The Demon Crown Read online

  “The maximum flight range for a Cessna TTx is just shy of thirteen hundred nautical miles.” She pointed to the circle. “Which means they were launched from somewhere in this zone.”

  Painter leaned closer to the map. “Unless the planes refueled along the way and originated from a greater distance.”

  Kat turned and raised a brow. “A fleet of pilotless Cessnas? I think such a sight would draw attention.” She stared back at the screen. “No, I wager there must be a staging ground for this assault somewhere in this zone.”

  “That’s a lot of ocean to cover.”

  “Almost seven million square miles. That’s over twice the size of our lower forty-eight states.”

  Painter frowned at the screen. “There must be hundreds of islands in that region.”

  “More if you count atolls, islets, and shoals. But the number could be narrowed to only those places large enough to accommodate an airstrip.” Kat sighed. “Admittedly, that still leaves plenty of potential sites.”

  “Do Hawaii’s radar records offer any further guidance?”

  “Unfortunately not. Their land-based systems only extend some two hundred miles out to sea. By the time the planes entered radar range, they were coming from every direction.”

  One of her techs pushed back from his seat and turned to her, looking hesitant to interrupt.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I have a call for you coming in on our secure channel.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He says his name is Professor Ken Matsui. Claims you asked him to contact you.”

  Kat glanced over to Painter. “The Cornell toxicologist,” she reminded him. “The one who made an inquiry with Dr. Bennett at the National Zoo.”

  Painter gave her a questioning look. “You mean the ghost?”

  “Seems like he’s come back from the dead.”

  Overnight, she had prepared a dossier on the scientist. According to a report out of Brazil, the professor—along with a student and two Brazilian nationals—had gone missing and were presumed dead after being caught in a storm at sea.

  “We should take the call in my office,” Kat offered.

  She retrieved her cup of coffee and led Painter to the neighboring room. Her office was efficient and Spartan, much like herself. Her only personal effects were a scatter of pictures of her two young girls, Penelope and Harriet. The centermost photo showed her husband, Monk, balancing the two kids on his knees. The stocky man grimaced, appearing to be suffering under the weight of the five-year-old and seven-year-old. With his thick arms and wide chest bulging under a Green Beret T-shirt, he could easily have juggled the pair—which, considering the girls’ rambunctious temperament, was a necessity every now and then.

  Kat’s eyes lingered there as she crossed to her desk. Monk had taken the girls to a camp up in the Catskills. She had planned to join them until the current emergency pinned her down in D.C.

  Maybe I’m not the spider of this digital web after all, but more like a fly trapped here.

  Still, she knew Monk would take good care of Penny and Harriet. Though it pained her to admit it, she had been leaning more and more on him of late to cover for her. Not that he ever complained. Still, a part of her envied the sabbatical that Gray and Seichan had taken, to carve out an uninterrupted swath of time. She owed that to Monk, to her family.

  Yet, another part of her knew she could never give up this regular adrenaline fix.

  She took a sip of her coffee.

  Or all the caffeine . . .

  The tech spoke over the intercom. “I have the caller on line two.”

  She set her cup down and put her desktop phone on speaker. “Professor Matsui, thank you for returning my call.”

  “I don’t have much time. What’s this all about?”

  Though the international connection was a bad one, she easily heard the suspicion in the other’s voice. She glanced to Painter, who waved for her to take the lead.

  She pretended not to know about the professor’s presumed death. “We got your name from an entomologist here in D.C. You contacted him in regard to an unusual species of wasp.”

  There was a long pause. Whispering could be heard in the background, as if he were consulting with someone before speaking.

  She shared a glance with Painter.

  What’s going on over there?

  “Yes,” Matsui said, returning to the line. “But I think we all know we’re too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Odokuro have been released.”

  “The Odokuro?”

  “That’s what I’ve been calling this species of Hymenoptera. Named after a Japanese demon—gashadokuro. Trust me, it’s a most fitting name. I’ve been studying the species for the past two months. Its life cycle is beyond anything imaginable.”

  “Wait. You’ve been studying this organism? Where? In Kyoto?” She recalled that the professor’s last address was a research facility for a Japanese pharmaceutical company.

  “I’m not in Kyoto any longer,” he said.

  “Where are you then?”

  “Headed to Hawaii. Aboard a Tanaka corporate jet. We should be landing within the hour.”

  “Why are you going there?”

  “To evaluate the colonization firsthand. It’s the only way I’ll know for sure.”

  “Know what?” she asked, as a cold dread settled over her.

  “Whether or not you’ll need to nuke those islands.”

  9:28 A.M. HST

  Airborne over North Pacific Ocean

  Ken Matsui stared out the window of the corporate HondaJet 420. He waited for the shock of his words to subside. Two over-the-wing engines raced them toward their destination in Honolulu. Though the aircraft was the fastest jet in its class, they had to refuel on Midway Atoll. The brief delay on the ground there had him pacing the small four-seater cabin.

  I should never have agreed to stay silent.

  He glared across the cabin at the slim figure of Aiko Higashi. She claimed to be with Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency. The PSIA oversaw and investigated national threats and monitored local extremist groups. But Ken suspected there was more to this woman’s background.

  She certainly carried herself as someone with military training. Her haircut was trimmed in straight lines across her forehead and neck. Her navy blue suit was starched as stiff as her upper lip. Her expression seldom changed from its stern countenance as she had shadowed him these past months.

  Finally, Kathryn Bryant returned to the conversation. Ken equally questioned whether the woman on the line was someone simply working for DARPA. Especially when word reached him about her request to speak to him. He had wanted to ignore the inquiry, but Aiko had insisted he take her call. Even now, she eavesdropped on the exchange, leaning imperceptibly forward from her seat.

  “What makes you think such a drastic action might be necessary?” Bryant asked.

  “Because I’ve seen firsthand the devastation wrought by the Odokuro.”

  “Where? How?”

  Ken stared over at Aiko, who offered the smallest of nods. She had already told him to be forthright with this caller, as if she knew the woman on the line and trusted her enough to receive this information.

  Ken, on the other hand, didn’t know whom to trust. His parents had instilled in him a healthy suspicion of governments. The two had experienced firsthand how easily one could be chewed up or rolled over by those in power. His father had told him tales of the harsh, dehumanizing conditions found behind the barbed wire of the Japanese internment camps, where his dad was detained as a boy. The camp was located in the bucolic foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, not far from the small town of Independence, a name his father found both ironic and disheartening. Likewise, his German mother had her own experiences in her home country during the war. Though she seldom spoke of that time, she had taught Ken to question authority and stand up for the oppressed.

  Still, despite his
ingrained distrust, he knew his story needed to be told.

  Especially now.

  “It happened eight weeks ago . . .” he started, his voice catching in his throat.

  Has it been only that long?

  It seemed like ages ago now.

  He pictured the smirking face of his postgraduate student Oscar Hoff. The memory of gunfire echoed in his head. He closed his eyes, pushing back the pain and terror of that trip. Still, guilt knotted his gut. He held a fist clenched to his stomach, mirroring that tension.

  “What happened?” Bryant pressed.

  He swallowed before speaking, then slowly told the story of what happened on Ilha da Queimada Grande, the cursed place that First Lieutenant Ramon Dias named “Snake Island.” As he continued his story, his words became more rushed as the panic of that day returned. He described the dead bodies—both the smugglers and the swath of snakes—followed by the helicopter attack.

  “They firebombed the island, burned it to the bedrock. But I escaped . . . and not empty-handed. I took a specimen, one of the lanceheads. Under the cover of night, I fled to the coast, to a small Brazilian village. Once there, I was afraid if anyone learned I survived . . .”

  “You would’ve been killed,” the caller said matter-of-factly.

  He found himself surprisingly relieved by this confirmation. He knew a good portion of his shame and remorse had less to do with Oscar’s murder than with his own silence afterward. The knot of guilt loosened the tiniest fraction. He unclenched his fist and let his arm relax.

  He tried to explain his rationale. “I knew I had to return with what I’d taken from the island, to understand why this had happened. So I reached out to a colleague, someone I trusted at Tanaka. I needed the company’s deep pockets to extract me from Brazil and get me somewhere safe before anyone knew I was alive.”

  “So Tanaka supplied you with false papers.”

  He glanced over to Aiko, who nodded again, further proving there was more to these two women than either pretended.

  “They did. I made it safely to Kyoto, where I holed up at a research lab to study what I’d found. The snake’s body was full of larva—the early instars of this species.”

  “Instars?”

  “Stages of insect development,” he explained. “The instars were devouring the snake from the inside.”

  He pictured the gruesome sight when he sliced into the lancehead at the quarantined lab. White larvae had boiled out of the body.

  But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  “Let’s get back to the matter of the island,” Bryant said. “It sounds like that isolated place was a test run by whoever orchestrated the attack on Hawaii.”

  “You’re probably right, but I never imagined they had such ghastly plans. I assumed the island was merely home to a secret lab, one that lost control of its research, and as a fail-safe, they purged the place afterward, covering everything up.”

  “Yet, you just happened to stumble upon that island by accident?”

  “I thought so at first,” he admitted. Back then, he had dismissed this coincidence as a matter of being at the wrong place, wrong time.

  Or so I tried to convince myself.

  “But you have your doubts now?”

  He stayed silent. Over time, he had indeed grown suspicious. It had left him feeling isolated and wary, especially on foreign soil. Sensing he was trapped, he had risked emailing a colleague, an entomologist at the National Zoo, to inquire if the man knew anything about this species. It had ended up being a dead end, but he’d had to try.

  The woman on the phone spoke again. “You said Tanaka Pharmaceuticals funded most of your research through corporate grants. Was it the company who directed you to obtain venom samples from that island?”

  “Yes,” he said hesitantly.

  He stared over at Aiko, who didn’t blink.

  “It makes me wonder,” Bryant said, “if Tanaka suspected a competitor was at work on that island and sent you to investigate.”

  It was as if the woman were reading his own paranoid fears. He had never voiced it aloud, but he had come to wonder if he had ended up on that island as a pawn in some game of corporate espionage. In Japan, business was a blood sport, with operations often playing out in the shadows. Had someone at Tanaka heard a rumor of what was going on on Queimada Grande?

  Was I sent in blindly to check it out?

  It was a chilling thought.

  But the woman wasn’t finished.

  “If I’m right, this suggests Tanaka’s corporate spies directed you to that island based on intel from another company, one likely based in Japan.”

  “Wh—why Japan?”

  “From the choice of target for last night’s attack.”

  Ken suddenly understood her train of thought.

  Why didn’t I think—?

  Aiko waved for him to pass the satellite phone to her.

  He hesitated but obeyed.

  She leaned over the phone. “Kon’nichiwa, Captain Bryant. It’s Aiko. Aiko Higashi. Sorry I didn’t alert you that I was aboard the jet with Professor Matsui. I wanted to see if you’d come to the same conclusion as our agency did.”

  “Aiko, hello.” The woman on the line didn’t miss a beat, seemingly taking the presence of the intelligence officer in stride. “The conclusion was an easy enough leap to make, especially as I was suspicious from the start.” Her next words stunned Ken. “This might be Pearl Harbor all over again.”

  Aiko agreed. “A biological Pearl Harbor.”

  Ken turned to the window as the jet raced toward the chain of islands rising out of the ocean directly ahead.

  If they’re right, am I flying straight into a war zone?

  3:55 P.M. EDT

  Washington, D.C.

  Kat led the director out of her office and across the communication nest.

  She had finished the satellite call, which was rushed at the end as the jet made its final approach to the islands. She had instructed them to divert their aircraft from its intended destination of Honolulu and to land at Kahului Airport on Maui. From there they’d be airlifted to Hana to join Gray and company to evaluate the colonization of the swarm on that island.

  The exact details of the threat remained frustratingly unclear as the call was cut short, but Kat already prepped an action plan. She ran it past her boss, turning to Painter.

  “Aiko said she’d forward Professor Matsui’s research on the Odokuro species as soon as they land. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to consult Dr. Bennett, the entomologist at the National Zoo, to get his take on all of this.”

  “We can definitely use his expertise.” Painter touched her arm as they reached the door out to the hall. “But how well do you trust this woman, Aiko Higashi?”

  Kat took in a deep breath. “I know her on a professional basis, but not much beyond that. We ran up the ranks of our respective intelligence services around the same time. When I was in Naval Intelligence, she was working for the Japanese Ministry of Justice and was recruited by the Public Security Intelligence Agency. But she vanished from radar about two years ago, only to resurface again under the same PSIA banner.”

  “And what do you think that implies?”

  “A few months before Aiko disappeared, a pair of Japanese captives were killed by Islamic militants in Syria. After that, the prime minister came under pressure by the military. Currently their constitution—written after World War II—limits espionage activity on foreign soil. But many in power are trying to amend the constitution to centralize and expand Japan’s intelligence operations.”

  “You’re thinking this woman could be an agent in some newly formed organization.”

  “I’m suspicious. Knowing how fragmented Japan’s intelligence agencies are, it would take years for them to train handlers and field agents to run operations abroad.”

  “So you suspect they’ve already started that process in secret while the slow wheels of government turn.”

  “It’s what
I would do.” Kat shrugged. “Plus, the Japanese are notoriously secretive, even more so than the British, where the existence of MI6 wasn’t officially admitted until 1994.”

  “And if Aiko Higashi is part of this secret intelligence agency, what does that suggest as to her trustworthiness?”

  Kat waved Painter toward the hall. “Same as me. Push comes to shove, she’ll put her country’s interest first.”

  Painter nodded. “We’ll need to keep that in mind.”

  Kat prepared to let the director return to his office, but before she could turn away, the communication tech gave her a wounded look and held aloft a phone receiver.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Another call,” he said. “Sounded urgent.”

  She checked her watch. Surely Aiko’s plane hadn’t already landed.

  “It’s from Simon Wright,” the tech informed her.

  Painter stepped to her side. “The curator of the Castle?”

  Kat frowned at the unusual call. Simon—known as the “Keeper of the Castle”—was the only staff member of the museum above them who knew about Sigma’s buried headquarters.

  “What does he want?” she asked.

  The tech’s gaze flicked toward Painter. “He’s asking for the director to come to a meeting at the Regents’ Room of the Castle. The request was passed through him by Elena Delgado, the Librarian of Congress.”

  With a baffled expression, Painter crossed over and took the phone. “What’s this all about, Simon?”

  Kat had followed her boss over and overheard the curator’s response.

  “Dr. Delgado says she has information concerning events in Hawaii, something that harks back to the founding of the Castle itself.”

  Painter looked flabbergasted. “What information? What is she talking about?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but she claims to have knowledge about what was released in Hawaii. Along with a warning from the past.”

  “A warning from whom?”

  “From Alexander Graham Bell.”

  11

  May 7, 11:05 A.M. HST

  Hana, Island of Maui

  Standing in the sunlit parking lot, Gray watched a small helicopter land in the neighboring soccer field. Another aircraft—a medevac chopper—sat in the middle of the baseball diamond. In the trampled outfield, temporary medical tents fluttered in the stiff morning breeze.