Zulu seemed to grind his teeth, his entire body tensed, but he said nothing. Lopez wedged the pistol into the space between his belt and pants and walked to the computer. The screen was empty but for standard program icons. As he had learned from Houston, Lopez opened a terminal window and entered system commands displaying recent activity. It was as he feared.
“We’re too late, Sara,” he said resting his knuckles in frustration on the desk. “He’s run a broad system erasure of all documents. It’s an encrypted hard-erase. I don’t think the information’s recoverable.”
Zulu seemed to suppress a smile.
Houston didn’t remove her gaze from the man. “We’ll just have to use what we have, then. We have you, Zulu. And we have a lot on you. We know about the black-ops rendition operations. We know that the agents and leaders of those are being hunted down, killed one after the other. We also know you used these snatch teams on American suspects, right here in this country, Zulu.”
“You’ll never prove it,” he spat bitterly.
“Maybe not. But what else we know will make that irrelevant,” she said, stepping between him and the computer, aiming the weapon at his face.
Lopez stepped out from behind Houston to the other side of the room nearer the door. He wanted to have his eyes on this Zulu. There was something unsettling about the man.
Houston continued. “You turned the special powers you were given right back on your own people. You killed American terrorist suspects with your private little renditions squad.” Zulu stiffened sharply. “You actually began to kill the opponents of your politics, Zulu! You killed Americans who fought the tactics you and other groups at the Agency were employing. You murdered our citizens on our soil!” Zulu’s eyes widened, and his lip began to curl. “We have the names. The mission leaders. Your name linked directly to them. They’re going to burn you all at the stake for this.”
Zulu roared. He leapt forward suddenly, with a frightening and unexpected speed for a man his age, like a wild and cornered beast. Houston fired, the shot blasting his left shoulder, but his momentum carried him through the air. He crashed into her violently. They tumbled onto the desk, the computer monitor smashed against the wall, a loud pop and sparks bursting into the air. Before Lopez could react, they fell hard to the floor. Zulu landed on top of Houston, the impact knocking the wind out of her, her gun rattling across the floor and hitting the wall. Lopez rushed forward.
“Stop! Or she’s dead!” yelled Zulu. A small gun was in his hand, pointed directly at her face, inches from her forehead. Lopez was close, but not close enough. I’m so stupid! Why didn’t I take my gun back out? If he risked an attack, he could probably disarm Zulu, but not before he had killed Houston. He couldn’t think of an option. He froze.
“Move against the wall, priest,” Zulu screamed. Lopez moved, now completely out of striking distance. Blood trickled down Zulu’s left arm and dripped to the floor. “You fools! Do you know what you’ve done? How dare you judge us? How dare you threaten our program? We prevented attacks on the nation! We saved lives! Now you want to shame us for our service and send us to rot the rest of our lives away!”
Houston glared at him and spoke strongly despite the gun to her face. “You didn’t serve your nation, you betrayed it! How is killing people who disagree with you part of our Constitution? Our founding principles?”
“Shut up!” He pressed the barrel forcefully into the skin of her forehead. Lopez took a step forward. “Stop, priest! I mean it. Or she’s dead.” Zulu looked around the room quickly, his breath becoming more and more ragged. He spoke seemingly as much to himself as to them. “Now you’ve complicated things! I had to erase that hard drive, but what to do with you? How to cover this up? How to get out of here fast enough, before the wraith comes?”
The wraith. So that’s what they called them. Him? Was there only one? Lopez’s mind raced. “Why is he hunting you?”
The older man laughed bitterly. “What difference does it make to you? Perhaps you’re afraid he’ll kill you, too.”
Houston looked at him sharply. “No, I don’t think so. It’s because of what you’ve done, isn’t it? He’s seeking justice, just like we are. What did you do to him? Did you kill someone he loved as well?”
Zulu licked his lips, sweat pouring down. Suddenly, with a grunt from the pain of his arm, he pulled backward and distanced himself from the two, keeping his weapon pointed toward them. Lopez saw their odds falling fast. Now he can shoot us both before we can get to him. The look in the man’s eyes seemed to confirm his thoughts.
Houston propped herself up on her elbows. “He won’t stop, will he, this wraith? He won’t stop until you are all dead. Our goal isn’t your deaths, Zulu. We’re not assassins. But we won’t stop until you and the others are brought to justice!”
“There is really only one solution then,” he said, raising the gun and aiming.
Houston rolled rapidly to her right, her reflexes faster than those of the injured Zulu. His shots drilled holes in the wooden floor where she had been an instant before. Splinters and dust blasted upward. She flipped to her feet like a gymnast, and she and Lopez moved rapidly toward the CIA man. But he had too much time. Zulu swung his weapon toward them. Lopez lunged at him. We won’t make it!
The window behind Zulu exploded, and a misted spray of crimson burst from around the man’s head. For a split second, he stood there, his eyes suddenly blank, blood beginning to pour from his nose and mouth. Then he fell heavily to the floor.
Lopez’s momentum carried him past the falling figure, and he ended up sprawled across the floor, the impact jarring. Before he could even collect his thoughts, Houston had crouched down, grabbed her weapon, and started toward the door. “Francisco! The wraith!” She raced out of the room, and Lopez pushed himself up and followed close behind.
As they approached the front door, the sounds of a car starting could be heard. They crashed through the door, Houston springing down the porch steps with her gun raised. Across the street, near their own SUV, a pickup truck accelerated rapidly down the road. They crossed over the lawn, and Houston chased after the vehicle, racing full-speed down the road. Lopez knew it was pointless. The truck was already pulling out of sight.
As quickly as she had begun, suddenly Houston stopped, pausing a moment hunched over to catch her breath. Lopez finally caught up with her.
“Let him go, Sara,” he gasped out. “He’s gone.”
“Wait. Not the wraith.” She waved with her gun to a car ten feet behind them. “Look.”
She recovered slightly and walked over with him to a dark-blue van. The windows were shattered. Two dead men were inside, shot in the head. Lopez stood stunned. The madness never seemed to end.
Houston opened the door, looking through their pockets and the glove compartment. She pulled out a smartphone from one, flipped it open. It had a face-recognition security feature. She held it up to the dead man’s face. The phone opened with a click.
“Damn. The worst.” She held the phone up to Lopez. There were two photos on the small screen: one of him and one of her. “Assassins. More of the same like at the police station. Or like in Alabama.” She shuddered at the memory. “They must have figured we’d stake out the houses. They guessed we knew a lot, or that we had put things together. They were waiting.”