“How come I never heard about this?”
“Well, this is early-twentieth-century stuff. And it was proved to be a hoax.”
“Then why the fuck am I not still sleeping in my goddamn bed?”
“Please, bear with me, Hugo. The
“So what?”
“The Goddess has just started posting about the Elders of Zion.”
Hugo sat forward. “Okay, now you have my full attention.”
“No one credible defended the authenticity of the
“Yeah,” Hugo said thoughtfully, “and that could get ugly, considering the lunkheads who gobble this shit up.”
“Another possibility is that Enyo is someone
“Also potentially ugly.” Hugo rubbed his eyes, then cocked his head at her. “Tell me straight, kiddo … rate this on a scale of one to ten, one being harmless freaks on the Net and ten being we scramble the DMS.”
She chewed her lip some more. “Right now, I … I don’t know. Maybe a five? But this is the kind of thing that can lead to real violence.”
Vox snorted. “Violence against who? The Jews? The Muslims? I can’t tell from this shit who the Goddess is really mad at.”
“That’s just it,” Circe said. “Maybe it’s both. Maybe she just wants to start a fight.”
“To what end? She’s got to be rooting for someone.”
“Maybe not. Maybe she just wants to see things burn.”
He peered suspiciously at her. “Isn’t that a line from a Batman movie?”
Circe blushed. “It fits, though. Or it might fit. Some people groove on violence.”
Vox grunted.
Circe said, “Look, remember last year, when the white supremacist group in Alabama started using message boards to make threats against Jews? There were a half-dozen synagogues torched.”
“The people posting weren’t the same ones who torched the temples. They were idiots following a bad idea.”
“That’s what I think we have here. Maybe the Goddess is a
Vox pursed his lips and considered. “You say you’re at a five with this? When you get to a seven I’ll give you assets; until then you’re flying solo. But … update your Goddess report and send it to me. I’ll make sure someone at Homeland pays attention to it.”
“Thanks, Hugo.”
“This is good work, kiddo. Even if this turns out to be nothing, this is very sharp stuff.” He stood up and walked to the door, then half-turned. “You may not want to hear this—I know things are kind of weird between you two—but your dad will be proud of you.”
Interlude Nine
McCullough, Crown Island
St. Lawrence River, Ontario, Canada
Four Months Ago
As promised, the limousine was waiting at the curb. A driver in traditional livery stood by the open door. A second man, identically dressed, stepped forward to take their bags. Both were slim, fit, and Korean.
Toys caught Gault’s eye, flicked a glance at the driver, and then affected to scratch his ribs. Gault did not need the cue. He’d already seen the bulge of the driver’s shoulder-rigged pistol. The other man, too. Nice cuts to their jackets, though. Most people would never have guessed either of the Koreans was armed.
Gault did not have a weapon. Toys, he knew, carried a knife in his left sleeve. Gault had seen his friend use that knife several times. Few surgeons were as precise or dispassionate.
Once upon a time Toys had been Gault’s employee, a combination executive secretary, valet, and bodyguard, but that time had passed. Events had occurred that forever changed the dynamic of their relationship. Now they were more like brothers. Or fellow refugees. Gault was at least nominally the alpha of their two-man pack, but that position was held now by mutual consent rather than financial or personal power. In the same disaster that had scarred them both, Gault had discovered an emotional blind spot that had nearly proven fatal while Toys had demonstrated terrifying personal power.
They got into the car and settled back. The driver and the other man sat in the front with the Plexiglas screen closed. The limo was next year’s model. Very expensive and nicely outfitted. Toys poked around and found unopened bottles of Ceren vodka—a superb El Salvadoran brand—and vermouth. Toys set about making martinis.
“Stirred, not shaken,” he said as he handed one to Gault. It was a private joke. Although Toys loved watching the Bond movies—for eye candy of both genders—it irked him that Ian Fleming had his hero order his martinis to be made the wrong way. By shaking the mixture, the bartender created air bubbles that turned the martini cloudy. More crucially, shaking also caused the ice to release too much water, thereby bruising the flavor of the vodka. A perfect martini should be stirred gently for thirty seconds, then chilled properly and served stingingly dry and cold. Toys always made perfect martinis.
They sipped.
“What are the odds that this lovely car is bugged?” asked Toys. He said it in a normal tone of voice.
Gault smiled thinly. “I would be disappointed if it wasn’t.”
They settled back and sipped their drinks and said nothing else during the drive.
THE TWO KOREANS took them to a small airport and ushered them onto a private Gulfstream G550. Gault was impressed. He had planned to buy one of those for himself before his plans had gone to hell in Afghanistan. The sleek jet came with a $59.9 million price tag. It had a range of sixty-seven hundred miles and all sorts of lovely bells and whistles, and though it was designed to accommodate up to nineteen passengers in great comfort, Gault and Toys found themselves alone in the cabin.
The second Korean came in to attend to drinks and to take their orders for dinner, and when the food came it was superb. The first course was a creme brulee of foie gras that they washed down with 1990 Cristal champagne, and that was followed by several small but delicious dishes, including tartar of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oysters, and mousseline of
“Well,” said Toys as he sipped Hennessy Beaute du Siecle cognac, “I think we can submit a new definition for ‘ostentatious.’”
“Mm. Are you complaining or commenting?”
Toys sloshed the deep-amber-colored liquid in his glass. “This is two hundred thousand pounds a bottle. I’m
