The Jericho Pact

by Rachel Lee

  “And then?” Renate asked. “I don’t see what we gain from this, Colonel Vasquez. You get to kill a rival. You escape prosecution for capital crimes. And we get?”

  “A source,” Vasquez said. “A source inside an organization that you would otherwise never gain access to. And this organization will not end with Monsieur Soult. We have been here for two thousand years, handpicked men whom you would never otherwise compromise. We will continue. Surely it is better that you can know what we are doing and with whom we are working?”

  The doc team was almost at the door of the helicopter. She had perhaps ten seconds to decide. Vasquez had ordered and orchestrated violence that had killed thousands across Europe and displaced tens of thousands more. And yet he was still deeply connected to an organization that would indeed continue to operate, whether she released him or put him on trial. The question was whether she would be in a position to anticipate what his group would do or whether she would be forced to react.

  In the end, the calculus was simple and direct.

  “Cut him loose,” she said to Conrad. He gave her a look of disbelief, but she shook her head. “You heard me, Major. Cut him loose. We have what we need. Besides, the colonel cannot afford to disappear into the woodwork, not if he is to be useful to the people he works with. If he should be so foolish as to cross me, he knows I could find him quickly. And I’m sure he knows I would not hesitate to do so—with a gravely different outcome.”

  The threat was clear and unmistakable. Vasquez simply nodded. “My life is in your hands.”

  “Yes, Colonel Vasquez, it is. Forever. And don’t you dare forget that fact.”

  “I will not,” he said.

  “Cut him loose, Major,” Renate repeated.

  Conrad nodded and snipped the flex cuffs with his combat knife, then touched the knife to Vasquez’s throat. “Don’t doubt what she said, Colonel. I would kill you myself without a second thought.”

  “I do not doubt that, Major,” Vasquez said. He looked to the door of the helicopter, careful not to move. “But if that time comes, it will not be tonight, yes? You and your friends need to leave.”

  “First the decryption codes,” Renate said, motioning Conrad to keep his knife close to Vasquez. She pulled a pad and pen from a trouser pocket and passed them to the Spaniard. “These had better work. If they don’t, you’re dead in forty-eight hours.”

  “They will.” Vasquez scribbled quickly and passed the pad back to Renate.

  She scanned the pad and found the writing legible enough. She nodded to Conrad.

  Conrad lowered the knife, and Vasquez scrambled out of the helicopter, almost falling into the stunned arms of the doc team. Conrad nodded to his men, and they parted to let Vasquez disappear into the swirling night. The doc team climbed aboard, and Conrad patted the pilot’s shoulder.

  “Adder is away,” Renate said as the helicopter rose into the night. “I say again. Adder is away.”

  “You have Viper?” Miriam asked over the radio.

  “No,” Renate said. “We thought we did, but it was just a bodyguard. Viper wasn’t there. But we got what we needed. We got his computer files.”

  Freiburg, Germany

  Several hours later, Miriam prepared to leave Mulhouse with her team. Vasquez had been released. There would be no interrogation. She was shaking hands with Lawton and said quietly, “She lied about Vasquez.”

  “You’ll just have to trust her judgment, Miriam. I do.”

  Miriam stared at him in the poor light, clearly wondering who he had become. “She should have consulted me.”

  “The way you consult us on every action?”

  He was right. They might work together in certain things, but the United States and Office 119 would never completely trust each other. It was the way of the world in which they lived.

  After a moment she turned away and walked to the waiting helicopter. No hug for him this time. She did not really know him anymore.

  As the copter lifted with a deafening roar, Renate came to stand beside him.

  “There is no reason to wait now,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. “We will conduct no interrogation, so we are not needed here. We can leave for Paris.”

  “Yes,” Lawton said, not moving. “We can.”

  “You do not have to go,” Renate said. “I can do this job on my own, if you do not wish to be a part of it.”

  “It’s not that,” Lawton said.

  “What, then?” she asked.

  “Office 119 doesn’t exist,” Lawton said. “Margarite Renault was already dead. For that reason, there is no way to prepare a case against Michel Sedan. No such case could be presented in any court without exposing all of us.”

  “I know this,” Renate snapped.

  “That’s why we’re going to kill Sedan,” Lawton said. “Not out of simple revenge, but because it is the only way we can bring him to justice. If there were another way, I would have argued for it with Jefe. I don’t like what we have to do tomorrow. But it’s the only option we have.”

  “And you think I feel differently?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I do. No, check that. I know you feel differently. And I don’t like it. Renate, if you let yourself feel what you’re feeling right now, then we’re no different from them.”

  “Guess what?” Renate said, shouldering her bag. “We are no different from them! Are you coming, or do I leave you here?”

  He rose from his chair.

  “I’m coming,” he said. “Not for Margarite. Not even for Office 119. I’m coming for you. Because…I…”

  Renate stepped forward, her face only inches from his, her voice harsh and cold. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. Not tonight. Not ever.”

  Lawton’s mouth snapped shut. For a moment he studied her, as if trying to determine whether the deadly intent in her voice was real. It was, and she knew he could see it.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go do this.”

  Strasbourg, France

  Jules Soult held the codex, mouthing the words he had memorized, as the men burst into his office. An American, he guessed, along with a smaller man who might have been Spanish, and two Arabs. The bankers had assembled and sent an international team. How symbolic. How useless.

  He held up the codex, watching its inner glow rise to a flaring red light, the hollow, piercing sound of a horn echoing in his office, shattering windows and causing the floor to shudder.

  But when he looked at the assassins, they were not choking and gasping for breath. How could this be?

  The American stepped forward, his face full of wonderment and, even more so, of resolve. “Give me the codex, Soult.”

  “Do you think your gunmen frighten me?” Soult asked. “You know they cannot kill me.”

  “No,” the American said, reaching into his pocket. He took out a small, weathered leather pouch. “But I can.”

  “It is impossible!” Soult said. “I am protected by the power of the gods!”

  “Perhaps,” the American said, shaking a tiny pile of glistening white powder into his palm. “But even the gods tremble at the voice of the One True God.”

  Like iron fragments drawn to a magnet, the white powder began to sift out of the American’s hand and fly toward the pyramid. As more of the powder accumulated on the codex, Soult felt a tingle in his hand that grew into a burning.

  Back when he was a young officer, he had impressed his soldiers by holding his hand over the flame of a cigarette lighter, shutting out the pain, demonstrating that a true soldier must have the self-discipline to endure any agony to accomplish his mission. More than once, the battalion surgeon had called him a fool while treating the blackened and blistered skin. But Soult had made his point. His men had feared him and tried to emulate his iron resolve.

  What he felt now, however, was not the flame of a cigarette lighter. There was no flame at all, and yet the burning seemed to claw from the nerve endings in his palm up his arm and across into his spinal cord, spi
lling from there through his entire body, like a million ants eating him from the inside out.

  His iron will fought against a will far beyond his own, and he found himself on his knees, still trying to clutch the pyramid, his fingers growing numb.

  “I will take the codex now,” the American said, stepping forward, hand extended.

  Soult’s hand opened, and the pyramid fell into the American’s hand. In an instant the burning stopped, though his muscles still quivered with remembered agony.

  “Thank you,” Steve Lorenzo said, dropping the codex into the pouch. He had what he had come for. And that thought terrified him beyond words as he looked down at Soult’s spasms. He turned to Miguel and the Arabs. “We can leave now.”

  One of the Arabs raised his assault rifle, taking aim on Soult. “No, we must finish him.”

  “He is already finished,” Steve said, reaching out to push down the barrel of the man’s rifle. There would be no more bloodshed on this night. Not if he could prevent it. “He is nothing more than a cruel, ambitious man now. A man whose ambition will never be fulfilled. My friends will soon see to that.”

  The Arab paused for a moment, then finally nodded.

  Then he turned and pointed his rifle at Steve. “In that case, you will give me the codex.”

  Steve took a step back, stunned. “No. I will not.”

  As casually as if he were tying a shoe, the man aimed his rifle at Miguel’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Steve’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Give me the codex,” the man said, “and I will let you care for your friend. Your manna can save him, if I do not shoot him again. But I will, if you do not give me the codex. I know I cannot kill you, but I can make you watch this man die.”

  “Padre, no,” Miguel whispered, looking up at Steve. “I am ready to face God.”

  Perhaps Miguel was ready to die, Steve thought. But he wasn’t ready to watch it happen. He looked up at the Arab and had no doubt of the man’s willingness to do exactly what he said. And something deep in Steve’s soul told him that this was not the time for Miguel to fall into the arms of God.

  With a sad, bitter sigh, Steve took the codex from the pouch and handed it to the man.

  “You will keep that pouch closed until I have left the room,” the Arab said. “My colleague will be here to ensure that. I do not wish to experience what happened to Soult.”

  “You have my word,” Steve said. “And unlike yours, my word means something.”

  The man smiled. “My word means a great deal, priest. But my word is given only to Allah and his servants. Take care of your friend.”

  The man left, followed thirty seconds later by his partner. Steve waited until he heard no more footsteps, then pulled the pouch open and began to sprinkle the white powder on Miguel’s wound.

  “Stay with me,” Steve said, turning Miguel’s face to his. “You’re not going to die tonight, my friend.”

  “You should not have given him the codex,” Miguel said. “You should have let me go to God.”

  “No,” Steve said, shaking his head as he worked the white powder into Miguel’s chest. “You are not going to die tonight. Not if I can help it.”

  Steve was still working on Miguel’s wound when the small Spanish man walked into the office. The man gave Steve and Miguel only a cursory glance before he looked over at Soult and leveled a pistol.

  “No,” Steve said. “He must be exposed.”

  “He will be,” Colonel Hector Vasquez said. “But he must also be purged.”

  Vasquez squeezed the trigger four times, each crack causing Steve to flinch. So much death.

  “We’ll leave him for the cleaning crew,” Vasquez said, holstering his pistol. He looked at Miguel. “Let us get your friend to a hospital, yes?”

  Steve nodded. “Please.”

  Please, God, let Miguel live.

  40

  Paris, France

  T he streets outside the hotel room looked inviting, but Renate ignored them. Lawton moved around behind her, gathering the last of his belongings. Today, she thought, and summoned the memory of Margarite’s face. Today.

  But mostly, as she checked her SIG-Sauer P-226, she thought about the final preparations they needed to make for this mission. Working the slide repeatedly to make certain it was smooth as silk and unlikely to jam, she paused for a moment to sight down the barrel. A beautiful piece of equipment, probably the best pistol available in the world.

  Grabbing a clip of fifteen nine-millimeter rounds, she tapped it against the outside of her hand to ensure that the cartridges were seated evenly, then used the heel of her palm to ram it into the grip. If there was any complaint to be made about this weapon, it was the possibility of putting in a clip wrong, in which case the world’s best pistol might as well be a water gun.

  She grasped the slide between her thumb and the knuckle of her forefinger and pulled back, chambering a round, careful to keep the safety engaged, then released the clip and worked the slide again to eject the round in the chamber, snatching it out of the air in a smooth, graceful motion. Each time she repeated the act, she felt another part of her shutting down. Like the petals of a rose bitten by frost.

  “You’ve done that a few times,” Lawton said.

  “Yes, a few,” she said. “My father was a member of a shooting club. He taught me from age six.”

  “Is there anything about you that you learned from your mother?” Lawton asked.

  The question caught her short, and she realized that, indeed, most of what she had shared about her childhood involved her father. He had seemed full of exciting ideas and challenges to meet, while her mother had been the oasis of quiet strength in the family, keeping both Renate and her father grounded in the basics of life. And perhaps the answer to his question lay there.

  “My reserve,” she said. “It was always difficult to know what my mother was thinking, save for one fact. We always knew she loved us.”

  Lawton studied her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Renate.”

  “Let’s have this conversation another time,” she said.

  This was not a time to think about her family or the calm life she had once enjoyed. A life probably much like the one Margarite had experienced as a girl in Paris. A time when the world seemed fresh and bright with possibility, and the prospect of true love and happily-ever-afters. A time before the ugliness leapt out of the television and came, front and center, into their lives and hearts.

  A time before an old and trusted friend would betray you to your enemies, safe in the knowledge that he would not have to watch the breasts in which he had once sought comfort be shredded by a hail of bullets.

  Renate could not remember when she had last felt innocence. Worse, though, she could only dimly remember when she had last felt guilt.

  She sighted down the barrel of the pistol again and imagined Michel Sedan’s head, felt her finger gently squeeze the trigger, imagined the kick as the hammer struck the primer cap and eight grams of smokeless powder ignited, propelling the round with over five-hundred joules of energy. Upon contact with the base of Sedan’s skull, the hollow-point round would mushroom to more than twice its size, a ragged, two-centimeter lump of lead tearing through bone and brain tissue, turning out—in an instant and forever—the light of life in a man who had called that darkness down on her friend.

  She ought to feel guilty about such thoughts. She was, after all, going to kill a man in cold blood, with premeditation and, she assumed, without remorse. She had felt no remorse when she had killed the assassin at the train station in Rome, and none when she’d finished off the one in the Berlin hotel room. But in both those cases, the enemy had been actively trying to kill her, and she had acted in self-defense.

  This was different. Sedan was not actively trying to kill her. He probably had not intended to kill Margarite. Instead, he had betrayed her to Soult, who had ordered the attack on the headquarters in Rome, which had killed her. And for that, she and Jefe had decided that
a message must be sent, a cautionary message to anyone who might think of playing both sides in this game of shadows.

  Those who betray us will die.

  When she had joined Office 119, she had not imagined that the group of dedicated law enforcement professionals would become another dangerous cabal living in the dark corners of a dangerous world. Nor had she imagined that she could become an instrument of that darkness.

  But she had.

  She put the pistol down and looked over to Lawton.

  “Let’s go over the plan again.”

  Rome, Italy

  Ahmed Ahsami helped Hassan ibn Hassan and his family onto the train. He wished desperately that he could find a way to prevent this man from being removed yet again, but he had been forbidden to take any action that might draw attention to him or Saif.

  Hassan looked at the overhead bin for a place to put the last of his bags. Ahmed helped him. They were allowed two bags each—a total of six for Hassan, his wife and his son—but already the bins were full, even in the private compartments. Of course, some had brought more than they were allowed, arguing that a bag of food to be eaten along the way should not count, for example. Over the objections of the porter, Hassan found a way to rearrange the packed bin to make room for Ali’s suitcase.

  Ali’s face was dark as Hassan sat. “This bin should not be full, father. It is our cabin. You paid for it.”

  The boy was not truly angry about the luggage bin, Ahmed knew. That was merely a momentary focus for his feelings. They were leaving their home, and everything that had been his life, for a new place where he would know almost no one and where his life would be turned upside down. And all because they were Muslim.

  Just this morning the news had reported that Jules Soult had been assassinated in his office. Of course, the murder had been blamed on Islamic terrorists, because two Arab-looking men had been seen in the vicinity. The eyes of the train guards were taut and angry today, and even in the faces of ordinary people at the station, Ahmed saw rage and suspicion.