Eagle ascending, p.20
Eagle Ascending, page 20
“The guy has my number,” Hawtrey replied icily.
“Yes, yes,” Cullingworth replied.
There was a pause, and Hawtrey imagined her boss fiddling with his metal aviators, something he did when he was nervous, which was often. Fifteen years using computer algorithms to successfully bust white-collar criminals had brought Alan Cullingworth to the apex of the FBI, but he’d never once busted the grubby, violent terrorists who Hawtrey dealt with every day. Away from his spreadsheets and databases, Cullingworth had the bearing of an anxious, over-wrought accountant.
“Of course,” Cullingworth said finally, “but he thinks this would sound better coming from a friend.”
“And when can I expect to hear from this friend?” Hawtrey asked.
Cullingworth replied with false, hasty laughter. “We are all so grateful for what you’ve done,” Cullingworth said. “Really, we are.”
Cullingworth continued speaking, but Hawtrey didn’t hear him. Her heart began to pound so hard it felt like it was trying to escape her chest.
It’s like a bereavement, Hawtrey thought, as she looked down and noticed with surprise that her spare hand was trembling. My career is being killed. All that’s left is the mourning.
Hawtrey grabbed the desk with her trembling hand, embarrassed to have shown such weakness, if only to herself. “Are you canning me, Alan?” she asked, cutting into his long eulogy.
“Nope… oh heavens no!” Cullingworth replied. “But we would like you to consider… leaving the case with your head held high. The President wants you to know there are many lucrative jobs in the private sector waiting for you if you choose to leave the right way… well remunerated, big benefits package, plenty of vacation. I imagine you need a rest having worked like a fiend these last few weeks!” Cullingworth’s quip fell faster than a plane without wings.
“If the President wants me gone,” Hawtrey spat, “he’s going to have to grow some cojones and fire me.”
Back in Washington, Cullingworth heard these words and cringed. Ensconced in his sumptuous, air-conditioned office, he broke into a sweat. Even from so far away, Hawtrey’s fury was terrifying to hear. “He can’t fire a… a…” Cullingworth spluttered.
“A woman?” Hawtrey yelled, before realizing she’d happened upon the right answer.
The President had already caught the dickens in the press for stuffing his Administration with male chums. If he were seen to bring down one of the few leading female law-enforcement officers in the country, it’d play havoc with his already shaky polling among women.
“So the President doesn’t have confidence in me,” Hawtrey said, drawing out each word with increasing anger, “but won’t get rid of an agent he thinks is hampering an active investigation because it won’t play well?”
Cullingworth, wishing more than ever to return to the comfort of his spreadsheets, remained silent. “The politics,” was all he managed to mumble.
“Forget it,” Hawtrey said, leaning forward over her desk. “And forget your goddamn politics too. I’m not leaving until either you or the President dismiss me.”
“Now Lucille,” Cullingworth said. He lowered his voice and spoke in greasy, ingratiating tones—the same tones he’d used during his Senate confirmation hearing. “Our President did not go from first-term Governor of little old Delaware to most powerful man in the world without knowing a few tricks. If he wants someone gone, he knows how to get them gone.”
Cullingworth, tired of playing with his aviators, began smoothing his slicked brown hair.
“Which is why the White House leaked your resignation letter to a friendly reporter twenty minutes ago. The networks will be running with the story during this evening’s broadcasts.”
Hawtrey suddenly felt breathless, as if she were suffering a massive, unexpected heart attack. The strength she’d possessed before taking this hateful call seemed to be melting away.
“If you deny the report,” Cullingworth said, warming to his role as Administration stooge, “it’ll make you look like a confused fool, too proud to know when to quit, which is sure going to have an impact on your future employment prospects. And if you fight us, then we’ll be ready. All it takes is a few well-chosen phrases in the right publications, phrases like ‘unbalanced’ and ‘unhinged’ to put an end to your reputation.”
“Smears?” Hawtrey screamed. “Is this it, Alan? You’re going to smear one of your deputies in the gutter press?”
“You’ve lost the President’s trust,” Cullingworth said, eager to end the call now that he’d shared the ugly truth. “And he has a right to surround himself with people he thinks can get the job done. You don’t fit that description, Lucille. So, it’s time to move on. Now, if you want to play nice, then say so, and the President will make sure to open the right doors for you now that you’re leaving the Bureau.”
“Alan,” Hawtrey replied, “ask any of the crooks I’ve busted, and they’ll tell you I never play nice. And someday real soon, the bastards who tore up the Meyer Center will know it as well!”
Hawtrey closed her eyes and imagined her timorous boss cowering in his leather chair. She opened them in time to see two agents, Cullingworth’s minions, enter her office without pausing to knock.
“Anything else?” Cullingworth asked as his troops drew forward toward Hawtrey’s desk.
“Yes,” she said bitterly. ‘When your pal Griffiths was in Congress, what part of California did he represent?”
“San Francisco,” Cullingworth answered, wondering if his agent had suddenly lost her mind.
MIDNIGHT HAD LONG passed, and Lower Galilee was still and dark. The farmers were all asleep, waiting for the dawn when their toil would begin anew. Even the tall grasses seemed to lay still. Above, the moonless night was black and glowering.
For Joe Krueger, it seemed as if he had returned to the war without end. Iraq. Afghanistan. Desert voids in which high-minded policies were ground low into the dust. He stood surrounded by armed men, clad in armor, night-vision goggles covering their eyes. He held a Tavor with sweaty hands, remembering the last time he patrolled the Middle East with a rifle, and how he had desperately wanted to be rid of such a thankless, ceaseless task.
But now he wasn’t protecting his fellow Rangers and veil-hidden women from mindless fanatics. He was now protecting his friends, Grimm, and Brandt, and doing his damnedest to protect his homeland too. Together, they were going to search the Pollux compound.
Clipper had led them to the floor of the valley, descending from the terrace in single file. The old pro had been told about the violence in Berlin and Cairo, and finally understood why Grimm had ordered him to Israel.
“Well,” Krueger had said, after finishing his tale in the farmhouse’s kitchen, “I sure as Hell am not waiting for those sons of bitches to get the jump on us. I propose we go take a look at what they are doing out there.”
“Okay,” Clipper had replied, “but if we go in, we go in my way.” There was something fierce and determined in Krueger’s features, something which the old CIA man respected.
Hours later, Clipper was leading his posse toward the encircled Pollux compound. With a stiff hand signal, he dispatched two men to explore the main entrance, which was locked tight and protected by a traffic barrier.
The two men fleetly sped toward the entrance and were soon lost to the grey-green blackness of Krueger’s night vision.
“We’ll try the back entrance,” Clipper said in a hard whisper.
“I don’t think there is one,” Grimm said, and in the pause that followed, Krueger sensed that Clipper was smiling beneath his keffiyeh.
“We are going to make one,” he said. “Wait here till you’re called for.” Without pausing for a reply, Clipper led another of his mercs toward the northwest corner of the compound, leaving the buzz-cut, Levi, as the unhappy chaperone of the civilians.
The anxious quartet stood amid the whispering grasses of the pensive valley, with nothing but the shadows for company.
Words, hasty and fierce, came spewing out of Levi’s earpiece.
“We have an entrance. Let’s move,” he said.
Sauntering like a jaguar close to his quarry, the eager merc led Krueger and his friends to the farthest corner, where they found a massive opening cut into the fencing. Clipper stood at the breach holding a metal detector, moving its search coil in long, sweeping curves close to the earth. His deputy was examining the entry he had made with his cable cutters, looking for the ominous glint of a trip wire.
“Okay, listen up,” Clipper said. “We need to scour every damn inch of this place. So you stay behind me and Macintosh at all times. You don’t touch anything… you don’t step anywhere without my permission. Clear?”
To the three who’d had first-hand experience of the skullduggery surrounding the True Cross, no warning was needed. Like timid sheep, Grimm and Brandt followed in Clipper’s wake, even going so far as to tread in the footsteps he left behind in the dirt.
Pollux had built a half-acre compound in the valley, fixed up with sumptuous living quarters inside sturdy tents, and archeological equipment of such cost and splendor that even Grimm was envious. Through the flapping doorway of one particularly large tent, Krueger glimpsed microscopes, rotary lasers, and a theodolite standing proud on its expensive tripod like a creature from an H.G. Wells novel.
Inch by agonizing inch, Clipper led his team forward. The entire compound remained bathed in darkness, leaving Krueger and the others dependent on the greasy green light of their goggles to guide them forward.
Krueger’s vision was suddenly eclipsed by a piercing white blaze which exploded across his ken. Snatching the goggles and pulling them down, he saw the beams of two flashlights being played around the front of the compound.
“We’re in boss,” came a disembodied voice. “No guards. No security safeguards. Place is deserted.”
“We’ll see,” Clipper said, pulling down his own goggles. “Take it slow up there, Wren. Looks like these boys had plenty of cash. I can’t believe they’d leave all this stuff unprotected.”
“Look at this!” Brandt said, pointing toward the center of the compound. Clipper brought his light to shine on where Brandt was pointing, revealing a gaping maw in the earth, surrounded by guide ropes. A backhoe was idling beside it, alongside a small platoon of picks which Pollux’s minions must have used to make the hole.
Grimm and Krueger stared silently at the pit, the brown earth piled like funeral pyres along the edge. Even the mercs, who knew little about the reasons behind their infiltration of the compound, knew better than to ruin the moment with idle chatter. Something vast and cold inside told them that this was sacred ground. Their tongues lay still.
Brandt discovered that she was breathless. With a trembling arm, she pointed Clipper toward the pit, and holding the metal detector, he gingerly stepped closer. Krueger and Grimm gathered closely behind him, so close in fact that that could hear the former CIA man whispering a little prayer.
The metal detector remained silent. The night breeze fell away. And then, finally, Brandt, Grimm, and Krueger stood at the edge of what looked like a vast menacing grave.
It was empty.
But they knew—they all knew what had been inside that hole, lost for centuries to the adherents of the faith. Without a shred of proof, without using any of the pricey and somehow anachronistic technology standing idle in the tents, Krueger knew that this was the place where Saladin’s nameless son had returned the True Cross. An odd sensation ran through his torso, as if his body was undulating in chill waters. Krueger swallowed hard and wondered if the breath of God was gusting through his soul. That moment, Krueger knew, stood in the darkness with the bombs and bullets of the recent past forming a tapestry of horror in his thoughts, was the closest he had ever come to the Divine.
“They have it,” Brandt said finally, shattering Krueger’s reverie.
“Yes,” said Grimm, “and I fear they’ve had it quite a while. These piles of dirt are dry. So too is the earth in that pit. Freshly dug turf would be moist to the touch. My estimate is that this excavation took place at least a month ago.”
“Right before the first bomb went off,” Brandt added, though Krueger has already performed the macabre math in his head.
“It would be nice to know that for certain,” Krueger said.
“Indeed,” Grimm said, turning toward Clipper. “My friend, we need as much information about this place as we can find. When did they get here? When was that hole made, and what was inside it? Perhaps your men could be useful in searching this place?”
With Clipper’s numerous and varied warnings thundering in their ears, his four deputies were ordered to find anything that might explain what had been in the pit, and where it had been taken. Computers, paper records, and discarded phones were hungrily searched for, so great was the need to know what had transpired in the enemy camp.
Levi found his heart pumping lustily as he began the search. Leaving Clipper to watch over the three wackos, he retreated to the deserted northeast corner. He played the beam of his flashlight across the ground, and saw tracks emerging from the farthest tent, made by what he guessed were several pairs of big, booted feet.
“Hi there,” he purred playfully, not bothering to ignore his excitement. He removed his glove and touched the tracks.
They were moist. They were recent.
Levi barreled forward into the tent, heedless of the danger. He’d been yearning for just this sort of action ever since the army had honorably discharged him.
A large wooden bureau stood close to the entrance. A few papers flapped forlornly on the ground beneath it. At last! Levi thought. No more babysitting rich folks. Back to proper soldiering! Without thinking, he yanked open the topmost drawer, triggering the bomb which had been left there. The young Tennessean was vaporized before he realized his mistake.
The roar of the bomb swept through the valley like a hurricane. Macintosh, Clipper’s able assistant, was flung into the fencing as the orange flames, thick and ferocious, grew among the tents. He landed on the floor in a heap and did not move.
Brandt screamed. So did Grimm. But Krueger didn’t hear them. The air was filled with the din of fire and ruin: the wind gusting, the debris falling, the fire chuckling in delight as it fed on Pollux’s inventory.
The fire touched Macintosh’s leg, and finding that he did not resist, it promptly consumed him.
And that’s when Krueger realized how foolish his thoughts of God had been.
He was nowhere near Heaven.
He was in Hell.
-16-
CURT DENNILSON WAS STRIKING back against his enemies, but on the morning after Sam O’Brian had paid him a visit, the morning after Lucille Hawtrey had been canned, one foe remained to be defeated.
In the sweaty suburbs of Atlanta, Agent Munroe was admiring the neat, well-tended gardens surrounding the Temple Beth-El. Since he’d arrived in Atlanta yesterday, he’d spent his time investigating the aborted attack, and his only reward had been the sheen of sweat that was now covering his back. Nonetheless, his necktie and vest remained steadfastly in place.
He’d been checking into his hotel room the night before when the news of Lucille Hawtrey’s dismissal began reverberating around the echo chambers of cable news. Sleep suddenly became an impossibility, replaced by a series of gossipy phone calls with colleagues in New York and Washington. With no boss left to report to, Monroe spent the night listless and confused. The case was far more frustrating than anything he had encountered at Quantico, and this unwelcome sojourn to the sweaty South had only made the situation worse.
The young FBI agent had been partnered with Officer Butterman of the APD for his tour of the Synagogue, who, despite his calorific name, was a slender, wiry man. Butterman had extended Munroe every courtesy as he wasted his hours in Atlanta and was rounding out his fine service by offering a long list of eateries where Munroe could take his lunch.
“Now, Mick’s next to the Olympic Park has the best friend chicken in the city,” Butterman intoned, despite being so thin Munroe doubted he’d ever sampled a friend morsel in his life. “But the next best place is—”
Munroe never had chance to learn what the next best place was. A hulking Escalade came screaming around the corner from the intersection, its engine filling the air with thunderous rage. Munroe took a defensive step back. Something about the swiftness of the turn suggested this was not a drunk driver… that, in fact, the driver had a deadly sober reason for driving so recklessly.
The Escalade sped further down the quaint Southern street, its hood a vast mirroring black. The engine grew louder, roaring like the king of the savannah, pronouncing judgement on a lame beast. Munroe raised his gun, and Officer Butterman did likewise. Too late they opened fire, spewing bullets into the massive windscreen as the car mounted the curb and barreled toward them. But the driver, hidden from view by the tinted glass, would not be denied his prize. As the air filled with the sounds of swift carnage, Munroe and Butterman turned and ran, hoping to reach the safety of the synagogue walls. But the car slammed into the FBI agent, clipped his right leg, and sent his hapless body flying into the gorgeous blue sky. He fell to the ground, his body making a wet cracking sound as it did so.
That sound—that ghastly horrific sound of something precious breaking beyond all hope of repair stayed with Butterman for the rest of this life. He remembered it, years later, when his pension was safely tucked into his bank account and his grandkids were scrabbling at his scrawny ankles. The grisly wetness of the sound of Munroe’s body falling imbedded itself in Butterman’s mind like an evil tic.
The Escalade halted, then reversed and rode over the stricken body without hesitation or regret. It was back on the road and speeding away from the attack in seconds, leaving Butterman alone and scared, his throat cleaving. He grabbed his radio and reported Agent Munroe’s murder with trembling hands.
