Sapos is survived by his wife Ziva Sapos, his fifteen children, and twenty-five grandchildren.
Miguel Lopez closed the browser window, and stared off into space. Am I being paranoid? He assumed that the program born in CTC was still active, and still invisible. But with agents dying, would they have conducted an operation? Could it have been Sapos? The billionaire’s name was on the list. He matched the criteria: powerful and disruptive of the Agency’s covert plans. But Lopez had refused to participate in the broadening of the program. He did not learn what names had been kept for termination. Even if it was an assassination, they could not keep this up. They were likely all running for bunkers now. Just like I am.
It had been several days of preparation, stocking up on food and other supplies, and then enduring the long and tension-filled moments of waiting. Minute by minute, hour by hour, the light outside the polycarbonate-laminated glass weaved its slow way through the range of intensities from dawn to dusk. He longed to see his family again, to speak to his wife and daughters, but he dared not risk any communication. He knew himself to be the target. They were to be left out of this in all ways possible. He also sensed it was unlikely that he would wait for long. He and Miller were the last. A reckoning was coming.
He sat near the window without fear. The polarization was designed to render the glass nearly opaque when viewed from the outside. The composite material was four inches thick, and would likely stop, or at least slow, anything reasonable aimed at it. But what was reasonable in all this? The hunters who had brought down so many of his colleagues appeared invincible. Who knew what they would bring with them? Who were they?
The events refused to be suppressed and played constantly through his mind. The pattern was unmistakable. The deaths were centered on personnel from the missions out of No. 3. But why? Who? His first thought was that the possibility of discovery and scandal had turned rogue elements of the Agency against them. It was not so hard to imagine that they could resort to murder to hide their tracks. Lopez knew now too well what they could resort to.
We crossed lines. He had, and others had crossed still more. There were always reasons at the moment. But afterwards, when the trials had begun and newspaper articles were published, their judges would not always understand those reasons. He had even come to question those reasons himself. A scorched-earth policy would sterilize such messes.
Perhaps it was something else, something external. He wondered if terrorist networks in America could have gleaned information about their program and had sought to hamper their efforts, destroy the infrastructure. The CIA’s successes over the last ten years had screened out all but the best terrorist cells. Those left had begun to raise their game considerably. Natural selection.
But it still seemed too high a skill level for them. Lopez didn’t believe much in that possibility. The hunters were professionals; that was clear. Highly trained at the level of their best operatives. Who had the depth and experience to produce such trainees? The Russians? The Chinese? With multiple hits in the US, risking international incidents? That didn’t make sense either. It was an enigma.
A box attached to his phone emitted a low alarm, and a red light began to flash on the device. They’ve targeted communications. Lopez crossed the room to the phone and lifted the receiver. It was dead. He knew it was not a random failure; someone had cut the lines.
He pulled out his cell phone. There was no signal, although there had been an hour ago, and the area was well blanketed with cellular towers. The signal’s being jammed. He smiled ruefully. Whoever they were, they were thorough. But he was not blind.
He walked into the study, sat down in front of an enormous flat-screen monitor, and punched up the security program. Nine camera images of the surrounding forest were shown as separate squares that filled the screen. At night, the cameras would switch to the latest autogated night vision. He next called up a screen showing the crisscrossing grid of motion detectors. Between the camera images and the overlapping layers of motion sensors, he would know when they came, from where, and how many there were. Knowledge was power, but it wasn’t everything. He would then have to stop them.
One of the motion detector grid points began blinking. There you are. It was near the edge of the grid, down the hill toward the stream that ran near the cabin. Lopez glanced at the cameras — few were setup in that difficult terrain. He would have to wait until they moved into range. It would not be far, as the camera positioning was such that very little of the grid was left uncovered.
Three of the squares feeding video footage suddenly went dark. Goddamn! Not now! He had checked each device when he arrived.
The entire southeast quadrant of the motion detection grid, the stretch beside the river and moving upwards nearly to the cabin itself, suddenly failed, sending an error message to the software. A minute later, the video feeds, one by one, went dark, followed by a complete failure of the grid.
Lopez stared at the screen in disbelief. These were no equipment failures. Someone had systematically deactivated his entire security system. To do this in so short a time, to know to move up the stream where coverage would be minimized; it was as if they had studied blueprints of the entire setup. They had known! The layout, the weak points, the blind spots. It was impossible to comprehend. How could they have known?
He suddenly felt very cold. Now he was completely blind. His opponents had outmaneuvered him, turned his safety system into a trap. The walls of the cabin suddenly began to appear less protective. They felt far more hostile.
To hell with them! He would not go down without a fight.
The power suddenly wavered, but the sounds of the backup generator clicked in, and the electricity held. Didn’t think of everything, did you? Lopez slid a floor panel to the side, opening a hole in the middle of the living room floor. He descended down a ladder, and a minute later climbed up decorated in combat gear: bullet-resistant vest, automatic weapons on each arm, large handguns holstered on his belt. He hung several grenades off his flak jacket and positioned himself some distance from the front door.
There was only one entrance they could use. The chimney was too tight, the bullet-proof glass too thick to break through. It would be the front door. He overturned the sofa and angled it to provide shelter from the door. Kneeling down, he checked the magazine on his machine gun, and then aimed it in the direction of the door, its barrel resting on the side of the overturned couch. He heard movement outside the cabin, sounds, scrapings, and dull thuds against the walls. They were here.
Come on in, you bastards.
10
For Father Lopez, the drive into Tennessee was an unsettling one. Mixed in with the passing wilderness were the crazed events of the last few days and the dream-like memories from his childhood. As the miles raced by, he would see himself walking through the woods with his father, coming upon the small log cabin after an unsuccessful hunting expedition, smoke rising from the chimney and indicating that a warm fire and Mom’s cooking waited within. But just as he began to smile, remembering wading across the small stream behind the cabin, he was jarred into the present by competing images of his brother’s wife in tears and his own imaginings of Miguel carrying loaded weapons out of his home.