World Without End

by Chris Mooney

  Hurry up and kill him, the voice had said. Conway was alert now.

  Ready.

  Something made of glass hit the floor. Clink, it was a vial. Con-way saw it roll past his head. Someone was straddling him. It was the cameraman, Paul, and he was holding a syringe. He looked at Con-way, who was awake.

  "Oh shit," Paul said.

  Paul shifted the syringe in his right hand so it was now pointed like a dagger, his thumb on the plunger, bringing the needle down fast. Conway planted his knee hard in the man's scrotum. Paul's body went rigid; the plan that had been so firmly planted in his eyes evaporated and gave way to the god-awful bolt of nauseous pain exploding deep in his loins. He still tried to bring the needle down, but his strength was gone. Conway's left arm came up, blocking Paul's forearm, and using his momentum sent Paul's balled fist crashing against the floor, snapping the needle. Conway brought up his right arm, swiping his elbow hard across the man's face and shattering his nose. The cameraman tumbled off him and buried his bleeding face in his hands.

  Conway scrambled to his knees. The disorientation was still with him; he had to grab the edge of the seat to keep from falling. The stun baton was on the floor. With his left hand Conway picked the stun baton up, turned it on and shoved the dancing electric spark right into the guy's scrotum. He watched Paul quiver until he slumped into unconsciousness, and then moved the baton away and turned toward the pilot's cabin.

  The plane banked hard right; the floor tilted back and Conway lost his balance. He let go of the stun baton and tried to grab the pilot's headrest, missed it, and then tried to grab onto something, anything.

  He slid out the door like trash being spit from a chute. The last thing Conway saw before being swallowed by the sky was the altimeter reading: 9,500 feet.

  On his back with his arms and legs outstretched, the wind roaring past his ears, Conway twirled and twirled and twirled through the blue sea of sky. Everything was spinning.

  Get your bearings, quick.

  He closed his eyes. A moment later the world stopped spinning. The wind pushed against his back and roared past his ears. He tucked his knees into his chest and then wrapped his arms around his legs so that he looked like a meteor hurling toward the earth. Using his weight, Conway rolled forward onto his stomach and in one motion stretched out his arms and straightened out his legs, tucking his feet back. Through his wind goggles he saw the stretches of dead green fields. He pulled the cord and with a loud whoosh! and a hard yank was pulled back into the air. Conway was floating now.

  The Cessna flew away from him, heading east back to the skydiving school, the building looking as small as a Monopoly piece. Con-way navigated his way toward the school.

  Dixon'sfine, he told himself. By now, the IWAC surveillance team knew something had gone wrong with the operation and had moved the Hazard Team into position to rescue Dixon-probably had the goddamn school secured. The IWAC team could pinpoint Dixon's location anywhere on the planet through the GPS transmitter placed inside his watch.

  And what if Angel Eyes has removed the watch?

  There were the transmitters placed inside Dixon's shoes, belt, and wallet. His location could be pinpointed; he couldn't just vanish.

  And what if IWAC doesn't know Dixon is in trouble?

  Conway felt a cold wave of panic move through him.

  You said it yourself. This guy has a habit of making things disappear.

  What if he No. The IWAC team had to know.

  And -what if they don't, Steve? You heard what the pilot said: "Get rid of his watch." Then the cameraman Paul responded, "I fried it. No way can they hear us." Angel Eyes knows about you, Steve, and he knows about IWAC and the teams that's why his men removed your watch. The fact that he kidnaped Dixon means one thing.

  Angel Eyes was going to use Dixon to break into Praxis and steal the military suit.

  Pasha.

  Conway felt his body grow still, his mind replaying what had just happened in the plane.

  If they knew about me, then they know about her. About the rest of us.

  Conway needed to land. Quick.

  Two hundred miles away from the skydiving school, Martin Spader, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, sat at a circular table at a coffee shop inside the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. A blueberry scone lay uneaten on a white plate and a copy of the Wall Street Journal lay spread across the table. Spader pushed the eyeglasses back up his nose, his ears covered by a pair of headphones attached to the Walkman clipped to his belt, and drank his coffee while he read the newspaper. Every once in a while he would look up from his reading and scan the area around Terminal D, the inconspicuous camera installed inside the glass frames transmitting the images to the white telephone-repair van parked in the airport lot.

  Pasha's voice came over the headphones: "Martin, turn your head to the left right there, stop."

  A short, burly Portuguese man with black hair combed straight back on his skull, early thirties, sat hunched forward on a chair, reading a copy of the local newspaper, the Austin Ameru.in Statesman. He wore pleated khaki pants and a dark-blue, silk short-sleeve shirt printed with dozens of white figures of big-breasted women riding surfboards.

  The man scratched the day-old growth along his chin, the brown eyes beneath his uni-brow shifting back and forth over the people in his personal space as if they were about to perform a lewd act.

  Inside the back of the news van, Pasha Romanov leaned back in her chair, her attention focused on a monitor. The guy looked like a dark little… Elf, a voice said.

  Pasha propped her left elbow up on the chair arm and massaged her bottom lip with her index finger and thumb, her eyes locked on the monitor. Three men, all part of the airport surveillance team, sat with her.

  "What is it?" Rick Bernard asked. He sat next to her, staring at the same screen but watching her out of the corner of his eye. He enjoyed watching Pasha enjoyed thinking about what it would be like to be pressed against her bare skin, how she would taste. The ways he could make her moan. She wasn't classically beautiful, but banging her, he knew, would be a blast.

  Pasha had sensed this, of course. She could smell Bernard's mouth-wash and the expensive cologne he wore, not a hair out of place, not a blemish or wrinkle or scar on him. He probably detested sweating and getting dirty the kind of guy who should have played Ken and lived with Barbie in their dream house.

  Pasha said into the microphone, "Martin, the dark little guy in the blue Hawaiian shirt who looks like a reject from The Sopranos… yes, him. Keep your eye on him." Then Pasha turned to Bernard and said,

  "Zoom in on the guy's face. When he looks up, take a picture and run it through the database."

  "You know this dude?" Bernard said, working the controls.

  Pasha's brain worked visually; memories, even ones dating back to her early childhood, were stored like filmstrips, bright and vivid. She was especially good with faces.

  "I've seen him somewhere before," Pasha said.

  "Where?"

  Pasha's eyes never left the monitor.

  "He's CIA."

  In the back of the van the three pair of eyes turned to her. They waited for her to elaborate. She didn't.

  On the monitor, the Elf looked up in Martin Spader's direction.

  "Got it," Bernard said. Click-click-click and a snapshot of the man's face was loaded onto another monitor. The computer scanned the dark man's face and with the click of a mouse button Bernard sent it off through the air back to Praxis, where the computer would search a specialized CIA database for a match. Facial-recognition technology had been used at the last Super Bowl. Each person who entered the stadium had their faces scanned and run against a database of terrorists. As usual, the technology had fueled the Big Brother paranoia of several privacy groups.

  "Print me a copy of his picture," Pasha said.

  The van filled with the whirring hum of the color printer spitting out paper. Pasha kept her attention on the monitor, watching the Elf.

/>   Where did she know him from? Her mind couldn't retrieve the connection, but it was there, she could feel it; all she needed to do was wrestle it free.

  She needed air, needed to be moving.

  Pasha reached across Bernard, getting a stronger whiff of his cologne, and grabbed the thick sheet from the paper tray.

  "I'm going to take this to Hazard."

  "That's at the other end of the lot," Bernard said.

  "Let me fax it to them."

  "I want to hand deliver it. Fax a copy to Bouchard." He was at Delburn, monitoring the operation.

  "You think something's going to go down, don't you?" Bernard asked.

  "It's too early. Maybe when Stephen arrives with Dixon." Pasha looked at her watch; Stephen and Dix were probably jumping right now.

  "Call me on my phone if you get this man's face," she said and exited the van.

  Outside now in the aching heat, blinding white sunlight beamed off the car roofs, hoods, and windshields. Pasha put on her sunglasses. The dark lenses cut the glare. Under her black blazer, a white silk shirt was already sticking to her skin.

  Why is that little man's face familiar? Or was she just spooked from the conversation with Bouchard?

  Tomorrow morning, in what was destined to be national headlines for weeks, the world would know the story of how FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert John McFadden sold devastating secrets on joint FBI and CIA operations to the Russians over a ten-year period. Even more chilling was that Bouchard believed that McFadden, using a high level and still unknown source within the CIA, had discovered the identity of the IWAC group and knew about its operations. It was quite possible, Bouchard had said, that they had been sold out years ago to Armand, who had high-ranking Russian contacts.

  That part of the story wouldn't make it to the papers. And Bouchard was strict with his orders: This information was not to be shared with the other team members. It would only put them on the edge. God knew they were edgy enough today. Once this morning's mission was completed, they would be advised of this recent development during this evening's debriefing.

  She thought about the Elf again. She knew better than to try to rush the answer. It would come to her. As she moved through the space between the rows and rows of parked cars, her eyes focused on the end of the lot where the FedEx truck was parked, she felt the sharp knock of the Clock housed in the shoulder holster bounce against her ribcage.

  Pasha eschewed the usual garnishes of femininity; she did not wear makeup or paint her fingernails, wear perfume or jewelry; she did not wear dresses, shorts, or the kind of shoes women often enjoyed wearing.

  She opted for what was traditionally men's clothing, pants and suits, and favored stylish Kenneth Cole loafers, which were comfortable and, if need be, excellent for running. She had never played or dressed the role of the pretty, delicate Barbie doll. Barbie couldn't bench press two hundred pounds. Barbie didn't know how to snap a man's neck or, if necessary, line up the sight of a nine millimeter and blow an enemy's head off with one shot.

  The men around her were often troubled by her appearance and demeanor.

  It didn't surprise her. Men were terrified of women they couldn't control or mold, let alone one who could with a single punch drop them to their knees.

  But not Stephen.

  Stephen Conway was different, one of the rare handful of men she had met who wasn't intimidated by her abilities or lack of feminine wiles.

  And unlike the majority of men around her, Stephen had no problem learning or taking criticism from a woman. Stephen looked at her as an equal.

  The fact that he made her knees buckle when she saw him in those tight knit boxers didn't hurt either.

  The man at the airport has something to do with black ops. Something to do with Raymond Bouchard.

  Pasha stopped walking.

  At Bouchard's… was it his house? No. An assignment. Something to do with Her phone rang and the thought swam away.

  She unzipped the cell phone from her belt and pressed it against her good ear. Parked in the corner of the lot and looking like a toy was a FedEx truck housing the five members of Hazard Team Four. Unit Three was inside the airport. Hazard Team Two and a surveillance man watched Stephen and Major Dixon. Everyone was in place, ready.

  "Spader just collapsed inside the airport," Bernard said, his voice excited but not panicking an emotion she refused to tolerate.

  "Walk me through it," Pasha said, her eyes fixed on the FedEx truck.

  "He grabbed his chest and fell forward and tumbled over the table. The watch he's wearing that monitors his pulse, it just flat-lined."

  The FedEx truck exploded.

  Pasha felt the ground shake beneath her feet; she stumbled forward, off-balance, reached out with both hands and grabbed the trunk of a white Honda Accord. All of it happened so fast her brain could only digest video snapshots: the two surrounding cars pushed onto their sides, knocking against the other parked cars in a screech of buckling metal and shattering glass; the force of the blast expanding, blowing out hundreds of windows and car headlights; the torn fragments from the truck showering down across the parking lot and roofs and hoods of the parked cars, dozens of car alarms going off.

  Pasha turned away from the wreckage, looked back toward the IWAC surveillance team's white telephone-repair van and brought the phone back up to her good ear.

  A man wearing shorts, sneakers, and a white T-shirt was hunched over the gas cap of the surveillance van. The brim of his orange UT baseball hat covered his face. Then he turned and ran up the road, his eyes covered by cheap sunglasses.

  Stuck against the metal right above the gas cap was a device the size of a pack of index cards.

  "Pasha, Unit Three has…"

  "Rick, there's an explosive on the van, get everyone out of there."

  Pasha tossed the phone to the ground and then reached inside her jacket for the Clock. Over the rooftops of the parked cars, she saw the man stop running, open up the back door of a black BMW and throw himself inside. The car sped away in a squeal of rubber too late to get a shot.

  Her attention snapped back to the news van, the side door open now. She was a good distance away but close enough to make out the frightened expression on Rick Bernard's face as he stepped out into the parking lot.

  Pasha blinked and the next image she had was that of Rick Bernard being torn apart.

  The van exploded. Too close, she thought, I'm too close. Then the shock wave slammed into her body and knocked her up into the air so hard and fast she saw her shoes jump off the ground. Her arms stretched wide, her hands clutching at the air, she flew backward with dizzying speed to the row of cars parked behind her. The last image she held in her mind before blacking out was that of her father sitting next to her at the kitchen table, his stern, cold voice telling her to shut her mouth as his meaty hand pressed the medicine-soaked rag against the freshly burnt stump on the side of her head.

  Conway's hands were quick. He removed the harness and then worked himself out of the jumpsuit, the air hot and smelling of baked grass and dirt. He noticed that his phone and Palm Pilot were still attached to his belt. A wave of relief washed through him. He thought that while he was unconscious, Angel Eyes's men may have removed the devices.

  First, the phone. He removed it from its leather case and dialed Pasha's number, each number beeping loudly in still air pounding with heat from the unrelenting Texas sun. He hit the SEND button and pressed the phone against his ear. High above, very faint, was the sound of the plane's engines, fading. Conway made a visor with his hands, and covering his eyes looked up and saw the Cessna, so far away it looked like one of those remote-controlled model flyers.

  He listened to the phone ring… and ring… Come on, Pasha, pick up.

  The connection died.

  Conway swallowed, his throat dry, and dialed the number again. The call wouldn't go through.

  Either the satellite was down or sunspots were interfering with the signal.


  Or Angel Eyes is jamming your signal. He knows you're alive, that you're going to try to call and warn the others. You think he's going to let you get away with that?

  If they were jamming the signal entirely possible that meant Angel Eyes and his men had to be close by. That didn't help Conway with the more pressing problem: calling to warn Pasha.

  Conway tried a third time. Nothing. He shoved the phone back into the leather case and snapped it shut. He started pacing.

  You're pissed because Pasha and Bouchard didn't listen to you.

  Congratulations. You won the "I-Told-You-So" Ribbon. Go ahead and pin it on your chest. Feel better? Good. Now get to work and solve the problem.

  I'm standing in the middle of afield, surrounded by trees, and I need to get back to the skydiving school.

  Conway's Palm Pilot had been modified by the Information Fusion Lab, one of the many labs within the CIA's massive Office of Science and Technology. He removed it from his case, powered it on, and then pressed his thumb against the square pad area normally used for writing. His thumbprint was scanned and then accepted. In the bottom right was a whisper-sensitive microphone half the size of an eraser.

  Conway brought the Palm closer to his mouth.

  "Global."

  The voice-recognition technology kicked in; the global positioning system program loaded and within seconds Conway had a bird's-eye view of where he was standing, all of it in full, rich color on the active matrix screen. A red circle was drawn around Conway's figure; next to it were the letters: SC.

  Conway's red Saab was also equipped with a GPS transponder.

  "Locate Saab."

  The position on the screen pulled back and then stopped. Con-way could see the rooftops of the school, and in the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen, parked in the dirt lot in front of the school was his red Saab, looking no bigger than the tip of a match. Now Dixon.

  Conway spoke Dixon's code-name into the microphone: "Locate Traveler."

  A blue circle appeared in the field behind the school, not far from where the plane had taken off, the word TRAVELER glowing in blue letters.