The interior was a combination rec room and mess hall. Tables lined a wall to the left, and on the right, five men were busying themselves lifting weights and training on floor mats.
A few of the men stopped what they were doing and stared at Ethan as he walked through the room. The distinctive behemoth of the group — Priest, if Ethan’s memory was correct — stood at least a foot and a half over the rest. The man’s shirt was stretched almost beyond its capacity to hold his muscles, veins clearly visible through the taut material of his clothing.
Ethan’s eyes shifted and made out a shirtless figure holding himself up on parallel bars and taking tentative steps on an unsecure ankle. Two circular bruises were visible near the center of the man’s chest, the purple coloration outlined with yellow splotching. Ethan had seen bruises like that before — on a fellow officer whose life had been saved by Kevlar. Ethan guessed this had to be Hex and he wondered who’d delivered the shots to the man’s bulletproof armor. Then he remembered the shootout at Tobias’s estate. This was the commando that poor policeman had shot before being gunned down in return. Ethan glared at Hex, who returned the look with a cold stare of his own as he kept testing the threshold of his footing.
Beyond the injured man was a wall of windows which were painted black. He couldn’t tell if it was day or night. Two large double doors stood at the end of the room, and Jackman increased his pace, edging past Ethan to open one of them.
Darkness greeted him here. With his head still twirling and the pervasive ache circulating behind his eyes, Ethan could scarcely make out the silhouette of a man with his back to the doors. He stood erect, staring down upon the city through floor to ceiling windows. Twinkling lights from neighboring skyscrapers and an intermittent glow from the orange embers of a cigar reflected upon the glass surface, illuminating the man’s visage like a ghostly apparition.
The man eased himself around, revealing a face veiled in smoke. Through the gray haze and glimmering light of the cigar, Ethan saw thin lips stretch into a grim smile. “Mr. Tannor, so glad you could join us. You’ve been out for a little while.”
“No thanks to your Gestapo.” It might be unsafe to mouth off like that, but with everything that had happened, it was doubtful he was at risk of death for throwing out a few caustic words.
The cigar lowered, leaving behind a swirl of smoke. “They are hardly the Gestapo.”
“Really? Your hit squad killed a man outside my apartment in cold blood — not to mention almost killing a police officer — two days ago. Or however many days it’s been.”
“I assure you, that man fired first. And Officer Bailey was lucky — we used non-lethal force; he was never in danger of death. Under other circumstances, I would not have my team compromised just for the sake of sparing an attacker. Please, take a seat so we may discuss matters. I’ll answer whatever questions I can.” He drew in deeply on the stogie.
“Thanks, but I’ll stand. I’m not in the habit of accommodating my captors.” Ethan took a moment to scowl at Jackman.
The Reaper flashed a devilish smile, indicating he wasn’t threatened by Ethan’s boldness. As quickly as the smile arrived it was gone and Jackman resumed his military bearing. He was squared evenly with the right side of a large desk in the middle of the room — a sign that he would be a permanent fixture during the impending conversation. His presence also served as a warning to Ethan, should he attempt a daring escape.
Ethan’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room and from the muted glow of the city’s backdrop he could see Cigar Man a little better now. He had jet black hair that was combed straight back and an equally dark yet neatly trimmed beard. The color looked unnatural — like it had been dyed recently. Not even the head of a covert military group was immune to the desire for youthful looks, it seemed. To each his own.
The silence grew for a few more seconds and Ethan finally spoke. “What’s this all about? Can I know why I’m here now? And what’s your name — I’d like to know who I’m talking to.”
The man grinned. “My name is Benjamin Wallace — and I do apologize for the abduction, but time is a factor here. I hope that after this discussion, your opinions of us won’t be solely based on our prior actions.”
Ethan’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of the man’s name and Tobias’s words came back to him. “You’ll come across an important name: Ben Wallace. Don’t bother searching for him, he’ll probably find you.”
He’d forgotten all about that part of the message until now. Here was another piece of his uncle’s strange puzzle coming into play. And this time, Ethan knew he would have some solid answers — finally. Inside, his anticipation of those answers grew to a fever pitch, but he didn’t let it show. Instinct told him to play it cool with this guy.
“Yeah, well — Ben, one of your men jabbed a needle the size of an elephant’s dick into my neck, so I’ll have to withhold a change in judgment for now.”
“Again, I express my regrets, but please hear me out.”
Do I even have a choice? Ethan almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation; despite the man’s politeness, Ethan wasn’t getting out of here anytime soon. But as long as this guy answered some questions, he might as well put any plans for retaliation on hold. Not that he had any such plans. His brain hurt too much for that type of mental exercise.
“Alright, whatever. What the fuck is going on?”
Wallace drew in a breath, and then turned back to the windows. He didn’t speak at first, gathering his thoughts. Ethan watched his reflection in the glass take another pull on the tobacco log, and then he finally spoke. “Are you familiar with the name Bernard Baruch?”
Ethan shrugged. “No. Should I be?”
“Many people don’t know him, but they are very familiar with a famous phrase he coined in the late 1940s.”
Where is this going? “And that would be?”
Ben faced him again. “He was a presidential advisor decades ago, but that’s not what made him so influential. His claim to fame came during a speech he gave at the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1947 —”
Ethan put up a hand to silence him. This was growing tiresome; he wanted answers, not a history lesson. “What does that have to do with your assault squad here?”
If Ethan’s interruption annoyed the man, he didn’t let it show. “If I remember the quote exactly, it went like this, ‘Let us not be deceived; we are today in the midst of a Cold War. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success.’”
The melodramatic way in which Wallace enunciated the words made his point transparent, and Ethan couldn’t help it — he laughed. “So he invented the phrase ‘Cold War’ — big fucking deal. What does that have to do with anything here? Besides, it’s nearly over.”
The expression on Wallace’s face resembled that of sympathy for a slow child. “No, Mr. Tannor. It is far from over.”
28
Mystery of the World
“You’ll have to run that by me again.”
Wallace gave a thin, hard smile. “The Cold War is hardly over. Things are in motion that can’t be stopped — troops are being rallied.”
For a moment, Ethan just gaped at the man. Is this guy serious? “What do the CIA and FBI have to say about such claims?”
“This isn’t something most people know, even within the intelligence community.”