"Break the arms of these wicked men.
Go after them until the
last of them is destroyed."
Psalm 10:15
Dick Nardel punched the accelerator, felt the Cadillac's powerful V-8 surge and smoothly merged onto Interstate 215. Because southbound traffic was unusually light for a weekday evening, he stayed in the slow lane.
He glanced at his passenger, scribbling in a Las Vegas Metro-issue notebook.
"Hey, BJ," Nardel said, drawing the bald detective's attention. "What's your take on this Steele operation? Think Vader's Ravens can handle the old fart?"
Detective Brian James hesitated. "I don't. I got the feeling Greel's already taken a shot at old man Steele. And the hunter didn't come home."
"No shit?" The Las Vegas Police Protective Association director shot James a startled look. "One of the Ravens?"
"Damn straight. When was the last time one of Vader's' crazies—like, say, that whack-job Oswald—bugged you or your PPA staff?"
"Brad Oswald? The loco dude who hosed that Miles kid?"
"Yeah. Has he shown up at the union office lately?" James asked pointedly.
"Hell, I don't know. For a while, after the Miles shooting, he was all over us. Scared shitless that the union would let him swing, if Uriah decided to make an example of him. You know, show how tough Metro is on shooter-cops.
"'Course, I assured Oswald that the union damn sure would stick with him. No way one of my guys is going down, just to save Uriah's political butt! After that, I don't recall seeing Oswald. I figured he calmed down."
"Not so, Dick. He disappeared. Vader same as admitted he'd sent Oswald to, quote, 'Clean up the Steele trash,' unquote. Typical Mikey BS, I figured. A few months later, I hit him up about it.
"'Hey, Captain!' I says. 'How'd dumbass Oswald make out on that Steele cleanup job?' Vader mumbles something about not working out, then he bugs off, right?
"I start askin' around, and it seems ol' Oswald is AWOL. Nobody's seen him, and nobody's talkin', so I drop it."
Nardel nodded, focused on the road. The new I-215 loop around the west side of Las Vegas was unusually devoid of traffic.
"Vader and Uriah called this afternoon," Nardel said, "claiming they've got a handle on these weird fatalities. They said cops are spooked and ready to go over the hill. Anyway, Vader said old man Steele is behind Krupa and Akaka gettin' waxed."
"No way Steele offed our guys!" James laughed.
"I hear ya! How's a has-been like Steele gonna get his mitts on the Star Wars shit that's killing our boys?"
James paused a long moment. "You see those pictures of the bodies?"
"'Course I did! Scared the fuzz off this kid's lip!"
"Rightly so. Every swingin' dick in Metro's panicked."
"Vader thinks old man Steele somehow sent those pics," Nardel asked. "That old geezer doesn't get it, does he? His precious Erik screwed up and our guys did what they had to do.
"Get over it, asshole!"
James sneered. "Spoken like a real head-up-his-ass union punk! You're starting to believe your own bullshit, Dick. The PPA zombies might swallow that Kool-Aid, but you know damn well what happened to young Steele. Krupa screwed up! He thought Steele's BlackBerry was a forty-five, shit his britches and murdered that kid!"
"Hey, dude! Keep spouting that crap and Vader will sic you onto old Steele, just to get rid of your tail!" Nardel warned.
James smiled at the PPA chief.
"Already did."
Nardel's eyes snapped right. "You? Vader tapped you to… ?"
"Yeah. Mama James's big boy is off to Colorado Springs tomorrow. All of Vader's kid-Ravens were 'used up,' whatever the hell that means. So, I'm back on the first team. Fix this mess, and my slate's wiped clean."
"Mama mia," Nardel breathed, shaking his head. "Sorry 'bout that, Brian."
The all-bluster, pompous PPA chief was genuinely embarrassed. Totally out of character for the cocky Dick Nardel.
Maybe he knows something I don't.
For whatever reason, James had a bad feeling.
Would Colorado be a one-way trip?
* *
A stealthy Gremlin remotely piloted aircraft orbited slowly, its high-bypass fan engine throttled back. From the ground, the RPA's muted whine was lost in the background roar of a city that truly never slept. The Gremlin's gimbaled sphere, studded with sensor ports and conformal antennas, tracked a black Cadillac in the right lane of eastbound Interstate 215.
"That's definitely Nardel's Caddy, sir," a Lawhead Corporation sensor operator reported. He bumped a thumb switch, zooming closer, until the car's image filled the Gremlin's sensor screen. The advanced electro-optical system provided a crisp, detailed image, even in the dark.
Gray Manor didn't respond. The Gremlin had been auto-tracking the car, since the arrogant Police Protective Association director and that bald-headed detective had left a swanky restaurant off West Charleston.
Manor double-checked his tactical iPad. Both Nardel and Brian James were on the target list. The pair had been intimately involved in the sloppy cover-up of Erik Steele's murder.
James had illegally broken into Erik's condo and stolen four firearms, then lied under oath. By claiming the Ruger LCP had been found on Steele's body—Metro's so-called "second gun" narrative—James was guilty of perjury and conspiracy.
As PPA director, the loud, arrogant Nardel had filed a flurry of lawsuits to derail a new coroner's inquest process implemented by the Clark County Commission. Three courts had thrown out the suits, noting the PPA's claims that revised procedures violated killer-cops' Fifth Amendment rights were preposterous and without merit.
By openly intimidating county commissioners and several law-and-order activists, Nardel had confirmed he was an integral cog in the Cartel of Corruption machine that controlled Las Vegas.
"Okay, guys. This will be a two-fer," Manor said. "Both are approved targets. Cleared to engage."
"Copy all," the Gremlin pilot said, echoed by his sensor operator. "Descending to a thousand AGL. All yours, Tron."
Manor hovered behind Tron's crew seat. The former Marine Corps general was visibly anxious. He had reluctantly given the go-ahead to employ the prototype of a cutting-edge information-operations weapon dubbed "Reacher," because Nardel and James were considered to be "secondary targets." Still, if "Reacher" failed tonight, Checkmate might not get a second chance to nail these fools.
So far, Operation Gold Shield was batting a thousand, and Manor was determined to keep that streak going. The latest intel from Nat Preston claimed that morning's spectacular takedown of Antone Galocci was having precisely the intended impact on the movers and shakers throughout Las Vegas: They were scared out of their unprincipled minds. Same for Metro's immoral "Tower" leaders.
Tron—geek shorthand for "electronic"—the Gremlin sensor operator, was also a super-hacker, a software-probing genius. At the moment, he was firing a beam of sophisticated ultrawideband signals at Nardel's souped-up Cadillac, mapping the car's onboard computers.
"Got it," Tron announced casually. "We're in."
The young hacker was essentially riding piggyback on the bits and bytes that controlled the modern Cadillac via application-specific microprocessor chips. He glanced over his right shoulder.
"Ready, sir."
Manor nodded curtly. "Cleared in hot. Take 'em out."
Second time today, he thought grimly. Since Operation Gold Shield's launch, his clear-to-fire command had been a death sentence for two killer-cops, a couple of hopelessly unscrupulous assistant district attorneys, and one-each perverted Mob boss.
Additionally, the depraved Clark County DA, Dirwood Woody Ryns, would be staring into space and drooling for the rest of his life. No more backroom deals, courtroom drama and under-the-table payoffs for Ryns. Woody now boasted the intellect of a rotting vegetable.
Galocci had been a regrettable case. He didn't have to die. If he'd done the right thing, he'd still be enjoying the good life.
The old man had been the quintessential Vegas billionaire power broker who had everything—multiple homes, a fleet of jets, and several iconic resort-hotel casinos.
But wealth and power had spawned a conviction that he was untouchable—above the law and immune to societal constraints that applied only to "little people." The cagey Mob boss had maneuvered, swindled and killed, until he had undisputed control of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, District Attorney's office, judicial system, and powerful unions.
But Antone Galocci had committed a fatal error. He'd ignored Checkmate's repeated warnings, and refused to purge the killers and "crazies" from Metro's police force. Refused to clean up the district attorney's den of unprincipled racketeers. Refused to reign in the Public Administrator's obscene senior-citizen scams. Refused to restore integrity to the county and city judicial systems. And refused to decertify and eliminate an openly criminal union, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association.
He could have cleaned up Vegas. He had the financial resources and the unchallenged power. If he had used them appropriately, Galocci would be alive tonight.
The former general didn't enjoy killing these people. In many ways, he found this new counterterrorism assignment revolting. Killing Americans, in America, violated a deep-seated code of ethics that had defined his world throughout a long, distinguished career. He had fought and killed enemies to protect his fellow citizens, but always on foreign soil. And those enemies had always been somebody other than Americans.
"Son, the dirtbags you're going after in Las Vegas are every bit as dangerous, vile, corrupt, odious and malevolent as any al Qaeda terrorist, Taliban nutcase or Somali pirate you've exterminated," Todd Bright had declared.
"And, unless Operation Gold Shield succeeds, one hell of a lot more innocent Americans like Erik Steele will die at the hands of not only that abominable Vegas Cartel, but of corrupt police officers in every dadgummed state in the union! Ultimately, hundreds of honorable police officers also will die, when fed up citizens shoot back."
Manor cracked a half-grin, recalling Bright's monologue. Only The Professor could string together that many smokin' adjectives.
The control room grew quiet, as the Gremlin crew turned to its deadly task. Tron worked at a keyboard mounted on a swivel-armed pedestal, rapidly keying-in a series of commands.
"Alright… taking control," he announced, then slowly pushed a T-handle forward. Numbers in a white-bordered window on his display started climbing: 65, 75, 85… .
* *
"Hey! What the hell? You trying to kill us? Slow down!" Detective James barked.
"I'm trying!" Nardel cried. "The damned accelerator's stuck!"
He whipped the Caddy into a center lane, flashing past a Honda Accord, as the speedometer topped 90 miles per hour. He slammed on the brakes.
Nothing.
"Aw, shiiiit… ! No brakes!"
James had one hand on the dash, and both feet were threatening to blow through the floorboards.
"Turn off the ignition!" he screamed.
"I tried!" Nardel yelled.
His voice was up an octave. He was sweating, hands clutching the steering wheel, weaving around slower traffic. Tires squealed and the powerful engine's scream steadily increased. A briefcase in the back seat caromed from one side to the other.
"I can't control it!" Nardel shrieked.
"Damn it, Dick!" James yelled, glancing at the speedometer.
Over a hundred!
"Construction! Watch it, man! Look out!"
James was squealing like a terrorized little girl. An underpass construction zone at the intersection with Interstate 15 charged them at lightning speed. Scaffolding, heavy equipment, and a monstrous crane behind a barrier of orange traffic cones and barrels were crammed into the barricaded right-hand lanes of a concrete tunnel. Where the I-215 Beltway dived beneath Interstate 15, the freeway necked down to a couple of lanes.
Nardel aimed the heavy Cadillac at those high-speed lanes, praying he'd squeeze by a head-up-and-locked driver, before flashing into the tunnel. The other car was drifting from the right, oblivious to the Caddy overtaking him at more than 115 miles per hour.
* *
"Kill zone at twelve o'clock! Timing!" Manor snapped.
All eyes were locked on the display. Video beamed from the Gremlin showed the distance between Nardel's Cadillac and the I-215/I-15 interchange shrinking at a meteoric rate.
Tron jammed a RETURN/ENTER key. At light speed, a command signal flashed from the Gremlin's antenna to a central computer in Dick Nardel's luxury car.
In response, a microprocessor fired a step-function pulse to only the Caddy's right front wheel. Its microprocessor-controlled hydraulic plunger and pad-disk system blindly obeyed, as if the driver had slammed on the vehicle's brake pedal.
* *
As the construction cone-zone closed at warp speed, the right-front wheel of Nardel's Cadillac locked up. Its antiskid system had been disabled, forcing the wide Goodyear tire to freeze, claw at the road's rough surface, then explode. The steering wheel jerked sharply to the right.
The Cadillac swerved and plowed through the fence of traffic cones and barrels, trailing a comet of sparks as the wheel's rim scrubbed across fresh concrete. A barrel did a half-flip and struck the Caddy's windshield at more than 100 miles per hour. The double-layer glass bowed and spider-webbed, showering the car's interior.
"Ahhhhhh!" James howled.
Frozen in slow-motion horror, Nardel was dimly cognizant of a massive V-shaped concrete abutment knifing into the Caddy's hood, as if slicing dark-chocolate fudge. The big-block V-8 engine, ripped from its mounts, bulldozed the front seat, shearing off James's left arm and plowing into the backseat, trunk… and gas tank.
The red-hot motor's prodigious kinetic energy vaporized, then ignited, the tank's volatile contents. The resulting detonation enveloped the vehicle in a monstrous orange-and-yellow fireball of roiling, black-laced flame. A violent concussion wave raced from the epicenter at sonic speed, scattering spindly scaffolding and launching ribbed steel reinforcing rods.
* *
Tron's flat-panel screen flared, when the explosion momentarily blinded the Gremlin's infrared sensor. An aperture-control system automatically compensated for the brilliant flash, restoring the real-time movie of destruction. Flames and thick, black smoke boiled from the devastation in the southeast-bound underpass.
The remotely piloted aircraft orbited the crash site for several minutes, its stabilized day-night cameras staring impassively at a gasoline-fed inferno. Nardel's Caddy was quickly reduced to a twisted, melting skeleton sliced front to back. A sheet metal roof that once covered the Cadillac's rich interior now rested in the westbound fast lane of I-215, upside down. Deformed, yet intact.
A number of cars and trucks pulled into the freeway's center median and stopped, unable to enter the underpass. Raging, gasoline-fed blowtorches spewed flames and clouds of thick, black smoke from the tunnel.
Manor's crypto-secure iPhone rang. Riveted to the hellish scene, the Checkmate director clipped, "Bishop. Secure. Go."
"Castle, sir. Secure. The item is stowed. I'm in position. Standing by for the target to show."
Rico Rodolfo had backed his silver Toyota Tacoma into an office building's lot a hundred yards from Ho's-Summerlin, enabling a clear view of the warehouse store. At this post-closing hour, most of its parking spaces were empty.
"Copy," Manor said. "Any problems?"
"Not a single one, sir. Moron left the driver's door open! I locked it… afterwards."
Manor shook his head. "Stupid little shitbird."
"This dork lives in stupid-ville."
"Right. Okay, we're winding up the first phase," Manor said. "I'll give you a yell, when the Gremlin's over Ho's. I want detailed video of Phase Two."
"Got it," Rodolfo said. "How'd Phase One go?"
Manor hesitated, eyeing a raging inferno on the sensor operator's display.
"Exceedingly well. Two confirmed."
"Two?" Rico asked, surprised.
"Nardel, the PPA chief, brought a buddy along. That bald-headed detective, James."
"The cop who stole Erik's guns?"
"Yeah. And lied under oath at the inquest, claiming that three-eighty Ruger LCP was in Erik's pocket. With a two-inch-thick wallet, of course."
A protracted silence. "The crooked bastard deserved it.
"Hey! Target's on the move, leaving the store. Castle out."
Manor tapped an END icon and slipped the phone into a jacket pocket.
"Alright, guys. Wrap it up. Secure the video and get this bird over to Summerlin. Phase Two is in progress. I want eyes-on ASAP."
* *
"See ya tomorrow, Smitty," Hajji Taseer called to his boss, the Ho's-Summerlin general manager. Smitty waved and headed for a reserved parking spot north of the store.
Across the Ho's lot, concealed in the Tacoma's shadowed cab, Rico Rodolfo thumb-punched nine-one-one SEND on a cheap, throwaway cell phone. A Metro police call taker answered immediately. Rico ignored her request for identification.
"There's a crazy guy in the Ho's-Summerlin parking lot!" he shouted frantically. "Across from the Coffee Bean! Dancing around and waving a gun! The dude's on drugs or something! He's gonna shoot somebody! Send the cops now!"
He broke the connection and eyeballed a knock-kneed, rumpled figure plodding across white-striped parking lanes, angling toward a red convertible.
Taseer waddled to the low-slung roadster, huddled under an anemic tree near Pavilion Center Drive. The night air was cool, and he was feeling good. That new hire in electronics had responded well to his advances. She'd hung around after closing time, while he dazzled her with witticisms. Cute, young and naive, she was precisely his type. Another day or so and he'd make his move.
He pressed a key fob and heard the snap of his Mazda Miata's door locks. He yanked the driver-side door open and stooped to slide in. Lights in the door illuminated the interior enough to see an object lying on a bucket seat.
Woo-hoo! Sweet!
He squatted and smiled broadly. A black semiautomatic pistol was resting on the leather.
"Allah be praised!" he breathed.
Captain Greel or another of his new buddies at Las Vegas Metro must have slipped the firearm into the car as a surprise, a cool way of saying, "Welcome to the Blue Brotherhood!"
Excited, Hajji eagerly snatched it off the seat. As he squeezed the cross-hatched composite handgrip, a searing shock blasted through his hand and right arm. It felt like he'd grabbed a thousand-volt electrical cable. His fingers contracted involuntarily, closing tightly around the gun's grip.
Taseer screamed in agony and tried to pry the gun free with his left hand. Its fingers also seized around the handgrip, as powerful jolts coursed through both hands. Now clenching the firearm two-handed, Hajji frantically hopped around the Miata, howling. Excruciating electrical surges continually zapped his hands, arms and torso.
Despite scorching pain, he couldn't let go of the gun. Hand and arm muscles had literally locked up, fingers unable to release the firearm. He squawked and danced, brandishing the gun, hands clamped firmly around the pistol's grip.
Immersed in unrelenting torture, he failed to notice a Metro police cruiser screech to a stop. An officer leaped out, service weapon in hand, and bellowed, "Drop it! Drop the gun! Get on the ground!"
Across the road, a grim-faced Rodolfo pressed a transmitter button. Coded ultrawideband pulses flashed across the four-lane street to the Colt 1911-style weapon in Taseer's two-handed grasp. A blank round fired, causing his .45 semiautomatic to buck.
The stunned Ho's security officer screamed louder.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The Metro cop fired three times in quick succession. The first hollow-point nine-millimeter slug hit Hajji in the chest. The second tore through his abdomen, and the third ripped half of his jaw free, splattering blood across what was left of milk-chocolate skin.
"Drop it!" the officer yelled again, backing away.
Another Metro cruiser slid to a stop and disgorged a second officer, weapon in-hand.
"You okay?" he shouted.
"Yeah! He's down! Damn fool shot at me!"
The first cop's voice quavered, and his knees threatened to fold. Edging cautiously toward the motionless figure sprawled across the pavement, each officer kept a handgun trained on the late Hajji Taseer.
Although the victim was dead, the shooter roughly cuffed both hands behind Taseer's back.
"The son of a bitch shot at me!" the officer said loudly, furious. "I had to hose the dude! Jesus! He fired at me!"
The second cop keyed a microphone clipped to his shirt. "Shots fired! Shots fired! Suspect pulled a four-thirteen. He's down and secured.
"Better get Captain Greel over here."
That was Metro radio code for "We killed another one."
* *
"Get it, Tron?" Manor asked.
"Yes, sir. Not the best angle, but we got enough video to document the shooting."
It had taken longer than expected to fly the Gremlin over to Ho's-Summerlin and get set up, before Taseer had been shot and killed.
"Bird's established on-orbit," the harried pilot announced. "In range. All yours, Tron."
"Target acquired. Ready for Temblor, sir?" asked the sensor operator.
"Stand by," Manor said. "Wait for the media."
Las Vegas news outlets routinely monitored Metro police frequencies. He wanted TV cameras on-site to capture Checkmate's next extravaganza, ensuring even the most jaded Las Vegas corruptocrats and power brokers couldn't ignore Operation Gold Shield's dramatic message.
* *
Addressing several TV cameras and reporters, Captain Mikey Greel pointed at a red Mazda Miata corralled by yellow crime-scene tape. It's driver-side door was open.
"The suspect retrieved a firearm from his vehicle, then started waving it around," Greel explained. "He was acting extremely erratic. Probably inebriated or under the influence of drugs. When officers arrived, he refused to drop the weapon and fired a single round at one of our brave men. Fortunately, he missed, but the officers had no choice but to return fire. He died en route to the University Medical Center."
Which was nonsense. A bullet had ripped through Taseer's heart. The young Afghan was dead, before he hit the asphalt.
Then his body was whisked away, per standard Metro protocol: Claim signs of life are detected, and toss the corpse into an ambulance.
A previous Metro sheriff had implemented the practice long ago, ensuring cops had time to "adjust" the crime scene, before Homicide and the media arrived.
"Have an ID on the deceased, captain?" a young woman asked, pointing a handheld microphone at Greel.
"Yes. The suspect was Mr. Hajji Taseer, an undercover security officer for Ho's… "
"The dude who made the nine-one-one call about Erik Steele?" another reporter interrupted.
"That's correct. Mr. Taseer was, indeed, the security official who made that call, after observing Steele's behavior."
"Why would Taseer be waving a gun and acting crazy?" the female reporter pressed.
Greel hesitated, struggling to formulate an answer. His fatigued, addled mind wandered, refusing to focus and process.
Normally, he would have deflected an invitation to speculate. Tonight, though, after days of racing from one extraordinary death scene to another—and after witnessing Antone Galocci literally melt before his eyes—a shaken Mikey Greel abandoned caution.
"I don't know. However, you have to wonder whether Mr. Taseer was so distraught by his role in the Erik Steele misfortune that… . Maybe he couldn't handle the stress any longer."
"Suicide-by-cop?" the reporter asked, incredulous.
"Maybe. The Steele situation was very upsetting to those involved, including our heroic police officers. You'll recall that they had no choice but to shoot the suspect, before he harmed innocent bystanders."
The weak re-justification elicited skeptical glances among the newsies.
"Captain, Erik's father recently appeared on the Bill O'Reilly TV show, disputing your Homicide team's investigation into his son's murder. He's also written several scathing blog entries that make a compelling case… ."
A low-pitched, extremely loud, intense rumble drowned out the reporter's question. Every head turned toward Ho's warehouse store. The entire building was in motion, visibly shaking violently, sending palpable reverberations across the parking lot.
"Earthquake!" a reporter shouted.
"That's no damned earthquake," a long-haired camera operator growled, aiming his lens at the building and zooming tighter.
The lighted "Ho's" sign sputtered and crashed to the pavement, trailing a shower of sparks, cinder blocks and rock facing. The low-frequency thunder grew louder, accented by sharp cracks and booming crashes, as mortar failed and chunks of wall dislodged, wavered, then tumbled and disintegrated. Massive clouds of cement dust billowed into the night sky.
Metallic screeches created a deafening chorus, as gargantuan steel I-beams twisted and buckled. The roof folded and dropped, crushing a million-dollar inventory and spawning a dust cloud that rolled toward Greel and the TV crews.
"Run!" the panicked female reporter yelled. The grizzled operator ignored her and concentrated on widening the camera's field of view, until the full scene of roiling dirt and destruction filled his viewfinder.
Mikey Greel was rooted in place, mouth hanging open. He had heard a similar din, in Antone Galocci's office, right before the massive wall of glass had disintegrated. That warbling cacophony meant Ho's was under attack.
"Get out of here!" Greel shouted, as hell mushroomed before him. Even larger explosions might be imminent.
It was over in minutes. The entire building was reduced to rubble, twisted steel and a cloud of thick, gray dust. A high-voltage power cable, snapped by falling beams, sprayed molten wire into the wreckage. Those sparks, plus a cloud of fine cement powder, combined to trigger a moderate detonation. In turn, that ignited a mountain of cardboard packaging, clothing and alcohol-rich cosmetics.
Flames and mini-explosions quickly swept the remnants of Ho's cavernous warehouse. Fire licked through the ruins, fueled by ubiquitous flammables. Hundred-foot-long tongues of flame fed by broken natural gas lines roared from gaping holes dotting the debris.
* *
While the Ho's inferno raged, the late Hajji Taseer's apartment was being searched. Rico Rodolfo swept his LED Maglite XL50 across a sparsely furnished living room, until he found a DVD collection. He stuck the compact flashlight in his mouth and flicked through the box of disks, looking for one without a plastic jewel case.
Gotcha! he grinned, pulling an unlabeled DVD/CD envelope from the stack. He removed the silver disk and flipped it over. Scrawled in black marker was a date: 7-10-10.
As Bishop had suspected, the smarmy little Ho's undercover security guard had, indeed, made a second copy of the surveillance video for himself, before the original hard disk was "damaged."
Rodolfo pocketed the disk and stepped outside, locking the apartment door. Laughter and loud music from a party upstairs obliterated any noise he might have made. Peeling off and pocketing a pair of latex gloves, he skirted the party crowd, strolled to the apartment's parking zone and climbed into his Tacoma.
Breaking and entering wasn't in the Checkmate-operative's job description, but Rodolfo had bet on Hajji Taseer's sloppy arrogance. Fortunately, the agent's hunch had paid off. The stupid Afghan-American had failed to protect incontrovertible evidence that Comet had been murdered.
In Win Steele's hands, that disk's video data would become the core of a film documentary that was guaranteed to destroy Ho's, Las Vegas Metro and, possibly, the entire Las Vegas Cartel of Corruption.
* *
Gray Manor, the Gremlin flight crew and a Lawhead Corporation executive stared in awe at the pilot's and sensor operator's displays. Nobody spoke. A whisper of equipment cooling fans was the room's solitary sound.
"Secure Temblor and bring the bird home. Spectacular mission, guys," Manor said softly. "Damn fine job."
The Checkmate director was astonished by the sight of a huge, flat-topped building being destroyed in seconds. A line from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita popped into his head:
I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.
By some accounts, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who'd headed the Manhattan Project, uttered that same phrase, while observing the first nuclear weapon test in 1945. An audio-frequency resonance weapon hardly compared to an A-bomb, but for sheer destructive power, Temblor was certainly awe inspiring.
A vague unease that had dogged Manor for days, since launching Gold Shield, settled into his foreground of consciousness. Ordering troops into combat, knowing many would die to secure an objective, had kindled similar dark emotions.
But this new domestic counterterrorism campaign aroused something more profound, a soul-deep cocktail of wonder and dread. It emanated from the power and mystery of ultra-classified, high-tech weapons unleashing forces that only an anointed few could envision, harness and control.
And the most formidable was yet to play Las Vegas.
* *
Mikey Greel hovered near an electronic technician's elbow, watching the expert carefully disassemble a 1911-style .45-caliber semiautomatic. A Homicide team had retrieved it from Hajji Taseer's fist without incident.
"It's fairly old, and the serial number's been ground off," the portly tech explained. "It's highly modified, too. A batch of electronics are crammed into this grip, where a magazine normally goes.
"I haven't figured out the technology, but a few measurements confirmed it's a sophisticated high-voltage power pack. When the system's activated, thousands of volts are conducted directly to the handgrip."
"And that hurts," Greel grunted.
"Damned right it hurts! High-voltage shock forces muscles and tendons to contract—to tighten up. That's why the victim couldn't let go. His fingers were practically welded to the gun."
"But, if a power pack filled the magazine, how'd the guy fire off a round?"
"Probably had one in the chamber and the hammer back, when the victim picked up the piece."
"So, when his fingers contracted, he pulled the trigger," Greel said.
The technician turned and eyed Greel from under droopy eyelids. Dark eyes were bloodshot, testimony to being rousted from bed after midnight.
"Nope. The trigger's locked. This was activated remotely. Probably shut off the same way, after your guys hosed the perp."
Greel held the man's unblinking stare.
"Whoever activated the battery pack was close enough to watch the suspect, then turn it off?"
"Looks that way. Judging from the sophistication of this system, I'd say the watcher wasn't any off-the-street schmo, either. This is no-shit James Bond crap."
* *
Greel left the lab, took an elevator to the ground floor and exited Metro headquarters. Never had he been so unnerved, confused and frightened. Every person in Clark County directly associated with the Erik Steele shooting was either dead or a vegetable. Everybody, that is, except Sheriff Uriah and good ol' Vader Greel. And Vader was dying.
Greel was trembling, when he slid into his unmarked cruiser. He sat in the darkened interior for some time, trying to make sense of the most bizarre week of his life.
How could old man Steele kill a bunch of cops and district attorneys, Antone Galocci and that Taseer kid, then destroy a massive warehouse store? And do it from Colorado?
If there is a God, he's on Steele's side. Judgment Day is nigh, the Metro captain mused.
I'm already dead.