“And you feel that since he cited Africa so heavily an African pathogen was chosen?” Grace asked.

He nodded. “It seems to be in keeping with the Cabal’s attempt at poetic justice. But that was only one-half of what drove the Cabal. They were also deeply dedicated to using cutting-edge science to restart and see to completion the eugenics program.”

“Dios mio!” gasped Rudy.

“Wow,” said Hu, a smile blossoming on his face.

“Shit,” I said.

“What the hell are eugenics?” asked Bug.

Chapter Sixty

The Dragon Factory

Sunday, August 29, 5:30 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 30 minutes E.S.T.

Paris poured martinis for them both. Hecate was perched on the edge of a chair, her body tense, her eyes bright with anger. Paris set the pitcher down and slumped onto the couch.

“He was telling the truth,” Paris said. “After what you did to his friend he couldn’t tell enough of the truth. He was begging you to believe him.” Paris’s face still wore a shadow of the disgust he felt. He did not mind killing and even liked a little recreational violence, but torture was not his cup of tea.

“I can believe this of Otto,” said Hecate, “but not Dad.”

Paris peered at her over the rim of his glass, one eyebrow raised. “Really? You can’t believe that Dad-our dad-would resort to murder?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped. “I know what kind of a monster he is. If you tally up all the nastiness in which we’ve indulged, we don’t hold a candle to him.”

“Then how on earth can you be surprised that he’d want one of us killed?”

She sipped her martini. “Because we’re his children. His only children.”

“Are we?”

She shot him a look. “What do you mean by that?”

“That kid… SAM. The one Otto called ‘Eighty-two’ before Cyrus bit his head off for it. I never saw a picture of Dad as a kid, but SAM looks like how I imagine he’d looked. Same eyes, same mouth and chin.”

“Otto said that he was Dad’s nephew.”

“Sure. And we both know how much trust we can place in anything Otto says. Besides, I’m pretty sure the kid is a twin. A year or so ago I saw another kid at the Deck. He ducked out of sight pretty quick, but it looked a lot like SAM, and I’d just come from seeing Cyrus and SAM. Twins run in families.”

She nodded, chewing her lip.

Paris said, “Cyrus probably has a legion of little bastards roaming around, ready to usurp our place.”

“Even so… I can’t believe that Dad would want us killed.”

“Only one,” Paris reminded her. “And it didn’t matter which one, according to our late informant.

“I think we should be more concerned,” said Paris, “with how he found us. Marcus said that no one came aboard our jet when we were at the Deck, and I believe him. But we were clearly followed. That means that Otto somehow managed to put a tracking device on the jet and also managed to have us followed. How? Where did Dad get the follow planes that Pinter fellow told us about? How did he hire assassins? Pinter said that this wasn’t the first mission he’d done for Dad. How the hell is Dad managing all of this?”

She shook her head. “I guess we don’t have as tight a control on him as we thought.”

“Oh really? You think?” He sneered as he rose and refilled their glasses. “At this moment I don’t know who we can trust. We certainly can’t trust anyone at the Deck. I wish to Christ we’d gone through with the fail-safe device we talked about, ’cause right now I’d be happy to blow the whole fucking thing up. Dad, Otto, and everyone.”

She nodded. They’d seriously considered boobytrapping the Deck during its construction but had ultimately decided against it. Back then they thought that they had Cyrus on an unbreakable leash. Now she felt like a fool.

“God, I hate being played.”

“He’s played us our whole lives,” Paris said.

“But how? We own everyone at the Deck.”

“Apparently he and Otto found better levers on them.”

They lapsed into a long and moody silence.

“What do you think Dad would do if we sent him the heads of the two assassins?” Hecate suggested.

“Jesus, you’re bloodthirsty,” Paris said, but he pursed his lips. “Interesting idea, though. Dad would probably blow a fuse.”

“What would that look like?”

He sipped his drink. “I don’t know. If he controls the Deck, then he might be able to escape it. That means he’d be free to come at us any way he wants.”

“Christ,” she said as the possibilities that presented blossomed in her imagination. She stood up and walked to the window and looked out at the crews working to load the bottled water onto the freighter. “What should we do? Do we pretend this never happened and send that shipment out? And the next one, and the one after that?”

“Depends on whether we want to alert him. Right now he doesn’t know that we know. At most he’ll find out that our security team killed a bunch of intruders. We could play it like we don’t know who came at us, or go with what he intended and play it like we’re scared because the U.S. government sent a black ops team after us.”

“He’ll know we’re lying,” she said.

“So? As long as we keep the lie going it won’t matter, and it’ll delay any confrontation until we have a chance to look into this.”

Hecate chewed her full underlip. Paris noted, not the for the first time, how sharp her teeth were, and he secretly wondered if she’d started filing them. It would be like her to do something freaky like that.

She ran her finger around the rim of the glass, over and over again until it created a sullen hum. A smile bloomed on her face.

“What?” Paris asked.

“I just had a wicked little idea.”

“For Dad?”

“For Dad,” she agreed. “Look… he now knows where we are. Okay… instead of counterattacking, why don’t we really play up the innocent act and reach out to him like we’re a couple of scared kids who need their daddy in a time of crisis?”

“I’m not following you…”

“Why don’t we invite him here?” she said with a wicked grin. “Tell him we’re scared and that we could use his advice on how to protect the Dragon Factory from another attack.”

“Ah… you sly bitch!” Paris said with a smile. “And once we have him here…”

“Then we put a bullet in Otto, lock Dad in a dungeon, and send a couple of teams of Berserkers to the Deck to, um… sterilize it.”

“We don’t have a dungeon.”

“So,” she said, “let’s build one.”

Paris looked at her for a long moment, his eyes glistening with emotion. “This is why I love you, Hecate.”

Hecate pulled him close and kissed her brother full on the mouth.

Chapter Sixty-One

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:31 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 29 minutes

Dr. Hu turned to Bug. “Eugenics is in a bit of a gray area between social philosophy and evolutionary science. It was kicked off by Sir Francis Galton-Charles Darwin’s cousin-in the late eighteen hundreds, and it’s had a lot of high-profile supporters. We’re talking people like H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, a bunch of others. Its proponents advocate the improvement of human hereditary traits through intervention.”

“ ‘Intervention,’ ” muttered Grace the way someone might say “anal probe.”

Hu ignored her. “The theory is that by filtering out unwanted genetic elements, corruption, and damage what emerges will be an elevated human being whose abilities and potential are beyond our current reach.”

Before Bug could ask a question Grace cut in again. “Which is a very slippery way for some scientists-and I use that word with the greatest reluctance-to justify the worst kind of enforced social Darwinism. There are people right now who believe in eugenics and they hide behind causes that are very noble on the surface. For example, they’ll point to a particular birth defect and in their grant proposals and lobbying materials they showcase the misery and suffering. They use talk shows and the media to gather support, and everyone falls in line.”