“There’s a rest area off the highway about a half-mile that way.” Hodges pointed. “Should only take us ten minutes to walk.”
“What do we need a rest area for?” Schweitzer asked.
Hodges quirked a smile. “To rest.”
Schweitzer turned his leering skull face toward Hodges. “Do I look like the kind of guy who appreciates a good joke?”
Hodges shrugged. “Thought maybe all that being dead might lighten you up.”
Schweitzer said nothing.
Hodges sighed. “Look, Jim. I need to do a few things before I can help you. The first is getting us out of here quietly. The second is making contact with some people. Please help me to do that. If we’re going to work together, then let’s start the work. Otherwise, get rid of me, or kill me, or do whatever the hell it is you plan to do.”
Schweitzer paused, considering, then finally reached out for Hodges’ waist. The Senator spun away from him, but even down an arm, Schweitzer was more than twice as fast, and within a moment, he had Hodges bundled back over his shoulder. “Where are we going?”
Hodges sighed, head dangling almost level with the gray skin of Schweitzer’s ass. “There.” He pointed.
Schweitzer leapt, and Hodges tensed as they sailed up and into the darkness. “Why take ten minutes,” Schweitzer said, “when you can take five?”
They thudded down, Schweitzer crouching not to absorb the impact to himself, but to take some of the pressure off his cargo. A long, grassy rise ended at a giant disk of light centered around a trio of gas pumps jutting up from a stretch of broken asphalt. There was a single car idling near the stub of a building.
“Why are we here?” Schweitzer asked as he eased the Senator to the ground.
“Pay phone.”
“They still make those?”
“It’s the only one left in the state. I pulled some strings to make sure it was kept in place. There’s a little old lady that lives nearby, refused to get a smartphone. Best human-interest story of my career.”
“Why don’t you have a smartphone?”
“I do,” Hodges said. “It’s back in my office. You want to head back over there to pick it up? Maybe you can talk your way through the police cordon.”
“What if someone recognizes you?” Schweitzer asked.
Hodges was already stripping off his suit jacket and unknotting his tie. “So much of what people see is expectations and context. In a suit, I’m a Senator. In my undershirt and slacks? I’m just another white guy who got drunk, yelled at his wife, and got thrown out of the house.” He started up the hill.
Schweitzer caught his elbow. “Hodges . . .”
The Senator shook off his hand. “Jim, this isn’t my first rodeo. You have to trust me.”
Schweitzer let him go, and in moments, Hodges had entered the circle of light, leaning casually on one of the giant poles supporting the overhead lights, grabbing the receiver, his back turned from the small building and its giant glass window. If the clerk inside noticed him, they gave no sign.
Hodges punched a number into the stainless steel face, then returned to his slouch, phone cradled between his neck and shoulder. He spoke softly, his breathing smooth and even. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Training. Schweitzer recognized a professional when he saw one.
Schweitzer dialed his hearing down through the lower frequencies, filtering out the hiss of the wind and the rasp of the waving grass, to focus in on Hodges’ soft voice. The Senator didn’t stay long on the phone. Schweitzer only had time to catch the final words before Hodges hung up and trotted out of the light and back down to where Schweitzer awaited him. “. . . four one four zero three three. I say again, four one four zero three three. Sunoco on Garage and South Fourteenth Street. Immediate.”
Hodges reached Schweitzer’s side, his face lit. His breath was coming fast, from excitement, not exertion.
“What the hell was that?” Schweitzer asked.
“A little code I use with my staff for emergencies. You never know who’s listening.”
“That’s secret-squirrel even for me.”
“I worked at the CIA. I chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. You learn a thing or two about tradecraft.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We wait.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes, a small green sedan pulled onto the asphalt just outside the circle thrown by the sodium lights over the gas pumps. The driver got out, went around to the back of the vehicle, deep in the shadows. It was too dark to see anything but the driver’s vague shape—male, pudgy, and balding—but Schweitzer’s augmented eyes could see him as clearly as if it were a bright day. He was unzipping his pants, groaning loudly, making a great show of pissing in the bushes, without the actual pissing.
Hodges was already up and moving toward him, and Schweitzer followed until the Senator turned to him. “Stay here.”
“What are you . . .”
“Jim, we’ve come this far. I’m not just going to ditch you. I wouldn’t destroy you and there’s nothing to be gained by leaving you. Just trust me. That’s one of my people.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Jim, you’ll scare him half to death. Stay here.”
If you’re going to trust him, then you’re going to trust him. If Hodges was planning to spring a trap, he was going to need more than this dumpy guy in khakis and a polo and a car too small to carry anything threatening.
Hodges emerged and the man gave up the pretense of urinating. Schweitzer dialed his hearing back in to listen. “Sir, how’s it going?”
Hodges ignored him and went around to the vehicle’s trunk. “Pop it, Noah.”
The man used the remote to comply, and Hodges began to rummage inside, emerging a moment later with a suit on a hanger and a hooded sweatshirt. He turned toward Schweitzer, then spun back to Noah. “Do you have your lucky hat?”
“I always have my lucky hat, sir. You know that.”
“Give it to me.”
“Sir?”
“Give it to me.”
“Sir, it’s my lucky hat.” Steel came into Noah’s voice.
“Do I look like I’m joking here, Noah?” Hodges matched it.
Noah sputtered, gestured, caved. A moment later, he was reaching across the driver’s seat, then handed Hodges a dirty white ball cap, the brim so curved it was practically a threadbare tube.
“Thank you. Now get in the car, and don’t turn around no matter what you do.” Hodges took the cap and raced back to Schweitzer, tossing the pile of clothing at his feet.
“Put it on.”
“A suit?”
“It’s my spare. I always keep one in the trunk of the campaign car. Hoodie too, in case I need to hide my identity. The cap will hold the hood out further, create a shadow. Keep your head down so he can’t see your eyes.”
Schweitzer began tugging on the suit. “This isn’t going to work.”
“With anyone else, I’d agree, but Noah’s one of my people. He’s been paid to not ask questions for over fifteen years now. He’ll keep his mouth shut long enough to get us where we need to go.”
“And where is that?”
“Washington.”
“The state?”
“The capital. You wanted someone who can help us; that’s where she is.”
Schweitzer forced one of his thick thighs into the trouser leg, felt the fabric strain. “This is too small.”
“So, rip a seam. It doesn’t have to look good, just cover you.”
“Si . . .” Schweitzer stopped himself. He wasn’t a living man anymore; he didn’t owe a Senator, particularly not this Senator, any particular deference. Yet the old habit was still comforting. It means there’s still something of the human left in you, something of the man you used to be. “If he’s one of your people, can’t I just go up there and you can tell him to shut up?”
Hodges rolled his eyes. “Jim. Have you looked in a mirror lately? He may be one of my guys, but he’s still a guy. He’s not going to understand . . . this.” Hodges indicated Schweitzer with a sweep of his arm. “People need comfortable lies, Jim. He’ll know there’s something wrong, but so long as it isn’t staring him in the face, he’ll take what I give him. Now get dressed. I’ll give you a wave when everything’s ready.”
Hodges sprinted back to the car as Schweitzer finished struggling into the suit. He did wind up splitting seams in the trousers, on the back of the thighs and through the crotch, but nothing that would be obvious once he was sitting in the car. His missing arm made the shirt and jacket a challenge to get on, but it also meant there was plenty of room. The hat barely fit on his broad skull, so misshapen and notched from the punishment it had endured over the past few days that he might as well have been trying to put it on a cauliflower. He wrapped the hoodie on over the rest, making sure the fabric was draped far out over the cap’s brim, leaving his face in shadow.
Schweitzer’s augmented hearing could make out Hodges speaking to Noah as clearly as if they were standing right next to him. “Keep your eyes front,” Hodges said.
He could hear the creaking of the leather seat as Noah began to turn to look at his boss and checked himself. “Sure thing, but can you please explain to me what the hell is going on?”
“Someone is going to be joining us,” Hodges said as he stuck his hand out the open window and waved. Schweitzer jogged up the hill, smoothly opened the backseat door, and slid in. Noah started and began to turn toward him, but Hodges stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I am very concerned about my guest’s privacy, Noah,” Hodges said, a warning in his voice. “How long have you worked for me?”
“Fifteen years, sir. Give or take.” Noah’s voice told Schweitzer that his mouth was dry, and Schweitzer could smell the terror in the chemical makeup in his blood.
Hodges’ voice went gentle. “Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”
“No, sir,” Noah answered without hesitation. “Not once.”
“Then trust me now. Eyes front, and drive.”
“Where are we going?”
“The airport. We’re flying to DC.”
Noah began punching up the dashboard phone. “Sir, if you’d just told me, I would have called . . .”
“I’ll call Justine.” Hodges was already raising his phone to his ear. A moment later, Schweitzer heard the click of the connection. “Justine, it’s Don. How soon can you have Eric on the flight line? Any copilot is fine. We’re heading there now.”
Schweitzer focused his hearing on Noah, ready to spring if the man stopped the car, or turned around, or risked a glance in the rearview mirror. It meant he couldn’t hear the other side of the Senator’s conversation, but he figured the greater danger was in the front seat.
“That’s fine,” Hodges went on. “We’re heading there right now. Oh, one more thing? Just the pilots. No crew. And, Justine? No crew means no questions. We’ll take care of ourselves on and off the plane. Just have the pilots close the cockpit door and keep it closed until we’re off. Yes. Yes, that’s right. I know you do. Justine, the last thing I want is to do interviews right now. The press are going to go nuts as it is, and I don’t want people knowing there was an attempt on my life. It’s going to be a nightmare if folks know it was my office. I want out of town until the press on this dies down. What? I don’t know. Say I was already there. There the whole time. Then say I was in the air. Just say they were going after another target that happened to be in the building. Okay, do that. I will. Thanks. Bye.”
The car had pulled off the road and onto the busier street, and Schweitzer sank down into his seat. In a few minutes, Noah pulled off onto a dark access road, and Schweitzer could make out the airport’s control tower in the distance. Noah drove in silence, navigating them through a switchback that took them off the deserted road and onto an even narrower two-lane bit of cracked blacktop that ended at a low metal gate beside a guard shack. Even in the darkness, Schweitzer could read the sign: RESTRICTED—AIR OPERATIONS AREA. ONLY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL DISPLAYING VALID SECURITY BADGES ARE ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT. OFFENDERS SUBJECT TO ARREST AND PROSECUTION.
A guard seated in the shack snoozed by the light of a computer screen and started awake as Noah waved a badge in front of a reader and the gate rolled back. Schweitzer could hear the low whine of jet engines sucking down air as they spun up.
The car pulled inside, the gate rolling slowly closed behind them, and at last came to a stop fifty feet from a small jet. Schweitzer recognized it, a C-37, a twelve-passenger shuttle popular with government and business executives. Back when he’d still drawn breath, he’d sat on board one of these planes in plain clothes, looking for all the world like a businessman instead of a SEAL, bound for Bogota and the kind of mission where uniforms were frowned upon.
A red-haired woman, looking young enough to be Hodges’ daughter, stood waiting to greet them in sweatpants and a hoodie that matched Schweitzer’s own, her face still puffy from sleep.
Noah rolled down the window and Schweitzer lowered his chin toward his neck, shrinking deeper into the shadows. “They’re getting prepped now,” the woman said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” Hodges said. “I am flying to DC to be out of here before the press storm breaks. You are going back to bed once we’re in the air.”
The woman snorted. “Fat chance of that. We’ll have to make a statement tomorrow morning. Explain all this.”
“This is why I pay you the big bucks, Justine. You figure out a way to explain this. I’ll figure out how to save the nation from ruin.”
Schweitzer could hear the muscles in her face stretch into a smile. “Who’s this?” Schweitzer belatedly reminded himself to move the muscles in his chest, simulate the rising and falling motion of a living, breathing man.
“This”—Hodges’ voice was a warning—“is someone who’s accompanying me to DC.”
“He won’t even let me look at him,” said Noah. “Don’t bother.”
“Sir,” Justine began, “if you’re in some kind of trouble, I’d appreciate a heads-up, because this is the kind of shit that can—”
“I am in some kind of trouble,” Hodges said, “but it’s not the kind you can help me with. We’re going straight to Langley once we touch down.”
Justine paused. “Sir, are you sure that—”
Hodges cut her off again. “Justine, have I ever, in all the years we’ve worked together, asked you to keep your mouth shut and let me handle something?”
Now Schweitzer could hear her jaw working. “Is this the first time, sir?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Justine sighed. “So, just let you get on the plane and figure it out from there.”
“You are the most resourceful person I have ever met.” Hodges’ voice was genuine. “The only reason I’m not working for you is because you don’t want it as badly as I do.”
Justine was silent, and for a moment, Schweitzer had a creeping sensation that she would snake a hand out and snatch back his hood, but she only sighed and drummed her fingertips on the window. “Have a safe flight, sir.”
Schweitzer let his head rise a fraction of an inch, just enough to make out Hodges’ warm smile. The man had a politician’s gift for seeming like he actually gave a damn. “I’ll be watching the news for your statement.”
Justine wheeled and walked toward the low metal Quonset hut that was the flight line’s only structure, and Hodges leaned forward and put a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Thanks, Noah. Just drive straight home and get some sleep.”
“I don’t like this, sir,” Noah said.
“You work in politics.” Hodges clapped him on the shoulder. “Who said anything about liking it?”
He stepped out of the car, shut the door lightly behind him, and beckoned for Schweitzer to follow. Schweitzer did, single hand thrust into the suit’s pants pocket, head down so low that he navigated by following the sound of Hodges’ footsteps.
The Senator’s instructions had been followed to the letter. The airplane cabin was empty, the cockpit door sealed. The interior was much as Schweitzer expected. Deep-cushioned reclining leather chairs circled a wooden table polished so brightly it shone. It was set with a service that was probably worth more than a car, and divided by a long groove that Schweitzer knew concealed a video monitor. The money on display was staggering and what Schweitzer had come to expect from the ostentation taxpayers afforded America’s ruling class.
Hodges ignored it all, heading straight to the cockpit door and shouting through it. “I’m on board. Go ahead and get us to Reagan. Stay in the cockpit until you know we’ve deplaned, then head on home.”
The pilot answered over the aircraft PA. “Got it, sir. We’ll be on the ground at Reagan in two hours and twenty minutes.”
Hodges turned to Schweitzer and held a finger to his lips, then settled himself at the head of the table and began punching buttons on a desktop phone. Schweitzer stood, unaffected as the plane began to taxi, his balance so perfect that he may as well have been a statue, and Hodges paused in his dialing to gesture Schweitzer into a chair. Schweitzer stared at him, and he shrugged. “You’re making me nervous.”
Schweitzer took a seat as the plane tipped skyward and the phone call went through. The voice on the other end sounded tired. “NCS Watch.”
The National Clandestine Service. Hodges was calling the CIA.
“Senator Don Hodges, blue blue one one niner white.”
“Standby. I confirm you at blue blue one one niner white. Go ahead, sir.”
“SAD Watchfloor, please.”
The CIA’s Special Activities Division was its paramilitary branch. Many of Schweitzer’s brothers in the teams went to work for SAD when they got out of the navy.
There was a buzzing click and another bored voice answered. “Watch.”
“Senator Don Hodges. I need you to connect me with the boss, please.”
A momentary pause and intake of breath as the watchstander registered the request and verified the identity of the caller passed from the main switchboard.
“I’d say you’d be waking her up if she ever slept, sir, but either way, she’ll be ornery getting a call this late.”
“Don’t I know it. Put me through.”
Another buzzing click, and then steady beeping as the call connected.
The voice that answered was alert but clearly shrugging off the traces of sleep. There was the slightest hint of an accent that Schweitzer immediately identified as Persian. “Don, praise God. I’ve been watching what happened in Des Moines.”
“I’m fine.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m on the ground. We’re coming into Reagan. Can you have a driver meet me on the tarmac?”
“Of course. You want to go to the Hay-Adams?”
“No, I want to go to your office, and I want you to meet me there.”
“Jesus, Don. Can you give me anything?”
“Only that I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
If the urgency in his tone riled her, Schweitzer couldn’t hear it in her voice. “Okay. When do you land?”
“In about two hours. Come alone, and send me a driver who knows how to mind his own business.”
“Roger that,” she said. “This better be good.”
“It is the best thing ever,” Hodges said. “See you in two hours.”
He broke the connection and steepled his fingers, looking at Schweitzer over the top of them. “That was—”
“The Director of the CIA’s Special Activities Division,” Schweitzer answered. “You remember I used to be a SEAL, right? SAD’s our retirement plan.”
Hodges looked pained and leaned forward, whispering, “Will you shut up? I don’t want the pilots to hear your voice.”
Schweitzer tuned his augmented hearing for a moment, listened to the sound waves attenuate as they traveled toward the cockpit door. “They can’t.”
Hodges hesitated. “You can tell? How?”
Schweitzer leaned forward, raising his chin until he could see the silver fires of his eyes reflected in Hodges’ own. “Magic.”
Hodges sighed. “Jala and I were at the Farm together. She’s good at keeping secrets.”
“What’s she going to do?”
“Jim, do you think I would pack you onto my personal aircraft and fly you to Washington, to a private meeting with the Director of SAD because I intended to betray you?”
Schweitzer remembered his wife’s words as they fled through the forest, the Gemini Cell hot on their heels. Her eyes had been hard to match her voice. She wasn’t frightened of him, even after what he’d become. No, Jim. We are in this together. If you want to help me, that’s fine. I accept your help, but I won’t accept a leash and I don’t report to you. We’re not going anywhere until we come up with a plan.
Oh, God, Sarah, Schweitzer thought. I miss you.
Schweitzer wrestled with a sudden surge of loneliness. He wanted someone he could trust, someone he knew. Pete or Steve. His brother or his brother.
“No,” Schweitzer said, “but that doesn’t mean this is a good plan. I don’t work for you, Hodges. You need to keep me in the loop.”
“Jim, you have to understand that some secrets can be kept too well. Spies make their livings not trusting people. She’s going to have to see you to believe you.”
“And then she’ll help us shut the Cell down? After seeing me?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then we’re probably screwed, but then again, with the Cell gunning for both of us, we were probably screwed anyway, right?” He patted the overstuffed armrest. “Try to enjoy the flight, Jim. I waved off a flight attendant, but you can help yourself to . . .” He began to gesture to a mini-fridge built into the bulkhead, then glanced at Schweitzer’s dead face. The words died. “Oh . . . sorry.”
Schweitzer didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed his consciousness outward, reaching for Sarah, for some hint of her lingering in the void beyond. He was getting better at navigating it with practice, feeling the boundaries between the world he occupied and the one that awaited him when his physical body was destroyed.
But no matter how good he was, he wasn’t good enough to catch more than the maddening scent of Sarah’s rosewater perfume, the trail that he’d once tried to follow and found led nowhere. He remembered watching her bathe herself in the stream, her healthy body beyond him, his cold arms unable to hold her. He remembered her telling him to leave, to bring the Cell down. Save my son, you sonofabitch! What the hell is wrong with you? My son, not our son.
He had lost so many close to him, and as far as he understood, all of them would be here. His best friend, Steve; his brother, Peter; his mother. Steve had been like kin to him, but even if he’d thought Schweitzer was dead, he’d still slept with his wife, and for that reason, Schweitzer had no wish to speak with him, though he missed him so badly, it hurt.
Peter was another matter. Schweitzer remembered his brother’s strong jaw, his hard eyes. He’d blazed the trail into the SEALs that Schweitzer had followed, and the day Peter had pinned the trident on him and punched it into his chest had been one of the greatest in his life. Proud of you, bro.
He thought briefly of reaching for Peter, but as close as he was with him, he had no trail to follow. At least with Sarah, there was the scent of her perfume. With Peter, there was only his memory and the churning chaos of the soul storm.
He swallowed the agony. Sarah had charged him with saving her son. That much he could do, and bringing down the Cell was the only way to do it.
It was pointless, but still he hovered in the void. Was the soul storm twisting her as it had Ninip? Was she half-mad now? Ravenous with the red hunger that drove the Golds? He turned his thoughts to the last time they’d made love, to the light making her a thing of hammered silver. There had been life and there had been love, and they were all he wanted now.
• • •
They landed at a smaller airstrip beside the commercial airport, running past a giant Coast Guard airplane hangar with an unlimbered F-16 parked outside. An armored sedan crouched so close to where the airplane taxied to a stop that the unfolding staircase almost hit the driver’s door. The windows were tinted too dark for normal eyes to penetrate, but Schweitzer could make out a driver and passenger, both in body armor, with pistols gently lifting their jacket seams. Hodges arrowed straight for the back as if it were his family car, and Schweitzer followed his lead.
He’d only been to CIA headquarters twice, but he remembered the trips clearly, the long ride up the George Washington Memorial Parkway through the wooded backyards of McLean, the houses of America’s aristocracy standing sentinel over the hub of the nation’s secrets. He’d always felt a faint pang of jealousy at the wealth, but a part of him had thought it would be his someday, after retirement and a lucrative career in defense contracting, the usual path for a SEAL. Now he was jealous again, but for the trappings of family that whirred past. A child’s plastic tricycle lying on its side; a patio table and chairs under an umbrella, set with plastic flatware for four.
The CIA’s off-ramp was marked by a brown and white sign, and the exit delivered them up to a checkpoint, where the guard waved them through after a glance at the driver’s badge. They’d insisted on checking every passenger’s ID the last time Schweitzer had been there, but clearly the Director of SAD had more pull.
The car wound its way up through a parking lot several times the size of a football field, nearly empty at this late hour. At last it rolled to a stop, the driver and passenger getting out and walking up a narrow concrete path without so much as a backward glance. They were G-men down to their thin ties and cheap suits, so stereotypical that Schweitzer felt his flat line of a mouth attempt to twist into a smile. Hodges and Schweitzer followed their escorts along the path, past the building’s entrance and around the side. Schweitzer shot Hodges a questioning glance, but the Senator only walked confidently on.
A moment later, their destination became clear: the broad geodesic dome of the CIA’s outdoor auditorium, silent and dark save for the soft glow of running lights tracing the sides of the stone steps.
Beside it stood a bronze statue of a boy in a frock coat, his long hair tied in a queue, and his wrists bound with rope, a noose looped over his neck. NATHAN HALE, the plaque read. I ONLY REGRET THAT I HAVE BUT ONE LIFE TO GIVE FOR MY COUNTRY.
Schweitzer froze as the message hit home. He had more than one life to give for his country.
Hodges paused at his elbow, following Schweitzer’s gaze to the plaque. “He’d have been jealous of you, Jim.” He clapped Schweitzer on the shoulder and jogged through the auditorium’s entrance, between their escort, who had taken up guard positions to either side.
The auditorium was as vast as it was empty. Panels split the walls and ceiling into scatterings of triangles. Listening to the sound of his footsteps on the carpeted aisle, Schweitzer could tell those panels were designed to reflect sound within, ensuring that everyone in the giant chamber could hear every word, and that those outside could not. Like the exterior, it was lit only by the running lights along the aisles, casting a soft glow just powerful enough to show a woman among the rows of seats, hands resting on the back of one, waiting for them.
Her long black hair was loose around her strong shoulders, the lean muscle of her body visible even through the conservative cut of her suit. Her face was narrow, her eyes wide and expressionless. Sniper’s eyes, Schweitzer thought, looking for an angle of attack.
“Jala Ghaznavi,” Hodges said. “It’s good to see you.”
Where Hodges’ voice dripped with genuine pleasure, Ghaznavi’s response was flat. “It’s good to see you, too, Don. I’m glad to find you weren’t hurt.”
Hodges shrugged. “I’m not so easy to kill. We’ve worked together long enough for you to know that.”
“We’ve also worked together long enough for me to know that you’re slicker than goose shit, Don. You’re a politician, for the love of God.”
“I know I haven’t always shot straight with you, Jala, and I’m sorry for that. I promise you, I’ve got my hat in my hand this time.”
Ghaznavi looked irritated. She jerked her chin at Schweitzer. “Who’s this?”
“This is James Schweitzer.”
Ghaznavi looked thoughtful for a moment. “That name is familiar.”
“It should be. He’s the SEAL who was murdered in that hit in Hampton Roads.”
“That would make him dead, Hodges.”
“He is.”
“Necromancy makes robots out of corpses, Don. The only thing they’re good for is soaking up bullets and scaring the shit out of uncooperative assets.”
“This is different. Schweitzer is reanimated. He’s still Schweitzer, only superpowered.”
Ghaznavi sighed. “Don, for the love of our history together, please show me some damned respect. If this kind of magic existed, I’d know about it.”
“The program that created him was buried deep, Jala. Deeper than even you can dive.”
“Bullshit.”
Schweitzer was getting pretty tired of being talked about as if he wasn’t in the room. He raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as Hodges’ hand settled on his shoulder. “Have you heard of the Gemini Cell, Jala?”
“Rumors.” Ghaznavi crossed her arms. “That’s this super-secret project that gave us this walking corpse?”
“The same,” Hodges answered.
The Senator paused for dramatic effect, but Ghaznavi only cocked her head. “Is he missing an arm?”
“Doesn’t slow him down even a little.”
Ghaznavi pursed her lips and stepped out into the aisle. “So, this RUMINT on the Gemini Cell is true. A super-secret program dedicated to black magic. Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds, even to me?”
Hodges shrugged. “It’s real.”
“Now I know you’re fucking lying to me. Every rumor I’ve ever heard said the President ordered it shut down.”
“He did,” Hodges said, looking at his feet, his shoulders sagging.
The realization dawned on Schweitzer and Ghaznavi at the same moment. Schweitzer was able to keep the reaction off his face, but Ghaznavi snapped her fingers, her eyes widening.
“But you didn’t,” she said. “You kept it going. You kept it secret. Oh, my God, Don. You slick bastard. It was your program. Why the hell would you do that?”
Hodges turned his hands in lame circles. For the first time, his voice lacked the honeyed tones of the politician, and Schweitzer could hear the raw passion of the man. “Because the shutdown order was stupid. It was an overreaction to a security breach that resulted in no actual compromise. Because the Gemini Cell was the most powerful weapon this nation ever developed.”
Ghaznavi cocked an eyebrow. “More powerful than the nuke?”
“Magic is the new nuke,” Hodges said. “One we can use without destroying the whole fucking world.”
“So, why are you telling me this?” she asked.
Hodges looked at the floor for a long time, and Schweitzer could smell the terror and stress on him, could hear his heart pounding. “Because I was wrong. Because now it’s out of control.”
Ghaznavi laughed. “And you can’t go to the President, can you? You can’t do this out in the open. You disobeyed a direct order. He’d fry you, and so would the public. You want to save your own skin.”
“The Cell is a loose nuke, Jala. I want to save the country’s skin.”
“Oh, come on, Don. If you wanted to save the country’s skin, you’d hang yourself and drag this whole thing into the light. People don’t come to me because they want things done nobly. You asked for an audience with the Spider Queen, and you got one. Whatever you want done, you want it done on the down-low.”
“I want you to help me shut it down, Jala. It’s going to take an army, and SAD is the only army I know that can fight a war without anyone knowing. I have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s nice, Don. What’s in it for me?”
“Does there have to be something in it for you?” Hodges’ voice shook.
“You know damn well there does,” Ghaznavi answered, “and it better be fucking good. I was in the middle of dynamite TV when you called and ruined my night.”
“You can have it. Help me shut it down, and I’ll put the program at your disposal. All its secrets, all its capabilities. You can direct it. You can make it work for SAD. I still control the line items. Black funding sources, completely invisible. It’s a lot of money, Jala. It can buy a lot of toys.”
“You’re asking me to keep a secret from the President.” Ghaznavi came toward him.
“You keep secrets from him all the time,” Hodges answered. “You can do this in your sleep. I can choke off the money, make sure it comes to SAD. But someone has to do the wet work. Someone has to clean up this mess. I need your operators, Jala. I need your tanks and your planes and your guns. All of it.”
Ghaznavi clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her gaze finally shifting to Schweitzer. “So,” she sighed, “this mummy standing next to you is a walking corpse. That’s what I’m going to see when I have him unwrapped?”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Hodges said, sweeping his hand over Schweitzer’s hood and pushing it down. Ghaznavi stared straight into Schweitzer’s burning silver eyes. Her face betrayed no reaction, and he smelled no change in the chemical cocktail of her blood. He heard her heart rate increase slightly, but that was all.
She shrugged. “I’ve seen Necromantic toys before.”
“This isn’t a Necromantic toy.” Hodges’ frustration was palpable. “Look at his eyes, for Christ’s sake.”
She stared right into them, unimpressed. “Does it talk?”
Schweitzer had had enough. “I’m right here,” he said, “and I talk just fine.”
She sucked in her breath, her heart jumping, but outwardly, she showed nothing. “Maybe he’s some kind of advanced robot.”
“I’m not a robot,” Schweitzer said.
“That’s exactly what an advanced robot would say.” She smiled up at him, her face lit with curiosity and something that looked suspiciously like delight. Not fear. Not disgust. After all this time, it felt like an embrace.
“I’m not . . .” Schweitzer began.
“Shut up.” She grinned, reaching one perfectly manicured hand into her pocket and producing a small pocketknife. She snapped the blade out with a practiced flick of her wrist. She placed a hand on Schweitzer’s shoulder, the warm pulse of her pumping blood against the cold surface of his skin. He found himself leaning into the touch in spite of himself. A human being, alive and well and touching him, not to hurt him, just to touch him. It made him feel real.
She used the knife point to slide the hoodie’s zipper down a few inches, pop the button off the shirt beneath.
“I don’t heal,” Schweitzer said. “If you damage me, I’ll need . . .”
“Shut up,” she repeated, smiling like a sun in splendor now, digging a small furrow into Schweitzer’s gray flesh, following it with her fingertips, probing, feeling.
“Jala,” Hodges said. “This is ridiculous. You know I’m not lying.”
She sighed, her eyes never leaving the incision. “Do you want my help or not?”
Hodges put his hands on his hips and shook his head, and Schweitzer watched her work, reveling in the warmth of her hand and the child’s delight in her eyes.
After a moment, she closed the knife with a click. “Well, you’re not a robot.”
“I told you,” Schweitzer said.
“Shut up,” she said a third time, but at last she could not keep the awe off her face. “So, you’re really brought back from the dead. Not a zombie, not a walking corpse. A real . . . person.”
Schweitzer nodded, wishing he could grin back at her beyond the rictus parody he always wore. “If it’ll get you to stop cutting me, yes.”
She giggled. Schweitzer guessed she was in her late forties. She sounded like she was twelve. “My father told me that in heaven, we’d all live in hollowed-out pearls on saffron sands, shaded by golden trees. That true?”
Schweitzer shook his head, suppressing the pang of sadness as she withdrew her hand, taking the warmth of life with it. “No, ma’am. If your father was talking about heaven, then I wasn’t a good enough guy to get there.”
“Where’d you wind up?” she asked.
“I wasn’t there for long,” Schweitzer said, “but I’m pretty sure it was hell.”
Her smile vanished. “My dad called hell a ‘dark storm’.”
“That is . . . that is pretty much exactly right.”
Her pensiveness yielded to sympathy. “I’m sorry, Petty Officer Schweitzer. This must be . . . trying for you.”
Schweitzer said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Did you see God?” she asked.
Her sympathy shook him far more than her curiosity had. It was a moment before he could answer. It took everything he had to keep the emotion out of his voice as he replied. “I don’t know that there is a God, but if there is, he has a lot to answer for.”
She nodded. “Tell me how you came to be with my friend Donald Hodges.”
Hodges opened his mouth to speak and she raised a hand, her eyes never leaving Schweitzer’s. “Shut up, Don. I want to hear his side of it.”
Schweitzer told her. The only thing he omitted was the meeting with Eldredge and entrusting Patrick to his care. Until he was absolutely sure he could trust them, let them think his son was dead. Hodges tried to interrupt several times, Ghaznavi raising a hand and Schweitzer talking over him before he finally gave up.
“For a SEAL,” Hodges breathed, “you’re the least circumspect motherfucker I’ve ever met.”
The delight was back in Ghaznavi’s eyes. “So, you’re the Javelin Rain incident. It wasn’t a nuke. I was wondering why my Measures and Signals guys came up with nothing.”
“Yes,” Hodges said. He sounded defeated. “That’s right.”
“Okay,” she said, shaking her head. “Color me amazed, but I believe you. So, how bad is this?”
“It’s pretty bad,” Hodges said. “The Cell is completely rogue, and they’re here in the US.”
“Where?” Ghaznavi asked Schweitzer.
“Somewhere near Alexandria,” Schweitzer said. “I remember seeing the tower in Old Town when I got out.”
“They’re in Colchester,” Hodges said, “under a cover facility.”
“Non-official Cover?” she asked.
Hodges nodded. “A company called Entertech.”
“Entertech?” She grinned again. “You clever fucker. I can’t believe it.”
Hodges sighed. “I put a lot of work into this. It’s flawless.”
“Except for the rogue part.”
“We’re going to fix that, right?”
“I think so, yes,” she said, “but I’m going to need a lot more detail. We’re talking about an assault on a fixed position on American soil, just a few miles outside the capital. Do you have any idea how hard it will be to keep something like that dark?”
“You can do it.”
“I’m going to need everything you’ve got on the facility. Blueprints, personnel rosters, real estate plats for the property. Physical plant and durable-goods orders. Anything we can use.”
Hodges puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. “I don’t have any of that.”
Ghaznavi finally looked away from Schweitzer. “What?”
“I’ve got nothing.”
“How is that possible? You said this was your program.”
“I authorized funding and strategic direction. The actual ops were run by the program’s Director.”
“Who is dead,” Schweitzer added. “Like me.”
Hodges looked up sharply, met Schweitzer’s eyes, his face darkening. Schweitzer held his gaze. This couldn’t be about secrets now. It had to be about solving problems.
At last, Hodges looked away and nodded.
“Fuck,” Ghaznavi said. “That’s bad.”
“Yes,” Hodges sighed. “Yes, it is.”
“Didn’t you have anyone else on the inside?”
“My lead scientist, Dr. Eldredge. He bolted when he found out that the Director was dead. I have no idea where he is.”
Schweitzer had an idea, but he kept it to himself. To reveal Eldredge’s location was to reveal Patrick’s.
“Absolutely nothing? No lines on their comms? Ops frequencies? Perimeter patrol patterns?” Ghaznavi asked.
“I’ve got the layout of the cover facility, but that’s only the uppermost level. The real action is below it.”
“We’ll have to go in blind,” she said. “I don’t like it.”
“A secret underground facility in the middle of a highly populated area and likely defended by a small army of superpowered undead?” Hodges cocked an eyebow. “What’s not to like?”
“I’ll go with the team,” Schweitzer said.
Ghaznavi and Hodges both stared at him. Schweitzer shrugged. “I believe your exact words were that I wasn’t a ‘walking corpse.’ I was a ‘real . . . person.’ Like you.”
“Perfect memory is one of your magic superpowers?” she asked, smiling.
“Nope. Mom made me do drills in kindergarten, thought it’d help me get ahead in school.”
“Did it?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” Schweitzer said, “but it made arguments with my wife pretty heated.”
She laughed, but Schweitzer made sure his tone was anything but light. “My point is this: I’m a person, dead or alive. That means you don’t get to throw me around, no matter who the hell you are. I want in on the team, and you need me on it.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I can’t die,” Schweitzer said. “Because I can bend cold iron with the one hand left to me. Because I can put a bullet through a dime at three hundred yards. Because I can hear a pin drop through a wall. Because I can smell if someone is lying. Because I am the only person out of all of us who has spent significant time in the Gemini Cell facility.”
“You were a prisoner in the Gemini Cell facility,” Hodges said. “All you saw was the inside of a holding tank.”
“I said I could smell lies. I didn’t say I was any good at telling them.”
“Surely, you got some sense of the lay of the land,” Ghaznavi said. “Didn’t you move through the facility at all?”
Schweitzer nodded. “A bit, and I remember some of it.”
“But not enough to build a plan, damn it,” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of magic-powered supersoldier?”
“When they were handing out superpowers,” Schweitzer replied, “I took ‘run faster than a car.’ I didn’t have enough points left to get ‘mental maps.’ Anyway, I’ve been inside, which is more than I can say for either of you.”
“I’ve been inside,” Hodges said.
“You go, then,” Schweitzer said. “I’m sure the team will be well served by an aging mortal who hasn’t run an ass-in op in over twenty years.”
Hodges looked at his feet again. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“He is,” Ghaznavi said. “Okay, Jim. You’re on the team.”
“How fast can we get moving?” Hodges asked.
“Moving with a sense of urgency isn’t the same as rushing. We’ve got some work to do. And the first item of business,” she said, turning to Schweitzer, “is you.”