Shadowed

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you not hear me, Commander,” he said, turning to face her, “or are you stalling?”

  “I thought I heard you ask when was the last time I spoke with former agent Stepola.”

  “At least you call him former.”

  “Well, that goes without saying.”

  Decenti returned and sat on the corner of his desk, peering down at her. “What makes you think Paul would know the status of Roscoe Wipers?”

  Bia froze. Didn’t Ranold know Paul was in the Columbia underground? Was that not common knowledge or at least a common assumption within the NPO? She wasn’t so sure.

  “Well,” she began slowly, “as it’s clear, ah, that he is AWOL from the NPO and was spared from The Incident, he’s obviously a person of faith. I guess I’m assuming they’re a close-knit group that keeps its members informed. I could be wrong, of course.”

  “You’re really nervous, aren’t you, Commander Balaam?”

  “No, sir, it’s just that you are clearly agitated with me. You seem accusatory, and I am frankly in the dark.”

  “You’ve forgotten that we had not one but two moles in the Columbia underground and that they reported—specifically to you—that Paul Stepola was a legend there even before he showed up the night of my son’s death and my wife’s murder?”

  “Well, sure, I remember.”

  “Then why all the hemming and hawing about his being a member of a small, close-knit group and—”

  “I wasn’t thinking, sir. I haven’t been sleeping. I’m still grieving my son. I’m sorry.”

  “Aren’t we all? Now I asked you a question, which you have again deflected. When was the last time you spoke with Paul Stepola?”

  “I don’t recall, sir.” It was true. She had not looked at her watch. It had been within the last hour, in fact the last few minutes, but the time? She was relieved to be able to say she didn’t know.

  “Since The Incident?”

  So there it was, the mother of all questions. Was a lie permissible now? It would save not only her life but probably also Paul’s, his family’s, and a thousand others. She was too new to this, didn’t know the rules.

  “Yes, I have. I urged him to return your calls.”

  “You’ve talked with Stepola and have not informed me?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry, sir. I probably should have. But I didn’t want—”

  “Probably? Probably? Where is he?”

  “I spoke to him on his cell phone.”

  “He answers your calls and not mine? Why?”

  “Well, I could think of a few reasons, sir. I didn’t want to make it so plain to you that he was talking with me and not with you. Perhaps I was being too sentimental.”

  Ranold returned to the chair behind his desk, leaned back, and clasped his hands behind his head. “Have I ever struck you as sentimental, Commander?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Ever?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “My feelings would have survived. What rankles me is when subordinates keep information from me.”

  “Acknowledged, sir.”

  “I left messages on his machine! I told him I had flipped, had become a believer, that he was right, I was wrong, I wanted to repent, get right, come to Jesus—whatever they call it. I was good, Commander. I would have fooled the devil. But I didn’t get so much as a callback.”

  “Trust me, sir; I have encouraged him to make contact with you. I have urged him to call you.”

  “Then why hasn’t he?”

  “Only he could answer that, Chief. But I would recommend that you not give up.”

  “Not give up? How many times am I supposed to leave messages on his system? After a while, a man gets the point.”

  “Maybe he wants to meet face-to-face.”

  “I’d do that in a second,” Ranold said. “You find out when and where, and I’ll make it happen.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “As I said, I don’t—”

  “You don’t recall, but it’s been since The Incident. Has it been a week?”

  “I spoke with him about a week ago, yes.”

  “Since then?”

  “Sir!”

  “What? I don’t have the right to ask?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Just answer the question! How recently did you speak with Stepola?”

  “Recently.” She saw him flush.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get him on the phone.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now. In fact, use my phone.”

  “But he has caller ID and—”

  “That’s the point, Commander. Try my phone first.”

  39

  PAUL WAS IN THE MAIN ASSEMBLY ROOM with more than seven hundred of the residents, waiting to hear Jack Pass address them, when he got the call from Ranold’s phone. Wasn’t Decenti supposed to be meeting with Bia right now? Paul resisted the temptation to step out and take it. Maybe she had talked Ranold into meeting with Paul, but he could always call the old man back.

  Soon another call came, this time from Bia. That one he knew he had better take. Something sounded strange when he picked up, however. “Am I on speaker, Bia?” he said.

  A pause. Then Ranold. “Yes, you’re on speaker, you coward. Why do you answer her phone and not mine?”

  “Because I want to talk to her.”

  “And you don’t want to talk to me.”

  “You’re a quick study, Dad.”

  “What if I wanted to make peace?”

  “You’ve already tried that ploy, how you’d seen the light, all that. But refresh me: was that before or after you accused me of brainwashing your own daughter into murdering your wife? Jae was there, Ranold, remember? I trust her. I know what happened.”

  “Oh, you do, eh? Well, good for you. Where are you, anyway?”

  “You know where I am. You know, the crazy thing is, I do want to talk to you, but in person.”

  “What’s wrong with the phone?”

  “Well, the phone would be safer, that’s true, judging by the experiences of Dick Aikman and Baldwin Dengler.”

  “I was cleared in that, you know. Well, of course you know. You know everything. How long was Aikman a member of your underground?”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Ranold. I knew Dick, and he was as true to the NPO as you are. Somebody framed him.”

  “Maybe we do need to talk, Paul.”

  “Where? When?”

  “When is your call. Where? How about the site of my first brilliant operation with the NPO, back when you were a baby?”

  “I may have been a baby when it happened, but I studied it in grad school.”

  “Arrested more than four hundred supplicants right out of their Eucharist service,” Ranold said. “It was a stroke, Paul, a thing of beauty. Those Episcopalians didn’t know what hit ’em.”

  “I was taught that they were still being grandfathered in and were allowed to celebrate Communion for another couple of weeks.”

  “Who can remember after all this time? All I know is, I was on the front page of the Post, along with a bunch of religious nuts being herded like cattle out of the National Cathedral.”

  “Real proud of you, Dad.”

  “Thanks, I can tell.”

  “And that’s where you want to meet? Of course, it’s not a church anymore.”

  Ranold laughed. “Hardly. Most of it is unused. They lease out the downstairs for art fairs and bazaars, stuff like that.”

  “How about Friday night?” Paul said. “Seven o’clock.”

  Another pause. What could Ranold say? Paul wondered. Surely he wanted Paul in the underground when the attack came.

  “Friday night’s bad for me,” Ranold said. “How about earlier?”

  “No can do,” Paul said. “Sorry. Let’s keep working on it and keep in touch
.”

  “You’ll answer my calls?” Ranold said.

  “If you promise you’ll call when we have an appropriate time.”

  * * *

  Suddenly Bia wasn’t all that sure about this faith thing. She walked unsteadily back to her office, feeling vulnerable and weak. Where had her trademark toughness gone? Could the depletion be attributed to her having flipped to the other team? That was not good. It wasn’t as if she was going to flip back, but as of this instant she didn’t feel she was bringing much to the table. Maybe that was the point.

  She had not been behind her desk two minutes when her secretary told her Chief Decenti was on the line.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “You mind a little overtime tonight?”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to review the attack plans. I’ve done a little tweaking.”

  “Sure. Any problem with my doing this at home?”

  “You’re joking, right, Commander? When have we ever let this level of classified document out of the building?”

  “Of course. I’ll review it here.”

  “I’ll just leave them with you, and we can debrief in the morning.”

  Now how did that compute? He wanted her to review the battle plan when it was clear he had lost all trust in her? It had to be a test. Had he changed the date? Had he made obvious changes that, if showed to Paul or anyone in the underground, would give NPO the advantage? Or would expose her as a traitor?

  The date had indeed changed. The attack was scheduled for the last hour before dawn, Monday, February 11, 38 P.3. The dignitaries would not even be back from the Bern summit yet. More likely, however, except that it seemed such an amateurish, transparent ruse, Decenti may have wanted Bia to spill this to Paul. That would make the underground think they had most of the weekend, only to face the attack at the original coordinates just after dark on Friday. Paul would hear about this, all right, but he certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded how misleading it likely was.

  For the life of her, Bia could find not another detail that was changed in the entire plan, not even a comma. She said good-bye when her secretary left and was aware that almost everyone else was also leaving the building, but she fought to stay awake and alert as she pored over the document.

  If the timing was the only change, why didn’t Chief Decenti merely inform her of that and ask her opinion? He knew she was lobbying for a later attack deadline, but this one didn’t go nearly far enough. The fact was, she was pushing for a full two-week delay, representing that she simply worried about public opinion in light of the assassination of the chancellor following global grief over the deaths of a billion men. In truth, naturally, she hoped the ban on religion would lift in the meantime and make all this moot.

  At eight o’clock, Bia checked the thermometer outside her window and saw the needle buried near ten below zero. She locked the file away, then pulled on her fur coat, hat, and gloves, and slipped her flats into her bag, replacing them with tall boots.

  Few stragglers moved through the building, and fewer still acknowledged her with so much as a nod. She had grown used to that over the years. Her bearing, her apparel, her reputation preceded her. Maybe that was something she could work on.

  Her floor of the parking facility had been jammed when last she sat in the car, but now hers was one of only three in that section. How long would it take to warm? She had learned not to venture out until the interior temp had risen. Otherwise the windshield developed condensation, and she would have to pull over to manage that.

  When the interior light did not come on when she opened the door, she sighed and assumed the cold had affected the battery. On the other hand, she knew little enough about mechanics to assume the hybrid car wouldn’t start, so she slid in behind the wheel and inserted the key.

  Bia had not even begun turning it when she felt cold steel at the base of her neck. Unbelievable, she thought. She had not seen it coming. The strange request to stay late. The report with only one minor change in it. The interior light.

  She began to turn and plead her case, but she knew it was too late. They say you don’t hear the shot that kills you, so the first two must not have been deathblows. Bia heard them both and saw her own blood on the windshield and dashboard. She felt the barrel rise to the middle of the back of her head, and then she heard no more.

  40

  THE MORE THAN THIRTY MILES south from the Loop to Joliet could take well over an hour during rush hour, and Felicia certainly didn’t want to go north to Deerfield first. That would have made Joliet a brutal round-trip. So she hung around the office after most others had left.

  Harriet Johns stopped by Felicia’s office on her way out. “I commend you on your ability to put personal issues aside for the sake of the organization,” she said, standing in the doorway, dressed for the weather.

  “I appreciate that,” Felicia said. “But it’s not easy.”

  “No one said this would be easy,” the bureau chief said. “But it should be easier for you next week. An old friend of mine is coming to replace your former boss. She was my deputy in L.A. and then San Francisco. You’ll like her. She’s no- nonsense.”

  Felicia nodded and managed, “I’ll look forward to getting acquainted.”

  The truth was, if the woman was anything like Ms. Johns, Felicia wasn’t so sure. She had wondered, naturally, who could ever replace Paul, and she had to admit, to her own chagrin, that she had not even considered it would be a woman. She had speculated on whom among the men it might be, and she could tell several were angling for the position. She should have known Harriet would bring in a known quantity. Well, next week would be interesting.

  Felicia slipped down to Hector Hernandez’s cubicle as he was getting ready to leave. He looked taken aback to see her. “We try to be pretty careful on meeting days,” he said. “Lots of curious eyes, you know.”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  “And we don’t caravan to Joliet. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course. I assume we go individually. And then how do we find the party?”

  He smiled. “We call ourselves the South Side Mix ’n’ Match Bowling League. The host or hostess will point you to our private room.”

  “Bowling?”

  “We’ve even been known to pass out phony trophies if we fear there’s an interloper.”

  “Seems you’d know if a stranger showed up.”

  “Well, sure, but though we shut the door, Wilson’s is hardly a secure environment. Who knows who might be on the waitstaff?”

  “Risky meetings.”

  He nodded. “But a breath of fresh air. It’s like going to church.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Me either, before. But you’ll get a taste of it tonight. You can’t imagine the feeling of being with so many others of like faith. It’s dangerous, yes, but we need each other so badly. The public stuff, from the platform with a microphone, is phony bowling results. It’s around the tables, drowned out by someone jabbering away over the loudspeaker, that we trade prayer requests, pray, tell our stories, pass along plans.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Felicia noticed Trudy bustling their way. “Uh-oh, we’ve been seen again.”

  “Boss is still suspicious,” Trudy said. “And watching. Let me go through the motions of checking your after-hours passes; then I’ll tip my hat and be on my way. You might act a little offended so it looks realistic.”

  Felicia and Hector immediately went into playacting. Felicia put her hands on her hips. “Haven’t we already been through this?” she said. “Didn’t I show you my pass days ago? You think my status has changed?”

  “Excellent,” Trudy said, extending a palm. “Now let’s see it.”

  Hector shook his head and seemed to be reluctantly pulling out his wallet.

  Trudy made a show of copying down the numbers off each pass. “See you tonight at school,” she said, tipping her cap. “Little fish joke there.”

>   * * *

  The first wave of evacuees left the Columbia zealot underground fortress that night under the supervision of Greenie Macintosh. About two hundred original members loaded what they could in the trunks of cars and the storage areas of mini- and regular-sized vans, pulling out of the exits randomly and taking varied routes that would eventually point them north toward the Heartland salt mines.

  Paul still wished they could wait, hoping for some eventuality in Bern that would change the course of history and bring amnesty to all these people—himself included. But he knew the latter was not in the cards. Regardless the status of secret believers after Bern did whatever it was going to do, he would have to face justice for his crimes.

  Because they were crimes. Even if he was exonerated as a private citizen wanting to practice his faith, Paul still had to take responsibility for breaking the law, for posing as a loyal member of the USSA government and thwarting its policies by living as a double agent—encouraging the opposition while sworn to help expose it.

  Jae didn’t seem to want to discuss the ramifications if Paul was sentenced. She made her case about how much she needed him and his maturity in the faith—limited as it was, he was light-years ahead of her—and said she would feel lost without him.

  “And what of Brie and Connor?” she said. “How long are they expected to go without a dad?”

  The conversation didn’t go much longer, because the kids were in and out of the room, as excited as Paul had seen them in days. They had been assigned to choose only those things each could fit into one suitcase. Brie was carefully selecting her favorite clothes, leaving room for just one doll. Connor had stuffed his suitcase with toys, initially leaving no room for even underwear.

  Angela Pass Barger had had what Paul considered a brilliant idea. She suggested that the kids, who would go in the next wave, get packed and then join her for a party and movies. That would get the kids’ minds on something else and give their parents time to pack.

  * * *

  Straight Rathe took a call on his cell from Dr. Graybill. “Glad I caught you,” the surgeon said. “Interesting patient I thought you might want to know of. Name’s Stephenson Davis, goes by Scooter. He’s a cameraman based here in Chicago but working for the USSA Television Network.”