The Covenant Of The Flame

by David Morrell

  'May the Lord be with you,' the chameleon said.

  'And with your spirit,' the five men replied.

  'Deo gratias,' all six of them said together, completing the ritual.

  The chameleon scanned his fellow hunters. 'To begin, I must make a confession.'

  The group narrowed their eyes, straightening as best they could in the confinement of their diminutive chairs.

  'You.' The chameleon nodded toward the sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, who unlike the others was somewhat overweight. 'Earlier we exchanged compliments about our respective skills. But I'm forced to admit that I've made a mistake in terms of my skills, or at least my team has made a mistake, and I always take responsibility for the men I've trained.'

  'What sort of mistake?' The second man tilted his glasses, frowning over them.

  'One of the enemy tried to intercept photographs that the woman took in our target's apartment.'

  The fourth man hunched his broad shoulders. 'Perhaps the attempt was an unrelated matter. We've been distracted by false alarms before. How can you be positive that this person is one of the enemy?'

  'He has gray eyes,' the chameleon said.

  'Ah.' The third man pursed his thin lips. 'In that case…'

  'Indeed.' The fifth man's gaunt cheeks throbbed.

  'I entered the photo shop and pretended to be a customer. I stood as close to him as I am now to you,' the chameleon said. 'I couldn't fail to recognize the characteristics. He might as well have been the target's brother.'

  'Perhaps he was,' the broad-shouldered fourth man said. 'I still don't understand. What was your mistake?'

  'My responsibility was to follow the woman. My team's responsibility was to pursue and capture the man.' The chameleon shook his head in distress. They failed.'

  'What?' The sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, glared. 'They saw him leave the shop and…!'

  'He was brilliant. From reports I was given, he seemed to sense immediately that he was being stalked. He ran. My team gave chase. He darted down alleys. He rushed across streets, veering through traffic. Still he was chased. He entered a restaurant.'

  'And?'

  The chameleon raised his hands. 'He vanished.'

  'How?'

  'If my team had been able to determine that, they certainly would have continued to chase him. I repeat, I accept responsibility for their failure.'

  'But that does no good,' the sixth man continued. 'Accept as much blame as you want. The ultimate fact is, the enemy was within your team's grasp, but they didn't succeed.'

  'Yes.' The chameleon lowered his head. 'That's the ultimate fact.'

  'He must have had an escape route planned.' The third man pursed his lips again.

  'No doubt,' the solidly built fourth man said. They're like ferrets. They can dodge and squirm and find holes where you'd never expect. How else could they have eluded us for so long?'

  'That's not the point,' the overweight sixth man objected. Their survival skills are well known. But we're supposed to be better.'

  'And we are.' The second man adjusted his glasses. 'Because virtue is on our side. But sometimes it appears that providence tests our determination.'

  'I don't accept rationalizations. If what you're telling me is that the Lord helps those who help themselves, then we're obviously not trying hard enough!' The sixth man glowered toward the chameleon. 'Or in this case, you and your team aren't trying hard enough. Certainly I've done my part. I installed a tap on the woman's phone and on the policeman's phone within an hour of your instructions. I also arranged for our people in Washington to be able to monitor calls made from car phones. Every important government executive has one these days, although I don't understand why they use them, given the security risk.'

  'What more do you want me to say? I can't change the past. However, I can resolve to do better in the future.'

  'But this isn't the first time you've made mistakes!' the sixth man added. 'When you managed to find our target, you should have arranged immediately for his abduction and interrogation!'

  'I disagree.' The chameleon gestured. 'Since the target didn't realize he'd been discovered, I thought it prudent to continue watching him in case he might lead us to other targets or…'

  'But why would he have done such a foolish thing? The man was a fugitive from his group. They wanted him as much as we did.'

  'Exactly,' the chameleon said. 'We waited in case his group caught up to him. As a consequence, we'd have had other vermin to capture, question, and eliminate.'

  'Regardless, the tactic failed,' the sixth man complained. 'His group did discover where he was, and instead of being captured, they succeeded in eliminating him.'

  'It was raining that night. The weather interfered with-'

  The sixth man scoffed, 'The weather. How did the target's fellow vermin catch up to him?'

  The chameleon scowled. 'Probably using the same method we did. The target was skilled in hiding. He constructed a new identity for himself. He never stayed longer than six months in any city. He arranged for elaborate smoke screens to conceal where he lived. In theory, he was undetectable. But human nature is imperfect. There were certain things about the man that he couldn't or wouldn't change. Specifically his fascination with video documentaries. That's how we found him the first time in Los Angeles, by checking the video companies. Of course, he'd moved on before we found his employer. But then we picked up his trail once more, the same way, in Chicago. Yet again he'd moved on. But finally, after using all the resources at our disposal, we located him at Truth Video in Manhattan. And if we could find him that way, I take for granted that the vermin he was running from could.'

  'Still, that raises another question,' the muscular fourth man said. 'After they executed the target, appropriately by fire, the same method we would have used, why did they also set fire to his apartment, and why did they wait several days before they did it?'

  'My surveillance team tells me that the target's hunters never entered his apartment the night they killed him,' the chameleon said. 'From Friday evening onward, he acted with greater caution, as if he suspected he'd been located. He broke an appointment with the woman, Tess Drake, on Saturday morning. He remained in his apartment all that day. Saturday night, he apparently decided to flee under cover of the storm. My team had concluded that his behavior was too erratic. They planned to grab him while they could, in the middle of the night as he slept. But that plan was interrupted when other targets arrived, with the same intention as our group. Events occurred quickly. The hunters discovered their quarry when he rushed down the stairs. As we know, the man was in superb physical condition.'

  'Well, aren't they all?' the second man asked rhetorically.

  'But he was also skilled in hand-to-hand combat,' the chameleon said. 'He fought with his hunters, eluded them, raced from the building, but during the fight, he'd injured his leg and-'

  'Yes, yes,' the electronics expert said impatiently. 'They trapped him and burned him alive before your team could formulate a new plan and, if not capture and interrogate, at least exterminate them all. Another nest would have been wiped out.'

  'You weren't there. Don't make judgments,' the chameleon said. 'My team was composed of three men, sufficient for their original mission. But the target and his hunters amounted to six. The only equalizer would have been pistols. But in so heavily guarded an area as the mayor's house near Carl Schurz Park, if there'd been shooting, the police would immediately have been put on alert and blockaded the district. My team could not take the risk of being captured and questioned by the authorities.'

  'What risk?' the sixth man growled. 'Your men knew the rule. If they were captured, before they could be interrogated, they had an obligation to kill themselves.' He tapped his ruby ring and the poison capsule hidden beneath the stone on his and every other ring.

  'I wonder,' the chameleon said. 'In my team's place, would you have been eager to take a chance that you knew would fail, with the
certainty that you'd have to kill yourself?'

  'You bet your soul, I would.'

  'No, not my soul. Yours,' the chameleon said. 'I doubt you'd have risked being captured. You're a technician, not a combat operative, and your pride makes you want to live too much.'

  'Maybe you don't hate the vermin as much as I do,' the sixth man said.

  'I doubt that as well.'

  'You're evading the issue. The fire in the apartment. What about it?'

  'My assumption is that the other targets had made such a commotion in the apartment building that they didn't dare go back right away for fear of being found by the police. Also it may be that the targets concluded that the man who called himself Joseph Martin had been so scrupulous about hiding his true nature that he wouldn't leave anything incriminating in his apartment. That's all speculation, but this is not. We know that they decided to watch the woman he'd befriended, in case she behaved in a way that suggested she knew his secret. We, of course, watched the woman because she was the only connection we had with the target. She went to the morgue and managed to identify his body. The next day, the detective from Missing Persons took her to the target's apartment. Immediately afterward, she left a roll of film at a one-hour developing service. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that she must have found something of such interest in the target's apartment that she took photographs there and wanted them developed at once. When one of the target's executioners failed to get the photos, he and the others decided that the apartment now had sufficient priority for them to risk going back. Whatever they found, they needed to destroy it. And fire, of course, not only purifies. It conceals theft.'

  'But what did they find?' the third man asked.

  'My guess?' The chameleon hesitated. 'An altar.'

  The fourth man gasped.

  'Probably one of their statues. That, above all, they would have to retrieve. Regardless if someone had seen it and taken photographs of it, the revelation wouldn't matter as much as the object itself. The statue would be too sacred to them for it to be allowed to fall into unclean hands.'

  The group squinted in disgust.

  'God damn them,' the second man said.

  'He has,' the sixth man said. 'But now, after having come so close, we've lost them.'

  'Not necessarily,' the chameleon said.

  'Oh?' The fifth man raised his head.

  'You've got a new lead?' the fourth man asked.

  'They appear to have become fixated on the woman,' the chameleon said. 'Recent events suggest that they believe she knows too much, especially given the photographs she took and then, of course, her sudden trip to Alexandria, Virginia. As we know from our background check, her father was powerful in the government and had many even more powerful associates with whom her mother remains in contact. It would appear that the woman, Tess Drake, is determined to find out why her friend died. It would also appear that our targets are equally determined to stop her and conceal all evidence of their existence.'

  'Wait. A moment ago, you said "recent events".' The sixth man straightened.' What recent events?

  'Well,' the chameleon said. 'Yes.' He hesitated. They're the reason I requested this meeting.' His eyes and voice became somber. 'Last night…'

  He described what had happened to his counterpart.

  'They burned him?' The sixth man turned pale.

  'Yes.' The chameleon tasted bile as he stood from the dusty teacher's desk. 'Our watcher had two men working with him. Both were on foot, one hiding behind the mansion in case the woman went out the back, the other farther along the street, among bushes. The latter man saw a silver Corniche leave the mansion. When the car drove by, he managed to get its license number, eventually using his contacts to find out who owned the car. That's how we know that Brian Hamilton was at the mansion. The latter man also saw the assassin rush toward the watcher's car and shoot him. The next thing, the assassin drove the Taurus away. The watcher's backup man hotwired a Cadillac on the street and pursued. He found the Taurus burning in a shopping mall's otherwise empty parking lot. When he realized that there wasn't any way he could help, he left the scene before the police arrived.'

  'But if our man was already shot, why did they…?' The second man's voice cracked.

  'Set fire to him?' The chameleon grimaced. 'No doubt, to make an example. To demoralize us.'

  'In that case, they failed,' the third man said with fury. They'll pay. I'll put them in hell.'

  'We all will,' the sixth man said.

  'And make them pay for other things as well,' the chameleon said, his mouth tasting sour.

  'You mean there's more?' The fourth man jerked upright, inadvertently banging his knees against the top of the small desk.

  'Unfortunately. Last night, at the same time our operative was shot while he watched the mansion…"

  NINE

  Brian Hamilton set down the cellular telephone in the shadowy back seat of his silver Corniche, frowned, and leaned forward toward his bodyguard-driver. 'Steve, you heard?'

  The husky, former Marine, an expert in reconnaissance, nodded firmly. 'That was Eric Chatham. You want me to drive to his home.'

  'Exactly. Get me to West Falls Church as soon as possible.'

  'I'm already headed toward the freeway.'

  With that taken care of, Brian Hamilton slumped back and brooded. The story that Tess had told him… and the photographs she'd shown him… troubled him greatly. Whoever the man called Joseph Martin had really been, there was something he'd been hiding.

  Or running from. Hamilton was sure of that. Yes. Whatever that something might be, it was as terrible as the blood-stained whip in Joseph Martin's closet and the grotesque sculpture that Tess had photographed.

  Back at the mansion, Hamilton had described that photograph as weird, but the adjective understated his severe revulsion. The bas-relief statue filled him with disgust.

  He bit his lip, with a deepening apprehension that Tess had become involved in something so twisted and dangerous that it might get her killed. Hadn't she said that she feared she was being followed?

  Hamilton's jaw muscles hardened. Whatever was going on, he intended to use all his power, all his influence, every I.O.U. at his disposal to find out what threatened Tess and to make sure it was stopped.

  After all, he owed her. For several reasons. Not the least of which was that he'd been her father's friend but had followed orders from his superiors and reluctantly sent Remington Drake to Beirut to negotiate a secret arms deal with the Christians against the Moslems. As a consequence, he'd been responsible for her father's abduction by the Moslems, Drake's torture, and eventual brutal death. It wasn't any wonder that Tess hated him. By all means, she had good reason. But if helping her and possibly saving her life would erase that hate, Brian Hamilton had all the motivation he needed, especially since her mother and he had come to an arrangement. After all, he couldn't very well have a stepdaughter who loathed him.

  Continuing to brood, he noticed that his bodyguard had reached the freeway and was speeding toward Falls Church, Virginia, ten miles away. In a very few minutes, Brian Hamilton would be able to describe his problem to the director of the FBI and demand that Eric Chatham use the full resources of the Bureau to find out who Joseph Martin had been and who had killed him. As much as Hamilton owed Tess, Eric Chatham owed him, and now, by God, it was payback time.

  'Sir, we might have a problem,' the bodyguard-driver said.

  'What problem?' Hamilton straightened.

  'It's possible we're being followed.'

  His stomach suddenly cramping, Hamilton pivoted to stare through the car's back window. 'The minivan behind us?'

  'Yes, sir. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence. But it's been tailing us since before we left Alexandria.'

  'Lose it.'

  'That's what I'm trying to do, sir.'

  The Corniche sped up.

  But so did the minivan.

  'Persistent,' the driver said.

  'I tol
d you to lose it.'

  'Where, sir? We're on a freeway, if you don't mind me pointing out the obvious. I'm doing ninety. And I don't see an exit ramp.'

  'Wait a minute! It's changing lanes! It looks like it wants to pass us!' Hamilton said.

  'Yes, sir. It could be… possibly… maybe I'm wrong.'

  The minivan, having veered into the passing lane, increased speed and came abreast of the Corniche. But as Hamilton watched, he felt his heart lurch. On the minivan's passenger side, someone was rolling down a window.

  'Look out!' Hamilton's driver blurted.

  Too late.

  From the open window, someone threw a bottle. The bottle had a rag stuffed into its mouth.

  The rag was on fire.

  'Jesus!'

  The bodyguard swerved toward the freeway's gravel shoulder, frantically reducing speed, but the bottle – which must have been constructed from specially designed, brittle glass – shattered on impact against the Corniche's windshield and spewed blazing gasoline over the car.

  Blinded by flames -

  – on the hood! -

  – and oh, Christ, on the windshield! -

  – the driver tried desperately to control his steering. In the backseat, Hamilton gaped to the left, horrified to see the van streak sharply toward the Corniche. He felt the van slam brutally against the Corniche's side, slam it again, and again, and propel the Corniche off the freeway's shoulder.

  Hamilton's stomach dropped. The Corniche, now completely engulfed with flames, crashed through a guardrail, soared through the air, and collided with…

  Hamilton screamed. He never knew what the car hit. The sudden shocking force of the crash slammed him forward, catapulting him up, over, and beyond the front seat, walloping his skull against the dashboard.

  But what the passengers in the minivan saw with calculated satisfaction was that the Corniche had impacted against a massive steel electrical tower. The collision burst the Corniche's fuel tank. A huge exploding fireball disintegrated the car and spewed pieces of flesh, bone, and metal for fifty yards in every direction, the flames gushing upward for a hundred feet. As the minivan sped onward, disappearing among traffic, its rear window reflected the spectacular pyre in the darkness beside the freeway.