Extraordinary Retribution (4 page)

“Was someone he knew sick?”

“I don’t know,” she said, throwing up her arms. “He never mentioned it. Why would he have to be scouting for deaths in thirty different papers across the country? But that’s what did it, what set him off today.”

Lopez merely raised his eyebrows in confusion.

She leaned in close to him, her face earnest. “He found a name, a death. After that, he started freaking out, packing! I went to his computer and looked it up. Nothing much, just a small notice of a pilot in Maine whose plane went down last week.
In Maine
. No one I’ve ever heard of. But that was it. He was searching for a name, or something, and found it. It’s like it pushed some button. Francisco, we have to find him.”

Lopez sighed. He didn’t know what to do. “We should call the police, explain to them what happened, and see what they recommend.” She only nodded, a desperate look in her eyes. “I’ll stay with you until we got this a little more mapped out, but tonight I have the special evening Mass. I have to be there.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “I always hated missing it. Miguel hasn’t set foot in a church since we were married.”

Father Lopez nodded but said nothing.

“I’ve never seen him quite like that. When he left. Hesitant. Uncertain. Questioning everything he was doing. I’m not sure how to describe it.”

Father Lopez waited as she lost herself in thought. Suddenly, she looked toward him, her expression utterly certain.

“He was
scared
, Francisco, I could see it. He tried to hide it, but I know him.” She shook her head slowly, in disbelief. “Miguel
scared
. Francisco, when was the last time you remember him being afraid of
anything
?”

He sat quietly. It was hard to believe. Miguel Lopez was a man who had run over people on the gridiron, “that Mexican boy” who could bend a metal bar with the strength of his arms. He had likely killed many men in Kuwait and yet had come back from that conflict without a scar. No post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Nothing
. He had never even spoken of it. His brother had been a slab of granite.
Did he finally break? Was it all inside him for so long, and these deaths triggered it? Were those deaths soldiers he knew?

It didn’t seem to scan. Could he have been so deeply wounded while functioning so normally for years on end without some sign? There had to be another explanation.

What in God’s name could have scared you, Miguel?

5

T
he last tendrils of light faded as dusk blanketed the well-manicured lawns of an unremarkable suburb of Washington, DC. Children spilled by on bicycles or in small groups laughing and running across familiar lawns, the first insects beginning their chanting as the sky turned slowly from orange to deep red and purple.

A BMW pulled into the driveway in front of a medium-sized colonial on the corner of the block. The garage door in front of the vehicle opened automatically, and the car pulled inside. A trim man in a business suit stepped out and walked briskly onto the pavement leading to the front door of the house, clicking the remote, and closing the door to the garage. He approached the mailbox and reached in, removing a handful of catalogs and thumbing through several envelopes as he inserted the key to the door and stepped into his home.

As the door closed behind him, he paused for a second, staring straight ahead, then placed the pile of mail on a small table. Inside the house, it was nearly dark, the outside illumination faded, but he did not turn on any lights. For several seconds, he stood immobile, only a raw tension in his body indicating that he was alive.

With a sudden motion, he lurched to his right, removing a firearm concealed in his suit. A shadowed blur from the left caught his arm before it could aim, and a knee from the darkness was driven into the man’s stomach. With an expulsion of air, he dropped the pistol, bringing a fist up in a blinding jab toward his assailant. The shadow pivoted and moved closer to the man so that the strike missed just behind the head, the arm deflected by the free hand of the attacker. The shadow twisted the man’s arm downward, tearing ligaments and inducing a gasp, and then pushed the man backward. Shaken from the damage to his arm, the man stumbled but quickly planted his back leg and assumed a fighting stance.

The living room was filled with a blur of hand motions, as if hundreds of bats had suddenly appeared and began to noisily flap their skinned wings. Fists and open-hand attacks darted and jutted forward and from the side, each assailant parrying and countering, the blocked blows sounding short but crisp slaps. Panting breath and gasps accompanied the sounds of impact.

But the injured man was handicapped, his damaged arm slow in both attack and defense. Soon he was overwhelmed, and the intruder penetrated his defenses with a sharp jab of fingers to the neck followed by a kick to the side of the knee as the injured man grabbed his throat, emitting choking sounds. The kick to the knee was solid, the joint popping. Instinctively, the choking man took most of his weight off the injured leg to preserve balance. The intruder dropped like a weight to the floor, catching himself on his hands, and then brought his leg around like a propeller. He kicked out the good leg from under his opponent, and the man flipped backward, losing his balance completely and plummeting to the ground with arms flailing toward the ceiling. He crashed loudly through a glass coffee table in the middle of his living room.

As his assailant advanced, the man rolled over the shards of glass towards his kitchen, cutting his forearms, and climbed quickly to his one good knee. He reached toward a set of large knives hanging over the counter.

A powerful kick caught him in the ribs, several snapping from the impact, and he was thrown onto his back, stunned as his head hit the floor. In the seconds it took for him to regain focus, the shadow had moved over him. A weapon was aimed at his head.

The shadowy figure pushed a chair between them, simultaneously drawing the shades in the window and glancing outside. Satisfied, he sat down, his face only partially visible in the darkness. He kept his attention sharply focused on the bloodied man groaning on the floor.

“You didn’t run like the others.”

“What good would it do?” grunted the man, trying to prop himself up on the nearby wall, partially succeeding, then sliding down toward the floor again, his battered arm and broken ribs making it impossible to support himself for long. Giving up, he lay there with his head at an angle against the wall, appraising his assailant.

He saw the outline of a man of medium height and enormous strength – wiry like a martial artist, yet sizable and imposing, broad shoulders perched above a solid chest and narrow waist. His facial features appeared almost delicate in the poor light, high cheekbones prominent, the elfin features belying the muscular form below. His hair was very light, perhaps blond. His eyes, so visible in the close-quarters combat, were a strange blue of a hue he had never seen before. In this darkness, they almost appeared to shine like those of a cat.

“You didn’t call for help.”

“We’re all alone now. Isolated. No one would come.” His breathing came in short spurts, the pain of his broken ribs constricting his efforts. “We don’t exist. Nothing we did ever happened.”

“But it did. And this time, there are consequences.” The wounded man stared in bewilderment. “You don’t know who I am.”

From the floor, he strained in the dim light, staring at the fine features, the light hair, cat’s eyes, and shook his head. “No. They’re calling you the
wraith
. Whispering about you in the halls at Langley, and much more among us outside.
The shadow that kills
.” He coughed again, a rattling in the airway that indicated a serious injury. “But now that I see you,” he managed at last, “you are only a man.”

“A man once, really a boy, who did not know you, or why you took him in the dark of night, or where he was going.
Hangar No. 3
. That boy saw the sign, right before you placed a bag over his head. That boy didn’t know what would happen to him, and when it did, why. A journey that changes a person, Agent Stone.”

The man looked again at the shadow behind the gun. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I would have remembered you. You don’t even fit the profile.”

The blond man smiled. “Not anymore.”

“I’m not going to know who sent you, am I? Or why.”

The response was cold. “No.”

The assassin’s words struck him like another blow. He had at least expected to know why his life would end.

“The others were more afraid.”

The man on the floor coughed roughly, a trickle of blood on the side of his mouth. A lung had been punctured.

“I’m plenty afraid. But it’s been too long in this business. I’ve done too many things. I figure I’ve got it coming.”

The blond man stood up from the chair and aimed the weapon. The enormous silencer on the end gave the gun an almost obscene appearance.

“Yes, Agent Stone, you do.”

Three sharp spits sounded in the small kitchen, and the form slouching against the wall slid heavily to the floor. The blond man stepped away from the body and walked into the dead man’s study. On the desk was an open case into which he placed the weapon. He turned to the man’s computer and powered it up. As the machine booted, he quickly removed the outer casing, his progress rapid despite the black gloves he wore. Within seconds, he had access to the motherboard, and he returned to the case and removed a small device alongside the weapon nearly the size of a portable hard drive. With a set of connectors, he linked the device to the board and returned to the monitor.

As the login prompt waited for input, he flicked a switch on the device. For several minutes, the small machine sat perched like a tick on the motherboard of the dead man’s computer, while a blur of characters swept through the login and password fields. Suddenly, a green light appeared on the tick, and the assassin had access to his victim’s files.

In a short period of time, he had what he was looking for. Two addresses appeared on the screen, and he checked them against information on a smartphone he carried.

Lopez, Miguel. 1904 Westmore Ave, Huntsville, AL. 14 Mountain Brook Rd, Gatlinburg, TN.

The wraith’s targets had been particularly close. He had done his research. Stone would be his friend’s undoing.

He closed all applications on the computer, shut it down, removed his device, and replaced the cover. He returned to the kitchen and stepped over the pooling blood on the floor, flipping the light switch on his way out.

Everything was moving according to plan.

6

T
he last of the parishioners exited St. Joseph’s, and Father Lopez released a suppressed sigh.
Lord, forgive me, but I’m tired today.
My heart isn’t in it.
Switching off the main lamps, he left only the dim candlelight near the altar to illuminate the marbled statues. Whatever confusions were boiling inside him, he did love his parish church. An unusual design, harkening back to ancient times, perhaps, with a more curvilinear shape and few windows or open spaces.
Now it feels like a catacomb
. He tried to imagine the early Christians worshiping, hiding from Roman and Jewish persecution.
Those were saints.
He put away some of the prayer books that some parishioners had discarded haphazardly and inhaled deeply.
What have we become?

His eyes were caught by something across the pews. In another tribute to older ways, he saw that the stone by the confessional had been moved. He stood up straight.
At this hour?
But there was no denying it. He saw a shadow within.

Father Lopez left the prayer books for later and walked over to the booth. He entered the side reserved for the priest and sat down. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” He awaited the petitioner.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been thirty years since my last confession.”

Father Lopez gasped. “Miguel? What—”

“Francisco, just do it.”

Lopez paused a moment, shocked at the turn of events. His missing brother,
here?
His brother hadn’t been to church since they were children.
Why was he here?

“Miguel, I think another priest would be a better choice. Talk to me outside as your brother. Maria’s worried sick.”

“I can’t go to anyone else, Francisco. That’s impossible.”

His brows furrowing, Father Lopez leaned forward. “Why can’t you go anywhere else?”

The shadowy figure on the other side let out a sigh. “Look Francisco, I know I gave you hell for your choices in life. I know this is hard for you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all that. I really am. I was young, and I thought you were a fool.” A grim laugh coughed through the divider. “Lessons are often taught harshly.”

“Miguel, I don’t understand.”

“I can’t go anywhere else, Francisco. I can’t talk to
anyone
about this. I shouldn’t even be here. I’m probably putting you in danger.”

Danger?
What in the world was his brother talking about?

“Some things should never have been done, Francisco. Whatever the fear.” His brother paused, and Father Lopez could almost feel the weight under which the words were spoken. “The world seemed to be falling apart.
I just wanted to protect us all, Francisco
,” came an intense whisper and then a deep breath. “We crossed lines.”

Confession wasn’t supposed to be a transference of guilt, but it felt as if he had always absorbed the transgressions of others. He felt part of the confession and shared in the torment of their soul. Perhaps it was a small taste of what the Lord had known on the Cross. Father Lopez felt the weight of his brother’s sin descend upon him.

“I can say we were following instructions, because we were, but I know that’s a cop out.”

Father Lopez had always wondered what his brother did working for those contractors in Washington. Everything was
top secret
; at family gatherings the older Lopez child was the source of constant guessing games. Some thought Miguel simply played the security-clearance card because of ego. Father Lopez had disagreed. He had grown up with his brother. He knew when he was lying, when he was honest. Before seminary, when Father Lopez had been an idealistic young man unsure of his path, the brothers had fought vehemently. They had polarized themselves and mocked each other’s pursuits, almost defining themselves in carving out opposing lives.
The priest. The soldier.
God or country. On so many issues, the two seemed in conflict.