The room was utterly silent.
Without commenting on that, Aunt Sallie opened a second folder, consulted it, and said, “There’s a lot of stuff in here about games. You play games, you hack them and design new levels, you share them with your friends.”
“Is there a question in there?” asked Bliss.
Irritation sparked in Aunt Sallie’s eyes, but there was none in her voice when she replied. “Games and game simulations are a big part of defense research. These simulations are used for everything from devising response protocols for various extreme threats to testing the security designs on new high-profile facilities.”
Bliss nodded.
“Games are also being used for psychological screening,” continued Aunt Sallie. “Put a bunch of candidates for spec ops or other classified jobs in separate rooms, wire them up so you can monitor everything from pupillary reaction to sweat glands, then let them play violent games, and you learn a lot. Like whether someone is going to freeze, to kill, to
want
to kill, to hesitate, whatever.”
Bliss gave her another nod.
“We’re always looking closely at that kind of research,” said Hu. “We do a lot of it, and we want to do more of it.”
“Building a better mousetrap,” said Bliss.
“Building a tougher mouse,” said Aunt Sallie. “Or spotting mice who are likely to become psycho killers if you put a gun in their hands and turn them loose.”
Bliss shrugged. “A lot of it will depend on the quality of the test and how perceptive the people are who are interpreting the data.”
There was a long silence. Church ate a cookie. Hu wrote some notes on a tablet. Aunt Sallie tried to stare holes through Bliss.
Finally, Church said, “How do you know we’re not CIA?”
“I don’t. But I’d be surprised.”
“Why?”
Artemisia pointed a finger at Hu. “Because they wouldn’t know what to do with someone like him.”
Dr. Hu turned the color of a ripe tomato.
“And they wouldn’t know what to do with someone like me.”
Bliss gave Church and Aunt Sallie as flat a stare as she could manage. They gave it right back to her.
It was Aunt Sallie who broke what became a very long silence.
“She’ll do,” she said, grinning like a thief who had just stolen something of unexpected value.
Hu beamed.
Church ate a whole cookie before he gave a single, small nod.
Chapter Sixteen
Grand Hyatt Hotel
109 East Forty-second Street
New York City
Sunday, August 31, 6:38 a.m.
She didn’t know I was watching her.
She thought I was still asleep.
She slipped out of the bed the way she did every morning, moving slowly so as not to wake me, moving across the bedroom floor on silent cat feet, reaching for her robe, ducking into the bathroom and closing the door.
It was a kind of modesty.
Not that she was coy about seeing her nude body. I have happily explored every inch of that beautiful landscape. I’ve mapped every pale freckle, paused to consider each tiny scar, paid my respects to each curve and plane, and become lost in the textures and tastes and scents of her.
No, her furtiveness in the first light of morning was because she did not sleep with her wig on. She wore a colored headscarf to bed and it usually came loose.
Junie Flynn did not like me to see her naked scalp. She’d never said so in words, but I knew her well enough to know that she did not want to start the day for either of us with so obvious a reminder that a clock was ticking down inside the cells of her body. We had no way of knowing how many days or weeks or months she had left. If the drugs in the experimental program she was on worked, then maybe it would buy her years.
If not …
Life is a cruel, cruel bastard. It’s merciless and malicious.
Through the bathroom door I could hear her throwing up. Again.
When I’d met Junie last year she was already undergoing chemo, having already finished previous sets of drugs and radiation. The tumor in her head had been removed. Twice. But it was aggressive and sly. It hid little bits of itself from the doctors and then waited for everyone to take a deep breath for that sigh of relief before it snuck back into our lives.
At the moment, she was doing okay. She’d regained some of the weight she lost during the last relapse, with new padding to soften the edges of hip bones and ribs. I was doing my best to fatten her up with hot dogs and beer at every Orioles home game—and at the same time trying to convince her that baseball, not football, was the American national pastime. And we spent a lot of time with my best friend, Rudy Sanchez, and his new wife, Circe—both of whom could cook, and both of whom were medical doctors. Rudy was a psychiatrist and Circe had so long a list of credentials after her name that I’m not sure which profession most factually applied. Dinners with them always involved rich foods and appallingly rich chocolate desserts.
Junie had filled out to almost one hundred pounds. Twenty-five to go to hit the target weight for her height.
But her head was still pale and hairless and she didn’t want it to be a statement in the morning. A reminder.
A threat.
So I faked being asleep and watched her out of the thinnest possible slit of eyelids. I saw her dart toward the bathroom, stepping over Ghost, who lay twitching, deep in a dream of flight and pursuit. Junie paused at the bathroom door and looked back to see if I was still asleep. I affected a soft snore. She bit her lip and there was an expression on her lovely face that was equal parts love for me and sadness for us.
No trace of self-pity even though, let’s face it, it would be completely excusable and understandable. But that wasn’t Junie. Her biggest concern was making sure those she loved could survive her passing.
Her death.
God.
The new experimental drugs were rough. They robbed her of energy, they gave her frequent nosebleeds, and they nauseated her.
But were they also saving her? Were they worth the suffering?
We all hoped and prayed so.
The bathroom door clicked closed and I waited until I heard the shower running before I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I sat there, flexing my toes in the carpet shag, staring at the closed door, feeling an ache throb in the center of my chest. It was so deep, so sharp, so powerful that it felt like a stab wound.
I would have preferred a stab wound. If that were the worst that we had to face, then I’d take the hit and go down smiling, knowing that she was safe and would live. Or I’d do what I do when someone tries to stab me for real. I’d deflect, defend, disarm, and destroy. If this were something I could confront and engage, then I’d be in the thick of it, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, a battle song in my head, blood singing in my ears. If this were some threat come to harm the woman I loved, then there would be no level of ugly to which I wouldn’t go, no depth of crazy to which I wouldn’t descend, to protect her.
I would win that kind of fight, too.
That’s what I do. That’s what people like me do. The trained killers. The shooters and fixers who work in the topmost level of special operations. Defeat is a rare thing for us because we train to disallow the probability of it, and we strive toward eliminating even the possibility of it.
And that’s proof of the cruelty of this thing.
Among my friends who are doctors, my boss, Mr. Church, has the best of the best scientific resources at his disposal, and I’m top kick of the most lethal crew of shooters in the world, and none of us can really stand between an innocent woman and a monster so small that it has to be seen through a microscope.
It’s all humbling in a vicious, mean-spirited way.
“Junie,” I said, whispering her name.
She came out of the bathroom after a while, looking fresh and clean and wholesome and whole. Here wig of wavy blond hair was in place. Small touches of makeup applied to her face. Wearing a sheer white cotton blouse over a cream camisole and jeans. Lots of earrings, pendants, bracelets, and rings. Looking perfect.
Smiling at me.
“You’re up!” she exclaimed happily.
“In many interesting ways,” I agreed.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Morning wood or genuine interest?”
“Both.”
“I’m already dressed.”
“You got dressed before you checked the calendar.”
“Why,” she asked, “what’s today?”
“It’s National Romp Junie Flynn in the Ol’ Sackaroonie Day.”
“Elegant.”
“It’s early,” I confessed. “Best I could come up with.”
“
Romping
is sooo sexy a word.”
“It’s classier than ‘banging my baby’ day, which was in the running for a while.”
She made a face. “I would have hit you with something heavy.”
“Why should you be different from everyone else I know?” I held out my arms toward her. “It’s an official holiday, ma’am. You wouldn’t want to fly in the face of tradition.”
“We both have important meetings today.”
“Then let’s start the day off with a bang.”
She winced. “Ouch. That’s bad, even for you.”
“It’s still early.”
“I don’t know,” said Junie skeptically. “With a start like that, I don’t know if your day is going to get any better. You’ll be doing knock-knock jokes next.”
“I never make jokes,” I said. “I am a serious-minded kind of guy.”
“Who wants to start the day off with ‘a bang’?”
“That’s serious.”
She pretended to look at her watch, which she wasn’t wearing. “Well … I have a few minutes.”
Clothes went flying. Makeup was spoiled. My dog became disgruntled. And we did, in very point of fact, start that day off with a hell of a bang.
And through the laughter and gasps, the squeals and the insistent slap of hungry skin against hungry skin, we managed to forget to listen to the clock inside our world go tick-tick-tick.
Afterward … and after a second shower for her and a long, blistering crab boil of a shower for me, we kissed on the curb while the valet parking guys fetched our cars. Then I watched her drive off in her squatty little metallic green Nissan Cube.
As of three weeks ago Junie was deputy director of FreeTech, a brand-new think tank put together by Mr. Church and funded by private investors who were unnamed friends of his. Rich friends, too, because they put billions into the company. FreeTech’s job was to find nonmilitary applications for technologies acquired from what they call “alternative sources,” which included some of the weird science DMS teams take away from the bad guys. Understand, we trashed a lot of the really naughty stuff, but there was some radical science that could be repurposed in a way that would genuinely benefit humanity. Sounds corny, but isn’t.
Church was the nominal director, though Junie was actually going to run things. I didn’t know most of the other members of the board, but I suspected that some of them had checkered pasts and had been given the opportunity to redeem themselves. Not sure I agreed with that strategy, but then again, I don’t remember Church asking for my opinion.
Circe O’Tree was a consultant, as was Helmut Deacon, a teenage supergenius who had become the unofficial “ward” of the DMS after the Dragon Factory affair. Spooky kid, but absolutely solid to the core. And one of the weird little kickers in all this was that Mr. Church had extended an invitation for Lilith, the head of Arklight, to join the board of FreeTech. Lilith accepted, but sent a proxy to attend the meetings. Guess who the proxy was.
Yeah. Violin.
Junie and Violin working together.
I made a mental note to buy a very large bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the way home from the office. I had a feeling I was going to need it.
I leaned against the wall of the hotel and watched Junie drive away. Ghost sat beside me, his brown eyes following the little Nissan Cube as Junie threaded it through the thick traffic with a combination of raw nerves, wild risk-taking, and deliberate aggression. She was a gentle soul but she drove like a New York cabbie.
When the car was gone from our sight, Ghost looked up at me and gave a small whine.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
I closed my eyes and stood there for a while, trying not to be afraid of every single new moment in the day.
Junie
, I thought. And I silently offered a prayer for her. Or maybe it was a plea to whichever gods were working the day shift, to look after her. To chase away the monsters in her cells and in her blood. To champion her in ways I could not, and let her live the life she deserved to have.
I doubt I have ever felt as profoundly helpless.
Then Ghost and I got into my car and we drove off to see if there were any monsters we could chase.
And catch.
And defeat.
Chapter Seventeen
Chanin Building
122 East Forty-second Street
New York City
Sunday, August 31, 7:12 a.m.
The sad-faced little man watched Joe Ledger and his dog get into the black Ford Explorer and drive away.
His name was Ludo Monk. Ludovico Monkato, according to his birth certificate, but he had it legally changed when he was old enough. Ludo Monk was simpler.
He was thirty-two years old and had once been told that he looked like a disappointed monk from a bad Renaissance painting. Monk did not disagree. Doleful eyes, receding mouse-colored hair, a hint of the jowls that would appear before another decade was out, perpetual five o’clock shadow, and a wide mouth that tended to turn down into a frown even when he was happy. He was, however, seldom happy.
Monk knew, with no margin for doubt, that he was more than a little crazy. The last time he’d hacked his therapist’s session notes, the things he found only confirmed what he already suspected. There was a lot of jargon in the diagnosis, but the bottom line was that he was batshit crazy. He knew it and accepted it.
But he didn’t like it.
There were drugs, of course. The ones that helped keep him stay steady, which he sometimes took. And the ones that helped him forget, which he kept handy all the time. Some others, too. Uppers, downers, and a few that moved him sideways. Right now he was running on empty, and the spiders were starting to crawl out of the doors in his head.