When he came to, there was the sound of sirens and wind. He opened his eyes, glanced over at Houston, who was awake, her nose bleeding, the airbag smeared red, crimson over her face and white shirt. He checked his face — he was uninjured. Glass from the windows lay like a tossed jigsaw puzzle over them. A loud voice came from his right.
“Sara Houston and Francisco Lopez, you have the right to remain silent!”
His mind blocked out the remainder of the words. Outside his window was a highway patrol officer, aiming a black pump-action shotgun two feet from his face. He stared straight into the barrel.
45
A cell phone rang.
The room was dark, shadowed, lit only by the rows of computer monitors along the walls displaying the security system readouts. A group of older men sat around a table in the middle, matched in number by a group of younger men busy in front of the terminals, monitoring the system. The guards were heavily armed with submachine guns.
A thin man pulled a blinking mobile phone out of his shirt pocket. He spoke.
“Nexus.”
The other men turned and strained to hear a garbled voice spilling out from the speaker.
“That is very good news,” said Nexus, holding up a finger as one of the men at the table motioned to speak. “Yes, of course. We will move quickly. What assets do we have in the area? Only Lars? How far? Good. Then we use what we have. We can’t wait — they could be transferred to a higher-security location. Activate him. Now. Termination with extreme prejudice.” He closed the phone.
Bravo spoke. “State or federal?”
“State,” said Nexus. “Highway patrol, New York. They are in a pen upstate, near the Catskills. We don’t have many resources there, except for the German. But we need to move on this. It won’t be long before they move them somewhere much tighter, complicating our efforts. This is a national hunt, they’re marked as dangerous fugitives. We need to target them now, while the security is poor.”
“Agreed,” said Bravo.
“This is very good news!” said Zulu, nearly shouting. Several heads turned from the monitors at the sound of his voice. “It gives us a breather, some space.”
“Hardly,” growled Bravo. He turned to Nexus. “You have more complete reports on Miller?” asked Bravo.
“Not yet, only what our sources in the state police could transfer to us. But it wasn’t pretty.”
“Even if Miller broke, he didn’t know this location.”
“No,” said Nexus. “But he could have all our names and home addresses, as well as contacts who do know where we are. It might just be a matter of time now.”
Bravo nodded. “Maybe it’s always been. Whatever influence we could have still, Lophius is right: it’s time to shut the program down. Things are out of control.”
“But first we have to put out this fire,” said Nexus. “Then, we don’t just clean house. We burn it to the ground.”
Three hundred miles away, a shadow sat in front of a laptop screen. Several juxtaposed photos appeared and disappeared as keys were struck. The figure sat back and sighed.
The images matched.
They had gone to a lot of effort to change their appearances, that was certain, and the blond man smiled in approval. Of course, all efforts were relative, and theirs paled next to his. With some image enhancement and facial-recognition software, it was only a few minutes to reveal a very high-probability association.
Sara Katherine Houston. 33. Former CIA operative, now a national fugitive, FBI most wanted. Suspicion of treasonous activities. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.
The wraith smiled. The smear job was admirable. The architects were exploiting whatever resources and influence they had left to ensure this cover-up. Perhaps only rivaled with the extreme hatchet job done on the priest.
The Reverend Father Francisco Morales Lopez. 43. M.Div. from St. Vincent de Paul Seminary. Ordained 2002, Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama. Teacher of mathematics, Holy Spirit Regional Catholic School, pastor of the Church of Saint Joseph.
He was also the brother of Miguel Lopez, who now lay under the soil in Madison, Alabama. Lopez — a black-ops agent who had run the mission that sent a young and confused Pakistani-American to a hellhole in Syria, never to see his family again. Never to find himself again.
He had no fight with this brother, the priest, or the CIA woman. She was clean. He had combed the CIA databases again. From what he could tell from the data and from his own recordings, they were actually outraged. That was good. Let them be outraged. He needed them, this agent and priest.
Former priest. The wraith looked over the news reports online. From out of nowhere, horrific accusations of child abuse, church records surfacing over a decade old. A bishop was attacked and wounded, the weapon traced to the registered firearm of Sara Houston, the assault pinned to the woman. The photo on the screen was a splice of the priest in formal wear, serving mass, alongside a bikini shot of the Houston woman, dredged up from unknown sources.
The priest and the whore. The tabloids had enjoyed a lot of traffic with this. They couldn’t resist the usual temptation to sully a woman with sexuality, nor to combine that with the person of a former celibate clergyman. Making them fugitives from the law, a danger to national security — it was big money. And a highly professional character assassination job by ruthless parties, a prelude to the coming physical assassinations no doubt authorized and set in motion.
The wraith parted the blinds of his hotel room window and glanced across the street. The state police station appeared formidable, a recent and imposing construction. But appearances could be deceiving. To his well-trained eye, the security walls were rotten with holes. All the more reason to move soon. Not much happened this far upstate. The architects would not need much — only a moderately well-trained asset. The two fugitives were literally sitting ducks in there. It might even happen tonight. No, he corrected himself, it would happen tonight. This was their chance. They would not hesitate.
He closed the blinds and stood up, walking over to his bed. He opened a large metallic case and removed several weapons and explosives: grenades, bars of Semtex, fuses, and timers. He glanced at his watch — three hours until sunset. He would wait until all solar light had faded, then blow the local transformer, cutting power to the block and the station. No doubt they had an emergency generator, but at the least it would cause havoc and plunge the surrounding area into total darkness. He’d follow the power lines and sounds to the generator and disable it as well.
Removing his phone, he pressed a button, and a number was dialed. A tone sounded, then a sharp click, and a rough voice spoke on the other end.
“You are in position?”
“Yes,” said the wraith. “I will strike tonight.”
“Good. They are your best lead. As we have discussed.” There was static over the speaker or significant background noise. “I am bringing the items. The dealers were what was to be expected, but they were not stupid, and fortunately I had to kill no one. They were happy for the money.”
“How long?”
“A few more days. I will not take interstates. We cannot have any inspections.”
“Contact me if there are any problems, and I will come.”
“Yes. Now, fit this arrow and send it into the heart of your enemies.” The connection closed.
He did not put away the phone, however, and instead opened an audio app, replaying the message recorded in the cabin. Together with the voices, he now had two faces, two identities, to put next to them in his mind. The woman’s voice spilled out over the small speaker.