Extinction Machine

Chapter Thirty-one

Over the Atlantic, due East of Hilton Head

Sunday, October 20, 7:19 a.m.

Erasmus Tull preferred to fly his own jet. It eliminated the need for any other staff besides his longtime partner, Aldo Castelletti. Much easier for keeping secrets.

The Mustang soared over the blue Atlantic, heading toward a private airstrip in Maryland, the engine muted to a soft growl by the cabin soundproofing. Tull glanced at Aldo, who was poring over a report on his iPad.

“Jeee-zuss, Tully,” swore Aldo. “Did you read this shit?”

“I read it.”

“Did you see that video Mr. Bones hijacked from the DMS?”

“Sure.”

“Think that’s really the president?”

“Yes.”

“Christ on the cross, man.”

Tull cut him a look. “What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think this is f*cked up, man. Half of me wants to think this is a big steaming load of horse shit. The other half of me wants to run and hide. The main thing is that this doesn’t make any sense.” Aldo had heavy features, a thick mustache, a large crooked nose, and Tull thought that he looked like every Italian pizza shop owner he’d ever seen on a TV commercial. The coarse features and drooping eyelids were a terrific natural disguise that hid a keen and calculating mind. Unlike Tull and a few of the other top operators among the Closers, Aldo was not part of the family. He had a real mother and father. He had been born in a hospital, had sucked milk from a breast, had gone to preschool and all of that. Tull envied him.

Sometimes Tull got Aldo on a talking jag, just ruminating about growing up in Little Italy, being part of a huge family. About being real. When Tull was talking to people—like Berenice—he sometimes borrowed those memories. They were full of rich detail. Those kinds of stories put people at ease. They never looked at you as if you weren’t like everyone else. That always felt better.

“Which part doesn’t make sense?” asked Tull.

“The part about abducting the f*cking president,” said Aldo. “I mean, who in their right mind would abduct the president of the United States? Granted, that shows some heroic clanking steel balls—but what’s the point? It’s too much. It’s like showing off, you know? Does it make any sense to you?”

Tull shrugged.

Aldo waited for more. “That’s it? I ask you a serious question and you give me a shrug?”

“What’s there to say?”

“For f*ck’s sake, Tully, we’re flying right into the middle of this thing and you don’t know what to say?”

“No, I don’t. We don’t have any solid intel on the abduction, so our role is a wetwork. Take out a few players, turn it over to the cleaners, and walk away. What is there to say, Aldo?”

“That’s a piss-poor answer.”

“Yes,” agreed Tull, “it is.”

“They want you to take the Deacon and his band of psychos off the board and you don’t have a comment?”

Tull gave him another shrug. “I made some suggestions to Mr. Bones, so the surveillance is already in place. Pigeon drones, that sort of thing. We have full teams on deck, satellite support, and by the time we have boots on the ground Joe Ledger will be a wanted man and we’ll be the good guys bagging a terrorist. I think they’ve planned this out so well they probably don’t need us.”

“Then why the f*ck did you take this gig? Why blow off retirement?”

They flew a lot of miles before Tull answered that question. “You know that I worked for the Deacon for a while.”

“Sure. And then you split, but I never did hear why.”

Tull thought about it, shrugged, and said, “This was before Deacon formed the DMS. He was doing some problem solving within the government, hunting terrorist sleeper cells, that sort of thing. I was topkick for a five-person team. Deacon received intel that a group of Lithuanians were bringing some old Soviet implosion-type devices into the country redesigned as suitcase nukes. Nothing too big, just enough pop to level a couple of city blocks and up the local cancer rate by three or four thousand percent. Stuff that would be used at places like Grand Central Station at rush hour, Madison Square Garden during a concert, or Times Square on New Year’s Eve. It was junk from Kazakhstan, but it was something you wanted to take seriously. Only about halfway through the mission I get word from the Fixer—remember him? He was the acquisitions governor before Mr. Bones came on board.”

“Yeah, sure. He woke up with his throat cut. Chinese got him, I think. Pretty nice guy.”

“That’s the guy. Anyway, the Fixer gets in touch and tells me that the Lithuanians were not bringing in suitcase nukes. What they had were two satchels filled with debris from that old crash at Tunguska in 1908. They’d swiped the stuff from a testing lab in Siberia and were hoping to sell it to some Chinese buyers who were going to meet them up by the Canadian border. Problem was, I had four guys running with me, all of them loyal to Deacon. The kind of guys you couldn’t recruit into the Closers. Real GI Joes.”

“Yeah? So what happened?”

Tull shrugged. “What could I do. If we nabbed the Lithuanians then we’d have to turn the satchels over to Deacon. Imagine what would happen if he got a good look at actual debris. M3 has invested millions just to stay off of his radar. It was why I was planted in his group. But … the clock was ticking. If I had more time maybe I could have finessed a way out and been able to keep my cover inside Deacon’s organization.”

“What happened, man? Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Oh … I killed everyone and took the satchels, what do you think happened?”

Aldo stared at him. “Four of Deacon’s boys and the whole Lithuanian team?”

“There were only three Lithuanians.”

“Jesus, Tully, you are one cold motherf*cker.”

Tull shrugged. “You have to do what you have to do.”

They flew in silence for a while. Tull was aware that Aldo occasionally cut sly looks at him.

Without looking at his friend, Tull said, “Y’know … I was retired, Aldo. A couple of hours ago I was in paradise with a beautiful and intelligent woman, with nothing to do but work on my tan, make love, catch fierce little fish, and forget that I ever did this sort of thing.”

“Sounds pretty great, man, but c’mon—you can’t change who you are.”

Tull sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“You going back to her when this is over?”

Tull reached into his shirt pocket and removed a pack of gum, popped two pieces out of the blister pack and chewed them, savoring the sugary sweetness. His eyes roved over the wisps of clouds beyond the windshield.

“I didn’t leave that door open,” he said.

Aldo studied him for a while, lips pursed, his gaze as much inward as directed at Tull.

Without turning, Tull said, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a monster.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re thinking that I’m a coldhearted freak.”

“Hey, f*ck, man, I’m not going to throw stones. I’m not welcome at church picnics, either.”

Tull cut him a sly look. “Maybe not, but you can go to confession and square it with God. Get a fresh coat of whitewash on your soul.”

Aldo shrugged. “Last time I checked that option was open to everybody. You should try it sometime.”

That made Tull laugh. A dark and bitter laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Aldo.

“You can’t whitewash something that doesn’t exist. I got a lot of nifty extras, Aldo, but I’m pretty sure a ‘soul’ was not part of the deal.”