Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(29)

I said, “Any more?”

“Couple of minutes. Nothing important.”

“It might be. Let’s see.”

Silverman waved a hand, dismissively. But then his eyes narrowed.

“You want the Herzog moment, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

He pulled at the lobe of his ear, an oddly child-like gesture.

“Well . . . Herzog. He does an interview, he always leaves a few more seconds, just before he cuts. So you get the silence afterwards. The reactions. Everyone just being, kind of uncomfortable with it . . .”

“And that’s the rest of this? Uncomfortable silence?”

“Um. No. Not really.”

“What then?”

“He punched me out, you really want to know. It was . . . kind of embarrassing.” He sucked his lower lip, eyes on the screen. “Luckily he wasn’t very good.”





Chapter 26

A History Lesson




“See?” she said. “It’s trees and open ground. We can bring the car right up, almost to the pond.”

I couldn’t deny this. The park had beautiful stone gates, but it didn’t have a wall around it. A few bumps, and we could drive straight in, through the trees, almost to the water’s edge. And be practically invisible. At nighttime, anyway.

Sunlight glittered on the water. Across the lake, the pink and blue of Cleary’s tent had a cheery carnival air.

I kicked at the mulch and fallen twigs.

I sniffed the air.

I said, “They’ll hear the generator.”

“I was thinking about that. First, we can muffle it. Second . . . can we do it all on battery?”

She’d worked it out. Between last night and this morning, she’d come up with a plan.

“Hell, I don’t know.” It was weird, looking around: the sunlight, the trees, the smell of earth and grass . . . and talking like this. Knowing what was in the water there, no matter how calm it might look. I said, “You rouse the thing, you want the power to put it down. If the battery cuts out, and you’re left standing . . .”

“You said we’d have to be quick. We need to generate the power. We don’t need to sustain it. Right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Right, Chris?”

“It’s a risk,” I said. Then, “The real question—is it worth it? We phone in, say there’s trouble with the locals. Which there is. They send us somewhere else.”

“It’s worth it to me, Chris. Is it possible?” she asked me. “Can it be done?”

Then I saw Silverman. “You filming this?”

“Um . . . sure.”

He didn’t put the camera down.

“Christ’s sake,” I said.

So we went back to the coffee shop.



He was trying to do an interview. I’d spent the last ten minutes trying not to answer him, and still he wasn’t giving up. The little red light on the camera glared at me. I sipped my coffee and I glowered back. Then Angel put her hand upon my arm.

“Chris,” she said.

“What?”

“Be nice.”

So I sat there, and I looked at him, and told myself whatever I might say would probably be lost for decades in the Silverman archives, if we were lucky.

He said, “This is unusual. This case.”

I grunted. “Hnh.”

Angel dug me in the ribs.

“That’s right,” I said.

“You wouldn’t normally go after it?”

“Maybe not . . . in these circumstances.” But then I thought, well, what the hell? Let’s tell the truth, and get it over with.

“Actually,” I said, “most times, this is just the point we get called in. Maybe a bit before. There’s a prodromic phase, and then there’s this. Manifestation. This is where the game gets dirty.” I gave him a look. “You want to stop, then here’s the time.”

He gave a quick shake of the head.

I said, “If you use anything they don’t like—the bigwigs at the Registry—you know they’ll slap you with a lawsuit so fast you won’t even get your Herzog moment?”

“Just for the archives.” He smiled, beckoning me on.

“You did the exhibition. You know how it works.”

“I know what was in the exhibition. I don’t know the rest.”

I sighed. I said, for the camera, “OK. Most of the time, you get gods, they’ve been in one place for, oh, a thousand years. Maybe more. Genius loci, right? Spirits of place. Some of them we just mop up while they’re quiescent, nice and easy. Other times, they’re waking up. A bit of poltergeist activity, bit of weirdness . . . when they start being a nuisance, that’s when we get called.

“Bear in mind, these places have a history. Sometimes they’re sacred spots. Often it’s the priest who calls us in. Which makes it easier.”

“But not here.”

“No. Not here.”

We waited for a moment.

“You can see the way it starts, back in the mists of history. Place gets a reputation. Soon it’s a shrine or sacred grove, somewhere people go to get a bit of something strange—contact the beyond, all that. Cheaper than drugs. Then someone builds a temple. Next thing, there’s a bunch of monks comes by, everyone’s converted, and, lo and behold, it’s a church. Doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing underneath. In the earth, in the rock, in the soil. They go to ground, the gods. Don’t stir for centuries. They feed on psychic power, as near as we can see. Emotion. Feeling. So any church that generates a bit of fervor . . .”