The Fellowship (3 page)

Hotel Parking Garage

Rome

During his 15-year career in private security, Lars had purchased virtually every type of made-to-order armored vehicle imaginable. They had all been good. Mercedes Benz especially, which had created a protective car for Japan’s Emperor Hirohito way back in 1930.

But nearly as soon as he had left private practice to follow the Shepherd, he had sensed that the Great Mission would require something special. The Range Rover he drove now had been
custom-ordered from a private company in Johannesburg, where the city’s troubled past had given the company plenty of real-world experience. The glass and door paneling had been built to his exact specifications, rated to stop up to four successive 7.62 NATO armor-piercing bullets within a three-inch radius. The tires were airless run-flats, with reinforced steel that would withstand just about anything except a bomb.

Fortunately, they didn’t face such heavy firepower tonight. Lars recognized the typewriter-on-steroids rattle of MP5 submachine gun fire. It sounded like the assailants’ weapons were set to fire in three-round bursts, which they were squeezing off about as fast as they could. They were using 9mm rounds, he thought, instead of the .40 Smith & Wesson rounds preferred by the Americans and Canadians. With those guns, the Range Rover could easily take several dozen 9mm rounds into the vehicle’s glass and doors without any ballistic leakage.

He just couldn’t let them reload.

“I can’t die
yet!” Zhu shouted.

Wolf had reminded Lars of that very fact just hours ago. Zhu was destined to survive. It was in the Living Scriptures.
And when he has gathered all that is necessary to know to bring all that is dark into the light, the One from the East will use her to make me anew, just as I have made you anew.

The way Lars saw it, they had three choices. The first was to try out-driving their attackers. So long as the run-flat tires
held, they might have a chance, although the Mini would be faster and more agile in traffic. The second option was to fight back. Lars had a Glock ACP in his ankle holster and, under the seat, a TEK-9 machine pistol, which fired .45 caliber rounds and had been converted to fully automatic. The third option was to use the vehicle as a weapon. It was, after all, built like a tank.

He reached into the floorboard and grasped Zhu by the collar, pulling him up into the seat. “
Buckle up.” He put the vehicle in reverse and backed up slowly. He wanted to stay within range of the assailant’s guns.  He wanted them to stay where they were. “Brace for impact.”

Now
sightless, Zhu trembled as the vehicle took rounds to the right front fender, and then to the grill and windshield. He heard the sound of the brass shell casings bouncing on the cement around the Mini Cooper. The disturbing clamor of the windshield crystalizing into thousands of tiny cracks. The noise of an empty aluminum magazine clanging against the cement as the gunmen reloaded.

The German
shifted the vehicle into drive and stepped hard on the accelerator. They’d gotten the drop on him, but they had made one mistake. They’d mounted their attack from within a car that was very fast, but also very small.

There was just enough clear glass left on the windshield to see the gunman’s eyes get big as the SUV
raced toward them. The Range Rover T-boned the Mini with a satisfying crunch. Lars’ vision was filled with white nylon as the vehicle’s airbags deployed, enveloping him and Zhu in a warm, if brief, hug. Even as the airbags deflated, he kept the vehicle’s forward momentum. He hadn’t gotten enough speed to completely demolish the car in one fell swoop, but he had enough weight and momentum to push the wreckage up against a cement column.

Lars threw the SUV in reverse. The
Mini looked like a crumpled soda can. As he had hoped, the right front wheel was bent hopelessly inward, and the driver’s-side door was crushed against the column. The assailant’s left foot extended out from below the passenger’s side door. He’d put down his weapon and was devoting all his energy to trying to free himself. Lars wasn’t going to let that happen. 

He backed the vehicle up further down the empty aisle this time, making sure that he could get enough ramming speed. He was astonished by how small the airbags had become after deployment. They simply rested against the steering wheel and dashboards, scarcely larger than deflated birthday balloons.

Up ahead, he saw that the second gunman was halfway out of the passenger side window. He was crawling out headfirst. “Oh my God,” Lars said as he watched one of the assailants climb over the other one to escape. “Brace yourself. No air bags this time.” Lars stepped on the gas for his second attack.

As the force of the impact breached the Mini’s interior, Lars could have sworn that he heard the sound of the driver’s head being crushed against the Range Rover’s grill.
Zhu’s helmeted head was thrown against the side window in the collision, but his seatbelt held. When Lars tried to put the Range Rover in reverse, the engine stalled.

“Are you all right, Mr. Zhu?”

Zhu pulled his helmet off. He looked dazed. “No, I’m not all right. I just wet my pants.”

“
A minor inconvenience, all things considered. Let’s go.”

He found his own door jammed shut.
Zhu’s was sealed as well. He grabbed his TEK-9, crawled over the back seat and exited via the rear hatch. Then he went around front, getting his legs under him as he surveyed the crash scene.

The driver’s grisly torso and the gunman’s decapitated foot were visible in the hulk of twisted metal. But he could not see the gunman’s head or hands. There was no sense in taking chances. He aimed his weapon at the driver’s side door and pumped four rounds into it.  One of the men groaned. Lars shot
through the door again. This time, there was no sound.

“
Hey!” Zhu called out. “I think I hear sirens!”

Before moving on,
Lars needed to know who had attacked them. He stretched his driving gloves tight over his hands, and then gripped the arms of the mangled corpse, dragging it out of the car until it was flat on the cement. He inspected the man’s pockets and found nothing. Moving on to the jacket, he unzipped a long pouch that went diagonally across the man’s chest.

Inside, he found a piece of black fabric – about the size of a cocktail napkin – with red stripes.
It was octagon-shaped, and it had obviously been made with high-quality silk. On the flip side, the octagon’s edges were stitched in golden thread, with the phrase
ad majorem dei gloriam
beneath it
.
The other side read,
Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine
. He was fluent in German and English, but he had never studied Latin.  Dei, he surmised, had to be something having to do with God. The rest was a mystery.  He pocketed it. The Shepherd would be able to read it.

Then he slid the tip of the TEK-9 barrel underneath the man’s ski mask. It lifted easily, revealing the face of a man in his late 20s. He was of Mediterranean complexion, possibly Italian. 

The dead man’s mouth was formed into an O-shape. As if his last words had been “Oh,” or perhaps, “Wow.” Why was it that the dead always looked so surprised? What was it that they saw as they passed to the other side?

Lars took comfort in this.
The Shepherd had once told him that he was destined to martyr himself for the Great Mission.  He looked forward to whatever surprises awaited him during his journey.

National Counterterrorsm Center

Speers was waiting for Carver when he returned to his office. It was a shabby, tight little space. No windows, some particle board furniture that had been pilfered from an empty office over at the SBA building.  A far cry from the
luxe offices he had once occupied over on K Street.

This
was supposed to be temporary, a fact he reminded himself of every day. He had avoided personalizing the space in any way for fear of cosmically elongating the time here in his own personal purgatory. Last month, he had finally brought in some lamps to replace the florescent lighting. Most of the pasty people who came into his office were much more attractive by lamplight.

“Cute kids,” Speers said, pointing to the only photograph in the entire office
. The picture, unframed and taped to the bottom of a monitor, showed Carver in an orange river raft with two cherub-like kids under his arms. “Whose are they?”

“
My sister’s,” Carver smiled. They lived with Carver’s sister in Flagstaff, Arizona, about 80 miles from his parents’ cattle ranch in Joseph City.

After the Ulysses Coup, as the American media had taken to describing the mutiny that had nearly topp
led the American government the previous year, Carver had spent two days recovering in Walter Reed Hospital. He had then attended the funeral of his late partner, Megan O’ Keefe, before heading out to Arizona for some much-needed rest.

He avoided all news and let his messages go
unanswered for days at a time. As always, the first couple of days had been hard. His parents and extended family thought he was a contracting specialist for the State Department. He had to make his life in Washington seem like the most boring, milquetoast existence possible so they wouldn’t ask too many questions. And then there were the excuses. For all the weddings, anniversaries and birthdays he had missed while working abroad. He was so tired of being the bad son, the irresponsible uncle.

But
he had gotten past that. He had been there for his father’s birthday for the first time in years. And he had taken his niece and nephew fishing on Lake Mary, and they had caught their limit of Northern Pike. It had been good to reconnect. Just being around his own blood had been good for the soul. They were so normal. So happy.

He had grown
tired of Washington. With the exception of Speers, everyone he knew was either single, or wanted to be single so they could spend more time on their careers. Carver hated it, but knew he was just as guilty. He had never married. Never been engaged. The manner in which he had chosen to serve his country required keeping the people he loved at a distance.

Now he stood in the hallway outside his own office.
“How are the twins?”

“
Sweet when I’m home,” Speers said, “But all I hear about when I’m gone is how much they cry. How they won’t nap at the right times. How she can’t get anything done.”

“Maybe she just wants you home more.”

“We’re not here to talk about my personal life. Come in and close the door.”

Carver did so reluctantly. His office was
about the size of a large walk-in closet.

Speers pulled a purple lollipop from his pocket
and began unwrapping it. “You handled that briefing well today.”

“What do you want, Julian?”

“To give you a compliment.”

“You must want something. My target in Rome is missing, and you’re dishing out compliments. Doesn’t add up.”

Speers slid the lollipop between his cheek and gum. “You say you’re not good at case management, but you are.”

Carver frowned. “
So you want me to take on a larger role. We both know I’m not wired to sit behind a desk. You promised me this was temporary.”

“And I meant it. Stop being so paranoid.
I’m just stashing you here until the whole thing blows over.”

It didn’t feel temporary. By the time he
had returned to Washington from Arizona, he’d found that Eva Hudson’s enemies were already hard at work trying to find ways to invalidate her line of succession to the presidency. They were demanding investigations into every aspect of the operation that had discovered and ultimately suppressed the mutiny. That in itself hadn’t been so shocking, until Carver found that he himself was the focus of a misguided witch hunt that threatened to blow the anonymity he had spent so many years cultivating.

“How much longer until I can get back into the field?”

“It’s up to you,” Speers said.

Carver looked up. He
hadn’t heard that one before. “Up to me?”

Speers nodded.
“You have to appear before the committee tomorrow.”

So that was it. The
House Committee on Domestic Intelligence had been pressuring the president for months to make Carver testify. Then they had gone to Speers, who had bought him some time. Apparently there was very little sand left in the hourglass.

“The administration has,
” Speers said, “for the most part, satisfied the committee’s appetite for bloodlust already. You’re the last person on their list. And you can make this go away for all of us. Just tell them is where Nico Gold is.”

T
hey had been through all this before. The committee needed one person they could single out as a scapegoat. Nico Gold was one of world’s most gifted cybersecurity experts. He was also considered a convicted felon who, in Carver’s opinion, had earned a pardon for his good deeds.

“If it wasn’t for Nico,” Carver said, “
there probably wouldn’t be any committee. There might not be any congress either, for that matter.”

“
You’ve gotten too emotional,” Speers said. “It’s enough to save your country. You can’t save everyone.”

“
That’s your rationale for throwing a hero under a bus?”

“
I disagree. One heroic act doesn’t change the fact that Nico Gold is a criminal.”

“It was actually a bunch of heroic acts that added up over a period of days.”

Speers shook his head and opened the office door. “Give it some thought, Blake. They’re not asking you to be the judge and jury. They just want to know where they can find him.”

He didn’t need to think about it.
The committee could crucify him, for all he cared. There was no way he was selling out the greatest intelligence asset he had ever worked with. Besides, someday, they were going to need him.