“What did they get?” I asked.
“A lot of research,” she said, “but nothing we don’t have backups for. It’s just so scary that they came in at all. Why would someone steal that stuff?”
“Anything from the Majestic program?”
She shrugged. “Sure, a lot of our stuff originated there, but none of it’s labeled ‘Majestic.’ There are no direct links to the overall program or to M3. All we have in our records are the things we’re doing with that tech.”
“Don’t you have some of the Majestic stuff on your computer?”
“Well, of course I do, but my computer is always with me. I never leave it at the office unless I lock it in the safe. Same with Toys.”
I grunted. Toys — aka Alexander Chismer — is a former career criminal, terrorist, and enabler of terrorists who has inexplicably become Mr. Church’s pet project. Church is apparently convinced that even someone with as many crimes on his soul as Toys can find genuine redemption. It makes me wonder why Church cares. I once suggested to Rudy that Church has so much blood on his own hands from things he did in the years before he started the DMS that maybe he needs proof that redemption is possible. Rudy offered no comment. He’s Church’s therapist, too.
In any case, Toys was put in charge of an obscene amount of money and charged with the task of making sure that it was used for the betterment of mankind. The money was stolen from Hugo Vox and the Seven Kings. How Church obtained it and why he risked giving it to Toys is beyond me. On the other hand, I have seen Toys in several situations where he could have done the easy thing or the wrong thing and instead he chose to put his life on the line to try and accomplish the right thing. Last year he saved the lives of Junie, Circe, and Circe’s unborn baby. So, right now I have a no-murder policy in place for Toys. It is subject to change.
He is the financier beyond FreeTech and is Junie’s confidant in that enterprise. He’s one of the very few people who have access to some of the information once contained in the Majestic Black Book.
“Where does Toys keep his data?”
“He has a laptop he brings home with him, but it’s one of the Xenomancer units built by Bug. Totally secure. And he has to contact Bug to get access whenever he logs on. It wasn’t at FreeTech that night,” Junie said. “So really, they didn’t get much that they could use.” She laughed. “It’s weird, but I’d uploaded my old podcasts once when I was upgrading my computer. I backed up everything to my office hard drive and never deleted that part of it. I… well, I listen to them sometimes. Those were copied, too. How weird is that?”
When I met Junie she was running a very popular conspiracy theory podcast. UFOs, secret societies, hidden agendas, shadow governments. Like that. Nonsense stuff… except that all of it was true. Junie was born into the Majestic program and raised by foster parents who worked for Majestic Three. She knew whereof she spoke.
“What’s Church doing about it?”
“He put some people on it, but as far as I know they haven’t found anything yet. I’m just glad no one was there to get hurt,” said Junie, but she had tears in her eyes. “I just can’t understand why they’d do something like this. I know them both. We’re friends. They don’t have criminal records, there’s never been a complaint about them, and I’ve certainly never had to reprimand either of them. It makes no sense at all.”
We talked it through but there was nowhere to go with it. Like everything else in my life lately it was an inexplicable mystery.
Around midnight I got a call from Sam to say that Rudy was awake and lucid, but that he did not remember anything about what happened. Nothing. His last memory had been of driving to the hospital to see me.
“Did you talk to him?” I asked.
“I did. He’s deeply troubled by what happened,” said Sam. “I’ll stay here at the hospital until they transfer him to a private room. The big man told Circe what’s going on and she’s sitting with Rudy now.”
“Look, Sam,” I said, “when you see Rudy next… tell him how sorry I am. Please. Let him know.”
Sam sighed. “Cap, you want to know what Rudy told me tonight? He asked how you were doing and told me to tell you that he’s sorry. He said that he sends his love.”
We were silent for a long time.
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“I know.” Sam hung up and I clung to Junie for a long time as my heart broke and broke.
In the morning, I got dressed without help and over breakfast I caught up on the news. No one had yet stepped up to take responsibility for the disaster in Houston. Even the most radical right and left pundits had begun to question whether this was, after all, a terrorist attack. There was no evidence of any kind of explosion, no strange devices found at the scene. All they could find was wreckage and dead bodies.
I didn’t buy it, though. No way in hell. Houston was only the most recent bizarre and destructive power failure.
Well, just call me paranoid. And you know that old line from Catch-22. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
The next morning I drove to the Pier.
I still felt like crap, but it was time to get back to work.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Junie wanted to drive, but I insisted that it was no longer beyond me. And I was right. This morning I’d come awake with real energy. The high-protein diet, the massages, the meditation, the good loving with an astounding woman — all of that did wonders for me. I felt alive again. And with the vigor came anger and a fiery determination to figure out what the hell was going on.
I arrived at the Pier with Ghost as my wingman. Wing-mutt. Whatever. We hit the Starbucks drive-through. Venti Pike for me, couple of egg and sausage sandwiches for the fur-monster. Like old times.
The Special Projects Office is a big building built onto the end of an old amusement pier, hence its nickname. Our engineers dug into the bedrock under the seabed, too, so we had plenty of room for offices, labs, a massive fitness center, an even bigger training hall, storage, a garage, and more. I’d moved some of my most trusted staff out here from my old shop, the Warehouse, in Baltimore. We had 209 people working at the Pier and I’d been dreading a welcome-back party of some kind. I was wrong, though. The place was empty except for a few of the support staff.
My secretary, Lydia-Rose, met me at the front door, fists on hips, glaring at me. She’s short, very curvy, very energetic, with lots of wavy black hair and the brightest smile in Southern California. Normally. She wasn’t smiling now and as I got out of the car she was wagging a stern finger at me.
“You should still be in bed,” she snapped.
“Happy to see you, too,” I said, and kissed her cheek. Then her scowl melted away and she gave me a hug that nearly snapped my spine. Lydia-Rose’s hugs straddle the fine line between hugging and mugging.
“I was so worried!” she cried as I disentangled myself from her with considerable effort.
“Where’s Church?”
“In the big conference room. But he’s in a mood. Maybe you should rest first.”
“Maybe I’ll take a buddy nap with the boss.”
She gave me one of those looks, like she wasn’t sure if I was joking. Or nuts.