Extraordinary Retribution (31 page)

He would have to leave these conflicting emotions to the psychologists. All he knew was that now his anger, his sense of right and wrong, and his need to act were focused on a group of men that had betrayed so many and so much. Men who had gotten away with clandestine crimes against humanity and could not be let free to continue their twisted pursuit of security. Perhaps a time for the wraith would come. Tonight, it was time for others.

They had entered a narrow strip of forest between two properties, and Fields held up his hand. They consulted the GPS map. From the satellite imagery, it seemed that as soon as they crossed through these trees, they would be on the land of the farmhouse they were seeking.

“Okay, if there’s any security, which I assume there will be, it will start soon.” Fields pointed to the area just in front of them, where the trees ended. A cobblestone wall seemed to run around the perimeter of the property and hardly had the appearance of a high-tech security system. Houston walked forward to the forest’s edge, crouched down, and examined the wall.

“The stone is a facade,” she said almost immediately. “My bet is concrete behind, likely wired. If we try to go over this, they’ll know it.” She pointed to a rod sticking up from the wall 30 feet away. “That’s likely a camera, wide-angle lens. I think we’re hidden by the tree line and the wall, but if we somehow get over the wall and move beyond its edge, we’ll be visible.”

Fields walked up with a small device hooked up to his smartphone. “Swiss Army knife of signal detectors,” he said, smiling. He ran an app on his phone that opened several graphs. He pressed a switch on the device, and the graphs jumped, showing curves like an oscilloscope. “It can sense electromagnetic fields, infrared, heat emission, high-frequency sound, several other things.”

“Nice,” said Houston. “Not standard issue.”

“No,” he said, running the device along the false-stone wall. “Homemade. Friend of mine in R&D put the app together. Convenient as hell.” He backed away from the wall. “OK, this is weird. There are clearly power lines in there. That wall is juiced. Not electrified—the signal’s too low. They’re not looking to fry us. My guess is it’s power for sensors. Very mild heat signal as well.”

Lopez glanced at the graphics display as well, trying to absorb all he could. Houston nodded looking at the readouts. “So, like I said, problem.”

“Except for this,” he noted, pointing to a second page of graphs. All the graphs were flatlined. “Unless they have pressure sensors on the walls, which, hell, maybe they do, they’ll be using a form of motion detection. That means acoustic sensors, optical and infrared sensors, magnetometers, infrared laser radar, ultrasonic sensors, inductive-loop detectors, or vibration detectors.”

“Whew,” said Lopez. “Sounds like an ad for a store closing.”

“The
point
is that all of these technologies have a fingerprint—acoustic, electromagnetic, and so on. You know the technology, you know the fingerprint, you can design a detector to determine what’s being used.”

“A detector for the detectors,” said Lopez, fascinated with the spy-tech games these people played.

“Exactly,” said Fields. “So, unless they have some new, cutting-edge technology I don’t know about, there’s nothing here. No signals. No fingerprints.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Houston.

“Not much,” said Fields. “But who knows? Maybe a malfunction. Maybe they needed to disable something for a reason. But it’s our lucky night.”

Houston looked skeptical. “Too easy, Jim. Doesn’t feel right.”

He nodded. “That’s why I’ll go first. If there’s something we’re missing, they’ll train the dogs, or bullets, on me. You two scramble away from this site, and you’ll have to find another way in—to rescue me.”

Houston laughed. “Fred knows how to pick the loyal ones, let me tell you. But you forgot the camera. Once you’re over the wall, it will pick you up.”

Fields smiled. “Not if I stick close to the wall. We can slide against it, and then under the camera, and try to find a way to disable it from there.” Houston shook her head in disbelief. Fields stood up and put away his equipment. “OK, then. It’s a plan. You two hang back. I’ll call your cell number when I’m over.”

Lopez was amazed that it actually worked. Fields went over the wall without incident. No alarms, no rushing of guards, no CIA automatic robotic controlled weaponry. Only silence. A vibration on Houston’s cell phone let them know he was safely on the other side. Soon after, they scaled the wall, followed his advice to the camera, and discovered that it, too, was not functioning.

“I’m getting a very bad feeling about this,” said Lopez. “The last time we came across a dead security system, the occupants were not doing so well. Maybe the wraith discovered where they are. Maybe he’s already been here.”

“Doubt it, Francisco,” said Houston. “Miller’s system was completely shut down. The wraith must have hit his command and control center or blown the power. This one’s active; we just seem to have a weak spot here. I wouldn’t count on too many of those.”

They soon found out she was right. As they crossed through a waist-high field of grass, crouched low to the ground, Fields began to detect more signals on his scanner. He motioned again for them to stop.

“Weak, but definitely growing as we move forward. There is a grassy lawn right ahead, let’s slow down and get a sense of things before we cross that.”

It was a prescient decision. As they stopped at the edge of the lawn, examining the signals, it became clear that the signal strength peaked as the device was brought closer to the grass in front of them. When the sensor was raised upward or pulled back into the wilder grassy field, they crouched in, and the signal dropped. It was a small drop, but it was real.

“Pressure sensors,” said Houston.

“Pressure sensors?” Lopez asked.

Fields nodded. “Yes, in the ground. They sense weight, and trigger at a cutoff. Usually, in a place like this, you’ll set it above that of local wild animals so that you don’t get a wolf or possum tripping your system ten times a night. But any weight approaching human averages, and it trips. If we walk across this grass, we’re blown.”

Great,
thought Lopez. “Now what? We didn’t bring our balloon on this one.”

“Balloon?” asked Fields.

“Never mind,” said Houston. “Well, what do you do when you can’t walk?”

Fields grinned. “You crawl.”

“Right,” she said. “So, we start out here, on our bellies, and worm our way in.”

The absurdity apparently had no limit. Here they were, breaking into a rural Virginia farmhouse to confront rogue CIA killers, crawling on their stomachs along the way.
Not what they prepared us for in seminary.

The pace was slow. Paranoid, they tried not to place too much weight on any one portion of their body—knee, palm, or foot. It made crawling very difficult and exhausting. They nearly had to slither like snakes. After ten minutes, they had crossed most of the distance.

“The signal’s dropped to nothing,” grunted Fields, as they neared the house itself. “I think we’re past the sensors.” Testing his conclusion, he stood up. Nothing happened. Lopez and Houston followed suit, and the three moved quickly alongside the walls of the building.

Fields scanned several windows and doors. All showed signs of multiple security mechanisms in place. Houston suggested that they move on and keep looking in the hope of finding another hole in the system.

They did. A single door near the back of the house was dead to the scanners. The security systems seemed deactivated. Fields smiled.

“Good to have a second set of eyes,” Houston noted, nodding toward his device. “I need to get me one of those.” She removed a pistol and handed it to Lopez. He recognized it as coming from the men he had killed in Alabama. “Taxpayer-funded Glock, safe action. Make sure you have a full grip on the trigger to engage the mechanism,” she said, shaking her head. “Still no chance to teach you anything about firearms.” She raised her Browning and cocked it, glancing at Fields. “This time, I’ll lead.”

She flattened herself against the wall next to the door and placed her hand on the doorknob. Lopez stood in place beside her, adrenaline spiking and sending a rush of energy through his frame. The gun in his hand felt like a living creature, ready to attack. The moment was now.

“Drop your weapons!”

The command came from above. Lopez looked upward quickly, dismayed at what he saw. From several second-floor windows, on their right and left, guns were pointed at them. Suddenly, the door opened, nearly knocking Houston over as the doorknob was yanked from her hand violently. Standing in the doorway was a young man with a shotgun aimed at her.

Houston darted like a cobra to the right, angling her upper torso to the side of the gun. Grabbing the barrel with her left hand, with her right she struck the butt of her gun sideways into the face of the man by the door. The blow smashed him in the right temple, disorienting him, and he unconsciously loosened his grip on the weapon. Houston yanked it out of his arms and slung it to the ground away from the house.

Two more barrels were pointed at her from inside, and to prove a point, a rifle shot blasted a hole in the ground next to her feet. Houston instinctively spun around, seeking another route to escape, and Lopez turned with her. They froze, Lopez unbelieving. Houston sighed and finally dropped her weapon. Jim Fields was aiming his gun at them. They were surrounded.

“I knew something smelled wrong about all this,” she said bitterly. “You bastard, using Fred Simon’s name like this.”

“Hello, Judas,” came a voice rounding the corner of the building. The voice belonged to a tall, thin older man whose gray hair reflected the moonlight brightly as he approached. He tipped his head toward the false Agent Fields. “Judas specialized in double-agent missions. Agency-assessed sociopath by the shrinks. Very convincing actor. And he gets a lot more than thirty pieces of silver.” Judas said nothing but continued to train his weapon on them.

Houston eyed the approaching man coldly. “Well, I’ll be damned. James Farnell, former deputy director of the Counterterrorism Center. From what I’ve read recently, now going by the handle
Nexus.
Good name. Dramatic. Egomaniacal. I thought you’d joined your pals at Blackwater after the admin change. I guess you had other plans beyond golf with Cofer.”

Nexus eyed her with amusement. “Agent Houston. We’ve been looking for you a
long
time. Father Lopez, please, put the weapon down.” Lopez hadn’t realized he was still holding the gun, his shock so complete at this betrayal. With a disgusted glance at Judas, he tossed it to the ground. Nexus bent down and picked up the firearm, smiling back at them. He motioned to the door, where several men with automatic weapons flanked the path. “Won’t you come in?”

52

“Y
ou both have made our lives very difficult. The consensus is that I should have had you killed at the beginning. A miscalculation on our part.”

Lopez and Houston sat in the center of a living room in the farmhouse. They were separated by a small coffee table, each at opposite ends, several guards pointing automatic weapons at them. On one side, next to a large window, two older men stood. Nexus was one of them, and he led all the discussions. On his right was a man who looked mildly familiar to Lopez, one he assumed was a mid-level CIA manager. He just couldn’t place the face with a name.

“You bastards haven’t exactly made life easy for us,” spat Houston. “Did you know Francisco’s a documented pedophile now? That was a nice touch. I’m a national security threat and known the world over now as the whore of CIA! After all my years serving my country, you bastards have turned it against me!”

“Whether you understand it or not, Houston, you
are
a threat to the nation,” hissed Nexus, his tone threatening. “In your efforts to assuage your emotional pain from your unrequited love, you are threatening a very important program that has protected the United States for over a decade!”

“How low will you go, Farnell? Do you have wiretaps of our conversations? Is nothing sacred to you people? Privacy? Right to free speech? Right to life?”

“All rights are subject to constraint in times of war! And what people like you don’t understand is that we are
at war
!” Nexus paced back and forth, gesturing angrily.

Houston didn’t back down. “And a soldier can fight honorably or dishonorably, Farnell! You have betrayed the nation, the principles it was founded on. You have dishonored the flag! You have shamed America.
You
are the traitor, not me!”

Nexus held a gun out, pointed at Houston. “Let me explain the nature of your situation,
former
CIA Agent Sara Houston. We have complete power over you and your new consort. By the way, seducing a priest—Eve would have been proud. Maybe you
are
a whore. We
will
kill you tonight. We can do so quickly, or we can do so less quickly.” His eyes seemed to burn with a crimson light.

Lopez interrupted. “Then why haven’t you killed us already? Why this whole melodramatic Judas betrayal to get us here? You must want something. So what is it?”
Time. I need to find time for us to get out of this!

The larger man beside Nexus laughed. “The priest is shrewd.”

Nexus lowered the gun and regained some of his lost composure. “We have reason to believe that you have encountered someone of interest. Someone we need to identify, locate, and neutralize.”

Lopez laughed. These men were unbelievable! “Oh, you mean the
wraith
.” The use of the term seemed to jolt their captors. “He’s really got you spooked. So, what is it that you think we can tell you about him?”
I’m fencing with these ruthless killers.
Lopez’s mind raced, trying to find a way to turn the desperate need of these men into an advantage. Or to buy time for him or Houston to devise some plan of escape.

“Talking with our man, Judas—your Jim Fields—we have learned that you had some help along your destructive journey. In particular, you met someone at that smoldering police station. Judas had your trust, had isolated you. He was to question you first and then terminate you both. But that information led to a change in our plans.”