Reckoning (13 page)

He paused. "In any case, Simon and I did indeed read the manuscript, though Simon alone read the section of text that contained the Name. And now, obviously, the manuscript has been stolen from the Archives in Rome, where Clement had suppressed it. And our enemies, these servants of the prophetic God-Man, have chosen to silence any of those who might know enough to protest the crime. But something has gone wrong. Their plans have not succeeded. Did you not say that Simon told you of a priest, Santacroce, who repented of stealing the manuscript and buried it again instead of delivering it to the conspirators?"

Gage nodded.

"Yes, so it seems," Malachi intoned. "And now we are faced with the dilemma of finding and destroying the manuscript before these unknown predators can again obtain it."

Gage seemed confused. "Why does it have to be destroyed?"

"Because we must not allow them to discover the name of this Man-God, Gage. Or the place or the year of his birth."

"Why?"

Malachi turned to him. "Because if our enemy could discover his name, they could nurture him, bring him up. They could have the foundations of his kingdom in place far before the time he is ready to assume the mantle of power."

"And then what?"

"They would turn over the world to him."

Outside, an owl's booming cry again carried through the night.

Gage stared steadily at Malachi, trying to figure it through.

"So if they don't have the name, then they'll have to wait for him to emerge," Gage reasoned. "They won't be able to protect him, to nurture him. They won't be able to set his kingdom in place. He'll have to do it for himself."

Malachi nodded curtly, stared again into the fireplace.

"Exactly, Gage. And that will be an expenditure of his power. An expenditure that this God-Man does not wish to make. He would like to reserve all of his strength to attack his enemies, to unite the vassal countries that will serve him. Then he would be able to destroy many more of those who stand against him. You see, to build this empire himself, he will have to divide his efforts, his attention. He does not want to spend his time and energy building what could already be in place."

Gage stared down. "And Simon was willing to die for this
?"

"Simon believed it was worth his life, yes," the professor answered. He stared into the flames, suddenly morose. "The God-Man will come, Gage. It is foretold. It is prophecy, and not prophecy contained in this cursed manuscript. No, it is part of God's plan that the beast will come. He will be defeated in the end of time by the Messiah, in the last great battle on the Earth in the plain of Meggido, not far from where we found you dying in the night. But Simon also believed that anything he could do to weaken the evil one would greatly serve Christ, and save many lives in the future. So, yes, Simon was willing to die for this."

With a gathering intensity Gage focused on the old man. "Beast?"

Malachi did not look up.

"It will be a man," he said gravely. "And it will be a beast."

For a long moment Gage's storm-gray eyes remained locked on the professor, the room utterly still. Even the flames seemed
subdued. The long silence lengthened, even longer, until finally Gage broke the tension. When he spoke his words were startlingly clear and unhesitating, like a man who speaks louder than necessary to compensate for something else.

"This manuscript
... it wouldn't have anything to do with the Antichrist, would it, professor?"

Malachi turned from the fireplace, his face bright with flame.

"As a matter of fact, Gage, it does."

* * *

FIFTEEN

"Yeah, yeah, I got it already," Kertzman said, brutal forearms on the desk. A mug of black coffee, topped with thin circles of an unknown, sinister-looking residue, rested beside him, steaming. "I understand what he did in Delta. He was a fast-entry man. The first in, quick decisions, resourceful and all that. But he left Delta in 1986." Kertzman studied the file. "It says he joined Central Intelligence. Why don't I have anything on that?"

Radford spoke up. "Uh
... there's a little trouble with clearances."

"Oh?" Kertzman growled, raising his eyebrows ominously. "How'z
'bout I get on the horn and talk to a congressman on the Oversight Committee and get all the clearances I need in two minutes?"

"Well, I—" Radford began.

A sledgehammer fist struck the desk.

Kertzman was on his feet, brutal
and dangerous. He leaned massively forward, huge squared fists pressing into the desk. "Don't mess with me, boy!" he shook his head. "I'm the cowboy who's running this show! Come up against me again and we'll see who's got war experience!"

"Kertzman, look, I'll get it for you," said Radford quickly,
rattled but managing, remarkably, to hold steady.

Kertzman noticed that Milburn, unlike the almost perpetually pacific Radford, had actually started at the outburst, and badly. Curiously, Kertzman notched that one for reference. Bad form for a former Delta guy.

An awkward silence followed the moment while Kertzman studied both of them. He had not really lost his temper. He never lost his temper. That was something he had learned in police work almost 20 years ago and remembered it with an old adage: Never let your temper get your head shot off. But he had grown tired of the posturing, the arrogance, had chosen to react with a little fire in order to establish domain, settle these two in their place. Kertzman felt the temptation to continue with the belligerence; it was generally the best approach when dealing with obnoxious cretins. But it was enough. Control was established, territory recognized and accepted by all.

"OK," he muttered after a moment, sitting. "So what did Gage do in CIA?"

"TAC," said Radford quickly, nodding to Milburn. "Bob, here, will explain."

Milburn caught the ball without hesitation. "I suppose you know the problem with counterintelligence operations, Mr. Kertzman?" he asked cautiously.

"No," Kertzman responded flatly. "Educate me."

Milburn twisted awkwardly, a quick gesture.

Another one, thought Kertzman.

"Basically," Milburn said, "counterintelligence differs from normal intelligence work in that counterintelligence attempts to penetrate the security of a foreign network while at the same time preventing any security violations of our own. As you know, our security is often compromised in this field. That's why all of our internal reports are so closely monitored and analyzed. It's a constantly evolving environment. Almost everyone, at one time or another, is in bed with somebody else so it's difficult to maintain integrity. Sometimes we plant a double agent on the Russians only to find out later that he was feigning defection and feigning
alliance with us, too. Instead he'll turn out to be working for someone like East Germany." Milburn made a fatigued gesture, waved his hand. "Double agents. Triple agents. Betrayals. Secret alliances. Games beyond comprehension. It gets complicated."

"I'll bet," said Kertzman.

"In any case," Milburn continued, "over thirty percent of our counterintelligence activities are compromised by some type of security leak. But the percentage is a lot higher in tactical operations where some contractor in the field can turn a lot of money from the other side for a small bit of well-placed information. The stakes are high in that stuff, and a lucrative reward is considered well-spent if it buys information about an opponent's upcoming tactical move. Like the sanction of a defector or a preemptive terrorist hit. So in order to short-circuit this long-term security problem we came up with the concept of a small, self-directed tactical assault unit that would have little connection to formal intelligence channels and would, therefore, be relatively secure."

"Like Israel did in 1972 after the Munich Olympics," said Kertzman, anticipating. "They took six men, gave them money and a list of names, and told them not to come back until they'd killed all of their targets."

"Yes, it was like that." Milburn sighed. "Only not so badly designed. We didn't want it to end up in another Iran-Contra scandal or Watergate fiasco."

"And how did you prevent that?"

"First of all, by selecting the best. Most of the field operatives in Iran or Watergate were supposed to be professionals, but they did sloppy work. Everyone except Liddy, that is. He was good but he used a bad crew. They were incompetent. Just look at the way they tried to pull off the burglary. They had the wrong tools for gaining entrance into the building. Carried incriminating information on them. Taped the locks shut so that anybody could discover entry. And half of them cracked up completely under interrogation." He shook his head. "Amateurs. It was stupid. Reckless. Those guys don't even exist compared to the people we selected for Black Light."

"Black Light?" Kertzman grunted.

"That was the designation for the unit," Milburn replied. "Gage was codenamed 'Dragon.'" He paused, leaned back slightly, settling in. "Black Light was a unique unit. It designed its own plans, its own timetables with no idiot supervisors who didn't understand the complexities of tactical assault messing around with things. The Pentagon has known for decades that military tactical teams should be able to design their own plans without civilian interference. Civilians aren't trained to plan or run a tactical operation. It takes millions to even train someone in the military to make decisions like that. You know that much, Kertzman. This arrogant, stupid interference by civilian White House officials, including some presidents, in America's military operations is the primary cause of our catastrophic failures. Commanding men in battle is not a civilian skill. I don't care what you've been elected to. Commanding men in the chaos of battle is a difficult military skill acquired from a lifetime of study and training."

Kertzman nodded. "Yeah, I know. I've seen it. Saw it in Asia. Saw it in police work." He concentrated, probing. "And Black Light was created to go around civilian interference?"

"Right," Milburn said. "The Pentagon couldn't command a team like that because of too much civilian supervision, especially from the White House. So the CIA developed the team, ran them."

"And these guys were America's best commandos?"

"Black Light recruited exclusively from Delta and SEALs," Radford said, a touch of pride. "And Gage was the best fighter Black Light ever saw. He might have even been the best fighter that
any
unit ever saw. That's why he was coded 'Dragon.' Every intelligence agency in the world was afraid of him. They said he was unkillable."

A long silence. Kertzman took a slow, relaxed sip of coffee, sniffed. "So how come Gage was so good?" he asked, flat. "All of you guys had that fancy warfare training."

Milburn shook his head. "Gage was different, Kertzman."

"How so?"

Concentration was evident on the CIA man's face.

Kertzman knew he was having trouble finding the words.

"Gage had all the training, yeah, just like the rest of us," Milburn continued. "But he had something different. He had this strange ability to somehow instantly read a chaotic situation. He was, like, a genius at selecting the perfect tactical response to almost anything. I mean, a real genius. In the jungle, where he could really move around and utilize the terrain, he was a nightmare.''

"All you guys go to tactical schools," muttered Kertzman. "I read the file. Covert warfare. Urban warfare. All kinds of warfare. That's part of standard training."

"You don't understand, Kertzman," Milburn answered. "Gage was beyond all that. Way beyond it. He had some kind of gift for unconsciously memorizing terrain, positions, angles of fire, distance. In the most intense firefight you could ever imagine Gage could somehow anticipate the movements of fifty soldiers before they knew what they were going to do themselves. It was like a giant chess game in his head, and he was way ahead of everybody else. It was like he could capture this tremendous oversight of things. Not just the small picture. A lot of guys can do that. He would have the big picture. It would just be there, in his head, the perfect thing to do in order to defeat the enemy. He was at his best in a chaotic situation." He shook his head again. "You're either born with that kind of ability, Kertzman, or you're not. All the training in the world can't give it to you. I knew lots of guys with millions of dollars’ worth of tactical training. But they could only get the small stuff covered in a combat situation, like a single room, or one side of a building, an alley or ravine. Gage could see it all in his mind, every side of the building, every entrance, every stairway or doorway with distances, approaches, angles of attack, and the best places for ambush. He had the ability to make a split-second analysis and select the perfect tactical response. And let me tell you something, Kertzman, not one man in a million can do that. Not one in ten million. It takes unreal mind speed. Computer speed. That's one reason he was so unbeatable. He was a pure tactical genius."

The room seemed uncomfortable. Kertzman cleared his throat. "So, uh, Gage drew up the plans?"

"He made it a team effort," Milburn said. "He ultimately approved or disapproved ideas, because he was the best at it. But everyone worked on the plan, came up with something everybody could live with. Team integrity, team responsibility. Everyone depending on everyone else in a plan that everybody designed. A lot of close guys. Trusting. It was the only way the unit would work. Like I said, the idea was brilliant. The execution was brilliant, carried out to perfection. No mistakes. And since there was little channel of clearance, there was little threat of leaks. Nobody could call and say, 'you'll be hit at so-and-so time,' because nobody knew. It was an almost perfect idea. Self-controlled and self-financed."

"Self-financed?" Kertzman's implacable eyes opened slightly. "You mean like George Doole was self-financed with Pacific
Corporation?"

Milburn nodded slowly, lowered his eyes. The name required little reference: George Doole, Jr., longtime CIA clandestine agent who
allegedly ran three air proprietaries in Indochina from the early sixties to 1974 and cleared a tax-free, unaudited, legal fortune in the process.

The Central Intelligence Act of 1949 specifically stated that all profits accumulated by clandestine proprietaries could be utilized "without regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure for government funds."

As a consequence, dozens of CIA personnel accumulated substantial financial profits through front companies designed to cloak clandestine services. The profits were exempted from government audit and largely ignored by the CIA because of fears that monitoring finances would compromise the secrecy of covert operations.

And usually, when the CIA decided that a front company no longer merited continued operation, career intelligence personnel would often demand to purchase the company in bargain deals and take early retirement, preferring the huge financial gain that they were accumulating to paltry government service. Consequently fearing that some of the personnel would purposefully reveal the existence of the front company if their demands were unheeded, the CIA, as policy, would complacently agree to sell the company's assets.

Kertzman knew it was the CIA's obsession for secrecy that allowed the financial indiscretions. And he had learned a long time ago that every man had a price.

"Totally self-financed," Milburn continued. "Gage's unit, Black Light, owned a small international transport airline, several arms dealerships, auto dealerships in various countries, including the United States, the works."

"Did the Intelligence Oversight Committee know about this?" Kertzman asked, sensing the size of it all.

Milburn nodded. "They approved it."

"You gotta be kidding me!"

"Calm down, Kertzman," Radford broke in. He raised a hand defensively, and it looked like the NSA man might fall over back-wards if Kertzman made a sudden move. "It was an approved
black on black CIA operation," he added quickly.

"It sounds like a CIA operation! This is just like Task Force 157!"

"Kertzman, Kertzman," Radford said placidly, quickly recovering his ramrod comportment. "It was all legitimate. Approved. It's not a scandal."

But Kertzman knew that it was probably cracked to the core with deceit and lies. Enough money could do that, could turn a good man into a greedy man, a soldier into a broken hero running on fear. The only reason the government didn't see more of it was because few people ever had the opportunity to walk away with enough to keep them hidden for the rest of their lives.

Kertzman scowled moodily, stared between them. It was a moment before he recognized his own thoughts.

Old
, the faint voice told him;
I'm getting too old for this.

Retirement was beginning to look more and more tempting. Absently, Kertzman reached out and picked up the mug,
deliberately took a large swallow of scalding hot coffee. Then he set the cup down, slowly, with a brutal calm. Looked flat dead at Milburn.