Kill Switch (49 page)

“They wanted my laptop.”

“Right, but why?”

Toys said, “The Closers were supposed to look for any files related to Majestic.”

 

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

CATAMARAN RESORT HOTEL AND SPA

3999 MISSION BOULEVARD

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 8, 11:46
P.M.

I ordered a team to come and clean up for Toys. The bodies were taken away in discreet laundry hampers and everything was smoothed over with the night manager. Then I called Church to bring him up to speed.

“First Junie's office was robbed, and now they came after Toys's laptop, looking for anything connected to Majestic,” I said. “Our bad guys know a lot of stuff they shouldn't know and it's pissing me off. I mean,
how
do they know?”

“That is perhaps the most important question we need to answer,” said Church.

“Boss,” I said, “that Project Stargate stuff. I'm beginning to think we need to take a closer look at that.”

“To make a bad joke, Captain, you're reading my mind.”

He hung up. My next call was to Harcourt Bolton and I woke him from a sound sleep. He was drowsy and grumpy, but he perked up when I explained why I was calling. Like Church, Bolton said that he needed to make some calls.

Junie called Christel Sparks, the former cop who now ran security for FreeTech, and gave her a rough idea of what happened at Toys's place. Christel was smart and capable, and Junie trusted her. Security would be doubled around all FreeTech facilities and senior staff.

Toys came home with us and stayed in our guest room. Job came with him, which Cobbler seemed to like and Ghost did not. The two cats sat on the balcony and looked at things only they could see in the darkness before dawn. I tried to get some sleep, but I was too wired, and barely closed my eyes. So I got up early and left Junie and Toys at home. There's good security at our place, but I called Brian Botley and asked him to swing by and camp out until Junie went into work.

Church told me about his call from Lilith, and about the Mullah of the Black Tent. I asked him when POTUS was ordering a full-team hit on the Mullah and got punched by the news that the president did not believe Lilith's intel was real. Balls.

So, I spent the morning working my own networks and calling in favors with my friends in the other intelligence services trying to find out something—
anything
—about the stolen vials of SX-56.

But everywhere I went I hit walls, too. Friends were being cagey and evasive. Others were treating me like a leper. Or like the DMS was itself a leper colony. A few truly good friends confided that they had nothing to share because no one had a clue, and they warned me to stay out of it. Word had come down that Church and all of his people were politically toxic. We were being shut out and we were being blamed. It made me feel sick and lost. I ached to be back in a coma.

It wasn't much better when I trolled for information inside our own group. Bug's team was still wading through the papers and, after the first news, had found nothing else new. And Hu was getting absolutely nowhere with trying to understand the effects of the mind control. He'd obtained some of the old Stargate records, but they were incomplete and, as he phrased it, “as useless as hairy nipples on a velociraptor.” Dr. Hu is weirdly specific.

At eleven Lydia-Rose buzzed me to say that Violin had arrived and that she was in with Mr. Church. I didn't bolt and run to the conference room, but I'd have won a speed-walking competition. Once upon a time Violin and I had something very special going on. We weren't a couple, but what we had was pretty steamy. Very intense. But then I met Junie and the course of my romantic life shifted gears and changed lanes and that's the only road I'll ever take. Not sure that's a good metaphor for falling in love, but it's what I have. Violin did not take it as stoically as she'd have liked, and for a while I was almost afraid for Junie's safety. Violin isn't often like her mother, but she has her moments.

Then an assassin went after Junie and Violin was there. Junie was hurt, though. A bullet that destroyed any chance we'll ever have of having kids. Even though Violin killed the assassin, I knew she blamed herself for what happened to Junie. It was a special kind of blood debt that is entirely self-imposed. The way I see it, Junie is alive because Violin was there, and that's a debt
I
can never repay.

Life is so very complicated for those of us who live out in the storm lands. Maybe it's that way for normal people, too. I wouldn't know. It's been too long since I've been normal. I wouldn't even know how to breathe in that world.

So now Violin was here. She'd been on the run from killers, fighting for her life while I was in a coma. Maybe if I'd been awake there might have been some way for me to reach out, to help her come out of harm's way. An egotistical male chauvinist thought? Not as much as it sounds. It's one member of a family wishing he could have been there for his dearest sister. Ghost, a member of our pack, was right at my heels, excited because he had heard Violin's name.

I whipped the conference room door open and rushed inside. And immediately tripped over someone who was bent down in front of me. We both went tumbling and clunking down onto the floor in a comedy-act sprawl of arms and legs. I landed better than him, but also on top of him, and the back of one of my heels thumped down into his crotch.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

THE PIER

DMS SPECIAL PROJECTS OFFICE

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 9, 9:22
A.M.

No one makes an entrance as graceful as Joseph Edwin Ledger. Seriously, folks, hold the applause until after the show.

We got ourselves untangled and I reached over and grabbed a fistful of shirt from somebody I had never met and wanted to punch. “Who in the wide blue fuck are you?”

The guy was ten years younger than me, a little chunky, with a round face and bright blue eyes and a mouth that was puckered with pain. He said,
“Eeerp.”
Very faintly.

I hugged Violin. Ghost jumped all over her and got kisses on his furry white head. Violin reached down and pulled the kid to his feet and helped him into a chair. He moved with the kind of delicacy men use when a brute my size heel-kicks them in the wrinklies. Too bad.

“Joseph,” said Violin, “meet Harry Bolt.”

“Why'd you frigging trip me?” I demanded.

It took him a moment to get his voice back and it came out as a mouse squeak. “I … dropped my … cell phone. Bent to pick it up. You … attacked me.”

“If I'd wanted to attack you,” I began, and then caught identical looks from Church and Violin and snapped my mouth shut. Violin patted the groaning stranger on the shoulder.

“Harry is with the Agency,” said Church. “I believe I mentioned him earlier.”

I gaped at him. “Wait …
you're
Harcourt Bolton, Junior?”

“Um … yeah. I guess?” It came out almost like a question. “I … um … prefer Harry, though. Harry Bolt.”

“What, is that some kind of cool superspy name? Bolt. Harry Bolt?”

His face, already flushed with pain, burned a deeper crimson. “Pretty much the opposite.”

Then a voice spoke from the open doorway. “He changed it because he doesn't want to smear the family name.”

Everyone turned to see Harcourt Bolton, Senior, standing there. Tall and good-looking, powerful, cultured. Annoyed and disappointed.

“Dad!” cried Harry as he launched out of his chair and rushed to hug his father. Bolton endured the hug. That was the best thing you could say about it. Endured. Harry hugged him and Bolton gave him a single, small pat on the back, then he pushed his son away and appraised him.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked. I know he was asking about Harry's disheveled appearance and flushed face, but there was an implication of a deeper, perhaps existential question. I caught it, and from the flicker of disapproval that pinched Violin's mouth I saw that she did, too.

Harry immediately began trying to smooth down his hair and straighten his clothes. “It's been a little crazy, Dad. Violin and I had to go dark and—”

“Your entire station was wiped out,” said Bolton coldly. “Your infil team was cut to pieces, Harry. I saw photos of their severed heads and yet you don't have a scratch. How did
you
escape a team of Closers?”

He leaned a little too heavy on the word “you.” As if such a thing was beyond understanding.

As I believe I'd said, I'm pretty much captain of the Harcourt Bolton fan club, but right then I wanted to punch him. He was being a dick to his kid and he was doing it in front of other professionals. Not cool.

“Your son has brought us valuable intel, Harcourt,” said Mr. Church. He rose and walked around the table to stand beside Harry. He never does things by accident, so that had to make a statement. Wish I'd thought of it.

Bolton sniffed. It was a snobbish, fussy thing for him to do and I could feel some of my affection for him beginning to bleed away. He'd been kind and considerate to me, but I did not like the way he treated his son. There's a saying that in order to understand someone you need to see how they treat their children. Or maybe it was their dog. Not sure. Worked out to the same thing in this case because Bolton seemed to treat Harry like a dog that had just shit on the rug.

“What intel?” asked Bolton, directing the question to Church.

“This,” said Violin. She placed a heavy suitcase on the conference table, opened it to reveal a bulky item wrapped in a thick comforter. We all crowded around to watch. Inside the comforter was a book. Very large, very old, covered in strange markings and sealed with iron bands and heavy padlocks.

“Jesus,” I said, “is that what I think it is?”

It was. One of the Unlearnable Truths.

“Hate to break it to you,” I said to Violin and Harry, “but Bug thinks that there are complete scans of all these books in the Gateway records. He's working on locating them now.”

“Impossible,” said Violin. “This book has not been opened in years.”

“Let's see,” I said, and bent to pick it up, but Violin caught my wrist.

“Joseph, don't,” she urged. “It's dangerous.”

“It's only a book.”

“It's much more than that, Joseph. It has power.”

“I have a vault,” said Bolton. “Hell of a sturdy one. We could lock it away.”

“I don't think that would be our best choice,” said Church, and he surprised everyone by picking the book up. Violin and Harry gasped and stepped back. Bolton looked like he wanted to grab it out of Church's hands and maybe throw it out of the window. Church turned it over, smiling faintly. “An ocean of blood has been spilled over this.”

“You shouldn't touch it with your bare hands,” cautioned Violin. “My mother says—”

“Your mother is a bit more superstitious than I am,” he said. “I've found that things like this only have the power you give them.”

Harry Bolt shook his head. “I picked that thing up and my head went blank. Like … a couple of times.”

“You were probably hungover from partying,” said his father in a caustic and emasculating way. Harry's face went beet red.

“Please, Harcourt,” said Church. To me he said, “Remind you of anything?”

“Too many things,” I said. “Apparently Project Stargate wasn't a total failure. Imagine that.”

“No way,” said Bolton, disgusted. “I told you that Stargate was scrubbed.”

Church ignored him and gave Harry an encouraging smile. “Tell me everything that happened.” Tell
me,
he said. Not
us
. It was the right thing to say. After a moment's hesitation, Harry told his tale. His report was hesitant at first, but I saw him visibly shift his focus from his father's disapproving scowl to Church's encouraging smile. When he got into gear he gave a clear, concise, and surprisingly insightful report of what he and Violin had experienced.

Church nodded and placed the book on the conference table. We all clustered around, and as Church bent to examine the locks and the binding, I saw him frown. He ran his fingers over the parts of the cover not blocked by the metal bands, then he licked his fingertips and wiped at the leather. Church grunted and straightened. “Now, isn't that interesting.”

“What?”

“Captain,” he said to me, “you're good at this sort of thing. Do you think you could pick those locks?”

“I'm better at kicking down doors,” I admitted, “but I can try.”

“No!” said Violin.

“Maybe we shouldn't,” said Bolton.

“I can do it,” suggested Harry. We all looked at him. He produced a small leather toolkit from his pocket and opened it to show as sweet a set of lock picks as I've ever seen. “Really, I'm pretty good with locks. I opened the chest this was in.”

“You opened a chest sealed by the Ordo Fratrum Claustrorum?” said Bolton, his skepticism evident and intense.

“Um … sure.”

Church stepped back. “If Captain Ledger has no objections.”

“Knock yourself out, kid,” I said to Harry, clapping him on the shoulder in a way that pushed him a couple of steps toward the table. “It's all yours.”

Actually I didn't want to touch the thing. If it was going to explode or open a gateway to a hell dimension or whatever, better him than me. Selfish, I know, but there it is. I'm a good guy but I never claimed to be a nice one.

Harry Bolt set himself in front of the book, selected his tools, stuck his tongue partway out of his mouth the way some people do when they're concentrating, and set to work. The kid was good, I have to give him that. He had each of the locks open in seconds.