by Gary Parker
“That’s tough,” Rick offered. “Had to hurt deep.”
“Just about killed me.”
“So what changed her, brought her back?”
“Nothing I did,” Mr. Bridge said. “She called me one day near the end of the year, out of the blue. Crying, wailing more like it. Said she wanted to come home. I told her to wait there, I’d come get her. That night I tucked her into her old bed and we sat there and talked.”
“What broke her?”
Mr. Bridge stood this time and stared out the window. When he faced Rick again, his eyes trickled tears. “A baby,” he whispered. “She got pregnant but then lost it at about two months, miscarriage. Shattered her—getting pregnant out of wedlock and the loss of the child. Her mom and I raised her different than that; Shannon told me she cut herself off from me for so long because she knew what a disappointment she was to me and her dead mom.”
Rick sighed. “Hard to imagine Shannon doing any of that.”
Mr. Bridge wiped his eyes and sat again. “Yeah, she’s so different now. After she came home, she spent some time in a hospital, talked long hours with me, plus a local pastor. She turned her life around, started going to church again, like she did as a child.”
“You and your wife took her when she was little?”
“Every Sunday I was home we all went. I traveled a lot though, so it was her and her mom a lot of the time.”
“The idea of church makes my skin crawl.”
“Why is that?”
“Not sure, just does.”
Mr. Bridge smiled gently. “I’m not judging here, but maybe you should figure out why you feel like you do about the church.”
“So Shannon reconnected with her religious tradition,” Rick said, redirecting the conversation.
“That’s one way to say it—she repented of her sins and trusted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior is another. It transformed her life. She returned to college that summer, finished her degree.”
“Where did the Order enter the picture?”
Bridge stretched his back, took a mint from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. “I caused that,” he said.
“How so?”
He flipped the mint with his tongue. “Her mother’s death, you asked about it.”
Rick slid to the edge of his seat.
“A man came to my house—an assassin, to say it plainly.”
“To kill you.”
“He broke in during the middle of the night. My wife heard him while I slept. She was always that way, could hear a spider walking on silk a block away. She tried to wake me, but I didn’t stir. She climbed out of bed, went to check things out, and surprised the guy. He snapped her neck—that woke me. I heard it somehow, like a firecracker exploding in a metal room. I ran to her, the killer took a shot at me but missed, then my house alarm went off and he disappeared. I let him go, ran to my wife, did everything I could but she . . . she was dead when I reached her. I never caught the guy, still trying, one day . . .”
Rick hesitated with his next question but knew he had to ask even though he already sensed the answer. “Why did somebody want to assassinate you?”
Mr. Bridge shook his head. “You can guess, Rick, you know you can.”
“You’re with the Order,” Rick said. “Just like Shannon.”
Mr. Bridge nodded. “Since I left the Air Force close to ten years ago.”
“That how Shannon ended up in the Pentagon?”
“The Order likes its agents to get military training. Shannon went in the year after she graduated college, served in Iraq, Special Forces. She’s an amazing woman, no matter if she is my daughter.”
Rick paused to let it all soak in. So many things made sense now, things that were previous mysteries. “So Shannon entered the Order after her military service to combat the Constantine Conspiracy,” he finally said to Mr. Bridge. “Serve the church, protect its interests and all that.”
Mr. Bridge shook his head. “No,” he said. “Shannon’s not that simple; she entered the Order for an altogether different reason, nothing nearly as altruistic as what you’re suggesting.”
“And that reason is?”
“Pretty simple—Shannon entered the Order for revenge, to use the resources of the organization to find the man who murdered her mother.”
32
Nurse Cotter stepped into the waiting room, and Rick and Mr. Bridge jumped up to meet her. “This came in with her from the ambulance,” Nurse Cotter said, handing Shannon’s black bag to Rick.
“She okay?” Rick asked, setting the bag in a corner.
“She’s in serious condition,” the nurse said. “Suffered a fractured left wrist, burns on her right shoulder blade and left thigh, but nothing that should scar too badly. Good thing it rained today. She had on a wet jacket, it protected her some from the fire. She obviously inhaled a lot of smoke, more tests will show what damage it did. The biggest issue is the internal bleeding she’s dealing with. Something must have fallen on her, we’re not sure of the source yet. But that’s the major fear—that the spleen or liver is ruptured. We’re hopeful that’s not the case but won’t know for certain until we do some exploratory work.”
“Spare no expense,” Rick said. “Whatever you need, I’ll pay for it.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” Nurse Cotter smiled, said she’d come out again if anything changed, then disappeared behind a set of double doors and Rick and Bridge returned to their waiting. The hours passed like molasses dripping. Rick made a few phone calls while he waited and Mr. Bridge read a magazine or two but spent most of the time staring out the window. Guilt chewed on Rick as he waited—guilt for spending the past two days resting, calling his old gang, watching the news detail his happy homecoming, hanging out like a prima donna with no worries of any kind. Guilt for doing little or nothing to check on Shannon’s claims against Pops.
About three hours into the surgery, Officer Roche appeared and asked Mr. Bridge to leave the room. After Bridge left, Roche turned to Rick, a notebook and pen in hand.
“Need to ask you a few new questions,” she said, sitting across from him.
“What about him?” Rick asked, indicating the door where Mr. Bridge had exited.
“Not your concern,” Roche said. “We checked Ms. Bridge’s cell phone. You called her shortly before the explosion.”
“I needed to talk to her.”
“You care to tell me why?”
Rick shrugged. “Normal reasons, man and woman things, you know. Nothing special. I hadn’t seen her all day, wanted to . . . remind her not to forget me.”
“You saying the two of you are a couple? Why didn’t you mention this when we talked earlier?”
“It’s nothing official, but you know, we’ve gone through a lot these past couple of days.”
“Why do you figure somebody tried to kill Ms. Bridge?”
Rick stared at the ceiling a moment. “Wish I knew the answer to that one,” he said, looking at Roche again. “I’d sure as . . . well . . . I’d do something about it if I knew.”
Roche held her pen still. “I’m not an idiot,” she said. “You two are mixed up in something, and if you’re not careful, it’s going to kill her, maybe you too. You understand that, right? This isn’t a game, a life experience. Somebody serious wants her six feet under, and if you refuse to tell us the truth, my prediction says things will go sour on you in a hurry. And by sour, I mean dead sour. Like your dad.”
“I hear you,” Rick said. “But I can’t point you to any suspects. Somebody professional, that’s obvious, with enough money, technical expertise, and knowledge of explosives to make this happen. That should narrow things some.”
Roche pocketed her pad and pen. “I hoped you’d be more forthcoming. Aren’t you ready for some help with whatever you’re fighting?”
“Who says I’m fighting anything?”
“Like I said, I’m not an idiot.”
Rick inhaled. Perhaps he did need help. But
he didn’t know how to ask for it without revealing Shannon’s claims about the Conspiracy, and that would make her seem more than a little goofy. Even worse, Shannon’s warnings about the police kept banging around in his head. She didn’t trust them, neither should he.
“Okay,” Roche said, giving up for the moment. “We’ll talk again, I promise. And remember you can call me anytime, here’s my card.” She handed him her number, and he held it as she left, her black pumps clicking on the tile floors.
“Hey,” Mr. Bridge said, back in the room. “She push you too hard?”
“No, and I didn’t say much either.”
“Good. We don’t need the cops involved in all this, makes things messier.”
Rick moved to a seat by the window. “You said you’d tell me what brought you here so quickly.”
Bridge moved to a corner of the room, opened a black briefcase, and pulled out a manila folder. Back with Rick, he took a seat across from him. “The Order sent me,” he said. “I have news for Shannon about the motorcycle she wanted traced. A guy in Montana did some checking on it, the Order took it from there.”
“Old boyfriend of Shannon’s?”
“Something like that. He’s dead now.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, you’re up to your eyeballs here, Rick, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. These guys play for real money.”
Rick thought of Shannon and guilt took another bite out of him. He should have foreseen this, should never have left her alone these past two days. Whoever killed his dad would try to stop anyone who investigated that murder. When he sent her to the panic room, he’d placed her in danger.
“Shannon needs a security detail,” he said. “I’ll hire one, twenty-four-hour protection.”
“Do the hiring from an independent company, not one recommended or owned by your grandfather. Otherwise, I won’t let anyone but me or you near her.”
“Lay off my grandfather. Until I see hard evidence, I’m not going to believe anything you or your Order say about him.”
Bridge handed Rick the folder. “Take a look,” he said. “Some of that hard evidence you want to see.”
Rick quickly read the one-page report, then laid it in his lap. “GlobeCom,” he said. “My grandfather’s company. I did a summer internship there after my sophomore year of college. GlobeCom owns GlobeFree, and GlobeFree owns a motorcycle like the one I heard in Montana. So what?”
“So your grandfather owns GlobeCom, headquartered in England.”
“That doesn’t prove anything. GlobeCom is a holding company, parent of hundreds of subsidiaries. My grandfather doesn’t keep up with the inventory in those companies, what every employee does. This raises some suspicions, I’ll give you that, but is it irrefutable proof? We both know the answer to that. Even if the guy on the motorcycle works for GlobeFree, what does that mean? He could be a rogue, hired out to almost anybody.”
Bridge unwrapped a mint and popped it into his mouth. “I don’t get you,” he said. “Why you defend your grandfather like you do. He disliked your dad, manipulated your mom, created wedges between her and your dad, she finally broke from it, you’ve seen the result of all that.”
“Pops is tough, I confess that. But he’s my family. And he denied it all too, said he had no knowledge of any conspiracy.”
Bridge edged to the end of his seat. “You didn’t tell him about the Order, did you?”
“Why not? I wasn’t going to snoop on him without giving him a chance to defend himself. What kind of person does that? Besides, he invited me to investigate all I wanted, said I wouldn’t find anything.”
Bridge shook his head, “You’re dumber than a hockey puck, Rick. Your grandfather will raise his security levels, shut you off from anything important. Didn’t you think of that when you were spilling your guts?”
“It doesn’t matter. I feel obligated to him. You’re the religious guy. I thought you religious types put family values above anything else.”
Bridge rose and moved to the window, looked out. “Family does matter, Rick, but we needed you on the inside, our eyes and ears. Now that’s gone. And the Conspiracy is up to something that’s going to rock the world. It happens like that when the Succession gets close. The leader stirs things up, assures his legacy.”
“The Succession?”
“Yeah, the ceremony that passes the Sword from one master to the next. Your granddad is old, sick, headed to hell real soon.”
“He’s sick?”
“Cancer, you didn’t know?”
“Nope. I’ve seen him take medication the past year or so, but you expect that, old as he is.”
“He’ll die before the year ends.”
“How do you know that?”
“We have our ways too.”
Rick sifted through all he’d just learned. Not a silver lining anywhere in the dark clouds. “Look,” he finally said. “I’ll do anything I can for Shannon, you too for that matter. And I’ll keep my antennae up around my granddad, report anything suspicious that I run across. But that’s the limit of what I’ll do, okay?”
Bridge swallowed the last of his mint, disappointment written on his face. “Sure, whatever. Do what you can. I just hope you come to your senses before the earth shakes—and believe me, if the Conspiracy gets its way, the earth is definitely about to shake.”
33
Tuesday morning
A row of six trucks sat along a tree-lined street nearly three quarters of a mile from Charbeau’s target, close enough to do their job in the time allotted but far enough away to escape the heaviest of the security measures already imposed around the perimeter they needed to breach. A single police car sat on both ends of the trucks, a well-bribed officer in place to handle matters if anybody showed up and started asking too many questions. Charbeau’s highly skilled team worked without a lot of conversation in the early morning sunshine, each man intent on his particular task. Charbeau stepped from one to the other to check on progress, to make suggestions when necessary, to offer additional resources if needed. For the most part, things moved smoothly. Thankfully, they’d had the opportunity to begin this work a year or so earlier so that made things far less difficult.
The dig team plugged away with the tunneling using directional drilling techniques—a single hole the diameter of a basketball that dropped twelve feet straight down, then turned hard right and headed straight for the target. Once it reached its destination the drill switched upward and cut toward the surface, finishing its path at the base of its bull’s-eye. Sonar equipment and radio transmitters showed the operators the exact location of the drill bit at every second of the process, and a powerful drill provided more than enough torque to do the job. Trenchless drilling, the experts called it, also known as horizontal drilling, a method to tunnel under lakes, swamps, highways, skyscrapers, or azalea beds, without making a mark on the surface.
After his men finished the hole, another technician would slide a piece of high-density polyethylene pipe into it, like a doctor inserting the colonoscopy tube into a sleeping patient. The pipe, flexible enough to turn corners when needed, served as the conduit for the camera that would follow—the eyes of the operator on the other end. Once the camera showed the target, another operator would guide the explosives toward it, enough C-4 to destroy everyone gathered at ground zero.
Charbeau grinned with satisfaction. Modern technology made destruction so much easier than in the old days. He could shape C-4 into almost any form, make an Easter rabbit out of it if he wanted, and its stability allowed him to handle it with little or no concern about a premature explosion. Pleased with the progress of his team, Charbeau walked away and rang Augustine on his encrypted phone.
“Domino is a full go,” he said. “All is in order, on time and making progress. Unless we run into something unforeseen, we can definitely make it happen.”
“Good,” Augustine grunted. “But we have a problem on the Order end.”
“What kind of problem?
”
“The Fountain Hotel, you know the case.”
“Of course.”
“The goose isn’t completely cooked yet.”
“The goose is tougher than I thought.”
“Obviously. But we have to finish it, too much at risk if we don’t.”
“I’m on it soon as I leave here.”
“I’m told that my grandson is hiring security. Won’t be as easy this time.”
“We need somebody who can get inside that security detail.”
“I’m working on it, but Rick is going independent on me here, bringing in his own crew.”
“You think your boy distrusts you?”
“Not sure right now. But he’s not a target. I’ll take care of him.”
Charbeau licked his lips. If Rick refused the Succession, or was dead, he had a chance at it. Although Augustine didn’t know it, he’d already gotten commitments from five members of the Council to hand the Sword to him if Rick refused. If the opportunity came, Charbeau planned to take Golden Boy out, grandson of Augustine or not.
“Clean things up, Nolan,” Augustine said. “Do it fast.”
Charbeau hung up and leaned against a van, his breath fast and shallow. Carson would protect Bridge, no doubt about it. But he’d made backup plans for something like this. Too bad he couldn’t do the job himself; going after Bridge might place him face-to-face with Carson and that’s what he really wanted—the chance to take a shot at the high and mighty Golden Boy. It would happen, he assured himself, as sure as a hog went to slop. After he killed Bridge, Carson would come to him.
34
When Shannon opened her eyes on Tuesday morning, she saw three men in her room, one by the door, one in a chair by the bed, and one wearing a sling on his left arm and looking out the window. The man at the door wore a black short-sleeved shirt with gray slacks and looked like a linebacker with a pistol on his hip. Curly blond hair, a rangy build, and boyish good looks distinguished the one at the window, and steel gray hair and dark blue eyes characterized the one at the bed. She looked from one man to the other, then tried to speak, but her tongue didn’t work so she relaxed again into the bed and fought to remember who the men were, how they connected to her. Nothing jogged her memory.