Contents
Cover
Also available from Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
THE DEAD RING No. 166
Also available from Titan Books
The Blacklist: The Beekeeper No. 159
THE DEAD RING No. 166
JON McGORAN
TITAN BOOKS
The Blacklist: The Dead Ring No. 166
Print edition ISBN: 9781783298068
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783298181
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: March 2017
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites or their content.
THE BLACKLISTTM and © 2017 Sony Pictures Television Inc. and Open 4 Business Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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THE DEAD RING No. 166
Chapter 1
The bridge was packed, two lanes of tired commuters in dusty, beat-up cars, motorcycles, and pickup trucks. Some were headed east after hard days at oil fields, factories, and farms, others headed west from big box stores like the Walmart up the road, or even the mall, twenty miles past it.
They were tired—too tired to notice the polished silver tanker truck or the shiny black SUV behind it, no matter how much they stuck out. They didn’t notice the black and gray RV with the retractable satellite uplink dish a quarter of a mile back, either. They barely even noticed the motley crowd gathered on the side of the road just before the bridge—fifty men and half a dozen women, mostly tall, all muscular, with an air of lethality and a distinct buzz of anticipation, intently watching the SUV and the truck cross the bridge, and looking just as out of place.
The tanker reached the end of the bridge and stopped. The SUV pulled out next to it, into the oncoming lane, so they were blocking both lanes of traffic.
The commuters noticed them now.
Within seconds a few stray honks became a chorus, like a flock of geese that just wanted to get home and have a beer.
Cameras mounted at regular intervals along the bridge swiveled, taking in the entire length of it.
The honking paused for a moment as the driver of the SUV got out. He was dressed in black, with dark shades and a black cap despite the heat. He was carrying a gun.
He opened the back door of the vehicle, revealing a wire rack that ran across the width of it. Each slot held a small manila envelope, forty of them. The driver swung himself up onto the roof of the SUV, looked across the bridge and fired the gun once into the air.
Instantly, the small crowd gathered at the other end of the bridge began sprinting across it. Like a pack of animals, they moved quickly, fluidly, and inexorably around, between, and over the cars, swarming from one end of the bridge to the other. The honking resumed, increasing in volume as each car overtaken by the runners joined in.
The man with the gun hopped down and walked away, leaving the SUV in place. The driver of the tanker truck got out and followed him. Neither looked back.
The lead runner was a huge man, heavily muscled, with a blond buzz cut, wearing camo pants and a vest. He charged straight up the lane of oncoming traffic, avoiding one car and causing the next to swerve into the side rail. The car behind it crunched into its back bumper, wedging it further into the guardrail.
The second runner was a beautiful young woman with shiny black hair. She pulled ahead of the pack by flinging herself across the tops of the cars, cartwheeling and springing from one to the next, covering distance with remarkable speed. She glanced back at one of the other runners, a handsome young man with tousled blond hair and the muscles of a gymnast, who was nonetheless struggling to keep up with her. They exchanged a furtive smile, but kept on running. As she approached a gap between the cars, her heel crunched the hood of a thirty-year-old Datsun before she vaulted herself onto the asphalt and flat out ran.
The driver got out and shouted after her, voicing his anger and frustration in a spit-flecked stream of curses. But yet another runner, an olive-skinned tree of a man in a black T-shirt, crumpled him with a
savage elbow to the ear as he ran past without slowing down.
The first runner reached the SUV and grabbed an envelope from the rack. Instantly, an explosion erupted at the other end of the bridge. A motorcycle and its rider flipped into the air, both spinning raggedly over the side of the bridge and onto the rocks lining the dry creek bed thirty feet below.
Drivers screamed and honked and as the runner with the envelope disappeared past the SUV, the cars surged forward in a rush to escape the mayhem. The gaps between them shrank or disappeared altogether. The sound of metal crunching against metal was followed by a handful of screams, louder than the others, as runners were crushed between cars grinding into each other as they tried to escape the madness.
The black-haired woman reached the SUV next and grabbed another envelope. A second explosion, this one in the middle of the bridge, lifted a rusted pickup truck five feet off the ground, and sent two runners shattered and twisting through the air. The truck hit the pavement with a groaning thud, followed by a throaty whoomf, as it erupted into flames. The blond man joined the black-haired woman and grabbed a third envelope. They ran off together as another explosion punched into the air.
In rapid succession, a dozen other runners reached the SUV and grabbed their envelopes, triggering a dozen detonations that fully transformed the bridge into a hellscape of explosions and fire.
When there was only one envelope left, two runners reached it at almost the same moment—a stout, ruddy-faced Irishman with a diagonal scar across his face and a dark-skinned Somali in fatigues and a red beret. The Irishman reached out for the envelope, but his hand closed on air as the Somali grabbed him by the belt and flung him back into the crowd of approaching runners, knocking them over like he had just bowled a strike.
Then the Somali plucked the last envelope out of its slot.
Instead of an explosion, there was a moment of quiet, marred only by the receding footsteps of thirty-nine runners clutching their envelopes. The Somali took off after them. The remaining runners froze, some standing, some still on the ground, all looking on in horror as the back of the tanker truck opened on hydraulics, releasing a torrent of straw-colored liquid.
The dozen or so empty-handed runners still on their feet turned and ran back the other way. The ones on the ground pushed themselves away on their heels, frantically trying to stay ahead of the wave of liquid.
The air shimmered with rising fumes as the choking smell of gasoline spread out rapidly before it.
The Irishman’s knees and heels and hands slipped in the stuff as he tried to clamber to his feet.
A low moaning hum arose from the horrified motorists, just for an instant. Before it could resolve into a chorus of terrified screams, the fumes connected with a spark.
A curtain of fire traveled back to the open tanker truck, which exploded, flipping into the air and shooting a smoky orange ball of fire back across the bridge. The fireball traversed the length of the bridge, causing a series of smaller explosions in its wake as each remaining gas tank detonated, transforming the bridge, and everything on it, into a flaming twisted ruin.
Chapter 2
The light from the video screens blazed and flickered with angry oranges and reds, washing over the handful of people present in the dimly lit confines of the mobile control room. The technicians at their workstations and the armed guards flanking them watched with dull attention, their eyes betraying no reaction at all. They were professionals, and what they were watching was nothing new, not really.
Behind them stood the Cowboy, a soft slip of a man, unscarred and uncalloused. The false bravado he had brought with him to this endeavor had quickly fallen away as things had moved along. Now he was openly awed by the spectacle playing out in front of him. He was frightened, rattled to his core, maybe even horrified at what he had wrought, but he was definitely impressed. He would get what he paid for, even if he didn’t ultimately get what he wanted.
Sitting in the shadows at the back of the room, the Ringleader tapped at his keypad and the soft buzz of precision machinery rose around him. No one in the room turned to look.
It was all enough to make one smile, if one were capable of such things. The Ringleader was not. But he could enjoy the wash of endorphins or serotonin or whatever it was that other people confused with pleasure or happiness or love. The images on the screens provoked it with an intensity that seemed from a bygone era. It was like a religious experience. Only this was real.
It had been a long time coming. But now it was back.
The warm glow of it faded along with the glow from the video screens. But that was okay. Things were finally underway. It wouldn’t be long until next time. And the best was definitely yet to come.
Chapter 3
When Keen received Red’s call, she had wished, like she did every time lately, that she had some kind of excuse not to come and meet him. Or at least not right away.
But she didn’t.
There had been a time when her life was so full it got in the way of work. Now, her life was even fuller, but all it was filled with was work.
Probably just as well.
She looked around at the décor: an odd mix of stylish and cheesy—conical grass hats and bright red and green Asian prints on the wall, but sophisticated blown-glass lights and elegantly set tables. She was sitting in a Laotian restaurant, because… well, because Red, of course.
She didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch, but the meal and the pause would both do her good. And of course, whenever she and Red met like this, it meant something big was headed her way, something he’d be handing off to her, and that she would be bringing to the task force. That’s how it worked.
It had only been a few of years since Red, once one of the FBI’s most-wanted, had turned himself in to the bureau with an offer to help them lock up his long Blacklist of international criminals, with the mysterious stipulation that Keen serve as his liaison to the task force that would investigate each case.
She drank some more water, trying to wash away the memory of the taste.
The woman behind the counter, presumably the proprietor, watched her suspiciously.
Keen tapped her phone to check the time. They had agreed to meet at three. As the display changed from 2:59 to 3:00, the door to the place opened and Red walked in wearing his black overcoat and signature black fedora.
The proprietor’s suspicious face split into an eye-crinkling grin at the sight of him. He smiled back at her, his face twisted in his own weird version of a beaming grin.
Keen shook her head, feeling a smile of her own tugging at her mouth despite herself.
“Lahela,” Red said affectionately.
“Reddington,” the proprietor replied, grabbing Red by the elbows and looking up at him with the fondness of an aunt about to suggest he had grown since the last time she’d seen him. They exchanged a few words in some tonal Asian language, and then the old woman turned and looked at Keen with a shrug, as if maybe she had misjudged her.
The old woman followed Red over, and he sat across from Keen, taking a newspaper out from under his arm and putting it on the table. He pointed to the menu and held up two fingers.
Lahela nodded proudly, approving of his choice.
As she hurried off to the kitchen, Red looked at Keen over the menu. “This place has the best red curried snakehead this side of the Mekong River.”
“Snakehead?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you kidding me?”
“Fresh-caught, too,” he said, laying his napkin on his lap, then leaning forward. “People complain they’re an exotic invasive in these parts, but I say if they’re going to be this delicious, bring on the invasion!”
He laughed at his own joke, maybe a little too much, then stopped abruptly and slid the newspaper across the table. “Have you read the papers?”
Keen read the banner at the top of the page, upside down, without picking it up and looked up at him. “The Fort Stockton Pioneer? No, I haven’t gotten to it yet. St
ill reading the Brownsville Herald. Why?”
He smiled but didn’t put much into it. “There was an event on a bridge in Perdeen, Texas yesterday.”
“That fire… Yes, it was terrible. Thirty-seven people died, right?”
“And seventeen more in the hospital not expected to make it.”
“The reports said it was an accident involving a gasoline truck, right? The fire started after it somehow released its load.”
“It did involve a gasoline truck, but it was no accident.”
“What are you saying?”
“It was actually a preliminary round in something called ‘The Dead Ring.’”
“The Dead Ring?”
“Do you remember last year a warehouse fire in Turkey killed seventy people?”
“Of course, it was a terrible tragedy.”
“It capped off a week of tragedies that included nineteen dead in a runaway train crash and a mosque swallowed by a sinkhole, all within twenty miles of each other.”
“Okay.”
“The year before last, a mine collapse in South Africa took fifty-five lives, ending a similarly tragic week.”
“So, what do they have in common?”
“None of them were accidents. All of them were part of a sick, deadly, and highly lucrative game.”
She didn’t see that coming. “A game?”
“The Dead Ring. A cross between a reality TV show, a gladiator contest, and a snuff film. The players compete for a jackpot rumored to be in the millions.”
“How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“None of it has ever been proven. It’s the stuff of rumors and tall tales told by soldiers and mercenaries. But I believe it’s true. It is highly secret, streamed on the Dark Web, strictly for the viewing and betting pleasure of a super-rich international circle of those with a taste for such things.”
“Jesus,” she whispered, thinking about it.
They remained quiet for a moment as Lahela brought their food. Snakehead or not, it looked delicious. But Keen had lost her appetite.
“Wait, how do these tragedies fit into a game?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Presumably they represent the field of play on which the contestants compete. I don’t know the nature of the games.” He flashed a sad smile that seemed to be trying to mask some deep pain and sorrow. She couldn’t tell if it was just from the magnitude of the evil, of the tragedy inflicted on humanity, or if it was something more direct. More personal. “The huge numbers of collateral casualties generated as the game’s players compete to accomplish some task are part of the spectacle.”