“They can remain patients or become casualties,” Rott said. “That’s up to the mage. Imagine how many sorcerers it would take to wipe out the entire facility. I have twice that amount in there. What will it be?”
“You don’t want to do this,” Monty said, quietly.
“It’s already done. One call from me and the place becomes a graveyard.”
“You’ve made a fatal error.”
“One I intend to rectify, with your help.”
“What do you want?”
“You do what I ask you to do tomorrow night and this will be all over, like a bad dream,” Rott said. “You don’t, and you will get to bury Roxanne DeMarco—or at least what’s left of her. Trust me when I tell you, burying a loved one will make your life an absolute hell.”
“What exactly is it that you want?” Monty asked. “Be specific.”
“Tomorrow night, Balfour’s vehicle will suffer engine trouble,” Rott said. “I will make sure he gets out of the car.”
“Engine trouble? How are you going to manage that from inside the car?”
“Carlos is our explosives expert. He’ll take care of that, as well as making sure Balfour’s reinforcements are delayed coming from his estate.”
“I’m going to need a clean line of sight for this to work. If Carlos causes too large an explosion I’ll be shooting blind. Would hate to hit the wrong target.”
“The vehicle damage will be enough to be convincing,” Rott said. “The vehicle is armored, but if Balfour refuses to exit, the runes on those rounds will allow you punch through it and him if needed.”
“If he doesn’t get out I may need to get creative,” I said, seeing at least ten ways this could go wrong. “What’s my location?”
“Strong, you’ll be positioned on a roof here”—Rott pointed to a building on the map—“but I need Balfour distracted. That’s where the mage comes in. You will keep him occupied long enough for Strong to take the shot. After Balfour is down, you two are done. We’ll take it from there, handling the rest.”
“And the sorcerers at Haven?”
“They will be gone five minutes after I have confirmation of the kill.”
“One second past and I will show you what a life of hell looks like,” Monty said. “When is the vehicle being delivered?”
“Midnight tomorrow, 135 West Broadway, here,” Rott said, pointing to a different location on the map. “I’ll drive south for two blocks and stop here”—he pointed to the block between Reade and Chambers Streets.—“while you will wait here in Bogardus Plaza. Strong will take up his position four blocks away, on Murray Street. Once Balfour exits the vehicle, you confront him and Strong takes the shot. This whole op should take no more than one minute beginning to end.”
“Do not deviate from this plan,” Douglas added. “One minute of your life to make the city safer, get justice for Rott, and be free of Shadow Company, forever.”
“We meet here tomorrow at ten p.m.,” Rott said, rolling up the map. “Douglas will kit you out then. Don’t be late, and don’t try to contact Haven, your Director friend at the NYTF, or those creatures in the Dark Council. I’d hate to have to start this op with the mass extermination of helpless patients.”
We exited the trailer in silence.
TWENTY-TWO
“He’s surprisingly well informed,” Monty said once we were outside. “How connected is Shadow Company?”
“Very,” I said. “They’re small, but nimble. Douglas knows people in high and low places. Same with Rott, although I don’t know if his contacts are willing to work with the new and improved Reptilian Rott.”
“They’ve been planning this for some time,” Monty said. “The networks are too extensive. Inserting himself into the Balfour Enclave was ingenious. For a moment, I thought Cecil’s security protocols were compromised.”
“We could just blow up the trailer,” I said, glancing over my shoulder as we walked back to the Dark Goat. “It would be clean and surgical, like a nuke.”
Peaches nudged my leg with a low growl of approval. He sounded like I felt. I wanted to tear Rott apart, but knew it would put too many people in danger.
“Rott probably has a failsafe in place to trigger the sorcerers in Haven if he dies of unnatural causes—a failsafe like a surgical nuke,” Monty said, the anger and frustration clear in his voice. “Either that or he has regular check-ins to ensure his sleepers remain dormant at Haven until instructed otherwise.”
“Monty, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think he would threaten Roxanne or Haven.”
“That’s why he did,” Monty said, getting into the Dark Goat. “He counted on the element of surprise to force me to face Balfour. It worked. It’s not your fault, but he threatened Roxanne. As long as he lives, he’s a threat.”
I remained silent for a few seconds, but the message was clear. Rott was living on borrowed time.
“You can’t face Magnus,” I said, changing the subject, and sliding behind the wheel as my hellhound conquered the backseat. “Even after your schism, he’s too strong.”
“I have no intention of fighting a dragon, Magnus or otherwise,” Monty said as I drove away. “The same way you can’t eliminate the leader of a dragon enclave.”
“Well, I’m glad we agree on that,” I said with a sigh. “How exactly are we not supposed to kill Balfour, but make it look like we did?”
“How good a shot are you, really?”
“No wind, elevated position, a good spotter, and an excellent weapon, 2000 meters,” I said. “I won’t have a spotter, and I don’t know what kind of rifle they have prepped. Factoring for little to no wind, and the elevated position, four city blocks is about 1000 meters, well within my range.”
“I have an idea of how we can do this, but it’s going to require exceptional accuracy from you,” Monty said. “Can you manage that?”
“How exceptional?” I asked, glancing at Monty. This train of thought was beginning to sound like a bad idea. The problem was that we only had bad ideas and worse ideas at the moment. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m going to need you to shoot through me and into Balfour—without killing me, of course,” Monty said. “I can make it look like it was a fatal wound and put Balfour in stasis long enough to convince Rott.”
“Shoot? Through you?” I asked in disbelief. “You want me to shoot you?”
“Through me,” Monty stressed. “Without hitting major organs, would be an added benefit.”
“Oh, is that all? Shoot through you and maybe curve the bullet around your major organs so it can look like you were hit and killed along with Balfour. That about the gist of your request?”
“Yes, my suits are runed to neutralize most small-arms fire if I manage to get shot.”
“Did you see the round Douglas showed us?” I asked. “That is nowhere near small-arms fire. A .22 caliber is small-arms fire: that .50 cal round will punch a hole through your suit, you, and anything behind you. The entrance wound will be the size of my index finger and the exit wound will be you splattered all over the street. No way.”
“What would happen if I could decrease the velocity?” Monty asked pensively. “It would diminish the lethality of the round, correct?”
“Considerably, but you’re talking about slowing down something coming at you at 853 meters per second. You’d have a little over one second to react from the moment I fire.”
“1.1 seconds exactly,” Monty said. “Plenty of time. This is what I propose…”
I remained silent as he explained his idea. About two minutes in, I started shaking my head.
“Too many things can go wrong, Monty,” I said. “It would be easier to put one in Rott and—”
“You’re forgetting Haven,” Monty said. “We can’t risk Rott unleashing his sorcerers.”
“Shit,” I said, hitting the steering wheel. “This is too dangerous.”
“We have alternatives.”
“Really? Like?” I said, heading into
the Moscow garage. “Our choices are either bad or horrific.”
“If we kill Rott and Douglas, everyone in Haven dies,” Monty said. “If you somehow manage to kill Magnus, the resulting war will create untold casualties in the subsequent power struggle created by the void of leadership in the Balfour Enclave.”
“I was wrong: our choices are horrific or monstrous.”
“I have no doubt that Rott is deranged enough in his newfound cause to order the execution of everyone in Haven.”
“Rott wants his justice—at any cost—and Magnus must uphold tradition,” I said. “It’s all there, but I’m missing something. There’s a piece missing, and I can’t see it.”
“We have a day to figure out what that is,” Monty said. “I’m still not seeing Douglas’ motivation. He doesn’t strike me as one to act out of loyalty to Rott. He’s using him to further his agenda, whatever that may be.”
“Agreed,” I admitted reluctantly. “I’m not buying the ‘safer city’ line. This is about something else.”
I parked the Dark Goat in our spot and we bypassed the lobby, heading directly upstairs through the new personal parking level elevator Olga had recently installed. I think she was tired of Peaches scaring Andrei and anyone else we came across in the lobby. She had announced the new elevator as a building upgrade and renovation, making sure to give us the keycards that allowed its use.
In the short time we had been using it, I never saw anyone else inside. I was beginning to get the distinct feeling Olga was trying to isolate us from the rest of the building.
“I need to make a few calls,” Monty said. “We need contingency plans in place when this all goes south. I have no faith in Rott’s goodwill. He just threatened Roxanne and an entire hospital to get me to cooperate. He has no intention of letting us walk away from this. You’d better inform your friend in the NYTF.”
“Rott said not to—”
“Your phone, please.”
“Do not explode my phone, Monty.”
He gestured over the phone and pressed some of the buttons on the screen. A soft golden rune pulsed on the back of my phone for a few seconds before fading from sight. He handed me the phone and nodded.
“There you go.”
“That’s new,” I said, examining my phone. “Since when could you do—whatever it is you just did?”
“Since I nearly lost my mind going through a schism,” Monty said. “It’s a simple matter of scrambling frequencies, and everything operates on frequencies.”
“You scrambled what?” I asked. “Did you destroy my phone?”
“I re-encrypted your device with new runes,” Monty said, walking away. “If they are monitoring your phone, and we have to assume they are, they’ll know you made a call, but won’t know who you called. I’d refrain from trying Haven or the Dark Council. The security on their ends is virtually non-existent.”
“Who are you calling? Dex? The Ten?”
“We need a scalpel for this, not several bricks of C4,” Monty said. “My uncle and the Ten are best used sparingly.”
“Sparingly, like when the end of the world as we know it is near?”
“Precisely,” Monty said, stepping out of sight. “ I need to make some calls. I’ll be right back.”
I dialed a number as Monty headed to the conference room. I made sure of the encryption before I made the call.
“Strong,” Ramirez growled. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Did I wake you?”
“Do you really think I sleep knowing you, your mage, and that hound of yours freely roam the streets of my city?” Ramirez said. “How much damage?”
“What?”
“How much damage have you caused?” Ramirez asked. “Do I need to call EMTes? How extensive is the demolition?”
“Does something have to be destroyed for me to call you?” I asked, mocking offense. “Maybe I just wanted to check up on how my favorite NYTF Director is doing?”
“Cut the shit, Strong. We only speak when the shit has hit the fan or is about to. Since my radio is relatively quiet, I’m going to assume the shit is incoming. How bad?”
“It has the potential to be pretty bad.”
“Shit,” Angel said. “Casualties? Where?”
“Nothing, yet,” I said. “Tomorrow there’s going to be some activity downtown, in Tribeca—West Broadway all the way to Murray Street, to be specific. You want to take your time getting there. That will keep any collateral damage to a minimum.”
“What are we dealing with? Ogres, werewolves, wereogres?”
“I don’t think wereogres are a thing,” I said, thinking back to Grohn with a shudder. “At least I hope not. What do you know about dragons?”
“Rare, large, dangerous, breathe fire, impossible to kill, that sort of thing,” Ramirez said, alert now, all signs of grogginess gone from his voice. “The NYTF isn’t equipped to deal with dragons. It would be sending my men to slaughter.”
“I know, which is why you need to give us some room tomorrow night,” I said. “Once things are relatively safe, I’ll give you the all clear.”
“You, the mage, and your creature are going to face off against a dragon?” Ramirez said slowly. “Just you three?”
I looked down at my voracious hellhound who was carrying his bowl in his jaws and padding toward me. He plopped the titanium bowl at my feet, nearly breaking one of my toes in the process.
“I really hope we don’t have to,” I said with a short sigh. “Can’t say more than that. I’ll give you a call as soon as I can.”
“Understood,” Ramirez said. “Try not to get yourself dead.”
TWENTY-THREE
Monty returned a few minutes later.
“Where did you go?” I asked. “I thought you were in the conference room?”
“I used Dex’s room,” Monty said. “One of the calls necessitated a face-to-face meeting.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll explain later,” Monty said. “Do you still have that emulator Gant gave you?”
“I do,” I said, fishing out the small crystal from my jacket pocket. “Why?”
“May I see it?” Monty asked, outstretching a hand. I passed him the crystal. “Thank you.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, concerned. “Is that not an emulator?”
“It is,” Monty said, examining the crystal. “It’s also the way Rell is going to find you.”
I looked at the crystal as if it were radioactive.
“Gant’s in on this too?” I asked. “I thought he was looking out for my hellhound?”
Monty gave me a look that said, You can’t possibly be this naive, before looking at the crystal again.
“Gant works for Magnus,” Monty said, touching parts of the emulator in sequence. “If he didn’t use your creature as a pretense, it would have been something else. The key was to make sure you had this crystal on your person before you left the TINY.”
“How did I not see that?” I said, slightly angry at being duped. “I’m usually an excellent judge of character.”
“Says the person currently involved with a murderous ancient vampire,” Monty said. “Your history in character judgment is somewhat spotty.”
I opened my mouth to answer and then closed it. He was right. If I reviewed my recent choices, I’d say spotty was putting it nicely.
“I partnered up with you,” I said. “That has to count for good judgment.”
“Are you certain you didn’t suffer head trauma when you faced Evers?” Monty asked. “Having me as your partner, while probably the most sane decision you’ve made, is not an indicator of good judgment. Far from it.”
“Are you saying it was a bad call?”
“Absolutely not,” Monty said. “Having me as your partner has saved your life countless times.”
“See? Good call, excellent judge of—”
“Having me as your partner has also jeopardized your life countless times,” Monty finished, straightening out
a sleeve. “In any case, Gant works for the Balfour Enclave. It’s possible the emulator was given with good intentions, but it can be tracked.”
“If I were Rell, I’d attack when I was most distracted,” I said. “That would give me the greatest chance of taking me out easy.”
“He may be operating on incomplete information,” Monty said, going into a closet and coming out with a jacket. “I had Piero make this for you some time ago.”
I looked at the jacket. It was identical to the one I was wearing.
“You asked Piero to make the exact jacket I’m wearing?” I asked. “Why? This one fits perfectly.”
“This one has been specially runed,” Monty said. “I understand your condition will keep you alive. This jacket has been runed to prevent your perforation.”
“You mean it’s bulletproof? Nice,” I said, taking the jacket and holding it up. “This is like runic Kevlar, thanks.”
“Bullet-resistant, not proof. It’s more designed to prevent runed rounds from doing damage,” Monty said. “I noticed your mala bracelet is gone. Does this mean you lack a shield?”
“I’ve been upgraded,” I said, focusing and creating a small dome of energy around me, which disappeared a few seconds later. My brow was instantly covered in sweat, and my head pounded from the effort. “Kali disintegrated my mala bracelet, but I can make this now. It’s hit and miss—well, mostly miss.”
“A dawnward?” Monty asked, surprised. “How? Why did it only last a few seconds?”
“I need practice. I can’t seem to hold it for long unless I have Ebonsoul materialized, and even then, pfft,” I said. “I still don’t know how it works, but I think it has something to do with the pendant Nana gave you and my being a shieldbearer.”
“You don’t know how it works. Fascinating,” Monty said, rubbing his chin. “Do you know how you obtained it?”
“Something Kali did when she gave me her upgraded mark,” I said, recalling her words. A shield does not require a shield. You will be my aspis—a shield-warrior. “That was followed by mind-shattering agony. When she was done, my bonds were straightened out, my brain had been liquefied, my eyes were glowing, and she’d left me with this.”
Requiem: A Montague & Strong Detective Novel (Montague & Strong Case Files Book 13) Page 16