 on the previous delivery.”

  “Some were false-positives, turns out they didn’t have a fever.” Bobby McCue offered a grim but reassuring nod. “We’ll be sure the bodies are never found.”

  So they had 263. Not quite the walk-off grand slam Conrad had dreamed of in his perfect fantasy scenario, but a decisive victory, nonetheless. A very big win, indeed.

  Provided they got away clean.

  Bobby McCue was saying, “ . . . destinations are prepped and the semis are being brought in and fueled, we can pull out tomorrow morning. We should have at least four hundred by then.”

  “Negative,” said Conrad. “We’re blown. No more runs to the stadium. Have your men ditch the van
s, then pack everything up and get everyone on the road. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll get out well before sunrise.”

  “See that you do.” Conrad started to walk away, turned back. “Oh, and Bobby?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Conrad dug in his pocket and pulled out the knife, still stained with the blood of Kara Singh.

  “Make this disappear.”

  54: EVERYTHING COMES DOWN TO THIS

  Daniel sat alone in a private waiting room at Providence Hospital . . . not moving, not thinking, just staring at his hands and feeling the oppressive weight of complete and utter silence.

  He wore Kara’s blood all over his hands and forearms and shirtfront, where it had dried almost to the color of rust. But he couldn’t stand the thought of washing it off—washing her off—of seeing her blood turn pink and dilute and then disappear down the drain.

  He pushed the image away and returned to the silence.

  The emptiness.

  The waiting.

  “I’ve got to be honest, Mr. Byrne,” said the lantern-jawed doctor, “she’s not out of the woods. We lost her briefly—it still could go either way.”

  “Lost her?”

  The doctor nodded. “She arrived to the ER in cardiac arrest. There was a great deal of internal bleeding and commensurate loss of blood pressure, and she flatlined for several minutes, during which time her brain was denied oxygen. She’s out of surgery and we’ve moved her to ICU, but she’s in a pretty deep coma and she’s not breathing on her own. I wish I could give you better news. All we can do now is wait and pray.”

  The doctor excused himself and left the room.

  And the silence pressed in again.

  8:13 p.m.—Fifty-six hours after contamination . . .

  Pat Wahlquist stepped out of a conference room on the hospital’s fifth floor and put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “I pleaded your case, but Raoul’s ’bout ready to spit nails.”

  Daniel entered the room. Ayo Onatade and Raoul Aharon and Carter Ames stood around the table. Nobody looked particularly happy.

  Carter Ames said, “I’m terribly sorry about Kara, Daniel. I understand you two have grown quite close. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” said Daniel. “Good to go. When do we move on the warehouse?”

  “You’ve been through enough,” said Ames, “we’ll handle it from here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. After what Conrad’s done, no way I’m sitting this one out.”

  Raoul said, “It’s not negotiable. First of all, Conrad Winter isn’t even in the country anymore. And even if he were standing in this room, he’s off-limits.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “No, that’s the real shit. You’re benched, Daniel. That’s it. I know you want payback for Kara’s death—”

  “She’s not dead.”

  “Yet,” said Raoul.

  Daniel glanced at Ayo, who looked like she desperately wanted to be somewhere else.

  Raoul shrugged. “Point is, until you can play by the rules, you’re no good to us in the field. You’re a promising operative and you still have an important role to play with the Foundation, but you’ve proven you’re not ready. It’s that simple.”

  “Easy to say from a high-rise in New York. If I hadn’t improvised, we never would’ve even gotten this close.”

  “This may be hard for you to hear, but the only reason Kara got knifed is because you read her in—against my explicit orders. If she hadn’t recognized Conrad, she wouldn’t be circling the drain right now. So if you want to find the man responsible for her death, look in the mirror. She deserved better.”

  Daniel forced his fists to unclench. “I swear, if you refer to her in the past tense again—”

  “Stop it.” Carter Ames stepped forward, between the men. “Raoul, take a walk, get a coffee or something.”

  “Fine,” said Raoul. He pointed at Daniel. “But you’re on leave. Stay here, mourn your girlfriend, get your head together. When you decide you’re ready to be part of a team, come see me in New York.”

  Raoul walked out and closed the door hard behind him.

  Carter said, “I’m sorry, Daniel, but he’s right. Not only did you read Kara in, but you brought a Homeland Security agent in, and God knows what you told him.”

  “Jesus, Carter. I didn’t tell him a damn thing about your Foundation.”

  “Our Foundation. Which is exactly Raoul’s point. You don’t see yourself as part of this, not fully. And until you do, we can’t risk your continued involvement in the field. Don’t misunderstand—we’re incredibly grateful for your work and we don’t want to lose you. Really this is my fault for rushing your training.”

  “So there’s nothing I can say. I’m benched.”

  “I’m afraid so. Stay here with Kara, and when this is all over, come back to New York and we’ll finish your training.” Carter Ames offered an avuncular smile. “As valuable as you are, I’m confident we can handle the warehouse without your help.”

  Daniel said, “And what about the larger issue? The Foundation’s gonna let Conrad have his war?”

  Ames said, “Such are the consequences of losing. This time the Council won the game. We just have to face that fact and be better next time, nothing else we can do.”

  “We can tell the world the truth. That it wasn’t Yemeni terrorists, that it was a rogue American military officer working with private contractors, that it was the work of the Council—”

  “With what evidence, Daniel? The soldier in West Virginia is gone, probably dead, the lab in Liberia is gone, the bodies of Colonel Dillman and the mercenary Pat shot at the airfield were removed before authorities arrived, Descia Milinkovic is dead—”

  It felt like a gut punch. “Descia’s dead?”

  “Yes. She and five of our other top allies in microbiology, plus a couple who were Council allies. Conrad Winter had it all planned out ahead of time, they tied off all loose ends, didn’t leave us anything. They even hit Kara’s flat in London, burned it to the ground. All her journals, gone. We have nothing. No evidence to leak, at least not without revealing ourselves to the world. And you know that’s not an option.”

  “So Conrad gets his war.”

  “Yes, he does. Those are the stakes we play for.”

  “And Conrad remains untouchable?”

  “Yes, he does. I’m sorry.”

  Daniel turned to Ayo. “Do you agree with this? You think Conrad Winter should be off-limits?”

  Ayo stood silent, looking into Daniel’s eyes with such naked sympathy it made his chest ache. Her look told him everything—that she agreed with him, she’d argued his position, and she’d been overruled.

  “I am truly sorry, Daniel,” was all she said.

  55: WE DO WHAT WE’RE TOLD

  So we ridin’ the pine, you and me.” Pat took one last hit off the joint, tossed it over the edge of the Marriott’s rooftop, and looked out over the moonlit city. “I got benched, too, for lettin’ you reach out to Evan Sage.”

  Daniel took a swig of beer. “It was still the right thing to do.”

  “That it was.”

  “I can’t believe Carter’s gonna let this war happen.”

  “They play a ruthless game, you knew that when you signed on. They’re cold when it comes to cuttin’ their losses, stayin’ alive to play the long game.”

  “But there’s gotta be a point where you go all-in.”

  Pat shrugged. “This ain’t that point. Not for them.”

  “Well, I don’t see how much larger the stakes can get.” Daniel swallowed some more beer without tasting it. “I mean, what’s the endgame? We let this go, the Council nudges America closer to fascism, breeds xenophobia, and then we drop more bombs on the Middle East, killing tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands
, mostly civilians . . . we flatten entire cities. In the end, we create another generation of Muslims who’ve seen their families murdered by the West, another generation of broken kids who’ll be manipulated to sign up for jihad.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “And the cycle just continues—it’s like these people never heard of blowback.”

  “Hell, they invented blowback, they manage it while gettin’ rich off war. You gotta stop thinkin’ in terms of nations and regions. For these guys, it’s all about power and money.”

  “Then Jacob was right. We’re not the good guys, we’re just the less bad bad guys. We’re playing the devil’s game, too.”

  “Yup.”

  “And we just let Conrad walk away from it.”

  “Hey man, I warned you back in New Orleans, I told you not to join up.”

  “You told me it would get me killed. You didn’t say it would cost me my soul.”

  Pat shrugged. “That part was implied.” For a moment, he seemed lost in thought. “You know why I like being a mercenary better than being a soldier? It’s not the money, although the money is way better. It’s the choice. As a soldier, you just do what you’re told, even when your leaders conflate national security with economic security, and you end up going to war because it’s in the interests of oil men or finance men or defense contractors or god knows what. But I only fight the battles I deem worth fighting. That’s why I stayed a Foundation ally, never joined as a full member. But now I’ve seen what the Council is willing to do, I say: Screw all that. Sometimes the ends really do justify the means, and if letting Conrad Winter walk away helps us win the long game, I can live with that.”

  Daniel’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He checked the screen. It was from Ayo.

  Remember how you said you’d take me to Barbados for a vacation when we had time? Now’s the time. Go to Barbados, scout the west coast for a place we can stay. Do it now. xoxo—A. O.