Extraordinary Retribution (28 page)

The wraith parted the blinds of his hotel room window and glanced across the street. The state police station appeared formidable, a recent and imposing construction. But appearances could be deceiving. To his well-trained eye, the security walls were rotten with holes.
All the more reason to move soon.
Not much happened this far upstate. The architects would not need much—only a moderately well-trained asset. The two fugitives were literally sitting ducks in there. It might even happen tonight.
No
, he corrected himself,
it
would
happen tonight
. This was their chance. They would not hesitate.

He closed the blinds and stood up, walking over to his bed. He opened a large metallic case and removed several weapons and explosives: grenades, bars of Semtex, fuses, and timers. He glanced at his watch—three hours until sunset. He would wait until all solar light had faded, then blow the local transformer, cutting power to the block and the station. No doubt they had an emergency generator, but at the least it would cause havoc and plunge the surrounding area into total darkness. He’d follow the power lines and sounds to the generator and disable it as well.

Removing his phone, he pressed a button, and a number was dialed. A tone sounded, then a sharp click, and a rough voice spoke on the other end.

“You are in position?”

“Yes,” said the wraith. “I will strike tonight.”

“Good. They are your best lead. As we have discussed.” There was static over the speaker or significant background noise. “I am bringing the items. The dealers were what was to be expected, but they were not stupid, and fortunately I had to kill no one. They were happy for the money.”

“How long?”

“A few more days. I will not take interstates. We cannot have any inspections.”

“Contact me if there are any problems, and I will come.”

“Yes. Now, fit this arrow and send it into the heart of your enemies.” The connection closed.

He did not put away the phone, however, and instead opened an audio app, replaying the message recorded in the cabin. Together with the voices, he now had two faces, two identities, to put next to them in his mind. The woman’s voice spilled out over the small speaker.

“
We have to find these leaders. What we’ve discovered is bigger than the murders of CIA agents. It’s bigger than extraordinary rendition of American citizens. It’s fucking Orwellian. Time to locate the architects of this death squad. These men have to be put away for life; they’re more dangerous than Miguel’s killers. They’re a cancer inside the body of our government.
”

That was it. The old soldier was right. Their anger and passion were critical. Once they were freed tonight, he would enhance and direct that outrage. He would drive them forward to use all their connections and energies. They would uncover the rats hiding underground and pursue them.

And he would be following.

46

H
ouston sat down next to Lopez in the cell. The motion was awkward, their arms and legs chained. They were isolated from all the other detainees in the small police station, the guards giving them a wide berth. It was like they had the plague or were considered otherwise extremely dangerous. It was almost comical, the reality ruining any jest at the absurdity.

Others arrested in nearby cells stared over at them with a macabre interest. Already they could hear whispers. The most common phrase was
the priest and the whore
. Tabloid trash. Their new identities. Houston sighed.

“Our one phone call—for nothing. I couldn’t reach him. No answer. I don’t know where he is.”

Fred Simon.
Their only hope. “I’m sorry, Sara. We were close.”

“It can’t end like this, Francisco!” Her blue eyes pleaded and then closed tightly. She seemed to instill a forced calm over her emotions. “After what we know, what we’ve
seen
, the Agency will send someone. They’ll disappear us,
render
us, to a place that the light of day won’t reach. From what we know now of their program, they could even try to have us killed. The truth will be buried with us. These monsters will get away with it.”

Lopez hung his head. He saw no counterargument. Rationally, there was no way out. No hope. No reasonable way to end this nightmare.

For it is by faith that we walk and not by sight.

He heard the words of St. Paul, as clear as if the apostle had spoken them himself.
Or is it just my mind, playing tricks on me?
He could give a sermon on faith, but he didn’t seem to live it. He had told Houston that God would not abandon them, right before he was slandered and tossed out by the Church. It might have fit her expectations, but it was a deep challenge to his.
Do I trust in God, or not?
It wasn’t perhaps what Houston wanted to hear, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Then I’ll pray, Sara.”

Houston stared at him blankly.

The arresting officers had taken nearly everything when they booked them. The arrowhead pendant was gone. His cross, his rosary, both gone. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure he needed the strength of his older brother anymore, and God sure as hell didn’t need a string of beads.
We
need the beads, the pendants, the talismans
.

He struggled off the bench and knelt down on the floor. The other prisoners stopped their chatter for a moment. Heads turned and glanced over in their direction. Some gathered along their bars as he prayed.

Lopez crossed himself. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Maria, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”

There was some laughter in adjoining cells. “Hey, man, it
is
the fucking Priest!” Another voice called, “You can
have
the priest! What I want is the whore! Yeah,
baby
, your turn next!” There were several hisses for quiet and more howls of laughter.

Lopez ignored them. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”

The lights went off. There was a distant sound of rumbling, almost like thunder, but not as expansive. “Damn!” called one voice in a neighboring cell, and then there was total silence. All the chatter ceased.

He paused a moment but decided to continue anyway. He crossed himself again, the chains rattling in the dark, preventing significant motion in his Sign of the Cross. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

Emergency lights kicked in, bathing the room in a deep red. Lopez heard shouts and then gunfire. The prisoners around them began to panic, talking, then shouting in fear. Loud commands from officers could be heard over the din and on top of it all, more gunfire. Chaos was erupting throughout the station. He felt the building shudder and rock, the movement capped by the thunderous sound of an explosion.

He was about to begin the next prayer, when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder, accompanied by the rattling of chains.

“Francisco...” It was Houston.

Lopez opened his eyes, a shape in front of them coming into focus. A man stood outside their cell, silhouetted in the dim red of the emergency lighting. In his right hand was a gun.

Houston crouched next to him and put his hand in hers. “Sounds corny, but I’d rather die next to you, Francisco. Not alone over there.”

He held her hand, touching his forehead to hers. He resumed his prayer. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.”

The man raised the gun and aimed at them.

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”

A loud gunshot sounded, and Lopez tensed instinctively. The silhouette jerked suddenly, the head to the left, the body then dropping straight to the floor. Another shadow ran in from the right. Lopez could tell immediately that it was not a police uniform, but he could make out little of the shooter’s appearance.

“Francisco Lopez and Sara Houston?” the voice shouted earnestly.

Houston answered first. “Yes!”

“I was sent by Fred Simon! I’m here to get you out of this! We have to hurry—the entire station is under some kind of assault!”

He removed a set of keys and unlocked the cell, rushing beside them. Lopez saw a youngish man, perhaps in his thirties, well-built with short-cropped hair. Within seconds, he had freed them of the chains.

“Quickly, let’s go! I have a vehicle waiting for you outside!”

They didn’t need to be encouraged. Together, the three of them raced out of the detention floor and out a back exit as directed by Simon’s man. As they ran, they caught a glimpse of the carnage at the station. Fires were burning and spreading everywhere. They did not see a single officer standing. All were dead, splayed out at desks, on floors, many riddled with bullets. It was like a war zone.

“Through there!”

They crashed through an emergency exit door and found themselves in a parking lot behind the station. A black SUV was idling in front of the door.

“Take it, get the hell out of here before there is a response. This is the nerve center for law enforcement in the area, so it will be some time before they get more troops. Looks like all electrical and phone lines are out, except for emergency backup.”

A large explosion rocked the area, and a fireball climbed skyward from one end of the station. Even the emergency lights went off.

“Scrap that. Even better for us—they’ve hit the diesel generator. This place is dead. No word in or out. But fire responders will be here soon, and after that, likely the damn National Guard!”

Houston took the keys he held up for them. “Where do we go? What does Fred say?”

The man looked at her intensely. “He knows what happened to Miller. He knows what you found. That’s why I’m here. You have to get back to DC, you have to stop the maniacs before it’s too late! Finish what you started. Go, now!”

He pushed them toward the SUV, and Lopez grabbed Houston’s hand as they sprinted. They leapt into the vehicle and sped off onto the road, leaving the inferno that was the police station behind them.

Standing next to the flames, near the spot where the SUV had been parked, a blond man watched them pull out. It had been close.
Too damn close.
He was furious at himself for nearly allowing the CIA asset the chance to kill the pair. Had he arrived only seconds later, he would have lost his best lead to the mission architects.

But it worked.
He had seen their eyes. He had reached them, pushed the buttons that needed to be pushed. They were on their way. Once again, he checked his phone. The transmitter on the SUV was active, showing their position. He began to sprint to his own vehicle.

It was time to head south.

47

T
he Priest and the Whore: When Will This National Nightmare End?

An Op-Ed, By William Notti, New York Daily News

Abused children. Murdered government agents. A break-in at a CIA ultra-secure site, followed by its near destruction and the theft of critical documents. Counterterrorism agents murdered in their homes, tortured, their skulls drilled into. A wild chase on the New York highways, ending in arrest and mayhem as the two killer fugitives blow up a police station, killing dozens of officers.

This is the United States?

The president finally has begun to take this seriously and called in the National Guard. But it’s too little, too late.

What we have is another example of a weak commander in chief who has staffed his “intelligence” communities with dangerous liberals more in tune with his own politics.

The Central Intelligence Agency has been warped into a Liberal think tank and is in danger of utterly failing in its function as our nation’s most important intelligence agency. It is now overly politicized, used to leak key facts to the mainstream media in order to alter the political landscape.

The sharp tools developed and put in place by conservative administrations have all been blunted. And now we are all suffering for these mistakes.

It really doesn’t matter who Lopez and Houston really are or even what they’ve done. Of course, their sex crimes, murder, and treasonous espionage will go down infamously in the history books. They deserve the full force of our justice system: treason is a capital offense, as is murder.

But they are just the symptom, the pus of a vile infection of multiple branches of government by people who at best dislike American exceptionalism, and, as in this case, at worst secretly aim to undermine it.

We need a return to the strength of patriotism, to a counterterrorism that will harshly pursue and punish those who wish ill to the United States of America. We had that in the years after 9/11, but the success of those patriots in stopping more attacks has made us soft and forgetful.

In my view, we still haven’t gone far enough in bringing the fight to our enemies. The terrorists certainly aren’t constrained by the Geneva Conventions, so why should we be? We need to clean house and muscle up, or they’ll be back.