by David Archer
Sam stared at him. “So, you're saying that prophecy says globalism is unavoidable?”
“Absolutely,” Long said. “So many of those prophecies have come true that every nation has a department that studies it, and particularly the books of Daniel and Revelation. The New World Order is coming, Sam, and all I'm trying to do is slow it down a bit.”
Sam shook his head. “What was that you said a while ago, about not being a religious man?”
“Oh, I'm not,” Long said. “You don't have to be religious to know that there's something to prophecy. I mean, look at Nostradamus, and all the things he wrote that seem to have predicted everything from Hitler to Apollo Eleven.”
Sam looked at him again, and then drove on without speaking anymore for a while.
8
Grayson Chandler was a man who knew his way around Washington, which he should, since he'd been there for more than forty years. At sixty-two years old, he'd gone from an unpaid intern on the staff of Senator Strom Thurmond in nineteen seventy-three to the Senior Islamic Analysis Desk of the CIA, and he had the personal cell numbers of literally hundreds of American and foreign politicians. He knew who to call to get a favor, and there were plenty who knew that he was the one to call if you needed something done quickly.
Chandler often told himself that, despite what most people believed, he was easily the most powerful man in the United States, simply because he knew where so many bodies were buried. He should; he'd buried some of them personally, and many more had been on his orders. When you had that kind of information, you could get anything else you wanted, whether it be other information, money, power or whatever it took to help someone else who had a problem they needed dealt with. He'd dealt with a lot of problems for people in Washington, and for many people in other places around the world.
He had a team of people who handled those problems for him, and it was one of those team members who was on his mind that evening. David Glenn, a man he'd often used the past few years to get things done, had suddenly come under some sort of unexpected scrutiny earlier in the day, and Chandler had to figure out just how to best handle the problem. It wasn't that big a deal, he knew. Luckily, Glenn was out of the country at the moment; if nothing else, he would simply have the man vanish, just as so many others had done when they became liabilities. There was always someone ready and willing to take their places, and it was easy to leave a fake trail showing that an agent had gone rogue. After all, in a world where money was what most people worshiped and prayed for, almost anyone could understand why someone would betray his country for enough of the stuff.
Another email came in, and he glanced at it to confirm that it was on the same topic; someone at Homeland Security, it said, was calling for Glenn to come and answer questions about the accident in Libya, and once the questions began, Chandler knew, they wouldn't stop. Glenn had been around since the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and if Chandler had been told about Lewinsky only a day sooner, that fiasco could have been contained. Glenn would have done what was necessary, and Monica would have joined a few other girls who suddenly vanished.
Oh, well. He typed up a message to one of his assets in Baghdad, encoded so that only the man it was intended for would know what the message truly said, and sent it off. Glenn would cease to be an issue before the sun rose again.
Now, to find out who in HS was making waves—ah, well, what a surprise. Harry Winslow, eh? And just the day before, he'd sent word through proper channels requesting that Harry's people deal with another problem, namely Kenneth Long. Long was in Harry's yard at the moment, messing up some of Chandler's minor plans and making surreptitious visits to see his sick mother. Chandler didn't have anyone who could get into Denver without leaving a trace that would be hard to explain, but he'd forced Long out into the cold years ago; the man was listed as a rogue, and so he was fair game for anyone who could take him down. One of Harry's superiors said he had a man who could get things done, so Chandler had made the request.
And now Harry was asking questions about Dave? That made it sound like Long was getting to someone on Harry's team, and it was probably that greenie who kept bumbling into NatSec matters. That was going to be an issue, because Harry was rather well entrenched. He could get some serious ears, if he really wanted them, so it behooved Chandler to start working on a way to deal with the questions that were bound to come up.
He picked up his phone and dialed a number from memory. “Oscar?” he said, when it was answered. “Hey, it's Grayson, how you been?”
He could sense the immediate tension in the other man's voice, and it made him smile. Chandler had always liked knowing that people feared him, for fear was just the most basic from of respect.
“I'm doing okay, Grayson,” Oscar said nervously. “And you?”
“Not bad, not bad. Listen, I have a little problem, and it occurred to me that you might be the one to help me out with it, are you game?”
“Yeah, sure,” Oscar said; no one ever declined to help Chandler with one of his problems, because those who had done so in the past seemed to have their entire worlds crumble around them. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, it shouldn't be too big a deal. What I need is to get a lead on Harry Winslow's man in Denver. His name is Prichard, and I know you've got an asset there, right?”
Oscar Rogo was almost seventy, but his mind was as sharp as ever. He'd been with the IRS for more than forty years, and had gone into private sector consulting when he’d been forced to retire, but he'd built himself a network of people he could trust, and used it to keep track of things that might help him solve problems for his clientele. One of those people, as Chandler said, was in Denver.
“Yeah, I can call Frank Monetti, there. What do you need to know?”
Chandler smiled. “Just ask him to check up on Prichard, see what he's up to at the moment. If he can get an idea of who he might be hanging out with, that could help me out, too. And, Oscar, thanks! This could mean a lot to me, and I'll owe you one.”
“Hey, no, you don't owe me anything,” Oscar said. Like a lot of others, he didn't want Chandler owing him any favors, because somehow, when he paid up, it turned out that he overpaid and you ended up owing him a lot more. “Glad to help out a friend, no problem! I'll call Frank now, and get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Hey, thanks, Oscar, this is really terrific of you! Talk to you soon!”
Chandler ended the call, and sat back in his chair, taking a sip of vodka from the glass he held in his hand. He'd come to love the smooth feel of the liquor as it slid down his throat, and the way it relaxed him without dulling his wits. He couldn't afford to let anything do that to him, he knew, no matter how safe at home he might think he was. There were always enemies waiting or any opportunity to pounce on him, take away all he'd worked for all these years, and he couldn't risk that happening.
So, okay, he'd dealt with Glenn, and by morning he should know what Prichard was doing with Long. If Long had actually gotten to Harry, that might get a little messy, but it shouldn't be too hard to deal with. After all, Harry was an old man, and there were essentially undetectable drugs that could make an old heart fail suddenly. Who would be surprised if Harry died of heart failure, after all he'd been through over the years?
The wild card in all of this would be Prichard. While he wasn't an actual government agent, he'd been so instrumental in foiling plots against the country that he could probably get someone to listen to him, if he really wanted to. Maybe it was time he found out just who Chandler was, and why it was wise not to cross him. Once he heard from Oscar's man, he'd send someone in to get a little leverage on Prichard. Maybe the guy had a wife or kids; they were always good leverage.
All of that could wait until morning, though. It was getting late, and he'd promised Janice that he'd watch some TV with her that night, so he capped the vodka and drained the last of it from his glass, then rinsed it in the sink on the bar. This was his den, his personal domain, and not even Jani
ce would come into it uninvited. He set the glass to dry and then went to find his wife in the living room.
* * * * *
From Denver to Washington was a drive of almost seventeen hundred miles, and Sam had figured it for about twenty-four hours, not counting stops. At midnight, he'd reluctantly let Long have the keys to the Corvette, because he was having trouble keeping his eyes open and didn't want to stop. When he woke up, it was almost seven the next morning, and he was feeling pretty well rested.
It struck Sam as odd that, only the morning before, he'd been worried that Long might be a danger to him and his family, but now he was on a cross country journey with the man to try to prevent a traitor from handing over control of America to some global government that was predicted thousands of years before. Sam had grown up in church, something his father had insisted on when he was young, but he'd never gotten deeply into any of the prophecy stuff; hearing that so much of what was happening today, and what had already happened in the past, was predicted in such amazing detail that it could be understood even by a layman was quite a shock to him. If he lived through this, and didn't end up in some federal prison for aiding a rogue agent, he'd start looking into it.
For now, though, all Sam really cared about was figuring out what to do next. If Long was right, then there were people in DC who were actively working against the best interests of the USA, and neither of them was willing to let that continue.
He looked over at Long, who was driving. “Where the heck are we?”
Long grinned. “We'll be hitting Chicago in about twenty minutes. This thing'll really cruise; I've been making some good time.”
Sam grinned. “Yeah, she'll get right on down the road. Last time I had her out on the Interstate, I was being chased by people I thought were out to kill me and the man I'd gone to track down. I was pretty glad I hadn't skimped on the engine, then.”
“I'd imagine so. Feel like grabbing some breakfast and taking the wheel for a while? I'm starting to get tired, and I could use a bite to eat before I crash.”
Sam nodded, and pointed to a sign for a Bob Evans Restaurant that was coming up at the next exit. Long smiled. “Biscuits and gravy, here I come!” he said, and Sam laughed.
The exit appeared on schedule, and they followed the signs to get to the restaurant, then parked the Vette in front of the building and went inside. They both made the restroom their first stop, but Sam was in and out quickly, while Long needed to take a few extra minutes. Sam wandered through the gift shop that was attached to the restaurant, and bought Kenzie a couple of toys, then found a wall plaque that said, “WIFE stands for Witty, Intelligent, Faithful, Exotic, and don't you forget it, Buster!” and smiled as he bought it for Indie. Long came out as he was paying for his purchases, and they went in to find a booth.
A waitress brought them coffee and took their orders, then left them to look around the place. The company bought lots of farmhouse-type antiques to use as décor, and Sam got a kick out of seeing so many things he knew only from reading about earlier times. He saw what he thought was a butter churn, and another item he figured must be used for stretching fence wire. Long seemed amused by his curiosity.
“What?” Sam asked. “I suppose you know what all those things on the walls are for?”
Long looked around. “Well, most of them, anyway. Don't you?”
Sam shrugged. “Most of them,” he said. “I always sort of wished we'd lived in the country when I was growing up. I think I would've been a great farm kid, y'know?”
Long took a sip of coffee and shook his head. “And I grew up on a farm, hated every second of it, and wanted to live in the city. When my dad died, I was sixteen; Mom and my brother and I all moved into Denver as soon as Mom could sell the farm, because she didn't know how to run it, and my brother and I were too young. A neighbor made an offer, and she took it, and we lived okay for a while.”
Sam looked at him. “What made you join the Army? You said you were more the pacifist type, so I'm curious why you'd join up, especially when we were at war in Vietnam.”
“Ha!” Long said. “I actually got a choice handed to me—go to the Army, or go to jail for two years. I'd gotten into some minor trouble with some buddies, breaking into some abandoned buildings and such. Well, one of them wasn't completely abandoned, because the company that owned it, a brewery, kept some beer stored there, and we stole some of it. Of course, we got so drunk that we got caught, and the judge gave me that choice. I was already engaged to Maggie, Joellyn's mother, so we got married and a month later I signed up for a four-year hitch. I had no idea I'd turn out to be such a good shot, or that I'd get drafted into this life, but by the time my daughter was born, I knew I'd never be able to go home again. The rest I told you, about how I came to accept it all.”
Sam nodded. “Seems to me that you got the shaft,” he said. “I mean, you never even got to go home and meet your kid, or be with your family. Why couldn't you have had a secret life, like they show in movies? Have a home life with the family, and go off on missions that are disguised as business trips?”
“You, my friend, have watched too many spy movies made in Hollywood. Most real agents don't get to have families, not if they're going to do their jobs. A family is nothing but a bag of liabilities and limits; they can be used against you as a threat, and the more you worry about anyone ever finding out about them, the less effective you can be. And if you stop being effective, then someone up at the top of the food chain decides that you know too much, and a new young guy, who's just like you were when you began, gets sent to put you down.” Long caught the surprise in Sam's eyes. “What? You're shocked that after years of doing what we do, our final reward is going to be a bullet in the head? Guys like me, Sam, we know it all along. The people who pull our strings know that we know where bodies are hidden, and that makes them nervous. When we're no longer useful, or we get old, they have to get rid of us in order to protect themselves.”
“Is that why you went rogue? To make it harder for them to track you down and kill you?”
Long grinned at him again. “Let me explain something to you,” he said. “I didn't 'go rogue,' not at all. I simply became a liability to someone up high, maybe even Chandler himself. Someone I'd done a job for, somewhere along the line, declared me rogue in order to discredit me. That's why I can't just go to someone with the things I know and expose people like that, I have to find someone I can trust. You and Harry would have been the last ones I would have expected to help me out, but now that you are, I'm not going to waste the opportunity. If we make it, we'll have done something good.”
“And if we don't?”
“Well, then, we'll probably be dead, all three of us. I'll be shot down and buried as a John Doe, Harry will die of a heart attack or something similar, and you—you'll be posthumously awarded a medal, probably, maybe for getting yourself killed while saving the world from a madman who looks like me.”
Sam shook his head. “You're just the most cheerful and optimistic guy, aren't you? Don't you ever get tired of expecting to die that way?”
“Gotta die somehow, and when it happens, I don't figure I'll really care too much about how it comes.”
Sam looked at him, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Tell me something,” he said. “With all this talk about prophecy and the Bible, do you believe in life after death?”
Long waited a moment, as the waitress brought their orders, but when she was gone, he nodded. “I do,” he said. “When I learned about how accurate those prophecies are, I began to study them, and it hit me one day—how could there be a God who could inspire all of these people to write down these things that come true, and not be life beyond this world? Now, do I believe I'll go to Heaven? That's not something I'm willing to talk about, but yes, I do believe that it isn't over when our bodies die.”
Sam watched him eat for a moment, and then dug into his own breakfast. They ate in silence, and a half hour later they were back on the road.
* * * * *
Harry Winslow lived in a nice neighborhood in Denver, in a house that he had bought not long after first moving to the city. He lived alone, having never married, and enjoyed his solitude to some degree, though he often wondered what life might have been like if he'd taken a less violent path. Now and then, a thought of Martha Lowenstein crossed his mind, and he wondered if she were still living. He hadn’t seen her since they were both in college, and he'd made the choice to go into the Navy rather than ask her to marry him. By the time he'd become a SEAL and decided on a military career, she had dropped out and become a hippie, devoting her time to protesting the war in Vietnam and American politics in general.
Oh, well, those days were long gone, and he was sure she would have forgotten him many years before. He puttered around his kitchen as he usually did in the mornings, making himself some breakfast. On this particular morning, he chose oatmeal with cinnamon, since he needed the fiber, and had his usual single cup of coffee. He carried both of them to the table that sat just inside his back door, and dipped his head for a couple of seconds in the habitual grace he'd learned from his mother: “Thank you, God, for this day and its blessings.” He didn't know if God was listening, but he figured it couldn't hurt to acknowledge Him in case He was.
At seventy-five years old, Harry was still in pretty good shape. He could still run an obstacle course that would leave many younger men gasping for breath, he maintained his black belts in five different martial arts disciplines, and he could still see and hear as well as ever. That was important to him, and he had his vision and hearing checked twice a year, just to be safe.
His phone rang, and he picked it up, expecting it to be Sam calling, but the number was blocked. He looked at the phone for two rings, and then answered it.