Chapter Sixty-Eight

The Deck

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

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

Otto Wirths stood at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind him so that he could feel the comforting outline of the pistol holstered at the small of his back. He was patient but cautious, and he didn’t say a word. Not while Cyrus Jakoby was throwing a fit. The floor around the bed was heaped with torn bedding; down stuffing was scattered like snow, and tiny feathers floated past Otto’s impassive face. Cyrus had already smashed the twenty-seven vases and ground the exotic flowers under his bare feet. He even had destroyed the portrait of his beloved rhesus monkey. Now he knelt on the floor and used a salad fork to stab one of his doubles to death. And it wasn’t even Tuesday.

The double had long since stopped screaming, though he wasn’t dead yet. Otto thought a salad fork to be an inefficient weapon but conceded that outright murder was not as important to Cyrus as inflicting hurt. Otto waited it out, one finger hooked under the hem of his smock in case he needed to pull the gun.

Cyrus stabbed down again and again.

Then, as if his internal passion triggered some pressure valve, the rage abruptly stopped. Cyrus sagged and slumped, the fork tumbling from his trembling fingers. The double coughed one more time and then he, too, settled into stillness.

Otto took this as his cue to step around the edge of the bed. He caught Cyrus under the arms and gently lifted him to his feet. Cyrus was as passive as a sedated old man and allowed himself to be led over to an armchair. Otto fetched him a glass of water and produced two pills from a cloisonné case he carried at all times in his pocket. One for heart and one for head.

“Take these, Mr. Cyrus,” he murmured, and held the glass as Cyrus washed them down.

Cyrus gasped and shook his head. “I can’t believe it! All of them? Dead?”

“All of them,” Cyrus confirmed. The news had come back to the Deck from one of their pursuit craft. Both infiltration teams had been lost at the Dragon Factory, and the Zodiac with the extraction team had been taken out with a rocket-propelled grenade. The hit was a complete wash.

“Were any of the team taken alive?” All of Cyrus’s people had tiny transponders implanted under their skin. The devices were the size of rice grains and they sent two signals: one for the GPS and another to a biotelemeter. As long as the wearer’s heart continued to beat, the second signal was sent.

“None of the units are still active,” said Otto.

“God damn it! How did the Twins know?”

“Who is to say if they knew at all? They’re quite capable of reacting to an unexpected attack, and we should not be concerned until we know they have connected the attack with us.”

“They’re too smart, damn it.”

Otto tut-tutted him. “Oh, please, Mr. Cyrus… we’re so much smarter than those children. They don’t even know who we are!”

It took a moment for Cyrus to shift gears, but eventually he nodded.

“So!” said Otto sharply. “We have much work to do.”

Cyrus nodded and glanced over at the dead man on the floor. “I’m sorry I killed him,” he said. “Kimball was the best of the doubles.”

“He’s replaceable.”

“Oh, I know that… it’s just that I was saving him for a special occasion.”

“Today is special, Mr. Cyrus.”

Cyrus looked up at him, momentarily confused.

“Today we discovered where the Dragon Factory is located. So what if we didn’t breach it or kill one of the Twins? We know where it is now. Which means that by one method or another we will take it from your young gods and with their computer resources… well, we’ll remake the world.”

Cyrus’s eyes sharpened and he bared his teeth. “I want that facility, damn it, and I want it right now.”

Otto straightened. “Then what do you want to do?”

“Contact your Russian friend. I want as many men as he can provide. Don’t haggle, Otto. Pay him whatever he’s worth, but I want to hit the Dragon Factory with an army. I want to take it away from the Twins.”

“That will take at least a day or two.”

“I want to do it tomorrow at the latest. At the latest, Otto. Do you understand me?”

Otto Wirths smiled. “Yes, Mr. Cyrus, I understand perfectly. But you need to understand that in a full-out assault we can’t guarantee the safety of the Twins. Neither of them.”

Cyrus answered with a sneer. “Then so be it. I made them; I can make more. And I still have the SAMs.”

“Very well.”

“And contact Veder. I want him in on the assault.”

“He doesn’t do team hits.”

“What is the line from that movie? ‘Make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ ”

“If we pull him now, then it’ll delay the final hits. Church and that bitch who calls herself Aunt Sallie.”

“So be it,” Cyrus repeated. “Taking the Dragon Factory is more important. All we need is access to their computers and six or eight hours to trans-load all of their data via satellite to our off-site networked hard drives our friend is supplying. Once that’s done we can hide it even from MindReader.”

Otto looked pleased. “Fair enough.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better make some calls. I’ll have to wake up the Russian.”

Chapter Sixty-Nine

In flight

Sunday, August 29, 6:01 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 77 hours, 59 minutes E.S.T.

Top and Bunny were still loading their gear into a Black Hawk when my earbud binged and I heard Grace’s voice: “Joe-Bug located the island. MindReader matched the geography to Isla D’Oro, a small island in the Pacific, forty miles due west of Playa Caletas.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“Costa Rica. I’ll have him download everything to your PDA. You have flight clearance to the Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport. From there you’ll switch to an Osprey.”

“They’re slow as hell-”

“Not this one. It’s a prototype being developed for the Navy. Has a cruising speed of six hundred kilometers per hour and a twelve-hundred-mile range, which means you’ll be refueling midair.”

“Where’d you find something like that so quickly?”

“Mr. Church has a friend in the industry. The Osprey is on its way to the air base and should be refueled by the time you touch down.”

“Do we have any local support?”

“I called one of my mates at Barrier and he said that the carrier Ark Royal’s in those waters. The Osprey will put you on their deck, and then you’ll go to the island in a Westland Sea King. You can also have Royal Marines, Harriers, and anything else you need.”

“That’s fast work, Major. I’ll take the ride, but for now let’s go with me, Bunny, and Top. Until we know what’s what, I don’t want to bring in the Light Brigade.”

“I’d rather you took the whole fleet,” she said. “But I can see your point.”

It was clear she wanted to say more, but this wasn’t the time and certainly wasn’t the place. So instead she simply held out her hand. I took it and if we held our clasp a few seconds too long, screw it.

“Good hunting,” she said.

“Thanks.”

The Black Hawk was in the air in under five minutes.

I SPREAD OUT a map and we gathered around. “This is Isla D’Oro. Gold Island. Supposed to be uninhabited except for a biological research station funded by Swiss grants and managed by a team from the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. We’re looking into that to see if it’s legit. Satellite images tell us there’s a compound with buildings on the island that match with the construction plans filed by the university. Thermals are tricky because the island is mildly volcanic.”

“ ‘Mildly volcanic’?” echoed Bunny. “That anything like ‘somewhat pregnant’?”