I went back into the cabin and screwed my earbud into place.
“Go for Cowboy,” I said.
“The fish are in the water,” said Church. “Two minutes to landfall. What’s your ETA?”
“Bailout in twenty, then drop time.”
“Good hunting, Captain.”
“Yeah,” I said, and switched off.
Top and Bunny were ready to go, their chutes strapped on and their weapons double- and triple-checked. All of us were heavy with extra magazines, frags, and flash bangs, knives, and anything else we could carry. If we hit water instead of land, we’d sink like stones.
“Alpha Team will hit the island in under two minutes,” I said.
“Wish we were with them, boss,” said Bunny.
Top studied me for several seconds. “It ain’t my place to offer advice to an officer,” he said, “me being a lowly first sergeant and all.”
I gave him a look.
“But I’m pretty sure there’ll be enough beer left by the time we get to this kegger.”
“There goddamn well better be,” I growled.
Chapter One Hundred Seven
Hecate and Paris stared in shock and horror as their father tossed the dead sea serpent aside and got to his feet.
“What… what are you talking about?” Hecate said.
Paris sputtered, unable to talk.
Cyrus mocked his son’s startled stutter, “I-i-i-’m sorry, Paris, did I speak too quickly? Use too many big words? Or are you simply as stupid as I’ve feared all these years?”
If Paris had been on the verge of saying something, those words struck him completely dumb.
Cyrus turned to Hecate. “And you, you feral bitch. I’d held you in higher regard until now. Did you actually think you had me fooled. ‘Daddy’?” He spit the distasteful word out of his mouth. “The day I become a fawning dotard I hope to God Otto puts a bullet in my brain.”
Otto smiled and bowed, and then he and Cyrus laughed.
Hecate looked back and forth between them. “What… what’s going on here?”
“I believe the Americans call it ‘payback.’ ”
“For what?” Paris blurted, finally finding his voice.
“How much time do you have?” sneered Cyrus. “For all those years when you two thought you had me imprisoned at the Deck. For treating me like a vapid old fool. For the disrespect you show me in every action, even when you are faking respect. For trying to steal Heinrich Haeckel’s cache of records. For trying to control me by staffing the Deck with your toadies.”
Otto laughed.
“Wait — you sent the Russian team to Gilpin’s apartment? And to Deep Iron?”
“Of course. Those records were supposed to come to me. It was an incident of mischance that Heinrich died before he could pass along the information about where the records were stored. Even his own family didn’t know what he had stored or where it was stored. For years we thought that all of that wonderful research was lost. Then in one of those moments of good fortune that reinforce the reality of a just and loving God, Burt Gilpin approached one of Otto’s agents with information about a cache of early genetics research. And what do we discover? That Gilpin used to work for the Jakoby Twins, that he was a computer consultant for them. Our Russian friends encouraged him to talk and he told us about how he helped the legendary Jakoby Twins install a revolutionary computer system called Pangaea. Did you know that he built himself a clone of Pangaea? That he used it to steal medical research in exactly the way you two were stealing it? Only he made the mistake of trying to sell the bulk research… and he tried to sell it to Otto.”
Cyrus shook his head slowly. “Stealing the schematics for Pangaea from me was very naughty… though I do admire you for that much, at least. But you had to take a smart move and plow it under with a stupid one by getting into bed with that parasite Sunderland to try and steal the MindReader system.”
“How—?”
“How do I know?” Cyrus cut in. “Because most of the people you trust work for me. I knew about the foolish plan to try and use the National Security Agency against the Department of Military Sciences. Were you on drugs when you conceived that idea? Did you think you could stop Deacon when the entire Cabal could not?”
Hecate and Paris looked confused.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know who the Deacon is, do you? You don’t even know about the Cabal — about the thing that should have been your legacy. You’re so goddamned stupid that you truly disappoint me. Do you think that I was ever your prisoner? Ever? I’ve owned every single person you set to watch me. From the outset. You think you are so clever — my young gods — but I’m here to tell you that you are playing children’s games with adults.”
“We never—,” Paris began but Cyrus walked quickly to him and slapped him so hard across the face that Paris was knocked halfway around. He would have fallen had Tonton not stepped up and caught him.
“Don’t ever make excuses to me, boy. That’s all you’ve ever done. You were a disappointment as a child, and as a man you’re a joke. At least your sister has enough personal integrity to say nothing when she has nothing useful to say.”
As Tonton moved, Conrad Veder used the opportunity to shift his position. He had a plastic four-shot pistol in a holster inside his pants. The bullets were caseless ceramic shells that would explode a human skull. He could draw and fire in less than a second.
Hecate said, “What did you mean that you were going to kill our clients?”
Cyrus smiled. “You see, Paris? When she speaks she asks an intelligent question.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m sure you’ve wondered about the water. About whether there was something in it.” When Hecate nodded, he said, “Did you test it?”
“Of course. We found no trace of poisons or pathogens.”
“Naturally not. There are no pathogens in the water.”
Hecate nodded. “Genes,” she said. “You’ve figured out how to do gene therapy with purified water.”
Cyrus looked pleased. “You were always my favorite, Hecate. Not nearly the total disappointment your brother has become. Did you do DNA testing?”
“We started to,” she said. “We haven’t finished.”
“What did you think I put in the water?”
“One of the genes that encourage addiction. A1 allele of the dopa-mine receptor gene DRD2, or something like that.”
“If I was a street nigger who wanted to sell crack cocaine maybe,” Cyrus said harshly. “Have more respect.”
She shook her head rather than give the wrong answer.
“Otto and I — and a few very talented friends — have spent decades weaponizing ethnic-specific diseases. Ten years ago we cracked the science of turning inherited diseases like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia into communicable pathogens. Anyone with a genetic predisposition to those diseases would go into full-blown outbreak after even minimal exposure to the pathogen.”
“But there were no pathogens in the water!” Paris said.
“No. The pathogens are being released into lakes, streams, and reservoirs worldwide. The bottled water contains the gene for the disease. Drink a bottle of water… even brew a cup of tea with it… and specific ethnic groups and subgroups will develop the genetic disorder. Within a few weeks they will be vulnerable to infection from the pathogens in the regular drinking water. Or from exposure to anyone who has become infected. No one would think to look in the bottled water for the genes because no one can do gene therapy with bottled water.”