Armageddon Conspiracy

by John Thompson

  He auto-dialed the number. After several rings, Simmons’s voice came on. “Brent, thank God! Where are you?”

  “Why didn’t you answer the other times I called?” he demanded.

  “I know . . . I’m sorry. I was in high-level meetings. Where are you?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “We . . . I heard that you were wanted by the police!”

  “I’m being framed!”

  “But you’re okay?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Tell me where you are. I’ll have someone come and get you.”

  There it was again, the third time she’d asked the question and the tone of Simmons’s voice struck an off chord. “I’ll call back,” he said.

  “Brent! Don’t hang up. Tell me where you are!”

  He killed the call and turned off the phone. Maybe he’d become totally paranoid, but shouldn’t Simmons have asked different questions? She only cared about his location. Why? He felt sick at the likely explanation. Could things really go this deep? Had he been hired only because someone at Genesis Advisors needed a scapegoat? Had they even predicted his reactions? Intended for him to go to Dr. Faisal’s house, intended for him to run!

  He felt a renewed shot of rage at how he’d been suckered. He’d taken Simmons at her word, with nothing in writing, and how he was trapped between the police and his would-be assassins. His enemies had made only two small mistakes: leaving a single phone number in a computer’s trash file and failing to kill him. He prayed those would be enough.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  NEWARK, NJ, JUNE 30

  SHADOWS HAD GATHERED IN NEWARK’S trash-littered streets when Maggie finally rolled her chair back from her computer and rubbed her exhausted eyes. Thankfully, with so many people assigned to the POTUS visit or working the docks because of Jenkins’ Condition Red, the rest of Project Seahawk had been eerily quiet. It had allowed her to concentrate on Brent.

  Now, even as she arched her back in a yawn she kept her eyes on her computer screen with its constant stream of bulletins from different law enforcement organizations. Earlier, a communiqué from the Westchester County Medical Examiner attributed the deaths of Owen Smythe, his wife, and infant daughter to gunshot wounds. The fire had been an attempt to cover evidence.

  The bulletin helped prove Brent’s innocence, but even so, her duty remained clear. She needed to pick up the phone, call the FBI, and report him, but just as she hadn’t done it the night before or earlier that morning, she wasn’t doing it now. What the hell was she thinking? Maggie asked herself. She was risking everything in her life for a guy who’d broken her heart once already.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” came a voice from the entrance to her cubicle. She looked around to see Steve Kosinsky’s freshly sunburned face, his arms almost lobster red where they stuck out of his short-sleeved shirt.

  “Ever heard of sunscreen?” she asked.

  Steve scowled. “I’ve been out on the docks since before sunup doing container inspections. It’s so jammed up you wouldn’t believe it.” He looked down at his arms and cracked a rueful smile. “I finally put some goop on after lunch, which was the first chance I had to sit down. Guess I was a little late.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Not if you’re hoping for skin cancer.”

  Steve stepped inside and plopped into a chair. “If you care so much, why won’t you have dinner with me?”

  “Nothing’s changed. I don’t date guys at work.”

  Steve shook his head. “That’s old fashioned. It’s the Phantom Boyfriend.”

  Maggie couldn’t help smiling. Unlike most guys who were persistent, Steve had a way of making it light, so despite the turndowns, it wasn’t awkward. “He’s top secret. If I told you about him, I’d have to kill you.”

  “Would I get to die the way Nelson Rockefeller did?” he asked hopefully.

  “In your dreams.”

  Steve gave a wry shrug, but then he spread his hands, his gesture taking in the whole of Project Seahawk. “This is great, huh? We’re at Condition Red, and half the troops are out looking under manhole covers.” He shook his head. “My bet’s with Jenkins. She’s got solid instincts.” He tipped his chair back until it leaned up against the cubicle wall.

  “Then why don’t they listen to her?” Maggie grumbled.

  “Cause she’s a woman. Cause she’s a hard-assed bitch.”

  “So am I.”

  “Actually, I would guess your ass is anything but hard, but I wouldn’t have first hand experience.”

  “You’re not going to get any, either.”

  Steve took a deep breath and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Life isn’t fair.” He took one finger and touched the burned flesh of his forearm, making a pale dot that went quickly back to angry red. “We’ve got half our guys doing the wrong thing because the President wants to kiss babies, and the other half getting skin cancer looking for those missiles.” Steve planted his hands on his knees and brought his chair forward onto all four legs. “Jenkins is going to get nothing but shit for making the tough call. They treat this place like it’s a joke.”

  “Why don’t you go back to being a cop?” Maggie asked.

  Steve shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, and he shrugged. “I don’t want some shithead setting off a bomb in my country or poisoning the water supply or doing whatever those idiots do in the name of what they believe in. What about you?”

  “I might if they don’t let me get away from this paperwork,” Maggie said. She grabbed a pencil from behind her ear and tossed it onto her desk. “Why not let me go out and do something?”

  Steve tipped his chair again and thumped his head against the wall. “We work for the government, and you have to ask a question like that?” He paused, becoming serious. “I saw your resume. Somebody’s got to figure a way to coordinate all this information. You’re the right person.”

  Maggie scowled. “Jenkins just doesn’t know what else to do with me.”

  “Nope. You’re good,” Steve insisted.

  “Rumor has it you are too,” Maggie said.

  “I’m the best!” Steve gave her a wink. “But you’ve never seen me work.”

  “You ever quit?”

  “Not until you show me the Phantom Boyfriend.”

  “You’re retarded.”

  Kosinsky shook his head and gave her a rueful smile. “I want to meet the lucky sonofabitch.” He kicked his feet out and let the chair crash forward again.

  “You break my chair, you’re going to pay for it.”

  “On my massive salary? No problem.” Kosinsky stood, put his hand on the cubicle partition, and gave her a careful look. “Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with. I’m serious.”

  As soon as he was gone, her thoughts swung back to Brent, and her mood darkened anew. She should do it right now—pick up the phone and turn him in. That was her sworn oath, her duty. Only the current situation went against all the rules. Part of it was the extraordinary amount of money and also the number of seemingly connected murders. Big thefts almost always avoided unnecessary violence, but not this time. Why? She thought yet again about the CIA’s warning. It was a wild connection, but weren’t the cost of the dirty weapons and the amount of Faisal’s stolen money awfully coincidental?

  Maggie propped her elbows on the desk and put her chin in her hands. Would anyone else even consider the possibility that people in Brent’s company were involved with terrorists? What could be the motive?

  She’d already pulled a listing of Genesis Advisors’ employees from the New York State Department of Commerce. Other than Brent, they’d all been there for years. According to the Social Security database, on the surface at least, none appeared to have a Middle Eastern or Muslim association. To the contrary, business articles suggested that most if not all of the partners were fundamentalist Christians.

  She reached into her desk and brought out the stapled pages from the search she’d done on the name Brent had got
ten from Owen Smythe. There were eighty-two Howard Turners in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut alone. There was no telling how many she would find if she widened the search area to Pennsylvania, say, or New England. No doubt there would be thousands if she looked nationwide. There was no time to follow up on such a huge number, but at least these names were something, maybe a chance for Brent to come up with another connection.

  Tomorrow at the absolute latest she would call the FBI, but for now she’d give him a little more time.

  After another minute she stood. Her mind was too distracted to negotiate the subtleties of data base architecture. As she turned toward the exit her thoughts returned to Jenkins. Her boss was intuitive, a player of hunches. Wasn’t there a possibility she’d think outside the box and agree that the coincidence between the stolen money and the price of the missiles was intriguing and that the murders made no apparent sense? Maybe she’d even be willing to ignore all the political reasons not to put the spotlight on Prescott Biddle and his rich partners.

  Yeah, right, Maggie thought. Still, she had to give it a shot. She pulled the memo she’d written from her drawer and glanced over it once more. She’d laid out her case as well as she could and dropped it on Jenkins’ desk on her way out. It was at least worth a try.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  MORRISTOWN, NJ, JUNE 30

  THE MOMENT BRENT SNAPPED AWAKE he knew something was wrong. He was on the couch. It was early evening.

  “Brent?”

  Maggie stood in the doorway. He hadn’t heard her enter. If she’d been one of the killers coming to finish the job, he’d be dead. With his mouth full of cobwebs, he glanced down at the list he’d been going over when he’d fallen asleep. He’d made no progress.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

  Maggie leaned against the wall and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Where to?”

  He shook his head, thoughts jumbled. “Just . . . away.”

  He stood, hobbled into the bathroom, and brushed his teeth with his fingers. When he came out she was sitting at the kitchen table sipping a bottle of water. “You’re wanted for murder,” she said matter-of-factly. “If you’re recognized and you try to run, you’ll be shot.”

  They locked eyes. “Why haven’t you turned me in?” he asked.

  She said nothing for a time. Finally she looked away. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. Maybe I’m afraid you’ll go down for the crime, and whoever did it will go free.” She shrugged. “I have a wild hunch it may be related to something much bigger. It’s probably self-justification, but I’ve decided maybe it’s a good thing you’re still on the loose.”

  He continued to stare at her. Her shirt was open at the top, and a vein pulsed near her collarbone. He wanted to put his arms around her, kiss her, feel the life inside her, smell her scent. “Maggie,” he began, looking for a place to start, his voice going soft. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and—”

  Her eyes grew wide with sudden alarm. “I’ve got something here,” she said, cutting him off. She reached for her briefcase and removed several pieces of paper. “The Howard Turner list,” she said.

  For several seconds Brent struggled to pull back from what he’d been about to confess. His words had taken him by surprise. Had he really been about to say that he loved her? True or not, what right did he have to say it? Finally, he managed to focus on what she held in her hand. “Why a list?”

  “There are over eighty Howard Turners in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.”

  “What about the phone number? Can’t you get his address from that?”

  She shook her head. “It’s a prepaid cell phone registered to a Richard Jones, supposedly from Philadelphia. Only problem is the address and social security number are bogus. Richard Jones doesn’t exist.”

  She handed him the list. “Better look it over and see if anything stands out.”

  He glanced at the names, struggling with what suddenly seemed the enormity of the task. As if it proved the impossibility of finding the truth, he told her about his computer search earlier that day for the house in West Orange. “Howard Turner could also be a phony name, or the one we’re looking for could live in California.”

  Maggie gave him a cold look. “You want to do nothing? Would that make you feel better?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She stood. “I’m going upstairs to log into the Project Seahawk system,” she said. “You can check the list while I take a shower. Just type in the name and address and hit the search button.” She walked toward the stairs.

  After a few seconds Brent followed. He felt a little more surefooted after his long nap, the cut on his stomach no longer hurting as much. He sat at the computer and started through the names. Connecticut came first, and he ran down the list checking the towns where each Howard Turner lived. He waited for something to trigger his subconscious, but all he saw was the same name over and over—Howard A. Turner in Hartford, Howard C. Turner in Watertown, Howard H. Turner in Meriden. He checked their occupations, but nothing differentiated them. The process seemed ridiculous.

  New Jersey came next, and he started with a Dr. A. Howard Turner in Rutherford. He ran quickly through the names, becoming ever more certain the whole thing was a waste until one name jumped out—Rev. Howard Turner in Lambertville. He sat with his hand poised over the keyboard, certain he was grasping at straws,

  but he thought about Prescott Biddle’s fundamentalism.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  “Be there in a minute,” Maggie called from the bathroom.

  While he waited he finished New Jersey then went through New York. No other name struck him. A second later, Maggie hurried into the room.

  “Find something?”

  Brent glanced over his shoulder and took in the bath towel knotted over her breasts that covered her to mid-thigh. The air was suddenly heavy with the scent of soap and shampoo and clean female flesh.

  “What have you got?” she prodded.

  He tried to focus, but the towel intruded. One gentle tug would pull it loose. Finally, he swung around and put his arms around her waist.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She stiff-armed him, pushing him away. “I’m putting everything on the line for you, but my ass isn’t part of the package!”

  “You never heard of a special favor for a condemned man?”

  “Turn around!” she snapped in her best cop voice.

  He nodded contritely and spun back to the monitor, but he felt a sudden lift. In spite of her reaction, he’d caught the hint of a smile in her eyes. “This Howard Turner is a reverend,” he said. “It’s not much, but it could be a connection.”

  Behind him, Maggie moved closer and rested her hand on his shoulder. “What’s the name of Biddle’s church?”

  “The New Jerusalem Fellowship.”

  “Check for a web page.”

  Brent googled and found the church’s home page. Beneath the title it read, “Where God’s Word is Literal Truth.” Down one side was a Church Locator. He typed Lambertville, NJ, in the box. A second later, the computer listed the address and phone number of the local New Jerusalem Fellowship Church. It said the pastor’s name was Howard Turner.

  Brent felt a thrill shoot up his spine. For the first time since the FBI agents had appeared in his office, he felt he was onto something real.

  Maggie’s fingers tightened on his shoulders as she bent over to read the screen. Brent didn’t move. He let the heat of her touch wash through him. It calmed him and warmed his bones as though he was a traveler who’d been lost a long time and was finally home again. She finally pulled her hand away and pointed to the service schedule on the screen. There was evening church that night.

  “I’ll get dressed,” she said. “We can be there by dark.”

  • • •

  An hour later they were in Maggie’s Toyota, nearing the outskirts of Lambertville. The last daylight was fading, the sky quickly going gray
, but even so, the area’s beauty was evident. The countryside was surprisingly bucolic, the roads having narrowed from four lanes to two, the subdivisions and strip malls that pocketed areas around Morristown or Sommerville replaced by graceful farmhouses set on undulating acreage. Young corn was ankle high in the fields, and cows and sheep stood along roadside fences placidly chewing the rich grass.

  The traffic in town meandered, drivers slowing to gaze at the ancient fieldstone houses with their swaybacked roofs and well-tended gardens. The place was a tourist magnet, with prosperous looking hotels, guesthouses, and restaurants along the main streets. It seemed too secular a place for something like the New Jerusalem Fellowship Church, Brent thought, but clearly looks were deceiving.

  They stopped at a gas station and got directions then headed west out of town on a back road. The church was fairly new, a nondescript clapboard building with none of the grace of the two-hundred-plus-year-old buildings that dominated the town. Lights burned inside, and a number of cars sat in the gravel parking area. Maggie pulled into the lot and parked.

  She reached into the backseat, took a small pair of binoculars from a canvas bag, and handed them to Brent. “I’ll go to the door and act like I’m lost. You stay out of sight and check the people inside.”

  “What do we do if it’s him?”

  “Nothing. If we don’t make him suspicious, he’s got no reason to run.”

  Brent was afraid suddenly. Turner might be his only link to the truth. What if he got away somehow? He took a deep breath and nodded, knowing he had to trust her instincts. “I guess you know best.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “And you’re smart.”

  “Well, I am a woman.”

  In spite of his anxiety, he smiled, realizing how good it felt to be with her again.