Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
December 19, 1:45 P.M. EST
I drove past the Taylor house without a pause, circled the block, and drove past again. I checked out each of the cars parked on the street and didn’t see anyone sitting in them. All of the plates were local. No pedestrians.
Amber Taylor lived on West Avenue, just off of Route 611. A blue BMW sat out front. Right color, make, and plates.
“Are we going to wait for your team?”
“No,” I said. “I want to talk to this woman ASAP. If the Spaniard leaned on her, then we may have our first solid lead. We can’t risk waiting … but it’s your call if you want to stay here or—”
“I’m going in,” Circe said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Fine, Doc, but remember that this is a criminal investigation.”
“Yes, yes, and you’re the alpha. Get a grip, Joe; this isn’t my first time in the field.”
She said it with a lot of conviction, but I thought she was lying. I was pretty sure that this
was
her first time out of the world of “what if.” Even so, I kept my mouth shut on all the ways I wanted to reply to that. I took my Homeland ID case out of the glove box and looped the lanyard around my neck. We got out and I checked the street again. Nothing moved except the breeze through the December trees. I let Ghost out of the back. There was a case in the back marked with a rubber stamp of a blue old-style British police telephone box. In the TV show
Doctor Who
it was called a TARDIS, a kind of time and space ship. In the real world it was the box of special ultra-high-tech doodads provided by Dr. Hu and his team. I opened it and stuffed a few gizmos into my pocket.
I petted Ghost, who had caught my nervous tension and was fidgeting. I pointed to the Taylor house. “Watch. Call-call-call.” With that command he would watch the street and then bark like a crazy dog if anyone came within a dozen yards of the front door. The DMS trainer, Zan Rosin, had brought Ghost to a superb level of efficiency, and I worked with him every day to perfect the command and response between us. Ghost had a peculiar habit, though. When I gave him an order he opened and closed his mouth with a wet
glup
. His way of saying, “Hooah.”
Circe and I cut across the brown lawn and mounted the three steps to the stone porch. All of the houses on the street were decorated for Christmas. I noticed that Taylor’s was, too, but the work was sloppy. Lights strung crookedly, window decorations put up in haste. Circe noticed it, too.
“Nerves,” she said quietly. “Probably trying to fake it for the kids.”
I knocked on the door and waited. Nothing happened, so I tapped again.
“Joe,” Circe said without moving her lips, “the curtain moved, someone’s—”
“I know. Smile and look helpful.”
“Who are you?” a voice demanded from behind the door.
“Federal agents, Mrs. Taylor. Department of Homeland Security.”
“Prove it!”
I held up my ID so anyone looking through the peephole could see it. Then I removed my wallet and showed my driver’s license to prove the name matched. There was a picture in the adjoining glassine compartment. Grace.
“How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
“Do you still have the number you called?”
A pause. “Yes.”
“Call them. Ask for a description of the agent they sent. My name is Joseph Edwin Ledger. My partner here is Dr. Circe O’Tree. Have whoever you talk to describe us.”
“Okay. But if you try to force the door I’ll—”
She cut herself off before finishing the sentence. She didn’t know what she would do. I don’t think she had a gun or she would have threatened us with it. Scared people often do.
We waited. I could hear her speaking to someone, but her voice was muffled. All I could make out was “yes,” repeated several times.
“Okay, they gave me two questions to ask you.”
“Hit me.”
“What is your cat’s name?”
“Cobbler. And my dog, who is watching the house right now, is Ghost.”
“That wasn’t the other question. The man said to ask you what he called you when you first met.”
“He said I was a world-class smart-ass. He’s right, too. I hold several international records.”
I actually heard a short laugh from behind the door.
“Okay … I’m going to open the door.”
We waited and I could imagine the woman taking a steadying breath, trying to muster the optimism to trust the moment. She had her kids in there. If Santoro had done to her what he had done to Dr. Grey, the images of her children as victims of the Spaniard’s knife—as his
angels
—would be overwhelming.
The lock clicked. I traded a look with Circe. She looked as wired as I felt.
The door opened an inch and we saw a single terrified eye. Bright blue and filled with a kind of profound dread that should never be in any human’s eyes, let alone a parent’s.
“We’re here to help,” said Circe softly.
A tear welled in the corner of that bright blue eye.
“Don’t let them hurt my babies,” she begged.
I smiled—and I don’t know if it was the Cop or the Warrior who shaped that smile—and said, “Not a chance.”
Crown Island
One Month Ago
“It’s done.”
The Goddess smiled into the phone. “Ah, lovely boy, I never had a doubt. Was it difficult?”
“Toys whined about it,” Gault said, “but it was
more
than worth it. We’ll be in Cairo in two hours and back there before this hits the news services.”
“Hurry home to me, Sebastian,” Eris purred. “I want you here. In my arms. Inside of me.”
“If I could sprout wings, my love,” he murmured, “I’d already be in the air. Oops, the cab is here. Got to go. I’ll call you when I land in Toronto. Have fun on the Internet.”
“Oh, I will. By this time next month the Inner Circle will be rending their garments and beating their chests.”
“Don’t forget gnashing their teeth and wailing. The gnashing and wailing is such a kick.”
They were both laughing as they disconnected.
Regent Beverly Wilshire
Beverly Hills, California
One Month Ago
Charles Osgood Harrington III disliked speaking on the phone. Most of his calls were taken by various assistants and secretaries. His cell phone had a private number given to a very select handful of people. Even his son didn’t have it. Which Harrington considered a good business move since his son, Charles Osgood Harrington IV—known as C-Four to everyone from the police to the national media—was a good-for-nothing waste of time.
So when his cell phone rang Harrington assumed that it was one of that small circle from whom he was always happy to take a call.
“Charlie,” said a breathless voice.
“Carl?”
H. Carlton Milhaus was a very old and very dear friend, and an associate in a number of business deals in the Middle East.
“Jesus, Charlie … have you read your e-mail? The
club
e-mail.”
“No.”
“Log on, for Christ’s sake. We all got it. Call me later. I think we need to meet.”
Milhaus would not explain, so Harrington switched on his computer and when it was ready he used an ultrasecure log-on to access the e-mail account shared by the twenty-one members of his private club.
Harrington spotted the e-mail at once. The sender was listed as
Private
. The subject read:
To the House of Bones
.
Harrington licked his lips and opened the e-mail. It read:
The tomb of the Pharaoh’s son has been open.
The firstborn son of Pharaoh fell to the wrath of Heaven.
To defy Heaven’s will is to feel divine wrath.
Woe to the firstborn sons of the House of Bones.
The Angel of Death rises again.
The Angel of Death left its seed in the flesh of the Pharaoh’s son.
Science, the new magic, will raise the Tenth Death from the Dust.
“My
god
!” Harrington gasped. He reached for his cell and called Carlton Milhaus. Forty minutes later Harrington was aboard his private helicopter, hurtling through the skies toward a meeting with the other twenty members of the Inner Circle of the Skull and Bones Society.
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
December 19, 1:49 P.M. EST
Amber Taylor was thirty-five but looked older. Living under the terrible stress of the Spaniard’s threats had aged her, chopped sharp edges into her face and made her look like a refugee from a war-torn country. In a very real sense, I suppose she was.
“Where are your children?” Circe asked as soon as we were inside.
“In the basement playroom,” Taylor said quickly, but as she said it she took a reflexive step to stand between us and the door to the cellar. “They’re watching a video. They … don’t know.”
I glanced around. We stood in a short entry hall. There was a tall faux Ming vase from which a hockey stick, a pool cue, and a baseball bat sprouted. She caught my look. “In case,” she said.
The woman had grit.
Circe guided Taylor into the living room. “Mrs. Taylor,” she said quickly, “we are going to help you. Captain Ledger has his team coming. They’ll be here any minute. They are military Special Forces and they can protect you and your children from anyone.”
Taylor did not look immediately relieved.
“He said that they would know if I left work, or … picked up the kids. Or anything. He said that they were
always
watching. He showed me pictures. From here. From inside the house—”
“Don’t worry about that anymore. I set up a jammer. They’re not seeing a thing.”
“He’ll
know
that I did something.” The fear in her voice was like a poison fog that clung to the air around her. I hoped like hell the Spaniard would show up. There were a few things I’d like to discuss with him. And then I wanted to rip his fucking lungs out.
“‘He’?” Circe asked. “Do you mean the man who threatened you?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell us about him?”
She described what we already knew. A compactly built man wearing dark clothes and a mask, and who spoke with a Spanish accent. The rest of her story echoed the same horrors we got from Grey. Threats, the knife. The photos of the
angels.
“How many pictures did he show you?”
“I … I don’t …” She stopped, dabbing at her eyes while she thought about it. “Maybe twelve of each. Women, and children. Six boys, six girls. I … think they were boys and girls. It was hard to … to …” She shook her head.
Circe looked at me with eyes that were fierce and bright and wet. I could imagine the sickness and rage that she felt. Inside my own head I could feel the Warrior start to howl. Even the civilized Modern Man part of me wanted blood.
“Tell me about what they wanted you to do.”
“It was the fleas … .”
Her company was part of a group of companies working on a government-funded project to develop a lasting treatment for
Yersinia pestis.
Although the plague was rare these days, there were still cases of it, and there was always the risk of terrorists weaponizing a strain. It was the same argument that justified the testing of Ebola at FIRE.
It was hard to accept it and hard to knock it down, because weaponized bubonic plague would truly be a terrible weapon and one that would be easy enough to distribute. Releasing infected fleas into widespread and uncontrolled animal populations, particularly rats, would do it. Antibiotics could be used to fight the disease, but an outbreak would create panic and would be hard to stop once started. Especially if the rats that were infested with the plague fleas were introduced in areas with large homeless and poverty-level populations. Her company was testing the latest strains of the bacteria on rat subspecies found in the subway systems of Philadelphia and
New York. There were enough infected fleas at Strauss & Strauss to begin a medium-scale epidemic.
“That’s what they wanted me to do. Go into the lab and take canisters of fleas and then drop one in each of ten stations on the Broad Street Line and ten on the Market-Frankford Line.”
“There would be a fairly long lag time between that and an outbreak,” said Circe. “How would they know if you had done what they asked?”
“They said to release fleas in the staff room. Into coats and gloves, scarves, boots.”
“But you did not do that,” prompted Circe.
Taylor shook her head. “I … almost did.”
“What stopped you?”
“There was a video. From a doctor working with Homeland.”
“Dr. Bishop?” I suggested, and she nodded. Score one for Church.
“
They
said that once I did that they would know right away.”
“Did what? Release the fleas at work?”
“Yes.”
“Which means that there was someone else at your office?”
“Yes. I got messages sometimes. Little reminders.” She described finding notes with words like “watching” and “everywhere” and some with the kids’ names on them. It was a lot like what Dr. Grey had experienced.
Fresh tears broke from Taylor’s eyes. “He said that no matter how long it would take, they would come after my babies. Can you really keep them safe?”
She was so convinced that her own life was over that she only asked about her kids. It was admirable, but it was also interesting in that from a detached point of view it was clear that her own life meant nothing compared to her kids’ lives. I know that parents will die for their kids, but I believed I was seeing a hint of the precise kind of mental-emotional configuration that had to exist in people targeted by the Spaniard.
I heard Ghost bark once. Short and sharp.
Not a danger warning. I smiled. I knew what that meant.
There was a knock on the door.
I said, “The cavalry has arrived.”