Brink of Chaos (19 page)

As the Citation X rolled to a stop on the tarmac, Abigail and Cal had already unbuckled themselves and were reaching for their backpacks. Abigail tucked her legal file in the center zip pocket.

“You didn’t catch any Zs on the flight over, did you?” Cal said.

She shook her head. “I had to go over my notes, getting ready to argue your father’s case.” Then she looked down at the atomic-clock function of her Allfone. “Which is now less than forty-eight hours away.” She closed her eyes, contemplating the enormity of the mission ahead of her. She muttered something aloud — a prayer, mixed with exasperation — “Dear Lord, all things are possible with You. But this is really coming right down to the wire …”

As they deplaned, the pilot shook their hands. “I’ll take care of the FAA and SIA inquiries. But just remember — there are four webcams here on the tarmac. So you’ve already been logged into the system. The clock is ticking. It won’t be long before SIA catches up to your location here. A personal car, not a rental, is waiting for you in the parking lot,” he added, “courtesy of your friends at the Roundtable.” He handed Cal a piece of paper with the parking-lot location and the make and model. “The car’s unlocked. The keys are wedged between the retractable headrest and the top of the passenger-side front seat.” The last thing their pilot said before disappearing into the hangar, was, “Godspeed, Mrs. Jordan. And you too, Cal.”

Abigail and Cal lugged their backpacks through the small regional airport, leaving through the security exit doors. They knew the cameras up at the ceiling were catching them from several angles. All they could do was to hope and pray that they would be able to arrive at their destination before the SIA agents tracked them down. The blessing was that the little airport was not close to any major federal law enforcement offices.

While the element of time was not on their side, something else was — the primeval kind of environment ahead of them. The long arm of government scanner surveillance had not yet reached the remote wilderness area they were about to enter.

In the parking lot they located the green Land Rover. As planned, the car was unlocked, and the keys were under the passenger headrest.

Cal jumped behind the wheel, and Abigail sat in the passenger seat with Cal’s micro laptop open. They headed north on the 101, toward Skokomish. After forty minutes, they were surrounded by dense forest and mountains. While Cal pushed the Land Rover as fast as they could afford to go, Abigail opened the extensive trail of emails between Cal and the clandestine group they hoped to meet.

“Cal, you’ve been connecting with them for five months. No,” she corrected herself, paging down more emails, “almost six months.”

“Ever since you started talking about not getting BIDTagged,” Cal replied.

“And you did all that for me?”

“I had a feeling you were going to need something like this. Without your BIDTag, I knew this was your only chance.”

“Thank you,” she said, reaching over and squeezing his arm. Suddenly she was aware of the strength in his arms. He hadn’t shaved, and his face had the same kind of dense bristles that Joshua would get. And there was a rugged maturity now to his profile, no longer the baby-faced teenager.

“Your dad would be so proud of the man you’ve become,” she said. “He
is
so proud, Cal.”

Cal tightened his face and didn’t respond. After a while he said, “I miss him. We have to get his case turned around so we can all be
together again.” Then he added, “For however long we’ve got down here.”

That took Abigail by surprise. She and Joshua were the ones who had been talking about the approaching apocalypse. They never hid their strong belief that Jesus Christ was poised, any minute now, to enter human history once again — to whisk his believing flock off the face of the planet, just before the beginning of the end.

But now, hearing Cal open up about that same thing — about the imminent return of Christ — it brought home what she had always believed in her heart, that the truth that had so spiritually revolutionized the lives of the parents had been quietly observed and absorbed by their son and their daughter. She silently spoke it in her mind.
Your word never returns void, O Lord. It always bears fruit in the right season
.

Then she went back to the email trail on the screen.

“Who is this Chiro Hashimoto they’re talking about?”

“A software technology genius,” Cal said. “I’ve read about him over the years. He was hired by Introtonics in Seattle when he was only a sophomore at Stanford, put in charge of high-tech research for the corporation. According to one article, he was developing a really advanced laser process for encoding and storing information when he left Introtonics.”

“Why did he leave?”

“He found out that the White House had cut a deal with Introtonics to use his laser process to create the human BIDTag process. He’s a privacy freak, totally against information systems collecting data about people. So one day he packed up his personal stuff from his impressive glass office on the floor just below the corporate president’s suite, grabbed his little sculpture of Rodin’s
The Thinker
, and walked out. Totally disappeared. Like vapor.”

“And you know for a fact he’s up here in the Olympic National Forest?”

“Not
in
the forest. Right on the edge. In a private compound.”

“And you tracked him down?”

“Took several months. I had to send some fishing bait out. Posted some things on obscure, hi-tech computer networking sites. The kind
of ultra-advanced technology blogs I figured that a guy like Chiro Hashimoto might be reading from his hideout, wherever that was. A lot of rumors about him — some said that he was dead. Others said he had been hired by China to hack into American security systems. Another said he brought down Wall Street’s digital trading system a few years ago.”

“He sounds like an anarchist,” Abigail said.

“I don’t believe all the rumors, but one thing’s clear — he’s not your average computer geek.”

“Why does he trust you?”

“I’m not sure he does.”

Abigail had a stunned look on her face. “Wait. I don’t understand.”

“I’ve only communicated with his group — they call themselves the Underground. A super-secret group that protests the BIDTag program — and they don’t use the new international currency — the CReDO — either. But I haven’t connected directly with Hashimoto.”

“Why would they trust you? How do you know they’re not just taking you for a ride?”

“I told them my father developed the RTS system and that my mother was the ringleader of the group that singlehandedly tried to stop the terror plot to detonate a nuke inside New York City.”

“
Ringleader
? You called your mother a ‘ringleader’?”

“Hey, Mom, don’t be such a … a
mom
. I had to make you sound exotic. You know, rebellious.”

“I consider myself a patriot — not a rebel. There’s a difference.”

Cal laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Abigail said. “What kind of impression do they have of me anyway?”

Cal laughed louder. “I love the way you are always Miss Manners, Mom — except when you’re on the other side of a legal argument, and then you really go for the kill. You forget, I’ve seen you in action.”

They fell into a comfortable silence.

Two hours later they saw a sign: “Skokomish 10 Miles.” Cal checked his odometer and turned it to zero. Two and a third miles later, he saw a fire trail cut into the deep forest on the left.

“That’s it,” he said.

“You sure? It looks like it leads up the foothills and into a dead-end.”

“This is exactly what they told me.”

Cal checked his rearview mirror to make sure no other cars were around. Then he wheeled the Land Rover across the highway and onto the rough fire trail.

They began to bump their way up the path, jiggling the car so violently that their voices quivered when they spoke.

“I was just thinking about Dad,” Cal said, “wondering how he’s doing, whether he’s safe.”

“This may sound odd,” Abigail said, “but I’ve learned not to worry about your father. At least not too much. God gifted that dear man with an uncanny ability to get out of the worst kind of trouble.” Then she added, “I’ve actually been sitting here thinking about something el se.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been wondering, down to my soul, what in the world has happened to my country.”

The screen on Cal’s Allfone, which was lying on the dashboard, lit up with a video email. He pulled the car to a halt. “This could be important,” he said and tapped the Receive key. “This may be our rendezvous.”

But it wasn’t. The image of Captain Jimmy Louder was on the screen. The text said,

Cal handed the Allfone over to Abigail who glanced at the message and smiled. “Okay, give him Ethan’s email. He’s screening incoming communications for Josh.”

After tapping in Ethan’s email address, Cal hit Reply. “I wonder what that’s about,” he asked aloud. Abigail shrugged.

Cal redirected his attention to the steep path through the woods
ahead, and he hoped, after all this effort and risk, they would be able to meet with the secretive Chiro Hashimoto and his Underground. He put the Land Rover into low gear and continued the rough, jostling drive up the fire trail that cut deep into the wilderness.

That same morning, as usual, William Tatter, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, had been picked up at his brownstone mansion in Old Town Alexandria by his sedan driver. Now the black sedan was pulling off of Dolly Madison Boulevard and into the familiar entrance leading to the two-hundred-and-twenty-six-acre intelligence compound.

But one thing was utterly unusual — the encrypted iGram message he had received in the early morning hours on his digital Com-Pad from one of his inside sources. He had to read it twice while shaving just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming; then he swore so loudly that his wife thought that he accidentally sliced his neck with his razor. From home, Tatter immediately called his special liaison to the National Security Council and, after that, his deputy in charge of communications with the congressional intelligence oversight committees. Tatter was not a man to be blindsided. Apparently, on that day, he had been. An embarrassing realization for a spy chief. The classified iGram message proved what William Tatter had been famous for saying among his colleagues privately — that domestic spying was now the primary province of SIA, Homeland Security, and whoever happened to be Jessica Tulrude’s pal.

When Tatter blustered into his office suite on the top floor, directly above the entrance doors of the agency building, he was informed by
his executive assistant that the secretary of state would be visiting him that morning. Fifteen minutes later, the secretary arrived.

“Vance,” Tatter said to him with visible distress, “I already know about this outlandish development. It’s absurd. Maybe even treasonous.”

“Oh, come on, William,” the secretary said, “you had to know this was coming.”

“Tulrude is — excuse my bluntness — stark raving crazy if she thinks that the CIA is going to be subject to international control of the Security Council of the U.N. This is insane.”

“It’s nothing new —”

“I really thought this was just some nutty idea of a bunch of radical political scientists who must be doing dope on the side —”

“You’re overstating it,” the secretary said calmly. “All the treaty requires is that the U.S. government must disclose to the U.N. security council, in advance, any American clandestine operations of the CIA prior to actually taking hostile action against any other nation that is a member in good standing of the United Nations.”

“I got the memo. It doesn’t change my mind. Well … okay, maybe. I’ll retract my comment about the proponents of this absurdity doing dope on the side. Instead, how about this — they must be on hard drugs. How about that?”

The secretary rolled his eyes. “We may not be able to do everything over at State,” he said, “but we can do one thing well. We can count. And we know we’ve got the votes in the senate to ratify this treaty. We both know it.”

Tatter’s face expressed no displeasure, but his voice told a different story. His tone carried a message of total disdain. “Where is Roland Allenworth in this discussion? The secretary of defense should be here right now. He’ll be equally disgusted at this act of total betrayal of America’s interests.”

“As for Roland,” the secretary of state said as he rose to leave, “he is announcing his resignation later today.”

Tatter was a Washington veteran. He knew the rules. He shot back, “But that’s not what’s
really
going on. What’s really happening is that
Tulrude is cleaning house before the election, kicking the honest ones out of her administration so they can’t spill the gory details of what has really gone on during her tenure in the Oval Office. Honestly, Vance, is there anything our president would not do for political gain? Does she have any honor left at all?”

As the secretary of state strolled toward the door he stopped long enough to ponder William Tatter’s indictment of the president. “Honor? Yes, that noble, if not antiquated, value mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
Our sacred honor
… Well, Bill, I’ll tell you what’s sacred. Global peace and harmony. We are witnessing a new world unfolding before us.”

Tatter had a look of resignation now, as if he had just glimpsed the future. Behind the happy placards and politically correct billboards, he could see the black smoke rising up from a dawning empire of destruction. “A new world order?” he called out to the secretary of state. “Maybe. But still guided by human corruption. That’s what is going to be pulling the levers behind the curtain.”

Deborah Jordan was hustling breathlessly down the sidewalk along the shopping and restaurant district. She had been given the message about a secret rendezvous point, but she wondered,
I don’t remember a magazine stand in front of Charley Beck’s Restaurant
.

She strode down the sidewalk from the parking garage until she approached the restaurant. “Can’t believe it,” she said under her breath as she brushed past pedestrians. There, off to the side of the entrance to Charley Beck’s, was an old-fashioned magazine and newspaper stand. Ever since the migration of all news publications to the Internet, those relics of the old print world had slowly become extinct.

The guy manning the booth was middle-aged with sunglasses and a Washington Redskins cap.

Deborah remembered the routine given to her by Pack McHenry, the shadowy black-ops manager of private intelligence services. His group — known only as the Patriots — was the stuff of legend among the members of her parents’ Roundtable. She got the drift from her
father that Pack McHenry, a former CIA foreign operations director, had really never left the Agency, that he and his team of special operations veterans were still assisting the United States government — but very discreetly. Not just under the radar — but practically invisible on the map.

After talking to her mother in her suite at the Mayflower the day before, she did as she was asked. She had called McHenry’s number. He had answered with one word: “Patriots.”

Deborah had introduced herself and said she was carrying a request from Abigail Jordan.

“Anything for the Jordans,” he had replied.

She put in the request for a passport check on Zeta Milla and gave all of the background information she had about the Cuban beauty.

“Done,” he said on the other end.

Then Deborah broached the other request. “I need a reliable, authentic-looking driver’s license ID for myself. My picture and address. But identifying me as Deborah Shelly.”

“Who’s going to be checking it?”

“Some very official people … who carry guns.”

“Gotcha.” Then, Pack McHenry sobered. “I have such respect for your dad and mother. Worked on some pretty important projects together behind the scenes. Saved lives. Protected the country. Tell them that I wish them God’s speed, won’t you?”

There had been a final good-bye kind of tone to his comment that sent a chill up Deborah’s spine.

“I certainly will, Mr. McHenry,” she simply said in return.

“My friends call me Pack,” he had said. “Young lady — I know your position over at the Pentagon. How hard you worked at West Point to get where you are. And I also know how you must be risking all of that with what you’ve got planned. Your parents will be very proud.”

That struck home. She stammered for just an instant, then recovered. “Yes … sir. I appreciate your thoughts.”

Before clicking off, Pack had issued a final word. “The daylight is waning, Deborah. Night’s coming. A long, terrible night, I fear. What your parents believe — the coming end of days. Wrapping up
of human history. The coming hand of God Almighty. Victoria — my wife — and I … haven’t been the religious type, but the more we look around, we find it pretty hard to deny it now. It’s all coming to pass. Josh and Abby have been right all along, you know. The Bible. The prophecies. Everything.”

“Yes, sir. I believe it too.”

“Well,” he said finishing the thought, “you can tell your folks that I said that. I’m doing a lot of thinking lately.”

That was yesterday, and now Deborah reflected again on his words as she approached the vendor on the sidewalk, the guy with the Redskins cap.

She recited the script. “I’m looking for a Superman Comic book from 1985. The one with Supergirl.”

“I’m all out,” the man grunted, “but I thought you’d like to see this.”

He handed her an old tattered tour guide for visiting Cuba, which must have been printed before Castro came to power. Deborah smiled. Pack McHenry had a sense of humor, that was clear.

She reached in her purse, but the man frowned and shook his head. “It’s on the house.”

When Deborah reached her car, she opened up the book, and inside was a pristine-looking driver’s license for “Deborah Shelly” with her photo on it. She drove out of the parking garage and back onto M Street North West. But when she drove by Charley Beck’s, the guy with the Redskins hat was gone. And so was the magazine stand.