The engineering skills of the ancient world always dazzled him. He understood a bit of structural engineering from a course he took in college — because of a very hot undergrad he wanted to impress. While he had utterly failed to amaze the woman with his grasp of the science, he had nevertheless learned some things by simple exposure. He knew that many of the feats of building managed by cultures going back as far as the Sumerians were astonishing. Things that would be daunting undertakings with hundred-foot cranes, stonecutting machines, and all of the benefits of modern science were accomplished with simple tools, determination, and patience. From the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan to the Great Pyramid of Giza, from Angkor Wat in Cambodia to the Taj Mahal in India, those accomplishments made Harry feel particularly incompetent.
The source of the green glow was still not evident, but the illumination itself revealed a vast room supported by dozens of carved stone columns. There were hundreds of what looked like stone sarcophagi resting on bases of dark volcanic rock. As they reached the floor of the chamber Harry could see that none of those sarcophagi were normal. The ones he’d seen in museums and at other ancient sites with Violin were all roughly human, approximating some idealized version of the body entombed within. Not these. They were too big, for one thing: the smallest he saw was at least ten feet long, and some were twice that size. The figures were strange blends of human and fish, or human and octopus. Some with vast wings, others with too many heads to count.
“What are these?” he whispered.
“Children of the Deep Ones,” she said.
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Violin paused and cocked an ear. “Listen.”
He did. At first he heard nothing — and he was glad it wasn’t more of that booming voice — but then, off in the direction where the green light was brightest, he could hear the fading sound of running feet.
“Hurry,” said Violin as she sprinted toward the noise and the strange green light.
Harry lingered, and for a moment he almost did not follow. In that moment he thought about what in the world he was doing here. Sure, he was a former CIA operative, but not a good one. He was ten million miles away from being in the same league as Violin. Or his secret hero, Joe Ledger. He was a short, dumpy loser who sometimes got lucky. Luckier than he deserved.
What in the living hell was he doing here? What was he even thinking? That he was Indiana Jones? That he was Joe Ledger? He knew the real answer to those questions.
“Please,” he said quietly, as if asking to be excused could get him out of this. He had a pistol in his hand and it felt like a prop from a bad TV movie. He ran to catch up but hadn’t gotten fifty feet before the men they were chasing began to scream.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Waiting and doing nothing is a pain in the ass. I’m no good at it.
To keep from climbing the walls, I called home, but got the answering machine, then called Junie’s cell. And got her voicemail. She was so busy with FreeTech that I had a closer and more meaningful relationship with her recording. I left a message for her to call, told her I loved her, and hung up feeling peevish and slighted, which I know is both immature and unfair.
Beneath my foul mood I was genuinely in love and deeply proud — possibly in awe — of what Junie Flynn had accomplished over the last few years. Church had offered her the role of CEO of a private company that took the deadly technologies the DMS forcibly appropriated from bad guys and repurposed them for humanitarian uses. New water filtration systems, new organic fertilizer enhancers, medical equipment, cybernetic implants for the physically challenged, and most recently a portable diagnostic device that was helping with the weaponized rabies plague spread by Zephyr Bain during the Dogs of War case. She was saving lives every single day, and bringing light into a darkened world. She was one end of the evolutionary bell curve. I, a more primitive kind of creature, was way farther back.
The reason for my grumpiness was that we were both starting to feel the strain of being so deeply involved in our jobs that we were drifting from one another. It wasn’t a lessening of love — at least not for me — but it was more like we were in danger of becoming strangers. Or worse, acquaintances. It was something we each promised to work on, and I prayed we still had time.
She didn’t call back. I couldn’t go home. So, I did what any tough-as-nails, battle-hardened, deeply skilled special operator would do. I sat in the mess hall and sulked.
Top was in there, too. Top knows how to make a sandwich. It’s not about how many slices of pastrami or roast beef you add, it’s about how they’re placed. He makes sure there are irregular air pockets so that biting into the sandwich isn’t like eating a slab of meat. He cuts his pickles lengthwise and uses the heart of a tomato so there’s less skin and more juice. He also has a light hand with mustard or mayonnaise. He appreciates subtlety. Top is an artist and I am a devoted fan.
Like proper adult men, we ate the sandwiches over the big double sink.
Bunny arrived with a suitcase in one hand and a case of cold beer under his arm. He set the beer down on the counter, opened three, popped the caps, and handed them around. “Medical supplies.”
“Hooah,” said Top. We clinked bottles and drank.
That case of beer didn’t stand a chance.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The small Japanese-American woman perched on the edge of a leather guest chair. She was not wearing handcuffs, but a pair sat conspicuously on the desk. The woman who sat across from her smiled like a moray eel.
“Do you know why you’re here?” asked Jennifer VanOwen.
Yuina Hoshino folded her hands in her lap and let nothing show on her face. “No,” she said simply.
“Do you know who I am?”
A shake of the head.
“I am the special advisor to the president on all scientific matters,” said VanOwen. She opened her desk and removed a crisp sheet of paper and placed it facedown on her desk. Then, after a moment’s pause, removed a second and laid it next to the first. “You know that you will never live long enough to serve your entire sentence. You’re lucky that you were not given the death penalty. A lot of people wanted that to happen. A lot of people wanted you to vanish into a black site where psychopaths on our payroll would make life a constant and intense hell for you.”
Hoshino wanted to look away. She wanted to cry. But she did neither. Instead she looked into the middle of nowhere and let her expression go totally blank.
“The people who arrested you and wanted to end you belonged to a different administration,” said VanOwen, then she corrected herself. “No, they belonged to a different view of what patriotism means. They subscribed to a view of America and its place in the world that is limited, skewed, and small.” She paused. “I know that you have a different view of America’s potential greatness. One that is built on ambition and courage, but which also prizes a shift away from globalism.”
“I don’t have any politics,” said Hoshino. “I don’t have any religion. Just science.”
“And yet you worked with Howard Shelton to build the T-craft that almost destroyed Beijing and Moscow and the capitals of countries that have anti-American agendas.”