The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  They merged onto a deer path and continued deeper into the forest. The first time Diego and Corin had seen deer so close to large human populations had been a surprise to both of them. Sometimes the deer would even sneak into neighbors’ backyards to graze, seemingly unafraid of humans.

  “Whether or not Tommy didn’t show us all the goodies doesn’t matter,” Desmond argued. “What matters is that the FBI was watching his phone. Either way, you just gave me an idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  Desmond looked around the forest, noting the churning sky overhead as it seemed to darken every second. “It’s going to be evening soon. Which means it’s going to get colder. If those people were FBI and they have questions about our message to Tommy, I’m not so sure we should answer.”

  “They’re the FBI, Dez,” Corin said. “Don’t we have to do what they say?”

  “Probably. But we owe it to Mr. Schultz to trust him. After all, he trusted us.”

  “Okay,” Diego conceded. “But what do you mean if they were FBI?”

  Desmond smiled at his friend. “I don’t know. Just call it a hunch for now. But that brings me back to the idea you gave me.”

  “I didn’t give you an idea.”

  “Sure you did. Talking about the IAA lab?”

  Diego’s face lit up at the realization. “Tara and Alex.”

  “Bingo. You have their number?”

  “Already on it,” Corin said. “I’ll call them now.”

  21

  Stockholm

  Sean plucked the radio from the nearest body and held it in his left hand before scooping up two more magazines from the man’s belt. He released the nearly spent magazine from the gun well and replaced it, then shoved the last full one in his pocket.

  He knew there would be people watching the hotel exits and hoped there wasn’t a spotter or a sniper on one of the other rooftops, though if that were the case he’d probably already be dead.

  Sean pried open the door to the stairwell and stabbed his gun through the crack, sweeping from left to right. The area was clear. He listened intently for several rapid heartbeats, but didn’t hear anyone else coming up the stairs.

  Moving faster, he flew down the staircase to the next level, passing the landing between the floors, then continuing beyond the floor where Tommy’s penthouse was located. His plan was simple in design, but he knew it was risky.

  Sean stopped at the floor below the top and listened again. No sounds below.

  A voice through the radio interrupted the silence.

  “Unit two, report in.”

  Right on time.

  Sean hurried down the next set of stairs and stopped at the landing. Using his best Swedish accent, he replied, “We need backup. Send backup. Repeat. Send backup.” He added a sense of urgency to the command and then continued down the stairs until he reached the next floor. There, he opened the door into the hallway, and peeked inside.

  With his weapons concealed by his winter coat, Sean stepped into the corridor and casually ambled toward the elevator.

  He heard the commotion on the radio as the team below barked orders for another unit to make their way up to the top.

  They would take the stairs, which would leave the elevators open. If he were lucky, or simply wise with his planning, the last of the enemy below would be watching the exits with a skeleton crew.

  Sean arrived at the elevators, pressed the call button, stepped back, and waited.

  He heard laughter from down the hall and turned to see a young couple, probably in their late twenties, emerge from one of the rooms, arms over shoulders, stumbling toward the elevators. Sean pressed the button again, this time repeatedly in the hope that he wouldn’t have to tolerate a long ride down with a couple of chatty and apparently drunk people.

  The woman was in a short black dress with a slit up one side, while the guy was in a pair of tan jeans with white shoes and button-up shirt. The shirt was untucked, and for a second, Sean wondered if the guy had gone through his closet back in Atlanta. The outfit was exactly like something Sean would wear.

  He pressed the button more fervently, but when the elevator dinged, the drunken revelers were already there. Sean sighed inwardly and pressed his lips together in a tight, albeit forced, smile.

  “You going down?” the young man slurred in English.

  “Yeah,” Sean said with a nod, keeping his eyes forward as he stepped into the lift.

  The couple tripped forward into the elevator and stumbled to the back wall where they caught themselves. Then they started laughing.

  “Which floor?” Sean asked.

  “Lobby,” the girl answered drunkenly, then returned to her laughter.

  “Sure thing.” Sean reached out and touched the button for the lobby, while deftly grazing his thumb over the second-floor button.

  He stood in front of the panel as the doors closed, blocking their view.

  The lift descended rapidly, and to Sean’s relief, didn’t stop until they arrived at the second floor. The doors opened, and the drunk woman asked, “Is this our floor?”

  “Yep,” Sean said, putting his hand out to allow them to pass. “Lobby.”

  “Thank you,” the man said and led the way, staggering out of the elevator at an angle and towing the young woman behind.

  Despite the stress of the moment, Sean allowed himself a mischievous smile as the two looked down the hallway in both directions, made a decision, and wobbled away.

  The doors closed again, and he was relieved to be rid of the two. They opened again ten seconds later when the lift arrived at the lobby. Sean stepped back to the near corner in case there was someone stationed at the doors, but no one entered.

  He poked his head out and looked around, noting that there were no goons positioned in the lobby. A scattering of people littered the lobby floor. Some stood in line at the concierge. Another three waited for coffee at the coffee counter. Two sat drinking from tall glasses of beer at the bar. And four more were on large satin couches in the far corner where a gas fire flickered in a hearth.

  Satisfied for the moment, Sean stepped out of the elevator and strolled casually to the right. He glanced over his left shoulder and noticed the two men standing outside the exit. They were loitering with two valets, chatting and smiling as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but to Sean it was easy to see the men were with the attackers from the rooftop. These two wore black suits, probably to conceal their weapons. They had the look of a couple of bodyguards, likely playing that role for the valets with some made-up backstory about how they were told to wait downstairs while their boss took care of business inside.

  Sean had seen it before.

  He kept moving toward a side door at the end of a narrow corridor when he saw another goon through the glass. Immediately, he tilted his head to the side as if called by a friend in the lobby, and altered his course.

  There was a third exit in the rear, but that one would be covered too. He was so close to getting out, but with all exits blocked, getting out would be tricky.

  He stopped next to a long wall that ran the length of the lobby. A collection of club chairs and couches offered patrons a place to relax and unwind after a long day of touring the city or suffering through business meetings. To his right, he noted three courtesy phones on the wall, and an idea struck him.

  Sean picked up one of the phones and looked through a list of numbers on a placard between each one. He noted the emergency services number and dialed it.

  “Hallo?” a woman’s voice chirped. She said something in Swedish, which Sean loosely translated into “How can I help you?”

  “There’s been a shooting.” He rapidly gave the name of the hotel and the details, telling the woman he believed the shooters were on the roof and that more were in disguise outside the exits of the building.

  Her tone shifted immediately, as did her language, as she repeated the details back to Sean in English. She informed him the police would be there soon and to sta
y where he was and not to venture out.

  Sean thanked her and ended the call. Then he waited.

  He was pleasantly surprised when he heard the sirens less than two minutes after making the call. Apparently, Swedish efficiency was a highly underrated trait.

  Keeping close to the wall with one of the phone stalls partially blocking his view, he leaned around and watched the reaction of the two men at the main entrance as the blue lights swirled off the surrounding buildings.

  They immediately went from looking like they were having a good time to abruptly turning and running down the sidewalk. Sean figured their vehicles must be parked somewhere nearby. He turned to a trashcan off to the right while everyone in the lobby started looking outside at the commotion. Sean slipped the pistols out of his belt and dumped them in the trash. The weapons plunked loudly when they hit the bottom of the bin, but no one seemed to notice as the police rushed into the lobby and began hurriedly, yet calmly, ushering patrons out through the front door.

  Sean put on his best panicked face, looking around in confusion. An officer approached him while others rushed to the elevators and stairwell.

  The cop said something to Sean in Swedish.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Swedish,” Sean said.

  “We need you to evacuate,” the cop said, pointing to the doors where two other cops were assisting people out the door.

  Sean almost looked hurt. “What’s going on? I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here.”

  “Sir, please. We need you to leave the building immediately.”

  Sean relented hesitantly and made his way toward the exit.

  When he stepped out into the cold early evening air once more, he was guided across the street to where a cluster of other hotel customers huddled near a streetlight. The police outside busily stretched out a line of tape around the area to keep others from entering the building.

  Sean watched casually but flicked a glance to the left in the direction the two goons had escaped. He saw two black Range Rovers parked end to end along the sidewalk one block away. With one last scan of the street and hotel entrance, he turned and skimmed along the sidewalk, making sure he walked with oblivious disinterest in whatever was happening at the hotel.

  Other pedestrians began gathering around the police line to see what was going on, which made his escape easier.

  At the next crosswalk, Sean hustled across the street and over to one of the SUVs. Through the tinted windows he could see the vehicles were empty, but wondered if the hit squad had left any of them unlocked.

  He pulled the latch on the second SUV. It opened easily, to Sean’s surprise, and he leaned in to see if the keys were in the ignition.

  No such luck. On top of that, the keys were the new electronic kind that required no actual insertion of the key, instead using a wireless technology that allowed the driver to keep the key fob in a pocket while the engine remained running.

  Sean closed the door without slamming it and moved on to the first Range Rover. He tried the driver's side door as he had with the other vehicle and found it, surprisingly, to be unlocked as well. This one, however, still had the wireless key fob sitting in a cup holder between the two front seats.

  The driver must have gotten out in a hurry, which made sense now that he thought about it.

  Sean glanced back toward the hotel one more time and then got into the driver’s seat and pressed the ignition button. The motor roared to life. He closed the door, shifted the transmission, and drove off while slipping the seatbelt on.

  With his impeccable memory, Sean recalled Magnus Sorenson’s address, and once he was around the corner and out of sight from the unfolding siege at the hotel, entered the information into the navigation panel in the dashboard.

  The directions appeared a few seconds later.

  Sorenson’s place was twenty minutes away.

  As he guided the SUV through the streets of Stockholm, Sean’s mind raced with the memory of the last man on the rooftop just before he poisoned himself. He wouldn’t give up the name of the cult’s leader, but the man had acknowledged what Sean suspected—that the cult did exist, and that they were definitely making a big move.

  22

  Atlanta

  Darcy Friedman stared unflinching into the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Ellerby. Mrs. Ellerby wore a look of contempt on her face, while Mr. Ellerby was less reserved, allowing pure unadulterated rage to flare his nostrils. If he could have consumed the woman with fireballs from his eyes, he would have.

  “My son and his friends have done nothing illegal,” Mr. Ellerby insisted. “They’re in the seventh grade, for crying out loud.”

  “Age has nothing to do with crime, Mr. Ellerby,” Friedman said. She never wavered from his glowering stare. “Only with the punishment.” She shifted her gaze to Mrs. Ellerby. “I can understand your concern. You need to realize that we are not charging Desmond or his friends with any crime. We just need to ask them some questions.”

  “Yeah,” Mr. Ellerby said with several dramatic nods. “You mentioned that. But you won’t tell us what kinds of questions. And you’ve been real vague about what is going on, other than to say it’s a matter of national security.”

  The Ellerbys were well-established pillars in the historical and archaeological communities. Their exploits of discovery, adventure, and travel had sparked a newfound interest in history throughout the black communities of Atlanta.

  On top of that, the Ellerbys had made a fortune in their work. As such, they kept well-paid attorneys on retainer just in case the need ever came up.

  “And because it is a matter of national security,” Friedman went on, “I’m not permitted to give you any details other than that I’m afraid your child and his two friends could be in grave danger.”

  “What kind of danger?” Mrs. Ellerby asked, cocking her head to the side as her right eyebrow lifted.

  “It’s nothing they’ve done,” Friedman declared in her bland American accent. “It’s regarding an incident with their discovery in North Carolina.”

  The Ellerbys turned to each other, their righteous indignation replaced by genuine concern.

  “Do I have your attention now?” the woman asked. “I’m not at liberty to release any information, but off the record we believe that Tommy Schultz may have information that could lead us to find answers regarding a recent attack on a research site. We know that Schultz and his team at the IAA have been influential with your son and his friends.” Friedman switched gears. “How much time would you say Desmond spends with Tommy Schultz?” She tried to use a disarming tone, one that conveyed genuine concern over the boy’s well-being.

  Mr. Ellerby frowned. “I don’t know. They’ve been down to the headquarters a few times. Took a tour once. Other than that, they haven’t really spent much time with him. After their discovery in Italy and then again in North Carolina, Tommy took an interest in them. I imagine he probably thinks they would make good additions to the agency someday, if that’s the direction they want to go.”

  The Ellerbys had considered that possibility, but the kids were still young. They would have years before anything like that would come to fruition. Both of them sensed something amiss with this FBI agent, though. Her accent was the first thing they’d noticed. It was almost as if the woman was trying to sound American. It was so generic they found it impossible to zero in on a region from which she may have originated. Usually, in their extensive experience, everyone had some kind of accent—save, perhaps, for the northwestern United States. Perhaps she was from there. Mrs. Ellerby was the first to put her to the test.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she offered. “I was just about to brew a pot.”

  “No, thank you. It’s too late in the afternoon.”

  Mrs. Ellerby stood and walked into the kitchen. She began preparing the coffeepot while she spoke. “Where are you from? You have an unusual accent.”

  Friedman glanced at the other three agents in the room before answering.
“Nebraska,” she said. “Omaha.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Ellerby said. “Heartland of America.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.” She folded her hands in front of her waist. “Do you know when your son will be home? It looks like it’s getting dark outside. Shouldn’t he be home for dinner soon?”

  Mrs. Ellerby passed a dismissive smile. “He might be having supper with friends tonight.”

  “Can you call him?”

  Mr. Ellerby’s spine stiffened at the pressure the woman applied. “Sure,” he said. “I could, but I’m not certain I should.”

  For the first time since arriving, the woman’s frozen expression flinched in confusion. “And why is that?”

  “Because we don’t know you. And despite your credentials,” he said the word with derision, “I have an issue with you coming here into our home, wanting to ask our son questions about something so serious.”

  “I can understand your apprehension,” Friedman sympathized. “But if you don’t help us with this, you know what that’s called? Obstruction of justice.”

  “Now, there’s no reason to get legal about all this,” Mrs. Ellerby interrupted as she finished turning on the coffeepot. “I’m sure our friend Director Starks can help clear the air on this. Let me just give her a call real quick.”

  Friedman’s face didn’t betray much, but it was enough. The slightest twitch in her right cheek told Mrs. Ellerby everything. Whoever this woman was, she didn’t know Emily Starks. That didn’t mean the woman wasn’t a legitimate agent, but it didn’t help either.

  “Fine,” Friedman surrendered. “Call whoever that is and confirm why we are here. I’m sure he will be happy to inform you of our reason for being here. You have twenty-four hours. After that, you will be arrested for hindering a federal investigation.”

  The two Ellerbys exchanged a concerned glance, but it wasn’t from the threat. Whoever this woman was had just called Director Starks a man, which meant she had no clue who Emily was.