Meanwhile, Liam was kicking the nearest guy in the gut. The guy crawled away from him.
"Who the hell are you people? Why were you trying to kill me? Who sent you guys?!"
He grabbed the man by his shirt collar.
"Tell me! Who sent you?!"
"Some guy, he told us to do it—"
"I need a name! What's his name?!"
"I don't know, he just calls, and we do what we're asked," the man said and cowered. The dog was back. He was growling. "Please, get him away from me…"
"Shut up!"
Liam glanced at the German Shepherd. "Good dig," he said.
He felt like shit, so exhausted he wanted to fall down. His back ached where he'd fallen while struggling with his abductors. The flesh around his throat was on fire. He rubbed it as he went through the gap in the wire.
He started running back home. The dog followed him.
—
Ontario, Canada.
The Wepackit Machinery Facility was in Durham. That was approximately four miles from his hotel in Kitchener. Dr. Anabia Nassif sat in his bed, his cellphone in his hand, beeping that tone that indicated that a call had just ended.
He had just spoken with Frank Miller.
He had just been told there was a major campaign to eliminate the whole team. Olivia had just escaped death in the street, Frank had almost drunk from a poisoned wine, and Liam Murphy had just been saved by a German Shepherd.
"I should get a dog to walk me down to the facility…" the doctor had joked. They had both shared a lopsided smile.
Victor Borodin's cellphone was somewhere ringing endlessly. If he was alive, Frank was yet to know. He would fly over to Russia if he had to. But for now, Frank was going to continue trying to reach the Russian.
Anabia hoped he was still alive. Lawrence Diggs' location was still unknown.
He glanced around his hotel room. It was small, cozy, and mostly bare of unnecessary things. It was the way he liked it; a bed, a table, a TV, and a refrigerator. The window was open, and a corn-laden breeze blew the white curtains. The hotel was surrounded by sprawling farmland—corn, wheat, vegetables, and cows. A horse whinnied in the back of the hotel. Someone called: "Ahoy!"
Anabia imagined the door bursting open and a gunman blowing his head off. That would be the quietest death. Or maybe the rented wagon outside the hotel could develop a fault as he drove over the rough, dirt road, and crashed—if someone tampered with the works, that was.
Or he could sit here all day and watch TV. He had watched the Night Live Show last night until he fell asleep. He woke up later to see the station had closed, and the TV world awash with the snowy absence—or is it the end?—of transmission.
He checked his watch: 8 a.m. He was expected at the facility by ten to conclude his demonstrations on some innovative cure for Lassa fever. They'd start blowing up his phone when they don't see him by 8:30 a.m.
He packed his duffel bag, went to the small kitchen to eat his last hamburger, and drank warm coffee.
Five minutes later, he was speeding through a narrow field, raising plenty of dust. His eyes searched the cornrows for lurking killers or gun muzzles.
He found none.
He arrived at the facility without any incidence. The group of biologists he's been working with for a week now waited in the lab. White coats, facemasks, and the sterile smell of disinfectant.
Doctor Luke Barr welcomed him obsequiously. He was diminutive. He had grey hair and grey manners. There were five specialists, mostly agreeable men. Pragmatic, yet okay people. Except for Dr. Carl Lund, the German who kept to himself until he was needed.
The tests began with rats. Four hours of testing and checking, discussions and debates, questions, and disagreements. Soon Anabia Nassif forgot all about the attempted murders of his friends half a world away.
Three hours later, testing moved to the gas chamber of the facility, where a more comprehensive evaluation of their analysis would be carried out.
Quite expectedly, Luke Barr volunteered to assist Anabia.
The rest would watch through a screen outside the chamber.
Dressed in special outfits and protective gear, the two scientists entered the chamber. A young technician named Roman with the ruddiness of a farm boy had already set them up. All machines were running, dials set to their proper calibrations. It occurred to Anabia to check again by himself, but the boy seemed quite competent.
The first signs of mischief reached Anabia when Dr. Barr coughed. The sound of it came through the speakers in his suit.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," the doctor said.
Anabia gave the man a long stare to make sure, before continuing. The group had found discrepancies in the test results. They were going to find out how consistent their results were even under toxic circumstances. Anabia and Barr were checking results in a boron trifluoride—a very poisonous gas—environment.
Dr. Barr coughed again. It was a dry ahem; Anabia ignored him and carried on. He asked the doctor to get a vial from a rack on another table. That moment, the man slumped.
"Dr. Barr?"
Anabia rushed over to the falling man and grabbed him by the hands. That was when he saw the small tag on the doctor's suit; it was a little slip with the name Dr. Anabia Nassif on it. They had mistakenly switched ensembles. And apparently, the suit had a leak.
Alarmed, Anabia looked at the glass partition; the faces stared back in confusion. He looked around for the handsome face of Roman, but he was gone.
When he looked at Dr. Barr's face again, it was red, swelling. He screamed for help. But before help arrived, the doctor had vomited in his mask and shat himself.
Stunned, Anabia sat alone, considering his escape from certain death. He called Frank Miller and told him.
Cops searched the grounds—after finding the leak in the suit had been a deliberate one, someone had sabotaged it.
The boy Roman had disappeared.
—
Salmon River, Idaho.
Lawrence Diggs stood over the body of one of the hardest kills of his career. It was the dead body of Bucky Sloan, the man some call Jason. He was a CIA assassin, the final operator, one of the few men that the agency called to do its dirty work off the books, off-screen, and under the table.
Diggs himself was bleeding from several knife wounds. There were two on his thigh and one in each arm. He had a possible concussion in his head from where the assassin had delivered an ax kick. There was also the bullet buried in his shoulder. Diggs was mad. Whoever sent Sloan after him was going to get a visit from Diggs, and they better be dead before he finds them.
For now, he'd get some treatment and rest. That was all he needed. His fishing vacation had been ruined.
He got a spade and chose a spot by the curve of the river. He opened a can of root beer that they made in the area. He placed it on a rock by the spot he'd chosen and started digging. He would pause to drink, to dampen the ache in his body, then would curse and continue his work.
Why? Who wanted him dead? Oh well, lots of people had died by his hand. It was only reasonable that others would want revenge. But why would the agency want him out of the way? They must want me gone so bad they had to send someone as gully as me, he thought.
An hour after, he took a minute's rest on the rock to swallow the rest of his beer. He closed his eyes and visualized how it started an hour before.
Diggs had been looking for elks to kill. He had fished for an hour and caught nothing.
He was up the hill when the first shot hit his shoulder, throwing him off the ground before the second shot sent dust in the air by his head. He had quickly crawled away into the back of a tree then.
He and the assassin had then stalked each other for thirty minutes, exhausted their ammunition, and then proceeded to come out of hiding to face each other. Sloan was the better man with knives, a formidable martial arts practitioner.
But Diggs was the innovative and more adaptive warrior, a bet
ter grappler, a master judoka, and perhaps the best jiujutsu fighter the agency ever had. Diggs broke a total of six bones in Sloan's body before reverse sinking the assassin's knife in his sternum. Diggs finished the man off by ramming his own blade into his gut.
"Who sent you?" Diggs whispered in the dying man's ear.
"You'll know soon enough…" was what the man said before he died.
Diggs rolled the body into the ditch he had dug and covered it up. He picked his bag and headed back to his hotel.
You'll know soon enough.
Well, I can wait.
—
Rome, The Vatican.
Somehow, Olivia Newton considered her brother safer than the rest of them. It never occurred to her that even he could be a target. So held back by paranoia that if she called him on his phone—which she was now sure may have been tapped—she only risked exposure for Andrew Gilmore.
Precisely two hours after Lawrence Diggs poured the last grain of sand on the grave of his would-be killer, Andrew jumped in a taxi from Borgo. Former cardinal Emilio Batolini had called him, and he had appeared at the man's door in the Vatican minutes after.
Emilio Batolini was preparing for his evening prayers before mass, as is his custom since Andrew has known him.
His altar was by the wall facing the Basilica, the window there permanently shut, so the temperaments don't put out the sixteen different candles. The image of Mary wore a blue dress. Her palms were joined in supplication. Farther up the hill of the altar stood the savior. Andrew looked at the images and wondered if the former cardinal believed what it meant, this mountain of oblation. Did he hope for a place still by the side of the Lord? After everything that he'd done in the past?
"You are here early, Andrew. Thank you for coming on such notice."
"Padre."
"Come, sit."
Andrew sat on the chair provided. Batolini asked if he preferred soda or wine; Andrew said water would be just fine.
He sipped his water and waited as the big man finished his altar arrangements. Then he liked up at the clock on the wall. They both had thirty minutes before evening Mass. Batolini opened a curtain to see what it was like outside.
"The day is greying. The night is getting closer. I like to say the day dies a natural death every day."
He looked at Andrew. His eyes were two wise coins in his face, black and full of things. Some of them vile, just like the rest of us, Andrew mused.
"Something's happened at a convent in Brazil. The Pope spoke to me about it." He shook his head. "Through another cardinal, I mean. You know, I rarely get an audience with him these days. But the reasons will blow over; it will."
He sat with Andrew and brooded a little.
"Sometimes, hard decisions have to be made. The problem, Andrew, is hard men have to make these decisions. Hard men. I believe this is why I'm still here, you see. Even these cardinals know they need me still because they are too soft to make hard decisions."
"What happened in Brazil, Padre?"
"Oh yes, forgive the digression. There's a convent in a place north of Sao Paulo, in a little village. The Padre in charge has taken ill. They need someone to take his place for a week until they find a replacement for him."
Andrew leaned forward. "Why me?"
"And why not?"
"You know I'm unfit for a convent, not even a parish. You know the things I've done recently. You know I can't."
"Oh, yes, you can. Consider it an opportunity to make peace with God. We all need that, yes."
Andrew sighed. The man had a point. It was a compelling one.
Andrew had killed someone, broken vows of a non-violent life. He was unworthy of taking on a holy assignment. Yet, Andrew could start all over again. But did he want to? Or he could just go for the change in scenery and then attain the frame of mind for forgiveness as the week progressed?
He put his glass of water down and said, "Okay, when do I leave?"
"Your transport is waiting as we speak. You will be provided with everything you need. No need to go back to your apartment—"
The man's phone started ringing.
He answered it with a frown. He said, "Yes, we are set; he's agreed to go. Yes, he'll meet you shortly."
"That was Cardinal Sergio. You remember him?"
Andrew said he did.
"Good, follow me."
There was a helicopter on the east side of the helipad. It was almost dark when it lifted. It occurred to Andrew as they flew over Rome and headed to an airfield in the south that he was missing Mass. Apparently, this assignment was more important to the Vatican than Mass.
Twenty minutes after, Andrew met a man who called himself Matthew in an airfield in Ottavia. Matthew went into the cockpit of the small plane and introduced Paul, his copilot. The airplane lifted; Andrew relaxed in his seat. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
He could not remember how long he dozed for, but the next time he opened his eyes, the plane was rocking. He heard the voice of one of the pilots saying he should strap in his seatbelt.
After a while, the airplane leveled in the air. But Andrew noticed that the engine's drone had dropped. He looked out the window and saw that the blades had stopped turning.
Andrew unstrapped himself and rushed over to the cockpit door, and a high wind hit him, almost sucking him out of the plane. The pilot seats were empty. He succeeded in locking the door and took the pilot seat.
It became clear to him what happened; this was a plot to have him killed.
Why did Emilio Batolini want him dead?
He had no idea where he was. The terrain was both green and brown. There were hills and a meandering river in the distance. He nosed the airplane towards the water. When he was sure he could not miss the blue sea, he climbed out of the cockpit, locked it, and strapped himself in a seat.
Andrew closed his eyes and prayed.
—
Sitting in her office, a steaming cup of coffee before her, Olivia Newton looked at Frank Miller.
"Peru is big." She nodded slowly. "Peru is very big, bigger than everything we've ever done, Frank."
"Yes, I'm inclined to agree."
They stared at each other for a moment more.
"We are doing it, right?"
Frank nodded. "We have to."
Frank's phone rang.
"Hello?"
He listened. Then he said to Olivia, "Anabia and Liam have arrived."
"Good."
6
Miami Opa Locka Executive Airport.
A Cessna Citation CJ4 was primed and hot when they arrived at the airport. They boarded and were up within an hour.
Liam Murphy said, "Who did you bribe to get us space here, Frank?"
"No one, my friends just like to return favors, that's all."
Anabia asked when Diggs was joining them.
"He'll meet us in Peru in time," said Olivia. "I can't reach Andrew yet."
"Why don't you leave the priest out of this, it's gonna get real messy," said Liam.
Yeah, it will get messy, Olivia thought.
"Andrew is not a priest anymore," she said quietly.
"Yeah."
Liam poured himself another glass of wine. His neck still hurt from the encounter with rope. He had wanted to come with his new dog, Pharrell, which is what he called him now.
Five hours later, the airplane brushed a private, dusty airstrip in Lima. A truck was waiting to take them to Cusco. The driver was a fast-talking man named Ahmed, who played local music on his car stereo and chewed gum. From Cusco, they rode a train to the town of Apachia, where Tami Capaldi would be waiting at the train station.
Machu Picchu rose from the horizon. The terraces zigzagged around the green hills. The farther they traveled, the more of it they saw. Stunned, Olivia gaped open-mouthed at the window of the train.
"It's beautiful. It looks like a painting."
She took photos with her camera, made notes for her blog and subsequent editorial in the Miami Da
ily.
Tami Capaldi was a speck on the platform as the train approached, but one that Olivia recognized well among the crowd. Tami must have a thing for blue jeans and t-shirts, thought Olivia, with a twinge of sadness. She appeared almost the same way as when Olivia first saw her in her downtown home in Miami. She had struck Olivia as a strong woman at the time, confident, and one that could be counted on in times of trouble. Tami had brought the team trouble instead. She ached to consider how the rest of the team would take to working with her once more.
"Guys, Tami is on the platform," she said.
The men's talk stopped abruptly. Olivia looked at their faces and nodded. Her expression said, Let's give her a second chance. They nodded in return. She loved that they trusted her intuition.
Tami's eyes were shot, the lines in her face had deepened, and she looked much older than her age. She shook hands with Olivia, then she said a greeting to the men. Frank Miller took her hand and said, "Olivia told us what happened. I want to tell you we are here to help and get back what's yours if we can."
A single tear tracked its way down Tami's cheeks. Age and tough luck hadn't diminished her prettiness. She bit her lip and looked away. She wiped her eyes.
"Come on. I have a rented car to take you to my place."
They followed her. It was an old sedan, dusty and aged. Anabia elbowed Liam, who was about to say something indecent about the horrible-looking car.
They drove for ten minutes. It felt longer, though, because the narrow street is always packed with people. Those that regularly crossed the traffic, carts lined the roadside, making the road even smaller. Tami seemed oblivious to this inconvenience, though.
Tami stopped the car in front of her apartment building. Olivia turned to Tami.
"Tami, there's something I need to tell you."
The woman glanced at the men in the back of the car, then back at Olivia. "What's the problem?"
"Someone tried to kill us, one after the other."
The Inca Temple Page 9
