Sebastian Gault.
The man who tried to release the Seif Al Din pathogen. The man who came close—so very close—to destroying everything. It was because of him that I was sought out and recruited into the DMS. The last guy to hold my job had been killed. Slaughtered along with his entire team.
Sebastian Gault. If I had a personal bogeyman, then he was it.
After we stopped the release of Gault’s pathogen, a worldwide manhunt was launched. As large and as aggressive as the search for Osama bin Laden—and so far, just as futile. We’d begun to suspect that Gault was dead, his body burned in the same geothermal meltdown that had destroyed the lab where Seif Al Din was created. But now … Gault
I felt as if I was falling through space. I pressed my back against the cold metal skin of the Chinook.
“Gault is responsible for the Hospital … for Area 51? Gault’s part of the Seven Kings?”
“Only for a few months. We were brought into this after … after …”
“After the Seif Al Din. A lot of people thought Gault died in Afghanistan.”
The man laughed. A small, sad sound. “Maybe he should have. Maybe we both should have.”
And that’s when I knew who the caller was.
“You said that what’s happening now was part of something else, something bigger?”
“Yes. Gault and the bitch. They’ve taken this whole thing away from the Kings and they’re going to bury us all with it.”
“Who is the woman? What’s her name?”
I knew that it couldn’t be Amirah, Gault’s former partner and the designer of the Seif Al Din pathogen. I knew for sure that she was dead. I’d pulled the trigger.
“No,” he said. “You don’t get that.”
“Then give me something else,” I said. “Give me Santoro.”
“Christ! How do you even know that name?”
“Give him to me.”
“Why?”
“If you know him, then you know why. Give me him and I’ll move heaven and earth to protect Gault.”
He was quiet for a moment. My cell had been running the trace for almost two minutes now and it hadn’t beeped the signal that alerted me to a successful hit. Must be the same technology Deep Throat used.
“Find Gault and you’ll find Santoro. That psycho prick will be in the thick of it. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see that much pain. Now, I’m sorry, I have to g—”
I took a risk. “Toys!”
I expected a scream or a yell of denial or a theatrical attempt to pretend ignorance. Instead he gave a small laugh. The risk had paid off. Gault’s best friend, valet, personal assistant, and maybe more. Alexander Chismer.
Toys.
“See?” Toys said shakily. “I said you were smart. That’s why they tried to kill you today. I’ll give you one more thing and you have to remember it; otherwise all of this goes to shit.”
“Tell me.”
“
But he did not disconnect. I waited through several heavy seconds. This time I knew the sound I heard was a sob. Toys said, “If you succeed, Ledger … do me one more favor.”
“If I can.”
“If you save all the lives that are on the line … see if you can spare a little pity. Go to church and light a candle.”
“For Gault?”
“No,” he said. “For my soul.”
Chapter Sixty
Over Pennsylvania Airspace
December 19, 7:46 P.M. EST
I stared at my cell phone for a full minute.
“God Almighty,” I said aloud. Ghost heard the tone of my voice and came over to me and licked my face, looking into my eyes to see if the pack was in some kind of trouble. It surely, surely was.
And yet …
Toys.
It happens that way more often than people think. Cops spend 90 percent of a case gathering evidence, analyzing it, doing interviews, running computer searches, and building a profile of the possible culprit, and then they get a phone call from out of left field that tells them who, what, when, and where. Ten times more criminal cases have been solved by anonymous tipsters, people hoping for rewards or confidential informants.
Who in hell would ever expect Toys to be mine? Or to be the one who hammered a crack into the hardest case the DMS ever tackled.
I was sweating badly and I dragged a forearm across my eyes.
They
I looked around the cabin of the Chinook and inside my head the Warrior was drawing his knife and squinting through the gloom.
Who did I trust? I’d been away for months, and Santoro had more than shown that he could turn ordinary and trustworthy people into killers.
I thumbed open my sports coat. The handle of the Beretta was comfortably close.
Rudy?
He lay in a narcotic doze while Circe sat beside him, tapping away on her laptop. If Rudy was under Santoro’s thumb, I think I’d lose it. Rudy was my best friend. Closer to me than my own brother. He was the only person on earth I trusted completely. No … no, it couldn’t be Rudy.
Circe?
Who was she really? She worked for Hugo Vox at Terror Town. She was in position to know the security secrets of a lot of crucial operations, and that included probably access to security information on facilities like the London Hospital, Fair Isle, maybe even Area 51. After all, Church and Vox both trusted her. An unscrupulous person could exploit that trust. Sure, she looked beautiful and innocent and forthright, but she could also be a good actress. I’d met spies and moles before. They aren’t picked for that kind of work if you could just look at them and say,
And she was pretty handy with a gun. On the other hand, she didn’t pop a cap in my favorite head, so props for showing good judgment. Unless that was part of a plan to win my confidence and insinuate herself into the DMS.
Across the cabin, Circe brushed dark curls from her face; then she looked at Rudy and placed a hand very tenderly on his chest and kept it there for almost a minute while he slept. I didn’t want it to be her.
A few feet away, Top and Bunny were seated side by side. Bunny was dozing; Top was strip-cleaning his M4. He caught me looking and gave me a slow nod. I nodded back.
