Extraordinary Retribution (38 page)

“We have orders from on high, gentlemen,” said Agent Savas loudly. “By federal authority these fugitives are to be placed into our custody, under our jurisdiction. We have intelligence that they are
not
working alone, and there may be efforts to actualize their escape as early as tonight. We need to move them immediately to the most secure federal lockdown we can find.”

Several officers around them murmured. Savas dismissed them with a wave.

“This is a
federal
matter, involving the assassination of a former vice president of the United States. Maybe you don’t realize who you are dealing with! We don’t want a repeat of New York, where these two and accomplices blew up the entire local police station in their escape.”

Officer Siggia nodded, his face relieved. “That’s for damn sure, and I’ll be sleeping easier knowing these two aren’t in my locker. They’re yours, agents. Get them the hell out of my sight. You men,” he said, rounding up his troops and turning his back on the agents, “Let’s get this cordoned off. More of these G-men and God knows who else are going to descend on us. Let’s have it ready.”

Savas motioned and the SWAT team rushed forward. Lopez felt himself grabbed tightly, additional constraints placed on his arms and set around his legs. He was glad to see that they did not do so with Houston but instead placed her on a stretcher carried by two agents. At least these FBI agents had some brains. It was obvious to anyone that she wasn’t escaping anywhere.

He was pushed forward and into the back of the truck, and then strapped into a harness that prevented any movement. To his amazement, there was an emergency response medic with a small station set up in the back. They quickly moved Houston to a gurney locked down to the van floor, and the medic began examining her. Before he could say anything, two large SWAT officers sat across from him, their faces concealed behind black masks and helmets. Their weapons were pointed casually toward him.

The front door opened, and Agent Savas stepped in himself. Lopez assumed the woman was outside with the state police. He watched Savas start the engine, back the van up carefully, and then accelerate down the driveway and onto the road.

Lopez didn’t know where they were headed. He assumed the worst. Maybe
they
would be rendered somewhere, tortured. Perhaps simply locked away without trial or chance of trial, labeled “enemy combatants” and disappeared to Guantanamo or some similar location. America was changing. Rights were being taken away. They could simply disappear some, without justification, in secret, for as long as they wanted.

And there was nothing that anyone could do about it.

64

“S
he’s lost a lot of blood,” said the medic, who hooked up a bag for transfusion. The truck bounced roughly along the road; Lopez marveled that the medic could do his job. “It’s good we were warned. I have her type and allergies. We got her just in time.”

Warned? Who could have told them that she was injured?

“Father Lopez,” said Savas from the front. “In a minute, I will instruct my men to release your constraints. I don’t want you doing anything stupid. At the least, think about Agent Houston and her need for assistance. It might also help to hear that we were sent by Fred Simon of the CIA. We know the story, the
real
story. We’re here to help.”

Lopez felt dizzy.
From Simon? FBI agents? What the hell was going on?

“Fred’s a colleague of mine at Langley,” Savas continued, guessing Lopez’s thoughts. “We’ve worked together for years, and I know him personally. He’s a good man. A trusted friend. Only because of that did I believe him.”

“Then you can clear us?” asked Lopez, his hope desperate.

“Little hope of that, Father.”

“It’s not Father anymore, Agent Savas.”

Savas sighed. “I’m here with the
unapproved
authorization of Agent Simon. When this van is found destroyed, and I am unconscious, and these agents missing, he will take the heat for your escape, operating outside of protocol.”

Lopez was stunned. “Our escape?” He glanced outside the window. They were in the middle of nowhere, fields rushing past in the golden light of sunrise.
Where will we escape to?

“We are doing this because the forces that set this nightmare in motion knew their business, Father.”

“Please,” interrupted Lopez, the title distracting him. “Not anymore. Not
Father
. I am defrocked. Excommunicated.”

Savas was silent a moment. “I am sorry for that. I really am. Your lives will never be the same after what they have done. Now, as I understand it, the leaders are all dead, murdered by this Pakistani-American nutcase. This
wraith
.”

“We saw three of them die. We also saw the bodies of several agents, including my brother.”

“But there are far too many still active at the CIA who will not allow the truth to come out. Jobs would be lost, programs endangered, the careers of the powerful jeopardized. The frame job on you two, completed tonight, would take a national investigation to uncover and undo. They won’t allow it. Congress won’t allow it. The Executive Branch won’t allow it. Too much dirt on too many people. This will be buried, and you buried with it. You will be the sacrifice.”

“Because of the crimes of a few that they don’t want known.”

“Yes. You are tarnished everywhere, from the Catholic Church to the murders of thirty to forty agents and police officers. You are now the assassins who murdered the former vice president. If you want to fight this, you have that option, but you will lose. And lose badly.”

“What other option is there?” asked Lopez, completely demoralized.

“Disappear,” said Savas.

“
Disappear?
How? Where?”

“Simon is arranging it. He’s preparing a back door for you. We will fake your escape tonight. The troops here are close associates and loyal to me—we’ve been through a lot together. They will keep this in confidence. Simon has set aside the CIA equivalent of a witness protection program for you. Only he will know, no one else at the CIA or FBI. You will be given new identities, a bank account that will let you retire for the rest of your lives, and a secret location. Not your old lives. You’ll never get those back. But you’ll get a chance to start new lives. A blank canvas.”

“Hiding our past. Pretending to be people we aren’t. Letting this injustice go unpunished.”

“I would not say it went unpunished,” said Savas grimly. “And I can tell you that many of us in the CIA and the FBI will do what we can to clean out the festering remainder of what this wraith nearly sterilized. Simon is a good man. He’ll work within the system, and he’s vowed to me that he’ll see to it that there won’t be a next time, not while he’s on watch.”

“I wish I had his confidence,” said Lopez, wearily.

“I know,” replied Savas. “So do I.”

Houston stirred and called out. “Francisco? Are you there? Where are we?”

“Please, let me out of these!” he said, futilely gesturing with his shoulders. “I’m trusting you. I’m not going to do anything. I just want to be with her.”

The men in the back looked toward Savas, who simply nodded. They released the restraints and freed Lopez from the wrist and ankle cuffs. He stood up, wobbling from the stiffness in his legs and torso, and knelt down next to Houston. Her eyes were closed.

“Sara, it’s me, Francisco. Can you hear me?”

Her color was already better. He had considered her skin very pale, but the last few hours had terrified him, as he had watched her fade to a vampiric white marble, the blue of her veins startling, her skin seemingly transparent. Now she looked almost normal. Maybe it was the warm morning light that spilled in from the front window. Or perhaps it was the fresh blood supply.

“Sara?” he repeated.

“Mmmmm,” she hummed and opened her eyes. “I think I must be dreaming. I thought I heard some FBI agent babbling on about us living in the backwoods or something.” She smiled. “Sounded nice.”

Lopez grinned back, his vision blurred from tears. “Yeah, Sara, it sounds very nice.” He placed his head next to hers and held her hand.

She whispered softly. “We’ll get a log cabin, in the mountains. A fireplace. I want some rose creepers on the door. We can hunt. I’ll take you outback, finally teach you how to shoot a damn gun.”

65

F
ugitive Pair Escapes Again: Future Mayhem Predicted

By Gerd Miller, Huntsville Times

Caught by law enforcement twice, Francisco Lopez and Sara Houston have escaped a second time.

First, they scandalized a nation with their deviant behavior and treasonous actions. Then, they undertook one of the most startling and embarrassing penetrations of national security in a generation. Most recently, their murderous rampage brought them to the home of the former vice president of the United States, where they are accused of assassinating him along with killing an entire assignment of Secret Service agents.

“There was a coordinated escape operation,” said Special Agent John Savas, who was recovering from wounds sustained during the failed attempt to capture the two fugitives. “As we always suspected, they had outside help. Our SWAT caravan was hit just outside the VP’s house in Virginia by overwhelming and unexpected force. The van was totaled, and in the ensuing firefight, the two fugitives escaped.”

Now their whereabouts are unknown. After weeks of escalating violence from the pair, suddenly they have disappeared, and their wild spree has come to an end. Or has it?

“These two are dedicated to harming this nation,” said CIA Division Chief Jesse Darst, Houston’s former superior. “They are not finished. We will redouble our efforts to bring them to justice.”

They had become known online and in the tabloids as “the priest and the whore,” Houston accused of using sex as a tool and weapon in her double-agent spying, and Lopez a disgraced and defrocked former Catholic priest accused first of a host of sex crimes against young boys and then as the murderous liaison of Houston.

The nation has been riveted by the story of the two, living in fear and wondering what would happen next. Even those who knew them well expressed shock.

“We never expected Francisco of such horrible things,” said Maria Lopez, resident of Madison, Alabama, and sister-in-law of the accused. “He seemed the pillar of the community. Now, after all this, after these deaths, these terrible crimes, we can only try to move on.”

Epilogue

T
he shots rang out, one after the other. First, there was the blast: the ringing of metal hurled by gunpowder, the fast rush of air. Then, the slap and thud as the projectile struck its target. Finally, the resounding reverberations off the stones, hard ground, and sides of the encircling cliffs.

The air was crisp and the plant life mostly evergreen at this high altitude. Mosses grew on the rocky terrain, and the thin atmosphere gave a sharpened quality to all objects, to every sound. Sight, sound, and gunplay were all precise.

A male figure stood twenty-five yards in front of a row of targets, silhouetted against a reddening sunset. Black human-like shapes were depicted on the paper before him with the areas around the heart and brain marked with circles. After a number of shots, the figure drew his arm back and removed protective earplugs, looking down at the smoking weapon. A brunette with short-cropped hair walked briskly up to him.

“Damn, Francisco! Eight of ten in the kill zone. You missed your true calling! What the hell were you doing in seminary?”

“Studying, mostly.” He smiled. “So, not bad?”

“Obscene natural talent. Not even Miguel was this good. You’ve barely been training, and you’re a hell of a lot better shot than ninety-nine percent of the agents I know.”

“Who’d have thought?” he said, shaking his head.

“I did. I
knew
. You’re even better in hand-to-hand.”

“I always could fight.”

“Yes, like a wild boar. But now I’m training you
right
for the first time. Most men your age couldn’t learn this from scratch. You were born to do this.”

“Natural-born killer?” he said, a sadness in his eyes.

“A natural warrior, Francisco. There is a difference.”

“Not always.”

“Well, there is in your case. I don’t want to hear
any more
self-doubt. You’ve been trying to be Jesus all your life because you couldn’t accept who you really were!” She looked at him mischievously. “You saw the box?”

He nodded, glancing over his shoulder. In the midst of several handguns, rifles, ammo crates, and target sheets, buried nearly under their two backpacks, there was a large cardboard box.

“I saw you carrying it up earlier. Presents?”

Houston nodded in the affirmative. “Yes. From Russian monks.”

“Russian monks?”

She laughed. It was a free laugh, a kind rarely heard in a world of people who were rarely themselves. Sara Houston was always beautifully, strongly, tenderly, frustratingly, uniquely herself. “I swear, you can find anything online these days. There’s a monastery in northern Russia that has really done quite well for itself with a religious-themed web store. Icons, candles, censers, the like. Also, cassocks.”

“Cassocks?” he asked, a perplexed look on his face.

“Ever since I was a young girl, I loved the look of those mysterious Russian priests. Long, flowing black cassocks. You Papists modernized so much in the Catholic Church—practically a business suit and tie. Not those crazy Eastern Orthodox. Wild beards and flowing robes.” She rubbed her hand on his bare cheek. “Well, you lost the beard.”

“And it’s not coming back.” He shook his head. “Sara, I’m done being a priest.”

She smiled, a playful look in her eyes. “Different kind of Order. Try them on!”

He looked at her skeptically. “All right, here goes.” He opened the box and removed the priestly robes. Then he stripped to his underwear. The air was slightly cool, and he felt the rush of adrenaline from the brisk breeze. It took him a few minutes of shivering to figure out the drapings, but finally he managed to get the robes properly in place. Houston had turned her back and closed her eyes. He called to her.