The Constantine Conspiracy (27 page)

“Shannon told me about something, a conspiracy she called it,” Rick started. “She said she worked for the Order, a religious group pledged to stop the Conspiracy. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, but now, this explosion, somebody obviously wants her dead. It makes her story, at least part of it, a lot more believable.”

Mr. Bridge stayed quiet for a couple of minutes after Rick stopped talking but then finally spoke—his tone conspiratorial. “She told me to find you if anything happened to her. Said you were the key to something about to happen, something game-changing.”

“She didn’t tell you what that was?”

“No, I don’t think she, the Order, knows any details yet. I hoped you’d have some answers for me.”

Rick stood and walked to the window overlooking the parking lot, gazed out for a minute, then faced Mr. Bridge again. “Tell me about Shannon,” he said. “And I mean everything, how she ended up here, why anybody would want her dead.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it for me.”

Mr. Bridge stared at the floor, then back up at Rick. “She grew up in Colorado with me and her mom. Loved sports, basketball mostly. Sang in the school choir. A real leader, president of her student body, not a big class, a couple of hundred, but still.”

“Fast forward,” Rick said, taking his seat again. “How’d she end up with the Order? Not a normal career path.”

Mr. Bridge threw a leg over a knee. “Well, here’s the tough part. Her mother died the summer before her senior year of college.”

“What happened?”

Mr. Bridge waved off the question. “We’ll come back to that,” he said. “But suffice it to say that it tore Shannon up—never saw a child change so much so fast. She started hanging out with a rough group of people. She . . . well, she started doing some drugs, nothing hard but still scary; it caused her to lose focus, motivation. Next thing I knew, she’d practically dropped out of college, took a job as a personal trainer in a gym, not my idea of a future but I had lost my influence with her. You’ll find that someday when you have kids, they go off on their own, make their own decisions. I had my own demons to fight off, my wife dead and all. I didn’t stay as connected to Shannon as I needed, didn’t know how to deal with the emotions I was feeling. So, anyway, every time I tried to intervene with Shannon it backfired. She withdrew, cut herself off from me, went most of the year when I didn’t hear from her at all.” He paused as his eyes glistened.

“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

N
urse 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.”