The wraith spoke flatly. “He killed me. And then he denied me the chance to repay him. So be it. It is finished.”
The woman continued to weep loudly. The wraith moved away from her, turned his back on the couple, the knife, and the gun. Slowly, as one sleepwalking, he walked out of the bedroom. He moved deliberately through the debris in the interior room, stepping over the form of the dead agent. He walked through the blasted door and into the center ring.
A man stood there next to the rope, holding a gun to his face.
“Don’t move,” said the man. “Or I’ll shoot you.”
62
Lopez tried to hold the gun steady. He was pointing it at a madman, a self-trained assassin highly skilled in all the arts of combat and war. The assassin seemed to be unarmed, was not yet within striking distance, and appeared by his movements to be injured or drugged. Lopez knew all this gave him certain advantages, but with such a devastating killer, he did not want to be too confident. He tried to keep his focus.
“Where is the vice president?” he asked in the most demanding tone he could muster.
“Dead,” said the wraith.
Lopez felt crushed. I’ve failed, Sara. “So, you killed him, finally.”
The man sat down on the floor, crossing his legs. Lopez assumed it was some sort of trick. He stepped slightly to the side to make sure he kept the man at an angle, off balance, making a sudden attack harder to pull off.
“Not as I would have wished,” said the assassin. “I brought a knife. I planned to plunge it into the weak heart of that monster and twist it. To look him in the eyes when I sent him on the long road to hell.” Lopez stared at him, the bloodlust of his words contrasting with their tone. The wraith smiled bitterly. “But his heart was even weaker than I had expected. Too much stress for the evening, I suppose. He died before I could touch him. Acute myocardial infarction.”
“Where is he?” said Lopez, struggling over whether to believe the killer or not.
“In that room, through the side door,” said the wraith, motioning listlessly with his hand. “The wife is alive.”
Lopez left the wraith. It was crazy. The killer would be gone when he returned or would come from behind him to strike. But he had to determine what had happened to the vice president. He ran through the destroyed portal, danced around the body of a slain agent, and entered the bedroom. He saw a woman on the floor, weeping over the body of her husband. It was a pathetic sight.
She looked up at him. “Too late. You’re all too late. Now he’s dead. Just go. Leave me.” Lopez stood rooted to the spot, her pain and suffering tearing at his sense of empathy. She screamed at him. “I said go! What good are you now? Get out of here!”
The anguish in her eyes was too much for Lopez, his own sense of failure a weight around his neck. He left the room not knowing what would happen next. But the insanity was over. Whatever good or evil he had or had not done, the mad quest for vengeance had been completed. All that was left was the aftermath. Jail. Separation from Houston. Possible execution. All actions had their opposite reactions. I’m coming back now, Sara. For as long as they let me stay with you.
Returning quickly into the center of the bunker structure, he was stunned to find that the wraith was still there: unmoved, sitting cross-legged amid the rubble that he had created. Lopez had not even raised the gun or taken any precautions walking back, so certain had he been that the assassin would have fled. Instead, he sat in the same place, in the same position, a statue drained of life. All energy seemed to have been taken from his form.
Lopez walked around to face him, his sense of danger lessened. Above, from the blasted hole, he thought he could hear sirens. Whether they were police or firefighters, it didn’t matter. Soon, every law enforcement and emergency response division at the local and federal level would converge on this location. With Houston incapacitated, there was no escaping them. It was better that they came, so that she could be seen to, taken to a hospital.
“Don’t let them take me.” The wraith’s words broke his concentration.
“What?” Lopez’s thoughts had consumed him, and he did not understand.
“Your gun. Use it on me now. Have your justice.”
Lopez stared at the shape in front of him. What are you? A tortured child. A lunatic. A fire that had purged the CIA. A killer.
Images from the Tennessee cabin hit him like a blow. You killed my brother. He raised the gun and cocked it. “Yes, I should kill you now, you bastard. Before they arrive and arrest all of us and take that opportunity away from me forever. You are a murderer. You took my only brother away from me. You should die for it.”
Francisco Lopez aimed the weapon, a terrible anger flowing through him, welling up like an explosion. He pulled the trigger.
A hole was blown into the wall beside the wraith, dust and paint flakes raining across the floor. The killer was unharmed. “But I can’t kill you. Not anymore.”
The man looked up from the floor, confusion on his face. “Why can’t you kill me?” He seemed almost desperate.
Lopez sat down as well, the sirens much louder and the sound of men’s shouts ringing out above them. He pulled his knees up into his chest, fingering the weapon.
“I believed I would be a holy man by becoming a priest,” said Lopez, a sad smile on his face. “I thought that the sacrament of ordination would fill me with the Holy Spirit, and I would then overcome myself and march toward righteousness.” He laughed, pointing the barrel of the gun at his chest. “I always feared what was inside. Terrible things. Violence. Murder. Things to be suppressed. Confessed. I ran from it all, praying that God would cure me. But God has not.”
Lopez flipped the gun into the air and caught it. He repeated the process over and over as he spoke. “When I walked into that cabin in Gatlinburg and saw what you had done to my brother — things changed. I have chased you now for months. Not for justice. Justice is impartial. It is procedural. It is careful. I wanted none of those things. I wanted you dead. I wouldn’t let myself see it, but I wanted to kill you. I chased after you for vengeance.”
“So do it!” demanded the wraith. “Now you can! Take your vengeance!”
“Now I see you, see what others have done to you. Good intentions pave the way to hell. I see you are not a man. Not anymore. You are a warped and broken soul. You have already been to hell, and now you return carrying hell with you. Who am I to judge you after that?”
The wraith stood up, the sounds of men around the opening above them clear. Lopez glanced upward, as well. It was only a matter of minutes.
Suddenly the wraith pounced toward him, grasping him by the collar, shaking him violently. “If you know this,” said the wraith, a wild light in his eyes, “if you have the eyes to see the truth, then you must kill me!”
Lopez struggled to free himself from the tight grip of the killer, but the man held on maniacally, his eyes wide. The wraith screamed at him. “You are right! Every waking moment is pain! Every conscious minute brings memories. Terrible memories. Only the hunt of my enemies gave me any relief, any distraction from the darkness that surrounds me, suffocates me, imprisons me! I killed my tormentors, but it’s not over! They will always torment me. Always break my fingers, violate me, burn me, drown me in water and in fear!”