by Seeley James
“I’m very glad to hear that.”
“There’s one other thing,” James said. “Is it possible to do something about that Sabel woman?”
“Where she is concerned,” Griffith grinned, “I am prepared to be brutal because brutality is required.”
CHAPTER 59
Pia found Gu Peng sitting on a bench outside the Chinese hospitality pavilion. A beautiful box decorated in Chinese motifs sat next to her. She stared out the picture window at the glacier spread before them. Black clouds covered most of the sky, moving slowly, inevitably southward. Soon they would be overhead, and a blizzard would descend on the region.
Pia picked up the box. “I see Miguel found you and gave you the Freedom Stone.”
Peng nodded and rose, hoisting herself up by her walking stick. The older woman’s face bore a hard and determined look. Pia hadn’t felt this proud since the last World Cup. At last, she could play a small part in changing the world. Even if the Freedom Stone was a myth and the whole thing a waste of time, Pia felt pride in helping the famous artist.
They were close now. Close enough to accelerate her pulse and excite her senses.
A guard opened the door for them. They entered a room decorated in red and gold. A giant embroidered panel depicted the Great Wall. Nearby, another panel illustrated the Imperial Palace in glowing colors. At the far end, in front of the General Secretary, were five early narrative paintings. Treasures of the ancient culture representing thousands of years of civilization. Pia felt the awe and wonder intended to humble those brave enough to approach the powerful nation.
Three meticulously organized reception lines snaked through the room. A greeter checked Pia’s name against the list and pointed to a line. Following it up to the head, she saw the First Vice Premier.
Pia turned back to the greeter. “I’m sorry, I had an appointment to see the General Secretary, President—”
“No mistake.” The young woman checked her tablet and bowed. “On the advice of our specialist, we reassigned your meeting to the First Vice Premier. He can assist the expansion of Sabel Capital in Shanghai.”
Pia felt like a dog who’d had her snout gently smacked. If they were trying to snub her, they made their point. The Party Secretary, in charge of the People’s Bank of China, would be the logical choice if the General Secretary cancelled. She scanned the room, looking for the advisor who demoted her schedule. Standing next to the General Secretary was a high-ranking official staring at her.
On closer examination, the official was not staring at Pia, but at Gu Peng. Pia noticed the old woman give him a shake of her head. The official’s face fell in sadness. He nodded his understanding. Pia realized it was the Brotherhood’s ally in Zhongnanhai. The usurper waiting for his moment.
“We go now.” Peng touched her elbow and nodded in the direction of security men who were eyeing them. “This not good place cause trouble. China security not tolerate protest.”
“I can fix this,” Pia said. “I need to find the advisor and pull rank.”
“You big deal in America. You big deal in Europe.”
Pia slowly brought her gaze down to the older woman at her side. Her implication was clear. North America and Europe combined didn’t have the population of China, much less the greater Asian sphere they influenced and controlled. While Sabel Industries would rank somewhere between American Express and Lockheed Martin on the Fortune 500 if it were publicly held, the People’s Liberation Army could buy it in minutes should she entertain an offer. Pia Sabel was no big deal in this room.
Then she saw the advisor who’d trashed her plans. Her competitive nature drove her to consider punching his lights out. She felt her fists tighten. He held her gaze from the center of the room, where he stood in a smart business suit with his arms crossed. Peng saw him too and hissed lightly under her breath. He approached them and nodded toward the exit. Just as Cherry told Jenny he would, Professor Rafael Tum had stopped Gu Peng from meeting the Chinese president.
Without protest or comment, Peng turned on her walking stick and led them out of the pavilion.
When the doors closed behind them, Pia turned to Rafael and opened her mouth to berate him. Before her first syllable formed, she felt Peng’s hand on her arm and held back.
“We so close,” Peng said. “There be another day. Another chance.”
Rafael nodded.
“That’s it?” Pia asked. “You’re giving up?”
“No question me.” Peng glared up at her. “I lose husband, daughter. I never see granddaughter except for video call. Now, she drowned. One day China take your family. Then you say go or no go.” She wagged her finger at Pia. “Today, is my say-so. I say this not time. Better to bend like reed when tank come. Sometime lay low to survive. There be other time.”
Pia reeled back a step. “I can’t get a meeting with the General Secretary whenever you feel like it. This took months to set up. This isn’t just about you—I had serious business to discuss in there.” She turned to Rafael. “Not with the First Vice Premier, either.”
Rafael Tum said, “This is hardly about you. They need your resources. The Party Secretary will be in touch.”
“Where did you come from?” Pia faced him. “How did you pull that off?”
“I am with the Keepers.” He folded his hands and looked down. “We keep balance in the world. Today, you defeated the Knights of Mithras. To balance that, we blocked the Brotherhood of Claritas.”
“Keepers keep nothing,” Peng snarled. “Keepers spawn evil. Joe Griffith a Keeper once, now evil Knight.” Peng shook a fist in his face. “Keeper of balance? Every day, more and more despot take over. Less and less freedom for people. Every day, worker go work. Rich go to glacier have meeting, drink Mai Tai, ski. No work, just make money while other people work. Do not say balance.”
Rafael shrugged.
Pia couldn’t believe all this was real. Three ancient secret societies held each other in check? One of the groups acting like a referee? She wondered if this whole escapade were a dream from which she would wake.
She held up the box she’d been carrying and asked Rafael, “Is the Freedom Stone for real?”
“What happened to your man, Dhanpal?” he asked. “For thousands of years, people believed the universe existed because a creator said, ‘Let there be light.’ Now people believe it all started with a Big Bang—of light. What will we believe a thousand years from now?”
“I suppose you want the Stone?”
“Not yet.” Rafael held up his hands. “You’re responsible for it now. Keep it safe.”
Pia turned to Peng and held the box out.
“You keep it,” the old woman said. “The struggle continue every day. When time come, I call. Freedom Stone need Pia Sabel help.”
Peng walked away, her walking stick tapping the slow rhythm of a dirge.
Reluctantly, Pia turned back to Rafael. “Why stop her? Why not see what happens? Maybe she could set China free.”
“Freedom must be won, not given.” Rafael sighed. “To force change on people, good or bad, wreaks havoc on a civilization. People must invest in change for that change to succeed.”
“What did they offer you?” Pia asked. “Was it just dropping the ICC charges?”
“I don’t care about them.” His eyes misted. “Karma is hardest on those who fail to see their own evil. My sins are not something for which I can atone, regardless of the ICC. It is my burden. Nothing Joe Griffith does will change that. I will return to my classroom and the students therein. Every day I create a small portion of hope for the future, perhaps a small portion of my sin will be lifted.”
“You don’t care about the murders of your associates?”
“Guilt does not become you, Ms. Sabel.” He waited for her to regret her statement. “The Knights have sealed their fate. Theirs are deeds with which they will have to live. However, unlike me, they fail to recognize the evil within them. And that makes their fate so much the worse.”
&nbs
p; He turned and left.
Pia wondered what had happened to the black-and-white world she once knew. Everything used to be simple and clear. She should have stayed in soccer. The boundaries were marked. The rules were the same for everyone. The referees made sure everything was fair.
She still had eighteen more meetings to attend.
Her phone rang. Miguel. She answered.
He said, “It’s Jenny—”
CHAPTER 60
Luca Brandt listened while one of his detectives took my statement. Two paces away, Miguel and Pavard stood side-by-side with their arms crossed, listening and waiting. I understood the need for following procedure. I understood the Germans were doing their duty. But I was itching to get on the trail of Mr. Baldy. I was going to look him in the eye when I pulled the trigger. And Brandt was slowing me down. Which made me edgy.
“I said that already.” I clenched my jaw and took another breath. “I’ve seen ANFO. I used ANFO in the military. I’ve seen others use it. I know what it looks like. It was ANFO. Maybe you guys call it something else.”
The detective nodded and made another note.
“We call it ANFO,” Pavard said. The detective shot him a nasty look for interrupting his interrogation. Pavard raised his brows and shrugged in a half-hearted apology.
“And the bankers?” The detective nodded at the former hostages being treated by the EMT personnel. “What did they want with these persons?”
“No idea. I don’t follow international finance. Ransom? Extortion? Better soaps in the guest room? Your guess is as good as mine.”
More Germans approached in tight-knit formation. One of them whispered to Brandt.
“This is enough for now.” Brandt tapped his detective. “We have someone of interest to Mr. Stearne. He may wish to observe our interrogation.”
The new Germans pushed Artur Titow out of their midst. Brandt started interrogating in German. Titow kept his mouth clamped shut and his gaze fixed on me. Pure hatred flowed out of him straight to me. The stream was so hot and angry that Brandt looked between us a couple times. Undeterred, he kept pestering Titow with questions. The hardened Knight had no intention of answering.
After a few minutes of trying, Brandt turned it over to his detective. This gave Brandt more time to observe the staring contest between Titow and me. His detective had no better luck than the boss. Titow refused to respond to anything. The detective poked him and pushed his shoulder but still got no response.
Brandt pulled his detective out of the fray. He looked at me while he spoke. “We will release him. He refuses to answer, and we have no evidence to hold him. He will remain under observation and will not be free to leave the area. That is all we can do. Unless there is something more you have not told us, Mr. Stearne.”
Mercury stood behind Titow with a dark and serious look. Why you putting up with this crap, homie?
I said, He knows I’m holding out on him, and he’s right. If I told him about the Knights of Mithras or the Poison Stone, he’d lock me up in the looney bin.
Mercury said, Are you looney? You talk to me every day, and that makes you as sane as they come. So why put up with this crap?
I squinted at my discarded deity. What do you mean?
Mercury said, Dude, he ran out of questions to ask you a long time ago. He can’t hold you here legally, and he knows you’re going to hunt down Mr. Baldy the minute he releases you, so he trotted out Artur Titow just to make you stick around. So, like I said, why are you putting up with this?
My mythological god had a good point. I didn’t have time to hear Brandt’s elaborate presentation on how much he was doing to find Jenny’s killer. I didn’t care what, if anything, he did about it. He could never do enough because the Germans got rid of the death penalty in 1949. Killing Mr. Baldy wouldn’t bring her back, but it would make me feel better. And at that moment, I’d never felt worse.
Releasing Titow could work for me. I could follow him back to Mr. Baldy. But, come to think of it, he was a professional. He wouldn’t go back if he thought I might follow him. Therefore, Titow served no purpose to me. And, from what I could tell, he served no purpose to Brandt or Germany either.
I figured most Muslims in Europe, practicing or not, spoke Arabic to keep up socially. It was a distant cousin to the Turkish dialect of Turkmenistan, but it was worth a shot. In the language I had learned during my many years fighting Middle Eastern wars, I said, “You are a disgrace. You failed to complete your mission and you failed to fall on your sword like an honorable Knight of Mithras.”
His expression leaned to curious. He refused to speak, but he communicated his inability to fall on his sword by rattling the handcuffs that bound him.
Brandt looked at me with shock. “What is this? What are you saying to him?”
Continuing in Arabic, I said, “Did they take your cyanide capsule from you?”
Titow scowled. Then he realized I was right. It was the only honorable way out for a man belonging to a Roman society. He turned up his resolve. His jaw started working. In a few seconds, I heard him swallow.
Immediately, the officers around him knew something was wrong. In seconds he convulsed and foamed at the mouth.
Brandt turned to me. “What has happened? What did you do?”
“Never touched him,” I said.
I turned and marched to the exit. Miguel and Pavard fell in behind me.
CHAPTER 61
Captain Batyr Amanow glanced at the low-slung clouds darkening the sky, then checked his ringing phone. Griffith calling. Amanow had heard nothing from the Protector all day. Would Griffith gloat or offer himself up for slaughter? Only one way to find out. He answered.
“It’s been good competing with you,” Griffith said. “It made me stronger. For that I thank you.”
A concession? The tone of voice contradicted that idea. “Get to your point, American.”
“No chit-chat, Captain?” Griffith snorted. “Then here it is. Someone pulled the plug on your Protector. Literally. He’s gone. Dead. Useless to you. The Board amended his last orders and installed me as Protector. I’m calling to let you know—you are hereby decommissioned, effective immediately. If you’ve committed any crimes, and I’m sure you have, it would be best to turn yourself into the local authorities. Your legal expenses will not be paid. Good day.”
Amanow stared at the phone. Griffith had disconnected.
He pulled up his email. One from the Protector had arrived minutes earlier. It confirmed Griffith’s statement. He replied. Seconds later, the email bounced back, undeliverable. He tried texting the Protector. An automatic reply read, “This phone is no longer in service.”
As he stared at his screen, a new message appeared. “Remote security wipe in progress. This phone will be decommissioned in sixty seconds.”
Amanow tried to catch his breath. How had everything gone so wrong, so fast?
He looked at his men as they staged their equipment for their planned exfiltration. Everything before him was all he had left. Twenty-six men, several tons of gear, and plenty of firepower. He would have to rethink his exit strategy. Again.
His plan had been to force three world leaders to handle the Poison Stone in exchange for the safe return of their central bankers. The exchange was an easy decision for the leaders to make. Griffith was the patsy who would deliver the Stone and no doubt be detained as a conspirator. A conspirator the BND officer, Artur Titow, would later dispatch for him. It was a perfect plan. One that would have won him the job of Protector.
Then Jacob Stearne came into the picture, bringing his little bitch, and half the BND. The Knights had been forced to abort. Now his men were in the middle of a rushed exfil plan. They had to get out of the country before the authorities closed in on them. And on top of it all, that racist American controlled the Knights of Mithras. Without the Protector, the Board had turned on him. They had only tolerated the Protector and his cadre of Turkmen because he solved so many Eastern European problems for the
m. The Board had always looked down on Amanow and the Turkmen. They’d been used. And now that they were no longer useful, they were discarded like trash.
To hell with them. He would kill them in their sleep.
An aide ran to him. “Sir, our scout reports roadblocks on all roads leaving town. The train station is guarded as well.”
“Local or Austrian Federal?”
“Both, sir. Local police set them up; EKO Cobra reinforcements are arriving in squads.” His man referred to Austria’s national SWAT team.
An ad hoc operation. Effective nonetheless. With twenty-six Knights, Amanow could easily rush one barricade. But given the narrow confines of the Alpine valley, it would only serve to alert a larger force against them. He considered his advantages: superior fighters, mountain terrain, two interconnected caves behind him, and a tremendous cache of weapons. An all-out battle against EKO Cobra would be a losing proposition in the end. But his Knights would die defending him.
He checked the rounds in his silver Scorpion. It was fully loaded.
He gathered his Knights. When they settled before him, he said, “Gentlemen, you are the bravest, most resolute men I have ever led. When we were home, preparing for this trial, I observed each of you. You were then the most humble, honorable, and peaceful men the world has ever known. When our hardships and battles began, you did not shrink and did not falter. You rose up like ferocious animals. You drove your anger, flexed your muscles, and raged against our enemies. No fear overcame you, no conscience held you back. For that, I am most proud.
“And now, with great sadness, I must report, the enemies of law and order gather in the valley below us. Before nightfall, they will attempt to overpower us. But we will fight to the last man. Whoever survives this night will avenge our deaths.”
Amanow examined their eyes.