The Judas Strain - James Rollins [26]
“My car…my rules,” his father finished with a rumble of finality. “Now go, before she starts seeping through your mother’s bandages and messes up my new leather seats.”
Seichan groaned, stirring in pain and confused agitation. One arm lifted to her bandage, clawing. His father caught her fingers and lowered her hand. He kept hold of it, reassuring as much as restraining.
“Let’s go,” his father said.
The rare tenderness more than anything broke through his constraint.
Gray climbed into the driver’s seat. “Buckle in,” he said, knowing the sooner he got Seichan to the safe house, the better for all of them. He’d deal with the fallout later.
As he started the engine, he caught his mother staring at him. “We’re not fools, you know, Gray,” she said cryptically, and turned away.
His brows furrowed, more in irritation than understanding. He shifted the car into gear and shot down the driveway. He took the turn onto the street rather sharply.
“Careful!” his father barked. “Those are new Kelsey wire wheels! If you goddamn scratch them up…”
Gray sped down the street. He made several fast turns, minding the wheels. It felt good to be moving. The 390 V8 growled like a beast. An ember of grudging respect for his father’s handiwork burned through his exasperation.
His mother glanced down the street as he turned in the opposite direction from the nearest hospital, but she remained silent and settled deeper in her seat. He would find some way of dealing with his folks at the safe house.
As Gray sped through the midnight city, he still heard occasional firecrackers popping. The holiday was ending, but Gray feared the true fireworks had yet to begin.
12:55 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
SO MUCH FOR holidays off…
Director Painter Crowe stalked down the hall toward his office. Central Command’s skeletal night staff was rapidly swelling in numbers. A general alert had been dispatched. He’d already fielded two calls from Homeland Security. It wasn’t every day you had an international terrorist fall into your lap. And not just any terrorist, but a member of the shadowy network known as the Guild.
Often competing with Sigma, the Guild hunted and stole emerging technologies: military, biological, chemical, nuclear. In the current world order, knowledge was the true power—more than oil, more than any weapon. Only in the Guild’s case, they sold their discoveries to the highest bidder, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah in the Middle East, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, and the Shining Path in Peru. The Guild operated through a series of isolated cells around the world, with moles in world governments, intelligence agencies, major think tanks, even international research facilities.
And once, even at DARPA.
Painter still felt the sting of that betrayal.
But now they had a key Guild operative in custody.
As Painter entered the anteroom to his offices, his secretary and aide, Brant Millford, shifted back from his desk. The man used a wheelchair, his spine severed by a piece of shrapnel following a car bombing at a security post in Bosnia.
“Sir, I have a satellite call coming in from Dr. Cummings.”
Painter stopped, surprised. Lisa was not scheduled to report in so soon. A thread of worry cut through the tangle of responsibilities this night.
“I’ll take it in my office. Thank you, Brant.”
Painter crossed through the door. Three plasma monitors hung on the walls around his desk. The screens were dark for now, but as the night wore on, they would soon be flowing with data, all pouring into Central Command. For now, that could all wait. He reached across his deck to the phone and tapped the blinking button.
Lisa had been scheduled to report in just around dawn, when it was nightfall among the Indonesian islands. Painter had requested the full day’s debriefing at that time, just before she went to bed. Such scheduling also offered him the perfect chance to wish her a good night.
“Lisa?”
The connection proved spotty with occasional drops.
“God, Painter, it’s great to hear—voice. I know you’re busy. Brant mentioned a crisis—little else.”
“Don