by Jeff Gunhus
“What was his answer?” Mara asked.
“Somehow over the last two decades, Scarvan has become convinced that he is the instrument to bring about the end times.” Belchik’s voice grew soft. “He believes his mission will do nothing less than bring about the second coming of Christ. He believes he has become the wrath of God made manifest on Earth.”
Belchik laid his head back against his pillow and closed his eyes.
“Is there anything else?” Mara asked. “Any indication who his first target will be?”
Belchik shook his head, keeping his eyes closed. “That is everything. I’ve thought through the conversation a thousand times, but there is nothing more I can give you.” He finally opened his eyes and they were filled with tears. “Now, you must do your part. You must kill me so I can save my family.”
Scott felt the dreadful weight of the decision he had to make. He glanced over at the table covered with the photos of Belchik’s family, the ones killed by Scarvan. Would the murders stop once Belchik was dead? Scarvan seemed to be a man no longer in touch with reality. Perhaps his vengeance would continue even if the old man were dead. Leaving the spymaster dead after their visit would complicate matters with the powers above him. But that had never stopped Scott from doing the right thing before.
Nor had it ever stopped Mara.
“How do you want it done?” Mara asked, her voice flat, the way it was when she was on mission.
Belchik looked surprised that the offer had come from her, but he didn’t hesitate.
“A pillow over my face will suffice,” he said. “No need to leave a mess behind.”
Mara stepped forward but Scott waved her off. “This is my task,” he said. “I played a part in creating this on that boat twenty years ago. It should be me.”
He carefully slid the pillow from behind the old man’s head and gripped it tight with both hands.
Belchik looked around the room, taking stock one last time at the world he was about to leave. Then his eyes settled on Scott. “Tell Hawthorn thank you. That I always respected him as an adversary.”
“I will.”
“And Scarvan,” he said. “Don’t underestimate him. Even at his age, I believe he remains the most dangerous human on the planet. You must stop him. No matter the cost.”
Scott bit the inside of his lip. He’d killed dozens of men in his life. Men who’d begged for mercy. Bargained for their lives. Shown him photos of their families to try to get him to change his mind. All of them wanted that one last minute of life, to hang on, to hope for some way out. He saw this same thing in Belchik.
“Tell me when you’re ready, sir,” he said.
Belchik looked at the table with the photos of his family one last time, then nodded.
Scott placed the pillow over the man’s face and pressed down hard. Belchik didn’t react at first, but his body soon responded involuntarily as his oxygen ran out. His back arched. His legs kicked. His emaciated hands reached up to the pillow and clawed at Scott’s forearms.
But only for a few seconds.
Then the old man’s body went slack. Scott held the pillow in place, watching the straight line on the heart monitor next to him.
When he lifted the pillow, Belchik’s dead eyes stared at the ceiling. Mara stepped forward and carefully closed them.
“I know that was hard to do,” she whispered. “But it was the right thing.”
Scott appreciated the words. And appreciated that it was only hard because he still valued human life, that he hadn’t slipped into the cynical psychopathy that was dangerous for those who stayed in his profession for too long. At least that was what he liked to tell himself.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
They pulled their masks back on in case there were pockets of the GX gas lingering outside the room. They went back through the apartment the way they’d come. Up to the roof, over the walls separating the units, back down through the travel agency. Mara did the kindness of giving the woman cuffed to the desk with her married lover a letter opener from one of the desks so they could cut themselves free once they left.
They didn’t need to take apart the surveillance setup across the river. Hawthorn would send another team to clean up their tracks.
Once they were back on the street, heading to the train station, Mara finally broke the silence.
“We need to brief Hawthorn about what happened here,” Mara said. “Do you want me to call it in?”
Scott wondered exactly how shaken up he looked for her to offer that. He set his jaw, digging deep to find the devil-may-care persona that had served him so well over the years.
“No, I’ll make it.”
“He would have done the same thing for Belchik,” she said. “You know that.”
Scott wasn’t as certain. Hawthorn was a good man, one of the best he’d ever met. But nothing was more important to him than protecting the United States of America. Helping Belchik end his life was going to complicate things with the Russians right when cooperation was going to be essential to stop Scarvan.
“Hawthorn will get a message out to the protective details for the heads of state across the world. We need to find out what radicalized Scarvan,” he said. “See if we can get a clue about the target he’ll hit first.”
“We need to go to Mount Athos,” Mara said.
“That should be interesting,” Scott said.
“Why’s that?”
“Mount Athos is a rugged isthmus of land only accessible by boat. It’s home to Greek Orthodox monasteries and hermitages.”
“And?”
“And there hasn’t been a woman allowed on that soil in over five hundred years.”
Mara grinned. “Then it’s about time there was one.”
“I figured that would be your response. Like I said, it should be interesting. You make the arrangements, I’ll call Hawthorn. Meet in ten minutes.”
“If you survive the call,” she said. “Good luck with that.”
He watched her walk into the train station, by habit eyeing the surrounding area to see if she picked up a tail. Nothing.
Reluctantly, he pulled the encrypted sat phone from his jacket and powered it up. As he waited for the device to synch with the satellites overhead, he tried to organize his thoughts. No matter how he played out the conversation in his head, Hawthorn was going to be pissed.
But then again, he’d spent a career pissing the man off, so Scott had to figure he was used to it by now.
A minute into his phone call, it turned out he was wrong.
CHAPTER 16
“Damn it, Scott,” Hawthorn mumbled to himself as he walked up to the guard gate facing the Treasury Building on East Executive Avenue. The area was lit up by floodlights in front of the guard shack. Staffers worked late at the White House, but ten at night was slow. A few people were leaving but he was the only one going in.
He showed his credentials and then passed through the metal detector like everyone else. The White House was one of the most secure locations in the world. Even someone with his history of service wasn’t given a free pass.
The uniformed Secret Service manning the gate were polite to the point of being perfunctory. If they had seen him talking to himself on the way over, they knew better than to mention anything.
Nancy McKeen, the president’s new chief of staff waiting for him on the other side of security, felt no need to be polite.
“What’s stuck in your craw this late at night, Jim?” McKeen asked. Hawthorn grinned at the woman’s dialed-up Alabama accent, a tool she used to get other people to underestimate her. It didn’t fool Hawthorn. She was one of the toughest and most savvy operators in the Beltway.
“I need to see him,” Hawthorn said. “Right away.”
They turned and walked together. McKeen was twenty years younger and in good shape despite being a Southern politician. Politicking in the South included endless great BBQ and down-home food on the campaign trail. No self-respe
cting Southerner was going to vote for a man or woman who ate sushi and juiced veggies for breakfast.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on,” McKeen said.
McKeen had been in Congress for six terms before Patterson had plucked her from the House to serve as his chief of staff. She’d sat on the Intelligence Committee and knew how the sausage was made. Still, Patterson had been clear that Alpha Team was not part of the regular chain of command and existed outside of the National Security Council apparatus.
But McKeen had the nose of a bloodhound and was no fool. She knew something was going on. Hawthorn imagined it bothered the woman not knowing. Or, in McKeen’s own colorful language, it made her nuttier than a squirrel turd.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Hawthorn said. “It’s up to the president whether he wants you in the room. Not my call.”
McKeen stiffened. “Hard for me to do my job if I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Jim.”
“What can I say, the job sucks. But I told you that before you took it.”
McKeen laughed. “That you did. I believe you told me only someone with their head full of stump water would take this job.”
“And then you proved my point by taking it,” Hawthorn said. He stopped walking, grabbing McKeen by the arm. “You know I like a good verbal sparring match more than anyone. But I’m serious. I need to talk to him, and I need to do it right away.”
McKeen looked like she might ask more questions but stopped herself. She lifted her hand to look at her phone screen. “He’s still in the Oval. He has the Secretary of the Interior on his way over to have a drink at the residence. Smoothing some ruffled feathers over the pet programs we killed in the last budget negotiation.”
Hawthorn had to hand it to the president. The man knew how to work hard. One would think that would be true of every occupant of the office, but that wasn’t true.
“Cancel the secretary,” Hawthorn said. “He’ll need to have his ego massaged some other night.” McKeen started to object, but Hawthorn held up a hand to stop her. “And get Mitch Dreslan over here.” Hawthorn liked Dreslan, head of the president’s Secret Service protective detail. A bit of a rule-follower, but he was a no-nonsense pro. The request had the desired effect on McKeen.
“For shit’s sake. You better tell me just what in the hell is going on,” McKeen said. “Is the president in danger?”
Hawthorn was surprised at the question. When wasn’t the president in danger? He knew Dreslan and his team gave the president a daily assessment of the dozens of credible threats against the president and the First Family, out of the hundreds the Secret Service tracked each day. It came with the territory.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be in the room when we bring Dreslan in,” Hawthorn said. “Right now, I need to see him on my own first. Do you want to escort me there? If not, I know the way.”
McKeen pulled herself up, sniffed the air, and continued toward the West Wing. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”
Sometimes that’s what it took in this town, Hawthorn thought. He used the few minutes’ walk to the Oval to organize his thoughts, still unsure how to convey what Scott had shared with him. It was his usual practice to lead any briefing with the worst news, only he wasn’t certain what it was in this case.
That Jacobslav Scarvan was now a religious zealot who believed himself to be on an apocryphal mission from God to execute heads of state around the world? Or that Scott and Mara Roberts had performed a mercy killing of Russia’s most famous spymaster?
Either way, it wasn’t going to go well.
* * *
“Is Roberts out of his goddamn mind?” Patterson shouted.
Hawthorn wanted to agree with the president, but adding fuel to the raging fire wasn’t in anyone’s interest. “I trust Scott and Mara took into consideration all the factors before—”
“Before creating an international incident?”
“With all due respect, sir, the Russians weren’t going to like us breaking in just to chat with Belchik, either.”
Patterson, who’d been behind his desk up to this point, came around it so fast that Hawthorn thought for a second that he might have to fend off a blow. It was a ridiculous notion, but that was the level of anger in the man’s face.
“I knew that,” he said. “I’d calculated that risk and the blowback and made my decision on that basis to give you the green light. How can I make a decision if I can’t trust what will happen?”
It was Hawthorn’s turn to feel his anger rise. Instead of raising his voice, he grew calm. Remaining silent for several seconds, the sound of his blood thumping in his temples.
“There is never certainty,” Hawthorn said softly. “Not in this mission. Not in any mission. It’s why we call the men and women that choose to go into the field to defend our country ‘heroes.’ Because they face incredible odds, and anything can happen at any time.”
“Not this,” Patterson said, his voice lower but his anger unabated. “This is a self-inflicted problem.”
“Scarvan was killing his family,” Hawthorn said. “A new family member every two days. Women. Children. Every two days. He begged Scott and Mara to help him end it. Not to end his own suffering, but to save his family.”
Patterson took a step back. A look of horror flashed on his face as he turned away and walked to the fire at the far end of the room. He stared into the flames and pulled his hand through his hair. Hawthorn noticed that it appeared thinner and grayer since his inauguration. The office did that to all men, especially the ones who were good at the job.
“I’ll need to speak to the Russian ambassador. Better they hear it from us than the media.”
“I suggest against that, sir.”
“And what do you suggest?” Patterson remained with his back turned.
“Admit nothing,” Hawthorn said. “Scott and Mara were careful.”
Patterson laughed, but there was no humor in it. “The Russians will know it was us.”
“Of course they will,” Hawthorn said. “But we never admit to it. Because once we do, they need to save face by taking action. Ignore it. Act surprised when the Russian ambassador comes tomorrow.”
Patterson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There’s more lying in this job than I imagined there would be. Did the other presidents you’ve worked for feel the same way?”
Hawthorn, feeling the presidential fury having passed, walked over to stand with him next to the fire. “They all discovered the same thing, but I wouldn’t say they felt the same about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You hate the lie, sir,” Hawthorn said, “but see the periodic need for it. Some who have sat behind the Resolute desk lied without compunction or qualm. Sometimes they lied so much they couldn’t tell themselves what was true and what had come whole-cloth out of their ass.”
Patterson laughed; this time it was real. A needed relief.
“We should tell Mitch Dreslan about this new threat in the morning,” Patterson said. “I hate to see the kind of lockdown he’s going to suggest. I’m not going to hide from this monster.”
“But you do need to take precautions,” Hawthorn said. “You and your family. There is nothing out of bounds for this man. You need to prepare yourself to make some changes until we resolve this threat.”
The mention of his family had sobered him as Hawthorn knew it would.
“All right, we’ll go over it in the morning.”
“Sir, Mitch Dreslan is waiting outside the Oval,” Hawthorn said. “As is Nancy McKeen. She’s eager to know what’s going on.”
Patterson grimaced. “I’m sure she is. But I have a meeting in the residence with—”
“It’s been cancelled,” Hawthorn said.
“Become president, they said. Be the most powerful man in the world, they said.” Patterson chuckled. “Look at all this power I wield.”
“You do, sir. And that’s why we have to ensure your prot
ection.”
“All right.” Patterson crossed the Oval to pour himself two fingers of Johnny Walker Black. He indicated to Hawthorn, who shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”
“One suggestion, if I may?”
“You say that like I could stop you from making it.”
“The success of Alpha Team depends on its continued secrecy. We describe the new threat, but not the source of the information or the means of its procurement. On top of that, we cannot mention what Scott and Mara are doing next.”
“At least that last part won’t involve a lie,” Patterson said, throwing back his whiskey. “Because as far as what the two of them are concerned with, I haven’t got a goddamn clue what they’re doing out there. And I’m starting to wonder whether they do, either.”
As Hawthorn crossed the Oval to let Dreslan and McKeen in, he found himself wondering the same thing. Scott had been vague over the phone. Hawthorn hoped that had been a function of a lack of time instead of a lack of a plan. Wherever they were headed next, there was one thing of which he felt certain: Before this was all done, the body count was going to climb.
Hawthorn just hoped the good man standing in the Oval Office wasn’t going to be one of them.
CHAPTER 17
“This is a terrible plan,” Mara said.
They were in the train heading east toward Italy and then Greece. The tickets were purchased under an alias and they’d been careful to avoid the CCTV cameras, so they felt comfortable they’d gone unnoticed. The tickets were for Rome, but they would get off before that to rendezvous with a military helo to expedite the next part of their journey. Thessaloniki was the second largest city in Greece and, most importantly, the closest major city to Ouranoupoli, the small village where the ferry departed for Mt. Athos.
“You might be right, but I think it’s also the only plan,” Scott said. “There’s no way you pass for a man, no matter how good the disguise.”
Mara scrolled through the brief sent to her by Langley on her tablet. The more she read, the more she realized her dad might be right. Still, she hated the idea of sitting out a mission because of her gender.