Assassin's Code (20 page)

“Why?”

“Why do you
think
? What kind of question is that? You think I
want
to die?” demanded Vox. “You think I’d let myself rot if there was a way out?”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” said Toys. “You know it isn’t.”

“What do you think it’s about? What’s it ever about? You went into my banking records, right? You saw the deposits and the transfers. Christ, is this about the split? Are you turning on me over your share?”

“It’s not about the money.”

“The fuck it’s not about the money, you little shithead,” Vox fired back. “Okay, so I promised you a hundred billion when I died, and I’m not giving you a hundred billion ’cause I’m not fucking dying. Those injections are giving me a new shot, kiddo, and I’m fucking taking it—and I’m keeping the money I earned because now I’m going to have a chance at spending it. So, boo hoo, I’m a bad man. Are you trying to tell me you can’t live off of
one
billion? Are you standing there and telling me that? You wouldn’t have a fucking dime if it weren’t for me. I treated you like my own
son,
you ungrateful shit. I’m giving you a
billion fucking dollars
, though. Who else ever gave anyone that kind of cash? It’s already transferred to your account.”

“It’s not about the money,” Toys repeated, his face growing red. “It’s about where it’s coming from.”

Vox barked out a harsh laugh. “Oh, please, do not even go there.” He paused and shook his head. “Look, don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been getting all moody and guilty lately. Ever since Gault died you’ve been watching way too many televangelists. It’s creepy and it’s silly, but I figured if it works for you, then who am I to tell you how to whitewash your soul. It’s your money now, and a billion dollars buys a lot of forgiveness.”

In two quick strides Toys closed the distance between them and struck Vox across the mouth. Not with the pistol. He used his open hand, a single whipcrack of a slap that spun Vox violently around and sent him crashing into the table. It tipped under his weight and Vox fell amid a torrent of exploding cartons of food and cutlery. He landed heavily, his face and chest splattered with hot soup and rice and cooked lamb. Vox screamed and slapped at his skin. But before he could recover, Toys bent down and shoved the barrel of the pistol hard against Vox’s temple.

“Shut your mouth,” whispered Toys in an icy hiss. “So help me God, Hugo, if you say one more word I will kill you.”

Vox groaned and pawed at his mouth. His lip was pulped and bleeding and he stared at the red smear on the back of his hand. Despite Toys’s warning, Vox growled, “If you want all of it then take it and fuck you. The bank codes are in—”

“I
have
the bank codes,” snarled Toys, “but I don’t want your sodding money. Piss on you and every penny of it. Keep it and choke on it.”

Vox turned his head, ignoring the presence of the gun, and he glared up at Toys. “Then what do you fucking want?” When Toys did not speak, Vox chuckled. “Well goddamn,” he said wonderingly, “I can see it in your eyes, boy, you really have lost your fucking mind and found Jesus. Ho-lee shit. I thought it was a scam. I thought you were running some kind of schuck, or maybe going through some kind of spring cleaning of the soul. Shit, I thought it was a frigging phase and—”

“A ‘phase’?” echoed Toys softly.

“Of course,” snapped Vox, “and that’s what it damn well is. You’re feeling some dumbass Catholic guilt because I filled your head with a bunch of bullshit about Judas last year when I was trying to get you away from that dickhead Gault. There was a point to all that, kiddo, and I thought you understood it. What, did you think I was proselytizing? I was trying to get you to understand about necessary sacrifice and how sometimes we all have to make a hard choice. Was I wrong about you? Are you too fucking stupid to understand that?”

“No,” murmured Toys, “I understood you perfectly.”

He cocked the hammer of the pistol, and it was the loudest sound Vox ever heard.

“Listen to me, Hugo,” Toys said, so very softly. “Try to understand. Try, for once, to listen objectively. Don’t filter it through your own agenda. Just this once. Can you do that?”

Vox cleared his throat. His face and back hurt. The food was trickling down inside his clothes. “Yeah, sure, kiddo. Say your piece.”

Toys leaned so close that his voice was a hot breeze on Vox’s ear. “You lied to me, Hugo.”

“Fuck it, kid, I lie to every—”

“Shhhh. Don’t say anything. Just listen.” The barrel of the gun slid along the line of Vox’s cheek. “I never wanted your money. You thought I did because that’s all you’re capable of thinking. I almost pity you. Even Sebastian wasn’t like that. At least he could love something. Amirah … your mother. Sebastian loved her. But you, Hugo? You don’t love anything. I doubt you ever have.”

Vox started to say something, to protest that statement, but Toys leaned toward him, forehead to forehead, the pistol now touching the point of Vox’s chin.

“Please,” begged Toys, “please don’t say anything. Don’t say that you love me. I’ve heard that. You said it a thousand times. That you love me like a son. Don’t let me hear you say those words. I can do more than kill you. I will if you say that.”

Vox said nothing.

“I’m not like you, Hugo. I’m not like Sebastian, either. I’m not strong in the same way … but I’m not weak in the same way, either. I didn’t know that before. I thought I was weak, I thought I was broken. A broken toy. Quaint, I know. Corny. But it isn’t the way things are, and I didn’t know that until I read the files. I could have forgiven you about the money. After all, it’s not even your money to give. It’s all stolen, it’s all blood money, and I have enough blood on my hands as it is. I could have forgiven you about Upier 531. A gene therapy that could cure your cancer? Something that could make you live for years? Maybe forever? That’s wonderful, Hugo. That’s magic, even if it’s unproven. I could forgive any risk you’d take to change that.”

Tears welled in Toys’s eyes and fell on Vox’s cheek.

“But the price you were willing to pay. Good Christ, Hugo. All those people? What is it with you? What was it with Sebastian and the Seven Kings? Are people unreal to you? Do you think they’re simply bit-part players in your personal drama? No—don’t say anything. I know the answer. That’s exactly what you, and what people like you, think. No one else is real, no one else matters. Only you, your power, your profit, and whatever pieces of the world you can steal.”

He sniffed, but the tears still fell. Vox was frozen to stillness.

“Hugo … you think that I’m like a son to you. Or, you thought so. When you found out you were dying I was the only way for you to become immortal. Fathers do that with their sons. That’s what you thought you were going to leave behind. Me—a clone of you, someone to carry on the things you’ve done your whole life. More murders, more plots and plans. More chaos. When you looked at me, that’s what you saw.”

Toys pressed the pistol harder against Vox’s chin.

“How could you hate anyone so much that you would want them to be like you?”

A last tear rolled from Toys’s eye and fell, striking Vox on the lips.

Toys straightened and stepped back, his arm out, gun pointed, the barrel trembling but only slightly.

“You are a monster, Hugo,” murmured Toys. “I’m not.”

Vox sat up and wiped away the salty tear on his lips. He sneered at Toys. “Yeah? Then what the fuck are you?”

The answer was there in the young man’s eyes for Vox to read. The hand holding the pistol stopped trembling, the black eye of the barrel stared without pity.

Then Toys dropped the pistol onto the tile floor.

“I’m damned,” he said.

Without another word, he turned and walked through the house and out the front door.

*   *   *

Vox refilled his glass and drank.

He stared at the bank account log-in on the screen, seeing a smeared version of it through the hot tears in his eyes.

Beneath his skin he could feel the changes, feel the tissues moving and adapting.

He drank the Scotch.

“Fuck you,” he said aloud.

And reached for the bottle.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Hangar

Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

June 15, 1:30 a.m. EST

The president of the United States was ten feet tall.

Even seated behind his desk in the Oval Office he was a giant, towering over Mr. Church, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back. The giant plasma screen in the Hangar conference room had flawless fidelity and except for the disparate scale, the president might have been there in the room.

“I wish I had more encouraging news, Mr. President,” said Church. “However, we are still assessing the intelligence brought to us by Captain Ledger.”

“I have to admit that I’m disappointed. I expected more. I expected to hear that you’d at least confirmed the location of all seven of the devices.”

“When I learn to perform actual magic, Mr. President, I will make sure you receive the memo.”

The president said nothing. With anyone else from the president of Russia to his own chief of staff he would have fired back a retort and fried them. Instead, he cleared his throat.

After a moment, Church said, “We have, in fact, established probable locations on four of the devices. There is a high probability that the one in Rasouli’s photo is located in or near the Aghajari oil refinery in Iran. There is a slightly lower but still actionable probability that the other three are at the Beiji oil refinery in Iraq, the Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia, and the Toot oil field in Pakistan. DMS teams are en route to those locations. When and if we get locations on the other three I want to do a coordinated and simultaneous soft infiltration of all seven. We should get the best JSOC teams in the air.”

The Joint Special Operations Command included many of the nation’s elite teams, including Delta and the SEALs.

“What about the device here in the States?”

“We need to remain at our highest state of readiness without doing anything that sends a signal. Not to our allies, not to our enemies, and not to the world press. At this point we don’t know if there is a device on U.S. soil, and if there is we have no idea where it
might
be. It could be a red herring, or it could be real, we don’t know. So far there are no hints on Rasouli’s drive beyond a possibility of our unknown enemies targeting oil fields.”

“We have a lot of oil fields, Deacon.”

“I am all too aware of that, Mr. President.”

The president sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “I want to hang Vox’s head on the Capitol building spire.”

“Get in line,” said Church dryly. “But as much as we both want to see that happen, we don’t know if Vox is our enemy in this particular game.”

“He steered Rasouli toward Ledger.”

“Yes, which means that our only source of information about a potentially catastrophic situation came about because of that.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that Vox has had a change of heart and now wants to help us avoid an act of terrorism. You couldn’t sell that on a soap opera.”

“I believe you know my take on Hugo’s patriotism.”

“Then what is his role in this?”

“He is a trickster and manipulator. If he delivered a workable cure for cancer I would look for an angle. If he’s helping us then he has a way to profit from that.”

“Enemy of my enemy?” suggested the president. Church shrugged.

“Unknown. Now that we know the scope of his treachery as the head of the Seven Kings, we know that he has more friends in the Middle East than he has here. Iran would be in that family.”

“So … he could be helping Rasouli,” ventured the president. “If this is a real threat to Iran’s oil fields, then Vox could be using us to help an ally.”

“Yes. That’s likely, but it doesn’t mean that it’s Hugo’s only motive.”

“I’m putting a lot of trust in you and MindReader, Deacon. We have to find those nukes. We can’t allow a single device to detonate.”

“We may not have a choice, Mr. President. I believe that it would be prudent to begin working on how to manage a crisis based on a variety of worst-case scenarios.”

“I just had that conversation with State. No matter where a bomb goes off it creates a different political nightmare. At this point it’s impossible to determine which worst-case scenario is actually the worst. On one side there’s the risk to civilian populations, on another the risk of contamination to the oil fields is considerable. And the political fallout, pun intended, could cripple us in the region.”

“I wish Captain Ledger had been able to record that conversation. We’d be able to haul Iran before NATO and the world and hang them out to dry for consorting with Vox. They would have to back down on their nuclear program—”

“Which would be nice,” interrupted Church, “but it would still leave us with seven possible nukes in place, and no one to blame.”

“We can blame Vox and the Seven Kings.”

“We could,” said Church dubiously, “but we would be guessing. That might sharpen focus or distract it entirely. Guesswork doesn’t put our true enemy in the crosshairs.”

The president looked at his watch. “I’m heading to the Situation Room now. We’ll conference you in. Two minutes.”

“I’ll be here,” said Church.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The Kingdom of Shadows

Beneath the Sands

June 15, 10:01 a.m.

The King of Thorns stretched out a pale hand to accept the cell phone offered by his fourth son. Grigor’s fingernails, thick and dark, curled around the slender phone, trapping it in his palm like a tiny mouse caught by a spider. He was familiar with phones, but he did not care for them. All they possessed was sound. No smell, no taste. With a small sneer of distaste he put the phone to his ear.

“Yes.”

“Grigor,” said Charles LaRoque, “Your knight failed.”

“Failed?”

“Yes, and I am very disappointed,” said LaRoque in a waspish tone. “I was led to believe that the knights were more capable than this. A simple hit on a single target. Perhaps I should have hired someone who understands his profession.”