Stirred (27 page)

“I dunno,” I said. “But I would consider it a personal favor if none of you went to that grave.”

They spent a few seconds exchanging glances.

“Sure, Lieut,” Tom said. “My fiancée, Joan, is big on intuition. I’ve learned to heed her. We can hang back here. Roy?”

“You’re my brother from another mother, man. Ain’t going without you. And I’d follow the Lieut straight anywhere, she asked.”

I speared Herb with my eyes. “Herb?”

“It’s my crime scene, Jack. I’m highest rank on site.”

“Highest rank or fattest rank?” McGlade chimed in, apparently grumpy after being woken in the middle of the night.

“Shoes fit okay?” Herb asked him.

McGlade looked down, noticed his faux pas. “I meant to do that. It’s a trending topic on Twitter. You did it, too, but your stomach is so huge you can’t see your feet.”

I heard a
click
and thought maybe Herb had set his jaw. Hard to tell with his chubby face.

“McGlade, one of these days—”

“—you’re going to stop eating everything you see?” Harry interrupted. “Don’t answer. I’m afraid if you open your mouth you’re going to suck all of us in.”

“Y’all a punk,” Roy said, taking a step toward McGlade. “Didn’t your mama teach you manners?”

McGlade sneered. “Nope. But your mama taught me some stuff last night.”

Roy took another step, and then Phin moved into the mix as well, backing up Harry.

There was so much testosterone in the air, if I wasn’t already pregnant I might have been worried.

“Look.” I spread out my palms. “Everyone needs to calm down. Herb, please, do this for me.”

His hound dog jowls dropped even farther, his mustache looking like a horseshoe.

“Sure, Jack. I’ll let the SRT take over.”

He barked orders into his mike, and I released a sigh of pure relief.

“See how I distracted him from going?” Harry whispered to me. “I would have thrown a donut for him to fetch, but didn’t have one handy.”

Once again I wondered if McGlade was smarter than he acted.

The next few minutes were spent in silence, all of us waiting. Roy and Tom fidgeted. Harry stepped away and switched his shoes. Herb appeared more anxious than I’d ever seen him. I thought about reaching for Phin’s hand to hold it, but was worried he wouldn’t accept mine. Willie pulled out a flip phone at least a decade out of date and walked away, his finger in his free ear.

Finally, Herb’s radio crackled. “We’ve reached the mausoleum. We’re going in.”

I checked my iPhone.

3:10.

According to Luther’s book code, it was time for the next victim to die.

April 2, 3:10 A.M.

M
atthews shouldered the M-16 assault rifle and spoke into his shoulder mike, “Sanchez, Williams, you stay with me. Swartwood, Patel, get in position behind us on the edge of the road. This is a potential hostage situation, so sight your targets. Kitt, Strand, I need eyes around back, make sure nothing comes up from behind.”

His men fell into position around the mausoleum, a stone building approximately ten feet tall and the size of a small garden shed. Stone flower pots framed the green iron door, where a pair of red roses had been threaded between the handles. The structure was surrounded by trimmed hedges and flanked by similar mausoleums and headstones. It bothered Matthews. Too many places to hide.

“Battles, open that door, and get out of the way. Angelo, get eyes inside and report back. I’ll be on your six.”

Matthews covered the door as Battles pulled the bolt cutters out of a backpack. The lock on the door gleamed under the LED flashlight mounted beside the M-16 scope—a new lock, no rust, unlike the decades of oxidation on the vault’s iron gate.

“Set for bursts of three, and stay sharp,” he said.

Matthews heard the metallic
snick
of the pinchers biting through the lock.

Battles slid the bolt cutter into his pack and backpedaled down the steps and away from the entrance, shouldering his weapon as Angelo approached.

It was difficult to see much more than the beam of Angelo’s LED light.

“At the door,” Angelo said, his voice soft and steady, though Matthews could hear an edge of fear in it. That was a good thing. Fear enhanced the senses.

Matthews expected the iron door to creak, but it opened smooth and silent, as if its hinges had been oiled.

“Stepping inside,” Angelo said.

His light played off the stone, shone through a stained-glass window in the back wall.

“Report,” Matthews said.

“Clear. There’s two vaults, one on top. Bottom one is Robert Franks. Stained-glass window above them, and…we have a device.”

“IED?”

“I don’t think so. Metal canister. Looks like a scuba tank.”

A course of panic flooded through Matthews. “Possible aerosol. Get your masks out and—”

The crack wasn’t as loud as thunder nor as bright as lightning, but the explosion knocked Angelo out of the building.

Matthews felt the ground vibrate the soles of his Doc Martins and took an involuntary step back.

The two men flanking the mausoleum dove for cover, but he stayed upright.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

No one spoke, no one moved.

Was that even a bomb?

Angelo had been thrown onto his back, but now he sat up.

Thank God. He appeared to be in one piece, and there was no debris, no shrapnel, no fire, no smoke.

Everything stood perfectly silent—

—except for a hissing inside the crypt.

Matthews caught a sickly-sweet floral odor a half second before Angelo started coughing and screaming, the cop pawing at his face and frantically trying to rip off his vest.

Matthews recognized the odor: geraniums.

Post-9/11, they’d all been given a crash course in chemical agents. A geranium smell was linked to one of the deadliest chemicals used in World War I—lewisite.

Matthews screamed, “Chemical agent, masks on!” He slid out of his pack, and ripped open the zipper, digging for his own gas mask, eyes beginning to burn.

When he tried to call for backup, he suddenly couldn’t speak, his throat already swelling.

In his earpiece, he heard a cacophony of choking…screaming…coughing…vomiting…pure panic.

He’d been cold up until this moment, but now his skin grew hot as the invisible gas penetrated his Kevlar, accelerating through levels of increasing pain—first the fast onset of a sunburn, and then a steady sting, and then skin being eaten away.

Snot, mucus, and tears streamed down his face, and before he realized what had happened, he threw up all over himself.

Matthews struggled onto his feet despite the agony—had to help his men—had to make the screaming stop—but when he started walking he realized the problem—the gas had come in contact with his eyes, his corneas.

He could barely see a thing.

His knees buckled, and he hit the ground.

He needed to call for an extraction. Medics. Get his men attended to.

But with every passing second, the pain and the panic was becoming more intense, and all he could do was try to scream.

April 2, 3:11 A.M.

L
uther watches the carnage on his iPhone, which has been synced to several netbook PCs around the Franks tomb, each equipped with a night-vision camera and running on battery power. Yet another trick he learned from Alex Kork, and it works like a charm.

It looks a lot like the biblical day of reckoning.

Screaming.

Hysteria.

Men tearing off their clothes as the lewisite burns their flesh. Coughing and spitting as it sears their lungs. Vomiting. Bleeding. Falling over.

On any other day, Luther would have been happy to watch until the last man dropped.

To watch it again and again and again.

But this is just a warm-up for the main event.

He steps behind a tombstone and calls Jack on his iPhone.

April 2, 3:11 A.M.

T
he screams coming through Herb’s mike were horrifying to the point where he had to turn down the volume. I was so taken aback by the sound that I grabbed Phin’s shoulder so I didn’t fall over. First, Luther had emulated Alex Kork with the iPhone contact. Now he was following in the footsteps of another old adversary, a nut job known as The Chemist.

What other bad folks from my past would Luther dredge up?

The second SRT unit went in, wearing full containment suits, to extract the team, and Herb called in more paramedics and the Center for Disease Control.

My cell rang. Blocked call. I answered without saying anything.

“Do I have your ear now, Jack?” Luther purred. “You could have stopped this. You could have stopped all of this death by simply stopping me. That’s what I want, Jack. I want you to stop me. Find me, and come alone, or many more will die. I’ve got this whole place wired with gas. You get safe passage. Anyone else comes in, I’ll go all ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ on them.”

He disconnected.

Herb was yelling orders into his walkie-talkie, denying backup until his men were properly equipped. I knew from experience that McGlade had a P4 space suit, suitable for dealing with chemical warfare, but his place was miles away.

“Luther said he’ll give me safe passage,” I said to Herb in between his orders.

“No way in hell,” Herb replied.

Phin and McGlade echoed the sentiment, and both Tom and Roy joined in.

“Look, guys. He doesn’t want to kill me. He wants me alive.”

Herb frowned even deeper. “Absolutely not. We don’t know what kind of gas that is, if it can drift, if it’s contagious. I just called in the National Guard. You’re not going to go running around a dark cemetery, hoping to bump into—”

“I don’t need to hope,” I interrupted. “I know where he is.”

“Then tell me, Jack.”

I shook my head. “You’ll send in more cops, and Luther will kill anyone that goes after him. Anyone except me.”

Herb shook his head right back at me. “Jack—”

“We have a chance to end this, Herb. To be free of this son of a bitch, once and for all. He’s not going to try to kill me. But I’m sure as hell going to try to kill him.”

Everyone stared at me, no one speaking.

Once upon a time I had commanded people, and they listened to me. Not only because I had authority. But because they trusted my orders, my judgment. I studied each of their faces in turn, trying to show them I was still the same woman. Being a target and being pregnant didn’t mean I was unfit to lead.

“I’m in,” Tom said, drawing his Glock from his shoulder holster.

Roy followed suit. “Hell, yeah.”

Phin and McGlade also pulled their weapons.

“We can take this punk,” Harry said.

“I’d follow you to hell, Jack,” Phin said. “You know that.”

I looked at Phin. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. You were right.”

“About what?”

“Me trying to control you. I love you, and while I hate the idea of you going in there, you actually doing it is exactly what makes you the woman I love. Fearless. All I want is to protect you.”

I could feel the emotion coming, but I pushed it back. “I know, Phin.”