Armageddon Conspiracy bl-1

by John Thompson

  Armageddon Conspiracy

  ( Brent Lucas - 1 )

  John Thompson

  Fast-rising money manager Brent Lucas has no idea that the head of his new firm is a Christian fanatic or that his multi-million dollar job is a set-up until a billion dollars disappears from a client’s account—and until he ends up as the only suspect. Determined to clear himself, he goes to his client’s home where he finds only corpses. Narrowly escaping, Lucas runs from both the FBI and his would-be killers.

  Fueled by memories of his brother’s tragic death in the Trade Center and aided by his ex-fiancée, a beautiful cop assigned to the Project Seahawk anti-terrorism taskforce, Lucas begins to unravel a flawlessly planned conspiracy. He discovers his politically unassailable boss has masterminded a plot aimed at bringing about Armageddon-with stolen missiles, depleted nuclear fuel and a band of Muslim terrorists intent on killing the President. As the FBI closes in, Lucas launches his own desperate attempt to stop the madness before it is too late.

  John Thompson

  ARMAGEDDON CONSPIRACY

  PROLOGUE

  NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 21

  STEVE ALBERS HAD NO IDEA it was his day to die. He simply knew his sales meeting had run late, and he needed to run like hell to catch the five-ten train. Another train left at five forty-five, but that wasn’t an option. Today was his daughter’s birthday, her sixteenth, and in addition to a family celebration, Steve had an almost-new bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle hidden in his neighbor’s garage.

  He generally disapproved of sixteen-year-olds having cars, but Kate was different—honor roll every semester of her life, state champion gymnast in her age group, and class president. She deserved something special, he thought, as he rushed from the elevator and trotted toward the revolving doors. Out on the crowded sidewalk, he broke into an awkward run.

  The sun had set, the cold wind sliced through his muffler and gloves, and slicks of ice glinted from the sidewalk. He stepped around mobs of fellow commuters bundled in heavy coats, steaming warm breath into the air. After a block, his heart pounded, and he slowed to a fast walk, vowing to lose some weight. After another block he came to the throng of people moving down the escalators into the underground warren of Penn Station, and he began to burrow his way through.

  The air grew warmer as he descended, and the smells of car and bus exhaust and the metallic tang of cold air quickly morphed into the stale, slightly urine smell of the station. The jostling worsened in the long corridors that led to the commuter trains, and Steve shifted his focus, looking down for a dropped briefcase or some homeless person’s outstretched leg.

  He sidestepped quickly, nearly tripping over a stack of Coke cases someone had carelessly left outside a pizza kiosk, and then, after regaining his footing, glanced up at the overhead clock. Four minutes after five. He started to relax. He was going to make it, just barely.

  • • •

  Exactly seventeen minutes earlier, in the drop-off area outside Penn Station’s other entrance, Yusuf ben Abu Sayeed checked his watch then stepped out of the taxi line where he had been standing for the past five minutes. He tightened his muffler, raised the collar of his cashmere overcoat, and strode away. Such a departure was unremarkable because cab waits often became infuriating, and the line simply shifted forward. No one gave him a second glance.

  Abu Sayeed’s exit had nothing to do with impatience but with the two men in Coca Cola delivery uniforms who had just ascended the escalator and wheeled their empty hand truck around the corner of the building. He’d been waiting to spot them, and now he crossed Eighth Avenue, walked eastward, and entered the revolving doors of a large office tower. He unbuttoned his coat and loosened his muffler, entered an elevator, and rode to the thirtieth floor. There, like a man who had simply chosen the wrong floor, he stepped onto the next down elevator. Seconds later he exited the opposite side of the building where his rented limousine had been waiting at the curb for almost forty minutes.

  As the driver hurried around the car and held the door, Abu Sayeed gave a weary sigh, as though exhausted from the last meeting of a long day. He slid onto his seat and checked that the glass privacy partition was up. His mind whirled with almost unbelievable possibilities, as he glanced at the other passenger who had waited there the entire time. They were almost strangers, having met several months earlier in London, when the man had managed to contact him through an endless chain of intermediaries and make his extraordinary offer.

  “Well?” the passenger asked as the limo pulled into traffic. He had sandy hair graying at the temples and blue eyes with a dangerous innocence.

  “Your associates made their delivery,” Abu Sayeed answered.

  The man removed a cell phone from the pocket of his suit coat. He held it for several thoughtful moments as their limo snaked its way through the uptown traffic. Finally, he dialed a number then held the phone out to Abu Sayeed. “You have the honors.”

  Abu Sayeed pushed the phone gently away. “I insist.”

  The other’s mouth tightened. He gazed down for a time at the backlit screen and the waiting number. Finally he pushed the send button.

  Instantaneously, another cell phone rang, this one buried in the three soda cases Steve Albers had just avoided. The ring triggered an electric charge to a small detonator, which in turn set off three pounds of embedded Semtex. The soda cans were packed with bolts and steel balls, and the explosion hurled them outward. The blast shattered all bodies within seventy feet. The shrapnel cut through another hundred, burrowing deep into the concrete walls of the underground station.

  Over a mile away, the faint boom didn’t penetrate the limo’s soundproofing, but seconds later the first sirens sounded. Abu Sayeed closed his eyes, amazed at Allah’s beneficence. This act of retribution on American soil was glorious, but not the real reason for their meeting. His associate had arranged today’s explosion only to establish the seriousness of his intent.

  “Well?” the man asked as the sirens quickly grew to a massive din. “What do you think?”

  Abu Sayeed looked at this freshly scrubbed American who had just killed a number of his own countrymen. “You have impressed me.” He closed his eyes and nestled into the leather seat. There would be a flight to Paris and then several days of deliberation to make a final assessment about going forward. However, he was already sure. Allah had placed this extraordinary opportunity in his lap. It would be a sin against God not to make use of it.

  • • •

  In the smoke and wreckage of Penn Station, scores of bleeding, blast-shocked people staggered through the rubble. Others lay unmoving. Steve Albers was facedown, his back covered by a few ceiling tiles, but otherwise he appeared miraculously unhurt, as if any second he might clamber to his feet. Sirens blared in the distance, and people screamed for help. Yet Steve did not stir. The long needle-shaped sliver that had penetrated the base of his skull had caused almost no bleeding. His last thought before the blackness washed over him had been of Kate.

  • • •

  Hours later the man who had met with Abu Sayeed knelt in his private sanctum in the basement of his waterfront mansion. The room was kept locked at all times, and he had the only key. Its walls were painted bright white, and a special air system hissed softly as it removed the smell of the room’s other occupants.

  A table along one wall held a glass-fronted mouse cage where twelve white mice scurried through a bed of cedar chips. On the opposite wall was a second, much larger glass container. Inside, coiled and quietly digesting its most recent mouse, a timber rattlesnake as thick as a beer can lay with its large triangular head pointing outward.

  The man wore a white shirt and khaki trousers and sat in the middle of the ro
om on a hard-backed chair. He had been praying diligently for the past forty-five minutes, and now the feeling he’d been seeking finally came upon him. He began to twitch and jerk as the spirit of the Lord began to pour into him, lighting him with a heat and power that made his scalp tingle as it shot all the way to the ends of his fingers.

  As he’d done alone and in private for years—ever since he’d left his old Tennessee mountain church—he stood and went over to the terrarium where he gathered himself for a moment, his eyes shut tight. He prayed to God to witness this proof of his faith then reached down with both hands and scooped up the rattlesnake.

  As always, the weight—close to twelve pounds—and the coolness of the smooth skin surprised him. He held the twisting body in both hands and heard the warning buzz of rattles. Had he been in his old congregation he would have passed the snake to another worshipper, but he was alone. If he were bitten, the Lord would protect him, as He had the three times he’d been bitten previously.

  “Let the blood I have shed not be in vain,” the man prayed. “Let it be that any deed done to bring about Your Son’s return is a blessing.”

  He raised the snake over his head and continued to pray until his muscles ached from the awkward weight. Gradually, his mind quieted and faded back into the far reaches until the universe consisted only of himself, the serpent, and God—the three of them bound in a strange trinity. When his prayer finally ended, he lowered the snake and replaced it in the terrarium. As he withdrew his hands it happened, a blur of movement.

  He jerked away, seeing the red punctures in the thin web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. The fangs had gone right through the narrow band of flesh, which meant the amount of venom in his system would be slight. However, fire already consumed his entire hand. The throbbing pain rocketed up his arm and threatened to drag him to his knees.

  He staggered to the chair and sat, willing himself to perfect stillness. He began to pray, knowing he had to embrace his pain, show God his absolute faith. This was a test, he knew, a demand for him to prove his fortitude. Only the strongest and most devout would be allowed to light the fires of Armageddon.

  ONE

  NEW YORK, JUNE 6

  THE OLD GRANITE MANSION JUST off Fifth Avenue in the high Sixties lorded austerely over its more mundane neighbors. Brent Lucas gazed at the brass plaque beside the polished front doors, thinking it was no accident that the name “Genesis Advisors” was barely visible from the sidewalk. GA, as it was known in the financial community, understood that its very wealthy clients appreciated understatement.

  Brent took a deep breath and started up the steps. At the top he re-centered his tie and rang the white buzzer. Almost as an afterthought, he pushed the record button on the tape recorder hidden in his pocket.

  After several moments the door swung back, and a plump woman with a helmet of dyed black hair held out her hand. “Brent! Let me welcome you to Genesis Advisors,” she said.

  He recognized Betty Dowager, Executive Assistant to the firm’s chairman, Prescott Biddle. “Mr. Biddle is traveling,” she said. “If you’ll come with me, Mr. Wofford is going to handle your orientation.”

  He followed her thick calves up the carpeted staircase. It was still early, the building hushed, the air smelling of oiled wood and leather. The firm was only a dozen years old, but the historic mansion provided an aura of prestige and stability. An atmosphere of blue blood and old money oozed from its mahogany paneled walls and from the impressive paintings and antiques.

  They went down a hallway to a pair of tall doors. After several years in a Boston skyscraper, Brent thought it felt more like some exclusive private club than an office, as if any second he might stumble upon a game of high-stakes backgammon.

  Betty opened the doors to an anteroom where a secretary worked at an antique desk with an inlaid leather surface, then led him through another door into an ornately furnished office with heavy brocade drapes over tall windows. The firm’s number two partner rose from his chair and stepped around the desk to greet his visitor.

  “Welcome, Brent,” Fred Wofford rumbled in his slightly nasal twang. He was a bear of a man in his early sixties, with stooped shoulders, a heavy gut, and a halo of perspiration atop his mostly bald scalp, an utter contrast to the athletic chairman, Prescott Biddle. “Come on in and sit down,” he said, offering a damp handshake.

  He waddled around the desk and crashed in his swivel chair, looked at Brent, and then let out a chuckle. “Yale, Stanford MBA, All-American football player,” he said. “You’re smart and competitive and analytical. Just the kind of man we’re looking for.”

  Wofford went on in a similar vein for several more minutes then folded his meaty hands on the desktop. “We covered most of it in the interviews,” he said, his smile fading. “But there are a few details we didn’t get to—mainly about communications. Knowledge is power, Brent. All we’ve got to sell here is our performance.”

  Brent nodded, knowing what was coming next. Everyone on the street, and for that matter most investors in America, knew about Prescott Biddle’s legendary track record. Biddle had been among the first public investors in Microsoft, Cisco, and AOL. He’d ridden WorldCom up then shorted it within ten percent of the top, even shorted the whole market the summer before 9/11. More recently he’d been early in Research In Motion, Google, and Intuitive Surgical. He’d been in and out of real estate, commodities, and highflying stocks like a man with a crystal ball.

  Prescott Biddle’s results had been nothing short of extraordinary. In the eyes of the Justice Department they’d been too amazing, and that was the real reason Brent was here. He pretended to scratch himself as he dropped a hand to his jacket and felt the slight vibration of the recorder, making sure it was turned on.

  “People follow us on the street,” Wofford continued. “They hang on our conversations in restaurants, they search our trash to find out what we’re doing. My point is—we are very careful, and we don’t allow leaks—ever. I can’t overstate the importance of confidentiality.”

  Brent nodded.

  Wofford glanced down at his interlaced his fingers then gave Brent an embarrassed smile. “I assure you I’m not bringing this up because of that little… incident in Boston.”

  Brent’s gaze faltered momentarily. “I disclosed all that in the interviews,” he said.

  Wofford held up a hand to stop him. “We know why you blew the whistle,” he said quickly.

  He was referring to how some of Brent’s fellow portfolio managers had been making millions in their personal accounts by trading fund shares after the close of the market, at times when major news announcements would make stocks open sharply up or down the next day. It was done quietly and privately, but it happened to be highly illegal.

  “In fact, your commitment to doing the right thing is one of the reasons we picked you,” Wofford said.

  Brent nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at the tape recorder running in his pocket.

  Wofford waved a hand. “I only mention this because we are a Christian firm. We wouldn’t turn a blind eye. If you see anything improper here, you bring it to Prescott or myself. Have faith that we will correct our mistakes.”

  Brent was about to reply when Wofford’s gaze left his face and drifted to something over his shoulder. He glanced back, thinking someone had come into the office, but saw only a large portrait on the wall he had missed when he walked in. It was savage and violent, a depiction of Jesus on the cross, hands pierced with heavy spikes, cheeks concave and inked with shadow, eyes haunted with unspeakable pain.

  Brent turned back and waited. Wofford slowly tore his eyes from the painting.

  “Welcome to the firm,” he said at last.

  TWO

  NEW YORK, JUNE 8

  “HERE’S TO PROGRESS,” UNCLE FRED said, raising his wine glass in a toast. “It was a long slog, but you got there.”

  Brent smiled and raised his own glass. “Thanks.”

  “But you’re in the same shit
ty industry,” Fred said, shaking his head. “After all that crap in Boston you should’ve wised up.”

  Brent would have resented the comment coming from anyone else, but since Fred had raised him from the time his mother died, he shoveled a forkful of pasta bolognaise into his mouth and took it. They were at a restaurant in Little Italy, Brent’s treat on his uncle’s first foray into Manhattan in probably ten years.

  Fred hacked off a hunk of veal chop, shoved it into his mouth, and kept talking as he chewed. “I mean, you got a degree from that fancy-ass college in New Haven and a MBA from Stanford, and these Wall Street scumbags won’t hire you for six months cause you turned in a couple crooks at your old firm.” Fred waved his fork in disgust. “Guy as smart as you can’t get a job cause he’s too honest. Jesus H. Christ!”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Brent suggested, seeing the way heads were starting to turn in their direction as Fred warmed to his topic.

  “Why? Cause you don’t want me to remind you that you always said you were going to teach?”

  Brent leaned forward, lowering his voice, hoping Fred would take the hint. “How could I? After growing up in your house, they wouldn’t allow me around children.”

  “Lemme tell you, buddy, you were raised in the lap of normal,” Fred growled. “When people stop paying you ten times what you’re worth, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.” Fred took a gulp of red wine and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Boil this Wall Street stuff down, and it’s all about giving the big shot assholes blowjobs in the washroom.”

  A well-dressed couple at the next table turned and stared with outraged expressions. Fred fluttered his eyes at them. “What?” he asked. “I can’t say washroom?”

  “Forgive my uncle,” Brent said. “He’s suffering from Tourette Syndrome.”