“You mean, ‘no matter what silly insane Charles did’?”
“If the shoe fits, kid.”
LaRoque looked out the window, trying to catch his reflection in the smoked glass. He needed to see one of his other faces. One of the stronger ones. Or, maybe the face of the old priest. As the car rounded a corner to follow Ledger, LaRoque thought he caught a glimpse of the wizened features of the priest. Just a flash and then it was gone.
It was enough, though. It steadied him.
He drew a breath and let it out audibly. “Very well, Hugo. What do you advise?”
“Good,” Vox said, and LaRoque wondered if the American had also seen the priest. Could Vox do that, he wondered. Did the priest appear to everyone? Or to a chosen few? Or just to him?
“Let’s go on the assumption that Rasouli gave Ledger information that could hurt the Order,” said Vox. “Start there ’cause that gives us a game plan for safety.”
“What plan is that?”
“A very simple one because we need to do two things and they can both be done at the same time,” said Vox. “We have to get the flash drive back and we have to kill Joe Ledger.”
“Only that?”
Vox paused. “To start, yeah. Then we have to decide what to do about-”
Suddenly Vox’s words disintegrated into a terrible fit of wet coughs. Vicious coughs that broke from deep in his chest. The coughing fit lasted nearly a full minute before winding down to gasps. When he could finally speak, Vox cursed.
“Good lord, Hugo, are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, shit,” Vox wheezed. “These chemo treatments are kicking my ass.”
The Scriptor took a moment to make sure that his voice was filled with concern, even if his mouth was trembling with a smile. “Are you in much pain?”
“A bit.”
“I’m sorry.” He almost said, “Oh, goody.”
“Yeah, well. Life’s a bitch and then you’re dead for a long time.” Vox cleared his throat. “Look, the bottom line is that you have to get that flash drive back and you have to do it right fucking now.”
“Why the hurry? I looked him up in our database and he appears to have been competent, yes, but not-”
“Don’t be an idiot. You only have his army and police records. I’ll send you his DMS file. It makes interesting reading.”
“You’re saying he’s a threat?”
“I’m saying that he’s Mr. Church’s pet psychopath. Don’t underestimate him. Ledger’s a weird cat, but he’s sharp and he is fucking relentless. He’s also got some freaky mojo.”
“‘Mojo’?”
“Luck. Son of a bitch is either lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, but he always seems to be in the thick of things. Should have been dead a dozen times, but even though bodies stack up around him the cocksucker keeps finding a way through to the other side.”
“An angel in his pocket?” mused LaRoque. He looked down in surprise to find that his hand held the little compact mirror even though he had no memory of removing it from his pocket. He watched as his manicured thumbnail popped it open.
“You need to send a knight after him,” said Vox, and LaRoque almost dropped the compact.
“What? No. You have whole teams of Sabbatarians in Tehran-”
“Forget those fruitcakes. Ledger would have them for lunch.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m not. Ledger and his team dismantled my Kingsmen last year, and no one’s ever done that before. And I have it on good authority that Ledger beat Rafael Santoro one-on-one.”
That made the Scriptor pause. Santoro was the chief assassin of the Seven Kings, a man whose utter ruthlessness was only equaled by his nearly matchless skills as a combatant. Santoro was one of the very few ordinary men who might stand a chance against a knight. Not a full-blooded knight, of course, but one of the trainees.
“Ledger killed Santoro?”
“I… don’t know,” admitted Vox. “All I know is that they fought and then Santoro was gone, off the radar. And it’s not the first time Ledger’s beaten the odds. Don’t risk a Sabbatarian team. You have the Red Knights. Use one of them.”
The Scriptor looked at the two aspects of his face in the mirror, angling the compact one way and then the other, back and forth as the silence grew. The bottom mirror showed his own weak mouth, the top showed his indecisive eyes.
“Charlie-?” prompted Vox.
LaRoque flipped the mirrors forward and back, over and over again until the top image changed. From one heartbeat to the next the image changed from his own reflection to the face of the priest. Wrinkled skin, a slash of a cruel mouth, and eyes that were a strange swirl of colors-leprous brown and ophidian green.
Do it, whispered the voice in his mind. The voice of the priest.
LaRoque took a steadying breath. “Very well, Hugo, I’ll do it. I hope you appreciate the great faith I’m showing by trusting you.”
A snort of laughter came down the line. “You’re showing great intelligence by trusting me.”
“Others might disagree, considering what happened to your organization.”
“Nothing happened that I didn’t want to happen,” Vox said with a little edge to his voice. “I used Ledger and Church to turn a losing situation into a winning one.”
“Winning?”
“Am I in jail? Am I dead? Fuck no. Did I stroll away with a hundred billion dollars in numbered accounts? You bet your left nut I did. Am I still raking in about a couple of mil a week from that shit? You can bet your right nut on that one. So, yeah, I put the DMS to work for me and they don’t even know it.”
“Not even Church?”
“Maybe Church,” Vox conceded after some thought, “but he can’t do jack shit about it. He can’t want to kill me more than he already does. So, call me when Ledger’s dead.”
Vox disconnected.
For several moments LaRoque held the phone to his ear with his right hand and stared at the face of the priest in the compact mirror he held in his left.
Then it was gone. LaRoque blinked. The mirror now held only his own reflection.
“You made the right choice,” said the priest.
The Scriptor slowly raised his eyes and stared at the wizened figure who now sat across from him in the back of the limousine. The priest had eyes the color of toad flesh, and his skin was as sallow and thin as old parchment. When he smiled, his teeth were white and wet.
Charles LaRoque smiled back.
“Thank you, Father Nicodemus,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
Golden Oasis Hotel
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 8:28 a.m.
I walked back to the hotel, and with each step I tried not to scream. I wanted to run back, but I didn’t dare draw attention to myself. It was bad enough I was sweating and probably looked nervous and guilty. There were so many ways this could play out, most of them bad, and I didn’t know how we were going to play it.
Inside my head the word “nuke” kept echoing.
About every third car on the street was either a police sedan or a military jeep. Even though the rescue of
