Authors: Stephen England
Panic
. How long had he been in the restroom? It couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes, but it seemed like an hour. Omar was going to be asking questions. Questions he couldn’t answer.
He took the phone apart with sweat-slick fingers, cramming it back in his pocket as he tried to calm his heart rate.
His feet carried him out of the convenience store and into the Vegas night. Omar was already back in the van, the hose replaced in its holder.
“Where were you?” the negro asked, glancing at him as he climbed back up in the van.
“Had to take a leak.” The words came out of Nasir’s mouth almost unbidden, leaving him trembling, afraid to even look at the black man’s face.
But the answer seemed to be satisfactory—the next moment the van shifted into gear, rolling forward. Toward the end of his life…
9:26 P.M. Eastern Time
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
He knew what he was looking at. It was leverage…against the most powerful man in the world. The FBI director had been nothing if not cautious.
Outside the study, sleet tapped against the window. The finger of an insistent Death.
“Dear God, Eric,” Kranemeyer breathed, scrolling down the laptop’s screen as he waited for the files to copy onto a portable USB drive. “What have you
done?
”
He had seen treachery in his day—thought he had gazed into its foulest depth when Zakiri betrayed his comrades. He hadn’t begun to suspect that it was only the beginning, that it could have reached this far.
The President
.
“Why?” he asked himself, only realizing after the words were out of his mouth that he had spoken aloud.
A moan seemed to come in response and Kranemeyer looked over to the chair where he had propped the weakened, dying director.
“You…don’t understand,” Haskel gasped, struggling even to take a breath. “We were on the brink…of a new or-der in the Middle East. An end to all—of it. All the violence.”
Even as he slumped there in the chair, Kranemeyer could see the light in his eyes. The excitement. The
lust
.
“Peace in our lifetimes. A permanent end to…the energy crisis for America. It was going to be real—all we had to do was stand back.”
“And watch people die.”
Haskel coughed, spittle flecking his shirt. “Morality is a limiting thing.”
There were no words. A loud
beep
alerted Kranemeyer that the file transfer had been completed, and he removed the thumb drive from the machine, closing the lid of the laptop with a gloved hand. He tucked it within the pocket of his overcoat, picking up both tumblers and the bottle of whisky.
“I believe my work here is done,” he announced, glancing at the clock. Half-past nine.
Fear showed suddenly in Haskel’s eyes, a panicked desperation. “The…antidote, Barney. I—gave you what you wanted. All of it. I did.”
Kranemeyer paused, his hand on the door of the study. “Antidote, Eric? I’m afraid there is no antidote for that poison. Not yet, anyway, although I’m sure the boys in S&T are working on one.”
Disbelief
.
“But—you promised. You said there was one. And…I gave you everything, I swear it.” He reached out in despair, suddenly overbalanced. The DCS watched in silence as Haskel toppled forward, landing on his side on the rug.
His eyes stared wildly up, eyes wet with tears. Pleading for hope. For life.
“I lied,” Kranemeyer replied, cold indifference in his voice. “Morality, Eric…is a limiting thing.”
And he was gone.
7:34 P.M. Mountain Time
FBI Denver
Denver, Colorado
“Here you go.” Marika took her cell from the secretary, shaking her head.
Meetings
. It had been a waste of time, she thought, flipping open her phone to check for messages. The Bureau’s most recent intel was forty-eight hours cold. Anything but operational.
There was a missed call, a strange number on-screen. She moved down the hallway toward the temporary office she had been assigned, pressing redial as she did so.
Nothing
. It didn’t even ring. Just a mechanical recording announcing that voicemail was not available.
It might have been a telemarketer. Might have been a wrong number. Marika swore under her breath, cursing Buhler and his meetings. It might have been her CI.
She moved back into the rabbit warren of cubicles, rapping loudly on the partition separating her from the nearest Bureau tech. “I need everything you can get me on this number,” she ordered, shoving the phone toward him. “I need to know if it’s a cell. I need location history.
Everything
.”
“How soon do you need it?” the young man asked, taking a glance at the screen of his own phone.
“Yesterday,” came the acid reply.
7:04 P.M. Pacific Time
The oilfield
Tehachapi, California
A warm breeze drifting across the terrace. The shadow of a man falling across her table. A man old before his time, worn by the decades. Made old by sorrow.
An awkward half-smile. “It’s been so many years.”
Carol closed her eyes, remembering that first time—the first meal she had shared with her father after her arrival at Langley. Lunch there at the Ardeo in Cleveland Park.
That smile.
Alive. It was impossible, as impossible as his
death
had been a few short days earlier. She seemed to move as in a dream, afraid of waking. Afraid that, even yet, his tenuous hold on life might be broken.
“I need to go to him,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else in the room.
Richards shook his head, glancing over at Thomas Parker. “I can’t do that. Sorry.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “The director needs to remain in complete isolation until either his…injuries have healed to the point where we can move him without risk, or the threat against him has been eliminated.”
“My orders,” Tex said, walking over to where Harry sat, “are to get you back to Camp Peary. No idea how to do that with the hornets’ nest you’ve stirred up. The roads to LAX are a nightmare.”
Harry glanced down at his cuffed hands, the zip ties cutting into the flesh of his wrists.
He had escaped from them before, it wasn’t hard. But this wasn’t something he could fight his way out of. Not without dropping the hammer on men that had followed him into hell.
Prioritize
. “That’s the least of your worries,” he announced, looking up into his friend’s eyes.
The Texan took a cautious step back, wary of guile. Of danger. “Go on.”
“Tarik Abdul Muhammad is in-country. In Vegas.”
“Is he planning an attack?”
From across the room, Han spoke for the first time. “That’s the general impression.”
11:26 P.M. Eastern Time
Foxstone Park
Vienna, Virginia
Silence. Kranemeyer exhaled, watching as his breath evaporated into the darkness of the surrounding trees. A brook gurgled beneath the snow-covered footbridge upon which he stood, icy water splashing over the rocks.
He stared off toward the small parking lot, the single light there providing the only illumination to be seen.
Foxstone Park was no stranger to treachery, to deceit.
It had once been a favorite haunt of Soviet FBI mole Robert Hanssen, up until his arrest in 2001. It was also only a scant three miles from Senator Coftey’s Washington-area residence.
The sound of a vehicle from the entry road, lights swinging through the trees. Kranemeyer drew his H&K, holding it out to his side as an SUV pulled into the parking lot. Its lights dimmed, then went out completely as a man emerged, his form swathed in a heavy overcoat.
Kranemeyer heard the sound of the driver’s side door being closed, watched as the figure strode through the sleet toward him.
“Given the history of this place, I’d compliment your sense of irony, but I thought I made myself clear, Barney. Better for both of us if we give each other a wide berth. No calls, no meetings.”
“You did,” Kranemeyer replied, looking the senator full in the face. “Shapiro and Haskel are dead.”
Coftey blanched. “
Haskel
?”
“As far as it takes, Roy,” came the grim rejoinder. “Or were those just words?”
The older man shook his head, his face hardening. “No…it’s time people were taught a lesson. Have you covered your tracks?”
“I used three phones over the course of the evening. All of them at the bottom of the Potomac now. Director Haskel was the victim of a stroke and—”
“I don’t need details. Why am I here?”
The DCS extracted the thumb drive from the pocket of his trench coat. “This isn’t over.”
“Who?”
“Roger Hancock.”
A string of curses escaped Coftey’s lips. “Do you
realize
what you’re saying?”
“He was willing to sacrifice a nation on the altar of ‘peace,’ Roy. He was willing to kill my men to conceal his treason. And he’s skating toward a second term. I want him brought down.” Kranemeyer paused, letting his words hang there between them. “You…or me?”
The implication couldn’t have been more clear, but he could see the hesitation in the senator’s eyes.
The President
.
They were standing on the edge of a precipice—long way down.
Coftey reached over, taking the USB drive from his hand with a heavy sigh. “Never been one for idle talk, Barney. Let’s burn it down.”
12:01 A.M. Eastern Time, December 23
rd
The White House
Washington, D.C.
The room seemed to swirl around him, dragging him down into the abyss. Pain—fire shooting through his body
.
Fear.
He looked down to see something dark, red, staining the front of his tailored shirt
.
A stain pulsating, spreading ever wider with every beat of his heart
.
Hancock came awake with the sound of the clock striking midnight, his eyes opening almost convulsively, his heart thudding against his ribs.
Again
.
His eyes darted around the darkened bedroom as he struggled to calm himself, a slick sheen of sweat covering his chest, his fingers entwined in the sheets.
Danger
. He swung his legs out until his feet touched the floor, casting a brief glance back at the undisturbed, still-sleeping form of the woman who shared his bed.
Drawing his housecoat around him, the president padded barefoot into the adjoining bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Hollow eyes gazed back, rimmed with darkness. People were starting to notice, first among them the woman who did his makeup.
His fingers dug into the rim of the countertop as he forced his breathing to slow. He was the safest man in the world. The Secret Service made sure of that.
But if they
knew
…what then?
And Valentin Andropov was dead, butchered by that rogue CIA officer. The one variable no one had seen coming.
Variable? They had all been variables, leading him down this road. To this place. Hancock closed his eyes, swearing softly. What had happened to him?
“
I know what you’ve done
.” The voice of David Lay, drifting through his mind. That morning in the Oval Office, two weeks after Election Day. “
I don’t know why—not yet, but I have the evidence of your treason
.”
The words that had sealed his fate.
1:09 A.M. Pacific Time
The oilfield
Tehachapi, California
“Kranemeyer still isn’t answering his phone.” Tex looked up from the laptop as Thomas re-entered the room, cellphone in hand. “I tried the back-up number as well—no joy.”
“Then stop calling,” the Texan replied sharply. “You don’t want to get flagged by ECHELON.”
There was a moment’s hesitation as the meaning sank in. “Then it’s true.”
A nod as he gestured at the computer screen. “Looks that way.”
It seemed incomprehensible, the big man thought, rubbing a hand across the dark stubble of his beard. That the betrayals could have continued so far. So high.
First Hamid. Now this—the
President
. Everything he had once trusted, shaken to the very core. Almost everything.
“We can’t just sit by and watch a terrorist attack go down,” Thomas protested, his gaze flickering from Tex to where Harry sat across the room, his hands tied in front of him.
Harry shook his head, glancing down at his wrists. “No one said anything about sitting by. We can still stop it, but we can’t go through regular channels.”
“You’re not in charge of this op,” Tex shot back, his dark eyes flashing. “My orders are to take you in.”
Orders
. They were the big man’s strong suit. Dependable as the sunrise. Always faithful. Ever the Marine.
Semper Fidelis
.
Harry’s eyes locked with Richards’. “So do your job—take me in…after all of this is over. After we’ve stopped Tarik.”
“You have a plan?” This from Thomas.
Harry nodded, extending his bound wrists. Neither man moved. “How many years,” he began, looking from one to the other. Struggling to maintain his own composure. “How many years has it been? We’ve been through hell together. If you can’t believe me…then there is no one on this earth you can believe.”
Yet he could see the doubt in their eyes, the detritus of betrayal. And in his own mind he found himself in Jerusalem again, watching as the barrel of Hamid’s suppressed Glock swung toward the security camera.
Even in death, he continued to wreak havoc. “I’m not going to run from what I’ve been forced to do. Never have—I see no reason to start now. All I ask is that you hear me out. I’ve earned that.”
After a long moment, the Texan nodded, moving in close enough to cut Harry’s ties with the combat knife in his hand. “What’s your plan?”
Harry rubbed his wrists, the red marks where the ties had cut into his tanned flesh. His head came up, eyes meeting Thomas’ face. “Do you remember Nicole Powers?”
4:21 A.M. Eastern Time
Kranemeyer’s apartment
Washington, D.C.
It had been years. Years since he had taken a life. And those times…had been nothing like this.
Kranemeyer sat alone in his darkened bedroom, staring out the window at the city. Had it destroyed him too?
Impossible to say. His choice had been made for him, somewhere back in the halls of power by men conspiring for “peace.” The myth of the greater good, their perpetual justification for evil. Seeking peace, they had launched a war.
A war that he’d just brought crashing down around their ears. No regrets.
A phone rang in the night, the sound of his Agency cell from the bedroom, Jon Bon Jovi’s voice breaking the stillness of the apartment. And he knew.
Rising from his chair with reluctance, Kranemeyer walked into the bedroom, grabbing up the phone just before it went to voicemail. “Kranemeyer here.”
It was Lasker. “We’ve got a situation, sir. The DDI left his protective detail behind last night—took his kids to the Church of the Holy Trinity. No one has seen him since, his children were alone when his wife arrived. Metro’s canvassing the city and we’re monitoring the usual suspects for chatter.”
“I’ll be right in.”
“That would be good, sir.”
Kranemeyer pressed the kill button on his phone, staring down at the screen for a long moment.
And so it began…
3:45 A.M. Pacific Time
The convention center
Las Vegas, Nevada
No sleep. He couldn’t possibly sleep. Leaving his bedroll, Nasir found himself passing like a ghost through the massive convention center, making his way toward the small room that once again served as their kitchen.
Perhaps he could make the call yet this night.
He had to find a way of escape from this nightmare. Jamal…perhaps even Jamal was not beyond saving. They were brothers, after all—even if there were times when he felt as if he was faced with a stranger.
He flicked on the light, the fluorescents in the ceiling casting a pale glow over the small room. The refrigerator was only a few feet inside the doorway and he pulled out a carton of milk, pouring part of it into a styrofoam cup.
The silence reminded him of Lebanon. Waiting for the Jewish bombs to fall. His hand trembled as milk splashed into the cup. Maybe this would calm him.
Nasir rubbed his palm against the leg of his jeans, feeling the slight bulge of the disassembled phone in his pocket.
Make the call
, a voice whispered within him.
Do it now
.
It was right. He might get no better opportunity. He turned, raising the cup toward his lips.
Abu Kareem stood in front of him, leaning against the doorway. “Having trouble sleeping?”
Nasir nearly choked on the milk in his mouth. “Y-y-yes. Yes I was, my father.”
The imam regarded him with a look of kindness. “Is it anything that I could help you with?”
No
.
The imam was a
threat.
And yet, despite himself, he heard his lips form the opposite response.
Abu Kareem patted him on the shoulder and reached past him for the milk. “Have a seat, Nasir, and tell me what’s on your mind.
Insh’allah
, I may be able to help.”
He could feel perspiration moistening the palms of his hands as he sat down at the small card table, a nervous terror threatening to overcome him. And yet he yearned to trust. To have an
answer
.
“Are we right? In what we are about to do, I mean.”
The imam paused, and Nasir could hear him filling a cup. “Yes, we are. You know the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Did he not truly say,‘I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’?”
“Yes,” the young man replied, staring down into his milk as the imam took a seat opposite him. “Yet…I have heard it preached that this hadith refers only to the pagans of Arabia, that it should not be used to justify the spreading of Islam by violence. Is it not written, ‘If the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace, and trust in Allah: for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things’?” He looked up, his eyes pleading. “What
is
God’s truth?”
Abu Kareem took a deep breath, seeming to consider his words with care. “I understand what you are saying, my son. And I understand what you have heard. More importantly, I understand
why
you have heard it. It is a necessity in these days, when the followers of the Prophet are oppressed and afflicted across the world—that we present one truth to the unbelievers and another to the children of God.”
“But to lie is a sin before Allah.”
“No,” the imam said patiently, leaning forward until his elbows rested upon the table. “To lie is a sin
if
you lie for your own benefit. To lie for the benefit of Allah’s cause…is another matter entirely. Indeed, it is obligatory to lie to the oppressors of His people. And thus we have done. As the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which the Prophet made in a time of necessity and dissolved thereafter, so must our peace with the West be.”
Nasir felt a shiver run through his body as he gazed into Abu Kareem’s eyes. The older man leaned back in his chair,
“Do you understand the point I am making, Nasir?”
“Yes.”
4:02 A.M.
The oilfield
Tehachapi, California
The bed was empty. And she was nowhere to be seen.
Harry came awake, staring around the small back room of the trailer. She was gone. It couldn’t be possible.
No
. He rose from the chair where he had been sleeping, wincing as pain shot through his stiff ribs.
Ignore it
. He staggered toward the door, sliding his Colt from the polished leather of its holster.
He thought of calling out, rejected it just as quickly. If there
was
an enemy, he would accomplish nothing more than giving away his own position.
And there she sat, in front of the computer, its luminescent glow reflected in her weary eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked, the question coming out more brusquely than he had intended.
“Powers,” Carol responded, not even looking up. As he moved closer, he could see she had been crying. “I have their address—it’s in Summerlin, outside Vegas. I looked at her Facebook.”
“And?”
“They’re expecting their first child.” He could see the pain, the exhaustion in her eyes.
“You need to get some rest,” he whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t.” She paused, her body shuddering. “I close my eyes, and I see his face.”
Harry found himself whispering a prayer, dreading her next question. “Does it…ever go away?” she asked, looking up into his eyes in the semi-darkness.
He didn’t ask
what
. Didn’t need to. He knew. The stain of blood. The scars left upon the soul by the taking of a life.
It seemed as if it was forever before he responded, a silent figure standing there behind her chair.
“No,” came the soft reply, cutting to the very fibers of her being. She could feel his fingers brush at her hair, his hands kneading the taut muscles of her shoulders through the soft fabric of her blouse. “It never leaves you—not really. But you can overcome it. And you will.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. But I believe.”
Carol closed her eyes, the image of Pyotr’s shattered body once again flickering across her mind. A tear escaped, running down her cheek as she leaned back into his hands. “
Why
?”
She could feel his hesitation, the tension in his fingertips. “Because I need you,” he whispered finally, his lips almost touching her ear. “Like nothing else, I
need
you.”