The Sign

by Raymond Khoury

  “No SIM card. No signal. For all intents and purposes, the phone’s dead. Okay?”

  Matt frowned at him for a moment, then shrugged and nodded. “Okay.” He felt his pulse ratchet its way back. He’d just killed two men. Which should have felt bad, but—strangely—didn’t. It was, he told himself, a simple matter of kill or be killed. But he knew he’d have to be more careful if he didn’t want to fall on the wrong side of that equation the next time it presented itself.

  Jabba sat quietly for a moment, just staring ahead, then asked, “What are we going to do now?”

  “What do you think?” Matt grumbled.

  Jabba studied him, then nodded stoically. “Rydell?”

  “Rydell,” Matt simply confirmed.

  Chapter 55

  Wadi Natrun, Egypt

  “ Iunderstand you’re looking to get out of there in a hurry,” Darby said in a casual tone.

  Gracie stared ahead quizzically. “I’m sorry?”

  Dalton leaned out and mouthed her a question. She gave him an uncertain glance back.

  “You need a ride, Miss Logan,” Darby observed somewhat smugly. “And I’m calling to offer you one.”

  Her mind scrambled to make sense of the call. She recognized the name, of course. She couldn’t exactly count herself among the pastor’s fans. Far from it, truth be told. But that didn’t really matter now, nor did it tell her what she needed to know. “How did . . . ?” she stammered. “Who gave you this number?”

  “Oh, I have a lot of friends, Miss Logan. Well-connected friends. I’m sure you know that. But that’s beside the point, which is that you need to get yourself and my most esteemed brother in Christ out of danger. And I can help you do that. Are you interested?”

  She tried to park his offer to one side while she dealt with the competing bits of information that were clamoring for attention and tried to figure out where they stood. Finch had called Ogilvy. The news director was supposed to be arranging a plane, but she hadn’t heard back. Hell, she hadn’t yet had time to tell him about Finch’s death. She didn’t even know what Ogilvy had told Finch exactly—whether or not he’d be able to get them a plane and, if so, how soon. She didn’t even know where they were headed. The embassy in Cairo? The airport? They didn’t have a specific destination—not in Egypt, and not beyond either. The overriding concern had been to put as many miles as possible between them and the mobs outside the monastery. The rest hadn’t been mapped out. It was all happening too fast, and besides, that was Finch’s domain, and he wasn’t there to sort it out.

  She needed to know more. “What do you have in mind?”

  The reverend breathed a smile down the phone. “First things first. Father Jerome is with you, right?”

  “Of course,” she answered, knowing that was all he was interested in.

  “Can you make it out of the monastery safely?”

  Gracie decided to play it out on a need-to-know basis. “Yes,” she answered flatly. “We have a way out.”

  “Okay, good. What I need you to do is get to the airport in Alexandria.”

  “Why Alexandria?” Gracie queried.

  Dalton gave her another mystified glance. She flicked him a hold-on gesture.

  “It’s as close to you as Cairo is, but it’s quieter,” Darby told her. “More manageable. I’ll have a plane on the ground in under two hours. How soon can you get there?”

  Gracie thought about it. Alexandria made sense. Smaller airport, off the beaten path, far fewer commercial flights, far less chance of being spotted. “Shouldn’t take too long,” she replied. “We can be there before that.”

  “Perfect,” Darby shot back. “I’ll give you my number. Call me when you’re on your way.”

  “Where are you thinking of flying us to?” she asked, feeling a stab of discomfort at the idea of giving up control and putting herself and Father Jerome in the reverend’s hands.

  “Where else, Miss Logan?” he boomed. “The one place we know we can keep the good Father safe.” He paused, then proudly announced, “Home. You’re coming home, Miss Logan. To God’s own country. And you can take it from me, the people out here are going to be overjoyed to see you.”

  Chapter 56

  Brookline, Massachusetts

  Darkness was moving in impatiently, crowding the low winter sun against the horizon as Matt slowed down and pulled over by the side of the road.

  The area was heavily wooded, the traffic sparse. Just ahead, two waist-high stone posts marked the entrance to the municipal service center, which nestled between the forest of Dane Park and the thickets of oak trees that shielded the Putterham Meadows Golf Course. From where he was parked, Matt could make out the low, warehouse-like office-and-garage structure of the Brookline Municipal Service Center, set way back from the road, the drive leading up to it lined with parked cars and lingering thin patches of dirty snow. There wasn’t much going on in terms of activity, which suited Matt just fine.

  They hadn’t driven there directly from Hanscom Field. First priority had been dumping the battered, bloodstained Camry. Which wasn’t too much of a problem. They’d ducked into a mall, pulled up to a far corner of its parking lot, and exchanged the car for an equally uninspiring, decade-old, dark polo-green Pontiac Bonneville that didn’t look like it had that much longer to live anyway.

  Matt had wanted to get a few things first—more bullets for the handgun he’d taken off the shooter at the airfield, most importantly. His options were limited. He couldn’t exactly walk into a gun store, not in his current wanted and bruised state. Jabba didn’t possess an FOID card, so he couldn’t buy them for him either. So they’d rushed down to Quincy, where they’d hooked up with a deeply concerned Sanjay, who’d met them away from the 7-Eleven, at his place. He came through for Matt with two boxes of Pow’RBall rounds, some fresh gauze dressing for his wound, and some cash. Matt had wanted to ask him for another handgun, or maybe his rifle—Sanjay kept a loaded Remington 870 Breecher behind his counter that would have been good to have in hand, given what Matt was planning. But he knew he couldn’t ask his friend for it, not in these circumstances.

  They’d also used Sanjay’s computer to look up Rydell’s home address—he lived in a big house in Brookline, where his planning applications to add to the existing house had caused a bit of a stink. Matt also got a refresher course in what Rydell actually looked like. Once that was done, Matt and Jabba had driven across to Brookline and scouted the service center and the area around Rydell’s house before staking out the house itself.

  They didn’t have to wait too long.

  Rydell’s chauffeur-driven Lexus had pulled into the narrow lane that led to his house and to a couple of other mansions shortly after five o’clock. Matt had thought about making his move there and then, but decided against it. The Bonneville wasn’t as meek as the Camry, but it was still weak on muscle, and the bodyguard and the heavyweight riding shotgun looked to be slightly too much to take on, given Matt’s condition and who he had riding shotgun next to him.

  They’d watched the house for a while, making sure Rydell wasn’t going anywhere, then Jabba had stepped out of the car to keep an eye on the house while Matt climbed behind the wheel.

  “Remember,” Matt told him, “if this goes wrong, don’t go to the cops. Don’t trust anyone. Just do what you thought was the right play right at the beginning, remember?”

  “You mean, make like D. B. Cooper?”

  “Yep.”

  Jabba looked at him and shrugged. “Just make sure it doesn’t go wrong then, all right? I’m already missing my stuff as it is.”

  Matt smiled. “I guess I’ll see you in a little while.”

  He’d then left him there and looped back to the service center, where he was presently parked.

  He double-checked the handgun, then tucked it in under his coat. He emptied one of the boxes of rounds into his pocket, checked the road ahead and the mirror, then got out and walked up the drive to the service center.

  He�
��d taken some more painkillers, which had numbed the wound in his side, and found that he was able to walk halfway decently, in a way that didn’t scream out “walking wounded.” He followed the curving drive, past the parked cars, past the entrance to the reception area and offices, and past the building’s “employees only” door. A couple of guys stepped out, their shift finished, heading home. He met their casual gaze with a small bob of acknowledgment, muttered a laconic “How’s it going?”, which only elicited a similarly muttered reply, and didn’t break step until he reached the garage area out back.

  There were several trucks parked in there, side by side, the wide letters on their grilles announcing they were Macks. Matt looked around. A couple of mechanics were working on a truck that was parked thirty or so yards away. One of them glanced over. Matt gave him a relaxed half wave and a nod, as if his being there was the most natural thing in the world, then walked toward the back wall of the garage with as much of a purposeful step as he could muster, so as not to appear out of place in any way. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the mechanic went back to work. Matt checked the back wall. He noticed a white board with some shift lists marked up on it, then spotted the metal, wall-mounted box where the keys were normally kept. It wasn’t locked, which wasn’t a surprise—garbage trucks usually ranked pretty low on the “most stolen vehicles” lists, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that they were garbage trucks.

  He quickly matched the number on the tag of one of the keys with the last three digits of the license plate on one of the trucks, and gingerly picked the keys off their hook. He climbed into the big truck’s cabin, gave the surroundings another quick once-over, then stroked the engine to life. The big cab rumbled under him. He pressed down on the heavy clutch, selected first using the thin, long gear shifter, and teased the accelerator. The hydraulic brakes hissed loudly and the truck nudged forward. The same mechanic looked over again, an uncertain expression creasing his face. Matt stopped the truck long enough to give him another friendly nod, then thought better of it and leaned out the window.

  “You almost done there? Steve said he was having trouble getting this one into third,” he bluffed matter-of-factly, using a name he’d noticed on the shift list.

  The guy looked at him a bit perplexed, but before he could say anything, Matt added, “Clutch might need some work. I’ll be back in ten,” and gave him a short wave before pulling away.

  He checked in the side mirror as he turned out of the garage. The man looked his way for a second before shrugging and getting back to what he was doing.

  A moment later, Matt was turning onto the main road and guiding the lumbering orange behemoth toward the exclusive enclave that surrounded Sargent Pond.

  FEELING NUMB as he sat in the book-lined study of his mansion, Larry Rydell stared into his tumbler of Scotch and fumed in silence.

  Those bastards, he seethed, flinching at the thought of any harm coming to his daughter. If she so much as gets a scratch, he flared, a surge of blood flooding his temples . . . but it was pointless. He knew he couldn’t do anything about it.

  He sagged in his chair and glared at his glass. He’d never felt as helpless in his life.

  With his fortune and his power, he could and did take on the most aggressive hedge fund or shareholder revolt without blinking. He’d had heated debates in Senate chambers that didn’t ruffle him in the least. He’d reached a point of his life where he felt he was untouchable. But he was powerless to deal with these . . . thugs. That’s what they were, pure and simple. Thugs. Out to pervert his vision, to take his idea and twist it around and use it for . . . what, exactly?

  It didn’t make sense.

  Much as he ground and turned over what Drucker had said, it didn’t make sense. They were alike—all of them—when it came to what they believed in. They viewed the world the same way. They saw the risks facing the world—and those facing America—in the same light. They shared the same frustrations with some deeply entrenched aspects of the world’s, and the country’s, mind-set.

  And yet they were doing this? They’d created a fake messiah? An envoy from God? One whose presence would reinforce and vindicate the mass delusion most of the world was suffering from?

  It doesn’t make sense, he thought again. And yet they were doing it.

  He’d seen it.

  Drucker had confirmed it.

  They were actually doing it.

  The backstabbing bastards.

  His mind latched onto Rebecca’s face, on the last time he’d seen her, shortly before her ill-fated trip to Costa Careyes. He’d wanted to join her there for the holidays—they really hadn’t spent much time together, ever, not with everything he wanted to achieve in life, and it was something he now deeply regretted. But he hadn’t been able to join her. Not with all this going on. Not with the biggest undertaking of his life in full swing. And, bless her, she hadn’t voiced her disappointment. She never did. She’d gotten used to having a mythical dad, in the good and bad sense. Which was something he’d fix, he now thought—if he ever got the chance.

  He had to find her.

  He had to get her out, put her out of their reach, tuck her away somewhere safe. Nothing else mattered. Even saving the planet now paled into insignificance. He had to get her out of their hands. Then—and only then—he had to try and stop this. He had to find a way to kill it off, to shut it down before it got too big.

  But how? He didn’t have anyone else to call. He didn’t exactly have an “A-Team” tab in his Rolodex. For years, he’d entrusted all his security requirements—personal and professional—to that rattlesnake Maddox. The security guards “watching over him” right now, at his house. His driver-slash-bodyguard. The vetting of his pilot, of the staff on his yacht. The corporate security at his companies. E-mail, phones. Everything was covered by one firm. Maddox’s. On Drucker’s recommendation. “Keep it all under one roof ” had been his advice. “Use someone you can trust. One of us,” he’d said.

  Clearly, Maddox was one of “us.” Rydell himself, he’d now found out, wasn’t.

  He felt like a fool.

  They had him covered.

  He’d been played. From the beginning.

  He stared angrily at the heavy tumbler, then flung it at the wall, by the huge, stone fireplace. It exploded and rained shards of glass on the carpet. Just then, he heard a rising whine at the edge of his hearing, the sound of a large engine straining. Curious, he edged over to the window and looked out, down the drive that sloped and curved gently to the mansion’s entrance gate.

  MATT SPOTTED JABBA as he approached the turnoff into Sargent Lane. Jabba gave him the all-clear, a small thumbs-up, before darting back into the trees. Matt nodded, turned into the lane, and floored the gas pedal.

  The Mack’s muscular, three-hundred-bull-horsepower engine growled as it raced ahead, straining with each additional mile-per-hour of speed that it managed to add. Before long, the mansion’s entrance gate appeared up ahead. Matt stayed in gear, red-lining the engine, not wanting to shift into a higher gear. He wasn’t exactly flying, but that didn’t matter. Speed wasn’t what Matt was after here.

  It was bulk.

  He reached the gate and wrenched the oversized, horizontal steering wheel left with both arms, fighting the lateral pull from the truck’s tires. He didn’t lift his foot off the pedal. The truck screeched and leaned a few degrees sideways before its fifteen tons of solid steel plowed into the gate and obliterated it into toothpicks.

  The truck charged up the driveway, its heavy footprint scattering gravel and leaving twin ruts in its wake. Matt could see the house through a scattering of stately trees, looming at the top of a manicured, landscaped rise. It was a Georgian revival mansion with separate wings jutting out of the main house and a multi-car garage tucked off to one side. It had a circular gravel drive outside the main entrance. There was no sign of the Lexus or the muscle. Yet.

  He aimed the truck right at the entrance and kept his foot down. Just a
s he reached it, one of the heavies—he thought he recognized him as the guy who’d been riding shotgun in Rydell’s Lexus—rushed out of the house. His eyes went wide as he spotted the charging garbage truck, and he was already pulling his gun out from an under-shoulder holster

  Matt didn’t bother going around the drive. He just beelined for the house’s entrance. The truck bounced over the central floral bed and slammed into the bodyguard before he had a chance to fire off a single round. The man splattered against the panoramic windshield, staining it with blood before the truck squashed him against the front door as it bulldozed its way into the house.

  Brick, timber, and glass exploded inward as the Mack thundered ahead and came to a rest inside the house’s cavernous foyer. Matt kept the engine running as he pulled his gun out and climbed from the cabin just as another heavy appeared from a side room, dumbstruck and gun drawn. Matt had the advantage of surprise and blew him away with two rounds to his chest. Matt stepped away from the truck, sizing up what was left of the house’s entrance hall, and yelled, “Rydell.”

  Like a killer-bot on a mission, he advanced through the house, using his handgun like a divining rod, looking for his quarry. He checked the main living room, then a media room next to that, and was on his way into what looked like the kitchen area when a large double-door in a hallway to his right opened up and Rydell’s head popped out.

  The man looked stunned and confused. Matt recognized him immediately. He looked more gaunt than the photos Jabba had shown Matt on his phone’s browser, but it was definitely him.

  Matt raised his gun, rushed to him, and grabbed him by his shoulder.

  “Let’s go.”

  He manhandled him back toward the truck, jabbing the gun into his back. Rydell’s mouth dropped when he saw the truck squatting in the entrance hall, surrounded by debris, a twelve-foot-square gash eaten out of the house’s front façade. As Matt nudged Rydell forward, he heard some approaching footsteps, turned, and saw another guard rushing at them. By now, the adrenaline coursing through him was in control, and Matt was riding its autopilot of heightened awareness. He swung the gun away from Rydell, aimed, and squeezed, dropping the man to the floor.