Armageddon Conspiracy

by John Thompson

He waited five minutes and tried both numbers again. Still no answer. “Damn,” he said. He felt a huge surge of gratitude for the risk Smythe had taken. He couldn’t wait to hear the rest of his message and then offer to take him to New York’s best restaurant by way of a thank-you. Hell, he’d take the Smythes to Paris if that was what they wanted!

  He heard Maggie’s chair scrape the kitchen floor. A second later, she stood in the doorway, her face grim.

  “It’s time,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “I’m turning you in.”

  Brent looked up and saw exhaustion and worry carved in her face but also determination. “Not yet!” he said. “I’ve got a name!”

  Her face flooded with anger. “You come back into my life and expect me to risk everything for you?”

  “I’m just asking for a little time.”

  “You’re wanted for murder. You stole a car.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I can’t keep you in my house.”

  Her vulnerability struck him. It made him want to go over to her and cup her face in his hands, but he held back. “Give me a few more hours,” he said. “Please!”

  “I’ve already given you too much time!”

  “A couple hours! These guys have been flawless! If they even suspect I’ve got a lead, they’re liable to vanish completely!”

  “What do you expect to do?” she demanded.

  “Get something!” he shouted, sitting up, ignoring the pain. “You’ve got to let me try!”

  She turned away and looked into the kitchen. “I just hope you’re worth it,” she muttered.

  Brent slumped back on the pillows. “So do I.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  OYSTER BAY, NY, JUNE 30

  FRED WOFFORD STOPPED AT PRESCOTT Biddle’s gates, took a deep breath, and tried to punch the entry code into the keypad. His hand shook, and he hit the wrong numbers. He cursed then took a rattling breath and tried again, once more his fingers shaking out the wrong code. He tried a third time, and the gates finally swung back. He headed down the driveway then braked at the small guardhouse located around the first curve, just out of sight of the road.

  A man wearing a blue blazer and gray flannels stepped toward the car. He had an earpiece in one ear and a small microphone at his lapel, and even though he recognized Wofford, he walked around the car, peered through the windows, and tapped the rear hatch. Wofford hit the unlock button, and the guard opened the hatch and glanced at the boxes inside. “Mrs. Biddle order all this?” he asked.

  “I believe they’re expecting guests in the cottage for a few days,” Wofford replied. He tried for an easy smile, as though delivering cases of foul-smelling stuff purchased from a Middle Eastern grocery was nothing out of the ordinary.

  The guard raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He closed the tailgate then bent to his lapel mike. “Clearing Mr. Wofford,” he said. “Silver Mercedes SUV, New York plates, one passenger. Going to the cottage.” The man listened then nodded. “Roger.” He saluted Wofford. “Have a good day.”

  Wofford started moving again, leaving his window down. The sea air was soft against his face, the bright morning light adding an extra touch of splendor to Biddle’s acres of lawn and flowers, but the beauty was illusory. Dread chewed the lining of his stomach as he thought of what was hidden just ahead.

  Clearly, Biddle’s security people remained ignorant of the three men in the little stone cottage. Thank God. Only a tiny group knew—Biddle, Wofford, their two secretaries, Reverend Turner, and the two sheriff’s deputies from Turner’s church. Each of them had sworn a sacred and holy oath to the prophecy and the promise of bringing Jesus back into the world!

  Wofford tried again to focus on that one supreme goal and prayed that Jesus would banish his fear. Only, it didn’t work. Panic squeezed his insides. He stopped the car in the middle of the driveway, opened the door, and hung his head out the side. He retched, but only a few drops of clear liquid since he’d thrown up everything hours ago.

  He closed the door and wiped his lips with the back of his wrist. His own vision was so different from Biddle’s. It always had been, but Biddle’s revelations had overpowered him—just as they had all the others. Only, when he was alone he had such horrible doubts. Would a loving God really want this?

  At times he suspected Armageddon was meant to signify a war fought in people’s hearts, as the religions of the world struggled to find one God together. But Biddle insisted otherwise. It needed to be an actual war, with millions dead. Anything less, and Jesus would not return.

  Well, Biddle was getting his way, he thought bitterly, as his recollection of the orders he’d given the previous night made him want to vomit all over again. The call from Reverend Turner had set everything off. It had come in around nine o’clock, followed by a second call an hour later from the firm’s security people.

  He hadn’t been able to reach Prescott, so it had been his decision. Yet again he had begged God for courage, but those prayers had not been answered, not last night and not today. Nonetheless, he’d called Turner and given the order he knew Biddle would have given. Sometime around dawn, after hours of sleeplessness, he’d swallowed some Valium and finally nestled within its soft comfort. Only now, a little over four hours later, the drug was a faint memory.

  Yesterday everything had been going perfectly—even his phone conversation with Lucas. Wofford knew he’d done well. He’d sounded angry, even felt angry, as he’d focused his anxiety and let it pour out. Only now . . . he lifted one hand from the steering wheel and made a fist. His fingers felt sticky. It was irrational, but he imagined them covered with blood.

  How could Biddle insist this killing was God’s work, unavoidable, the only way to the prophecy? How had he let himself get pulled into this? Already it was out of control. The original plan called for only Faisal and his butler to die, but the news reports said a third person had been in the house, a woman. And then that poor man in the garage! Ironically, Lucas, the greatest threat to them all if they hoped to stay out of jail, was still on the loose.

  But young Smythe! He’d had a wife and child! That had to be a sin beyond forgiveness. He put his face in his hands and let out several convulsive sobs. He’d accepted Biddle’s vision as far as he could, but now he knew he’d run out of strength.

  He raised his head and looked around. How long had he been there? He had stopped where the driveway forked, the right fork leading to Biddle’s house, the other to the stone cottage and the dock. This surely was a sign from God—the fork of the drive, the fork of the serpent’s tongue, the choice. He needed to move, but it took every ounce of his will.

  A moment later he drove into the stone courtyard and used his shirtsleeve to dab the sweat from his scalp. His bowels were water. A blast of resentment ran through him directed at Biddle, safe in Russia right now, his alibi ironclad. It was Biddle’s job, not his, to handle these animals. Fuck! Wofford thought, uttering an unaccustomed silent curse.

  He climbed from the car then froze when he heard a sound at his back. He turned slowly and spotted a man hidden in the deep shadow of a pine tree. A scarf wrapped his face, covering everything but delicate eyes and what looked like a narrow band of bruised, bandaged flesh. However, Wofford’s gaze went straight to the machine gun aimed at his stomach. He raised his hands. “Please . . . I only brought the food,” he stuttered.

  The man looked back down the driveway. “You were supposed to call first.”

  “I know,” Wofford said, nodding, appalled at his mistake. “I forgot. I’m very sorry.”

  The man stepped over to the SUV, opened the doors, and looked inside. He said something into a small microphone on his shoulder, and then with one hand pressed to his earpiece, he listened. After a second he jerked his head toward the cottage.

  Wofford looked around as the cottage door swung open, and Abu Sayeed stepped out. “Mr. Wofford,” he said in cultivated English. He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose thin but muscular forearms. A machine gun dangled
carelessly from his hand. His chiseled nose had the inhumanity of a raptor’s beak, and his dark eyes blazed with ruthless certainty, as they seemed to drill into Wofford’s heart and extract the tender meat of his innermost secrets.

  “You have our food?”

  Wofford nodded weakly, knowing Biddle would slap his face if could see him now, demand that he show pride and strength as a servant of Christ. He couldn’t. He wasn’t made to face people with machine guns and the hearts of savages. “It’s in . . . it’s in the back of the car.”

  Abu Sayeed turned back to the cottage, snapped his fingers, and said something in Arabic. A moment later a third man emerged, the one who had ridden in the container. He glanced at Wofford with eyes as roiled as thunderclouds, and then opened the SUV’s hatch and began to carry the boxes of food into the cottage.

  Abu Sayeed continued to inspect Wofford, making no effort to hide his scorn. “I trust everything is still on schedule?” he asked after several long seconds.

  Wofford could not bring himself to meet the man’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, directing his unfocused stare toward the cottage roof.

  “Of course you would tell me if anything had changed,” Abu Sayeed said.

  “Yes.” Wofford looked at his car. The stocky man was back already, getting the last carton of food. There were still two cases of Coke and Mountain Dew waiting to be unloaded. He prayed for the man to hurry.

  “Do you think of us as merely your servants who will bloody our hands whenever you order it?”

  Wofford forced himself to meet the icy stare. He wanted to say it was the Arab’s fault, that things had started going wrong when his man failed to kill Lucas, but his courage failed. “Of course not, but it had to be done,” he said in a faltering voice.

  Abu Sayeed’s lip curled. “Why don’t you do your own killing?”

  Wofford looked at the ground and pictured the three charred corpses. He swallowed as bile edged into the back of his throat. He was no soldier, especially no general like Biddle . . . and the thought of what he’d done. “We had a problem,” he managed after several seconds. “We needed to take care of it.”

  “You did nothing!” Abu Sayeed said, his voice soft but full of acid. “We took care of it.”

  Wofford felt small and helpless. “The man was . . . our security cameras caught him snooping in our computers. He might have ruined everything . . . for all of us.” His cheeks burned. He had made the error by leaving that phone number in his computer’s trash file. The deaths were his fault.

  “We are not murderers,” Abu Sayeed said, his voice like a lash. “As mujahideen, we kill for the glory of God, not the protection of blunderers. You have dishonored us.”

  “I apologize,” Wofford said in a near whisper. He glanced at his SUV, flooded with relief as the stocky man unloaded the last two cases of soda from the back. “I have to go now,” he said.

  Abu Sayeed eyed him with a derisive smile. “Of course.”

  Wofford slammed the SUV’s rear hatch, climbed behind the wheel, and began to drive. He boiled with humiliation and rage and wanted to stop and shout that all infidels would die when God’s prophecy was fulfilled. However, he kept driving.

  THIRTY-SIX

  MORRISTOWN, NJ, JUNE 30

  BY TEN THAT MORNING, SMYTHE still hadn’t answered his phone. Maggie, having decided to give Brent another reprieve, had gone to work. He dozed intermittently on the couch and dialed Smythe’s number each time he awoke. His last attempt had been seven minutes earlier. Smythe should have been at work for several hours already, so why the hell wasn’t he picking up?

  Brent’s body screamed for sleep, but his concern kept him from anything more than catnaps. He tried to convince himself that Smythe had only snooped a phone number, but he couldn’t deny that whoever had murdered Dr. Faisal and stolen his money would kill to cover their tracks. He glanced at his watch. How much more time would Maggie give him?

  Not much, he thought, and there were other loose ends to pursue. After a second, he gritted his teeth against the pain, rose, and hobbled slowly upstairs to the guest room. Earlier, he had called information and learned there was no Spencer McDonald in West Orange, either listed or not. Now, on a hunch, he logged onto Maggie’s computer and searched real estate listings in West Orange. He estimated that “Spencer McDonald’s” house had six or more bedrooms and would probably cost at least two million dollars. Seven listings met his criteria, and his breath caught when the third one showed a picture of the house.

  He called the realty company, and an agent told him the house was available but couldn’t be shown because a movie company had rented it for several weeks. He could see it as soon as the lease expired, the agent said, but not before. In the meantime she could show him a number of other listings. He thanked her, promised to call back, and hung up.

  This discovery only deepened his anxiety because it reinforced the idea that people had gone to a great deal of trouble to set him up. It also sharpened his fear for Smythe. He went down to the den and dialed yet again, letting the number ring until voice mail picked up. He ended the call, as he had all the others, without leaving a message.

  He dozed for a short time, but the phone woke him. He let it ring, waiting for the answering machine in the kitchen to play its message. Once he heard Maggie’s voice on the other end he grabbed the receiver.

  “Have you seen it?” she asked.

  “What?” Something in her tone made his stomach turn to ice.

  “Owen Smythe died in a house fire last night along with his wife and child.”

  For several seconds he couldn’t breathe. He threw an arm across his eyes. This was his fault! He might as well have struck the match! Instantly, no matter how he tried to turn it off, his mind began to replay the terrible scene from his childhood—burning embers falling into a room where the walls had turned to solid flame—only this time it wasn’t Brent and Harry in the room but Owen Smythe and his family. “They killed them,” he whispered.

  “We don’t know for sure,” Maggie said, her words sounding hollow.

  “This is no coincidence!” Brent snapped.

  Maggie’s reply was soft but firm. “It’s not your fault. You asked for a favor.”

  Suddenly he felt a new fear. What if his pursuers learned about Maggie? They’d managed to find out everything else. Even if he went to jail, they might still come after her. He should get out now, immediately. He wouldn’t make it far in a stolen car, but maybe far enough to keep her safe.

  “Brent,” Maggie said, as if she was reading his mind, “stay there. You can’t do this alone, and you have no place to go.”

  He said nothing.

  “I stopped by Fred’s this morning,” she continued. “Two plainclothes guys are watching the house.”

  “How is he?”

  “He needed to know you’re alive. I took him a loaf of olive bread and slipped a note inside the bag. I just handed it to him, gave him a kiss, and left. If I’d talked to him those guys could have heard every word. In the note I told him you’re okay, but he’s under surveillance and not to call my house or come by.”

  Brent groaned. “Fred doesn’t listen to anybody.”

  “Like somebody else I know. Anyway, he’ll listen this time,” Maggie said. “I told him it’s life and death.”

  • • •

  When he hung up, his mind was racing again. In addition to sorrow and guilt, a desire for vengeance burned in his guts. He wanted to find his enemy and smash his face to pulp. Only he didn’t even know who that person was, not for sure.

  He went to the kitchen and rummaged furiously through the kitchen drawers for a legal pad, raging at the knowledge that even if he knew where Howard Turner lived, he was too weak to go after him. Worse, time was running out. Seven people were now dead, and he was the only common denominator. Even if Maggie continued to give him more rope, the police were already searching under every rock. Any hour they were liable to figure out that he and Maggie once dated, and then the
y’d tap her phones and watch her house. Before that happened he needed to figure out who had done these things.

  He started a list on the legal pad and put down every relevant fact he could think of since he’d been approached to go to work at Genesis Advisors. Despite his fatigue, he felt strangely clear headed, powered by his anger.

  When he finished, he looked down his list and groped for the invisible links.

  Gov’t suspects GA of insider trading, drafts Lucas

  Simmons donates money to Biddle’s church

  GA hires Lucas

  God gives Biddle tips on employment data, Intel

  Biddle gives Lucas Faisal’s account

  Biddle’s party—introduces Faisal

  Simone Hearkins???

  Biddle leaves for Russia

  Wofford leaves for surprise vacation

  Impostor FBI agents seize Faisal’s account

  Lucas meets with impostor attorney

  Dr. Faisal murdered

  Lucas goes to Faisal’s house, finds bodies

  Owen Smythe agrees to help

  Lucas attacked in the parking garage

  Smythe finds name—Howard Turner

  Smythe and family killed in fire

  Whoever took the money had been careful, methodical and utterly ruthless. Also, it seemed clear that it wasn’t just about the money—otherwise why kill Dr. Faisal? Kill Smythe because he snooped, maybe. Kill Lucas so he could disappear and take the blame along with him, yes. But don’t kill three unnecessary people. Faisal’s killing wasn’t rational, yet the rest of it was too highly choreographed for irrationality. Therefore, the motive had to be more than greed, but what? Revenge? Politics? Religion? He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Think!

  He went down the list again. The one entry that didn’t seem to track was Simone Hearkins. He’d never seen again her after the night of Biddle’s party. Did she have a role in this, or was she just coincidental?

  He shook his head. There were no coincidences. It meant everything was premeditated, and he needed to discover how far back it went. He took out his cell phone and turned it on. There was one more call he hadn’t made. He feared having his location triangulated, but he had no choice.