Professor Mordet’s voice dropped to a whisper: “When I was in the twelfth grade, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear a voice: ‘How does flesh grow? Flesh must eat flesh; that’s how flesh grows. How do souls grow? Souls must eat souls; that’s how souls grow. How do you grow? You eat people; that’s how you grow.’ I looked around my room for the source of the voice, but I couldn’t find it. For a moment, I thought I might be losing my sanity. But the voice came again and said the same thing. I felt so … liberated. It was so similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Up until then, I had been living my life chained to a cave watching shadows on the wall. The voice freed me. Immediately, I turned around and saw the fire and the reality that was casting shadows on the wall. My life until then had only been two-dimensional.” He paused.
Chris’s skin became cold, but he mentally blocked the cold from entering the core of his body.
“You have a secret, too, Chris. I can sense it. Both of us can see beyond the shadows on the wall.”
Chris lost patience with Mordet’s decapitation of reason. “Souls don’t need to eat souls. You’re smart enough to know that. Souls that destroy souls destroy themselves in the end. It doesn’t matter whether you heard a voice or not; you make your own decisions.”
“I thought I proved my point when I escaped from that prison in Iraq.”
“You proved that your lust for evil is greater than your desire to do good.”
“I am on a mission to transform beyond epic proportions.”
Chris forewent preaching and spoke as a SEAL. “I won’t let you do that — especially not here in my country.”
“I have already grown much since you and I last met,” Mordet said.
Chris clenched his fist, and his vocal cords tightened up. “You ate Ron Hickok.”
Professor Mordet was silent for a moment. “Ah, you must have been one of his students. So you must know something about how much I have learned. And from hearing the softness in the edges of your voice, it seems you have not grown. I am not the same man you once captured in Syria. You will not capture me again.” His voice became so cold that it made Chris shiver. “I believe I will succeed, and my mental strength will make it so.”
“What is your next target?” Chris asked.
“Now you’re disappointing me.”
“You’re estranged from reality.”
“I am estranged from mediocrity,” Professor Mordet said. “You and I are not mediocre. And there is a fine line between what is real and what is not. How can you know the difference unless you walk that line, too? People are going to die, and I cannot let you stand in my way.”
“That mental strength is about to get real expensive,” Chris warned.
“The last time we met, you broke your promise. If I see you again, you are going to honor your word. With interest.”
The phone line went dead.
32
Hannah called Agent Garnet, and in less than half an hour, the doorbell rang. “That should be him,” Hannah said.
Chris wore his carbine on a sling and held it at the ready position. He moved to the side of the doorway, out of the line of fire, leaned over, and looked through the peephole. It was Frank. Chris unlocked the door and let him in.
“The streets are jam-packed, so I had to fly here by helo,” Frank said after greetings and introductions were over with. “Some other law enforcement officers are on their way here to help out.”
“Thanks,” Hannah said.
“Professor Mordet might be activating sleeper cells,” Frank said. He showed pictures of two men in their twenties. “These two are Syrian nationals who have joined forces with Mordet. They’re cousins. Jawwad Nasrallah is older, but he has the baby face. His younger cousin, Lateef, has the steely eyes. Both men experienced extensive fighting in Lebanon and Iraq from the time they were teenagers and are considered extremely deadly with AKs. Their private lives are also volatile. Jawwad beat his wife into paralysis, and Lateef is suspected of punching his pregnant girlfriend to death.”
“Can we keep these photos?” Hannah asked.
Frank handed the pictures to her. “Yes, they’re for you.”
“I found him!” Young shouted. “I found Mordet!”
“Where?” Hannah asked.
Young tapped on his keyboard. “He’s in Silver Spring, Maryland — about twenty-five miles from here.”
“Let’s go stomp this arrogant prick,” Sonny said.
“Is he stationary or mobile?” Chris asked.
“Hard to say,” Young answered.
“Take the helo,” Agent Garnet said. “It’s parked in a nearby football field, and the pilot is standing by if you need it. I’ll stay here with Young while you three go. Like I said, some other law enforcement officers are on their way here to help out.”
Chris took out his GPS and had Frank show him the location of his helo and a contact number for the pilot. Then the trio thanked Frank and said good-bye to him and Young.
“Who has the point?” Chris asked.
“You can,” Sonny said.
Hannah nodded.
Chris burst out the door and hit the ground at a run. As they raced along the sidewalk, he called the pilot. He asked her to fire up her rotors and prepare to fly to Silver Spring. Within minutes, Chris’s team reached the FBI helo.
They aimed their rifles at the ground as they boarded and took their seats, filling the helo. Chris checked with the pilot, speaking louder than the helo noise: “You just dropped off Agent Garnet?”
“Yes, we dropped off Agent Garnet here. You must be Hannah’s crew. I’m Moose.” The pilot held out her hand.
“Chris.” He shook her hand. “We’re good to go.”
“Very well.” Moose pulled back on the collective control stick, and they lifted off the ground.
The helicopter rose above the rooftops of the school and the surrounding neighborhood. When they reached one hundred fifty meters above the earth, the helo pulled forward. Moose spoke on the radio, but Chris couldn’t hear what she said. The helo freely flew northward and passed over vehicles and flashing police lights clogging the streets below.
Hannah’s phone buzzed. She answered it, and when she finished her call, she thanked Young. Then she gave Moose an address: “They’re near Rock Creek Park.”
Within a few minutes, Hannah was on her phone again. “Young says Mordet just moved to Sixteenth Northwest Street and Aspen,” Hannah said. “Young thinks he’s using a van or a truck to carry his equipment.”
Chris checked his GPS then peered outside. He pointed to an open area between a forest on the left and the city on the right. “Moose, can you put us down on that golf course?”
“Sure,” Moose said.
“If you could just stay in the area for about thirty minutes, I’d appreciate it,” Chris said.
“Roger, wilco,” she said.
When the helo skids reached a couple feet above the golf course, Chris, Hannah and Sonny un-assed the helo. Chris led them in a run north across the green, and he didn’t slow until he reached the trees. Once there, he stopped and developed a hasty plan. He pointed to a spot on his GPS. “Sonny, I need you to post inside the tree line just south of the target. If the target starts shooting, stick it to him.”
Sonny gave a thumbs-up. “On it.”
“I’ll approach the vehicle from the side and tell the tangos we’re police,” Chris explained. “Hannah, I need you to stay inside the trees and cover north of the vehicle, so we don’t get a squirter — or worse, so somebody doesn’t pop out of the back and get the jump on me.”