Cade turned away from him. The Marine was about to be lifted onto the chopper. He didn’t look good. His skin was flushed and sweat poured out of him. Dark rings circled his eyes. He certainly looked as if he was about to die.
Cade didn’t care.
“Stop,” Cade barked at the men holding the stretcher. There was no reason they should have listened to someone in civilian clothes. But they heard something in Cade’s voice, and they froze in their tracks.
“Belay that,” Graves shouted angrily. “Get him out of here!”
Cade spun on him. “You know why we can’t allow him to leave here.”
Graves eyed him coolly. “I won’t let a good young man die. Not if I can help it.”
“If he’s infected—”
“He’s not. He’s shown no symptoms. I’ll take responsibility.”
Cade looked at Graves, who held his stare. “You can’t.”
He turned back to the crew and the stretcher. The blades were spinning up now. He had no choice. He’d stop this himself.
“Cade, don’t interfere! That’s an order!” Graves shouted above the rotors.
Cade froze. He felt the oath, like chains across his mind, holding him fast. A lawful order, given by a designated representative of the president. He could try to resist, but bad things would happen. Seizures. And then worse.
Reluctantly, he watched the crew back away from the helicopter, the Marine strapped inside. It lifted off like a fat, ungainly seabird, and then churned its way out toward the gulf.
Graves watched it leave as well.
“You did the wrong thing,” Cade said.
“Sorry, Cade,” Graves said. “Did you want to drink his blood yourself?”
Cade didn’t reply. Graves stomped away from him.
“Come on,” Graves called over his shoulder. He almost sounded apologetic. “Let’s try to keep this from happening again.”
Cade kept watching the copter until it dwindled to a small dot in the sky.
REAR ADMIRAL VERNON PARRISH, the base CO, had a great don’t-fuck-with-me stare. It had probably helped him get to his rank, commander of the Horn of Africa Joint Task Force. He was anxious to reassert his authority over these two interlopers who’d shown up with demands but no answers.
But when he turned his stare on Cade, Cade had simply invoked priority code RED RUM. Parrish blanched and left without another word. A few moments later, an aide returned to tell them they had full access to everything on the base.
Now the sun was an hour from rising. Cade and Graves sat in the camp CO’s office, looking at a speakerphone.
Cade stood, his clothes still stiff with the blood of the Snakehead he’d killed. Graves sat behind the desk.
They had all the data on the incident—no one was sure what else to call it right now—laid out in front of them.
One hundred fifty-seven personnel dead. Most of them in the first twenty minutes, due to sheer surprise, not any numerical advantage. Eyewitness reports put the number of “unknown creatures” at less than a dozen. Small-arms fire was useless. Unlike the creatures Cade had faced just twenty-four hours earlier, these Snakeheads were impervious to anything less than .50 cal rounds. It required either a grenade launcher or mounted machine gun to kill them.
Then there were the infections. Another forty-three were killed by their own comrades in arms. As soon as the first symptoms appeared, the military personnel had responded quickly, despite their shock, and turned their weapons on the wounded. Some small amount of good news there: no one froze up. These were kids raised with zombie movies after all, although some would probably need counseling for the rest of their lives after killing their friends, bunkmates and officers.
The Snakeheads went on the run as soon as the heavy artillery was unleashed. They scurried toward the coastline with a strange, froglike gait, the surviving witnesses reported. It made sense to Cade; they were still enough like the Innsmouth breed in that way.
The military had learned the first rule of dealing with monsters: if it’s trying to kill you, it doesn’t matter if it’s impossible.
As a result, they shot first and saved their nightmares for later. Many people survived. You could almost call it a victory.
But all Cade could think was: it never should have come to this.
“So, angels,” Graves said to the speakerphone. “Anyone want to explain to me how this happened?”
Nothing but static on the line.
“Anyone? Don’t be shy, kids.”
Book tried to mount a defense. “Look, how were we supposed to know the same alias was used elsewhere in the system?”
“Yes,” Graves said. “That was pretty damned stupid. Someone who did that, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t walk around with his dick hanging out because he’s too dumb to zip up.”
“Come on, Colonel.” It was Candle. “You know the problem here. We’re stuck with these hitchhikers. Sorry, but someone’s got to say it. Barrows and Cade are only in the way.”
“Yeah,” Zach snorted. “I’m the one who missed the clues here.”
“If we didn’t have to explain everything to you every five minutes—”
“Let me explain something to you—”
There was the sound of a chair sliding back, a mumble of raised voices and shoving.
“Enough,” Cade shouted. Even across an ocean, it stopped all movement on the other end.
“We failed,” he said. “Every one of us. And people died.”
A moment of embarrassed silence. Then, Bell: “You’re right, Mr. Cade. I apologize. It was our screwup. Zach came in and found the link. If we’d shared info earlier . . .”
“I don’t care,” Cade said. “The attacks are escalating. Clearly, there will be another, and soon. Find out why. Find out where. Above all, stop wasting my time.”
He left to search for a place to go to ground for the day.
Graves waited until the door had swung shut. “All of you clear enough now?” he said to the speaker. “Need any more motivation? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t want Mr. Cade coming back to provide it. Get your goddamn heads in the game.”
He hit a button, ending the call.
CADE WENT OUTSIDE. He walked to the grave site, not far from the airport, just outside the camp’s official borders. The cover story had already been decided. These men and women would not get the honor of a military burial. As far as the outside world was concerned, they had all been blown to pieces by a truck bomb. Their relatives back home would receive only ceremonial flags.
Their remains were to be buried here in the soft African soil, where quicklime and the wet earth, rich with insects, would turn them into unidentifiable mulch.
Morning was just below the horizon, but Cade still picked up a shovel. The burial detail watched in openmouthed horror as he completed the pit single-handedly.
As they began loading bodies, and pieces of bodies, Cade dug another hole, a short distance off, for himself.
He lay down and burrowed into the soil. He would sleep here for the day, alongside the victims he had failed, and try to guard them, in some hopeless way, on the first of all the days they had lost because of him.
Because he was too late.
ELEVEN
The CIA’s most effective line of defense against exposure of their mind-control operations (or any of their operations, for that matter) has always been self-effacement. The agency portrays its agents as incompetent stooges, encouraging the public to laugh at their wacky attempts to formulate cancer potions and knock off foreign leaders.
—Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen,
The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA
The quiet in the office lasted long after the call ended.
Zach and Candle were at opposite ends of a table, a temporary DMZ between them. Bell looked beaten. Book was just pissed.
“You didn’t have to take all the blame,” Zach said to Bell.
“Or any of
it,” Candle said.
Zach stood up, ready to start the shoving match again. “That’s it, jackass—”
“Stop it,” Bell ordered. They both sat down again. “Colonel’s right. We have a job to do. We missed the obvious before. Let’s start again. Up from the ground floor. Go.”
“It’s late,” Book said, looking at his watch. “Shouldn’t we get some rack time? Start fresh in the morning?”
“It’s morning over there already,” Bell said, an edge in her voice. “But hey, if you’re too tired, go ahead. Take a nap.”
Book scowled and stayed where he was.
“Ideas?” Bell asked. “Anyone?”
“What about that mad scientist guy? He could do something like this?” Candle asked.
“Konrad?” Zach was surprised these people knew about him. His whole existence, like Cade’s, was classified far above the usual definition of top secret. “We already ruled him out.”
“Well, rule him back in.”
“No,” Zach said. “Konrad prefers things that have his signature on them. He’d want to make sure Cade knew he was involved. It’s very personal with him.”
“That’s not much of a reason to eliminate him, Zach.” Bell sounded apologetic.
“Konrad also hates working with anything related to Innsmouth. Finds it disgusting and beneath him. And frankly, the Snakeheads aren’t half as tough as anything Konrad could put together in his spare time.”
“Fine. Moving on.”
They went in circles like that. Zach learned they knew a few things about the Other Side and its incursions into our world—some things that surprised even him.
But none of it got them any closer to an answer.
After another hour or two, they sat, resentment filling the quiet spaces between them.
There was another lead, Zach knew. But it was firmly under NIGHTMARE PET, and he’d be breaking about a dozen conditions of his clearance to let anyone else in on it.
Hell with it, he decided. “I know someone who can help us with this,” he told Bell. “Let’s go.”
Book and Candle began to get up from their chairs, moving like someone had just told them they were being sent to the dentist.
“Not you,” Zach said.
“Why not?” Candle demanded.
“Because it’s not a tour group, all right? I’m taking enough of a chance here.”
Hewitt stirred from his post at the door. Bell shook her head. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll do this Zach’s way.”
They looked like they were about to protest, then thought better of it.
“All right,” Candle said. “For what it’s worth, Barrows, I’m sorry about before. We’re on the same side. I just . . . I missed it. You know? Embarrassing.”
Zach was taken off guard. It must have shown on his face.
“Same here,” Book said. “You caught the error. Credit where it’s due. Now let’s get these fuckers, all right?”
“Yeah. Sure,” Zach said. “Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say.
Hewitt and Reynolds didn’t pay any attention to this little warm and fuzzy exchange. They remained slumped in their chairs. Reynolds was asleep; Hewitt was downing snacks from the vending machines.
That made Zach feel better somehow. He didn’t know what he’d do if they wanted to hug it out.
He and Bell left the office.
BOOK DIDN’T EVEN WAIT for them to get to the car. “Well?” he said to Hewitt.
Hewitt looked up, crème filling dotting the corners of his mouth.
“Follow them, jackass.”
Hewitt gave Book a scowl, but stood, crumpling a Twinkie wrapper. He turned toward the door and suddenly, without warning, he was simply—gone.
A dark shadow fell across the floor, and then that vanished as well.
Candle shuddered. “Man, that creeps me out every—”
Book took two steps across the room and slapped him. It sounded like a racquetball hitting a wall.
“You fucking moron,” he said. “How goddamn lazy are you? The same fake ID? You couldn’t even find a different name?”
Candle rubbed the fresh red welt on his face. “You were the one who let him at your terminal,” he whined.
Book raised his hand again. Candle flinched. “Don’t,” Book warned. “Don’t even try to shift this. You screwed up. We could have kept them running in circles for days. Weeks even.”
“How was I supposed to know someone else would be checking the database?”
Book considered hitting him again, but knew it was a waste of time. That was the trouble with all these double games and cover identities. You had to work with who you were given.
“Never mind. You think you can fix it now?”
Candle nodded furiously. “Not a problem. Take me five minutes. I swear.”
He sat down at his terminal and began clacking keys, staring hard at the screen: a picture of the model employee.
Book decided to throw him a bone. “That was good, what you did there with Barrows. Keep him unbalanced. Make him think we’re his buddies now.”
Candle shrugged, but Book could see the pride. “He’s a political hack. They all want to be loved.”
In the corner, Reynolds was still snoring softly. None of this had even made him stir. Candle kept typing for a moment. Then: “You think Bell is into him?”
“Who, Barrows? Don’t worry about it. You didn’t have a chance anyway. She likes men.”
Candle pulled on his tie, which showed the message again: EAT ME.
“You know what I mean. It could complicate things. If she’s not on board.”
Candle rummaged through Hewitt’s pile of snacks. He held out a package to Book. “Want to split a Twinkie?”
“No,” he said, and kicked Reynolds in the foot, waking him. “Come on,” he said. “We have someplace to be.”
“Where are you going?” Candle said, like a kid left out of a class trip.
“Just going to make sure everyone stays frosty,” Book said. “Get to work. We’ll be back soon.”
Reynolds followed Book to the door in a kind of sleepwalk. They got into one of the Humvees and began driving for D.C.
TWELVE
In Colorado during the Depression, a number of witnesses claimed to have seen man-sized, bipedal, dinosaur-like lizards. One was supposedly exhibited in a farmer’s barn for several days after it was shot and killed. Whether or not this is related to the “serpent people” legends of the local Hopi Indian tribes is unknown.
—Cole Daniels, Monsterpaedia
Zach thought about blindfolding Bell, but he had no idea how to ask a woman something like that. A girlfriend had once tried handcuffing him in bed and he’d laughed so hard it completely spoiled the mood.
Besides, Zach realized, if he trusted her enough to share one secret, then she might as well know the rest of them.
He drove the black A/A Humvee down into a service tunnel for the Metro and waved his phone at a panel on the ceiling. A radio receiver picked up, and a gate opened in another side passage. A few sharp turns later, and they were down a ramp into a much older series of tunnels—ones that had been around since Washington, D.C., was built.
He parked the Humvee. Bell was trying to look nonchalant, but she was still staring at the walls around them. It was like an eighteenth-century street, paved with stones, under a brick ceiling.
“I had no idea,” she said.
“Not many people do,” Zach said, trying not to sound like he was bragging. “Cade’s been using these tunnels for years. You can even reach the White House from here.”
“Is that where we’re going?” she asked.
“No,” he said, and pointed to an exit in the wall, just large enough for them to walk through. “This is a lot less glamorous. Believe me.”
“IT’S REALLY a remarkable accomplishment,” Dr. Carl Everett said. “Sophisticated, but actually quite elegant. Even beautiful.”
They were in the basement laborat
ories below the NIH, where a series of fallout shelters had been rebuilt to house a variety of classified experiments.
Everett was speaking of the body. He stood by a steel table laid out with a Snakehead from the raid on the yacht, partially dissected. Crusted blood and gore leaked from the wound Cade had punched in its torso, and its eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
Zach suppressed a shudder, but not because of the creature on the slab. Everett creeped him out.
Zach and Cade did not work completely alone. There was an entire support structure of specialized personnel, men and women who had been drawn in because of their own contacts with the Other Side, or because they simply didn’t flinch as much as regular civilians when faced with soul-rending horror. He didn’t even know how many there were. They were all a little weird—they had to be, to keep a job where a hostile work environment meant occasional zombie outbreaks—but Everett won the prize for grand high freak.
It wasn’t his appearance or demeanor. Everything about him was mild. He wore a warm cardigan sweater under his lab coat. He always made Zach think of Mr. Rogers.
Except Mr. Rogers probably never looked so calm while up to his elbows in a monster’s guts.
Perhaps all his time dealing with death had made him callous, but Everett’s composure faltered only when he confronted something new and hideous. And then he’d break into a smile, as if he was watching a child receive a new puppy at a birthday party.
Bell, however, looked like she was barely holding on to her lunch. And Everett’s placid manner seemed to have the same effect on her that it did on Zach. He decided to hurry this along.
“Aside from the aesthetics, what can you tell us about the Snakeheads?” Zach asked him.
“I’ve mentioned before, your nickname for them is not very accurate. The creature contains reptilian, aquatic and amphibian traits—”
“Doctor,” Zach said. “Cut me some slack, okay? Just the high points.”
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