Chapter Seventy
Private Villa Near Jamshidiyeh Park
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 6:52 p.m.
Hugo Vox was bent over the toilet, his stomach heaving and churning with nothing left to expel, when the phone began ringing. His private cell.
He clawed a towel off the bar and wiped his mouth and crawled out of the bathroom to the night table. Walking was an impossibility this soon after the dose kicked in. There was only enough time to drive home and swallow half a dozen aspirin before the first waves hit, and it was worse with each treatment. He joked to Grigor about the fact that the cure was going to kill him before it cured him. Now he wasn’t sure it was a joke.
The thick sausages of his swollen fingers were clumsy on the buttons, but he finally hit the right one.
“What?” he demanded.
“Mr. Verrecchia?”
Ah. It was Father Belloq, East Asia regional coordinator for the Sabbatarians. That group knew Vox by his old family name, Verrecchia-a name his grandfather had changed at Ellis Island, but which Vox still used for certain operations. As far as Belloq was concerned, “Luigi Verrecchia” was a devoted and very rich Catholic who was serving God by covertly using a great deal of his wealth to fund the operations of the Inquisition. And that wasn’t all that far from the truth, except in terms of motives. Vox couldn’t care less about the church, or its God, but he found it useful to have a vicious little private army he could aim at his enemies. The Sabbatarians were everywhere, their ranks significantly expanded over the last fifteen years thanks to the millions Vox funneled into their numbered accounts. They were blind fanatics who were convinced they were making serious inroads into the fight against supernatural evil. In point of fact, they had contributed significantly to five of the most lucrative operations of the Seven Kings.
They had no real role in the chaos that Vox was building around the Red Order, the Tariqa, Iranian politics, and the mad plans of the King of Thorns; but that was the point. Vox loved adding random elements. It would drive Church and the DMS up a goddamn wall trying to figure out how the Sabbatarians factored in. Sure, there was the obvious vampire connection, but the Sabbatarians created the wrong connection. Chaos was a lovely, lovely thing.
Vox took a breath and adjusted his tone. “Yes, Father. Do you have something to report?”
“We have had a problem, sir.”
“Tell me.”
Belloq told him about the failed ambush of Joe Ledger.
“You lost the whole team?” growled Vox. His anger was only partly contrived. It would not have surprised Vox to hear that Ledger had taken out at least half the team; he knew Ledger was that good. But all of them?
“Every last man is in the arms of Jesus.”
“Please, Father Belloq, this is madness,” said Vox, mopping sweat from his face. His stomach felt like it was ready to explode, but there was nothing left it in. “What could possibly have happened to all those men?”
“There is only one possible explanation,” said the priest with undisguised contempt. “Upierczi.”
Vox faked a gasp and then waited a few seconds for Belloq to appreciate how disturbed he was by this news.
“Surely no single Red Knight could-”
“No, sir. We believe that the Upierczi are out in force. Sir… I’m afraid that the thing we were afraid of is about to happen.”
“You mean…?”
“Yes… it seems certain now that the Upierczi have obtained nuclear weapons.”
Vox didn’t have the energy for a cry of dismay, so he let a protracted silence convey the right amount of shock. When he thought enough time had passed, Vox said, “Are you positive?”
“Sir,” said Belloq, “when you know the world of covert operations as well as I do, you understand that very little is certain. We operate on degrees of ‘confidence’ in a thing, and then we are forced to act. If we waited for absolute certainty it would be too late.”
“Yes, yes,” said Vox with feigned distress, “you are right, of course. I don’t understand these things. It’s just that… my God! Bombs? What would vampires want or need with such dreadful weapons?”
He heard Belloq sigh with exasperation. Good. That was the right reaction. He wanted the man to be impatient. Impatience was useful.
“Sir,” said Belloq, “I’ve explained this a dozen times. The Red Order has lost control of the Upierczi. The Kingdom of Shadows is in open revolt and they are about to make war on the world of men. And the human traitors who work for the Upierczi have infiltrated every government, every level of industry and world trade. The launching of bombs will be the first wave… and I believe it will send a signal for a complete takeover of world governments and key industries.”
“You think it will actually come to that? Humans helping monsters to conquer the world?”
“It is happening!” insisted the priest. “And we are running out of time. That list your chief of security provided… We need to act on that immediately. We need to cut off the Hydra’s head before we are overwhelmed.”
Vox almost laughed. The phrasing was so trite, so corny. Belloq might be a ruthless killer, but he was also a complete ham-bone. That was also useful.
“The list,” Vox echoed, as if fretting over a dreadful decision. In truth the list was one he had prepared and added to while still in the good graces of Church and the president of the United States. It was his own version of a nuclear bomb, and once used it would do far more damage than the Teller-Ulams hidden throughout the Middle East. That list would blow a hole in the world and leave nothing but chaos behind.
A very, very profitable chaos.
“I’m sorry,” Vox said contritely. “This is all beyond me, and it terrifies me.”
“We’re all scared,” Belloq assured him. “But courage is defined by acting even in the presence of great fear. God needs us to be courageous. God needs us to be the heroes in this battle against the forces of evil.”
Forces of evil. Vox had to cover the phone while he laughed quietly. He wished he could put that on a business card.
“Tell me what to do,” he said after a moment.
“There is only one thing you need do, sir. You need to give me permission to use that list. I promised that we would do nothing without your say-so. Mr. Verrecchia-now is the time. Search your heart, search your faith… Ask yourself what God requires of you.”
Vox was silent as he picked lint off his pajama bottoms, letting the clock burn. Letting Belloq imagine the torment that “Verrecchia” must be experiencing because of the consequences of this action. Many people would die. Thousands of them. Men, women, and even children. No one could be spared. It was the only way to protect the world from the vampire uprising.
Although he kept his voice grave, Vox was smiling as he said, “Let God’s will be done.”
He disconnected and tossed the phone on the bed.
The sickness in his stomach was still there, but Vox realized that the trembling in his legs and arms was less. Much less. Even though the side effects hit him sooner and harder with each treatment of Upier 531, there was no doubt at all that they were wearing off sooner. He rolled up his sleeve and peeled off the bandage to examine the puncture marks.
There were none.
Vox pulled open his robe and pulled up his vomit-stained undershirt.
This time his gasp was genuine.
The big puncture wounds from the horse needles Dr. Hasbrouck used on him were…
Well, shit, he thought. They were gone.
No. That wasn’t the right way to think of it, he realized with a new and dark delight.
