Predator One by Jonathan Maberry
He was aware of all of it, but at the moment—inside that moment—his entire body, his reflexes, and all of his heart and soul were focused on the thing that hovered in front of him.
Small.
Shaped like a bird.
Not a bird.
Others just like it flew into the stands and exploded.
This one had swooped down from the upper tiers, canting slightly on a damaged wing but still able to fly. A thin streamer of smoke trailed behind it.
James Ledger ground his feet into the dirt on the pitcher’s mound and raised the Louisville Slugger that had been signed by both teams as part of the presentation to Douglas. The bat felt good in Ledger’s hands. He’d played ball in college and used to knock the hide off fastballs for the Baltimore Police League. Both his sons had the knack, and his grandson, too. All of them could hit sliders and breakers and break the heart of overeager pitchers.
The drone was moving slower than a fastball. As it swept toward him, Ledger stepped into its path and swung for the bleachers.
The drone darted up and left, and the bat slashed empty air with such ferocity that Ledger was spun three-quarters of the way around. He staggered off balance, took a quick step to catch his balance, turned, and swung again.
Again, the drone flitted out of the way.
A third time.
A fourth.
“Come here, you little cocksucker,” snarled Ledger, spitting with fury and feeling, his anger rising even above the level of his terror.
He faked a thrust, faked again, and then leaped forward to bunt the drone. The ash hit the machine and knocked it backward, where it wobbled, trying to level out.
Tried a second too long.
“Up yours,” growled the mayor of Baltimore as he swung the bat at full force.
Interlude Nine
Ha-Nagar Street
Above the Stein Family Falafel Shop
Ashdod, Israel
Two Years Ago
Aaron Davidovich lived his life in that apartment above the falafel shop. He worked twelve to fourteen hours each day, a schedule broken up by meals and exercise. Boy and her two male companions—known as Jacob and Mason, though Davidovich was positive those were not their real names—brought in some gym equipment. A Bowflex, small free weights, a jump rope, chin-up bar, push-up handles, TheraBands, a physioball, and a yoga mat. Boy began teaching Aaron how to use the equipment, and, as the weeks passed, Davidovich began losing flab and putting on muscle. After weeks of nightmares, he began sleeping soundly and woke refreshed. Boy made sure that his food was a balance of healthy and enjoyable. Almost no alcohol, though. A few beers a month, usually as a reward for finishing a new section of the design on which he was working.
They arranged to have messages sent to his family. Assuring them that he was alive and being well cared for. None of their messages were ever sent to him, though Davidovich was able to watch them at various times on computer monitors. They were well. They were healthy.
But they grieved.
Even though he was now in high school, Matthew sometimes cried at night.
Davidovich’s mother did, too.
His wife…? Not so much.
After seven months of solitude, she began to go out and lie to her son about where she was going. Sometimes she was out all night. Boy’s video surveillance showed him what she was doing. And whom she was doing it with. Meeting with a divorced man they’d known for years. Meeting in a motel. Hidden cameras recorded everything.
So, instead, it was Davidovich who wept for her. For the loss of her.
He ached to hold his son. To take him out to basketball games. To talk with him.
It was Matthew who kept him going.
His mother, too. But mostly his son.
Sometimes in the night he secretly wished that Boy would do to his wife the things she’d originally threatened.
The first time Davidovich had that thought, he immediately rushed into the bathroom and vomited.
The second time he had that thought, he just lay there in bed and let the thought play out.
It was the same the third time. And every time after that.
It got easier each time he watched the video feed of his wife in bed with Harvey Cohen. Screaming as she came. Like he was fucking a porn star instead of a goddamn dentist. Doing things with him that had fallen out of the repertoire of activities she’d shared with her own damn husband.
It made Davidovich so mad.
On the days following those moments of video voyeurism, Davidovich found himself working harder at his new job. He threw his anger and frustration into the Regis program. He was even aware that he was channeling his anger and hurt in the worst possible way.
But he didn’t care.
It was the only kind of payback that was open to him.
If you can’t hurt the one you love, then you hurt anyone you can reach.
* * *
BOY WATCHED Doctor Davidovich all the time. She even played back video footage of him from when she was away on assignment or sleeping. She knew every movement, every tic.
Boy saw the way the infidelity of the doctor’s wife stuck knives in him. She saw how it changed his sleeping and eating patterns. His workout intensity. She noted how it changed the quality of his work. Boy noted it all down.
Doctor Pharos and the Gentleman, she knew, would be very happy. It was unfolding exactly the way they said it would. Exactly according to plan.
Davidovich would, of course, never be allowed to know that his wife’s lover belonged to Doctor Pharos and the Gentleman. Body and soul. Paired very well to seduce the doctor’s wife.
So, Boy watched him watch them, and she grew excited. It was as if she could actually see, hear, and feel a great switch being turned on in Davidovich’s soul.
From light to dark.
Chapter Twenty-nine
National League Baseball Opening Day
Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia
March 29, 1:13 P.M.
It seemed to last a long, long time.
I crawled into a corner behind a trash can. This time, it was Ghost who found me. He was limping. His face and shoulders were streaked with blood. His tail was curled under his body, and he shoved himself against me, whimpering, lost and scared.
I felt exactly the same way.
My head was spinning. I know I’d been kicked several times. Maybe a couple of cracked ribs. My groin was a ball of fire. My stomach was in knots.
In those few seconds, at the hands and feet of a crowd of ordinary people, I had taken the worst beating of my life. It was comprehensive, and I had no idea how badly hurt I was. There was blood in my mouth.
I fumbled for my cell phone, but it was gone. I didn’t remember dropping it.
There were more explosions. Smoke curled along the top of the curving corridor. It looked alive, like a writhing dragon. Sinister and hungry.
More bangs.
I lost count at ten.
I lost consciousness, too.
Not sure how long I was out. I don’t think it was that long.
When I opened my eyes, Ghost was licking my face. He had a crazed look in his eyes, and he was panting way too fast. I pulled him against me, stroked his fur, said meaningless words in a soothing tone into his ear as an ocean of people ran past.
Then I saw what was blowing up.
It was small. No bigger than a …
“Oh, shit,” I said.
It was a pigeon.
Except that it wasn’t, and now I understood what the killers had brought to the stadium in their wooden crates. Not boxes of birds.
These were drones.
Small, perfectly crafted to blend into the environment and call no attention to themselves. I’d seen this type before. I’d worked with similar unmanned aerial vehicles.
Pigeon drones.
Not sent out for surveillance.
These were packed with explosives. That’s what I’d heard. That was the only thing that made sen
The fake bird flew toward me, its wings beating at a tremendous rate, more like a hummingbird than a pigeon. Glass eyes seemed to stare at me as it buzzed past.
There were four people between me and the drone. I shoved Ghost to one side and scrambled to my knees despite the sickness in my head and gut. The world seemed to tilt sideways.
“Get down!” I yelled, my voice hoarse and thick.
The people closest to me turned, and I immediately began shoving them toward the walls. I tripped a few, foot-swept a couple of others, knocking them back, knocking them down, trying to get them out of the possible debris field of the drone. Taking shrapnel in the back while laying down would do a lot less damage than taking it in the face. In the eyes.
The drone suddenly stopped in midair, its wings flapping with blinding speed. It seemed to be watching what I was doing. Assessing it.
Which meant that the machine had a camera and someone was watching.
That was not good.
I snatched a bottle of Mountain Dew from someone’s hand and hurled it at the drone. It instantly shifted out of the way.
That wasn’t good, either. That meant whoever was at those controls had some goddamn fast reflexes. There should have been a lag. I should have knocked the thing out of the air before the video signal could go back to base, be observed, and be reacted to and before a response movement could be sent back to the drone. My bottle should have hit it faster than a person at a remote pilot station could react.
But the drone swerved to avoid the bottle.
It’s stupid, it’s crazy, but I had the horrible and irrational feeling that it was the machine itself that had reacted. Doing it at machine speed. At computer speed.
The drone rose to the ceiling and turned in a quick circle.
Reassessing?
Accumulating data?
Or picking the best target?
I saw my gun on the ground being kicked as a flood of people ran for the exits, colliding with one another, cursing, screaming.
I aimed my shoulder and drove into the crowd, battering people aside, yelling at them to let me through, shouting “Police!” and “Federal agent!”
Someone to my left yelled back, “Fuck you!”
And he punched me in the side of the head.
It was one of those big, lazy, looping haymakers that, on any other day, would have allowed me to have a sandwich and coffee before yawning my way through a block or evasion. This wasn’t one of those days. The guy could hit, too. Damn him.
I went right down.
Even as I fell, though, through the fireworks in my eyes I saw my gun. I stretched out for it as I crashed down. My fingers fumbled over it, and my fingernails caught on the fittings. I gathered it into my hand, turned, rolled onto my back, and brought it up to aim at the drone.
Then it blew up.
A big, solid bang that shook the floor on which I lay.
The people above me seemed to fly apart like corn dollies. Clothing and skin, muscle and bone. It all splashed me. Their deaths prevented mine, but I wore their blood. I heard someone screaming and screaming. Whoever it was tottered on the precipice of a never-ending fall into black madness.
I was so afraid it was me.
It was me.
And I fell.
Chapter Thirty
South Lawrence Street and Pattison Avenue
Philadelphia
March 29, 1:15 P.M.
“Are you watching the news, Father?” asked Boy, the phone pressed to her ear. Her tablet lay on her thighs, the screen filled with images of smoke and blood.
“I am,” said Doctor Pharos. “It’s very entertaining. I’m very proud of you.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased.”
“Very much so.”
“Has the Gentleman seen it?”
“He has. And he was also very pleased,” said Pharos. “You know that everything you do pleases us. We’re both so proud of you.”
She felt her face burn, and she mumbled a reply.
“Boy—?”
“Yes, Father?”
“Are you all right?”
“I…”
“What is it?” he asked, his tone gentle. “You can tell me.”
“I want to come home.”
“Ah.”
“I haven’t see you in so long. I can’t … I can’t stand it.”
“Boy—is it the work? Is it getting too difficult?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Everything is perfect out here.”
“Is there a problem with your people?”
“No. Everyone’s doing their job, but—”
“Are there any glitches in the operation?”
“No, it’s not that. The machine is the machine. It’s perfect the way you made it. That’s just it…”
“What do you mean?” asked Pharos.
“I don’t need to be out here anymore, do I? Davidovich is with you now. I don’t understand why I’m even out here. All I’m doing is watching. And … I mean … couldn’t I do that there? With you?”
There was a pause. Then Pharos said, “Believe me, sweetheart, that there’s nothing more important to me in the world than you. You are my family. We are family. You and I.”
“And the Gentleman?” She asked the question but tensed against the answer. To her the Gentleman was an almost godlike figure, the last of the Seven Kings. On the other hand … Boy almost cringed at the truth in her heart. The Gentleman was dying, and he was crippled—and that made him a burden. If, against all logic, odds, and planning, something went wrong and they had to flee, Boy knew that her father would try to take care of the burned man, try to find some way to flee with him. Boy understood fieldwork better than her father. He had his genius; she had hers. There was no way to flee with an anchor, and the burned man was an anchor. It hurt her heart to think of him that way, but it was true. And, as devoted as she was to the family that was the Seven Kings, if it came down to a choice between saving her father or letting him get taken because of that anchor …
Boy knew full well she could put a bullet through the seared flesh of the Gentleman’s head. Without a moment’s hesitation.
There would be regret later, sure—and maybe reproach from Father. But hesitation? Boy did not possess that particular flaw.
Her father was a long time in answering her implied question about the Gentleman. She knew that he must be conflicted and filled with sorrow at the ill health of the great man.
“Our dear friend,” began Pharos, “is a realist.”
And that was answer enough.
“I understand, Father.”
“I know you do, my sweet. Now … is everything in place for the rest?”
“Yes.”
“Good. As soon as things are concluded there, I’m going to need you in San Diego. I’ll send flight details. It will be outside the no-fly zone. You know where.”
“Yes, Father.”
“One last job to do,” said Pharos. “After San Diego, you come home to me.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Thank you!”
“No, my love, thank you. No father has ever been more proud of a daughter than I am of you. Once this is done, then we will slip away like birds on the wind.”
It was a line from a very old Cambodian song. He used to sing it to her after her therapy sessions in those days after he took her from the brothel.
“Like butterflies on a spring breeze,” she said softly, repeating the last line of that old song. One tear curled over her cheek and found the corner of her mouth. She tasted the salt. Her tears were always so cold. They tasted like seawater.
“I’ll send you the details,” said Pharos. “You’ll need to be strong, and you’ll need to be brave. This will be dangerous.”
Boy sniffed sharply and swallowed those tears. “I’m ready,” she said. “You know I’m ready for anything.”
“Yes, I do,” said Pharos, a smile in his voice. “But first things first. Fini
The line went dead.
Boy pressed the silent phone against her cheek, closed her eyes again, and conjured images of her father. Tall and so handsome. Powerful. Brilliant. Not a King, but kingly in his way.
Then she closed the tablet, turned off the car engine, got out, put her earbuds in, and walked back to the stadium while emergency vehicles and crowds of rubberneckers raced toward the pillars of smoke.
Chapter Thirty-one
California
March 29, 1:17 P.M.
The president of the United States was giving a speech at a brunch for a group of celebrity vintners in Napa Valley. The speech was virtually the same one he’d given to the Deep Sea Fishing Association, the Art Alliance of Berkeley, a group of Silicon Valley billionaires, and a charitable foundation created by the wives of professional football players.
The speech was going well, as he and his team expected. This was one of his party-platform speeches that was flexible enough to allow for subtle changes to make it relevant to any specific target audience. The president had the rhythms of it down, and he’d watched enough playbacks to know when to make lingering eye contact, when to give that confident smile, when to glower like a tough commander in chief, when to beam like the proud father of the nation. It was all theater, but so was all of politics. It didn’t make it meaningless, though. The president believed in most of what he said and accepted the necessary compromises of the rest. No president who ever served managed to get everything he wanted. Not even close.
He was just warming to one of his own pet themes, a project to work off college loans built on elements of FDR’s New Deal, when Alice Houston came from offstage and bent close to speak to him. It sent an immediate ripple through the audience.
“Mr. President,” said Houston, “there has been an attack in Philadelphia…”
Out in the audience, people were pulling their cell phones to look at the text messages and Twitter screens.