Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (26 page)

The guard came within five feet of him as the magazine reader emerged again from inside the post, his gun trained on Corvino.

“
Roll over, keeping your hands under your back.”

The guard searched him, removing the .45 automatic and the Browning, then the combat knife from its boot sheath.

“
ID?” he asked, kicking the guns aside.

“
I don’t have it with me.”

The guard shouldered the M-16, producing a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket.

“
On your front.”

He cuffed Corvino with unnecessary force, the metal biting into his wrists.

“
Get up,” the guard ordered, scooping up the handguns. “Move.”

He pushed Corvino towards the open gateway.

The other guard closed the gate behind them and radioed the Farm while his colleague told Corvino to face the wall.

Corvino rested his forehead against the cool concrete, closing his eyes, the barrel of the M-16 pressing against the base of his spine. The cuffs were painful, rubbing against the bone. There was no point complaining, the guards were just doing their job.

“
He’s clear,” the guard from inside the post said, emerging from the door. “They’re sending someone to pick him up.”

The suit who’d cuffed him grunted, seemingly disappointed his prisoner was kosher. “Sit down,” he snapped, jabbing the automatic rifle into Corvino’s back.

He turned around slowly, his eyes narrowing as he assessed the suit. A typical CIA grunt. Clean-cut, tense and a little too enthusiastic. Perfect Secret-Service-drone material. Corvino lowered himself without taking his eyes off his captor. A shattered kneecap would soon educate the suit’s attitude. But there was no point considering petty retribution; the guy was just being a good little worker-ant, carrying out orders.

Five minutes later, yet another jeep came barreling down the road, turning at a right angle as the driver brought it to a halt beside the guard post. Three men were inside, all clad in combat gear. A captain with the insignia of the Green Berets stepped down from the jeep’s rear.

“
Get up,” ordered the guard.

The captain nodded, pulling Corvino by the arm, leading him to the jeep. They got in, Corvino in the rear, the captain taking the front. The guard sitting beside Corvino pulled out a .45 and pointed it at him. The driver swung the jeep around, accelerating rapidly up the dirt road.

No one spoke.

He sat in the second-floor office, massaging his aching wrists. The cuffs had dug furrows in his flesh, the marks of which were finally fading after he’d rubbed them for half an hour.

Corvino heard movement outside the office. The door opened, and Hershman walked in with Lang.

“
What a surprise,” Hershman deadpanned, as the guard outside shut the door behind them. “We wondered if you’d turn up,” he added as he lowered himself into the leather chair on the other side of the desk.

Lang moved stiffly as if he’d suffered a stroke.

Corvino frowned.

“
I’m glad you made it.” Hershman’s face stayed frozen, emotionless, as he spoke. “I hear you made it out of D.C. last night. Exceptional.”

“
Where’s Del Valle?”

“
Dead.

“
He set you up, had you executed,” Hershman continued.

Corvino’s eyes widened.

“
That’s right. Del Valle was working with the Colombians.”

“
What?! That doesn’t—” Corvino mumbled, but Hershman cut him off.

“
Make sense? We’d had our suspicions for some time. After you returned from Panama, we got confirmation.”

Corvino frowned.
Ryan? It was unthinkable. Del Valle was above reproach. Why would he turn on The Company?

“
He was the one who had you killed.”

“
That’s bullshit!” Corvino shouted, standing up suddenly, his chair toppling backwards.

“
Sorry, old chum,” Lang interjected, “it’s just like Stan says. The Council had him under observation for some time.”

“
I assigned Lang to take care of you, but he got to you too late.”

“
That’s right, mate, I fucked up,” Lang said, leaning on the desk, laying a hand on Corvino’s shoulder. “I got to the parking lot just as they shot you.”

Corvino sat down, his mind spinning. “I don’t understand. Ryan?”

“
I followed you from Georgetown,” Lang continued, “and nearly lost you on the Memorial Parkway. Didn’t want you to think I was one of them. When I saw you turn into the parking lot, I pulled on the shoulder and followed on foot. But I was too late. I made it within range just as you bought it. I got the fucker who did you,” Lang smirked. “But he had backup.”

He stood, pulling up his combat jacket to reveal a neat bullet hole over his heart.

“
You weren’t the only one who died that night.”

He smiled.

“
It’s good to have you back in the fold, mate.”

Lang offered his hand. Corvino looked away, stunned beyond belief.

“
We need you, Corvino,” Hershman said. “The country’s dying. The world is falling apart. The
old world
. But there’s a new world rising from the ashes.
A New Order
. And you’re part of it.”

Corvino looked up at Hershman, confused.

And Hershman told him.

—
| — | —

If the heats of hate and lust

In the house of flesh are strong,

Let me mind the house of dust

Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not

Nothing stands that stood before;

There revenges are forgot,

And the hater hates no more.

—
A.E. Houseman

—
| — | —

THE WHITE HOUSE.

SUNDAY,JUNE 4.

6:13 A.M.

Democracy had died on Saturday, June 3rd.

And what had once been Stansfield Hershman smiled at the thought.

Of course, like all living things, its demise had been inevitable.

Democracy had died.

Oh, that was rich. Democracy had died. Democracy had been limping along under a weight of lies for so many years he was surprised it had lived as long as it had—only it hadn’t. That had been one of the first lessons he’d learned when he’d joined the CIA back in the mid-sixties as all those damn pinko bleeding-heart liberal students were starting to protest the country’s involvement in Vietnam—ship ‘em all off to the Mekong Delta and let God sort ‘em all out…

He jerked awake and was angry with himself for napping. Real men didn’t nap. Real men worked thirty-six hours straight, then slept for a few hours and worked some more.

Just like the dead President sitting in the chair in front of him. The last real President of the United States, the former head of the CIA, the man he’d loyally supported through his few brief years in office, whom he had advised once he became Vice President, and whom he had guided into the New Order once George had asked him to end his living suffering.

Democracy was dead.

He chuckled softly, the sound rasping against the silence cloaking the Oval Office. Crisp sunlight flooded in through the bullet-proof windows which faced the White House lawn. Sunrise was alive, dust motes dancing in the thick air; his chuckle dead. Like all of them still in the White House.

He wondered if George would join them. There was a chance he wouldn’t. Not everyone who died was reborn, and—

He turned, aware someone was watching him. He saw the cowering figure of the former Vice President. His face was slack, imbecilic.

“
What do you want?”

“
I don’t know,” he replied. “I can’t find my script.”

Hershman frowned.
What?

“
I can’t make my speech without my script.” He pointed to the chair in which the dead President sat. “What’s he doing?”

The Vice President was a lost cause.

Since reviving from his fatal heart attack the former Vice President periodically had lapsed into some kind of decaying memory loop.

The man stood lost, looking towards one of the three doors which led from the Oval Office. The one leading to the small kitchen, which in turn took you to the President’s study.

“
Is it in there?”

Hershman nodded, grimacing as the man’s face went slack, a thin line of drool trickling from his lower lip. He despised that. It was so undignified.

He crossed the room, took the man by the arm and led him towards the kitchen.

It seemed to satisfy the fool, who let himself be guided towards the partially open door. Hershman pushed the Vice President into the kitchen and locked the door before returning to the Oval Office.

He glanced at George’s body reclining in the high backed, Kevlar-reinforced chair.

“
You better not turn out like that,” he said, contempt lacing his voice. “Still, what should we expect, he always was an idiot.”

He sat again and looked properly at the President.

“
Did you realize when you died, Democracy died?”

He laughed, loudly this time.

“
That’s rich, eh? We both knew it was on its last legs. Had been for years.”

He leaned back, dark thoughts freezing the dead man’s smile on his cracked lips. Yes, Democracy was dead. It had been beset with illness for decades, its bones calcifying under the weight of social diseases, its constitution eaten away by the cancer of corruption. But now all pretense was gone. It had given up the will to live, just like George had—no, George hadn’t given up; he wanted to live, live again and embrace the New Order, Hershman reminded himself—and existed only as a memory fast being eclipsed by the dark dictatorship of that Order—
his order.
Its corpse was rotting in the corridors of the White House, but unlike the Vice President, Democracy wasn’t going to wander around the Oval Office. It had been shot in the head by men like him—Stansfield Hershman; Stansfield the architect of the New Order. And in the wake of change, no one was going to bother to inform the struggling population, what was left of it, that the reality map was being redrawn, both from within and without. Let the fools deal with the burning of the cities, the death of their pitiful loved ones, either by plague or from attacks by the foot soldiers of the New Order. Keep them confused, scared, and they would pose no threat.

Threat? There was no threat, he thought, as he picked up the severed arm from beside the chair and started on his breakfast.

There had been three days of radical change, chaotic transformation.

Martial law continued under the weakening hands of those who thought they were still in control, the emergency forces composed of the National Guard, the police and medical crews systematically disposing of plague victims, burning the bodies on huge bonfires or burying them in mass graves filed with lime. But only after each corpse was shot in the head. That they believed they were in control was good, he thought slowly as he chewed steadily on the raw flesh. It kept their attention away from the real threat—the new regime of which he was leader.

The Centers for Disease Control’s estimates had been wrong: by Friday, 83 percent of the population was either dead or dying. Over 207 million dead within a week. If he’d been a religious man, he’d have considered it the work of God. But there was no God, just power and will—the will to continue, as he would continue.

The President’s desk was buried with reports detailing the waves of destruction spreading across the country. Hershman knew their contents well, having read and discussed them with George before the President had begged for his help. Ninety-five percent of all major urban areas had collapsed into chaos through rioting and anarchy, with Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Houston and Jacksonville reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and New Orleans still burned. At night he liked to stand on roof of the White House and watch the pulsing glow of distant flames, fill his nostrils with the delicious stench of charred flesh and burning cities drifting on the dark air.

And while all this was going on, the scientists resurrected to join the New Order had given up trying to understand why it had happened. There was no point, only the need to make provision for the coming months. Flesh was desirable, especially the plump, juicy meat of young women and children, and so they had set themselves to the task of rounding up supplies. Cattle ranchers of a new era.

He finished his breakfast, discarding the gnawed forearm, stripped of flesh and muscle to the wrist, and dropping it beside the chair. He gazed insanely out across the lawn. Several guards patrolled the perimeter, armed with enough firepower to keep unwanted visitors away.

Hershman smiled.

Two hundred and nineteen years after its birth, the United States of America had fallen as carrion meat to those with a hunger for raw flesh. And as the sun rose above Washington, D.C., on June 4, he saw a new nation before him—the United States of Hell. In the Oval Office there was no celebration, no inaugural speech.

It was business as usual.

THE ATLANTIC—OFF THE JERSEY COAST.

7:20 A.M.

The curtain of thick, black, acrid smoke rising from the flaming ruins of Atlantic City reminded Sandy of the twister in
The Wizard of Oz
. It rotated upwards like a spiral of dense fabric, spinning slowly up into the stratosphere as dawn’s fragile light crept up behind it.

She sat on the deck of the cabin cruiser mesmerized by the destructive spectacle to her right. It was so peaceful out here, moored a mile offshore. She sighed. If only this was a vacation.

No sirens screaming. No explosions or gunshots. Just the cawing of circling seagulls and the lapping of the tide on the bow.