“I can’t do it, Tom,” Boucher said.
Duncan could see Boucher working through the proposal despite his vocal opposition. He waited, leaning back on the couch. Boucher’s pacing slowed, which meant he was coming to his final decision; everything said before then was just blown-off steam.
Boucher stopped pacing.
He sat down on the couch across from Duncan.
His mustache twitched a few times. “Damnit, Tom.”
The irritated CIA chief looked at the folder in Duncan’s hands. “You have this all worked out, don’t you?”
Duncan handed him the folder. “Every detail.”
“Of course,” Boucher said, laying the folder open on the coffee table between the two men. He sifted through the pages. Each page represented a separate step in the president’s plan. E-mails to be faked. Documents to be forged. Databases to be altered. CIA stuff. All of it damning evidence that Duncan had knowingly ignored credible threats against the Siletz Reservation and Fort Bragg, that he had grossly underestimated the reach of their enemies, and that he had purposely provoked their wrath with the hopes of expanding the war on terror via the invasion of the countries responsible. Essentially, everything Marrs claimed to be true but wasn’t. The documents would reveal that Duncan did all of it despite strong opposition from Boucher, who had saved e-mails, recorded phone calls, and kept tabs on the president’s poor choices. The world would blame Duncan for more than three thousand five hundred American lives lost.
Boucher was integral to this plan. Duncan couldn’t do it without him.
The last few pages interested Boucher the most. He picked them up, reading each page in detail. Duncan saw him nod a few times. He was beginning to see the big picture.
Boucher finished reading and put the pages back into the folder. He sat back, crossing his legs. “This might work.”
“It will work.”
“It’s a huge sacrifice.”
Duncan nodded.
“Everyone will believe the things Marrs has been saying.”
Duncan shrugged. “It wouldn’t be possible without Marrs.”
“It could land him in this office in the next election.”
“We’ll worry about that later. What’s important is that we bury the truth deeper than any future president would think to dig.”
Boucher smiled. “I’ll break out my shovel.”
FIFTY-FOUR
El Mirador, Guatemala
BEFORE THE BASE of the sacrificial pit reached the top, two things happened. The mismatched living skeletons began scaling the rough walls, eager to attack. And Ridley disappeared within the writhing mass of white spindly limbs. While many climbed the walls, scores more were still forming below.
Not wanting any of the undead golems to reach the top of the pit, Queen, Bishop, and Knight opened fire. Sparks filled the air as bullets pierced brittle bones and struck stone. As limbs shattered and fell away, several of the skeletons toppled down, but whatever remained intact merged with loose bones below and rejoined the fight. All the while, the stone floor brought the horde closer.
“We can’t stop them,” Knight said as he reloaded.
“If we can subdue Ridley, maybe we can—”
A rattling wave filled the air as the platform neared the top, allowing the bone golems access to it. In clear view, their patchwork bodies became more evident. Limbs of children mixed with adult heads. Mismatched arms and legs. Missing parts. They packed a lot of power when it came to inducing fear, but their physical prowess—hindered by age and handicap—dulled their effectiveness in combat. What they lacked in speed and toughness they made up for in numbers and an inability to feel pain.
They arrived as a wave of death, flowing out of the pit and heading straight for Bishop, Knight, and Queen. The first to arrive were shredded by bursts of bullets, but with only thirty rounds per magazine, ammo ran dry quickly.
Three skeletons dove at Queen, knocking her back. She tore the head from one, but its body continued to fight. They stabbed at her eyes with bony fingers, used their limbs like clubs, and congested the air with the foul-smelling dust of their long since decayed flesh. She struck back with balled fists, sweeping kicks, and bone-crushing head butts.
She remembered the last time she’d delivered a head butt. It was to the man who had branded her forehead. Now it seemed he had returned from the dead with an army to exact his revenge. As she fell back under a surge of weight, it seemed like it might happen.
Bishop, with his large size and resistance to injury and tiring, had more luck against the bone golems. Swinging his massive arms, the bodies before him simply fell apart. As a result he had a clear view of Queen going down and Richard Ridley making his escape.
He looked for Knight and found him climbing up a large wall relief. Once on top he was free to move quickly, which was one of the things Knight did best. “Help Queen, I’ll go after Ridley!” he shouted, then ran above the skeletons, leaping for the exit. He ascended the stairs and disappeared into the dark hallway a moment later, leaving a slew of confused bone golems in his wake.
Bishop waded his way through the golems, trying to reduce them to powder. But the ancient bodies crowded over him. He stumbled on a broken limb and fell to his hands. While his back was pummeled he felt a rumble beneath his palms. Something was shaking. The pit, he realized; without Ridley it was returning to its original state!
“Queen don’t move!” he shouted. One false move could send them falling two hundred feet. The drop would kill Queen and leave him trapped at the bottom.
Bishop pushed up hard and felt the bone golems clinging to his back fall away. He struck out to his right, sweeping his thick arm in a wide arc. The impact drove the skeletons back, tripping them up. Then a group of them fell away, disappearing into the pit. With his fear confirmed he shouted, “The pit is open again!”
Making no effort to fight the reanimated dead, Bishop chose to simply charge through them. He hunched his shoulder forward and ran to where he’d last seen Queen. Like an NFL linebacker playing against a Pee Wee League team, he barreled through the mass of bodies and dove forward. The effect was immediate. Bodies fell away or fell to pieces under his weight. He stopped above Queen, tossed aside the golem on top of her, and pulled her to her feet.
In a blur of movement Queen lobbed something over his head. He tried to track and identify it, but it disappeared into the sea of golems on the other side of the chamber. Her next words told him exactly what it was.
“Fire in the hole!” she shouted.
A grenade.
Bishop turned away and saw Queen laying on the floor, curled into a ball, her back toward the impending blast. She had her hands over her ears, her eyes clenched shut, and her mouth open, ready for the contained blast. But with all the stone and bones filling the room, shrapnel could tear her apart. He moved to cover her with his body, but was too slow.
A deafening explosion filled the ceremonial chamber before Bishop could take cover. He was thrown into the air and smashed against the stone wall. He growled in pain, but before the dust had even begun to settle, the ringing and pain in his ears faded. The shrapnel in his flesh popped out and the wounds healed. He looked for Queen.
She was on her knees, shaking her head with a stunned look on her face, but she appeared to be unharmed. Still, she could have been shredded to bits.
“You should have let me cover you,” he said.
Queen stood, looking slightly offended. “You might be Superman, Bish, but I sure as shit am not Lois Lane.”