Death and Conspiracy

by Seeley James

  His phrase hit me like a bulldozer. I choked.

  They hadn’t been working out which was the softest target, they were working out how to hit them all at once. The running tally I kept of named sites was forty-seven. Some of those had to be alternate sites, but even if the final number was a quarter of that, they were planning the most horrific terrorist attack since 9/11. Worse, there were more men than locations. They weren’t planning a series of lone-wolf attacks, they were planning to attack many locations with whole squads carrying automatic weapons. Where one man in Christchurch killed fifty, five men could take out ten times that.

  I needed to get my intel out to the authorities right away.

  But at this stage, it was all guesswork. I needed confirmation.

  I nodded at Earl as if I understood. “I’m conflicted about it myself.”

  “Then get the fuck outta here.” He chewed and swallowed, then whispered. “I’m leaving tonight. Don’t wanna be anywhere near these guys when it goes down. They’ll get us all thrown in jail for life.”

  I pointed at my minders. “They paid for my services, and they’re determined to get their money’s worth.”

  “Aleksei works for Paladin. Don’t you work for the woman?” The last word spilled out with a derogatory emphasis.

  His question made me think about the next piece of the puzzle, which group was planning it? I’d ruled out Birth Right—the hard way—in London. And Fair Heritage had been a non-entity from the start. Free Origins was the group planning the attack. Had to be. So who was their leader?

  It wasn’t Paladin or Lugh. Arrianne ran a conference for a thousand people yet never lifted a little finger. Most organizers ran around events pulling twenty-hour days to deal with everything from stopped-up toilets to vegan menus. Someone else was running the show. Arrianne was a captive at her own conference.

  Earl and I ate in silence for a few more bites.

  “Back in Paris,” I said. “You and your pals jumped me. But when Paladin came along, you said, ‘We’re doing this for you.’ What did you mean?”

  “Somabitch asked us to rough you up. He called us to tell us where you were. Then he comes out throwing punches like the hero. All an act. It’s been the same thing ever since I got here, one big act after another. Fuck Paladin. Fuck Free Origins. Fuck ROSGEO.” He glared at me. “And fuck you for helping them.”

  He got up and walked away.

  The scene in Paris when Paladin came to my rescue replayed in my head. Earl was right, it was an act. Everything was an act. Arrianne acted like a lover. Paladin acted like a boss. Lugh wasn’t acting. He was naturally stupid. What was Nema’s act? And what about Aleksei? I began piecing together a picture of who was running what and how they pulled it off. It was still a cloudy picture, but it started coming to me like a dark figure in a mist. And it wasn’t pretty.

  A couple more scenes of great acting played in my head. They coalesced into a recognizable shape. A shocking and identifiable shape. It couldn’t be.

  I stood.

  Pieces of a Bible verse came to mind. I hadn’t been to Sunday School since I was a kid, but it sticks with you. The Gospeler had dragged some of it back out of the recesses of my mind. The verse was something about leaders and servants, the humbled and the exalted.

  Then it came to me. I did know who was in charge. I’d known it all along.

  The cleverness of it was diabolical. Anyone planning the most horrific, global terrorist attack in history would want to keep a low profile. Stay out of the limelight. Osama bin Laden had lived in a cave half a world away from the Twin Towers. Cowards never stand on the front line.

  Now all I needed were the specifics about ROSGEO. And I knew who could tell me.

  CHAPTER 28

  I marched over to Aleksei. “C’mon, time to go. I want to check on Arrianne before we restart the session.”

  As I hoped, his companions were too lazy to make the extra loop to Arrianne’s house. They headed straight for the Ooze. Aleksei kept up stride-for-stride despite the long walk.

  “You not careful with woman, Jacob.” Aleksei slapped my back. “Nobody get Nema’s panties off. Now you move on Arrianne, same day? Make troubles for yourself.”

  “I can make it work. Somehow.”

  We neared the house where Paladin’s SUV was parked. Aleksei always drove.

  “You pour gasoline on fire to be stud muffin? Bad idea for military strategy. But.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and held up a forearm for a bump. “Respect.”

  I smiled and started to bump. Instead, I smacked him hard under the jaw with my forearm. Shocked, he spun away. I whipped his baton out of its holster, released it, locked it, and slammed it into his lower back. He let out an anguished shout and arched backward. The second blow was a full-swing into his exposed gut. At that point, we were even. That never works for me. I like being ahead. I smacked his skull hard enough for a class three concussion, just short of crushing bone. He landed on his face, twitching. I took the car keys out of his pocket.

  Arrianne appeared in the open door. “Jacob! What are you doing?” Her eyes were wide, her lips trembling beneath the fingertips covering them.

  “Leaving,” I said. “You’ve got three seconds to choose: stay or leave.”

  Blood drained from her face. “I, I, can’t. Everything I have is invested …”

  I counted on her coming with me. Only she could confirm my theories about ROSGEO and who was running Free Origins.

  She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She leaned forward and ran to me.

  She wanted me to wrap her up in a hug, but there wasn’t time. I pushed her toward the SUV. She jumped into the passenger seat. I fired it up, dropped it in gear, reversed in a half-circle and fled. We went up and over the hill with no one behind us.

  “Why did you get arrested in London?” I asked.

  She looked like a spanked child. “I used to be a drug dealer for the Estonian Cartel.”

  “And the NCA caught you. You offered up your bosses on a platter. You’re a witness.”

  “I’m a survivor. I had to.”

  “I’m not taking the Estonian’s side here. You did the right thing. But what were you doing in London?”

  “Free Origins … They’re planning something terrible. I have to get away from them. But they have all my money locked up in their project. And the Brits have my passport. The Estonians keep tons of cash in that office. I was going to steal it and get the hell out of Europe.”

  “What is ROSGEO?” I asked.

  “Paladin has people all over town. They’ll shoot us.”

  “You have to know about ROSGEO. It’s why you started Birth Right and why you split from Free Origins, isn’t it?”

  She looked around the car. She tore through the glove compartment and the center console.

  “You don’t have any weapons. Oh god. I never should’ve given you that note.” She covered her face with her hands.

  Mercury leaned between the front seats. Wahoo! This is what it’s all about, right brutha? Living on the edge. Fleeing a superior force with odds of 942 to one. Heart rate skyrocketing into call-the-cardiologist territory. I’ve got a thousand aurei on you dying in a hail of gunfire. Cliché way to go—but money in the bank. Yeah BABAY!

  I said, You bet against me?

  Mercury said, Don’t worry. I have to even the odds out some or the other gods will think I rigged the game. You have a 70/30 chance. Probably. Rip through that olive grove on the left.

  No cars in the rearview mirror. No tail yet. A dust cloud rising behind us would telegraph our route. It sounded like one of his bad ideas. But I decided to take the word of god anyway, even though he was betting against me. I couldn’t believe he’d do that. What kind of god bets against his worshippers? OK. I’m not exactly a worshipper, more like a victim. But still.

  “Why did you warn me?” I asked Arrianne.

  “I counted on Caleb to be my champion. I thought he might get me out of this nightmar
e. But when I saw the Saint-Sulpice video, I knew it had to be you. They hated you, Paladin and the rest. You killed their heroes. That’s how I knew I could count on you. I need help, Jacob.”

  “The terrorists at Saint-Sulpice—they were your people?”

  “That’s why they invited you here. From the beginning, they had a plan for you. Like burning you at the stake or something. Like a closing ceremony. Paladin loves his ceremonies.” She grabbed my arm and pulled herself close to me. “I had nothing to do with that. I’m not with them.”

  “You’re in deep. There’s no getting out unless you go to the authorities and tell them everything you know.”

  “Where are you going?” She held the dashboard as we banged over the old track. “Do you know where this road leads? It could be a dead end.”

  “I get messages. They usually work out.” I reached over to grab her hand. “What is ROSGEO?”

  “Oh. My. God. They’re going to kill me.”

  I raised my voice. “What is ROSGEO?”

  “It was all a setup. They forced me to seduce you. They wanted me to lead you like a lamb to the slaughter. I tried because I hoped to reason with you. I hoped you could save me from Free Origins. I thought you’d see the light. I should’ve known you’d be hopeless. You were brainwashed by the government into believing in coexistence.”

  Half a mile into the grove, I slammed on the brakes. When we stopped, I reached across and opened her door. Dust swirled in. “On my second tour, my lieutenant was a rich Jew from Newport Beach. His dad was a doctor. David was going to be a doctor too. He didn’t need the Army. He chose to put his life on the line for his country between college and med school. He crossed that line outside of Fallujah. People like you—who never got so much as a papercut protecting someone else—make me sick. David Cohen didn’t replace your father; he died so your alcoholic dad could keep drinking cheap booze and making excuses for why he got fired. Now get out.”

  I gave her a push.

  “Wait.” She clung to her seatbelt. “ROSGEO … it’s an attack. Mass shootings. Lots of them. All over the world, coordinated within hours of each other. Thirteen sites, six different religions, five-man teams, each with a goal of killing over 100 people. They want a minimum of 1,300 dead.”

  Arrianne burst into tears.

  Confirmed. They were planning Armageddon. I needed a phone. I needed to get an army out here to round up these monsters.

  A dust cloud appeared in the mirror. They were on to us. I put it in drive and stepped on the gas.

  Mercury pointed to a gate. Crash through there but don’t use the bridge over the stream. Drive to the left about thirty yards. You’ll see it.

  I followed his instructions. The diversion was rough ground, slowing my progress. Thirty yards from the bridge were two tracks of rocks for crossing when the water was low enough. Judging by the approaching cloud, the car behind us was quickly closing the gap. I splashed through the stream and rejoined the dirt road before our pursuers rounded the last bend. I floored it. The big SUV bounced and cratered on the rough road. I could barely hang onto the steering wheel.

  Arrianne twisted around the headrest to see out the back. “How the hell did you know that bridge would give out?”

  In the mirror, I saw the chase vehicle nose-down in the stream, its back wheels spinning in the air.

  “I told you, I get messages.” I glanced at her. “Tell me about ROSGEO.”

  “It’s an acronym, sort of. It stands for Return of Saint George, R-O-S-GEO.”

  “George? The dragon-slayer?”

  “Where are you going?” she screamed.

  I dodged a pothole big enough to bury three bodies. “Talk.”

  “They’ll radio the guards in the town. You can’t go through Úbeda.”

  Mercury said, You don’t have to go through Úbeda, homie. The back roads all lead there. But I’ll get you on connecting roads that get you around the city.

  “Why Saint George?” I asked. “He’s the patron saint of military campaigns.”

  “And the patron saint of the Crusades against Islam.”

  I thought about the markings. Synagogues, cathedrals, and mosques. A crusade against all religion? That didn’t make sense given their vaguely Christian references.

  “If you guys are going to restart the Crusades, why attack a Catholic church?” As soon as I asked her, I knew the answer. Diego tried shouting the call of an Islamic terrorist. And he’d held prayer beads before the attack. I said, “You’re trying to spark an all-out religious war.”

  “I’m not. I’m not involved in their plot.”

  “The hell you’re not.” I gave her the side-eye. “You know about it and haven’t reported it. See something, say something. You’re an accessory if not a coconspirator.”

  She choked back tears and looked out the window.

  “What’s the endgame?” I asked. “What do they think will happen after a war that pits religions against each other?”

  “Ethnopluralism. Like I told you, people prefer working with their own kind. Colored patients prefer colored doctors, non-white students do better with non-white teachers, and so on. After the war, people will go back to their own neighborhoods and stay there. It’s natural.”

  “Charlie Manson thought he was going to start a race war. The Tree of Life synagogue and the Emanuel AME church shootings were supposed to spark race wars. They never do; they just kill a lot of innocent people. What makes ROSGEO different?”

  “Lone-wolf attacks don’t work because they’re isolated incidents. The world reacts with thoughts and prayers but figures it won’t happen to them. That’s why politicians never speak out against racism. There’s a war on drugs, there’s a war on terrorism, but there’s no war on racism. ROSGEO is a plan to shoot up a whole bunch of places at once. An attack so big, everyone will be terrorized. Not just Jews but Christians, Muslims, Hindus, everyone. Like a global Sri Lanka on steroids.”

  Mercury said, All those places they mapped out in their little shoot-em-up village are gonna be hit at the same time. Chicago, Milan, Lyon, Budapest, Istanbul, Hanoi, the rest. That’d take massive coordination.

  I said, And communications. The Sixty-Four packed up this morning. It must be soon.

  Mercury said, You gotta find out when. If you put people on high alert, they lose focus after a week. You GOTTA find out when this goes down.

  “When is this ROSGEO?” I asked.

  “They wouldn’t tell me if I asked them. And I know better than to ask them.”

  “Ask Mary Surratt if claiming ignorance will save you from the death penalty.”

  And if I didn’t say something to someone soon, I was going to end up in the same boat as Arrianne. Since my cover was blown, I needed to contact my squad. I said, “Arrianne, I need you to make a call for me.”

  “There’s no cell service out here. Only in the middle of town.”

  I turned on the next road, heading for the city.

  “You’re crazy!” Arrianne shrieked. “I told you Paladin has people there. They found surveillance gear out by the Ooze and sent a bunch of wannabees out to find the people behind them. By now, they’ve radioed those same yahoos, and everyone’s looking for us.”

  “We have to get word out. Even if that means getting captured.”

  “They’re not going to capture you; they’re going kill you. And me.” She grabbed my shoulder, tears falling down her cheeks. “I don’t want to die, Jacob.”

  “I saw the well cap on the ground. They’ll toss us down the hole, and dump a yard of concrete on top, put the cap back on. I’ll do my best to get us out of this. Just figure we’re already dead. Anything less will be good news. Our top priority is to get the word out. We have to save the innocent.”

  She didn’t like my pep talk.

  We came up on Úbeda from the south. Our dirt road connected to an almost-paved road. I followed it in. Mercury gave me turn-by-turn instructions. Better than Google Maps. I should’ve used lube to squeez
e into the narrow lanes but managed to get through two before losing a mirror.

  Arrianne got a bar of signal and dialed the Sabel Security helpdesk number I fed her. Someone picked up, but her call dropped. She redialed.

  Suddenly, the truck slowed. I pushed the gas pedal. Nothing happened.

  “What are you doing?” Arrianne sounded as stressed out as I felt.

  I pumped the gas. We continued to slow, rolling to a quiet stop in the middle of an ancient and slim cobblestone lane.

  Mercury said, Say, bro, did you know rental cars have a remote-disable switch? OnStar works everywhere, even here in the middle of Andalusia. Surprised the Orcus outta me. Huh. What will they think of next?

  Our doors wouldn’t open in the narrow street. Men with rifles appeared, two in front and one in back. The guy in back lifted the hatch.

  CHAPTER 29

  They dumped us in a dungeon. I’m not sure if there was a castle involved, but it was a deep, dark cellar with a shaft of light coming through a small, barred window on one side. Stone arches filled the room. It smelled dank and musty and old. They ignored the five stone steps below the door and shoved me in. I landed on my side. Arrianne landed on top of me. Our wrists and ankles were bound. We wriggled free of each other.

  “Izzat you, Jacob?” The voice came from the darkest corner of the room.

  “Tania?” I recognized the voice of my friend from the army.

  She hopped toward me. I made it to my feet and hopped to meet her. We stopped with the beam of sunlight between us. She wore a blood-stained tank-top and running shorts. Under normal circumstances, she would hide the burn scars on her legs under long pants. She must have gone out in a hurry to fix the video feeds.

  They’d given her a black eye and a bruised shoulder.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” Tania nosed at Arrianne.

  “One of many.”

  “Trust her?”

  “Not for a second.”

  She nodded, then looked to the window and shook her head. She looked to the door and nodded. Message received: The window was too small to get out. We’d have to rely on a frontal assault through the door.