The Smiling Man Conspiracy (Evils of this World Book 2) Read online

  The

  Smiling Man

  Conspiracy

  C. J. Sears

  Copyright © 2017 C. J. Sears

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1976218477

  ISBN-10: 1976218470

  DEDICATION

  For dad.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Harbinger of Death

  We Were Partners

  Truth

  Arrested Developments

  Blood on the Snow

  P3RF3CTPUR1TY

  Consequences

  Nothing Left

  Refuge

  Bad Juju

  The Monster Inside

  A Dog Needs A Leash

  The Labyrinth

  Scarred

  Dark Water

  Kiss the Sand

  End Game

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel would not have been possible without the support of family, friends, and readers. Thanks for your time and confidence.

  A special thanks goes out to Maduranga for once again providing an effective and fantastic cover.

  God bless you all.

  PROLOGUE

  Mark Grayson regretted taking this job. He knew something was off right from the start. The vibe was bad; the air was wrong and there was a peculiar tingle in his groin. Well, maybe he had to piss, but this whole affair didn’t feel right.

  Jorge Ortiz and Kent Cranston waited for him on the other side of the hedge wall. Dressed all in black, wearing masks, he couldn’t tell either of them apart. Not that it mattered. They weren’t his friends, just some nobody crooks his fence recommended.

  He should’ve never listened to her, but when Allison flashed her pearly whites, he couldn’t resist. Dumbass. He’d left that puppy love nonsense behind years ago. At least he thought he had.

  “Grayson, get your ass over here,” one of them called from behind the hedge. Maybe Ortiz. He sounded Hispanic.

  Grunting, Grayson eased himself over the high wall and into the mansion garden. No signs of resistance, but he didn’t feel comfortable. It was like being back in Iraq with a pair of raw recruits. Here he was, casing the compound, wary of improvised explosives, and he was stuck with two jack-offs who wanted to rush him along. That sort of shit got you killed.

  Darkness shrouded the mansion, but even with his flashlight turned off, Grayson could see how extravagant the place must’ve been in its prime. High buttressed walls, a massive sloping roof, and a hefty stone gargoyle atop a fine point—it was as much a cathedral or a castle as it was someone’s home.

  Cranston whistled. “Bet it cost a pretty penny.”

  “Shut up,” said Grayson, jimmying a first floor window loose.

  “Why are we doing all this sneaking around, anyway?” Cranston asked, ignoring Grayson. “Ain’t anybody lived here for years. Not a damn guard or even a caretaker in sight.”

  “That don’t mean we’re out of the woods, Supes,” Ortiz said. “Didn’t you read the dossier? The owner loved cloak-and-dagger shit. There’s probably traps or something in the house that the police don’t even know are there.”

  Ortiz nicknamed Cranston “Supes” the night they met up to discuss the heist. He said the name “Kent” reminded him of Superman. Grayson didn’t much care. They needed to focus on the task at hand. No time for this fake camaraderie bullshit.

  “Will you both stop yapping?” Grayson complained, yanking the window up. “Get in the damn house and watch where you step.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Ortiz flashed him a mock salute. Cranston mimed kissing his ass. Idiots. He would never listen to Allison’s advice again. Not even with her lovely smile.

  Whatever rich prick had owned this house had lavish taste. Grayson grudgingly admired the kitchen with all of its appliances imbued with stainless splendor. The marble floors sparkled in spite of years of dust collection. Spectacular and seamless granite shaped the island countertop. He never cared much about rocks in his kitchen. Give him ceramic tile any day of the week.

  The flashlights they’d brought with them illuminated the room. He’d come to appreciate the tactical KLARUS model during his time with the military. They’d see danger well before it reached them. But Grayson didn’t trust his companions and technology would only take him so far into unknown territory.

  “Man, what I wouldn’t give for mi esposa to cook for me in a place like this.”

  Did either of these morons have an off function?

  “Didn’t you hear Captain America? We’re meant to be quiet. We wouldn’t want to wake the dead.”

  That answered his question. Grayson rolled his eyes. Not that they could see him do it even with their bright-ass flashlights.

  The grand foyer of the mansion was, if possible, more impressive than the exterior or the kitchen had been. Twin mahogany staircases curved to meet in the center of the room. Clerestory windows lined the multi-tiered domed ceiling of the rotunda. Painted around the rim was a Renaissance mosaic, a Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci replica.

  In its heyday, the joint must’ve played host to a menagerie of parties and celebrity guests. The expensive wine would’ve flowed like the Nile. He imagined fake laughs and gossip bouncing off the finely fashioned walls. Now it was a hollow shell of wealth and power.

  Leave it to those who had too much to show off. Grayson made sure to track dirt on the red velvet rug that ran the length of the room. It wasn’t like he left a recognizable print. He was already robbing the place—why bother keeping it pristine? If this pricey tomb had a caretaker, he wasn’t doing them any favors.

  From his bag, Grayson retrieved a blueprint of the mansion. He unrolled it and studied the architect’s plans, looking for the best course to take through the winding halls.

  “What’re we looking for, again?” asked Cranston.

  “It’s some kind of computer chip or something,” answered Ortiz.

  “We’re breaking into a dead rich dude’s house for a computer chip?”

  Ortiz chuckled. “It’s not just some piece of hardware, Supes, it’s supposed to have all kinds of data on it. Names. Addresses. Preferences. The stuff governments everywhere would pay to have.”

  “But still, a computer chip? What are we, the geek squad?”

  Grayson really wished he could’ve worked with mutes. Every time one of these amateurs opened their mouth, flashes of Baghdad appeared in his mind.

  He remembered walking down a dusty road on a starlit night, his nerves frayed from repeated attacks by jihadists. Three members of Grayson’s unit had already died. Shrapnel from an IED had wounded his commanding officer. Then two loud bozos had a little chat. A sniper rifle rang out and took both of them with a head shot. The blood splattered across his face and he went prone, wanting nothing more than to cry and be anywhere else.

  Grayson pushed the memories aside. Now was not the time to dwell on that. He refused to become one of those veterans, the kind that became fixated and consumed by the war they never left. He hadn’t lived through that battle to die to the one in his mind.

  “C’mon,” he said to his less than professional companions, “we’ll check the study first. The blueprint claims it’s on the second floor to our right.”

  Ortiz took point while Cranston brought up the rear. Being sandwiched between these two numbskulls didn’t sit right with Grayson. If there was a trap, and they panicked, he didn’t trust them to get out of the way if he had to fire back.

  They crept up the steps one at a time. Not that anyone would hear the sounds of their footste
ps. No one was listening in this empty mausoleum.

  Wary as he was, Grayson began to think Cranston was right. What was there to be afraid of? The owner was dead. The place had no running electricity, no way to trigger an alarm. No point in being this jittery, yet he couldn’t bring himself to admit the possibility it was his nerves getting the better of him.

  They stopped at a broken bust. The study was somewhere around this spot according to the blueprint. There were no doors in sight.

  This job pissed him off more with each passing second. Allison rushed the planning stage, told them the item was time sensitive. She said there were other interested parties. Bullshit.

  Grayson had never known a fence to authorize an operation with a half-baked plan. He’d been doing this since he was a teenager. They were all the same. Allison was lying about something. He should have said no, but that damn smile got the better of him.

  “I didn’t know computer chips were this ugly,” joked Ortiz.

  “Yeah, I thought technology was supposed to get smaller? This looks like it’s a relic from a museum,” said Cranston.

  He picked up the statue’s head and tossed it to Ortiz like a football. The chiseled stone clinked against the marble floor. Ortiz had fumbled.

  “You stupid cabrón you could’ve knocked my teeth out!”

  “It would’ve been an improvement.”

  “Yeah, that’s not what your mom said, gringo,” Ortiz spat, taking his mask off.

  The insult should’ve bounced off of Cranston, but he couldn’t resist biting back. “Oh, yeah? Well I hear your wife is two-timing you with the pool boy.”

  Grayson would’ve done anything for a cattle prod to shock sense into these clowns. Fortunately for them, he was more fascinated by the broken statue.

  For once, the bumbling duo had done something worthwhile. Grayson noticed the button where the head opened at the neck. Ortiz was right; the previous owner was fond of that spy nonsense. He knew how to open the study.

  “It’s a hidden door. Push against the wall.”

  Ortiz and Cranston listened to his instructions this time. Good. His orders falling on deaf ears pissed him off.

  The trio braced their shoulders against the wall. Normally, the mechanism relied on an electric current and a remote operating system. Without it, a little elbow grease and substantial muscle would take the hidden door to task.

  Cool beads of sweat dripped from their foreheads, but Grayson, Ortiz, and Cranston shoved the door ajar with relative ease. With a metallic screech, it scraped across the floor. The rusted hinges were on borrowed time.

  The study had no personal effects. No picture frames or plaques. No indication that anyone had inhabited the room except for the lingering chemical smell. Or was that his imagination?

  The grandchild or other distant relative in charge of recovery had neglected to remove the computer from the room. Understandable; the machine was a fossil. The broken CRT monitor completed the ancient ensemble. With luck, the cleanup crew had been as irresponsible in leaving this rumored chip behind.

  Grayson kicked up dust with each step. Behind him, Ortiz sneezed. Cranston snickered before falling victim to his own nasally fit. It served those two bastards right for ignoring his orders.

  There was nothing in the computer or under the desk. No floppy disk. No backup copy. No chip. The damn thing didn’t even have a hard drive. It was the machine equivalent of a rotting corpse and the buzzards had already fed.

  “Well, this was worth a Friday night,” Cranston said.

  “Shut up and look around. It has to be somewhere around here. Try one of the books on these shelves.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the chorus.

  The study must’ve doubled as a small library in a past life. The three of them scoured the room, searching the spines of each book for anything that looked promising. What biology texts on parasites and viral infections had to do with a computer chip, Grayson didn’t know. Allison must’ve lied to him. Or she was misinformed.

  Sighing, Grayson scanned the shelf to his left. Amoebas in Ancient Society, Biology & Complex Systems, Born to Consume: The Life of a Cordyceps—at least the books were in alphabetical order.

  A heavyset journal, leather-bound and white as snow, drew his attention away from the scientific documents. Someone had haphazardly scrawled the words “A History of Evil” onto the cover using a red ink pen.

  Curiosity killed cats but Grayson considered himself more of a canine, anyway. His bark and his bite were dangerous on and off the battlefield. That’s what his last two squads had told him.

  He turned to the first page:

  The following is an annotated record of the fifteen prestigious founding families of Lone Oak.

  Lone Oak? That town that got napalmed a couple months back? Wasn’t there a virus or something that got out of control? His interest piqued, Grayson read on:

  In the late 1800s, the Bradfords, along with fourteen other distinguished families, journeyed from a coastal fishing village near the Appalachian Mountains to an undefined settlement along the Missouri/Arkansas border. Their reason for leaving was unknown to all but the families themselves. Some believed they had ties to the burgeoning Mormon Church and headed west to meet their brethren. But the truth was far more sinister. Below I have inscribed a most peculiar symbol.

  Grayson didn’t recognize the rune on the page. It was some kind of nine-pointed star, but that description didn’t quite conjure the appropriate image. It almost seemed alive.

  Suppressing a surprising shiver, he flipped to the next page.

  No one knows the exact origin or nature of the organization, but it is clear the Bradfords belonged to what could only be described as a cult. But unlike spurious modern sects, I know their so-called “god” is quite real. We are not made in its image. Its purpose, the cult’s purpose, is assuredly evil—and it must perish.

  My name is Jackson Maverlies. My family was one of the fifteen that conspired to control the town of Lone Oak. My ancestors, as well as the Bradfords and other families, maintained every aspect of the town. They engineered its very fabric to suit their desires. Even the city’s water system was owned and operated by a Founder. No scheme was too small or too large for the cult to claim.

  How did they achieve this? Through the use of a — “I think I’ve found something.”

  Grayson tore his eyes away from the tome. Cranston held a flat metal box with a large red switch in his hand. The wire connected to it was being fed through the wall behind the bookcase. Another hidden door.

  “Good eye, Supes.”

  Dropping the journal on the table, Grayson examined the switch. He knew it operated some kind of revolving or retracting mechanism inside the shelves. But without power, they’d have to brute force it again.

  He gestured for Ortiz and Cranston to push against the bookcase. They jostled the shelf. It didn’t budge. Grayson heaved his shoulder into the door, aware that he’d wake up sore as shit in the morning. The payout for this gig would make it worth all the trouble. He hoped.

  The bookcase didn’t even whimper. They’d have to remove the books and lighten the opposing load. Grayson opened his mouth to tell his fellow thieves.

  He saw both of them illuminated in red emergency light. An alarm blared. An automated voice overrode his senses.

  “Intruders detected. Locking all exits. Securing all doors and windows.”

  The mansion had electricity.

  “Shit, man, we’re screwed,” Ortiz cried, scrambling to put his mask back on.

  “No, we’re not,” said Grayson, making his way calmly over to the door back to the second floor. “The place is probably running on auxiliary power. I have no idea why it waited until now to kick in, but it’s not doing shit. Look, the doors aren’t even closing.”

  Sure enough, no lockdown was imminent. The only sound was the repeated screech of the distress message.

  “What about the cops? That shit’s so loud it’ll wake somebody up.”
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  “Then we’ll have to work fast. Let’s get this bookcase moved. It’s already halfway there.”

  Grayson didn’t know what compelled him to continue. No computer chip was worth the trouble. But reading that journal and knowing about the deceased owner’s penchant for this clandestine crap—he had to push forward.

  The false shelves gave way to an extensive, perhaps endless staircase. The red emergency light cast a hellish glow that faded as they descended into muted darkness. No longer ringing in their ears, the automated voice crackled as if it were on life support. The auxiliary power wouldn’t last forever.

  At the bottom, Grayson threw his arm in front of Ortiz and Cranston. He thought he’d heard a strange noise. Growling. Some kind of animal. It sounded hungry.

  “What gives, Captain? I ain’t your baby mama.”

  He disregarded Cranston’s remark. He’d heard the noise again, but still couldn’t decipher the nature of the animal. Growing up on a farm in the boonies he knew what sounds a predator like a cougar or a wolf made. It was neither.

  The creature, whatever it was, drew closer by the second. A shape formed in the void. It was bipedal with a slight hunch. Humanoid, in fact.

  “Hello?” Ortiz squeaked.

  Grayson wanted to slap him. Years in combat taught him that if an opposing force didn’t immediately identify itself as a friend it was best to assume foe. He wished he’d brought his service pistol, a SIG P229.