I shook my head. “How could all this happen that fast?”
“It had to have been in motion for a long time,” said Church. “To have planted enough agents inside our intelligence services to do this much damage and provide that much information to our enemies speaks to a massive campaign. Something on the scale of the Seven Kings.”
I jerked upright. “Is it them? Are they never going to lie down and die?”
Church stroked Bastion’s silky fur. “No, Captain, I don’t think there’s anything left of the Kings. This is not them. This is almost certainly ISIL, and we are witnessing an evolution of that organization. Somehow they have put together a network of spies that rivals or exceeds anything we have ever encountered.”
I sat there, numb, uncertain how to even think let alone sure of what to do.
“I hate to kick you when you’re down, Captain,” said Church, clearly meaning to, “but there’s more. The president has officially given the power outage case to the CIA. It’s theirs and we are out except as intelligence support and some minor logistics.”
“Why would he do that? The Agency is a dinosaur. Even if we’ve dropped the ball a few times, we still have the best overall record for success in cases like this. We even beat Harcourt Bolton’s clearance record. So how the hell does the CIA get put into play and we’re making coffee for them?”
“The decision was made by the White House.”
I slapped my palm on the table so hard it made Bastion and Ghost jump. “It’s a bad damn decision.”
“It’s worse than that, Captain,” said Church. “Harcourt Bolton has been asked to step in as ‘special director’ for the duration of this crisis.”
“Special director of what?”
“Of the DMS. He is codirector with me and is now personally running the Special Projects Office.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
First Sergeant Bradley Sims stepped out of the Expedition and stood looking up at the high-rise. He wore a plain dark blue suit, white shirt, quiet tie. He was aware, however, that he did not look like a businessman. He looked like what he was. Or, at least something like what he was. The people who passed on the street cut looks at him and then looked quickly away, some looking guilty or nervous. Or hostile. Same reactions from men who looked like him and who wore suits like that. Cop, they thought. Local or federal, but definitely cop. Which was close enough to the mark. Special operators sometimes did a few of the things cops did. They made arrests. They took down bad people. Top had taken down some very bad people over the years. A few went to jail. Some went to black sites from which they did not return. And a fair few went into the ground.
The badge in his pocket gave him authority but it was a lie. He did not work for the FBI and never had. Nor did he work for the NSA, the Secret Service, the Supreme Court police, the Housing Authority, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Border Patrol, the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the U.S. Marshals Service, but he had badges and credentials for each in the glove compartment of his Explorer. Just as he had papers proving that he held both noncommissioned and officer rank in every branch of the United States Armed Forces as well as those of Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, and France. He could have a working set of credentials for virtually any police or military organization in the world with a phone call.
The Department of Military Sciences, however, had neither badges nor ID cards. They did not officially exist except by a charter, the details of which were outlined in a sealed executive order.
But he knew he looked like a cop. Nobody on the street smiled at him, which was fine, because Top wasn’t in a sunny mood. The job down in Antarctica had done him some harm. Not physically, and not where it showed, but he could feel it. The fear was there and he caught glimpses of it when he looked in the mirror. There was a slight tremble of the hand, a hesitation in the step that was never there before. Not even after the Red Knights and the Majestic Black Book cases. Not even after the horrors he’d seen in the tunnels beneath the Dragon Factory.
No, all of that was science. Weird science, sure. Bad science, no doubt. But those horrors had been the end results of physics and medicine, genetics and chemistry, structural engineering and radical surgery. At the end of the day — and there had been some very bad days for Top and his colleagues — everything they’d encountered could be mapped out, dissected, dismantled, and explained.
The things that had happened in the Gateway lab could not be.
Not yet.
And now the DMS was falling apart. Instead of providing stable ground for him and Bunny to stand on, the ship was canting down into the watery deep. Top had lost friends on some of the other teams. Other friends were under investigation for mishandling of their cases. A few were probably going to jail.
It was all falling apart and Top felt the timbers splitting inside his head and heart.
Top glanced over his shoulder. Bunny was still seated behind the wheel, hands in his lap, eyes staring at who knew what. Memories? Possibilities? He certainly wasn’t looking at anything on the street. It hurt Top. And it did not help one bit that Top understood what was going on in the young man’s head and heart.
Even so, this was a job and it needed getting done, so he rapped lightly on the side window. Bunny flinched. A rare and ugly thing for him. Bunny was a good kid but he was tough as iron and, in Top’s experience, did not have much “give up” in him.
Unless now he did.
It was hard to say.
It was bad to think about.
Bunny rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath, and blew out his cheeks as he exhaled.
Top tapped on the window. “Come on, Farm Boy, they ain’t paying us to be tourists.”
Bunny got out of the car, closed the door and locked it, buttoned his jacket so the breeze wouldn’t blow it open to show his shoulder holster. He came around the front of the Expedition and stood beside Top. Now the crowds on the street tended to cross to the other side. The ones that didn’t parted like a river around a rock. Top looked up at Bunny.
“You good to go?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Bunny said, and took a step toward the building.
Top shifted around to block his way. “‘I guess’? What kind of horseshit is that? I asked you a straight question. Are you good to go?”
Bunny straightened. He was nearly six seven and had massive arms and shoulders. Blond hair and blue eyes and a dark tan that made his white teeth seem to glow. Top had seen Bunny pick grown men up and hurl them like sacks of potatoes. He’d seen him throw himself into a crowd and batter half a dozen other men down to the ground. He’d walked side by side with him through a hundred vicious firefights. As he searched Bunny’s eyes he looked for that man. The one who anchored Echo Team with muscle and heart.
And Top could see the moment when Bunny became aware of what was going on, when he understood the conversation they were both having with unspoken words.
Bunny took another big breath, and exhaled slowly. “I’m good,” he said.
Top studied him a moment longer, then nodded. “Me, too,” he lied.
They turned and went to the back of the car to remove one briefcase and a metal equipment case. Top took the briefcase and Bunny hefted the equipment. They walked into the building, flashed their FBI credentials at the guard, and took the elevator to the sixteenth floor. Neither said a word.
Their job was a simple one. The only tenant of the sixteenth floor was the office and private laboratory of Dr. Raoul San Pedro. The office had been shut up except for a twice-monthly cleaner who dusted the furniture. Following the incident in Antarctica, the office had been officially sealed by the FBI and a police detail had been assigned to guard the door pending resolution and disposition of San Pedro’s effects. Top had a federal order in his pocket that would allow him and Bunny to enter the premises and remove anything that might be of use. The order was vague in detailing what they were looking for, but sweeping in the authority it afforded them. The tools in the bag Bunny carried were to help them locate hidden electronics or a safe, and if a safe existed they had what they needed to open it.