Malinois's gaze shifted from Coraline's, to Wybie and Maria, to the barrels of the rifle and pistol aimed at him, and to the two recumbent guards. Then he sighed and stepped back from the desk. His expression was composed, calculating.
"I would have preferred to avoid this," he said. "I knew that you were still alive, but I had hoped that you'd decided to stay low. In the worst case, I'd hoped that your suspicion would fall elsewhere. Onto Skirving, or onto the Iranian in your department."
"I'm happy to disappoint," said Coraline. "Skirving's got all the grace and fair-mindedness of a sociopathic vulture, but he does things by the book, he's a stickler for proper order. I know that, and I can respect that if nothing else. And Sayid doesn't have a shred of guile in him. And why does him being an Iranian-American matter in the slightest?"
She stood across the desk from Malinois, directly facing him, the rifle levelled at his chest.
"Now, in order, please explain why you sent hired guns after us, and why you took equipment from our department."
"I think you appreciate what they were there to do. The hired guns were my own men. I trusted them to get the job done…"
"For all that they shot like stormtroopers?" interjected Wybie.
"…but I underestimated you," said Malinois, pressing on. "That happens quite often to your department, doesn't it?"
"Not from the people who actually matter," retorted Coraline, keeping her gun steady. "Sit down. Keep your hands where I can see them. Make any move or noise which we don't want you to, and I'll shot to hurt first, and then kill. You have some explaining to do, you bastard."
"Don't we all, in the end," muttered Malinois, sitting down slowly in the chair, keeping his arms on the rests.
"Wybie, make sure the door's locked. Maria, keep an eye on the window. Have that pistol ready in case Mr Malinois gets any adventurous ideas."
The two moved to their positions. Malinois looked up to meet Coraline's gaze frankly and levelly, his expression earnest, his body leaned forward.
"Whatever you think I've done, I did it for the country's good," he said. "None of it was personal. All of it I take on my own conscience as a necessary evil. But at the moment, I don't…"
Coraline jabbed forward with the tip of the gun and struck Malinois in the solar plexus, knocking him back into his chair and eliciting a startled release of breath.
"No, Mr Malinois, that's not how this is going to work," said Coraline, her icy tones dancing around the edge of explosive anger. "You've lied to us. You've stolen from us. And you've just confessed to ordering the proxy killings of me and my friends. Answer the questions we give you in full. Leave out no details. And keep whatever shit you've cooked up as justification to yourself unless we ask for it. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," said Malinois, rubbing at his chest.
Coraline paused to run through what they'd devised in her head, making sure she had them in order, before speaking.
"You've been following our department for a while now. Since before you became the Director of Homeland of Security, probably while you were something senior in the CIA. And you've been keeping active surveillance on us for how long?"
"Two months," said Malinois. "Just after my predecessor's untimely death, and just before the President first nominated me for the position of secretary."
"You've been using the spy-bugs to keep up that surveillance."
"I had and still have huge powers of requisition. Those items are expensive and potent. I had more than a few awkward hoops to jump through when you destroyed one, though not nearly so many acquiring a second one. Skirving took me at my word when I reported none had gone missing." Malinois permitted himself a small smile. "Which was the honest truth. I could account for all of them."
"And what were you recording?"
"Your lab-work, for the most part. Your experiments, your observations, your machines." Malinois was still calm. Eerily calm.
"I guess you came by on Friday to drop off the second one?" said Wybie, his tone nowhere near as controlled as Coraline's. He loomed over Malinois.
"I got that one ahead of time, in case my first ran afoul of a Sur-real field. But I didn't just meet you to drop it discreetly in your lab while your back was turned. I wanted to check my knowledge first-hand, as it were."
"So you knew what we'd been doing for two months," said Coraline, suppressing a shudder at the thought. "And you knew that we'd made a functioning Eroder last night. And you pushed our termination through committee and took our Eroder and Wybie's notes during the night." Coraline breathed out. Then she said, "This is the part where you explain why the hell you did that."
Malinois hesitated before answering.
"Because I want the power to make changes. And your department's findings can help me do that."
"Connect those dots, if you'd be so good," said Maria, confused. Malinois did so.
"When I first heard about your department, when I was still rising in the CIA, I wrote you off as a crowd of frauds, like pretty much everyone else. But I was struck by morbid curiosity, so I actually did some research into you. I wanted to have a laugh about how stoned out of his mind President Durant must have been to have created you."
"When I did that research, however, I pulled up a lot of interesting files. Like the case in Chicago. And that incident at your high school, during your prom. Things for which no rational explanation had been offered which convinced me. I did more research, accessed more old files, pulled up some of the classified details on your department. I was quite obsessed for a while." Malinois smirked at his own memory. "But it all paid off in the end. And I was convinced. Your department was actually doing legitimate work."
"Stop, you're flattering us," said Wybie, completely deadpan.
"You should be flattered. I mean, look at the things you've done. You've singlehandedly surveyed an entire other field of reality, contained its incursions, and protected people from it on a daily basis for the last four years. Do you have any idea of the implications of what you've found? Of the dynamics, of the revelations for science, for culture, for understanding? Of the potential?" That last word was delivered in so fierce a tone that Wybie took a cautious step back. As he stepped back, his gaze fell upon the boxes stacked against the wall, and his brow furrowed.
"So you wanted what we knew," said Coraline cautiously as Wybie stepped forward to have a rummage among the boxes. "And you were prepared to kill us to get it."
"What I have planned doesn't need a third party like you interfering, who know of the elements involved. I wasn't prepared to gamble it all to net your support, and I needed you removed if it was to have a chance of succeeding."
"So let's get to that million-dollar question. What were you planning?" Coraline's anger had simmered, and was now almost gone in favour of plain mystification.
Malinois shifted in his chair.
"Look at the world," he said. "Look at the times we live in. We're weakening, ailing even as we deny it. The Sub-Continental War bled us out, and bred a whole new nest of enemies abroad. American bases are now open targets for anyone with a grudge, Iran and China are picking at our power like vultures. The world isn't safe for American citizens or American ideals."
"What the hell does this have to do with…" started Coraline.
"And our President does nothing!" snapped Malinois. "Kuciyela sits and dithers and fusses over the country's petty affairs while the doves in his cabinet and Congress whisper lies to him to get him to sit where he is. We need a new leader. One who'll take advice, one who'll practise a new kind of leadership, where we assert our dominance. And if we have to do that at the point of a gun, then let the world tremble."
"And how's our research possibly going to bring about this cheery scenario?"
"Because of what it'll let me do," said Malinois. "I've sought out the old areas mentioned in your research and discussions, you know that? I've made my own investigations. And in Mexico, I made contact with a psychephage."
The drop of a pin could have been heard in the room at that moment.
"And with your Eroder, I'll be able to access its power," said Malinois. "With your Eroder, I'll be able to summon it."
"As what?" said Coraline, stunned by the train of thought embarked upon by Malinois. "For information? As a bargaining chip? As a weapon?"
"As a partner in a deal," said Malinois. "I have given it … certain considerations. In return, it will perform a service as soon as I give it the ability."
The silence that followed was broken first by Wybie.
"What psychephage?"
Malinois slowly raised his hands to his suit jacket and unbuttoned the front, revealing the shirt underneath. His deft fingers undid the top buttons for that one in turn, revealing enough of what lay beneath.
Three bright feathers had been bonded into the skin of Malinois's chest, falling like fronds from three nodes of skin, small trickles of blood etched into the white shafts. They gleamed red, blue, green, and burned white where the vane caught the light.
Coraline nearly jumped backwards.
"You stupid son of a bitch," she said, shocked beyond eloquency. "You signed your soul over to a goddam coatl?"
Coatls.
Ambition-eaters. Great serpents of plumage and raw, deep-running avarice. Ancient and cruel. Powerful compared to nearly all other psychephages.
Coraline had only encountered one once before, and that by accident, and it had been small and under-nourished, and she had been lucky to be the one left standing at the end of it all.
And the man in front of her had struck a deal with one, and bore its token item.
"You utter … It gets your soul," she said, numbly, still dumbfounded. "What does it do in return?"
Malinois, buttoning up his shirt and jacket, essayed one glance at the clock on the wall behind Coraline.
"At the moment," he said, quite casually, "The president is on the Ellipse, with all his cabinet and all the city's schoolchildren. There'll be noise, confusion, media, a lot of attention on the one spot. And your Eroder has been set up there, and its area has been expanded to cover the entire lawn."
"The coatl will come from the Sur-real, while the Eroder has been made active. It will strike at the president, and cause additional collateral damage and no small amount of carnage for as long as it can, and then it will withdraw."
"The country will be left shocked, leaderless, divided, under the command of -" He coughed dismissively. "-Holloway. And he will beg me for advice. The whole country will beg me for advice. Only I'll know how to deal with the situation. Only I'll have the new president's ear. And I can do as I please, as benefits America." His eyes gleamed. "I can solve all our problems, and all it'll cost the nation will be one man and whoever gets in the coatl's way."
"You…" said Coraline, the first to attempt speech, "You … you're cracked, you realise that? Something has to be broken in your damn head to have come up with any of this. To have tried carrying it through."
"There'll be children on the Ellipse," said Wybie, in soft tones. "Children, you bastard."
"A hard sacrifice," said Malinois. "Collateral damage brings me no pleasure. But it'll be a small evil for a greater good, and I take the costs upon my own soul."
"You won't," hissed Maria. "You've already traded it away."
"For god's sake!" hissed Malinois. "Can't you see what this'll do beyond the short-term? Let them die, so long as future children need not. I told you all this so you'd know why this was being done. So you'd lend me your support. Look at the repercussions. Look at what I'll be able to do. I will make a better world."
Wybie spat in disgust, and opened one of the remaining boxes on the floor. His eyes widened, and he drew out the binder with all his notes, supporting it in the crook of an arm as if cradling a baby. With his other hand, he opened the last box and blinked at what he saw. A gun rested inside the box, flanked by boxes of ammo. It was an automatic shotgun, sleek and deadly, polished to a high sheen and tipped with a bayonet of curved iron.
Malinois followed his gaze.
"I'm counting on the coatl returning in person to collect my soul. I was in the forces," he said with a dismissive look at Wybie. "I know how to defend myself. I will have to convince it to delay my part of the deal. The rounds are made of iron, as pure as is available."
"Coraline, it's your birthday come early," said Wybie, kicking the box over to her.
"This'll come in handy," she said, keeping the rifle levelled on Malinois with one hand while reaching to pick up the box and support it under one arm. She gave the Secretary a look carved from ice.
"You know something, Mr Malinois?" she said. "When I was young, about the same age as most of the children we save on a daily basis, as you mentioned, I learned a lesson."
"I know what you've …" Malinois started to say, but was silenced by the rifle's tip leaning into his chest again.
"You see," she continued, motioning for Malinois to stand up, which he did so with some confusion. "I always dreamed of finding a better world. And when I found what I thought was one, I couldn't think of anything else. But I poked at that world just a little bit, and what I found revealed how rotten it was. And I learned that if I wanted a better world, I'd have to go out there and make it myself. With my own effort, my own sweat and tears, my own drive to make the world right. And I've worked hard on it ever since, and I've learned a couple of things along the way, and one of those things, Mr Malinois, is that you don't make a better world by murdering children. And if you want to make your own world based on that, then you and I are working at what we call cross-purposes."
Malinois gave her the bemused, blank look of someone lost to their own ideas, unable to fathom why they weren't being supported, incapable of seeing how they were wrong. Coraline turned away from him in disgust.
She nodded to Maria. "Take him with us. Keep him in front. Use him as a shield."
"Where are we taking him?" asked Wybie. "To the van? We'll be surrounded outside."
"Outside, yes. But not to the van."
"Where else is there to go?"
"Up."
"Good afternoon, everyone," called Wybie, opening the door, one of his arms pinning Malinois's wrists behind his back, the other pressing Maria's pistol against the man's head. "Hey there. We're just passing through. Put those guns down for a second, and we'll get along brilliantly."
A short staircase had led up to the door, which opened onto the flat rooftop. Several soldiers stood in disorganised clumps, and turned and started with alarm when they saw their commander being held as a hostage.
Behind them, the gunship lay at rest.
"Forward, forward," muttered Wybie, shuffling forward with Malinois while the soldiers slowly put down their weapons. Few of them were veterans, none of them knew how to respond. Ignorance in other people could be a blessing. Malinois opened his mouth as if to speak, and Wybie tapped the pistol's tip against the side of his head as a friendly warning.
Maria followed up the stairs just behind him, holding the assault rifle uncertainly, glancing behind her to see Coraline following, brandishing the fully loaded shotgun. She glanced around once before closing the door behind her, shutting it on the other soldiers they'd encountered while moving up and who had been too uncertain to do much apart from follow at a distance.
One of the soldiers recovered sufficiently to raise his gun and shout "Halt right there!"
"No," Wybie retorted cheerfully, which nonplussed the soldier enough to make him lower the gun uncertainly.
"Straight to the gunship," said Coraline. "Before one of them loses control."
Their progress was slow, reduced to the level of Malinois's awkward bound shuffle. Wybie stopped just as they reached the open gunship, and turned to face the rooftop. Maria climbed in first, and Coraline heaved herself up just after her. She motioned, and trained the shotgun on Malinois as Wybie shoved him into the gunship. She caught him by the neck, calling out "No moves, or he dies," to the soldiers before letting Wybie climb into the now-tight compartment. After a belated minute, an alarm started to sound from the base below.
"Into the pilot's seat," she said to Maria. "Work this thing as best you can." Maris did so, with a look of no little consternation.
"For the love of your country," hissed Malinois. "Stop this. You don't know what you're going to disrupt."
"I'm going to disrupt a man plotting to kill innocents for his own ends. I'm going to stop a psychephage. I know exactly how to do my job, Mr Malinois. Did you forget?" answered Coraline.
There came a rattling noise from the gunship's engines as one triggered button by Maria fired them to life. The rotor above began to turn, gathering momentum, throbbing through the air as the gunship began to wobble slightly. Another exploration of a lever suddenly made it lift a few feet into the air, making Wybie nearly lurch and grab at something, and a jab at something important-looking produced an extra roar of power from the engines.
"One more question," said Coraline as they lifted. "The windows for this are bulletproof, I take it?"
"Yes. What of it?" said Malinois.
"Then you've stopped being useful," said Coraline simply, and gave him a hard shove out the open compartment, ducking back as she did so. Malinois fell several metres with a startled cry, and hit the roof ankle-first with a blazing curse. The same soldier from before dived forwards to help him, while several others pulled out small arms and opened fire, the shots clashing off the armour and glass with the sound of striking steel hail.
"What," said Wybie as the gunship continued to peel away and the shots hitting off it diminished, as the rush of air filled the compartment and the noise of the rotor and engines vied for dominance with the fading voices from the ground, "What, what, what, what the hell did we just do? Why do you keep finding new and exciting ways to put my life in peril? What are we even doing?"
"We just stole a federal gunship, becasue it's funny, and we're finding your Eroder before the coatl can arrive. And if we're too late for that, then we're taking it out the old-fashioned way." Coraline looked out, at the expanse of blue sky and at the rustling green sea below them. "What have we got?"
"This useless pistol, the equally useless assault rifle, a gunship … without any outfitted weapons by the looks of it, so that's no use, your shotgun with ferroshot, and each other. In order."
"What order would that be?"
"If I have to say it out loud, then it'll just sound cheesy. And once that happens, this entire scenario will just become entirely silly."
"Did you have any other plans for your Monday, anyway?" Coraline took his hand, and grasped it as tightly as she could. "Let's give people something to talk about."
"Guys?" said Maria. "Slightly important question. How do you actually pilot this thing?"