7th Son, page 16
Reserved for the hypercool and hyperrich, Folie à Deux had apparently been the top dog in L.A.’s club scene. Thanks to payoffs to cops and councilmen, debauchery is mostly overlooked in places like this, John knew. And according to the news archives Kilroy2.0 had accessed, debauchery of the drug-dealing variety had apparently been big at Folie à Deux.
“Take a look at this statue,” Michael said, pressing his finger against Kilroy2.0’s computer monitor. The lunatic grunted his disapproval at the smudge. On the screen was a Times photograph, shot from a low angle, of Andrew P. Spencer, the club’s flamboyantly vain owner, standing before Folie à Deux’s centerpiece: a thirty-foot-tall, gleaming aluminum sculpture. The photo was shot at a low angle, but the form was unmistakable: a man and a woman in an orgiastic embrace. In the photo, sunlight glinted off its stylized curves from a skylight above.
John took a good look at the metal sculpture. It was as if the two abstract bodies were rising from a churning waterspout of mercury, twin folds of liquid gushing upward, forming the upper torsos of human shapes. The statue had cost a half million dollars to design and build, Spencer had said in the article.
Not that Andrew P. Spencer was saying much of anything these days. Folie à Deux had closed shop for good last year, after the LAPD and FBI kicked down the doors and scored the largest ecstasy bust in U.S. history. Spencer blew his brains out with a .22 before he went to trial, and two months later the city auctioned off the club and its contents to the highest bidder.
According to Los Angeles County property records, it had all gone to one buyer. Kilroy2.0 cheerfully pointed out that the buyer’s name—Hess Venton—was an anagram for Seventh Son.
“Where did Alpha get the money to buy this place?” Jack asked, as he stared at the photo of the sculpture.
“That’s an excellent question,” Father Thomas said. “Maybe it’s the same people who set him up with the ability to clone, NEPTH-charge, and then kill the president.”
Dr. Mike sat on the circular couch, gazing at the club floor plans that Kilroy2.0 had printed from the supposedly secure Los Angeles County architectural database. He chewed absently on a Bic ballpoint. His fingers traced over the expertly drawn electrical lines, air ducts, and stairwells.
“Michael’s right,” Dr. Mike said, spitting out the pen. He tapped the papers. “This is one freak show of a club. This used to be a movie theater. High ceiling. We’re talking fifty feet. It has a second level, a series of wide catwalks, accessible from three stairways.” He pointed at the blueprint. “The second level’s also where the übercool did their thing in VIP. Looks like the old movie-house balcony was renovated into one giant glass-encased room. The whole catwalk system sprouts out from the balcony and goes around the perimeter of the club. It’s like an observation deck.”
Michael turned from the computer screens and stepped over to the circular table. He gazed down at the blueprints, then looked up at Dr. Kleinman and General Hill, who were still standing away from the group watching intently, and then back to the clones.
“If we go in there, a second floor ain’t gonna be good,” Michael said. “That’s where Alpha’ll put the shooters. The catwalks provide plenty of coverage for snipers. If we come in from the front, the shooters can get us from their positions in the rear. We come in from one of the side doors, snipers on the front-end catwalks can get us.”
“Whoa, whoa. What do you mean snipers?” Jack asked.
Jay, who was standing next to Jack, piped up. “And what do you mean if we go in there?”
“Well, someone’s got to go in the club,” Michael said. “This is the X on the treasure map—where we’ll find either Mom or Alpha, or both.”
“Wait a minute,” Jack said as he nervously scratched his beard. “You’re honestly thinking of going there?”
Dr. Mike looked up at the geneticist. “Michael’s right. We can’t not go. The riddle was written for us and the riddle says to go to L.A. This is a rescue mission. It’s all about finding Mom. We’re saving her . . . if she’s still alive, that is . . . and hopefully taking out Alpha in the process. If the place is empty, then we look for more clues. Either way, we’ll know more there than we will sitting here.”
“But isn’t that just the slightest bit cavalier?” Jay asked. “The message, the code, the song, the club. It looks like a big worm on a hook to me. You said it yourself: Alpha knew we would solve the puzzle. That means he knows we’re on our way. It’s a trap. We should get Hill here to send someone else.”
The room fell silent. Even Kilroy2.0 had turned from his screens to listen in.
John glanced over to Kleinman and Hill and saw them eyeing each other.
Dr. Mike broke the silence. “Then don’t go. But I am. I know that town. I’ve worked with the LAPD. I can handle a gun. And I don’t want that psycho to kill my mother. This might be our only chance.”
“I can understand if you all don’t want to go; you got no training,” the marine added. “Most of us here don’t, so most of us shouldn’t go. But someone has to. Dr. Mike wants to—it’s his town. I have to. I’ve been trained for this. And if the 7th Son folks want to keep this as quiet as they’ve kept the rest of their operation, some of the troops stationed here will have to go, too.”
Michael turned to General Hill. “Am I right?”
“If there’s going to be an operation, I’d want our security team to handle as much as they can,” Hill replied. “They’ve signed their Code Phantom NDAs. They won’t talk, Michael.”
“Everyone talks,” a voice muttered.
“Those are UN press-leaking delegates you’re talking about, Jay. Not these men.” Hill looked Michael in the eyes. “They’re rock solid, marine. I’d bet my life on it.”
And here we go, John thought, and felt gravity loosen its grip on his stomach. He was feeling sick again, as if he’d just stepped out of that damnable elevator. This is where it truly begins. It’s rotten. The whole thing’s rotten. There’s got to be a better way.
But as he watched Michael and Hill speaking to each other in that arcane militaryspeak he’d only heard in Schwarzenegger movies, John realized there wasn’t a better way—at least, not for them. Michael and Dr. Mike were going to L.A. to fight what they thought was the good fight. And with Mom’s life hanging in the balance, who could blame them?
But still. There’s got to be a better way. John looked over at Kilroy2.0, the resident madman. John stared at the floor and thought of the secrets beneath them, buried under six decades and two thousand feet. The technology down there. The people down there. An idea began to flourish in John’s mind. He nodded to himself and filed it away. He’d share it when Kleinman and Hill were gone.
Minutes later, Michael and Hill wrapped up their plans for the 7th Son soldiers who would go on the cross-country trek.
“Fair enough,” Hill said. “I’ll assemble some of my best and make calls to get the equipment you need.” He stepped past John and strode out the door.
Kleinman still stood near the doorway. “We’re evacuating nonessential 7th Son personnel in the next few hours,” the old man announced. “DeFalco and the other scientists, they’re going. As is our support staff: tech, administrative. Only the security team, Hill, and I will remain.”
“I volunteer for nonessential personnel duty,” Dr. Mike said.
“I wish it were that simple.” Kleinman’s voice was cordial enough, but his face was covered with worry. No. More than that, John thought. He looks like a heartsick parent.
Kleinman walked out of the room, leaving them alone.
Dr. Mike turned back to the floor plans of Folie à Deux. “Now that we’ve secured the supporting cast, does anybody have any ideas on how we’re gonna get in? Michael says if we show our faces anywhere near the dance floor on the ground level, we’ll get ’em shot off by catwalk snipers. I believe it. But these blueprints say there aren’t any outside doors leading to the second floor. Just interior stairwells leading to the catwalk level. Not even a second-level fire escape.”
John leaned forward and looked at the blueprints. “Well, the building did used to be a movie house. Except for the balcony—which has been renovated into a VIP room—there was no second floor. So why would there be a fire escape?”
“Astute,” Kilroy2.0 said.
Dr. Mike picked up the Bic and drew three large circles on the floor plans. “There are more entrances than the front and rear doors, of course. At the base of all three catwalk stairwells are emergency exits. Naturally, they’re on the ground floor . . . and they lead out into the parking lot, alley, wherever. Problem is, we go in through one of those doors, and those second-floor shooters can nail us from the top of the stairs.”
“So you’re saying we can’t get in,” Jay said.
“And the naysayer chimes in,” Dr. Mike snapped, rolling his eyes. “It’s clear you’re not going. Since when is we a part of your vocabulary?”
Jay opened his mouth to snap a reply, but Michael cut him off. “Can it, both of you. There’s no safe way in.”
“What about the sewers?” John asked. “Is there some way to get into the basement from the sewers?”
“Well, there’s the rub.” Dr. Mike drummed his fingers on the round table. “There is a basement level, and there is a floor grate in the storage room—probably to deal with any basement flooding. But it’s nowhere near the size of a person, not even a kid. Which brings us back to the doors.”
“ ‘Mr. Mojo risin’ . . .’ ” Kilroy2.0 sang.
Dr. Mike glared at the lunatic for a moment, then turned back to the blueprints. “All the entrances are on level one. Level two has no entry points that I can see. And since this was once a movie theater, it has no original windows, either. Brilliant place for a club, really. So we’re stuck with going in on the ground floor, and taking our chances.”
“Unacceptable. People are going to get killed that way,” Michael said. “Maybe not me, or you—but someone on the rescue team is coming back here in a body bag if we do it that way.”
Dr. Mike threw his pen on the table, disgusted.
“It can’t be our only option,” Michael said coolly.
“Wait a minute,” a voice called. “I know how to go in.”
It was Thomas. He was staring at Kilroy2.0’s computer monitors.
“How’s that?” Jack asked.
The priest raised an index finger and pressed it against the screen, at the same digital image that Michael had noticed just minutes ago: the photograph of Folie à Deux’s statue. The thirty-foot aluminum sculpture towered upward, glinting . . . and there, at the top of the frame, was the answer. The skylight.
“Be the archangel,” Father Thomas said. “Come in from above.”
“I’ll be damned,” Michael said, grinning.
“Aren’t we all,” the priest whispered.
It was settled quickly after that, thanks to Michael’s Force Recon training and his easier-said-than-done delivery of the attack plan. The rescue team would leave in a few hours, fly cross-country, and take the Folie à Deux nightclub just after sunset. The team, comprising about a dozen men, would be divided into three groups. One would stake out the skylight, drawing the fire of snipers that were likely to be stationed on the second level. With the snipers focused on the diversion, the other teams would simultaneously enter through the front and side entrances. The objective was straightforward: rescue Dania Sheridan, if she was there. If the team could kill or capture John Alpha in the process . . . well, that was fine, too.
“I understand why you’re anticipating conflict,” Jack said, after Michael recited his plan. “You’re being realistic, looking at the evidence, and are planning for the worst-case scenario. But what makes you think that John Alpha is going to have gunmen there in the first place, much less Mom? I mean, is it ridiculous to assume that he might just want to talk?”
“Right,” Jay said from beside him, his voice eager. “Talk.”
Michael smiled slightly; he had a look on his face that said, This is amateur hour, but they don’t know any better.
“Scientists talk,” the marine said. “UN field agents talk. Presidential assassins don’t talk, fellas. This guy kidnapped our mother and literally left a neon arrow pointing at his lair. What do you think he wants? A little teatime with the carbon copies? He’s the enemy and he wants us dead, Jack. Deader than disco.”
Despite the tension, John smiled to himself. Deader than disco. I say that.
“But how do you know that?” Jay asked. “Don’t look at me that way. I’m not trying to be a jerk, and I’m not trying to gum up your plan. I’m just trying to figure out why you think he can’t be reasoned with.”
Dr. Mike stood and stepped over to the two doubters. In this little family, that’s what Jack and Jay were, John reckoned. The Doubters.
“I know John Alpha is a part of you, Jay . . . and he’s a part of me,” Dr. Mike said. “Hell, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation if it weren’t for his blood and his memories. I haven’t had time to wrap my brain around that yet, and frankly, I don’t want to. But you probably think he reasons the same way you do because the way you reason is based on the way he once reasoned. Does that make sense? You, me—all of us—used to think the same way. Back when we—I’m sorry—he was a child. But something went wrong with John Alpha. Something went bad. What he’s done so far . . . and I’m willing to bet we don’t know the half of it . . . tells us that.”
“He NEPTH-charged a kid to kill the president,” Father Thomas said quietly. “And took the time to tattoo a little A in the kid’s ear in the name of the chase. What kind of a man does that?”
Jack and Jay stood in place, saying nothing.
Michael clapped his hands. “So we’ve got to settle on who’s going on this trip and who isn’t. Now you all know that I’m going, and you know that I’m going to be calling the shots. It’s that simple. But this is strictly voluntary for the rest of you. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t want to get shot at, don’t go. Can’t say I blame you. There’s no obligation, understand?”
The six clones nodded.
“You know I’m in,” Dr. Mike said. Michael nodded. Dr. Mike looked at Jay.
Jay shook his head. “I’ve ducked my fair share of guerrilla gunfire, but I’m not a soldier. I just can’t.”
“No shame in it,” Michael said.
“You have to understand something.” Jack squirmed in his seat. “Until yesterday, I thought I was, heh, normal. Plugging away at the white-collar gig. I’ve got a wife. More important, two kids. Sorry.”
“Padre, what about you?”
The priest held his breath for a moment, percolating. Finally, he said, “Mom’s been dead for sixteen years. To be the first one of us to see her again . . . well, that would be incredible, wouldn’t it?” Thomas crossed his arms, frowning. “But how has John Alpha been able to do these things? Who’s he working for, or with? Why did he want the president dead, and why has he gone to all the trouble of baiting us?”
“Conspiracy,” Kilroy2.0 whispered.
“My thoughts exactly,” the priest said. “I have no faith in our keepers, or anything else about this—Alpha, NEPTH-charges, 7th Son. It’s all so murky. Alpha’s plan is bigger than a reunion at an abandoned nightclub, it must be. And I think the history of this place”—Thomas jabbed an index finger at the floor—“is much bigger than we’ve been told. I want to see Mom, but I want to find the answers to those questions even more.”
He nodded to Kilroy2.0. “And we’ve got the mad hacker here who can help us do that.”
The lunatic giggled.
Michael looked over at Kilroy2.0. “So how ’bout it, Mad Hacker? You staying, or going?”
“Mad Hacker’s staying here.”
“Fine,” Dr. Mike said. “And you, John?”
Father Thomas had practically read John’s mind; that had been his plan. But with Thomas staying here . . .
“I’m going,” John said.
Jay bolted from his seat. “What?”
“No. No. Don’t be stupid,” Jack said, shaking his head. “You heard what Michael said to the general. People are going to get killed, John. Michael, Dr. Mike, and the rest: They’re not going to a nightclub. They’re heading into hell.”
John raised his chin. “I’ve gotta see her, man. I’ve gotta know.”
“Then it’s settled,” Michael said. “Those who are staying should take Thomas’s lead and find out everything they can about Alpha’s operation, what he’s up to. Let’s see if the fucker’s accidentally left a trail along the line. Meanwhile, the marine, the cop, and the bartender are heading to a nightclub.”
“That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke,” John said.
“Let’s hope not,” Dr. Mike said. “Come on. Let’s find Hill and Kleinman and tell ’em what’s up.”
SEVENTEEN
The seven clones walked through the institutional halls of the 7th Son complex, following the double-helix mosaic on the hallway walls, walking at first, then trotting, then finally running, as if the momentum of their decisions was pushing them along. The group found the door with the retina scanner. Dr. Mike did the honors, and by God it worked, just as Kleinman had said it would. They stepped inside the express elevator, and Michael uttered the destination word: “Ops” . . . then the elevator was screaming downward again, down to where the revelations had begun mere hours ago.
They stepped out of the elevator cabin, turned the hallway corner to go into the Operations Command room, and were stopped by two young soldiers. Their sidearms weren’t drawn, but both had hands near the holsters. They eyed Michael, who led the team.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not authorized to go in there without permission from the general,” one of the soldiers said. The tag on his BDUs read MORRIS. The other solider was a private apparently named BALLANTINE.
