Thy Kingdom Come: Book One in the Sam Thorpe series (6 page)

“Oliver’s getting antsy. He wants to get this operation underway.”

“What’s the next step?” Aly asked.

“Oliver hasn’t confided that yet.” Sam paused. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of. I’m glad you’re on board. General Oliver seems impressed with you. Keep it up.”

“I’m signing off.”

“Goodbye, Sam.”

Sam disconnected the phone and leaned back. He looked forward to the meeting with his new FBI contact in the morning. He had a lot to tell him. After the meeting, he needed to pick up the communications gear on his way back. With that gear, training could begin in earnest.

S
am arrived at the Barnes & Noble in the Camp Hill Mall early for the 9:30 meeting. He circled the mall twice before parking. After getting out of his car, he stopped at a payphone outside the bookstore and pretended to talk while glancing around the parking lot.

Waiting a few minutes, he hung up the phone and walked inside, satisfied that he hadn’t been followed. It surprised him to see the number of people wandering around a bookstore on a Tuesday morning. Who were these people? Didn’t anyone work anymore?

Today he would meet his new FBI contact, Alex Prescott. His good friend and prior contact had left the FBI, distraught over the death of his girlfriend. Sam hoped that Alex knew what he was doing. He had to be able to meet Prescott without raising Oliver’s suspicions. At some point, Oliver would have him followed.

Sam sensed someone watching him, but spotted no one suspicious. Undercover work was a whole new bag for him.

He had no idea what Prescott looked like, so it would be up to Prescott to seek him out. The table of recent bestsellers toward the front of the bookstore showed that John Sanford had a new Prey book out. Maybe he’d pick it up on his way out. Sam purchased a
Washington Post
and walked over to the snack bar area. He liked reading the
Post
each day and missed it up here in Harrisburg.

He sat down at one of the café tables with a cup of coffee and a banana-nut muffin and opened the paper.

When he glanced over the top of his newspaper, he didn’t see any likely candidates for Alex. The noise of conversations sailed around him.

A young couple sat in the corner, whispering to one another. The woman didn’t seem much older than Sam’s daughter, making him homesick for Emily. If it weren’t for the impact these crazies could have on his country, Sam would be in Minneapolis with her right now. Come to think of it, why wasn’t that girl in school?

He looked in the opposite direction and spotted a woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, her frosted hair sticking up in spikes. An attractive woman but, jeez, the hair.

He took a sip of coffee, then checked the front door again. Not a good sign that Prescott was late. If the guy wasn’t dependable, Sam would request that General Gerber get him a replacement agent.

Sam looked at the young woman again. She smiled at him. He glanced down at his paper, warmth spreading through him. Ever since he and Jackie had broken up, he’d found himself looking more closely at other women.

The thought of Jackie made him sad. They’d been dating for about a year, having met during meetings of the Pentagon’s anti-terrorist task force. The attraction had been mutual and immediate. But they had drifted apart. He missed her.

Sam glanced at his watch again. His contact was fifteen minutes late. He’d wait until ten o’clock, then call General Gerber.

A man with gray hair and glasses limped into the coffee area, a pile of books stuck under his arm. He ordered coffee, and struggled to get all the books and his coffee to a table, nearly dropping some of the books on the floor.

Sam leaned forward to assist him when the woman with spiked hair walked over and helped the man balance his books. She had a tattoo of some sort on the skin that showed between her T-shirt and her skin-tight jeans.

She ordered another coffee. Walking toward his table, swinging her hips, she asked him, “Do you come in here often?”

Sam leaned back in his chair. “No.” Damn, he shouldn’t have been so abrupt. “I don’t mean to be short, but I’m waiting for someone.”

“Bet it’s your girl, right?” She smiled. “Mind if I sit for a moment?”

“I really do.” When Sam looked down he noticed a small diamond pin in her naval.

“Don’t be a pain in the butt, Colonel Thorpe.” Sam stared at her, his mouth hanging open like a kid on his first date.

“Alex Prescott.” She pulled out a chair and sat down.

Marcel Dubois leaned against the cash register near the front door of his restaurant. He straightened and smiled at the man in the dark blue suit entering. The man’s companion, a young woman whose blond hair touched the collar of her mink coat, smiled back at Marcel.

“Good afternoon, and welcome to Marcel’s.” Marcel knew all of his regulars. He made it a point to give a special welcome to new customers and pegged these two as Americans.

“Reservations for Holden,” the man said.

Marcel looked at the reservation list with a practiced flourish, although he had already memorized the name. “Ah, yes, sir. Right this way.” He led them back to a table in a corner, laughing and joking with regulars along the way.

He bowed slightly and pulled out the chair for the lady. “May I take your coat, mademoiselle?”

She smiled at him and turned her back. “Thank you.”

Marcel helped her slip out of the coat and held the chair for her. Her low-cut green dress complemented her well-proportioned body. He set menus in front of each of them and snapped his fingers for the waiter. “I’ll check your coats for you. If I may be of assistance, please let me know. Enjoy your lunch.”

Marcel had opened his restaurant when he’d retired from the Canadian Army seven years before. His sense of order and strong management style stood him well, and his restaurant flourished, becoming one of the “in” places to eat in Montreal. This was the Tuesday lunch crowd. Every table in the restaurant stayed full. Today he had a wait-list.

His father would have been so proud. Thinking of his father and brother always made him sad. Marcel had loved them both so much, and the soldiers had killed them. The memories flooded back, threatening to overwhelm him.

The election of 1960 had turned his father’s world upside down. All of the things he valued had disappeared with the election of Jean Lesage as prime minister of Quebec. The “Quiet Revolution,” as people called it, had begun and with it the rejection of basic moral values. The Catholic Church had been his father’s pillar. Now the Liberals had taken power and were erasing everything.

“Marcel,” his father said soon after the election, “our way of life is gone. Nothing is sacred anymore. Mark this date as the time when Quebec lost its way.”

His father’s prophecy had proved correct. The first major change was that the Catholic Church gradually lost control of a wide range of issues, from education to social policy.

It broke Marcel’s heart to see his father wipe tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt as his big hands, scarred from years of hard farm work, shook. Marcel didn’t know what he could do to help.

His older brother joined the Front de Liberation du Quebec. At first the FLQ simply protested the changes encircling them. But then, the movement garnered inspiration from the Marxist ideology of the Cuban revolution. In March 1963, the FLQ movement turned violent. Members planted bombs in three Canadian Army barracks. They demanded political and economic independence for Quebec.

Over the next seven years the FLQ triggered a number of incidents. They were cheered on by many in Quebec. These incidents ranged in scope from a bomb attack at an Army recruiting center, to dozens of bank robberies and armed thefts, and finally the daytime bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange in which twenty people were injured. Marcel’s father was so proud that Marcel’s older brother, Pierre, participated in the stock exchange bombing.

It angered Marcel that his father would not allow him to join the FLQ. When a British diplomat and a Quebec government minister were kidnapped in 1970, the federal government invoked the War Measures Act and sent federal troops into Quebec.

Pierre, known by the authorities for his FLQ connections, had to go underground. Many took to the streets to protest the arrival of federal troops in Quebec. Nowhere were the protests more militant than in Montreal.

October 17, 1970 had dawned bright and clear in Montreal, the wind signaling notice of colder days to come. Marcel turned twenty years old two weeks before that October day, his whole life ahead of him.

“I want you to come with me to the protest after church,” Marcel’s father said. “See for yourself what our government is doing to us. We owe this to Pierre.”

“Do not take my son,” his mother cried. “It could be dangerous. The government has said that they will not allow protests. I already have one son who must run from the government.”

His father yelled back at her, “Marcel is twenty years old. He must see what kind of a government this is!”

After church, Marcel and his father stood outside St. Mary’s and waited on the sidewalk. Father Joseph led them in prayer. “Holy Mother, make our leaders see the error of their ways. Our sacred bond with Thy Holy Church cannot be broken. The government must not come between His people and our way of life.”

“Amen!” the group yelled. This seemed to give them all hope.

The group marched down St. Catherine Street toward the ministry, Marcel and his father in the front row. When they neared the ministry, soldiers moved to stand between the marchers and the capitol

“Stand back!” Father Joseph called. “We mean you no harm. We want to express our concerns.”

A uniformed colonel stepped forward. “We understand, Father, but you must turn back. We have our orders.”

“My son, let us pass. Just like Jesus rode a donkey into the city for his appointment with Pilate, so must we be allowed to step forward and lodge our protest.”

Marcel’s father hurried forward to stand next to Father Joseph. “We cannot allow this injustice to stand. We must bring back our sacred way of life.”

“No,” the colonel called. “Turnaround. Do not make us hurt you.”

Marcel’s father snapped. He ran toward the colonel, waving his arms in the air.

A voice yelled, “Stop!” A shot rang out. Marcel’s father dropped to the pavement, blood streaming from his chest.

Marcel hurried to his father and fell to his knees, blood staining his hands and the front of his pants.

The priest leaned over him and put his arm on Marcel’s shoulder. “Step back, my son. We will get your father help.”

“No.” Marcel curled his arms around his father. “Papa, wake up.”

Someone shoved Marcel aside, and he turned.

Pierre knelt beside him. “Those bastards have shot Father.”

The colonel eyed Marcel’s brother. “Pierre Dubois, you are on our wanted list. I must arrest you. Come with me.”

“I will not leave my father.”

The colonel stepped over. “You are Pierre Dubois. I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“Get back, pig,” Pierre yelled. “You’ve killed my father.”

The colonel grabbed Pierre’s shoulder. “You must come with me.”

Pierre stood and reached into his pocket.

“Stop!” cried the colonel. “Don’t move!”

It all happened so fast. Pierre pulled his hand out of his jacket, and one of the soldiers shot him through the head. He dropped to the ground, dead before he hit the pavement.

Marcel still had the prayer book that had been wedged in his brother’s right hand.

Marcel’s father had not awakened. Those two bullets had ensured that Marcel would never speak to his father or brother again. Marcel had sworn to avenge those murders, determined that the FLQ must rise again from the ashes of this disaster.

Marcel lit another cigarette, the memories circling in his mind.

He had been true to his vow. Convinced that he could push for separation from the animals who’d killed his father and brother, he had joined the Parti Quebecois when Premier Henri Bourassa’s liberal government had come to power in 1976. But in 1980, only 40 percent of the electorate voted for separation from Canada. Marcel couldn’t believe it. He wondered if these people were blind to what was happening.

Marcel had joined the Army to prepare himself to fight for his beliefs. At only five foot, three inches tall, he’d needed a special waiver because of his height. The recruiter had told him he was too short. Marcel worked hard to prove himself every step of the way. The other men had laughed at him in basic training, but he’d shown them. He graduated first in his class and had been first in everything ever since.

His mother had pleaded with him not to go into the Army, but he hadn’t listened to her. He’d wanted training in mobilizing and equipping large numbers of men. The FLQ would rise again.