Chapter Sixty-Four

Deep Iron Storage Facility

Sunday, August 29, 5:36 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 24 minutes E.S.T.

Lt. Jerry Spencer, head of the DMS forensic investigation division and former Washington police detective, sat on the edge of a desk in the main office of Deep Iron. He felt old and tired and used up. He held his cell phone in one hand and drummed the fingers of his other hand in slow beats on the plastic shell. His eyes were bloodshot from working the Deep Iron crime scene-which was really a collection of related crime scenes-for a dozen hours, and that had been on the heels of working the ambush scene in Wilmington. There was a call he had to make, but his heart had sunk so low in his chest that he didn’t think he could do it.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and punched in the numbers.

Mr. Church answered on the third ring.

Spencer said, “I found Jigsaw Team.”

He said it in a way that could only mean one thing.

Church’s voice was soft. “Tell me.”

Chapter Sixty-Five

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:37 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 23 minutes

Church set down his phone and placed it neatly on the table. Then he stood up and walked to the far end of the room and stood looking out at the choppy brown water of the harbor. His back was to us, and I could see his broad shoulders slump. We all looked at one another.

“That was Jerry Spencer,” Church said without turning. “They found Jigsaw.”

We waited, not asking, not wanting to hurry bad news.

“Spencer found sets of tire tracks out in the foothills. He figured the Russian team drove to within a mile and walked in, and he followed the tracks back into the hills and found their vehicles. The Russians had come in a couple of vans. But there were two DMS Hummers there, too. Spencer said it looked like both Hummers had been taken out with RPGs. Hack Peterson… his whole team. They never had a chance, probably never saw it coming. The vehicles had been sprayed down with fire extinguishers-probably so the smoke wouldn’t attract attention-and then covered with broken tree branches.”

“Dios mio,” murmured Rudy. Bug looked stricken, and even Dr. Hu had enough humanity to look upset.

Grace closed her eyes. Her hands lay on the tabletop and slowly constricted into white-knuckled fists. Hack Peterson was the last of the DMS agents who had worked for Church as long as Grace had. They were friends who had shared the line of battle fifty times. Without any bit of exaggeration it was fair to say that together they had saved America-and a big chunk of the world-from some of the most dangerous and vile threats it had ever faced. Hack was a genuine hero, and those were in damned short supply.

I took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly.

She raised her head. There were no tears, but her eyes were bright and glassy, her face flushed with all the emotion I knew she would not release. Not here, not on the job. Maybe not at all. Like me, she was a warrior on the battlefield.

“God,” she murmured, “it’s never going to stop, is it? Are we going to go on and on fighting this sodding war until we kill everyone and everything? We’re a race of madmen!”

I squeezed her hand.

Church turned back to face us. His tinted glasses hid his eyes, but his mouth was a tight line and muscles bulged and flexed in the corners of his jaw. Just for a moment, and then his control fell back into place with a steel clang.

“Spencer said that he also discovered how the other team escaped. He followed the blood trail from the Haeckel unit. He said that there were two sets of spatters, one that fell from at least five feet, which is probably the one you stabbed in the mouth, Captain, and the other showed heavy blood loss that fell with less velocity from a lower point. Spencer figures it for a leg wound. They took an elevator up to the surface. Spencer figures in Haeckel’s bin you’d have been too far away to hear the hydraulics. Then they climbed up through the air vents to the roof and dropped down the side opposite where Brick was positioned. Spencer was able to follow the blood trail for half a mile to a side road, and from there tire tracks led away. He found two sets of footprints. Size twelve and size fourteen shoes. He’s doing the math on the impressions, but he estimates that the men were well in excess of two hundred pounds… probably closer to three.”

I said, “That’s pretty nimble for big guys, even if they weren’t hurt.”

Grace nodded. “If they left a blood trail that long, then they must have been bleeding badly… so you have heavy men who, even if they are very muscular and fit, had to climb up air shafts, scale walls, and run into the hills while injured. And this after they’d killed a dozen men with their bare hands. I’m finding this all a bit hard to accept.”

“Maybe not,” said Church. “I’m leaning toward Captain Ledger’s exoskeleton idea. Some kind of enhanced combat rig that gives them strength and supports their weight.”

“We’re not living in a science-fiction novel,” said Hu. “We’re years away from that sort of thing.”

Bug stared at him. “Um, Doc… you’re defending scientists who can make unicorns and you call an exoskeleton sci-fi?”

Hu conceded the point with a shrug.

“I can’t believe Hack’s gone…,” said Grace hollowly. “For what? For nothing!”

“That’s not true, Grace,” I said. “We may not know the full shape of this thing yet, but we will… and that means that their deaths will matter, because they are part of the process of stopping and punishing whoever did this.”

“Why? To clear the way for some other bloody maniac to do even more harm?”

“No,” I said, “because what we do matters. We take the hits so the public doesn’t. We save lives, Grace. You know that. It’s what soldiers do, and Hack Petersen knew that better than anyone. So did everyone on Jigsaw Team.”

Grace turned away and I knew that she was struggling to control her emotions. “All we ever see is the war,” she said bitterly. “All we ever do is bury our friends.”

I said nothing. The others in the room held their tongues.

There was a knock on the door and the deputy head of our communications division leaned into the room. “Mr. Church… we have another video!”

Chapter Sixty-Six

The Dragon Factory

Sunday, August 29, 5:38 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 22 minutes E.S.T.

Hecate was both amused and disgusted by her brother’s weakness. He should be stronger and wasn’t. They were both aware of it, though they never openly spoke of it. By ordinary human standards Paris was a monster of superior skill: smart, careful, vicious, inventive, and cruel. By the standards of their family, he was the weak sister while Hecate was the true predator. Paris had directly murdered six people and had shared in the murders of several women during sex play. Hecate had personally murdered fifty-seven people, not counting the sex partners. Paris knew of nine of her kills. The others were not his concern, though she did nothing outrageous to hide them. Paris knew only as much as he had a stomach to know.

The playtime with the two operatives sent by Alpha and Otto had shown Hecate how weak her brother had become. He hadn’t participated at all. For a while she thought he was going to disgrace himself by throwing up. Even that muscle-brain Tonton had seen it. He asked Hecate about it later, in bed.

“What’s with Mr. Paris?”

Tonton lay under her, his massive frame covered with scratches and red pinpoint bruises. She had used teeth and nails on him. He liked the intensity, and when she could coax a yelp of real pain from him it made Hecate come. She’d come over and over again.