Extinction Machine

Chapter One Hundred Eleven

VanMeer Castle

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Monday, October 21, 7:50 a.m.

“What the hell are you doing?” croaked Shelton. He tried to yell but between the aftereffects of the drugs and what he saw on my face, his words came out cracked and crumbling. He jerked against the silk cord, which accomplished nothing beyond tightening the knots; and when he tried to turn his head, the duct tape kept him from moving at all. He was trapped and totally helpless, and he knew it.

Terror blossomed in his eyes.

“I’m going to keep it simple,” I said. “You have the Majestic Black Book. I want the book. This will only get as messy as you want to make it.”

“You’re insane.”

“Yesterday’s news.”

“I mean it,” he growled. “You’re crazy.”

I leaned a few inches closer. “Want to see how much?”

“This is an illegal search and seizure. This is assault and battery. It’s—”

“Blah blah blah,” I cut in. “I’m a wanted felon, a terrorist, and an enemy of the state. Two hundred of my friends were blown to atoms yesterday. And either you or aliens abducted the president and are threatening to destroy the entire eastern seaboard if I don’t get the Black Book. So … yeah, I guess you could say I’m a bit over the edge.”

Ghost made a faint whuffing sound. It was a strangely hungry sound, and Shelton gave him a frightened look.

“Dog’s a little troubled, too,” I said. “Dementia by association.”

Shelton jerked against the silk cord. “Listen to me, shitbag,” he snarled, “you’re making the worst mistake of your life. Right now it’s just you and me, so if you want to take your head out of your ass and untie me then we can let this drop. I promise no repercussions.”

I smiled at him.

“Don’t be stupid,” Shelton said. “Even if I gave you the book—which I don’t have—there’s no way you’d ever get out of this house. I have a goddamn army of men here—”

“You have fifty-four men,” I corrected. “And six dogs. Not counting the secretarial and housekeeping staff.”

“Those are my people, dickhead. They’ll tear you apart and feed you to my dogs. And that includes your mutt.”

I reached down out of his line of vision and punched a button on the device inside the little leather case. Shelton tried to see what I was doing, but the tape prevented him. Then I touched the little finger of his left hand.

“Here’s how we’re going to play this,” I said as I removed a pair of sturdy wire cutters from my pocket. “I’m going to ask you where the Black Book is. If you say something I don’t want to hear, I’ll cut off one of your fingers.”

He went as pale as old milk.

“I’ll f*cking kill you and everyone you love,” he seethed.

I reached down with the cutters. He tried to see what I was doing, but I wanted him to just feel it.

The cutters went SNIP!

His scream was immediate and enormous.

It was so loud it hurt my ears.

Ghost howled.

I grinned.

“That would be an example of something I don’t want to hear,” I said when he stopped to gulp in some air. “You have nine more fingers.”

“F*ck you…,” he said in a weak voice. “F*ck you…”

SNIP!

He screamed again.

“Eight left. Oh, and you’re going to need to get your carpet cleaned.”

“Oh … Christ! God sweet Jesus.… ahhhhhhhhhh!”

His terror was like a great dark beast crouching over both of us.

“I can cut them clean or I can get creative,” I said. “And by creative I mean I can feed them to my dog while they’re still attached. This is your call.”

I gave him one second to think about it.

SNIP!

His shriek was ultrasonic.

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing? Oh shit, motherf*cker. My hand! What are you doing? I didn’t say anything!”

“I’m double-parked,” I said, “and you’re wasting my time.”

“Oh … God … it f*cking hurts…”

“God isn’t here,” I said, leaning closer still. “It’s you and me and my dog and what’s left of your hand.”

Tears boiled from the corners of his eyes.

“I … can’t…,” he blubbered. “I can’t…”

A moment later he was shrieking again. Ghost’s howls rose like spikes of sound.

“You can save your thumb,” I whispered. “Or would you rather we go to the challenge round? Should I get out the bolt cutters and go right to your wrist?”

“No … NO! Oh god, please, no…”

“Howard…,” I coaxed in a lazy singsong voice. “You’re being naughty.”

“They’ll kill me! God … they’ll kill me if I say anything.”

I bent closer still, and now my face was an inch from his. “Listen to me,” I said softly. “You’re still on this side of a bad line. If you make me take you over that line there won’t be enough of you left to put in a wheelchair. Is that what you want? Is that where you’re making me take this? I can leave you blind and ruined. If you’re really lucky I’ll leave you enough of a mouth so you can scream. But I can’t even promise that unless you talk to me.”

Shelton was weeping openly, tears and snot running in lines down the sides of his face. His face was beet red and I wondered what kind of a window I had before his heart burst or he stroked out. There was aspirin and other goodies in the stimulant, and that would help, but I was definitely pushing the envelope here.

“They’ll kill me,” he said one more time, but as he said it his eyes shifted away from me toward a wall on which was hung a portrait of Harry S. Truman.

I followed his eyes and then looked back at him. “Is it in there?”

His voice was tiny. “Y—yes…” He closed his eyes. “Oh, God…”

“Ghost—watch,” I said and hopped off the desk. There was a small electronics detector in another pocket and I ran it along the edges of the painting. All the little lights pinged. I strolled back to Shelton and patted his cheek. Maybe a little too hard. “Nice try. It’s wired six ways from Sunday, which means that if I sneeze on it your goon squad will be in here in ten seconds.” I leaned very close so that my breath was hot on his cheeks and eyes. “The first thing they’ll see is you die in ways that will give them nightmares the rest of their lives.”

Tears rolled from his eyes.

“Tell me how to bypass the security or what they’ll bury won’t even look like a man.” I bent closer still and described exactly what I’d do.

He screamed without me having to actually do anything.

And then he broke.

Like that.

“Okay, okay, please God, okay … don’t hurt me anymore…”

There was a lot of stuff like that. I had to coax him through the procedures to disarm the security measures on the safe. Some of them involved the same remote Shelton had used to activate the jammers. Others involved more complicated codes that I had to enter on a keypad that was hidden behind a carefully crafted panel on his desk. Lucky for him there was no retina scanner. I told him as much. He sobbed some more.

I left Ghost there to watch him while I made sure there were no passive alarms or tripwires. Dr. Hu’s little scanner was very efficient.

After five minutes I felt confident enough to swing the painting aside on its concealed hinges and enter the last set of codes on a second keypad. I’ve been to viral research labs and I don’t know that I’d ever seen an entry procedure as complicated as this. Fourteen separate steps. The safe set into the wall was a dummy. It was filled with stock certificates, bearer bonds, two jewelry cases, and at least five hundred thousand dollars in paper-wrapped bundles. I dropped it all on the floor. Once the safe was clear, Shelton talked me through the steps to access the hidden compartment behind the back wall.

The fake metal wall slid up with a hiss to reveal a space that was ten inches wide and a foot tall. There were three things in the compartment. A small metal cylinder the approximate size and shape of a cigar tube, a jagged piece of metal wrapped in bubble wrap, and a book wrapped in thick velvet.

The book was a little larger than a paperback novel and thicker than the Bible. Thousands of tissue-thin pages.

And, yes, it was black. I flipped through it. Lots of sketches of mechanical devices that I didn’t recognize. Page after page of notes written in a neat, cramped hand.

Bingo.

I tapped my earbud. “Package acquired.”

Bug made a strange series of falsetto noises and said, “I think I just came in my pants.”

“Never remind me of this conversation,” I told him.

Another voice cut in. Auntie. “Cowboy, confirm mission status.”

“Package acquired,” I repeated. “I have the Majestic Black Book.”

There was a sudden burst of static so sharp and loud that I almost tore the earbud off, but then it was gone.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded.

“I—don’t know,” said Auntie. “For a second everything lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“Well, whatever it was, don’t let it happen again. Near blew my head off. Cowboy out.”

Then I turned back to Shelton, who stared at the book in my hand. His eyes were wild.

“They’ll kill me for this,” he said. His face was greasy with agonized sweat.

“Who will?”

“Them!” he snapped.

“Who? Are we talking little green men?”

“No, you maniac … the others in the Project. They’ll kill me and now they’ll kill you.”

“Not a chance,” I said, smiling a smug little smile. “They won’t even know I was here. Give me some names,” I suggested.

He looked at me like I’d suddenly suggested we both dress up in dinner clothes and waltz through the halls.

“Give me some names,” I repeated, “and I’ll make sure that you get full protection.”

“You can’t offer any goddamn protection. The DMS is done, it’s gone. God, you’re really an idiot aren’t you?” he said.

Okay, that hurt, coming from a guy I had strapped to a desk.

“Do you think there’s any place you can hide me that they can’t find?” He was wheezing with pain and terror.

“Yes, I do,” I said, not at all sure if I was telling a lie.

“They’ll find me and kill me and then they’ll find you and everyone—”

“Yeah, yeah, they’ll kill everyone I love. My family, my dog, blah blah blah. You watch too many Scorsese films. They won’t find out about this unless you tell them.”

“Wrong, shithead,” he panted, “they’ll find out as soon as my people take me to the hospital. They probably have a spy here…”

I parked a haunch on the edge of the desk. “Why would anyone take you to the hospital?”

He stared at me, caught in a terrible moment of indecision. Was I making a joke? Or did my question carry an even worse threat.

“You’re going to kill me,” he said hollowly.

“Actually,” I said, “no. I’m not going to hurt a hair on your head.”

“But … but … I don’t…”

I reached across him, out of his line of sight and twisted my hand again.

The agonized expression on his face immediately changed.

“W—what…?” he stammered. “What…?”

I reached down and removed the tiny metal needles I’d inserted into nerve clusters on each of his fingers. They were like acupuncture needles, with wires trailing away to the small device in the leather case. I held it up for Shelton to see.

“Ta-da!” I said quietly. “Electric nerve stimulators. You can set these things to send all kinds of signals. I could make it feel like you just gave birth to a ten-pound baby, so severed fingers were easy as pie. All the fun of torture without the mess. Order now and you get a free at-home waterboarding kit. Fun for the whole family.”

He gaped at me, totally unable to speak.

Ghost dripped more slobber on Shelton’s shirt.

I bent close and tapped Shelton with the book.

“Now listen close, a*shole,” I said. “I have the book and you have the thanks of a grateful nation and all that. Except that nation is going to put you in jail until three days after the end of the world.”

Shelton mustered enough of his wits and focus to say, “F*ck you.”

Tried to spit in my face, too, but I dodged it.

I laid the book on his chest. “Understand something, friend,” I said, “just because I faked you out doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of playing rough. It would be a real mistake to think that.”

“Go to hell,” he said.

Suddenly fists began pounding on the door outside. Not knocking. Pounding.

Then the door shuddered as something slammed into it. It wasn’t anyone trying to kick it in. This sounded like one of those heavy-duty breaching tools—a steel weight swung by a couple of big guys. Shelton’s guards were breaking in. Ghost began barking furiously.

On the desk, Shelton laughed. “Guess you’re not the only one who can play a hole card, you sick bastard. As soon as you opened that last panel a signal went out to my whole team. They’re going to come in here and tear you apart, Ledger, and I’m going to piss on your bones.”

The heavy oak door began to splinter.