My suspicions are confirmed when we’re led into a classic interrogation room. One desk. Two chairs. A mirrored wall. I motion to the desk and raise an eyebrow at Dunne. “Really?”
“Protocol,” Dunne says, reaching out his hands. “Going to need your phones.”
Before handing my phone over, I say, “I have the President on speed dial. I could—”
“Last I heard,” Dunne said, “President Beck had put you on the ‘do not answer’ list.”
“He’s just upset that I didn’t put out last time he bought me dinner.”
I’m relieved some when Dunne cracks a smile. It also makes me feel bad for what’s coming next.
Dunne takes my phone, makes sure it’s shut off and turns to Endo, who already has his phone held out. As Dunne begins to take the phone, Endo drops it. Dunne reaches out to catch it, reacting instinctually. As the agent dips forward, Endo slaps his wrist—and the watch that isn’t a watch—against the man’s head, stabbing the neural implant into Dunne’s temple. The small device, once attached, takes on the color of the victim’s skin, making it invisible to anyone that isn’t up close and personal.
Endo holds out his hand. Dunne gives him the caught phone.
“Come inside and close the door,” Endo says, the transmitter embedded in his skull allowing him to control anyone wearing the implant. Dunne dutifully obeys.
“Is there anyone in the room next door?” Endo asks, glancing at the two way mirror.
“Shouldn’t be.”
Endo pulls out a chair and sits down like he owns the place. He crosses one leg over the other, smiles and says, “Good. Now here’s what I need you to do.”
33
Water dripped from General Lance Gordon’s heavy eyebrows, temporarily obscuring his vision as he slipped his head up out of the Potomac River. He could see the Washington Monument rising out of the National Mall like a beacon. It wasn’t just the tallest structure in Washington, D.C.; at 555 feet it was the tallest obelisk in the world. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew the White House and President Beck would be a straight shot north.
He had spent the previous two nights inside the mouth of his smallest child. Under his guidance, the pair slipped slowly upriver, until they were within striking distance. His other children waited in the deeper water of Chesapeake Bay, clinging to the bottom. The bay, at its deepest, was 208 feet down. As soon as the children stood up, they’d be revealed.
And that was the plan. Create an unavoidable threat to which all military units would respond. In the chaos that followed, he would move in quickly, before Beck could evacuate, and then...he’d kill two birds with one stone. Or one fist as the case may be.
He knew Hudson was here as well. He didn’t understand how, but he knew. He could sense the man’s presence. At first, he believed his plan would be undone. But neither Hudson nor Beck had left the area, a fact he’d confirmed the previous night when he’d done some recon. He found moving across the city’s dark rooftops quite easy, and with his new found strength, speed and agility, he’d had no trouble avoiding detection from the local population or from the Secret Service. He could have killed Beck in his sleep, but then Hudson would have fled.
Better to let two targets become one, he had decided. And when the two men he loathed most were dead, his vengeance wouldn’t be complete, it would have only just begun. He was drawn to these men on a personal level, the way Maigo’s personality drew Nemesis toward Alexander Tilley. But when they were dead, he would focus his attention on the rest of the world. He could feel their corruption. It screamed at him, in his Nemesis heart. The world was begging to be purified through violence.
He would start with Washington, D.C., a city he knew to be corrupt to its core, despite the lofty promises and plastic smiles. Then he would move south. To Fort Bragg, his one-time home and the location of the only fighting force on Earth he believed posed a threat. And once they were out of the way...
Gordon smiled. He’d always wanted to see the country, state by state. But now he wasn’t just going to see the country, he was going to reshape it. He was going to remake the world, measuring his progress in tons of ash and blood.
But first, he had to wait for darkness to return again. Then he would light up the night.
34