“I’m about to fall down the rabbit hole. I can feel it.” Lopez shook his head. Secret Agent Miguel Lopez. Under deep cover performing sensitive missions. What the hell? “And you’re here because you think that his death had something to do with those missions.”
Her expression was grim. “I don’t know. But I suspect. What did the police tell you?”
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. They said it was a robbery. Let me tell you, Agent Houston — ”
“Sara,” she said, touching the top of his hand fleetingly with her finger, breaking his concentration, breaking through the normal protective barriers spacing strangers.
He corrected himself and tried to refocus his thoughts. “OK. Sara. Then you call me Francisco. So, Sara, I saw a hole big enough to drive a car blown through the cabin wall. Enough bullets and casings for a combat zone. There is no way that was a robbery. I don’t know what it was, besides murder.”
“Elimination. Assassination.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Murder, however you want to label it. And that detective showed me photos, doctored photos, showing the cabin was fine! Claiming I’d made the whole thing up!”
Houston shook her head. “They might not have been doctored.”
He pushed away from the table. “Look, I know what I saw.”
“I’m not questioning what you saw, Francisco. But I’d put money that if you return to the cabin today, you’ll see some work has been done.”
He sat very still. The implications were insane. Paranoid. Major conspiracy theory material. “Do you know what you are saying?”
She nodded. “I’m saying that someone wants what happened to your brother buried deeply and forgotten.”
“Someone? Who?”
“We’ll get to that later.”
His fist slammed down on the table, spilling coffee and turning heads. “I need answers, now!” His anger and frustration shocked him. Eyes darted in their direction.
“I’m sorry, I can’t give them to you now. Not here,” she whispered sharply. They were both silent for several minutes until the patrons turned away once more. She laughed softly. “Miguel said you had a temper. And a hell of a left hook.”
Father Lopez closed his eyes. “Fights. Miguel was with me in many. As a teen, before I embraced the Church, it was the only thing I was good at. Two dark Mexican boys in junior high in Alabama? You can imagine. Once I got angry, it came naturally. Too easily.” He sighed and opened his eyes. “Look, two cops saw the wreckage. Saw the body. Saw the scene. Now they’re dead. Am I to think something suspicious about that?”
Houston leaned in closer. “What cops? When?”
“They came right after I called 911. Two young guys. They combed the scene, examined my brother’s body. Asked me a bunch of questions. Wrote it all down. They looked a hundred times more professional than anyone else around here I’ve dealt with.”
“Oh God, Francisco. Those weren’t police.” She looked at him pityingly.
“What do you mean they weren’t police? I saw them! They had uniforms, badges, police vehicles.”
“Police showing up instantly on a mountain road? Walking around a crime scene, potentially contaminating it? Ruining evidence?” She shook her head. “Whatever you saw was a carefully planned ruse to deceive you. They weren’t police, Francisco. And they’re not dead.”
“The detective said the officers were dead, died in an accident.”
“I’m sure the real officers are dead.”
His expression was a shocked mask. He didn’t know if he could absorb any more of this madness. “Who were they then? These killers?”
“I don’t know, Francisco. They’re part of this. Whatever this is. There’s a lot I need to explain, and a lot I can’t, because I don’t know myself. But your brother’s death is not the first.” She exhaled slowly. “I came here to warn your brother, Francisco. There have been a lot of deaths from my old division. I worked with many of them. I worked with Miguel.” Her face tightened, and she looked away. “I’m here unofficially. The CIA will not officially recognize what is happening. There is a web, of dirt and lies, and I don’t know who is tangled in it. I just knew that Miguel was in danger.”
“You cared a lot about him,” said Father Lopez.
She glanced out the window, her face set. “Yes, Francisco, I did.”
Who is this Sara Houston? Lopez eyed her closely, a determined look on his face. “Then, maybe you want what I want. Maybe, you can help me.”
Her blue eyes locked with his. “To do what?”
Lopez worked hard to control his voice, his emotions. He fingered the arrowhead underneath his shirt, hung now as a pendent alongside his cross. “Find his killers. Bring them to justice.”
14
Still and silent, three men sat at a table in a dimly lit and dusty room. The walls had the appearance of years of neglect, and a musty smell drifted upwards from the floorboards. A fine mist of particles hung in the air like a fog, screening out the faint light from a cracked window across from the door. The men stirred, turning their heads toward the doorway as a fourth man entered, a look of suspicion on his anxious face.
“I was followed, but I lost the tail before entering the packing district.” He was lanky, in his mid-fifties, with gray, thinning hair trimmed close to his scalp. He wore an expensive suit completely at odds with his surroundings, a contrast echoed in the dress and mannerisms of the other conspirators. Looking across their faces, he could barely make them out in the dim light. Better that way, he thought cynically. We’re only ciphers now.
“You’re sure, Farnell?” asked the shadow on his right.
He glared at the man. “I know what I’m doing, Phoenix. And no names. We’re in the middle of nowhere, in this godforsaken dump, but we must never slacken protocol. Handles only.”
The shadow nodded, chastened. “Yes, Nexus. Play the spy games to the end.”
“That’s why we’re alive, you fool.”
Nexus removed three thumb drives. “The latest reports, gentlemen. It’s not pretty.”
A nasally voice came from a dim form on his left. “Stone?”
“Dead,” said Nexus. “Lopez, too. Our men were too late.”
A third man with a baritone spoke. “Lopez was our best.”
Nexus sighed. “Yes, he was, Bravo. Too idealistic for what we really needed him for, but unmatched. We didn’t know about his safe house, or we could have been there sooner.”
There was a silence in the room until Bravo added flatly. “Our wraith.”
Nexus simply nodded. “Assets posing as police were there just after his brother arrived at the scene.”
“The priest?” asked Bravo.
“Yes. He had no useful information. Said Lopez had acted strangely, left his family in a panic. Nothing we didn’t know or couldn’t guess.”
“Who’s left?” asked Phoenix.
“From the Removal Unit? Only Miller. He’s gone into hiding, we can’t locate him.”
Bravo sounded grim. “The wraith will. There is no hiding.”
Nexus stood up and paced the small room. “We’re trapped, gentlemen. This was our baby, and it’s come back to eat us. We can’t call for help. No backup, no reinforcements. Our program was black, buried, and must stay that way. It goes much too high and is much too hot. We’re alone.”