Extraordinary Retribution (6 page)

I’ve been busy
.

Bending his head to the mirror, he examined his scalp. He combed through with his fingers, eyeing the roots carefully. There was no discoloration. His hair grew slowly.

He grabbed the bag and returned to the bed, leaving it beside the large suitcase. Reaching inside again, he removed a large plastic box, resembling those that fishermen use to carry tackle, and placed it on a table by the window. He pulled the shades together and then sat down and opened the case, revealing an assortment of devices and tools, as well as what appeared to be white putty wrapped in clear plastic. He looked over the detonators, counting them, and estimated the quantity of Semtex.
More than enough
.

He took the large box from the table and placed it back on the bed. Reaching into the suitcase again, he removed a laptop computer and a box about a foot wide in each dimension. He powered up the laptop, connected it to the box, and tapped into a classified satellite linkup. On the web browser appeared a screen for logging into a secure site of the Central Intelligence Agency. He smiled.

Passing through their security, he was soon interfacing with operations software. A real-time satellite image of the Gatlinburg area appeared on the screen, the data fed to him through the CIA surveillance network. He zoomed in on a cabin in the mountains. Once again, he was impressed with the resolution of the images. Good enough to read the nearly faded and damaged name on the mailbox – LOPEZ.

Over the next two hours, he mapped out the area around the cabin, noting the telltale signs of security cameras and motion detectors. The cabin itself looked ordinary, but he did not fool himself. Miguel Lopez had gone to a lot of trouble to secure this location, and he doubted that anything except for armor-piercing ammunition would make its way into the inside. He would have to get close, get through the security and defenses arrayed. It would require significantly more reconnaissance than this crude satellite feed before he would be ready. Up close and in the flesh, which carried its own risks.

There was much planning to do with a target this prepared. This would not be like the others. He might get bloody. He walked back to the brown satchel and removed a first aid kit. Bandages, sutures, disinfectants, needles, and more.

He’d likely need them.

9

M
iguel Lopez scrolled through the news article online.

Billionaire Philanthropist Jorge Sapos Dead at 62

By Ben G. Scott, Associated Press

Shipping mogul and activist Jorge Sapos, who combined a life of big money, fast living, and passionate advocacy for political causes, died yesterday in Chicago of unspecified respiratory complications.

Known throughout the business world in the 1980s for an iron-willed dominance of rare-earth metal shipping, he came to be a household name after a series of massive financial donations during the Iraq War to libertarian causes emphasizing isolationism and human rights. His political interventions earned him friends and enemies in high places, and many leaders of both parties acknowledge the strong influence of his money and personality on American legislation.

Equally renown as an unrepentant playboy, Mr. Sapos had married four times, and was often photographed in the company of various high profile women. Frequently pilloried by conservatives and beloved by tabloids, his womanizing did not seem to adversely impact his business or activism. “He never apologized for being who he was,” said Mitchell Sapos, a son of his second marriage. “I think people can respect a man who lives by his own rules, is honest about who he is, even if they don’t like or approve of his lifestyle.”

Sapos is survived by his wife Ziva Sapos, his fifteen children, and twenty-five grandchildren.

Miguel Lopez closed the browser window, and stared off into space.
Am I being paranoid?
He assumed that the program born in CTC was still active, and still invisible. But with agents dying, would they have conducted an operation? Could it have been Sapos? The billionaire’s name was on the list. He matched the criteria: powerful and disruptive of the Agency’s covert plans. But Lopez had refused to participate in the broadening of the program. He did not learn what names had been kept for termination. Even if it was an assassination, they could not keep this up. They were likely all running for bunkers now.
Just like I am
.

It had been several days of preparation, stocking up on food and other supplies, and then enduring the long and tension-filled moments of waiting. Minute by minute, hour by hour, the light outside the polycarbonate-laminated glass weaved its slow way through the range of intensities from dawn to dusk. He longed to see his family again, to speak to his wife and daughters, but he dared not risk any communication. He knew himself to be the target. They were to be left out of this in all ways possible. He also sensed it was unlikely that he would wait for long. He and Miller were the last. A reckoning was coming.

He sat near the window without fear. The polarization was designed to render the glass nearly opaque when viewed from the outside. The composite material was four inches thick, and would likely stop, or at least slow, anything reasonable aimed at it.
But what was reasonable in all this?
The hunters who had brought down so many of his colleagues appeared invincible. Who knew what they would bring with them? Who
were
they?

The events refused to be suppressed and played constantly through his mind. The pattern was unmistakable. The deaths were centered on personnel from the missions out of No. 3.
But why? Who?
His first thought was that the possibility of discovery and scandal had turned rogue elements of the Agency against them. It was not so hard to imagine that they could resort to murder to hide their tracks. Lopez knew now too well what they could resort to.

We crossed lines.
He had, and others had crossed still more. There were always
reasons
at the moment. But afterwards, when the trials had begun and newspaper articles were published, their judges would not always understand those reasons. He had even come to question those reasons himself. A scorched-earth policy would sterilize such messes.

Perhaps it was something else, something external. He wondered if terrorist networks in America could have gleaned information about their program and had sought to hamper their efforts, destroy the infrastructure. The CIA’s successes over the last ten years had screened out all but the best terrorist cells. Those left had begun to raise their game considerably.
Natural selection.

But it still seemed too high a skill level for them. Lopez didn’t believe much in that possibility. The hunters were professionals; that was clear. Highly trained at the level of their best operatives. Who had the depth and experience to produce such trainees?
The Russians? The Chinese?
With multiple hits in the US, risking international incidents?
That didn’t make sense either. It was an enigma.

A box attached to his phone emitted a low alarm, and a red light began to flash on the device.
They’ve targeted communications.
Lopez crossed the room to the phone and lifted the receiver. It was dead. He knew it was not a random failure; someone had cut the lines.

He pulled out his cell phone. There was no signal, although there had been an hour ago, and the area was well blanketed with cellular towers.
The signal’s being jammed
. He smiled ruefully. Whoever they were, they were thorough. But he was not blind.

He walked into the study, sat down in front of an enormous flat-screen monitor, and punched up the security program. Nine camera images of the surrounding forest were shown as separate squares that filled the screen. At night, the cameras would switch to the latest autogated night vision. He next called up a screen showing the crisscrossing grid of motion detectors. Between the camera images and the overlapping layers of motion sensors, he would know when they came, from where, and how many there were. Knowledge was power, but it wasn’t everything. He would then have to stop them.

One of the motion detector grid points began blinking.
There you are.
It was near the edge of the grid, down the hill toward the stream that ran near the cabin. Lopez glanced at the cameras – few were setup in that difficult terrain. He would have to wait until they moved into range. It would not be far, as the camera positioning was such that very little of the grid was left uncovered.

Three of the squares feeding video footage suddenly went dark.
Goddamn! Not now!
He had checked each device when he arrived.

The entire southeast quadrant of the motion detection grid, the stretch beside the river and moving upwards nearly to the cabin itself, suddenly failed, sending an error message to the software. A minute later, the video feeds, one by one, went dark, followed by a complete failure of the grid.

Lopez stared at the screen in disbelief. These were no equipment failures. Someone had systematically deactivated his entire security system. To do this in so short a time, to know to move up the stream where coverage would be minimized; it was as if they had studied blueprints of the entire setup. They had
known!
The layout, the weak points, the blind spots. It was impossible to comprehend.
How could they have known?

He suddenly felt very cold. Now he
was
completely blind. His opponents had outmaneuvered him, turned his safety system into a trap. The walls of the cabin suddenly began to appear less protective. They felt far more hostile.

To hell with them!
He would not go down without a fight.

The power suddenly wavered, but the sounds of the backup generator clicked in, and the electricity held.
Didn’t think of everything, did you?
Lopez slid a floor panel to the side, opening a hole in the middle of the living room floor. He descended down a ladder, and a minute later climbed up decorated in combat gear: bullet-resistant vest, automatic weapons on each arm, large handguns holstered on his belt. He hung several grenades off his flak jacket and positioned himself some distance from the front door.

There was only one entrance they could use. The chimney was too tight, the bullet-proof glass too thick to break through. It would be the front door. He overturned the sofa and angled it to provide shelter from the door. Kneeling down, he checked the magazine on his machine gun, and then aimed it in the direction of the door, its barrel resting on the side of the overturned couch. He heard movement outside the cabin, sounds, scrapings, and dull thuds against the walls. They were here.

Come on in, you bastards.

10

F
or Father Lopez, the drive into Tennessee was an unsettling one. Mixed in with the passing wilderness were the crazed events of the last few days and the dream-like memories from his childhood. As the miles raced by, he would see himself walking through the woods with his father, coming upon the small log cabin after an unsuccessful hunting expedition, smoke rising from the chimney and indicating that a warm fire and Mom’s cooking waited within. But just as he began to smile, remembering wading across the small stream behind the cabin, he was jarred into the present by competing images of his brother’s wife in tears and his own imaginings of Miguel carrying loaded weapons out of his home.

Could Miguel have headed to this old and forgotten house in the middle of nowhere? If so, what would drive him to such a place? There were too many questions, and nothing in the way of answers.

As he approached the town of Gatlinburg, passing more signs than he could count advertising skiing, resort hotels, and restaurants for the vacation minded, he fought to stave off a growing dread that was descending on him. This strange sense of urgency, this
irrational
sense that something was wrong, that time was short, made him want to scream.

It wouldn’t go away, no matter how much he fought. He struggled to remember the way to the cabin, pulling out maps and engaging his GPS, overcoming the frustrations of old southern roads that were poorly documented in the navigation systems. Despite all the activity, this feeling only grew, refusing to be ignored. He found himself pacing his breathing as he approached the turn to the driveway of the cabin. The stone walls marking the overgrown roadway stirred memories. They mixed roughly with the untamable adrenaline coursing through his veins.

The car hopped and skipped over the rocks and holes in the old roadway, the path badly neglected.
No one’s been here for years
. He laughed out loud, almost nervously, as if part of him didn’t believe his own reasoning. Of course, this was a stupid goose chase. There was no way Miguel would be here.

Except that he was. Lopez slowed the car as the road opened up, revealing a clearing. In the center of the clearing was his family’s cabin, the layout and geometry suddenly meshing with the faded outlines of memory. But he saw immediately that this was not an abandoned cabin as he had supposed.

It was new looking, renovated, and maintained. After more than twenty years of supposed neglect, he expected to find a rundown home desperately in need of work. But work had been done. The cabin was clearly very well cared for and even modernized in many places. Recently.
Did it belong to someone else now?

His question was quickly answered when he saw his brother’s SUV parked off to the side of the cabin. Miguel Lopez
was
here. He felt all the carefully constructed lines of deduction collapse in his mind as he stared at the sight. Miguel was here in a newly renovated and outfitted cabin. His brother had obviously put this work in motion some time ago, and yet had kept it secret. It was to this place that he had come when something frightened him enough to abandon his family.

The terrible anxiety in his stomach reached a fevered pitch now, and he looked down to find his hands shaking.
Damn!
Couldn’t he keep his feelings and fears under tighter control? So, Miguel had come here – so what? Perhaps it was an escape, a retreat he needed to rethink his life. There was no reason to think anything else. No reason to assume something dark and sinister was at work.