The Constantine Conspiracy

by Gary Parker

  His mom smiled and held up the water cup again. He drank more from it this time, then waved it away.

  “Why would anybody shoot you?” she asked softly, her tone suggesting she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask the question. “You fool around with a married woman or something?”

  He smiled at her attempt at humor, both of them knowing he’d never do such a thing. “Not sure,” he said, trying to remember. “My work in the crime lab, maybe related to that.” His voice improved a little as he talked.

  “But what case?” she asked. “Where was the danger?”

  Gerald focused on the hours before the shooting, filtered through his mind all the cases he was handling. Shannon Bridge, he remembered, the whole deal with Steve Carson. “What day is it, Mom?” he asked.

  “Saturday.”

  He tried to rise again, but his mom pushed him down. “My phone,” he said. “I need my phone.”

  “In the cabinet,” said his mom, tilting her head toward the corner. “You promise to stay horizontal, I’ll get it for you.”

  “Done.”

  She stepped to the cabinet, opened it, and hauled his phone back to him, flipped it open. “Who you want called?” she asked. “I’ll do it for you.”

  “A text message,” he said. “Check drafts.”

  His mom fingered the phone, then pulled up a message directed to Shannon Bridge.

  “I remember her,” she said. “You went out with her a couple of times, right?”

  Grimes nodded. “Friends, Mom, we were just friends.”

  “‘GlobeFree, Bahamas’?” she asked, obviously puzzled as she read the text message.

  He nodded. “Hand it to me.”

  “What’s the urgency?”

  “Just hand me the phone, please, Mom.”

  She handed over the phone and he checked the message, then clicked options. A second later, he hit Send and the message departed. Then he turned off the phone, handed it to his mom, and lay back on his pillow again, his heart content. No matter if Shannon never went out with him, he’d done all he could for her.

  “Rick Carson,” he whispered, suddenly weary again.

  “What about him?”

  “They find him yet?”

  “What do you care? You working on that case?”

  “Did they find him, Mom?”

  “Yeah, he turned himself in earlier today, in Atlanta. No charges though. Whoever shot you connected to all that?”

  Gerald closed his eyes, not wanting to say more but also not wanting to be rude to his mom. “Food,” he said. “I could eat something.”

  “You bet, just a second.”

  He opened his eyes and his mom backed up and cleared out of the room. Weary from talking, he shut his eyes again. A minute later he heard the door open, light footsteps crossing the room. Too tired to look up, he lifted a hand in greeting and a man gently took it and rubbed his palm.

  “Dad?”

  Gerald opened his eyes and saw a slender stranger standing over him, a smallish man with ears like Frisbees wearing nurse’s scrubs. The man held a needle and Gerald sensed the danger before the man moved. He jerked upward, his body convulsing in pain but still reacting. His right hand grabbed the man’s face and dug into his flesh, but the man pushed him away, lifted the needle, and plunged it into Gerald’s neck. Gerald punched at the man, but his blows missed and his arms felt heavy. The man pushed liquid from the needle into Gerald’s neck.

  Gerald’s eyes blinked, blinked, blinked, and then stilled. This time he didn’t think of Shannon, didn’t think of food, didn’t think of anything but peace—blessed, blissful peace.

  Housed in a respectable older hotel about five miles from the Carson Estate, Shannon did two quick things after she received the text from Gerald. First, she forwarded the message to the Order’s research department in Colorado Springs, where experts immediately went to work to find the owner of the motorcycle. If she could trace GlobeFree to Augustine, then she could connect him that much closer to Steve Carson’s death, thus giving her more ammunition to convince Rick of his granddad’s guilt. Next she placed a call to Gerald but got no answer. Later, she told herself, she’d try him again later.

  She flipped on the television and tuned to the news. Two stories battled for top billing. Rick’s return home—bullet wound and all—claimed attention from entertainment reporters focused on the seriousness of his injury to talk show hosts debating the ongoing search for a killer. In addition to Rick’s situation, the cameras pointed at images of the Supreme Court building where the court’s only female justice had just died after a speech to a group of corporate lawyers. One of the liberal justices, said the reporter currently on screen; a death that wouldn’t change the current makeup of the court because the president, elected on a pledge to appoint what he called “judges with a heart,” would appoint someone of similar judicial philosophy to fill the seat.

  After a few minutes, Shannon flipped off the television, walked to the window, and stared in the direction of Rick’s home. She worried about him, what he had said to his granddad, if he’d told him what she said. If so, Augustine knew about her, which made her vulnerable.

  She stepped to her bed, opened her backpack and pulled out her Sig Sauer. Although she and her allies preferred not to kill, they did believe in self-protection and killed if and when necessary. She slipped the weapon into the waistband of her khaki slacks and moved back to the window, grateful for the training she’d done in the past five years, the skills she’d acquired, the dangers she’d faced. Nothing scared her anymore, nothing but the thought that someone else would suffer like her family had before she gained the proficiencies she now enjoyed. “Never again,” she vowed as she did each night before she went to bed, as she said her prayers to the God in whom she believed, “never again” would someone she loved suffer if she had the power to stop it.

  She pushed away the memories that threatened to overwhelm her, memories that hung on in spite of her efforts to squash them. No good, she knew; the guilt that chewed at her gut, the anguish and regret. God forgave, she reminded herself; grace cleansed her of all her sins. Yet, still, it hurt, her mistakes, her errors, her failings. People died—people she loved, people who depended on her. Never again, she vowed once more, never again.

  They’d eventually come for her, she knew that. And she’d be ready this time when they did.

  “Come on,” she whispered through the window. “Come on, let me earn my revenge. I’ll ask God’s forgiveness later. Come on.”

  29

  Sunday morning

  Standing in a vaulted room buried six stories beneath his New York office tower in Manhattan, Augustine pulled a fresh cigar from his silver carton as he talked with Charbeau by video.

  “We finished preliminary research on Shannon Bridge,” Charbeau said. “And it ain’t pretty.”

  “She’s with the Order, right?”

  “Since about two years ago.”

  “Where’d they find her?”

  “Military intelligence in the Pentagon. Her dad a career man before her, a three-star general in the Air Force before his retirement, an instructor at the Academy. She served in Iraq with Special Forces; good with all the gadgets, computers and crap like that. Weapons too, skydiving. She kept watch on the renegade militias, not a lady to take lightly.”

  “How’d she end up in the Order, then out in Montana?”

  “Not clear on that, we’ll have to ask her when we bring her in. But she wasn’t always such a Jesus fan, lived on the dark side her last year of college. One bust for drug possession at the University of Colorado, did a little weed apparently— typical college stuff. Rumors of a couple of other things that we’re still checking out.”

  “What about her mother?”

  “The woman in Florida is her aunt, not her momma.”

  “The aunt in the Order also?”

  “Not that we’ve found, but she is a Bible thumper and real close to Ms. Bridge.”

  Augustine li
t his cigar and puffed it to life. “Did Miss Bridge take her religion from her parents?”

  “Yeah, the dad in particular. He carried a lot of influence in his time at the Academy. That’s a hotbed of Christian types.”

  “I am aware. We funded many of those who complained of the evangelistic efforts of the chaplains there.”

  “Bridge’s dad gave leadership to much of that. After he retired, he got involved in speaking in churches, July 4th events, Memorial and Veterans Days. You may remember him, showed up on our radar there for a while, then things calmed down.”

  “I do recall, now that you mention it. So Ms. Bridge spent time in the wilderness of sin, then turned back to the faith, got gloriously saved. Now she follows her father’s formidable footsteps.”

  “Looks like it.”

  A sharp pain suddenly cut through Augustine’s chest, and he waited for it to settle, then focused on Charbeau again. “When did Ms. Bridge take up with Jesus?”

  “Near the end of her senior year of college. Details are a little cloudy, but she broke down sometime that year; not exactly a mental collapse, but she definitely went through a bad patch, ended up in a hospital. Took to the faith soon after that, then she’s in the military, then with the Order after five years of service.”

  “The Order likes their people to obtain military training.”

  “But most of the military isn’t particularly religious,” Charbeau said.

  “Doesn’t matter. The Order sends them in for the training, it saves them the cost of providing it. Pretty smart. Then the Order sent her to Montana to keep an eye on the Carson family when they visited there.”

  “After a year of their indoctrination. She’s been a ranger since last summer.”

  “I assume they have other operatives watching over us in Atlanta, New York, Rome, wherever we go.”

  “I expect so,” Charbeau said. “They do thorough work for their limited assets. You’re definitely on their radar.”

  “So they suspect me.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “No matter. They’re powerless to stop what’s going to happen.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on them.”

  “Good.” Augustine wiped sweat off his forehead as another surge of pain pierced his ribs. “You’re moving forward on Domino?”

  “Full speed ahead. Things are falling into place rather nicely.”

  “You really feel we can make this happen?”

  “Does the pope wear a funny white hat?”

  Augustine laughed lightly in spite of his pain. “I’m a sick man, Nolan, you do realize that, don’t you?”

  “I’ve had my suspicions—you’re old as dirt. Nobody lives forever.”

  “This will be my crowning glory; the reason for my entire life.”

  “I’ll make it happen for you, count on that.”

  “Why do you do it, Nolan? Is it simply the money or do you really believe in our cause?”

  Charbeau hesitated for a moment. “I do it for a lot of reasons, I guess. It fits me, you know, my skills, instincts. And yeah, I like the money, but more than that I love the thrill, living beyond the law, beyond what normal folks do every day. Plus, there’s nothing out there, Mr. Augustine. My whole life has taught me that, you most of all. Nothing but here and now, so I live for what is, not what will be.”

  Augustine paused to sift his next words, because he knew the power they carried, the possibilities for good or ill unleashed in them. Yet, he felt confident speaking them, almost compelled. “If we complete Domino, the Succession will come into place, you know that, right?”

  “I expected it, yes.”

  “And you also know that I must offer the leadership to my grandson.”

  “It’s the tradition and I accept it.”

  “But if Rick refuses the Succession, the Council will choose another to take my place.”

  “The Council gets to pick whoever they want if there’s no direct heir.”

  “Do you believe you deserve the Succession?”

  “I’ve put in my time in the trenches. If somebody brings more juice to the table, go with him. But I don’t see it, do you?”

  “You are not a sophisticated man, Nolan. Your critics in the Council know of your work, but they will use your lack of, how can I say this gently, your lack of polish, against you. How should I respond in Council if such failings come to light against you?”

  Nolan licked his lips. “You want me to be straight with you, Mr. Augustine? Just between the two of us?”

  “Man to man, Nolan, tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s furry backside about the traditions of the Council, the gentilities of folks who make decisions in shadowy rooms. So what if I slurp my soup and prefer a good chew over your hundred-dollar cigars? Fine manners didn’t feed the goose. For that matter I don’t care much for all the anti-religious mumbo jumbo either. My momma practiced Cajun voodoo in the backwoods of Louisiana before she passed on, but I got no truck with Christianity if that’s what somebody wants to follow. Let folks believe what they want, I figure, so long as others do the same for me. So I don’t want the Succession for any of your traditional reasons—I want it for the power it brings, the ability to control. Course I know better than to speak to anybody but you this way. The Council wants zealots for its ranks, and to become Master of the Council demands the most zealotry of all.”

  “Your candor refreshes me,” Augustine said, “But I have to confess it gives me pause when I think of pushing your candidacy. Why should I champion you in Council if you don’t share my hatred for the teachings of the church?”

  “Because you know I don’t fail,” he offered strongly. “My record shows I get the job done. If you want some public relations pimp who looks good in a suit, tap someone else. But if the Council—and you most of all—want to finish what those first thirteen men started a long time ago, if you want to shove what’s left of the Jesus junk into the closet forever, I’m the best man for the job. That’s my selling card, the only one I’ve got.”

  Augustine cleared his throat, pleased to have had the conversation with his top lieutenant. “You make a strong case for yourself, so I want you to hear this from me. If Rick refuses his destiny and you complete Domino, I will bring my full power to bear to demand that the Council offers you the Sword of Constantine.”

  “If it comes to me, I’ll take the Sword and swing it till my arms fall off or I’ve cut the head off the last believer out there.”

  Augustine eased to a chair and slid into it. “Go now,” he said, waving his spent cigar at the video monitor. “Handle Shannon Bridge. Then go full bore at Domino, then let the chips fall into place one after another. The end is almost here.”

  “Just to be clear, we’re talking last measures with Bridge?”

  “Regrettably, yes, but she’s shown her true colors, understands the risks. Take last measures.”

  Charbeau signed off and Augustine snuffed out his cigar, then pulled the silver case, a gift from Margaret on his twenty-first birthday, from his pocket and ran his fingers over the engraved monogram. “Love always, Margaret.”

  “I miss you, dear,” he whispered, kissing the monogram. “My life ended when yours did.”

  Putting the case away, he stood, balanced for a moment on the edge of the chair, then moved to the wall to his left. A grandfather clock stared out from the center of the wall, and he touched the face, the spot in the center of the six, and stepped back. The wall clicked, then spun open, and Augustine walked into the large room behind it, a room filled with books and pictures and artifacts from many ages. Twelve candles flickered in the shadows of the vaulted room and an oblong table sat in the center of it. Twelve people surrounded the table, each one standing, each one hooded, only their faces visible to him.

  Augustine gazed at each person until he’d searched the eyes and recognized each one in the room. Mohammed Al Baroque, Susan Britt, Hui Lee Chan, and nine others—two more Ameri
cans, one of them a U.S senator, the other, a fellow billionaire. One man from Russia; one each from England, France, and Germany; two from South America; and the last one from Rome itself. All of them were his allies, all sworn to secrecy, all with individual motives for supporting their ancient cause.

  “The time draws near,” he said. “Are we all agreed?”

  Each of the Council nodded in agreement.

  Augustine stepped to an attendant who waited in the corner, held out his arms, and slipped on his robe. After pulling the hood over his head, he strode to the head of the table and braced himself before it. Then he turned to face the wall-length mirror directly behind him. The candles flickered and he took a deep breath, then repeated an ancient phrase, a phrase he hadn’t heard or spoken in over fifty years, a phrase only he of all men on earth had the right to speak.

  “With this sword, conquer.” His father had spoken these same words to him in a room similar to this one when he completed the Succession the year Augustine turned forty, three months before he died of the same cancer that now clawed away at Augustine’s body.

  As the last word rolled from Augustine’s tongue, the mirror seemed to quiver, then shift. Seconds later it flipped and disappeared into the wall below. An open vault appeared before Augustine, and he reached in with a quivering hand and touched what lay inside. The smooth, sharp blade of the Sword of Constantine glistened in the light, the same sword his forbearers had touched in the villa outside of Rome centuries before. The Council had packed the sword in a locked case and hauled it across the Atlantic as the clouds of World War II gathered across Italy. They had agreed at the time that America would dominate the next century so they needed to set up base camp there, use their money to expand into politics, the military, publishing, and media. If they could destroy the faith in the United States, they determined, they could eventually crush it everywhere on earth.

  So they had chosen his father as Master—a loyal soldier in the movement to that point, a communistic atheist from Italy with a PhD in international relations who had immigrated to New York with his wife and son just as World War I began in Europe. Augustine had shifted the central location to Atlanta in the 1960s, focusing on the Bible Belt South, the home of evangelical religion in America.