“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means that a spaceship can’t fly faster than the speed of light, and the exoplanets we’ve discovered in what they call the ‘Goldilocks Zone,’ meaning the habitable zone for life as we know it, are too far away. The closest one is Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away.”
“That’s close.”
“No, it’s not. Look, if you break a light-year down to smaller units, the distance between the Earth and our sun is eight light-minutes away. It would take our fastest spacecraft months to travel that distance. Now do the math on a light-year. There are over five hundred thousand light minutes in each year. Now multiply that by four, and that’s just Proxima Centauri. Try to grasp how big space is.”
Ari nodded. “Okay, okay, so it would take a long time.”
“Centuries. Unless what people call aliens aren’t coming from other planets.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Look, Ari, maybe the artifacts we’ve found don’t come from outer space but from there.” He pointed to the wall.
Ari looked confused and then understanding blossomed in his eyes.
“Doors?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Doors,” agreed Valen.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
When no one could reach the Speaker’s wife by phone, text, or e-mail, Holly Bellmeyer, a senior aide from his office, had two local police officers meet her outside of the Howell residence. No one answered the bell. No one answered when they knocked, nor even when the police loudly announced that they were on the doorstep.
“No one’s home,” suggested one of the officers.
Bellmeyer went and peered in through the small windows on the garage door. “Mrs. Howell’s car is still there. And her daughter’s rental.” She turned and pointed to a five-year-old Toyota parked in the shade under a maple tree. “That’s the cleaning lady’s car.”
“Tony,” said the older officer, “take a look at this.”
“Whatcha got, Al?” asked Tony, hurrying over.
Officer Al Costas was kneeling to peer at the welcome mat. The mat was made from indoor-outdoor carpet and had a pattern of fluttering birds. There were various colored dots woven into the pattern, but a few of them were very dark and glistened as if wet.
His partner, Tony Shapley, slowed to a walk and stared.
“Oh, God,” said Bellmeyer, taking a half step back. “Is that…?”
She didn’t finish the statement. The looks on the officers’ faces gave her the answer. Tony called it in, explaining that they had found what appeared to be bloodstains, and about the cars. He was advised to determine the status of the Speaker’s family.
The officers verified that their body cameras were on, then made Bellmeyer go stand behind their cruiser. They hammered on the door again and got the same empty response. Careful not to smudge any prints, Al tried the handle and found that it turned. The door wasn’t locked and it swung inward with an illusion of quiet invitation.
The officers stepped inside.
“Holy mother of God,” murmured Tony.
What they found was unspeakable. The bodycams recorded it all. The lake of blood that covered the expensive tiled floor and soaked the imported area rugs. The ragged islands that rose, large and small, throughout that crimson expanse. A piece of shoulder. A hand. Legs. Heads arranged in a row on the couch, with mouths opened as if screaming.
Screaming.
Screaming.
Without sound.
Above the heads, above the couch, painted in sloppy letters across the living room wall, were two words. Analysis would later show that the letters were written in mingled blood from all of the victims. The message was:
DEEP SILENCE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Church finally called me, and the first thing he said to me was, “Can you confirm that the men who attacked you were Closers?”
Not “Hey, Joe, you okay?” Not “Sorry you had such a shitty day.” No. Not him. If I had a crowbar stuck through my head he wouldn’t even express sympathy that my favorite Orioles cap would no longer fit. Mr. Warmth he is not.
“They were dressed in black suits,” I said, “wore some kind of bullet-resistant body armor under their clothes, they shot at us with MMPs, and I’m pretty sure their escape car was a T-craft. So, on the whole…? Yeah, there was a pretty good chance they were freaking Closers.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And the green blood…?”
“Was blood.”
“How sure are you?”
“Pretty damn.”
“Then go over it from the beginning. Omit no detail.”
His coldness and precision, and the demands those placed on his subordinates, often had a specific effect. You don’t want to disappoint Church. You want his approval, because that approval means something. He isn’t just our boss, he’s the kind of person whose personal standards are so high that his evaluation of you often helps define you. I know, that sounds a little needy on my part, but it’s not. He’s been in the fight longer than I have, and probably longer than I’ve been alive. He’s won the fights he’s been in, and the fact that the world still has its wheels on the rails has a lot to do with his being there to set things right. Do I exaggerate? No. I really don’t.
So, as I drove, I went over it all. Everything since Top picked up the follow car. Church listened without comment until I was done. Then he made me go over certain portions of it again, focusing on the things the agents said, to how they said them.
“Bug accessed the Calpurnia-MindReader Q1 substation in your vehicle, Captain,” he said. “The onboard cameras and mics did not record the incident. Apparently, from the moment the follow car crossed your spike net all onboard surveillance and telemetric systems in your car blanked out. We lost the signals from the drones, too.”
The drizzle had slowed to random spitting, so I adjusted the wipers to intermittent as I headed toward Washington.
“What kind of jammer can knock out everything including Calpurnia and the link to MindReader?”
“If there’s something on the market like that, Captain, let me know and I’ll buy out their warehouse. However, I seriously doubt we’re going to be able to order it from anyone’s catalog.”
Traffic was heavy and it slowed to a crawl. That was fine.
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Let me ask this first,” Church said. “Is it your professional opinion that the agents you dealt with at the cemetery and at Sellers Mansion were the same kind of Closers you encountered on the road?”
I had been expecting that question.
“No,” I said. “I thought so at first, but now…? No. They were completely different.”
“Do you believe these Closers were working toward the same goal as the Secret Service agents?”
“Hunh,” I said, and thought about it, trying to play it all back in widescreen and high definition. “They both tried to arrest me and—”
“Did they, Captain?” interrupted Church. “Did they say or do anything to validate that assumption? Can you say with certainty that this was an attempt to arrest you?”
I tried not to wince because Ghost was watching and I didn’t want him to lose confidence in the basic intelligence of his pack leader. That was already shaky ground.