Extraordinary Retribution (33 page)

“Shut up,” he said, nearly choking up. “You’re hurt much worse. Don’t move, Okay?”

She didn’t listen. Pushing against him as much as gravity, she raised herself up on her elbows, gasping slightly. She looked down at her stomach. “Roll up my shirt, Francisco. Let’s see how bad the damage is.”

It wasn’t pretty. There were several pieces of metal embedded deeply in her side, like shrapnel from a grenade. The wound was swollen around the metal, the bleeding slowed but not stopped.

“You’ve got to bandage this up. Find some supplies.” She motioned with her head to the room.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital!”

“There isn’t time, Francisco. I understood. What you said before the explosion. We have to stop him.”

“Like hell,” said Francisco. He didn’t care about anything but her right now.

“Listen to me, Francisco!” Her breaths were raspy as she nearly shouted. “He’s not done, is he? This isn’t it. He’ll take it to the top. He’ll kill the president.”

Lopez shook his head. “No, not the president. Not this one, or even the last, Sara. He has a strange honor code, or we’d be dead. He wants only those who orchestrated the program.”

“The
vice president
?”

“Yes! He ran the program. It was his idea. Like his CIA death squads. The ex-VP is responsible for it all, and
he’s
the target. But I don’t care. Let it happen. I’m getting you to a hospital!”

“Francisco, no! We can’t let this madman assassinate the former VP. Maybe justice hasn’t been served, but Francisco,
not like this!
” She coughed out the last words.

Lopez paused, conflicted.
Damn it! She’s right.
How could they let something so terrible happen if they could prevent it? And he immediately realized that no one else could intervene. They were cut off from everyone. They could not turn to any law enforcement or governmental agency that would believe them. If someone was to stop this, it had to be them.
But she’s dying!

“Francisco, look: it’s not a mortal wound. Not yet, anyway. The danger is blood loss. Bandage this damn thing up, stop the flow of blood. It will buy us some time.”

Lopez nodded, his mind racing. “The VP’s Maryland home is less than an hour from here across the border. Famous place, rumored bunker underneath. The old bastard’s been holed up there because of his heart problems for the last six months. The VP’s the last target. It will happen tonight. The wraith won’t risk us blowing his chance.”

“Please, Francisco. Stop talking and do something!”

Lopez rushed through the farmhouse, looking for medical supplies. They were there in abundance. The dead men sprawled around the living room had planned for the worst and had stocked several closets with medical kits. He returned quickly to Houston’s side and followed her instructions. She knew a lot more about wound management than he did. And she was tough as nails. Several times she asked him to do things that she knew would be painful but necessary, and she gritted her teeth as he followed through.

It was exhausting. He was hurting her, watching her suffer, and the emotional toll was severe. In the end, her entire abdomen was wrapped in gauze and taped. With his help, she was able to stand and walk.

“Now let’s get out of here,” she gasped.

“The car is nearly two miles away! You can’t walk that far.”

“Then find keys on these men. They had cars out front.”

She was right. He searched the men and found one of the guards with car keys. Gingerly, but as quickly as he could, he escorted her across the lawn to the front gate. The wraith had deactivated the security system, and the iron doors were opened. A black town car was parked across the street.

He helped her into the front passenger-side seat. He could see that she was in tremendous pain.
Lord God, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
He closed her door and rushed around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and leapt in. The car started with a scream as he overturned the ignition in haste.

“Francisco, you have to be calm. Iced. You need to be mission-oriented, or we won’t make it.” She began to cough, and it was several seconds before she could speak again. “Drive. Drive fast.”

He tried to slow his breathing as he pulled out. He tried to become a machine, to focus on the task that needed to be done.
While this woman I love is dying.
He reached into his pocket and handed her his cell phone.

“Call Simon again, Sara. If you can’t reach him, send texts, emails, secure, unsecured, to every address and contact we have for him. He won’t make it in time, but he’s the only other resource we have. The only one that can help.”

Houston nodded. “You’re right, Francisco. My God, I didn’t think to try.”

Lopez sped down the bumpy dirt road, every impact on the road jarring them, bringing gasps from Houston. He tried to focus. He tried to control his feelings.

Don’t die on me, Sara. Hold on.

55

T
he wraith drove with a maniacal purpose through the Virginia back roads.

The last mission would be the most rushed, the least prepared, and the most important. He should have killed the agent and the priest. He knew that. It would ensure that the final stage of his mission could not be discovered and would not be countered. Leaving them alive risked much, even if the dead leaders of the Renditions Branch had made them nearly powerless.
Nearly
was not the same as
completely
. Right now, the former vice president was unaware of the threat he faced. If those two got word to the right people, that could change. He should have killed them. That was pragmatic.

But not necessary.
It was a calculated risk, and their blood was innocent. Whatever the consequence, he would not have that on his hands.
As long as they stay out of my way.

His last target presented unique challenges. The vice president was not
officially
in hiding, but his public existence was coupled with lifelong Secret Service protection. Beyond that, this vice president was unique in all of history. With suspicions beyond even the legendary paranoia of Nixon, he was a man who saw threats everywhere and considered no response to those threats as too extreme. His attitudes made him a polarizing figure, a lightning rod for liberals and human rights criticisms.

These character traits also evinced themselves in the security he demanded after leaving office. He possessed an unusually extensive Secret Service assignment. He had wiped his place of residence from publicly accessible online mapping software. He had developed home security systems of an unparalleled nature for a residential, nonmilitary site. Those would likely have only been augmented given the events of the last few weeks. And by tomorrow, he would know that his dark forces had been routed. He would completely lock down.

These were obstacles in the path of the wraith’s mission. Locating the residence was the easiest—his hacking skills had already afforded him extensive access to secret CIA databases and computer networks. Early on he had located the home, obtained all the details of its security systems, and the standard force of Secret Service agents onsite.

The plan he had settled on for defeating these personnel and infrastructural barriers was his simplest to date: shock and awe. While stealth mode, followed by overwhelming power, had served best in previous engagements, paradoxically, the wraith had concluded that the most secure location, the most highly protected of all the targets, required the most blunt and brutal assault possible. And he would bring it. A Russian-born Israeli soldier returning from Mexico was his ace in the hole.

He pulled to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Virginia, the GPS coordinates agreed upon in advance. A large vehicle awaited him, and a shadowed form stood beside it. He shut the truck down and exited, approaching the solid shape rapidly.

“You are rushing this,” said the shadow. “Even with all I bring you, you need more time to prepare such an assault.”

“There is no more time. I have explained it.”

“Yes, in war, there is never enough time.”

He approached the customized military-grade Humvee. The truck was army surplus, retrofitted with inch-thick steel armor plating, including a set of plates across the windshield that practically turned the vehicle into a light tank. The roof opened for engagement with large weaponry, and he came equipped.

The wraith surveyed the bounty before him. “You managed to avoid having it all confiscated.”

The soldier grunted. “On the backroads of this country, there are many who are not suspicious of such things. There is a great fear and discontent in this nation. They build bunkers and hoard ammunition. They came to speak with me, at gas stations and along the road. When they learn I am a Jew, it confirms their prophecies. The Christians: either they put us on a pedestal, or they gas us off them! One fool asked if I believed that the End Times were coming.”

“And what did you say?” asked the wraith, pulling the crates onto the road and opening them with a crowbar.

He waved an arm. “I told him they were already here—for ten thousand years!” He laughed heartily. “Civilization has the memory of a pickled alcoholic. All these wars, these empires: the Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, British, Americans. Always noise and anger,
purpose
, mad pursuit. And where are they now? What has become of their greatness? For what purpose?”

He reached down to the dirt road and scraped his thick fingernails into the ground, digging up a handful of rocks and dust. He raised his fist and stuck it in the face of the wraith, his palm squeezing tightly as the grains spilled back to the earth.

“For
nothing
, Javed. For ruins and dust. Foggy myths erased in time.” The soldier turned sharply and hoisted a squat, cylindrical device from a crate. He presented it to the wraith. “Your contacts are very impressive. A Predator missile launcher. I suppose with enough money the black market dealers in Dubai will oblige nearly anything. And the Sinaloa Cartel has the right tunnels through the borders. How great is this global economy?” He laughed, tossing the weapon to the wraith, who placed it in the Humvee. “They even found some warheads for this old model. There will be fireworks tonight.”

The wraith opened several more crates alongside the truck and removed a large machine gun. “This is the Browning?”

The soldier nodded. “M2. As you specified, it’s to be secured with a weapons platform on the roof. Surrounded by welded plates of one inch thick steel. Ha! I don’t think that even the American Secret Service has the rounds to pierce this.” He whistled. “But what this will throw at them is something very different.”

The wraith nodded, and with considerable effort, he managed to mount it on top of the Humvee. The M2 was steel lethality. Fifty-caliber rounds that could even serve in an antiaircraft capacity. Sustained rate of fire of forty rounds per minute, with a maximal, barrel-melting five hundred rounds per minute if needed. After it was secured, he cleaned out the remainder of the crate contents, his supply list topped off with two grenade launchers, a pump-action shotgun, and several handguns.

Despite everything that had happened, his crazed anger of the last few hours, the wraith smiled. The vice president had always feared assassination and had prepared himself. But the wraith had prepared as well, and he knew that chaos would always defeat attempts to preserve order.
Or life
. He would bring a war to the Maryland mansion the likes of which had never been imagined. It would be an assault that could not possibly be anticipated or prepared for. It would be overwhelming and absurd. And that was why it would work.

“This is where I leave you.” The old man put a hand on the wraith’s shoulder, and stared down the road. He exhaled sharply and set his jaw. “It is time for a revelation. I have lied to you twice, Javed.” The wraith turned to look at the soldier, but said nothing. “Twice you have asked me why I have helped you. Once, many years ago, I said ‘to make
superman.’
This was a lie.”

The soldier stepped away and walked forward alone, staring into the black sky. The night was dark, no stars visible under cloud cover. The moon was hidden.

The wraith spoke. “And the second, Avram?”

“When you asked the same question. Why did I come back? I lied and told you because I am an honorable soldier and would not leave a warrior to die alone in such a hopeless quest!” He laughed strangely, the sound staccato.

“Then,why did you help me? Why are you here?”

“Perhaps you will not understand,” he said, sounding unsure. “Thirty years ago, I saw a film about the Hindu prophet, the Mahatma. Such a fool, but a real man. I will take a fool who is real before a wise man who is only shadows.”

“Yes?”

“I have forgotten much of it. But one scene I always remembered. In this scene, the Hindus and Muslims are slaughtering each other once again, and the fool begins to starve himself. He will die unless the people stop killing each other! And then a Hindu man comes, begging the prophet to eat, throwing bread at him. He cries out: ‘I have killed a young Muslim child, smashed his head into the wall! I will go to hell!’ “

The old soldier laughed again, the sound now high-pitched. The wraith simply stared without understanding.

“So, the prophet tells him he knows how to get out of hell. Prophets know such things, apparently. He tells him to find a young Muslim boy, whose parents have been killed, and to adopt him, raise him as his own, but, of course, raise him as a
Muslim
.”

Time was racing by. The wraith felt a growing impatience. “And how does this explain why you helped me?”

The old man turned toward the wraith. “Because
I
am that man, Javed. Maybe thousands others are that man.” Pain was etched in his face. “I had been in Israel less than a year. My brigade leveled a building with Palestinian soldiers. But they had used children as shields to stop our attack.
Hundreds
from a local school. We did not know, or we weren’t told by our commanders. We only knew the truth when we took the block, and the mangled bodies were strewn across the road. Black dust sticky with the blood of innocents. Small bodies everywhere.”