Extinction Machine

Chapter Eighty-two

The Warehouse

Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 12:10 p.m.

Mr. Church held up a hand for silence. “I must admit that I’m surprised to hear from you again.”

“I know. This is kind of a whim,” said Tull. “Are you sorry to hear that I’m alive?”

“You’ve managed to stay off the radar quite well,” said Mr. Church.

“You taught me a lot about caution.”

“Apparently.”

“I know you looked for me. Hunted me.”

“What other option did you leave, Erasmus? You left quite a mess behind you.”

Tull sighed. “Story of my life.”

“And of mine,” agreed Mr. Church. “Some people are born in the storm lands.”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you, Erasmus?” asked Church. “Do you want to come in? You know that I can guarantee your safety.”

“Until you put a bullet in me.”

“It doesn’t have to play out that way. You can buy a lot of goodwill by unburdening your soul.”

“And if I don’t have a soul?”

“I don’t have time for poetry, Erasmus. Or philosophical debates. I have a lot going on at the moment.”

“I know.”

Church paused. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you’re calling me?”

“In part.” Tull paused. “You know, Deacon, you’re not as smart as you think you are. You always pretend to know what’s going on, but you don’t know. You think you know what’s going on right now, today—but you don’t.”

“I make no claims to understanding the current situation, Erasmus. I’ll admit to being totally at sea. Does that make you feel better?”

“Actually, it does. I’ve never heard you admit to being clueless. That’s worth a lot.”

“Care to tell me what is going on? You seem to have all the answers today.”

“You have no idea how true that is. I not only know the answers, I am the answer.”

There was an almost pleading note to that statement. Church filed it away.

“The world you know is about to change, Deacon. After tomorrow it’s never going to be the same again.”

“You’re involved in what’s happening today?” asked Church.

“Oh yes.”

“Are you looking to make a deal?”

“No,” said Tull, and Church thought he heard a note of regret in the man’s voice. “I wanted to clear the air about something, Deacon. Remember the conversation we had after the thing in Turkey? After I killed that entire Syrian strike team? You asked me if I needed to step down for a while, you asked if this was getting to be too much for me.”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember what I said to you?” asked Tull.

“Yes,” said Church. “You said that killing didn’t hurt you. I tried to explain that it hurts everyone and that we have to address that. But you said that you weren’t like everyone else.”

“Yes.”

“You said that you were a monster and monsters loved to destroy.”

“Yes.” There was fierce emotion in the man’s voice now.

“I tell you now what I told you then, Erasmus,” said Church, “no matter how far you’ve walked under the shadow of darkness you can always turn and go back.”

“It’s funny that you, of all people, should preach about redemption, Deacon. I may be a monster, but you’ve spilled an ocean of blood. What does that make you?”

Church looked out the window of the helicopter as it lifted from the roof of the Warehouse. “We both know exactly what I am,” he said.

“And we both know exactly what I am,” said Tull.

“Erasmus—”

“Goodbye, Deacon. If there is a God, maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”

There was a sudden white light so brilliant that everything was instantly washed to a blank canvas of nothingness.

The ten pigeon drones exploded at the same moment. Ten tiny versions of the Truman Engine detonating on different parts of the building. The shock wave blew outward at the speed of sound, blowing out windows ten blocks away. The fireball threw cars and boats a hundred yards into the bay. And the entire Warehouse leaped up into the air atop a fireball of superheated gases that drove upward like the fist of Satan, vaporizing thousands of tons of brick and steel, melting vehicles into pools of slag and splattering them for blocks.

The last thing Mr. Church saw before the blast buffeted his helicopter out of control was the tiny figure of Gus Dietrich on the roof near the helicopter, one hand lifted in a lighthearted salute. Then Gus, and the building, and everyone inside of it were gone.

Gone.

“Dios mío!” cried Rudy Sanchez, seemingly from far away.

Then the helicopter was tilting sideways, spilling the lifting air, sliding into the claws of gravity, and a fireball and the brown water both rushed toward it.