The Lance

by Alex Lukeman

  Sudden silence. The flames from the torches flickered and danced, casting strange shadows on the walls.

  The room stank of gunfire and blood. Empty shell casings littered the marble floor. Ronnie climbed to his feet, holding his side where the round had punched his armor. Lamont took a quick look around the door frame, ducked back, and looked again. He moved into the doorway, his MP-5 held up by his cheek.

  "Clear," he said.

  The floor of the room was carpeted with white-robed bodies. The stone walls were chipped and pockmarked. Nick ejected the empty magazine from his .45. He fed in a new one, racked the slide and walked over to where Greenwood lay on the floor. He felt sudden goose bumps all over. There was something nearby. Something to be feared. He looked around but saw nothing.

  Greenwood lay in a spreading pool of blood. He looked up, his face contorted in rage. Nick thought about killing him, but Greenwood was already dead. He just didn't know it yet.

  "It is not over," Greenwood said. He coughed and blood bubbled from his lips as he spoke. "We are everywhere. You will never defeat us." Suddenly he was watching something over Nick's shoulder. All the color drained from his face.

  "No," he said. "Oh, no."

  Something colder than ice brushed Nick. Something dark. Something foul. Greenwood shuddered.

  "NO!" he screamed.

  He died. Suddenly the room was warm. Whatever it was Nick had felt was gone. He took a deep breath.

  He reached down and picked up the Vienna Lance, damp with Selena's blood. It twisted in his hand and cut his palm. He swore and hurled it against the wall. The brittle iron broke with a sharp, snapping sound and the Lance fell in pieces to the ground.

  Ronnie and Lamont walked among the bodies. Smothers lay on his side, clutching his abdomen and moaning. Senator Blackfriar had a sucking chest wound and lay on his back laboring for breath, staring at the ceiling. Greenwood's son crawled across the floor in a trail of blood, clutching his stomach. A strange, mewling whine came from him. The rest were dead.

  Lamont had a deep gash across his cheek. He touched it, blotted it with his sleeve.

  "Let's go." Carter holstered his pistol.

  Selena stood up. "What about that?" She gestured at the bodies.

  "Leave it. We'll let Rice handle it. We've got to get out of here."

  Then he remembered Rice's comment about Dysart never coming to trial. What would happen if this got out? He looked at Ronnie and Lamont.

  "This can't go public," he said.

  They nodded.

  "Take Selena upstairs and go get the car. I'll finish up here."

  "You sure?" Lamont said.

  "You go ahead. I'll be right behind."

  Lamont and Ronnie helped Selena to her feet. They went up the stairs.

  Nick moved around the walls and snuffed all the torches except one. The hiss of escaping gas grew loud. He found an adjustment, turned the remaining torch down to a tiny flame and left it burning.

  He went into the hall. A man in black uniform lay on the stones, his weapon beside him. His lifeless eyes were open, cold and blue. On his collar he wore a silver oak leaf insignia.

  Nick closed the door to the Nazi chamber and the soft whisper of gas. He hurried up the stairs, past the basement and up to the first floor. He ran into the library and took the laptop from Greenwood's desk. He ran to the front of the house and out the door, past the silent cars and the Italian fountain. As he reached the street Lamont pulled up in the car.

  In the back seat, Nick held Selena close. She shivered, waves that rippled across her.

  They were blocks away when the explosion lit up the night.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  On the way in, Nick called Stephanie and briefed her. She was waiting for them in front of Nick's building. He gave her Greenwood's computer. Maybe it had the proof the President needed. Rice had to get things under control, fast. Before anyone figured out what had really happened.

  It wasn't the first time Nick had showed up at his building looking like anything but a normal tenant. The security guard eyed Selena in her bloody robe and Nick in his black gear. He shook his head without saying a word as they made for the elevator.

  The apartment was furnished European style. Simple wood and glass and clean Scandinavian accents. Nick sat Selena down on a wide couch of brown leather and cleaned the wound on her arm. It was a brutal gash, deep and red. He put antibiotic ointment on it and bandaged the cut. It would do for now. He got up and poured her a whiskey. She was pale, still wrapped in the robe with the black sun embroidered on the breast.

  "Here, this will help." He poured one for himself. It was two in the morning. The night was quiet, cold and dark. No traffic on the street ten stories below. No garbage trucks. No Nazis.

  She drank, coughed, drank more.

  Nick sat down next to her. She clutched the glass in both hands. She had the thousand yard stare. Watching something a long way off.

  He watched her and thought about Megan. He'd wanted to keep Megan safe and had thought he could. That illusion had vanished in flame at the end of the airport runway. After Megan, he'd never wanted to feel pain like that again. Hadn't wanted to risk letting anyone in. Looking at Selena, he knew what he had done.

  "It's okay," Nick said. "It's over. You're safe."

  "What was that in the room?" she said.

  "I don't know."

  "It was evil," she said. "And the look in Greenwood's eyes. He was going to plunge that spear into my heart." She shuddered.

  Nick put his hand on her arm. "I saw you hanging there—I didn't know if you were dead. All that blood. I wanted to kill him. All of them."

  "You did," she said. "Give me another." She held out her glass. He got up and poured two more. He set his down and went into the bedroom and came back with a Turkish robe of blue cotton.

  "Put this on." She slipped into it, the sleeves too long for her arms. Nick stuffed the Nazi robe in the trash.

  She pulled the robe tight. Her color was coming back as the whiskey worked into her system. She was going to be all right, but she'd live with tonight for the rest of her life.

  He cleared his throat, said, "I've been kind of stuck the last few months."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Words come hard for me. About you. About Megan. What I'm trying to say…if you had died tonight I couldn't have handled it. I had to see that. I've pushed you away because I didn't want to admit I cared that much. But I do. I'm sorry."

  She reached up and touched him on his face. "It's as much my fault as yours. You scare me sometimes. Your dreams, all of it."

  "Selena..."

  "It's all right, Nick. It doesn't matter now."

  And it didn't.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Morning. The team gathered at the apartment. The smell of fresh coffee drifted across the room. The TV was on. Every station carried stories about the freak gas explosion at Greenwood's home that had killed the Vice President. After a few minutes Nick turned it off.

  "Greenwood had everything on his computer," Stephanie said. She held up a disc. "It's all here. The Jerusalem bomb came out of Syria. Greenwood's son planted it at the Mosque. One of the council was Eric Reinhardt, the industrial magnate. His father wrote the diary you found on the sub. Reinhardt provided the explosives and the nuke in Tel Aviv."

  "Where did he get it?" Lamont said.

  "On the East European black market, one of those warheads that went missing after the Soviet Union collapsed."

  "What else was on the computer?" Nick asked.

  "They were plotting a coup. Rice was going to be assassinated. There was going to be an 'incident' in the Gulf of Hormuz, a casus belli pointing at the Iranians. Like the Tonkin Gulf in '64."

  A North Vietnamese gunboat raid in the Tonkin Gulf provided the excuse President Lyndon Johnson needed to escalate the war in Vietnam. Nick thought it had been a set up. That war had bled the country for ten years and cost 58,000 American lives and more than a million
dead Vietnamese. Greenwood and his Nazi Council had wanted to do it all over again, on a bigger scale.

  Greenwood was dead, but the war he'd started was alive and well.

  Nick tugged on his ear. "It's the proof Rice wanted. I don't know if anyone will believe it."

  "Speaking of Rice, you're going to the White House again. He's sending a car. You can take this to him."

  "I keep going over there, maybe he'll give me a spare key."

  Stephanie gave him the disc.

  "Does he know what's on it?"

  "Yes."

  "I wonder how he handled it? Freak gas explosion looks a lot better than what happened."

  "If you find out, let me know."

  The black Lincoln Rice sent took Nick to a rear entrance of the White House. A grim faced Secret Service escort took him to a workout room on the third floor. Rice was riding a stationary bike. He was dressed in sweat pants and a green tee shirt that said USMC across the front.

  Rice got off the bike. He mopped sweat from his forehead with a towel and beckoned Nick over to a bench. His Secret Service detail stood a discrete distance away. Carter gave him the disc. There was tension in the room Nick hadn't felt on his previous visits.

  "Tell me about it," Rice said.

  Carter told him. Rice drank from a bottle of water. He sat for a moment, thinking.

  "Do you know how the situation was sanitized, Carter?" It wasn't "Nick" today.

  "No, sir."

  "Wendell Lodge will become the next Director of the CIA."

  He didn't need to say more. Nick thought it was a devil's bargain, like clasping a snake to your breast.

  "I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

  "Yes. However, it's done and my VP is an honored victim. I may get my second term, after all." He drank from the water bottle.

  "Carter, you and your team have done a great service. You understand, I cannot acknowledge it."

  "Of course, sir. We never considered that. I'll tell them what you said."

  Rice set the bottle down. He looked frustrated. "Israel and Iran are at war. The Israelis took out the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak last night. They hit Qom as well. We're at DEFCON2."

  Natanz was where the Iranians had most of their centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Arak was a heavy water plant. Aside from sheltering another enrichment plant, Qom was a holy city with a famous mosque. Because of that it was another Muslim flash point.

  Nick kept quiet.

  Rice continued. "The Iranians retaliated with missiles. No nukes, though, thank God. They still don't have them. There are heavy civilian casualties on both sides."

  He mopped sweat from his face. "Two hours ago Israel fought an aerial battle over Lebanon and the Sinai against a combined strike of hundreds of planes sent by Syria, Iran, and Egypt. It was the biggest air battle since World War Two. The Israelis drove them off.

  "The Saudis and the Turks have held back so far, which means we can still preserve an illusion of cooperation with them. They're our last hope for any kind of diplomatic solution in the Islamic world."

  Rice paused.

  "The Saudis stand to lose a lot if the war spreads. They cannot appear to compromise with us, but they're panicked. They're worried about Israeli nukes. They should be. I know Litzvak, the acting Prime Minister of Israel. He's a rabid Zionist, brought in by Ascher to placate the extremists. He'll use nukes if Israel is pressed too hard. Mecca and Riyadh are probably on top of his target list. He hates the Arabs."

  Rice sipped from his water.

  "Iran, Iraq and Syria have announced a pact of 'mutual military cooperation' and Iran is beginning to move troops and supplies across southern Iraq. They're setting up an invasion and using Iraqi airspace. Litzvak will never allow it to happen. He'll throw everything he's got at them."

  "What are you going to do, Mr. President?"

  Rice gave him a calculating look. "What would you do, Carter, if you were me?"

  "Well, sir." He stopped. "Sir, it seems to me that you have two problems that combine to give you a third."

  "Go on."

  "There's the trigger event, the bombing at the Mosque. Then there's the underlying situation in the region. The hatred, the fanaticism, the religious beliefs. That's what's driving things now. Nothing you do can change that."

  "You don't think reason will prevail." Rice's voice was flat.

  "No, sir. I don't."

  "You said three problems. You've defined two. What is the third?"

  "The third is the war itself. If it can't be stopped by reason, it has to be stopped by emotion. The only emotion I can think of that's strong enough is fear. There's plenty of that already. I think you have to use that, find a way to, ah, encourage these governments to see it's in their own best interest to back off. Then sweeten it with something that lets everyone save face and claim they won something valuable for themselves and their people."

  Rice smiled. "Encourage?"

  "I always liked Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy."

  "Speak softly and carry a big stick?"

  "Yes, sir. If you can get some other big sticks to go along, maybe the combatants will listen."

  "I can't reveal what really happened. You brought me the proof I asked for, but it can't be used. Someone must be held responsible for the bombing."

  "Then I guess you'll have to make something up, Mr. President."

  Rice looked at Nick as if he had just realized he was there.

  "Perhaps you should consider a career in politics after all. You're suggesting I manufacture a bomber and a plot and sell it to the world."

  Nick said nothing.

  "I'll think about what you've said, Carter."

  "I'm sure you'll find a way, Mr. President."

  "That's what I like about you, Carter. Confidence." He stood up and Nick rose with him.

  "I'm told that Director Harker will be unable to return to work for some time. In your opinion, is her deputy competent to take over?"

  "Yes, sir. She's been with Harker since the beginning, she knows all the players. She's a good choice."

  "You're sure you wouldn't like the job?"

  "Stephanie will make a great Director, Mister President."

  No way did he want the job. No way. He'd last about ten minutes in the political snake pit of the Capitol.

  Rice nodded. "Then here's what I want you to do. I want both of you to assume leadership of the Project. Will you do that for me?"

  "Sir..."

  Rice held up his hand. "Don't say anything right now, Carter. Take some time off. Think about it."

  "Yes, sir." What else was he supposed to say?

  Rice stopped at the door. "I was supposed to be assassinated in Chicago today. It's a strange feeling." He looked at Nick. "Well done," he said. Then he was gone.

  Nick left the White House. He wondered what the rest of the day would bring. He wished he was sitting on his cabin porch or maybe lying on the beach in Maui. Maybe he should resign. Maybe he would.

  Years ago, he'd talk with Megan when he had a tough decision to make. She'd had a way of looking at things that helped him get his head straight. But Megan was gone. He'd talk it over with Selena.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Ronnie sat on Nick's couch munching cashews and watching television. The networks were covering the conclusion of an extraordinary meeting in Casablanca.

  "It looks like Rice pulled it off," Ronnie said.

  "He had some help." Nick stood by the kitchen counter. "No one wants World War III. At least the shooting's stopped."

  Rice had spent eight days in Morocco meeting with the leaders of the Islamic world and of Israel, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. On the third day of the conference Israel and Iran had walked out. On the fifth day they declared a temporary cease fire. Nick wondered what kind of heavy arm twisting and deal making had gone on behind the scenes.

  Rice had decided partial truth was the best strategy. In a speech televised around the globe, he revealed
that Eric Reinhardt was behind the destruction of al-Aqsa, in a neo-Nazi plot to start a war and destroy the Jews. He presented proof. It got Israel off the hook. It shocked the world.

  Rice emphasized that Reinhardt was not a native-born American. Everything about him had been uncovered. Rice pointed out that Reinhardt's father had been an SS General. He made no mention of the existence of the Council or its membership and influence.

  No one knew Reinhardt had been at Greenwood's house. Rice said he'd been killed in a fiery car crash while trying to escape Federal Agents sent to arrest him. Dental records confirmed his identity. The remains of his incinerated body were shown to the world. He then announced a coalition of nations would rebuild the Mosque. He condemned hate groups and called for a new era of understanding and compassion.

  Two days after the speech, Elizabeth was out of her induced coma. The team gathered in her hospital room. Her head was swathed in bandages. Her left eye was covered. It was too soon to calculate the full extent of damage to her brain, but she was weeks ahead of schedule in her recovery. She could speak, with a slight blurring of some of her words. She could think clearly.

  Nick told her what had happened.

  "They were going to sacrifice Selena? Really?" Her voice was a whisper.

  "Yes. But no one will ever find out. The house went up in a firestorm. The fire trucks couldn't get near it. Everything turned to slag and ashes. Lodge shut the locals down before they could get going. It's amazing what the phrase 'National Security' will do. There's nothing left, nothing to point a finger at a Nazi conspiracy."

  "The Lance?"

  "Gone. Melted into nothing, and good riddance. They still have the copy in Vienna. As far as the world knows it's the real deal."

  "Rice owes Lodge. I wonder how that will work out?" She coughed, reached carefully for a tissue. "I need a long rest." She looked out the window. "I'm tired, Nick." The words came out slurred.

  Nick kept his face neutral. "You'll be back soon, Director."