140914383X

by Raymond Khoury

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Author

  The End Game

  THE END GAME

  Raymond Khoury

  Copyright © Raymond Khoury 2016

  The right of Raymond Khoury to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  RAYMOND KHOURY is the New York Times and international bestselling author of four previous Reilly thrillers: The Last Templar (his debut), The Templar Salvation, The Devil’s Elixir and Rasputin’s Shadow, as well as two standalone thrillers, The Sanctuary and The Sign. His work in film and television includes the BBC’s BAFTA award-winning spy series Spooks (MI:5 in the US) and the ground-breaking crime series Waking the Dead.

  Connect with him at www.facebook.com/lasttemplar and find out more about his work on his website at www.raymondkhoury.com

  Also by Raymond Khoury

  The Last Templar

  The Sanctuary

  The Sign

  The Templar Salvation

  The Devil’s Elixir

  Rasputin’s Shadow

  “History, mystery, suspense, and action—Khoury knows the recipe for a good read.”

  —Library Journal on Rasputin’s Shadow

  “A fast-paced thrill-ride… a fine thriller to start the new year with.”

  —Booklist on The Devil’s Elixir

  “A world-class writer of pure-bred thrillers … [joins] Connelly, Child, Crais & Co at the top table–a feat this achieves with aplomb.”

  —The Telegraph (UK) on The Devil’s Elixir

  “Vivid, energetic scenes ensure that Khoury’s tale never falters or bores. It’s the sort of novel that could make a colorful movie, but meanwhile, enjoy the book.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on The Devil’s Elixir

  “Sublime narrative … a full-throttle action-adventure thriller wrapped in a political cautionary tale with a gratifyingly eloquent center.”

  —Library Journal on The Templar Salvation

  “A thoughtful book with a powerful message and yet also a thrilling read with compelling, well-developed characters. Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal on The Sign

  “Khoury’s thrillers engage the reader’s mind, even as they move at a breakneck pace. Readers who like their thrillers to have a solid intellectual component will enjoy Khoury’s books very much. Given the high quality of each of his novels, it seems fair to say that he may be around for a while.”

  —Booklist on The Sign (Starred Review)

  “This story captivates with plausibility and imagination. It’s fiercely intelligent and equally curious. [Khoury] has an intense brand of storytelling all his own. The Sign is a prize to be savored.”

  —Steve Berry, bestselling author of The 14th Colony, on The Sign

  “A pulse-pounding thriller that spans continents in pursuit of an audacious if implausible hi-tech conspiracy to reshape the global balance of power, told in 85 punchy chapters, which cries out Hollywood blockbuster.”

  —The Telegraph (UK) on The Sign

  “Maybe the most ambitious fictional work of 2007… enough adventure, excitement and speculation to fill three books.”

  —Joe Hartlaub, Bookreporter.com on The Sanctuary

  “Khoury makes the conspiracy feel utterly believable and imbues his characters with infectious passion for finding the truth. A surefire hit with fans of conspiracy-based historical thrillers.”

  —Booklist on The Sanctuary

  “Remember the impact of The Last Templar? Well, here we go again. More dual time (1750 and 2003), this explores the secret of human longevity. Terrific Stuff.”

  —Bookseller Magazine on The Sanctuary

  “Fans of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code who are searching for another outstanding historical thriller need look no further than Raymond Khoury’s spectacular debut novel … An insanely fast paced thriller that includes breathtaking twists and jaw-dropping bombshells on practically every page, Khoury’s conspiracy-laden debut — a blend of historical fiction, suspense, romance, and wild religious speculation — will open up a can of existential worms that will be all but impossible to close … The highly volatile subject matter discussed within The Last Templar will spark endless hours of heated debate — and the conclusion (oh, the brilliant conclusion!) will leave readers absolutely dumbstruck.”

  —Paul G Allen, Barnes & Noble Editor on The Last Templar

  “Any reader encountering The Last Templar will want 1) a film version, and 2) more novels from Khoury, not necessarily in that order. Recommended.”

  —Joe Hartlaub, Bookreporter.com on The Last Templar

  THE END GAME

  Prologue

  Kyle Rossetti felt the needle puncture his skin and slide deep into his lower back.

  Again.

  The pain was beyond compare. An electrical spasm ripped through his legs, but the duct tape holding him pressed down against the metal table caused the jolt to rebound back into the bone, then out again toward the surface of his skin in a cycle of reverberating suffering.

  Eventually, mercifully, the agony subsided.

  “How attached are you to the notion of being able to run?”

  The voice came from the man standing directly behind him. That he was a man was all Rossetti knew about his captor. Having not laid eyes on him at any point and with his head taped tight against the table, he had no sense of what the man looked like. The voice was neutral, calm, but filled with purpose. The man’s accent gave away nothing except that he was American, or had at least lived in America for most of his life.

  “I can tell you permanent neurological injury is rare,” the man added. “At least, when the needle is inserted by a doctor. Which, sadly, I’m not. The numbness, the tingling and the pain—they could just be side effects of what I’m doing. Then again, they could be signs of irreversible, permanent damage. I couldn’t tell you, either way.”

  Rossetti already understood the perverse logic behind this particularly twisted method of torture. The instinct of a victim is always to struggle, to do absolutely anything to avoid the source of pain. With a three-inch needle stuck in your spine, you’ll do pretty much anything you can to stay completely still, which means you won’t struggle and you won’t even consider trying to free yourself, even if that were possible. Assuming you could stay still and not react to the extreme pain searing through you.

  The sweat that had pooled under Rossetti’s chest felt cold and clammy, as did the saliva that had seeped from his mouth. It was as if fear itself had oozed out through his pores.

  “I’ll ask you again, and if you don’t give me a better answer, I’ll close my eyes and start to move the needle around in there. Then we’ll both be at the mercy of whatever power controls the random chaos of the universe.”

  Rossetti took a deep breath.

  He was tough, by any standard. He’d covered numerous wars, including five months embedded with the Eighty-second Airborne in Afghanistan. He’d narrowly avoided death way more times than he could remember—or was even aware of, for that matter. He’d been bullied by lawyers, corporate stooges and government agencies. He’d stood before a congressional hearing and
steadfastly refused to divulge his sources, even when threatened with treason. On that particular occasion, he’d ended up spending over four months in prison until his sentence was revoked on appeal. Writing about the experience—how he’d barely managed to avoid the drugs, violence and degradation that seemed to be commonplace in the country’s correctional facilities, though exactly what they were supposed to be correcting, and how, seemed to have long been forgotten—had earned him a George Polk award, to add to his Pulitzer. He never thought of himself as particularly brave, though he had often been described as such by his colleagues and by those members of the public that still believed in freedom of the press and agreed with the notion of their government being held to account.

  Right now, he needed all the bravery he could muster, although he already knew that it probably wouldn’t be enough.

  When he’d been grabbed from outside his apartment at the edge of Harlem in the middle of the night and bundled into a van, it had been instantly clear to him that it had to be connected to the mysterious recent call he’d received. With a sinking heart and a lurching gut, he had realized that his source’s instructions not to talk to anyone about what he’d been told, nor attempt any form of research—whether verbal or digital—had been not only well intentioned, but also wise and very specifically designed to keep Rossetti alive. Not out of any sense of decency, but simply so he could share with the public whatever it was that his source wanted to get off his chest. And the same investigative impulse that had singled him out as the journalist most worthy of this scoop was the one that had landed him here. And, he realized, would most likely lead to his demise. People didn’t torture you that intensely if they weren’t already intending to finish you off afterwards.

  The voice said, “I’ll ask you one last time. Who contacted you? What did they give you? Who did you share it with?”

  He struggled to form the words. “No one. I swear. I told you everything I know. You think I wouldn’t, given . . . this?”

  “That’s just not good enough, Kyle.”

  The man standing behind him pushed on the needle.

  A supernova of pain erupted inside Rossetti’s spine.

  The journalist howled, his eyesight clouding up from the tears. He was on the edge of fainting. Besides being comprehensively the worst thing Rossetti had experienced in his thirty-eight years, the pain was also the most terrifying as it carried with it the potential for the kind of spinal trauma that could cause paralysis.

  Paralysis of exactly what, though, was a lottery.

  He felt the air move against his bare skin as the man shifted on his feet. “You might need to find yourself a new apartment. Those stairs, with a wheelchair—it’s not going to work.”

  His torturer pushed the needle slightly deeper.

  This time, the pain was beyond excruciating, and only started to subside when the needle was edged back, away from the nerve. As it did, Rossetti wasn’t sure he could feel his feet anymore.

  He gasped with relief. “Please. Just say a name. Any name you want. I’ll confirm it’s him. Just . . . stop. Please.”

  The man sighed, then pulled out the needle. It clanged as he dropped it against the metal table. He then snapped off his gloves and let them fall to the ground.

  He stood motionless, his breathing slow and steady.

  Rossetti felt like a trapdoor had just opened beneath him, but he had yet to fall through. He knew it was the feeling you get when something really bad is about to happen, something you have zero ability to stop. He knew he only had a small window left. He knew that what he said now would probably determine whether he lived or died.

  “I don’t know who he is. Assuming it’s even a ‘he.’”

  “Because of the voice box?”

  “Yes. He said he’d tell me everything at the meeting. Then he didn’t show. That’s all I know—I swear.”

  “But that’s not everything, is it?”

  Rossetti’s mouth felt as parched as the valley in Afghanistan where he’d watched a soldier bleed to death, and despite the warm air in what seemed to be a windowless room, his body now felt icy cold.

  “That’s all I know, I swear. Just what he said on the phone about janitors and the blind. But it’s meaningless, totally meaningless. I don’t know what it means.”

  There was the sound of a syringe drawing liquid out of a vial. Then two small, dull splashes as a couple of drops hit the metal table. The man clearly didn’t want to risk injecting air into his victim’s bloodstream.

  Rossetti’s mind raced with alarm, bouncing against conflicting thoughts, desperately grabbing at anything that carried a hint of comfort. He wondered if the man was going to try some kind of truth serum, but surely the man would have tried that first. He hadn’t seen the man’s face. Didn’t that mean they weren’t going to kill him? But why inject him then? He was already fully immobilized. Unless they were going to move him. But why move him unless they were going to take him home? Yes. That had to be it. They were going to take him home as if nothing had happened.

  He’d forget the whole thing. Maybe leave the job altogether. Maybe it was time for a change. Maybe he and his wife could finally have the kids she’d been yearning for since they got married.

  His rampaging thoughts were interrupted by the needle as it jabbed into his neck and delivered the syringe’s contents directly into his vein. He quickly felt a strange warmth flood through his body and, as his consciousness started to fade, he heard the man drop the syringe on the metal table then walk around it and bend down so he was staring into Rosetti’s eyes.

  The journalist found himself looking into the man’s face. There was nothing that unique about him, nothing vaguely memorable. Just an expressionless mannequin, a blank template for a male human specimen.

  The man nodded, gently. “I believe you.”

  Rossetti tried to find some solace, some hope, in the words as his eyes closed on the man’s dead stare and he slipped into unconsciousness.

  His hopes were to prove unfounded.

  The next time he opened his eyes, his entire body would be engulfed by flames.

  TUESDAY

  1

  Allentown, New Jersey

  I really didn’t want to be here. Then again, who would?

  Three o’clock in the morning, me and my partner Nick Aparo, in our unmarked SUV, parked on a dark street in the middle of nowhere with the engine off, freezing our nuts off, watching, waiting for the go signal, making sure our target didn’t vaporize before we nabbed him.

  Don’t get me wrong. This is my job. I do it by choice. I do it because I believe in it, because I think what we do, as special agents of the FBI, is important. And the guy in our crosshairs on this particular night deserved our full attention, no question.

  It’s just that I had bigger fish to fry. White whales, in fact, ones neither Nick nor the Bureau could know about. But more on that later.

  Right now, all I can tell you is that we’d spent countless hours staring through the condensation-clouded windscreen and the snow flurries outside at the single-story house up and across the street, the one with the hypnotic, mind-numbing Christmas lights twinkling along the edge of its roof, and I was exhausted. We’d been at it for days.

  Whatever our target was doing inside his house, he was doing it in considerably more warmth than us poor saps who were sworn to bring him to justice. We were sitting in north of a hundred thousand dollars of customized FBI vehicle and the heated seats had still managed to conk out, leaving the two of us shivering like we were being continuously tasered. Running the engine while the whole street slept was not an option. Not unless we wanted to give our target a clear heads-up.

  On the positive side, at least no one could see us. In terms of discretion, sitting in a snow-covered vehicle in a line of snow-covered vehicles was pretty much ideal. It just meant we had to rely on the four video feeds on our laptop, the ones coming from cameras we’d managed to set up on our target.

  The blizzard had
stopped an hour ago, adding a more substantial covering to the inch that had refused to thaw. Now it was snowing again. This cold front was definitely winning in terms of historic meteorological bragging rights. I’ve got to admit, it was exhausting. The body burns up energy trying to stay warm, and at three in the morning, after several nights of this, I was running low on juice.

  I watched my breath billowing out in front of my eyes as I zipped up my FBI parka, the cold metal of the zip reaching its endpoint against my nose. Any more coffee and there was zero chance of sleep when I finally made it home—in time to watch the sun rise as I zoned out against a deeply asleep Tess.

  Nick, on the other hand, had no such concerns and was pouring himself yet another mug from the five-liter flask before sipping the steaming, bitter liquid like it had been lovingly made by his favorite barista. He looked ridiculous in his big, Russian-style fur hat, the flaps of which he had pulled right down over his ears, but nothing I said was going to make him lose it. At least he was watching the house with me and not sitting there flicking through an endless array of female Tinder offerings while subjecting them to the incessant vocal critique that usually accompanied his left- and right-swipes, which was his MO on previous stakeouts. Small mercies, I guess.

  The subject of our impromptu igloo huddle was called Jake Daland.

  Daland was an interesting target, a nice change from the Jihadist scumbags hogging our work load. He was the founder and head honcho of Maxiplenty, which had taken over from Silk Road after we shut down that online drugs marketplace and arrested its kingpin. Like Silk Road, Maxiplenty was a bazaar that sat in the hidden part of the internet, the dark net, but it was bigger and better, and it had one crucial innovation: it was a barter-only site. Daland had come up with a neat way to try to avoid the fate of Silk Road by avoiding financial transactions altogether: no cash, no checks, no credit cards, no Bitcoins. At Maxiplenty, you could do anything you wanted—get hold of drugs, guns, explosives, launder money, or have someone killed—provided you had something you could trade for it. Despite its tongue-in-cheek name, a Daland twist on a Newspeak term from George Orwell’s 1984, Maxiplenty had become a virtual clubhouse for the depraved, a hub for some pretty nasty stuff. Which is why we were here, waiting for word that power had been cut to Daland’s house before we stormed in and shut him down.