by Dc Alden
‘You nearly screwed it all up for me,’ Josh snapped. ‘I should’ve followed protocol, sent the dogs after you when you went MIA in Iraq, but I didn’t. I knew you were fucked up, but I cut you slack, Frank, because I thought loyalty meant something. You caused me a lot of problems.’
Frank didn’t blink. ‘I’d hit bottom. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Bullshit. You emptied your bank account, faked your own death. You even had your RFID chip removed. That wasn’t spontaneous. You planned that shit.’
Frank switched the knife to his other hand, wiping a sweaty palm on his leg. ‘Tell me about FEMA. What’s the plan, when Angola breaks?’ Confronting Josh was proving tougher than expected. He could feel that familiar tide of panic ebbing and flowing through his consciousness. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Josh saw it too.
‘You okay, Frank?’
‘Just tell me about the plan.’
‘Sure. Why not?’ Josh made himself a little more comfortable. ‘We’ll bide our time, adhering to standard FEMA protocols, until the crisis escalates and a national emergency is declared. That’s when command and control will relocate to Mount Weather. Soon after a steady stream of pre-prepared executive orders will authorise a national military mobilisation, followed by travel restrictions and curfews. Troops will be deployed to protect and preserve the nation’s infrastructure. After that, martial law will come into force and dissenters removed to FEMA detention camps. That’s where my focus will be.’
Frank could see the light burning in Josh’s eyes.
‘Eventually, after millions have died including most of Capitol Hill, executive authority will pass to the National Advisory Council.’ Josh fidgeted excitedly on the bed. ‘It’s not too late, Frank. I could talk to them about you, tell them it’s all been a huge mistake.’
Frank shook his head. ‘Nice try, but I’m pretty sure my reappearance wouldn’t be healthy for either of us.’
Josh’s grin slipped. He twisted angrily, the gold eiderdown rumpled beneath his body. ‘Goddamit, it doesn’t have to be like this. We can work something out.’
‘It’s way too late for that.’
Josh shot a look at the knife. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Frank.’
‘Relax. I’m just waiting.’
‘For what? No one can get anywhere near this place without us knowing.’
‘I did.’
‘You’re a goddam freak,’ Josh growled.
‘Be nice.’ Frank checked his watch. ‘At least for the next few minutes.’
‘Then what, Frank? The Swiss cops will show up? Interpol?’ He laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. ‘You think any organisation on this planet can wipe its ass without The Committee knowing about it? You think they’ve spent decades and hundreds of trillions of dollars just so an asshole like you can drop a dime on them? You think it’s that easy? You’re one deluded son of a bitch,’ Josh scowled. ‘You’ve lost it, buddy. You’re off the fucking reservation.’
‘That’s real nice, coming from a guy who’s part Navajo.’
‘Hey, I got an old Indian saying for you, Frank—kiss my fucking ass.’ He glared at his former boss for a few moments, caught his breath. Then he said, ‘you realise you’re going to fail, right? You want to kill me, fine, go right ahead, because you can’t stop them. We have to preserve what’s left, you know that. People have to die, so the chosen can live. There’s no other way.’
Frank shook his head and smiled. ‘Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. That’s Proverbs, chapter sixteen.’ He checked his watch again, saw that time was short. He wasn’t smiling any more. ‘I know what this is, Josh. The Committee, they’re all here. For the Gathering.’
Josh paled, his eyes searching Frank’s. ‘No, that’s not true. You’ve fucked up again.’
Frank reached into his pocket, took out a card, flicked it into Josh’s lap. Josh dropped his chin, stared at the gold-rimmed edges, the stiff white card with the small black pyramid symbol at its centre. Josh’s jaw fell open.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found it on Cohen’s desk, right after I killed him. I got sent the same invitation back in oh-one, two months before Nine Eleven. That Gathering was in Sweden.’ Frank leaned in a little closer. ‘They’ve been listening for weeks, my friend. They know all about The Committee, who they are, what they’re doing. They know about Nine Eleven, about the oil, about Angola and Messina. They know who your people are in Washington, in London, Riyadh, Beijing—’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Believe it.’
Frank picked up his backpack and placed it on the bed. ‘I told them The Committee would be here. They cross-checked the private flight plans, put people at the airports, on local roads, the cyclists and hikers with their cameras and satellite phones.’ He rummaged inside the pack, pulled out a small black box. ‘They know it all, Josh. You’ve been compromised my friend.’ He flipped open the toughened plastic cover, turned a switch inside. A green light flickered, then pulsed steadily.
‘The fuck is that?’ Josh’s face was drained of all colour.
Frank checked the readout, set the remote unit down on the dresser, satisfied the laser designator was fully active. ‘This is Samson, and he’s going to bring this temple of evil crashing down around your ears.’
Josh began to struggle against his bonds, thrashing on the bed. Frank retook his seat. ‘Don’t waste your time, Josh. Accept the inevitable.’
‘Cut me loose!’ he yelled. Frank checked his watch; Josh could scream all he wanted now. The unit on the dresser sang to him.
‘You fucking idiot!’ Josh yelled. ‘The world needs this. We have to move forward, we have to advance as a species. We can’t do that if we’ve got ten billion fucking mouths to feed! We’ll end up back in the Dark Ages, for Christ’s sake!’
Frank heard knocking, voices outside. ‘You remember back in oh-one, after the demolition teams had brought the towers down? The backslapping, the beers? I remember, Josh. I remember how you laughed with them. Thousands of people, lives, families, all destroyed. And you laughed.’
Josh bucked violently on the bed. ‘Cut these fucking cuffs off!’
Frank spun around as the heavy door shuddered. He saw them in his mind, filling the corridor outside, their black leathery wings and scaly bodies pressed together, whispering his name, their talons gouging the door, carving through the wood.
His demons.
Finally they’d come for him.
Frank was ready.
He stood up, the chair toppling over. He scooped up the Heckler Koch and emptied the magazine through the door in one long burst. Cordite filled the room. Brass casings scattered across the carpet. He heard the moans of the fallen. Then alarms echoed through the building.
‘What have you done?’ he heard Josh wail.
He threw the weapon to one side. ‘I’m doing God’s work.’
He heard more beasts gathering beyond the splintered door, heard his name cursed, saw their red eyes watching him through the bullet holes. The frame rattled. The door shook. Bullets stitched the wall above the bed.
Josh tried to roll himself onto the floor. Frank pulled him down to the carpet.
‘You’ve killed us,’ he howled. ‘You’ve killed us both.’
Frank knelt by the bed. He smiled, a final, tired smile. He was glad it was over.
‘All of us will die, Josh. Today it’s our turn. Pray with me, ask God for forgiveness. While you still can.’
Frank Marshall closed his eyes and began to whisper a final prayer.
Far above the snow-capped peaks of the Bernese Oberland, the Spirit of America made a final adjustment to its undetectable flight path and opened its bay doors. Moments later the billion-dollar B2 stealth bomber, an invisible black wing against the night sky, released the smart weapon from within its belly.
The huge metal cylinder dropped quickly, leaving the B2 far behind as it plummeted towards the narrow
valley shrouded in darkness beneath it. Its on-board navigation package made several minor corrections to its flight path as it fell at terminal velocity towards the laser-painted target below. The sixteen-tonne weapon flew past the rugged mountain peaks and into the valley itself, rushing through the frigid night air, its approach undetectable from the ground, its target the largest of the buildings clustered at the far end of the valley. The weapon made a final correction, its aim almost perfect, the sloping roof bathed in reflected laser light, rushing up to meet it—
The thirty-seven thousand pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator GBU-57A/B punched through several floors of the hotel before it exploded in a searing white pulse of pure explosive energy that lit up the valley, obliterating the building in a detonation that thundered across the Swiss mountain range. The shock wave crashed into the towering peak behind the hotel, rolling up its jagged face, shearing off a million-tonne slab of rock and sending it roaring like a tsunami into the valley below, engulfing the shattered remains of the secluded complex under an impenetrable river of ice and granite.
When the dust had finally settled, when the last pebble had come to rest and the still of the night had drawn its blanket over the valley once more, the survivors, mostly security teams from the surrounding forests, made good their escape. As experienced operatives, they’d all agreed that the detonation was an extraordinarily large bomb, a smart one. A military one.
And that could only mean one thing.
The other survivors, those that were close to the hotel yet had escaped the devastation, thought otherwise. They’d felt the hellish heat, had been deafened by the thunderclap that had echoed across the heavens, had watched a mountain cleaved in two, and yet had somehow—miraculously—been saved.
Those survivors came to a very different conclusion. God himself had intervened to save them, and it was God they thanked as they made their escape through the forest, leaving the rubble-filled valley of death behind them.
The Reverend Clarence Hays was at his desk when he saw a shadow pass by the barred window, followed by a knock on the alleyway door. He pushed his chair back and went out into the corridor, his sandals slapping against the soles of his bare feet. The man through the peephole wore the familiar brown uniform of a UPS guy and Hays threw the bolt, expecting something legal and threatening from New York State Electric and Gas. The long winter had proved costly, and the warm embrace the church had provided for the homeless during the worst of the winter storms had crippled Hays’ finances. It wouldn’t be long before he’d be forced to close his doors, and the thought of it crushed his spirit. It wasn’t just his parishioners that needed the Lord’s strength these days.
The UPS man smiled, bid Hays good morning, and handed over the package. Hays studied it, then realised he hadn’t signed for it, but the UPS guy had already turned the corner of the alleyway and disappeared.
He bolted the door and went back to his office. Out in the church hall he could hear the distant chords of the battered piano as the choir began their morning practice, their harmonies soon filling the stillness of the corridor outside Hays’ office. He sat down, turning the parcel over in his hands, curious. Hays’ name and address were clearly visible, but there was no date stamp, no return address, no tracking number, nothing. Hays shrugged, reached for a pair of scissors and sliced the carton open. He flipped back the sides and dug inside. Loose foam packaging spilled over onto his desk. His fingers touched something familiar and he pulled the small, leather-bound book from inside the box. Hays frowned for a moment, and then he realised it was the travel Bible he’d given Frank Marshall a while back.
Frank Marshall.
Hays felt a momentary rush of guilt as he realised he hadn’t thought about Frank for some time. These days he could barely keep up with the demand for his ministrations, yet he remembered Frank well, a deeply troubled man, his desire to right a dreadful wrong more powerful than most. Hays wondered what had become of him, hoping that the parcel would fill in a few blanks.
He reached inside once more, his fingers finding a hard block of plastic, his eyes widening as he turned the object over in his hand. He reached in again, produced another. Then another. Hays stood up, turned the box over and shook it, spilling everything out onto his desk. He flopped back into his chair, his eyes unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Then he found the letter. He ripped it open and began to read.
It was from Frank, and it was brief. It was an explanation of sorts, his short journey along the path to righteousness. It spoke of the guilt that had plagued him, of his quest for redemption that had finally saved others, and of the nightmares that would never leave him. But most of all he wanted to thank Hays for the strength he’d given him to complete his journey, and to say a final goodbye.
Frank was never coming back.
Hays arranged everything neatly on his desk as the sound of the choir echoed along the corridor. His hands reached out, sought physical confirmation of what his eyes refused to believe, touching each one in turn, the two dozen vacuum-sealed, four-inch-high packs of one hundred dollar bills that would enable Hays to continue God’s work for many years to come.
He took a sharp breath, emotion building inside him, in sync with the unseen choir as they climbed towards their vocal heights.
He leaned back in his chair, winded. Then he did something he hadn’t done in many, many years.
Clarence Hays began to cry.
Epilogue
Roy turned his face skyward.
Far to the west the sun had already dipped below the horizon, painting the endless sky in glorious hues of blue and soft pink. To the east night beckoned, the first stars dusting the heavens with their faint light. It was a poignant moment, and he was glad that the quiet ceremony was taking place at the stern of the Ocean Viking. He took a final look at the stars then stepped to the rail and dropped the wreath overboard, where it slapped onto the calm waters of the Persian Gulf.
‘Bye, Jimmy,’ he whispered.
On the deck behind him the Dutch captain intoned a few words about souls being consigned to the deep, followed by a chorus of amens from a small contingent of the ship’s Filipino crew. Roy gripped the rail as the wreath bobbed on the surface, watching it as it began to drift away from the anchored ship.
He didn’t know if this was the spot where Jimmy’s body was sent to its watery grave. The men who were responsible, and those that might’ve survived the assault on the Terra Petroleum compound, were being held by the Americans at an undisclosed location. Still, it was as good a spot as any, the lights of the Al-Basrah Oil Terminal glittering on the horizon far behind them, surrounded by the empty waters of the Gulf.
The wreath had already drifted some distance away, and Roy wondered where it might finish up. Probably on some Iranian beach, flung like a Frisbee between laughing kids, and he smiled because he thought Jimmy might find that pretty funny. In the end it didn’t really matter. What was important was the ceremony itself, arranged by the new administration in London and overseen by the men who stood a short distance away, the British Embassy representative and the Chief Financial Officer of TDL Global (UK) division who’d ordered the ten-thousand-tonne support ship to be placed at Roy’s disposal.
He remained at the stern rail for a while, remembering Jimmy and watching the distant wreath until the shadow of night stretched across the water and claimed it for its own.
When he finally turned away the hovering officials stepped forward. The embassy man, Bradshaw, was dressed in khaki trousers and a pressed white shirt, the much heavier Cooke sweating copiously in a blue suit. Together they thanked the Filipinos in a round of smiles and handshakes and the crewmen retired behind a rust-streaked bulkhead door, leaving them alone on the open rear deck.
‘That was very nice,’ Bradshaw smiled. He was a small man, dapper, his sandy hair neatly parted to one side.
‘Jimmy would’ve liked it,’ Roy said. ‘So, what happens now?’
‘We’ll head back shortly. They’ve lai
d on a late supper at the embassy.’
‘The least we can do,’ Cooke insisted. He was older than Bradshaw, with large bags under his eyes and a puffy red face that was damp with sweat. Roy wondered if it had less to do with the balmy temperature than the fact that the blameless Cooke had survived a brutal cull of TDL’s senior management.
‘Your brother was a TDL employee and as such we have a responsibility to our employees’ next of kin,’ Cooke continued. He reached inside his jacket. ‘I hope that this isn’t an inappropriate moment; however, time is pressing and we’ve been afforded a little privacy.’ Roy saw a large damp patch of sweat beneath the man’s armpit as he produced an envelope from his pocket. ‘This is a settlement, in sterling, for your brother’s estate.’
‘Estate?’ Roy took the envelope. It was made of expensive paper, thick and creamy, with the TDL logo embossed in one corner.
‘Correct. As you know, your brother worked for us for some years. His monthly salary was automatically credited to a TDL holding account from which he withdrew a small stipend each month. Fiscally, your brother was rather prudent,’ Cooke observed.
Roy extracted a single sheet of paper from the envelope and smoothed it open, his eye drawn to the bold-typed and underlined figure at the foot of the page. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered.
‘As I said, rather prudent,’ Cooke reiterated. ‘Your brother also had the foresight to take out a very generous life insurance policy. You’ll see we’ve matched that figure and added a compensation package of our own. I hope you’ll find it satisfactory.’
Roy’s eyes switched from the expectant gaze of the TDL accountant to the life-changing sum at the foot of the page and back again. ‘Is this for real?’
‘Absolutely,’ Cooke nodded.
Roy stared at it again. It was a huge chunk of money, sure, but Jimmy was gone. He weighed the statement in his hand and said to Cooke, ‘I’d give twice that for one more hour with my brother.’