The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 19, 8:52 P.M. EST
“The tomb,” explained Circe.
Every eye was on her. She looked scared, but she held her ground.
“Spill it, girl,” said Aunt Sallie.
“Experts have been trying to scientifically explain the Ten Plagues for years,” Circe said. “If there were a series of catastrophes during the time of Moses in Egypt, then there would likely be panic and unrest. During such times raids on food stores would be possible, even likely. After a time of pestilence it’s very likely that some of the food stores were contaminated by any number of bacteria or fungi. Any bread made from moldy wheat would carry diseases. The sudden deaths of so many Egyptians could very well have the result of a raid on contaminated foodstuffs. The persons most likely to conduct a successful raid would be the older and more capable members of that society. If not precisely firstborn, then at least symbolically the ‘first among them.’ It’s not all that much of a stretch to see how that could have evolved into a more dramatic story of the firstborn dying as a result of a plague sent by God. After all, it was the last straw that led to the liberation of the Israelites.”
“You’re talking about mycotoxins,” murmured Rudy, nodding agreement.
Hu looked jazzed by all this. “Right! Mycotoxins can present in a food chain as a result of fungal infection of crops. Human infection can come through direct ingestion of infected products—bread, livestock, whatever—and even cooking and freezing won’t destroy them. Nice call, Circe.”
“What are—?” Dietrich began, but Hu cut him off.
“It’s a toxic chemical produced by fungi. The toxins enter the bloodstream and lymphatic system, damage macrophage systems, and some other evil shit. Back in 2004, over a hundred people died after eating maize contaminated with aflatoxin, a species of mycotoxin. There have been other cases, too. Mostly in third-world countries.”
“The biblical connection is mostly guesswork,” Circe admitted. “The Jewish story about Passover begins at the end of the Ten Plagues. Passover celebrates the first meal to mark the escape of the Israelites from bondage
and
from the plagues. The Passover meal consists of symbolic newborn lamb, fresh herbs, and horseradish—and all of these are safe from mycotoxin exposure. The same goes for unleavened bread, which is, by definition, free of any yeasty mycotoxin contamination.”
“Makes sense even to me,” said Dietrich. “But how’s all that relate to a ransacked tomb?”
“Remember the Curse of King Tut?” she asked. “Lord Carnovan, the Englishman who financed Howard Carter’s expedition to find the tomb of King Tutankhamen, died of a mysterious illness after entering the tomb. It’s very likely that he became ill after exposure to a fungus that had been dormant in the tomb for thousands of years and reactivated by fresh air. Recent studies of newly opened ancient Egyptian tombs that had not been exposed to modern contaminants found pathogenic bacteria of the staphylococcus and pseudomonas genera, and the molds
Aspergillus niger
and
Aspergillus flavus
.”
“Yeah,” said Hu, “but the concentrations were weak. They’d only be dangerous to persons with weakened immune systems.”
“Oh, hell, Doc,” I said, “don’t forget who we’re dealing with. You trying to tell me that Sebastian Gault couldn’t amp up and weaponize one of these toxins?”
Hu sat back and gave me a rueful smile. “Shit …
I
could do that.”
Rudy said, “So, if Amenhotep II was the pharaoh from the time of Exodus, then his son could have been a victim of the mycotoxin infection. If that’s the case, and if we go on the premise that it was Gault and the Kings who raided the tomb, then are we concluding that they found a more potent strain of mycotoxin?”
We thought about that. Circe chewed her lip and Hu drummed his fingers on the table.
I said, “I may not be a scientist … but I
don’t
think that’s what happened.”
“Why not?” asked Church.
“Because it’s way too convenient. The tomb was opened what—a month or so ago? That’s awfully tight timing for science, isn’t it? No … Gault’s smart, but we
know
that the Goddess is big into misdirection. We also know that the Kings dig symbolism. The tires used to create the Plague of Darkness weren’t exactly biblical. Nor are the ‘Locust’ bombers. Wouldn’t it work just as well for them to break into the tomb to establish the mythology and then hit the firstborn of the Inner Circle with something Gault already cooked up?”
They looked at me for a while, then at each other, and one by one they began nodding. Even Hu.
Aunt Sallie grunted her approval, though she clearly found it difficult to believe that Captain Shortbus had thought it up.
The main screen over the conference table showed a collage of twenty-one faces. Young men and women, a few kids. All of them dead now, victims of a modern version of an ancient plague.
I noticed a small red light flashing on Circe’s laptop. “What’s that?” I asked.
“The Goddess!” she said, toggling over to a Twitter screen. “I have it programmed to signal me if there’s a new Goddess post and—oh my God!”
“What?” demanded Church.
“The Goddess … she posted something … .”
Circe hit a button to send the message to the main screen. We sat there, shocked to silence. The message read:
The Ten Plagues have been visited on the wicked.
Witness the fall of the House of Bones.
And then the kicker.
“Dios mio,” whispered Rudy.
“Yeah. The Seven Kings beat us,” I said. “We lost.”
Grief’s Best Music
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 19, 11:59 P.M. EST
We wrestled and wrangled it and talked it to death, but nothing we said could change the fact that the Seven Kings had set out to murder the firstborn of the Inner Circle and they had accomplished exactly that.
They’d won. Was it a battle? Or had we just lost the war?
We were all so tired, so heartsick and angry, that we were losing perspective. And the great shadowy mass that was the Seven Kings was still moving through our lives. I looked into my own heart and wondered for the hundredth time if this was what I was and who I was: a foot soldier in a war without beginning or end.
Our meeting broke up and we shambled out. Burning with impotent anger, defeated, unable to look at one another.
Circe helped Rudy into the wheelchair and this time he didn’t complain. He looked small and used up, and as he sat there he hung his head. Pain had aged him and the loss of so many innocent lives seemed to have sapped away his life force. I walked with him and Circe out into the hall.
“I … can’t believe it,” Circe said in a voice that sounded more like that of a scared little girl than that of a doctor and an expert in global terrorism.
Rudy said nothing. He simply shook his head and refused to look up.
“This isn’t over,” I said. “We still have some puzzle pieces that don’t fit.”
She gave a single harsh laugh. “What’s the point?”
“Look, Doc, we were starting to make headway when this thing blind-sided us. Let’s all get some sleep,” I suggested. “Maybe in the morning we can make some kind of plan.”
“A plan to do what?” demanded Circe. “We’ve already lost.”
I gave her a hard look. “No, we damn well haven’t. The Kings are still out there. Just because they won tonight doesn’t mean that they’ll go away. We need to keep at this. We need to find a way to hit them back.”
She stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “If we go after them,” she said slowly, “if we can hurt
them,
then—”
“Maybe we can stop them from winning the next war.”
Rudy just turned his head away and said nothing. Circe sighed and pushed his wheelchair down the hall. I stood and watched them go.
“Captain?”
I turned to see Church standing a yard away. I hadn’t heard him approach.
“Tell me, Captain, do you think that this is what Toys meant when he said that we had to
stop
Gault?”
“No.”
“Nor do I.”
“I suppose nothing is what it seems with the Seven Kings. Get some sleep.” And as if to echo my own thoughts, he added: “The war isn’t over.”
With that he walked away.
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 20, 1:06 A.M. EST
Ghost was lying amid a heap of gnawed bones, too stuffed to wag. I stepped over him and threw myself onto my bed with every intention of sleeping until sometime in midsummer.
I didn’t get a minute of sleep. Not a second.
I lay there for hours. I could feel each minute; I could hear each dry second crack off and fall away.
As soon as I closed my eyes I could hear Toys’ voice speaking to me.
You can’t trust anyone. Or anything. Nothing is what it seems. It never is with the Kings.
When I’d asked about Santoro, Toys had said,
That psycho prick will be in the thick of it. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see that much pain.
And then it hit me.
Nothing is what it seems. It never is with the Kings.
My eyes popped open.
“Holy shit!” I said. I think I yelled it. Ghost woke up and barked in alarm.
Two minutes later I was banging on Church’s door.
He opened the door almost at once. He did not look one bit surprised that I was there.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out,” he said.
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
December 20, 1:19 A.M. EST
This time the meeting was held in Church’s office. Rudy, Circe, Aunt Sallie, and me.
Church sat behind his desk in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tie loosened at the throat. I think this was maybe the second time I’d ever seen him without a suit coat. It did absolutely nothing to make him look less official and imposing.
“Why are we still flogging this thing?” growled Rudy. He looked terrible. His hair was uncombed and he wore pajamas that were too big for him. Circe, in sweats, was only marginally more composed.
“It’s the coercion thing,” I said. “That’s been the problem all along. If the firstborn thing hadn’t happened, we might have gotten to it during the meeting. The clue to this thing is there.”
“I sure as hell don’t see it,” Aunt Sallie said irritably. She wore a bathrobe that had little ducks on it. I knew it was more than my life was worth to comment on it.
“Wait,” Rudy said slowly. “Maybe I do.” He rubbed his eyes and accepted a cup of coffee from Church. “There are only a few psychological subgroups that are acutely susceptible to suggestion. And an even smaller sub-subgroup who are otherwise healthy and functional. Call it one or two per fifty thousand.”
Circe was catching on fast. “No … . To do the kind of thing we’ve seen, it’s even more rare. I’d say it’s one in two or three hundred thousand.”
“Fair enough,” Rudy said. “So, measure that against the number of people in the professions that relate to these circumstances. Law enforcement, security, viral research. A few others we haven’t identified. That number becomes impossible.”
“Right,” I said. “It’s only possible if we go on the premise that this is not random chance.”
“Hold on, dammit,” growled Aunt Sallie. “Do you mean that they were deliberately sought or deliberately placed?”
“Either,” Rudy said. “Both.”
“That’s impossible,” she said. “The system is too good.”
“Yes,” Church agreed. “It is.” But from his tone it was clear that he meant that Auntie’s assessment was wrong.
She gave a stubborn shake of her head. “No one could hack all those records. Not unless they had MindReader. C’mon, Deacon; you’re not suggesting that Bug—”
“No,” I said. “Not Bug.”
Rudy and Circe exchanged a look. Rudy said, “The normal psych profiles used in this level of government work would red flag most of these people. Bug gave me the screener’s notes for Dr. Grey, Trevor Plympton, and that other guy. Scofield, the maintenance man from Fair Isle. None of the reports indicated the right kind of psychological vulnerability.”
“Then it’s bad screening,” snapped Auntie. “Who did the screening?”
“Three different companies.”
“Same screener working at different companies at different times?”
“No.”
“Do we have the psych profiles of the screeners?”
“We do,” said Mr. Church. He removed three profiles from his desk and handed them to Aunt Sallie. She opened the covers and scanned the contents. Then she did it again and her eyes were wide.
“No fucking way, Deacon.”
Church said nothing.
Aunt Sallie wheeled on me. “Listen, jackass, I don’t know what kind of stunt you’re trying to pull here, but—”
“Auntie,” said Church softly. “Please. I had this suspicion since the Starbucks incident. Very few people knew about that meeting.”
She slapped the files down on the desk. I gingerly reached past her and picked them up, opened them, saw what she had seen.
“Ouch,” I said.
“What?” asked Rudy, but I shook my head and held on to the files.
“Dr. O’Tree,” said Church, “threat assessment is your specialty. Given the facts, work out a scenario for how this is possible.”
She chewed her lip and shook her head. “I’ve been trying to do that,” she said after a thoughtful pause, “but I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“Well … I can, but it’s impossible.” Circe looked like someone had slapped her.
“We seem to be trading in impossible,” grumbled Aunt Sallie. “Speak your mind, girl.”
But Circe shook her head and it was clear that she was in great distress. Her eyes were filling with tears; she covered her hand with her mouth. “I … can’t.”
“Then I’ll say it for you,” I said, my voice more brutal than I’d intended. “There’s ten kinds of security on places like the London and double that for Fair Isle and Area 51. Everyone gets a background check that goes all the way to their DNA. The people who do the screening are as important or perhaps
more
important than the people they interview for these jobs.”
“That’s my damn point,” snapped Aunt Sallie. “Every screener we use comes with ironclad bona fides. Every damn one.”
Tears rolled down Circe’s face.
“Yes,” said Mr. Church quietly. “And every damn one of them was vetted by Vox.”
Circe O’Tree burst into tears.