The Dragon Factory Read online

  “I’m glad to hear your voice,” I said.

  “Glad to hear you, too,” she said. “I had images of you in the back of an NSA car with a sodding black bag over your head.”

  “It’s not for a lack of them trying. I hope you’re not calling with more bad news. I’m going to stop answering my phone.”

  “Yes. I heard about your man Faraday,” she said. “Bloody awful, Joe. I’m so sorry.”

  I knew she meant it. Grace had lost a lot of people in the years she’d been one of Church’s field commanders.

  “Thanks.”

  Grace was on semi-permanent loan to the DMS from Barrier, a group in the U.K. that was a model for rapid-response science-based threat groups like ours. Church had asked for her personally, and he usually got what he wanted.

  “I have some updated info for you, though,” she said. “Jerry Spencer is at the crime scene now. Some of Mr. Church’s friends in Wilmington were able to float false credentials for him. He’s at Gilpin’s apartment and will call in as soon as the smoke clears.”

  “That’s something.” I felt a flicker of relief. Jerry Spencer was a former D.C. cop who’d put in twenty-plus as a homicide dick before acting as DCPD’s contribution to the same Homeland Security task force I’d worked. He could work a crime scene like no one else I ever met, and there had been some talk about the FBI recruiting him away to teach at Quantico once Jerry finished his twenty-five with D.C., but the DMS got to him first and now he runs our crime lab.

  “Grace, it’s nice to know that the DMS hasn’t been forced to completely close up shop today. I guess you already know about Denver?”

  “Yes. I tried to get the go-ahead to take Alpha Team out there, but we’re buttoned up too tightly here. Church tells me that Top and Bunny are on their way out there and that you’ll be joining them.”

  “Did he tell you about the friends of his who have been killed?”

  “He mentioned it, but he hasn’t gone into details yet. He also said something about a video I’m supposed to watch when I get a moment. No idea what’s on it, but Church seemed pretty upset.”

  I smiled at the thought. “Church? Upset? How can you tell?”

  “His tie was ever so slightly askew. With him that’s a sign of the apocalypse. He’s the only bloke I know who would probably show up to his own autopsy in a freshly pressed suit and talk the doctor through the postmortem.”

  “No joke. But, listen, do you have any idea what’s brewing? Church is being even more cryptic than usual.”

  “He’s that way when he’s caught off-guard. He plays it close until he knows the shape of it and then he drops it all on us. If he’s stalling us that means he’s digging for information himself.” She paused. “I suspect, my dear, that your cynical mind is traveling on the same routes as mine.”

  “Yep. We’ve had stuff come at us this way before. A bit here, a fragment there, and suddenly we’re ass deep in it. I hate this part of the job, Grace. I feel like someone’s lit a fuse and all we can see is a little smoke.”

  “Too bloody right. Whatever this is, it’s tied to something stored at a facility in Denver, Russians are involved, and it has something to do with computer theft. Plus I got a faint whiff of the Cold War from something Church said. When he was telling me about the colleagues that had been killed he mentioned they were mostly from the U.K. and Germany, and that they worked together on projects in the early eighties.”

  “Germany and Russia, the U.K. and America. You’re right, Cold War’s a good call,” I said. “I can’t wait to see this video. But more than that, I want to get into this game. I know it’s not the right way to look at it, but going to Denver feels like running away from this thing.”

  “I know. And I feel like I’m locked in a cage.” She let out a breath. “So . . . how are you holding up, mate?”

  “Oh, just peachy, babe.”

  “ ‘Babe’?”

  “Sorry. Major Babe.”

  “Bloody Yanks,” she complained.

  The realities of the moment couldn’t support jovial banter and it collapsed around us.

  “It’s funny,” I said, “but there are always guys you think have some kind of Kevlar painted on them, guys that are never the ones to take a hit, and Big Bob had that in spades.” After my initial DMS mission had cut Echo Team in half, Big Bob had been the first new guy we signed on. Big Bob was affable, diligent, and though he could storm hell with the best of them, he had a gentle heart. My mind suddenly twitched when I realized that I’d already begun to categorize his virtues the way you do when someone dies. “He’s a fighter,” I said lamely.

  “That he is.”

  I saw a car approach and the driver flicked his lights on and off.

  “My ride’s here. Got to go.”

  “Me, too. I’ve got a bunch of NSA lads outside who have their knickers in a knot. I’d better go see if I can sort them out.”

  “Take care of yourself, babe.”

  “That’s Major Babe.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  “Be careful, Joe,” she said, but before I could reply she’d hung up. It may have been her thick London accent, it may have been the distortion of the scrambled phone, or it may have been my own screwy emotions . . . but it almost sounded like she said, “Be careful, love.” I thought about it. Nah . . . she’d never let herself get into that kind of emotional quagmire. Not with a colleague.

  Would she?

  I closed the phone and closed my eyes for a moment, indulging in a memory of the last time I saw Grace. Yesterday morning as she left my bed. Tall and tan and fit, with extraordinary legs, lush curves, and eyes that could make me melt or instantly charge me with electricity. I’d never met anyone like her, and I counted my blessings every day that I had found her at all. It was a crying shame that we’d met as fellow officers in the ongoing war against terror, a war that had no end in sight. Wars are great breeding grounds for enduring love, but warriors should never allow themselves to fall in love. It made the risks that much worse.

  I opened my eyes and watched the car approach, forcibly shifting my mind back to the crisis du jour.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Warehouse, DMS Regional Tactical Field Office in Baltimore

  Saturday, August 28, 10:32 A.M.

  Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 28 minutes

  Maj. Grace Courtland was slender, very pretty, and thoroughly pissed off. The only thing keeping her from leaping at the NSA Agent in Charge was a double row of electrified fence and her last shreds of self-control.

  The AIC was a big blond-haired jock type with mirrored sunglasses and a wire behind his ear. Five other agents were spread out behind him like a Spartan phalanx, and the street in front of the Department of Military Sciences’ Baltimore Regional Tactical Field Office—the Warehouse for short—was jammed with government vehicles of every make and model.

  Major Courtland had only two guards with her: McGoran and Tafoya, a pair of hard-eyed former MPs who had been headhunted by the DMS. The guards wore khakis and three-button Polo shirts in the August heat. Both of them held M4s at port arms. Neither was smiling.

  The AIC was shouting at Grace. “I have a federal warrant to search and seize this building and all its contents, and an arrest warrant for Major Grace Courtland, Dr. William Hu, Captain Joseph Ledger, and Mr. Church—no first name given.”

  “Wipe your ass with it,” said Grace.

  “This base is federal property, Major, and this is a duly served warrant.”

  Grace folded her arms across her chest. “By Executive Order G15/DMS Directive Seventy-one I am denying you access to this secure facility.”

  The AIC growled and shook his warrant at her. “This Executive Order officially rescinds any previous directive and places this entire facility under the authority of the National Security Agency. I am ordering you to shut down the power to this fence, open the gates, and surrender to my team.”

  Grace leaned as close to the fence as
she dared, aware of the dull musical hum of ten thousand volts flooding through the chain links. She crooked a finger at the AIC and he bent forward, apparently thinking she wanted to speak in confidence.

  Instead she pointed at the document he held in front of his chest like a shield. “Notice anything?” she asked with a smile.

  Even looking at it from his side, the AIC could see the glow of a red pinpoint of hot light. The light held on the center of the paper, and its filtered glow brushed the AIC’s shirt, just to the left of his tie.

  “Now look at your men,” Grace murmured.

  Moving very cautiously, the AIC turned his head first to the left and then to the right and saw half a dozen red laser sights dancing in tight clusters on each agent’s chest.

  The AIC looked up at the windows of the Warehouse. The sashes were up and the rooms in darkness. He saw no gun barrels, but he was experienced enough to recognize the threat. Snipers don’t stick gun barrels out a window; they sit back in the shadows where their guns and scopes won’t reflect sunlight and there in the quiet darkness they pick their kill shots. However, even from that distance he could see the flicker of red laser lights in virtually every window. His face went pale beneath his volleyball tan.

  “Are you out of your goddamned mind, Major?”

  “I’m barking mad,” she agreed.

  “Harm any of us and you’ll be committing treason. We have legal authority to—”

  She cut him off. “You force this play and we’ll all regret how this turns out.”

  Five more red lights appeared on the AIC’s chest.

  “I—,” he started to say, but he was truly at a loss.

  “Here’s how we’re going to play this,” Grace said, her cat green eyes flashing. “You and your Huns are going to stop trying to storm the castle. Go sit in your cars. Feel free to make any calls you want. Leave or stay, but until both of our bosses get this sorted out you are going to stop waving paper in my face and stop making threats. You don’t lose face that way. But hear me on this and make no mistake: You are not getting inside this compound. Not on my watch.”

  “You’re going to regret this, Major.”

  “I regret a lot of things. Now kindly piss off.”

  She stepped back from the fence. The laser lights followed the NSA agents back to their cars, and over the next hour the lights caressed the windows of each parked vehicle. When more NSA cars pulled up to reinforce the siege, more laser sights reached out to remind everyone of who held the tactical high ground. Above them the sun slowly burned away the minutes of the day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The White House

  Saturday, August 28, 10:36 A.M.

  Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 28 minutes

  J. P. Sunderland closed his phone and sighed, then cut a covert glance at Vice President Bill Collins, who was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.

  Sunderland cleared his throat. “That was Mike Denniger, my man inside the Secret Service.”

  That made the Vice President jerk his head up. “Did anything happen to the President?”

  “That hopeful look on your face doesn’t speak well of the depth of your compassion,” Sunderland drawled. When Collins’s only response was a glare, he said, “Denniger said that there’s been a lot of quiet conversations between Linden Brierly and the doctors. He wasn’t privy to the conversations, but he got the impression the doctors were arguing with Brierly. My guess is that someone got to Brierly to try and hurry up the process of waking up the President.”

  “That’s got to be Church.”

  “Not through official channels.”

  “He doesn’t use official channels.”

  “No, I guess he doesn’t.”

  They sat in silence as seconds fell from the clock in handfuls. Finally Collins said, “So, what’s our move? Wait until the President is awake and pissed off and then throw him the scapegoat, or should we play it like we figured out that we were duped and go to the Attorney General first? Lay out the story for him, keep him on our side.”

  Sunderland considered. Despite the calm expression on his face, he was sweating heavily. He absently patted his pocket to make sure the bottle of nitro tablets was there.

  “There’s still a chance—an outside chance of course—that we’ll still nab MindReader before the President is awake and in power,” said Sunderland. “Even if Brierly bullies the docs into doing something, we probably still have six, seven hours. So . . . let’s use the time.”

  “To do what? Cross our fingers?”

  “Might help.”

  Collins almost laughed. “Christ.”

  “Denniger will give me a heads-up if things start happening at Walter Reed. If it looks like this is totally played out, then you can call the AG. It’s the best way, Bill. If you move too soon you look weak, if you let the President slap you down you look criminal, but if you save the day in the eleventh hour you’re a goddamn hero.”

  “And if we snag MindReader in the meantime?”

  “Then you’ll very quietly become the richest Vice President in history.” Sunderland mopped his smiling face. “Either way, you can’t lose.”

  “Christ, don’t say that,” Collins snapped. “. . . You’ll jinx me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland

  Saturday, August 28, 10:41 A.M.

  Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 27 minutes

  The car pulled to the curb and I bent down to peer through the passenger window at the man behind the wheel.

  Dr. Rudy Sanchez grinned nervously at me. “Hey, sailor, new in town?”

  “Hilarious,” I said as I climbed in.

  Rudy is shorter and rounder than me and usually drives a roomy Cadillac DTS, but now I was crammed into a twenty-year-old Geo Prizm with no legroom.

  “What the hell’s this?”

  “Mr. Church told me to be nondescript, so I borrowed it from my secretary, Kittie. I told her I had an emergency and that my car was in the shop. I gave her cab fare home.”

  The car was a patchwork of dusty gold and primer gray. The interior smelled of cigarettes. A pine-tree-shaped deodorizer hung in total defeat from the rearview mirror.

  “Jeez, Rude, you gotta pay that gal better. My grandmother wouldn’t drive this.”

  “Your grandmother’s dead.”

  “And she still wouldn’t drive anything this crappy.”

  “It’s a good car, and it’s nondescript as ordered. Besides, being a prima donna isn’t becoming to a fugitive.”

  “Shut up and drive,” I grumbled.

  He said something inappropriate in gutter Spanish as he went up the ramp to I-83. Rudy seemed to know where he was going. For the first few minutes he said nothing, but even with the air-conditioning at full blast he was still perspiring.

  “How’d you get roped into playing chauffeur?”

  “I wasn’t at the Warehouse when all this started happening. El Jefe called and said to come and pick you up.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Enough to scare me half to death.” A minute later he said, “I hate politicians.”

  There was nothing to argue with, so we kept driving.

  Later he said, “I can’t believe I’m aiding and abetting someone wanted by the National Security Agency. I can’t believe that someone is my best friend. And I can’t believe that the Vice President of the United States of America would trump up charges just to further his own political aims.” Half a mile later he added, “No, I can believe that . . . I just hate that it’s true.”

  “Not happy about it myself. Of course, the charges aren’t entirely groundless, Rude.”

  Rudy breathed in and out through his nose. “I hate that, too. I mean . . . we both believe that Church is a good guy, maybe even the good guy. If there is anyone with the strength of will and the solidity of moral compass to not misuse something like MindReader, then it’s him. I’m not sure
I’d be able to resist the temptation. That said, how screwed up is our world that it takes blackmailing the President and members of Congress to allow us to do our jobs, considering that our jobs involve stopping terrorists of the most extreme kind. Tell me, Joe, how does that sound like a sane world?”

  “You’re the shrink, brother; you tell me.”

  “If I could figure out the logic behind the way the political mind thinks, I’d write a bestseller and spend the next two years on the talk show circuit.”

  “Beats driving fugitives around in a hooptie.”

  “Most things do. So . . . how are you, Cowboy?”

  “Not happy about the way things are spinning. And worried about Big Bob.”

  “Can we call the hospital to check on him?”

  “We shouldn’t. He’s registered under a false name so the NSA can’t find him. Church is fielding the info about him. He’ll update us.”

  Rudy’s knuckles were white where he gripped the wheel and every few blocks he cut a look my way.

  Before he could ask, I said, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, I’m feeling it. Big Bob. The NSA. I’m feeling it.”

  “It’s okay to show it, to let it out.”

  I nodded. “In the right place and at the right time.”

  “Which isn’t now?”

  “No.”

  “Even with me?”

  “Rude,” I said, “you’re my best friend and you’re my shrink, so you get a lot of leeway most folks don’t get. You can ask me anything, and probably eventually I’ll tell you everything. But not right now.”

  “You’ve had a lot of stress today, Cowboy. Are you the best person to make that call?”

  I nodded. “When the soldier comes home from the war the shrinks call all the shots. They poke and prod and ask and ponder to separate the soldier from the stress of combat, to free him from the thunder of the battlefield.”

  “Ah,” he said, his eyebrows arching, “but we’re still on the battlefield.”

  “Yep.”

  “You believe that we’re in the middle of something.”