“No,” I said.
“Tell me the difference,” said Church, as pedantic as a patient schoolteacher.
It was a measure of how rattled I was that I needed him to do this. Doc Holliday had done her trick with visualizing the T-craft, but this was a step deeper. Inside my head, the Cop squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, and came back to work.
“They identified our vehicle and followed at a practical distance,” I said slowly. “They didn’t attempt to close on us until we made it clear we were aware of them and attempting to elude. Calpurnia established that they were driving a government car obtained through illegal means using sophisticated computer hacking.”
“ Ultrasophisticated,” corrected Church. “Bug has been studying the hack of the motor pool servers and he says that whoever did it used superior skills.”
“Superior to his?”
“He wouldn’t admit to that under torture, but yes.”
“Boss,” I said, “we’re talking about details here, but I think there’s a conversation neither of us wants to have.”
“Agreed.”
“Are these the same — what’s the word? Aliens? Beings? E.T.s? — who made us give them the Majestic Black Book?”
“We have to consider that possibility,” he conceded. “Just as we have to consider that the Majestic program is not as dead as we thought.”
“We pretty much drove a stake through its heart.”
“We’ve been wrong before, Captain.”
We talked for a few minutes longer, but it was clear to both of us that we didn’t have enough information. For now. He said he was going to make sure all of the right wheels were in motion.
Before he signed off, he said something off-topic. “I appreciate your going to D.C. to see to Aunt Sallie. She won’t like you for it, but you have my gratitude.”
“She’s family,” I said.
“Yes,” said Church, “and it may amuse you to know that she said the same about you.”
The line went dead as I crossed into the nation’s capital.
INTERLUDE SEVENTEEN
The lab did not look like a lab. It looked like a hedonistic retreat for people with too much money and too few clothes. That’s how Valen saw it.
However, there were no greased tourists sprawled on the sugar-white beaches. There were no bikini women or Speedo men romping in the blue-green perfection of the water. Not a single drink with a paper umbrella to be seen.
Valen stood with Ari, who leaned heavily on a cane, watching as a silent army of men sweated and grunted as they unloaded crate after crate of equipment. Stone-faced and flint-hearted sentries with automatic weapons stood in the shelter of camouflaged tarps. Another group — men and women in white lab coats — milled like ants, going in and out of a row of Quonset huts built beneath half an acre of netting.
Ari leaned close. “You must be a wizard in the sheets, brother.”
“What?”
“This must be costing millions. Tens of millions. You must have screwed Gadyuka’s brains loose to fund all of this. She gave us everything we asked for. The high-tech lab, the security systems. All of it.”
“Believe me, Ari,” said Valen, “the fact that I’m sleeping with her had nothing to do with this. After she saw the gun and that hand, she couldn’t get her checkbook out fast enough.”
“And she said ‘They’re back’? But didn’t tell you what she meant by that?”
“No. She tried to laugh it off, tried to say I misheard her because of my hearing aid.”
They watched as crate after crate of equipment was carried up the beach.
“Look, man,” said Ari, “what the hell are we into here?” Since the explosion of the green machine, the Greek was much less bombastic and arrogant. He merely looked scared and uncertain. “We are so far into the dark with this shit even I don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish. Do they want us to figure out who or what left that hand behind? Do they want to use those crystals for something? Or is it the machine? Do they want to blow themselves up? She gives us all this money, hires all these people, spends years sending us around the world to find green stones and ancient books, and I mean, what the actual fuck is the point?”
“All of it.”
Valen took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. He was aware of how badly his hands shook these days.
“Since when do you smoke?” asked Ari.
“Since when do you wear a religious medal?”
Ari’s hand reflexively touched the small gold likeness of Saint Nicholas that had the words “Pray For Us” engraved below it.
“You didn’t answer my question, brother,” he said. “What does Gadyuka want?”
“She wants what happened at the dig site. She wants us to figure out the science.”
Ari laughed, then gaped. “Wait, you’re serious? Is she out of her mind? That was a fucking accident. A side effect. I nearly died, for Christ’s sake. Who in the fuck would want that? Why?”
Valen took a long drag and let the smoke leak out of his nostrils.
“She wants the earthquakes.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
There was nowhere to park anywhere near the Capitol Building, even when I flashed my very realistic but totally fake DHS identification. The place was already ass-deep in actual guys from Homeland, as well as every other agency that has badges and buys off-the-rack dark suits. So, I parked about four blocks away and hoofed it, with Ghost trotting dutifully by my side wearing an official-looking vest.
Once inside, I saw Aunt Sallie and D.J. standing in the back, leaning against the wall, and I immediately understood why D.J. had called me. I did a quick calculation of how long since I’d last seen her. Eight months? Could it really be that long? It jolted me to see how that amount of time had changed her. Aunt Sallie was heavier, with a more pronounced osteoarthritic hump to her back, and skin that hung in loose folds. I always figured her for late sixties, but if I didn’t know her I would have pegged her as mideighties. She looked like a frail old woman. That scared me. I may not like Aunt Sallie, but I admired the living hell out of her. She was one of those legendary agents whose reality exceeded even the wild tales people told.
D.J. saw me and bent to whisper in her ear. Her head shot up and swiveled toward me, and even though her body was sickly, the eyes she fixed on me glowed with nuclear heat.
“What in the living hell are you doing here, you jackass?” she growled as I approached. “I’m here trying to keep your sorry white ass out of jail and you come strolling in, bold as brass?”
“Nice to see you, too, Auntie,” I said, dialing up the wattage on my smile. I shook hands with D.J. but did not want to risk amputation and so did not offer my hand to Aunt Sallie. Ghost wagged his tail at her and her scowl softened by maybe one-millionth of a degree.
All around us were huge crowds of people who did not seem willing or able to respect the police demands to clear the room. The space around the spot where the Speaker of the House died was clear of rubberneckers, though. Instead, a bunch of forensic technicians were scouring every single inch of each table, chair, and the various items particular to the House of Representatives. I recognized the faces of several congressmen, including senators, clustered together in worried knots. I felt like making a snide comment about how those clusters were composed of members of both parties, but it didn’t seem to be the time for jokes. In the moment, having witnessed a horror that was on a human level, they were just being frightened, confused, sickened people.