Harvey Bennett Mysteries Box Set 3

by Nick Thacker

  Archie had no involvement in the Jesuit’s betrayal of the Church, but he was a key asset nonetheless. He had taught history at the university level, and his sharp mind and infinite depth of knowledge of the church’s past had proven itself time and time again.

  “Thank you, Harvey. I will keep looking. I will send an email with any updates I have, but I suspect you and I will remain out of communication range when you touch down. Both of us have long flights ahead of us, so I wish you safe travels and restful sleep.”

  Ben wasn’t sure about the ‘restful sleep’ part, knowing that his new wife was gone, heading directly toward their sworn enemy, and the fact that he was on a plane. But he wished Archie the same and closed the connection.

  Reggie was already asleep and starting to snore.

  22

  Julie

  Julie awoke, scared, more tired than she’d been when she’d fallen asleep. She checked her phone’s time.

  She’d been asleep for nearly twelve hours. She and Victoria were about to land in Peru, where she would finally work up the nerve to call Ben. He needed to know the truth, that she had been nearly devastated when she’d decided to leave without him. But he also needed to understand that it hadn’t even been a decision — at least not a conscious one. She had felt drawn to Peru, to Garza, and her nightmares about the man had only caused her mind to shut down any other possibilities.

  I’m going to kill him.

  She had awoken from sleep with that singular thought in her mind for days now, and she knew it was the truth. The real truth.

  She didn’t know exactly how they were going to accomplish this goal — two women in a foreign country searching for a man who was a trained killer and owned an army of other killers. They had no plan, no realistic goal, but Julie knew she needed to be there.

  Victoria Reyes, Garza’s estranged daughter, felt similar. She and Victoria had talked little during the flight, and Julie wondered if the professor of ancient history felt as ambivalent as she. They needed to be in Peru, but Julie hated leaving Ben and the others behind.

  He’ll come, she thought. He’ll get on the next flight out. Mr. E essentially promised me.

  Her brief conversation with Mr. E had ended in a state of ‘agree to disagree.’ Mr. E felt strongly that Julie should discuss the issue further with Ben and Reggie, come up with a plan of action, and then execute that strategy. Julie, however, felt that if there was anyone on the planet who could challenge her stubbornness, it was Ben. Mr. E had reluctantly agreed to organize the expenses and logistics for her and Victoria’s trip to Peru, with the caveat that once they were in-country they were to wait for Ben and the others. She’d agreed immediately.

  She felt she’d made the right decision. Ben, she knew, would have held out as long as possible, and by then it might be too late. Garza might have left the country by then, or at least moved his base of operations from the old temple complex in the Chachapoyas Valley.

  But in her heart she also knew Ben was right. He was right to be scared, to be afraid of further confrontation with Garza and the Ravenshadow team. They’d dodged each other for nearly a year, and their brushes with the mercenary army had ended in disaster — and death — every time. It was no small miracle that she and her new husband were still alive.

  But that miracle hadn’t extended to the first leader of the CSO, their friend and mentor Joshua Jefferson. Garza had killed the man in cold blood, in the most brutal way possible. Julie had filled in Victoria shortly after they’d boarded the plane, explaining that her father had drugged Julie, forced her to face Jefferson with a loaded pistol in a converted gymnasium in Philadelphia, and then told her to pull the trigger.

  And she’d done it.

  She hadn’t been in her right mind at the time, of course, but that hadn’t helped her combat the nightmarish reality of what she’d done. She remembered, through her dreams and flashbacks, Joshua’s lifeless body crumpling to the ground, folding in on itself as if it were no longer flesh and bone but merely a set of rags. Her reaction to the dream — to the memory — was horror; at the time, her reaction had been cold, empty stupor.

  When the drugs had worn off, she didn’t remember anything of the previous twenty-four hours. Her mind was blank as to the events in the gym, and it had taken her subconscious nearly a year to process those same memories to the forefront of her consciousness. When she finally did, she’d discovered that Ben and the others had been silently waiting for that moment. They’d prepared for it. They’d had time to process through the grief, anger, pain, and understanding of what it all meant.

  Julie, on the other hand, had not. She had had no time to process any of her new reality, and that infuriated her almost as much as what that reality was. They had been waiting for her to understand, but they hadn’t given her the time to do that.

  So she had taken matters into her own hands. They knew where Garza and Ravenshadow was, they knew he had plans, and they knew that he would move as soon as those plans had come to fruition. What they didn’t know was what, exactly, those plans were.

  The last time they’d met, Garza had revealed to them a piece of that plan: the creation of literal giants. Men who had been injected with a strain of yeast that caused rapid bone growth, then had their skeletal structures repeatedly — and brutally — broken and reset. The effect was a group of men so terrifyingly large that their own weight couldn’t be supported. Their faces sunk, their skin stretched so tight that it simply gave up and had started to slide down their musculature. Garza himself had admitted that most of them wouldn’t live past a year, but he had been working to perfect that process when they’d found him.

  What was his long-term project, then? Julie wondered. Was he working on more giants? Was that even a sustainable goal? After all, while the ‘giants’ project had been an impressive — albeit gruesome — accomplishment, at some point Garza would run out of volunteers. Besides that, soldiers who could only fight for a few minutes at a time and died within a year would be of no use to any forward-thinking dictator.

  She shrugged off the thought. Doesn’t matter. We’ll find out what he’s up to, and we’ll stop him. I’ll stop him.

  She felt her eyes beginning to water as she looked out the window. She was so far from home. So far from Ben. She had been so sure of herself yesterday, when she’d made the decision to leave without the CSO group. Now, she wished she could reach across the seat and squeeze her husband’s hand.

  He’s coming, she told herself. He’ll be mad as hell, but he’s definitely coming.

  23

  Ben

  Ben was mad as hell. How could she just leave without us? He’d spent the better part of the past sixteen hours in a cycle of sleeping, fuming, looking out the window, and then sleeping again. Reggie had somehow managed to stay soundly asleep the entire trip, and the two soldiers onboard sitting back in the comm section had been fiddling with their gear and tech whenever he’d turned to look at them.

  He knew that no one on his team was conspiring against him. Reggie and Mr. E wanted what was best for both Julie and the CSO, and they all agreed — including Ben — that Garza and Ravenshadow needed to be stopped. But none of them were married to Julie, either. Ben had more of a connection to the woman he loved than anyone else, and therefore he had been more hesitant in launching an all-out attack on Garza.

  But his lack of action had backfired, and now they were all flying to Peru in separate planes, hoping to meet up and make sense of things once on the ground.

  The Ranger team had tripled in size when they’d landed at Fort Carson, going from just Jeffers and Beale to Jeffers, Beale, and four more men.

  Ben hadn’t gotten their names, but they’d promptly taken off and the six Rangers all sat together and dozed off within minutes. Ben had taken the hint and had tried to get some sleep for the long leg to Peru.

  They were now on the ground, having just landed at an unmarked Peruvian Air Force installation near Iquitos, and they were heading toward t
he vehicles the Green Berets had organized with the Peruvian Air Force for their transportation.

  When Ben saw them he had an immediate flashback.

  “Don’t like riding in style, Bennett?” Jeffers asked. Ben hadn’t realized that he’d stopped short.

  “No, uh, just brings back memories.” These were the same style jeeps they’d rented last time they’d been in Peru.

  “Right,” Jeffers said. “Our brief said you guys, uh, were engaged down here. Crazy shit, man.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “I guess that’s one word for it.”

  “Anyway, these babies are loaded down with kit: 4x4, wench pulleys, the works. Modified to run on propane, too, in case things get dicey.”

  “And in case things get dicey somewhere where there’s access to giant propane tanks,” Reggie added.

  Jeffers flashed him a glance that didn’t take much work to interpret, but the man didn’t say anything else. Ben smiled, knowing that if anyone here knew something about modifying vehicles to be a survivalist prepper’s dream, it was Reggie. Gareth Red had been friends with Ben for a couple years, but before that he had owned some land in Brazil, where he ran a company teaching survivalism strategies and hosting backcountry expeditions for corporate and private defense groups.

  He was a closet nerd, with an excellent sense of history and archeology, but his skillsets were really focused on everything related to staying alive, no matter the environment. So far, he’d been successful.

  He waved his prosthetic arm up and wiggled it around, moving all five fingers in tandem, then flipping his hand over and repeating the gesture.

  Ben nodded in approval. “Getting pretty good at that,” he said.

  Reggie shrugged, then reached out and used his artificial limb to grab the cage above the jeep. He swung in, then started to buckle his seatbelt. “It’s not really something I’ve had to practice,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Really. It’s myoelectric, so there are tons of little nodes that read the electronic impulses from my brain, which then send the signal to the microprocessors that move the limb. I just pop it in and get it set, then secure it around my shoulders, and I’m good to go.”

  Ben sat down in the backseat next to his friend. Reggie held up his fake hand and performed a perfect Spock wave, the Vulcan hand salute. His hand splayed apart between his middle and ring fingers. Then he added a flourish, bending each of his knuckles on each of his fingers one at a time, creating a sort of robotic dance.

  “Nice,” Ben said.

  “Don’t be jealous. The healing process is still going on. It hurts.”

  “Like hell?”

  “Worse.”

  Ben laughed. “I bet. But still, pretty cool stuff. Mr. E really hooked you up, huh?”

  Reggie nodded and winked at Ben. “This thing cost half a mil.”

  Ben almost spat. “Half a million dollars?”

  The jeep started to move, driven by Jeffers while Beale checked something on his phone. From what they’d explained earlier, they were currently about half an hour from their designated rendezvous point, where they would hopefully meet up with Julie and Victoria.

  Ben had tried to call her twice after they’d landed, but the ring had gone straight to voicemail.

  “Half a million. Crazy, right? And that doesn’t even include the insurance portion.”

  “We have insurance?”

  “Actually, I have no idea. But I was in Mrs. E’s room at the cabin, looking for the user manual, and I saw a bill on her desk.”

  “That thing has a user manual?” Ben asked.

  “Well, when you’re shaking hands with someone for the first time after putting it on, you don’t want to turn their creamy palm into a hacky-sack.”

  “It’s that strong?”

  “Stronger,” Reggie said, nodding. “Titanium used to be one of the strongest things we had, but recently some dorks at MIT figured out how to create a lattice-shaped structure out of graphene.”

  Ben looked at him blankly.

  “That means it’s ten times stronger than steel and about five times lighter. And they can effectively print it out with a 3D printer.”

  “Wow,” Ben said. “I didn’t know things had advanced that much.”

  Reggie nodded. “Yeah, it’s crazy. I’m only just now starting to understand what it all means. But, at the very least, I’ll be able to shake hands like a normal dude. And pull a trigger when I need to.”

  “Hopefully without breaking it off.”

  “Yeah, they installed a thrust guide that acts as a force multiplier. Zeroed out it’s effectively the strength I had before. Turn it up to 10 and it crushes men’s heads like they’re a melon.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, you know. Something like that. I might be exaggerating a bit.”

  Ben laughed, and the jeep accelerated out onto the highway.

  24

  Ben

  Ben was nervous. They had reached their rendezvous point, and the Green Beret team was already busy unloading the crates and duffel bags from the backs of the jeeps and carrying them into the one-story building. The building, a nondescript facility with broken windows and what appeared to have once been a gasoline pump out front, sat on a corner just outside of the small town they’d decided to stop in.

  Ben checked his phone. He was sure Mr. E had equipped them with GSM-unlocked devices, but he still hadn’t heard anything from Julie. He’d tried calling a few times in the air, and once on the ground, but he’d gotten nothing.

  Is she mad?

  She had sent a single text after they’d taken off from Fort Carson, telling Ben that she’d be at the briefing meeting. He’d responded by asking if she knew where it was, what time they would meet, and if she was okay.

  He’d heard nothing in response.

  So he was feeling a bit nervous. Anxious? Scared? He knew he had never been great with emotions, especially his own. He wanted to see her, to know she was fine, but at the same time he knew he was upset with her for leaving him hanging.

  And for forcing us all to fly to Peru.

  He followed Reggie into the dark interior of the worn-down gas station. There were still racks on the main floor, as well as a beat-up register stand, but there were no products anywhere in sight. The fluorescent light fixtures above his head had been smashed in, and the bulbs that weren’t completely missing were broken.

  Reggie passed through this area and turned left just after the register, where Ben caught sight of a swinging door. One of the Green Berets had just entered this secondary room, and he saw light bouncing throughout the store from this smaller chamber.

  He entered and saw the antithesis of the rest of the gas station in this rectangular room: a clean, brightly lit interior, with non-broken chairs lined up in rows, all facing one of the short walls to Ben’s right. A projector had been set up on a pair of milk crates and was beaming a blank white light onto the wall. Sergeant Beale was standing, his hands behind his back, next to the wall.

  And in one of the chairs, staring at Ben, was Julie.

  He ran over, and she stood, crying. “Ben,” she said. “I’m — so… sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I — I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I am. And I was. But I just… I don’t know what came over me. All of this; I didn’t mean for it to be —”

  “Shh,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I… was mad.” He tried to smile. “But I just needed to see you. To talk to you.”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” Julie said. “I should have at least mentioned it to you, or consulted the group, and —”

  “You did do those things, Jules,” Ben said. “And I was stubborn. We all knew this had to happen. Garza’s here, Julie. You were right. He’s here, and I don’t think he’ll stay here. Not for long.”

  “Yeah…”

  Reggie walked over and gave Julie a hug.
“Where’s Victoria?”

  Julie’s eyes widened quickly, then her face fell.

  “What?” Ben asked.

  “She’s… not here.”

  “She didn’t come to Peru?”

  “No, she did,” Julie said. “But she got off the plane and took a taxi. Told me that she had business to take care of, and that she was sorry, and…”

  “And you think she’s going to find her father? To get to Garza?”

  Julie nodded. “There’s no other ‘business’ she could have here.”

  Sergeant Jeffers overheard this, and walked over to stand in the row directly in front of them. “That could be a problem, Ms. — sorry, Mrs. — Richardson.”

  “I — I know. But I couldn’t stop her. I just was afraid to say anything before we talked in person.”

  Jeffers glanced at Beale, whose expression was entirely unreadable.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said. “We just need to hurry. If Garza wants to use her as leverage, he will. She may be his daughter, but he’s still the monster we know. He’s unpredictable, and he’ll do anything to maintain an edge.”

  “Besides,” one of the other Green Berets said, “even if he doesn’t do anything to her, he’ll at least know we’re here.”

  “True. He knows we were working together from the last time we came.”

  They’d met Victoria through a twist of fate. The history professor had been kidnapped by a dark organization that was related to Freemasonry, and they’d brought her to Peru to continue unraveling the plans of the Catholic Church. Garza’s group had set up shop in the valley nearby, working from a different interpretation of the same information.