The Dragon Factory (58 page)

“The fish are in the water,” said Church. “Two minutes to landfall. What’s your ETA?”

“Bailout in twenty, then drop time.”

“Good hunting, Captain.”

“Yeah,” I said, and switched off.

Top and Bunny were ready to go, their chutes strapped on and their
weapons double- and triple-checked. All of us were heavy with extra magazines, frags, and flash bangs, knives, and anything else we could carry. If we hit water instead of land, we’d sink like stones.

“Alpha Team will hit the island in under two minutes,” I said.

“Wish we were with them, boss,” said Bunny.

Top studied me for several seconds. “It ain’t my place to offer advice to an officer,” he said, “me being a lowly first sergeant and all.”

I gave him a look.

“But I’m pretty sure there’ll be enough beer left by the time we get to this kegger.”

“There goddamn well better be,” I growled.

The Chamber of Myth

Tuesday, August 31, 2:21
A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 39 minutes

Hecate and Paris stared in shock and horror as their father tossed the dead sea serpent aside and got to his feet.

“What . . . what are you talking about?” Hecate said.

Paris sputtered, unable to talk.

Cyrus mocked his son’s startled stutter, “I-i-i-’m sorry, Paris, did I speak too quickly? Use too many big words? Or are you simply as stupid as I’ve feared all these years?”

If Paris had been on the verge of saying something, those words struck him completely dumb.

Cyrus turned to Hecate. “And you, you feral bitch. I’d held you in higher regard until now. Did you actually think you had me fooled. ‘Daddy’?” He spit the distasteful word out of his mouth. “The day I become a fawning dotard I hope to God Otto puts a bullet in my brain.”

Otto smiled and bowed, and then he and Cyrus laughed.

Hecate looked back and forth between them. “What . . . what’s going on here?”

“I believe the Americans call it ‘payback.’ ”

“For
what
?” Paris blurted, finally finding his voice.

“How much time do you have?” sneered Cyrus. “For all those years when you two thought you had me imprisoned at the Deck. For treating me like a vapid old fool. For the disrespect you show me in every action, even when you are faking respect. For trying to steal Heinrich Haeckel’s cache of records. For trying to control me by staffing the Deck with your toadies.”

Otto laughed.

“Wait—you sent the Russian team to Gilpin’s apartment? And to Deep Iron?”

“Of course. Those records were supposed to come to me. It was an incident of mischance that Heinrich died before he could pass along the information about where the records were stored. Even his own family didn’t know what he had stored or
where
it was stored. For years we thought that all of that wonderful research was lost. Then in one of those moments of good fortune that reinforce the reality of a just and loving God, Burt Gilpin approached one of Otto’s agents with information about a cache of early genetics research. And what do we discover? That Gilpin used to work for the Jakoby Twins, that he was a computer consultant for them. Our Russian friends encouraged him to talk and he told us about how he helped the legendary Jakoby Twins install a revolutionary computer system called Pangaea. Did you know that he built himself a clone of Pangaea? That he used it to steal medical research in exactly the way you two were stealing it? Only he made the mistake of trying to sell the bulk research . . . and he tried to sell it to Otto.”

Cyrus shook his head slowly. “Stealing the schematics for Pangaea from me was very naughty . . . though I do admire you for that much, at least. But you had to take a smart move and plow it under with a stupid one by getting into bed with that parasite Sunderland to try and steal the MindReader system.”

“How—?”

“How do I know?” Cyrus cut in. “Because most of the people you trust work for me. I knew about the foolish plan to try and use the National Security Agency against the Department of Military Sciences.
Were you on drugs when you conceived that idea? Did you think you could stop Deacon when the entire Cabal could not?”

Hecate and Paris looked confused.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? You don’t know who the Deacon is, do you? You don’t even know about the Cabal—about the thing that should have been your legacy. You’re so goddamned stupid that you truly disappoint me. Do you think that I was
ever
your prisoner? Ever? I’ve owned every single person you set to watch me. From the outset. You think you are so clever—my young gods—but I’m here to tell you that you are playing children’s games with adults.”

“We never—,” Paris began but Cyrus walked quickly to him and slapped him so hard across the face that Paris was knocked halfway around. He would have fallen had Tonton not stepped up and caught him.

“Don’t ever make excuses to me, boy. That’s all you’ve ever done. You were a disappointment as a child, and as a man you’re a joke. At least your sister has enough personal integrity to say nothing when she has nothing useful to say.”

As Tonton moved, Conrad Veder used the opportunity to shift his position. He had a plastic four-shot pistol in a holster inside his pants. The bullets were caseless ceramic shells that would explode a human skull. He could draw and fire in less than a second.

Hecate said, “What did you mean that you were going to kill our clients?”

Cyrus smiled. “You see, Paris? When she speaks she asks an intelligent question.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m sure you’ve wondered about the water. About whether there was something in it.” When Hecate nodded, he said, “Did you test it?”

“Of course. We found no trace of poisons or pathogens.”

“Naturally not. There are no pathogens in the water.”

Hecate nodded. “Genes,” she said. “You’ve figured out how to do gene therapy with purified water.”

Cyrus looked pleased. “You were always my favorite, Hecate. Not
nearly the total disappointment your brother has become. Did you do DNA testing?”

“We started to,” she said. “We haven’t finished.”

“What did you think I put in the water?”

“One of the genes that encourage addiction. A1 allele of the dopa-mine receptor gene DRD2, or something like that.”

“If I was a street nigger who wanted to sell crack cocaine maybe,” Cyrus said harshly. “Have more respect.”

She shook her head rather than give the wrong answer.

“Otto and I—and a few very talented friends—have spent decades weaponizing ethnic-specific diseases. Ten years ago we cracked the science of turning inherited diseases like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia into communicable pathogens. Anyone with a genetic predisposition to those diseases would go into full-blown outbreak after even minimal exposure to the pathogen.”

“But there were no pathogens in the water!” Paris said.

“No. The pathogens are being released into lakes, streams, and reservoirs worldwide. The bottled water contains the gene for the disease. Drink a bottle of water . . . even brew a cup of tea with it . . . and specific ethnic groups and subgroups will develop the genetic disorder. Within a few weeks they will be vulnerable to infection from the pathogens in the regular drinking water. Or from exposure to anyone who has become infected. No one would think to look in the bottled water for the genes because no one can do gene therapy with bottled water.”

“No one except us,” said Otto. “Funny thing is . . . it wasn’t as hard as we thought.”

“But
why
?” demanded Hecate. “This is monstrous!”

“It’s God’s will,” said Cyrus. “It’s the beginning of a New Order that will purify the world by removing the polluted races. Blacks and Jews and Gypsies and—”

“Are you fucking crazy?” demanded Paris. “What kind of Nazi bullshit is this?”

Cyrus’s smile grew and grew. “Nazi. Now . . . the moron shows a spark of intelligence by choosing exactly the right word.”

Hecate looked confused. “Wait . . . you’re a Nazi? Since when?”

“Since always, my pet. Since the very beginning.”

“Since the beginning of what?”

“Since the beginning of
Nationalsozialismus
,” Cyrus said, letting his German accent seep through. “Since the beginning of National Socialism in Germany. For me personally, I first embraced the ideals while working in the reserve medical corps of the Fifth SS Panzergrenadier Division Wiking. But it wasn’t until I met Otto at Auschwitz that I discovered the full potential of the party ideals.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” snapped Paris. “That’s World War Two crap. You weren’t even
born
then. . . .”

Otto and Cyrus laughed out loud. “Idiot boy,” said Cyrus, “I was older than you when I came to work at Auschwitz. I was older than you when I made a name for myself that the world will never forget.”

Paris shook his head, unable to grasp any of this.

“Father . . . you’re rambling,” said Hecate. “You were born in 1946.”

“No,” he said, wagging his finger back and forth, “Cyrus Jakoby was born in 1946. As were a dozen other cover names in six countries. But I was born in 1911.”

“That’s impossible!” said Paris.

Cyrus looked around. “We stand here in the midst of unicorns and flying dragons and you tell me antiaging gene therapy is impossible? Otto and I have been tampering with those genes for years. Granted there are . . . ,” he gestured vaguely to his head, “. . . the occasional psychological side effects, but we’re managing those.”

“But . . . but . . . ,” Hecate began. “If Cyrus Jakoby is an alias . . . then
who
are you?”

Otto said, “He’s a man you should be on your knees worshiping. Your father is the boldest, most innovative medical researcher of this or any generation.”

The Twins stared at him, and even Veder’s eyes flickered with genuine interest.

Cyrus touched his face. “Under all of this reconstructive surgery, beneath the changes I’ve made with gene therapy to change my hair
color and eye color . . . beyond the façade,” he said, “I am the former Chief Medical Officer of the infirmary at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I am
der weisse Engel
—the ‘white angel’ that the Jews came to fear more than God or the Devil.”

He smiled a demon’s smile.

“I am Josef Mengele.”

The Dragon Factory

Twenty minutes ago

The guard never heard a sound. He strolled back and forth along the footpath between the docks and the main building. He chewed peppermint gum and glanced now and again at the stars. Patrol duty was boring. Except for the night when the hit came in, the months of his service at the Dragon Factory were a huge ho-hum, and he’d been off-shift that night. The hit team had been taken out by a Stinger dog and one of the Berserkers.

The guard hated the Berserkers. Those ugly goons got all the perks. Everyone thought they were so cool. Fucking transgenic ape assholes.

He spit out his gum and began to turn to pace back to the dock.

He never heard a sound, never felt anything more than a quick burn across his throat when Grace Courtland came up behind him and slit his throat from ear to ear.

GRACE DROPPED THE
corpse and two of her men dragged it into the bushes away from the light from the tiki-torches.

She ran like a dark breeze along the edge of the path. Grace sheathed her knife and drew a silenced .22, and as she rounded the corner she saw two guards—one bending forward to light his cigarette from the lighter held in the cupped hands of the second. Grace shot them both in the head, two shots each.

The path ended at the front of the building where two immense men stood guarding the tall glass doors. There was too much light from inside
the building for a stealthy approach. Grace signaled to Redman, her second in command. She indicated the guards and gave a double twitch of her trigger finger. Redman waved another operative forward and they flattened out on either side of the path and flipped night vision over the scopes of their sniper rifles. Both rifles had sound suppressors. It would drop the foot-pounds of impact, but at this distance the loss of impact would be minimal.

Redman fired a split second before Fayed. Two shots, two kills. The big guards slammed against the glass doors and fell.

Grace Courtland smiled a cold killer’s smile and ran forward.

FIFTY YARDS BEHIND
her another group of shadows broke away from the wall of darkness under the trees. They were heading to the far side of the compound and did not see Grace and Alpha Team take out the guards or enter the building. Even if he had, the team leader, a harsh-faced man named Boris Ivenko, would have thought that he was seeing one of the many teams of Spetsnaz that were invading the island from every side.

In flight