by Tom Abrahams
He was standing, his hands on his hips, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. He started toward her, a move she knew would hasten his death and make her return to the car even faster.
Halfway across the lot, however, her phone buzzed in her hip pocket. It was her phone, not Karen’s. She’d left Karen’s in the car.
She pulled the phone to read the display. She thumbed rain from the glowing, rain-distorted screen and squinted through the contacts.
Abort.
She slipped the phone back into her pocket and kept walking toward the hotel entrance. As the reporter approached, his arms open, she sidestepped him.
“Excuse me,” she said, affecting a Southern lilt, “do I know you?”
“Uh—oh…” The reporter wiped the rain from his eyes and stared at the assassin. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He looked past her, toward the car, and then back at her again. He was studying her face, her body, her hair.
“I get that a lot.” The assassin smiled and kept moving. “Have a nice evening. Try to stay dry.”
The reporter stood there in the rain for another moment, looked back at the car once more, then turned back to the relative protection of the portico.
Standing inside the lobby, the assassin saw him check his phone. He pulled it to his ear and paced back and forth, fingering the rain from his mop of hair.
Finding a dark corner near the elevators, she pulled her phone from her pocket. She activated the encrypted feature and dialed a secure phone number.
“I’ve aborted,” she whispered into the phone.
“You have a new target,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I’m uploading the particulars now.”
The assassin looked at the phone and opened a proprietary application hidden on the home screen. She entered a key code and her screen filled with a list of mobile documents. She opened the first and looked at the photograph of a familiar face. She recognized the person, but wondered if there was a mistake.
“Is this information correct?” she asked. “You’ve sent me the new target?”
“Yes,” President Jackson said without hesitation. “I want you to kill Matti Harrold. She’s become a liability.”
“What about the reporter?” asked the assassin. “I can still finish the job. It won’t take but a minute.”
“No,” said the president. “He’s untouchable at the moment. Get on the next flight to Barcelona.”
CHAPTER 24
PARK GÜELL
BARCELONA, SPAIN
Park Güell was a mosaic jewel perched above the city on Muntanya Pelada. It was a steep climb to the park’s grand entrance along Carrer de Larrard. Sir Spencer was there early, ahead of the daily tourist rush, to avoid the relentless heat of the high desert clime. He took each step slowly, leaning on his cane, as he navigated the narrow sidewalks.
He stopped short of the main entrance to catch his breath and admired the ornate, graphic entrance. Along the high walls that surrounded the park were tiled designs. Inset in those designs was symbology representative of the Brethren.
The architect of the park, Antoni Gaudí, and his patrons, the Güell family, were devout members whose loyalty and financial contributions were immeasurable by today’s standards. Gaudí had meticulously woven marks of the organization into many of the iconic pieces that defined Barcelona as a city of modernism. Even his signature Temple of the Sagrada Familia, a Catholic church, bore the marks of the Brethren in the luminescent lighting and garish ceiling elements.
Sir Spencer’s gaze lingered on a six-pointed star embedded within the park’s logo. A smile snaked across his lips. This was a good place for the meeting. There were few, if any, security cameras, and they would easily blend with nature lovers and the curious.
“You are here,” a voice called from behind Sir Spencer. “And you’re early.”
Sir Spencer turned around to see his protégé approaching him with open arms. Jon Custos looked older than Sir Spencer remembered. He was more muscular too. His thick neck was planted squarely into his brickwork shoulders.
“I’m trying to avoid the wretched heat.” Sir Spencer raised his arms to meet Custos’s embrace, which was a bit strong for the old man’s liking.
“There’s a lemonade stand just inside the entrance.” Custos pulled back and held his mentor at arm’s length, his hands gripping Sir Spencer’s shoulders. “My treat.”
“I accept the offer.” Sir Spencer winked and leaned forward on his cane, hinting they should move.
Custos led Sir Spencer past the gated entrance, turning left to find the drink stand. As he walked ahead, another man approached Sir Spencer with a fistful of dripping water bottles.
“One euro each,” said the vendor, shoving a pair of bottles toward Sir Spencer, who declined and wove his way to a nearby bench. The man followed for a beat and then gave up, peddling to the next person entering the park.
Once seated, he pulled a linen handkerchief from his blazer pocket and dabbed the beading sweat from his forehead. It was just seven thirty in the morning and he was melting.
A family of four walked past him: a mother, father, and two young boys. The boys held their mother’s hands and argued about which of the many paths to take. They were speaking German. Sir Spencer understood some of the discussion, but wasn’t interested enough to home in on the conversation as they walked farther from him.
He looked up at the canopies of olive and carob trees. They were native to the arid slope, growing tall and stretching their branches outward, as if protecting the visitors from the dry heat.
Gaudí had enhanced the native vegetation when he designed the park, using it to ease the erosion of the dry soil. He chose trees and shrubs that relied on little water. Oleander was a favorite that bloomed throughout the acreage. Explosions of chartreuse and pink dotted the greenery, accenting the stonework and crushed granite paths at points of interest.
Sir Spencer leaned the cane against his lap, regretting not having slept more on the transatlantic flight and having chosen a dark suit from among the clothing options provided him on board. He welcomed the cold, sugary drink when Custos returned with a pair of cups.
“You spent some time in prison,” said Custos. “How was it?”
“It was as you imagine it.” Sir Spencer took a sip of the lemonade, smacking his lips together against the tartness. “It wasn’t enjoyable.”
“It was worth it, no?”
“We shall see. That part of the story is, as of yet, unwritten.”
“We are moving forward. I have made good progress here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ve achieved access to the site. I’ll be able to make the required arrangements.”
“How did you gain access? The security along the shore, particularly around the World Trade Center, will tighten significantly as the meetings draw closer.”
“I have a room key.”
“I hope you didn’t let a room there.”
“No. I have someone else’s key.”
“Good.”
“I also have keys to the prescribed soft points in the building.”
“And the most important piece of all?”
“It is secure.”
“You have it?” Sir Spencer lowered his voice to just above a whisper.
“Yes.”
“It is as advertised?”
“Yes. It flew with me on a commercial flight. No issues.”
“Very good.” Sir Spencer raised his cup in a toast and Custos reciprocated. “Very good.”
“So why are we meeting?” Custos lowered his cup and set it on the bench. “Why are you here?”
Sir Spencer smirked, his fleeting smile deflating into a sympathetic frown. He’d trained Custos too well. The boy was suspicious by nature, but the Brethren programming he’d undergone years before had narrowed his focus and sharpened his radar.
“Jon, your mission is a bit different from what was originally explained.” Sir
Spencer paused, and Custos’s black eyes searched his own until they widened in epiphany.
“This is my final mission,” Custos said, swallowing hard against the final word.
Sir Spencer nodded and moved his hand to Custos’s tree-trunk thigh. He squeezed gently as a father would in reassuring a frightened child.
Custos inhaled slowly and closed his eyes. His jaw tightened.
Sir Spencer slid over on the bench, folding his hands in his lap. He caught the eye of a water vendor and waved him over.
“Dos aguas, por favor,” he said and handed the man two euro in exchange for a pair of sweating, partially frozen sixteen-ounce water bottles. Sir Spencer handed one of them to Custos.
Custos held the bottle to his forehead before unscrewing the cap and squeezing out a swig of water. He looked over at his mentor and nodded.
“I wish there were another way,” Sir Spencer said gently.
Custos recapped the bottle and used it to point along the path ahead of him. “You know, Gaudí originally designed this park as a housing development for wealthy families. There were to be sixty triangular lots connected by an intricate network of paths, stone steps, and even viaducts. He wanted to restrict the building on those lots, allowing construction on just one-sixth of each parcel. The buildings could not block any other’s view of the sea below us or the sunlight above us.”
“As above, so below.” Sir Spencer chuckled.
“Only two of the houses were ever built.” Custos pointed to one of them just to his left and up the hill. “It was too complicated a venture, so it became a large private park until the 1960s. Then it became public.”
“And here we sit.” Sir Spencer cracked open his water and sipped from the bottle.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,” said Custos, “Gang aft a-gley.”
“Robert Burns?”
Custos nodded.
“You learned well.”
“You taught me.” Custos laughed. “You recall the rest of it, right?”
“An’ lae’e us nought but grief an’ pain,” Sir Spencer said. “For promised joy.”
*
The tag on the door suggested the guest in room 3669 wanted privacy. She hadn’t answered her prearranged wake-up call, and a coworker insisted she check on her friend’s well-being.
“She has three hours until checkout,” the desk clerk had said, urging patience. But the brash French-Canadian flight attendant in a neatly pressed uniform would not be dissuaded.
“She’s not answering her cell phone,” the friend explained. “She’s not returning texts. She hasn’t even read them. And I tried snapping her. She didn’t respond.”
“Snapping?”
“Snapchat,” said the flight attendant. “She always snaps me back.”
The clerk relented and called for a shift manager to assess the urgency of the request. After hearing the French-Canadian’s red-faced plea, he conceded it wasn’t against policy to check on the guest’s well-being. He insisted, however, that she wait in the lobby or her own guest room for the status of her “missing friend”.
The manager, escorted by security, took the service elevator and thumped his way along the hallway to room 3669. As he approached the room, his pace slowed. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. He looked over his shoulders in both directions. His stomach tightened, and he fought against the subconscious voice telling him to turn around and return to the comfort of his first-floor office. His pulse quickened another beat as the guard opened the door to blackness, and a blast of cool air hit them like a high-tide wind.
The manager slid the master key into a slot on the wall that powered the lights throughout the room. He flipped the adjacent switches and spun the thermostat ten degrees warmer. The air-conditioning was set to an uncomfortable fifteen degrees Celsius.
The room slowly alit in a soft yellow glow, and the manager walked into the open space of the room. The security guard trailed a step behind.
“Something is not right here,” he said to the guard in impeccable Catalan. He crossed to the large picture windows and pulled open the drawn curtains. From the window, he turned back to the room, hands on hips, and surveyed the modernist space.
Everything was in its place, but a chill ran through the manager’s core. He looked to the bathroom and gave a subtle nod to the security guard.
The guard stepped to the bathroom, reaching around the door to flip on the light. He disappeared for a moment and reemerged, shaking his head.
“Nothing is touched,” said the guard. “The soaps are in their boxes. The shampoo bottles are full. Both towels are hanging.”
“Both?” The manager cocked his head to the left, his eyes narrowed. “There are three towels in every room. Check again.”
The guard checked. “Just two.”
“Somebody cleaned this room,” the manager said. “Somebody cleaned up.”
“Ha!” The security guard chuckled through a sneer. “Who are you? Pepe Carvalho?”
The manager frowned. He didn’t like being compared to a fictional detective, even if he was Spain’s most beloved.
“No. I have an eye for detail. That is why I am good at my job. Details are important.”
The security guard pursed his lips and shrugged. He pulled a tin of mints from his pocket and popped a couple in his mouth.
“Plus,” added the manager, as a point of clarification, “I don’t mingle with prostitutes as Carvalho did.”
“What’s wrong with prostitutes?” asked the guard, sucking on the mints.
The manager put his hands on his hips and scanned the room again. His eyes stopped at the accordion closet opposite the windows. One side wasn’t pushed flush with the track.
“There!” He pointed at the closet.
The guard lumbered the short distance to the closet and pulled open the doors, revealing the safe, an ironing board and iron, an extra pair of goose-down pillows, and a green suitcase.
The guard saw the case and immediately stepped back, nearly tripping over his own feet. He looked back at the manager, his face ashen.
The manager took a step forward, trying to rationalize the reveal with an internal explanation less macabre than what he saw in the closet. He couldn’t. There was only one conclusion as to what had happened in the room.
The suitcase, though zipped closed, was distended. It stood upright. And toward the bottom of the case, its bright green color took a darker hue as if stained with an intentional ombré effect. A dark red puddle on the closet floor, oozing outward from beneath the case, indicated the color-blend was not original to the suitcase.
The guard bent over at his waist, resting his hands on his knees. He pressed his eyes closed and breathed heavily through his mouth. In and out. In and out.
The manager felt a sense of calm wash over him. The room wasn’t as cold. He walked to within a foot of the case and squatted down for a closer look.
It was blood on the floor. No doubt. And there was a body, or parts of one, inside the suitcase.
“Call the police,” he said without taking his eyes from the wheeled, makeshift sarcophagus in front of him. “We need to leave.”
CHAPTER 25
CAMP DAVID
CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN PARK, MARYLAND
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and Mattie had a half hour until Marine One lifted off, carried the White House team to Andrews Air Force Base, and they boarded Air Force One for Barcelona.
It was more than enough time.
Sitting on her bed in the Aspen Lodge, she worked the subtle tremor from her right hand, the sleep from her eyes, and logged into a secure connection on her laptop.
She opened an installed program that masked her keystrokes before activating a plug-in that changed her traceable IP address every thirty seconds. She couldn’t risk anyone knowing what she was about to do.
She went to an email drop box she kept for private communication. Using an online email server, she opened up the message o
ption, typed a brief note, and then saved it without sending it.
She closed that program and then linked to a public message board. She found the right chat room and logged in under a default username. Matti ran her fingers through her hair as she waited for the room to authenticate her account. She checked her phone. Still plenty of time.
Once in the room, she typed a short message telling her contact to go open the saved email message online. That email, once opened, would tell the contact everything he needed to know. She just hoped he was still active in the chat room. Otherwise, he’d never see the message.
Matti closed the browser, deleted her history and the associated cookies, and then reopened the browser again. She then logged onto PlausibleDeniability.info. The home page was populated with articles by Dillinger Holt. Matti had read all of them in the last hour. The most recent, the one about Sir Spencer, was dangerous.
Her eyes raced across Holt’s report, her lips mouthing the words as she read them. Could it be the attack’s mission was to free Thomas and not kill him?
Matti made a mental note of additional questions she needed to answer. If the mission was to free Sir Spencer, as she now believed, why did the president want him alive? What purpose could he serve? And had the president been involved in the destruction of the Capitol?
Matti remembered Felicia Jackson repeatedly telling the story of her near-death at the Capitol, of running across the mall and face-planting into the grass when the explosion thrust her forward into the air.
Still, on the heels of her recent discussion with the president, Matti knew she wasn’t crazy. The president knew it too. It wasn’t good.
Matti was surprised, in fact, the president hadn’t confronted her yet. It had been several hours since the ultimatum meeting, and she hadn’t seen Jackson since.
Maybe the talk would occur on board Marine One or Air Force One. Maybe President Jackson was planning to kick Matti off the team. Or maybe worse.
