Authors: Gabby Grant
Albert turned his head to see Mark stepping through the
threshold.
“The only one going down here,” Mark said, “is you!”
Al Fahd spat his cigar to the ground and spun his weapon
around, centering it between Mark’s eyes. “I’ll die first, you-”
There was a numbing bang and the Arab crumpled forward, his
head splattering the wall.
A woman screamed. Ana?
Was that Ana
? Albert’s eyes
frantically searched the back of the room.
“Never could refuse a polite invitation,” an Oriental said,
stepping forward. “Though I
do
hate making a mess.”
Mark wheeled his weapon on the Chinese man.
Albert squeezed shut his eyes, then tried looking again. It
couldn’t be, but it was.
Au Yang tossed his pistol to the floor and walked over to
Tom Mooney. “Somebody call an ambulance,” he said, rolling Tom over on his
back.
Ana bolted for the phone as Joe rushed to
his uncle’s side.
“Uncle Tom,” he said, lightly shaking his uncle’s
shoulder. “Uncle Tom,
stay with us.”
Joe looked up at Albert Kane, his face a heated rash. “Just
what the hell were you doing?”
Trying to save an old friend, Albert thought. But aloud he
said nothing. Instead he turned to Au Yang, who had righted himself and left
the tending of Mooney’s wounds to his nephew. “You’re back.”
“Never left,” the Oriental said. “Just trying to oversee an
operation gone haywire.”
Albert knew then that Au Yang had never really left the DOS;
he’d been with them all along operating under deep cover. So deep, even the DOS
Assistant Director hadn’t had a need to know.
“And
your
mission?” Albert asked, thinking in the
confusion of the room, Au Yang might just tell him.
“Bring down Al Fahd. Discover the mole working within the US
system.”
“
The Gray Wolf,”
Albert said. “But, why’d you wait so
long? My God, we could have-”
Au Yang looked sadly at Mooney, his distraught nephew
pressing a makeshift tourniquet to his chest. “Our friend is not well...”
Of that much, Albert was certain.
“I was looking for a way to disclaim his involvement, lay it
back on Al Fahd. But as things escalated, it became increasingly difficult.
Still, I want you to know I took pains to protect your daughter- and our old
friend’s nephew.”
Albert knew then that Ana’s abductors delivering her into
Joe McFadden’s hands had been no accident. It had been one of the ways Au Yang
had sought to protect Albert’s daughter without blowing his own cover.
Mark stepped up to the two of them. “Gentlemen,” he said,
pointedly looking down at his watch, as ambulance sirens blared, “I believe we
have a pressing time issue.”
“Nothing’s to happen until Al Fahd gives the official
order,” Au Yang assured them. “But just the same, I can tell you where to find
Al Fahd’s men.”
“Let’s go!” Mark said, laying a hand on Albert’s shoulder.
“Ana?” Mark asked, calling over to where she knelt beside Joe. “You coming with
us?”
“I’m staying here,” she said as EMT personnel rushed in,
took one look at Al Fahd’s body then scurried over to Tom and Joe.
Ana tightened her hold on Joe’s bandaged hand as they sat in
the lounge of the intensive care unit. “Tom’s going to pull through,” she told
him. “He’s as tough as you are.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Joe said through red-rimmed
eyes.
He didn’t have to explain it; Ana knew what he meant. In
some ways Tom’s uncle would be better off dead. If he survived and was deemed
mentally competent, he’d stand trial for treason against the United States, not
to mention an entire docket of second-degree murder charges.
“Your uncle’s
ill,
Joe,” Ana told him. “We can get
him help.”
Joe looked up. “There is no
help,
Ana. No way to
bring back the man I knew.”
“What did the staff psychologist say?”
“Dementia, Alzheimer’s...who knows?” Joe rubbed Ana’s thumb
where it crossed over his splinted fingers. “One’s just as bad as the other.”
“It’s a risky business, the job your uncle was involved in.
Over time, things just took their toll.”
Things like Tom’s long-seated jealously over her father’s successes, Ana
didn’t say. Didn’t say, but she
knew
. Even as a child,
she had sensed some sort of inherent competition. Just never on her father’s
side.
Joe raised his free hand and ran his fingers through his
hair. “God help America if we’re all in that shape some day.”
“It’s not going to happen to you, if that’s what you’re
worried about,” Ana tried to reassure him. But how much could any of them
really be assured they wouldn’t follow in their family’s footsteps? Just look
at Ana and her father.
“What did I do to deserve you?” Joe asked, giving her a weak
smile.
“Probably nothing,” she answered, raising his hand to her
lips, realizing how much she loved him, really loved him, in a way she couldn’t
explain. “But that doesn’t matter, Joe. I hope you know that-”
“Ana,” Joe said, stopping her. “Don’t you have a husband
somewhere who needs you?”
Ana paused and looked at him.
Never, in million years, had she expected that question from Joe McFadden. But
now the
man
who’d once threatened to pull her away
from her husband, was forcing her back into reality with his eyes.
Eyes that challenged her to search her own soul.
And, when
she looked there, one man and one man only stood waiting.
Ana
loved Joe
,
it was true
. Loved him fiercely in a
way that could never be erased. But, as she lost herself in his honey brown
eyes one final time, Ana saw clearly she was not, and never had been, the woman
for him. There would always be a bond between them, but nothing as
all-consuming
, as lasting, as true- as what she felt with
Mark.
“Mark
has
me,” she said, knowing as she said it the
words resonated with uncanny accuracy.
“Yes, I know,”
Joe
said, moist eyes
crinkling. “That one, beautiful, I figured out ages ago.”
Ana soundly patted his captured
hand,
feeling a new ease settle
between them. “When you finally going to find
yourself a good woman and settle down?”
Joe laughed and widened his eyes. “I’m grateful you don’t
see it, sweetheart, but- in case you haven’t noticed- this old man’s no longer
the catch of the day.”
“Says who?”
Ana demanded.
“Says me,” Joe countered with a twisted grin. “And, believe
me, I know.”
“Oh, Joe,” Ana said, swatting him on the arm then laying her
heavy head on his comfortable shoulder. “Bet there’s someone out there casting
for you right now.”
***
Carolyn whistled brightly as she packed baby Isabel’s
belongings. Mark had just called to say everything was finally under control.
Crisis averted. Amen, Carolyn thought, folding up the last small baby blanket
and tucking it in the bag.
A secure car would be there to get them within the hour.
Then maybe, just maybe, Carolyn could salvage what was left of New Year’s Eve.
Or not, she thought, eyeing the clock on the stove. Practically
twenty-one-hundred
. She’d only put the baby to bed half an
hour ago.
Carolyn lamented having to rouse her, but was overjoyed at
the prospect of going home.
Home, such as it was.
Ah well, there’d be
her two cats to greet her- assuming her little sister hadn’t starved the poor
felines into submission by now.
Mark hadn’t been able to give too many details over the phone,
but he did mention that McFadden was
alright
. Carolyn
thought she’d acted sufficiently naive when she’d asked if someone needed to
notify “the Mrs.”
Mark had bellowed a laugh into the receiver and assured her
McFadden wasn’t married. Another bright spot in Carolyn’s evening.
Not that she was certain why the notion of McFadden’s
bachelorhood delighted her so. But it did, nonetheless. Made Carolyn as giddy
as a schoolgirl about to embark on her first date.
Ha!
Carolyn wondered just who she thought she was fooling. Just because
she
was entertaining notions of her and that ex-Marine somehow getting back
together, didn’t meant that he’d, in a million years, consider it.
But then again, Carolyn thought with a smile,
maybe he
would...
***
Albert set down the phone with a heavy breath. “That’s the
last of it.
”
he said, turning to Au Yang. “Looks like
Mark did a damn good job of mopping everything up. Thank God we caught this one
in time. Even traces of the Sarin derivative GB-2 Al Fahd and his men had
concocted could have been harmful.”
The Oriental nodded. “I think the recall of all balloons
distributed by that same supplier out East was a good idea.”
Although the tainted balloons sent to the Presidential gala
were manufactured by Al Fahd, they’d been slipped into containers stamped with
the name of a legitimate East Coast supplier who had, quite conveniently for Al
Fahd, already delivered the lot to The Old Post Office before Mark’s ATF men
had located the cartons and disposed of them.
Albert dropped into the chair behind his desk. “That extra
precaution was Mark’s directive. He speculated, and rightly so, that the public
would be less suspicious of a general balloon recall rather than one focusing
solely on those balloons supplied for The Old Post Office gathering.”
Au Yang laughed. “The public and your Commander in Chief.”
“He’ll never know what almost hit him,” Albert grinned.
“Thanks, in part, to your contribution, Au Yang.”
“And the work of one Mark Neal,” Au Yang said with an
indulgent smile. “The man you let marry your daughter.”
Albert roared. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t
let
my
daughter do anything. She makes up her own mind. And she, by the way, played a
very big part in solving this puzzle. If Ana hadn’t pieced together the balloon
angle, Mark still might have been able to abort Al Fahd’s disastrous plan, but
he wouldn’t have had near enough time or ample opportunity to cover the DOS’
tail the way he has.”
Au Yang took a seat on the small beige sofa opposite
Albert’s desk. “Very western, your daughter.”
“Takes after her old man,” Albert said with pride.
Au Yang softened his coal black gaze, as the air hung heavy
between them. “I’m sorry about the
Gray Wolf
, Albert. I know you were
like brothers.”
Albert’s jowls sagged. “The two of you, as well.”
Au Yang shook his head. “Not in the same way, my friend. I’m
sorry.”
And Albert was sorry, too.
More sorry than
he could ever say.
Because he understood it was part of the price Tom
had paid- all of them had paid- for Mooney’s prolonged involvement in this
intelligence
game.
Learning of Tom’s involvement in the scheme gone awry had
taken twenty years off of Albert’s life. And Albert hadn’t had twenty years to
give. In keeping with the Volcano blueprint, Tom in his more commie-hating
moments had planned to toss all the babies out with their bath water. Rid the
American system of Communist infiltrators by performing a clean sweep of all
those too yellow-bellied to stay under pressure.
From Al Fahd’s perspective, this would deplete the
intelligence ranks to a level where wreaking further havoc would be simple.
Without the proper infrastructure in place to track and prevent that sort of
action, a Middle Eastern terrorist group like Al Fahd’s could easily maneuver
its way onto American soil and plot something deadly.
Democracy would be shaking in its boots and doubting the
efficacy of its own system. The public would question the adequacy of the
status quo in ensuring safety for all. Look to a new, more stable order that
could provide more steadfast protection. Al Fahd’s plan was to pin the bulk of
the scare on the demented Tom Mooney and, Au Yang also suspected on the Chinese
and step in as a last-minute savior for the disgruntled American public. He
fancied himself a new-age dictator.
The twenty-first century premier
of the most powerful nation on earth.
Albert concurred with Au Yang that
Al Fahd had been just as demented in his thinking as Mooney had.
The Chinese part in the plan had involved information
warfare. It had been Hay Long with the help of his American-Chinese mafia
associates and the already-mentally-slipping Tom Mooney, who had gained access
to the DOS mainframe computer during the ten second Y2K system
switch-over
. The top-secret operating system had indeed been
taken and cloned. It had then simply been a matter of lying in wait until the
time was right for a strike. 2001 was too soon.
And because
some actually believed that to be the start of the new millennium, too damn
obvious.
But 2002, now that was perfect. Just enough time had elapsed
for the American public to let down its guard. But not so much time that the
technological information the Chinese had stolen would be completely outdated.
With the mainframe information secured, it had been matter of pure logistics in
infiltrating the DOS security system and breaking through the information
system firewall, most notably in the interface attacks lobbed against analysts
through their civilian computers at home. It was positively terrifying what
could become of a highly sensitive Defense Intelligence plan when it fell into
the wrong hands.
Hay Long had fancied
himself
the new world supremist
and had his own dastardly plans for doing away with Al Fahd once the Arab’s
usefulness had expired. Hay Long had no way of knowing he would expire first or
that Albert Kane’s daughter, Ana would do him in- a secret which Albert planned
to keep from Ana and take to his grave. She already had enough to cope with
without any additional guilt on her hands. No matter how vile Hay Long had been
to her, Albert was certain the remorse of knowing she’d actually killed a man
would unnecessarily play on her conscience.