The King of Plagues

Written across it in red ballpoint was:

Merry Christmas!

(Tell Circe I’m sorry.)

It was signed: Hugo.

Chapter Seventy

The South Atlantic

December 21, 5:17 A.M. EST

I looked out of the helicopter window at total blackness. A full day had burned away since Dietrich found Vox’s parting gift. Now I sat in a helo with Circe, Church, Dietrich, and Echo Team. Ghost lay asleep at my feet, his legs twitching as he dreamed of the hunt.

I still felt breathless from the double shock of Vox’s betrayal and the plans for the Sea of Hope. Vox was someone Church had trusted. Circe O’Tree had worked for the guy for years. Aunt Sallie regularly had Vox over for New Year’s Eve parties and the Super Bowl. Now the mask had been peeled away to reveal a villain. A monster. Possibly one of the Seven Kings, and certainly a significant member of that organization.

They are everywhere.

Vox had run Terror Town. He knew the inner workings of every counterterrorism team in the world. That knowledge would ripple through the foundations of world governments like earthquake tremors.

After shock comes planning. We had to make a radical shift in gears with no time to pause at the sheer scope of the Kings’ real plan.

“Can’t we just off-load everyone?” Dietrich had asked as soon as he returned from Vox’s office with the Sea of Hope schematics. “We got ships and subs ghosting the cruise ship. Why don’t we just frigging take it and worry about separating sheep from wolves later on?”

“Because that’s the very first thing the Kings would expect,” said Circe, “which means it’s the first thing they’ll have prepared for. I think that if we order the ship to heave to, or board by force, then some kind of fail-safe plan will be initiated. Bombs would be the easiest.”

“And,” I added, “we have to keep repeating the mantra ‘they are everywhere. ’ The Kings are going to have agents planted aboard. A firefight would work more in their favor than ours.”

“Balls,” grumped Dietrich. He loved a plain and simple frontal assault.

I nodded to Circe. “You worked security for the event, Doc. How are we going to get onto the ship?”

Circe chewed her lip. “The problem is that everyone is prescreened.”

“We have MindReader,” said Church. “Bug can infiltrate the system, plant security profiles, and exit without leaving a footprint.”

“We’re using the MI6 encryption package,” Circe countered. “Not even MindReader can intrude there. Hugo told me—”

“Hugo knew only as much about MindReader as I allowed him to know.”

“Why? Were you suspicious of him before this?”

“I’m suspicious of most people.”

I hid a smile.

“Then what’s our cover?”

Circe gave me a considering stare. “That depends on if you can speak French.”

“I speak a lot of languages.”

“With the proper accent?”

“Continental or Canadian?”

Circe smiled. “What do you think of Avril Lavigne’s music?”

“If it’ll get Echo Team onto the Sea of Hope, I’ll start a fan club.”

“She was a late addition to the lineup. She’s probably already aboard, but a lot of stars have bumped up their security teams since the London event. You can be a cultural attache bringing additional security. It’ll actually work for us, having DeeDee, because she can be the personal guard for Avril.”

“What about the star?” I asked. “She’ll need to be briefed.”

“Not really. All of the performers have additional security beside the entourage they know. Most of the guards are hired by their record label or studio, so these will be strangers. As long as you don’t get chatty with the stars, it’ll work.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I’m more of a classic-rock kind of guy.”

Church stood up. “Then we all have work to do. Circe, you and Auntie will coordinate with Bug to access the right security files.”

She nodded and hurried out.

“Captain Ledger,” Church said to me, “brief Echo Team and prep for the mission. I want to be wheels up in one hour.”

NOW WE FLEW through the predawn sky for a fight that had worst-case scenario written all over it.

The Sea of Hope was one of the largest cruise ships afloat. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand gross tons. One thousand, one hundred, and eighty-one feet long, with a 155-foot waterline beam and a 31-foot draft. There were sixteen passenger decks holding fifty-four hundred passengers and over twenty-one hundred crew members. Seven thousand, five hundred people in all. That was a thousand people more than live in the average American town. We had no way of knowing how many of them belonged to the Seven Kings. Of those, how many were unwilling slaves, how many were Chosen, and how many were Kingsmen? We did know, however, that scattered through the passengers, rock stars, comedians, and political figures were dozens of the children of the most powerful people on earth. A few were the children of Bonesmen, but most were not. The children of the current president. The two young princes of England. Children of not just the rich and famous but also the globally powerful. Some of these actually were children, the youngest being ten; the rest were adult sons and daughters who were using their parents’ positions to make a bid for social change, for compassion, and for basic humanity.

If we made a single misstep, we could get them all killed.

If we did nothing, that was a certainty.

At least we had plenty of backup coming. Two DMS teams in a C-17 Globemaster a few hours behind us. If a fight broke out, they’d swoop down on TradeWinds Combat Motor Kites, which look like batwing hang gliders but with motorized flaps for steering and braking. The kites can support an operator and his entire combat kit. Operators can even fire small arms while flying them.

A hundred feet below the cruise ship was the US S Jimmy Carter, one of the new Virginia Class attack subs. There were two SEAL teams aboard, plus a platoon of Marines.

“Coming up on her,” called the pilot. “Portside.”

I peered out the window and saw it. The ship looked like a floating city, and even at night it was ablaze with lights.

I looked over at Circe, who was curled asleep with her head on Dietrich’s shoulder. She looked very young. It hurt me to think that she’d be carrying the memory of betrayal and violence around with her for the rest of her