The Unknown Element

by Vince Milam

  “I’ve seen it, too. Three times. Martha’s killer. Burt Hall in Rockport. And that evil bastard yesterday,” said Cole. “What about the Latin he spoke?”

  “Mocking God,” said Francois. “Ancient words of the deceiver.”

  Two fat harlequin ducks waddled to their table, quacking, looking for a handout. With no food forthcoming, they plopped on the grass nearby, grooming themselves.

  At the mention of Cole’s murdered wife, Nadine leaned forward and looked deep into Cole’s eyes. “You’ve carried this all these years? And the last week you’ve seen it twice again?”

  Cole nodded. Francois responded to him, “Then, perhaps, mon ami, some answers become clear to you.”

  Cole stood and moved a few feet away from the park table. The two ducks kept an eye on him and continued to groom. The sun peeked from clouds and traffic increased. Cardiff’s day had begun.

  “Answers. I don’t know. Maybe to the ‘how.’ Not the ‘why,’” said Cole. “I’ve gained no more clarity on the reason for it all. Let’s get to the police station. They’re waiting.”

  And so the conversation ended. Francois stood and said, “Oui. We shall continue this later. There remains much to absorb. To digest. Oui. Let us walk. I do not believe it a great distance.”

  ***

  They walked, each absorbed in thought. As they entered the police headquarters and made their way through the swarm of media, the desk sergeant picked up the phone and called upstairs, then signaled them to a hallway entrance. He took them away from the cameras and microphones and along a labyrinth of hallways until they came to another set of elevators. “Fifth floor. They expect you,” he said, and returned to what must have been his own personal hell of reporters yelling questions at him.

  ACC Gavin Morris met them when the elevator doors opened. “What happened to coming by last night?” he asked Cole.

  “Sorry. We weren’t in any shape to grind through the events,” said Cole. He committed to cut Morris some slack. After all, this horror happened on the guy’s home turf, and Cole had firsthand knowledge of what that felt like. “Hope you understand. But we’re here now.”

  Jenni Thomas saw them and waved them toward her and the situation room, where a variety of cops worked phones, huddled around small tables, and pinned photographs and documents to a large corkboard.

  Jenni hugged all three of them and made sure they got something to drink. Nadine and Cole asked for coffee. Francois opted for tea, asking first what type it might be.

  “Oolong,” said Jenni.

  “Bon. S’il vous plaît.”

  Jenni began the conversation by explaining the doctors had not wanted her to work today, and they would have said the same thing to all of them.

  “We’re okay, really,” said Nadine. “Horribly brutal stuff, but we have each other to lean on. How about you?”

  Jenni explained she’d spent the night holding her daughter, reliving the day’s events. It was cathartic as she enveloped the thing she loved most, knowing all could change with the blink of an eye.

  Most of the cops treated them with great deference, these foreigners who managed to arrive in the midst of the crisis. The round, determined French priest, unafraid to dash into the situation. The Texas Sheriff who’d delivered a debilitating blow to the fiend holding their Jenni Thomas at knifepoint. The rangy woman who’d joined them and comforted Jenni during the aftermath.

  “Some kick, mate. Texas-sized, I’d say,” said one of the cops to Cole.

  “I slipped.”

  “The mule kick to that lunatic wasn’t a bloody slip,” said another cop.

  “He was fixin’ to gut me,” said Cole. “Didn’t have a lot of choice.”

  They all seemed to view him as a man being modest. He viewed his actions as damn lucky.

  Jenni displayed a photo of Moloch she’d printed from Nadine’s thumb drive. “Is he associated with yesterday?” she asked.

  This was Cole’s world and it was time for him to tread with care. He gave Francois and Nadine a “let me handle this” look. “He’s the guy we trailed from Texas. He flew to Syria yesterday.”

  “Syria?” asked ACC Morris as he joined them at the table. “How do you know?”

  Cole pointed at Nadine, a more than sufficient answer.

  “Right,” said Jenni. “So even if there was some connection, he’s in a place we can’t touch.”

  Morris turned his attention to Cole. “Do you find it strange that your appearance coincides with this horror?” asked Morris.

  “Look. Let’s baseline a couple of things,” said Cole. “I’ve been in your boots, Morris. It sucks. My town had a similar massacre take place. And I wish to hell I’d given you folks more of a heads-up on Moloch. But you and I want the same thing. Justice.”

  Jenni interrupted and took over the conversational thread. She clearly saw these three as allies—lifesavers—but as a good cop she, too, appeared to want some clarity. “So, could you please explain what prompted you to join the fray? To rush to the school?” she asked.

  “Him,” said Cole, tapping the photo of Moloch. “We thought he’d connect with it. We thought we’d find him there. We were wrong.”

  Jenni nodded and made notes. She and Morris would sense a hole in the answer if they had any salt as cops. Cole knew the presence of the same man in two towns an ocean apart during two separate mass murders would not pass muster.

  “Was he in the middle of the mess-up in Texas?” asked Morris.

  “On the periphery,” said Cole. “A suspect with some connection to it. I can’t put my finger on what that connection is, just like I can’t figure it out here. The sumbitch doesn’t seem to get his hands dirty.”

  “Can any of you tell us anything about Price Jones? The killer?” asked Jenni.

  The three shook their heads.

  “Father Domaine, you began speaking Latin,” said Jenni. “When Jones had me on the floor, knife to my throat. What was that all about?”

  Jenni’s aplomb impressed him. “Knife to my throat” did not make for a casual reference. She’s a tough cop, thought Cole.

  Francois cleared his throat and said, “The ritual of exorcism. I only had time for the first few words.”

  “Why?” asked Jenni. “And why did it elicit such a response from him?”

  Francois looked to Cole. Cole nodded back. It was best to get this on the table now, and then move through the facts.

  “I believed him possessed,” said Francois. “His response was quite normal for someone possessed.”

  “Possessed,” said Gavin Morris.

  “Oui.”

  Cole had seen Jenni’s silver cross, worn as a necklace, the first time they met. She would most likely believe evil an active force among us. But he knew the cop in her would gravitate toward the work of a single madman.

  “Well, we’ll never know,” said Jenni, steering the conversation. “Sheriff Garza, I want you to know I called your Captain Johnson this morning and left a voice mail. I know it’s three in the morning in Texas, but I wanted to alert him to his team’s heroism and great help as soon as he got to work.” Jenni cracked a smile. “I would suppose Captain Johnson might become quite … excited when he hears of yesterday’s events. Consider it a preemptive maneuver.”

  “Thank you,” said Cole. “But I imagine ‘excited’ an understatement when he and I talk later today. Although I do appreciate the effort. By the way, are any of us—myself, Nadine, or Francois—associated with the crime? I mean the media. Have our activities leaked?”

  Being positioned smack dab in the middle of yesterday’s events would cause sufficient grief with Johnson, but logarithmically worse if they appeared as part of the story with the media.

  Cole breathed an audible sigh of relief when Jenni confirmed she and her fellow officers were the only people engaged, as far as anyone outside the situation room knew. She explained she planned to keep it so, unless Cole wished to inject himself into the public narrative.

 
“Lord, no,” said Cole. “Please, no. Keep a lid on it. A tight lid. What about these folks?” Cole asked, using a hand to indicate the room of busy cops.

  “They’ll keep it, as Captain Johnson would say, tight,” Jenni said. “You have my word. We may sing about you in the distant future over a pint or two, but for the time being it’s locked down.”

  Jenni and Morris walked through the timeline of the terror, making notes. Jenni remained polite; Morris acted professional at this juncture. They returned to Moloch and the link between two barbaric events thousands of miles apart.

  “So no connection to this Moloch person?” asked Morris one last time.

  “Not that we can pinpoint,” said Cole. “I wish to hell we could.”

  ACC Thomas and Morris continued to pick. All evidence pointed to a madman, acting alone. Correlation did not mean causation. Still, it clearly felt discordant to the Welsh police. They circled back to Moloch several times, always with the same results. After half an hour, they both lowered their pens. Cole relaxed.

  “So, what’s next for you three?” asked Jenni. “Texas? Syria? Parts unknown?”

  “Another and different conversation,” said Francois. “May we be permitted to leave so such a conversation might take place? It is rather important.”

  They exchanged goodbyes and hugs all around. The Welsh cops in the situation room surrounded them and tears were shed. They left through a back entrance.

  ***

  “Let us dine,” said Francois, clear of the building. “Perhaps a French restaurant? Would such a thing be possible?”

  Nadine searched her Android. “There’s an Italian place with great ratings just a couple of blocks away. Would that do, Francois?”

  “If such a place is nearby and the food reasonably edible, then oui, it shall do.”

  “Do they have a bar?” asked Cole.

  She locked arms with Cole and Francois and pulled them in the right direction. It was weird to feel so much improved. Yesterday still loomed large and those mental images would never leave her, but today held a new promise. The sun shone, the sea air refreshed, and relief flooded at being alive to enjoy it. A tinge of guilt at feeling this way stayed stuck on her corkboard, and maybe it would forever, but her gut said it was critical to push ahead. To stroll with bookends and security and, man, who could not help but love these two? Opposites in some ways yet similar in others. Plus, Cole’s kiss last night lingered and that was all more than okay.

  “Do we need to shop, Francois?” she asked, slowing her pace as they passed small shops. “Cole needs a jacket. You will certainly need an article or two. I may get a Welsh woolen product. Que pensez-vous?”

  Apparently taken aback by her French, Francois dragged the lock-armed trio to a stop then added, “One must never underestimate you, cher.” He glanced at several storefronts. “Oui. We shall peruse the local offerings. It will stimulate the appetite. Our sheriff, an unwilling participant, shall protest, but such is the nature of those less cultivated. Is this not so?”

  Cole grunted a response and she guided them to a nearby clothing shop. Again that guilt at participating in such a triviality as shopping gave her some discomfort, but it would allow them all to gain their sea legs during this storm. It was harmless, stable, and human. The close proximity to each other continued to foster her newfound support mechanism and allowed the element of love that had grown over the last week to do its job.

  Chapter 25

  Thirty years as a field agent had hardened Andrew Wilczek body, mind, and soul. The CIA tried to pull him back when he hit fifty, providing him with a desk job in Langley. The assignment lasted three months. Both the agency and Wilczek agreed the field made for a much better fit.

  He spoke most Central Asian and Middle Eastern languages, managed to get shot twice—only one of which needed to be reported—and survived over a dozen assassination attempts. It was best to give better than you got, and it didn’t matter one damn bit that peers and bosses saw him as irreverent or tough as nails as long as they stayed out of the way so he could fight the bad guys. He went by “Check,” an American abbreviation of his last name. His parents emigrated from Poland after the war, escaped through England, and landed in Chicago. A good student, he joined the CIA and exhibited a natural ability to learn languages. The agency settled him in the Middle East. With the exception of the three months at Langley, there he stayed. Never married, his family consisted of fellow operatives and support personnel. He only trusted Americans, and not too many of them. A jaundiced view of his fellow humans kept a man alive.

  The email from Nadine came as a pleasant surprise. It had been a couple of years since he’d worked with her as she got drawn tighter into domestic terrorism prevention. But her tendrils reached far and wide, and the spy community held her in high regard. He held her a lot higher than that. She found answers. She drilled for the truth—or as close to the truth as the shadow world could provide.

  He knew of this Moloch she asked about. Wilczek based his operations inside Turkey, but made regular surreptitious forays into Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. He maintained a vast network of informers whose loyalty he gained and kept with US dollars and fear of retribution. He knew the Arab mindset. Life worked as a zero-sum game. Every transaction, interaction, and relationship had a winner and a loser. Win-win did not exist. He used this to his advantage and allowed everyone in his network to occasionally lie to him and continue to get paid so they would see themselves as winning and the gruff American as losing. What dumbasses.

  Wilczek lied to Nadine when he replied he didn’t know of Moloch but would find what he could. This allowed him the opportunity to find a backstory thread before he showed his cards. So far, he’d discovered little. Nadine was traveling with a priest and a sheriff as a field team. It was pure amateur hour, but their endeavors existed for a reason. He just couldn’t pry it from the available information.

  He did not offer information without a quid pro quo, but on rare occasions would provide intel to someone such as Nadine. With her, he could call in favors. World-class at her craft, Nadine enjoyed her work and on occasion helped friends and allies with salient information. Having her at his disposal for judicious use provided a powerful lure, so he didn’t mind dumping a little information her way.

  Moloch nested in the Dead Cities of Syria, but he left to go who-knows-where with regularity. Wilczek knew little about him and had nothing on his history. Everyone had a trail, a tale. This guy—nothing. That smelled of an operative, a plant from the outside. Russians, maybe. Iranians, possibly. Fifteen years ago he showed up and assembled a gang of cutthroats and killers called al Garal. These guys made girl scouts of al Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, al Shabaab and all the rest. Al Garal lived to kill anyone and everyone. A bizarre desire to wipe the earth clean drove them, with little religious conviction. Small in number, they had kept their terror confined to Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Other Middle Eastern terrorist groups despised them for their pure chaos and lack of order. Wilczek kept what little eye he could on them, but since they didn’t pose an immediate threat to the US, the powers-that-be showed little interest in them.

  Wilczek operated from the small Turkish city of Iskenderun on the Mediterranean coast. It had all the amenities of any larger city with the added benefit of sitting forty miles from the Syrian border. He could come and go into Syria with relative impunity. He crossed the border illegally, never stayed longer than necessary to buttress his network and pay bribes and gather information, all the while avoiding capture, torture, and eventual painful death. He loved his job.

  Nadine would call after the email string and he’d do what he could to help her, as long as it didn’t interfere with his work and afforded her the opportunity to provide him with future information. He’d never known her to leave the States, so this smelled like a strange lark—amateurs on the road. As long as the road didn’t lead in his direction he would participate. This part of the world—rife with intrigue, war, conflict, murder, and mayh
em—was no place for an amateur, much less three of them.

  He slipped into swim shorts, grabbed a towel, and headed for the beach. There, armed with some dog-eared pulp fiction, he would take a lounge chair, wear the darkest of sunglasses, and wave off all the beach vendors except the ones on his payroll. He allowed the informants to squat in the sand next to him, as if selling their wares, while they told him what they could. Much of it involved Turkish politics; some involved rumors from across the border. He truly loved his job.

  Chapter 26

  They spent an hour together, shopping. They orbited each other, always in close proximity, and dropped little reminders of yesterday. In Cole’s experience, it was best to talk it out. Death had to be acknowledged, and then you moved on … or at least tried to. It was pretty clear they would all carry the scars from the experience for the rest of their lives, but the small community of three took solace in each other, and through that association and that love began to look forward and not dwell on the past. They all admitted feeling some guilt in doing so. They all admitted the key was to focus on life, on the living. It gratified Cole to see Nadine back on her feet. He expected Francois to rely on a priest’s deep belief system, but even the Frenchman displayed a rattle or two. The fact that he didn’t display more showed a deep conviction in the muddy trail they now followed.

  They made their way to the Italian restaurant and gravitated toward a corner table. Nadine and Francois carried several shopping bags. Cole offered to carry Nadine’s but she smiled and told him to “bugger off.” She and Francois had apparently satiated their wool fix, at least for the time being. Nadine insisted on buying him a lightweight wool jacket. He protested, without adding it looked pretty dang good on his frame.

  They ordered drinks, Francois visibly pleased to find Pernod available. Their corner of the restaurant sat quiet.