The Dragon Factory

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes

Church logged into his old e-mail account from his laptop and his fingers flew over the keys.

“Same sender as the hunt video,” he said. To the communications officer he said, “Track this back and find out where the user logged on. Do it now.” The officer sprinted out.

We were still reeling from the shock of the news about Jigsaw, but the fact that we might have another clue was like a shot of pure adrenaline. I wanted a scent I could chase down. I wanted someone in my crosshairs. I wanted someone’s throat in my hands. I wanted it so bad I could scream.

Church sent the video to the conference room server and punched keys to display it on the flatscreen. The screen popped with white noise, faded to black, and then we saw the face of a young teenage boy, maybe fourteen. Dark hair, rounded face, a slight gap between mildly buck teeth, and brown eyes that held a look of such comprehensive despair that it chilled me.

“If he finds out that I sent this, he’ll kill me,” said the boy. It was recorded with some kind of stationary camera, maybe a webcam. Grainy and dark, with a weak streaming image. “But I had to try. If you got the other file I sent, then you know what’s going on from what the two Americans said.”

“But the sound kept cutting out,” Bug said. “We could hardly-”

“Shhhh,” said Hu.

“You have to stop them. What they’re doing… it’s…” The kid shook his head, unable to put his horror into words. “I don’t have much time. I stole one of the guards’ laptops, but I have to get it back before they notice I took it. I read Otto’s file, so if you’re who I think you are, then you have to do something before everyone in Africa dies. And maybe more than that. You got to stop them! If you can’t find this place, then see if you can find the Deck. That’s the main lab; that’s what you have to find. I know it’s in Arizona someplace, but I don’t know where. Maybe you can find that out when you get here. And then you have to do something about the Dragon Factory. I don’t know where that is, but Alpha thinks it’s in the Carolinas. I don’t think so because I heard Paris tell his sister that they had to get back to the ‘island.’ I just don’t know which island.”

He paused, looking desperate.

“I don’t even know if I’m making sense. Oh… wait!” He obviously spotted something and darted out of shot. We heard the rustling of paper and then he was back, with a big piece of white paper in his hands. He turned it in a few different directions, trying to orient it, and then turned it around toward the camera. “Can you see this? I think this is us; I think this is the Hive.”

He suddenly stiffened, lowered the paper, and sat with his head cocked in an attitude of listening.

“Someone’s coming. I have to be quick. If you get this, if you come… then broadcast on this frequency.” He read off the numbers. “It’s only short range, but I made it myself. If you’re here, I can help you get past the guards… but you have to be careful of the dogs. The dogs aren’t dogs.”

He turned his head again.

“Oh no! I have to go.”

And with that he punched a button and the screen went blank.

Without waiting for comments Church ran it again and then froze the image on the map.

“Bug,” he shouted, “download that image and find me that island. Now!”

“On it.”

“Grace,” Church said, “prep the TOC. By the time Bug locates that island I want birds in the air.”

The Tactical Operations Center was the mission control room. It had MindReader stations, satellite downlinks that fed real-time images, and was networked into every branch of the military and intelligence network. And I don’t mean just ours… MindReader didn’t give a crap about nationality.

Grace hesitated. “I want to-”

“I know what you want, Grace,” he said, “but it looks like we’re going to have multiple targets. This site… Arizona, and maybe the Carolinas or an island. I need you to prepare Alpha Team for a trip out west.”

As she hurried out, she threw me an evil look. “Teacher’s pet.”

Church looked at me. “You’re up, Captain.”

I leaned across the table. “Church… the kid said that the answers were on the hunt video, but that file sucked and we got maybe one word in twenty. Can you get someone who reads lips? Maybe they can pick up something…”

“Good call. Now-go!”

But I was already running for the door.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The Deck

Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes E.S.T.

Otto Wirths stood at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind him so that he could feel the comforting outline of the pistol holstered at the small of his back. He was patient but cautious, and he didn’t say a word. Not while Cyrus Jakoby was throwing a fit. The floor around the bed was heaped with torn bedding; down stuffing was scattered like snow, and tiny feathers floated past Otto’s impassive face. Cyrus had already smashed the twenty- seven vases and ground the exotic flowers under his bare feet. He even had destroyed the portrait of his beloved rhesus monkey. Now he knelt on the floor and used a salad fork to stab one of his doubles to death. And it wasn’t even Tuesday.

The double had long since stopped screaming, though he wasn’t dead yet. Otto thought a salad fork to be an inefficient weapon but conceded that outright murder was not as important to Cyrus as inflicting hurt. Otto waited it out, one finger hooked under the hem of his smock in case he needed to pull the gun.

Cyrus stabbed down again and again.

Then, as if his internal passion triggered some pressure valve, the rage abruptly stopped. Cyrus sagged and slumped, the fork tumbling from his trembling fingers. The double coughed one more time and then he, too, settled into stillness.

Otto took this as his cue to step around the edge of the bed. He caught Cyrus under the arms and gently lifted him to his feet. Cyrus was as passive as a sedated old man and allowed himself to be led over to an armchair. Otto fetched him a glass of water and produced two pills from a cloisonne case he carried at all times in his pocket. One for heart and one for head.

“Take these, Mr. Cyrus,” he murmured, and held the glass as Cyrus washed them down.

Cyrus gasped and shook his head. “I can’t believe it! All of them? Dead?”

“All of them,” Cyrus confirmed. The news had come back to the Deck from one of their pursuit craft. Both infiltration teams had been lost at the Dragon Factory, and the Zodiac with the extraction team had been taken out with a rocket-propelled grenade. The hit was a complete wash.

“Were any of the team taken alive?” All of Cyrus’s people had tiny transponders implanted under their skin. The devices were the size of rice grains and they sent two signals: one for the GPS and another to a biotelemeter. As long as the wearer’s heart continued to beat, the second signal was sent.

“None of the units are still active,” said Otto.

“God damn it! How did the Twins know?”

“Who is to say if they knew at all? They’re quite capable of reacting to an unexpected attack, and we should not be concerned until we know they have connected the attack with us.”

“They’re too smart, damn it.”

Otto tut-tutted him. “Oh, please, Mr. Cyrus… we’re so much smarter than those children. They don’t even know who we are!”

It took a moment for Cyrus to shift gears, but eventually he nodded.