Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(142)

A knock is never a good thing. A knock means more bad news about economic growth slowing to a crawl, about oil and food prices shooting through the roof—about how slashing interest rates has not helped after raising interest rates has not helped—about the S&P double downgrade, about inflation, joblessness, homelessness—about how angry everyone is, how very angry, his approval rating at 30 percent. This is all his fault, they say. Violence begets violence. If he worked more on integration, the Resistance would have nothing to resist. And now it is too late. And now a section of the country and the populace has been carved away as if by a knife. His efforts to reclaim the Ghostlands are pointless, a waste of money and resources. The other day the New York Times ran a column that referred to cleanup and antiterror efforts in the Pacific Northwest as “a lost battle. Like raking leaves in the wind.”

Again the knock at the door. More of a thud really. As if someone has hurled an arm against it, demanding to be let in. Rather than answer it, he stands looking out the window. A guard with a German shepherd patrols the lawn. A cherry tree snows blossoms that appear in the moonlight as white as shredded paper. The moon hangs like a cool blue disc in the sky. He cannot see any stars, not with the glow of the city all around him, but he discerns a red light, what must be Mars.

Maybe the knock is not bad news after all. Maybe it is one of the whores back for a forgotten earring. Maybe it is an agent who heard Chase ripping apart his room, who wants to confirm the president is all right and ask whether he would like something, maybe a sandwich or maybe housekeeping to help him put everything back in order.

The door opens and Buffalo stands for a moment at the threshold of the suite and the light from the hallway throws his shadow clear across the dark room and makes him appear momentarily as tall as a giant. “Chase?” he says and fumbles for the light switch.

“Leave them off.”

Buffalo’s hand drops to his side. He lets the door swing closed behind him and squints into the darkness, his eyes unadjusted. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing,” Chase says. “Everything.”

Buffalo trips over the ghostly heap of the duvet. “I can’t see worth a damn, you know that.” He snaps on a floor lamp and then shakes his head at the spilled folders. He crouches down and then gives up on tidying them and retrieves the fallen lamp and sets it on the table again and tries to adjust its broken shade before illuminating it. His glasses glow gold. “We may have something on Balor.”

“Go ahead.”

“The Pittock Mansion. In Portland. We’re not one hundred percent, but the satellites have picked up a lot of activity there.” He explains the need to act. He says what he has already said a dozen times before: that this is their moment, following the containment of the territories and disablement of all infrastructure, to put maximum pressure on the lycans. “They’re up against the ropes. If we keep up the pressure, we’ll cripple them.”

They have been through all of this before. How they need to make Balor their priority. How they need to cut off the snake’s head. How the Resistance will convulse awhile, but then go still.

Now that Jeremy Saber is out of the picture, Buffalo tells him, their number two seems to be Jonathan Puck. From England. Twice deported. Twenty-seven convictions. Theft, assault, rape, narcotics, unlawful intimidation, possession of an illegal firearm. “And—get this—he’s five-two. A little big man. No chance somebody with that kind of stature or temperament can lead or galvanize all those moving parts.”

Buffalo could talk all night. Chase cuts him off. “Send our guy.”

“I was going to suggest a missile strike.”

“No military. They f*cked up twice already. Blasting their way through that elementary school full of Mexicans. Bombing that dam and flooding a whole goddamn town of people.”

“We’re not talking about people. We can’t think of the insurgents that way.”

“News f*cking chopper overhead with all those bodies floating around like cordwood. Quiet and clean. That’s how we’re going to do it.”

“Are we?”

“Send him. End of discussion. I want a severed head to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.” Chase silences any further argument with a lashing gaze.

They both take a step away from each other, and they are heavy men now, so the floorboards whine beneath them. Buffalo observes him worriedly and removes a pen from his pocket and bites the tip as if it were a pipe stem. “Is everything okay?”

Chase remembers the roar of the toilet, the confetti twirl of the pills as they vanished down the drain. He thinks about telling Buffalo. Telling him he wants to get clean, just for a little while. Flush the system. See if the old Chase comes wandering out of the fog. But he can’t. That’s what Buffalo will tell him—he can’t. And he is tired of being told what to do. “Everything is f*cking awesome. Can’t you tell?” Chase cannot meet his eyes. He studies the floor, where the lamps staggered around the room entangle their shadows.

“You should be happy. Be happy. This is what we’ve been working toward. All these years.” His voice is small.

“This?” Chase says. “This is what we’ve been working toward?” He sweeps an arm to indicate the mess in his suite, the ruins surrounding them. “You can have it.”