Extinction Machine

Chapter Eighty-nine

House of Jack Ledger,

Near Robinwood, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 1:17 p.m.

What do you do when your world is turned upside down?

How do you react when suddenly fate in the form of some madman’s will takes a crude scalpel and carves a hole in the skin of your world? What mechanism is there in us that prepares for the moment when dozens of people you know—friends, colleagues, employees, associates—are simply edited out of your day-to-day existence?

We shriek at the sky, demanding how this could happen. Needing to know why it had happened. What was the point?

What did it serve?

Where will it end?

These are unanswerable questions of course. After 9/11, after Haiti and the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan, after hurricanes and tornados, after wars and terrorist bombings, there are millions who have looked up to the sky or inward into personal darkness and demanded those answers. And they, too, were left bereft, adrift, unanswered and afraid.

Junie Flynn came and sat next to me. She took my hand and held it. In many ways she was still a stranger to me, and she knew none of the people at the Warehouse, but her touch was warm and alive. When you are sinking you grab any rope that’s offered. Ghost came and snuggled against me, catching the mood aboard the helicopter, whimpering softly, needing reassurance, giving comfort in closeness and with simplicity.

The pilot asked, “Where, Captain?”

I told him. My uncle Jack had a farm near Robinwood, right on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. I called ahead, told my uncle we were coming. Told him to pack a bag and go visit his daughter in Wildwood, New Jersey. I told him it was a matter of national security. Jack Ledger is a good guy, a retired career cop. I never told him what I do for a living but his brother, my dad, has probably hinted. All he asked me was, “Are you okay, Joey?”

“I’m okay,” I lied.

Maybe the biggest lie I ever told.

Rudy Sanchez was my best friend. He was the only person who knew me. The only one who understood the mysteries of my fractured mind. He was closer to me than my brother, Sean.

I had brought him into the DMS. That meant that, however indirectly, I got that good man killed.

And Church?

Church was the ultimate good guy. He was as close to an actual superhero as this world is ever likely to have. A legendary warrior in a very old and very dirty game. Infinitely dangerous, incredibly smart and wise. If he was dead, then the bad guys had managed to score one of the biggest wins in a long time. Maybe the biggest in my lifetime.

I had nowhere to put all this in my head.

It wasn’t made to fit.

We flew on.

The “farm” was that in name only. Once upon a time it had been a dairy farm, but Jack wanted to be a cop like his brother. He and my dad sold half of the thousand acres, split the money, and my dad bought a big house in Baltimore. Jack rented out the farm while he worked as a cop in Hagerstown, and then once he had his twenty-five in, he gave it up and settled down to paint landscapes. He was very much a loner—just him and his dogs, Spartacus and Leonidas.

I sent the address via encoded text to Aunt Sallie and requested information and any tactical support that could be managed.

She texted back this message: “K”

By the time the Black Hawk reached the farm, Jack was long gone.

Where once there had been miles of grasslands for the cattle, now there was a forest of young pines and hardwoods. Beautiful, serene, and excellent cover.

We touched down behind the barn.

Bunny oversaw the removal of all our gear. Junie went into the house with Ghost. Top and I sat down on the porch while I called Aunt Sallie for an update.

“Do we know if anyone got out?” I asked.

“We’re still waiting on word,” she said. Auntie was an abrasive woman, given to barbed jokes and sarcasm, but not today. Her voice was as subdued as a nun’s. I had the irrational desire to give her a big comforting hug.

“Nothing from Church?”

“Nothing.”

I reminded her that Junie Flynn had the entire Black Book in her head, so in a way we had possession of it.

“We need to broadcast this on the frequency they gave us in the videos. We have to let them know that they can stop the countdown.”

“What’s your plan, Ledger? To hand over the woman?”

“Well, no … maybe they only need information from the book and…”

It sounded lame. It was lame. Auntie mumbled something about giving it a try, but we knew that this wasn’t going to save the East Coast. Whoever took the president surely wanted the actual Black Book. Which we did not have and were no closer to having than we were this morning. Maybe less so. Without Church, without my whole staff at the Warehouse. Maybe we were nowhere at all.

Auntie ended the call quickly.

Top parked a haunch on the porch rail. “How are you doing?”

I started to snarl at him, to tell him what an incredibly stupid question that was, and then I caught the look on his face. Not a noncom’s look. Not a fellow soldier’s look. It was a father’s look. Grave, aware, composed.

I closed my eyes, exhaling a big lungful of air, feeling the aches in muscle and soul, feeling the weariness that was burning like a plague through my body.

“I don’t know how I feel, Top,” I said after a while. “If Rudy was there … then I lost the best friend I ever had. And everyone at the Warehouse. I—can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I can see that.”

Again I almost barked at him, but he shook his head.

“If this was the regular army, Cap’n,” he said, “you’d be able to tell me to shut the f*ck up. If we were just friends, you could do that. But this is the DMS and I’m your topkick and we’re at war. We don’t get to be like regular folks. We waived that right when we joined.”

I looked at him.

“You’re in shock,” he said. “You came straight out of a combat situation into a deep personal loss. You barely said two words on the flight here. You never introduced Miss Flynn to anyone, and most of the time you sat and stared into the middle distance.”

“I lost friends down there, damn it.”

Top got up, pulled a chair over, and sat down in front of me.

“Yeah, you lost friends down there. So did I. So did Bunny and Lydia. Even the new guys had friends down there. The pilot, Jerry, he had friends down there. But here’s the news, Cap’n, you don’t own the pink slip on grief. We’re all in this together. We’re all in it right now. You know what everyone else was doing while we were flying over here? They were watching you. They were looking to you. You are the captain. You are the leader of the team, and more than that, you are the DMS for them. Mr. Church might be dead and gone. Rudy, too, and Gus and a lot of other people who were higher on the ladder than this bunch of shooters. So, they look to you.” Top gave a soft snort, almost a sigh. “The bad news is that you don’t get the luxury of falling apart and you don’t get to let this kick your ass. Those soldiers in there have probably never been more scared than they are right now. They need to see you nut up and stand up and yell ‘f*ck you’ to the gods of war.”

I stared at him.

“’Cause the war isn’t over,” he said, then he stood up and walked away.