by Ted Dekker
It dawned on Friberg that the other three were staring at him. “I really think it’s as simple as that, sir. They know how excited we get over things like nuclear threats. They’re playing us.”
“Let’s hope you’re right. In the meantime, we treat this thing like any other threat of terror. So let’s hear your recommendations.”
Friberg took a deep breath. “We deliver Casius and defuse the demand.”
“Beyond that. Myles?”
“We activate full Homeland Security measures and put all law enforcement on alert. And we look for a device, particularly in the path of recognized drug routes. Despite the unlikelihood of there actually being a bomb, we follow full protocol.”
Friberg wanted to get past this foolishness. Seventy-two hours would come and go and there would be no bomb. He’d seen it a hundred times, and each time they’d had to run through this nonsense. A year ago in the wake of the big attack it had been one thing. But getting all worked up every time some nut yelled Boo was getting old.
Myles Bancroft continued, “We’ve already made a preliminary search plan that starts with the southeast coast and the West Coast and expands to all major shipping points in the country. The Coast Guard will bear the heaviest burden. If the cartel did manage to land a bomb in our borders, it was most probably through a seaport.”
The president frowned and shook his head. “It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Let’s pray to God we never actually have to face a real nuclear bomb.”
“No system’s perfect,” Masters said.
“And if they have managed to get a device through, you honestly think we have a chance of finding it?” the president asked, turning back to the director of the CIA.
“Personally?” Friberg asked.
The president nodded.
“Personally, sir, I don’t think we have a bomb to find. But if there is a bomb, finding it in seventy-two hours will be extremely difficult. Every bill of lading identifying merchandise which entered our country from South America during the past three months will be reviewed, and those that indicate merchandise which could possibly harbor a bomb will be traced. Merchandise will be tracked to its final destination and searched. It can be done, but not in seventy-two hours. That’s why we start with southeastern and western seaports.”
“Why not just take the cartel out?” Masters asked.
Friberg nodded. “We’re also recommending positioning to move on the cartel’s base of operations. But as you say, if the threat is legitimate, all it would take is a flip of a switch somewhere and we could have a catastrophe on our hands. You bomb them, and you’d better be sure that first salvo will kill them or they might twitch their finger and detonate. You don’t play strongman with someone who has a nuclear weapon hidden somewhere.”
“No? And how do you play?”
He paused. “Never been there.”
The president stared at a window across the room. “Then let’s hope we aren’t there now.”
No one spoke. Finally the president stood from the table. “Issue the appropriate orders and have them on my desk right away. You’d better be right about this, Friberg.” The president turned and walked toward the door.
“This is only a threat. We have been here before, sir,” Friberg said.
“Keep this sealed. No press. No leaks,” the president said. “God knows the last thing we need is media involvement.”
He turned and left the room, and Friberg released a long, slow breath.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SHERRY FOLLOWED Casius up a long flight of stairs behind the hotel he’d taken earlier on a weekly basis. She was certain the assassin’s mind had left him during the trip.
On the river they had talked only once about their captivity. A riveting conversation in which he mostly stared off to the passing jungle, grunting short replies. He had shut her out. She had once again become baggage.
Now his eyes remained open only as a matter of courtesy to his brain, which was thoroughly engrossed with what he would do next. And what he would do was return and kill Abdullah. Destroy the compound and slit Abdullah’s throat. When she asked him why, he had simply drilled her with those dark eyes and told her the man was a drug runner. But the explanation hardly made sense.
She asked him again what he thought she should do if there actually was a nuclear weapon in the jungle. But he dismissed the notion outright, so strongly that she began to question her own memory of the vision.
In the end it all came down to their beliefs. He’d come to the jungle to kill. Nothing more complicated than that. Just kill. Like the skull-man in her visions, like a demoniac. She, on the other hand, had come to die—if not literally, as Father Teuwen seemed to suggest, then to die to her past. To find life through a symbolic death of some kind. Maybe she had found it already in the prison back there. A reliving of her death as a child.
They talked about the jungle, finally. It seemed like a common bridge that did not lead to some allusion to life or death. Casius seemed more knowledgeable about the local jungle than anyone she could imagine. If she didn’t know better, she might assume the man had grown up here, in this jungle instead of the ones north by Caracas.
For a terrifying moment she even imagined that if Shannon had lived, he might have become a man like this—tall, rugged, and handsome. Shannon would be a gentler, kinder man, of course. A lover, not a killer. She shoved the comparison from her mind.
At some point floating over the brown waters, she had finally decided that he struck a chord of familiarity with her because he was meant to play this part in her mission. He, too, had been drawn by God and the fact resonated with her like a memory.
Maybe he had been right in saying their worlds were not so far apart. Like heaven and hell kissing up against each other, but separated by some impenetrable steel plate. Maybe that explained the growing ache in her heart as they approached the sleepy town of Soledad in the afternoon.
They walked into a grungy room on the third floor. He shut the door.
“This is your room?” she asked, looking about the dimly lit hotel pad. Other than a queen bed and a single dresser, the room was bare. Soledad had a dozen hotels with far better accommodations than this, but at least the dresser had a mirror.
“It’s not exactly the Hilton, but it has a bed,” he said, fumbling for something in the bathroom. “I’ve paid through tonight. You probably want to find something a little cleaner.”
Casius stepped out of the bathroom and tossed two well-stuffed money belts onto the bed. Evidently killing paid well. He dropped to his knees, pulled some folded clothes and a waist pouch hidden under the bed, and tossed them next to the money belts.
“Travel light, do we?” Sherry asked, grinning at the small pile of possessions.
The assassin looked at her without smiling. “I’m not exactly on a vacation.”
“I could use some clean clothes and a shower,” Sherry said.
Casius motioned to the pile of clothes on the bed. “You’ll find those a bit large, but they’ll do until we can get some clothes from the market. Go ahead, clean up. The water’s hot and there are towels in the bathroom.”
Sherry nodded and took the clothes. A bit big indeed. She would float in his clothes. On the other hand, the white T-shirt hanging from her own body was literally falling apart. Her denim shorts had survived in remarkable condition, considering the jungle. A good wash and they would do. She tossed his pants back onto the bed and turned, holding his white cotton shirt.
“Thank you,” she said and stepped into the bathroom.
Sherry took a long shower, relishing the steaming water, scrubbing the dirt from her pores. She washed and wrung out the jeans, donned his shirt, and ran her fingers through her hair. Not exactly fit for a prom, but at least she was clean. She debated removing her colored contacts. They normally stayed in place for a month at a time, but the journey through the jungle had worn on her eyes and she decided to remove them despite the questions a s
udden change in eye color might draw from the man.
“Thank God for hot water,” she said, stepping from the bathroom.
Casius kneeled at the dresser, writing on a tablet. “Good,” he said without looking up. His mind was obviously buried in that tablet. She plopped onto the bed and lay back, closing her eyes.
“I’m going to shower,” he said, and when she looked up, he was already gone.
Sherry lay back down and rested for a while. At the moment the man planting his little silver sphere in the sand seemed far away. Like a dream fogged by reality.
What was she to do now? Contact the authorities with her version of what had happened? Tell them that she had been captured by a terrorist holed up in the jungle? And there’s more, she’d say.
Really? And what would that be, miss?
He’s got a nuclear bomb that he’s going to blow up in the United States, she’d say.
A nuclear bomb, you say? Oh, heavens! We’ll activate the bat-signal right quick, miss. What did you say your address was?
She rolled to her side and groaned. Maybe she had read too much into the dream. Other than being taken hostage for a day, nothing concrete had happened to lead her to the conclusion that anything remotely similar to a bomb was involved. Only her dream. And really, it could mean that her life was about to blow up, rather than a real bomb.
Get a grip, Sherry.
Father Teuwen’s face filled her mind. He was still back there. She swallowed. That had been real. The father’s words came to her. Think of yourself as a vessel. A cup. Do not try to guess what the Master will pour into you before he pours, he had said. Your life of torment has left you soft, like a sponge for his words.
But you have poured, Father. Every night you pour, filling me with this vision.
Are you ready to die, Sherry?
Sherry sat upright on the bed, half expecting to see Father Teuwen standing there. But the room was empty. The sound of splashing water ceased— Casius was finishing his shower.
Helen had said she was gifted. That she played some part in God’s plan. Like a piece in some cosmic chess match. Heavens, she felt no more like a knight or a bishop than she felt like Father Teuwen’s sponge.
She pushed herself from the bed and walked to the dresser. Her image stared back from the mirror. She scratched at her hair, trying to make some order out of it. Her eyes stared back at her, bright blue again. It struck her that with wet hair she looked like her old self—like Tanya. The door to the bathroom opened and she looked up to the mirror, her hair forgotten. In the reflection, the bathroom door opened and Casius stepped out.
Only it wasn’t Casius she was seeing. It was a blond-haired man, still shirtless, still wearing the black shorts, but clean.
Something clicked in her memory then—something painful and buried deep. A déjà vu in three dimensions that made her blink. Sherry whirled around. He stood, ruffling his hair.
He saw her stricken face and froze.
“What?” he said. “What’s wrong?” He looked quickly around the room, saw no danger, and returned his questioning eyes to her.
Sherry looked from his hair to his face, cleaned of the camo paint for the first time. His eyes were green. Her knees began to quake. Her throat froze shut, and she felt suddenly dizzy. His likeness crashed in her mind like a ten-ton boulder.
But it was an impossibility and her mind refused to wrap itself around this image. A thousand pictures from her early years streaked across her mind’s eye. Her Shannon grinning above the falls; her Shannon shooting from beneath the surface to smother her with kisses; her Shannon popping a shot off at that rooster above the shed and then turning to her with a sparkle in his eye.
A reincarnation of that image stood before her now. Taller, broader, older, but otherwise the same.
She found her voice. “Shannon?”
SHANNON STOOD staring at Sherry. Her mouth gaped as if she were looking at a ghost. And he had already opened his mouth to tell her to get a grip when he saw the change in her eyes. They were blue. They were not hazel.
The words stuck in his throat. He could not place the significance of the change in her eye color, but the detail spun crazily through his mind. She was now clearly a dead ringer for someone he knew. Problem was, his mind had misplaced the identity. For three days her image had whispered to him; now it had tired of its suggestions and it began to wail. You know this person! You really do know her! Another assassin? CIA? The warning bells blared through his skull.
Then she called him. “Shannon?” she said. As if it was a question.
The way she said his name, “Shannon,” threw a face up in his mind. It was Tanya’s face. His legs went weak. But it had to be the wrong face, because this could not be Tanya. Tanya was dead.
She said it again. “Shannon?”
Heat surged up his neck and burned at his ears. He dropped his hand and swallowed, feeling that if he did not sit, he might fall. “Yes?” he answered, sounding like a child, he thought.
She wavered and what color remained in her face drained. “You—you’re Shannon? Shannon Richterson?”
This time he barely heard the question because a notion was growing like a weed in his head. Sherry had known the jungle too well for an American. Her eyes were bright blue. Could it possibly be?
“Tanya?” he said.
Two large tears fell from each of her blue eyes and her lips quivered. Then Shannon knew that he was looking at Tanya Vandervan.
Alive.
His heart lifted to his throat and the room shifted out of focus.
Tanya was alive!
TANYA FELT the tears fall down her cheek. She grabbed at the chair beside her. It was either that or fall.
It was Shannon! “Tanya?” The voice soared in from a thousand memories and she suddenly wanted to throw her arms around him and flee all at once. Casius. The assassin! Shannon? This man who had dragged her through the jungle on a mission of death was really Shannon. After all these years. How was it possible?
“Yes,” she answered. “What’s happening?” The question echoed through the room. It was him! She stepped to the bed as if on a cloud and sat down, numb.
Shannon wavered on his feet. “I . . . I thought you were dead,” he said. She could see small pools of tears in the wells of his eyes.
“They told me that you were killed,” she said and swallowed against the stubborn lump in her throat.
“I came to the mission and saw the bodies. I . . . I thought you were dead.” He backed up a step and ran into the wall. She saw his Adam’s apple bob. He was hardly in control of himself, she realized.
“How did you . . . get out?”
“I . . . I killed some of them and escaped over the cliffs,” he said. “What . . .”
She stood and stepped toward him, hardly realizing she was doing so. This man had become someone new. Someone from her dreams.
“Shannon . . .”
He rushed toward her. His arms spread clumsily before he reached her. She felt as though her chest might explode if she did not touch him now. Their bodies came together. Tanya embraced his broad chest and she began to weep. Shannon held her carefully with trembling arms.
They swayed, holding each other tight. For a few moments, he became the boy under the waterfall once again, strapping and young with a heart as big as the jungle. He was falling in a swan dive, arms spread wide, long blond hair streaming behind. Then they were tumbling under the water and laughing, laughing because he had come back for her.
She buried her face in his neck and smelled his skin and let her tears run down his chest.
The next thought fell into her mind like a stun grenade, obliterating the images with a blinding flash.
This wasn’t Shannon holding her with his flesh pressed against her. This was . . . this was Casius. The killer. The demoniac.
Her eyes opened. Her arms froze, still encircling him. A panic ripped up her spine. God, what have you done to him?
She pushed herself awa
y slowly, carefully, suddenly terrified. He had gone rigid. He stood there and faced her, his thick muscles winding their way around his torso like vines. Angry scars bulged over his chest, like slugs under his skin.
This wasn’t Shannon.
This was some beast who had taken over the body of the boy she had once loved and transformed it into . . . this! A sick joke. With her at its brunt. Oh, dear Tanya, we have decided to answer your prayers after all. Here is your precious Shannon. Never mind that he is twisted and spewing bile from the mouth. You asked for him. Take him.
“No,” she said aloud, and her voice trembled.
Shannon’s eyes flashed questioning.
She took a deep breath and tried to settle herself. She still couldn’t believe that this was happening. That this killer, Casius, was somehow connected to her Shannon. Was Shannon!
“You . . . you’ve changed.”
He stood and she watched his chest expand with heavy breathing. But he did not respond. He seemed suddenly as confused as she.
“What happened to you?” She didn’t mean them to, but the words came out accusing. Bitter.
His upper lip curled to an angry snarl. Like a wounded animal. But he recovered immediately. “I escaped . . . to Caracas. I took the identity of a boy who was killed with his father, the same year my parents were.”
“No! I mean what happened to you? You’ve become . . . them!”
The words somehow reached in and flipped a switch in him. His eyes dimmed and his jaw flexed. She took another step back, thinking she should turn and run away. Leave this nightmare.
“Them? I kill them!” he said.
“And who’s them?”
“The people who killed my mother!” He said it with twisted lips, bitter beyond himself. “Do you know the CIA ordered it? To give that man in the jungle a place to grow his drugs?”
“But you don’t just kill! That’s why we have laws. You’ve become like them.”
He spoke quietly now, trembling all over. “My law is Sula.”
The name echoed through her mind. Sula. The god of death. The spirit of the witch doctor.
“I will do anything to destroy them. Anything! You have no idea how long I’ve planned this.” Spittle flecked his lip. “And you have no idea how sick they are.”
