Demon Driven (33 page)

“Chris Gordon, this is Mr. Kincaid,” the
general introduced us.

“General, I was expecting to meet with just
you?” I asked, although I wasn’t really surprised.

“The powers that be and all that,” he
explained negligently.

>Bartholomew Kincaid, special envoy
from the President<
Nika’s voice said from the collar of my
jacket. The tag inside would tell you that the jacket was made in
Russia, not China, and the sophisticated electronics built into the
shell would tell you this wasn’t your average jacket. It was built
for Russian intelligence services and my Russian vampires had
excellent connections with all levels of Moscow’s government. The
headlight reflective patches on the back and arms were actually
sensors, designed to pick up the infrared laser beam being directed
at it from the fifth floor window of the building on the corner of
McDougal and Fourth. One of Deckert’s men was keeping the laser
locked onto my back, so that the secure carrier wave contained
within the coherent beam of light would carry Nika’s messages to me
with no fear of interception.

>He’s going to play tough, feels safe
with two…no make that three snipers and the fast reaction guys in
the cars<

I decided that having a mind reader in the
family was worth the lack of privacy, although Tanya had promised
to teach me how to block Nika’s abilities.

>You’re welcome!<
Nika’s voice
answered my thoughts.

“Ah, Officer Gordon. I don’t normally get to
meet with fugitives from justice,” Kincaid said with a light voice.
He didn’t offer to shake my hand, instead simply point to the chair
across the chess table from his own. We both sat and the general
sat on the bench next to our table.

“So Mr. Kincaid, who doesn’t meet with
fugitives, can I assume you represent the White House in this?”

He frowned, just slightly, and only for a
micro second. Ah, good…take that you smarmy bastard!

“Yes…” he said, but I interrupted.

“Good, because I would just as soon get this
done in one sitting. I don’t want to waste time.”

His eyes flashed darkly, not liking my
control of the conversation.

He paused to regroup, taking a drink from his
Starbucks coffee, and adjusting the angle of the laptop that sat
open in front of him on the chess table. I noticed that the little
camera clipped to the top of the computer was facing me, not
him.

“Officer Gordon, you are facing eight counts
of murder. I assure you the evidence is overwhelmingly against you.
You need to turn yourself in.”

>He’s just trying to rattle you. There is
no intention of ever bringing charges for the school
incident<

“Listen, Barty…do you mind if I call you
Barty? Let’s cut the federal charges crap and get down to business.
You, and by you I’m talking about the White House, want to control
me, clone me or kill me. That’s why you’re here.”

He started at the mention of his first name,
frowned and tried to gather his thoughts. I forged on ahead.

“If you’ve listened to General Creek here,
and by you I’m again referring to the White House,” I nodded in
Creek’s direction, “then you’ll know that I’m actively opposed to
all three. So let’s get to the part where you lay out the daunting
resources piled against me.”

He wore a perpetual frown now, the
conversation not going anything like he imagined.

“For the sake of argument, maybe it’s a good
idea to do just that,” he began. “The President has authorized the
use of any and all resources of the United States government to
bring you to justice. We will utilize all of our military, law
enforcement, legal and economic capabilities. Granted, you appear
to have formidable abilities, but you are just one man, albeit one
with a rather large pet.”

“Economic? Really? Tell me about that,” I
asked.

“As we sit here, operatives are in the
process of seizing forty-seven of your….girlfriend’s properties. We
have frozen your trust accounts, your credit cards, and have seized
your apartment and vehicle. You have no resources and your
‘friends’ won’t either. We may even seize their sleeping
quarters.”

I paused, fingers steepled in front of me,
elbows on the table.

>
Forty-seven? Tell him that the Coven
is selling forty-seven billion in US Treasuries, one billion per
property. Explain our economic power<
Galina’s voice said. I
knew she was a part of this, but I was having a hard time
reconciling the fact that she was on my side. Mothers-in-law
weren’t known to be supportive.

“Barty, do you even know anything about the
Coven? Anything at all?” I asked

“I am the President’s Advisor on anomalous
phenomenon. I am considered the country’s foremost expert on the
vampires,” he said, drawing himself up.

“Really? Did you know that the Coven is the
second largest holder of U.S. debt after China? Did you know we
have members in every country on the planet? That our liquid assets
total in excess of one trillion dollars?” I asked. “I can see that
you’re having a hard time swallowing those little factoids so, if
you want to pull up the bond markets on your laptop there, you can
watch as we sell off forty-seven billion in treasuries in the next
few minutes. One billion for every property seized. The average
volume of treasuries traded daily is about 450 billion, so we’ll be
selling a bit more than ten percent of that number. China took an
entire month to sell thirty-five billion. Wonder what it’ll do to
the markets?”

“Please – your bluff is ridiculous! Don’t you
think we know who holds our debt? There is no corporation or
organization that owns more than a billion without us knowing all
about them. You’ll have to do better than that!” he said.

“Okay Mr. Vampire Expert, what’s the average
age of a Coven member? What’s the average wealth?

How many portfolios do we run, domestic and
international? How many corporations do we own outright? How many
American jobs do we provide?”

He just looked at me, his face reflecting an
epic struggle between anger and confusion.

“Don’t know? Here, I’ll help you out: 206
years, seven million dollars, over ten thousand portfolios, several
thousand corporations, and the big number of the night…well over a
million jobs!”

“Ttthat’s impossible. We would find that sort
of thing!” he insisted.

“Vampires follow two sets of laws – the laws
of the country they are in and the laws of the Coven”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kincaid
asked.

“He means that vampires have first allegiance
to the laws of the Coven, so their individual wealth becomes part
of the Coven without leaving paper trails in the laws of our
world,” General Creek explained.

I looked at him with fresh respect. Somebody
had been listening to the real experts (he probably learned it from
Roma and maybe Gina).

“Now let’s talk about your military power
while we wait for the bond sales to go through. You’ve got what?
Three snipers? Couple of car loads of special operators? Some of
those exceedingly fit young men I see meandering about the open
part of the park, each with a rather suspiciously large book bag?”
I asked. “What else?”

>He is thinking about two ‘Reapers and
Spooky’?<
Nika said.

>Reapers are MQ-9 Reaper drones outta
th 174
^th
Fighter Squadron in Syracuse,
Spooky is most likely an AC-130U gunship on station a mile or two
out – watching you on high resolution cameras<
Deckert’s
voice chimed in.

>the weasels snagged the
snipers<
he added.

We had hired the weasel clan to help with
outside action, as the daylight tended to distract all but the
eldest vampires.

>
Okay Chris, the boys in the Suburbans
are asleep!<

Someone, most likely one of Deckert’s men had
rolled a sleepy-time grenade under both Suburbans. The vehicles
were standard make, right off the assembly line and had no special
air filters. He hadn’t mentioned the blue van, ‘cause that’s where
Nika and company were hanging out.

>Not sure what you can do about the air
assets?<
he commented.

I wasn’t either, not being sure even where
they were. Okwari chose that moment to slip an image into my head,
well three images, each showing one of the aircraft. He also
assured me he could rip them all from the sky. I thanked him, my
mind taking over the images and keeping track automatically. I
didn’t want him to smash the gunship as its entire crew would be
killed and they were just doing their jobs. Likewise the drones
could end up smashing down on inhabited spaces in the city.

“You brought two armed Reapers and a friggin’
AC-130?” I rounded on Kincaid.

He was alternately taken aback by my anger
and knowledge of his assets. Eventually his smugness returned.

“I told you, Gordon, any and all
resources!”

“So you’re gonna what? Blow up lower
Manhattan? Are you a moron?” I glanced at Creek, who looked
tense.

Kincaid’s face turned red with anger. “I will
if you or your pet get out of line!”

>He’s also thinking of ‘any other
opportune targets’<
Nika said, suddenly.

Other targets? That could only be Tanya and
the Elders. The beast slammed his cage door at the same time my
fist destroyed the side of the table closest to me. Both men jumped
back.

“You’re thinking of blowing up Tanya?” I
said, but it wasn’t my voice. It was much deeper and much, much
rougher.

>Christian! Calm down! Handle the
aircraft and try not to kill them<
Tanya said, speaking for
the first time.

I was still furious, but the beast wasn’t in
danger of breaking free.

“Well…lucky for you, Kincaid, my better half
has talked me out of anything precipitous. But I gotta tell you –
the President almost lost his ‘special envoy’!”

From inside the cage, the dark beast offered
an amazing idea. Figuring what the hell, I tried it. Calling to
Kirby, my shadow hawk friend, I sent him the images of the plane
and two drones. The concept was that maybe if he flew through the
fuselage it could disrupt the avionics. The concept turned out to
be great, although I had expected him to fly through them one at a
time. Instead, my minds image showed a smoky raptor form the size
of a car, fly through all three at once. Either Kirby could be in
three places at once or there were more than one Kirby. Either way,
the effect was instantaneous. The Hercules airframe that was the
gunship started to fall from the sky as all systems crashed. After
dropping several hundred feet, the power came back on, at least
enough to get the engines restarted. The repowered plane
immediately left station and turned toward the nearest airbase,
probably Stewart in Newburgh.

One of the drones had a similar experience,
falling, then restarting and returning to base. The other drone
just fell. And it was falling toward apartment buildings on the
other side of the East River. Without conscious thought of what I
was doing, I
reached
out with my aura and pulled the drone
over the river, letting it fall into the water.

“Listen, Kincaid, we’ve rounded up your
snipers, the guys in the Suburbans are knocked out, and the Spooky
gunship and one of the Reapers are headed to emergency landings.
The other Reaper is sinking to the bottom of the East River. You’ll
want to get some diver to retrieve it. Can’t have Hellfire missiles
floating around New York Harbor, now can we?”

Kincaid just stared at me, then suddenly
scrambled to find his cell phone that I could hear vibrating in his
pocket. “Yes?” he answered, his face going sheet white as he
listened. “Er..yes Sir…nnno Sir! Okay, Mr. President!”

He reached out with his free hand and turned
the laptop toward me. The screen was filled with the very famous
image of our current President.

Chapter 36

“Hello Officer Gordon. I think it’s time I
played a direct role in these discussions,” he said, after Kincaid
upped the volume.

It was surreal to see the President of the
United States on an LCD screen and have him addressing
me
!

I shook it off.

“Mr. President,” I acknowledged
guardedly.

“Well, you’ve made some strong points,
Officer Gordon. General Creek advised us not to take this tack, but
frankly we felt he was overly impressed with your abilities. Now it
seems you have proven him correct.”

I nodded, still gathering my thoughts. It was
one thing to speak to Barty – the President’s representative. It
was altogether different to speak directly to the Man himself, even
if I wasn’t a fan of his.

“But as impressive as you’ve shown your
resources to be, our commitment was just a tiny fraction of what it
could be.”

“Mr. President, your administration has
always projected a message of outreach and discourse. Yet, the
government’s approach to me has been hostile to say the least, to
the point of almost declaring war against the Coven and the
supernatural world,” I said.

He frowned, but motioned for me to
continue.

“The purpose of this meeting wasn’t to start
a fight, but to provide some solid information to replace the crap
you’ve been given to date,” I continued, part of me noting that I
had just said ‘crap’ to the President.

“The view I’ve been getting from Kincaid here
and before him, Agent Duclair, was that the supernatural world was
wild and lawless, chaotic and out of control. My message today was
meant to reinforce that the supernatural world is organized and
follows rules and laws – albeit different laws than our own.

“You seem to have a valid point, Officer
Gordon,” he said, frowning in thought. “I’ll admit that nobody
mentioned the depth of the economic impact before today. To my
knowledge it hadn’t been considered.”