"Yes," the man who’d been silent up until then said. "I vote yes." The others regarded him with both contempt and relief. None of them had wanted to be the first to decide.
"I vote yes," another said, sighing.
"I vote yes," said the third.
"I vote yes," the fourth.
The last man regarded the others now with wonder, disbelief, and disgust. They all looked back at him, waiting. He could save the girl by saying no. She would live. But then what? Forty thousand dead, as in Lahore? Or perhaps a million. Or ten million.
It seemed like a choice that was really no choice at all.
He took a deep, long breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t want to give the other four the impression that he’d been swayed by their majority. They had to know he’d made up his own mind.
"I vote…yes," he said, finally. The others nodded. On the screen, the girl’s face faded away and was gone. Soon, Samantha Rohde would be dead.
Chapter 13
"Thank God I got to you first." Nevin Cardinal Roscoe stood before the professional killer, whose gun was now in hand.
"I told you to put that thing away," Archbishop Hamilton told Henry.
"Who are you?" Henry asked Roscoe, ignoring Hamilton.
"I am Cardinal Roscoe," Roscoe answered evenly. "I have come from Vatican City to meet you."
"I recognize your voice," Henry said. "You’re the one who called me."
"I am," Cardinal Roscoe said, nodding.
"You want to tell me what’s going on?" Henry asked.
Archbishop Hamilton picked the receiver up off the phone on his desk. "If you do not put that gun away, I will call the police."
"Archbishop Hamilton-" Roscoe sounded like he was scolding a child.
"Cardinal, I will not allow a man to openly hold a gun in my church."
Roscoe arched an eyebrow at the Archbishop.
"Half of my sermons are directed at the young people of this community," Hamilton said. "I’m trying to get them away from thinking guns are cool, that guns make a man more of a man. Do you understand what I’m saying? So what do you think they’ll think when they see a man walking around this church with a gun in his hand? They’ll think I let it happen. They’ll think I don’t practice what I preach. They’ll think that if a man can walk around in God’s house with a piece, they can walk around their house with a piece. And then I’ll be seeing on the news at eleven that one of my kids accidentally shot his little brother or sister with Daddy’s gun because they were walkin’ around with it like they saw someone doing in my church!"
The room was silent.
Henry looked at the Archbishop not with annoyance, but with a certain amount of respect. Not many people would speak that way to a stranger with a gun. It took either stupidity or bravery. The Archbishop did not seem stupid.
"Archbishop Hamilton," Cardinal Roscoe said. "Would you be so kind as to leave us?"
It was obvious by the way Hamilton reacted that he was not used to being dismissed. However, he silently bowed his assent and left the room, closing the door behind him. Roscoe turned his attention to Henry.
"Please," Cardinal Roscoe said. "You don’t need that here. We are your friends. We mean you no harm."
"It’s not me I’m worried about," Henry replied.
"I know." Roscoe looked at Sam. "I also know that you are committed to do whatever it takes to protect her…and so are we."
Henry just looked at Roscoe for several long seconds before moving the gun inside his coat. He didn’t replace the gun its holster, though, merely held it out of sight, hidden by the coat. "There’s one thing I don’t understand," Tina said, then she shook her head. "No, there’s a lot about this I don’t understand, but there’s one thing in particular that’s bothering me. Who would want to…do that to a little girl? To this little girl? It doesn’t make sense."
"I don’t think it’s something that any rational mind can make sense of," Roscoe answered. "It is artificial insanity disguised as the coldest logic."
"Artificial insanity?" Tina asked. "What does that mean?"
Roscoe let out a long sigh, his burrow knitted together as he looked at Henry with what seemed like a combination of pity and disbelief. "Maybe you should explain to her."
"Explain what?"
"Who you work for," Roscoe said.
Henry seemed almost to laugh.
"I don’t know who I work for," he said. "Worked for, I should say. Past tense."
Roscoe’s expression tightened. He frowned. He bit his lower lip as he regarded Henry.
"What?" Henry asked, suspicious.
But Roscoe was the one who was suspicious. "I am afraid to say…I do not believe you. It is not possible!"
"Okay." Henry didn’t seem to care.
"How could you not know who you work for?" Tina asked him.
"I didn’t need to know."
"Did you ever ask?"
"Yes, I asked, and I was told that I didn’t need to know. The money was there after every job and that was good enough for me."
"Did you even know why you were doing what you were doing?" Roscoe asked.
"I knew enough. The people I was sent to…take care of…" He glanced at Sam, who was watching him. "They all had to go for the good of humanity. It didn’t matter whether or not they were good or bad…it didn’t matter whether they deserved to die… I just knew that someone, somewhere, had determined that they had to die for the greater good. And…it had been proven to me, that whoever was making these decisions had good information. Once it was proven to me, I never doubted again."
"How was it proven?" Tina asked.
Henry looked at her. "The Lion of India," was all he said.
"I will not debate with you the morality of what you have done," Cardinal Roscoe told Henry. "But I will tell you this: I know who it was that employed you."
Henry narrowed his eyes as he waited for Roscoe to go on.
"Have you heard of the artificial intelligence called Oracle?" Roscoe asked.
"Yes, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know anything about it."
"I know about Oracle," Tina said. "A little bit."
"You know that it was created by a United Nations mandate, that it is the most powerful computer in history and it was programmed to solve the seemingly intractable problems that have plagued our society for most of the last century."
"And?" Henry asked.
"Well, that is who you work for."
"The United Nations?" Tina asked.
Roscoe nodded once.
"You’re saying the U.N. sends an assassin around to off people for the good of humanity?" Tina asked.
"And the U.N. uses Oracle to determine who those people are," Roscoe added.
"That’s insane!" Tina looked at Henry, shaking her head. "How could you do it? Was it just for the money?"
"No, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand," he replied.
"The important thing now, though, is Samantha Rohde," Roscoe said. She looked at him, and he smiled back at her. "We have to do whatever we can to protect her. You, Sir-" He directed this at Henry. "You know how Oracle operates. Will it send other assassins once it has realized you did not do what you were sent to do?"
"Yes, it will."
"How long has one of your…targets lasted before you-"
"Six weeks."
"I see."
"Cardinal, when I went in for a job, I had everything I needed to complete the job. Fake identity, money, connections, cover story, a back-up plan if something went wrong, a second back-up if something else went wrong, the right clothes, the right code words to get me in where I needed to get in… No one ever stood in my way or tried to stop me. My employer’s resources were unlimited, and everything I was told about my target was true. If I was told the target would be in a certain place at a certain time, and that so many bodyguards would be there and what not… I was never surprised. Even if something did go wrong, which happened a few times…whatever happened was somethi
ng I knew might happen, and I was prepared to deal with it."
"Is that how it was with Sanchez in Mexico?" Roscoe asked. An edge had crept into his voice.
Henry didn’t answer right away. He looked at Roscoe’s suddenly intense eyes. The Cardinal seemed to burn within at this mention of the Generalissimo. "Yes, it was," Henry said.
"He was a good man," Roscoe told him. "A good man. He did not deserve to die."
"A lot of people die who don’t deserve to die," Henry responded calmly. "It was never my place to decide. Until this morning."
"Why this morning, all of a sudden?" Roscoe asked. "Why her?" He nodded towards Sam.
Henry didn’t look at her. "I have my reasons."
"Yes, I suppose you do. Just as I have my reasons for doing what I’m doing…and the Church has its reasons. And God has his reasons."
"Do you work for God?" Sam suddenly asked the Cardinal.
He blinked, taken by surprise. After a moment, he nodded, hesitantly.
"Can you ask him if Mommy and Daddy are in Heaven yet?" Sam asked.
Disarmed, Cardinal Roscoe had to clear his throat before replying. "I can try."
Sam watched him expectantly.
"You want me to ask him now?"
Sam nodded.
He looked at her. Her gaze locked onto his and wouldn’t let go. The innocence of a child, Roscoe thought. But children could be cruel in their innocence, Roscoe knew only too well from his own childhood as a stutterer. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. He could feel her watching him. Are they in Heaven, God?
He hoped he might feel some divine inspiration. He waited. Even just a tingle, something to make him feel that God had taken notice and responded…the way Roscoe had felt it in his younger days. Oh, he was full of the Holy Spirit then. Divine Guidance had led him wherever he went. Sometime ago, however, he awoke one morning to his prayers and had felt cold silence in response. It was the first time in his life that he had truly felt alone in the universe. He still believed, and wondered if God might be testing his faith. In a way, he felt that the situation he was in now might be the beginning of another test, maybe the ultimate test of his faith in Jesus Christ. There was something biblical about it all, a hit man sent to murder an innocent child, refusing to do it, a holy man coming to help save the child.
He opened his eyes. "Yes," Cardinal Roscoe told Sam, "your parents are in Heaven."
The way she looked at him, Roscoe could see it in her eyes. She could tell he was lying. God had not responded to his inquiry. Someone had once told Roscoe that true innocence could not be duped, could not be taken advantage of, could not be lied to… Maybe that’s what this was in the girl. True innocence. Like Christ himself.
Of course, someone had also once told him that true evil could be indistinguishable from true innocence.
"Now what?" Henry asked Roscoe.
"A safe house," Roscoe replied. "There’s a place not far from here where we can go for a little while, until I can get the necessary papers to get Samantha out of the country."
"Out of the country?" Tina asked. "To where?"
"Vatican City. We can protect her there."
"That’s insane," Tina said. "She probably has relatives here. They might have something to say about all this, don’t you think?"
"Neither of the parents had any siblings," Roscoe told Tina. "And Samantha’s grandparents are gone. We will take care of her, and more importantly we will be able to keep her safe."
"Don’t bet on that," Henry told him.
"Our resources are greater than you imagine," Roscoe told him.
"I don’t doubt it, but I still wouldn’t bet on it. Whoever my former employer is, whether the U.N. or not, I can tell you this: no one can keep the girl out of reach for very long. I know from experience."
"I am well aware of what we are up against," Roscoe said.
Blum had driven all the way from Dallas, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia in his black Ford pick-up with a singular purpose. To kill. This would be his first job for his unknown employer, and his second one altogether. The first one was the wife of big shot attorney in Dallas, and Blum had actually been picked up on that one, but his testimony landed the big shot attorney in prison for life, and got Blum off with only five years.
He came out with a taste for contract killing, and had been contacted not long after his release via anonymous e-mail. The first half of the money was in the bank, and already it was more than Blum could earn in half a lifetime as a short order cook, which was his only other skill. His intended victim was a little girl. Blum had no compunctions about killing anyone; man, woman or child…it didn’t matter. What mattered was the thrill of doing it, and the money.
The directions Blum had printed out led him to a big, red brick Catholic church on a corner right smack in the middle of downtown Atlanta. He backed his black pick-up onto the curb in front of the church. Anybody would think he was making a pick-up or delivery. He smirked to himself at his own cleverness.
He felt the bulge beneath his left arm, hidden by his thick, black leather jacket. Yeah it was hot, but he couldn’t just walk in with a .44 Magnum displayed for everyone to see. He knew he looked conspicuous in the jacket, of course, but he figured he’d be done with the job before anyone had a chance to worry about him. As he approached the massive wooden front doors of the church, he heard someone behind him clearing their throat.
"Oi, mate," a man said in an Australian accent.
Blum turned and found himself looking down the barrel of a riot shotgun. He didn’t even reach for the .44 Magnum snugly holstered under his arm. It only momentarily occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t been sent to kill after all, that instead he’d been sent to die. The shotgun roared and his world exploded.
Becker dropped the shotgun on the sidewalk and scooted across the street, which was empty save for the homeless man he’d seen earlier, still clutching his Starbucks cup, and a delivery van that had just rounded the corner at the opposite end of the street. He went down an alley behind a parking garage and emerged onto the next street, crossed the street and disappeared down another alley, following a preplanned escape route, just like always.
They heard the shotgun blast outside.
Tina yelled and practically leaped out of her skin. Almost automatically she pulled Sam close. Cardinal Roscoe frowned and stayed silent. Henry went smoothly to the window overlooking the street. He looked out and saw a shape duck into the alley across the street, leaving a bloody mess on the sidewalk next to a black pick-up truck and a discarded shotgun.
There was no way he could catch the shooter. Not that he wanted to try. If he left the church, he was certain that Roscoe, Sam, and Tina would be gone when he returned.
"What happened?" Tina asked.
"Someone shot someone else," Henry said.
"Oh my God. It’s not a coincidence, is it."
"I strongly doubt it."
Cardinal Roscoe went to the window and looked. Now the Archbishop was out there. He looked up, saw the Cardinal in the window. The Archbishop said a few words to several members of the church staff who’d gone out, then he went back into the church. A moment later they heard him come heavily up the stairs.
The door opened and he came back into his office.
"He has a gun," he told them. "The plates on his truck are from Texas. Any ideas why he would drive all the way from Texas to Atlanta? To my church? I’m told my sermons are long and boring, but they’re not so long and boring that someone would drive all the way from Texas to kill me!" He seethed with fury despite his apparently calm demeanor.
"Okay," Henry said to Roscoe. "We’ll try it your way. For now."
Chapter 14
The Dahl house was bigger than he’d expected. The red brick exterior and modest facade belied a spacious interior. A wide staircase led upstairs from the foyer, and beyond the staircase was a round library. The house was tastefully decorated in the modern European style, very understated, simple.
Ya
tin Kumar wandered around the party with a glass of Perrier in one hand, his other hand in his jacket pocket because he didn’t know what else to do with it. He recognized some of the U.N. delegates, but most of the people there were strangers to him. They all welcomed the opportunity to thank him for his work, telling him how much their countries appreciated the good things that had come to their people because of Oracle. A couple of them had attempted to engage Yatin in a discussion that was currently a hot topic among artificial intelligence aficionados, world politics junkies, and conspiracy theorists alike. Was the human race giving too much its decision-making power to A.I’s? There were some even within the U.N. who thought that Oracle had perhaps been too successful. There were others who wondered aloud what price one could put on peace and freedom. Small debates cropped up wherever Yatin went at the party, and no one seemed to notice how distracted and uninvolved he was. He had something besides Oracle on his mind. Someone.
And then he saw her. Annika Dahl glided across the floor like a ghost. Even though he’d seen digital photographs of her, he was amazed by her beauty in person. From the top of her head down to her toes she was perfection incarnate in Yatin Kumar’s smitten eyes. She wore the classic little black dress that accented her figure and showed off her toned arms and long legs. Her shoes were open-toe, black with silver stardust. She wore a thin silver necklace, small diamond earrings, and her hair was coiffed. Even from the other side of the room he could see her eyes glitter with intelligence and sensuality, a potent combination that Yatin saw affect every man around her as they turned their heads to greet her brightly.
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