The Fellowship

by William Tyree

  Ellis tried to block out the pain and think. Why was the Beard praying? Was he asking God for forgiveness, or was he giving thanks for the latest prey that had fallen into his trap?

  She managed to raise her head and get her bearings. She must have been dragged from the place where she had fallen. She was underneath Borst now, right next to the Beard’s fallen companion. The Beard would probably finish Borst off and drag her upstairs, like he had done to her boyfriend. Then it’s my turn, she thought. The strappado.

  Carver and Speers would eventually find their way here, she realized. They would find her in a heap on the floor, her body scarred by the telltale signs of the rope torture. And slipped inside her shirt would be an octagon. Just like the one they found on the others. And they would look at the number of wounds on her body and based on that, they would try to deduce how much information she had given up. It was the last thing she could control, she realized. Her life was over, but she could decide to stay strong, to keep her mouth shut until the end.

  She spotted the twitching man’s Taser gun, perhaps four feet away now. If only she could get to it.

  Mary. Mary. Mary. The voice again. Ghostly, as if blown in from the Puget Sound. Mary. She looked up to see if angels might be hovering overhead. It was the opposite. The motion of Vera Borst’s body had slowed, but the rope still carried her back and forth over the twitching man. She had stopped wailing. Her eyes were open now. She couldn’t seem to move her head, but her eyes were tracking, and they looked deep into Ellis’. Her lips moved, more of a whispering wind than a human voice. They want Mary.

  Why did they want Mary?

  My daughter. The virgin. They know. It’s her that they want.

  A boot struck the back of Ellis’ head. Someone was using her brain as a soccer ball. Roman candles showered her eyelids as the pain flowed through her skull and neck. A sick wetness oozed from her scalp.

  She did not fully lose consciousness. The fading electrical shock seemed to have numbed her senses somewhat, but the texture of the rope fiber was unpleasant against the delicate skin of her wrists. A knot rose on the back of her head.

  Blinding light suddenly filled the room. She squeezed her eyes shut and still saw nothing but white. A passage to the other side.

  But something was burning. Her ears were filled with a screeching that all but drowned out Borst’s soft moans. Ellis flipped onto her side and saw her tormentor. The Beard. Hair and hood alight in flame, pawing at his flaming face.

  Rome

  With night fallen, Carver’s return walk along the Tiber River was a luxurious indulgence. The Tiber snaked directly through the heart of the city, running under one historic bridge after another. He followed it, peering down narrow streets, admiring the medieval architecture

  Ellis still had not returned his call. Don’t think about it, he told himself. She’s fine. She can take care of herself.

  As the city geared up for another frenetic evening, the quiet reflection of the moon against the gently flowing river was the perfect antidote to the chaos of the mission. Soon, Castel Sant'Angelo came into view. It had been there all along – perhaps two football fields from the palazzo where they stayed – and yet he found himself truly seeing it for the first time.

  What a glorious visual disaster Castel Sant'Angelo was, especially in a city that valued symmetry and architectural integrity. He considered the dome of the Pantheon, masterfully engineered into a near-perfect sphere. And the elliptical balance that Bernini had achieved in designing St. Peter’s Square, complete with the Egyptian obelisk providing a hub for the four rows of Doric columns on its outer perimeter.

  And yet here was Sant'Angelo, a monstrosity of ancient architecture, reimagined in multiple phases over nearly two thousand years, having slowly evolved from Hadrian’s tomb into a fortress that was the site of both battles and executions. Even now it remained linked from the Papal Apartments by an elevated passage where popes had sought refuge over the millennia. Sant'Angelo seemed to embody, more than any other structure, everything that Rome was to Carver.

  He turned onto Via della Conciliazione, slowing his pace and checking both sides of the streets. The meeting with Callahan had raised his anxiety levels. During Operation Crossbow, the priest had been the perfect contact, having provided both the malware and the means to infiltrate Adrian Zhu’s network. But as much as Callahan’s information had proven that he was a valuable contact, Carver worried that the priest might alert Vatican Intelligence to his presence in the city.

  Nothing seemed to be stirring, not even at the street’s lone café. The palazzo was up on the left. St Peter’s Cathedral glowed imposingly at the far end of the street, beyond St. Peter’s Square.

  The American scanned the lobby before heading inside. Nothing was stirring. He stepped inside slowly as a group of drunken tourists emerged from Le Colonne. He followed them into the elevator and headed up to his floor.

  The smell of eggs and coffee greeted Carver as he entered the suite. Clothed in a hotel bathrobe, Nico sat on a barstool with a plate full of food and his computer before him.

  Carver lifted the top off of a second breakfast plate. He frowned at the sight of the sausage, eggs and coffee.

  “Brinner is served,” Nico said.

  “What happened to ‘When in Rome’? This is like an All-American So-and-So Slam at Denny’s.”

  “Mmmm. Denny’s. Never thought I’d say this, but I’m homesick for American food.”

  Carver played an imaginary tiny violin. “Any progress?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Nico said, “I’m going to show you something. And afterwards, I’d like you to say, ‘Thank you, Nico. Great work.’”

  “Never expect a ‘thank you.’ Life is less disappointing that way.”

  Nico turned his laptop so that Carver could see it. The screen was a table of airlines and hotel names cross-indexed with locations and dates. “Ever hear of the Advocate Committee for Small Island Developing States? Or maybe the Investment Council for Landlocked Developing Countries?”

  Carver shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Neither has anyone else. An exact match for those names won’t even come up in a plain old web search. But both Senator Preston and Sir Gish traveled to properties where hotel meeting rooms were reserved in those names numerous times over the last five years.” He pointed to his grid. “Over those five years, the two men took a combined 68 trips outside their home countries per year on a combination of official and unofficial business. I was able to find evidence that they were in the same place, at the same time, at least 19 of those times.”

  Carver sat down. “So what?”

  “So…I’m not even sure that these committees really exist. I think they made them up just in case somebody started asking questions.”

  “How’d you find this stuff? Did you break into their frequent flier accounts?”

  “If only it was that easy. These guys were fairly well-heeled. They took a lot of private charters. So I had to mash up credit card purchase history with frequent flier accounts, hotel points accounts, hotel POS systems and, of course, their personal communications. Preston was clearly less careful with privacy than his British counterpart. He even sent emails to his wife a couple of times disclosing the actual location and the committee name.”

  Carver grinned. “Not bad. I knew that trip to South Africa would pay off.”

  Nico folded his arms across his chest. “That statement is entirely self-congratulatory.”

  “It’s as close to a ‘thank you’ as you’re going to get right now. We have more work to do. I need to know who else attended those meetings. I need to know what they were working on.”

  His phone rang. Speers’ face lit up on the Caller ID.

  Carver answered. And he could tell by the darkness in Speers’ tone that he should sit down for whatever news was coming next.

  Harborview Trauma Center

  Seattle

  Speers stood outside Ellis’ hospital room, watc
hing through the glass as a physician bent over her bed, holding a tiny flashlight between his thumb and forefinger. He tilted it up, left, and then right, watching as Ellis’ pupils followed the light. He straightened up, smiled and listened as she spoke. He was Asian, about five foot nine, with a clean-shaven, kind face.

  Ellis did not look nearly as shiny and new. Her entire body was bruised. Her arms and legs were nicked up, as if she had walked through a sandstorm. The back of her head was swollen and bandaged, having received a number of stitches. Her bottom lip was busted, and the expression on her face could only be described as bewilderment.

  It was nearly noon. Speers had just arrived. When the call had come that Ellis was in a Seattle trauma center, he had been sure it was a mistake. He would have gladly wagered a month’s salary that Ellis and her sister were over at the Mayflower under the protection of Jack McClellan’s security detail.

  Speers could not remember the last time he had traveled alone. He had not just one federal agency at his disposal, but all of those in the American intelligence community. He typically traveled with staffers that coordinated his meetings, accommodations and transportation. Nearly any of the DNI’s employees would take his call at any time, and do virtually anything he asked of them. But when it came to this case – which now counted victims on both American coasts as well as Europe – he could count the number of confidents with full operational clearance on one hand. His own deputy director, Claire Shipmont, had zero visibility into the operation. President Eva Hudson was keenly aware, but was being purposely kept ignorant of the details for her own protection. Arunus Roth, who at this moment was probably drinking his 12 Red Bull of the day in the McLean office. Blake Carver, who was still half a world away. And the Brits, who had still shared very little intelligence despite Carver and Ellis’ in-person visit to London.

  FBI Director Chad Fordham, the only other agency director with knowledge of the case, was scheduled to arrive shortly.

  Local police had found the heinous Vashon Island crime scene in which three people had been murdered, and another in critical condition. Ellis had apparently been electrocuted and beaten. Thank God for Fordham. With one call, he had ordered a pair of local bureau agents to seal the crime scene. It had been far too late to contain the situation, of course. The mess Ellis had stumbled into was already the talk of the local police department.

  Now the doctor emerged from Ellis’ room and closed the door behind him

  “You can see her,” the doctor said, “but you have to go easy. She doesn’t even know who she is right now.”

  “By that you mean…”

  “Exactly what I said. She can’t remember her own name. It’s a pretty bad concussion. The good news is that the chance of permanent brain damage is minimal. In cases like this, amnesia is usually temporary.”

  Speers was beside himself. “Usually?”

  “Usually there’s no memory of the blunt trauma that caused the concussion, and sometimes there’s a blackout window that spans a few hours or days before it happened.”

  “You don’t know Ellis,” Speers said. “She’s a combat vet.”

  “Iraq?”

  And D.C. too, Speers thought but didn’t say. He had managed to keep quiet the names of most the combatants that defended the capital in the Ulysses Coup. They were heroes, for sure, but they had also been forced to kill Americans to save the nation’s soul. The families of those Ulysses USA fighters weren’t about to forget so easily. Even now, the FBI had planted moles within a militia in South Carolina that was plotting revenge.

  “Don’t underestimate this,” the doc warned. “It looks like she was in one hell of a fight.” The doctor opened the door to Ellis’ room. “Shall we?”

  With the help of his cane, Speers got to his feet and entered the room with the doctor close behind. “Look who’s here,” the doc said. “You recognize this guy, Haley?” Ellis said nothing. The doc turned back to Speers. “Five minutes, and not a minute more.”

  He shut the door on his way out. Speers pulled up a plastic orange chair and sat, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his legs. He didn’t know what to say.

  “This is really weird for me, okay? I’m Julian Speers. I’m your boss.”

  “I don’t like it here,” Ellis replied. “I need to go outside. Can we go outside? Right now?”

  “Later,” he said. “Haley, do you know why you came to Seattle? I need you to try to remember.”

  She shrugged, clearly too exhausted to even try.

  There was so much he needed to know. Had Ellis known Mary Borst’s mother would be in danger? Was she operating on a hunch, or had she seen something in Nathan Drucker’s work that led her to that conclusion? How did Sebastian Wolf fit into the picture? The answers were locked away in the rafters of Ellis’ mind.

  He reached into his pocket, removed his phone, and pulled up a photo of Jenna Ellis that he had taken at the Mayflower Hotel just before heading to the airport. He handed the phone to Ellis and waited a moment as she looked at the photo.

  “You know her?”

  Ellis peered at it uncertainly. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “That’s your sister,” Speers pressed. “Her name is Jenna.”

  Haley handed the phone back. “I want to go outside.”

  Now tears streamed down her cheeks. She clutched the sheets, pulling them to her chin, then up over her face. Speers sat on the edge of the mattress. He wiped the tears away with the cuff of his shirt, turning it so that his cuff links wouldn’t scratch her face.

  He thought of his elderly neighbor back in Georgetown, Mrs. Tenningclaus, and her late husband who had suffered from dementia in the months before he died. In the early days, before he had to be confined to a facility that was skilled at keeping forgetful patients safe, Speers had seen him get so frustrated over his lack of memory that he was verbally abusive. Sometimes he would cry. Other times he would throw things. Once, he had hit his wife in the forehead with an ashtray.

  Until he had seen Mr. Tenningclaus’ slow, cruel deterioration, death by fire had been Speers’ biggest fear. Now it wasn’t even close. His fear was not knowing who he was anymore. The thought was terrifying. It seemed worse than death. Like not existing at all. Seeing Ellis like this was unbearable. Was she still in there?

  *

  Speers went to a print shop near the University of Washington, where he personally scanned every page of the Nathan Drucker manuscript, as well as a set of handwritten notes he had retrieved from Ellis’ backpack. He then uploaded them to the mission cloud and ordered Carver to read them right away. Ellis couldn’t tell him what had led her to hop on a plane bound for Seattle to visit Ms. Borst, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with Drucker’s research.

  Now he sat in a corner of the hospital cafeteria with his ailing ankle propped up on an opposing chair. He ate from two heaping plates of Jello while reviewing the Vashon crime scene photographs that he had downloaded to his tablet computer.

  He clipped a facial photograph of the dead perp who had been found underneath Borst’s suspended body. Then he uploaded it to a secure site where Arunus Roth could access it, tapping out a short message: Give this creep a facial.

  “Facial” was short for 3D Facial Recognition System, an invaluable intelligence tool that had first been developed by researchers at Technion, the oldest technology university in Israel, and had since been improved with the help of certain companies in Silicon Valley. He followed with photographic copies of the passports belonging to the two perps’, which he assumed were false. Finishing the image gallery was a pic of the tattoo on the perp’s shoulder, as the IC possessed a separate database that cross-indexed profiles with tattoos and birthmarks.

  The most important image – those of two octagons that looked, to Speers’ eyes, identical to those found in the D.C., Rome and London murders – he uploaded for Carver’s eyes only. Gory as it was, he also sent Carver a video clip of Ms. Borst suspended by her wrists.

&nb
sp; Carver continued to amaze him. Within the first two minutes of studying Senator Preston’s wounds – the ruined wrists, the dislocated shoulders, the gashes across his front – Carver had correctly surmised the precise method of torture. And here, in full color, was absolute proof.

  He did not have time to send Carver a qualifying statement. His phone announced the arrival of Chad Fordham, who was, at this very moment, waiting for him in the lobby. Having eaten every morsel of the Mediterranean pizza he had ordered, Speers left the tray on the table and made his way toward the lobby.

  The FBI director looked cold and pale and his head was drenched from drizzle. Fordham was only in his mid- 50s, but he maintained a “natural bald” look – the sides and back of his head were unshaven – that pegged him as a man from a different era.

  Speers extended his hand. “Appreciate you coming.”

  “How is she?” Fordham asked.

  “Too banged up to tell me what led her here in the first place.”

  “Are these the a-holes that did the senator?”

  Speers spoke in an elevated whisper. “We don’t know. But even if they are, they can’t also be the people who killed Gish. There are more bad guys out there.”

  “Still can’t rule out Mary Borst as a person of interest.”

  “It’s looking more and more like she was running scared. Her boss and her mother were on these animals’ hit list. She probably thought she was next.”

  “Agreed. I just wish we could find her.”

  The intelligence czar consulted his facility map, then motioned toward a hallway that would lead them to the central tower. “The surviving perp should be out of surgery by now.”