Kill Switch (61 page)

Now, don't get me wrong … under any other circumstances I'd have been happy as hell to punch the tickets of anyone working for Bolton. But you can't ask questions of the dead, and if the code wasn't on the premises, then I wanted to be able to hold meaningful group therapy sessions with the guards. Somebody would know something and with the lives of all those kids in the balance, I wouldn't be in the mood to ask nicely.

I edged around the curve of one of the turrets. Two guards stood together, eyes roving back and forth across the grounds. Looking in the wrong direction. Watching the driveway, which was the only route in that wasn't covered by the motion sensors. I raised the Snellig.

Pop. Pop.
They fell as surely as if I'd reached into their brain stems and flicked a switch on the nerve conduction.

Ghost bared his teeth at them, and I knew that if I hadn't given him a stand-down sign he'd have made sure they never woke up. He was in a mood.

Wish to hell I was. My nerves were shot and when I'd raised the gun I was half-sure the shakes would have spoiled my aim. Yeah, it was that bad. I needed my edge. I needed the Killer back.

Even so, even without him, I bent low and ran, dropped one more guard at the front door, and then I was inside. In the belly of the beast. Ghost was with me, but he was drifting farther and farther from my side. I didn't like the looks he was giving me, either.

Jesus Christ.

 

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

THE BEACHVIEW APARTMENTS

ENCINITAS, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2:16
P.M.

Chief Petty Officer Lydia Ruiz pulled into the ten-car parking lot, eased into a slot between a squatty little Fiat and a PT Cruiser with wood side panels and a roof rack for surfboards. She killed the engine and got out of the car. The motor tinkled slightly as it began to cool.

A warm breeze blew off the water and the sun was high in a clear blue sky. Out on the water a boat full of whale watchers was cruising north from San Diego, its hull painted a white so bright and pure that it hurt her eyes to look at it. Lydia took a few steps toward the entrance, then paused and turned back to her car. The passenger door was still closed. Bunny hadn't moved at all.

Lydia went back to the car and came around to his side. Through the tinted glass she could see his face. Rigid, emotionless, blank. His sunglasses were tucked into the collar of his T-shirt, his blue eyes fixed on something that was not part of anything there in that moment. Seeing him like this twisted a knife in Lydia's heart.

“¿Conejito
—
?” she called.
Little bunny
. A joke because he was so tall and muscular. Except now he seemed small, diminished by the comprehensive loss of confidence in who he was, and total lack of understanding of what he'd done. The intel about Project Stargate and all that mind control stuff did not seem to help Bunny. It had still been his finger on the trigger.

She opened the door and touched his cheek with the backs of her fingers. When she did that he always closed his eyes and leaned his face into her touch. It was a thing he'd always done and it never failed to ignite the love flame deep in her heart.

Except he didn't do it now.

Instead he sat staring through the windshield glass as if it projected a movie he was commanded to watch. And Lydia was wise enough about combat trauma to recognize what was happening. The events on that gas dock had broken something inside Bunny. In his heart and maybe in his head.

Lydia knew that it could happen to any soldier no matter how they were hurt. The ones who were going to stay in the game knew how to manage their own scars, even use them. Doubt made you seek for truth. Fear made you cautious. They were pillars of wisdom and of survival. Except when they became the defining qualities of a person. That's when a soldier became a kind of landmine that could kill himself or anyone around him. On the battlefield it created fatal hesitation. It soured judgment and clouded focus. It planted poisoned seeds in the heart from which ugly flowers grew.

“Come on, baby,” she said, pulling lightly on his arm.

He got out of the car and let her steer him to their house, but he did it like a robot. It chilled Lydia because it was like the man she loved had stepped out of his own body. She guided him to his favorite chair on their patio, opened a beer and set it on the table next to him, but Bunny didn't look at it, didn't take a sip. There were four old men playing bocce on the sand, and half a dozen surfers in black wetsuits sitting on their boards waiting for a wave. A line of pelicans rode on the wind out toward a fishing boat.

If Bunny saw any of it, he gave no sign.

Lydia sat next to him, her chair pulled close, her head resting against his shoulder. She didn't even know he was crying until she felt a tear fall onto her head.

 

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

THE BLACK TENT

HOME OF THE MULLAH

ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND ASH-SHAM

MOBILE CAMP #7

SEPTEMBER 11, 12:16
A.M.
LOCAL TIME

The Mullah rose from his narrow bed and walked out of his house. His staff and the gathered senior officers all turned as he approached. Their conversation died off but their faces were alight with expectation.

“Is it time?” asked the warlord who had been a skeptic less than a month ago. There was no doubt left in his eyes.

The Mullah looked at each of them in turn.

“It is time,” he said.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

BOLTON HOUSE

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2:18
P.M.

Bolton did not live small, I'll give him that. This place must have cost twenty million. I couldn't afford to mow the lawn. Made me wonder how much of it was bought with innocent blood.

The Scout glasses told me that there were no motion sensors on the ground floor or the big double staircase.

“Cowboy to Jester,” I said. “Ghost is coming for you. Follow him in.”

I used hand signs to order Ghost to run back exactly the way we'd come in. He vanished like a puff of white smoke. While I waited for him to return with Harry, I removed a few sensors from my kit and placed them on the downstairs windows and doors. They uplinked to a small drone and both boosted its signal and focused it on the house. Looking for a large electronic signature. So far, nothing, and that was not encouraging. What if I was wrong? What if that whole dream was nothing more than that?

Bad questions. Letting my mind ask them was like throwing gasoline on a fire. I heard a sound and turned to see Ghost moving along the line of hedges with Harry running bent over behind him. The kid was not a good runner. His stride was too short and he did not appear to pay any attention to the irregularities in the lawn. And it was his lawn. When he reached me he was out of breath, his face damp with perspiration.

“Rule one,” I told him. “Cardio.”

“Yeah, yeah, blow me,” he said, mopping sweat from his eyes. He looked around. “Dad really made a lot of changes to the place. Motion sensors, guards.” He crouched in front of the door. “You were right, these are new locks. He didn't want me coming home and just waltzing in.”

I almost said,
He didn't want you coming home at all.
Sooner or later it was going to catch up to Harry that the Closers were working for his dad. All of them. Including the ones who tried to kill Harry in Budapest. Maybe the kid already knew that and wasn't letting himself think about it. Or maybe he had that truth locked in a closet in his mind.

I removed another of Hu's doohickeys, peeled off the plastic tape to expose the adhesive, and gingerly attached it to the door. The little green light stayed green. But when I placed a second one on the frame the light turned red. An alarm, and a good one. No problem. I attached wires to the sensor and connected them to another of the signal rerouters, waited until the light turned green, and then let Harry pick the lock. The door clicked open. Easy as pie.

The inside of the house was all dark wood and expensive art, hardwood floors and rugs with complex patterns. Vases sat on little tables and a huge Bolton coat of arms hung over a stone fireplace that was bigger than my first apartment. There was a motto inscribed on the heraldry.
Vi et Virtute.

Harry saw me looking and translated it. “By strength and valor.”

He looked like he wanted to throw up. I placed my hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “You're here, kid. It took courage to come in here. A lot of it. You could have stayed back at the Pier. You didn't. Hold on to that, it could be useful.”

He nodded and wiped wetness from the corners of his eyes.

Ghost went ahead to sniff for guards and immediately returned to me, looking over his shoulder three times. Three guards down a hall that led to the kitchen. I could smell a faint whiff of grilled cheese and coffee. The entrance to the basement was in the kitchen. No way to avoid it. In other circumstances I'd have tossed in a flash-bang and then let Ghost go to town. But that would be noisy and we weren't ready for noise.

Not yet.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE

FREETECH

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2:19
P.M.

Toys stood in the doorway and watched Dr. Hu work. The scientist was bent over a modeling press, making another of the protective skullcaps. Toys wore one already and he hated it. Apart from the fact that it was too small and hurt his head, it looked bloody ridiculous. Junie wore one, as well, as did Christel Sparks, the head of security. The two women stood on either side of Hu. Junie was working the forming press, and Sparks was standing guard, her hand resting on the holstered Glock she wore on her belt.

“How many more?” asked Toys.

The doctor looked up from his work. “I don't know. I might even be wasting my time. They haven't been tested yet. I've refined the design from the ones I gave Ledger and Bolton's son. Not sure if I made them better or worse.”

“Wait … we don't even know if these sodding things will
work
?”

“No,” said Hu.

“Bloody hell.”

“Actually,” said Sparks, “they don't work.”

Hu didn't even glance at her. “And I suppose you're an expert on such things?”

“As a matter of fact,” she said as she drew her sidearm, “I am.”

She shot Dr. Hu in the back.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO

THE PIER

DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2:19
P.M.

First Sergeant Bradley Sims sat alone at a table in the mess, a coffee cup standing filled and cold nearby, a plate of eggs and bacon untouched. The TV was on and CNN was using its endless news cycle to dredge up every gory detail about the slaughter at the gas dock.

Top had come into the Pier to clear out his locker. The two U.S. marshals were with him throughout, each of them stone-faced. However, Top had talked them into letting him come in here for a last lunch before he left. Montana Parker, Brian Botley, and Sam Imura were also in the building because Director Bolton had wanted to interview them to see where they stood in terms of loyalty to their country and involvement with the recent catastrophes. Federal marshals dogged each of them, too. The rest of the staff had been sent home. It was all over. All crashing down. Top sipped his coffee and felt his heart breaking into pieces.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his palms. He was so damn tired but he did not dare go to sleep.
They
would be waiting for him. The ones he'd murdered. They would be standing around his bed and Top knew that they always would be. For the rest of his life. Faces empty of life and painted with blood. Dead eyes watching him, dead hands lifted to point fingers at him.

“Top—?” said a voice. Sam Imura.

“Go away,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Top, look at me,” said Sam. He sounded confused.

“Go the fuck away.”

“Top, what the hell are you doing?”

Anger overtook his remorse for a moment and Top dropped his hands and glared at Sam.

At Sam.

At …

Sam Imura lay on the floor, his face white with agony, his clothes torn. He sat there, legs spread wide, hands clamped over his stomach as red blood poured from between his fingers.

Top stared at him. “Wh-what—?”

This wasn't the mess hall. He wasn't even in that end of the facility. This was the hallway outside of the armory and the door was ajar. Sam lay on the floor beside it as if trying to block the exit with his body. Top felt something in his hand and he looked down to see a big serving fork clutched in his fist.

The fork, his hand, and his wrist were soaked with Sam's blood.

“What?” he repeated.

“T-Top…,” wheezed Sam, then his eyes rolled up and he slid sideways onto the floor and lay in a boneless sprawl.

“First Sergeant Sims,” bellowed a voice, and Top turned to see Montana Parker behind him. A federal marshal lay unconscious at her feet. Another sat on the floor, his back against the wall, eyes closed as if sleeping.

But Montana …

She had her gun held in a two-hand grip, the barrel pointed at Top's chest.

“Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head,” roared Montana. “Do it now.”

“What?” he asked her.

He heard a sound behind him, half turned, saw Botley behind him, saw the gun in his hand. Pointed at Top.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE