“The battle will go forward,” the Spirit told him. “You’ve done your part, and I am grateful. There is nothing more for you to do.”
The old man sensed the presence of the Spirit and he snarled as he rose with surprising strength and quickness, his fang teeth showing, his eyes wild and full of hate. He moved up to James, leaned into his neck, and whispered in his ear, “Your work is finished here. Yes, my friend, you’re done. Soon, I will dismiss you. But before I do, I want you to understand.” He pulled away and looked into James’s eyes. “Perhaps you wonder about where these men came from and the cause that binds us here today? I want to tell you, brother.
“You see, Mr. Davies, all of us together,” the old man motioned around the room, “are bound in one purpose, one privilege, one plan. It didn’t start out that way, of course. Foolish to think of a dark, smoke-filled room with a group of conspirators conceiving a step-by-step plan to destroy the entire world. It was nothing like that. We are—how would you say it?—more laissez-faire in our approach. Market-based and opportunistic. We let the free will of the people work. They make a choice. We let them wonder. It’s not much more complicated than that.”
His voice was tart and dripping with so much sarcasm that James felt like recoiling at his breath.
The old man huffed in pride. “You think it was some great, grand conspiracy from the beginning? Such a stupid fairy tale. A few years ago, none of us even knew each other. We were independent in our thinking, operating on our own while moving toward the same unspoken goal. Yes, the paths we took to get here have wandered through many lands, but all the while our master taught us so that when the opportunity finally presented itself we would be ready. Then we emerged from the cracks of life together. Like spiders, these brave men scurried from the shadows when they heard their master call.”
He paused and looked around the room, his teeth showing in a wicked smile. “Rats draw to the smell of a carcass. The U.S. is our carcass. Good men, it’s time to eat!”
The group of dark men smiled weakly at his humor, but their pleasantness was forced and unnatural, their lips tight beneath their smiles.
The old man turned to Davies and waited, then decided to tell him the entire truth. It wouldn’t matter. They were going to kill him anyway. No harm if one man knew. “The ropes that bind us are thin and gentle as a woman’s hand,” he explained. “But together they are more powerful than anything known to man. The oaths come by degrees, of course, line upon line, a single step and then another, each coming in its time. For some men, it can take a lifetime.” He stopped and glanced at Fuentes, flashing a knowing smile at him. “For others a few short days. The first step is fairly innocent: We need for this to happen. Let us agree upon this plan.
“Then, when the first obstacle comes up—which it will, because our master will place it for us—we justify the next principle of our oaths. It is beautiful and simple and something you’ve heard before: Better for one man to die than for our plans to fail.
“The next oath is based primarily on an argument of practicality. But humans are so very practical in their nature, and that can be a useful thing. We’ve come this far. Much too difficult to turn back now. Come on, brother, let’s see this through.
“The next step is where we finally acknowledge the motivations that really drive us: I’ll kill them if you provide a good enough reward. Everything that happens after that comes down to greed, lust, jealousy, pride, and power.
“Then comes the final oath that binds us: I’ll never lift a hand toward a brother. I’ll die to protect our cause. I’ll never desert the brotherhood. If I do, then you must kill me, my family, and my children. You must take everything I have ever loved or worked for. If I betray you, you take it all. The oath is the only thing that matters, and I seal my pledge in blood.”
The old man smiled, his crooked teeth yellow with time and age. “Do you understand what you’re up against? The oaths we have taken are more powerful than the earth. More eternal than the stars. Do you see that you can’t defeat us? We’re totally committed to this cause. You have no hope. You have no power. There is nothing you can do. Yes, Brucius Marino may be alive now, but believe me, he won’t be for very long. It will hardly matter how we do it; we will kill him in the end. Then we’ll move on, forgetting both of you, never speaking your names again.”
The old man stopped and cleared a wad of dry phlegm from his throat, spitting into a frayed handkerchief before he sneered, “Now, tell us, Mr. Director: Why exactly are you here?”
James glared at Fuentes. “You are not the president,” he said, his voice low but powerful. “Brucius Marino is the president. And he will not let this stand!”
He narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter what you do here; in the end you cannot win. There are more of us than there used to be. And He is on our side. You win a skirmish, we win the battle. You kill a few of us, but we win the war.”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t have to kill you to win this battle. But there’s always pleasure in the kill.”
James straightened his back in proud defiance. “I’m not afraid of dying. Unlike you, I have nothing left to fear.”
The old man snarled with frustration, his eyes black and red and full of hate. “You will fear me!” he cried in fury.
James looked at him and smiled. Against all reason, his eyes were bright and full of life.
Chapter Eleven
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex
Southern Pennsylvania
It was a simple device: small, easy to use, accurate, and lethally intrusive. Developed for critical and time-sensitive interrogations on the battlefield, the device was no more complicated to operate than a cell phone. Slip the sensors on. Ask some questions. Wait for the light. Red light, the subject was lying; yellow, the computer didn’t know; green, the subject was telling the truth.
Accurate to something more than 92 percent, the computer was no larger than a deck of cards with a couple of wires attached, two electrodes that measured the subject’s stress through changes in electrical conductivity under the skin, a third that evaluated cardiovascular activity through a pulse oximeter on the fingertip, and a clip on a fold of the skin under the elbow that measured blood pressure. The military called it a PCASS, or Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System, and although the early versions had been troublesome, the algorithms coming under constant stress and tweaking, the latest models were as accurate as any polygraph ever made. Initially envisioned as a combat triage device to identify who or what situation needed attention first, the PCASS had proven to be an extremely accurate, easy to administer, highly portable polygraph device. It was this simple: Pull the subject aside. Slip on the sensors. Give the subject instructions: Look at me. Answer all my questions. Is it raining right now? Do you have shoes on your feet? What color is my name tag? Look at your watch and tell me what time it is. Okay. Good. Now, what is your name? Where do you live? Do you admire Osama bin Laden? Who are your friends? Are you associated with any militia? Do you support your government leaders? Do you have any weapons? Are you a member of the Taliban? Do you know how to work with explosives or any other dangerous material? Have you ever contemplated or plotted to harm Americans?
It was like talking to a prophet. The controller of the PCASS could discover anything.
Because the PCASS had proven extremely effective, over time its uses had been expanded into other areas of interrogation, most of which were legal, but some of which were not.
* * *
Even though deception measures had proven completely ineffective against the PCASS, the group had still ordered sodium pentothal to be administered to the patient to bring him completely under their control. The professional interrogators had argued against the drug, knowing it was unnecessary, but the Brothers had a proven zealousness that amounted to overkill. It simply wasn’t in their nature to take chances, their operating philosophy falling more in line with “why drop a single bomb when
a dozen bombs will do?”
James Davies was propped up in a chair, the drugs flowing heavily through his veins, dilating his eyes and lowering his pulse and blood pressure until his head bobbed atop his neck as if suspended on a string. His eyes were unfocused, his lips pulled back in a grimace of a smile. The PCASS electrodes were slipped around his fingers and under his arm, and the questions began. They started out very simple, then became more probing, more dangerous, more telling and instructive as the interrogation wore on. Inside the functioning part of his mind, deep inside his ventromedial prefrontal cortex where his moral compass and ethical judgment lay, James struggled with all his might to keep from answering, but the mental resistance he tried to exercise never quite made it to the surface of his brain. As hard as he tried, the answers were impossible to avoid. He tried to lie. The interrogator caught him. He tried remaining silent. The sodium pentothal made him talk. And some of the questions didn’t need a truthful answer; knowing when he was lying was enough.
“Is Brucius Marino alive now?”
A long hesitation.
“Is Brucius Marino alive?”
Finally a struggled answer. “I don’t know.”
Red light. With one option eliminated from a yes-or-no question, they didn’t need to ask again.
“Does Brucius Marino realize he’s next in line of succession to be the president of the United States?”
A long, long pause. A very pained face. Eyes rolling. Dry lips smacking.
“Answer the question for us. Does Brucius Marino believe he has a claim upon the presidency of the United States?”
“I don’t know.”
Another lie. Again, no reason to follow this line of questioning any further.
“Is he planning at this time to make a claim upon the presidency?”
Another long moment of hesitation. “No, I don’t think so.”
A couple of seconds for the computer and monitors to evaluate, then another red light.
Even as he answered their questions, stabs of fear cut through James’s mind. He knew what he was saying but he couldn’t stop himself. Deep in his brain, he focused his determination, willing himself to say the right thing, willing himself not to tell them everything, willing himself to shut his mouth and not say anything at all. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP, YOU FOOL!” he screamed from deep inside himself. But the heavy drugs had made him talkative, giving him a false sense of contentment that led to a willingness to share his secrets with his new friends.
In the end, his resistance didn’t matter. Despite his best efforts to deny them, it took only a few hours until they knew.
* * *
Minutes after the interrogation was over, a small group of men gathered in the private office of the president.
“Brucius Marino is alive,” the first man said.
The other men demurred. They had suspected he was out there somewhere, but this was not welcome news.
“He’s holed up in the Strategic Command Operations Center out at Offutt.”
More murmurs. It was the last place they wanted him to be.
“We could kill him,” one man offered. He was the new FBI Director and had always favored the most direct approach. “Better to eliminate him before he can do us damage.”
Five minutes of conversation followed. Most of the men agreed.
Then the old man stepped forward, the air pungent with his smell. “Yes, we could kill him,” he offered simply. On the surface it appeared that he was seeking their support, but none of them bought it. They all knew the final decision would
be his. “As a matter of principle, I think we’ve pretty much established that we’ll do what we have to do in order to make this work. But there are important considerations before we take such a course. And the truth is, my good Brothers, there’s a better way. There is something we could do that would utterly eliminate Secretary Marino as a threat, perhaps more effectively than if we put a bullet in his head. More importantly, my suggestion has the added and powerful benefit of establishing our authority while legitimizing our new government and making everything that we do after this perfectly justifiable and legal.”
The men fell silent. Whatever he came up with, they knew it would be brilliant. And they knew that it would work.
“How many members of the Unites States Congress are still alive?” the old man asked.
“One hundred and twelve,” the FBI Director answered. “Thirty-eight senators, seventy-four congressmen.”
“How many of them are here in Raven Rock?”
“All but twelve. The others are in various stages of arrival, but it may take a few days. A couple of them . . .”
The old man raised his hand. “It doesn’t matter. We have enough,” he said.
* * *
It took almost a day to complete the second interrogation. All they were trying to do was gather enough video footage of James Davies talking to be useful. To do that, they had to moderate the drugs to make him coherent yet sedated enough to keep him under their control. In the end, it proved to be impossible. He was simply too bullheaded, his will too strong to get anything useful without showing the obvious effect of the drugs.
“It doesn’t do us any good to put him in front of the cameras if he looks like he’s stoned out of his mind!” the old man screamed. “Go back! Try again! Poke him! Prod him! Deprive him and drive him. Do whatever it takes to wear him down!”
Back to the conference room. More interrogations. More drugs. James did very little talking, leaving them with pretty much the same result.
Three hours later, the old man watched the newest video footage of the Davies testimony, then cursed in a constant string of rage. “Screw it!” he commanded when he’d seen what they had. “It’ll have to be enough. We’ll take the little bit that’s useful and digitally manipulate the rest. They can take care of it down in the communications center. I’ve already talked to them.
“Okay then, let’s get ready. Send out a notification through the Emergency Broadcasting System that the president will address the nation tonight.”
* * *
Although individual operating radios and televisions were incredibly difficult to find, there were enough scattered around the country, most of them recently provided by the Department of Homeland Security, that a fair portion of the populace watched the emergency broadcast that night.
Chapter Twelve
Mount Aatte
North of Peshawar, Pakistan
The shepherd stood atop a granite cliff, looking down on the narrow valley some two thousand feet below. Half a dozen shacks—not quite huts, with their clay walls and leaf roofs and mud floors—lined the deep river that cut through the valley floor. Ancient rock fences, some of them older than the Prophet, crisscrossed the valley, separating the land into separate pastures. The fences hadn’t been built to acknowledge private property—earth was the great gift from Allah and land was held in common among the village folks—but they did make for more efficient management of the sheep and goat herds that provided the milk, meat, leather, and woolen blankets the village people needed to survive. To the villagers, their animals were almost sacred, for they lived or died according to the health of their herds. Every part of the animals was used: the internal organs cooked into stew,
the blood boiled and packed into intestines to make sausages, the horns worn for adornments or hollowed out to pack tobacco, the skins tanned, the wool stretched and dyed and sewn, the hooves pounded into magic potions they called medicines, the teeth ground into various concoctions, most of them unhealthy.
The old man tugged on his hairy chin as he looked out. The rock cliffs around the valley were smooth and gray and sheer, with buttress outcroppings that looked like enormous castle walls. The grass in the valley was brown now, the harvest having come and gone, and the river was running slow. Looking up, he watched the clouds sink toward him. Winter was coming early. The nights were already bitter cold, the days covered with the slate clouds that hung around the mo
untaintops, creating an artificial ceiling to a valley that sat very near the top of the world.
As he watched, a cold wind blew down from the mountain peaks, wet with drizzle. In a few minutes, it would rain. By nightfall there would be snow. Fall was even shorter than summer in the mountains, and the coming winter would be long. The old man’s face was beaten and deeply creased, reflecting a long, hard life. It was a harsh land that he looked out upon—unbelievably cold in winter, fire-hot and dry in summer, unforgiving, remote, brutal to outsiders, utterly unmanageable except for the few herdsmen and mountain sheep who had the courage to traverse the steep and rocky trails.
The old man watched the single road that ran into the valley from the treacherous mountain pass to the east. His eyes were not as good as they once had been, and he cocked his head to listen as the military jeep reached the highest point on the dirt road and began descending into his valley. Other military vehicles followed. In all, he counted five. They stopped outside the rock wall that surrounded the tiny village, only four feet high now, a thousand years of neglect and erosion having worn it down. Two men got out of the first vehicle and looked around, their weapons hanging under their arms, always ready.
The shepherd turned to his dear friend. Omar watched without speaking, his face tan and tense as he stared down.
“You know them?” the shepherd questioned.
Omar thought a long time before he finally nodded.
“They came for you?”
He shook his head.
The old man glanced back at the shepherd hut set among the scraggly mountain pines near the entrance to a narrow canyon. The boy was waiting there, standing by the goatskin door that covered the small opening to the hut. Omar followed the old man’s eyes to watch the boy. They called him Larka ka aik Heera. Boy of the Diamond. Omar hated the name—it was demeaning and too descriptive—but he’d never said anything. For what his old friend had risked to protect the child, he could have called him Son of a Christian Warrior and Omar wouldn’t have complained.
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