She just stared at it.
"Snap out of it. You have a gun right there."
She fumbled with it for a moment and brought it up to point it at him.
"Safety."
She looked down and found the safety lever and pushed it to the off position.
"Now what?" Preacher asked.
"You're the one who brought the guns. What are you going to do?"
Preacher held his aim between Abbie's eyes.
"Wait. Wait. Why are you doing this?"
"Do you think it's loaded?" Preacher nodded at the gun in her hand.
"I don't know."
"You know guns. You shot with your uncle at his place up in the hills."
"Again, why are you doing this? What do you want from me? You could have just killed me in New York." She took a step backward but kept the gun aimed at Preacher's chest.
"Is it loaded?" He asked.
Abbie looked down, turned the gun sideways and then reached down and popped the magazine clip release. The full clip dropped out into her hand. Problem was, in that second and a half, Preacher leapt forward and poked the barrel of his gun to Abbie's forehead.
"What is the make and type of your gun?" No smile in his voice or on his face.
"Sig Sauer 9 millimeter." She stammered.
But Preacher also saw she wasn't scared really. She was pissed. Good.
"How many rounds?"
"Sixteen."
"Sixteen rounds and you couldn't tell if the gun was loaded from the weight?" He was dead serious.
"I don't know the gun. Don't know the weight."
"This is the second time that gun has been in your hand. A handgun with a full clip can be the thing that keeps you alive, allows you to kill others to survive."
Preacher stopped talking and looked to the right, into the distance. One might think he heard something over there. Someone who's been around one of the world's preeminent killers knows otherwise.
Within the next second, the hoped for response occurred. The distinctive sound of a magazine clip being jammed into the gun's magazine well. Preacher turned back to watch Abbie bring the gun up to his midsection.
He leaned right and brought his left arm up in an outward sweeping motion, which levered her gun away. Now, here's the thing. No real telling the cause of the next event. Could have been the pushing away, or maybe nerves or maybe just a few pounds of pressure exerted by a clenched forefinger. Whatever it was, the Sig Sauer 9mm in Abbie's right hand fired.
The muzzle wasn't quite clear of Preacher's left arm. The 9mm round, propelled at a speed somewhere around 3,200-feet-per-second exploded through Preacher's heavy jacket, the sleeve of his flannel shirt and right through several layers of skin covering the triceps muscle on the outside of his arm.
Not long after the bullet passed through, blood proceeded to flow. But before that, Preacher grabbed the gun in Abbie's hand and wrenched it, twisting as he pushed the gun down. He pulled the gun he had at her head away in the process.
Preacher blinked.
From above, Lance floated and watched. What's next?
Abbie's face changed from shock to anger. She shot her left hand up to Preacher's face with nails bared. Full claw mode. Instead of having his eyes clawed out, Preacher did what anyone would do, he brought his face, which was attached to his head, right through Abbie's attempted scratch and smashed his forehead into hers.
Vicious head butt. Her hand served as something of a buffer for the blow.
Abbie's knees gave and she dropped like a bag of groceries. Preacher still held her right hand with the gun in it. She looked up through layers of mist. He twisted the gun free and took a few steps backward.
Abbie sat there stunned for 20 seconds just shaking her head. She closed her eyes and dropped her head. When she lifted back up with eyes open, she definitely looked pissed. "What the hell is wrong with you?" She whispered and glowered at him.
Preacher looked down on himself through Lance's eyes. He smiled at what he saw. A dude standing there with two guns, arm bleeding, totally ticked off woman dumped on the trail in front of him. This is going exceptionally well.
And, as usual, normal humans, those at least without screwy satellite vision of their surroundings, don't see what's so funny. Preacher looked up. Lance had the same smile. He wasn't any help. Lance took his cue and took off, up through the clouds, up miles and miles. When he got up there to the blue-black edge of space and atmosphere he turned around and looked down. The globe was blue and white and green and more.
Now this was really something. This thing could spin and spin and spin some more and he would just keep watching. He'd been up here thousands of times. He liked it here in this frozen spot. He thought about going further, just heading out to space and maybe never coming back. But that is foolish. Never happen.
He turned back. She was down there. Both his girls were. He might be a little touched, but he would never leave this world.
"Neil," Abbie snapped. "Or whatever the hell your name is. What are you doing? What the hell is wrong with you?"
Snapped him back down to earth. Too bad.
"What did you do wrong?" He asked.
"I don't know. You tell me. I'd sure like to know what I did to deserve this."
"Fifty-five seconds ago, what did you do wrong?"
She just glared at him. But wheels were turning behind those eyes.
"You threw a gun at me." She spat at him.
"That was 72 seconds ago. What did you do after that?"
"Jesus. You had a gun pointed at me. I don't know what I did."
Preacher gave nothing away easily. "You can see what you did. I'm watching you do it right now."
"I don't have your damn photographic memory. I can't see every moment."
"Wrong. I told you we all have photographic memory. Every human. Every moment, everything you have ever seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled is in there. No trash folder to empty. Too easy to let it go, fade into the recesses within seconds. Think."
"Go to hell. Not playing this game."
Preacher raised both guns and aimed at her. "Need help?"
"Ooo, scared. What do you want from me?"
"Tell me what you did wrong when I tossed you this gun?" He waved the one in his left hand.
She shook her head some more. "I checked the clip."
"Before that."
Nothing from her.
Preacher's turn to shake his head. "Your eyes."
She thought for a few seconds. Closed her eyes. She went back nearly two minutes ago. She looked down at the gun in her hands. She pressed the magazine release. She popped the clip out. Stop. Go back.
"I looked down."
"Which means?"
She closed her eyes. "I looked away from you."
"Got it." Preacher came forward a couple of steps and bent to reach out and offer her the Sig Sauer in his left hand.
Abbie didn't move. Didn't accept the weapon. "Take it."
"No." She turned her head away and reached up to feel the red lump on her forehead. She pressed fingers to the knot gingerly. "I don't want it. Don't want any part of you, your games."
"No game. This is real, live. You're operational."
She kept her face aimed away from him. "Operational? I'm an auditor."
"You have been operational for three years and four months." Preacher dropped the gun beside her and stepped back.
"I joined the CIA three years and one month ago." Abbie turned back to face him. She looked up with a wry smile. "Photographic memory, but not chronological?"
Preacher smiled back at her and squatted down to be at her level. "Three years, three months and 29 days ago you left your previous place of employment at a big six accounting firm. You decided to take a couple of months and travel through Europe before starting your next gig. You landed in London, then Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Lucerne, Florence, Amalfi Coast, Rome, Marseilles, Barcelona, Toledo, Lisbon."
Only a
blank stare from Abbie.
"Why didn't you go to Paris? Too many tourists?"
The blank stare slowly turned into a searing glare. Looked like lasers could shoot from those blue eyes. "How?"
"It's okay. Take a minute."
Abbie brought her knees up, wrapped her arms around her legs and dropped her head to rest in the little cradle between kneecaps. When she spoke, she sounded far away, distant. "Why are you doing this?" She sighed. "Freaking me out. I'm freaked out. That's what you wanted, right?"
He stayed there. Close, but out of reach. Gave her some space.
The silence between them allowed him to go join Lance up at 1,500-feet and gaze down in wonder at the beautiful hills and low mountains spreading into the distance. Preacher especially liked that the short run trail he and Abbie were on joined up with the Appalachian Trail just over the next ridge. Cool.
"Did you know the Appalachian Trail is more than 2,200 miles long?" Preacher stood up and looked around, taking in the still pristine forest surrounding them. "Stretches from Georgia to Maine. Serious stuff, hiking the entire distance."
No response from Abbie. She kept her head tucked.
"I know a guy who has hiked this one, the Continental Divide Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. They call it the triple crown of hiking."
"Great. Fantastic. Really cool." Abbie was completely emotionless in her response.
Preacher bent back down to her level. "Hey, did you know the groundhog and the woodchuck are the same thing? Just doesn't sound the same - 'how much ground would a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?' Not awesome." His smile waited for her when she lifted her head.
She just shook said head.
"Do you know what this is called?"
"What?"
"What I'm doing right now?"
"Saying weird things? Being nonsensical? Bullshit." She almost smiled.
"This is called distracting the psychotic break." He smiled a little broader. "Listing several completely disjointed items, issues, topics, whatever, requires the person experiencing the psychotic break to interrupt their train of thought, therefore distracting them from whatever they are focusing on during their episode of psychosis."
Abbie squinched up her face. Her eyes pulled together, nose flared. Her procerus muscle underneath the skin of her forehead and nose did its job. He had to work very hard to not be distracted by all the pieces and parts that comprised her face, let alone the rest of her. He was also waiting for the Men at Work song to wrap up the final chorus.
"Psychosis?" Her head tilted slightly sideways. "You think I'm having a psychotic episode? You're crazy. Not kidding. You are clinically insane."
"Didn't say you're having a psychotic break. Said this method is used for that and with people going through a difficult time." He thought about talking about Abbie's mother and how she undoubtedly did this very thing when her mother was going through one of her episodes. But he left that for another time.
"Yes, this is a difficult time. I'm stuck out here with a murderer who is quite insane." She responded. "Really, are you off your medication? You are definitely schizophrenic."
Not far off.
"What's the first thing you did wrong here?"
"Christ, again? Change the subject. Change the subject. Change the subject. Classic schizophrenia."
He leaned in. "Very first thing."
"Coming out here."
Preacher shot up to full standing position. "Bingo. Nailed it." He proceeded to step over to the backpack and jam the two handguns back into one of the many pockets. He turned back to Abbie and extended his gloved hand.
She didn't accept it.
"Up, let's go. We are going to put in seven miles over some pretty good terrain before we're done."
"No way. I'm not going anywhere with you." She shook her head.
"Abigail. You're already with me. I've been with you for nearly six years. I've been with you every step of the way from UVA Law, your first job and the past three years at the CIA. You are very important to me. Your success in your work and your life is very important to me."
More head shaking. Disbelief all over her face.
"I know. This is difficult, really difficult. Just get up and come for a long walk through the woods with me and I'll tell you a story, a really good story. It has a great hero in it."
"I, I don't..."
"Yep. Neither did I when this happened to me. Come with me and I'll tell you everything... mostly everything." He smiled down at her and nodded to his outstretched hand. "Come on."
She hesitantly took his hand and he pulled her up to her feet.
Chapter 29
"So when?" Wyrick interrupted his old boss.
"Soon." Seibel continued to draw his spider web on the whiteboard. They were in the tiny conference room of a tiny motel outside Huntington, West Virginia. The two of them could have met anywhere, but Seibel liked this place. Some of his most creative brainstorming sessions were held here.
In fact, in this very room, he and Wyrick and Braden devised a plan for developing a field resource to implant into Smelinsky's operations. The idea of Marta was fleshed out in this room nearly two decades earlier. But that's another story. The addition of a whiteboard with erasable markers a few years ago made the exercise a bit more fun.
"How soon?" Wyrick wasn't giving up. "Details."
"I told you. Two weeks max, then we'll tell him."
"And you really believe he won't find out before then? You realize what happens if he does." Wyrick finished the statement and stuffed a couple more french fries in his mouth. "Dangerous." He muttered with a mouthful.
"Fully aware of the danger. Thank you." Seibel drew one more line with the black marker then stepped back from the board to admire his masterpiece.
It was a marvel of color and structure and movement and pieces and parts. At the center of the masterpiece were the letters AQ. All of his writing and drawing and gesticulating over the past 45 minutes was for the sole purpose of getting al-Qaeda. Key players were listed. Those already taken off the board by Preacher and Fuchs had red lines drawn through their names. It was a web and a vise and a trap and chessboard and a flowchart and more.
Seibel had obviously been working on it in his head and in his notebook for some time. Getting it all out onto the 5-foot by 6-foot whiteboard was cathartic for the old spy. He could see it all in his head. Now he had a visual rendition of his master plan that he could share with others.
"You see it, right?" Seibel asked, eyes still glued to the board.
"I see it. I see the parts I need to make happen. I see the little bits of black magic you need Preacher and Foxy to perform. That is a lot of killing." Wyrick took a swig of soda from the paper cup and straw. Just about gone. "Can't help but notice you don't have anything on here about the immediate matter."
Seibel turned to his partner of sorts from nearly four decades of the blackest of black ops work. "Not going to drop it, huh?"
"Hell no. That little matter Broley and the young auditor discovered could blow your whole plan to smithereens." Wyrick pointed at the board. "It already cost a few people their lives."
"I was there. No need to discuss it again." Seibel didn't want to speak of the former CIA director. Old news, even though the man's 'suicide' was still causing shockwaves in D.C.
"Preacher is listed up there more than a dozen times. Remove him from the equation and the entire game plan collapses. Fuchs can't pick up Preacher's load. Hell, no one can. You need to tell him."
"Jesus, I know. And you do realize this is all the handy work of Braden, right? He planted this stuff and brought it to life. He's the damn gift that just keeps on giving. Two weeks. I need two weeks. Preacher is active in the field, in the zone. The young auditor is a big reason why." Seibel leaned against the wall. Brought the black marker up and tapped his chin with it. "He brought her in. No telling what he is thinking, but for whatever reason, he is on fire. Four names with red lines up there in less than three wee
ks. He's putting Miss Ross through a crash course in murder and mayhem Preacher-style. And every day she is with him is a day she is not digging through files for Broley."
Seibel continued to tap his chin with marker as his eyes darted around the intricate schematic on the white board.
"Luckily that window is closing for Broley. She won't be going back to work for him for very long, if at all. But the damage is already done. She is very good." Wyrick leaned back in his chair as his eyes darted around the board.
"She found things you personally eliminated." Seibel stopped the chin tapping. "She's undoubtedly very skilled at finding those invisible needles in transparent hay stacks. Preacher definitely recognized it."
Seibel stepped over and sat down at the other side of the conference table from Wyrick, finally turning his back to his momentous work of whiteboard art. "I don't think there is a even a question as to whether she found that video of Marta. I'm certain."
"She was smart enough to run it through the DARPA FERET voodoo magic." Wyrick shook his head.
"Damn stuff. Facial recognition software is going to ruin all the fun of this job?" Seibel joined Wyrick is shaking his head. FERET is the acronym for facial recognition technology funded and provided to commercial entities by the government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA. As if the damn Internet wasn't bad enough, DARPA had to screw up everything by letting nosey computers scan endless images of faces until it finds a match.
"Absolutely no idea where she found that footage from the hospital in Spain." Wyrick added.
The two of them just looked at each other. Seibel and Wyrick had literally seen it all in 38-plus years of working together. Anything and everything under the sun and moon and stars in the spying game had been employed by either or both of them. Fuchs and Marta and Lance were just three of their special projects along the way.
But this one was going to break things. Seibel looked away. "No coming back from this."
He didn't need to explain. Wyrick knew. Everything was borrowed time now. Lance, Preacher, whoever the hell he is, would never be the same.
"Didn't take but a second to see the resemblance." Wyrick broke the silence.
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