The Covenant Of The Flame

by David Morrell

  'Don't assume anything. What you already know is enough to put you in danger. Further knowledge would put you at an even greater risk. What do you intend to do?'

  'To be honest, if I hadn't seen these photographs… if Tess herself hadn't been the one who told me about this…'

  'It's true, Eric. Every word of it.' Tess stared emphatically into his eyes.

  'But something this outrageous… Obviously I have to verify it.'

  'Then you'll begin an investigation?'

  'Absolutely.'

  'I hope, discreetly,' the man in front said. 'Do it yourself. Trust no one. The vermin hide where you least suspect them. Remember what happened to Brian Hamilton. If you're not cautious, you'll be their next victim.'

  'Give me credit. I wasn't always a bureaucrat,' Chatham said proudly. 'For thirteen years, before I became an executive, I was a damned fine agent. I haven't forgotten how to conduct an investigation without drawing attention to myself.'

  'Then do it,' the man in front said. 'Prove how skilled you are.'

  'How can I get in touch with you? How do I report what I've learned?'

  'No problem. We'll get in touch with you.'

  'And expertly, I'm sure. But I don't know why I should trust you,' Chatham said.

  'Because of Remington Drake, Melinda Drake, Brian Hamilton, and Tess.'

  'By all means, because of Tess, because of the living.'

  'We'll need Madden's phone number.'

  'Here. This card has his private number.' Chatham frowned. 'But I still can't adjust to the implications. If you're right, if this isn't a delusion, then Madden and Gerrard, the CIA's covert-op deputy director and the president's next-in-line, might be part of this.'

  'As I told you, the vermin hide where you least suspect them.' The man in front glanced through the windshield. 'Ah, I see that our timing is perfect. The minute we complete our business, we arrive outside your home. By the way, your car has been moved from the parking lot at the Lincoln Memorial. You'll find it outside your garage.'

  'And I'll take a guess that the man who delivered it resembled me.'

  'Precisely. He strolled toward the back of your house and disappeared.'

  'I wish you worked for me,' Chatham said.

  'Be satisfied we're working with you.'

  As the van stopped, the man who'd escorted Chatham from the Lincoln Memorial slid open the side hatch, got out, and gestured for the Bureau's director to leave.

  'Well, I can't say I've enjoyed the ride,' Chatham said, 'but it certainly has been informative, no matter how disturbing it was.'

  'What we hoped you'd feel is not so much disturbed as…' The man in front hesitated.

  'Frightened?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then,' Chatham said, 'you've definitely achieved your intention.'

  THREE

  As the van pulled away from the shadowy curb, as Tess, Craig and the members of Father Baldwin's team watched Chatham walk past his car in the driveway and enter his large, attractive house, Father Baldwin asked, 'Is he one of them?'

  That's hard to know,' Craig said. 'I looked at him closely. He doesn't have gray eyes.'

  'That means nothing,' Father Baldwin said. 'Only some of the vermin retain that characteristic. What's more, they sometimes use tinted contact lenses to disguise the color of their irises.'

  'I watched Chatham closely as well,' Tess said. 'He responded the way he should have to what I told him. He was believable.'

  'Of course,' Father Baldwin said. 'A true professional is always believable. I take that for granted. So I don't know whether to trust him. That's why, in his absence, his phone has been tapped, his home has been bugged, and so has his office. He brags that his security measures are checked every morning, but his precautions are hardly adequate against our own techniques. From this moment, every word that he says will be monitored. He'll be followed by the finest surveillance. And if he makes the wrong phone call, if he sees the wrong person, if he says the wrong words, we'll know that he's one of the vermin.'

  'But I don't think he is,' Tess said.

  That remains to be determined,' Father Baldwin said. 'What also remains to be determined is the status of Kenneth Madden and Alan Gerrard. We keep moving upward. Perhaps those next-to-the highest officials in the CIA and the White House are as well-intentioned as you want to believe that Chatham is. But the vermin give off an odor, and my nostrils feel assaulted. The odor is very strong. Make the call.'

  'To Madden?'

  'Yes. Follow the the schedule you were given. Proceed up the bureaucratic level. We'll find the vermin eventually.'

  'All I want is to stay alive,' Tess said. 'I'm not sure I want to keep taking the risk of…'

  'Remember, they'll kill you unless you give us the chance to exterminate them.'

  'But if I make the call and I go through the CIA, through Madden and then to the Executive Branch to Gerrard, I'll still be in danger,' Tess said.

  'Craig and I will be with you, though,' Father Baldwin said. 'And keep in mind, the shoes that both of you were given have homing devices in the heels along with microphones. My operatives will always know where you are and whether you're in danger.'

  'Small comfort if I'm being killed while your men try to get to me.'

  'Tess, without us, your death is certain. With us, you and Lieutenant Craig will have a chance to enjoy the rest of your lives together.'

  'That's good enough for me,' Craig said. 'Come on, Tess. We can't give up. As long as we're being hunted, let's fight the bastards, and if we fail, at least we'll have done our best. There's no other choice.'

  'But I'm so scared.'

  'I know. For what it's worth, so am I.'

  Craig hugged her.

  'Make that phone call,' Father Baldwin said. To Madden. And after that, to…'

  FOUR

  Andrews Air Force Base. Maryland.

  One a.m. Nearly blinded by spotlights, Tess and Craig stopped their hastily rented car at the heavily guarded entrance to the tall, chain-link, barbed- wire-topped fence of the military airport.

  A broad-shouldered, wary sentry responded immediately, not needing to check the list of names on his clipboard when Tess and Craig identified themselves. 'By all means, you're expected. I.D.,' he demanded, adding with stern courtesy, 'please.'

  Tess and Craig showed their driver's licenses.

  The sentry examined the documents, compared their faces with the photographs on the licenses, and gave them directions toward the base's VIP wing.

  While Tess drove beneath the entrance's rising barrier, she and Craig heard the roar of a jet taking off beyond rows of institutional-looking buildings from which other spotlights blazed.

  'Father Baldwin lied,' Tess said. 'He promised he'd be with us.'

  'What option did he have?' Craig spread his hands. 'Baldwin couldn't come with us, not when Madden told you to meet the vice president here at Andrews. You and I have worked together long enough that I won't attract suspicion. But if we bring a stranger, an unexpected third party, it'll look like a setup. We couldn't explain Father Baldwin's presence. He'd never survive a background check. And if Gerrard is your enemy, we'd make him realize we suspected him. We'd be placing ourselves in a trap.'

  'You're telling me we're not in a trap?' Tess drove nervously toward the impressive floodlit VIP building. 'Father Baldwin's men can't possibly get inside this base if we need help.'

  'With so many sentries around, nothing's going to happen. Not here, at least. Not now.'

  'You trust those sentries?'

  'They work for the Air Force, not for Gerrard himself. They can't all be enemies.'

  'But what about later?' Tess shuddered. 'What are we doing here? Why did Madden tell us to come to this airport? Suppose Gerrard tells us to get on a jet?'

  Craig thought about it. 'We don't know for sure that Gerrard wants to kill you. Or Madden either. All we're doing is following the sequence we were given. Chatham to Madden to…'

  'Gerrard. They
sound like a fucking baseball team.'

  'Just keep control,' Craig said.

  'Hey, I'm not used to risking my life the way you are.'

  'Used to risking my life? When I started out, in a squad car patrolling the Bronx, I never got used to it. And even in Missing Persons, I still haven't. Every day I wake up, knowing that any door I knock on might have a maniac with a gun behind it.'

  'Well, we have plenty of guns around us now.'

  Tess stopped the rented Plymouth before palm-raised sentries next to the VIP building.

  'Names, please,' one of them said.

  Tess and Craig repeated the ritual.

  'Identification.'

  Again they obeyed.

  'Get out of the car, please.'

  The sentries used portable metal detectors to scan them. When one of the detectors wailed, a sentry stared aggressively toward Craig.

  'I'm a New York City police officer,' Craig said. 'I'm carrying my service revolver.'

  'Not anymore.' The sentry tugged the revolver from the holster on Craig's belt.

  Tess, who didn't have a permit to carry a handgun, had reluctantly left her pistol with Father Baldwin. She felt helpless, vulnerable.

  Distracted by the search, she hadn't noticed a man in an expensive, well-tailored suit walk toward her, appearing as if from nowhere. He was tall, pleasantly featured, in his thirties, with short brown hair, cheery eyes, and an engaging smile. 'Ms Drake, Lieutenant Craig, welcome.' He shook hands with them. 'I'm Hugh Kelly, the vice president's assistant. You arrived just in time. The vice president's looking forward to seeing you.'

  Kelly's reassuring manner made Tess feel somewhat at ease. After the chaos she'd been through, he seemed so normal, so sane that she began to wonder if she was wrong to suspect that Gerrard was a threat. At the same time, Kelly's remark about 'just in time' puzzled her.

  'Please, come with me,' he said.

  Tess expected that he'd lead them into the VIP building. Instead he guided them onto the tarmac, and after a brief walk, Tess peered ahead toward floodlights and something that abruptly made her falter.

  'My God,' she said.

  'Impressive, isn't it?' Kelly said. 'It's been on order since nineteen eighty-six. The delays have been a headache, the cost-overruns a political embarrassment, from two hundred and sixty-five million to six hundred and fifty million, but finally here she is, and I have to say, in spite of everything, the wait was worth it.'

  What Tess stared at, overwhelmed, was an aircraft six stories high and so long it would have dwarfed a football field – the hughest 747 she'd ever seen, its lines (including the bulge above its nose) incredibly sleek, exuding power, a large American flag painted on its rudder, the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA stencilled boldly along its side, its color predominantly white with highlights of blue.

  'I've never seen…' Tess felt so awestruck that she couldn't speak for a moment. 'Even when my father was alive, I never saw… On TV, yes, in newspapers and magazines. But never in person. Up close like this… it's hard to believe. It takes my breath away.' She spoke with reverence. 'Air Force One.'

  'Actually Air Force Two,' Kelly said, 'but you really can't tell them apart. Of course, the pictures you saw were of the old one. The seven-oh-seven. It had to be retired because that model was being phased out, and spare parts were hard to find. It was an awfully fine aircraft. I was sorry to see it go. But that plane can't possibly compare to this new one and its counterpart. Boeing outdid itself. This is truly one of the finest passenger jets in the world, perhaps the finest. You'll see what I mean when you board her.'

  'Board?' Craig asked in surprise.

  'You mean you weren't told?' Kelly sounded equally surprised.

  'Our only instructions were to come to Andrews Air Force Base as soon as possible.'

  'I wondered why you hadn't brought luggage. Don't worry. You won't have to rough it. We've got plenty of overnight kits – tooth brushes, shampoo, razors.' Kelly glanced politely toward Tess. 'More personal items. And a bathtub-shower. Whatever you need.'

  'But…' Tess hesitated, aware of the miniature radio transmitter built into her shoe, conscious that Father Baldwin would be listening, that he'd be as anxious to know the answer to her question as she was. 'Where are we going?'

  'Spain.'

  The word made Tess feel light-headed.

  Spain. Where Father Baldwin had said that the heretics, fleeing France, had found a new home after the attack on Montsegur in 1244.

  Spain! Did that mean Gerrard was her enemy?

  Or was her destination merely a coincidence?

  Tess felt frozen. At once, regaining control of her muscles, she braced herself. All of her instincts made her want to turn and run.

  But to where?

  And howl The sentries would stop her. She'd never be able to get off the base.

  She fidgeted.

  'Is something wrong?' Kelly asked.

  'No.' Tess tried to recover, to seem natural. 'I'm just surprised is all. Everything's happening so fast. Two hours ago, I didn't expect to be coming here, and now you tell me I'm flying to Spain.'

  'I understand what you mean about feeling surprised,' Kelly said. 'Until just after midnight, I wasn't aware we'd be having visitors.' He checked his gold Rolex watch. 'We'd better hurry. In ten minutes, we're scheduled to be air-borne.'

  Tess pivoted toward Craig, keeping her face calm but knowing that her eyes revealed her panic.

  Craig squeezed her hand, his eyes communicating. We're stuck. We've got to go through with this.

  Kelly gestured, leading them onward toward the brightly lit jet.

  They reached a tall boarding ramp on wheels.

  Tess climbed, counting twenty-six steps, and entered an open hatch behind a massive swept-back wing.

  Once inside, sickened by her speeding pulse, she realized that there was no turning back.

  Behind, below her, on the tarmac, air-force personnel pulled away the boarding platform. Inside the jet, a uniformed flight attendant shut the hatch and secured it.

  She was trapped on Air Force Two.

  FIVE

  As she studied her surroundings, Tess noticed that the cabin's width was emphasized by its reduced length. Ahead and behind, bulkheads with doors restricted the space. The seats – she counted seventy – resembled first-class airline accommodations, except that they were even larger, more comfortable looking, and the aisles seemed wider than usual. Numerous phones were attached to the fore and aft bulkheads.

  This must be where the press and the president's – in this case, the vice president's – team stayed, Tess thought, although she was puzzled that the cabin was empty, except for the uniformed flight attendant.

  'We'll be taking off soon,' the attendant said, 'but I think you have time to enjoy a glass of champagne.'

  'Mineral water will be fine,' Tess said.

  'Same for me,' Craig said.

  'What are you serving?' Kelly asked the attendant.

  'Dom Perignon.'

  'I'll have some.'

  'Very good, sir.'

  'In the meantime,' Kelly said, 'I'd better tell the vice president that his guests have arrived.' He walked toward the front of the cabin, knocked on the door, and waited.

  A discreet pause later, he knocked again.

  The door opened.

  'Sir, they're here,' Kelly said.

  'Excellent,' a sonorous voice said. The door swung quickly farther open.

  Alan Gerrard stepped through.

  Although Tess had seen Gerrard often at receptions at her parents' home, and sometimes at less formal get-togethers, she hadn't met him since he'd become vice president.

  As he approached her, smiling, he looked the same – movie-star handsome, with a perfect tan, glinting teeth, photogenic features, and magnificent hair. The only difference was that six years had made him look more responsible, more wise, more seasoned, despite his reputation for caring more about tennis than he did about politics.

 
; No matter. Regardless of her suspicions about him, Tess couldn't help responding to his aura of achievement. The vice president. In her mind, the words had magic. She almost surrendered to his influence.

  But didn't.

  She had to keep reminding herself that he was very possibly her enemy.

  Gerrard wore casual but impressive clothes – hand-sewn loafers, finely pressed linen slacks, a custom-made Sea Island cotton shirt, greens and browns. Coming nearer, he held out his arms. 'Tess.' He embraced her, kissing her cheek with affection, reassurance, and sorrow.

  'Your mother.' He shook his head. 'She's a great loss to everyone, to every politician, including me, who ever enjoyed her gracious hospitality. But most of all, she's a loss to you. She'll be a legend of strength, of generosity, in this jaded community that needs every example of excellence they can possibly find to show them the proper way.'

  Tess stepped back, rubbing her tear-stinging eyes. She resolved that the best, least suspicious, most natural thing to do was to treat him the way she had before her father had died. 'Thanks, Alan, but don't you think the rhetoric's a little extreme? You're not campaigning, after all. Your sympathy is appreciated. Really. But a simple, straight-forward "I'm sorry" will do.'

  Gerrard studied her, evidently not used to irreverence. At once, his eyes twinkled, blue, Tess noticed, although the one on the right looked irritated, streaked with red. 'Good. I'm glad to see you're keeping up your spirits,' he said. 'Still as feisty as the last time I saw you.'

  'I guess I can't help it. I got it from my parents.'

  'And God bless both of them. They're sorely missed. Lieutenant Craig, I understand you've been a tremendous help to Tess in her danger and her grief. You're welcome here.'

  'Thank you.'

  The uniformed attendant brought glasses of mineral water to Tess and Craig, Dom Perignon for Kelly.

  Gerrard seemed slightly self-conscious while they sipped. 'Well' - he rubbed his hands together - 'before I explain, before we strap on our seatbelts for take-off, why don't I show you the rest of the plane? I'm very proud of it.'

  Tess desperately didn't care, but she acquiesced. 'Lead the way, Alan.'