by Sean McFate
“You are under arrest!” shouted a policeman, then read him his Miranda rights as two other men roughly threw him face-first on the coffee table and cuffed him.
“Wa-wait! There must be some mistake,” pleaded Jackson. The anger, scotch, head injury, and arrest had him drowning in cognitive dissonance.
“No mistake,” said the arresting officer in a commanding tone. The two other SWAT lifted him to his feet but he could not stand.
“What am I being charged with?” Jackson said in a wispy voice.
“Treason.”
Jackson let out an involuntary whimper as the men dragged him down his grand hallway, his bare feet dragging on the floor. The great room with twin wraparound staircases was lined with pictures of him meeting world leaders, advising presidents, international awards, American flags—all meant to impress and even intimidate guests. Blood dripped from Jackson’s head, smearing a trail on the polished oak floor.
“There must be a mistake, there must be a mistake. I’m George Jackson, the national security advisor. There must be a mistake,” he kept repeating softly.
The blast of winter air through his bathrobe coupled with the dozen cameras sobered him up as the FBI hauled him across the lawn. Jackson stared blankly at the news cameras, seeing the reporters’ mouths move but hearing nothing.
In a brief moment of self-awareness, he knew. His legacy could have been ending terrorism in America, negotiating a peace in the Middle East, putting China in its place. He was destined for greatness, something he had known since childhood. But it was not to be. This moment, on his front lawn, was to be his everlasting legacy: a scotch-soaked drunk in a bathrobe with blood running down his face, being perp-walked by the FBI for treason. Jackson wanted to float away but was instead thrown into the back of a SWAT vehicle.
Chapter 50
The Mercedes-Maybach made its way up the steep country road that was barely two cars wide. Dusk’s shadows darkened the forest, giving it a haunted feel, and Winters half expected Hansel and Gretel to emerge. Like the car, the forest seemed prolifically manicured. But that was Austria: cleanliness, order, and child-eating witches.
The aluminum briefcase sat next to Winters, and he kept a hand planted on it at all times. He checked his watch out of nervousness now rather than necessity. Winters disliked meeting his client, but especially since the operation had drifted so far off track.
What went wrong? he thought as the car took a tight turn. He had turned it over in his mind ever since boarding the jet in Dulles. Winters gazed out the window and twirled his cane in annoyance. The sun was disappearing, and the forest shadows grew opaque and creepy. How did it happen?
Locke, he thought with malice. He was the X factor, the independent variable, the free radical. Everything went awry when he appeared, an absolute surprise. No one could have foreseen it. You should have stayed dead! Winters did not even have the privilege of revenge. Jackson also took that away from him, and Winters squeezed the cane’s ivory monkey head in silent rage. Eternal shame is too good for you, Jackson, he thought as they rounded the last turn on the switchback. Crucifixion is better.
The car reached the top of the ridgeline, where a medieval castle stood, dominating the valley below. The lights of Vienna twinkled in the distance, and the Danube River meandered through the far plain. For most, it would have been an idyllic sight, but Winters was inured to its glory, unless it came with raw power.
The castle was lit up and well maintained, rare for an eight-hundred-year-old building. Like all citadels of the Middle Ages, it was not large compared to those of later centuries. But unlike eighteenth-century palaces, it was a true stronghold and not just a symbol. A central keep with banqueting hall was surrounded by high walls, each with a mixture of square and circular towers. Walls ten feet thick protected those inside, and battlements lined the ramparts that overlooked a dry moat. Perhaps it once had a drawbridge, too, but the Mercedes-Maybach drove up a ramp and fixed bridge. Immense wooden doors opened to swallow the vehicle, and the gate’s raised portcullis looked like teeth. After the Mercedes-Maybach passed, the portcullis came down.
Winters stiffened as the car came to a halt on the cobblestoned inner courtyard. Staff dressed as if they were plucked from a Habsburgian docudrama opened the car door and assisted Winters out. He shook them off, hating being touched. A valet reached in and retrieved the beat-up aluminum briefcase.
“Be careful with that,” snapped Winters, startling the man. Winters was far too jet-lagged and strained for pleasantries. “Take me to the master of the house.”
“He awaits you in the library,” said the head butler. Winters followed him into the keep, as did the valet carrying the steel case. The interior was fully updated with modern amenities yet retained its old-world personality: racks of antlers lined the plastered walls, suits of armor and weapons adorned the passages, and hefty wood furniture filled each chamber, along with rich tapestries and silks. With the exception of the lights, nothing looked younger than three hundred years old.
Looks like the goddamned Wizard of Oz in here, thought Winters. He didn’t care for the Old World. A man like him would have been hindered in the ancien régime owing to his low birth station while ingrate nobles raped the people, generation after generation. God bless America, he thought while passing through a hall of shields, each with an aristocratic coat of arms. Winters had always identified with Robespierre—a misunderstood revolutionary, in his mind.
“Herr Winters, the library,” said the manservant while heaving open large double doors. Winters hobbled in without acknowledging the butler. The medieval library was a three-story atrium lined with bookcases from floor to ceiling. Narrow steel balconies lined the walls, affording access to its leather-bound tomes, some dating back to the Gutenberg press. On the ceiling was a magnificent rococo mural depicting the heavens above, with an eight-pointed star at its zenith. Reading tables stacked with oversized books made the place look almost scholarly.
Winters walked into the middle of the library and heard the door clink shut behind him. At the far end of the room sat a gargantuan marble fireplace, ten feet wide, with an intricate carving of a forgotten battle, and an eight-pointed star at the center. Leather wingback chairs were arrayed around the blazing fire, all facing away from Winters and the entrance. Four Rottweilers lay sleeping at the blaze’s edge, weighing about 170 pounds each. A hand extended from one of the wingbacks and placed an empty cordial glass on the side table, next to a silver platter of raw meat.
All the money and connections in the world and the fool shuts himself up a library. What a failure of imagination, thought Winters with disdain as he limped over the oriental carpets. The four dogs lifted their heads in unison as he approached, and he froze. Winters hated dogs, especially these four.
“Mr. Winters, thank you for coming before I had to beckon you,” came an old man’s voice from the wingback, facing away from Winters. He was the library’s only occupant besides the dogs. His gravelly baritone spoke in Queen’s English with no trace of his Germanic heritage.
“You would never need to beckon me, Chevalier. A good servant always knows when he is needed before his master does,” coaxed Winters, flipping his bitterness into delighted sycophancy. Winters waited. After a pause, a hand emerged from the wingback and waved him forward. Winters tottered forth and the Rottweilers put their heads down.
“Are you here to deliver good news or the other type?” asked the man, still staring at the fire. He was in his eighties and had a long face, square jaw, puffiness under his eyes, and a receding line of formerly blond hair. The wrinkles on his face made him look rugged rather than old. On each hand he wore a large ring as old as the castle, one a family signet and the other an eight-pointed star.
“Good news,” responded Winters with a smile, standing in front of a man he knew only as the Chevalier, or “knight” in French, which puzzled him because the man was Austrian. In fact, he was more than Austrian; he was a true Habsburg, one of the last.
“Are you certain?”
His skepticism was an affront to Winters. “Absolutely. We have achieved all of our objectives. Per your commission, I have sewn seeds of chaos and distrust at the highest levels of the U.S. government. I have generated paranoia among the American people against terrorists. Some think Russia is behind it, but they are a small minority.” Winters coughed nervously, hoping it would not upset his patron. “The United States overwhelmingly believes terrorists are behind everything, and not Moscow.”
“And what of the instrument?”
The library’s double doors swung open and the valet carrying the aluminum briefcase appeared, as if summoned. The valet carefully laid down the case on an ottoman next to the Chevalier’s feet, and promptly disappeared. The old man looked slightly pleased to see the battered metal case.
“Voilà,” said Winters, beaming with pride. “A nuclear briefcase. The fate of three cities and whoever sits in the Oval Office rests at your feet.”
“Open it,” commanded the Chevalier, leaning forward with anticipation. Winters entered a combination in the ten-digit tumbler lock, which unlocked the side latches. Flipping them up revealed two small fingerprint readers. Simultaneously, he pressed both index fingers on the pads and heard an internal click. Winters opened the case and rotated it to face his client. The internal workings looked like a customized laptop with a handset, biometric authentication, and more buttons.
“Turn it on,” ordered the Chevalier.
“I can send for a technician—”
“Turn it on,” interrupted the old man.
Winters paused.
“Activate it, Mr. Winters,” repeated the Chevalier. “I must have absolute confidence in the genuineness of the instrument before I deliver it to the people I represent.”
Was the medieval fossil going to nuke a city? thought Winters, then wondered whether he would be horrified or impressed. “May I please sit to do this?” The Chevalier always made his servants stand. Only peers were allowed to sit.
How I loathe this antiquated turd, thought Winters behind his amicable smile.
The man nodded. Winters sat down in a wingback and pulled the ottoman closer so he could work the nuclear trigger. He fished out a necklace from inside his shirt and removed the control key from its end. It resembled a thumb drive, but only fit this unique nuclear briefcase. Winters inserted the key into the control panel, and the laptop lit up. It scanned his face, iris, all fingerprints, and accepted a pass-code sentence that Winters typed. The screen changed from sky blue to a world map. A few keystrokes later, three bombs with eleven-digit numbers appeared on the map.
Winters smiled and spun the metal briefcase to face the Chevalier. “There you are. New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Their fate is in your hands. You can blackmail presidents, auction off a mushroom cloud, or blow up one just to create mayhem.”
“I want proof of concept.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Mr. Winters. I want proof concept. Destroy a city.”
Winters was speechless. You don’t shoot hostages just to prove they can die, otherwise you lose your leverage. “Did you have a particular city in mind?”
“No. Any one will do.”
Winters’s throat went dry and he could feel his palms get sweaty. Despite what some believed, he was a businessman and not a mass murderer. Yet his client demanded it, and the client was always right. Winters looked at the map with the nukes. Which city would he end today? Los Angeles was smug and always took national security for granted, making them an ideal candidate. Or maybe New York, where he was mugged once as a kid. Nuking Washington would eliminate a few personal enemies, a nice perk.
“How about DC?” offered Winters.
“Fine.”
Winters worked the keyboard, and the Chevalier leaned closer to observe. Using the track pad, Winters selected the bomb located in Washington and clicked it. The screen zoomed to a satellite image of Sixteenth and O Streets, just five blocks from the White House. Winters had his teams hide all three nuclear weapons; he knew the noisome inhabitants of this building, and he grinned.
Gotcha, he thought with contentment. Winters right-clicked the target indicator on the map, and a menu appeared. He scrolled down to “Detonate.” Click. A safety screen appeared:
Do you wish to detonate K-class weapon 0124?
Latitude: 38.909140 Longitude:-77.037150
ConfirmCancel
“Sir?” asked Winters, turning to the Chevalier, who continued to stare at the screen. The “Cancel” button was blinking but the cursor stood over “Confirm.”
“Remarkable,” said the Chevalier at last.
“Would you like me to confirm?” asked Winters, holding his finger over the “Enter” key.
“No, no, not necessary, Mr. Winters. I am satisfied,” said the Chevalier as he leaned back into his seat once more. “Shut it down.”
Winters exhaled more loudly than he wished as he pressed “Cancel” and shut down the system. The valet appeared again, as if summoned, to take the aluminum case away.
“My client will be pleased,” said the Chevalier, who was a cutout for an end client. They never spoke of it, but Winters knew it was the Kremlin.
“You will need a technician to reset the pass codes so your client can operate the controller,” said Winters, watching his greatest achievement disappear into a side room of crossbows.
“We already have such a technician on-site,” said the Chevalier. “He will inspect the equipment now.”
You were testing me, you bastard! thought Winters with spite.
“You have done well, Mr. Winters,” said the Chevalier, and Winters nodded sagaciously. “Everything went nearly according to plan. Nearly.”
Winters looked up, confused. “I delivered on all your objectives, did I not?”
The Chevalier shook his head. “All except the most important of all: anonymity. We cannot abide the battle on the Mall last evening. It was too public. Secrecy is our safety and strength, and you have exposed us,” said the Chevalier, using the royal we. “As they say in medicine: ‘Doctor, the operation was a success, but the patient is dead.’ You delivered our objectives but made a pig’s breakfast of the entire affair.”
“With respect, Chevalier, let me explain—”
The Chevalier interrupted him before Winters could continue. “No. Your actions speak for you.” The man’s voice was firm, and one of the dogs lifted his head in concern. “You disappoint me, Winters.”
“I can assure you, Chevalier, none of this will blow back on you or your client,” soothed Winters. “Terrorists and their collaborators will ultimately take the blame, as you instructed. I’ve fabricated an ‘insider threat’ terrorist scenario within Washington circles, so that everything will fall on the heads of two individuals. The first is George Jackson, the national security advisor who regrettably went insane. The second is Tom Locke, a lowlife mercenary turned nuclear terrorist. The evidence trail will lead to them; I have arranged it.”
“And where are they now?”
Winters smiled, feeling the Chevalier coming around. “Jackson has been arrested for treason, and I will manufacture the necessary proof to see him convicted. Locke was killed last night.” Winters shifted uneasily, as his men had yet to find Locke’s body. However, how could he survive a direct hit from a Hellfire missile? Locke had to be dead. “It’s easy to blame a dead man with a suspicious past.”
“Dead?” asked the Chevalier in a tone that unsettled Winters. “Are you certain?”
“Absolutely, my Chevalier,” said Winters, concealing alarm that the Chevalier might know something he did not. “Locke was killed by missile fire on the Mall, and a good thing too. He was in a convoy leading a group of renegade mercenaries. They were hired by a rich Middle Eastern monarchy, or at least that is how it will play out. Thankfully, the American military learned of Locke’s plans and took him out on the Mall last night. That was the true impetus for the bat
tle: to stop Locke and his terrorist plot.”
“Is that so?” asked the Chevalier in mild surprise.
Winters grinned internally, believing he had successfully circumnavigated the Locke affair. Now to seize the initiative.
“Who do you think tipped off the Americans? It was me,” said Winters. “It was the only reason they caught Locke so quickly. I saved you too, Chevalier. Locke was a dangerous man. He was a greater threat to you than you realize. It was worth the risk.”
The Chevalier’s expression soured. “I will judge threats and risks, not you. Do you understand me, Winters? I can use capable men regardless if they are good or evil. All men are governable, for those with the acumen to do it. My family has been doing it for a very long time. Now, which do you think you are, Mr. Winters: governor or governed?”
The geriatric reprobate! thought Winters, and was tempted to withdraw the hidden sword inside his cane and slice the dunce’s throat open. Then he eyed the sleeping Rottweilers. Time for that later, he thought.
“Your quiet is confirmation enough,” continued the Chevalier, and Winters hand tightened around the ivory monkey head. “We have doubts about you, Mr. Winters. We even question whether you comprehend the task we commissioned you to perform. Your brusque methods may have imperiled us.” The Chevalier paused, allowing the implications to fester in Winters’s mind. The Rottweilers lifted their heads, as if on cue, to glare at Winters. “That is unforgivable.”
“Sir, I think there may be a misunderstanding,” said Winters coolly.
“Locke is alive!” bellowed the octogenarian, the dogs looking up in alarm.
“Alive?” stammered Winters, his face pale. “Impossible!”
“What is impossible is your dim grasp of reality, Mr. Winters.” The old man flung a piece of meat at one of the Rottweilers. It ripped the meat with its mandibles before swallowing it with an audible gulp. Winters stood and unconsciously took a step backward.
