Covenant

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘You tailing it?’

  ‘D.C. is.’

  ‘About a hundred pounds of C-4.’

  Harrison got a ride with the SWAT team back to the highway and a rest area they had used to land the chopper. He saw Jean standing by his Chevy and could see the fear in her eyes as her gaze jumped from face to face. Then she saw him and broke from the truck at a run. His knees went weak. In all the years he had been alive, nobody had made such an overt demonstration of affection. He took her in his arms and held her close, kissing her face, neck and hair.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.’

  The prisoners were moved from the cars to the twin vans that were waiting.

  Sidetrack came alongside and looked at Harrison, then leaned and spat on the ground. ‘Hey, Four-String,’ he said. ‘You’re dead meat,’

  Harrison turned then, one arm about Jean’s shoulders, and held the tape up in his free hand. ‘Just keep talking.’

  ‘Every FTRA member in the country will be looking for you.’

  Harrison stepped closer to him. ‘Sidetrack, by the time we’re done, there ain’t gonna be an FTRA.’

  He turned on his heel then and guided Jean over to his truck. ‘Who was that?’ she asked him.

  Harrison looked back as Sidetrack was manhandled into the back of a van. Turning, he gently cupped her face in both his hands. ‘Jean,’ he said very softly. ‘That’s the man who killed your son.’

  For a moment, Jean stared at him, her mouth open, tongue drying. Then she looked to where the van doors were being slammed and back into Harrison’s weary eyes. Penny walked over to where they stood and Harrison held up a palm to keep him away. Gently, he lifted Jean into his truck and held her in the darkness while she cried and cried.

  The two special ops agents followed the stolen pick-up truck at a good distance, leaving the hard work to the overhead surveillance crew. The driver took the road into the Appalachians, climbed through the highest pass and then descended towards Virginia. He parked the truck in another deserted rest area and left it. A second truck picked him and the passenger up and they drove off into the mountains. Halfway along the road, they were stopped by SWAT team members fast-roping from a helicopter.

  Harrison drove his own truck, with Jean next to him on the bench seat and Penny pressed up against the window. They were heading for Washington D.C. Jean was no longer crying and she sat close to Harrison, one hand resting on his thigh and her head against his shoulder. After a while, she slept. Harrison glanced over at Penny, who was on the cellphone. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, when Penny came off the phone.

  ‘SWAT team just picked up three members of the Mountaineer Militia. They dumped the truck at another dead drop. D.C.’s got it staked out now. They think Harada’s gonna collect it.’

  ‘The explosives were for him, then. I didn’t think there was a connection.’

  ‘Neither did anyone else until London found out that a European Nazi group, called the Shield Society, have been paying US servicemen to steal military ordnance. Harada used the Shield Society in one of his messages.’

  Harrison nodded. ‘So who’s been killing the militia men, then?’

  ‘We still don’t know.’ Penny shrugged. ‘That’s the bit that makes no sense at all.’

  They drove for half an hour, Harrison leaning back in the seat. ‘Matthew, just remind me will you, that’s the last time I ever go undercover.’

  ‘Did you get much?’

  ‘I got everything we needed.’

  ‘How did they figure you?’

  Harrison shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But my ugly mug was plastered over the militia websites for a while, a year or so back. Maybe somebody recognised me.’

  ‘They shoulda pulled you out as soon as there was a militia connection.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Harrison made a face. ‘Anyways, I got it all on tape, Matt. I’ve got the whole organisation implicated. We can pick up every bandana-wearing sonofabitch we find, make the skids safe for the real hobos again.’ He looked down at Jean, then kissed her lightly on the hair. ‘I’ve also got Southern Sidetrack telling me how he played Russian roulette with her boy.’

  Penny looked at Jean where she slept. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Man, that is good news. Perhaps she can get some of her life back now.’ Penny paused for a moment. ‘Are you coming back to New Orleans?’

  Harrison shook his head. ‘I’ll give you the tape, but I’m staying in D.C. for a few days.’ He paused then. ‘Besides, this ain’t over yet.’

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘Not by a long way.’ Harrison squinted at him. ‘I think I know who Whiskey Six is.’

  Penny was staring at him, and Harrison rolled the sleeve up on his jacket and twisted round so his tattoo was showing. ‘This is what endeared me to Sidetrack and the crew in the first place. Their overall leader—Whiskey Six—has got one just like it. Makes sense now. A whiskey bottle and a six-gun. A Tunnel Rat tattoo.’ He reached for a Marlboro and popped a match on his belt buckle, then looked at Penny once more. ‘Matthew, I think Whiskey Six is an ex-Tunnel Rat called Ray Martinez.’

  Harada parked the pick-up track in the garage of his house in Falls Church, having made three separate circuits of the area to ensure it was clean. It was 2 a.m. and he rolled back the tarpaulin and checked his cargo. One baseplate, one Lockheed Martin bipod and firing system, and one box of 120mm mortars with a range of four kilometres. He knew how to launch them and he knew exactly where to launch them, having calculated the distance and trajectory many times. There was a District of Columbia law that ensured no building between the White House and Capitol Hill was more than seven storeys high. He would not even have to use the guidance system. Noncombatants would be killed, but as far as he was concerned now, every person working in the federal area was a legitimate target.

  Back inside the house, he took a cold shower and dressed in his silk kimono. He washed the dye from his hair and then sat in the lotus position before the Shinto shrine; and his mind rolled back to the past and the face of Tetsuya Shikomoto. Would that his friend and lover could be there in the final moments. Would that there were someone to aid him should his courage fail, or the ordeal prove too much. But it had fallen to him to do this alone. He knew that this was what was ordained, that the only way to regain all that was lost was to finish it with a courage that had failed him throughout his life. He completed his meditation and then he sat in front of his computer, encrypted his e-mail and began to type his message.

  Harrison parked his truck under the 4th Street field office in the early hours of the morning. Jean was awake and rubbing her eyes. Penny got out and stretched. Upstairs, Harrison saw Swann and they shook hands and then hugged one another.

  ‘How you doing, duchess?’

  ‘I’m doing OK.’

  ‘Still here, though, huh?’

  Swann nodded. ‘It beats teaching a class in Baton Rouge.’

  ‘Where’s the lovely Logan?’

  ‘With Kovalski.’

  ‘They working on the stake-out in Virginia?’

  ‘They’re up in the command post, yeah. This is our chance to get Harada. We’ve been watching a self-storage unit we know he’s been using, but he’s not come back.’

  Harrison poured a large cup of coffee and passed it to Jean. She looked very tired, but smiled at Swann and went to sit at a desk. Harrison poured more coffee. ‘I found her son’s killer, Jack.’ Swann stared at him and he nodded. ‘He’s the leader of the southern crew.’

  ‘Does she know?’

  Harrison nodded. ‘Yeah. I told her when we popped him. Or rather, when the boys from New Orleans did. I was about to get one in the back of the head.’ He rubbed his neck under his hair.

  Swann was looking at Jean. ‘I suppose she’ll be going back to London now.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess she will.’

  The Cub ate dinner with Sinil Kapoor. Across the road,
the halal butcher’s shop was very busy. Earlier, he had walked up one side of the street and then down the other, hand in hand with his date, and browsed through the racks of clothing that cluttered the pavement. He had picked up al-Bakhtar’s spotters relatively easily and that disturbed him. If he could do it, then undoubtedly al-Bakhtar could too. Bin Laden’s intelligence-gathering capability would make some countries look silly and he felt sure he would be aware of this sudden interest.

  The Cub had seen al-Bakhtar arrive an hour earlier and disappear into the back of the shop. There was another exit at the rear, but the British had it covered. And yet, Bin Laden went to the mosque on a Friday. The Cub ate a piece of chicken and sipped his glass of beer. Sinil sat quietly opposite him and smiled appreciatively now and again. The Cub was half watching his plate and half watching the street. His gaze was drawn to the pitched roofs of some of the buildings opposite. They left the restaurant and walked hand in hand down the street, The Cub deep in thought. He had a bad feeling about this.

  The sun rose early in Washington D.C.; nobody in the field office had been to bed. Kovalski and Logan had spent much of the night in the command post, monitoring the surveillance teams at the dead drop in Virginia and the self-storage unit off North Capitol Street. Nobody had collected the pick-up truck and it still stood in its parking spot, the ignition keys up the exhaust pipe and the cargo of C-4 intact in the truck boxes. The watchers were placed in the woods, agents in gilly suits, as well as further up the mountain. All access routes to the rest area from the highway and the dirt road were being watched. The same went for the self-storage units: teams from the task force were in situ both across the street and in the units opposite. Nothing happened. Nobody came. No movement whatsoever.

  Swann left Harrison and Jean in the squad room and went upstairs to find Logan. Kovalski sat at a desk with his tie undone and bags billowing under his eyes.

  ‘Harada won’t leave a truck-load of C-4 for very long,’ Swann said.

  Kovalski looked at his watch and nodded.

  ‘How many men have you got out there?’

  ‘Enough. There’s no way anyone can slip through the net, Jack. Believe me.’

  Swann sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘Has anyone got any clue what he’s got planned? You can do a lot of damage with that much C-4.’

  Kovalski shrugged. ‘No idea. How’s Harrison?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘He did a real good job.’ Kovalski looked at Logan. ‘I know you think he’s just another old school buddy of mine, Cheyenne. But he’s the best UCA the Bureau ever had.’

  Logan looked at him and smiled.

  ‘I think he’s worried that Jean Carey’s going to go home now,’ Swann said. ‘It seems there was something going on between them.’

  ‘That lady doctor and Harrison?’ Logan arched her eyebrows.

  ‘He seems pretty keen on her.’ Swann swung himself off the desk and moved back to the door. ‘If nobody minds, I’m going out for a stroll.’

  He went out on to the street and found Harrison sitting on the wall of the Federal Museum building opposite, smoking a cigarette. Pennsylvania Avenue was getting back to normal, the government determined not to be undermined. The damaged buildings were being made safe with scaffolding. Harrison flipped away his cigarette and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm.

  ‘Why don’t you find somewhere to crash,’ Swann said. ‘You’ve been up for days.’

  Harrison made a face and reached for another cigarette. ‘What’s England like?’ he asked.

  Swann cocked his head to one side. ‘It’s all right. Why?’

  ‘Is it like here?’

  ‘In some respects, I suppose. It’s more expensive. Petrol, beer, that kind of thing.’

  Harrison cupped his hands to the match.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Swann said. ‘Jean.’

  Harrison blew a stream of smoke and Swann stole a Marlboro from his shirt pocket.

  ‘You really like her, don’t you?’

  ‘We got kinda close, bubba. Yeah.’

  ‘She’s a special woman.’

  ‘You’re not kidding me.’ Harrison sucked hard on the cigarette. ‘Her kind don’t come along very often.’

  ‘How is she now?’

  Harrison made a face. ‘Relieved, I figure. She’s real tired, but I can see a bit of the weight has lifted. She knows who murdered her boy. Knows the sonofabitch is in custody. It’s gonna help her a lot. She can mourn properly now.’

  Swann nodded. ‘Will she come back here for the trial?’

  ‘There may not be one. We’ve got taped evidence against Sidetrack. He may go for a plea bargain to save him from the needle.’ He leaned one foot flat against the wall. ‘I guess she’ll wanna see him sentenced, though.’

  ‘When’re you going back to New Orleans?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Harrison looked beyond him then to the grey walls of the field office. ‘I’m going after Whiskey Six, Jack. I’m gonna give myself a coupla days. Spend some time with Jean, then I’m going back on the skids.’ Harrison pushed himself away from the wall. ‘I’m gonna try and do a deal with Sidetrack, get him to give up Whiskey Six instead of taking the needle.’ He pushed out his lips. ‘It might work. It might not. If not, the bastard can die.’

  Swann nodded. ‘And after that?’

  Harrison laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Who knows, duchess? Who the hell knows?’

  Harada woke with the dawn and prepared himself one last time before the Shinto shrine. He showered, dressed and checked the house before wrapping his silk kimono in brown paper and sliding the half-length sword into the same bundle. He stowed it in the truck, took two handguns and placed them under the seat, then he checked the map which was laid out on the floor of the garage. He knew everything would depend on the parks police. Finally, he took a registered disability permit from the drawer in the worktop and dangled it from the rearview mirror. For a moment he sat there, looking at himself. No make-up, no disguise. He was Fachida Harada, the warrior, and he was no longer ninja.

  28

  CARL SMYLIE READ HIS e-mail, with the hairs lifting on the back of his neck. He looked at his watch, stared at the phone and, for the first time in all of this, considered calling the FBI. But then he looked again at the message and the Pulitzer prize beckoned.

  Picking up the telephone, he dialled. ‘Jim Morris, please.’ He waited until Morris came on the phone. ‘Jim,’ he said. ‘This is Carl. Look, I need a cameraman with a radio link to a van.’

  ‘What for?’ Morris was a producer on the Live Tonight news programme that was beamed all over the country.

  ‘Trust me, Jim. I guarantee you it’ll be the biggest broadcast coup of the century.’

  Harada drove the pick-up truck into the city and headed for the Lincoln Memorial. Cops were everywhere. He saw Federal Defense Service cars, the parks police and uniformed secret service agents all over the place. There were no roadblocks, however, the traffic already being snarled to breaking point by the mayhem he had caused off Pennsylvania Avenue. He eased his way towards Constitution Avenue and Memorial Drive Bridge. He had waited until the rush hour was over and everyone he wanted to target would be at their desks. He drove with both hands on the wheel, skin moist, and a hollow sensation in his gut that he knew was brought on by fear. Every now and then, he would catch his reflection in the rearview mirror, where the disabled sticker was hanging. A parks police car was parked on a patch of rough grass at the head of Memorial Drive. Crossing the bridge, Harada eased the pick-up round the roundabout and pulled off to the right of the Lincoln Memorial. He watched in the wing mirror, but the police car remained where it was, and then he looked ahead to the nine parking bays set aside for the disabled. The last one, the one nearest to the white stone flower vases that formed the block in the road, was empty. He slowed. The other cars were all parked nose in. He hauled hard on the wheel and backed up the truck so the flatbed was facing the city.

  Harrison sat in Kovalski’s
office on the phone to New Orleans. The task force had raided the rogue base at Wichita Falls and recovered a massive amount of weapons. Paulie Caulfield had been arrested, along with seventeen other US service personnel named by Patterson and Stoval in London. The FTRA members, who Harrison could identify, were being hunted at that very moment. In the north, Detective Spinelli was co-ordinating the search for The Voyageur, and the San Francisco field office had trapped Ghost Town just outside of Oakland, in the early hours of the morning. Harrison put down the phone and rubbed his jaw with a calloused palm. Swann was sitting across from him with Logan, who was talking on the radio to the agents at the Virginia stake-out. There was still no sign of Harada, or anyone else, coming for the C-4.

  ‘He must have got wind and given it up,’ Swann said.

  Harrison nodded.

  Swann looked at him then. ‘So why don’t I feel any relief?’

  Harrison got up and paced to the window, where he pressed his face against the glass. Penny had flown with the SWAT team back to New Orleans, where Sidetrack would be extradited to stand trial for Tom Carey’s murder. Harrison and Jean were staying at the Hyatt with Swann and Logan, and Harrison had taken her there that morning. He pushed himself away from the glass and he and Swann went outside for a smoke.

  ‘So you’re going after Whiskey Six?’ Swann said.

  Harrison nodded. ‘Then I’m outta here. I’ll give evidence at whatever trials I need to, but after that, it’s over.’

  Swann cocked his head to one side. ‘You really mean it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Harrison rubbed his arm with a palm. ‘Duchess, I’m too old for this shit any more.’ There was a distance in his eyes that Swann had never seen before.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On Jean?’

  Harrison sighed. ‘I don’t know, Jack. We got kinda close, but now this thing is over. She’s got a life back in England, and it’s always struck me as funny how emotions change when the moment of tension is gone. You understand what I’m saying?’

  Swann nodded. ‘What’re her plans?’