The Belial Stone (The Belial Series) (22 page)

CHAPTER 52

Baltimore, MD

A
fter the attack, Henry had relocated Patrick, Danny and himself to Dom’s bomb shelter.  He told the rest of the staff to take a week off.  The Chandler Group was currently closed for business. 

Henry, however, was still plugging away, although he debated whether or not to call it a night.  He pushed back from the computer monitor and rubbed his eyes.  God, am I tired.

He’d been running the picture Laney had sent him through recognition systems since he’d gotten off the phone with her.  Two hours later, he had nothing to show for it. 

He knew Danny would probably be able to do it faster.  He couldn’t, though, bring himself to wake him.  Danny was asleep in one of the guest rooms down the hall after Henry slipped a sleeping pill into his tea earlier in the afternoon.  He hadn’t wanted to, but Danny needed sleep.  When he’d brought Danny into the Chandler Group, Henry had hoped to protect him against the violence that he’d been exposed to in his early life.  Today, he’d failed at that task, and it was eating him up inside.

“To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question,” Henry muttered as he watched the program complete its run with no matches.   He stared at the email icon on the bottom left of the screen.  He thought about the file Dom had sent him about the present incarnations of the angels.

“Oh, what the hell.”   He double-clicked the icon. 

The file contained two large folders.  One labeled “Twentieth Century and Later” and the other, “Nineteenth Century and Earlier”.  He clicked on the twentieth century folder and over two hundred files listed on the screen in front of him.  He quickly read through the names and a number of them jumped out at him: Rasputin, Mengela, Bundy. 

Okay. This was stupid
.  These names were well known.  Their guys were not.  He was about to shut down the computer when he saw some names that were dated for the latter half of the twentieth century.  

He rubbed his eyes. 
I check these dozen and call it a night
.

He clicked on one of the Word files and a bio of a general in the Egyptian army appeared.  The .jpeg file with the same name showed a tall man with dark hair, a scar across his cheek, and a look
of complete menace in his eyes.

Definitely not a nice-looking man, but also not the man I’m looking for
.

He clicked through about eight more files and thought he should just forget it.  This was ridiculous.  He clicked on the ninth photo and his hand stilled.  The man staring back at him had high cheekbones, crystal blue eyes, and soft brown hair.   His eyes flew to the photo Laney had sent him.  The man in Dom’s picture was a little younger, but undeniably the same man.

He quickly clicked the Word file and read the bio.  He scanned past the early history to his more recent involvements.  Suspected of being involved with Chechen rebels fifteen years ago, the Syrian government about eight years ago, and now he was believed to work for Senator Kensington.

Now they had a link between the attackers – Russian nationals – and their unknown man.

He scrolled farther down the file.  Dom had tracked down some reports on people who’d worked with the man.  The reports all differed except for one common trend: the man was a ruthless killer who seemed to have almost supernatural fighting skills.  He went by the name Gideon but Dom had made a note about what he believed to be his real identity.

“Azazyel.”

CHAPTER 53

Havre, MT

J
ake and Yoni crawled up to the eight-foot chain link fence that surrounded the all of Kensington’s property.  They lay still, waiting for the patrol truck to pass.  It took all Jake had not to storm the grounds.  The idea that Tom was only a short distance away and in trouble was killing him.

He and Yoni had made a loop around the exterior of the fence to check for patrols and any gaps i
n the fence.  There weren’t any.

Tom was in there somewhere.  Jake felt it.  He wanted to sprint in and grab him, taking out anyone who got in his way.  But he knew that would only sign both of their death warrants.  So slow and cautious was the approach. 

There didn’t appear to be any motion sensors or electronic surveillance.  They seemed to be relying solely on human security in the form of one truck, which was responsible for patrolling the entire perimeter, and a guarded entrance on the northern side of the property. 

The low-level security was good news for them.  It was much easier to slip pass human security than electronic security. 

Watching the truck approach, Jake took a breath, trying to calm the rage building within him.

The truck’s headlights rolled over them as their Ghillie suits blended seamlessly into the landscape.  It didn’t stop. 

Jake gestured to his watch.  “Ten minutes.”

Yoni nodded and moved to the fence with a pair of wire clippers already in hand.  He made the first cut and waited.  No alarms went off and no guards came running.  He made quick work of cutting a hole in the fence big enough for them to crawl through.  Once they were through, they repositioned it so that it appeared still intact.  Heading north, they kept low to the ground. 

It was silent, with only a slight wind.  Jake strained to hear the sound of anything.  If there were men here, shouldn't they be able to hear something? 

Doubts flooded his mind and fear crept through him.  If they were wrong, then he had absolutely no idea where Tom might be. 

They were only five hundred yards in when his watched beeped.  He signaled to Yoni to stop.  They flattened themselves to the ground.  Seconds later, the lights of the patrol returned.  It drove slowly past them. 

“Hurry up,” he urged, watching the truck.  This was taking too long.  They needed to move faster. 

When the patrol was out of view, Jake jumped to his feet, ready to start back on their path.   Yoni grabbed him by the arm and shook his head.  He signaled for him to listen.               

Straining, Jake could just make out the sound of a plane.  As the noise grew louder, he was surprised to hear that it sounded like a military cargo plane, flying low. 

Looking up, he saw the lights of the plane and noticed that the landing gear was down.  As it passed over them, he exchanged a look with Yoni.  Without speaking, they both changed direction, following the path of the plane.

Moving fast, they arrived at a makeshift landing strip another two thousand yards in.  Jake’s heart hammered in his chest.  This must be the cargo plane that filed the false flight plan every month.  But why were they flying in now?  Hadn’t they already made this month’s delivery?  Could this operation be even bigger than they realized?

They settled into a small gully two hundred yards from the landing strip.  The plane had just rolled to a stop next to a large farm truck and a Suburban.  Four armed men exited the Suburban.  Two other armed men leaned against the truck. 

Jake grabbed his camera from his pack and started snapping away.  Yoni watched the scene through his night-vision binoculars.  

“It’s opening up,” Yoni whispered. 

Jake fixed his camera on the cargo door as it slowly lowered.  The commandos stormed into the belly of the plane.  Their yells echoed through the open space.  Seconds later, shackled men stumbled down the ramp.  One man fell as he stepped off the ramp and was kicked in the face by a guard.  Jake's grip tightened on the camera. 
Bastards
. 

Another man grabbed the fallen man and helped him stand.  Then all of the men were rushing to get into the storage truck.  Less than a minute later, the truck and SUV were driving across the field and the plane was turning around to take off again.

“I guess we’ve found the missing men,” Yoni said grimly.

Jake placed his camera back in his pack, trying to focus on the task.  The anger burning in his chest was making that difficult.  This must have been how Tom arrived.  He looked at Yoni.  “We need to know where they’re going.  You up for a run?”

“Always," Yoni replied, already slinging his pack over his shoulder.  The two men took off in the same direction as the vehicles.  Jake’s boots pounded into the ground.  But in his mind’s eye, each step pounded into the faces of the men responsible for this atrocity.

I’m coming, Tom.  I’m coming
.

Jake could make out a dim light in the distance.  As they approached, more trees and shrubberies allowed them to move at a faster clip.  They slowed down as the coverage began to lighten.  Soon, it all but disappeared.  They shifted to an army crawl and stopped at a rock encasement just out of the halo of the lights.  Once again pulling out their binoculars and camera, they took in the scene before them. 

Sitting in the middle of this barren acreage was a huge wooden structure.  There were no lights along the top of the walls. The only available light emitted from inside the enclosure, bathing the area around it in shadows. 

Jake noticed movement from in front of the enclosure and saw that the truck had pulled to a stop and all the men had been offloaded.  They were now being led into the enclosure.  The doors to the enclosure opened, but from his position, Jake could not make out anything inside. 

“Jake, you need to see this,” Yoni whispered.  He handed him night-vision goggles and pointed to the right of the enclosure. 

Jake put on the goggles and looked to where Yoni had indicated.  “What the…?”

There was a smaller enclosure of some sort with two guards sitting out front.  Inside the enclosure, which looked like some sort of large animal pen, were about a hundred men sleeping. 

“Well, I guess we found them,” Yoni said quietly. 

“Yeah,” Jake replied just as quietly taking in the ominous structure and the highly-armed guards.  “But how the hell do we get them out of here?”

CHAPTER 54

Baltimore, MD

L
aney started as the phone rang.  She was reading the Book of Enoch and had gotten lost in the story.  She placed her e-reader down and flipped on her phone.  “Hello?”

“Hey.  Did I wake you?”  Henry asked.

Stretching her arms above her head trying to work out some of the kinks, she grimaced.  “Sadly, no.  Sleep doesn’t seem to be happening tonight.  What’s going on?”

Henry sighed.  “I think I've found Paul's accomplice.  I’m sending you a file.  Call me back after you’ve read it.”

Laney stared at her phone as Henry disconnected the call abruptly.  She might not know Henry well, but she was pretty sure practically hanging up on someone was not his usual behavior.  Whatever was on the file must have really shaken him up.

She booted up the computer and pulled up the file Henry sent her.  A chill came over her as she began to read and it seemed to get deeper as she kept going.  She swallowed hard when she was done, her whole body felt numb as she dialed the phone. 

She didn’t bother with a greeting.  “Are you sure it’s him?”

“I ran it through some recognition programs to match up the features.  It’s him, all right.” 

“Which database did you find him in? FBI?  Interpol?”

“No, none of those.  I found him in Dom's database.”

“Is it crazy that I keep hoping there’s another explanation for all this?”

Henry’s sigh came in loud and clear through the phone.  “I know.  I tried all the databases I could think of and I had absolutely no luck.  Dom’s database was a last-ditch effort.  Honestly, I expected the search to be as fruitless as the others.”

Laney stared at the face on her screen.  It wasn’t a friendly face, but there was nothing about it that screamed fallen angel.   Of course, she wasn’t sure exactly what would scream fallen angel.  Wings?  A crooked halo? 

She stared back at the picture.  If she was being
honest, the man was handsome.

She glanced back at the description of the man. His legal name was Gideon Wright, but it was the name Azazyel that leapt off the screen at her.

Azazyel, the most dangerous of the fallen angels.  The one who had taught mankind about war and how to use the stones.

Her heart began to pound as she contemplated the ramifications.  This couldn’t be true.

She stood up, pacing the room.  She made a conscious effort to still the tremors that were causing her hands to shake.  “Okay.  Let’s look at this logically.  You had no luck with the other databases, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure there aren’t any you overlooked?”

Henry gave a small laugh.  “I tend to be pretty thorough.  I’ve covered all of them.”

She grinned.  Right.  Head of a multinational think tank.  “Okay.  So he’s in Dom’s database and from what’s written there, he’s a dangerous man.  That still doesn’t mean he’s a fallen angel.  What made Dom add him to the database?”

“Dom had a number of criteria for inclusion but the main ones seem to be unnatural/unexplained abilities, evidence of knowledge of former lives, inhuman healing abilities, and psychopathic traits.”

“And this man fits those criteria?”

Henry sighed.  “He does.  According to the background Dom was able to dig up, Gideon was ruthless on the battlefield, not to mention in his strategies.  He had no conscience regarding targets: schools, playgrounds, homes, all fair game as far as he was concerned.  Some even argue he was the mastermind behind the attack on the school in Beslan, Russia.”

She gasped and sank down into a chair.  “My God, nearly four hundred people died in that attack.  Half of them were children.”

Henry’s voice was grim.  “Like I said, no targets appear off-limits for him.  His fighting skills were first noticed when he was thirteen.  There’s no record of him having any formal training, but he’s highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat.  And from the reports, he’s practically a savant when it comes to weapons.”

“What about the evidence of former lives?”

“That’s where it gets really interesting.  Apparently, in kindergarten he would tell the other kids he was better than all of them and that one day they would bow before him.”

She closed her eyes.  “Great.”

“He also told them he was God’s first soldier.  He was later expelled from that kindergarten for bringing a handgun to school.  His dad swore up and down that the gun had been stripped and in parts at home.”

She felt her jaw drop.  “He put the gun together at the age of five?”

“Like I said, a weapons savant.  About six years later, his parents were killed by an armed intruder.  The intruder was never caught.  Gideon was in the house at the time.  The police suspected him, but they could never prove it.  According to the police reports, the kid sat there cool as a cucumber under their interrogation.  He never once broke or shed a tear.  In fact, he was incredibly polite.  Dom contacted the investigating officers. One of them said that that case convinced him there was evil in the world.  That he’d never seen an offender before or since that was so cold.”

Laney was silent as she stared at the man’s picture on the screen.  She knew that a normal, non-fallen angel child with that background wouldn’t have a good chance of living within the law.  If he was a fallen angel, she didn’t even want to think about the likely outcomes. 

Henry’s voice intruded, as if reading her mind.  “I know.  It seems impossible.  But what if it’s not?  What if we underestimate this threat because we can’t wrap our heads around it?”

“Logically, this all fits.  And yet, it all seems so fantastical.  But the fact is that, deep down, I’ve had this feeling since the attack at my house.  I knew there was more underlying all of this.  That the stakes were much higher than we were acknowledging.  And with the medical examiner’s report, doubting seems to be the height of stupidity.”

“But what do we do with this knowledge?  How does this help us?”

“It tells us what we need to prevent.  We can’t let Gideon get the stones.”

“What do you think he’ll do if he finds one?”

Laney’s thoughts raced through the Book of Enoch and all the other references to the fallen angels she could recall.

“If the Book of Enoch is accurate, the power contained within the Belial Stones is the power of heaven itself.  If Gideon succeeds in acquiring even a single stone, he’ll use it to finally bring about the end of time.  He wants to release himself and his brothers from this purgatory of Earth." 

She paused, taking a deep breath.  “And he’ll destroy all of us to do it.”