Grayman Book Five: The Ragnarok

Part One: The Revolution Will Be Televised

1

May 20th 2025.

Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Powell, Commanding Officer, UNACT NAO West-Com:

You’re ordering me to seize and secure one of our own facilities? I want to make sure I’m absolutely clear on this going in.

Priority is the McCain prototype AI, Richards puts an official voice on what I’ve been fed. Their so-called ‘Beta’ system. And any associated files. Evidence of Ghost operations, connections to terrorists or terrorist attacks, or anything else illegal.

Am I expecting the kind of reception Dave Manning encountered in New York and Atlantic City? Or what just went after Colonel Ram in Detroit? is what I really need to know (though I doubt he has any better intel than our new machine’s already flashed me).

I’m hoping there won’t be any actual armed resistance, Richards gives me best-case, just the legitimate site security. We’ll send the clear codes to stand them down and get you through the automated sentry systems as you arrive, assuming we actually have control over them. Until then, they won’t know you’re coming, not unless they do have our new machine hacked. In any case, we need to hit fast, minimize any warning.

So there will be threat, I assume everything but best-case.

I expect attempts to destroy evidence as soon as they see us coming. Hopefully that’s all we’ll have to deal with. There’s been enough blood shed over this shit.

Yes, sir, I agree.

I’m not surprised by the orders, given what I’ve been hearing and seeing: Battles on American soil between our guns and guns that very well should be ours in the hands of soldiers that also should be ours (but officially don’t exist). Apparent attempts to clean up incriminating details, eliminate threats, silence those who may know things that might be damaging to very powerful people who should have been above board. And what we’d thought was a war between terrorist factions to fill a power void that turned out to be a bloody game played by our own leadership to cover a global atrocity.

I’ve played my part in atrocities before, followed orders I can barely live with, all because I believed there was a Greater Good. And there may be a Greater Good somewhere over this ‘raqed rainbow, but the power players have crossed every line. Whatever better world they had in mind won’t be one I could stand living in.

So when Richards sends me an order in the middle of the night that I’m pretty sure isn’t Committee authorized, for once I’m all good with just doing what I’m told. Because now we finally get to hit back, take out the secret AI they’ve been using to run their crimes, and maybe, if we’re really lucky, score a treasure trove of evidence to bury the motherfuckers.

Assuming this is genuine, and not another play in their game.

No time to question. We have to hit quick and clean before the bad guys realize we’re coming and burn everything we’re after. Though by the way Richards sounded, I don’t think he thinks we have a prayer of getting anything of value before the enemy takes it away from us.

And he doesn’t say so to me, but I get the feeling Richards is going way out on a professional and legal limb here, taking all the authorizations for this on his own back. He’s in a shitty place: he knows he can’t trust going through Committee channels, given how compromised that may be. They already threatened his command and his commission once because he stepped out in the name of doing the right thing. He’s risking his ass if this play goes bad in any way, especially if it gets bloody on American soil, but we need to take this opportunity now, no matter how bad the odds of scoring more than a self-destructed pile of hardware and data files.

He also doesn’t bother to impress the need for extreme care in our little night run, but I’ve been paying attention: The so-called Ghost units have weapons, armor and tech almost equal to our own (probably from the same goddamn production lines). And just a few hours ago they used depleted uranium AP ammo to try to kill Colonel Ram (and they didn’t give a shit that a few thousand civilians were in the firing line).

So we keep it small, but big enough to make the needed impression. We pack four dropships into a cargo and fly into the Mainland with six teams and supports. We use the Guard facility at the Phoenix Airport to land, unload, and spin up. It all takes two hours, and hopefully hasn’t been noticed by the bad guys (even though the bad guys and us seem to be pretty hard to discriminate between these days).

(And that’s probably exactly why our own leadership isn’t in the loop live on this one.)

According to the in-flight briefing, Chandler is a city to the southeast of Phoenix that used to be farmland. Then it went industrial in chunks as land was cheap for big fab plants, and finally full-on suburban as workers needed housing and the metropolitan area spread to fill the entire county and beyond. The map shows mile after mile of alternating high-density housing, commercial infrastructure and big industrial properties.

What I see in the dark from the dropship bay is a blanket of city lights that seems to go on forever, from horizon to horizon like LA, only with less freeway arteries. Dark patches are a few ranges of low mountains in the otherwise flat landscape, but even those are at least dotted with the lights of upscale homes. Thankfully, the main roads I can see look light with traffic at 0200, parking lots mostly emptied. If this turns into a free-fire, hopefully there won’t be any unacceptable collateral.

Chandler is also where some of the biggest of the big corporate tech had their production facilities until the economy tilted and sent a lot of them looking overseas. Some of their abandoned plants got bought up by start-ups, including the for-profit operations of the McCain Foundation (and some of the less critical SENTAR fabricators). And it’s such a facility that our new Tactical AI—uncreatively named TAI—has lit up in our sights, where it’s managed to trace the mystery interface signals coordinating the Ghosts back to.

The target is about city-block sized, with three large buildings and parking for a few hundred employees surrounded by gated security fences, reinforced by our own sentry systems. If things are even remotely above-board, the newly-installed replacement AI will be able to slave the sentries and let us pass without a blip. Then it’ll be about how the human element reacts. Hopefully the flesh-and-blood onsite are just straight-up employees and security, not more Ghost Soldiers ready to protect their masters’ assets at all costs.

Consolation: The plant’s security is hardened against ground attack, not an air insert. We fly over the fences and it looks like there’s lots of room to drop since the parking is mostly empty on graveyard. The plant is supposed to be producing some of the interface components for our armor, and we’re currently their only customer despite all attempts to expand the market—some of those attempts apparently beyond shady—so the fabs are running far below planned capacity (a loss I’m sure the shareholders aren’t happy about).

Thankfully TAI lives up to basic expectations, so the only initial response to our arrival is just hacked urgent chatter as the meat security jumps at the unexpected company and tries to rally—no sign of anything more sinister or dangerous. They harden their checkpoints with guns, then come out in small bands when they see our ships and armor (though given the events of the last few days, that’s not exactly convincing ID).

They hesitate when they get fed orders to stand down and allow us access for search. TAI keeps that alert on the security channel only, then shuts down everything else, triggering what hopefully looks like a convincing security lockdown drill to keep the workers sitting put. It won’t sell for long, so we have to move fast. The opposition will almost certainly have some hired wetware onsite to destroy what we came for, no matter how valuable it is (though the more likely risk is that the rogue system itself has self-destruct protocols, and there’s no way we can move faster than an AI can think, hence why this may well be just a gallant but dutiful waste of time).

My visor floods with glowing floor plans of the main buildings. TAI has a few potential locks on our primary target—places the actual Beta mainframe could be plugged in. If we’re lucky, they didn’t expect this enough to do some creative decoying. And I’m struck by the obvious irony: I’m not on a terrorist hunt. I’m chasing down a big box of chips and salsa that has no legs to run and no guns to shoot back with.

And then we get shot at. Or at least we get guns pointed at us.

ATTACK DETECTED. AUTOMATED BATTERIES. SENTAR MODEL 20A…

I recognize what I’m seeing but it takes wrapping my brain around: Outbuildings on the corners of the main facilities fold and drop like the trick boxes in a magic show. Inside are automated batteries—like our own base defenses—spinning to life and tracking on us.

Our pilots respond to TAI’s lead and start evasive weaves as their own turrets and missiles lock back. The facility guards seem freaked worse than us, like they had no idea there was artillery on the property. And I’m waving my men on the ground to run for the very structures these guns are placed to defend, knowing how fast the damn things can react, knowing nothing we’re wearing can stop a 20mm chain gun (and I’m still actively worried about stray shots killing locals)…

…and nothing happens.

COMMAND OVERRIDE. SYSTEM SLAVED. SHUTDOWN.

TAI comes through.

And in the relative silence of nothing happening I realize how fast my heart is pounding inside my armor.

TAI has a good hack, Lieutenant Wilson assures from our M-Tac. Looks like they also had some nasties waiting for you inside: more automated guns, booby traps. But everything looks secure.

And the enemy AI? I want to know. It takes him long seconds.

"It had erasure protocols in place, but it looks like our new baby got in and took hold. It’s starting to download… Looks like there’s a lot there. Mission specs. Dates. Objectives. Realtime records. It looks like a slice of our own ops, but it’s not… Whoa… Wow… This is bad, Colonel… This is really bad…"

No. It’s not. Even though I may be out of a job.

The facility security has decided the best play is to drop their guns and go face down. My armor moves in to take physical charge of what TAI has apparently already wrapped. And I’m more than happy we did this without firing a shot.

Colonel Powell, I’ve got some chatter coming in I think you want to hear, Wilson comes back on as I’m trying to coordinate some kind of orderly search of the facilities with the now very eager to help security staff.

Committee flak? I’m fully expecting.

No sir. It’s Colonel Burke. NYPD responded to shots fired inside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. We don’t have any of our own onsite, but TAI has hacked the cops’ feed. It’s a mess, sir…

Send it, I order, then point my visor at blank wall so I can watch with minimal visual distraction. What I get is bits of video that looks like it’s inside some pre-revolutionary French palace, except the place is all shot to hell and splattered with hi-vel gore. I can see blast damage and bodies in conservative suits. Emergency personnel are all standing around without shit to do because apparently everybody is dead. SWAT armor stands sentry, with more armored cops picking through the wreckage, collecting lots of military light weapons and whatever IDs the bodies might yield. And several of them are milling around one shape that still seems to be breathing: A big black suit of our Tac armor, sitting in some plush throne-like chair in one of the bigger rooms. His ICW and his helmet are dropped at his feet, and he’s got a cut-crystal bottle of something amber dangling from his gloved hand. I think I can see bloody fingerprints on the bottle.

Shaky lo-rez feed from one of the cops zooms and shows me it’s Burke. He’s just staring into space, still as a statue, his eyes looking a million miles away. If they’re asking him any questions, he isn’t answering them, isn’t even looking at them. His fingers absently make the bottle dance, swirling whatever’s in it, but he doesn’t drink—still, it’s the only thing that tells me he isn’t dead.

He wasn’t online for this, sir, Wilson tells me what I pretty much assumed before I could ask. No idea what this was.

Who’d he shoot? I ask what seems obvious.

Most IDs come up fake. Intel grade. Probably covert ops, but they look like they were playing security.

More Ghosts. No loss.

’Most’? I catch the wording, and how he hesitated before he fed that to me.

IDs are still pending confirmation, sir… The bodies are shot up almost beyond recognition…

Who’d he shoot, Lieutenant? I get testy. And I think I know. But—even knowing Burke—I can’t really wrap…

Secretary Miller... General Kudziyev… General Chen…

I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I feel like I’ve been shot with a training stunner.

Serves ‘em right—that’s the first coherent thought that pops for me. Not because of what they did or didn’t do or might have done. But because they had to know what Burke was when they took him in, had to know what breaks him and what he goes and does before he gives a shit about himself or the rest of us.

DNA is still pending… Wilson is trying excuses, and we don’t have mission feed… reconstruct… We don’t know what…

What’s our response? I focus him.

Colonel Richards is local—he’s headed over there with a team to try to work this out. The Feds are moving in to take over the scene, given the players involved. Hopefully we won’t get resistance.

It looks dirty: more apparent Ghost shooters and suspect power players (on our own Committee Military Advisory, no less) holed up together, and no clear picture yet on how it went down. Burke could have just been following a lead and walked into a hornet’s nest. (Or he could have been set up for slaughter, the way things have been going, and just got lucky.)

On the other side, Burke apparently just killed the fucking Defense executives of three fucking superpowers. And he had no Sanction. (How do you get Sanction when your target is who gives you Sanction?)

The Feds at least have to try to arrest him, if only to try to chill the international backlash. And if we even remotely want to look righteous in this fucking apocalypse, we really need to let them.

Colonel?

Worst part: I understand the stupid bastard. I do. He doesn’t think so, but I can’t fault him for what he feels about this shit. I feel it, too—sometimes more than I think I can survive. But there are rules of engagement, there are ways things need to be done. And just because shit gets midnight fucking black, you can’t throw away your soul to fix it. Not even in this goddamn job.

But then, the bastards murdered his girl right in front of him. If it was me… I can’t say if I could dial back, hold it together, not give into the fuck it and murder right back, just for the simple satisfaction of ending some piece of shit that really needs it.

But I know I’d put good money on what Burke would do. Has done before. Apparently just did again.

They had to know he would come for them.

Maybe that’s why they sent that sniper.

And I catch the bitter chuckle in my throat: sending that sniper is probably what got them killed, self-fulfilling prophecy right out of a fucking Greek tragedy.

Keep me updated, Lieutenant.

2

Captain Scott Becker, UNACT Interface Warfare Operations Officer:

Enjoy it.

That’s what Jeffries said. I don’t know if I want to.

What I do is keep focused on what I can do, like my own personal version of the recovering addicts’ Serenity Prayer. I shut out the coming shit storm, like the world doesn’t exist outside the tomb-like security of Mi-Com, and I convince myself I’ve decided to stand up in the right place and I do what it is I can do. And I try not to enjoy it because that’s not what this is about.

Step One: I slipped down to the Mainframe and used my pre-planted back doors to let whatever has survived of Dee through the new firewalls as soon as it opens itself (and the Beta system) up to TAI.

Up front, it looks good: TAI didn’t red-flag on how easy it was for it to hack into Beta, tracing it back through its mazes, worming inside and shutting down both its hard defenses and its anti-capture protocols. Powell and his armor are probably singing TAI’s praises for keeping anybody from getting shot by some pretty hardcore automated hardware—he doesn’t need to know it was Dee who surrendered (but not before theatrically revealing the unauthorized weapons systems installed to defend the facility from us), Dee having discreetly infected and taken over Beta while it was busy coordinating the attempt to assassinate Colonel Ram. He doesn’t need to know it was Dee that got sloppy and let TAI get the trace during the resulting firefight, then let TAI slave the rogue mainframe without triggering the failsafes designed to erase all the incriminating tactical files in the event of capture. He just needs to know he won one tonight—a big one.

Questions will get asked, of course. But by then, what’s done will be done, and no matter what I do at this point I expect I’ll get grilled for what I’ve done since I signed on with McCain eight years ago. And I can say I really didn’t know about the criminal shit going on apparently right in front of me, but it doesn’t make me feel better.

So instead now I can say I did know exactly what I was doing, at least here at the end, and illegal or whatever, I’ll be able to live with myself (assuming they don’t kill me for it—seems to be the trend lately).

Anyway…

Step Two: I made sure Richards immediately gets fed the juiciest bits of whatever TAI finds in disemboweling Beta. I’ll expect he’ll pass it up and down the command chain, just discreetly enough to leave anybody incriminated out of the loop. This should also keep said command chain so busy that Step One doesn’t get noticed and fucked with until what’s done is done. (And hopefully some of it will help Richards in digging Colonel Burke out of the pit he gladly jumped into trying to force some justice out of this nightmare.)

Step Three:

Davis is asleep in his loaner rack up in VIP, his personal gear quietly hacked and shut down to keep him undisturbed until Captain Ava can get some base security assembled to drop this properly.

She’s default ranking officer onsite, with Jeffries in Detroit and Richards in New York. And she’s been part of this long enough to deserve to play her part, to strike a good one. Still, she doesn’t even blink when I show up to meet the team in the VIP section, not even when she sees I’ve brought a sidearm.

Armor pairs off and makes sure all of the junior McCain players are covered, then Ava gives Davis the benefit of calling his name out over his room intercom. On my feed, I see him stir, annoyed like he’s being summoned because of some glitch in his new baby that isn’t a glitch at all, just some jarhead who can’t figure out the tech. Given his ego, I’m sure he can’t imagine that he’s been fucked as badly as he’s about to find out. But then the hatch opens and two suits of full Tac Armor step in, weapons leveled, and he freezes before he can even reach his pants.

After you, Ava gives me, like she knows exactly why I’m here.

I step in between the two armored Tacticals, my hand on my gun but not drawing it.

Doctor Davis. You’re being placed under arrest.

Not the coolest line, considering I’ve been rehearsing this moment in my head for the last few hours. It just came out that way.

I don’t understand. What…? He’s honestly groggy—bastard could actually sleep given what he’s done—but he doesn’t put up the expected argument. So I tell him just how badly he’s fucked:

"We just secured the Beta AI at the McCain facility in Chandler. We were able to trace it after it coordinated an attack in Detroit a few hours ago, an attempt to murder Colonel Ram that resulted in a large number of civilians being killed and injured. We were also able to secure its files intact without triggering the built-in erasure protocols."

I watch his mouth work but no sound comes out. His eyes burn with that monster ego of his, but it sort of locks up, stalls—it becomes a mask that he just keeps holding up because that’s how he deals. But I can feel it: he knows what I’m going to say next.

"The machine gave up complete mission runtime on a disturbing number of clearly illegal operations, many of which can be classified as terrorist acts. And while the files avoid specific identifiers of who was involved, the facility security logs are very clear. You and several members of your team have regularly accessed the Beta mainframe."

I give him time to rebut, to throw out some kind of defense, but he stays quiet. He reaches slowly and carefully for his pants, starts to pull them on. Captain Ava has come in—she’s just standing back in the corner of the room, hand close to her weapon, stone-faced, letting me go for it.

I can believe that some of your student interns may not have realized what they were working on. I’m sure they’ll be willing to cooperate when they see what they’re facing.

And I see it: His face changes, his eyes shift, his anger finds a new target as he processes what he believes is obvious: This should not have happened. TAI should never have been able to chase down Beta, much less hack it so cleanly. Because he took steps to ensure it couldn’t. Everything should have hard-erased as soon as we tried to take it, and he could claim all we’d seized was just a discarded prototype they’d kept stored for students to play with.

So I put some icing on his nightmare:

"Also, I did catch the code you planted that cut Colonel Ram off from TAI during the attempt on his life, and kept it from deleting itself."

The beauty is: he can’t grasp the easy conclusion that the reason we’re here is that he underestimated me, left me unsupervised with his work. I doubt he can even imagine that it was Dee that killed him. I see his eyes make the more acceptable conclusion. Then he gets his pants on and looks right past me (like I’m not here) to Captain Ava and tells her as coolly as he can:

I want to make a deal. And I need protection.

Davis certainly knows the major players are culling all the weak links, silencing anyone who could hurt them. He’s probably assuming they’re trying to eliminate him as well, or at least set him up to take the fall for them.

Dumbass.

I try not to enjoy this too visibly.

3

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Jeffries, Acting Commanding Officer, UNACT NAO Mi-Com:

I finally get to the hospital at 04:30. And I find Mike Ram in the most unexpected place I could imagine.

Privacy, he explains why he’s sitting alone in the small chapel just down the hall from Trauma Surgery before I can ask. He sounds miles away, stepped out of himself. No one’s come in for an hour or so. If someone really wants the room for its intended purpose, I’ll go somewhere else.

He’s still got his hat and coat on. The coat had been pretty thoroughly sprayed with blood—enemy, friendly and innocent—but it’s shaken it off like it always does. And I can see his new sword—the bizarre gift from an enemy—under the opened breast, stuck in his belt and hugging his left side, keeping company with his guns and ammo.

Didn’t expect you’d be hanging around at all, I open, sliding into the hardwood pew next to him. It’s hot out there. ER is packed with incoming, mostly gunshot wounds, some barely hanging on. And the Press are swarming, of course.

Cops? he wants to know.

I think I managed to chill the locals, at least until the political players decide to make a show of being outraged. A mess like that—all the dead and wounded—someone’s gonna build a platform out of it and make some noise, get folks out for blood.

I think they’d rather I let myself get killed, he gives me his confession, just looking straight ahead and not particularly at the relatively non-denominational altar (a white-covered table with white candles and white flower arrangements, and a plain cross almost hidden in the woodwork paneling over top of it). His boots rest on a rack of assorted scriptures and grief counseling pamphlets on the back of the bench in front of us.

What are you doing here? I have to ask.

He shakes his head like he isn’t sure, then comes out with an excuse:

Security. I brought in one of the Betas that apparently jumped ship. She took out a few of the crew sent after me. Then she took a few AP rounds meant for me: one in the arm, one in the liver. She’s still in surgery.

Obligation. I get it. Even though she’s an enemy—an assassin, no less—even enemies tend to bond against a common foe, especially under fire, especially if one is willing to bleed for the other. You can forget some unforgivable shit in a situation like that. (And I did take the time to compare the biometrics on the blonde at the club with the fuzzy cell vid of the blonde that spiked the Senator, so I can estimate the level of unforgivability involved here.) But I somehow get there’s something more going on.

She have a name?

Apollyon called her ‘Star.’ Astarte. Maybe Astaroth. You should be able to find files on her codename in the Beta system. Apollyon, too. He probably goes by ‘Asmodeus’.

He says it like I’m on my own, like he won’t be playing.

She admitted to killing Atkins and Fredericks, he goes on to confirm my idle research. Thought she was doing something righteous, or so she said. Then she helped get Collins killed, at least by delivering him to the ambush with Ashleigh and Leighton Atkins, and whatever part of what happened next she had to do or watch sounds like it broke her. Apollyon admitted to that sick little atrocity—he sounds like he does it because he gets off on it… You might want to focus on him, try to get a history. Either he’s been doing sick shit like this on the payroll a long time, or he’s gone off the leash and is devolving fast.

He sounds tired, beaten, drained of giving much of a shit. Or maybe like a man who’s ready to sell his soul to the devil. What he doesn’t sound like is pissed, focused on the hunt, the kill. And I might be misreading, but I get a hint of something that almost sounds like he’s sympathetic to the sick piece of shit. Almost.

How long you planning on camping here? I press him. He shrugs.

Dee gave Astarte or whoever she is a new ID, something hopefully safe and civilian. Even added a backstory that she plays concert piano, so—combined with some prime insurance—the surgeons will go the extra to try to fix her arm right. But Apollyon knows she got shot, knows I carried her off. The Press will fill in the where to, though he’s probably figured my options were short, given the messy liver wound and a Federal assassination charge looming on her. He’ll probably come looking for her, or somebody will, even with the Beta network taken down. She’s made it clear enough she’s not playing on their team anymore, and that makes her a liability, depending on what she’s been privy to. And I get the impression that she and Apollyon were partners or lovers or something before it went bad.

I try to ignore the creepy feeling in my gut that either Ram or Dee specifically arranged for high-dollar cutters to make sure a killer can keep her skills, and stick to the more pressing:

So she’s bait?

Short term. If he doesn’t come soon, it means he’s being smart about it. But if I leave our armor guarding her, it’ll draw attention—right now she’s just supposed to be some unlucky citizen I felt bad enough about to bring in. Once things get settled and she’s stable enough to move, we can get her someplace we can secure.

At least he’s using the plural, suggesting it’s not all personal.

That’s a long time to sit on her, I question, especially since a lot of the locals would probably like to finish Anubis’ mission—I don’t say that last part. I’m sure he’s been stewing on it all damn night, between the way he looks and his crack about folks—probably the ones stuck in the crossfire with him—wishing he’d have just let himself get neatly murdered. (I wonder if anyone had the balls to say it to his face in the heat of the moment.)

I’m working on that, he lets me know without giving me any details, probably on purpose. Then he goes far away in silence again, looking almost small under all the armor and costume he’s wearing. His eyes are doing a little dance, staring at nothing, like he’s replaying the Harlequin firefight in his head. His breathing sounds ragged, shaky, like he’s in pain or wants to cry or both. He’s got his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, probably so I don’t see them shake. Proof he’s still human. I’m not sure if that reassures or worries me right now.

I give his burden of guilt a few moments of unchallenged silence in this disturbingly institutional (and hospital-smelling) pocket of holy ground. Then I deal with what’s making my dinner dance:

If we take her in, asset or not, she assassinated a US Senator on home ground. And you’re right: the Feds won’t let us keep her. You know that.

He nods a little bit, looking like he’s all locked up in some kind of internal debate. So I run my own calculations of her options: Let public outrage pressure a capital sentence, or at least life without parole. Turn witness and trust the Feds to keep her safe against a small army of covert killers and very likely high-ranking members of their own leadership. Or

If she runs, she can’t hide anymore, I think out loud, not without the Beta system to help her.

At which point my tired brain actually manages to realize something that should be more than obvious to me.

Dee’s going to take her.

He doesn’t confirm or deny, doesn’t even acknowledge I said it. Just breathes. Then, quietly, like he’s showing at least a little respect for where he’s sitting:

If they want blood, they can have Asmodeus.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving motherfucker, I swear in church.

He almost smiles.

In deference to where we are, I try to give him some half-assed absolution for the guilt he’s oozing over the civvies that died in the crossfire meant for him:

"Asmodeus… He triggered that clusterfuck at the club. He made it happen that way. We have him hacked on a side channel, slickly convincing ‘Anubis’ that you were going to make a messy stand, that he had to send his guns in and take you hard, crowd or no."

It hits him—I watch his eyes play with it—but he just shakes his head, denies:

"I heard Anubis say he had orders to do it in public. I was just hoping he would try to be neat, that he wouldn’t open up with automatic weapons, not in a packed nightclub."

And that’s how it’s his fault: He didn’t think it would go so bad. He trusted his enemies to be professional, or at least human. Because the Betas aren’t terrorists. They’re fucking US and Coalition soldiers re-tasked to what they probably believe are legitimate black ops, probably unaware they’ve been co-opted by a cabal of bastards who are willing to kill fucking anybody for power or profit or their better world or whatever their excuse is.

But the Betas panicked. Ram’s sure he did that, scary-fucking-monster that he is. But it was Apollyon or Asmodeus or whatever the sick fuck’s name is.

It was supposed to be public, but not like that, not according to the Beta mission file, I keep trying. "They were supposed to herd you outside, at least try for a semi-clean shot, just not too pro, make it look like the terrorists finally scored you. Asmodeus scared them into what happened next. You couldn’t avoid it. They wouldn’t have let you. Even if you let them walk up, put a gun to your head and pull, no way they’d get out of that crowd without shooting."

Defense rests.

It takes him a few to process. He closes his eyes, shakes his head, looks like he’s spinning counter-arguments, looks like he actually wants to burn for this. But then he shudders out something like a chuckle under his breath, and I get just a flash of his evil grin.

We find the defendant Not Guilty.

Next case:

So why did Asmodeus intentionally ‘raq the op? I burble what I’ve been stewing on since I reviewed the hacked runtime. Is he that far gone, or is he trying to fuck his bosses on purpose?

He has some kind of plan, even if it sounds like it’s all just for his own personal amusement, he gives me whatever impressions he got from the bastard. Then he pulls something small and slim out of his coat pocket. It’s some kind of flash drive. He gave me this right before the shit hit. Claimed it’s his kill list, given to him by Sec-Def Miller. Unfortunately, it’s DNA and biometrically encrypted, which means we need him alive to unlock it.

So he baits you, then spins what should be his own team’s shot at taking you down way the fuck out of control, I think out loud in front of Generically Inoffensive God. Then connect: Was that what he was doing with Collins and the Atkin’s women?

Both could have been done relatively cleanly, he agrees. But he made them way too ugly to slide. As if the things his bosses have ordered aren’t unforgivable enough…

He’s taking them beyond next-level, I finish where I think he’s going when he trails off. Why? Is that supposed to bury them deeper?

Or demand the burying happen, he tosses back. What happened at the Harlequin was loud, public and got innocent people killed—that last part was Asmodeus, but that’s not what it’s going to look like.

Miller and the other conspirators will look like bloodthirsty monsters who don’t care who gets hurt or killed, I nail it. But then that gets me to other pressing business.

Speaking of: You heard about Colonel Burke? I start, hoping he’s already been fully informed so I won’t have to tell him myself.

He shudders on a long deep breath. Nods a little.

’It would not diminish you to allow someone else to strike the blow,’ he sounds like he’s quoting.

What?

General Chen told me that, when I asked them if they expected me to eliminate Zarovich for them. Right after they admitted everything they’d done, including sending the sniper that killed Amber.

I have to stifle one of those the irony is just too sick laughs.

I’m assuming you recorded the moment for posterity.

He nods like it’s nothing major, getting high-ranking cabinet secretaries from the three biggest world superpowers to confess war-crime-level conspiracy, and secretly recording it despite whatever precautions they thought they’d taken.

And that’s all I get. He falls silent again, no comment about his best friend under Federal arrest and likely facing assassination charges from said world superpowers for apparently charging in and taking his own quantum of justice.

So I get to what I really need to know:

What happens now?

He chuckles again, sad and tired.

Isn’t it supposed to be over when you kill the villains? he seems like he’s asking the altar in front of us, but he sounds like he knows the answer already. So he tells me: It isn’t done yet. The Committee players weren’t working alone, may not even have been the ones who started it, just probably thought they were running it. We still have players in the wind; others in plain sight, denying… Funny, that’s one of the things that pisses me off most about terrorists: they attack you, then insist they’re innocent when you catch them, try to hide behind your own legal system, exploit your self-imposed rules.

Which is why Dee’s way worked so well: You catch ‘em in the act, or catch ‘em with unquestionable evidence, and you set ‘em up to get instant fucking justice, carefully calculated to appeal to the viewing public. And because everybody gets to see it—all of it—almost nobody complains that the bad guys didn’t get a fair trial. But:

You can’t just walk up and blow away world leaders, I counter, but my attempt at reason immediately begins to flip on me. I mean, you might be able to if they’re monsters, but not without hard proof, and definitely not on their home turf, not without a revolution behind you.

And I realize I just answered my own question.

What happens now is Dee’s move, he answers me anyway, his voice all far away again. "Remember those old science fiction movies where some evil AI rises up