folks. He says they get them from all over, but he doesn’t know what they’re used for. All he knows is that they are sewn onto silk, packed away, and shipped out.”
“Where?”
“He has no idea.”
“And they’re for the Mountain Lord?”
“Head honcho, yeah. But I think he’s just attributing it to the Shan Zhu. I don’t really think he knows. Kind of like us saying that we do it because the president wants us to.”
“But in our case that’s true,” Fratty pointed out.
Laws flashed a grin. “Still, he doesn’t know. I can tell.”
“Okay,” Holmes said, staring thoughtfully at the prisoner. “What about the ship?”
“All he knows is it’s something big. There’s been a buzz about it for months. Some guy reached out and offered them a shit-ton of money for one of these suits.”
“He said ‘shit-ton’?”
“In his own way. This mystery guy gave a demonstration to the head honcho, which impressed the hell out of him.”
“What was the demonstration?”
“No idea.”
“Where’s the ship?”
“Macau.”
“Any other information about this ship?”
“None.”
Holmes glanced around the room and nodded slowly. Finally he said, “Okay, SEALs. Let’s pack it up. Ruiz? Call in the cleanup.”
9
KADWAN. FOUR MONTHS EARLIER.
He was a god. He’d spent the last few months being the hands of an unseen architect whose knowledge of the universe was unfathomable and perfect. He’d been told where to dig. He’d been told what to build. They’d explained the process of accumulating power. More importantly, they’d detailed the procedure for the creation of a special kind of chimera. There were steps he still couldn’t take until he had his protection, but that had been arranged. Once he had it, he’d be warded against immolation. He’d already seen how his partner had been burned from the inside out when he’d channeled the spirit from the other side. The power of the other had been so great and pure and blinding that it had consumed the pathetic structure that composed the human body. Served him right for trying to steal what wasn’t rightfully his. No, he’d wait until the shipment arrived before he moved on to the next step. Until then, he’d continue the act of creation and preparation with the knowledge that the world was so close to being his. After all, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not it would happen.
It was only a matter of when.
10
C-141 STARLIFTER. NIGHT.
Holmes had treated him like a little kid and had made him stand in the proverbial corner. In Manila, they’d done the same thing to him, progressing past that to real corners, then real closets as he proved to be just short of incorrigible. He’d always preferred the term “unbroken,” but the older he got, the more people mistook that attitude as arrogance.
How could he explain to them that there were times when he just knew what to do and his body took over?
Like Holmes’s itch.
The team sat on benches on either side of the aircraft. Walker tried not to glower. He’d thought it was probably obvious to everyone that it was because of his attention to detail that they hadn’t been shot by the enforcer. Laws sat next to him, busily cleaning the barrel with a rod tipped with gauze.
Fratty and Ruiz sat opposite them, their heads leaned back to catch some sleep.
Hoover was sprawled in the middle of the floor.
Holmes and Billings had their heads together. Holmes seemed to be providing a laydown of the mission and his thoughts, while Billings relayed information via a video feed to a room filled with analysts to provide direct support to the team.
“You know he’s right, don’t you?” Laws kept his voice low. He removed the rod from the barrel and took apart the trigger housing to wipe down each piece, then applied a thin coat of oil.
“Who? Him?” Walker pointed with his chin toward Holmes.
“We operate as a team. If you see something, you communicate that to us.”
“I had a
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