exhausted and defeated. Ghost came over and sniffed Jamsheed, then he whined and lay down as if in vigil.
From the storeroom behind me, Lydia snapped her fingers. “Got another live one.”
My exhaustion shattered and fell away, and I turned, instantly hot and angry. Even Bunny took an involuntary step back from me when he saw my face. Top quickly closed in and knelt down, and I think he also saw my face and wanted to get between me and a hostile who was still conscious. The Sabbatarian was a young Spanish-looking man with a slab face and beefy shoulders. There was a ragged red hole on his right sleeve.
“Took one through the biceps,” said Lydia. “Arm’s busted above the elbow.”
The Sabbatarian glared up at us with a mixture of anger, fear, and defiance.
“You got one chance, friend,” I said through gritted teeth. “Cooperate with us and we’ll provide protection and-”
But the Sabbatarian suddenly snapped his jaws shut and grimaced. I could hear something crunch.
“Ah, shit!” yelled Bunny. “Poison tooth. Fuck…”
It was over in five seconds. The bitter almond stink of cyanide rose from the man’s mouth as his lips went slack and hung open. Bunny spun away and punched the wall hard enough to leave a hole the size of a softball.
“Spilled milk,” said Top. “And we got to go.”
“Boss,” said John Smith in my earbud. “Six units coming hard from the center of town. Black SUVs. Five minutes.”
“Copy that. We’re out of here. Watch our backs and meet us at the end of the block in two.”
“K.”
I turned to the others; they’d all heard the same info from Smith. “What do we have for wheels?”
“White vegetable truck,” said Bunny. “Two blocks east.”
“Let’s go. Lydia, my laptop’s in the bedroom. Grab it. Khalid, you’re on point. Let’s move.”
Less than two minutes later we were crammed into a vegetable truck that smelled of rotting cabbage and diesel oil, rolling through quiet streets, leaving another scene of bloody destruction far behind.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Near Mustapha’s Daily Goods
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 8:12 p.m.
“Oracle,” said Violin.
“Oracle welcomes you, Violin.”
“I need to talk to my mother. Now. Priority Alpha.”
This order bypassed the computer’s AI conversation functions and sent an urgent request to Lilith. It took seventeen nail-biting seconds before the screen changed to show a live streaming image of Violin’s mother.
“Status report,” said Lilith instead of a greeting.
“The Sabbatarians sent two full teams against Captain Ledger.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.” She explained what happened and braced herself for the scolding she knew would follow the admission of having stepped in to help the DMS agent.
“Good.” Lilith frowned and her gaze turned inward as she sorted it through. After a few moments she demanded, “What about you? Are you unhurt?”
“Yes, Mother.”
There was a slight softening of Lilith’s stern mouth. “Good. You did the right thing.”
The comment hit Violin like a punch; and Lilith caught her expression. “I…”
“Close your mouth, girl, before you swallow a fly.”
Violin took a steadying breath and said, “What do you want me to do next?”
“What do you think you should do next?”
Several seconds flitted past as Violin thought it through. Then she told her mother.
Lilith’s tolerant smile vanished entirely.
“What choice do we have?” asked Violin.
“None,” said Lilith bitterly. “None at all.”
Chapter Eighty
On the Road
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 9:17 p.m.
We drove for miles, killing time to make damn sure we weren’t being followed. Tehran is a massive city, bigger and more densely populated than New York. We avoided main roads where security checkpoints would be more common and instead threaded our way through the poorer outskirts of the town.
“Let’s find someplace quiet,” I suggested. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Another safe house?” asked Lydia, who was driving.
“Not a chance.”
Luckily there were plenty of abandoned buildings, and we found one with no squatters. It had once been a building-supply company but it looked like no one had set foot in it for decades. Lydia parked inside. We huddled inside the ruins of an office. Smith stood by the window and watched the access road that led from a little-traveled street to the loading bay.
“That guy back there,” began Lydia. “The Iranian guy. Friend of yours?”
“We just met, but he was one of the good guys.”
She nodded. They all did. At some later time we would talk about it. I’d want to tell them about the man and his kindness, about his photos, and the unspoken tragedy implied in those simple images. Such discussions are not for the battlefield. While they can strengthen us by connecting us to our shared humanity, to talk about it while we were still in danger was to invite in weakness. Everything in its place and time.
I straddled a crooked office chair that was missing its wheels. Bunny and Lydia sat cross-legged on the floor-near to each other, which is something they’d started doing a lot lately. Khalid sat on a crate and Top remained standing. John Smith was outside setting up an observation post and was listening in via the team channel.
Ghost flopped down in front of Bunny and Lydia and was getting his full share of petting.
“How much do you know?” I asked them.
Top spread his hands. “The big man was feeling unusually chatty today,” he said. “Told me just about everything you and he talked about. Nukes, Rasouli, Arklight, your girlfriend with the sniper scope.”
“Put laser sights on your nuts, huh?” asked Bunny. I ignored him.
“And he told us some weird shit about vampires.”
“Right,” I said, “and you met the fearless vampire hunters back at Jamsheed’s.”
Top ran a hand over his shaved head. “Cap’n, how much of this is happening and how much of this is Mr. Church having some kind of neurological incident?”
“It’s all happening,” I said, and gave it to them again from my side, filling in any details they might not have gotten from Church.
When I was done, my guys stared at me, at each other, and ultimately into the middle distance as seconds fell off the clock.
Top Sims was the first to speak. “Cap’n, I think I can speak for everyone when I say, what the fuck?”
“I hear you.” I looked at their faces. “Ask your questions.”
Lydia held up a hand. “Sir? Permission to return to reality.”
