The Machiavelli Covenant (75 page)

Deliberately he turned his thoughts from the Banfield project and from memories of "The Covenant." He wanted to fall asleep, not rekindle thoughts that he knew would pump him up and keep him awake.

For a moment he thought back to when he'd first come to England from Los Angeles, changing his name from John Barron to Nicholas Marten and trying very hard to find a place where he could fade from sight and from anyone from the LAPD who might be hunting him while at the same time help his sister Rebecca recover from a devastating mental trauma. Her recovery and relocation to Switzerland and her story afterward, as he had briefly hinted to the president, had been truly remarkable, if not fantastic. A great deal of it had been made possible by the most inimitable person he'd ever known; the sexy, bawdy, blue-blooded "Lady Clem," Lady Clementine Simpson, the only child of the Earl of
Prestbury, whom he had seriously considered marrying, but who had abruptly shown up one day to tell him she had just become engaged to the newly appointed British ambassador to Japan and as a result would be moving from Manchester to Tokyo forthwith. And she had. As far as he knew she was still married and still there because in nearly six years he hadn't had so much as a postcard or an e-mail from her.

Rebecca's experience in recovering her own mental health and her sensitivity to what recovery meant made her volunteer to spend time with Demi, who, as Marten had told her, had experienced enormous psychological trauma that specialists in Paris had told him might take years to recuperate from. With a leave of absence from her position at Agence France-Presse, she had gone to Switzerland to live with Rebecca, where she was now assisting her in her job as governess to three rapidly growing children and ever so slowly letting go of the memories of her mother and of Merriman Foxx, Luciana, Reverend Beck, and of Cristina and the fire.

•
TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1:20 A.M.

Marten was still awake. And he knew why. A vivid portrait burned in his mind, that of a naked middle-aged man lying against the old stone foundation of a shed in Auschwitz, a .45 automatic in one hand, the rest of him shot to pieces. Victor Young, the man he had seen briefly as he'd driven past in a car in Washington, D.C., as Marten had waited for Dr. Lorraine Stephenson to come home the night she committed suicide on the sidewalk in front of him, the same man he later remembered as having seen two nights earlier when Marten had so emotionally and tearfully walked the rainy streets near the
White House in the hours after Caroline had died. Young, or whatever his real name was, had been driving the car that had slowly passed him on a darkened, near-empty boulevard. Marten had seen him clearly twice. It made him wonder if even then, Foxx or Beck or both had been concerned about him because of Caroline and had sent someone to watch him.

But that wasn't all.

The Secret Service had traced Victor's whereabouts from Washington to Berlin, to Madrid, to Paris, and then to Chantilly, where he'd taken a hotel room the night before the jockeys had been killed. After that he'd gone back to Paris and then taken a train to Warsaw, where the NATO meeting was originally to have been held. Then, with the location switched to Auschwitz, he'd taken a train there, arriving at the Auschwitz press gate an hour before the president's scheduled speech with the proper AP press credentials, his name on the Secret Service's approved list, and an M14 rifle hidden in a tripod case brought in in a media satellite truck.

How he had heard of the change of venue from Warsaw to Auschwitz in time to change locations himself, how he had gotten his press credentials and been put on the approved list, how and by whom the rifle had been smuggled in, was unclear and still under investigation. What was clear was that from Berlin on he had been clearly stalking the president at nearly every stop along the way during his European tour, even to the point of testing the Secret Service's security at the Hotel Ritz in Madrid.

And that was the thing keeping Marten awake. The thing that had been gnawing at him for some time but that had only now begun to come together. Whether Victor was working alone or for "The Covenant" or for
someone else entirely made little difference. With the presence of the M14, it was obvious he had meant to kill the president wherever he spoke either at Warsaw or at Auschwitz. He may well have been planning to kill the chancellor of Germany and the president of France as well, and that was just the problem. In retrospect it was too obvious. Too deliberate. He'd left too perfect a trail.

As good a marksman as Victor was, he was not a professional, and if "The Covenant" with all their resources and connections—from the military to the Secretary of Defense to the National Security Advisor—had meant to kill one or all three, and it seemed they had, at least until their undoing at Aragon, then they would unquestionably have used a professional or a team of professionals. Victor, Marten knew, was their fall guy. Somebody's Lee Harvey Oswald. If he took the shots and made the kill, fine; if not, fine too. He'd left a stalking trail and in doing so he'd left himself wide open to be killed if anything went wrong. And it had, not just because of the fiasco at Aragon, but because Marten had remembered the killings in Washington and at the Chantilly racetrack and sounded the alarm.

And that was the thing that disturbed him now and kept him from sleep. The whole thing had seemingly been put to bed. The Covenant was stopped, every piece of it was being investigated and if the information on the hard drives continued to deliver, they would have complete annual records of the events and the identities of members attending, potentially blockbuster revelations that might go back years, even decades, maybe even centuries, depending on what was there.

When Marten had come through London on his way home to Manchester, he'd taken a few hours between connecting flights to go into the city. There he'd heard Big
Ben chime out the hour, the same way the hour was chimed out in cities and towns around the globe, by chimes that played the Westminster Quarters, a striking of familiar notes half the world's population knew by heart. The same Westminster Quarters that had chimed—and seemed so out of place—at the Aragon church as the members of the New World Institute entered. It made him wonder if that was a universal signal from The Covenant to its secretive members everywhere, that no matter what happened it was alive and well. And had been. And would continue to be for centuries to come. If so, The Covenant was not stopped at all, but like Foxx's planned destruction of Aragon, had simply chosen to go underground for a time, decades maybe. If that were the case it meant people still existed inside it that no one else knew about or could even imagine.

It was why he remembered now what had happened at Auschwitz after he'd alerted Hap to the possibility of a sniper. Never mind the press credentials or the Secret Service-approved list or the hidden gun. Victor had been fingered by someone else. Bill Strait had been the one who pulled up his press picture on the video screen to identify him as the man who had tested their security in Madrid. Moments later when they were out chasing him, running with the other agents following the dogs and dog handlers, it had been Strait who had suddenly veered to the side of the pond ahead of Marten and away from everyone else, running almost directly to the place where Victor was hiding, as if he knew exactly where he would be.

And when Marten had given chase and shouted for Strait to wait to go into the building until he got there, Strait had ignored him and gone in alone. It was when Marten finally reached the building that he'd heard their
very brief exchange inside, just two words spoken between the men.

"Victor," Strait had said clearly.

"Richard?" Victor had asked, as if suddenly surprised by someone he knew by voice but had never seen.

Immediately after that had come the dull, sharp spit of Strait's machine pistol.

Eyes wide, Marten rolled over again. Bill Strait. Hap's trusted deputy—or for a time in Barcelona not trusted at all when Hap, like the president, could afford to place his faith in no one. What if Strait was "The Covenant's" man inside the Secret Service and posted to the presidential detail? A perfect cover for access to all kinds of things that went on deep within the executive branch.

Marten wondered if anyone else knew or even had the suspicion he had. Probably not, because he was the only one who had been there at the end. Had seen the direct route Strait had taken. Had heard him say Victor's name and heard Victor say "Richard?"

If he was right, it meant that only he knew, or suspected. Which also meant that in time, maybe sooner than later, Bill Strait would figure it out too.

•
2:22 A.M.

Marten lay back and closed his eyes. He'd worked in close liaison with people from the U.S. Secret Service off and on for years when he'd been a member of the LAPD. He knew their motto of "Worthy of Trust and Confidence" was not taken lightly and that all of its agents had top secret clearances, and most were cleared beyond that level. Furthermore the organization was far too respected, far too professional, and far too much of a
close knit brotherhood for someone to infiltrate it like that.

So maybe, even probably, he was wrong about Bill Strait. Maybe, even probably, he was just thinking too much. Maybe he—

Suddenly there was a sharp knock on his door.

If you would care to know more about Nicholas Marten, his story, and that of his sister Rebecca, Lady Clementine Simpson, and of the LAPD's infamous 5-2 squad, it is told at length in
The Exile
.

For technical information and advice I am especially grateful to Anthony Chapa; and to Ron Nessen, former White House press secretary and fellow writer; Emma Casanova and Josep Maria Cañadell, Policia—Mossos d'Esquadra, Barcelona, Spain; Paul Tippin, former Los Angeles Police Department homicide investigator; Colonel John R. Power, U.S. Army—retired; Kirk Stapp, U.S. Army Special Forces; Alan Landsburg; Andrew Robart; Stanley Mendes; and Norton Kristy, Ph.D.

For suggestions and corrections to the manuscript I am particularly thankful to Robert Gleason. I am also indebted to Robert Gottlieb and John Silbersack for their counsel and guidance, and to Tom Doherty and Linda Quinton for their support and faith in the project.

Finally, a very special thanks to my friends in the United States Secret Service.