“Contrary to Rand’s and Brooks’ philosophy,” Raoul said.
“And the philosophy of David Benedict and James Marvin.”
“Get to the point.”
“I think Benedict and Marvin are trying to get rid of Harris.”
“What? You think Marvin is doing the bidding of people like Benedict?”
“Benedict and his people lost two presidential elections to Harris,” Kyle said. “Time is running out.”
“That’s pretty extreme,” Raoul said.
“Why do you think Atlas Global is the largest provider of private security to the government?”
“Connections,” Raoul said. “It’s pretty simple.”
“Contributions is a better word.”
Raoul drained his mescal glass, then grimaced. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re crazy.”
Kyle shrugged. “It makes perfect sense.”
“It’s treason,” Raoul said. “You can’t just get rid the president of the United States because you don’t like his politics and take over the country.”
“People like Benedict think anything is okay if it’s for the greater good. The end justifies the means.”
“That’s crazier still,” Raoul said. “It means anything goes. There are no rules.”
“I’m convinced that neither Hank Benedict, nor his old man, nor Marvin, will let President Harris get out of that lodge alive.”
“And you still think Benedict is behind it?”
“What I think and what I can prove are two different things,” Kyle said, falling silent again. “What do you think?”
“I think your brain is working overtime.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Raoul sipped from his drink, lost in thought for a moment. “If what you say is true, it means I’m working for the wrong side.”
Kyle sat motionless and looked at Raoul in silence.
“We can’t waste any more time here, Kyle,” Raoul said with finality. “The jihadis have the president. Remember?”
“Going back to Vista Verde now won’t help anything,” Kyle said.
The silence was broken by the scrape of Raoul’s chair on the brick floor as he stood to leave. “You could be right about the Benedict thing, Kyle. They’re capable of anything and they have the money and influence to make it happen.” He exhaled audibly. “I don’t know what to do, but I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Kyle stared at his empty glass for a long moment as if transfixed, then lifted his eyes to Raoul, who was staring down at him. “The bomb!” Kyle said. “Without the bomb, they’re nothing.”
“You’re weird, ya know. They’ve GOT the bomb, Kyle. They’re not going to give it up. They’ll detonate it first. Remember? They’ll all die and supposedly go to heaven.”
Kyle shook his head, no. “Morris,” he said, waving a finger. “We’ve got to find Morris.”
“We tried. Remember? They probably killed him, dumped his body someplace.”
“Maybe not,” Kyle said. “Maybe we haven’t looked in the right places.”
Raoul shook his head in disgust and rolled his eyes. “All right, mister smart guy. What do you suggest?”
“Access the Atlas Global communications? Can you do that?”
“Of course. I’m director of training, unless I’ve been fired. So what am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Comb the communications system for any references to Alan Morris, no matter how vague. Encrypted and unencrypted.”
“You think Morris is hiding?”
“Maybe he’s being hidden.”
Chapter 28
Kyle froze as a knock sounded at his door. He looked from Raoul to the door and back to Raoul, who nodded and pulled his sidearm, holding it in front of his chest with both hands. Kyle stepped cautiously to the door, then slowly opened it.
Ariel faced him, wearing faded jeans, a denim jacket, and pink running shoes. A smile spread across Kyle’s face. He took her by the hand, drew her inside, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “We were just talking about you.”
“That’s why my ears were burning.”
“Of course,” he said, closing the door and twisting the deadbolt. “Raoul’s here. We’re doing some work.”
Raoul nodded hello to Ariel as he slipped his pistol into his holster.
“Expecting trouble?” Ariel asked.
Raoul shook his head. “Not really.”
“Liar,” Ariel said, a smile curling the corners of her mouth.
“How about a drink?” Kyle asked.
Ariel shrugged, glanced around, and dropped her purse on a chair. “I’ll have what you’re having.” Kyle stepped into his small kitchen, took a glass from the cupboard, then splashed a couple fingers worth of mescal into it.
Ariel surveyed the old adobe house, with its polished, dark brick floor, white plastered walls, carved and lightly decorated vigas supporting the split juniper that completed the ceiling. “Nice,” she said with an envious roll of her eyes. “How did you find this?”
“The owner and his wife became friends of mine after they published my first book. They’re letting me rent. They’re in the main house.”
Ariel sipped, her eyes settling on Raoul, who was now at the computer staring intently at the screen. “Checking your email, Raoul?”
Raoul glanced at her and shrugged. “Mas o menos.”
Kyle sat down on the long leather couch, extended his feet, and stretched his arms above his head. “He’s doing research. We need to know what happened to Alan Morris.”
“Who’s that?”
“The guy who made the bomb,” Kyle said.
“The bomb?” Ariel asked. “What bomb?”
“The terrorists holding the president have a small nuke.”
“You’re kidding!” Ariel said, jumping to her feet, her eyes wide.
Kyle shook his head. “I wish I was. But I’m not. They had it with them, apparently. It’s not widely known yet.”
“And you think the man who made the bomb is alive?”
“If he is, and IF we can find him, he might be able to help stop this madness.”
“How?” she asked.
“Maybe he can diffuse it,” Kyle said.
Ariel sipped her mescal, then stared as she swirled the ice cubes in her drink. She lifted her eyes and scowled. “But how? If the terrorists have the bomb, they’re not going to let anyone near it, especially Morris, if he’s the man who made it.”
Kyle nodded and thought for a moment, dropping his eyes. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. But if he’s alive and he made the bomb, then what he knows could help.”
Ariel shrugged.
“Aw shit!” Raoul shouted.
Kyle and Ariel turned to him.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“Someone named Alpha Mike.”
“That’s A and M,” Kyle said. “It’s got to be Alan Morris.”
“Hank has been asking how Alpha Mike is doing.”
“What’s the response?”
“Still fishing.” Raoul said. “Where the eagle flies.”
“What does that mean?” Kyle asked.
Raoul shook his head. “Who knows?”
Kyle turned to Ariel. “You know the Vista Verde Ranch. Where can the guests fish?”
“Anywhere they can find water!” Ariel said.
“Someplace remote,” Kyle said. “Not the ponds by the lodge. Someplace hard to get to. A place where someone could hide.”
“There’s a fishing camp in the mountains,” Ariel said. “It’s a place called the Eagle’s Nest.”
Kyle grinned and turned to Raoul. “Did you hear that?”
“That’s got to be it!” Raoul said with a nod.
“Do y
ou know where it is?” Kyle asked Ariel.
“Of course,” she said. “I used to go there with Jerome.”
“To fish?”
Ariel shrugged. “He’d fish. I’d meditate.”
“How long does it take?” Kyle asked.
“A few hours if you’re in shape,” Ariel said. “More if you’re not.”
“We don’t have much time,” Kyle said, glancing at the wall clock.
“But wait! Why would Hank Benedict be hiding Alan Morris?” Ariel asked.
Raoul looked at her and nodded. “That’s what I was wondering. Kyle has a theory. He thinks that Hank and his father are somehow behind the hostage situation at Vista Verde.”
Ariel narrowed her eyes as she looked at Kyle. “Seriously?”
Kyle nodded. “Yes, and the fact that Hank is asking about Alpha Mike, who we all suspect is Alan Morris, only proves it.”
“But why would they do that?” she asked.
“Because Hank and his old man hate Harris and everything he stands for. They’re both supporters of ultra-right wing causes.”
“So, you’re saying they’re working with the terrorists who have the president?” she asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Kyle said. “I think they set up this whole thing.”
“If that’s true, then ….” Ariel’s eyes widened as she realized the implications. “We’d better get going now. We need to be on the trail at first light.”
Chapter 29
Tariq stared silently as the moon illuminated the valley in a gray-blue light, casting a dim glow onto the floor of the lodge’s library floor where he and his men lay on the plush and padded carpeting. It was comfortable, but was still a disgusting example of excess, Tariq mused, as his anger smoldered, firming his resolve. He clenched his teeth.
Tariq pondered the American president barricaded in the upper room.. He wanted to feel the man’s warm and sticky blood on his hands. He and his men could break down the barrier and get to him just as they had with the senator.
But for the moment, Tariq didn’t need to worry about that. He had the bomb. He could detonate it. Yes, they would all die, along with President Harris, the lodge and its contents consumed in an orgasm of destruction. He smiled. He and those with him would be instant martyrs.
He lifted his eyes to the library ceiling. If it is the will of Allah, he thought, we have the head of the Great Satan within our grasp and soon we will sever it. Victory will be ours. “In‘shallah,” he said softly.
Unlike the men who surrounded him, Tariq had been unable to sleep, despite the aching exhaustion in his bones and his sore muscles. He pushed away the pain, refusing to think of himself. He had to draw on his reservoir of strength and resolve, even as he felt drained and empty, like a hollow man. How can I continue? He lay still and listened to the silence, hearing only the soft breathing of the men around him. There is no escape now. Only death. And it will come soon. He thought of his master, his inspiration, as he recalled the man’s teachings: this life means nothing. Neither its joys nor wealth or comfort. All ends in death and destruction. True joy and happiness is in the next life. Tariq smiled and nodded to himself.
Tariq heard one of his men groan and stir, then the soft rustle of the man’s scarf, which served as a blanket, not enough to ward off the chill of the evening. He heard the man turn and sit up. Tariq looked across the room, catching the man’s glistening eyes.
“It is time for morning prayers,” the man said.
Tariq nodded.
The man crawled across the carpet, and shook the others, whispering to each it was time to rise. In a low voice, almost a groan, the man began to sing the morning call to prayer, and one by one, the others rose and imitated the posture of their leader, Tariq, who stood with hands clasped and head bowed toward Mecca. The room soon filled with the drone of the men’s appeal to Allah to forgive their failings and for help to reach the exalted life soon to come.
***
The full moon hung low in the western sky, fading in the growing light of dawn, as Kyle, Raoul, and Ariel trekked a barely visible trail through the shadowy pines. Rocky peaks of the surrounding mountains glowed faintly, streaks of the past winter’s snow glistening on the face of the rock.
After walking for two hours, Kyle’s left knee ached, a relentless reminder of past wounds. His right thigh also hurt with every step, but the pain was not like his left knee. It could be worse, Kyle told himself, admitting to himself he’d never be the athlete and runner he’d once been.
“This is a good place to stop,” Ariel said. “The cabin’s about a mile from here, a fifteen-minute walk.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Kyle said, letting his small daypack slip from his shoulders along with the strap to the green tube that contained his fly rod. Ariel and Raoul settled on the bed of pine needles beside the trail.
Kyle fingered his pants pocket for a packet of ibuprofen tablets, ripped it open, and popped a couple in his mouth, washing them down with gulps of water.
“Any surveillance cameras?” Raoul asked.
“None that I know of,” Ariel said. “People come up here to get away. There’s nothing to do but watch the trout jump.”
“Are you sure?” Raoul asked. “You’ve seen Hank’s headquarters. He’s got everything on this ranch wired.”
“What if Morris isn’t here?” Kyle asked.
“Then we’ve walked a long way through the night for nothing,” Raoul said.
Kyle peeled back the wrapper to a chocolate-coated bar protein bar and took a bite.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Raoul said, twisting the top from his water bottle and taking a swig. “If we’re right, things could get nasty,” he said. “This is where we should split up.”
Kyle finished his bar and put the wrapper in his small backpack. They went over the plan one more time, which gave him a few more minutes for the pain killers to kick in.
Fifteen minutes later, the sky was brighter. Kyle felt a tightening in his gut, a growing anxiety about what they might find and how quickly their plan might fall apart. He looked at Ariel, who had an unexpected calm about her, her crystalline eyes like ice. “You okay?” he asked her.
Ariel narrowed her eyes and mashed her lips together with resolve, then gave him a nod.
Raoul stood, brushed his pants, and shifted his gaze from Kyle to Ariel and back. “Don’t worry. You’re decoys. Just be yourselves.”
Kyle and Ariel got to their feet, and for a moment Kyle felt like he was standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into empty space. Can I leap into the void? But it’s too late now, he thought. There’s too much at stake to do nothing. Kyle cleared his throat and took a deep breath as Raoul pulled his pistol from the holster, released the magazine, checked it, and snapped it back into the handle. “Meet you at the cabin,” he said, then disappeared down the trail.
After another fifteen minutes, the sky was now light blue, the sun painting the nearby peaks red-orange as Kyle and Ariel emerged from the forest. They paused. A narrow, but well-worn path wound gently upwards and along a rocky slope between large boulders. “You ready for this?” Kyle asked.
Ariel narrowed her eyes again. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She turned and started to walk, Kyle following her up the trail. She was truly a different woman now, he thought, watching the movement of her hips in her hiking shorts as she stepped effortlessly between the boulders. He felt like he’d known her in a different lifetime, one that he remembered like a dream. He’d traveled tens of thousands of miles since those days. But now she was there with him and she was real, as real as it gets. He smiled as confidence slowly replaced his dread of what was to come.
Kyle thought about Nate Kennard and how he himself had narrowly escaped a similar fate. He thought of the confusing photo that Nate once had sent him along with the brief note
about how excited Nate had been to have tracked down the Chinese and Russian-made weapons. Were these the ones that had ended up in the hands of the Syrian rebels? Of course! Now it all made sense. Kyle suspected Kennard and McCovey, the London freelance writer, had received a call telling them they could meet with someone who could tell them about the source of the weapons and show them the stockpiles. That’s why they’d not crossed the border into Turkey, that day, and instead had driven deep into Syria. If the weapons were what they’d thought, it would have been indisputable confirmation of the US’s deep involvement in Syria and would have put the US in a face-to-face confrontation with Russia over its support of the Assad regime. But they’d been captured shortly after Kennard taken the photo. Had someone tipped off the terrorists?
Kyle’s thoughts disappeared as he and Ariel paused atop a knoll overlooking the small mountain lake, the kind of photogenic scene that graced travel brochures and made people dream about mountain vacations. The lake sat at the bottom of a granite basin surrounded by jagged peaks, now lighted by the sun and set against a blue sky. The granite face sloped steeply downward to broad deltas of loose scree that tumbled into the clear blue water at far side of the lake.
To their right, the forest ended at a sloping green meadow extending to the water’s edge, broken only by occasional bushes. It was a fly fisherman’s paradise: a remote and isolated high mountain lake, undoubtedly teeming with trout, surrounded by a wide and grassy meadow with plenty of room to work a rod and reel for a perfect cast.
Kyle’s stomached tightened as he saw the cabin, the object of their climb. A pitched red metal roof, with a stone chimney protruding above, and walls of green painted cedar shingles. A broad porch extended along the lakeside, with a table and four Adirondack chairs. It was a classic fishing cabin, and just like the rest of the ranch, had undoubtedly been renovated and furnished with the best materials and workmanship available. Kyle felt a twinge of envy. It was a place he could only dream of having, and for a moment, thought about how someday he might step out of this cabin’s front door and cast a line into a private trout lake each morning and evening when the trout rose to feed.
Enemy of the People Page 19
