The Darkest Corner Read online

  “On June twenty-third of this year, five thousand and sixteen people were killed in the bombing at the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.” There were no greetings of hello. Just business. Just the mission. “It’s the largest death toll since the 9/11 terror attacks, and it could have been much worse than it was. Not all of the explosives detonated on the side of the stadium where there was a larger concentration of people.”

  Her voice was smooth and didn’t hint of any geographical dialect or accent. She could’ve been from Texas or Wisconsin and no one would’ve been the wiser. She’d erased all traces of her past, whatever it might have been. Everyone had a past.

  Images popped up on the screens on each side of Eve, and she clicked through several pictures of the destruction and aftermath of the bombing. Deacon had seen most of the images already, but the devastation was still a kick in the gut.

  “Men, women, and children,” she said. “Young and old. Families out for the day, many of whom were watching their kids play ball.” All of the players survived, though there were some critical injuries, but the stadium collapsed around the field. Those in the stands and beneath didn’t fare as well.

  “An attack of this size has many components and players. It was well orchestrated and organized. But it was practice. We’ve found other practice sessions that had similarities in different parts of the world. As you all know, terrorists generally like to start small and work their way up to their final goal. In an attack of this size, there’s considerable planning and logistical requirements that have to go into each stage of their mission. Not to mention the equipment and weapons.”

  Two more pictures came on the screens and she continued. “The picture on your left occurred at an open market in Dubai. The one on the right at a mall in São Paulo. There are several others. Casualties ranged from fifty-five people to just over seven hundred. But it’s the materials used that link these attacks together.”

  “I take it the similarities have something to do with the Russian tanker we’ve been keeping an eye on?” Deacon asked, knowing that Eve didn’t give them orders without a purpose in mind, even if she didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle yet.

  “You are correct,” she answered. “The Jihadist terrorists call it The Perfect Day. The Russians call it Den’ Sud’by.”

  “Day of Destiny,” Dante interjected.

  “But it all means the same thing,” Eve went on. “It’s a terrorist’s wet dream. One day where everything falls into place. Where chaos and confusion and death ensue to the point that there aren’t enough first responders, nurses, doctors, or hospital beds for survivors. It’s 9/11 times a thousand.

  “Russia has been waiting patiently and biding its time. They’re at a place politically where they have the money, the weapons, and the power. They’ve spent decades living here, setting up communities and infiltrating all areas of the government. They’ve perfected what it means to be American.”

  “While many Americans have forgotten what it means to be American,” Dante said, straightening the cuff on his silk dress shirt. “The irony isn’t lost on me.”

  “The fact is they’re here,” Elias said. “And once they’ve achieved their Perfect Day, it’s easy enough to shut down electrical grids and put everyone into darkness. To shut down radar and air traffic control. They’d create a society of chaos and anarchy, and we all remember what happens to people when they’re put in those conditions. We all remember Hurricane Katrina. You take away people’s resources and throw them into the worst of the worst conditions and there’s no hope for peace. They turn on each other and it’s every man for himself. The human instinct for survival is strong, and a person will resort to whatever is necessary to make sure they’re the last one standing.”

  “Which is one of the reasons this team was assembled,” Eve said. “The College World Series bombing used a new gas called XTNC-50 in its explosives. It was created in a Russian lab, and as of now, there aren’t many documented instances of its use. It’s been thrown around as a threat, but we have yet to see its full potential. It’s more than a hundred times the fatality rate of sarin gas. It takes seconds to kill. And there is no antidote.”

  “Is that the common denominator between this practice session and the others?” Deacon asked. “This is the first we’ve heard of the attacks in Dubai and South America. There’s nothing in the intel we were given.”

  “An oversight the Department of Defense will hear about,” she said, and Deacon felt sorry for whoever was on the other end of that conversation.

  “But yes,” she continued. “XTNC-50 is one of the commonalities. These are terrorists on a suicide mission, and their goal is to send a message and incite worldwide panic. The best way to send the rest of the world into a panic is by putting the United States in a panic. It’s not only domestic destruction with the bombings, it means global economic destruction. And Russia is sitting pretty at the top of the food chain. They love it when the world is in chaos, because they thrive under those conditions. Their money and banking systems aren’t dependent on Wall Street or the World Bank. They’re financed mostly through the Mafiya.

  “The explosions went off in timed intervals, and the XTNC-50 gas takes very little time to work. Those who managed to escape the gas and explosions headed toward the exits, but the terrorists used marked first responder vehicles to block exits from the stadium. They were also dressed as first responders, adding to the confusion.

  “By blocking the exits they were herding the survivors to exactly where they wanted them to go. They left only one path of escape, and those who took that path were met with another surprise. Snipers waited for them, so as they ran toward the exit it was like a firing squad. Eventually the storm calmed enough for people to realize they were better off staying put, though many succumbed to the gas.”

  “Jesus,” Elias said, rubbing a hand over the scruff of his face. “None of that information was released by the Justice Department, and there wasn’t even a whisper in any CIA correspondence. We have their servers under surveillances, and we get flagged with any internal information on the terror attack.”

  “They’re on a budget crunch,” Axel said. “Maybe they’re trying to be efficient.”

  “And effective,” Eve said. “But like I said, this was practice. Their Perfect Day has been years in the making.”

  “What is their idea of the Perfect Day?” Deacon asked.

  “That’s what we don’t know and what you’re going to find out,” she said. “These are your targets. Jorgen Yevorovich, Mikhail Petrov, Sergey Egorov, and Ivan Levkin. Egorov is a distant relative of Vladimir Putin. They’re all second- and third-generation Americans. They have businesses and families here. And they’re coordinating the largest single terrorist attack the world has ever seen. Study them. Find them. Leave one of them alive for capture. Kill the others.”

  “And the tanker?” he asked.

  “That’s part of your mission. At this moment, the tanker you’ve been surveilling is headed toward U.S. waters under the guise of carrying machine parts. It’s also loaded with several crates of XTNC-50 gas. That tanker can’t get anywhere near land. You’ve got to destroy it before it gets in range. You’ll coordinate a HALO jump onto the tanker and take care of any guards. We think Yevorovich and Levkin are on the tanker. Set the explosives and then the Zodiac will be waiting for you to take you to the submarine. You should be well out of range when the explosives sink the tanker.”

  “How much time do we have before the tanker hits U.S. waters?” Axel asked.

  “A week. You’ll find schematics and other pertinent information in your inboxes.” The screens on either side of her face cleared and she looked at each of them. “How is the new recruit?”

  “He’s awake and in holding,” Deacon said. “He’s stable enough. He remembers you and signing the agreement, but there’s still some memory loss and disorientation. He was under longer than I’d have liked, so it might take him a couple of extra days to adju
st.”

  “Good,” she said. “We need him now. Go ahead and administer the psych evaluation.”

  Deacon raised his brows. “That thing is brutal. An hour ago he could barely stand by himself.”

  “Then give him until noon.” Her smile wasn’t a friendly one. “Moving on: I’ve been alerted that there could be some pressure from local law enforcement. Something about an armed robber identifying the transport van.”

  “We’ve got it under control,” he said. There was no point in asking how she knew about the situation. She knew everything. “There’s nothing to substantiate their claims, and the van is being serviced. I’d say the biggest issue is Tess at this point. She’s got it in her head that she wants to resign and move out of Last Stop.”

  “Tell her no,” Eve said, her eyes narrowing.

  Deacon almost grinned. He’d done just that, but he didn’t think Eve would appreciate the humor.

  “What’s the big deal if she decides to go?” Elias asked. “She got shafted on this deal and we all know it.”

  “Tess is useful,” Eve said. “It’s by no coincidence that we chose Last Stop for Gravediggers HQ. We scouted locations for several years and put chess pieces into motion long before anyone was brought on board. This is a prime location. We’re close enough to the city that we’ve got major resources available, and we’re in a central location so we can be anywhere in a matter of a few hours. This town is perfect because of the soil. Every town around us for a hundred miles is mostly built on limestone. Do you know how hard it is to dig tunnels and passageways through limestone?”

  “Pretty hard?” Elias asked sarcastically, drawing a chuckle from Dante and Axel.

  “How is Tess useful?” Deacon asked, going back to her original statement. He’d gotten a cold chill down his spine the moment Eve uttered her name.

  Eve’s gaze lasered in on his, and he wondered just exactly what she saw there. “She’s what we needed for a solid cover. I watched her for a couple of years, found out what her goals and plans were. Checked her background and her family life. I knew if we came in and bought the funeral home out from under her that she’d stay if we asked her. She doesn’t have the courage to pick up and start somewhere new. And she’s a direct connection to keeping us plugged in without being in the middle of things.

  “She also has indirect ties to the Russian Mafiya. The Mafiya is a closed community. They still speak ‘Old Russian’ that dates back to the time of the tsars. It’s like a foreign language within their own country. She speaks the language, and there are possibilities her grandmother could still be connected in some ways. No doubt she knows things. We’ve had her monitored for years. Tess too, just in case Tatiana ever feels the need to absolve her conscience to her granddaughter. We’ve not had reason to pull her in for questioning on the past at this point, but we’ll see where this particular mission takes us. They treat her like an outsider, but Tess belongs here. She’s too entrenched. She’ll never leave this place.”

  “And yet I’ve heard her tell two people she’s leaving,” Deacon said.

  “Then give her a reason to stay,” she told him flatly. Her tone was nonnegotiable. “I don’t care how you have to do it. Threaten her. Seduce her. Give her a purpose. She’s a mousy bookworm who spends more time with dead people than with the living. Make her feel needed and important. She speaks that particular dialect of Russian better than any of us could hope to. She may not realize it, but she was raised with the same traditions, information, and survival skills that the Mafiya passes on to their families. Hell, bring her in on the mission and give her a job on a need-to-know basis. Do whatever it takes.”

  “Mousy” was the last word he’d have used to describe Tess. “Fiery,” “passionate,” “hardheaded,” and “opinionated” would have come long before he ever thought the word “mousy.” It looked like Eve didn’t know everything after all.

  “And what happens if she has more courage than you give her credit for and down the road she decides to leave anyway?” Deacon asked.

  “Then we’ll take care of her.”

  “That’s cold,” Colin said.

  Eve’s glare cut to him and her gaze was glacial. “It’s reality. If we bring her in and tell her classified information, her contract would be much like yours. The only thing that can separate you from The Gravediggers is death. Or if you term out.”

  She added the second part as an afterthought, and Deacon felt like he had a pretty good answer to his wondering whether or not she’d actually release them from their bonds to go back out into the world as civilians.

  “We’re not an assassination squad,” Dante said.

  “You’re what you’re told to be,” she countered. “Don’t act as if your armor isn’t tarnished, Dante. You’ve somehow managed to seamlessly meld your life before death and this one. It’s because I allow it and nothing more.”

  Deacon stared at Dante, but the other man’s face was unreadable. They all knew Dante took his trips from time to time, but they never knew where he went or what he did. But the information was curious, and though he would’ve said he could trust Dante with his life, now he wasn’t so sure. There was no place for secrets like that in the brotherhood.

  “There are bigger things at stake than a Russian mortician,” Eve said. “We either use her or dispose of her. End of story. Don’t forget why you’re here. And don’t forget I don’t need your permission to do what I think is best. It’s my mercy that allows Tess Sherman to continue as she is. Just as it’s my mercy that allows you to be here.”

  “Our countries betrayed us,” Axel said, the anger in his voice palpable. Of all of them, he’d lost the most.

  “Some of you, yes. And some of you betrayed yourselves. It doesn’t matter. You didn’t follow orders and you had to die. End of story,” she said with a shrug.

  “We’re not puppets,” Deacon said. “And none of us will condone cold-blooded murder of the innocent. We’ve all walked in the gray areas. But we have a moral compass. Just because the pencil pusher at the top doesn’t have one doesn’t mean that we have to lose our sense of right and wrong.”

  “It’s a moot point,” she said. “Your countries considered you traitors. Maybe you should’ve followed orders for the greater good. Now you’ll never know. In the end, the legacy you’ve left behind is that of a traitor.”

  “And yet it’s us you wanted for this team,” Colin said. “Knowing we’ll disobey orders if we feel it’s necessary.”

  “Do you think you’re irreplaceable?” she asked coolly, arching a brow. “Do you really think that The Gravediggers’ inception began when I brought Deacon back as the first of you? Ten years is how long this project has taken to get where we want it to be. And we’re not there yet. Do you think there weren’t others before you? That we haven’t put millions of dollars into finding the perfect candidates. To test and discard them?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Axel asked.

  “It means you are an experiment, plain and simple. And the alpha team of this particular experiment didn’t work out the way it should have. They were terminated. Once we changed the selection criteria and focus, we got better candidates. You. But everyone is replaceable. You, me, The Directors,” she said. “Everyone.”

  Deacon froze, as did the others. He’d had no knowledge of others who’d come before him and failed. It was a sobering thought. The crux of it was that if he wasn’t here, living on the mercy of Eve Winters, he’d be dead anyway.

  “The Gravediggers were created for one purpose—they are a strike force that puts an end to domestic terrorism. Period. Terrorism is a moneymaking business and our lawmakers know this. Terrorism feeds billion-dollar weapons contracts, and global fear allows these contractors to push the lobbyists’ agendas through.

  “It’s taken years of research and resources, and billions of dollars to fund this brainchild. You’ve been selected from a global database of the most skilled agents in the world. This is not a United States prob
lem. It’s a worldwide problem. The United States is the center. Nothing can shut down global economics and trade faster than a terror attack on U.S. soil.

  “I don’t have to tell you what a well-strategized terror attack can do. The Perfect Day is about hitting us where we’d hurt the most and doing the most damage. Schools, commerce buildings, media outlets, the United Nations building, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and banks. Their goal is to shut everything down. Once it’s shut down, it’ll be that much easier to do the same in other countries, one after the other.

  “To be successful at this we have to focus our energy on what’s around us. You have access to all agency databases. It’s something none of the other agencies have. And our technology is able to match and discard possibilities with impressive accuracy. We are able to move without restriction, and we eliminate problems without having to gain permission or cut through red tape. We have autonomy where all other agencies have their hands tied. But there are sacrifices that must be made and consequences if the rules aren’t followed.”

  “We’re at your mercy,” Colin said, the bitterness in his voice thick.

  “Yes,” she said, and then she looked back at Deacon, her face unreadable. “Bring Tess in. At this point in the game she’s a possible asset, and we still don’t know if her family has potential Mafiya information that could be of use. I don’t care what you have to do to convince her to stay. Just do it. And if we discover we don’t need her, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  The good news was that he no longer had to think of a way to deceive The Directors into letting him pursue Tess. The bad news was she was now on their radar. The fault was partly his. Eve had seen something in the way he’d talked about Tess, and she’d pissed him off by saying Tess’s life would be forfeit if things went south. He’d given Eve a weapon to hold against him.