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Authors: Jonathan Maberry

BOOK: The King of Plagues
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I WOKE UP in an ambulance. Top and Khalid were with me, both of them covered with soot and bloodstained field dressings. Top told me the news.
One of the hostiles had come up out of the cellar wearing a vest packed with bars of Semtex. Everyone on Echo Team had taken cuts and burns except John Smith.
I started to say that we’d gotten off lucky, but something in Top’s face stopped me.
“What—?” I asked.
“Joey,” he said. “He pushed Khalid out the door, but he caught his foot on a throw rug and went down. He got up, but he was one step too late.”
Joey Goldschein had been the only one of my team left inside when everything went to hell. He was six months back from his second tour in Afghanistan. He deserved a longer life.
That was our first encounter with the Seven Kings.
AFTER THAT, DEEP Throat came to Church with dribs and drabs of intel. My part in the Seven Kings affair slowly evaporated as I became involved in several unrelated cases. Other DMS teams worked on it, and it’s both sad
and frightening to say that there are always multiple threats chewing at the fabric of our society. Vultures and predators, sharks and parasites, bent on destroying us in order to satisfy their own political agendas. I don’t say that they do this to satisfy their religious agendas, because I’m either idealistic enough or cynical enough to believe that religion is deliberately misused as a label for greedy sons of bitches whose real objective is wealth and power. Sure, the freedom fighter in the trenches may think that God wants him to strap C4 to his chest and walk into a post office, but until the so-called religious leaders do that themselves I think it’s a scam. And they’re scamming their own loyal followers as much as they’re scamming the rest of the world. I think this was true during the Crusades and it’s true now in the Middle East. I seldom trust the guys at the top.
The real bitch was that despite having clashed with groups supported by the Seven Kings, we didn’t have a frigging clue as to who or what the Kings were. It was like fighting an invisible empire … and yes, I know that sounds like an old movie serial. But there it is.
The Royal London Hospital
Whitechapel, London
December 17, 10:52 A.M. GMT
Church said, “The Kings have been busy during your ‘vacation.’���
“Deep Throat been calling his BFF again?”
“I see isolation and contemplation haven’t matured you. Pity,” Church said. “We’ve had five additional tips. Three out of five of the tips resulted in action taken. We recovered prisoners in several of the raids, but none of them were above street level. They knew the name Seven Kings but nothing else of substance.”
“Did Deep Throat warn you about today?”
“Not specifically. He said, ‘Watch out; the next one will be epic.’ However, if this is a Seven Kings attack, it would be their first hit on foreign soil.”
“That we know of.”
“Yes.”
“You any closer to finding out who Deep Throat is?”
“No. But I have some friends in the industry working on this.”
The blaze looked even hotter than before. The crowds surrounding the Hospital had to number in the thousands.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a terrorist hit,” I said.
“Even if no one comes forward to take credit for this, we’re likely to see a rise in hate crimes.”
I agreed. After 9/11 there was an insane wave of violent hatred toward Muslims even though we were not—and never had been—at war with Islam. Echoes of the Japanese internment camps. Xenophobia is one of humankind’s most embarrassing traits.
I said, “Destroying a medical complex of this size had to have taken enormous and very detailed planning. Can’t have been a matter of someone walking in the front door with a C4 vest or a car bomb in the parking garage. This place is massive and it all went up at once. Someone put some real thought into this and—”
Church interrupted me. “How are you doing?”
Church is borderline heartless, so the fact that he was asking made me stop and do a quick self-check. I realized that I was speaking way too loud and way too fast. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and in doing so I could feel how much of it was stale air that had been turning to poison in my chest.
“I’m good,” I said more slowly.
He didn’t comment. He wouldn’t.
“Dr. Sanchez will be on the first thing smoking.”
“I don’t need a shrink,” I began irritably, but he cut me off.
“I’m not sending him to hold your hand, Captain. Dr. Sanchez has a great deal of experience with post-traumatic stress, and much of that can be ameliorated if dealt with from the jump.”
That was true enough. Rudy was an old friend and he was my own post-trauma shrink before he became my best friend. Since we both signed onto the DMS he’d been the voice of reason and everyone’s shortest pathway to a perspective check. Even, I suspected, for Church himself, though Rudy refused to discuss it.
Church said, “You’ll liaise with Barrier and offer them any support you can. Barrier knows that anything they tell you will be processed through MindReader, and they’re comfortable with that. They don’t have anything as sophisticated, so we may get some hits before they do.”
Barrier was the global model for effective covert counterterrorist rapid-response groups, and it actually predated the DMS by several years. Church had tried to get the DMS in place first, but when Congress wouldn’t green-light the money he served as a consultant to the U.K. to build Barrier. When that organization proved itself to be an invaluable tool against the rising tide of advanced bioweapon threats, the Americans finally got a clue and Church built the DMS. The Barrier agents I’d met were every bit as good as our guys, most of them having been handpicked from the most elite SAS teams.
However, hearing the name Barrier inevitably conjured the image of Grace Courtland.
Damn
.
Maj. Grace Courtland had been Church’s second in command at the Warehouse, the DMS field office in Baltimore. She was a career military officer and the first woman to join the SAS as an active operative, and the permanent liaison between Barrier and the DMS. She was tough, smart, and beautiful, and she was my direct superior in the chain of command. At the end of August, against all common fucking sense, we fell in love. That was wrong in a whole lot of ways. Rudy tried to warn me, but I brushed him off and told him to mind his own business. And yes, I know that as he was the DMS shrink this
was
his business, but when was the last time someone falling in love listened to good advice?
Grace and I knew that a love relationship, no matter how discreet, made us fly too close to the flame. As agents of the Department of Military Sciences we tackled the deadliest threats imaginable, so personal entanglements could only end in trouble. In our case, it ended in disaster. We faced off against a threat so huge that books will be written about it. At the end of it, the good guys won and I lost. I lost Grace. She died saving us all, and I think I died, too. Part of me, anyway.
Since then I’ve knocked aimlessly around Europe with my dog, Ghost, a specially trained DMS K9. We got into a couple of scrapes together while doing some unofficial stuff for friends of Mr. Church. I hadn’t actually quit the DMS, but I didn’t want to return to the Baltimore Field Office. Grace would not be there. The place would be full of echoes, of shadows and memories. Of ghosts.
Originally, I had come to Europe on a hunting trip. The bastard who
shot Grace escaped the bloody resolution of that case. He escaped and went into the wind. As a going-away present, Mr. Church left me a folder full of leads, travel documents, and money, and, without ever saying so, his blessing.
Ghost and I went hunting, and after many weeks we ran our prey to ground. There’s an unmarked grave on one of the Faroe Islands off the coast of Denmark. I pissed on it after I hand-shoveled the dirt and rocks over what was left of the body.
It didn’t bring Grace back, but I believed that somewhere—maybe in Valhalla—her warrior’s soul approved.
Ah … Grace
.
Damn it.
Church apparently got tired of the silence on my end of the phone and plowed ahead. “Your current credentials will get you into the investigation. I advised the President and Prime Minister about your participation. And … I’ll likely be on the same flight as Dr. Sanchez. Do you want me to bring Jerry Spencer as well?”
Jerry was the top forensics man I knew. He’d joined the DMS at the same time I did. His genius was in walking a scene and letting the evidence talk to him.
“Absolutely. As soon as the ashes are cool enough to walk, I want Jerry in the smoke. It should all be over by the time he gets here, because at this point it doesn’t look like the fire department is doing anything but containment on this. It’s all going to burn down. What’s my play?”
“Be available to the Brits. They’ll tell you what they need.”
“Where’s Gog and Magog? Shouldn’t they be on this?”
These were the two DMS teams permanently stationed in Great Britain. Gog was based at the Regent’s Park Barracks on Albany Street in London; Magog was hosted by the forty-eighth Fighter Wing at the Lakenheath RAF base in Suffolk. I worked with both of them on my second mission after signing on. We tracked a network of Iranian terrorists who were selling yellowcake by the hundredweight to terrorist groups. That’s not something you serve at birthday parties. It’s a uranium derivative used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors. Look it up in
Terrorism for Dummies
and you’ll see that there are all sorts of things you can do with it.
“Gog is dealing with a critical matter in Prague. Magog is in Afghanistan dismantling a Taliban bioweapons team. At the moment you’re the only senior DMS agent in the U.K.”
“Swell.”
“The London counterterrorist offices have both accepted my offer of your services.”
“Why would they want my help?”
“Because I briefed them on the Seif Al Din,
Mirador,
and Jakoby cases. I’ll send them a report on the Seven Kings, and will send all recent data on them to your BlackBerry.”
“Good. You know,” I said, “of the big-event terrorist attacks we’ve seen—the Alfred P. Murrah Building, both World Trade Center attacks, the London subway bombings—they were all one and done, followed by a lot of gloating via the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll throw myself into this with a will, but unless this is one of our playmates, then I’m just another pair of boots on the ground.”
“I’m no more psychic than you are,” said Church, “but I believe that there is a clock ticking somewhere. Maybe the Kings, maybe Al-Qaeda. Besides, terrorism notwithstanding, this is a crime and you’re a cop. Work the crime. Somebody has to have survived. Somebody has to know something.”
“Any chance you can send Echo Team over here?”
“They are out at Area 51 and—”
“Wait—what? There’s an
actual
Area 51? That’s so cool.”
Church sighed. “At times you’re as bad as Bug and Dr. Hu. Yes, Captain, we have an Area 51 and no, Captain, there are no UFOs there. Nor are any alien autopsies being performed there.”
“Damn.”
“It is, however, a classified area, and Echo Team is providing backup for Lucky Team out of Vegas and the intelligence investigators from Nellis. Possible security breach, but so far no fireworks.”
“Crap. Can you send them my way when they’re finished kicking E.T.’s ass?”
He grunted. “Why? They’re not investigators.”
“They can handle door knocks and Q and A.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He paused. “Bottom line, this needs to be
handled with precision. We dropped the ball on 9/11. We reacted too slowly and often the wrong way. We have to do better this time.”
“‘We’? This isn’t the U.S.A.,” I reminded him.
“How does that matter? This is an attack on humanity. There are sixty million people in Britain.”
Wow, I really was off my game if I walked into that.
“What if Al-Qaeda or one of the other usual suspects steps forward to claim responsibility for this?”
“Best-case scenario, we establish some fresh leads that will maybe result in a useful joint Barrier-DMS action.”
“Worst case?”
“We lose the thread of this and have to wait for something else to happen.”
I looked across the road to where one of the brand-new towers was crumbling, the charred bones of the building collapsing under its own deadweight. More of the black smoke billowed up and turned a horrible morning into the very dead of night.
“Damn … ,” I breathed.
Church must have been watching the same thing on the news. I heard him sigh.
“Welcome back to the war, Captain.”
CNBC: Breaking News Report
December 17, 10:55 A.M. EST
TRANSCRIPT OF THE FINANCIAL NEWS REPORT
In the wake of the devastation in London, the Dow Jones Industrial took a drastic 7.19% dip and there are Wall Street rumors that the White House may suspend trading and close the New York Stock Exchange until the initial panic has subsided. This echoes the events of 9/11 which saw the NYSE closed for several days following a period of losses in the stock market. Airlines and tourism industries are also expected to be affected due to fears of another attack.
In a preliminary statement issued a few minutes ago, SEC chief Mark David Epstein cautioned investors not to engage in a “flight to safety,” reminding everyone that panic produces a decline in financial markets but that the markets typically recover. “While there is certainly reason to be concerned over the events in England and around the world,” he said, “the best course of action in financial terms is inaction.”
Epstein is expected to make a more detailed statement tonight following the President’s address to the nation.
Fair Isle, Scotland
The Shetland Isles
December 17, 6:31 A.M. GMT
Rafael Santoro moved silently through the shadows of the garage. He came up behind Dr. Charles Grey and touched the blade of a knife against the man’s cheek.
“No sound,” murmured Santoro.
The scientist stiffened. Not so much from shock or surprise, but like a man who is suddenly aware that a long-dreaded but inevitable horror has finally come.
Santoro bent close to whisper in the scientist’s ear, “It’s time.”
Grey began to tremble. “Please … God! No … .”
“Yes,” said Santoro. “You know what you have to do. You promised that you would do it.”
Grey started to turn, but Santoro pressed the knife into his flesh. Santoro did not break the skin, but he made sure that Grey could feel the edge, could feel the quiet appetite of the steel. Santoro was an artist of supreme delicacy with a blade. With fast or slow cuts he was able to sculpt a victim into a masterpiece of crimson art. It was one of the many talents that made him so valuable to the Seven Kings, and to his patron, the King of Fear. Fear and the blade were both aspects of Santoro’s personal religion.
“I can’t,” whimpered Grey. “Don’t you understand that? What you ask is impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible if the Goddess wills it to be. That is the nature of faith, yes?”
“‘G-Goddess’ … ?” Grey stammered. “I don’t understand … .”
Santoro leaned forward, rising onto his toes so that his lips were an inch from the back of Grey’s neck. “You told me that you were a man of faith, Dr. Grey. Do you remember? That first day when fortune brought me to you? When I showed you the pictures of those angels.”
“Angels … ?” The pictures that this man had shown him were not of angels, but he understood what Santoro meant. Grey gagged at the thought of such horrors being described as angelic. They were images out of hell itself.
The blade was an icy promise on his flesh. “Are you saying now that you were lying to me? Lying about faith?”
“No! No,” pleaded Grey. “That’s not what I meant … .”
“Then tell me what you meant, Dr. Grey. Tell me that you believe the All is capable of everything. Everything.”
“Y-yes … .”
“Say it,” Santoro growled. He raised the knife from Grey’s cheek until the beveled edge filled his vision.
“Yes,” Grey said hastily. “I believe, God help me, I believe, but—”
With a snarl, Santoro withdrew the knife and with his free hand grabbed Grey’s shoulder and spun him violently around.
“
God
may believe you, but you are a piece of shit in the eyes of the Goddess!” Santoro wore a black mask, but through the eyeholes his eyes blazed with dark fire. He then snatched Grey’s right hand and slapped the knife into his sweating palm.
Grey sputtered with confusion and looked dumbly down at the vicious weapon he held. It had a six-inch double-edged blade and a handle wrapped in red silk thread. It looked as much like a tool of ritual as it did an instrument of destruction.
“Do you know what faith is, Dr. Grey?” Santoro asked quietly. When Grey shook his head, the small man smiled. “Faith is my shield; it is the armor that covers my flesh and soul. I am a man of faith, Dr. Grey. I know that the Goddess protects me. I know that she has forged me into her sword.”
“I … I … ,” was all that Grey could manage.
“If you are a true man of faith, Dr. Grey, then you will believe that the Goddess lives in you.
Use
that faith. Prove its existence to me and to yourself. Cut me.”
Grey looked at the weapon in his hand. His face twisted into a mask of horror as if he held a squirming scorpion.
“Do it,” insisted Santoro.
“I—can’t … No …”
“Do it or I will go into the house and find young Mikey and show him the knife. Would you like that, Dr. Grey? Would you like to watch? I will leave you one eye so that you can see it, and I will leave you most of your tongue so that you can scream. You will want to scream.”
Grey suddenly stabbed at the small man. He saw his hand move before he felt his muscles flex, the dagger point glittering as it tore through the shadows toward Santoro’s smiling mouth.
But Santoro was not there.
In the gloom of the garage he became a blur. He pivoted on one foot and shifted so that the stabbing knife pierced only empty air. His hands flashed out, striking and striking and striking, the movements unspeakably fast, the blows hideously powerful. He struck Grey in the groin and the floating ribs and the solar plexus and the throat. Santoro pivoted like a dancer and struck Grey in the kidneys and tailbone and between the shoulders. Then the scientist was falling, falling, all in a fractured second. His arm still reached for the stab, but his body crumpled within the cocoon of blows.
He collapsed onto the cold concrete floor of the garage, gagging, gasping for air with lungs that seemed incapable of drawing a spoonful of breath. His mouth worked like a dying fish, making only the faintest squeaks.
Santoro stood above him, composed, relaxed, not even breathing hard. He knelt and picked up the knife, cleaned away the surface smudges on Grey’s shirtsleeve, and stood. The knife vanished into its hidden sheath beneath Santoro’s jacket.
“When you can breathe again,” he said, “I suggest you spend some time on your knees. Pray to the Goddess, yes? Pray for forgiveness for the sin of doubt.”
He bent over and knotted his fingers in Grey’s hair and jerked the man’s head viciously back.
“And pray that
I
forgive you. Pray that I will leave young Mikey alone. And intact.”
Grey managed to squeeze a single word out of his tortured throat.
“Please …”
Santoro bent closer still, lips against Grey’s cheek. “Will you do what you have promised to do?”
Grey nodded.
“Say it.”
“Yes!” Grey gasped weakly. Tears streamed down his face. “Yes … .”
Santoro opened his fingers and let Grey slump to the floor. “We will be watching, Dr. Grey. When you do what you have promised, you will have help.”
Grey raised his head at that. “H-help?”
“At work. You will not have to do this alone. You are never alone.”
As the reality of that sank in, Grey buried his face in the crook of one arm and wept.
When he stopped sobbing and looked up, Santoro was gone.

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