can see the task list in his mind’s eye, clear as day. Start from the top, follow the numbers, execute each task.
1. Gain Access
A wheel spins out of kilter as he pushes the cart across the parking lot, approaching a side door marked Exit Only. Although it is not marked as such, this is where the school takes deliveries. Roland knows this because he worked, ever so briefly, for custodial services. Ring the delivery buzzer and they will come. The buzzer sounds in the coffee room—little more than a closet—and the duty custodian will grudgingly put down his cup, amble out to the door, maybe cadge a smoke from the truck driver making the delivery.
Roland presses the button, waits. Counts to ten, pushes it again. Lazy bastards.
It seems to take forever. His heart pounds like a boxer’s padded glove hitting the canvas bag, but in less than a minute the fitted metal door yawns open.
“Hey, hey,” says Bub Yeaton, his usual salutation.
Roland figured old Bub would be on duty. Not that his presence is crucial to the plan. Any warm body will do, so long as the door opens. But seeing Bub start to squint, as recognition dawns—his watery eyes tracking from the cart to Roland, looking comically quizzical—having Bub in his sights is pretty sweet, all things considered.
“Roland? Hey. Um, what are you doing here?”
“They give me my job back,” says Roland, reaching into the cart.
“I don’t think so,” says Bub warily. “Nobody told me.”
“Check with him,” Roland says, pointing at the empty corridor.
Bub turns to look. Pure instinct—if someone points, you turn to look. And as the elderly custodian turns his head, Roland withdraws an eighteen-inch length of lead-filled iron pipe from the cart and smacks old Bub on the back of the skull, midway up. Exactly as he has rehearsed, practicing on ripe watermelons.
The only sound the custodian makes is a flabby wet thump as he hits the hard rubber tiles of a floor he recently cleaned, waxed, and polished.
2. Subdue Custodian.
Roland turns up the volume and grins to himself as Sabbath bruises his eardrums. So far so good.
6. Eva The Diva
The sun has barely cracked the horizon in Conklin County, Colorado. Dawn oozing up over the eastern edge of the mountains like a tremulous egg yolk charged with blood. Blood is on the mind of Ruler Weems, who has been wide-awake and manning his operations desk for many hours. His work hampered by the fact that he dare not use cell, e-mail, or text in the certain knowledge that his adversaries—mostly notably the Ruler security chief, Bagrat Kavashi—have broken his personal cipher and are monitoring all electronic communication coming from the Bunker.
All of which makes it difficult to marshal his forces, keep them informed. Difficult but not impossible. Back in the day, when Rulers were few, none of those media existed, and yet still he helped build an enterprise whose power and influence extended from Wall Street to the upper echelons of government. And now the entire organization is in grave danger. The county, the village, the institute itself—everything he’s helped forge, build, and create could be destroyed by the willful actions of one woman, in league with her ruthless security chief.
Weems rises from his command post, goes to the window slit, allows himself to be bathed by the slash of sunlight pouring through the two-foot thickness of the concrete bunker. He has many flaws, but physical vanity is not among them—he’s keenly aware of a homeliness that has not improved with age. At sixty-three his hatchet nose, wattled throat, and severe underbite make him look like an old tortoise without a shell. The curvature of his upper spine, naturally drooping shoulders, and dark, deep-set eyes add to the effect.
Long ago he accepted his ugliness, learned how to use it to his advantage. Blessed with a resonant voice, he honed his speaking abilities, perfected his courtly good manners, his natural deference. So that, despite an aspect that can make people cringe at first sight, he tends to make a favorable impression in the long run. Those who offer loyalty are always rewarded. Those who misjudge him do so at their peril.
The woman has misjudged him. But that doesn’t mean she’s not exceedingly dangerous, that the inevitable implosion of her ambition might not be powerful enough to destroy all those around her, the innocent and the guilty alike.
Behind him a vault door slides open.
“Evangeline,” he says without turning.
“You rang, sir?”
His tortoise head swivels, dewlaps quivering.
“That’s a joke, Wendall,” she informs him. “The Addams Family, I think. That makes you Lurch the butler. Take away his chin, there’s a distinct resemblance.”
Weems happens to know she just turned fifty-five, although you’d never know it. The miracles of nip and tuck, priceless ointments, personal trainers, and a low-calorie diet composed, from what he can see, of little more than twigs. Twigs and malice, for never has he known a woman who harbors so many self-sustaining resentments. Her blood must be acid by now, and her eyes, still large and beautiful and hopelessly compelling despite surgical tightening, have, at a closer examination, the sheen of cold anthracite. Animal eyes peering out through a lovely human mask.
She plops down in his chair, smiling as she takes possession. “Kind a Star Trek thing you’ve got going here,” she observes. “‘Ruler Weems on the bridge, sir!’”
“You seem to have vintage television shows on your mind,” he says. “TV will rot your brain, Eva. It may already have done so, if what I hear is true.”
The smile chills.
“You’ve put us all in danger,” he says. “Terrible, destructive, senseless danger. Are you crazy?”
The smile stays frozen, but the beautiful eyes are amused. “You know what, Wendall?” she says, somehow swiveling her hips and the chair in the same subtle motion. “You need to grow you some gonads. Doing nothing is not a policy. It’s not a strategy. It’s simply doing nothing.”
“He wouldn’t want this.”
“And how would you know what Arthur wants?” she says, taunting. “He hasn’t spoken to you in months.”
“I visit his bedside many times a day,” Weems responds, defensive despite himself. “He speaks to no one. That part of his mind has been damaged.”
“He speaks to me,” she insists.
“Prove it,” he suggests. “Make a digital recording.”
“It’s more a mind-meld kind of thing,” she says with a seductive smile, shaping her recently plumped lips. “I look into his eyes and I know what he wants. I know it as deeply and as surely as if he’s spoken. Arthur is beyond words now. He wants me to act as his voice to the world.”
Weems sighs, puts a hand to his forehead, intending to shield the flash of cold rage in his eyes. “If it was only speaking, that would be one thing,” he says, in his most reasonable
