Out of reflex, King let off the gas. “You don’t mean . . .”
“Yes. I found the people who taught the Maragoses to hate the United States. The head of the snake. The people who tried to kill everyone you love.”
24
King did as the GPS prompted and turned right into the Total gas station and coffeehouse. He parked the car and stared out the window. The lights of the rectangular building were bright against the still darkened sky, and steam was rising into the cool air from a couple of exhaust fans. It was hard for him to focus on the conversation he was about to have with Agent Roberts. The only reason he was still going through with it was because there was a chance he could still be of help. The bombshell news that Sam had just dropped on him wasn’t complete. They knew who the man was at the head of the terrorist organization, but they didn’t know the where. Finding out exactly who Karen really was could still help in some way. King figured she had to be connected, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that before King could question her, someone shot her in the head to keep her from talking. She knew something important. King needed to know what.
He grabbed his hat from the dash, pulled it on low, and exited the vehicle. It was now five in the morning. People in Calais would be rousing soon. Through the window of the building, King saw a row of booths down the left side of the coffeehouse section. Only one man occupied one of the booths. He too wore a hat pulled low.
King walked inside. Agent Roberts didn’t look up. He didn’t have to. King knew Roberts had already spotted him when he pulled his car into the parking lot. He walked over and sat opposite of Roberts.
“Twice in one day,” Roberts said. “For a ghost, you sure get out a lot.”
King removed his hat.
The way Roberts’s jaw gaped open, King knew the word ghost had merely been a coincidence.
“Xander King? But you’re dead. Full twenty-one-gun salute. I saw the coverage of your funeral.”
King smirked. “You should know better than most not to believe everything you hear or see.”
“Damn. And that was you back in the underground. No wonder you thought my team was sloppy. You’re the gold standard.”
“Hardly. Sam is the standard.”
“Either way, it’s an honor. Thank you for your service. All of this is probably a cakewalk for you after the Navy SEALs.”
“Different set of skills. Not sure I’m suited for espionage.”
“Well, Director Hartsfield left the little tidbit out that I’d be meeting you when she told me to come here.”
King looked away. When he heard Mary’s name, the word ghost came back to mind. He wished her death had been as fake as his.
“Thank you, by the way.”
King looked back at him.
“You saved my life,” Roberts said. “Maybe my guys too.”
King skipped the pleasantries. “Did Mary tell you what I need to know?”
Roberts sipped his coffee. “Yes and no. She just told me to look into the woman who was shot in Leicester Square. But I was already doing that. I screwed things up with the car bombing, so I wanted to get a head start. When the shooting came in over the wire, I called a contact I have in MI5.”
“How good of a contact?” King said.
“We share a bed.”
King was quiet. Roberts looked like he was awaiting a reaction to that statement. “So, you want a high five or what?”
Roberts shook his head and moved on. “She just called me back on the way over here. They’re getting the coroner to rush the autopsy.”
“What about the shooter?” King said.
King watched Roberts’s mouth form a small circle, and he took a quick inhale. “You were the man in the hat claiming MI5?” Roberts said.
King gave no answer.
“Uh . . . a man was spotted with a long hard-case, something resembling a rifle at least, entering the casino that overlooks the Square. The timeline matches up for when you would have been there. That’s all I have so far, but my team is going over all the area surveillance. We’ll find him.”
King knew Roberts wouldn’t have much information on either of these topics. The shooting had only been a few hours ago. He was just hoping for some little nugget to help point him in the right direction. “What led to you being put on Bentley Martin watch?”
Roberts opened the lid on his coffee for ventilation. “We’ve been trying to track down those responsible for the growing terrorist activity coming out of Athens, Greece.”
“It’s not Abdullah? His faction has claimed more than one attack.”
“No. Well, yes, but we know he’s not the one pulling the strings. We’d love to get our hands on him too, but I can tell you, he isn’t the person at the top.”
After talking to Sam, King of course knew that, but he wanted to see what Roberts had discovered before he told him Husaam Hammoud was the key player. If he told him this at all.
Roberts continued. “We’ve been trying to find out who is actually in control, but there’s been little information from the top. Whoever’s been spearheading the attacks is smarter than most of these terrorist freaks. He or she doesn’t want to be known—they just want to keep quiet as their minions take the fall. Which is smart, just not the usual tactics of guys like bin Laden who want the credit for coming after our way of life.”
So far, Roberts had proven to be no help at all.
King put his hat back on. “And the part about Bentley?”
“Oh, yes. A while back there had been some information intercepted that Bentley was somehow involved with the terror group from Athens. I always thought it was odd, but her biological father, Andonios Maragos, as you know firsthand, was also linked to this terror group when his sister and brother were killed during their attack on the White House last year. So, when a call from one of the low-level men in the terror group mentioning Bentley’s name was intercepted, we were posted to watch the spot you saved her at today.”
“Except I didn’t save her. I saved the woman who was shot in Leicester Square.”
Agent Roberts paused before his coffee cup reached his mouth. “What?”
“Listen, I have Bentley at a safe house. I need everything you can get me on Karen Panos, and the person who shot her. I know who is pulling the terrorist strings from Greece. I just don’t know where to find them. But I will, with your help.”
As Roberts was taking in the entirety of that statement, King produced the burner phone that he’d given Bentley earlier. “You report to me now. My number is the only one programmed in that phone. Call me as soon as you learn anything. Got it?”
King stood.
“What about Director Hartsfield? She didn’t give me any instructions that—”
“Director Hartsfield is dead.”
Roberts laughed. “I just spoke with her—”
“About an hour and a half ago. I know. She’s dead now. And if you want to help me find who is behind all of this, you’ll find the information I need and get it to me.”
Roberts was speechless.
King began walking backward toward the door. “I’ll check in if I don’t hear from you in an hour. And every hour after that. I don’t know what’s going to happen when they find Mary and put someone else in charge. And I don’t have time to care. Because I don’t—”
“You don’t exist.” Roberts finished King’s sentence, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere.
“Roberts. I need to know you’re with me. There is too much at stake to freeze up on me. I need you.”
Roberts literally shook himself out of his trance. “I’ve got you. Mary was a great leader. I want these guys as bad as you do.”
King knew that absolutely wasn’t true, but there was nothing wrong with letting Roberts believe it. Without a contact in Washington, King and Sam were going to need all the help they could get.
25
The sun was finally on the rise when King turned down the road that led to the safe house on
the canal. With how tired he suddenly felt after the last of the adrenaline had left his body, and the time of morning it was, he was reminded of his lifelong friend Kyle Hamilton. More specifically, he was reminded of coming in from the bars, the sun rising in the sky, as they so often used to, not all that long ago. Something about the light returning before you made it home from a night of partying was both a sickening feeling and one of satisfaction with a well-wasted night. Either way, Kyle came to mind, and he desperately missed the son of a bitch.
Despite the fog of going without sleep for over twenty-four hours, King was able, as he drove back from Calais, to think through to his next move. He had to get Bentley to safety. Every minute she remained close to the situation, the more danger she was in. King would have Agent Karn fly back to the United States with Bentley. He called Sam and had her set the entire thing up.
Next, King was going to Greece.
It was time to start chopping away at the root of the growing evil there. It was time to end the threat coming out of that region, the same one that involved King and his people a year ago. They had to pay for endangering his loved ones, and for the death they have brought to innocent people throughout the world in the name of what they believe. This had been happening for more than a decade, according to some reports.
As King approached the driveway, his phone began to ring. It was Sam.
“You have their plane tickets reserved?” King answered.
“Are you near a television?” Sam said.
“I’m walking into the safe house. Not sure there is a working one. Besides, I don’t really have time for a Game of Thrones watch party.”
“Mary’s death is all over the news.”
King hit the brakes. It had only been a couple of hours. There was no way reports should already be coming out. Even if Mary was discovered right away. The CIA would never let something like this out so fast. If ever.
“X?”
Just as King was trying to process what Sam had said, he dropped the phone and pulled his pistol. When he rolled up to the safe house, Agent Karn’s vehicle was gone. At first he couldn’t believe his eyes. There would be no reason for Karn to leave. A grim feeling washed over him. He knew something was terribly wrong. If Karn had been forced to leave because of an intruder, he would have called, or at least tried. King put his car in park, quietly stepped out, and walked toward the front door. When he peeked around the corner at the door, the rising sun behind him was reflecting on the side-panel window frame. It was absolutely glowing. But just below it lay pieces of splintered wood, right in front of the partially opened door.
King jerked his head back, out of sight of the front door. He took in his surroundings, the way he would have on instinct earlier if he hadn’t been on a call with Sam. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except of course that Karn’s car was gone.
Not good. King did not want to see what was inside that house. Whether it was empty or someone was dead, it was going to be bad.
Instead of rushing the front door, he went the opposite way, down the side of the house, then along the back. The sliding glass door was open, and partially shattered. Shards of white and unpainted wood lay at the foot of the entryway. Pieces of the door trim. It had been kicked in as well, which King felt was a bit odd. Why would both the front and back door be busted?
The neighborhood was intensely quiet. Wind chimes jangled in the breeze a couple of houses away, but that was the only sound. His ears were pricked as he crossed the threshold. Broken glass crunched under his sneakers. The lights were off, so once he was fully inside the kitchen, visibility dropped off. He didn’t have to go far to see what had happened to Agent Karn. Once he turned the corner to go down the hall, King saw him lying face up on the living room couch.
King jogged over to Karn and found a gaping wound on the side of his neck, the source of all the blood beneath him. He was dead, but he hadn’t been dead long. King remained quiet as he looked around for clues. He listened intently for a moment, though he figured there would be nothing to hear. Whoever had come for Bentley was already gone; he just hoped he wasn’t going to find her dead as well.
King swept the rest of the first floor. All clear.
When he came back into the living room, he noticed a piece of paper tucked into the shoestring of Karn’s boot. He knew right away Bentley wasn’t going to be in her bed—dead or alive.
He rushed up the stairs. Her room was empty at first glance, but he moved to his right to check the other bedroom. It was empty also. Returning to her room, he found her purse still lying on the nightstand. As was the gun he had given her. She must have been asleep when the intruder entered. How did Karn not hear the doors being kicked in? He could see how Bentley may not have been able to hear, if her door was closed and she was sound asleep. But Karn? He should have heard the doors. Maybe he did, and when he went to investigate, the person who kicked in the second door was a distraction and he was killed from behind, then moved to the couch? So many things were flying through King’s mind.
He paused for a second to take a breath, unsure what he was feeling. No one emotion stood out more than any others. Probably because he was feeling several at the same time. The last thirty-six hours had been a complete whirlwind, from the high of avenging his loved ones by killing Maragos to the low of standing in the situation he was in now—two colleagues dead who were also friends, and an innocent girl missing. A girl he was supposed to protect. The man who’d saved him before was lying dead on the couch, all because King had requested that he come and help him again.
Anger, sadness . . . helplessness. Whom could he turn to now?
King took a deep breath. He knew that panic and worry would do no good. He couldn’t call Mary Hartsfield. But he still had Sam. She was all he needed to put these pieces together. They’d done it many times over the years. And since Mary had given him the gift of a name before her last breath, he and Sam would use it to pick themselves up off the mat. But there was a lot of work to be done.
Of all the unknowns, it was more clear than ever that whoever killed Mary in her office in Langley was an inside man. There was no way he and Bentley would’ve been found at this house otherwise. And because this person had also intercepted the most top secret of files, it was likely someone very high up, whether now or in the past, someone who knew how to use the system to get the information he or she desired.
Either way, standing in an empty bedroom wasn’t going to get a single thing accomplished.
He had no idea where Bentley was, but he had a feeling he would be getting a call about it very soon.
King descended the stairs. He walked back over to Karn, took his two fingers and closed Karn’s eyelids. Then he removed the paper from his boot. There were no words. There was only a telephone number.
An American telephone number.
One thing was clear: the individual responsible for everything that had happened since yesterday was one of their own. Unfortunately, this didn’t faze King. This was nothing new. Some of the more corrupt people he’d faced, whether at home or on foreign soil, were once on his team. However, two major questions remained. Was this traitor the person Mary had named, Senator Bobby Gibbons, the man clearly ahead in the polls to become the next president of the United States? Or was Gibbons just someone who could help with answers? And finally, he wondered, as a sick feeling washed over him, was it possible this traitor was also connected to Husaam Hammoud? If not, there was an awful lot of overlap tying together all these recent events.
Either way, it was time to find out.
26
Rafina, Greece
Saajid hadn’t bothered trying to sleep. In fact, he never even went to bed. Instead, he walked down the street of the little village he’d built in the middle of nowhere. The reason he had been able to keep the Grecian government away was because he built the community under the guise of the church. He’d found some loopholes in the language of some of the laws, and as long as they weren’t breaking a
ny rules as far as the law was concerned, the government left him alone. And Saajid had made sure that he and his people appeared as much like model citizens as they could. In fact, no outsiders had been to the commune in over seven years. Saajid assumed that the government, and anyone else who might’ve known about the commune, had forgotten about it a long time ago. Which was exactly how Saajid wanted it.
He walked along the short dirt road that separated the small houses he’d built, and into the produce stand where they all brought their food and shared it as a community. He moved the baskets of fruit over as he’d done a thousand times, then lifted the door that blended into the wood of the floor and walked down, deep into the bunker he and Husaam had built for them and their officers to do business without being bothered. It was also a place where his family could go if someone ever found out about their little operation.
The underground bunker was a fully serviceable six-room facility. With everything a modern house could provide. Saajid entered the office, which was much like the one he’d had in Athens, and settled in to study and clear his mind. Despite his hatred for Western culture, he loved the aesthetics of Western workplaces. He was surrounded by cherry stained oak cabinets, shelving, and desk. The decor was right out of an early nineties GQ magazine exposé. For whatever reason, it helped him relax in turbulent times.
It had been a horrific thirty-six hours. Not only had he lost his childhood friend, Andonios, at the hands of another American assassin, but he had also lost his beloved niece, Althea Salameh. His sister had lost not only her lifetime love in Andonios the night before but also the daughter they’d had together. Though his sister and Andonios hadn’t been with each other for years, it was one of those loves that was everlasting. Especially for Saajid’s sister. And even though her daughter Althea had done what she was called to do in serving her god, it didn’t mean accepting her loss was easy. It made it even harder that Althea was such a brilliant young woman. She could have been extremely useful once things were in place in the United States. But she knew the risks in getting involved, and she paid the ultimate price. Only the strong survive, and apparently she was not strong enough.
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