The Dragon Factory

She nodded, chewing her lip.

Paris said, “Cyrus probably has a legion of little bastards roaming around, ready to usurp our place.”

“Even so… I can’t believe that Dad would want us killed.”

“Only one,” Paris reminded her. “And it didn’t matter which one, according to our late informant.

“I think we should be more concerned,” said Paris, “with how he found us. Marcus said that no one came aboard our jet when we were at the Deck, and I believe him. But we were clearly followed. That means that Otto somehow managed to put a tracking device on the jet and also managed to have us followed. How? Where did Dad get the follow planes that Pinter fellow told us about? How did he hire assassins? Pinter said that this wasn’t the first mission he’d done for Dad. How the hell is Dad managing all of this?”

She shook her head. “I guess we don’t have as tight a control on him as we thought.”

“Oh really? You think?” He sneered as he rose and refilled their glasses. “At this moment I don’t know who we can trust. We certainly can’t trust anyone at the Deck. I wish to Christ we’d gone through with the fail-safe device we talked about, ’cause right now I’d be happy to blow the whole fucking thing up. Dad, Otto, and everyone.”

She nodded. They’d seriously considered boobytrapping the Deck during its construction but had ultimately decided against it. Back then they thought that they had Cyrus on an unbreakable leash. Now she felt like a fool.

“God, I hate being played.”

“He’s played us our whole lives,” Paris said.

“But how? We own everyone at the Deck.”

“Apparently he and Otto found better levers on them.”

They lapsed into a long and moody silence.

“What do you think Dad would do if we sent him the heads of the two assassins?” Hecate suggested.

“Jesus, you’re bloodthirsty,” Paris said, but he pursed his lips. “Interesting idea, though. Dad would probably blow a fuse.”

“What would that look like?”

He sipped his drink. “I don’t know. If he controls the Deck, then he might be able to escape it. That means he’d be free to come at us any way he wants.”

“Christ,” she said as the possibilities that presented blossomed in her imagination. She stood up and walked to the window and looked out at the crews working to load the bottled water onto the freighter. “What should we do? Do we pretend this never happened and send that shipment out? And the next one, and the one after that?”

“Depends on whether we want to alert him. Right now he doesn’t know that we know. At most he’ll find out that our security team killed a bunch of intruders. We could play it like we don’t know who came at us, or go with what he intended and play it like we’re scared because the U.S. government sent a black ops team after us.”

“He’ll know we’re lying,” she said.

“So? As long as we keep the lie going it won’t matter, and it’ll delay any confrontation until we have a chance to look into this.”

Hecate chewed her full underlip. Paris noted, not the for the first time, how sharp her teeth were, and he secretly wondered if she’d started filing them. It would be like her to do something freaky like that.

She ran her finger around the rim of the glass, over and over again until it created a sullen hum. A smile bloomed on her face.

“What?” Paris asked.

“I just had a wicked little idea.”

“For Dad?”

“For Dad,” she agreed. “Look… he now knows where we are. Okay… instead of counterattacking, why don’t we really play up the innocent act and reach out to him like we’re a couple of scared kids who need their daddy in a time of crisis?”

“I’m not following you…”

“Why don’t we invite him here?” she said with a wicked grin. “Tell him we’re scared and that we could use his advice on how to protect the Dragon Factory from another attack.”

“Ah… you sly bitch!” Paris said with a smile. “And once we have him here…”

“Then we put a bullet in Otto, lock Dad in a dungeon, and send a couple of teams of Berserkers to the Deck to, um… sterilize it.”

“We don’t have a dungeon.”

“So,” she said, “let’s build one.”

Paris looked at her for a long moment, his eyes glistening with emotion. “This is why I love you, Hecate.”

Hecate pulled him close and kissed her brother full on the mouth.

Chapter Sixty-One

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:31 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 29 minutes

Dr. Hu turned to Bug. “Eugenics is in a bit of a gray area between social philosophy and evolutionary science. It was kicked off by Sir Francis Galton-Charles Darwin’s cousin-in the late eighteen hundreds, and it’s had a lot of high-profile supporters. We’re talking people like H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, a bunch of others. Its proponents advocate the improvement of human hereditary traits through intervention.”

“ ‘Intervention,’ ” muttered Grace the way someone might say “anal probe.”

Hu ignored her. “The theory is that by filtering out unwanted genetic elements, corruption, and damage what emerges will be an elevated human being whose abilities and potential are beyond our current reach.”

Before Bug could ask a question Grace cut in again. “Which is a very slippery way for some scientists-and I use that word with the greatest reluctance-to justify the worst kind of enforced social Darwinism. There are people right now who believe in eugenics and they hide behind causes that are very noble on the surface. For example, they’ll point to a particular birth defect and in their grant proposals and lobbying materials they showcase the misery and suffering. They use talk shows and the media to gather support, and everyone falls in line.”

Hu wheeled on her. “Of course they do! Who wouldn’t want such a disorder eradicated? Any sane and compassionate person would agree-”

“And if the greater good were really the end goal of eugenics then I’d be campaigning for it,” Grace cut in. “But-”

“Whoa, slow down,” Bug said. “You lost me two turns back. Why are you getting so wound up?”

But Hu ignored him. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to make the case that all attempts to remove genetic defects have a master race agenda. That’s unfair. A lot of solid genetic research is intended to prevent disease, increase health and strength, and lessen human suffering. And it’s not just Big Pharma and Big Medicine that are behind it. Early funding for serious eugenics research was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kelloggs, the Carnegies-”

Grace looked like she wanted to spit. “Well, some of that was probably very well intentioned, I’m sure, but surely, Doctor, you can’t be so effing naive as to believe that everyone involved in medical research is altruistic and has the greater good at heart.”

“Okay, let’s try to keep our focus here,” I interjected, holding my hand up like a traffic cop. “We don’t have time to debate bioethics.”

“No,” said Church, “we don’t, and this is beside the point. The research in those records wasn’t intended to prevent harelips or autism. The Cabal was working to provide data that would justify state-sponsored discrimination, forced sterilization of persons deemed genetically defective, and the killing of institutionalized populations.”

Grace’s face was alight with triumph. “That’s what I bleeding well said!”

Bug leaned toward me. “This is… what? Like trying to create a master race?”

It was Church who answered him. “Yes. We’re talking about the ethnic-cleansing research of the Nazis in the hands of scientists who had access to advanced research and development methods and who wanted to see the