The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  PRAISE FOR SEAN CHERCOVER

  THE DEVIL’S GAME

  “A rocket of a conspiracy thriller, The Devil’s Game blasts the reader from Liberia to Norway to the heart of the USA, taking no prisoners along the way. Daniel Byrne is a hero’s hero; I can’t wait to see more of Byrne—and (as always) more Chercover.”

  —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Look Back

  “Snappy, smart, and satisfying, it makes for a compulsive read.”

  —Chelsea Cain, New York Times bestselling author of One Kick

  “An exceptional read. Explosive and gripping, this is everything you want in a thriller, and some of the smoothest writing you’ll ever hope to read.”

  —Blake Crouch, bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines trilogy

  “Listen to me. Read Sean Chercover.”

  —Robert Crais, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Taken

  “Breathtaking. Science and technology meet morality head-on in this fast-paced thriller.”

  —Booklist

  “Insightfully devised and written, The Devil’s Game is another exhilarating, fast-paced thriller by Sean Chercover. The action-packed, intricate plot runs a suspenseful, twisting course to a riveting conclusion that promises more excitement in the final book of this extraordinary trilogy.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “The Devil’s Game is a must-read for all.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  THE TRINITY GAME

  “The Trinity Game takes the reader on the wildest of rides, from a fabulous and truly diabolical premise to a shattering finale that will leave you gasping for breath. This is one hell of a good thriller.”

  —Douglas Preston, bestselling author of Blasphemy and The Monster of Florence

  “Chercover’s fast, engrossing, and original tale will restore your faith that something new and exciting is being brought to the crime novel.”

  —Linwood Barclay, international bestselling author of The Accident

  “This one goes on your keeper shelf.”

  —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Columbus Affair

  “The Trinity Game is a rare find. Heart-pounding cinematic action, unpredictable twists, and wonderful characters—all packed into a fascinating story. What a thrilling ride! I loved it from the start, couldn’t put it down, and was sorry to see it end. You have got to read this book!”

  —Marcia Clark, New York Times bestselling author of Blood Defense

  “The Trinity Game swept me up from page one. High-octane and thought provoking—a powerful combination.”

  —Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award–winning author of Ransom River

  “The Da Vinci Code meets The Dead Zone in Sean Chercover’s The Trinity Game, a fascinating thriller that catapults us headlong into Vatican intrigue, global conspiracies, complex family relationships, and nonstop excitement.”

  —Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Paranoia and Buried Secrets

  “This is no ordinary thriller. Chercover challenges his readers to get their heads around some big ideas. Powerful and moving.”

  —Booklist

  OTHER TITLES BY SEAN CHERCOVER

  The Devil’s Game

  The Trinity Game

  Trigger City

  Big City, Bad Blood

  Eight Lies (About the Truth): A Collection of Short Stories

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright ©2017 by Sean Chercover

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477848791 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1477848797 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503944602 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503944603 (paperback)

  Cover design by Christian Fuenfhausen

  First edition

  For Firedog

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  EPILOGUE

  THANKS AND PRAISES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  It was the same room.

  The same room, bathed in the same not-quite-orange glow that presages sunset. Daniel Byrne let out the breath he was holding and filled his lungs again. He crossed the antique living room rug, toward the tiled entrance hall. At the end of the hallway, a solid wooden door, painted British racing green.

  Daniel had never passed through that door, in either direction, but he knew this apartment. He knew the bedroom in back was painted red, the same shade as his boyhood bedroom at 2601 General Pershing Street, in uptown New Orleans. He knew there was a 1920s armoire—aromatic Spanish cedar, natural finish, white porcelain knobs—in the bedroom. It had been in Tim Trinity’s room of that same childhood home. Before seeing it here three months ago, Daniel hadn’t laid eyes on it since he was thirteen.

  Weirder still, the handwoven rug he now crossed had been in the living room of Kara Singh’s London flat. The rug had burned to ash when Conrad Winter’s men torched her building down to the foundation.

  And yet, here it lay, the wool soft under Daniel’s bare feet. Restored.

  He walked to the French doors, knowing exactly what he would see when he opened them and stepped onto the balcony: teak furniture with green-and-white-striped cushions, same as the other four times. And beyond the balcony wall, the same almost-tropical seaside town. Coconut palms in abundance, and a subtly fragrant breeze that said West Indies, but the low-rise buildings looked more Southern California—a lot of white stucco and Spanish terra-cotta roofs, with a sprinkling of art deco here and there. Cars parked on the street below ran the gamut from beater to Benz. So, a reasonably prosperous seaside town, bathed in the hyper-realistic glow of what filmmakers call magic hour.

  It seemed Daniel was the only person in this town. At least, he couldn’t see anyone else from this balcony. Last time, he’d stood here for maybe fifteen minutes before trying, once more, to leave the apartment.

  Only a fool would expect a different result the fifth time. He glanced again at the green door as he moved back inside to the kitchen. Front door is not the way out of here.

  He grabbed a bottle of water from the well-stocked fridge and returned to the balcony. He nursed the water until the bottle was empty, watching the whole time. A quick trip inside for a new bottle of water,
then back to the balcony, watching.

  When the water was gone, he judged he’d been on the balcony the better part of an hour. He’d seen not a soul, not even an airplane in the sky, and he’d heard no voices or car engines or distant noises. Just the sound of the breeze, and the rhythmic beat of the surf hitting the shore, perhaps two or three blocks to the west.

  But strangest of all was the sun. The sun had stayed exactly where it was in the sky, not a millimeter lower since he’d arrived. And yet, the sound of the surf told Daniel the ocean was moving at a normal pace. And since tides were caused by the gravitational pull of the moon, the moon must be moving at a normal pace, relative to the Earth.

  Which didn’t easily jibe with the Earth not rotating, freezing the sun’s position in the sky.

  It would take some getting used to.

  Remembering shoes he’d seen in the bedroom before, Daniel stepped inside, leaving the balcony doors standing wide.

  The bedroom was as expected—red walls, cedar armoire, a pair of brown leather shoes beside the bed. Daniel sat on the bed and picked them up, turning them over in his hands. Crepe rubber soles, waxed leather uppers with a thick seam sewn up the middle. More foot shaped than shoe shaped, they were completely broken in, contours suggesting many miles, wet and dry, on their owner’s feet.

  He slipped his bare feet into the shoes. Perfect fit. These were clearly his shoes and no one else’s, but he could not recall having worn them before.

  He laced up the shoes, walked back through the living room, stepped out onto the balcony, and approached the white half wall. The wall came up to just below his rib cage and boasted dozens of round terra-cotta-lined holes, which served to let some natural light pass through.

  He felt the rough texture of the stucco surface on his hands, leaned forward over the wall, and looked down past another balcony. A patio with a metal loveseat and a couple of young coconut palms in large terra-cotta planters lay directly below, two stories down.

  Probably wouldn’t kill him, but far enough for a broken ankle or two.

  He hoisted himself up and swung his legs over so that he was sitting on the wall, his feet dangling. He raised his gaze, fixed his eyes on the windows of the building directly across the street, and after a few slow, centering breaths, turned to face the balcony, using the lowest terra-cotta holes as toeholds.

  There hadn’t been a sound from anywhere within or near the building, but if there were occupants below, they might not assume a strange man swinging onto their balcony from above was a friendly visitor.

  “If there’s anybody below,” Daniel called out, “my front door is not working—it’s stuck—so I’m gonna climb down the balconies. I’m peaceful and unarmed.”

  He felt foolish talking to no one—and he felt quite certain that there was no one—but better to play it safe. He’d appreciate the same courtesy.

  Do unto others, as the man said.

  “Awright, coming down now.”

  Daniel squatted against the outside of the half wall, shifting his hands into the holes, keeping his center of gravity as close to the building as possible. He pulled his feet out of their toeholds, tensing his core and back, and slowly let gravity take his legs. He shifted his right hand lower, then his left, and then swung his legs away from the wall, added to their momentum as they pendulumed back, and released his grip.

  He cleared the balcony wall below by more than he needed to, landing on his feet with too much forward momentum, but managed to lurch-step his way to a stop just short of tumbling over the furniture. The French doors were closed, the shutters behind them shut.

  No evidence of neighbors.

  Daniel repeated the process on this level, calling down to no one before lowering himself and dropping to the patio below.

  Time to find out where the hell he was.

  2

  The street itself looked normal and well maintained.

  So where was everyone?

  Daniel stopped walking and stood on the yellow line in the middle of the road. He was forgetting something important. He concentrated for a moment but could not recall what it was. He looked at the cars parked along both curbs. Something about them felt . . . he didn’t know what, exactly, but there was definitely something wrong about them.

  He scanned both sides of the street. The cars themselves were just fine, but the assortment—this particular assortment—felt somehow curated, as though he were walking through a Hollywood film set. At the same time, this moment felt more real than any previous moment of his life.

  Then he remembered what he was forgetting. The idea he’d had up on the balcony.

  Get to the ground, read the license plates, and you’ll know where you are.

  Why had his mind resisted remembering that idea? And why did it now resist looking?

  In Daniel’s peripheral vision, the license plates appeared perfectly normal, but even intending to focus on a single plate triggered intense unease, physically and emotionally. Queasiness in the pit of the gut, akin to the physical symptoms of both guilt and dread.

  Just look at it.

  He forced his attention onto a single plate, the one on the black Tesla to his right. The plate blurred as he looked, and then became increasingly bright, until it glowed—no longer just reflecting but emitting a brilliant white light of its own.

  Daniel had to look away when it started to feel like staring at the sun. He dropped his gaze to the pavement, blinking water from his eyes, watching the ghost image of a rectangular sun explode anew with each blink, until it slowly faded and no longer threatened to trigger a full-blown headache.

  Message received: The license plates do not wish to be examined.

  Daniel walked on. The buildings on either side of the street looked like apartments, or condos. Nice, but without ostentation. He spotted a newspaper box at the corner and jogged over to it. The paper’s front page was pressed against the inside of the clear plastic window, but when he looked at it, the print blurred out of focus and the paper began to glow white.

  Again he had to look away, eyes watering, head throbbing, gut knotted with guilt, or dread, or maybe both. He returned his gaze to the ground, braced his hands on his knees, and stayed that way until the symptoms subsided.

  Once confident he wouldn’t pass out, he straightened, took a couple of deep breaths, and made a token effort to read the name on the street sign above. As soon as the sign began to blur, he averted his eyes.

  Not productive. This town will hurt you if you try to identify it.

  He focused on the solidity of the pavement underfoot, the warmth of the sunlight on his face. He turned left—west—onto the street that was shy about its name. Looking ahead, he could see that the street ran downhill for five blocks, ending in a T intersection. Beyond the intersection there was a wide sandy beach, and then the sea, glittering like a field of broken glass beneath the nuclear furnace in the sky. He held a hand up to shade his eyes.

  The surf sounded unnaturally close—he’d guessed two or maybe three blocks if the blocks were short. The sound conflicted with the five blocks his eyes now registered, and the resulting cognitive dissonance was unnerving.

  Despite the initial discomfort, the discrepancy was explainable after a moment’s thought. With no people or machines moving about to deflect sound waves or create competing noise, the surf would indeed sound louder than expected.

  But try as he might, Daniel still couldn’t explain the sky.

  Proposition One: The sun doesn’t move in the sky, so the Earth is barely rotating, if at all.

  Proposition Two: Gravity and tides and atmosphere are all normal, so the Earth is rotating at normal speed.

  Both propositions could not be true.

  And yet.

  He kept walking, toward the immobile sun. In the second block, apartment buildings gave way to detached one- and two-story houses. Facing into the sun wasn’t helping Daniel’s headache, so he turned right, the sun now to his left, and walked down an alley, flank
ed on both sides by wooden backyard fences and gates, upper-floor windows reflecting the sky.

  Nobody home.

  And yet: At the foot of one backyard gate, five beer bottles lay scattered. Stubby brown bottles. Red Stripe lager. Somebody’d drank that beer and left those bottles.

  He turned right again at the end of the alley, putting the sun behind him. His shadow stretched forward from his feet along the road, leading the way uphill.

  Aside from the slope to the beach, it was a flat town, almost universally low-rise, the tallest buildings perhaps six stories. But as Daniel turned the corner, the one exception revealed itself, and he heard himself gasp as he came to a stop, staring.

  The single white tower rose in the distance to an impossible height. He guessed the building was about six miles to the east, but if that were true, it would have to be at least three hundred stories tall.

  He set off at a brisk pace, uphill to where the road leveled and then through town, block after block of mostly two-story homes with alleys running between backyard fences. As the high-rise got closer, he estimated it was easily twice the height of the tallest building on Earth.

  Wait.

  Daniel made himself a statue. Yes, the rumble of a car nearby. The engine noise died. Then a car door closing. And now footsteps—leather soles on the pavement ahead.

  He set off at a jog, following the sound around the next corner, where he saw a man striding along the sidewalk in his direction, maybe thirty paces away.

  Late twenties, athletic build, wearing a mustard-yellow linen suit and white leather cowboy boots. The man wore his hair slicked back, his face clean shaven. He tossed Daniel a pleasant smile, as you do to a passing stranger, but did not slow as he approached.

  Daniel raised a hand. “Excuse me. Do you—” He gestured at the empty street. “This may sound odd, but where is everybody?”

  The man stopped walking. His smile broadened. He said, “Hello, Daniel,” as he slid his right hand into his jacket, reaching under his left armpit.

  Gun.

  Daniel bolted across the street and dived beside a parked sedan, pistol fire barking from behind, rounds pinging off concrete and thunking into sheet metal, the car’s side windows exploding above his head. He scrambled to get his feet under him, then ran in a half crouch, blocking the sides of his head with his forearms, stealing a glance to locate the gunman—