“I was born ready,” Mike said.
“Never been more prepared,” Anthony said, and meant it. Adrenaline buzzed through his blood, but that sense of calm remained with him, that feeling of implacable purpose. As if all his training, all the fights he’d endured, all the grief his family had suffered, had been to prepare him for this day, this moment.
“On my right-hand signal,” Valdez said.
She rushed around the stone pillar. Mike and Anthony peered around the corner, watching.
“Look at her, man,” Mike whispered. “I’ll be damned if I don’t ask her to marry me.”
“Maybe you should ask her to dinner first, do things in logical order. Just a thought.”
“Don’t rain on the parade, AT.”
Ponytail swinging, Valdez sprinted down a long, steep driveway flanked on both sides by sheer rock walls. At the end of the drive, there was a set of wide, wrought iron-gates. The entrance was fronted by a guard booth stationed atop a squat stone foundation.
Beyond the gates, nestled behind oaks and pines, the mansion stood on a sloped crest of grassy land.
At Valdez’s approach, a guard in a white tracksuit emerged from the booth. He called out a greeting that Anthony could not hear. Valdez raised her right hand, as if waving.
Game time.
Anthony exploded from hiding, the wind at his back like the urging of an avenging angel. Mike brought up the rear.
Spotting them, the guard shouted, “Halt!” and started to draw his pistol, but Valdez swung her upraised hand like a hatchet and chopped it against the guy’s throat. He let out a garbled scream. Whirling like a dust devil, she nailed him with a brutal roundhouse kick to his temple, and he dropped to the ground.
Another guard bounded out of the station, pistol drawn. But Anthony had been expecting him, already had his gun chambered, and squeezed off a shot. The round punched the guard in the chest and plunged him backward into the doorway almost comically, as if he were a drunk who had fallen on his butt while trying to make his way outside.
Valdez had flipped over the first guard onto his stomach and was slapping a pair of handcuffs on him. The guy’s eyes were dazed, and he breathed in ragged bursts.
Anthony charged into the booth. The agent was rising on wobbly legs. Although Anthony’s hollow-point round had hit him in the chest, the agents wore Kevlar vests, so the round had not penetrated his tissue, only knocked him down and temporarily stunned him.
Anthony rapped the butt of his pistol against the man’s head, and the blow sent him spilling back to the floor, unconscious. He grabbed the guard’s ankles and dragged him out onto the driveway, turned him face-down.
Mike used the guard’s own restraints to cuff his wrists.
As they finished securing the sentry, Valdez scrambled into the booth.
“You’ve got about two, three minutes to get inside,” she said. “After that, this area is gonna be swamped with reinforcements. We sacked these dirt bags here, but on the surveillance cameras the others will have seen what went down.”
“You’re staying out here?” Anthony asked.
She mashed a button on a control panel, and the motor-operated gates began to whir open.
“I’ve risked my job by going this far, Thorne,” she said. “I’ve gotta hold them off here and wait for my team and our warrant. But this is only my job—it’s your life, like you said.”
“Thanks for everything, Valdez.”
“De nada. Here, take one of these.”
There were two tactical rifles stored in racks on the booth’s interior wall. She strapped one over her shoulder, and offered the other one to him.
Anthony passed the gun to Mike.
“Watch my flank,” Anthony said.
Mike flipped the strap over his shoulder and checked the rifle’s chamber to confirm that it was loaded.
“We’re good,” Mike said. He blew a kiss to Valdez, turned to Anthony. “Lead on.”
79
After enjoying quality time with his angel, Bishop Prince left her to shower in his private quarters. The girl was reluctant to see him go, but he counseled her that selfishness was sin, and patience was a virtue. With that, he promised to return to her soon.
The angel, of course, was still a virgin, still ripening on the vine of womanhood. He was waiting for the perfect time, enjoying the delicious heightening of intimacy, and when release arrived at last, it would be all the sweeter for his having waited.
Sometimes, he didn’t wait. There were instances when his urges overwhelmed him, and he immediately took advantage of an opportunity. The thorn in his flesh resisted total control, or else it would not have been a thorn; it would have been sinful perversion, and he would have been doomed to hellfire.
But God had better things in store for his prophet. My grace is sufficient . . .
In his master bathroom suite, in a marble-tiled shower enclosure with twenty-four-carat gold taps, he showered. He showered after each visit with his angels, even if he hadn’t removed any of his clothing during the encounter. It was, he admitted, compulsive behavior, as if he believed on some level that frequent purification could wash away the stain of what his flesh had done, as if mere bathing could dislodge the thorn.
He hummed an old Negro spiritual as he lathered soap across his lean physique. The song was a favorite of his maternal grandmother’s, a knobby-knuckled woman who had picked cotton in Mississippi: We shall overcome . . . we shall overcome . . . we shall overcome, someday . . . When he reflected on overcoming, however, he thought about Kingdom rule vanquishing secular society once and for all.
He was in the enviable position of having the entire day to do with as he wished. Tomorrow was Sunday, and he was scheduled to give a sermon to his congregation, but he never prepared sermons in advance, and indeed, would not know the message he was to deliver until he arrived at the podium and gazed into the hungry eyes of the devoted. When you were God’s sanctified instrument, you didn’t require notes or planning; you needed only to listen. As the King had taught: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear . . .
Later that day—after another visit with Chastity—he might even see his wife and children. He hadn’t seen them in over a week and was overdue for a visit, though his wife, the First Lady of the Kingdom, annoyed him with her petty gossip about the wives of church officials. His four children, who ranged between the ages of eight and seventeen, were barely tolerable, too, whiny and hopelessly spoiled by their mother.
Upon reconsideration, perhaps he wouldn’t see them. He didn’t want to spoil his buoyant mood.
Finished showering, he toweled dry and dressed in another suit, a custom-tailored, charcoal gray Brioni. It was a new suit. He never wore the same garments twice, and once he’d worn one, he would ship it to a star forward in the NBA, a loyal servant who tithed fifteen percent of his hefty salary to New Kingdom and believed that donning clothing worn by his bishop guaranteed his success on the basketball court.
As he was knotting his tie, someone knocked urgently at the suite’s outer door.
“Yes?” he asked. Though he was in the dressing room, his baritone resonated throughout the entire master wing.
One of his bodyguards—he was loathe to think of them in those terms, but that was what they were—rushed into the dressing room, chest heaving.
“A threat has breached the front gates, sir.”
“For the love of God, relax, my friend. A threat has breached the front gates of the campus?”
“The front gates of the estate, your holiness.”
Something clutched Bishop Prince’s heart. He would not dishonor himself by labeling it as fear.
“Then take care of it,” Bishop Prince said. “No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Godspeed.”
“Please remain confined to your suite until we’ve eliminated the threat, sir.”
Grunting, Bishop Prince dismissed the servant with a wave. The man fled the room, barking into a hand-held radio.
Al
though Bishop Prince received death threats frequently, the agents of evil had never infiltrated his private residence. He had a lurking suspicion of who the adversary might be.
He went to the wall of closed-circuit televisions and jabbed a button on a remote control. The screens flickered on.
The cameras showed close-up views of the back of the house, the front, the sides, and various rooms within, including the angel’s guest room. Dressed in a white leotard and tights, the girl sat on the bed, supple legs crossed Indian-style. She brushed her long, dark hair with slow strokes, a gentle smile on her face, as though she were thinking of him.
It was difficult to pull his gaze away from her. Sighing, he pressed a button on the remote to receive a different set of camera views.
More rooms were shown, but he also got a look at the property from a more distant vantage point. The camera, he recalled, was concealed in a tree near the gates.
Two men were stalking across the driveway to the house. Both had guns.
As he’d suspected, one of the men was Anthony Thorne.
His grip tightened on the remote control.
Thorne’s appearance meant Noah Cutty had failed. He looked forward to reprimanding the Director for the ineptitude of his allegedly most capable soldier.
But why had Thorne come to the estate? What was he seeking? Was this an assassination attempt, or did Thorne have another purpose?
He didn’t know. Although they had wanted to capture Thorne and interrogate him to learn what the Judas had given him, Thorne was proving such a formidable adversary that perhaps eliminating him immediately was the only viable alternative. Elimination was the course of action that his security detail would pursue, unless he directed them otherwise.
He decided that he would let his servants do their jobs.
“God and I tried to have mercy on you, Thorne,” he said to the monitor. “But you’ve forced our hand.”
He left the displays and went to prepare. God had promised that no weapon formed against the faithful would prosper. But God did not suffer fools lightly, either.
80
As Anthony and Mike ran across the vast front yard, keeping to the cover of the trees, someone fired several shots at them. The gunfire had the distinctive crack of a high-velocity rifle, and it originated from the house.
Anthony crouched behind an oak tree. Mike hunkered behind a pine on Anthony’s left.
Anthony’s heart continued to beat at a moderate pace. No reason to panic. Of course these people were going to fight back.
Lying flat on the ground, shoulder pressed against rough bark, he peered around the tree.
Seen up close, the bishop’s residence was even more impressive. A majestic facade with stucco and stone accents, and limestone and fieldstone moldings and veneer. Wide covered porch marked by graceful arches supported by stone columns. Lots of dormer windows. A small turret set high on the right, domed with metal. It looked as if someone had extracted a nobleman’s chateau out of the French countryside and deposited it on this hill in metro Atlanta.
The turret in particular caught his attention. The window was halfway open. The elevation and angle would have made it a perfect fighting port for a sniper.
In the infantry, they’d been trained to clear a house from the top down, to avoid using doors and windows and to create a mouse hole for your own entry with demolitions, after which you methodically worked your way down to the lower levels, always keeping the high ground above the enemy. But they lacked the manpower, resources, and time to do this one by the book.
Anthony glanced over his shoulder at Mike, and with a hand signal, indicated the gunman’s probable position. Mike lifted the rifle to his shoulder, and waited.
Here we go.
Anthony broke cover and sprinted to the house. Rifle fire shattered the day, twice from the turret, once from Mike, and then the day was still.
Anthony leaped over a bed of azaleas and reached a set of long windows on the far left of the front door. He hugged the wall beside the window frame, breath whooshing through his lungs.
He hated windows. Sometimes they were booby-trapped, or at the least, your enemy had them covered and was waiting to blast you if you dared to enter through them. A cooked off hand grenade to clear the interior would have been useful right about then.
But he reminded himself that there might be innocent people inside. The bishop’s servants. Had to be careful.
Mike dashed across the yard and took cover behind one of the veranda’s stone columns. No one fired on him, which meant the turret sniper either had taken up another position, or been knocked out of the game entirely.
Anthony hoped for the latter. Then, the odds would be even, two-on-two.
He and Mike exchanged a quick look. Turning, Anthony fired his pistol near the bottom of the window, blowing out glass shards that clattered to the veranda floor. Keeping his head out of view from inside, he stuck his arm through the ragged hole in the pane, grabbed the bottom of the window, and raised it.
While Mike provided supporting fire, Anthony climbed inside through the window. He snatched a satiny curtain out of his face, and scanned his gun across the room.
The theme of unbridled opulence continued inside the house. It appeared to be a formal living room, huge, full of shadows. There was a vaulted ceiling, stone and plaster details, intricate crown molding, elegant arches and columns, rich marble floor. One wall featured a stone-detailed, baroque-style fireplace over twenty-feet high. All of the furniture looked to be antique.
No guards or servants were in sight. Anthony called out to Mike, “Clear,” and Mike scrambled inside, the rifle hanging from his shoulder.
“Quite a crib he’s got here,” Mike whispered, looking around appreciatively. “I ought to pastor a church.”
Presumably, with two agents left, one would probably on the lower level somewhere, and the third would surely be keeping close tabs on the bishop. The house was foreign territory, so enormous it could take time to find the room he wanted, and time was a luxury that was steadily dwindling. The FBI would be on site soon.
Anthony advanced across the living room, weaving around furniture, boots whispering across the marble. The shadowed house was as silent as a lurking beast.
On the right, an archway led to the foyer and a grand staircase. They avoided it—going there would place them in the line of fire from numerous vantage points. Instead, he traveled to the far end of the living room, where another archway beckoned into a gigantic, elliptical dining area.
The mahogany dining room table was long enough to accommodate thirty people. A crystal chandelier depended from the coffered ceiling, softly reflecting the gray daylight. Another broad archway connected the dining room to the main corridor, and ahead, a smaller doorway gave access to a butler’s pantry.
Mike grabbed the back of a chair. Swinging it around, he heaved it through the archway, into the hall.
A shot rang out while the chair was in midair, puncturing the seat cushion, and giving away the gunman’s position as somewhere toward the far end of the corridor. The chair slammed against the wall, splinters and cotton stuffing flying.
By then, Anthony was already on the move.
He hustled across the rest of the dining room, crossed into the butler’s pantry, and rounded the corner into the kitchen. A black-haired guard was crouched behind a large granite island. He whirled at Anthony’s entrance, raising a pistol, but Anthony got off a shot first. The round drilled into the man’s chest, lifted him off his feet and threw him against a wooden stool.
Anthony cornered the island. The guy lay on the marble tile, a stupefied expression on his face. Not dead. Body armor had saved him, too.
Anthony pressed his boot against the man’s throat. The guy blinked, gasped.
“Where’s the bishop’s bedroom?” Anthony asked.
Confusion swam in the guard’s eyes. Anthony leveled the gun at his head. The guard’s gaze honed in on the muzzle—and instantly clarified.
“We ain’t got all day,” Mike said.
The guard swallowed, made pointing motions with a trembling finger. “Up . . . upstairs.”
“Where upstairs?” Anthony asked.
“E—east . . . side.”
“Where’s the third goon?” Mike said.
“Upstairs . . . by . . . stair . . . staircase.”
“Any house servants in here?” Anthony asked.
“N-no . . .”
Anthony glanced at Mike. “KO this guy.”
Mike slammed the butt of the rifle against the guard’s temple, knocking him unconscious. They cuffed him and left him on the floor.
From the kitchen archway, he surveyed the main hall. Numerous doors led off the wide corridor. The grand spiral staircase was near the middle, a luxurious blend of carved stone and wrought iron.
Keeping to the far edge of the hall, they moved toward the staircase. In a cased niche on the right, Anthony spotted a portrait of Bishop Prince. Posed alone, clad in priestly vestments, the man wore a haughty expression, as if he were a conquering king.
In an alcove to the left of the stairs, there was an elevator with brushed steel doors and gold trim.
“An elevator,” Mike said. “Damn, this guy’s ballin’ like Jay-Z.”
“Some struggling single mother who believes in his ministry paid for this,” Anthony said.
“And a grandmother living on a fixed income.”
A hot column of anger surged up Anthony’s throat, and he choked it down. He’d save his rage for the bishop.
On the panel, there were arrows to go up, or down. Anthony pressed the Up button.
The elevator chimed, a sound that would have been heard upstairs, too, and the doors slid open. He leaned inside the car and selected the button for the second level.
Machinery humming, the car began to ascend.
Mike in the lead this time, they quick-stepped to the staircase and began to ascend, too, keeping to the edge of the risers, where they would make the least amount of noise.
Covenant Page 31