‘No, please, don’t!’
Ethan sprinted with an awkward gait to the bedroom door and heard a single, deafening gunshot. His heart almost stopped in his chest as he burst into the room.
An ornate four–poster bed dominated the bedroom, the former First Lady cowering on her knees behind the far side of the bed. In front of Ethan stood Abrahem Nassir, his pistol pointed at the former President. The President was lying on his back on the thickly carpeted bedroom floor, a hole in his shirt where a bullet had impacted his chest.
Abrahem turned the pistol to aim at the First Lady as he spotted Ethan, a grim smile of satisfaction spreading on his dark features.
‘So much for shock and awe,’ he sniggered. ‘Drop the pistol!’
Ethan held his ground, knowing that his gun was all that was keeping the First Lady alive as he staggered into the room. ‘It’s over,’ he said weakly, barely able to stand and his pistol weighing his arm down it seemed. ‘You’ve killed him.’
‘Time to finish the game,’ Abrahem snarled back.
Abrahem whipped the pistol around to aim at him, too fast for Ethan to respond, and Ethan heard a deafening gunshot that almost shattered his eardrums as he scrambled with his hands to try to protect his body from the bullet that would kill him.
***
L
The shot hit Abrahem in the side of his head, a fine spray of blood and bone bursting from the side of his face as the bullet smashed through his skull and embedded itself in the bedroom wall fifteen feet from where Ethan crouched.
Abrahem appeared to remain on his feet for a timeless moment, the muscles in his body randomly clenching and holding him upright as the last flickering neurons in his brain faded into silence. The assassin’s body crumpled at the legs, slammed down onto its knees and folded over as though Abrahem were prostrating himself toward Mecca, his gun still clasped at an awkward angles in his hand as his forehead hit the carpeted floor with a bloodied thump.
Ethan turned to see Hannah Ford standing four–square in the bedroom doorway, both hands gripping the pistol that she had fired. Ethan’s ears rang incessantly from the gunshots as he turned and vaguely heard Abrahem’s final breath spill from his lungs in a low rasp.
The First Lady leaped up from her hiding place and rushed around the bed, tears streaming from her eyes as she cried out.
‘Help him!’
Ethan staggered forward as his injured leg gave way beneath him and he slumped to the floor. Ethan stared blankly at the President’s body, knowing that the bullet must have passed directly through his heart, Abrahem far too good a shot to have missed the vital organ in his last victorious moment. The First Lady plunged down alongside her husband and ripped his shirt open to reveal the dense black padding of a bullet proof vest.
Ethan’s eyes widened as the President rasped a weak sentence.
‘He didn’t take the head shot.’
Ethan stared down in disbelief at the President as his wife helped him up into a sitting position.
‘You had a vest,’ Ethan gasped.
The President nodded. ‘Always have a backup plan,’ he rasped, clearly in pain from the bullet’s impact. The President must have donned the vest before purposefully confronting Abrahem in the bedroom, directing the assassin’s revenge away from the family and giving Ethan enough time to catch up. ‘I only hoped he wouldn’t shoot for my head. But I guess the malicious bastard wanted me to suffer.’
Ethan rested his hand on the President’s shoulder, relief pouring through him as he replied.
‘He would have been trained to make sure of a kill, even at close range,’ Ethan said. ‘He’d aim for the torso and if the first shot didn’t kill…’
‘It would surely maim, letting him fire a second into the head,’ the President nodded as he replied. ‘I’m lucky he didn’t use a double–tap.’
The double–tap was a Special Forces technique, where the shooter would pull the trigger twice in quick succession – once to hit the torso, and the second shot on the recoil of the first, which would push the barrel upward slightly and cause the second round to go through the face or skull.
Ethan looked round to see Hannah Ford watching over them as Secret Service agents swarmed into the room.
‘Stay still, hands on your head!’
Ethan complied as he saw the agents surround him, despite the President’s assurances that he was an ally. Ethan looked at Hannah, and she pointed to his nose.
‘You’ve got a nosebleed,’ she said.
‘Abrahem,’ Ethan replied as he was cuffed by the agents. ‘I’m not implanted. Mitchell?’
Hannah beamed in delight at him as she holstered her pistol. ‘Apprehended, he’s downstairs.’
Hannah’s delight melted away and Ethan saw the concern etched into her features. He was about to ask her what was wrong, when he had a sudden premonition of doom as he stood up on legs unwilling to bear his weight.
‘Nicola?’
Hannah did not respond for a moment, but then she spoke softly.
‘She’s on her way to George Washington University Hospital,’ she said. ‘She was hit. I don’t know how bad it is.’
Ethan felt his world sway around him and he slumped back down onto one knee, fatigue finally overwhelming him as Hannah moved to his side.
‘You need a hospital too,’ she pointed out. ‘How about we get you there right now?’
*
George Washington University Hospital,
Washington DC
The intensive care unit was quieter that Ethan would have imagined. It had taken some time for the Secret Service and local law enforcement to assure themselves that he was not in fact some deranged biker intent on murdering anybody who crossed his path, and that he had not been implanted with one of the nefarious devices.
Lopez lay entombed amid a tangle of tubes, intravenous lines and other medical paraphernalia. Her eyes were bruised and closed, her breathing controlled by a ventilator and her chest swathed in white bandages that looked clinically clean but to Ethan were merely a veil across the terrible damage wrought by the bullet that had passed through her.
A doctor stood alongside him at the foot of the bed and spoke as though from another world.
‘The bullet severed her right subclavian artery, passed through her right lung and exited her left chest in the middle of the ribcage. She lost a lot of blood before the paramedics got to her, and was barely breathing by the time she reached the ER.’
Ethan swallowed, didn’t take his eyes from Lopez as he spoke.
‘What’s her condition and prognosis?’
The doctor sighed softly before he replied.
‘There is a reasonable chance that she’ll pull through this and survive the shooting,’ he said finally. ‘But we can’t predict what condition she’ll be in when she does. Her brain was starved of oxygen for a considerable period of time.’
Ethan was unable to look at anything else but Lopez’s face, her body seeming so small and vulnerable now as it lay on the hospital bed, her life hanging by the thread of modern technology. He knew there and then that without the intervention of paramedics, who had forced their way through the dense traffic to reach her, Lopez would have died at the scene along with the shooter.
‘Who pulled the trigger?’ he asked finally.
‘I don’t have that information sir,’ the doctor replied.
Ethan turned and stalked out of the room. Outside in the corridor waited Hannah Ford, her green eyes swimming with concern. Ethan registered a moment of brief surprise that she was even still here.
‘How’s she doing?’ Hannah asked.
Ethan struggled for a moment to speak. It felt as though somebody had shoved a sock down his throat.
‘Touch and go,’ he uttered finally. ‘They can’t predict her condition if she does survive.’
‘Christ, I’m so sorry,’ Hannah said.
Ethan could not bring himself to look at her as he spoke. ‘Who shot her?’
Hannah looked up at the ceiling briefly before she replied.
‘Ethan, going on a rampage isn’t going to help you any and it sure as hell won’t help Lopez.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘It didn’t do Abrahem any good, did it?’ Hannah challenged.
Ethan stalked past her and continued down the corridor, Hannah following.
‘Where are you going?’ she demanded.
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘No, you’re under stress. I don’t want you wandering off and doing something you’ll regret.’
‘Since when do you care?’
Hannah gripped Ethan’s arm with enough force to pull him up short.
‘We’re on the same side,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t matter about what’s happened up before. Director LeMay’s working for Majestic Twelve, I know that now.’
Ethan sighed and glanced out of a window, the iconic skyline of Washington DC’s Capitol visible in the distance.
‘He’s untouchable, you know that too. They all are.’
‘Maybe,’ Hannah replied, ‘but everybody has weaknesses and nobody is untouchable forever. We have Mitchell, remember?’
Ethan clenched his fists. ‘Mitchell might have saved the President’s life as much as put it at risk.’
‘He’s the enemy,’ Hannah insisted. ‘He murdered Stanley Meyer and Jin Chen in Hong Kong, stole the hard drives from the Chinese that contained the data we were searching for to hand over to Majestic Twelve and he still represents the very people who have been trying to bring us down!’
‘Us?’ Ethan uttered as he shot a glance at Hannah.
‘Like I said, we’re all on the same team, right?’
Ethan regarded her for a moment longer, and then he turned and walked away down the corridor toward the hospital exit.
***
LI
Lake Michigan,
Indiana
The wind whipping across Lake Michigan had swept away some of the cloying summer heat and churned the surface of the water into charging armies of white rollers, the green waves glittering in the sunlight breaking between turbulent clouds scudding above as Ethan walked.
The rendezvous had been agreed, strictly off the record despite his official status as a Defense Intelligence Agency operative and asset. Ethan had driven east across the border to Marquette Park, near the Aquatorium, then parked up in a deserted lot on the south shores of the lake and walked east along the golden sands of the beach.
He didn’t have to walk far before he saw Jarvis waiting for him, sitting on a low bench against the bluffs and watching the rollers coming in off the lake. He strolled up to the bench and sat down, not looking at the old man.
‘Any news?’ Jarvis asked.
Ethan shook his head, and Jarvis thought for a moment before speaking.
‘I’m sure she’ll pull through,’ he said. ‘She’s a tough girl and she won’t go without a fight.’
Ethan’s jaw cracked with the briefest ghost of a smile that was snatched away by the brisk wind.
‘What’s the score?’
Ethan asked the question out straight, not in the mood to beat about the bush. Jarvis took a breath before replying.
‘Hannah Ford and Michael Vaughn were wanted by the Hong Kong police for homicide. We couldn’t let Mitchell go because he’s being questioned here and is too valuable an asset to release, and the Chinese needed something in order to play ball. We sent the Chinese operatives you captured in DC back home, in return for Hannah and Michael’s charges to be dropped.’
‘Neat and tidy, as always,’ Ethan murmured without passion. ‘Where was Nicola’s back up when she took on Tariq and his bodyguard?’
‘The traffic slowed down law enforcement as well as federal and DIA agents,’ Jarvis said. ‘Nicola wasn’t supposed to go bashing their door down on her own, she was just the first on the scene after two police officers were gunned down by Tariq.’
‘You know what she’s like.’
‘I know what you’re both like,’ Jarvis shot back. ‘and I wouldn’t have either of you any other way, but sooner or later something like this was going to happen Ethan. It’s not a game.’
‘Don’t patronize me,’ Ethan growled. ‘What about LeMay?’
Jarvis took a deep breath before he replied.
‘LeMay was injured by Hannah Ford in the White House, after Lopez was shot. It turns out she punched the Director and broke his nose. While the Director was having his nose re–set that evening under general anesthetic, we took the opportunity to implant him with one of the devices we retrieved from the Chinese.’
Ethan slowly turned his head to look at Jarvis.
‘But Hannah was implanted,’ he said. ‘You could have stopped her from doing something so stupid if…’
Ethan broke off as he saw the way that Jarvis was looking at him, the sly grin on his face and the knowing gleam in his eye.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Ethan said finally. ‘You made her do it.’
‘We needed a broken nose for the Director,’ Jarvis said by way of an explanation, ‘and to be honest it didn’t take much conditioning or signaling to give Hannah Ford sufficient motivation to knock LeMay on his ass. She was the one who found Nicola.’
Ethan stared out across the lake for a moment.
‘You risked both of their lives.’
Jarvis looked across at him. ‘You’re going to argue the toss about this now?’
‘No. I’ve got used to the dirty little games you all play, and the lives that get lost while you’re playing them.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ Jarvis pointed out. ‘We’re all on the same side.’
‘That’s what Hannah keeps saying, but it’s becoming tough to know,’ Ethan replied.
Ethan watched Jarvis for a long moment, and the old man relented.
‘Hannah was on her way to the White House to deliver her final blow when we picked up the emergency calls from the scene of Lopez’s shooting,’ Jarvis said. ‘I diverted Hannah straight there when I realized who had been hit. Lopez’s survival was more important to me, to us, than implanting LeMay.’
Ethan looked back out over the ocean. ‘And Mitchell?’
‘Uncertain,’ Jarvis replied. ‘He is definitely working for Majestic Twelve, but we’re not sure in what capacity now. I’m beginning to wonder whether MJ–12’s support for a terrorist group’s plan to murder the president was a step too far even for him.’
‘I wouldn’t have been able to stop Abrahem Nassir if Mitchell hadn’t been there already,’ Ethan said. ‘LeMay must have assigned him to the former President’s staff, which means…’
‘That LeMay must have known Abrahem’s true target before we did,’ Jarvis finished the sentence for Ethan. ‘MJ–12 must have known all about Abrahem Nassir’s plan for revenge and been helping him from behind the scenes for some time.’
Ethan rubbed his temple wearily, the bruises where Abrahem had head–butted him still sore and swollen.
‘Surely a powerful organization such as MJ–12 would not want to see a terrorist attack on American soil succeed? What good would that do them?’
‘That depends,’ Jarvis said. ‘The group may have military or defense contractors among its number who would stand to make great profits were another major war to be launched overseas. Justification for those wars is required to convince Congress of the need for conflict, to convince the American people that another war is worth fighting for our country’s security.’
‘I think that there are enough terrorists and enemies out there for a war to always be a possibility.’
‘But not a certainty,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Businesses can’t be built on uncertainties. Look at Iraq – we invaded on lies about non–existent weapons of mass destruction and American companies made billions off the back of a war financed by the tax payer. Yet nobody wants to go to war with China, Russia or North Korea, countries with definite chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities that cou
ld harm us, despite the fact that Russia just annexed Crimea and is now making noises about Eastern Europe and the Baltic states “belonging to Russia”. War isn’t about territory or defense any more, Ethan, it’s about making money and the big defense contractors don’t want that revenue to dry up any time soon.’
Ethan folded his arms.
‘So that’s who we’re up against now?’ he asked. ‘Big business people?’
Jarvis nodded.
‘It’s through them that we’ll hurt the members of Majestic Twelve, and now we literally have eyes on one of their members. Director LeMay was implanted while under general anesthetic to fix a broken nose he thoroughly deserved. Whatever he is told or tells them, we will have on the record. This was a big score, Ethan, a huge step on the road to dismantling Majestic Twelve.’
‘At what price?’ Ethan uttered. ‘You take one cabal down, another will fill the power vacuum to take its place. If arms companies have such a hold over Washington then we’ll never be able to operate without one intelligence figure or another trying to trip us up. It’s going to be a never–ending mission and like you just said, sooner or later we’re all going to wind up dead trying to complete it.’
Ethan got up off the bench.
‘So that’s it then?’ Jarvis asked. ‘You just quit?’
‘I quit once before,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Lopez was the one who convinced me to come back in and now her life’s hanging by a thread in a hospital in DC while I’m back here contemplating apprehending a bunch of low–life bail jumpers.’
‘Then come back to DC,’ Jarvis said, standing as he did so. ‘Come back and start doing a proper job. The DIA wants you, hell the President still wants you on this case. He’s as keen as anybody to achieve something against Majestic Twelve before his second term is up. Are you really going to let Nicola’s courage and sacrifice be for nothing?’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 32