The Eternity Project

by Dean Crawford

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your cut?’ Donovan repeated. ‘How much do you want?’

  Karina shook her head. ‘That’s all this is about for you, isn’t it?’ she uttered. ‘Money and how much you can get out of it. I’d rather die than get a single dollar of your blood money, Donovan.’ She leaned closer to him, her eyes boring into his. ‘You’re done. Whatever happens now, there’s no way that you can get out of this. Warner and Lopez aren’t here because they’re already in police custody, having solved the mystery of what you did on that bridge. They’re filling in your superiors on how it was done.’

  Donovan’s eyelid twitched as he ground his jaw in his skull.

  ‘Warner and Lopez are history,’ he murmured. ‘The CIA is hunting both of them. They’ll be apprehended within hours and that’s the last you’ll see of them.’

  ‘Their boss at the DIA is protecting them from . . .’

  ‘He’s protecting them from nothing!’ Donovan roared back. ‘There’s a CIA man who is operating outside his agency’s jurisdiction. He doesn’t give a damn about who lives and who dies, just as long as his mission is complete.’

  Karina’s eyes narrowed as a chill ran down her spine. ‘How do you know that?’

  Donovan smiled cruelly. ‘We had a little chat the other night.’

  ‘You sold them out,’ Karina whispered in horror. ‘Is there nothing that you won’t stoop to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Donovan replied without remorse, ‘just as long as it keeps my back clear. So now, Karina, you need me because I’m the only one who can identify the agent before he strikes.’

  ‘Jarvis knows who he is,’ Karina shot back. ‘He’ll ensure that no harm comes—’

  ‘Jarvis is out of the loop and of no concern,’ Donovan interrupted her again, and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the black SUV parked across the lot. ‘They don’t give a damn about him or his two little helpers. As soon as this is resolved to their satisfaction, he’ll be out on his ear. This is already over, Karina. We’ve won. All the CIA wants is Tom Ross and some woman called Joanna Defoe, God knows why. We hand them over, then this is finished.’

  Karina peered at Donovan. ‘And what happens when the sun goes down?’ she asked.

  Donovan grinned again, a brittle smile that conveyed no hint of warmth. ‘I don’t give a damn, because the first thing I’m going to do is board a flight the hell out of here, until it all blows over.’

  Karina looked at him for a moment longer and then shook her head.

  ‘We both know that won’t happen,’ she uttered. ‘You’re here to kill Tom, aren’t you?’

  Donovan inhaled deeply, looked at Glen, and then shrugged. ‘Have it your way, Karina.’

  Donovan yanked a pistol from beneath his jacket and whipped it toward Karina with incredible speed.

  ‘No!’

  Glen whirled and stood between Karina and the pistol. Donovan glared down at the younger man.

  ‘Time to choose sides, Glen,’ he shouted. ‘This is it. Are you going to waste your time watching out for Karina or are you going to get a grip on your life and start looking out for yourself ?’

  ‘This isn’t the way to do it,’ Glen said, raising his hands. ‘We start shooting people, we’re screwed for life.’

  ‘We’re already screwed for life!’ Donovan yelled at him. ‘They know, Glen. We don’t make our way out of here, it’s twenty to life in a security-max facility. You made your choice, son, when you started working with the rest of us on this. You didn’t care about Karina then and you shouldn’t now.’

  Glen’s features twisted in a fury of regret and indecision as he glanced over his shoulder at Karina.

  The gunshot snapped out over the wind and Karina flinched in shock as she saw the back of Glen’s jacket flutter as the bullet whipped through trailing a fine spray of blood. Glen whirled and stared at Donovan in disbelief, and then his legs quivered as he fell sideways onto the cold, damp asphalt. Glen’s eyes flew wide and he looked down to see a thick, dark stain spread across his shirt as blood spilled from his fractured heart.

  ‘God, no!’ Karina shouted as she leaped forward and dropped to her knees alongside Glen.

  Glen’s mouth hung loosely open and the light in his eyes flickered away. Karina felt tears spill from her eyes as she held him. A faint, breathless whisper fell from his lips.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  A rush of air spilled from Glen’s lungs and his body fell slack as he died.

  Karina felt the hard, uncompromising barrel of Donovan’s pistol stab into her side, and turned to look up into his cold eyes as the chief glared at her. With his free hand, he pulled a cellphone from his pocket and dialed a number. When a scratchy voice answered, he spoke angrily.

  ‘It’s a bust,’ he said. ‘They’re not here.’

  ‘I know,’ came the response. ‘Use her to find out where they are.’

  Donovan looked up, scanning the lonely parking lot for any sign of the CIA agent, but he could see nothing. He shut the line off and dropped the cell into his pocket, and then yanked Karina to her feet as he kept the pistol pressed against her side.

  ‘Get in your car, Karina!’ he snapped. ‘We’re going for a ride and you’re going to tell me where.’

  ‘You can go to hell,’ Karina snapped.

  Donovan grinned cruelly down at her and jammed the pistol up underneath her jaw.

  ‘I’d say that’s for certain, so I’ve got nothing to lose. You going to join me, or are you going to lead me to where Warner and Lopez are hiding?’

  55

  ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, MANHATTAN

  The cathedral glowed with a galaxy of candleflames as Ethan hurried between the pews toward the altar. Lopez followed behind him, with Joanna shepherding Tom Ross along at the rear.

  Monsignor Thomas was waiting for them, his expression etched with deep concern.

  ‘Where is Karina? he asked.

  ‘Acting as a diversion,’ Ethan replied sharply. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  The monsignor looked at Tom Ross, taking in his darkened eyes and haggard appearance, and then he appeared to take a step back in fear.

  ‘This,’ he uttered, ‘this is the one?’

  Ethan nodded, and looked back at Tom. The young man he had once been was swiftly vanishing, as though he were physically being drained of life by every passing moment. His shoulders were slumped, his skin pale and sheened with a clammy sweat and his head hung low as though too heavy for him to bear.

  As Ethan watched, Joanna levered Tom carefully into a pew and the young man slumped there, his eyes drooping. Joanna lifted his chin and slapped a hand across his cheek, the slap echoing up into the vaulted ceiling above.

  ‘Stay awake, you hear me?’ she snapped.

  Tom Ross blinked and managed to keep his head up as Ethan turned back to the monsignor.

  ‘I want you to go to the fuse box and shut off all the power,’ he said.

  ‘The power? What for?’

  ‘A precaution,’ Ethan replied. ‘I think you know what for.’

  The monsignor nodded fearfully, his gaze switching between Ethan and Tom Ross. ‘Yes, everything will be off. The candles will be enough illumination.’

  ‘Is there anybody else in the building?’ Ethan demanded.

  ‘No,’ the monsignor replied. ‘I have sent everybody home.’

  ‘Good,’ Ethan said. ‘Then you had best leave, too, before anything happens.’

  The monsignor looked at Tom and frowned. ‘But I do not know this man. Why would his wraith attack me?’

  Ethan looked down at the monsignor. ‘Man of the cloth or not, can you stand there and tell me that you’ve never done anything wrong in your life? Never lied, stolen, cheated or deceived?’

  The monsignor swallowed indignantly. ‘I am a man of God.’

  ‘Like that means anything,’ Lopez uttered with brittle humor.

  ‘Have you ever lied, stolen, cheated or deceived?’ Ethan repeated. ‘Becaus
e if you have, then this wraith might decide that it doesn’t like you.’

  The monsignor’s defiance crumbled and he handed Ethan a set of heavy, archaic iron keys. ‘To the main doors,’ he said. ‘Lock them after me.’

  With that, Monsignor Thomas hurried away through the cathedral. He walked behind one of the huge columns, and Ethan heard a metallic-sounding door or panel being opened. Moments later, all of the main lights in the cathedral shut down and the muted hum of extraction fans faded away, to be replaced by a deep silence. The entire cathedral was filled with an ominous combination of flickering candlelight and deep shadows rising up into the huge vaulted roof above.

  Ethan turned to Joanna, who gestured at Tom Ross.

  ‘He’s not going to be hanging around much longer, not in this state,’ she said. ‘He’s no good to me dead.’

  ‘He’s going to be a bigger problem than that if he passes out,’ Lopez shot back at her. ‘This is about more than your damned revenge.’

  Joanna raised an unconcerned eyebrow at her. ‘Is it?’

  Ethan was about to interject when he heard the cathedral door slam with a boom that echoed through the cathedral. To his surprise, he saw the monsignor reappear with his hands in the air. Behind him walked Donovan, one arm holding Karina Thorne as the other pressed a pistol into her side.

  ‘Too late,’ Ethan said.

  Donovan prodded the monsignor toward the altar, keeping Karina close as he reached them and looked at each of them in turn.

  ‘Well, isn’t this cozy?’

  ‘You’re through, Donovan!’ Lopez snapped. ‘Whatever you do from here on in, you’re going to spend the next few decades behind bars.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Donovan said. ‘Then where are the cops? Why haven’t they arrested me, especially when I’m driving about in my pool car with my police radio. Strange, I haven’t heard anybody calling for my arrest.’

  Ethan frowned. ‘Good question. Want to reveal?’

  Donovan sneered at him.

  ‘None of your goddamned business, Warner. Now, this is how it’s going to go. You’re going to hand Tom Ross over to me. In return, I won’t put a bullet in Karina’s skull. Simple enough for you all?’

  Lopez stood protectively in front of Tom Ross.

  ‘He’s not going anywhere,’ she snarled. ‘I don’t know what you’ve pulled but you won’t get away with it.’

  ‘I’ve already gotten away with it!’ Donovan shouted, his voice echoing back and forth through the cathedral. ‘We’re done here.’

  Ethan raised his hands in placation, keenly aware that he wasn’t armed. ‘This isn’t the way, Donovan. Killing Tom isn’t going to stop this. You think that if he’s dead his wraith isn’t just going to hunt you down anyway?’

  Donovan shook his head.

  ‘It’ll damned well hunt me down if he stays alive, so I’m willing to take the chance.’

  Lopez shook her head.

  ‘This thing hunts down injustice,’ she said, ‘and punishes it violently. The only way for you to end this is to come clean, Donovan. You go to the police, confess, reveal everything and it might just let you live.’

  Donovan looked at her for several long seconds and then suddenly he burst out laughing.

  ‘You two kill me, really,’ he uttered. ‘Sure, maybe I’ll avoid death, only to be sent into a prison where I’ll be the biggest walking target they’ve ever seen. A former detective now incarcerated on the block. I won’t last more than a week, genius, so I’m not losing much by standing here telling you to either hand Ross over now or I’ll start putting holes in Karina.’

  Ethan was out of ideas and about to consider charging Donovan when the cathedral door clattered open. He saw Doug Jarvis appear at the rear of the cathedral with a pistol aimed toward them.

  Ethan stared in silence as Jarvis edged his way toward them.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Jarvis said firmly, ‘any of you.’

  Ethan glanced at Donovan, who had turned slightly to confront the new arrival.

  ‘You’re done, Jarvis!’ Donovan snapped. ‘Drop the gun.’

  Jarvis continued moving and shook his head. ‘You’re not giving the orders here, Donovan. You’re already up to your neck, don’t make it any worse.’

  Donovan sneered a grin at Jarvis. ‘I’ve got myself nicely covered.’

  ‘And I,’ Jarvis said smoothly, ‘have you nicely surrounded.’

  Ethan heard a small scratching sound behind him. Donovan shifted position again in surprise as he looked past Ethan to see a tall, sepulchral figure stalking toward them from behind the fluted columns, a pistol held firmly in his grip.

  Joanna took a pace backward and gasped, and Ethan guessed that she recognized the man from her incarceration in Gaza. Ethan recognized him from years before, a de-brief after his chaotic first investigation for the DIA.

  ‘Wilson,’ he uttered.

  56

  Ethan watched as Jarvis and Wilson slowly maneuvered through the cathedral to flank them, and felt a hollow pit form low in his belly.

  Donovan whirled, stepping back with Karina still in his grasp so that he could keep everybody in sight.

  Wilson stopped near the altar, casting his icy gaze at each of them in turn, before speaking to Jarvis. ‘Perfect,’ he uttered.

  Lopez glared at Jarvis. ‘You son of a bitch, you sold out.’

  ‘There was a price for protecting you from the CIA,’ Jarvis sighed. ‘Their price was Joanna Defoe.’

  Ethan felt every fiber in his body prime itself for action. For a moment, nobody else existed in the room but Jarvis, as the weight of the old man’s betrayal crushed down upon Ethan’s shoulders.

  ‘You knew, all along,’ Ethan uttered. ‘You guided this whole damned thing. You knew who Tom Ross was, didn’t you?’

  Jarvis shook his head as he replied. ‘I’ve told you, Ethan, many times now, that sometimes decisions have to be made for which there can be no good outcome. My choice wasn’t a choice at all. It was to protect two people instead of just one, yourself and Lopez instead of just Joanna. We traced Barraclough’s family to Tom Ross not long before you did, as we knew that Joanna would turn up sooner or later.’

  ‘That’s why you kept disappearing after we got to New York,’ Lopez said in dismay. ‘You’ve been going behind our backs.’

  ‘I’ve been doing my job,’ Jarvis shot back.

  Joanna Defoe stepped forward fearlessly, glaring at Wilson. ‘And now?’

  Wilson looked at her for a moment and then down at Tom Ross, who was watching the whole exchange through hooded eyes.

  ‘You come with me,’ Wilson replied without emotion. ‘We can’t have you running about with all that you know, can we? Don’t worry, you won’t be harmed. We just need to ensure that you forget about everything.’

  ‘You really think that I’m going to believe that?’ Joanna snapped at him. ‘After everything you bastards did to me?’

  ‘I don’t care what you believe,’ Wilson replied. ‘It’s not a choice, it’s a requirement. You’re coming with me.’

  ‘Like hell!’ Ethan snapped, taking a pace toward him.

  Wilson reacted instantly, moving his pistol with fluid speed and aiming at Ethan. Joanna swung an arm out to stop Ethan in his tracks, her gaze still fixed on the CIA agent.

  ‘And what about him?’ she asked, gesturing at Tom.

  Wilson, the pistol still trained on Ethan, looked down at Tom.

  ‘I think that it would be safer for all of us if Mr. Ross were to have a very long rest.’

  Karina squirmed against Donovan as she shouted, ‘Leave him alone. Donovan’s already killed Glen.’

  Ethan shot a glance at Donovan.

  ‘Crap,’ Donovan uttered. ‘The kid shot himself.’

  Jarvis’s voice reached them from nearby. ‘That’s not what I saw, back at Hell Gate.’

  Karina’s eyes flared in surprise and rage. ‘You were there? And you didn’t do anything?’

  ‘Not our place,�
�� Wilson said, answering for Jarvis. ‘It’s your mess, you clean it up.’

  Donovan appeared equally surprised, and suddenly unsure of who was backing whom as he looked from Jarvis to Wilson and back again. He was struggling to hold onto Karina and trying to keep his pistol both in her side but also available in case Wilson sought to betray him. Ethan looked at Jarvis, who was standing with one hand holding his pistol and the other down by his side.

  Jarvis wriggled the fingers of his free hand. Resting on the outside of his pants, Ethan realized that the old man was signaling him. Three fingers. Three seconds? Three minutes? Ethan glanced around the cathedral but could see nothing untoward.

  Donovan yanked Karina sideways and shouted across to Wilson.

  ‘Finish Ross, and then we can deal with the rest of them.’

  Wilson glanced down at Tom Ross, who was now being shielded by both Lopez and Joanna. He smiled bitterly as he swung his pistol to aim at them.

  ‘Is this going to take one bullet, or three?’

  Ethan looked at Jarvis and saw a finger disappear into his pants pocket. Two.

  ‘Go to hell,’ Joanna shot back at Wilson.

  ‘Just shoot them both!’ Donovan yelled. ‘Get it over with!’

  Jarvis retracted his last finger out of sight. One.

  Wilson shrugged and shifted his aim to Joanna. ‘Suit yourself.’

  Wilson squeezed his trigger.

  The gunshot was deafening as Jarvis fired. The shot hit Wilson high on the back of his right shoulder in a puff of blood and he staggered sideways, his own shot flying high into the vaulted ceiling above them.

  Jarvis threw himself backwards across nearby pews as Ethan launched himself at Wilson.

  The agent’s pistol whipped around to face Ethan and discharged just to the left of his head as he smashed the weapon clear and crashed into Wilson. The gunshot rang in Ethan’s ears as they plunged onto the polished stone flags of the cathedral.

  As he hit the ground, Ethan saw Karina Thorne’s head jerk backwards and crunch Donovan’s nose against his face as he aimed at Jarvis. The pair of them fell backwards as Donovan’s shot missed Jarvis and flew high to dislodge a sprinkle of stone from a nearby column.