by James Phelan
The submachine-gun fire had come from the upstairs window. Walker looked up just as the gunman leaned out to clock him. The fourth man.
Walker raised the shotgun, fired twice.
By the time the man had hit the ground, Walker had reloaded and tried the front door. Locked.
Walker let off a blast through the door’s handle and lock. He kicked the timber in and rushed the room, shotgun training to the open space on the right. No one there.
He rushed up the stairs, the shotgun leading, his eye trained down the barrel, a single round in the chamber. At the top of the stairs he came to a landing, a hallway running off in each direction. Four doors, two on each side, all open. He went right.
At the open doorway he waited.
“Jed?” a dead man’s voice called. His father. “Come on in, Jed.”
Walker hesitated.
He scanned back toward the stairs. No sign of that final man. That was a worry.
“I’m unarmed, Jed.” His father’s voice was steady. “I knew you’d come sooner or later. So let’s talk.”
Walker broke the breech and turned the corner.
8
Walker looked at his father, the bloodied nose, and spoke. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
Walker had dragged his father downstairs. Seated him in a chair. And the questioning had started. The bloodied nose came about when the older man had tried to chastise his son. Now, there was buzzing air between them, electric with possibility. Walker didn’t know how far he’d go to get the truth. And David Walker had moved from defiant to stunned.
“Four. Five, including me,” David Walker said.
“How many in the house now?”
“Two.”
“Where’s the other guy?”
“Other guy?”
“I got one at the upstairs window. There’s no one else upstairs. And there’s no one down here. Where would he go?”
“I—I don’t know. But the other two will be back soon.”
“No,” Walker retorted. “They won’t be coming back.”
His father met his eyes. All kinds of questions were writ there: What have you done? How did we get here? Where does this end?
“That’s right,” Walker said. “So, tell me what I need to know. About Zodiac. New York, the Stock Exchange—you had prior knowledge. Do you know all twelve attacks? The triggers? What’s next? Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“They’re cutout cells. Terrorists, criminals, rogue agents.”
“But you have a hand in it—you helped in creating it, right? This falls at your feet—this is on your head.”
David Walker dropped his eyes to the floor and let out a sigh. “Jed . . . You don’t want to know.”
“Who’s running Zodiac?”
“No one runs it, Jed. It’s self-perpetuating. Like the sun—it’s going to burn on and on until it’s done.”
Walker paced, looked out the front window. The guy he’d clipped through the upstairs window had crawled halfway down the drive, a smear of blood in his wake, and collapsed. He turned to his father, said, “Who started it?”
Silence. Walker waited for an answer. When a minute passed and none came, he said, “You did?”
“No,” David Walker replied.
“But?”
“But it was an idea of mine. It came up in a think-tank, a working group, years ago. One of those Red Cell-type things; a whole range of different people together brainstorming worst-case and out-of-the-box scenarios so that the government and security agencies could form responses.”
“And, what? Someone there took that idea of linked cells, each activating the other, and ran with it, years later?”
Walker Snr shrugged. Deflated.
“Right,” Walker said. “And then what? You had to fake your death to—to what? You didn’t try to stop that attack in New York.”
“What makes you think I faked my death? It was listed as a heart attack at the White House, remember? You think I could have faked that, there?”
“I think you had your heart attack, went to Walter Reed as reported, and there you were given a chance. A chance to go work for someone, to get Zodiac rolling?”
David Walker shook his head.
“You were mad at your country, at the system,” Walker went on. He’d thought about this for days. It felt good to say it. “They’d let you down. They’d busted me out of the Agency, but that was chicken feed. You knew all their secrets, all their lies, all the cover-ups and fuck-ups over the last forty years—and you finally snapped.”
“No.”
“Tell me otherwise. Set me straight.”
“You can’t stop this,” David Walker said. “That’s what’s so terrifying about it. Each action initiates the next. There’s no contact or communication between the cells, just the go signal.”
“The signal being an attack.”
“Or attempted attack—so long as it’s reported as such. Whenever that signal is received, the next begins. And it all started in New York, last week.”
“And this was all your idea?”
“In a sense.”
“What are you doing here, with these guys?”
Walker Snr dropped his head.
“Trying to stop it?”
“Trying to survive,” David Walker said.
“I’m not buying.” Walker waited for his father to meet his gaze, then said, “Why? Why you? Why like this?”
“When I learned that Zodiac was a go, I had to do what I did. They would have killed us all, don’t you see? Me, your mother, you. All dead. I did what I had to do, to save the two of you.”
Walker held his father’s gaze and said, “How’d that turn out?”
David Walker was silent.
“After New York we got intel from the CIA guy. A date and a location. You know what it pointed to?”
David Walker remained silent.
“A town in Afghanistan. A US Navy SEAL safe house. Yesterday was the date. We got a warning through, but we were too late—it had happened earlier. Two SEALs were found there, killed. Assassinated,” Walker said. “It was a secure compound, no one knew they were there. And this morning, another SEAL was killed in Germany. Gunshot wound to the head, same as those in ’Stan. He was transferring home, had a couple days’ R&R, found dead in his hotel. At the same time, another was killed in his home in Florida. Exact same MO.” Walker watched his father. He twitched. “SEALs are being killed. All of them from Team Six, the crew that went into Abbottabad. Tell me about it. Tell me what you know.”
David Walker said, “Sounds like an inside job to me.”
9
Walker said again, “Tell me!”
“Maybe they’re in the way,” David Walker said. “Maybe it’s reprisal. Who knows?”
“What do you know about these SEALs?”
Nothing.
Walker said, “Is it because of what they did in Abbottabad? This a reprisal for bin Laden?”
Still nothing.
“Help me out.”
“Let this go. You can’t stop it, Jed. And if you try, they will kill you.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s they!?”
“The same people who took me, unconscious, from Walter Reed and dumped me in an apartment near JFK with nothing but an IV in my arm, a new passport and a wad of cash. Don’t you see? I’m not the puppet-master here, Jed. I’m a cog in the wheel, just like you.”
A minute passed as the two men watched each other in silence.
Then Walker spoke. “Someone will get the truth out of you. You know that.”
Silence.
“The next guys to get here,” Walker said. “MI5. They’ll take you to a black site. You know how this works. It’ll be some shit hole. They’ll work it all out of you. Everything you know about this. They’ll wait you out.”
His father shook his head.
“Wha
t?” Walker said. “Time? Is that it? What’s the timeframe here? When’s the next Zodiac attack coming?”
Nothing.
“Is it the SEALs? Is this the next terror event in Zodiac? Wiping out the Team Six guys who killed bin Laden?”
Nothing.
“The rest of that crew are in protection,” Walker said. “They won’t be taken out like the others. Whoever’s hunting them, they won’t get to them.”
“It’s not me, son.”
There was silence for a beat.
“Who? Who’s doing this?”
Walker Snr leaned forward. “Are you sure they’re all protected?”
Walker saw it in his father’s eyes. An answer. Observed, not explained. He backed away from him, a couple of paces.
“I think they’re being taken out now because they’ve seen what’s coming,” Walker said. “They’ve seen it, but they don’t know they’ve seen it.”
David Walker stayed silent.
Walker checked his watch. Looked out the windows. No sign of anyone. Yet.
“There was no reasoning behind the order of it,” Walker Snr said. “Nor what attacks Zodiac chose.”
“Who’s behind it?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Tell me.”
David Walker was silent.
“Look, Zodiac was a list, that’s it,” David Walker said. When he spoke, he spoke with his face down. “No rationale, no idealism, no maniacal endgame. Just targets, linked via the attacks. Nothing more. Most were ambiguous. We put together dozens of worst-case scenario attacks, each detrimental to the US and devastating in its own way. Each is carried out by a cutout cell. The idea was that no one has any idea about which cells have which targets.” He looked up to his son. “That’s the very terror of it, see? That’s why it’s a worst-case, doomsday-type series of attacks, because there’s no way to stop them all.”
“Someone has an idea of how they’re linked,” Walker said. “Someone sold this. Someone started it.”
Walker Snr shrugged.
“What are you doing here?” Walker sat on the edge of a table. Watched his father.
“Surviving,” David replied. “The CIA guys, Bellamy and all of them, they were in on this—they started it, I’m sure.”
“They’re out of the picture now.”
“It’s self-perpetuating, remember?”
“You worked with them.”
“Only when they reached out to me. And when I realized what they were doing, in kick-starting Zodiac, I knew what I had to do.”
“Die.”
“Yes. Someone gave me a chance—an opportunity to get out. I took it. As you did. Work off the grid, to save lives.”
“Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to save lives?”
“I’m looking for answers, like you—”
“Bullshit. You’re hiding out, surviving. What are you really up to?”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. You can’t stop this. Twelve attacks have been set in motion.”
“I can catch up.”
“No,” David Walker said to his son, shaking his head, “you really can’t.”
10
McCorkell sped southwest as Hutchinson spoke on the phone.
“Just buy us some time,” McCorkell said.
“I can’t,” Hutchinson replied, ending the call. “MI5 are pissed. They’ve heard what happened at the tavern. They’re headed into this farmhouse hot and, well, I get the sense that none of us should get in their way.”
“The sense?”
“They’ve stopped taking my calls. Oh, and they said, ‘Don’t get in the way.’”
“Tell Somerville,” McCorkell said. “Warn her—warn Walker. Get them out.”
Hutchinson dialed, tapping fingers impatiently against the passenger door as he waited. “She’s not answering.”
“Keep trying,” McCorkell said, pushing the car faster.
•
“Is all that true?” a voice said behind Walker.
He tensed and looked behind.
The fourth guy, the one who’d earlier been downstairs. He was small and lean, with edginess in his eyes and an MP5K at the ready. Walker started running through options to get to the guy and subdue him, none of them appealing with the submachine gun in the game.
“Are you really part of some terrorist scheme?” he asked David Walker.
“Terry, it’s not that simple.”
“I heard everything you said,” Terry replied. “You’ve been feeding me and the boys lies this whole time. You said this was an opportunity. About settling some old scores, against forces that we knew. IRA and all that. Getting paid well to right some old wrongs. Hmm? Lies?”
“Not lies, Terry, but there’s more to it,” David said. “I needed you guys.”
Terry shook his head, his hands still firmly gripping his weapon. “Nope. This is all new. You said we’d be well paid, looked after, working inside the system but apart from it. But what—this is about some genie you let out of a bottle back in the States?”
Walker watched his father and Terry eye each other off in silence. The dangerous end of the MP5K was just a few paces away, but he was seated. Not ideal.
“All that I told you, Terry, was true. You can see that. We have a mission.”
“We? This fucker killed Brian—with a fifty-year-old shotgun.” Terry nodded toward Walker without taking his eyes off the older man. “And we’ve not heard from the others.”
“You won’t,” Walker said, standing up. He was a head taller than Terry, but he was unarmed and going up against a 9-millimeter killing machine. There was a reason the SAS termed the MP5K the “Room Broom”: its high rate of fire meant it was capable of clearing a room in seconds. “Why don’t you join us and talk this through?”
“I’m out,” Terry said, looking from Walker to his father. “You get that? You pay me, and I’m out. I’m going straight to bloody MoD and coming clean and making a deal—and you’re gonna be hauled through the ringer for what you are—a bloody terrorist.”
Walker took a step closer to Terry. The ex-SAS man tensed and focused on him, the MP5K trained at Walker’s chest.
“You have a choice here, Terry,” Walker said. “You can help me stop a terrorist attack, or you can walk away now and let me do what I need to here.”
“You sure they’re the only two choices?” Terry said. “Brian was a good friend of mine. He’s owed blood, mate. Get it?”
“Then I sure hope you’re a better shot than he was,” Walker said. “Because if you’re not, the only blood that’s paid will be yours.”
Terry’s eyes narrowed. Walker moved right. The barrel of the MP5K followed. David Walker shouted, “No!”
A gunshot rang out. Walker was splattered with warm blood. Another shot. Walker tensed as Terry fell forward, against him. In the doorway behind stood Somerville, breathless, the Browning pistol in her hands, the barrel smoking.
“I tried to warn you, Walker,” she said. “I saw him in the field—I fired a warning shot. He came looking for me.”
Walker laid the body on the floor, then turned to his father. “The Navy SEALs,” Walker said. He didn’t bother to wipe the blood spatter from his face. He just stared down at the man who’d raised him. “They’ve seen what’s coming, right? That’s why they’re being hit. They’ve seen it but they don’t know that they’ve seen it. Otherwise, whatever the attack is would have been prevented by now, right?”
“You need to look closer at them,” David Walker said, his head lowered, his gaze focused on his hands in his lap. “What they have in common. I think you’ll find the answer there.”
A noise cut through the silence. A helicopter, coming in fast.
11
“Next right,” Hutchinson said.
McCorkell eased off the gas and started to brake, making the turn as quickly as he dared. The road became unsealed gravel. He pushed the Ford hard. Traction control kicked in. They straightened up, McC
orkell with his right foot planted hard.
“Two more miles,” Hutchinson said. “Just beyond the pines up there.”
•
Walker didn’t wait for the party to come to him. He escorted his father outside, Somerville close behind them.
The helicopter was dark, unmarked. The MI5 men were dressed the same as paramilitary guys all over the world. Black clothing. Kevlar armor. Silenced firearms.
“Sorry,” Walker said to his father. “They’re going to take it from here, at least for a while.”
David Walker looked at the two armed men rushing toward them and then back to his son.
“Stopping this isn’t an option,” Walker Snr said. “Zodiac, I mean.”
“I know what you meant,” Walker said. “And I don’t understand it.”
David Walker smiled as the black-clad men took him by the arms. “It’s all about chaos and anarchy—that’s what the attacks are supposed to achieve. And out of that, after it, order will be restored.”
“Order?”
David Walker nodded. “If you can keep up, you will save lives. But you have to stop them at the very last moment, to activate the next cell. Understand? Let Zodiac run, and dismantle each as it rises. It’s the only way.”
Walker remained silent as he processed the information.
No words were spoken in the handover to the MI5 crew. None were needed. The paramilitary guys in black ski masks led David Walker away, while another crouched in a cover-fire position in the clearing. Walker knew he’d lost this battle, but he would get the chance to question his father again soon enough. McCorkell would get him access. The UN might be damned and maligned, but Bill McCorkell represented US intelligence, and that trumped the UK intel community; the Brits may have thought of themselves as the brains in the alliance, but the US had what they needed: money.
Walker watched as his father was loaded aboard the unmarked Bell 412, the four-blade main rotor speeding up with the characteristic whomp-whomp-whomp of the Huey family of aircraft. One MI5 paramilitary operator paused before climbing aboard, looking back at Walker and Somerville. Walker saw his father say something, and the guy turned and climbed aboard, sliding the side door shut. The rotors spooled up and the pilot turned the nose into the wind as they climbed, heading out toward the sea.