The Council of Ten (44 page)

The same incredible will to live, to survive, that had kept him alive so many times during the heyday of the Timber Wolf switched on again. He found the strength he needed to seize the only option he had left, which was to charge directly through the flames and hurl himself over the side. He tore off the white uniform shirt atop his own and covered his face with it. Then he was in motion.

It would seem later to him that there had been no flames, that a tunnel had opened up before him as he charged over the side. He felt wind and heat, but no fire.

He hit the water hard, feet first, going down deep into the cold and silent blackness, both welcome now. He rose to see the burning hulk that had been the Coast Guard cutter sitting dead in the water at a bizarre angle with the bow well below stern. A huge seagoing corpse giving up the last of her dead. Within her hull lay the last remains of a powder that would have claimed even more dead, an unimaginable number.

One of Trelana’s speedboats was coming toward him and Wayman raised his arms in a gesture of surrender as he tread water with his legs. He thought of Drew Jordan for the first time in a while and gazed across the water to find the rubble that had been their boat. Through all his elation, the Timber Wolf felt his heart sink.

He could almost forget Corsica now, but not quite.

Ellie’s first, fleeting impression was that she had died and that David had come to meet her. Then she thought her mind, resigned to the coming of death, had created an illusion to make the passage over easier.

But her eyes had not deceived her. The man above her
was
David Hirsch, the husband she had loved, a minister for the Israeli cabinet until he was forced to resign and later assassinated.

By the Council of Ten, she had thought.

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he told her softly, gun held low by his hip. “I truly am.”

Ellie struggled for breath with which to speak. “The Council of Ten,” she muttered, blood sliding from her mouth.

David Hirsch nodded knowingly. “Yes, Ellie, I am its leader, even before it became necessary for me to ‘arrange’ my own passing. I founded the Council as it exists now. I built it up from the raw foundation of another organization that possessed initiative but lacked sufficient vision. You see, the Council has existed in one form or another for thousands of years. But the time had come for a different order to take command, one that was of single mind when it came to purpose and would stop at nothing to achieve that purpose.”

“Why?” Ellie mouthed.

“You made it hard on yourself, Ellie,” David Hirsch, leader of the Council of Ten, said instead of responding. “You had ample opportunities to die easily and swiftly, but you dragged things out and insisted on invading our very home. I could have had you killed this afternoon, should have probably, but something soft in me resisted. I wanted to see how far you could get, thought I might be able to persuade you to join us once you knew the truth. But all that was for naught.” He leaned over close to her. “It all seems so futile now, Ellie, doesn’t it? All the bullets, all the blood. Lying here with the certainty of your own death looming. Such is the price you must pay for your pursuits. Such is the price all must pay who come too close to us.”

Ellie knew she was looking at and listening to a madman. It made the whole of her life seem so vacant. She was going to die, and everything was meaningless, nothing accomplished, all ideals wasted. Still she had to know.

“Why?” she repeated.

“So many questions they all had,” David said, more to himself. “So many fronts I had to put up for all of them. Our marriage was a front, Ellie. The Israelis had to be satisfied. I was a mole for the Soviets. They helped me attain my position and then I doubled for the Americans and they helped me rise. But neither of these powers, nor Israel itself, was capable of running the world as it must be run. Dissatisfaction led me out on my own. I used my position to seek out others who felt as I did. Eventually, the Russians disowned me for my views, the Americans and Israelis, too. But I had the company of these other outcasts, powerful men and leaders all. I faked my own death, my
execution
because I had discovered the means they needed to link their causes together. We formed the Council and laid the groundwork for a new order to control the world.”

“The destruction of America,” Ellie rasped.

“Only of her people. The discovery of the white powder permitted us to spare her vast land and resources for ourselves. Don’t you see? We will resettle the nation with the followers of our own causes. The transports will begin flying in a week and even now thousands of our American supporters are gathering in shelters that will keep them safe through the duration of Powderkeg. America’s few other survivors will be enslaved to do our menial bidding. Peasants they will be, useless scum living off the memories of the world they once controlled, a world we will have taken over. America’s missiles will be aimed at any country that dares stand against us, and if this is not enough, there is always the white powder to hold them in check. We will be in a position to hold all the world hostage as we ourselves have been held hostage through the years. Everything was functioning perfectly.”

David Hirsch’s expression changed as he gazed up at the ruined command center. “I knew as soon as the trouble started that it was you and moved to a place of safety because I feared my troops could not stop you. Until today, I underestimated you, Ellie, underestimated your obsessive quest for vengeance against those you thought were my killers. I suppose I should have been grateful as I watched the folly of your pursuits. I never imagined you could get this far. And now, thanks to my error, a perfect plan has been disrupted. Just disrupted, Ellie, not destroyed. An inconvenience and nothing else. Where I found these outcast leaders, I can find hundreds more. And the powder is still out there, my people waiting across America for the signal to come. And it
will
come, Ellie. There is a backup system only I am aware of. Only
I
. You see I am the key, Ellie. It is I who hold the means with a clear vision of the end. You have failed by letting me survive. Take heart, for I failed by not killing you sooner. But America was to be home for the new Council of Ten and so it shall be someday soon. I will rebuild the Council to its predestined number to rule the world as we see fit. Destroy our headquarters, kill my underlings, but leave me to do what I must.”

Ellie’s eyes dimmed, a curtain starting to draw before them. Out of the hopelessness of it all, she knew the madman before her had to be stopped. She had the means, but now, once again, she had found the desire and resolve to perform the final act of what suddenly seemed a meaningless life.

“I love you, David,” she said weakly.

He just looked at her.

He nodded, satisfied, and kneeled down in her blood to move his pistol against her breast.

“Kiss me, David. Let me feel you one last time.” And with that Ellie freed the cyanide capsule from her rear molar.

His mouth moved emotionlessly forward and met hers. She tried for passion amidst the blood still pumping from inside her. She could feel him starting to squeeze the trigger and bit down hard on the capsule now between her rear teeth. As the gas hissed out, she poured her breath into his mouth, feeling him pull back as the bitter almond taste reached his senses.

The gun slipped from his hand. David pulled away, gasping only once before he fell backward, horribly aware of his own death and seeking out his killer through fading eyes as guards rushed to his aid.

Ellie used her last bit of life to press the face to her watch. Above her the explosions sounded as sparks in unison, followed by a rumbling as the medieval castle began to crumble from above. She was dead long before the ceiling began to shower downward, covering the dead and soon-to-be-dead with the rubble of twelve centuries. But her face remained placid and calm, more at peace than it had been in life for years.

Meanwhile, the people of Sintra and the surrounding towns were awakened by what surely must have been an earthquake. The ground for miles seemed to tremble and the great rumbling disturbed both animals and sleeping infants. People poured out of their homes in fear and dread, desperate gazes locking on a shower of dust and debris, a thickening cloud that seemed to be rising out of the mist for the night sky. Only at sunrise would they understand what had happened. Only then would they see what had caused the rude and terrifying interruption of their sleep.

The Castle of the Moors was no more.

Epilogue

DREW DID NOT KNOW
the name of the island and didn’t much care. He knew only that it belonged to Arthur Trelana, and that was enough since in the end it had been Trelana who saved his life.

Mostly all he remembered was the pain. His sleep was interrupted constantly in the early days here by dreams of being trapped by walls of flame. He would wake up screaming, sweating, tearing the sheets off himself as the air conditioner hummed softly from the window.

Weeks had passed now, but Drew had lost too much track of time to know precisely how many. He measured its passing simply by the visits of his doctors, the increasing length between them telling him that he was getting better. Despite this the amount of pain was still enormous, along with an arm and leg that were basically useless. Pills had numbed it and him for quite some time, but now the pills were issued less frequently and Drew learned to expect the pain and tolerate it reasonably well. Slowly his mind began to clear and more memories returned.

Strangely, most came back in reverse order. He remembered waking one morning to find the Timber Wolf standing over him. He, too, was a mess, with a bandaged face, one arm in a sling, and a crutch held under his armpit. On another earlier occasion, Trelana himself had hovered over Drew’s bedside with an explanation of where he was and an assurance that he was safe. Last he remembered the plunge into the frigid waters off Prudence Island. He regained consciousness only after being lifted into one of Trelana’s boats and placed in a cabin next to the Timber Wolf.

Trelana had returned this morning and informed him that it was exactly four weeks since that day. They sat together beneath the warm Caribbean sun, parting after Trelana announced that the Timber Wolf was due in that afternoon.

Actually, it was early evening when Wayman arrived at the villa, the sky darkening but still colored amber by the majestic glow of the setting sun. They sat on the veranda in chairs across from each other, neither speaking for a few minutes. The Timber Wolf had shed his bandages, but sudden motions brought a painful grimace to his face.

“You surprised them, Drew,” he stated finally. “For a while nobody thought you were going to pull through.”

Reflexively, Drew’s hands swept across the still-bandaged areas of his thigh and chest. “Trelana was here today,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you know what he came about?”

“He gave me a rough idea when I spoke with him this morning.”

“Let me fill you in on the details.” Drew eased himself forward. “He says he can arrange a new identity for me: new name, new social security number, a whole new lease on life. A fresh start, in other words, and he’ll throw one in for Pam, too, once she gets better.”

“I’m told her prognosis is favorable.”

“Oh, she’ll live all right, just like I will.”

“I’m also told you’ve only spoken to her once.”

Drew didn’t respond right away, as if he were searching for an excuse. “The guy she loved and who loved her doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t go back to just being myself because he’s gone, good as dead and there’s this stranger in his place.” Drew looked down, then up again. “Trelana’s offering me a whole new lease on life,” he repeated. “The problem is finding a reason to live.”

“It’s easier to find one not to die.”

“Very profound.”

“Just necessary.”

Drew struggled up from his chair and moved to the veranda railing. “It all comes down to hate, doesn’t it, Peter? Back in mercenary camp, Mace told me that it was hate that kept you going, kept you alive. I didn’t really understand what he meant until now. It’s not so much hate as the absence of love. I just can’t feel love anymore. I think back to the person I was before all this started and I don’t even know him.” Drew’s tone became more businesslike. “Trelana said my future might depend on how much is left of the Council. He said to talk to you about what you found at the castle before I … make my decision. You found it, didn’t you?”

The Timber Wolf nodded. “I found what was left of it. It’s just rubble now with some parapets and towers lingering for effect.”

“Elliana?”

Wayman shook his head sadly. “She knocked out the Council headquarters, which explains why the go-signal was never given for the rest of Powderkeg. She knocked it out so completely that she must have been trapped inside with the rest of them. A waste. She was the best.”

“Including you?”

“Including anyone in this god-forsaken line of work. Things never stopped mattering to her. That made her special.”

“Then she finished it… .”

The Timber Wolf rose and joined Drew at the railing. “Not quite. There are still twenty-eight drop points out there with their deadly supplies of powder ready and waiting. The Council’s central command is gone and with it they’ve lost the number one thing they had going for them—organization. But they can get that back. Somebody will start the ball rolling again. It’s inevitable.” Wayman gazed out over the water. “I’ve been at this for more than fifteen years now. I’ve seen a dozen councils and a hundred Corbanos. All obsessed with power and all convinced they’re the only ones who really know how the world should be run. Trouble is, to get it running that way lots of people have to die first—more each time.”

“Then it’s good that people like you … and Elliana … are out there to stop them.”

Wayman smiled reflectively. “Save your praise, kid. We’re not gunfighters saving the innocent farmers from the murderous ranchers. We’re just hired hands caught in the middle. I gave up trying to figure out what was right a long time ago. All I know for sure is what’s wrong.” He hesitated. “Like Powderkeg.”