The Bombmaker: A Michael Thomas Thriller

by Gavin Reese

  Gerard leapt at her, incensed by her venomous hatred and its partial truth. He jammed his left hand over the front of her throat, pinned her back against the door, and drew his right back in a fist, ready to make her suffer his wrath. The unexpected reaction brought immediate and genuine fear to Claudette’s expression and gave Gerard pause. He held them both in place for a moment, and his voice returned as little more than a harsh whisper. “Go...fuck...yourself...”

  “At least,” she whimpered and swallowed hard against his hand, “I know how to do it right.”

  Their old inside joke caught Gerard off-guard, and he released her and stepped back. They looked at each other for a long moment. “We deeply loved each other once.”

  Claudette fumbled for the door handle and timidly stepped back as she pulled it open. “Young people make all manner of mistakes. It’s what they do best.”

  Gerard inhaled, defiantly raised his head back up, and strode into the shared hallway. He didn’t look back before tromping down the stairs. His footfalls almost covered the sound of the deadbolt locking behind him. No sense putting effort into this. Our field has been scorched, plowed under, and salted. Nothing will ever grow here again. I almost pity the man who draws my attention today.

  May 6, 11:15pm (PDT) / 08:15am (Rome)

  Rural Training Compound. Esmerelda County, Nevada.

  John sat in a plush Serta-branded professional rolling office chair and diligently typed at the laptop on the small writing desk before him. His usual, nightly efforts required absolute secrecy from the rest of the world.

  The room he’d claimed at his most recent covert training compound in rural southwestern Nevada had just enough space for the desk and a matching dark wood bedroom set. The chair glided over the concrete floor, which he’d stained oxblood red and polished to a high shine, even though no one else would ever enjoy his handiwork. John had covered the room’s two adjacent windows with blackout curtains, not that sunlight concerned him. He rose every day before dawn, stayed up late each night, and had to ensure no one else learned his schedule. Additional layers of weather stripping around his door and its frame prevented light from escaping into the hallway. A thick, dark brown towel laid across the minuscule gap at the floor.

  John strove to keep his nightly efforts to coordinate the team’s clandestine work a secret. His own cadres of instructors didn’t rate such intel, even though he’d entrusted each of them with his life more than once during his forty-eight years of service to the United States government. Some he'd met during his long-ago stint in the Army, but most had been colleagues or contacts he’d developed over nearly four decades at CIA. Still, they don’t got a need or a right to know what me and my boys are up to, even if they are helpin’ train the next class of operatives.

  John checked his watch and assumed his supervisor had to be awake. Nine hours difference, so that weasel oughta be up and movin’ about in search of some unwitting prey. He sighed, picked up his cell phone, and considered the reality of this mandated interaction. If only these things could just unscrew themselves...

  After ensuring the device’s virtual private network showed his call originating from Bombay, India, John sent the call, held the phone to his ear, and absentmindedly rolled an old, spent bullet casing through the fingers on his right hand. A faded red 1 spanned the bottom and reminded him of that first deer hunt with his dad in eastern Wyoming all those years ago.

  The call finally connected, and a European ringer sounded in John’s ear and returned his focus to the present.

  brrrrt brrrrt

  brrrrt brrrrt

  brr-

  “Good morning, or, I suppose, more correctly, good night. How may I help you close out your day?”

  “Good morning,” John replied to his superior and stifled a suspicious frown at the man’s friendly greeting. Beware the predator that kills with kindness. “I gotta couple issues we need to work out before I can sign off for the night. First one’s the ongoing Nebraska problem.”

  “The Father Thomas fiasco. I’m still outraged he became an immediate threat to the secrecy of our organization.”

  “‘Secret’ wasn’t ever gonna be an option. We can hope to stay ‘covert,’ at best. There ain’t no organization in all of human history that stayed ‘secret’ once the second asshole found out about it. The problem he’s causin’ today is comin’ from that same activist group. Ever since we stashed him away in our psych facility, they’ve been huntin’ a court-a law with the jurisdiction to force us to hand him over. They wanna get him into a private facility where their own docs can prove he ain’t schizophrenic and didn’t make up all the allegations that came out in the press last fall.”

  “That’s nothing new. It's my understanding they’ve been judge-shopping throughout Nebraska and the 10th Circuit to find friendly eyes and a bleeding heart. What concerns you about it now?”

  John cleared his throat. “I got an email from an old colleague that's readin’ their emails, don’t ask how or why. They’re gonna skip the legal process and kidnap Thomas. The group contacted a hacker syndicate to get into Church records and figure out where we’re keepin’ him.”

  “You’re serious?”

  John reflexively nodded. “As a goddamned heart attack. I think you oughta consider movin’ him off-record, somewhere far and away from their expectations. Somewhere that he won’t be included in a digital record, just in case they go through with it and the hackers get lucky, at least for a while.”

  “They really don’t know who they’re toying with, do they?”

  His boss chuckled a few times, and the line fell silent long enough that John checked to ensure the call hadn’t dropped. Instead of answering the rhetorical question, he silently awaited the man’s decision on how to proceed. In the brief absence of conversation, John considered the irony of the man’s statement. They might not really know who we are, but I, for one, know a lot more than you think I do.

  Although he’d agreed to secretly work for Bishop Harold James Hoffaburr, Ph.D., almost two years ago, John had never met Hoffaburr’s boss, Cardinal Paul Dylan. Through his old Agency contacts, John had easily pieced together the relationship between the two men, which had been confirmed when the cardinal accepted an assignment to serve in Vatican City as the Holy See’s Undersecretariat of the Economy several months ago. I’ll be damned if they’re gonna be the only ones that know a thing or two that they ain’t supposed to.

  Hoffaburr had presented himself to John’s first group of trainees at the Wyoming camp as a psychiatrist, and he knew just enough about the social science to pass muster with the men. John recalled that Jane, his only female instructor, had complained about the man and questioned his cover story. He assumed Hoffaburr had wanted to monitor the inaugural class for problems. Since the cardinal’s assignment to Rome and Vatican City, John hadn’t seen him a single time. I hoped that becoming ‘holy shit bigshots’ over there would keep them from micromanaging me and my boys here. Neither of ‘em know the first goddamned thing about training or workin’ as a covert operative, but Hoffaburr sure likes to throw the lingo around like he does. Bet he’s the kinda asshole that reads spy novels and then adds the fictional op-sec into his daily routine. To the man’s credit, he ain’t called me by name yet. Not that it really matters. The NSA can match my voice just as soon as I attract their attention.

  Hoffaburr finally cleared his throat and continued. “I think your proposal wise, John, and I’ll see what we need to do to resolve it. What’s the second dilemma on your radar?”

  “Our man's feet-dry in France, and I expect to hear from him soon.”

  “Father Andrew, correct?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s critical that he’s secured and locked down in our hotel room, and that your man-on-the-ground is in place when he arrives. He’s been toying with insubordination of late, and we, err, I have to know that he’s onboard.”

  “Nothin’ to worry about there, Andrew’ll toe the line, one way or anot
her. I got a program for that.” John redirected the conversation without entirely changing their subject. “This specific problem he’s there for, it’s gonna present some, uh, unique challenges for a one-man-band. Just like we discussed a while back, it’d be prudent for us to send in another, maybe even two or three more, and let ‘em run this op as a team. There’s too much work and, quite frankly, it’s just too dangerous for one man to do on his own.”

  “How many operations did you run by yourself over the years, in places far worse than Paris?”

  John begrudgingly nodded. “Dozens, at least, but that--”

  “But nothing. I’ll give you that our rules of engagement are different than yours were, especially at the time you were busy running around the shadows of the world, but our men are busy combatting unorganized evil, not the massive espionage organizations you had to wake up and fight every day. Their greatest enemy is a competent police investigator who can place them at the homicide scene and identify them. Beyond that, our men should be unconcerned about anything more dangerous or malicious than a bus accident. They’re at greater risk of being killed by coincidence than felonious assault. We both know that.”

  “Listen, I--”

  “Save your breath and your self-righteous speech, John. The answer’s still ‘no.’ No teams. Not now, not for any reason, not ever. When our men swore their oath, each of them voluntarily accepted substantial risk to their life and liberty. Nothing’s changed. Even if they are apprehended, God needs priests in the prisons, too, and that may be their true calling. Do you have anything else for me? I have a meeting.”

  “No. That’s it.” John disconnected the call without any normal social pleasantries and set the cell phone down on the dark wood desk. He hated pleading for help from his boss, a bureaucrat assistant who pretended to play spy games. That asshole’s got nothing but an entitled position and rank in our covert organization with absolutely zero minutes of real-world experience. My trainees know more about clandestine operations at the end of Hour One than the man that’s in charge of us.

  John had spent decades in the Army and CIA and had grown accustomed to convincing and coercing ignorant men to do right by those beneath them. What he detested most about Hoffaburr was that he’d never risked his own life and had no idea how his directives impacted the individual operative. If we’re sending good men all over the world and puttin’ them in direct danger to combat the greatest damned evils that walk the face of the earth, the very, fucking, least we can do is give ‘em the tools to succeed and survive. Pretty simple shit, really, but it’s a damned foreign concept to men that’s never known the danger of stepping into the arena themselves.

  John woke up his laptop, opened a new document in a heavily encrypted subfolder and titled it “2x2.” I’ll eventually have to disobey Hoffaburr, and I want everything in place when I do. He might see ‘em as nothing more than a buncha gravediggers, but they’re my gravediggers and I ain’t never gonna let ‘em swing in the wind on the order of a self-appointed emperor. Even with what we’re paying these guys, it won’t ever be enough to get killed over.

  His cell phone vibrated and skittered on the wood desk’s surface with a new text message notification. John opened the encrypted app and saw Andrew claimed to be delayed getting to The Oremus. He’s stalling, and I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t trust us, either, if I were in his shoes.

  May 6, 08:21am

  Vatican Housing Complex. Rome, Italy.

  Still dressed in a plush dark red bathrobe and slippers, Cardinal Paul Dylan opened the front door of his luxury apartment so his assistant, Bishop Harold Hoffaburr, could join him for their daily breakfast meeting. As was typical of his position, Hoffaburr wore a black cassock that those unfamiliar with the faith might confuse with a parish monsignor or priest. Only his color-matched purple sash, zucchetto skullcap, and cloth-covered buttons down the front of the garment identified his place in the hierarchy.

  After Hoffaburr nodded and stepped inside, Paul closed the door and led his man across the deep white Berber carpeting to a zebrawood dining table and white leather-wrapped chairs. Paul returned to his chair at the head of the table, sipped at his drink, and looked out the dining room’s wide window while Hoffaburr continued on to the kitchen. He never tired of his glimpse over the Vatican City wall and the life that awaited his rise to the most powerful position on Earth. His high-end espresso machine whirred and bubbled as his assistant put its grind, brew, and froth functions to work. Paul took another sip and savored the moment. I can see my future from here, and all the fated dominoes are even now falling into line to assure my ascension.

  Hoffaburr joined him at the dining room table and opened a rich, black leather binder with red trim. Paul had long feared his assistant’s need for documentation, and so he kept his most damning secrets to himself. The subordinate cleared his throat and read the first item from his agenda. “The Italian Treasury Secretary wishes to meet with Your Eminence--”

  “Can we start with the continued fallout from Vienna?”

  With only an accepting nod, the bishop turned to the pages at the back of his binder, where he kept his other notes. “The incident and its subsequent murder investigation seem to have fallen from the international conscience. Even the local and regional news outlets have moved on and no longer pine for updates and new leads. The Austrian government and Interpol maintain the unidentified African refugee remains their only suspect. They’ve reached the predictable conclusion that Herr Alfred König was tortured and killed as part of a drug-deal-gone-bad.”

  “What became of him, the suspect, I mean?”

  “He's ‘gone to ground,’ as John might say. Our priest and the intel staff identified him early in their investigation before everything went sideways, but he hasn’t yet reappeared. As you directed in the immediate aftermath of that incident, we’ll keep watch for him. He remains the only witness who can identify our priest and alter the accepted narrative. Our intel and analysis teams have uploaded his known surveillance photographs to our network, so facial recognition will eventually find him, unless he’s returned to his home country. Should he reappear, we can decide what, if anything, to do about him then.”

  “Have our analysts made any progress on identifying the Mexican drug trafficker who’d been working with König?”

  “Not yet. Interpol and the D-E-A know him only as ‘Santa Lena Cartel Leader Number 30,’ and he remains a ghost. I’m told we may not have him identified for years.”

  Paul leaned back against his chair and held the coffee cup in both hands in front of his chest. “Ensure that the entire organization remains vigilant in these efforts. We may have removed one source of evil with König’s death, but our aim must remain on absolving the world of all such sources. The men who trafficked their narcotic death through König’s corporation, as well as the refugee who dispensed it to addicts on the street, they must all be held to account for their actions.” He leaned forward, closer to Hoffaburr, to emphasize his point. “There is no other way for our little eradication project to succeed. The demise of a man like König is but a drop in the ocean.”

  “Of course, Your Eminence.” His assistant drew a small star on his notepad next to several other notes. “What else concerns you, sir?”

  “Have you determined our risk exposure, from within our ranks, I mean?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean we don’t face any. The absence of evidence--”

  Paul waved his hand and interrupted. “Harold, I understand that we can’t prove a negative! Did our priest, Father Andrew, did he betray our trust and confidence, or not?”

  The assistant shifted in his seat. “I don’t know, sir, and we may never know for certain. We never located the owner of the black Audi that dropped him at the airfield that night. That’s too common a vehicle for car services in and around Vienna, so the vehicle itself has offered no investigative leads for our analysts.”

  Paul delicately stirred the little remaining milk froth into his cof
fee. “And what of the new phones we gave our priests, and the software your people installed on them?”

  Hoffaburr shook his head. “Nothing, Your Eminence. The data hasn’t yet turned up any evidence of a betrayal or compromise to our operational security protocols. I ensured we turned an especially intense light on data from Father Andrew’s phone.”

  “And what of his funding sources, the anonymous, online Estonian bank accounts we set up for Andrew and the other priests?”

  “We found nothing there, either. No suspicious transactions, and nothing that could associate him with the Vienna incident or our organization.”

  Paul scowled and his stomach turned acidic at the thought of their covert payroll. The princely sum felt like a monthly extortion. “Do you know the balance of his personal account, the one into which we pay John’s ransom?”

  The assistant nodded and flipped to another page. Paul knew Hoffaburr had agreed with John on this point, and he’d acquiesced only to gain the spymaster’s cooperation. If our Assassins of Evil suffer a paradigm shift that causes them to leave the Church and seek clandestine employment elsewhere, the veritable lode we’ve handed over won’t stop them. If anything, we’ve given them the means by which to sever their need of us. Parishioners and priests leave the Church every day, but I cannot risk allowing these men to make it out wealthy and alive.

  “Andrew’s account, as of three days ago, was just over $67,000. It’s been open eight months with no withdrawals, and he still lives entirely on his priest salary. It seems that he’s saving for something, but I’ll continue to watch it, along with all the others, of course.”

  Paul sipped at his coffee, which gave him a moment to consider his own impression of his bishop’s efforts and lack of new information. “My thoughts remain unchanged from our initial conversation. Let our analysts keep chewing on this mysterious Audi. They will eventually find something that allows us to dismiss or confirm the alleged problem.” Paul darkened his tone. “You’ll tell me right away if you find Father Andrew, or any of them, has lied to us.”