The Hand of War

by Blake Banner

  But with less than a week to go before she presented her paper at the conference, why the hell did he drug me and send me there when he needed me to get hold of Marni? It didn’t make sense.

  My mind went back to that night. I had been tired. We had been drinking whiskey and he kept repeating the same thing, “You are a problem, Lacklan…”

  I was a problem, sure, but I always had been. What had made me more of a problem then? What had made him say that? My mind was still foggy, but I struggled to rememeber. I had killed Ali, Hassan, and Aatifa. Why would that be a problem for him? Why the hell would that be a problem for Omega? What had he said? I struggled to recover the conversation. He’d said they had a part to play.

  A part to play in what? Obviously in Omega’s master plan.

  The obvious conclusion for any conspiracy theorist was that Omega was behind the bombing plot. But if that was the case, why? Why use me to get Marni if they were planning to kill her at the conference? Whichever way I turned it and twisted it, it didn’t make sense.

  Then my mind moved on to Mclean and Jones. I could be pretty sure that I was not their favorite person in the world right then, but I had managed to send them the audio files, and I was wondering what, if anything, they would make of them. You don’t get to be a Fed by being stupid, so I could only hope they would start to investigate. But if they did, how much weight did Omega carry within the Bureau? That was an unknown quantity. They were questions I could not answer, so in the end I settled down to driving.

  At Saugerties I finally merged onto the I-87 and floored the pedal. It was a hundred miles to Echo Bay. I wanted to make it within the hour.

  Thirteen

  I sat in the small parking lot looking across the darkened green at the large, iron gates set in the fifteen-foot wall. To add to my problems, I had jut seen a couple of guys stroll past the gates, and I was willing to bet they were armed. I was thinking about my original plan, with the rubber dingy, and muttered to myself, in a Scots accent that Rabbie Burns would probably have sneered at, “The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley.”

  I had missed my chance. I should have taken her that night, but I hadn’t and now I’d have to make the best of what there was. The difficulty I was having was that the easiest approach was going to be from the river, as it had been the other night, but two got you twenty that they had the area floodlit and at least two guards on the back terrace covering the sweep of lawn down to the shore. On the other hand, approaching via the gate or the wall was going to involve a fifteen-foot climb and another fifteen-foot drop, right into the arms of the patrolling guards.

  To complicate things further, these were probably just rent-a-cops, and I did not want to kill them. I sighed and took the two automatics I’d taken from the apes at Maplecrest and made my way toward the shore. This time, before wading into the water, I decided to examine the small cliff where the wall ended and the river began. It was maybe twenty or twenty-five feet high, and had enough holes and ledges to offer a way up, which would bring me above the wall and maybe offer a way down. I decided it would not be an easy climb, but neither would it be impossible.

  I began to pick my way up. In less than a minute, I was lying flat on the top, trying not to make a silhouette against the faint glow from across the river, and peering down into the grounds of the house. From where I lay, I could see the back terrace. They had the spots on, as I had suspected, and the lawn was floodlit. There were two guys sitting at a table, smoking and playing cards. It was a balmy night and they seemed to be comfortable and un-preoccupied. That much was good. Down the side of the house, I could see a couple more guys walking, chatting to each other in low murmurs. I lay and timed them. It took them a full five minutes to go and return. As they moved away, back toward the front of the house and the gate, I crawled down to the wall, lowered myself halfway, and jumped. I landed in a crouch and waited. Nothing happened, so I sprinted to the back terrace and walked up the sidesteps like I owned the place. The two guards looked up in surprise. I showed them one of my automatics, and put a finger to my lips. They opened their mouths and went to stand, then closed them again and sat.

  I moved without hesitation and without breaking my stride. I pistol-whipped the nearest and knocked him cold, put the muzzle of the pistol in the other guy’s face to keep him quiet and delivered a left cross to his jaw that put him to sleep, too. I still had three minutes. I figured the French windows would be open to give the guards free and rapid access to the house if there was an emergency. I tried the handle and it was unlocked. But I needed the other two guards out of action before I did anything, so I moved quickly down the steps and ran after the other two. I made no attempt to be silent or to conceal myself. They came into view as I rounded the corner of the house. They were about level with the front door and about thirty feet ahead of me. Beyond them, I could see three cars parked in the driveway. As I ran, I called to them, “Hey, hold up, which one of you guys is Frank?”

  They stopped and turned to face me as I drew level. There was an older guy in his fifties and a younger one in his thirties. They were frowning and the older one said, “Neither of us. Who the hell are you?”

  I pulled my piece and said, “The guy who is going to blow your head off if you don’t do exactly what I say. Give me your weapons.”

  They glanced at each other, and as they did that, I smacked the younger guy in the jaw with the butt of the automatic. A straight left to the chin took care of the older guy. I used their boot-laces to tie them up and their socks to gag them, and returned to the terrace, where I did the same for those two.

  So far it had gone without a hitch. The next stage would not be so easy. I didn’t know if Gibbons was with there or whether she was alone. I stepped inside and closed the French windows behind me.

  I was in a large drawing room. It was dark, but there was a warped checkerboard of light and shadow across the Persian rug from the glass panes in the doors. I could see a fireplace, a sofa, and a couple of big chairs. Behind them there was deep shadows. On the left there was a credenza and beyond it a door stood closed.

  I crossed the room, waited, listening, and then opened the door in a single, swift movement. It didn’t creak. I moved into a passage. On my left the passage was lost in shadows and I assumed it led toward the kitchen at the back of the house. On my right there was a broad entrance hall, a large door with a fan of faintly glowing stained glass at the top, and a central wooden staircase leading to the upper floors.

  Wooden stairs creak, and there is no effective technique for avoiding it, even if you’re a ninja, unless you can memorize in advance which ones creak, and where. The only way to minimize it is to keep your weight near the edge of the steps and take two or three stairs at a stride. By the time I had reached the first floor landing, the stairs had creaked half a dozen times, not loud, but not silent. I stood motionless for a full five minutes, listening, but there was nothing to hear. It seemed nobody had heard me.

  I was at the center of a long corridor that ran from east to west. On my right, the stairs continued to an upper floor. Beyond them, I could make out a dog-leg which led into a further wing of the house. To my left, the passage ended with a gabled window through which dim light from the spots in the garden filtered in.

  I couldn’t think of a logical reason for her to be in one place or another, and listening was telling me nothing, so I opted for the nearest rooms and decided to work through them systematically.

  The first three I tried were dark, silent, and musty, and what light came in through the closed drapes showed beds and furniture covered in dust sheets. The fourth room was different. It faced the front of the house. The drapes were open and a diffuse, blue light, which I guessed was from the parking lot where I had left my car, cast dappled shadows of leaves on the glass, and on the bed. Opposite the bed there was a large wardrobe and against the far wall an armchair was angled into the corner. They were darker objects within the shadows.

  The bed was occ
upied. The breathing was deep and slow, but it wasn’t the labored breath of a corpulent, middle-aged man. It was the light breath of a young woman. All I could see of her was a mound of quilt, and a dark patch of hair against the pillows. I knew it was Marni, but I had to confirm it. Thinking about her breathing, I was aware that I could not hear any snoring in the house. I would have expected a man like Gibbons to snore.

  Maybe I’d got lucky. Maybe he wasn’t there.

  If he was there, he wasn’t asleep.

  I closed the door and moved around the bed to where I could see her face. It was her. I reached down and switched on her bedside lamp. I saw her brow furrow. I hunkered down where she could see my face when she opened her eyes, and spoke softly.

  “Marni, it’s me, Lacklan. I need you to open your eyes and be very quiet.”

  Her eyelids fluttered and opened, and she lay staring at me. She spoke without any particular emphasis. “Lacklan…you can’t be here.”

  “And yet, here I am.” I smiled and she smiled back. But after a moment, the smile faded.

  “You scare me. You’re out of control. You threatened to kill Gibbons. He’s a good man. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “There is so much you don’t understand, Marni, that I need to explain to you. And we haven’t got the time right now. I really need you to trust me.”

  We stayed like that for a long moment, looking at each other. Then she reached out and touched my face with her fingers. “Were you really going to kill him?”

  I shook my head. “I had no time to explain to him, and even if I had, he would not have listened. Right now, we have to go, Marni. There’s a bomb…”

  She frowned. “Here? In this house?”

  “No, tomorrow afternoon, at the UN, at noon…”

  “That’s during our talk.”

  “I know, baby. Will you please get up and come with me?”

  She blinked a few times, then sat up. She stared at me. “Who?”

  “Abdul Abbassi, he was Taliban. I don’t know who he is with now.”

  Her frown deepened. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but we haven’t time to think about it now. Get dressed, we have to go.” She didn’t move for a moment, then she climbed out of bed and started dressing. I stood. “Where is Gibbons?”

  “In his room.”

  “Here?”

  She nodded.

  “Will he agree to come with us?”

  She drew breath to answer, but the door opened and I saw Gibbons in the doorway. He was holding a revolver and had that obstinate look on his face that told me he would use it if he had to. He stared at me, then glared at Marni. “Have you lost your mind? Don’t you realize what is going on here?”

  “Philip, put that gun away. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “He works for Omega, Marni! Can’t you see he is manipulating you?”

  “Philip! Put the damned gun away!”

  “No!”

  I spoke quietly, but I let him hear the danger in my voice. “You’d be wise to listen to her, Professor. I can give you all the proof you need. Abbassi is planning to detonate a bomb tomorrow.” I checked my watch, it was twelve fifteen. “In less than twelve hours. It will rupture a canister of SF2, do you know what that is?”

  He sneered at me. “Of course I know what it is. It’s theoretical, that’s what it is! And why on Earth would the Taliban, or any of the Muslim fundamentalists, want to bomb our talk? We are advocating helping them!”

  I snarled. “Oh, you think they need a logical reason? Like when they murdered the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo? When they behead children for watching TV? When they flew two planes into the Twin Towers?”

  “I’m not getting into a political discussion with a reactionary Neanderthal like you!”

  “No, you’re not, because we haven’t got the time. You can either come or you can stay, but we are leaving this house in the next two minutes.”

  “Over my dead body!”

  Marni snapped at him, “Are you kidnapping me, Philip?”

  He stared at her and did a goldfish impression. “Well, you can’t… Surely you’re not going to go with this… this… ape?”

  “Philip! Who I go with and what I do is not for you to decide! Now put that gun down!”

  His jaw stiffened and he squared his shoulders. “He is not leaving this house. I am going to call the police. He is a burglar and a menace!” He thrust out his arm, pointing the revolver at me. His hand was steady. “Now lie on the floor with your hands behind your head!”

  I could feel the anger building inside me. I gave him the dead eye and said quietly, “No.” I held his eye and carried on talking. “Marni, get dressed, we are leaving.”

  She sighed. “Philip, you are being stupid.” Then she started pulling on her clothes. I walked around the bed. His face went taut and he waved the gun at me. “Don’t come near me! I’ll kill you! I swear it!”

  I looked hard into his eyes. “I could use your help, Professor. You are mistaken about me. I am not with Omega.”

  He spat his reply. “Your father was their lackey and so are you! You’re a murdering fascist and you disgust me!”

  Marni snapped, “Philip, if you pull that trigger, I will see you go to jail for the rest of your life! I swear it! You are out of control and you need to get a grip.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then lowered the gun. “Are you going to give the talk or not?”

  “I don’t know. I need to see the evidence, assess the facts, and make an informed decision. It’s what scientists do, Philip.”

  He stared a moment longer, then his face seemed to scrunch up into a ball of sullen hatred, and he hissed, “Traitor!”

  I held out my left hand. “Give me the revolver, Professor.”

  “No!”

  I put a right cross through his jaw. His eyes rolled up, his legs went to jell-O and he fell gracefully to the floor. I crouched, emptied the shells out of his pistol, and put them in my pocket. I looked up at Marni. She was staring at Gibbons. She looked unhappy. I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to get shot in the back tonight. He’s out of control.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “You got everything?” She glanced at me, then nodded again. I said, “Good, let’s get out of here. You got keys to the gate?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  As we moved down the stairs, I asked, “How about a car?”

  “Yeah, I have my car.” She frowned at me. “How did you get here?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Two minutes later we were in her Jeep, the gates were swinging open, and we headed out, into the night.

  As she drove along Boston Road into the heart of the Bronx, headed for Manhattan, I filled her in on everything that had happened since the prince’s party, up to and including my escape from the Institute and my arrival at Echo Bay. She was quiet for a long while after I’d finished, like she was thinking over everything I had told her. Eventually she gave a small laugh. “You don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Not when I know it’s the wrong answer, no.”

  I watched the city lights wash in a slow rhythm over her face, mainly amber, but occasionally red and green. She took a deep breath and sighed loudly. “So Ben, huh? What’s his story? He seems to carry a lot of weight.”

  I nodded. “I have a couple of theories. One is that he was assigned to my father, and now he’s been assigned to me.”

  “It could be. We don’t really know how they operate, do we?”

  “No, but we do know that they will go to extreme lengths to avoid killing you and me.”

  “Me because I have my father’s research. You because they believe they can get to me through you.”

  “Apparently. But that being the case, why do they plan to bomb the conference tomorrow?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. For that matter, what does Prince Awad gain by bombing the conference and killing me and Gibbons?”r />
  “I don’t get that any more than you do, and what confuses me even more is that after Gibbons’ debate with Hennessy was broken up by those guys shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’, I followed Ben and Hennessy to the Prince’s house. Somehow, in a way I don’t understand, they seem to be in bed together, both enemies and allies.”

  We had turned onto Third Avenue and were moving through south Bronx toward the bridge. She sighed again. “Is that how they operate?” She glanced at me. “They are subtle, Lacklan. They are very subtle. Isn’t that what they do with you? You are their arch enemy, along with me and Gibbons, but you visit Ben at his office in Washington, he visits you here in your apartment, you have an arrangement with him: he helps you and you lead him to me, even if you don’t plan to honor that arrangement in the end.” Our eyes met for a moment. “It’s exactly the way you described his relationship with Prince Awad.”

  I stared out the window at the passing buildings in the desolate light of the streetlamps, at the people on the sidewalks, the cars driving this way and that through the sickly amber wash. All of them expendable, all of them sentenced to die for the greater glory of whom? Allah? Or Omega?

  “You’re probably right,” I said. Then I turned to study her face. “How damaging is your father’s research? Can it really hurt them that badly?”

  She nodded, glanced at me a moment, and then nodded again. “They have enough enemies worldwide who would use that information to destroy them. There are also still…” She hesitated. “People,” she said at last. “People like Philip, who are organized, loosely, who have financial power…”

  She trailed off. I said, “Ben told me they could not go after Gibbons for some reason. He didn’t tell me why.”

  “Gibbons, and some of his friends, pull strings in very high places.” She smiled. “It’s not like the Illuminati in fiction. They don’t have absolute power. If they did, they wouldn’t need to operate in the shadows. But they are powerful, and they are very dangerous.”