“Sir, when you say ‘vampire’—”
Lord slammed his glass on the table, splashing whiskey and nearly upsetting the bottle. “I mean a goddamned vampire. Clear the wax out of your ears.”
Graves apologized, but inside he wondered if the old man was insane, or if he was. If he had not seen the bodies of his agents, if he had not heard that voice on the phone, he would have run for the door.
“There’s more to this world than the things you can see,” Lord said. “There are hidden chapters to history, and not all of them were written by men. Think about what you saw. Think about the voice you heard. Was that human?”
Graves shook his head. No. That was not human. He was sure of that.
“Just be grateful you didn’t meet him in person,” Lord said. “You wouldn’t be here.”
“Who is he?”
“You’ll find out. Along with many other things. But first, I want you to answer a very important question.”
The old man leaned close.
“Haven’t you ever noticed the similarities between spycraft and witchcraft?” Lord asked.
Graves shook his head, confused.
“Think about it. Witches revere true names—they are the way to control demons. While we use false names to get close to people, and then use their demons—alcohol, homosexuality, pederasty—to control them. Witches speak magic words to unlock secrets. We use code words. They talk of crossing over to the ‘Other Side,’ the place beyond death. We refer to the enemy as the Other Side, and when we find a traitor, we say he’s gone over. It’s all about who controls reality. That’s what we’re after. That’s what we’ve always been after.”
Graves struggled to keep up. This was all starting to be too much. Sure, he’d heard about some esoteric projects run by the Agency. Things like MK-ULTRA, or CONNECTICUT-HULU, or even the rumors about what they were keeping out at Groom Lake. That stuff sounded like science fiction, and it was real. He’d seen it. But this was past all that, right into fairy tales and nightmares.
“We chose to operate this way. We prefer the shadows. The Order is only one more mask. The most secure form of rule is the one where the subjects don’t even know the names of their rulers. That is the purpose of espionage—to hide the true face in the mirror. We lie to the world, but more important, we lie to ourselves. You have no idea. But you’ll find out.”
Graves felt he’d missed something. “Sir. I don’t understand. What does that have to do with a vampire?”
“Never mind that right now,” Lord snapped. “What do you want? Why did you join the Agency?”
Graves stammered, caught off guard. “I want—to serve my country, sir. To stand up against communism, and protect—”
“Stop. Stop.” The old man’s eyes were sharp and mean. “You didn’t walk away from everyone you knew for that pabulum. You let us give you a new name and a new life, and you’ve killed for us in return. And it wasn’t for the U.S.A and Chevrolet. Tell me the truth: what do you want?”
“I am telling you the truth, sir, I—”
The old man put his hand on the gun again.
“Do I really need to threaten you with this? I said the
truth
, you mewling little faggot. What. Do. You.
Want
.”
Something came loose in Graves. All the tension and fear and anxiety came crumbling down. All that was left was rage.
“Everything,” Graves hissed, and it was like gas escaping from under tons of rock and pressure. “I want it all. I want people to do what I tell them to do. I want money—enough to buy anything I see, just because it’s there. And I want women. All of them. On their knees, on their backs, I want them all, and I want all of that right now, and I want to slaughter anyone who gets in my way.”
The old man leaned close. Graves could smell nicotine and rot on his breath.
“You can have it,” he said. “You can have all of it. That’s why you are here. That’s why we found you. The world is darker than you know. If you are willing to see its true face, you must take that darkness inside you as well. If you want power in this world, you must embrace what other men call evil. And then, you can have everything you ever wanted and more.”
Graves thought about it. He knew this was one of those pivotal moments in his life. But he felt like the decision had already been made. Still, he took the bottle off the table and poured. Then he took a drink to steady himself.
Graves tried to gauge how serious the old man was. This was starting to sound uncomfortably close to things he remembered from Sunday school.
“Are you asking me to sell my soul?” Graves asked. He chuckled a little, to try to make it sound like a joke.
The old man beamed, revealing yellow teeth. “You sold your soul a long time ago, my boy. Now you get
paid
.”
Lord took Graves’s hand in a firm grip as if meeting him for the first time.
“Welcome to the Company,” he said. “I think you’re going to do very well with us.”
TWENTY-THREE
Finally there is the story . . . of Dave Morales, a self-proclaimed CIA assassin who one night, with only close friends present, went into a boozy diatribe against Kennedy for sacrificing his CIA-trained comrades at the Bay of Pigs. Suddenly he stopped . . . and remained silent for moment. Then as if saying it only to himself he added: “Well, we took care of that son of a bitch, didn’t we?”
—Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen,
The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
C
ade saw no reason to wait. Graves had escaped justice for decades.
In the next split second, Graves’s throat was in Cade’s right hand. He raised the briefcase like a shield, his feet kicking in empty air.
Still, he looked far too calm for a man in a vampire’s grip.
Cade paused. Longer than he should have.
Behind them, Cade heard the sounds of weapons being readied. The pilot of the chopper shouted at him over the bird’s P.A. system.
“Release the Colonel! Do it now! We will shoot!”
Cade realized exactly how this looked. He saw it from the perspective of the Marines in the copter: a field of smoldering corpses, a man in a known uniform, pointing the finger of blame at someone dressed in rags, covered in grime and blood.
It was an old trick. And a shamefully effective one.
But it wasn’t the Marines that made Cade hesitate. He maneuvered Graves between them and himself.
Cade felt something he wasn’t accustomed to; something so rare it took a moment to name it.
Uncertainty.
“You can’t do this,” Graves said, choking out the words.
“Something’s wrong,” Cade said. He could not harm Graves. It was a fact, simple and inarguable, as solid as bedrock.
The Marines continued to scream at them. Cade paid no attention. He looked at Graves, bewildered. “How—?”
Graves pointed to the inside pocket of his jacket.
Cade lowered Graves so his feet touched the deck again, but kept him as a shield for the Marines.
With his free hand, Cade reached into the pocket and came out with nothing but a single sheet of paper.
It began: “Pursuant to the power granted me by the Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 2, as President of the United States, I have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, unconditional and absolute pardon . . .”
Cade recognized the language instantly. It was a presidential pardon for any and all crimes committed. Signed by the previous president on the day before Curtis’s inauguration, but without any end date. That made it preemptive, automatically forgiving the recipient for anything done, even after it was issued.
In other words, it was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.
And it had Graves’s name on it.
Cade couldn’t harm Graves in any way. The pardon was nonnegotiable, just the same as a direct order from the president. Even though that president was no longer in office, Cade was bound by his oath to follow it. Thanks to that paper, Graves was free from any sanction the United States government could deliver. And that included Cade.
Graves smiled, the first genuine expression Cade had ever seen on his face.
“You see,” he said, “as far as you’re concerned, I’m untouchable.”
CADE STOOD there for a moment. He was not used to being taken by surprise, not by anything.
“You’re Shadow Company,” he said. It was so painfully obvious that he didn’t need to say it, but words were all he had right now.
“I think it’s adorable that you still call us that,” Graves said. “Remind me to get you one of the new business cards.”
Without warning, Graves moved faster than a man half his age and shoved the briefcase at Cade.
It bounced into Cade’s chest. He caught it by reflex, releasing Graves.
Graves made the most of the chance. He ran away, screaming. “It’s him!” Graves shouted, waving his arms. “He’s the one who killed them all!”
By then, the Marines were already shooting at him.
They sent a line of bullets across the deck, separating him from Graves. He pivoted and ran the other way. He felt the heat of the rounds as they passed by him. If he were human, they would have torn him to pieces already.
The smoke pouring off the deck in front of him suddenly parted in a thunder of rotors. The helicopter rose just above him. A door gunner had his weapon out and aimed.
Cade was caught in the cross fire. There was no cover anywhere, no place to hide.
Briefcase still in hand, Cade vaulted the railing and went over the side.
The door gunner got off one last burst. One of the rounds tore through him, turning him like a pinwheel in midair, at the arc of his leap.
He fell five stories until he hit the deep black sea, then sank without a trace.
TWENTY-FOUR
The Other Side—
Death, or the land of death. (
Ex. “He passed over to the other side.”
) Thought to originate from the Greek myth of crossing over the River Styx and into Hades, the realm of the dead.
In espionage, used to refer to the sponsor of enemy agents. (
Ex. “Philby was turned to the other side while at Cambridge.”
)
—
Falsworth’s Dictionary of Idioms and Phrases
, 1971
D
own in the morgue, the sprinklers finally stopped. Bell slicked her hair out of her face. “Now what?”
Zach pulled out his phone. Down here, it was safer than land-lines, and hooked immediately into the wireless network shared through all the tunnels.
He hit the number listed under CLEANERS.
“Operator” was the only reply.
“Code name: JIMMY CHRISTOPHER,” Zach said, struggling to remember the right daily sequence and the right code. “UNDERWORLD. CHARON. STYX. ZOOKEEPER.”
“Confirm location.”
Zach pressed a button on the phone, activating the homing beacon, then put it back to his ear.
“Got it,” the operator said. “Sit tight. We’ll have someone there as soon as we can. Good luck.”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “Thanks.” But the line was already dead.
“What was that?” Bell wanted to know.
“Cleaning crew. They’ll be here to secure the location and deal with . . .” He looked at the desk drawer as his voice trailed off.
“Not your first time doing this, then.”
Zach sighed. “It’s not even my first time this month.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s the federal government. We have procedures for everything. Why do you think I’m inoculated against zombies?”
“There’s a vaccine for zombies?”
“Oh sure. HZV, H1Z1, most of the other strains.”
“Are you kidding?”
For a second, Zach savored being the guy who knew stuff nobody else did.
“Sorry. Classified.”
Bell gave him a dark look that said he wasn’t nearly as amusing as he thought.
They both shivered from the cold and the sudden adrenaline crash.
Bell looked around the room. “Do we have to stay here?”
Zach wasn’t wild about the idea either. Why not, he figured. They both needed a change of clothes.
Zach led her down one connecting tunnel, then another. Five minutes later, they were in the Reliquary.
Bell looked at all the exhibits with a kind of exhausted wonder. She was losing the capacity for shock and awe:
Oh, so that’s what a Chupacabras really looks like? Huh, who knew?
Zach could tell; he’d been there himself.