The Covenant Of The Flame

As the van stopped, the man who'd escorted Chatham from the Lincoln Memorial slid open the side hatch, got out, and gestured for the Bureau's director to leave.

'Well, I can't say I've enjoyed the ride,' Chatham said, 'but it certainly has been informative, no matter how disturbing it was.'

'What we hoped you'd feel is not so much disturbed as…' The man in front hesitated.

'Frightened?'

'Yes.'

'Then,' Chatham said, 'you've definitely achieved your intention.'

THREE

As the van pulled away from the shadowy curb, as Tess, Craig and the members of Father Baldwin's team watched Chatham walk past his car in the driveway and enter his large, attractive house, Father Baldwin asked, 'Is he one of them?'

That's hard to know,' Craig said. 'I looked at him closely. He doesn't have gray eyes.'

'That means nothing,' Father Baldwin said. 'Only some of the vermin retain that characteristic. What's more, they sometimes use tinted contact lenses to disguise the color of their irises.'

'I watched Chatham closely as well,' Tess said. 'He responded the way he should have to what I told him. He was believable.'

'Of course,' Father Baldwin said. 'A true professional is always believable. I take that for granted. So I don't know whether to trust him. That's why, in his absence, his phone has been tapped, his home has been bugged, and so has his office. He brags that his security measures are checked every morning, but his precautions are hardly adequate against our own techniques. From this moment, every word that he says will be monitored. He'll be followed by the finest surveillance. And if he makes the wrong phone call, if he sees the wrong person, if he says the wrong words, we'll know that he's one of the vermin.'

'But I don't think he is,' Tess said.

That remains to be determined,' Father Baldwin said. 'What also remains to be determined is the status of Kenneth Madden and Alan Gerrard. We keep moving upward. Perhaps those next-to-the highest officials in the CIA and the White House are as well-intentioned as you want to believe that Chatham is. But the vermin give off an odor, and my nostrils feel assaulted. The odor is very strong. Make the call.'

'To Madden?'

'Yes. Follow the the schedule you were given. Proceed up the bureaucratic level. We'll find the vermin eventually.'

'All I want is to stay alive,' Tess said. 'I'm not sure I want to keep taking the risk of…'

'Remember, they'll kill you unless you give us the chance to exterminate them.'

'But if I make the call and I go through the CIA, through Madden and then to the Executive Branch to Gerrard, I'll still be in danger,' Tess said.

'Craig and I will be with you, though,' Father Baldwin said. 'And keep in mind, the shoes that both of you were given have homing devices in the heels along with microphones. My operatives will always know where you are and whether you're in danger.'

'Small comfort if I'm being killed while your men try to get to me.'

'Tess, without us, your death is certain. With us, you and Lieutenant Craig will have a chance to enjoy the rest of your lives together.'

'That's good enough for me,' Craig said. 'Come on, Tess. We can't give up. As long as we're being hunted, let's fight the bastards, and if we fail, at least we'll have done our best. There's no other choice.'

'But I'm so scared.'

'I know. For what it's worth, so am I.'

Craig hugged her.

'Make that phone call,' Father Baldwin said. To Madden. And after that, to…'

FOUR

Andrews Air Force Base. Maryland.

One a.m. Nearly blinded by spotlights, Tess and Craig stopped their hastily rented car at the heavily guarded entrance to the tall, chain-link, barbed- wire-topped fence of the military airport.

A broad-shouldered, wary sentry responded immediately, not needing to check the list of names on his clipboard when Tess and Craig identified themselves. 'By all means, you're expected. I.D.,' he demanded, adding with stern courtesy, 'please.'

Tess and Craig showed their driver's licenses.

The sentry examined the documents, compared their faces with the photographs on the licenses, and gave them directions toward the base's VIP wing.

While Tess drove beneath the entrance's rising barrier, she and Craig heard the roar of a jet taking off beyond rows of institutional-looking buildings from which other spotlights blazed.

'Father Baldwin lied,' Tess said. 'He promised he'd be with us.'

'What option did he have?' Craig spread his hands. 'Baldwin couldn't come with us, not when Madden told you to meet the vice president here at Andrews. You and I have worked together long enough that I won't attract suspicion. But if we bring a stranger, an unexpected third party, it'll look like a setup. We couldn't explain Father Baldwin's presence. He'd never survive a background check. And if Gerrard is your enemy, we'd make him realize we suspected him. We'd be placing ourselves in a trap.'

'You're telling me we're not in a trap?' Tess drove nervously toward the impressive floodlit VIP building. 'Father Baldwin's men can't possibly get inside this base if we need help.'

'With so many sentries around, nothing's going to happen. Not here, at least. Not now.'

'You trust those sentries?'

'They work for the Air Force, not for Gerrard himself. They can't all be enemies.'

'But what about later?' Tess shuddered. 'What are we doing here? Why did Madden tell us to come to this airport? Suppose Gerrard tells us to get on a jet?'

Craig thought about it. 'We don't know for sure that Gerrard wants to kill you. Or Madden either. All we're doing is following the sequence we were given. Chatham to Madden to…'

'Gerrard. They sound like a fucking baseball team.'

'Just keep control,' Craig said.

'Hey, I'm not used to risking my life the way you are.'

'Used to risking my life? When I started out, in a squad car patrolling the Bronx, I never got used to it. And even in Missing Persons, I still haven't. Every day I wake up, knowing that any door I knock on might have a maniac with a gun behind it.'

'Well, we have plenty of guns around us now.'

Tess stopped the rented Plymouth before palm-raised sentries next to the VIP building.

'Names, please,' one of them said.

Tess and Craig repeated the ritual.

'Identification.'

Again they obeyed.

'Get out of the car, please.'

The sentries used portable metal detectors to scan them. When one of the detectors wailed, a sentry stared aggressively toward Craig.

'I'm a New York City police officer,' Craig said. 'I'm carrying my service revolver.'

'Not anymore.' The sentry tugged the revolver from the holster on Craig's belt.

Tess, who didn't have a permit to carry a handgun, had reluctantly left her pistol with Father Baldwin. She felt helpless, vulnerable.

Distracted by the search, she hadn't noticed a man in an expensive, well-tailored suit walk toward her, appearing as if from nowhere. He was tall, pleasantly featured, in his thirties, with short brown hair, cheery eyes, and an engaging smile. 'Ms Drake, Lieutenant Craig, welcome.' He shook hands with them. 'I'm Hugh Kelly, the vice president's assistant. You arrived just in time. The vice president's looking forward to seeing you.'

Kelly's reassuring manner made Tess feel somewhat at ease. After the chaos she'd been through, he seemed so normal, so sane that she began to wonder if she was wrong to suspect that Gerrard was a threat. At the same time, Kelly's remark about 'just in time' puzzled her.

'Please, come with me,' he said.

Tess expected that he'd lead them into the VIP building. Instead he guided them onto the tarmac, and after a brief walk, Tess peered ahead toward floodlights and something that abruptly made her falter.