by David Archer
Denny’s wound turned out to be quite a bit more serious than he’d thought. The bullet had nicked an artery and he’d lost a lot of blood, but the surgeons were able to repair it and he was expected to make a full recovery. Of course, he was going to be in hospital for a while.
Luckily, the story of his heroism at the investiture had already spread to the hospital. Nurses were fighting over the opportunity to be assigned to his floor, and he was doing a lot of grinning.
Early the following morning, they learned that two more bodies had been found in a poorer neighborhood. They were a pair of locals who were known for burglary and minor thefts, but the money found on them was tainted with the poison. It didn’t take long for the police to conclude that they had been involved in putting the poisoned candies into the gift bags.
Sam walked into the SIS headquarters at just before nine, and was told to go straight to the conference room. He rode the elevator up and entered the room, finding Noah and his entire team at the table with Albert and Catherine.
“It’s about time,” Catherine said with a smile. “I was just about to send someone to fetch you, Sam. Have you checked in on Dennis yet this morning?”
“I talked to him on the phone a few minutes ago,” Sam replied. “He’s whining like a big baby, pissed off because they won’t let him leave yet, but it seems the nurses are keeping him entertained. I guess the doctor wants to keep him another day or two, just to be sure there is no more internal bleeding.”
“That’s probably wise,” she said. “Listen, Sam, I want to personally thank you for everything you’ve done throughout this situation. Had it not been for you, there might have been no more royalty in the United Kingdom. Even if Her Majesty had not eaten the candies, such a disaster during a royal ceremony might have given those who yearn to see it end exactly what they wanted.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Sam said. “I’m getting paid for this job, just like any other. The company I work for will bill Uncle Sam, and somebody in Washington will probably send the bill on over here.”
Catherine chuckled. “And I’m quite certain we shall pay it happily. Seriously, Sam, our country owes you a great debt of gratitude. Please don’t make light of our thanks.”
“Yeah, Sam,” Jenny said. “Be a gentleman for once, will ya?”
Startled, Sam looked at her. The grin on her face told him she was trying to joke, but it only reminded him of the maniacal grin he had seen the last time they had worked together. He shuddered and turned toward Noah.
“So, you guys heading back home now, too?” he asked.
Noah shook his head. “No, we actually have an estate not too far out of the city. Believe it or not, we were on vacation when all this began. I spoke with our boss yesterday evening, and she’s given us the okay to resume the vacation where we left off.” He looked into Sam’s eyes for a moment. “You’re welcome to join us for a while, if you like.”
Sam shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. Noah, I understand that the country needs people like you, but you and I live in different worlds. I respect you, and I trust you, but I don’t think I could ever work with you on a regular basis.”
“I understand,” Sarah said. “The thing is, Sam, I used to think the same way. I was just a driver, so I didn’t usually have to see what went on during the rough parts of the missions, and I didn’t want to know. But then, after I saw just how important the work they do is, I began to put more of myself into it. I’ll never be one of the assassins, but I’ve had to kill, and I know that I could do it again if I had to. Don’t sell yourself short; if you ever joined our organization, I suspect you’d be very good at it.”
Sam looked at her for a long moment, then forced a smile onto his face. “Well, thankfully,” he said, “we’ll never know.” He turned back to Catherine. “I’m going to hang out over here until Denny is released from the hospital, but if you folks are done with me, I’m going to turn in my weapon and ID. Is that all right?”
“Not just yet,” Catherine said. “I’m afraid there are two more things you have to do. If you’ll come with us?”
She got up out of her chair, and Sam rose to follow her. As he did so, he noticed that Noah and the rest got up to follow, as well. They went down the hall and into the elevators, then rode down into the basement levels. When the doors opened, Catherine stepped out without a word and Sam and the rest followed once again.
Catherine led them into a room, and Sam saw two men sitting on a bench. Both of them were handcuffed to the wall, and both of them were filthy and smelled.
Catherine took a sheet of paper out of her pocket and looked at it, then looked up at the two men.
“Tariq al-Bassar,” she said, “and Martin Embry. Under Part Three, Subsection 30, it has been determined by the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that you have committed terrorist offenses against the United Kingdom for which the penalty of death may be applied without benefit of counsel or appeal. It is my duty to inform you that such penalty has been levied against you, and shall be carried out forthwith.”
Embry looked up at her. “Are you bloody mad?” he asked. “I am a citizen of the U.K., you cannot…”
Sam jumped when the shot rang out, and a hole appeared in Martin Embry’s forehead. His head snapped back, and then his body slumped against the wall. Sam spun to see where the shot had come from, and saw Noah standing there with a pistol in his hand.
“Good God, man,” Sam said. “You just…”
“He just did exactly what our government has asked him to do,” Catherine said. “And he’s not done.”
Sam turned to look at Tariq, who was sitting on the bench, calmly looking at them. For just a moment, Sam looked directly into his eyes and saw just how terrible the mind behind them really was. He waited a moment for the shot to come, but it didn’t.
He turned and looked at Noah. “What are you waiting for?”
Noah looked at him for a moment, then suddenly turned the pistol and held it towards Sam, grip first. “This is a man who brought Tushar to the point where he was willing to kill a third of the world’s population,” he said. “The entire scheme was originally Tariq’s idea, not Tushar’s. This is the kind of person my team and I have to deal with, and we do so willingly. However, this is also the man who was doing his best to see that everyone we love would die, sooner or later. Sam, there’s one thing we haven’t told you. You remember that two of the airplanes that had to ditch into the Atlantic were headed for the United States?”
Sam looked warily at him. “Yes, I remember,” he said.
“One of them was on its way to Denver.”
Sam Prichard looked into the eyes of Noah Wolf for a moment, doing his best to believe that Noah was lying to him. Where Sam lived with his wife and children, they were constantly listening to the airplanes coming in over their heads, headed toward landing at the airport. Had that plane not been stopped, Indie, Kenzie, Bo, the grandmas—they would all be dead.
Sam glanced back at Tariq for another second, and then reached for the gun in Noah’s hand.
* * * * *
The old XKE pulled up in front of Feeney Manor the next day, and the Bentley and the Land Rover pulled in right behind it. Team Camelot stepped out of the cars and looked up at the old mansion as Thomas, the Butler, came out the door to greet them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lightner, and your friends,” Thomas said. “It’s so good to have you home.”
Thomas’ sons came out and gathered up their luggage to carry inside while Thomas stood on the stairs. When the luggage was all taken in, Noah and Sarah walked up the stairs beside the old man.
“It’s great to be back, Thomas,” Noah said. “Hopefully, we’ll get to stay and enjoy the rest of our vacation, now.”
“Oh, I do hope so, sir,” Thomas said. “Especially now that that dreadful situation in London has cleared up.”
“Yes, that was fortunate,” Noah said. “I take it you heard a lot of the news about it out here?”<
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“Oh, yes, sir,” Thomas replied. “Why, I was so worried that something might happen at investiture that I nearly glued myself to the television set. I got to watch the entire thing, I did.” He let a slow smile spread across his face. “Did you know, Mr. Lightner, that there is someone working to protect Her Majesty who looks almost exactly like yourself?”
Noah looked him in the eye. “Is there really?”
BOOK 13
BLACK HARVEST
ONE
The morning fog had finally burned off and the sunlight was coming through the open garage door.
“Okay, turn it over.”
Sarah, sitting in the driver’s seat of the little car, reached over and turned the ignition key, and the tiny little engine in the 1962 Triumph Spitfire spun over twice, then suddenly came to life. It purred like an overly content kitten, and Sarah looked up at Noah and smiled.
“It’s running,” she said delightedly. “Running pretty doggone well, in fact.”
Noah Wolf, her husband, nodded his head as he stood beside the right front wheel of the car, looking down at the idling engine. He had spent every possible minute of the last week stripping it down completely and painstakingly bringing it back to life one part at a time, and this was the culmination of his efforts. The idle was smooth and even, and he reached down and tugged on the accelerator linkage. Both carburetors opened up, and the engine revved instantly.
“That’s good,” he said. “Shut it down.”
Sarah turned off the engine and it sputtered once and stopped. “It sounded great. How soon can we go for a ride?”
“Not today. I’ve still got to put the radiator back in, and I haven’t even started on the suspension yet. It’s going to be a little while before it’s on the road.”
Sarah climbed out of the car, walked over to him, put her arm around him and rubbed his back. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re having fun.”
Noah looked at her and raised one eyebrow. “I guess it’s fun,” he said. “It keeps my mind occupied, and I enjoy putting all the precision parts together. Of course, the idea is to finish the job at some point.”
She nodded and grinned at him. “Uh-huh, then you will be looking for something else to tinker with. Has anybody ever mentioned to you that you have an expensive hobby, Mr. Wolf?”
“I’ve heard that,” Noah said, “but it doesn’t seem like it to me. By the time I get this finished, I could sell it for five times what I’ve got in it.”
Sarah looked at the car, then looked back up at him. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “I want to drive this baby.”
There was a knock on the garage door, and they turned around to see Neil standing there.
“Hate to interrupt all the mechanical fun,” he said, “but the Dragon Lady wants us in the com center in fifteen minutes. You might want to wipe off the grease.”
“New mission?” Noah asked.
“Undoubtedly. She didn’t say, but I don’t imagine this is a social call.” He turned and walked away, and Noah picked up a rag and started wiping the worst of the grease off his hands.
“Well,” Sarah said with a hint of resignation, “I guess nothing lasts forever. It’s been a nice month, though.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, then turned and headed out of the garage and toward the big manor house.
Noah closed the hood on the car and followed her. He’d been expecting another mission any time, so this wasn’t that big a surprise. He went up the stairs to his room and into the bath, washed his hands and face quickly and then made his way to the room they had set up as a videoconferencing center.
Neil, Jenny and Sarah were already there, and Marco and Renée came in a moment after Noah. Noah took the chair beside Sarah and she handed him a bottle of water.
“Still got a couple of minutes,” Neil said. “I got the system on, so as soon as the signal comes through, we’ll be connected.”
“But we don’t know what’s going on yet?” Marco asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Neil said, “and I’m guessing our vacation is over. It’s only about two o’clock in the morning over there, and she’s calling a conference? Sounds to me like it’s time to go back to work.”
“Yeah,” Jenny said, “but where? I’m starting to think they ought to buy us a jet. You’re a pilot, right, Noah?”
“Not quite,” Noah said. “I could get my light license, I think, but it would be a while before I could qualify for a jet rating. Besides, it’s not that hard to get a charter when we need it.”
“That’s true, I guess,” Marco said. “There’s enough charters in London that we could have one waiting for us by the time we got to the airport.”
The big screen on the wall suddenly flashed, and the computer it was connected to chimed.
“Okay, here comes the call,” Neil said. He tapped on the keyboard for a moment, and the screen lit up with the face of Allison Peterson, the director of E & E. “Hi, boss,” Neil said. “We’re all here.”
Allison nodded on the screen. “So I see,” she said. She motioned to someone offscreen, and then scooted over on the couch to let Donald Jefferson and Molly Hansen sit down beside her. “And so are we. Everything scrambled?”
“Like a great big omelette,” Neil replied. “I take it there’s a mission?”
Allison nodded again. “There is. You had a month to relax, but I got a sanction request a few days ago that I believe is going to require your particular talents. You’ll be coming home for this one, because it’s a domestic mission within the U.S.A. I’m going to let Donald explain what it’s about, but then Molly has a few things to say as well.”
She glanced to her right and Donald Jefferson looked into the camera. “Camelot, the situation is grave, but somewhat delicate at the same time. The actual request came from the CIA, who have identified a human trafficking organization that seems to be operating out of the Galveston area. This case is particularly heinous, because the vast majority of what they do involves harvesting and selling human organs on the black market. Working with the CIA on this case, the FBI has identified more than two hundred missing persons whose organs have turned up in connection with this investigation.”
“Oh, my God,” Sarah said. “What you’re saying is that they are murdering healthy people just to sell their organs? Is that right?”
“Not just killing them, Sarah,” Donald said. “In many cases, the organs are coming from children, teenagers and young adults who disappear without warning. This organization is kidnapping people, and literally working through the dark web to post a catalog of available organs and other body parts. What makes the case particularly gruesome is the fact that the victims are probably being kept alive until such time as an organ removal causes them to die.”
“Good Lord, I’m not even that vicious,” Jenny said. “How long are they keeping them alive?”
“Well, we know that they post relevant information on the dark web regarding transplant compatibilities of all their victims. Somebody can purchase the entire person, or they can order a single organ, such as a kidney, and it will be removed from the victim immediately after the order is received. The same applies to a single cornea or lung, but the victim will be kept alive until the other cornea, kidney or lung is sold. At that point, the heart, liver, etc. will be announced as available for immediate sales.”
“Then they need to be stopped,” Noah said. “What about intelligence? Do we know who is behind this?”
“The CIA picked up one name, a surgeon from Galveston named Barry Linden. Bear in mind that we do not know for certain that he is involved, but there’s no doubt that the organs are originating from the Galveston area. The FBI has determined that there is some sort of network that is collecting victims from all around the country and transporting them to the Galveston region. We have no idea where they’re being kept, and current estimates say there could be as many as a hundred victims currently being held in captivity.” He reached forward and
picked up a glass of water, took a drink from it and set it down again. “Your mission in this case is threefold. First, you must identify as many of the participants in the organization as possible before taking any action. Second, we need to find the location where the victims are held. Third, and this must happen before the victims are rescued, the participants must be eliminated. The president himself has endorsed this request, and he wants the elimination to be as obvious and horrendous as you can possibly make it. The idea is to send a message to those participants outside the country that the United States is not going to allow them to harvest our citizens.”
“I've got a question,” Neil said. “If they have a lead on this doctor, why isn’t the FBI handling this as an investigation? Why send us in?”
“That's a valid question,” Jefferson said, “but the answer isn’t quite that simple. The FBI has been unable to find any concrete leads of any kind, and it was the CIA who identified Doctor Linden. They’ve had him under surveillance for the last few weeks, but haven’t been able to see any confirmed activity. It’s possible his name was only a smokescreen, so you could be going into this blind.”
“I still work on the theory that where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Noah said. “Just to have his name come up in CIA chatter indicates that he’s involved somewhere, even if he’s doing it under duress or possibly even unaware of the entire situation. We’ll start with him when we get there and go from there. Neil can work on the dark web angle; if nothing else, we can put in an order to buy a whole person and let him try to trace it down. If he can’t, then we can go after them when we pick up the delivery.”
Neil was shaking his head. “Okay, hold on, let me make sure I understand what’s going on here,” he said. “We need to go to Galveston and let Noah and Marco and Jenny work on Doctor Linden while I pretend to be some pervert who wants to buy a human pet. Again I ask, why can’t the FBI do that crap?”
