Apocalypse (53 page)

Lopez nodded vacantly.

‘The yacht accident’s a perfect cover for Joaquin’s disappearance.’

As if on cue, the image switched to a scene of the Everglades, where police and forensic teams were working amid a small knot of trees in the vast wilderness.

‘Investigators in Dade County have announced that the remains found in the Florida Everglades on June 28 are those of one Charles Purcell, a man who was suspected of murdering his
family.’
The images showed Purcell’s body being lifted onto a stretcher and carried from the scene.
‘However, it has recently come to light that Purcell was innocent of any
crime after an investigation led by the Miami-Dade police department uncovered evidence proving that Purcell was not at the scene when his family were killed but was in fact on his way home. Police
remain baffled as to why he fled the scene, but believe his grief and despair at having lost his young family may have driven him to take his own life. A funeral for family and friends is to be
held for Purcell in his hometown.’

Ethan saw Kyle Sears among officers searching the scene in the Everglades, and then glimpsed both himself and Lopez in the background between the trees, talking to Jarvis.

‘Sears would have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements by the DIA,’ Ethan said. ‘Must have driven him nuts, having so much of the case kept from him.’

Ethan turned the television off as Lopez held out a UPS package for him.

‘The one Doug took from you, before we left,’ she said.

Ethan took the package and opened one end of it before tipping the contents out into his hand. From within fell a single photograph. As Lopez watched, Ethan looked at it and felt a supernatural
tingle ripple down his spine into the pit of his belly.

Lopez saw his expression change.

‘What?’ she asked.

Ethan stared down at the photograph in his hands: it showed Charles Purcell standing with his wife and his daughter in front of the sea on a bright and sunny day, their arms around each other
and their smiles as bright as the sunlight beaming down upon them. Ethan turned the photograph over and felt something tighten in his throat as he read the words written there.

Ethan handed the photograph to Lopez, who looked at it and read the inscription, one hand flying to her mouth as she looked up at him.

‘The photograph that was missing,’ she said.

‘From the mantelpiece in Purcell’s house,’ Ethan replied, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘He took it with him, must have posted it along with the diary that he sent to
me at Cape Canaveral. He planned everything, even his own death, knowing that to sacrifice himself was the only way to ensure that we got this photograph and that Joaquin Abell would be
defeated.’

Lopez stared at the picture, and sighed.

‘No less a sacrifice than Scott made.’

Ethan managed not to sound trite. ‘Every bit as brave.’

Lopez looked up at him, and he saw there in her expression a desolation that unnerved him.

‘Why did that have to happen?’ she asked him. ‘Why didn’t he make it?’

Ethan had never been any good at this kind of stuff, especially with women. Most of the time a good slap on the back and a few beers in front of the game with friends was enough to snap a guy
out of his misery. Most of the time it was good enough for Lopez, too.

But Lopez didn’t need beer and football right now. She needed comfort, someone to talk to who wouldn’t screw it up. Someone resolutely not like him. Ethan racked his brains for
something profound to say in reply.

‘The best people always get taken from us first, it seems.’

Ethan watched her, waiting to see how she would respond. Lopez stared at him for a few moments.

‘He was alone, no family.’

‘He was adopted as a baby, never knew his folks,’ Ethan said, recalling what Jarvis had told them when they’d returned to the
Event Horizon
without Bryson. ‘The
Navy was the only family he had. Probably why he hit the bottle when he was wounded and medically unable to stay with the SEALs.’

Lopez nodded vacantly, not replying to him. Ethan sucked in a deep breath as silently as he could, and tried again.

‘Look, when people pass on we end up grieving for them, but really we’re only grieving for ourselves, for what
we’ve
lost. Scott’s not in pain, not suffering,
maybe he’s not even alone anymore. Nobody knows what comes next, if anything. If there’s nothing, then Scott’s problems are over and his life was sacrificed knowing that yours
would continue, something that I know would have made the one-eyed jerk very happy.’

Lopez’s stony facade melted slightly. She did not smile, but Ethan glimpsed the briefest ray of light flicker behind her eyes.

‘And if there
is
something after we die?’

‘Then Scott’s problems are still over, and he’s probably sipping a stiff drink right now whilst looking down on us with both of his goddamned eyes working.’

A tiny smile flickered at the edges of Lopez’s lips, and Ethan felt his own spirits lift a little. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this shit after all.

‘Y’know what he said, while we were in Puerto Plata?’ Lopez went on. ‘He said that you probably wished he’d get lost, as he was getting in the way.’

‘In the way of what?’

‘In the way of us.’

Ethan’s stomach did a little back-flip, like the one he’d experienced at high school when he’d been informed that a well-known cheerleader considered him ‘cute’. He
looked down at Lopez.

‘There’s an
us
?’

Lopez gave a little shrug. ‘Scott seemed to think so.’

Ethan’s throat felt suddenly dry. He realized he was slouching and probably looked like a slack-jawed hick. He squared his shoulders and tried to look normal.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he uttered, in a voice that sounded oddly higher in pitch than normal.

Lopez sighed.

‘I guess I just don’t know who you are, Ethan,’ she said. ‘I’ve worked with a lot of guys over the years since I moved to the US, and almost every single one of
them has made a move on me. The only ones that didn’t turned out to be gay or happily married. I’m pretty sure you’re neither of those, so what’s the deal?’

Ethan dodged the question.

‘Is this about what happened to Scott?’

Lopez’s inquiring face flushed and she looked away from him for a moment, before regaining her composure.

‘Scott just came out with things,’ she said finally. ‘He was an open book. You, you’re totally closed. He was all over me and you barely even reacted. I guess it just
makes me wonder why?’

Ethan gathered himself together. Lopez had just suffered a great personal loss and now she was looking for honest answers from him.
Just say what you feel.
Stop being such a dick and be a
man for a change. The tension drained from his shoulders and Ethan looked her in the eye.

‘I guess I just haven’t been able to tell you how I feel because—’

The door to the office cracked open and Doug Jarvis strode in. Lopez flinched in her chair and then glared at the old man.

‘Damn it, Doug, don’t people knock where you come from?’

Jarvis looked down at her in surprise.

‘Sorry Nicola, but this is an emergency.’ He turned to Ethan. ‘Ethan, you need to come with me right now, there isn’t much time.’

Ethan rolled his eyes up into his head. ‘Not again?’

Jarvis placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘No, it’s nothing like that. There’s something that I need you to see.’

‘Our office got swept,’ Lopez growled at him. ‘Your boys been playing out of hours?’

Jarvis looked at her quizzically. ‘No, not at all. I’ll look into it, I promise, but right now we’ve got to leave.’

Ethan sighed, and looked at Lopez.

‘Okay, let’s go and see what this is all about, and maybe we can talk later about—’

‘Just you, Ethan,’ Jarvis cautioned them, as Lopez stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Nicola, but this can’t wait and I can only show one of you.’

Ethan looked at Jarvis. ‘Where I go, Lopez goes.’

‘Not this time,’ Jarvis replied. ‘I’ll have you arrested if I have to, Ethan, but you’re coming with me and you’re coming alone. It won’t take
long.’

Lopez stared at Jarvis with something approaching contempt, but she waved them away.

‘Just go,’ she said.

Ethan looked at her for a long moment, and then turned to Jarvis.

‘Sorry, Doug, but it’ll have to wait. Nicola and I were talking about something important, and I want her to hear what I have to say.’

Lopez looked up at Ethan and for the first time in days a true smile melted her features. Jarvis looked at them each in turn, unable to decide how to respond. Lopez answered for him.

‘It’s all right, Ethan,’ she said, still smiling. ‘You can tell me when you get back, okay?’

Ethan looked at her.

‘You sure?’

Lopez nodded, and seeing her still smiling provoked a gentle warmth that spread through him.

‘Okay,’ he said to Jarvis, grabbing his jacket. ‘What’s so important?’

Ethan had rarely received clearance to enter restricted facilities during his military service, his rank only allowing him occasional access to a narrow spectrum of classified
material. Now, striding into the DIAC building alongside Doug Jarvis, after so recently being allowed into Project Watchman, he realized that he was on entirely new turf.

The large, angular building nestled close to the east bank of the Potomac, was closed to the public and contained the vast majority of the DIA’s staff. Ethan followed Jarvis through the
building, mindful of the offices to either side of him with their doors kept scrupulously closed, unattended monitor screens blank and password-protected, and passing operatives smiling politely
but not stopping or chatting. Everybody was all business, and the business was serious.

Jarvis led him to an elevator that lifted them to the third floor. Ethan guessed that the director of the agency, Abraham Mitchell, probably resided somewhere above him, enveloped within a force
field of absolute security. Right now, the level of protection afforded even this floor of the building was intimidating: identity tags worn at all times; mutual cross-referencing of people moving
between floors and even rooms; fingerprint and retinal scanners as standard; metal detectors attuned to weapons-grade materials. Cameras, sensors, fireproof and sealable doors. Since 2001, nobody
anywhere in the DIA skimped on security. Nobody.

‘Through here.’

Jarvis directed him to a door that was guarded by two soldiers, one of whom checked their tags against a roster before opening the door for them. Ethan stepped through and was surprised to see a
small, simple office with a computer desk and a chair. Standing in the room was a tall, gaunt-looking man whom Ethan recognized from years before – a CIA man who had ordered him to sign a
nondisclosure agreement in a hidden anechoic chamber beneath a warehouse in downtown Washington DC.

‘Mr. Warner,’ the tall man greeted him.

‘Mr. Wilson,’ Ethan replied. ‘Didn’t think we’d be meeting again.’

‘Nor did I,’ Jarvis said. ‘You have a habit of appearing in all the wrong places, Mr. Wilson.’

‘As do you,’ Wilson said evenly. ‘The material you have obtained is classified well above Top Secret, and yet you intend to share it with a civilian contractor. How do you
think the Pentagon would feel about such a breach of security, Mr. Jarvis?’

Jarvis held his ground.

‘It doesn’t matter, because it’s already been cleared by the director of this agency, in whose building you’re standing. You got a problem, stop creeping around here and
go take it to your boss at the Pentagon. Let them have the pissing contest.’

Wilson regarded them both for a moment, and then made for the door of the office. He stopped there, and looked back at them.

‘We’re watching both of you.’

‘I’d never have known,’ Jarvis replied.

Wilson turned and strode out of the office. Jarvis closed the door in his sepulchral wake and locked it from the inside.

‘Nice guy, I’ll guess that he’s the one who had our office searched,’ Ethan said.

‘It’s possible,’ Jarvis replied, ‘but right now I can’t think of a good reason why the CIA would be interested in the two of you.’

Ethan looked at the spartan surroundings and the lone computer on the desk. ‘You got me all the way out here for this? And there was me getting all excited.’

‘This room is sufficiently sealed so that nobody can hear us outside the door,’ Jarvis said. ‘There are also no cameras or sensors in here.’

‘What did you want to show me?’ Ethan asked, somewhat confused. ‘And why did I have to come all the way out to the district to see it?’

Jarvis perched himself on the edge of the desk and gestured to the computer.

‘Ethan, I got Project Watchman to locate the footage of Joanna Defoe from Jabaliya, West Bank. It’s on that computer.’

Ethan suddenly went cold. Memories of Joanna flitted through his mind, dragging with them years of grief and suffering that he’d tried so hard to forget. Again, the realization hit him
that he’d begun to associate Joanna’s memory with that grief and regret, and not the good years that they’d shared beforehand.

‘Do you want to see it?’ Jarvis asked, his expression pinched with concern.

Ethan sought an answer inside himself, and shook his head. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Closure, Ethan, is sometimes better than not knowing, even if it brings up things that we’d rather forget.’ Jarvis gestured at the monitor screen. ‘This footage will be
destroyed as per protocol once viewed. There won’t be another chance for me to pull strings like this on your behalf.’

Ethan sighed. As ever, intelligence security trumped personal emotion. He took a breath.

‘Okay, Doug, play it.’