by Ted Dekker
Carl slammed his foot on the brake pedal and brought the car to an abrupt halt.
THE GARBAGE cans were flying, and Johnny’s car was bouncing, and Englishman was happy.
He grunted, amused by his own power. Nothing short of amazing. And Kelly was impressed, he could sense it, see her mouth gaping with wonder in his peripheral vision. He hadn’t shown her the half of it.
He impulsively sent the rest of the cans in the alley flying, like rockets shot from canisters. They slammed into the walls and streaked up, free from gravity for a moment.
It was a mistake.
He’d removed his attention from Johnny for only a moment, but that moment had allowed him to exit the alley and disappear.
Something smashed ahead. Johnny had hit a car.
Run, Johnny, run. Like a bat out of hell, because hell is coming sooner than you think. Even if you escape me, hell is coming. You will be destroyed.
In the end you will be your own undoing.
You can’t escape you.
Englishman exited the alley, braking so as not to pile into whatever Johnny had hit. Traffic had stopped, allowing him plain view of what had happened even in the fading light. He could see the rubber marks that chronicled the car’s trajectory. Across the street. Into an alley.
Johnny was undoubtedly still in the alley. And the path to the alley was clear.
Englishman roared across the lanes and angled into the alley. It would be over now. He wouldn’t be so careless this—
They collided with a large steel garbage bin that promptly tipped over and stopped the car cold. Englishman’s head smashed into the steering wheel. Beside him, Kelly crashed into the dashboard with her elbows.
It took him a moment to collect himself. The car had stalled. But neither the car stalling nor the large steel bin that had stopped the car concerned him. In the confusion Johnny’s car had exited the alley without his seeing which way it had turned. This annoyed him.
Sirens wailed from several directions, racing to the string of disruptions Johnny had left in his wake.
Englishman grunted and shoved the garbage bin out of his way with a thought. He started the car, sent the steel container flying vertically, and drove under it. The bin crashed back down on the cab’s roof and tumbled off the trunk behind him.
You think you’ve made an escape, Johnny. You’re wrong.
CARL BROUGHT the cab to a screeching stop in front of a stunned cabby. Assim Feroz had taken off his jacket as instructed while Carl rolled the garbage bin to block the alley behind them. He’d known the maneuver would only waylay Englishman momentarily, but he also knew there was no other way to block his line of sight before they exited the alley.
Carl snatched the jacket from Feroz. “Straight to the parking lot behind the building. One move I don’t like and I’ll shoot your hand off.” He shrugged into the jacket.
The Iranian defense minister was white with fear. “My leg . . .”
“Your leg isn’t broken. Swallow the pain and run.” Carl shoved his door open.
The cabby rounded his cab, frantically eyeing the damage. “What have you done to my car?”
Carl pressed one gun to the cabby’s gut while training the other on Feroz. Not lost on the Iranian. “If you want to live, you’ll drive this car south one block and leave it parked on the side of the road. Get in.”
“What? What is—”
“Now! Now, now, now! Before I change my mind and kill you.”
The driver piled into the car.
“Get out in one block, before the bomb blows.” Carl slammed the door shut and the car jerked forward.
“Run,” Carl ordered the Iranian.
The man hobbled toward a sidewalk that led to the parking lot behind the hospital. Englishman would exit the alley at any moment, and when he did they had to be out of his line of sight.
If they could manage that much, Carl would save Kelly. If he could not reach the corner in time, both he and Kelly would die.
Under no circumstances would Carl allow Kelly to die.
32
They roared from the alley onto First Avenue. Englishman searched frantically for the yellow car among a dozen yellow cars strung up and down the street, a half mile in each direction. And then he saw it, a full block south, pulling to the side of the road.
Only the fact that the car was stopping convinced Englishman to hold back his full fury. What was Johnny doing? Surely he realized that he was in danger. Unless he knew that by stopping he would make Englishman hesitate.
“David Abraham knows that Feroz ordered the hit on the president,” Kelly said, eyes on the car as it pulled over. “That means the president also knows by now.”
“I’m quite sure I told you to keep your mouth sealed,” Englishman said.
“Fine, but if you refuse to consider what I have to say, you’ll have to answer to Kalman.”
Englishman guided the car toward the yellow cab. “What makes you think I care about Kalman? You think I don’t know what Johnny’s up to? You think waiting until now to give me advice isn’t an obvious ploy to distract—”
Englishman stopped. A man had tumbled out of the car. Even from this distance he could see that it was neither Johnny nor Assim Feroz. Who, then?
He quickly reaffirmed the cab’s identification. Black cloth tied around the number. The side was badly torn and the mirror was missing. This was Johnny’s cab. Unless . . .
Englishman slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed and the car behind them tapped their rear bumper. But Englishman didn’t care. His eyes and mind were on the yellow cab a hundred yards up the street. The car that Johnny had managed to ditch. The car that another man had taken for a short drive before ditching it himself.
Why?
His secure phone chirped. Horns blared. Englishman searched for any sign of Johnny or Feroz. Nothing.
The volume on his phone rose one level as he’d programmed it to do if left unanswered after three rings. He smiled. But he didn’t feel happy. Waves of heat spread over his skull and down his back. Still he smiled. He had to respect the simple victory that his enemy was about to take.
Englishman took a deep breath, pulled out his phone, and answered without removing his eyes from the cab. “Yes?”
“Carl has Feroz.” Kalman’s voice crackled in his ear. “He will kill the fool unless you let the woman go. I have no doubt he means what he says.”
“Yes.”
Englishman had decided in Paradise that Johnny would return to New York to take Assim Feroz hostage in exchange for Kelly. It’s what Englishman would have done, because assuming it could be done, the plan was nearly fail-safe.
“If Feroz dies, our credibility will be crippled. We can’t kill the people who hire us!”
“I know.”
“Then let her go.”
“He’ll kill Feroz anyway.”
“I’ll take the risk. Let her go and drive south past Houston Street. Give her your phone. Carl will contact her when he’s convinced she isn’t being followed. When you’ve done this, I want you to complete the hit on the president.”
“He’ll kill Feroz anyway. It’s what I would do.”
Englishman was tempted to tell Kalman about his trump card. Instead, he closed the phone. There was no way to flush out Johnny now, and no way to estimate where he might have run off to. North, east, west, south? On foot? In another car?
“Look at the car, Kelly.”
She followed his gaze and looked at the vacant yellow cab. Cars were now squealing around him, blasting him with their pathetic horns. Some drivers even had the gall to gesture, as if that would offend him.
“If you ever find Johnny, the real Johnny, tell him about me. The real me.”
The yellow cab bucked as if a bomb had been detonated beneath it. The car rose ten, twenty feet into the air, turned lazily in a complete flip, then began its descent.
The ascent was silent, because the power that had lifted the car came from him, not a bang b
eneath. But the landing was thunderous. The cab landed on its roof with a mighty crash.
Cars and pedestrians spread from the vicinity like ripples on a pond. They no doubt thought that aliens had just commenced an attack on New York City.
“You may go,” Englishman said, handing her his phone. “Tell Johnny that his end is in himself, his real self. But I still plan on facilitating.”
CARL SNAPPED the phone shut and sagged against the wall. Kelly was coming to him. Englishman was gone, at least for the time being.
They waited at the base of a deserted concrete loading ramp behind the hospital. Half an hour had passed since his call to Kalman, and darkness had settled over the grounds.
Feroz sat on the ground staring up at him. His slicked hair flopped over his sweaty, hawkish face. This was the man who had gone to such lengths to kill the president. He’d paid an insane amount of money to hire the X Group, because he trusted only the very best to handle the murder.
But Carl had been sent to kill Feroz, not the president. Yes, it was a bluff, but he no longer would accept bluffs. They’d bluffed him for ten months, and this was their last.
Carl had also once been a member of the United States Army, sworn to serve the commander in chief. So then, his obligation was clear. He had used Feroz to save the woman he loved. He must now kill the man who had hired him to kill the president. He must kill Feroz.
“You have what you want. Release me.” The man’s face was scowling and dark, as if he thought he was in charge.
“You hired me to kill the president,” Carl said.
No answer. Good. Any other answer would have been foolish considering the circumstances.
“But they told me I was to kill you.”
The man spit to one side.
“I have also taken an oath to protect the president. Since your life is a threat to his, I have an obligation to kill you.”
Carl could hear the sound of running feet, presumably Kelly’s. She was coming to him. He lifted his gun and placed it against his prisoner’s skull. He would wait until he was sure she was safe.
“You are nothing but a hired killer,” the man said. “Do you know who I am?”
“You are a dead man.”
“Johnny?”
Kelly stopped at the top of the ramp, panting.
“Are you safe?” he called.
She hurried down the ramp. “I doubled back. There’s no way he could have followed. Thank heaven, Johnny. I thought—”
“My name is Carl” he said and pulled the trigger.
The 9mm bucked in his hand. The target’s head snapped back, struck the concrete wall behind him, and then fell to one side. The gun’s report echoed in the small concrete depression. Assim Feroz stared ahead through black, vacuous eyes. Dead.
Carl lowered his gun.
Who am I?
He began to tremble, suddenly terrified. Kelly was standing halfway down the ramp, staring at him, taken aback by his execution of Assim Feroz, perhaps. He didn’t care. He would do anything to save her. But now that she was safe, he was terrified to be with her. To be seen by her.
But more than this, to endanger her life. Englishman would hunt Carl before he hunted Kelly. He had no choice but to leave Kelly for her own safety, at least until he made sense of the madness of these past three days.
“Johnny?”
Why was she calling him Johnny? He’d always been Carl to her. He didn’t want to be Johnny any more than he wanted to be Carl.
He forced himself to look up at her. She was safe. Safe and deserving of more than he could ever offer her.
Feeling like a fool, he ran up the ramp past her.
“What are you doing?”
He stopped at the top long enough to throw out a useless, pitiful word. “Sorry.” Then he added just as pitifully, “Stay away from me. Englishman will come for me. Save yourself.”
And then Carl, who was Johnny, who wanted to be neither Carl nor Johnny, ran into the night.
33
What I’m telling you is that my son and I were right,” David Abraham said. “And Johnny penetrated the X Group in full cooperation. He insisted we set him up.”
“How can you be sure that it was Johnny Drake who tore up New York and killed Feroz?” Stenton demanded.
“His marks are all over it. You’ve heard the reports? They found no explosives on the car that blew up.” David paced at the foot of the president’s bed. “It’s him! He’s learning who he is!”
“Unless it was this other assassin, Englishman.”
The name gave David pause. Englishman was a mystery. If it turned out that he rather than Johnny had flipped the cab, then they were all in a hopeless mess. He would leave it up to Samuel to sort it out.
“Perhaps. The point is, you owe your life and your presidency to Johnny. You must issue a statement that evidence implicating Feroz in your assassination attempt has surfaced, prompting a successful preemptive strike by our people.”
“Johnny’s not our people. He’s a chaplain who—”
“A chaplain in our army!”
Stenton eyed David. “What evidence do we have that Feroz was behind this?”
“The sworn affidavits of Johnny Drake and a highlevel operative from the X Group named Kelly Larine. They gave these statements to me verbally, but we can get them in writing if . . .”
“If?”
“They survive. I doubt this is over. The X Group has never failed to make good on a contract. Feroz has paid for your death—it doesn’t matter that he’s now dead. If you implicate the Iranian minister of defense with even a shred of evidence, two things will happen. The first is that his support for the initiative to disarm the Middle East will evaporate. A major victory. For this alone I would think you’d want the evidence needed to implicate him, particularly knowing it’s true.”
“And second?”
“The X Group will pull out all the stops to silence those who expose a paying client.”
“Meaning they will come after me hard.”
This much David had already accepted.
“And you’re hoping Johnny can stop this so-called Englishman,” the president said.
“He may be your best hope.”
“Assuming that Johnny, not Englishman, has this supernatural power.”
“Yes. Assuming that.”
“I’m not sure which is harder, being caught in the wake of this Project Showdown, or believing it even exists.”
“Clearly, being caught in its wake.”
“Don’t you ever doubt?”
This silenced him. They both knew he did on occasion. Anything unnatural was not naturally believed. Faith, in essence, was unnatural. “On occasion,” David said. “This isn’t one of those occasions.”
Stenton looked as though he’d aged ten years in the last two days. Perhaps he had.
“I want a sworn statement from you. I’ll pass all of this by Ed Carter as soon as you leave. If the director is in agreement, we’ll hold a press conference in the morning explaining how Feroz’s own hired guns took him out to keep him from ever fingering them. There’ll be plenty of international fallout, but I think you’re right. When the dust settles, it’ll go our way. If, and I do mean if, you’re right about all of this, your Johnny may have just saved Israel.”
“Which was undoubtedly why Samuel received the vision he did.” “Doesn’t mean this Johnny is innocent. I’ve been given the green light to be discharged tomorrow. I think I’ll move it up.”
“Where will you be going?”
“To my ranch in Arizona. I think disappearing for a few days is in order considering all that’s happened.” He caught David’s concerned surprise. “Don’t worry, my ranch is armed to the teeth.”
THE DIRECTOR of the Central Intelligence Agency, Ed Carter, now faced an impossible decision. He had thought betrayal would get easier with time.
It didn’t.
What he and a small group of well-informed U.S. leaders were doing wasn’t
a true betrayal in that they weren’t betraying their nation. Only their president, and only for altruistic reasons grounded in sound moral principles. The large sums of money flowing through their hands were enough to grease the wheels, but hardly motivation for assassination. So he’d told himself a thousand times.
There was good reason why virtually every nation in the world supported the Iranian initiative to disarm the Middle East. After more than a thousand years of bloody conflict, it was time to bring the region under control. The Iranian initiative had a better than average chance of doing just that.
The only person who stood in the way was Robert Stenton. One gunslinging president who had no right to subvert the will of the world or, for that matter, the will of the United States. They all knew that on balance the American people supported the Iranian initiative. If, as Stenton had repeatedly warned, Israel was ultimately destroyed by her neighbors, well then, the world would go on with one less brewing conflict.
As he saw it, disarming the region and putting a United Nations peace force in place was far less risky than allowing ideologically driven conflicts to fester.
His role was strictly to provide intelligence. Schedules, names, weaknesses in security. None of it traceable to him. With Assim Feroz now dead, Stenton would fan the shocked world into flame and kill the initiative. The agency couldn’t contradict the evidence that Feroz was behind the attempt on the president’s life without themselves appearing complicit.
The only way out of this mess was to continue as planned. Deal with the president. There would be a dozen Assim Ferozes willing to carry his torch in the absence of opposition.
Ed pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose and picked up the satellite phone. He called an attorney in Brussels. From there he was passed through no fewer than six filters before finally reaching Kalman within fifteen minutes. An amazing network the Russians had established, superior in every way to their own.
The phone clicked twice. “Yes?”
“The operative has fixed the customer. The other will be going home immediately. His withdrawal papers will be handled through normal New York channels.”
