by Rachel Lee
Regardless, since Lawton had been in the area, Wes had decided to move his operation. Edward fully agreed with that. Protect and cover. Always wise when someone was sniffing around. If Lawton had gotten wind of what Wes was doing, he might have passed the word to someone.
So his first call was to his contact in the Bureau.
“Haven’t heard a thing from Lawton since he said he was going fishing,” was the answer. “Why are you so worried about him?”
“Because he’s not following orders.”
“Actually, right now I’d guess he’s following them better than I’d hoped.”
“Maybe so.”
“I know so. If he was into anything, he’d be trying to use Bureau resources. Relax, will you?”
Edward hung up, reasonably certain now that Lawton was no longer a concern. One last phone call.
The hospital in Boise was at first reluctant to release any information, but Edward wasn’t used to taking no for an answer, and after a few minutes of pretending to be a worried brother, he finally got through to someone who was willing to answer his questions.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lawton,” said the woman. “Your brother is dead. He expired in the emergency room from severe head trauma. It appears that he was released to a local funeral home.”
“And his personal effects?”
“Hmm…I show that a wallet containing credit cards, driver’s license and…oh, yes! We don’t ordinarily see this, but he apparently had an FBI badge case, as well. Someone from the local FBI office will be coming by to collect everything. We assume they’ll get in touch with you. Unfortunately, the deceased had no indication of other family in his effects, or we would have called you sooner.”
“Thank you. I just…” Edward pretended to be broken up and drew a couple of deliberately shaky breaths. “Thank you,” he said again.
“You should contact the FBI,” the woman said kindly. “They’ll have everything shortly.”
He hung up, and the one word in his mind was Yes! Now he could call his contact and tell them Bookworm was a goner.
Pine Flats, Idaho
As Tom’s headache began to ease a bit, the throbbing in his arm and leg from the gashes and stitches began to set up a replacement ruckus. He was beginning to feel as if he’d been in a car accident, all right.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Someplace safe where I can stash you for a day or two to recover. Meantime, I’ll go back and take a look at what Dixon is up to.”
“Not alone, you’re not.”
“You can’t seriously think I’m going to let you stumble around in the woods with a concussion.”
“Concussion, hell. I’m already dead, so what difference would it make?”
“Oh, behave! You’d be a liability right now. Someone tried to kill you. Hence, it’s likely someone saw us in the woods the other day. I want to know what Dixon is doing about it.”
“And get caught by one of his sentries? You’re out of your mind.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because I’m going to take a flying lesson. It’s amazing how much you can see from the air at a safe distance.”
Tom slouched lower in his seat and wished the road were smoother. “You’re awfully high-handed.”
“I was raised that way.” She slipped her hand into a bag beside her on the seat and tossed him a wallet. “There’s the new you. Save your breath and get used to it.”
He flipped the wallet open and found himself staring at his own face on a Colorado driver’s license. The name was Lawton Caine. “Why Caine?”
“Why not? It was easy for me to say.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Everything in there is valid, including the credit cards. If you need cash, the ATM card works, also.”
“Who’s paying for this junket?”
She shook her head and downshifted to climb a steep incline. “Maybe someday I will tell you.”
17
Washington, D.C.
In a relatively brief space of time, Kevin Willis’s life turned to hell. Word from the embassy in Guatemala indicated that Miriam Anson had been caught in a firefight in the jungle and had disappeared. Then, just as he was absorbing this bad news, he received word from the Boise field office that Tom Lawton had died in an auto accident. His effects were being forwarded.
Kevin gripped the phone hard, listening to the voice of the Boise SAC give him the bad news. Something in him suddenly rebelled. “Can you get your hands on Lawton’s vehicle?”
“Uh, probably,” SAC Fred Milgram answered. “But it was an SUV rollover, Kev. You know it doesn’t take a hell of a lot.”
“Check it out anyway. If Lawton cornered too fast, there may be a reason.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll get my guys to look into it.” His tone suggested it wasn’t going to the top of his priority list.
“Listen, Fred,” Kevin said. “Lawton was in deep cover. I want that vehicle checked.” He knew he was risking Fred’s annoyance that he hadn’t been included in that little tidbit, but Kevin was past caring. He couldn’t do a damn thing about Miriam, under the circumstances, but he could find out what had been going on with Tom to some small extent. Even if it meant lying.
There was a pause while Fred must have run through a gamut of possible responses, most of them unpleasant. In the end, however, all the man said was, “Sure, Kev. We’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks, buddy. I owe you.”
“Big time,” was the very serious reply.
For a long time Kevin sat staring into space, wondering how the hell he was going to tell Miriam’s husband that she had disappeared in the jungle. Wondering why the hell he had ever…
All of a sudden he remembered Lawton talking about the money from Edward Morgan. The money that had seemingly never reached Idaho.
Leaning forward, he picked up his phone and punched in the extension of his best researcher. “Hi, Linda. Listen, I need you to follow some money….”
Boise National Forest, Idaho
From what Renate had said in the truck, Tom had expected to wind up spending the next few days in a tent. Instead, she drove him to a lodge perched on a mountainside. Well stocked, almost sybaritic in its comforts, clearly designed as a men’s hunting hangout… He looked around, shaking his head.
“I don’t usually hide out in five-star lodgings.”
“You’ll be safe here,” Renate said. “It’s not hunting season, so nobody should come by, and I told the timeshare people that we wanted it for a honeymoon.”
“Brilliant. Of course, it’s a solo honeymoon. Who pays your expense account, anyway?” He could just imagine the Bureau’s response if he wanted to stay in a place like this at their expense.
“It’s off-season.”
That appeared to be the only answer she was going to give him.
She gave him a Glock 9 mm, a stack of clips, a pair of binoculars with night vision capabilities, and a shotgun with a box of shells.
“I thought you said this place was safe.”
She gave him a crooked smile. “It is. But if I don’t come back in forty-eight hours, you may need to go it on your own. If I don’t come back, call this number.”
He looked at the card she gave him. “Henley Griswold Importers?”
“Friends. They’ll get you out of here.”
If he hadn’t been so stiff and sore, he might have tried to argue with her. The thing was, he knew perfectly well that he wasn’t in good enough shape to be anything but a hindrance.
She went back out to the pickup, then returned with a metal briefcase. She set it before him, worked the combination and opened it up. A metal-cased computer lay inside.
“Here,” she said. “You can keep busy with this. You’ll find you can access more from here than from your computer at the Bureau.”
“Modem?” He looked around.
“Wireless satellite uplink, encrypted.”
>
He looked at her, for the first time getting a serious inkling of this woman’s capabilities. She wasn’t simply some rogue agent doing her own thing. She had a lot of power behind her, and a lot of money.
She suddenly smiled, as if she had read something on his face. “Don’t worry, Law. We’re the good guys.”
“Law?” Then he remembered his new name: Lawton Caine. “You could at least have let me choose.”
She was still laughing when she left.
Tom Lawton, alias Lawton Caine, listened to the roar of the pickup’s engine as it faded away, leaving him alone in snowbound silence.
His head still felt as if someone were working it over with a sixteen-pound hammer.
Guatemalan Highlands
Terry would be worried sick about her, Miriam knew. And the Bureau wouldn’t be able to tell him a damn thing. Radio communications in these mountains were patchy at best, telephones nonexistent.
She lay on the priest’s cot, at his insistence. He said he would sleep in the other room. Probably on the floor, she thought. As rectories went, this hut offered almost nothing in the way of amenities. No running water, an outhouse. Of course, it boasted a second hut for cooking. And it had stucco on the walls, although the roof was thatched.
Toying with a leather pouch that hung around her neck, doubtless put there by the village shaman, she noticed that it was raining again. The rain actually made a nice sound on the thatch.
Restless, she eased herself into a sitting position, wincing as the wound in her side pulled. The curandera had given her a couple of coca leaves to chew—something the Bureau would probably fire her for if they knew—and proceeded to stitch up her side. The leg wound had been painful, but minor. Still, there was swelling above the knee, and she had to grit her teeth to bear weight on it.
The coca had long since worn off, and she refused to help herself to the additional leaves the curandera had left in a basket by the bed.
Moving gingerly, she attained her feet and limped out into the main room. To her surprise, Father Lorenzo was not asleep. He was sitting in a wooden chair beside a lantern, reading what appeared to be a Bible.
He looked up when he heard her and smiled. “You’re feeling better.”
“That’s a matter of degree,” she answered dryly, taking the wooden chair across from him.
“Can I get you something? Pulque? Water? I used those tablets in my drinking water, so it should be safe.”
“Water, please.”
It was tepid, in a clay mug, with a vague chemical taste to it, but she downed it in one draft. Immediately he brought her another. This one she sipped.
“I was able to get in touch with the Guatemalan police. A man named Pablo. He said to tell you they haven’t forgotten you.”
“Thank you. How about the others? How many were lost?”
“Two policemen were killed,” Lorenzo said. He shook his head sadly. “And seven villagers.”
“My God!”
“As for your prisoner…” He hesitated. “I guess he hasn’t told them much…yet. From what I know of the policía, he will, sooner or later.”
Miriam felt her heart lurch. “Father, I can’t do anything about it. I’m merely an observer. Are you taking me back to Guatemala City tomorrow?”
“If we survive the night.” He sighed and closed the Bible, which he had left lying open on the rickety table beside his chair.
“Ms. Anson, do you have any idea what life is like in most of these mountain villages? The poverty, the death rate, the disease? Most of us in the U.S. would feel hopeless if we lived this way, but these people cling to hope and find joys in the smallest of things. Or perhaps they are the biggest of things. For example, the birth of a healthy child. That’s not as common as it should be.”
She nodded, listening.
“They have next to nothing. Oh, there are programs to help them learn more effective ways to farm, and to help ensure healthier births, longer lives and less disease. Money funnels into this country. Unfortunately, little of it reaches those who need it most. And as for the programs…it takes a very long time for them to reach everyone.”
Miriam nodded.
“Of course, we occasionally receive help from other religious missions. They come here and build churches from which to convert the indigenous population.” He snorted. “It would be far more help if they brought food and clothing. Or if they got their hands dirty in the fields teaching better agricultural methods.”
“Aren’t you a missionary?”
He smiled. “Hardly. This parish dates back three hundred years. It’s long past the mission stage. And still only half of these people are Catholic.”
“You can live with that?”
“Of course. There are many paths to God, Ms. Anson, not just one. I have even been known to speak of Kulkulcan from my pulpit. He taught some of the same lessons that Christ did.”
“You’re a rather unusual man.”
“I’m just a priest. But these people are in my charge. The curandera has chosen to give you sanctuary, but if the rebels hear of it…” He shook his head. “They are furious about the raid. They want revenge, and they’ll get it somewhere. Whether it’s here will depend on whether these rebels are prepared to take on Paloma.”
“They believe she’s powerful?”
“They know she’s powerful. And she is, Ms. Anson. I suggest you keep that pouch around your neck until you get back to Guatemala City. She wasn’t kidding. In these mountains, the jaguar is very powerful.”
Miriam sat quietly for a few minutes, mug cradled between her hands. Her leg and side throbbed in time to her heartbeat, and periodically the throbbing rose to the level of pounding. Finally she said, “I feel as if I’ve stepped off the edge of reality.”
The priest nodded. “I felt that way the first time I came here. It’s very different from anything we Americans are accustomed to. But you haven’t stepped off the edge of reality. What you’ve done is move into the reality of most of the world’s populations.”
He rose from his chair and walked over to the window. It was nothing but a rectangular hole in the wall, containing no glass at all, although battered shutters hung there, on the inside. Outside, all was dark, but the dripping of the rain was loud, almost symphonic as it hit various leaves and surfaces.
“You see, Ms. Anson—”
“Miriam, please.”
He smiled over his shoulder. “Then call me Steve. The thing is, while the world’s great religions claim to be the sole faiths of millions, when you get down to this level you find that much older religious beliefs survive to one extent or another. The world would call Guatemala a Catholic country. So would the Catholic Church. Certainly it would be called Christian, even by the protestant missionaries who come here to save souls from the Catholic Church. But in the villages—on the ground, as it were—other beliefs still hold sway.”
“Like the belief in the jaguar.”
“The jaguar god. Yes. Paloma comes to Mass every Sunday and every Holy Day. Sometimes she even comes to daily Mass. And while she believes in a single supreme being, that does not prevent her from believing in lesser deities and powers. Spirits, if you will.”
He turned to face her. “The first time I was assigned to this village, I was here for eight years. During that time, I came to appreciate her beliefs.”
“Doesn’t your church believe in demons?”
“That’s a matter of some theological dispute these days. Some in my church aren’t even sure they believe in Satan.”
“Do you?”
He smiled. “Oh, yes, I definitely believe in the Enemy. I have looked into the deadened eyes of a terrible killer and seen the cold emptiness of hell. So yes, I believe. And I believe that for the most part Satan works through us.”
“I can accept that. I’ve certainly seen enough to make me think there might be some…evil influence greater than humanity’s foibles.”
He nodded. “My Church still performs exorc
isms. Not often, and not easily or quickly, but they still happen. Sometimes there is no other explanation, and no other hope. And sometimes the exorcism results in a cure.” He shrugged. “If it works…”
“Yes, if it works, that’s all the justification needed.”
“Exactly. And I have seen things here…. Suffice it to say, keep wearing the jaguar protection. ‘There are more things on heaven and earth…’”
He returned to his seat and regarded her steadily. “I don’t know exactly what is happening, Miriam, but I can assure you that Paloma is right when she says you are being manipulated by powers you do not know. There are things happening in this country even now that I have only a vague idea about. But they are big things. Things that could change the course of world history.”
Miriam resisted the idea. “Really, Steve, such a small country…”
“It is not the poverty or size of Guatemala that matters,” he said. “It is something that is happening here. Something that is important far beyond these borders. A battle that has been going on for thousands of years. And right now, it is focused here.”
Miriam returned to bed thinking that Steve Lorenzo had been alone in the jungle too long.
But even so, she had the worst feeling that he might be right.
God, she needed to get out of here and back to Guatemala City, back to the sanity of the twenty-first century.
Just as she was drifting off to sleep, however, a thought snaked through her mind, cold and clear: The assassination of the ambassador and the shooting of Grant Lawrence had happened awfully close together.
Al Qutayfa, Syria
1123 A.D.
Hugues de Payen studied the dark-skinned man carefully. Hasan ibn al-Sabah was small and wiry, but there was no mistaking the lethal intensity of his gaze. Nor was there any doubt as to the effectiveness of his organization. For over three decades, Hasan’s men had struck with impunity, killing and robbing at will. They came out of the night, and sometimes in broad daylight, falling upon their victims with a drug-induced fury that left terror in its wake.