“Watch your mouth,” snapped a tall woman as she stepped up and laid a hand on the butt of a holstered pistol. She was a hatchet-faced broad who looked like she could go three rounds with Top and Bunny. Ghost growled, but I flicked my finger and he went silent but stayed hyperalert. “You will speak to Lilith with respect or—”
“Actually, sister,” I interrupted, “I’ll speak to her any goddamn way I want, and you will pretty much stand down and shut the fuck up.”
I thought the woman was going to go for it. The others were equally tense, hands touching weapons.
But then a red dot appeared on the center on Lilith’s forehead. Violin gasped. The women turned and stared in horror.
In my ear John Smith murmured, “Call it, boss.”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Arklight Camp
Outskirts of Tehran
June 16, 2:03 a.m.
Lilith reached her hand up and touched her forehead as if she could feel the negligible heat of the red dot. When she lowered her hand she even looked at her fingers as if there should be blood there. She nodded slowly, more to herself than to me. Then she raised her eyes to me and I suddenly felt the full impact of her stare.
“If you must shoot,” she said, “then take your shot. You’ll live long enough to see me fall, but not a second longer.”
I had to admire her guts. I know from recent personal experience that it’s not easy to play it cool with a laser sight on you. She was doing a better job of it than I did yesterday.
“Lilith,” growled the woman who had fronted me, “I’ll cover you and—”
Another red light appeared out of the shadows and glowed on the center of her chest. Then another and another, touching the women on either side of Lilith. And a last one, floating right between Violin’s breasts.
“Let’s be clear about this,” I said calmly. “I give the word, you die. You make a move, you die. You fuck with me one second longer, you die. Screw with me, Lilith, and my team will pile up the bodies of these women and then I will ask you again. Is that clear enough or do I have to shoot your daughter to make my point?”
“You wouldn’t do that,” said Lilith, and Violin’s eyes pleaded silently for me to agree.
Then a voice from the shadows said, “Yes, he would.”
Ghost gave a single sharp bark of surprise and everyone turned to see a tall, blocky figure walk slowly out of the darkness. I don’t know why I was surprised. Not after the day I had. Not considering who this was—but I was still slack-jawed.
In my earbud I heard Top say, “I swear I didn’t see him, Cap’n. Came out of nowhere.”
Yeah, I thought, he tends to do that. Spooky bastard.
Mr. Church wore a summer-weight white suit and dark tie. He carried no visible weapon and his eyes were hidden behind the lenses of his tinted glasses. He walked past me without a comment and stood in front of Lilith, but I noted that he chose an angle that did not block John Smith’s line of sight.
I heard a ripple of murmured voices around me; most of them said the name, “St. Germaine.”
Lilith got slowly to her feet and stood face to face with Church.
“You came,” she said.
He smiled at her, and it may have been the only genuine and unguarded smile I have ever seen from him.
And then Mr. Church pulled Lilith to him and they embraced.
Let me tell you something, this wasn’t the kind of hug the president gives a foreign dignitary, or the kind two football players share after a winning touchdown. No sir. This had familiarity in it that went all the way to the chromosomes, and there was serious heat there. I cut a look at Violin, who had one eyebrow arched as far as it would go. When she saw me looking she gave a tiny shake of her head.
In my earbud I heard Bunny say, “Wow.”
Church released Lilith and stood back from her, and they both turned to face me.
“Please tell your team to stand down, Captain,” said Church. “Bring then in.”
The laser lights vanished at once. I tapped my earbud. “Hold your positions.”
If Church was surprised or annoyed by that, he didn’t show it.
“How did you know where we were?” I asked. “I only gave Aunt Sallie the coordinates of our warehouse.”
“I was invited,” said Church, nodding toward Lilith.
“Okay,” I said, “I am now completely and thoroughly confused. Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
“You aren’t the only one who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on,” said Church. “We know some things and Lilith and her people know some things. We have to hope that if we all put our puzzle pieces on the table it will add up to one clear picture.”
“Thanks for giving me a heads up, Church,” I complained. He ignored me.
Church looked at his watch. “What’s the status of your team?”
“At the risk of sounding like a male stereotype,” I said, “Echo Team is cocked, locked, and ready to rock.”
“Good. I have transport on the way. We roll in one hour. And, yes, Captain, that means all teams are on active standby. On the president’s order we will hit all five of the sites in one coordinated strike.”
“What about the other two devices?”
Church paused and I could feel the eyes of everyone in the place burning into us. “We don’t know where they are. We’re going to have to run the play with what we have. If we’re very lucky we may secure one or more of the people involved in this and see if we can encourage them to unburden their souls.” It was said offhand, but the intent beneath the words was lethal.
“God help anyone who gets in our way, then,” I said.
Church gave me a bleak stare. “I believe they will discover that God has abandoned them.”
He turned toward Lilith.
“Now,” he said.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Arklight Camp
Outskirts of Tehran
June 16, 2:10 a.m.
“It all started eight hundred years ago with Sir Guy LaRoque, emissary for Philip II of France,” began Lilith. “He was a senior member of the Knights Hospitaller, which is a noble order dedicated to good works. However, Sir Guy created within the Hospitallers a second and very much more secret group which became known as the Ordo Ruber, the Red Order. The group was illegally sanctioned by Father Nicodemus, the senior Hospitaller priest in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.”
“Nicodemus,” I echoed, and a chill raced up my spine.
“Sir Guy brought his plan to his counterpart,” continued Lilith, “a man named Ibrahim al-Asiri, who was emissary for Saladin. These two men were much of a mind, and between them they shared the observation that it was remarkable that, during times of the severest strife between Christendom and Islam, people flocked to church in greater numbers and showed much greater fealty to God.”
“No atheists in foxholes,” I said, but caught a reproving look from Church. I mimed zipping my mouth shut.
“Exactly,” agreed Lilith. “They likewise observed that in times of peace, people strayed from the house and the word of God. LaRoque and al-Asiri found this intolerable and feared that extended times of peace would lead inevitably to the decline of faith. Understand, Captain, these men were religious zealots as well as political manipulators. They were ambassadors and spokesmen for great leaders, and also advisors. They could see things from what they likely viewed as a big picture perspective, and indeed history has shown that religions rise and fall. Few endure. So, seeing that this was a trend, and knowing that the Crusades must necessarily end one day, these two men decided to dedicate themselves to a course of action that would ensure the eternal preservation of their churches. They drafted an agreement between them that there should always be tension and conflict between Christendom and Islam. Nothing fills a church, or indeed a mosque, more surely than the need to pray for the confusion and destruction of the enemy, especially when the enemy is the enemy of one’s God.” She pause
d and fixed me with a penetrating stare. “Sir Guy, with the help of Nicodemus, founded his Red Order to oversee this work. Ibrahim created the Tariqa—the Path—to do the same for Islam, and within months of signing the Holy Agreement, they began a campaign of selective murder, arson, and desecration. There has always been strife here in the Middle East—but this was the birth of a new kind of conflict.”
I goggled at her. “You’re talking about hate crimes.”
“Yes, Captain, in a very real sense the Holy Agreement formed by the Red Order and the Tariqa was the beginning of terrorism as we know it. They invented hate crimes as we know that concept.”
Even though I was standing still I suddenly felt like I was falling. “To get people to go to church?”
In my earbud I heard a low whistle. Probably Top.
Church murmured, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Lilith nodded. “It’s possible, I suppose, that Sir Guy and Ibrahim had the best intentions as they saw it, but it speaks to a very malecentric viewpoint that what a person can see or imagine is his by right to have.”
My Y chromosome wanted me to protest, but anything I could say would be built on shaky ground. Lilith must have caught a look on my face and gave me a slice of a cool smile.
“These secret societies operate totally without the knowledge or sanction of the governing bodies of their religions,” she continued. “Neither the Catholic Church nor the imams of Islam would tolerate such acts. They would decry them as blasphemous and heretical, which they most assuredly are, but not from the perspective of the Red Order and the Tariqa. Much like a shadow government will often act in opposition to, say, the Constitution of the United States or the Magna Carta, because they believe their vision, however illegal and unpopular, is the best course of action. It’s sophistry, of course, and therefore self-justifying. The leader of the Red Order became known as the Scriptor out of respect for Sir Guy LaRoque drafting the original Holy Agreement. The leader of the Tariqa is known as the Murshid, or ‘guide.’”
“How did something like this fly under the radar for eight hundred years?” I asked.
Her cold smile was gone. “You would be surprised and appalled to know how many dreadful things are unknown to the world at large. Your organization fights such things, as does Arklight.”
Church nodded. “And assassinations are useful for more things than inspiring religious intolerance. Establish a pattern of swift and terrible retribution for the slightest act of betrayal and you can hide almost anything.”
It was an ugly point, but I knew that he was right.
“At first the Holy Agreement between Sir Guy and Ibrahim dictated that each side should carry out actions only against their own people. It was believed that this would allow each side to control the effect. Of course when one of Sir Guy’s knights murdered a pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem or burned a church, there was evidence planted to implicate the Muslims. Over time, however, men from both sides became sickened by committing atrocities against their own. Perhaps it was the last shred of conscience clinging to them, so it became necessary for the Holy Agreement to be amended to allow each side to commit murders and perpetrate the acts of desecration against the other side. These hits were strictly regulated and always agreed upon, but it was much easier for each side to strike with righteous fury at the other side. This became known as the Shadow War, and that has lasted all these centuries.”
“Who did the actual killings, though?” I asked. “It isn’t easy to pull something like this off over and over again, and suicide bombing is relatively recent.”
“These aren’t suicide attacks,” she said as she sat down once again on the overturned crate. “The Tariqa perfected the model first. There was already a group of highly skilled killers operating in the Middle East, an order of Nizari Ismailis founded in 1080 during the First Crusade. You know about the Hashashin?”
I nodded.
“That Order of Assassins was so effective that they tipped the balance of power in the Shadow War. The Knights Hospitaller were skilled fighters, but they were battlefield warriors, not the kind of subtle and nimble assassin who could scale a wall or pass stealthily past picketed guards. The Red Order needed something as effective, but Europe had no precedent. Not even the Roman legions were useful as a model for assassins of such high quality and effectiveness.” She paused and her face darkened. “This is where the story takes a darker turn.”
“Darker?” I said, half smiling. “How much darker can it get?”
“Vampires,” said Mr. Church.
“Ah shit,” I sighed. “I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t get back to that.”
“This is the real world,” said Lilith coldly, “and they are a part of it.”
“Are they supernatural? ’Cause that seems to be the big question.”
Violin moved to stand beside her mother. Her eyes looked haunted, and her mother touched her arm for a moment. Instead of reassuring her, the touch sparked an involuntary shiver. Lilith sighed.
“The Upierczi are monsters,” said Lilith, “and as twisted as they seem, they are a part of nature.”
“You know this for a fact?” asked Church, beating me to the punch.
Lilith nodded. “Arklight managed to obtain tissue samples from one—at a terrible cost, I might add. We did extensive testing. We ran a full metabolic panel—sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, BUN, magnesium, creatinine, and calcium. We did arterial blood gas to measure blood pH and bicarbonate levels. We did full blood count, Hematocrit, and MCV, ESR. We ran molecular profiles—protein electrophoresis, western blot, liver function. Everything. And we ran a full DNA. The Upierczi are genetically human, but they are not Homo sapiens and—”
“I hate like hell to interrupt this Discovery Channel episode, but can we get back to the actual point? The Red Order used the Upierczi as assassins. And—?”
Lilith nodded, accepting my rebuke. “The Upierczi are more than a match for the order of assassins, but their numbers have always been low. There were never many of them, thank God. They’ve tried to change that with breeding programs, however.”
There was a murmur of deep disgust among the women.
“The Red Order began this process. Capturing women, keeping them in pens, encouraging the Upierczi to rape them over and over again until they conceived. Most of the children were stillborn. Some few survived, and of those three quarters were normal babies that showed no significant trace of the Upierczi traits. Others were hybrids—dhampyrs—but attempts to raise and train them as Upierczi met with complete failure for the Order. A few—a handful—were born as Upierczi, and they kept their blasphemous bloodline alive.”
Lilith paused and wiped away a tear. Violin placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and Lilith reached up and briefly clasped her daughter’s hand. I was clearly missing something here, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.
“For a long while the Upierczi tried another tactic. They kept the women who bore Upierczi children and forced them to produce child after child. This was not ultimately successful, so they tried another tactic. When a dhampyr was born, if it was female, she was kept and raised, and when she was old enough, she was raped and impregnated and forced to bear a child. This nearly always resulted in an Upierczi birth. For a while this seemed like the solution to their problems … but the vampires and their Red Order masters did not understand the nature of genetics. Not then, at least. Generation after generation of forced inbreeding did not expand the Upierczi—it nearly destroyed them. Children were born who were Upierczi, but who were mongoloid and severely retarded. Freakish births, a sharp rise in stillbirths. Lunacy, madness, a drop in physical abilities, reduced intelligence.” She took a steadying breath. “For a while it seemed as if their own attempt to breed a master race was going to result in the death of the entire species.”
“I met one of the knights,” I said. “There was nothing genetically weak about him. What changed
? What happened?”
“The science of genetics happened,” said Mr. Church.
I looked at him.
“Gene therapy, artificial insemination, gene splicing. Rebreeding techniques. Science caught up to the needs of the Upierczi.” He turned to Lilith. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” she said, tears glistening in her eyes. “The Red Order hired the very best scientists. They spent tens of millions to fund radical genetic research and development. They created a ‘rebirth’ process in the 1980s, improving upon it every year. Not just new births, but therapy to fix genetic flaws in living members. Understand, Captain, the Upierczi are not immortal, but their lifespan is exceptionally long. Some are more than two centuries old. And there is one who is rumored to be three hundred and twenty years old. Grigor, the oldest and by far the most powerful of the Upierczi. He is the father of the new order of vampires. His genes—never tainted by inbreeding—became the alpha cell line in a course of gene therapy called Upier 531. It was developed by Dr. Dieter Hasbrouck. Now, the new wave of Upierczi is stronger, faster, more durable—and many will live as long as Grigor. Hasbrouck did extensive gene therapy. He amped up the wound repair system so the knights heal much more quickly, and they have a greatly enhanced ultraviolet light repair system as well. I believe it was an attempt to make them better able to tolerate sunlight, which weakens them, but instead he gave them virtual immunity to cancer and a resistance to radiation. If these bombs go off, any Upierczi not in the direct blast radius might actually survive. That,” she said, “is what we face.”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. My heart was pounding so hard that I wanted to scream. If Church hadn’t been standing right beside me, nodding as Lilith spoke, I doubted I would believe it. But his presence—the absolute solidity of everything that he was—made it all doubly real. Too real.
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