The President's Vampire Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER FARNSWORTH

  Blood Oath

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA •

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London

  WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Farnsworth

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Farnsworth, Christopher.

  The president’s vampire / Christopher Farnsworth.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51424-5

  1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. United States. President—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3606.A726P

  813’.6—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my grandparents, Ben and Dorothy,

  who always protected us from the monsters

  This world is a farm, and we are the crop.

  —CHARLES HOY FORT

  PROLOGUE

  NOVEMBER 29, 2001, NEAR PARACHINAR, PAKISTAN

  Nathaniel Cade watched the men from his hidden perch as they walked up the narrow mountain path.

  One was clearly in pain. He stooped, despite his height, and a younger man helped him along, at times almost carrying him.

  To the north, the bombing at Tora Bora continued. The 10,000-pound daisy cutters slammed into the caves, one after another, the impact felt more than heard as earth and sky shook with each explosion.

  It would have been impossible to block all the treacherous, winding paths out of the area, but the Americans had not even tried. That job went to the Pakistani military and a few warlords who switched sides only weeks before the invasion.

  At least, that was the cover story.

  Cade recalled how the general swore when told to keep this escape route open. Cade had been around a long time, but the general managed to surprise him with the inventiveness of some of the obscenities.

  The order came direct from the president. The general probably assumed it was a political deal with the Pakistani military—a chance to prove themselves in the War on Terror. And a chance to conveniently forget all the help they’d given to the bad guys in the past. The general could not imagine they were actually going to let the target leave.

  And yet, Cade watched as the most wanted man in the world simply walked away. Stumbling and weak, but still walking.

  Osama bin Laden was almost free.

  IT HAD TAKEN SOME DOING to convince the president. Seventy-two hours earlier, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center below the White House, Cade did not think it would happen.

  “Gonna cost me the damn election,” the president said, face pinched with anger. He’d already been stewing about reports that questioned his absence on September 11—fleeing from one secure location to the next, while the wreckage still burned in New York and D.C.

  Griff, Cade’s handler, sat across the table. He’d been on the receiving end of many presidential tantrums in his career. He was used to it.

  “Sir,” he said. “You want to use Cade. This is the only way we can do it.”

  “We can’t at least, I dunno, bring back the sumbitch’s head, or something?” the president asked.

  “All missions related to Mr. Cade are above top secret. You know that,” the vice president reminded the president.

  The president gave him a look.

  “Sir,” the veep added.

  “I just want people to see what we do to the bastards who do things like this to us,” the president insisted.

  “Believe me, so do I, sir,” the veep said. He stood and placed a hand on the president’s shoulder. “But there are things here . . .” He paused, looking for the right words. “Things here are complicated. Things it’s better for you not to know.”

  The president squinted. “You mean that spooky shit, don’t you? I don’t like that.”

  “Which is why Mr. Cade will handle this.”

  The president appeared to waver. Then the vice president spoke again. “Besides, George—there might be advantages to always having Bin Laden out there. Nice to have a boogeyman whenever you need it.”

  “Yeah. All right,” the president said. “Do it.”

  He walked to the door, still grumbling. “Gonna cost me the damn election.”

  At the door of the PEOC, he stopped and turned. He addressed Cade directly—something he rarely ever did. “Least you can do is make it messy, right? You make the sumbitch hurt.”

  Cade nodded. He could do that. It would be little enough payment for the wounds inflicted on the
United States. He was still a patriot. Even if he was no longer human.

  CADE LOOKED DOWN at the Arabs again. At this rate, they would take another fifteen minutes, at least, to reach him at the crest of the ridge.

  Cade shifted, feeling the wound in his gut. It was healing, but it hurt. The only thing keeping his intestines inside his body was a heavy-duty neoprene sheath. Of course, anyone else would have been killed.

  Cade had spent most of the day of 9/11 in an underground parking garage, pinned to a concrete pillar by a sword driven through his torso.

  He was still annoyed by that. He decided he’d waited long enough.

  With one leap, he was out into empty air. He fell the length of three football fields and landed on his feet without a sound, directly in front of the man in the lead.

  The man’s reaction time was admirable. He was one of the elite of al-Qaeda’s fighters assigned as Bin Laden’s personal bodyguards. He had been hardened by years of combat, first against the Soviets, then against other warring tribes. Now he had taken the most punishing bombardment the greatest military in the world could dish out—and lived.

  Still, he barely touched his rifle before Cade pulled out his larynx.

  The second man didn’t waste time trying to unsling his rifle. He had a knife in his hand before his comrade fell, and he stabbed Cade in the side. It was a perfect strike—it should have driven up, between the ribs and into Cade’s heart, ending him.

  That is, if the knife’s point had not skidded off Cade’s skin, which was tougher than Kevlar weave.

  Cade twisted the second man’s head completely around. His body fell nerveless to the trail.

  Now he faced Bin Laden himself, and his supporter. He shoved them to the ground, not wanting the man dead.

  Not yet.

  The fifth Arab used the clear shot at Cade to unload half a clip from his AK-47. Several of the rounds tore through Cade’s wrapping, opening the wound again. He nearly doubled over from the pain.

  But he didn’t drop. The fifth Arab’s eyes went wide as Cade took the rifle from him. He whispered the start of a prayer and choked on his own blood as Cade drove the rifle through his chest.

  The man supporting Bin Laden was the youngest of the group—a boy, really, perhaps seventeen at the most. Despite what had happened to the combat veterans on each side of him, he did not hesitate to protect his leader. He reached for the grenades strung on the belt around his chest.

  Cade snatched the belt away and tossed it to the ground before the boy could blink. Then Cade flung him into the abyss over the side of the trail. For a second, his arms scrabbled at the empty air as he began to drop. It would take a long time for him to hit the bottom.

  Less than two minutes after it started, the fight was over.

  Cade turned to Bin Laden.

  The most feared and hated man alive did not look particularly scary, especially when compared to Cade. He had been injured in the bombing, it was obvious—one side of his robes had fresh patches of red blood, and he panted heavily, struggling for breath. Cade could smell disease in him as well. This weak, sickly creature had brought the whole world to a halt, if only for a little while.

  Bin Laden seemed to know he was no match for Cade. He remained on his knees, glaring. Cade wasn’t about to kill him. He had questions.

  Due to a number of chemical and psychological causes, Cade’s memory, like every member of his kind, was perfect. He did not forget. Time did not dim his recall of anything. He could play it back with perfect clarity, even reliving scents and feelings.

  Touching the wound in his abdomen, he was there again.

  LATE AT NIGHT on September 10, he followed a target into a parking garage. He’d been tracking the man for weeks—it should not have been so difficult, and that should have tipped him off. He was searching the lower levels of the underground garage. He saw nothing. Then the man appeared as if from nowhere, moving faster than even Cade could see, and impaled him with a sword, driving it into a concrete pillar.

  It shouldn’t have been possible. No one was supposed to be that fast, or that strong. No one human, at any rate. But Cade didn’t waste shock on that. He was more concerned with the weapon that pinned him, like a moth to cardboard.

  The sword was on fire.

  Nobody believed him on this—not even Griff. But his memory was perfect.

  The sword burned with a blue-white flame until he finally managed to pull it free from the pillar, and from himself. It had looked ordinary then, a piece of forged steel, but he knew: the blade was on fire when it stabbed him.

  It turned out he’d deliberately been kept out of the action. Someone had wanted him out of the way so the hijackings could succeed and the planes could hit their targets.

  Whoever had enough resources to know about Cade’s existence—and then take him out of the game—was more dangerous than a hundred al-Qaeda fanatics with a backpack nuke each.

  That meant Bin Laden had a great deal to answer for.

  BIN LADEN STARED AT HIM, on his knees but his face still a mask of contempt.

  “Who is the man with the sword?” Cade asked, voice perfectly level.

  Bin Laden spat on the ground, replying to Cade’s English with Arabic: “I will not foul my tongue with the language of the Great Satan. I am at peace with God. Do your worst. Know this, though: you are sending me to Paradise. I welcome death with open arms, for I am—”

  Cade grabbed his face and squeezed. Bin Laden’s voice died to a strangled little yelp.

  “I do not believe you,” Cade answered, in perfect Arabic this time. “I believe you know where you are going. And it is not to Paradise. I want answers. Who is the man with the sword?”

  He released Bin Laden so the man could reply. “The sword is the sword of righteousness,” he spat. “God’s will is the fire in which it is forged, and your disgusting perverted nation will be split open . . .”

  More gibberish. It appeared Bin Laden did not know any more than his own part in the operation. He thought himself to be the center.

  Then Cade realized: Bin Laden had stopped talking. He looked at Cade, his eyes dancing with a hidden joke.

  “I know what you are,” he said. “I did not believe they would send you. But they did.”

  Cade grabbed him again, pulling him close. “Who told you this? How do you know me?”

  “You are not the worst thing this world has to offer,” he said, grinning. “I know the truth. The sheep cannot hear it, but I have known for years. There is no God. Mohammed was not His prophet. My master will show you. This world belongs to him.”

  Cade usually showed no emotion. He usually didn’t feel any. His face was almost always an impassive mask, as still as the body in a funeral-home viewing.

  But now his mouth narrowed to a thin line as he scowled.

  “Belongs to who?” he demanded.

  Bin Laden’s grin only grew wider. Cade was ready to do whatever it took to get answers. But Bin Laden did know who—and what—Cade was.

  He proved it by removing a small cross from inside his robes and jamming it against Cade’s face. It felt like a railroad spike between his eyes.

  Cade’s lips peeled back as he screamed, and his fangs jutted out from his mouth. His human veneer dropped away. Cade already wore one cross around his neck as a ward against the thirst that constantly haunted him. The pain of another on his skin was almost unbearable.

  “Vampire,” Bin Laden laughed at him, shoving the cross forward again.

  Cade recoiled involuntarily, giving another few feet of distance and another few seconds of time.

  That was all Bin Laden needed.

  The Saudi curled in on himself. Cade hesitated, not sure what was wrong with him. He wondered if Bin Laden’s illness was about to claim him.

  In a split second, Cade realized his mistake.

  Bin Laden wasn’t sick. He was changing.

  His head and jaw jutted forward as black bile dribbled from his mouth. His skin shredded as musc
le and bone moved beneath it like snakes under a tarp.

  He locked eyes with Cade, and Cade saw his pupils had become diamond-slitted. His mouth gaped like a fish, revealing dozens of cruel, piranha-like teeth. The new flesh under his torn skin was dark green, almost black, and covered in scales.

  Bin Laden’s hands whipped out from under his robes, grabbing at Cade. But they weren’t hands any longer.

  Now they were long, yellow claws.

  Cade barely had time to scramble away.

  A harsh, snakelike hiss escaped Bin Laden’s throat. To Cade it sounded like laughter.

  Cade lost his footing as he nearly tumbled over the edge of the path. Bin Laden pressed his advantage and slashed again with his claws. He caught Cade’s wound, tearing it open further. Cade began to lose blood.

  Cade flung one leg out in a desperate kick, but Bin Laden had been walking these mountain trails for years. He was even nimbler now, scrambling around on reptilian feet. He dashed up the side of the cliff and came down behind Cade, claws darting, tagging Cade on the side, costing him more blood.

  Cade spun, threw a punch, and missed. His momentum nearly took him over the edge again. He managed to avoid the fall, but only by landing in a belly flop on the path.

  Bin Laden didn’t let up. He leaped on Cade’s back and began shredding him. Cade rolled over and tried to get his hands around the al-Qaeda leader’s throat.

  Bin Laden locked his claws around Cade’s throat at the same time. His snakelike head darted forward, jaws snapping inches away from Cade’s face. His neck seemed to extend like a spring. It took all Cade’s strength just to hold him back.

  The bleeding got worse. Cade could feel the power draining out of him. He didn’t have much time.

  He made a decision. He released Bin Laden with his left hand while still fending off the jaws and teeth with his right. He began scrabbling in the dirt with his free hand.