promises of the Order and their own prayers, the bloodline of the Upierczi has failed, become polluted. They’ve faded to the brink of extinction. God did not come even when the Red Order called on Him. Then science saved them. By taking the DNA of the greatest among them, Grigor, their race was reborn. Not in the image of God. Not by the grace of God. They were remade in the image of Grigor. When faith fails and science answers, where do you turn?”
Church said nothing.
“When you have lived as slaves for centuries and accepted your slavery because it was God’s will, what happens when you stop believing that?”
Church said nothing.
“There is a war coming, Deacon, no doubt about it. But it’s not about oil and it’s not about politics. I’ve known you a long time and yet I don’t know you at all. So I wonder how willing you are to fight this kind of war.”
He stood up and walked to the entrance and looked out at the night for a long time. Far in the distance a night bird cried out in a voice that was as sad and desolate as all the pain in the world.
His cell phone rang. Mr. Church answered it and listened for a moment.
“I understand,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
He set his phone down and touched a button on the console. “Auntie, the word is given and it is ‘go.’”
Aunt Sallie nodded and sent the command signal. “All dogs off the leash.”
On the screen, the glowing dots began to move.
Church looked at Lilith. “A theory, however compelling, is not a target. If Arklight has any intel that you haven’t shared, then now is the time. Give me a target, Lilith, and I’ll show you what kind of war I am willing to wage against those monsters.”
There was a soft ping and Church touched the button to unmute the computer center.
“Mr. Church,” said Rudy, “we have something you need to see.”
“Is it about the Red Order?”
“It’s about the nukes,” said Circe. “There aren’t seven of them.”
“Then how-”
“There are eight.”
Chapter One Hundred Four
Aghajari Oil Refinery
Iran
June 16, 5:29 a.m.
We moved down a set of metal stairs that zigzagged along a steep wall, with Ghost’s nails clicking behind me. I was dressed like a security guard, and Lydia was in her chador and carrying a clipboard with important looking papers on it. She made sure not to make eye contact with any of the men, and she walked a half pace behind me. The men who passed us did not avoid looking at her. I don’t know how they were able to determine how good looking she was under the billowing black clothes-and Lydia was a hottie by any rational definition, a little bit of JLo but with a Michelle Rodriguez badass bad-girl sneer-but every single man who passed us gave her a thorough up and down.
At one point, when we were alone, she murmured, “I can’t tell… are they undressing me with their eyes or wondering how I would look with another layer of clothes on?”
“Beats me, sister.”
“I can’t tell you how much I’d like to flash my boobs at them just to see them have total coronaries.”
“I think they stone you for that here.”
“Might be worth it.”
I grinned and we kept going.
Although it’s usually cold beneath the desert floor, it was hot as hell down here. Steam hissed up from vents like the whole place was going to blow-or that’s how it looked to my frenzied imagination. When we passed refinery staff, they were going about their business as if it were just another day on the job, which to them it was. Actually, I guess for me it was too. Jesus, I need to get into a safer line of work. Lion taming, maybe; I heard the benefits package is good.
The farther down we went the more humid the air became, and the heavier the smell of raw oil and cooked petroleum. Two levels down I saw that the walls were lined with stretches of dark lichen and cobwebs.
“Are we at the center of the earth yet?” asked Lydia.
“Australia’s a couple of floors down.”
When we were at the base of the last stairwell, Lydia slid back her sleeve and tapped the keys of the PDA strapped to her wrist. We studied the map and compared it to our surroundings. The floors were marked with old painted lines color-coded for different destinations for routine maintenance. We followed one that rounded a snaking series of turns, passing dozens of small rooms with locked doors.
Lydia was a better lockpick than I was and she fished out a couple of pieces of flexible plastic and loided the locked rooms. Janitorial office, supply closets, bathrooms. Nothing of interest, so we kept moving.
Ghost, with his heightened senses, was drinking it all in, cataloging a thousand smells and their variations. He was trained to react to nitrites from explosives, to decomposing flesh, and to a few other key smells, but so far he wasn’t giving me any of the signals that said he’d found anything. You can’t train dogs to detect nuclear materials.
When we were in a stretch of empty corridor Lydia checked the PDA again, then looked at the walls and up at the low ceiling. “We’re getting seriously deep here, Gaucho. We still have a signal?”
I tapped my earbud. “Talk to me, Dancing Duck.”
Khalid said, “Checked all my unknowns off the list on levels eight and seven. Nothing. Laundry rooms and showers. Heading down a level.”
His signal was almost buried under a hiss of static.
“Roger that,” I said. “Sergeant Rock?”
“Nothing yet but we need to finish level two. Five more unknowns to put eyes on. Lots of foot traffic here. Slowing us down.” His signal was even worse; he sounded like he was whispering at the bottom of a well.
“Copy. Your signal is weak and variable.”
“Back atcha. What’s your twenty, Cowboy?”
“We’re rock bottom. No joy. Moving to zero point.”
Zero point was the last spot where Abdul’s spies had been able to penetrate and add to the map. Based on the original design plans of the refinery, there should be four hundred yards of corridor and several utility rooms there.
We rounded another bend and encountered two problems at the same time.
The corridor ended forty feet beyond the turn. Not in a closed door but in a flat brick wall. There were doors along the side of the corridor, however, and one stood ajar as four security officers stepped out into the hall.
They glanced at me and Lydia and Ghost.
The guards were all low-ranking patrol officers, the kind who were too far down on the pecking order to know if I was part of the staff or not. Unfortunately the other guy wore the bars of a major in the Iranian security forces. The top ranking officer in the whole refinery was a major with big eyes and buck teeth. He ignored Lydia-who was pretending to look at the floor-and pointed at me.
“You!” he said.
One word, but he said it in a way that we all knew was going to be trouble.
Damn.
Chapter One Hundred Five
