fire. All over the world. But none of that is happening.”
Church nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly, “and isn’t that interesting?”
Chapter Eighteen
Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa
849 Verdier Avenue
Victoria, British Columbia
October 13, 3:49 P.M.
After he had made the call and finalized arrangements, Doctor Pharos returned to the burned man’s chambers. He opened the door very quietly and looked in on the twisted lump of a thing on the bed. A nurse came out with a clipboard.
“The Gentleman is sleeping,” she said.
“Good,” said Pharos. “Send someone in to clean him up. He’s likely to have a visitor.”
She nodded and left.
When he was alone, Pharos walked over and studied the sleeping man. Despite the frequent hostility between them, it saddened Pharos to see the once-powerful man so badly wasted. The Gentleman was a lump. His face and torso were a red landscape of melted flesh. He had one eye with minimalvision; the other was gone, as was one ear and most of his nose. His legs were gone, victims of the boat explosion that had nearly killed him. His left arm was a stub, amputated at the elbow. There were bags attached to his penis and rectum and wires of every kind snaking in and out of his sickly gray flesh.
It was science, and not the grace of any god, that kept the man alive. Science and thewill of so many devoted people. Many thousands of them, hidden in plain sight inside the government, in the military, in banking systems and universities. Hidden everywhere. Some of them knew about this man, but most of the cogs in the great machine had no idea they were involved in something illegal. A culture of secrecy and lies, of misinformation and disinformation, of corruption and coercion.
And this dying madman was the heart of it all.
The last beating heart, at least.
Most of the employees in the upper tiers thought that there were several people running things from the top. If not Seven Kings, then at least a majority of them. Doctor Pharos made sure they kept believing that. It was a useful fiction; just as it was useful not to let them know that their hopes and dreams, theirplans of financial security and benefits, rested on the thready pulse of a rotting piece of meat tethered to life by eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of medical equipment.
And by Doctor Pharos, of course.
The loyal servant. The faithful and attentive doctor. The doting friend.
He had to fight to keep a sneer from his mouth.
The Gentleman was losing it; that was clear.
But he had notlost it all quite yet. Pharos knew for certain that the charred bastard still had certain secrets locked away. Not in vaults or encrypted onto computers. No, the bastard had them memorized. Long strings of numbers. Banking access codes and routing numbers. Beyond the millions on the organization’s operational accounts, there were billions—tens of billions—in offshore numbered accounts. And as theRegis project unfolded, many more billions would flow in as the global stock markets tore themselves to pieces. All of that money would flow into the accounts controlled by the burned man. After all, he was the last man—Pharos paused here in his musings. The burned man was hardly the last man standing . Merely the last man. His value as a human being, his total value to Pharos, and his sole protection from Pharos were in that set of numbers. Those banking codes.
Once Pharos had those—or even some of them—the burned man would be far less important. Pharos had a splinter of sentimentality left for him. So, maybe he wouldn’t actually abandon him to rot and starve. A bullet or an injection would be the merciful, compassionate, and companionable thing.
Once he had the fucking codes.
For now,though, they were all in that dying, demented brain. In the lump of gray that was being turned into Swiss cheese by the relentless march of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Spongiform encephalopathy. A degenerative neurological disorder, a human
Church nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly, “and isn’t that interesting?”
Chapter Eighteen
Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa
849 Verdier Avenue
Victoria, British Columbia
October 13, 3:49 P.M.
After he had made the call and finalized arrangements, Doctor Pharos returned to the burned man’s chambers. He opened the door very quietly and looked in on the twisted lump of a thing on the bed. A nurse came out with a clipboard.
“The Gentleman is sleeping,” she said.
“Good,” said Pharos. “Send someone in to clean him up. He’s likely to have a visitor.”
She nodded and left.
When he was alone, Pharos walked over and studied the sleeping man. Despite the frequent hostility between them, it saddened Pharos to see the once-powerful man so badly wasted. The Gentleman was a lump. His face and torso were a red landscape of melted flesh. He had one eye with minimalvision; the other was gone, as was one ear and most of his nose. His legs were gone, victims of the boat explosion that had nearly killed him. His left arm was a stub, amputated at the elbow. There were bags attached to his penis and rectum and wires of every kind snaking in and out of his sickly gray flesh.
It was science, and not the grace of any god, that kept the man alive. Science and thewill of so many devoted people. Many thousands of them, hidden in plain sight inside the government, in the military, in banking systems and universities. Hidden everywhere. Some of them knew about this man, but most of the cogs in the great machine had no idea they were involved in something illegal. A culture of secrecy and lies, of misinformation and disinformation, of corruption and coercion.
And this dying madman was the heart of it all.
The last beating heart, at least.
Most of the employees in the upper tiers thought that there were several people running things from the top. If not Seven Kings, then at least a majority of them. Doctor Pharos made sure they kept believing that. It was a useful fiction; just as it was useful not to let them know that their hopes and dreams, theirplans of financial security and benefits, rested on the thready pulse of a rotting piece of meat tethered to life by eight hundred thousand dollars’ worth of medical equipment.
And by Doctor Pharos, of course.
The loyal servant. The faithful and attentive doctor. The doting friend.
He had to fight to keep a sneer from his mouth.
The Gentleman was losing it; that was clear.
But he had notlost it all quite yet. Pharos knew for certain that the charred bastard still had certain secrets locked away. Not in vaults or encrypted onto computers. No, the bastard had them memorized. Long strings of numbers. Banking access codes and routing numbers. Beyond the millions on the organization’s operational accounts, there were billions—tens of billions—in offshore numbered accounts. And as theRegis project unfolded, many more billions would flow in as the global stock markets tore themselves to pieces. All of that money would flow into the accounts controlled by the burned man. After all, he was the last man—Pharos paused here in his musings. The burned man was hardly the last man standing . Merely the last man. His value as a human being, his total value to Pharos, and his sole protection from Pharos were in that set of numbers. Those banking codes.
Once Pharos had those—or even some of them—the burned man would be far less important. Pharos had a splinter of sentimentality left for him. So, maybe he wouldn’t actually abandon him to rot and starve. A bullet or an injection would be the merciful, compassionate, and companionable thing.
Once he had the fucking codes.
For now,though, they were all in that dying, demented brain. In the lump of gray that was being turned into Swiss cheese by the relentless march of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Spongiform encephalopathy. A degenerative neurological disorder, a human
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