Circe pounded her fist on the table. “God! I wish we could simply make an announcement, cancel everything, and let the Navy ships take everyone off.”
“We could,” said Church, “and that would force the Kings into an even more desperate act than what they are planning.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “we have an obligation to the President, the Prince of Wales, and all of the other families who stand to lose children.”
“I’m open to suggestions, Captain.”
“We could sabotage the engines. Play it like mechanical failure.”
“To what end? That would leave us floating out here with no solution.”
I did some math. “There are sixteen operators on board now. Ten from Tiger Shark and my team. I could take the President’s daughters under my direct supervision; Top could take Prince William and—”
“And initiate a firefight?”
“Okay, then we cut the number in half and save the eight targets with the highest political value.”
Church considered it.
“That might work. But we would need the other teams in the air and in the water right as that happens. That way if you get pinned down or trapped, we’d know help was on the way.”
“And what if the ship is rigged to blow up?” asked Circe.
Church said nothing. Nor did I.
Circe sighed.
“Plagues,” she said. “This has to be coming from the King of Plagues.”
Chapter Seventy-four
The
December 21, 6:30 P.M. EST
The concert was thirty minutes away. A big, cold hand seemed to be clamped around my heart.
“I have to go on deck,” I said. I’d already changed clothes again, as had the rest of Echo Team. Circe walked me to the cabin door.
“I don’t know whether to wish you luck,” she said, “or to hope that you find nothing at all.”
“Nothing at all would be nice.” But we both knew that was unlikely.
She nodded.
Behind us, Mr. Church was speaking into the phone. “Mr. President …”
“God,” Circe whispered, “that’s going to be a painful call.”
“From both ends of the line,” I said.
“This is insane,” she said.
“Welcome to my world.”
But she shook her head. “I was born to it.”
Before I could ask her to explain that, she turned and went into her bedroom.
I patted my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed. Yep, everything but a goddamn clue. Then I clicked my tongue for Ghost, who bounded off the couch.
We went out to fight the impossible fight.
Interlude Forty-six
The Chamber of the Kings
December 21, 5:49 A.M. EST
Toys dragged himself across the floor and managed—with curses and tears and screams—to pull himself into one of the chairs. When he realized that it was the throne of the King of Plagues he laughed so long and so hard that his mind nearly snapped. And then he wept for so long that he thought he would never stop.
The tourniquet he’d tied around his leg was probably too tight. Maybe he’d lose the leg. Maybe he’d get blood poisoning.
Maybe he didn’t give a damn.
“Sebastian … ,” he said, and the tears started again.
Eventually they stopped. Everything stops eventually.
When he could breathe again he pulled the American’s phone from his pocket. He had recovered it during the ten thousand years it took him to crawl across the floor. The casing was cracked and it was sticky with blood. His.
He shivered and he knew that shock was setting in. With all the alcohol already in his system and now the bullet wound and the shattered femur, he figured that his system did not stand a chance against shock.
Toys opened the phone and punched in Hugo Vox’s number.
“Toys!”
In his delirium Toys thought he heard the phone ringing and Vox answering at the same time. Then there was the sound of footsteps and Toys turned to see Vox lumber into the room. The big man had a big gun in his hand and he fanned the barrel around the room with a professional competence that Toys admired. Toys tried to say so, but his voice was a slur.
The American holstered the gun and knelt beside him, his face grave with concern.
“Jeez, you’re a goddamn mess. Who did this to you?”
“Sebastian.”
“Yeah,” he said. “What I figured. Shit.”
Toys touched Vox’s face with the tip of his finger. “Are you … real?”
“You better hope so, kiddo.” Vox fetched the wheeled leather chair of War’s Conscience and gingerly placed Toys’ shattered leg on it. Toys screamed.
“Sorry, kiddo.” Vox adjusted the tourniquet, which was itself a moment of exquisite agony. He got water and a cloth and mopped Toys’s face and then brought over a glass of brandy. “This will help until we can get you to a doctor.”
Toys sipped the brandy greedily. It burned through him with a calm fire, pushing back the pain, restoring a measure of control.
“Now,” said Vox, “tell me what happened?”
“Sebastian shot me. And I … I guess I shot him.”
Vox looked around. The room was empty except for them. “The fuck is he?”
“I shot him in the heart. But … I think he was wearing Kevlar. Pity.”
“Clever bastard.”
Toys coughed and winced. “Shame he got away.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, kiddo. But … if you had the gun, how did he get away?”
“I … let him go,” said Toys. He drank half of the brandy, coughed again, and drank some more. It seemed to burn more of the pain away.
“Why? Why not put a couple of rounds through that face-lift of his?”
Toys shrugged. “Why bother?” His face was white with pain and trauma, but the brandy seemed to help him focus his thoughts.
The American sighed. “You got a good heart, kiddo. You’re lucky it’s still beating.”
“Sorry.”
“Screw it. It’s all gone to shit anyway. The DMS know who I am now, so I’m going to have to go way off the
