Threshold (25 page)

“People are afraid,” Roberts said. “We have to make them feel safe. Encourage cities to increase patrols. Address the nation. Talk about the progress being made in tracking down the ‘evil doers.’”

“What progress?” Hussey said.

Roberts rolled her eyes. “Exaggerate if you need to. The point is people won’t go out. They won’t congregate in places with other people if they feel like it puts them in the crosshairs.”

“You’ll need to appeal to their wallets as well,” Hussey said. “Making them feel safe is one thing, giving them incentive to spend will pull people off their couches and out of their homes.”

“Larry…” Roberts said. She apparently knew where Hussey was headed and wasn’t comfortable with it.

He waved her off. “It’s a good idea, Claire.” Then continued. “Suspend sales and meal taxes for a week. Maybe two. Some people won’t be able to resist. And when nothing bad happens to them, the rest will follow.”

“That would require a lot of state cooperation,” Duncan said.

“Mm-hmm,” Hussey said. “We’d likely have to reimburse their losses. But it could prevent a financial meltdown.”

“Sir,” Roberts said, trying to interject.

But Duncan liked the idea. “Get it done.”

Roberts sighed. It was her turn to deflate. “Why don’t you tell him whose idea that was, Larry.”

Hussey’s face went pale.

The door to the conference room opened. Duncan’s secretary entered and fought her way through the packed space. Duncan knew by the serious look on her face that she had an important message to deliver, but he needed an answer from Hussey, too. “Spill it, Larry.”

“I thought you would have known,” Hussey said. “It was on the news.”

“I’ve been a little distracted,” Duncan said. The secretary was almost there.

“The idea was Marrs’s.”

Fuck
. Marrs was going to eat this up. Not only had he already committed to the idea in front of all his advisors, it was also a good idea. He couldn’t back out on it just because it came from Marrs first.

His secretary whispered in his ear. He flinched, having forgotten she was incoming. “Dominick Boucher called. Wants you to make contact asap.”

The nation’s economic woes took an instantaneous backseat. “Make contact. Those were his words exactly?”

The secretary nodded.

It was a key phrase they had established. It meant that Boucher needed to have a chat with Deep Blue. And that meant it was mission related, and, he looked at his watch, it was far too soon for the teams to have reported in. And that meant something was wrong.

Duncan stood.

A sea of voices rose up with him.

Documents had to be signed. Approval given. The nation managed. And Marrs’s plan had to be put in motion. None of it could happen without his John Hancock.

He stood rooted for a moment, torn between his conflicting duties. Manager and warrior fought a battle for his attention. His pulse quickened. He could feel it in his neck. The voices of his advisors were like needles in his eardrums. He had to take action. Every cell in his body cried out for it.

But that wasn’t what he signed up for.

He held out a hand, silencing group. “One at a time. Quickly.”

As the first form was handed to him by Larry Hussey, the form that would set Marrs’s plan in motion, Duncan turned to the secretary and said, “Call Boucher. Tell him I’m digging a trench and will call him when I’m done.”

“Digging a trench” wasn’t code for anything, but he knew Boucher would understand. No one liked digging trenches, but they could save your life when the mortars started flying. And if the crisis wasn’t ended soon, the skies would be clouded with rounds.

*   *   *

DUNCAN ENTERED THE
empty situation room, hidden in a basement of the White House, and sat down at the head of the empty executive table. Using a small remote control, he dimmed the room’s lights and sat in darkness. After rubbing his eyes, he leaned forward on his hands, rubbing his temples. It had taken him forty-five minutes to sign all the required paperwork.

In that time, the news networks had already caught wind of Marrs’s seeming ability to dictate presidential policy. And the press along with Marrs had brewed a firestorm. Marrs called the decision to use his suggested tax pause a smoke screen, an attempt to distract people from his failings. The man could turn anything, even his own ideas, into an attack.

The loudest pundits called him a traitor. A warmonger whose policies on terror endangered the nation. Comparisons to Hitler and Stalin were casually hurled by men seeking higher ratings. Marrs led a rally in Washington, D.C., shouting for justice and shaking his fist.

Duncan wanted nothing more than for Marrs to come to his office and try shaking that fist face-to-face. But instead he had to remain measured and calm. “Defuse the powder keg,” his advisors said. Settle. Appease.

It was all bullshit.

The man was brewing fear, contaminating the people with it and making sure Duncan’s assurances of safety were ignored. He would probably derail his own tax pause idea, too, but would not be held accountable for it.

But every time the American public’s focus turned away, Marrs brought them back with wild allegations or bolder calls to action. The most recent one being impeachment. He’d heard the same call to action a year previous when the nation faced a killer pandemic thanks to a weaponized strain of the Brugada syndrome used in an assassination attempt on his life. He had taken drastic measures—quarantining the White House staff and hundreds of U.S. citizens against their will. The rumbles died down when a cure had been provided, but the whispers never faded. With new ammunition, the guns of impeachment fired again.

He didn’t fear impeachment. It was a ridiculous notion championed by the minority. But they were loud and persistent. They kept the national attention focused on him, binding his actions. The fools were unknowingly crippling his efforts to find the people responsible for the attacks.

He hit a second button on the remote. A blue screen lowered from the ceiling, stopping behind him. Once lowered, a bright light backlit the screen, making it glow and casting him in a silhouette that disguised his identity. He switched on the laptop in front of him and established a secure video feed with Dominick Boucher, who had been overseeing the team’s latest batch of rescue missions. He stood in Delta’s tactical HQ and was surrounded by an array of stations with men and women watching satellite feeds, monitoring endless flows of information from news, police, and military sources around the world. It was the intelligence heart of every Delta operation. One that he normally commanded.

Boucher’s white mustache twitched when he faced the screen. It was a telltale sign that things were not well. “Dom, what’s the score?”

There was no “What took you so long?” No annoyance in Boucher’s eyes. The man knew the score: Deep Blue was the president of the United States and he sometimes had shit to do. Instead, he simply cut to the chase. “Bad guys four. Us, zip. We’ve been played. The authorities in Taiwan, Russia, Colombia, and Argentina knew we were coming.”

Duncan’s mind spun, trying to figure out who knew enough to reveal their hand. The list was short.

“I don’t think we have a snitch,” Boucher said, as though able to read Duncan’s thoughts. “We tracked down calls to several other countries that resulted in troop mobilization. All were on our list to hit next. Whoever did this only knew we
would
be looking, but not where we were going first. They were shooting scattershot, hoping to hit us.”

“Which they did.”

Boucher’s mustache twitched again.

“How bad is it?”

“Bishop’s team was captured, but escaped without being identified as U.S. military.”

Duncan felt some of his tension slip away.

Boucher quickly added, “But not before wounding seven Argentine National Gendarmerie soldiers.”

His tension returned with a vengeance, squeezing the small of his back.

“Queen and her team escaped after instigating a gunfight between the Colombian military and a bunch of drug runners. Both sides received casualties, but there were no reports of our team’s involvement.”

None of this was good, but so far it was manageable. Any claims of U.S. involvement from these countries could easily be denied. But Boucher’s face grew grim. He had worse news to report.

“Knight’s team took three casualties when Taiwanese SWAT struck their position. The bodies aren’t identifiable, but the Taiwanese are claiming they’re ours. The tipster apparently told them as much.”

“And Rook?”

The mention of Rook’s name turned Boucher’s face to the floor. “They were attacked by three Ka-50 Black Sharks. His team is dead. Same story as Taiwan. Can’t be I.D.’d, but they’re claiming the men are ours.”

“What about Rook? Is he—”

“Unknown.” Duncan tapped his keyboard. “Satellite imagery was intermittent at the time, as satellites passed in and out of range. But we have a few shots of him.”

Duncan’s screen filled up with satellite images. He combed through them, looking at the three black helicopters from above. There were images of explosions in the forest, Rook running up a hill, and then facing off against one of the Black Sharks. But in the five minutes following, there was nothing. The next image showed a mass of troops running north, through the cow pasture. Using his remote connection, Boucher circled a small area on the last image.

Duncan zoomed in on the circle, seeing a splash of red on a patch of yellow grass. “Is that blood?”

“Looks like it,” Boucher said. “We believe Rook was shot. Here, listen for yourself. This was his last message before we lost communication.”

Rook’s voice came through the computer. He sounded shaken and out of breath. “They’re all dead. My team is KIA. And I’m bleeding out. So don’t come looking for me. Tell Queen—”

The connection cut off.

“We’re not sure what happened,” Boucher said. “But he’s gone without a trace.”

Duncan sat back in his chair. Allegations from Russia, Taiwan, and Argentina would soon become public. And though he could deny the citizenship of the men killed in action, it wouldn’t convince the Russians, who might very well see the incursion as an act of war. And it didn’t feel right.

No matter how it played out, the allegations would add fuel to the media firestorm. Despite all that, he couldn’t keep his mind far from the safety of his team. Three were safe. Rook was MIA. But there was still one unaccounted for.

“What about King?”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Rome, Italy

WHAT ROME WOULD
later deem a small, localized magnitude-four earthquake shook the underground tunnels. Dust fell from the ceiling, stinging King’s eyes and further obscuring his view of the dim hallways lit by the occasional electric bulb.

Following Alexander proved to be difficult. The man was faster than he looked, and his intimate knowledge of the tunnels made every footfall well placed. He also seemed to be unaffected by the dirty air, which congested King’s and Pierce’s lungs.

The three emerged into a larger hallway, free of dust, and picked up speed. Shrieks of the Forgotten suddenly drowned out the screams of dying people. Somewhere ahead, Alexander’s guardians were fighting back. But King knew it wouldn’t be enough.

He also knew there was very little the three of them could do against the golems he’d seen. But he would rather die than not try.

Alexander stopped in front of a door that had been torn off its hinges. A body, cloaked in black flew out and struck him in the chest. They both fell back hard against the tunnel wall. The Forgotten shook off the impact, spun to its feet, and dove back into the room with a shriek.

As a wound on his shoulder quickly healed, Alexander stood and took a small bottle from his pocket. It looked like the small liquor bottles they served on airplanes. He drank the contents down and turned toward King. “Stay here. It’s not safe for you.”

Then his body shook with a strange kind of energy that made his eyes gleam with intensity. With a battle cry, he charged into the room.