Conspiracy of Angels Read online

  Mitch caught him before he hit the ground. With a grunt, he set him back on his feet. “Huh. You’re heavier than you look. You okay?”

  Michael swayed and leaned one hand against the wall. “Oh, I can walk just fine, thank you. Soon as the room stops spinning.”

  Mitch pulled Michael’s arm over his shoulders and half led, half carried him to the door.

  “We’ll need to neutralize one of the guards,” Michael said.

  “Way ahead of you.”

  “Excellent. We’ll have to move quickly, before their guard patterns change and they’re alerted to the fact someone is missing from the ranks.” Michael leaned one hand beside the door and lifted a lab coat from a hook. “We can use his sequence key to gain access to the vault.”

  “His what key?”

  Michael gave him a bloodshot stare. “For heaven’s sake, tell me you searched his pockets, at least.”

  Mitch shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to go back. But if we get stopped, you let me do the talking.”

  “That’s a terrifying idea.”

  Mitch opened the door and peeked out. Nobody there. He stepped out into the hall, pulling Michael along with him. Behind them, the door clicked shut.

  It was hard to walk between the containers with Michael hanging off of his shoulder, but they had no choice. He ended up crabbing sideways, accidentally bumping the gun on the steel wall.

  They got to the end of the alley and Mitch poked his head around the corner, breathing hard, expecting to see a guard. But no one was there waiting for him.

  He opened the door to the office and pulled Michael inside. “Don’t let the door shut on us. It’ll lock.”

  Michael leaned against the wall and used the splintered portrait of the president to prop the door open a crack. He nodded at the unconscious guard. “What happened to him?”

  “He voted for the other guy.” Mitch felt for a pulse at Crew-cut’s throat.

  “Still alive?”

  “Yeah. But he’s gonna have a hell of a headache.”

  Michael leaned against the wall, looking drained. “Be best if you killed him. He’ll only give us away.”

  “I don’t operate like that.”

  “That could be part of your problem.”

  Mitch ignored him. He felt through the guy’s pockets and found a roll of Tums, a toothpick in a plastic wrapper, and a couple of long black magazines loaded with ammo for the gun. He jammed those into his back pocket.

  He also found a blank white card, half the size of a credit card and twice as thick, with a metal strip at one end and a slowly changing code blinking at the other. He held it up. “This it?”

  “Well, now. That’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” Michael pushed off the wall and took it from him. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “We’re both gonna look a lot dumber, we get caught hanging around here. Come on.” He pushed past Michael and peeked out the door. He still didn’t see anyone. “This place is way too empty. Giving me the creeps.”

  Michael squinted at the key. “Their guard pattern just changed. We’ve only got a minute before they realize your friend here isn’t in the little boys’ room.”

  Mitch swallowed. “Which way?”

  Michael pointed to the right. Mitch pulled Michael’s arm over his shoulders again and headed down the aisle. Twenty yards away, Arthur Givens came around a corner, followed by a pair of guys in suits. They stared at each other for a shocked second before everybody pulled out guns.

  Mitch held on tight to Michael’s arm and dove between the nearest two containers. Michael hit the ground wrong and grunted. Behind them, the guns jackhammered. Bullets sparked off the metal containers and the concrete floor.

  Mitch hauled Michael to his feet. “Come on!” He sprinted for the far end of the alley, dragging Michael along, trying to keep him from slamming into the wall.

  They got around the corner just as the two suits reached the far end of the alley. Mitch brought up the stumpy little submachine gun and squeezed the trigger. It stuttered out a plume of fire and noise, making the two suits dive for cover. When he stopped, his ears rang. Spent brass casings jingled across the concrete at his feet. People started shouting across the warehouse.

  “Reload!” Michael climbed to his feet, his legs shaking.

  “What?” Mitch felt sick and hyped up at the same time. His pulse thudded in his ears. He wanted to run and hide, but anywhere he hid could get him killed.

  So could standing out in the open, he realized. He could get lost fast. This row of containers looked just like the last one. The place was a maze. “Which way?”

  “There!” Michael pointed down the aisle at a gray box, twenty feet long. It was different from the rest, heavy duty. Thick steel plates. This must be the vault, Mitch figured.

  Michael reached for Mitch’s gun. “Reload, for God’s sake. You’re empty.”

  Mitch grabbed Michael and led him, stumbling, to the vault. Instead of a roll-up door on the end, it had two solid slabs of metal with black-and-yellow danger stripes painted over the toothed edge where they met. A little control box on the side had a red glowing light on top.

  The echoes of running footsteps came at them, but Mitch couldn’t tell exactly where they were coming from. He looked down at the gun, trying to figure out how to reload it. It took him a second to find the answer staring back at him. There was a tab at the bottom of the grip, where the magazine went.

  “Christ.” Michael slumped against the gray wall of the vault, breathing hard. “Hand me the gun, will you?”

  Mitch pulled the gun back out of Michael’s reach. “I got it. Open the damn door.” He pressed the tab, and the empty magazine slipped out. The new one went in easy. He yanked back the cocking lever on top. It made a satisfying metal swoosh and click.

  Michael reached over and fumbled with the card key until he got it slotted into the front of the little box. It beeped twice. The light turned green.

  The doors hissed and swung open, letting out a puff of mist. Lights clicked on inside the vault. Mitch pulled Michael inside.

  The air was unexpectedly cold, walk-in freezer cold, and it nipped at his skin. Polished steel drawers lined the walls. At the far end, lights blinked across a control panel of some kind. A button glowed green just inside the hatch. Mitch hit it. The doors hissed closed, sealing them inside.

  “What’s in here?” Mitch whispered, looking down the long row of steel cabinets. His breath fogged the air. “Weapons, right? Exactly what the hell kind of weapons are we talking about here?”

  “Weapons of last resort.” Michael’s face showed awe for the first time. Soft blue lights on the drawers winked on and off, lighting up his pale skin. “Humans may not be the highest form of life in the universe. But we can invent things to make up for that.”

  “So what are we up against? What is the Archangel?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Mitch stepped closer. “Try me.”

  Michael gave him a measuring look, then nodded. “‘Behold,’” he recited, “‘a sweeping wind came from the north, and a great cloud on it. There was brightness round about it, and gleaming fire. And there was written in it lamentation, and mournful song, and woe. Behold, I bring a sword upon you, and your high places shall be utterly destroyed. I will scatter your bones round your altars. The cities shall be made desolate, and the mountains utterly laid waste. And Man shall fall slain, for the end is come.’”

  Goose bumps stood up on Mitch’s arms. “What’s that from?”

  “The Book of Ezekiel. Old Testament.”

  Mitch stared at him.

  “We have to stop the Archangel,” Michael said. “Before it can get the black box.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “There it is.” Geneva pointed. She folded up the map she’d stolen from Michael. The concrete building was easy to recognize. It was set back from the road, surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence topped by razor wire. A motorized gate blocked
off the entrance: tall, black, metal. It had a speaker box next to it. Nobody in sight. No signs of any kind, not even a “No Trespassing.” If she didn’t know better, she’d say the place was deserted.

  Lanny slowed the Bronco down. “And how you suppose we going to talk our way through that gate? Hmm? Tell you what, they see a brother and a goth chick knocking on their door, they just gonna start shooting.”

  “They’ve already seen us.” She cranked down the window and leaned out. She aimed the pulser at the speaker box. “Ram the gate.”

  “Say what?”

  “Do it. Now. Before they get a chance to go to plan B.” She braced her arm on the side mirror and fired. The white pulse beam lit up the speaker box from within. Sparks fountained down from the edges of the gate. “Go, go!”

  The Bronco’s engine revved up. Geneva pulled back inside and buried her face in her arms.

  The crash shuddered through the whole truck. The seat belt choked her. Metal clanged and crumpled. Tires hissed for a second over metal and then squeaked on pavement. Lanny let out a high-pitched whoop.

  Geneva looked up over the dash, through the cracked windshield. They were inside the compound. The Bronco charged around the end of the building, where a flatbed eighteen-wheeler was parked. Two men in mechanic’s jumpsuits crawled out from under the cab. One of them unzipped his jumpsuit and pulled out a black pistol.

  Lanny turned the Bronco around the corner, and the men dropped out of sight. A row of loading docks stretched along the back of the building. The one in the center had an asphalt ramp leading up from the ground to the door. Geneva pointed at it. “That’s our way in.”

  Lanny slowed down as he got closer to it. “I don’t know, girl. We run into that, be like hitting a brick wall. And you know they going to be waiting on the other side.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on.” She undid her seat belt, knelt on the plastic console between the seats, and reached down to lift up the blanket covering their stuff. They had piled the AK-47s and metal ammo boxes on the floor of the Bronco. She dug out one of the AK-47s and held it out to Lanny. “Here. You know how to use one of these?”

  He looked at it like it would bite him. “Oh, hell no.”

  “Then pull over there. Right there.” She pointed to a spot about a hundred feet from the ramp. “Park it.”

  “Man, those cats be coming around the corner any second now.” He swung the Bronco around so they were facing the building.

  Geneva clicked the AK-47’s charge lever from safety to full auto, snapped a round into the chamber, and put it in Lanny’s hands. “Careful of the trigger. Before you shoot, pull it tight against your shoulder. Hands on the wood, not on the metal. Squeeze with your whole hand and let go. Quick bursts.” Michael’s words, coming out of her mouth. They made her think of summer afternoons, the four of them out in a dry field somewhere, Gabe and Raph smoking cigarettes, Michael with his arms around her, pressing the heavy, ugly rifle against her shoulder. The smell of hot metal and Michael’s cologne.

  She blinked the memory away. Raph was dead. Gabe and Michael were gone. What the hell was she doing here?

  Her arm throbbed where Michael’s bullet had gone through.

  She lifted her good arm, feeling like she was in a dream, and pointed at the corner of the building. “Stay alive, will you? Watch out for me.” She reached down and flipped the blanket back the rest of the way. Her backpack was there, holding the black box all wrapped up in stealth fabric. But she ignored it for now.

  The biggest thing they’d found in the Ukrainians’ stash was some kind of NATO anti-armor rocket. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, something in between an old bazooka and the little green LAWs Michael had once shown her. It was shiny dark green, almost black, with black rubber cups on either end, like thick octagonal plungers. She lifted it up by the strap, wrestled it into the front of the truck.

  “Where the hell you going with that?”

  “I’m going to huff, and I’m going to puff.” She climbed down out of the truck and slammed the door. “Cover me!” She ran a few yards and knelt down.

  At least everything was labeled. A big red plastic toggle switch said SAFE FIRE and a button next to it said TRIGGER FIRE. A black-and-white label at one end said FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. Good to know.

  The loading dock door at the far end whined open. The one at the other end started right after it. Guys in business suits knelt down and poked guns out through the opening. From the Bronco, the AK-47 clattered to life, unsure, stuttering.

  Geneva hoisted the rocket onto her shoulder. Pain jolted up and down her injured arm. She sucked in her breath. No time for pain.

  The sights were plain open metal, a half circle with a peg in the middle. She lined them up on the door at the top of the ramp.

  Bullets sparked off the asphalt around her. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t breathe. She felt the plastic toggle switch, the smooth depression of the round button.

  She clicked the plastic toggle switch. Nothing happened.

  For a split second, she panicked. If the rocket was a dud, she and Lanny were as good as dead.

  Then the tube kicked on her shoulder and a white jet of smoke screamed out. Blinding her. Burning her eyes. Throbbing in her ears. Smelled like burned eggs.

  The rocket streaked away toward the door. The noise seemed to last forever.

  *

  Mitch watched the vault door anxiously, expecting it to hiss open any moment. “I thought angels were all harps and halos, Christmas carols. Stuff like that.”

  “How very secular of you,” Michael said.

  Mitch wasn’t sure what that meant, but Michael’s smart attitude was starting to piss him off. “Look, just give me a straight answer, here. What is the Archangel, exactly?”

  Michael sagged against a wall of metal drawers, each one blinking with sleepy blue lights. He reached across the narrow aisle and fumbled with a drawer latch. “There are worlds outside ours, Mitch. Outside the boundaries we know of as life and death. A few years back, certain very brilliant people figured out a way to cross that boundary.”

  “Scientists,” Mitch said, “in Russia.”

  Michael inclined his head. “Historically, this is not the first Archangel to wind up in our world. But this time, we brought it here on purpose. And found out too late we couldn’t contain it. Worse, the Archangel knows we created a key to unlock the door between worlds. With that key, it can destroy us. You, me, everything. Our very existence, snuffed out.”

  “With that black box,” Mitch realized out loud. “So what is it?”

  “What’s inside it, you mean. Something very similar to what powers these.” Michael pulled the drawer open. Lying inside it, on a grid of foam rubber, was something about the shape of a shotgun, only shorter and about three times as thick. It looked like it was milled out of a single block of bare metal, then polished to a mirror finish. It could have been part of a jet engine.

  Mitch had never seen anything like it. Its features were so smooth, it was almost a kind of sculpture, not intended to be touched with bare hands.

  A grim smile spread over Michael’s features. He reached into the drawer and picked up the weapon in both hands. He admired it for a moment before he slid his hand around this grip. “Now this,” he whispered, his breath puffing in the air, “this changes everything.”

  “Tell me it’s not radioactive or something.”

  Michael gave him a measuring look and then shrugged, as if he’d made up his mind about something. “It’s a Cerenkov device. There is radiation involved, yes, but not the kind you’re thinking of.”

  “I don’t know. Pretty much any kind of radiation I can think of is bad. What’s it do?”

  “It kills angels.” Michael unplugged a power cable from the gun and closed the drawer. He marched down to the far end of the chamber, moving with a purpose.

  “You okay to walk?” Mitch followed close behind, ready to reach out and grab him if he stumbled. “You’re not going to fa
ll over and nuke us, are you?”

  “The drugs they used are mostly short-term,” Michael said over his shoulder. “I’ll live.”

  Mitch looked at all the drawers lining the walls. “There’s gotta be, what, twenty of those guns in here?”

  “We’ll take this one and leave the rest.” Michael pulled open an access panel that was bordered in red-and-black diagonal stripes. The panel had a label on it, but Mitch couldn’t read it from where he was standing.

  “Shouldn’t we take—I don’t know—four or five?”

  “We’ll need the rest to buy us time.” Michael reached inside the panel and pulled a series of metal pins on rings out of a line of switches. When all the pins were out, he went down the line of switches again, throwing each one with a loud snap. As each switch went over, a red digital readout next to it started counting down from two hundred.

  Mitch pointed at the numbers. “What happens when those hit zero?”

  Michael closed the panel and hefted the thick Cerenkov gun. “We’ll be long gone by then.”

  An explosion crashed outside. The floor shook with the force of the blast, feeling like an electric buzzer going off beneath Mitch’s feet. Wreckage pelted the roof of the vault like distant rain. Michael glanced up at the ceiling, looking worried. The lights crackled and died, leaving them trapped in the darkness with the ticking red numbers.

  “Let me guess,” Mitch said. “Not part of the plan.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Geneva hopped back into the Bronco, breathing hard. Lanny drove up the ramp, through what was left of the door, and into the smoke and flames. The rocket had torn through a bunch of containers, blowing their metal walls open, scattering office furniture and broken glass and burning things Geneva couldn’t identify.

  Lanny drove down an aisle between the containers, hunched over the wheel. The headlight beams speared through the smoke.

  “Okay, slow down,” she said. “Mitch could be anywhere in here.”