Code Zero by Jonathan Maberry

Author:Jonathan Maberry [Maberry, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2014-03-25T07:00:00+00:00

Interlude Thirteen

Terror Town

Mount Baker, Washington State

Three Years Ago

When Dr. Bliss heard the news it rocked her.

Hugo Vox was a traitor.

Worse than a traitor, he was a terrorist and mass murderer.

And, worst of all, he was a founding member of the Seven Kings. A faux secret society that borrowed the myths and legends of other secret societies—real and imagined—to make itself appear ancient and vastly powerful.

Only some of that was a lie. They were not ancient … but their power was beyond dispute.

The Twin Towers had fallen according to their plan. As did the London Hospital. The Seven Kings used bribery, manipulation, and other means to inspire various fundamentalist groups to commit acts of terrorism. The Kings, knowing that such atrocities always impacted the stock market, made hundreds of billions of dollars. Most of that money would never and could never be recovered.

And Hugo Vox was at the heart of the whole thing.

A man trusted by everyone in the U.S. government, from Mr. Church to the president. A man who had access everywhere. A man who was tasked with developing the most elite counterterrorism and antiterrorism training programs.

Bliss stood in Vox’s office at Terror Town, the training facility in Washington State where America trained its agents, and where teams from the nation’s allies came to learn the best ways to combat terror.

The irony seemed to scream at her from every molecule of air in the place.

Vox was a bad guy.

The news seemed to hit Bliss very hard but from several different angles. On one hand, as a DMS team member, the betrayal was huge. It rocked the foundations of the whole organization and damaged the previously iron-hard credibility of Mr. Church. There were some angry murmurs in congress that Church already had too much freedom of action, and that his judgment no longer warranted that level of trust or authority. Bliss thought this was a little unfair. She had no love for Church or that harpy, Aunt Sallie, but Vox was a master manipulator. Maybe the smartest and most subtle of his kind that ever lived. He hadn’t just fooled Church, Vox fooled everyone. Including the president and every member of Congress, including the grumblers. They’d all been cheerleaders for Vox for years. Church was merely a handy target. That rankled Bliss.

On a more personal level, she was hurt. She liked Vox and had worked closely with him and his protégée, Dr. Circe O’Tree, on dozens of cases. She’d gone to him to vet nearly every employee she hired for her division and every contractor she used when designing security systems for top-secret facilities like the Locker. Many of those people had been personally vetted by Vox.

Just as she had been.

Until two weeks ago, “vetted by Vox” was the highest stamp of approval you could get. It was a badge of honor. Grace Courtland had been vetted by Vox. So had Top Sims, Captain Ledger’s right-hand man. And dozens of others in the DMS, and hundreds within government service.

Clearly not all of them could be villains.

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