James Lilliefors - Viral

“Really?” Jon smiled, thinking of his father complaining about the “irresponsible” media.

“He didn’t let on, but yes.”

And then he told him the rest: The details about what had happened in Mungaza and in Kampala. How Gardner and Pine had created Priest. How Priest had hired Ivan Vogel and tendered the deals in Mancala. How Gardner had brought in Russell Ott to set up their surveillance operation and Ott had hired Gus Hebron, using a middleman named Douglas Chase. How Pine was supposed to ride off to another life after October 5, so that Gardner and his group could move in.

Jon absorbed the details, working the story’s architecture in his head.

“Why did they let you get away? In Kampala?”

“I think because Gardner wanted to see who I would contact. Where I would go. It was simply a means of gathering information. Knowing the enemy. And he was able to do all that from afar, with other people doing the dirty work. Primarily Landon Pine.”

“Who did you contact?”

Charlie shook his head and smiled. “In retrospect, they probably should have killed me when they took out Paul Bahdru. That’s when I realized this wasn’t a well-coordinated organization, just a well-funded one. I didn’t know it was one man playing video games with the world’s future. But that’s when I understood that they could be brought down. I took care of Paul’s remains first. And then I returned home.

“Once they realized they had made a mistake, they followed you, thinking you would lead them to me.”

He took a long drink and set the empty bottle on the writing desk.

“How did you get me into Sundiata?” Jon asked.

“Trent.”

“Tom Trent. He was with you.”

“He came to me. Long before the government did. He had business in Sundiata. That’s how it started. I should have listened to him more. That was another mistake I made.”

“So what’s going to happen now?”

“Write the story, okay? Chaplin will stay with you, provide twenty-four-hour security. I suspect there will be a Justice Department probe into Perry Gardner very soon, and a congressional investigation. Start by writing about the investors, the Champion Funds, and what their money was paying for. Write about the fact that two billion dollars of investors’ money has gone missing. Call me, through Chaplin, whenever you need to ask a question. Okay?”

Charles Mallory was standing now, already somewhere else, it seemed. Extending his hand.

But before he reached the door, Charlie turned and looked at his brother.

“You know, I just want to say: I admire you, Jonny, okay? I wish I could live the way you have. Not needing to look over your shoulder all the time.” Jon thought he heard a quiver in his brother’s voice. But then he wasn’t sure. “Anyway—”

Chaplin was back in the room, the gun in his left hand. Charlie spoke to him in a low voice. Then Chaplin opened the door, looked into the hallway.

“Wait,” Jon said, remembering something. Charlie turned. “I wanted to ask one other thing.”

“All right.”

“What do the initials of your company stand for? D.M.A. Associates?”

Charlie Mallory shrugged and then frowned, as if he hadn’t thought of it before. “Doesn’t mean anything,” he said. He winked just before turning to go.

MEHMET HASSAN PARKED his rented Ford Explorer on the crushed shell drive in front of Room 7 at the Sea Breeze Motel. Eight miles down the road, his partner was sitting in another motel room, studying aerial surveillance maps on his laptop computer. Waiting for the word from his boss.

Hassan had been mentally preparing for this assignment for several days, in the way that he normally did: Focusing. Visualizing. Avoiding all distractions. Every thought furthering the ultimate objective.

But he had really been preparing longer than that. Ever since the moment he had received the message that Ahmed had been killed in the south of France.

The Administrator was paying Mehmet Hassan more for this assignment than he had for any of the others. But it wasn’t the money that motivated him. This time, it was personal. The Administrator insisted this be a two-man operation, and that Mehmet use computer surveillance. Not necessary, but it would make the job easier. The Administrator wanted to make certain this mission succeeded. Quickly. And it would.

Mehmet Hassan logged on to his laptop computer and accessed the F-2 network to check for new transmissions. Yes . The subject had driven across the Chesapeake Bay in a rented Jeep Wrangler, then taken it to a house in the woods not more than three miles from where Mehmet Hassan was sitting. The subject had arrived.

“The Butcher” already had a plan for afterward, although he wouldn’t think about it again until the operation was complete. Three deliveries: A part of the leg with the tattoo would be sent by Federal Express in a florist box to Angelina Moore, the attorney general, at her residence in Falls Church, Virginia. The head, minus the eyes, would be gift-wrapped and sent to his brother in Washington. The genitals and the eyes would be left on silk napkins in the desk drawer of a woman in Switzerland named Anna Vostrak.

CHARLES MALLORY CLICKED OPEN the lock of his rented Jeep Wrangler, got in, and turned the ignition. The gravel drive wound through thick birch and pine woods for nearly half a mile, then came to a two-lane blacktop road that took him to the highway.

He drove another seven and three-quarter miles to the Bay Woods shopping plaza. Parked in the lot. It was a typical suburban strip shopping center, with a CVS, liquor store, sundries shop, dry cleaners, and Subway, anchored by a Food Lion grocery store. He walked slowly across the lot to the ATM by the grocery.

MEHMET HASSAN WATCHED his laptop monitor in Room 7 of the Sea Breeze Motel: New images of Charles Mallory, provided through the Administrator’s network. Mallory walking up a path in the woods, the morning light dappled through the bare trees. Then another: parking the Jeep, getting out, walking toward a Food Lion grocery store. And then a digital video of him, standing in front of an ATM, inserting his card, waiting, pressing in the digits of his PIN. Hassan stopped it and clicked the image enlarger, saw the close-cropped hair, the angular face. Then he clicked the location scanner, calling up the coordinates. It was here, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Less than two miles from the motel. The time: fourteen minutes ago.

Hassan waited for the follow-ups. Every minute, a new transmission. The satellite cameras followed the Jeep as Mallory traveled east along the highway, and then turned right onto a two-lane road. Through forestland back to the cottage, where it stopped. A man emerged. A face and a gait that he knew now. That he had memorized. He returned to the location scanner and called up a map, requesting the most direct route to Charles Mallory’s current location.

CHIDI OKORO HAD rigged the property three weeks earlier with dozens of infrared motion sensors cued to a computerized monitoring module set up against a wall in the living room. When one of the quarter-sized sensors was activated—detecting the radiation of human body heat in the air—a high-pitched alarm would chirp inside the cabin, and Charles Mallory would be able to see on his computer monitor just where the breach had occurred. When he needed to sleep, he would attach a decelerator unit to his arm, with low-wattage electrodes held in place by Velcro strips. The electrodes would give him a mild electric jolt, waking him if one of the sensors was tripped.

Charlie had decided that he was going to stay in the cabin until Il Macellaio came to him. The same strategy he had used with the Butcher’s cousin in France. For the next few hours, or days, or whatever was required, he would keep his mind focused on two things: staying alert and anticipating his prey. This was his final game.