The King of Plagues

by Jonathan Maberry

  I went back to my hotel to change clothes. My dog, Ghost, met me at the door with a tail that stopped wagging as soon as he smelled me. Shepherds have extremely expressive faces, especially the white ones, and Ghost gave me a “hey, even I don’t roll in stuff that smells that bad” look; then he lay down with great dignity in front of the TV and licked his balls.

  I stripped and showered the stink of oily smoke from my skin and hair, and then leaned my forehead against the wet tiles and tried not to think about what was inside that smoke. Four thousand people. That was the current estimate.

  I cranked up the hot water and tried to boil the reality of that out of me.

  Four thousand.

  God.

  I have a little bit of religion. Not much, but enough to make me believe that there’s something bigger than all of this, and some reason that we’re all struggling through it. But on days like this, my faith takes a real beating. Or maybe it’s not my faith in God that gets pummeled. Probably it’s faith in my fellow man. I know I’m more than half-crazy, but it takes a whole lot of batshit insanity to want to blow up four thousand people. In the three and a half million years since our furry forebears started walking upright we’ve had more than enough time to clean up our act and get the Big Picture. The fact that we’re still killing one another doesn’t speak to an inherent ignorance or perceptual deficiency in the species. We do know better, so stuff like today is pure, deliberate evil. There’s no religion, ideology, viewpoint, or political exigency that can justify mass slaughter of the innocent. Not one.

  Feeling bitter and hurt by what was happening, I toweled off, dressed in my least wrinkled suit, ran a brush through my hair, and headed for the door. I was expected at Barrier headquarters for a briefing. Ghost was sitting in my path.

  “You’re not coming,” I said.

  He cocked an eyebrow. I don’t know if that’s something all dogs do or if Zan Rosin, the DMS K9 trainer, had taught Ghost the trick just to piss me off. I suspected that it was both.

  “Move.”

  Ghost did. He got up and moved closer to the door. He sat down again and looked up at me with the biggest, saddest brown eyes in town.

  We had this argument a lot. He usually won.

  He did this time, too.

  Chapter Nine

  Barrier Headquarters

  London, England

  December 17, 12:21 P.M. GMT

  The entrance to Barrier was via the Vermin Control Office. Cute.

  I produced my credentials and a separate set for Ghost. The receptionist barely batted an eye at the eighty-five-pound shepherd at my side. A rat-faced man who looked very much like he worked for “vermin” control came and led us through a series of interlocking offices until we finally emerged into the actual offices of Barrier. When we’re out in public Ghost plays the role like he was trained. He walks to one side and slightly behind me, head up, ears swiveling like radar dishes, nose scooping in trace particles of everything around him. A well-trained dog is a wonderful companion. Loyal, smart, and they don’t talk.

  “Captain Ledger?”

  I turned as a tall, hawk-faced man came striding across the lobby toward me.

  The man looked like a typical ex-military: thin, with great posture and eyes that were fifty degrees colder than his smiling mouth. I figured him for ex-SAS and maybe ex-MI6. He looked to be about sixty-five, but I’ll bet he could give me a run for my money over an obstacle course.

  “Benson Childe,” he said. “Director of this band of thieves. We were told to expect you.” He looked down at Ghost and held out a hand to be sniffed.

  Ghost looked at me for permission and I gave it. I use a combination of hand and verbal signals. With a stranger, a twitch of my little finger means it’s okay for him to approach. Ghost took the man’s scent and filed it away. I was pleased to see that Childe didn’t try to pet the dog. It indicated he understood K9 protocols.

  “I hope I can be of help,” I said. “This is a terrible tragedy.”

  “Yes,” he said as he led us into his private office. “By the way, Captain, your reputation precedes you. I’ve heard some very good things.”

  I laughed. “Somehow I can’t imagine Mr. Church gushing about me.”

  “Hardly. The Sexton isn’t one to gush. His brief on you was short but colorful.”

  The Sexton. Another of Church’s names. I’ve heard people refer to him as Colonel Eldritch, Mr. Priest, Deacon, and Dr. Bishop. I wonder if any of them was close to the mark.

  “No … Grace Courtland told me about you.”

  Grace. Dammit. Hearing her name now felt like an ambush. I tried to keep it off my face, but Childe’s eyes searched mine and I saw the precise moment when he saw and recognized the particular frequency of my pain. He nodded to himself, an almost imperceptible movement. Was he confirming a suspicion, or simply noting my reaction?

  I nodded but said nothing, not trusting my voice. Ghost must have sensed something, because he rose and moved slowly to stand partially between me and Childe. I scratched Ghost between the shoulder blades. If only dogs really could stand between us and our own inner pain. All dogs would be saints.

  Childe discreetly cleared his throat. “I think we’ll be able to find a use for you, Captain,” he said. “Grace said that you were a detective before you joined the DMS. And I believe you’ve worked several large-scale terrorist cases since.”

  “A few.”

  “That will be useful, because we have a laundry list of terrorist cells believed to be operating in the U.K. and an even longer list of persons of interest. My computer lads are coordinating with your lot to run their profiles through MindReader, but your personal experience may be invaluable.”

  “We have any candidates yet?”

  “Not as such. However, we have people collecting eyewitness accounts at the fire scene, and inputting everything from actual observed data to hunches. With MindReader able to collate all of the random factors for us, we’re approaching this from the standpoint of ‘no detail is too small to count.’”

  “Smart. Devil’s in the details.”

  “Too bloody right it is,” Childe agreed. He looked at his watch. “In ten minutes we’ll be meeting with the Home Secretary and various divisional heads of our counterterrorism departments.” He went to a sideboard and poured brandy from a decanter and handed me a glass.

  “Before we go in there, I have something to say, and something to ask.”

  “Okay.”

  He sipped his brandy and said, “Grace Courtland.”

  I took a second before responding, “What about her?”

  “I recruited Grace out of the Army and into the SAS,” he said. “She was the first woman to serve in the SAS, as I’m sure you know. From the moment she entered the Army anyone with eyes could see that she was a cut above. Not just a cut above the other recruits, but a cut above anyone. Male or female. She was born for this kind of work. Sharp mind, natural leader. Very probably the finest soldier I ever met, and believe me that’s saying quite a lot. I brought her into the SAS initially to prove a point, to show that modern women can handle the pace, endure the hardships, and hold their place in the line of battle, even at the level of special operations. Grace more than made my case. I know that you fought alongside her, so you must have seen how she was in combat. Fierce, efficient, and yet she never lost that spark of humanity that separates a warrior from a killer. Do … you understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded.

  “When Mr. Church formed the DMS and requested that Grace be seconded to him as the liaison between his organization and ours, I was proud of her … but I resented the request. Grace was mine, you see.” He studied my eyes. “She was like a daughter to me … and no parent could have ever been prouder of a child than I was of Grace.”

  “A lot of people cared about Grace,” I said, keeping my face and tone in neutral. “You made your statement. What’s your question?”

  “Tell me, Captain Ledger, were you with
Grace when she died?”

  When I didn’t say anything, Childe edged a little closer. “Church tells me that one of your strengths is that you seldom hesitate, and yet you’re not answering me.”

  “It’s not hesitation,” I said. “I’m just wondering how much trouble I’ll get in if I tell you to go fuck yourself.”

  Ghost caught my tone and growled softly at Childe.

  That amused him. “Why the hostility?”

  “Why the question? I’ve been waiting for one of you guys to take a shot at me for what happened to Grace.”

  “That’s not my agenda,” he said, heading me off before I got a full-bore tirade going. “My question is straightforward: were you with her when she died?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was.”

  “And did you care for her?”

  “She was my fellow officer.”

  “Please, Captain, this is off-the-record and just between us.”

  He had no right to ask and I was under no obligation to say anything that wasn’t in my official after-action report. But his eyes were filled with an odd light and the defensiveness I felt was my own, not the result of any kind of attack on his part.

  I said, “Yes.”

  “I know this is a lot to ask … but how much did you care?”

  “Why?” I asked, and my voice was a little hoarse.

  He closed his eyes. “It’s … important to me to know that at the end, when she was dying, she was with someone who truly cared about her.”

  I said nothing.

  Childe turned away and sipped his brandy. “Grace was alone for most of her life,” he said softly. “She’d lost all of her family, her husband had walked out on her, and her infant son died shortly after birth. Grace was always alone, and it would destroy me to think that she died alone. Thank you, Captain.” He turned back and offered me his hand.

  I took it and we shook.

  Then Childe looked at his watch. “Time to go.”

  Interlude Two

  Agincourt Road

  London, England

  December 17, 12:24 P.M. GMT

  The man in the city suit and bowler hat stepped into the doorway of a men’s tie shop, his face raw and red from the bitter wind. He dug a cell phone out of his pocket and punched a speed dial. The phone rang twice and then a voice with a distinctly Spanish accent said, “Yes?”

  “The bloke you told me to follow … he’s just stepped inside the pest control office.”

  “You are certain of his identity, yes?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Good.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. Go back to work. Others will handle this.”

  “But I—”

  “Go back to work.”

  “Is this it? Am I done now? Will you bastards leave me alone?”

  The Spaniard laughed softly. “You may hear from us,” he said. “From time to time.”

  He was still laughing when he hung up.

  The man in the bowler hat closed his eyes and cursed silently to himself. Behind his eyes he saw the photographs that the Spaniard had shown him. Photographs of what the madman had called his “angels.”

  “God help me,” the man whispered. The contents of his stomach turned to sewage and he had to take deep breaths to keep from vomiting. He stepped cautiously out of the doorway, afraid of falling down. He cast one look at the doorway to the Vermin Control Office, then turned away and hurried home to his children.

  Chapter Ten

  Barrier Headquarters

  London, England

  December 17, 1:37 P.M. GMT

  “The Prime Minister has authorized that the Threat Level be raised to ‘exceptional.’” The Home Secretary, Julian Welles, sat at the head of the table and looked for reactions to his news. No one offered any, so he continued. “We are five hours into this. What do we know?”

  The gathered men nodded; a few sighed. I kept my face neutral. Ghost lay beside my chair, and I’d given him the commands for down and quiet. A muted plasma screen showed the scene at the hospital. Most of the building had collapsed by now, and they were using deluge cannons to knock down the remaining flame-shrouded walls rather than let them topple into the streets. One corner of the old building still stood, though, and the news cameras kept returning to it, as if its stubborn refusal to yield meant something more than a vagary of physics. The streets around the hospital had all been evacuated—a process that started in earnest once the first of the new towers fell, kicking out massive gray clouds of billowing smoke. 9/11 might be over a decade ago, but even the average guy on the street knew about the dangers of breathing in that dust. It was more than debris—the fire and the pressure from the collapsing buildings had vaporized people.

  There was an untouched plate of sandwiches on the table. No one had an appetite.

  Welles was a small man who exuded a great degree of personal power. He had an aquiline face, a hooked nose, and black hair combed back from a high brow. A casting agent would have looked at him and said, Sherlock Holmes.

  “We don’t know anything for certain,” said Detective Chief Inspector Martin Aylrod, head of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. “The hospital has taken a number of threats from animal rights groups who want to stop the animal testing that’s part of the cancer research center. But … our initial background checks on known members resulted in what you’d expect. Vegans with too much free time and only the most minor political connections, and even then they seem tangential. Even so, I’ve ordered all of our staff to report for duty to do comprehensive interviews, and we’ll share our information with the general pool.”

  Welles turned to the only woman at the table, Deirdre MacDonal, a fierce Scot with a bun so tight that it had to hurt her brain. She ran the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, a police organization funded by, and reporting to, the Association of Chief Police Officers, which in turn advised the British government on its counterterrorism strategy. “What have you got, Deirdre?”

  She scowled. “Too much and damn all. We’re monitoring a laundry list of microcells and splinter groups, but none of them has ever demonstrated the capabilities to do something like this. Or anything even close to this.”

  “Has anyone taken credit for this?”

  MacDonal snorted. “The whole daft lot of them are queuing up to take credit. We’ve even had nine separate calls from people claiming to be Osama bin Laden himself. And one from Saddam bloody Hussein.”

  “From beyond the grave, no less.”

  “He claimed that the man they hanged was a clone.”

  “Ah,” said Welles, and shot a look at me. “Would the DMS have any opinion on that?”

  “I’ll pass it up the line, but I doubt if Saddam was alive he’d be calling to chat.”

  “I daresay. Who would benefit from this?”

  Childe cleared his throat. “Hard to say, especially if you look at the staff and patient demographics. There are a fair number of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others. The hospital isn’t particularly political. No one of political or religious significance is associated with it or incarcerated as a patient. If this is a political statement, it’s more obscure than it needs to be.”

  “Yes,” agreed the Home Secretary, “and our press statements will reflect a neutral and nonaccusatory attitude until such time as we know at whom we should point our finger.”

  Childe nodded.

  The Home Secretary eyed the group. “Has anyone received a credible threat of any kind? Something we can act on?”

  Deirdre MacDonal said, “There have been several calls made to local precincts, but none of them are likely. Most are local nutters who regularly take credit for everything from the latest drive-by shooting to conspiracies by secret societies. Freemasons, the Illuminati, bloody space aliens. Barking mad, the lot of them.”

  “None of them bear investigation?” asked Welles.

  She sighed. “All of them do, Home Secretary, and we
have teams running each one down, but we don’t expect any of them to actually be directly related.”

  Welles looked at me. “Was anything phoned in to any of the American agencies?”

  “Same as you have here,” I said. “A lot of groups and individuals trying to take credit but no one who stands out. We’re processing everything as fast as we can, though. I’m sure a pattern will emerge.”

  “You’re sure or you’re hoping?” asked MacDonal.

  “I’m sure and I hope I’m right,” I said, and that squeezed a smile out of her pinched face.

  Welles steepled his fingers. “Do we think that this might be related to any of the upcoming holiday or charity events? Or is there any indication that the scheduled events may become targets?”

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said, “but as I’m here more or less on vacation, I haven’t been paying attention to the social pages. Which events are most politically sensitive? Doesn’t the Queen give a Christmas address of some kind?”

  “That’s a fair question, Captain,” he said. “And Her Majesty usually touches on politics, and in recent years that’s been Afghanistan and Iraq. The broadcast is on Christmas Day but is actually taped beforehand.”

  “Do people know that?”

  “Yes,” answered MacDonal. “Which puts it low on the list of likely targets.”

  “There are large gatherings of people at Trafalgar Square and the South Bank on the nights leading up to Christmas,” said Aylrod. “The tree lighting has already passed; that was the first Thursday of this month. But there are several scheduled events for caroling. A bomb at either place would do untold harm, and if timed to Christmas … well, the religious and political implications are there to be seen.”

  “Bloody wonderful,” said Welles sourly. “Put people on both events.”

  “What about the Sea of Hope?” asked MacDonal.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I would have thought you knew about that, Captain, as it’s really an American event. It’s a big international fund-raiser for humanitarian aid for those countries suffering from diseases of poverty.”