As I walked the halls and climbed the stairs I thought about what we would do if we caught Jakoby alive. How do you punish such as person? A bullet seems so simple. Too easy. A bullet and he dies; he’s gone.
Torture?
Man, that was a can of worms. My personal politics are left of center, but I have my hardline moments. A guy like Jakoby, a man willing to slaughter every nonwhite in Africa… I hate to know this about myself, but I know that if I was alone in a room with that bastard I don’t think I’d be Mr. Passive. If I could make it last for a year, keeping him in screaming agony, would that offer an adequate redress? When the crime is so vast that it spans decades of time, crosses all national lines, changes cultures, and devours the weak and strong alike, then what possible form of punishment could be appropriate? Where is justice in the face of true unalterable evil?
I could use his records, his confession, to launch a holy war against those who embrace the ideas of eugenics, ethnic cleansing, and the master race. I could light that fire — but what chance was there that the resulting firestorm would burn only the guilty? War is madness, and when bullets fly and bombs explode many people use the conflagration to settle personal agendas, or profiteer, or simply play blood games.
No… I could not do that.
But I had a better plan. It would bring neither peace nor closure to the victims of Cyrus Jakoby, but it would do something no bullet or hangman’s noose could do. It would hurt him.
With those dark thoughts burning in my brain, I made my way carefully out of the Deck, crossed the obstacle course of cameras, and then ran the rest of the way back to where Top and Bunny were waiting.
“The Brits are landing,” Top said.
Chapter One Hundred Three
In Florida, Alpha Team had transferred to a Navy helicopter that was now sitting on the beach of a deserted cay fifteen nautical miles from Dogfish Cay. They were waiting for pickup from the USS New Mexico, a Virginia Class submarine that was patrolling these waters. Her team waited in the forward cabin of a large fishing boat owned by the DEA. The captain, an agent two years from retirement, got a “no questions asked” call from his boss and was happy to oblige. All he had to do was sit at anchor and pretend to fish.
“Tell me,” Church said. He was at the TOC and had spent an hour on the phone with the President. Church sounded uncharacteristically tired.
“The Jakoby jet landed on Grand Bahama and they transferred to a seaplane which they flew to Dogfish Cay. There’s a dredged harbor and good deep water. The New Mexico will bring us to within a mile and we’ll go in by water at zero dark thirty.”
“Good. Captain Ledger and Echo Team will be in the water about ninety minutes behind you. Do you want to wait for him?”
“There’s no time. He did his part at the Hive and in Arizona. I’d like to tear off a piece of this for myself.”
“Be careful, Grace,” Church said. “Joe had insider information; you don’t.”
Grace was startled by Church’s use of her first name. He rarely did that and she found it both touching and mildly unnerving.
“I’ll be careful. And I’ll get that sodding trigger device if I have to cut off Cyrus Jakoby’s head to do it.”
“I’m okay with that scenario,” said Church, and disconnected.
She went up on deck and then around to the wheelhouse where the captain was sitting with his feet up and a cold bottle of Coke resting on his stomach. He gestured to the cooler and she fished one out and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. The sea was gorgeous, streaked with purple and orange as the sun set with majestic splendor behind a narrow ridge of clouds. Seabirds flew lazily back to land, and water slapped softly against the hull. Grace twisted off the cap and sipped the cold soda.
She said nothing and went into her head to prepare herself for what was to come. Her team was in peak condition and eager for a fight. So was Grace.
The captain cleared his throat.
“You call for a cab, Major?”
“What?”
He nodded to the waters off the port bow where a huge hulking shape was rising with surprising and eerie silence from the depths. She went out on deck and watched the 377-foot-long vessel rise so that its deck was almost level with the flat ocean. Only the conning tower rose into the twilight air like a giant black monolith. The displaced water from the submarine’s ascent rolled the fishing boat, and Grace had to grab a metal rail to keep her balance.
“Big boat,” said the DEA agent. “But… I’m guessing that it’s just my imagination that’s making me see an attack submarine out there.”
“Twilight over the ocean,” said Grace. “It can play strange tricks.”
“It surely can.” He sipped his Coke. “Major, I don’t know what’s going on and I probably don’t want to know, but your team don’t look like trainees and they don’t send out brand-new attack subs for just anyone. So… I’m not asking for any information, but can you at least tell me if there’s something I should worry about?”
Grace considered for a long moment. “Are you a religious man, Captain?”
“When I remember to go to church.”
“Then you might want to pretend this is Sunday,” she said, “and say a little prayer. The good guys could use a little help tonight.”
He nodded and held out his bottle. They clinked and he went back to his chair and pretended he didn’t see all the weapons and equipment that were off-loaded from his boat to the waiting sea monster that floated in the darkening waters. Ten minutes later, he was alone aboard his boat and the sun was falling toward the horizon with such a spectacular display of colors that it looked like the whole world was ablaze. For the first time since he’d taken this job out here, he didn’t like the look of that sunset. The reds looked like blood, the purples like bruises, and the blacks like death.
He keyed the ignition, fired up the engines, and turned in a wide circle to the northwest, back to Grand Bahama.
Chapter One Hundred Four
Even though it was the middle of the night, Hecate walked arm-in-arm with her father as she gave him a tour of the facility she and Paris had built. Her brother walked on Cyrus’s other side but did not touch his father. Otto drifted behind them. Behind him were two unusual men: the cold and silent Conrad Veder — who had been introduced as a close advisor to Cyrus — and the hulking Berserker, Tonton. Though Veder was a tall man, Tonton towered over him, and reeked of sweat and testosterone.
“Daddy,” purred Hecate, “we want to show you what we’ve done here. I think you’ll be so proud of us.” Since her emotional outburst at the Deck, Hecate had taken to calling Cyrus Daddy. Where this would normally earn a sharp rebuke, Cyrus seemed entranced by it. Or so Otto thought. All through the flight he had searched Cyrus’s face for some sign that he wasn’t at all taken in by the fiction of the Twins’ newfound and childlike devotion, but Cyrus avoided making eye contact with Otto.