Predator One (46 page)

That was all he was going to do.

When he bent and scooped up a piece of rock that had popped loose from a pothole, he
did not admit to himself that he was going to use it. Even when he was raising the rock over his head, he kept telling himself that he was not that kind of person. He didn’t attack strangers. He didn’t hit them in the head with rocks.

The moment of commission came and went, and no amount of denials could change the fact of what he had just done The rock and all of the fingers curled around it
were dark with blood. The back of the man’s head glistened.

The man fell strangely. His upper body seemed to stiffen, but from the elbows down, the man’s arms and fingers twitched wildly. From the knees down, the muscles and tendons seemed to turn to rubber. The man made a small, meaningless gagging sound, and then he fell.

Onto kneecaps and then onto his face, making no effort at all to stop
himself from colliding lips and nose first onto the cold, cold ground.

Aaron Davidovich stared at him. He was absolutely shocked to silent immobility.

The man lay sprawled on the ground like an empty suit of clothes. The shape of the bones between collar and baseball cap were …

Wrong.

The skull shape was flattened. No. Dented.

Not as grossly misshapen as Steve’s head had been, but bad enough.
Wrong enough.

His cell phone had fallen from his hand and lay in a pool of light. Davidovich stared at it. The phone was so perfectly placed it was as if a cinematographer had arranged it there for maximum visual impact.

There was a soft thud, and Davidovich looked down to see that he’d dropped the bloody rock.

He heard another sound. Faint and high-pitched, like the whine of a small dog. Pleading
and desperate.

The sound came from his own throat.

“I’m damned,” he said aloud.

No one and nothing raised a voice to refute him.

Davidovich quickly bent down and snatched the phone with greedy fingers. He clutched it to his chest, turned, and began to run.

Then stopped.

The truck still had the keys in it.

He licked his lips, flicking nervous glances at the diner.

It took less than a minute
to roll the dead man’s body beneath the bulk of the semi parked next to the Ford. Fifteen seconds later, he was driving off in the Ford. He watched in the rearview mirror for the fat man to come out. The man still hadn’t appeared by the time Davidovich turned onto the main road.

He never stopped whining like a frightened little dog.

Chapter One Hundred and Five

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center

Medical Center Court, Chula Vista, California

March 31, 7:32
P.M.

Rudy said four words that were not as much of a comfort as we all hoped.

“It’s probably not airborne.”

“‘
Probably
’ not?” I said. My voice may have been a tad shrill.

“We’re, um, working to determine that, Cowboy,” said Rudy.

We were in a room that had been
prepped as a replacement for the biohazardous exam suite in which Doctor Alur had been murdered. The walls, floor, and ceiling had been thoroughly covered in plastic and sealed with a medical-grade duct tape. It looked like the kind of serial-killer murder room you see on reruns of
Dexter
.

I wore a hospital johnny and had all sorts of tubes running in and out of my veins. Rudy looked even more
frightened than me. Behind the thick plastic of his hazmat suit, his face was beaded with sweat and his eye was glassy with shock.

We were alone for the moment, though there were two armed guards outside. Two of my own guys from the Pier.

“Let’s circle back to the word ‘probably,’” I suggested.

Rudy licked his lips. “That means, Cowboy, that we think its serum-transfer-only but don’t have the
lab work back yet.”

I took great pains to keep my tone very reasonable and not at all like a hysterical Chihuahua. “Can you request, please, that they not dawdle?”

He almost smiled. “I guarantee you, Joe, no one is wasting time on this. I made some demands, and Mr. Church has been on the phone with the hospital administrators.”

“You spoke to Church?”

“Yes. He expressed his concern for you.”

“Did he really?” I asked.

“Well, no, but it was implied.”

“Uh-huh.”

Rudy said, “You’ll be happy to know that Top and Bunny are on their way back here.”

“To do what? Watch my skin rot off?”

“Joe, so far you have no symptoms at all.”

“Falling apart here, Rude. I can feel it. I think my spleen is melting.”

“Let’s face it, Cowboy, falling apart is something of a work in progress for you.”

“Oh, hilarious. Psychiatry humor. I get it.”

“I don’t think you’re infected.”

I nodded.

“Though, knowing you as I do, you probably think you deserve some kind of injury as penalty for being unable to take one or more of those gunmen alive. You think you failed, don’t you?”

I said nothing.

“Joe—you were in a desperate fight with six men armed with combat shotguns. You began that fight unarmed
and yet managed to shoot all six of the attackers, and in doing so saved my life, Brian’s, and the rest of the staff.”

“I didn’t save Doctor Alur.”

“You couldn’t have. That was a surprise attack. Even if you hadn’t been wearing a hazmat suit and had been able to draw your sidearm, Alur would still be dead.” He shook his head. “You are seldom an unfair person, Cowboy. When you are, it’s almost
always directed at yourself.”

Chapter One Hundred and Six

Boyer Hall Faculty Lounge

University of California, Los Angeles

March 31, 7:33
P.M.

Linden Brierly sat next to the president on the battered old couch in the faculty lounge. Secret Service agents blocked the door and guarded the hall. Alice Houston stood next to the couch, her hand pressed to her mouth. The TV was on, and the cameras showed bodies being removed
from a townhouse in Park Slope. Three laptops stood open on a table and set for video chats. The director of Homeland Security was on one; the national security advisor was on another. And Mr. Church was on the third, clearly speaking via cell-phone video.

They were all listening to Church, who was explaining the DMS theory that the Regis system had been compromised by the Seven Kings. The room
was as silent as a tomb except for Church’s voice.

The silence endured for several moments after Church had finished, though every pair of eyes in the room turned to the president.

Finally, the president blew out his cheeks and said, “I should have stayed in Congress.”

No one laughed.

To Church, the president said, “This is still conjecture? Do we have anything concrete?”

“Not at the moment.”

“But you believe this to be the case?”

“I do, Mr. President.”

“You understand what it would mean to try and shut down everything with Regis installed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re aware of how vulnerable it would make our country? Not just in terms of attacks from foreign powers, but in defense of what’s happening right here.”

Church said nothing. Instead, he ate a cookie.

The president fidgeted.
Everyone in the room knew that Church had advised against Regis in the first place. Years ago. Just as he’d advised against a delay in responding to the Resort video.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” said the president.

“Mr. President, there is a time for deliberation and there is a time for action,” said Church. “We need to—”

The president leaned forward and slapped the laptop closed. He heard
the gasps but did not acknowledge them. Instead, he sank back into his chair and glowered at the closed computer.

After a shocked moment, Alice Houston said, “Mr. President, how would you like us to respond to this?”

“Respond?” The president laughed. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. Church is an alarmist. This is his damn fault.”

“How so, Mr. President?” asked Brierly.

“Because
it was his job to dismantle the Seven Kings organization, and he failed.”

Brierly clamped his mouth shut so tightly his jaw creaked. He tried to catch Houston’s eyes, but she looked away.

However, the chief of staff said, “Church is coming here to fly back east with you on Air Force One. Shall … I tell him not to?”

“Oh no, don’t do that,” said the president. “I want him with me so I can have
a nice little private chat with him. I want to tell him how I will be pulling the DMS charter as soon as this crisis is past. I was warned about him before I took office, and now I can see that those warnings were accurate. Church is a megalomaniac who bullies people into getting what he wants.”

“Sir,” said Brierly in a tight voice, “what possible motive would Mr. Church have for spinning a story
like this if Regis was not a genuine threat?”

The president cut him a savage look. “I don’t know, and I damn well don’t care. He’s done. That’s what I care about. And now let’s us focus on the realities of what’s happening. The ballpark and the video. That’s our focus.”

Chapter One Hundred and Seven

South 21st Street

Tacoma, Washington

March 31, 8:01
P.M.

Davidovich pulled the truck off the road and drove halfway up the winding private lane to someone’s darkened house. He idled there for a few minutes, studying the landscape by moonlight. The place was shuttered up, probably closed since last fall and not yet opened.

Perfect.

He took a breath and drove
the rest of the way, then pulled behind the house and parked in the utter blackness of the porte cochere that connected the main house to a large gazebo. He killed the engine and sat for nearly five minutes, gripping the wheel, unable to make himself move.

Although his right hand gripped the knobbed vinyl of the steering wheel, his skin could still feel the exact size, shape, and texture of the
rock.

His ears could still hear the meaty crunch as the rock smashed through hair and flesh and bone.

And brain.

“God,” he whispered, but the word came out wrong because his teeth were chattering. Or maybe because that word didn’t fit into his mouth anymore.

Tears traced hot lines down the cold flesh of his cheeks.

He wished he felt more pity for the dead man than he did remorse for his own
damaged life. He ached to feel that much humanity.

But it wasn’t the truth.

He sat there and mourned for himself. For the death of all that he had been and all that he could have been.

The death of a great man.

The death of Aaron Davidovich.

It took a lot of willpower and physical strength to unclamp his hands from the steering wheel. When his fingers finally came free, his hand flopped onto
his thigh and then crawled like a white spider over to the passenger seat, searching in the shadows for the cell phone.

He froze.

What if the number wasn’t good anymore? What if it had been changed after he’d been taken?

What if there was no one to take his call?

What if?

What if?

Davidovich punched the steering wheel with the heel of his left hand. Over and over again. It hurt. It jarred
the bones in his delicate hands. It sent little stinging shocks up his wrist.

It steadied him.

He drew in a breath so ragged that it hurt his lungs.

And picked up the cell.

Even after all these years, he knew the number by heart. It had been drilled into him when he went to work for DARPA and reinforced by the CIA when he was asked to go to Israel for the conference.

The number of his handler.

He punched in the ten digits. Expecting failure. Expecting nothing.

There was a vast, empty nothing for a long moment.

And then it rang.

Once.

Twice.

Before the third ring could start, there was a click and a voice said, “Receiving office.”

Davidovich sagged back, fresh tears boiling under his lashes.

“I need to arrange a delivery.”

A pause at the other end.

“Foreign or domestic shipping.”

“Domestic,” he said hurriedly. “I’m here. I’m back in the States.”

Another long pause. The voice was not one he recognized. Young but formal. Detached.

“Do you have a billing code?”

Davidovich had not spoken the number for three years, but he never forgot a piece of data.

“Four-six-one-one, M as in Mary, nine-nine.”

The young man read it back, but as he did so he transposed the six and the
first one.

“Is that correct, sir?”

Davidovich repeated it exactly as the young man had said, with the same numbers transposed.

Another of those long, long pauses.

Then …

“Good evening, doctor.”

Chapter One Hundred and Eight

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center

Medical Center Court, Chula Vista

April 1, 4:51
A.M.

We had to wait through the incubation period to see if anything nasty happened to Brian or me. It didn’t. They tested every type of fluid and skin sample possible to take from a human being, and they found nothing.

Nothing. We were clean.

Rudy came to disconnect all the
tubes.

All he said was, “Thank God.”

By the time we were dressed and officially discharged, Top and Bunny were on their way back from the crime scene. The bodies of our two fallen comrades were in the morgue, but there were blood splashes outside to show where they’d been cut down. I hadn’t known them very well, but you don’t need to be best friends with a fellow soldier to grieve for him. The
same went for Alur. He seemed like a decent guy. All of them should have more chapters in the books of their lives.

Another debt to put on the Seven Kings.