by P A Duncan
“Damn it, Steedley—”
“That’s Director Steedley to you. Special Agent Fitzgerald, you will let them do their job. Attorney General Vejar expects our cooperation, and she has the President’s ear in this matter. Understood?”
Focused on controlling his breathing, Fitzgerald didn’t respond.
“Hollis, did you hear me?”
“Loud and clear. Director Steedley.”
“Good. Cooperate, Hollis. That’s an order.”
Steedley hung up on him.
In the dark at the Suburban’s open, rear doors, Mai Fisher pulled on her custom ballistic vest over her tactical outfit: black Spandex pants, lightweight boots, and a commando sweater. Alexei tightened the Velcro fasteners on the vest.
“Easy,” Mai murmured. “I have to breathe.”
Her armor was the best money could buy, and he knew that was a lot. However, it left her vulnerable to a lower body shot. Or a head shot. He’d accepted her argument against full body armor: She needed the mobility the minimal armor offered.
His dark-adapted eyes studied how the pants outlined everything desirable about her ass, and he couldn’t resist stopping her from loading gear into the vest’s pockets to kiss her.
She pulled away.
She was in her zone. Alexei knew that. He’d taught her that.
He applied the night camouflage paint to her face and neck. She pulled on thin gloves and checked the Beretta was loaded before she strapped it in her thigh holster.
She pulled the black watch cap over her tightly braided hair, and he closed the Suburban’s doors. She strode toward her embarkation point, and he jogged to catch up with her.
The FBI had switched tactics for tonight’s psychological warfare. They’d doused the million-candlepower spotlights in favor of insipid Lawrence Welk interspersed with hard rock. The song playing now was Creedence Clearwater’s “Bad Moon Rising.” He hoped that was merely a coincidence.
“Let’s do a radio check,” Alexei said.
“The radios work,” Mai replied.
“Indulge me.”
They checked the radios’ operation, and she was right. He clipped a tracker to her vest and said, “Khoroshaya okbota.”
That got a flash of her teeth, a grin.
Fitzgerald, who’d hovered off to one side, stepped up and said, “We don’t have all night for this.”
“Agreed,” Mai said. She checked her bearings and the position of the sliver of moon and jogged off into the night.
“What was that you said to her?” Fitzgerald asked. “Was that Russian?”
“Yes,” Alexei said, his eyes on the dark where he could no longer see her. “I told her, good hunting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a personal thing between her and me. Nothing more.”
The blaring music would cover any sound of her approach, but if the Eternal Lighters used the night vision goggles the FBI claimed they had… No, he wouldn’t allow that thought in his reality.
“Are you sure she knows the way?” Fitzgerald asked.
“Yes, or I wouldn’t have authorized the operation.”
Alexei turned on his heel and headed for the communications trailer, where he’d watch her progress transmitted by the tracker. Fitzgerald fell into step beside him and concluded Alexei was interested in small talk.
“Why did the attorney general involve The Directorate?” Fitzgerald asked.
Alexei stopped walking and turned to him. “That’s not a name you should bandy about, Fitzgerald. I accept you were need-to-know, but no one else here is. As for why Vejar requested us, you’ll have to ask her.”
“Yeah, I get the classified part. I was Army Intel. Why you two?”
“When Ms. Vejar was a prosecutor in Florida, we assisted her with, shall we say, a Colombian issue,” Alexei said and resumed walking, Fitzgerald at his side. “Have you given further consideration to our briefing this afternoon?”
“Not particularly.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been on site a lot longer than you or your partner, Bukharin.”
“My offer to negotiate remains open.”
“What makes you think you can do what our negotiators can’t?”
Alexei brought to mind his almost endless negotiations with the Serbian warlord Arkan to win Mai’s release but decided thinking about her as a prisoner wouldn’t do well for his mood.
“I wouldn’t treat Isaac Caleb as a common criminal,” he said.
“He is a criminal.”
“He’s innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, Fitzgerald.”
“Look, I know the fucking Constitution better than my wife. What the fuck do you mean? A cop killer is a criminal.”
“The HRT came here because the FBI thought this was a typical hostage situation, but as you well know, a criminal who takes hostages gets fed up after a few hours, certainly no longer than a few days, and is open to negotiation. As my partner explained this afternoon in excruciating detail, the people inside Calvary Locus aren’t hostages. They want to be with Isaac Caleb to await the end of the world. That’s what I would focus on.”
“There’ll be no change in the negotiator or the negotiation strategy.”
“That, Agent Fitzgerald, shows poor judgement.”
“Your opinion matters about as much as a pile of shit to me,” Fitzgerald said.
“My opinion matters to my boss, and through him to the attorney general and the president. What is it, Fitzgerald? Why the hard-on for a delusional preacher?”
“He killed four law enforcement officers. He has to pay for that. One way or the other.”
“That’s a dangerous attitude.”
Alexei turned to enter the trailer, but Fitzgerald grasped his arm and turned him back.
“Who the hell do you think you are, questioning my judgement and my attitude? Why don’t you go home to Russia, Bukharin?”
Alexei shook off Fitzgerald’s grip. “I’m an American, asshole. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be available to my partner.”
“Look, asshole, I want you to fucking understand this is my operation, not yours. We lost good men in that raid. Decent men. Family men. Real Americans. You get me, comrade? I resent the fact you two foreigners stroll in here and try to fuck with my strategy. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a mission to run here. Get the fuck out of my face.”
“You don’t have me in your face, Fitzgerald. Piss me off some more, and you’ll find out how unpleasant that can be.”
Alexei thought it a hollow victory when Fitzgerald backed down by entering the communications trailer first.
16
Bad Moon Rising
The opportunities for cover between the FBI compound and the outskirts of Calvary Locus were scant. Mai traveled in a crouch, and it didn’t take long for her back and thigh muscles to protest. She pushed on, and endorphins kicked in to dull the aches.
At the barbed wire fence surrounding the Eternal Light property, she knelt to see what her dark-adapted eyes showed her. Nothing much. The nail-clipping moon barely lit the buildings.
Knowing the FBI would be peering through the dark with top-of-the-line equipment, Mai keyed her mic and murmured, “I don’t see anything moving. Confirm?”
Alexei’s voice was as calm and detached as usual when he replied, “Confirmed. No movement.”
Well, that was oddly reassuring. She clicked her transmitter twice in an answer and rolled to her back to shimmy beneath the lowest strand of wire. On the other side, she focused on a roofline in the moonlight, ran the layout of the grounds through her head, and identified which building it was. Again in a crouch, she headed that way.
Despite her near-perfect blending with the night, the lack of cover made Mai feel as if a big, neon arrow pointed to her head and flashed, “Shoot here.” She found herself longing for the Balkans’ thick forests but pushed that memory aside before it could do damage. She knew she couldn’t dwell on the tho
ught someone might be targeting her, but she hoped, if the bullet came, the shooter was good enough to score a kill shot. She didn’t want to lie in a pool of blood and feel her life leak away.
And she wasn’t sure which might be worse: a stressed out Eternal Lighter with a night-scope or a trigger-happy FBI sharpshooter.
As she neared the collection of buildings connected by breezeways, she had better cover: storage sheds and abandoned cars, even a couple of school buses. The moon had climbed in the sky, outlining the buildings better, and she confirmed her location relative to the building she planned to enter. If you’re going to sneak into Calvary Locus, she thought, go for the main building.
After envisioning her entry, she took off, still low to the ground, past what had once been a swimming pool. The stench told her she didn’t need to see what it now held to know what it was. She reached the outside wall of a building, hunkered down, and listened for any running feet; any shouts indicating someone had seen her. Silence. She had to thank the ATF for there being no dogs to alert to her presence; they’d shot them all on February 28.
Across a courtyard was the door she’d use for entry. She focused on it like a target and ran. That door opened onto a cafeteria, according to the interior layout provided by an ATF agent who’d posed as a possible convert and who’d roamed the buildings at will. She’d have to traverse the width of the cafeteria to a first-floor hallway and up a rear stairwell to the sleeping quarters on the second floor, a route fraught with opportunities for a sentry to spot her. This was the only way, other than walking up to the front door.
After her breathing slowed to normal, she fished a stethoscope from her vest, set the earpieces, and listened for sounds from the other side. Satisfied, she stowed the stethoscope and tried the doorknob. Locked. As if a locked door would stop an FBI battering ram.
From her vest this time, she took a universal lock-pick and sprang the lock in a few seconds. She eased the door open and slipped inside, still in a crouch.
Mai made out shapes—boxes, crates, piles of clothing. The cafeteria had become a storage room, but the haphazard placement could be chance or for booby-traps. The improvised gauntlet meant her trip across the room took longer than she wanted, but soon she stood at the hallway door. She peered around the doorframe into an empty corridor. Time to pay a visit.
Mai took a deep breath and removed the silenced Beretta from its holster. She flicked the safety off, the noise seeming loud in the quiet. The gun gauntleted in her left hand, she edged around the doorway and headed for the stairwell. The FBI had cut the electricity to Calvary Locus, and unless someone rounded a corner with a torch, she was in utter darkness.
She tread the stairs slowly, mindful of creaks, but the only sense assaulted was smell: sweat of a locker room, urine from a public toilet, cooking fumes, fuel oil, feces, and something more unpleasant.
The Eternal Lighters killed in the ATF raid must have been buried close to the building and in shallow graves. The odor was too familiar, and for a moment she stood in an ethnically cleansed Balkan village surrounded by rotting, burned bodies and wailing women. She shook her head and breathed through her mouth until she reached the top of the stairs.
Before stepping into the upstairs hallway, she cleared it right and left and flattened herself against a wall to listen again before she moved further inside. Soft snoring. The FBI music a dull drone, almost white noise in a building better insulated than she’d imagined. With her back against the wall, she side-stepped to her left, gun still at the ready.
The rooms up here had no doors. A few had sheets or blankets nailed over them. Some were uncovered. From listening to the tapes from the FBI’s listening devices, she knew only the women and Isaac Caleb himself slept on this level. His room was at the far end of the hall, almost on the other side of the building, but she checked in that direction often for any movement. She suspected, however, he didn’t go to his “wives.” They were probably summoned to come to him.
At the fifth door in the hallway, Mai paused before crossing the corridor to stand beside it. A quick look around the jamb and she got the layout of the room. A window was dead-center opposite the door, two mattresses on the floor on either side of it. A woman slept on each mattress.
Again, low to the floor, she entered the room, keeping her silhouette away from the window.
The woman on the mattress to her right was young, thin with a haggard face framed by greasy brown hair. Mai took a small vial from a pocket of the vest and crept to that woman. Holding her breath, Mai snapped the vial in front of the woman’s nostrils. The narcotic gas would ensure the woman wouldn’t wake for twenty minutes or so.
Mai duck-walked to the mattress against the left side wall, shifted so she could see anyone passing by the door, and knelt beside Maeve Gleason. Maeve was the only person in Calvary Locus with a Belfast accent and was easy to pinpoint from the FBI listening devices.
Maeve, too, was gaunt, her eyes ringed with dark circles visible even in the skimpy moonlight. Mai shifted the Beretta to her left hand and put the right one over Maeve’s mouth. The woman’s eyes flew open, and she tried to sit up.
Mai leaned down and whispered, “Maeve, I know you can’t see me, but you know my voice.”
Maeve nodded and relaxed.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone, and I’m alone. I want to talk is all. I’m going to take my hand away.”
Another nod; Mai eased her hand away, steeling herself for the scream. But Maeve sat up on the mattress and leaned close to Mai so they could whisper.
“My God, Siobhan,” Maeve said, using the name she knew Mai by, “how did youse get in here?”
“With extreme care, of course.”
“Oh, it’s joking you are. Why did ya chance it?”
“You’re here, and I needed to make sure you’re all right.”
“Ah, you really want to know the lay of the land, don’t ya?”
“Yes, and if you’re all right. Where are your children?”
“All the children are in the bunker at night. Isaac’s orders. It’s safer for them there in case the Army of Babylon comes against us at night.”
That was new intelligence, and that alone made Mai’s trip worth it.
“Are you all right?” Mai asked.
“Ah, the bullets were flying every which way, but, no, I wasn’t touched, praise God. I’m scared, though. Waiting for the end…”
Knowing the FBI listened, Mai said, “Confirm for me the children are downstairs in the bunker?”
“Except for one or two who are still nursing.”
“The main hall, lower level?”
“Aye.”
For protection, indeed, Mai thought, as she traced the location of the bunker on the map in her head. The main hall would be the focal point of any tank assault on the main building. Isaac Caleb had positioned the children to be the first to die. As angry as that made her, she was angrier still knowing that might not change Fitzgerald’s plans.
“Maeve, if you’re scared and tired, you can come out with me, now.”
Maeve’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, and Mai hoped she’d say yes.
“No, love, I’m ready to meet my God.”
“Are you ready for your children to meet that god?” Mai asked.
Maeve gave an emphatic shake of her head. “No. I want them out of here. They were set to leave before Wayne… Isaac stopped them. And Isaac… He’s already been eying Amanda in a way I don’t like. If she were here with me, I’d let you take her. She asks every day to leave.”
Maeve’s daughter was Natalia’s age. “Is there any way I could get to her?” Mai asked.
“Too many guards around the bunker.”
“How many?”
“Don’t even think about it,” came Alexei’s voice in her ear. She gave three clicks on the transmitter. Shut up, she was telling him.
“I don’t know,” Maeve said. “A half-dozen, unless they’ve fallen asleep. No way for me to know how many you’d fa
ce. There’s guns everywhere on the lower level, always within reach. Sometimes Isaac and one or two of the men stay up into the night, talking, reading the Bible. None of the men but Isaac come up here.”
“Is he up here now?”
Maeve’s eyes looked at the floor, and she nodded.
“All right, Maeve, I’m going to have to leave soon, but I’ll be working on a way to get the children out of here safely. If I’m lucky, I’ll come up with something to end this peacefully.”
Maeve laughed softly. “All by yourself, then?”
“Ah, you know I never work alone, Maeve.”
“Sure, that man of yours is never far away. When will you come for the children?”
“I can’t say for certain. It’ll be at night, but the morning before, I’ll get them to play ‘Brick Wall.’ That way, you’ll know.”
“You remembered I love Pink Floyd. You always cared, Siobhan. Even in Belfast. People matter to you.” She squeezed Mai’s hand.
“I have to get moving soon. Can you think of anything else to tell me?”
“Isaac’s grown more determined since the raid but more resolved, too. He keeps going over and over the Book of Revelation and telling us we’re in the End Times. We’re so close to heaven, Siobhan. So close.”
“What’s life like in here?”
“We carry on pretty much as usual, but there was an odd thing… Isaac had us bring in all the gasoline from the vehicles and the storage tanks and all the oil for the lanterns.”
“Inside this building?”
“Aye, and I’m sore worried. We need the oil for the cookstoves and the lamps, but the tanks out there, like the Saracens back home, and the gasoline… God, Siobhan, I don’t want to die by fire. If the Babylonians try to take me that way, I’ll humble myself before one of Isaac’s Heavenly Guard and have him shoot me.” A sigh, a sniff. “I’ll wake in heaven with Isaac and his brother Jesus.”
In the dark, Maeve didn’t see Mai point the Beretta at her. Better if she were dead by a true friend than a false prophet. No, that was defeatist thinking.
