An Armageddon Duology (61 page)

“
P
arlay
?” scoffed the Ramsey president. “I have your husband at the barrel of a gun. You are unarmed. What can you possibly bring to the table?”

“You’re talking. You’re hesitant. What are you afraid of, Luc?”

Osomer-Levitt licked his lips as Cohen stepped several paces closer. Savas looked on helplessly, trying to organize his thoughts for some sort of attack. Cohen simply stood there, her arms awkwardly out from her sides, her eyes fierce.
What is she doing?

“It wouldn’t be the figure behind you, in the wheelchair? Or the ship coming into dock?”

“You both should have never come looking.”

Cohen stepped two more paces forward, now only feet from the group of men.

“Did you think we would simply turn our backs on what’s going on? We stopped Anonymous, Luc. We saved your little plan.”

“And then blew up our base of operations.”

“None of our people.”

Osomer-Levitt smirked. “Such coincidences do not happen. You have shadows we can’t uncover. I commend you for that. But it has York’s fingerprints all over it.”

“The boat is about to dock!” cried out one of the mercenaries.

Osomer-Levitt shook his head. “You have no idea what you have done. You think you are saving the world, but you are dooming it to repeated cycles of dark ages.”

“And only your tyranny could save us all from ourselves? That’s why you nuked an entire city? Were about to nuke the entire country? This is your enlightened march to global civilization?”

“A
necessity
because of the terrorist Fawkes. Had we been left alone, the course of human history would have only been forward. But you are too trapped in your primitive tribal systems to see it.” He pointed to one of the guards. “We’ll take them with us. When we are secured, we’ll deal with them in a controlled fashion.”

“Don’t count on it.” Cohen smiled as the guard approached her. “A little trick I learned from a hacker frenemy.”

Cohen raised her arms out from her body. Savas’s blurred vision leapt back months to a warehouse in New Jersey, the motion and similarities triggering the deja vu. Two metal canisters clanked on the ground, rolling forward toward the group. The men instinctively looked down, their weapons aiming toward the floor. The gas bombs ignited.

Even without shrapnel, the compressed air blast stunned Savas and the guards. Then, the chemical concoction attacked. He felt his lungs and eyes burn, his breath hellfire. He fell to the floor coughing violently.

A short spurt of automatic weapons fire erupted behind Cohen.
The Special Forces soldiers?
More mercenaries?
Time ticked languidly. His body heaving, he crawled blindly to find some escape from the gas. Someone grabbed his head. He couldn’t resist. He felt a bag yanked over his face. No,
a mask
. A short blast of fresh air purged the toxic fumes. He breathed wildly like a drowning man.

“John! Slow down! Breathe slowly.”
Rebecca
. He grabbed her arms, opening his eyes. A masked monster from World War I stared back at him. Inside the goggled eyes were brown irises, threads of brown hair. He staggered to his knees, leaning against the wall. A pair of strong arms helped him to his feet.
Sergeant Williams
.

“The boat!” she cried, darting past him into the room.

Weapons fire erupted again. He turned and limped through the dissipating gas, bodies of mercenaries littering the floor. Among them, the blood-stained suit of the powerful president of Ramsey University, Luc Osomer-Levitt. His eyes stared vacuously toward the ceiling.

Savas watched as Cohen holstered her Glock pistol. He looked between her and Osomer-Levitt. “You?”

She nodded. “Got it when I need it, John. Just next time, don’t run off like an untrained monkey after the bad guys. Okay?”

He nodded, turning his head to the East River below them. Williams and the other soldiers returned from the ramp, their eerie masks still in place. She spoke loudly through the plastic.

“It’s gone, dammit. We took out some windows and maybe punctured the fuel tank, but not enough. We need to get assets on the river and ocean before they disappear.”

“The man in the wheelchair?” asked Cohen anxiously.

“What wheelchair?” said Williams.

“There wasn’t an old man in a wheelchair? He’s not in here. He got to the boat!”

“Who got to the boat?” Savas asked.

Cohen’s shoulders slumped. “The kingfish.
Zero
.”

Savas stared into her mask. “That old man was Zero? I thought it was Osomer-Levitt!”

“I don’t think so, John. Osomer-Levitt was taking orders. One more facade in this cursed house of mirrors. And Zero escaped.”

“All the more reason to get on the COM and call this in.” Williams left them and consulted with her team, several of them accompanying her outside with a backpack.

“Let’s get outside,” said Savas, “and get some real air.”

The pair walked outside. Already the soldiers had removed their masks, and Savas and Cohen followed suit. One of the men had placed a portable radio on the ground, quickly working the device. Savas bent over and coughed, breathing in the crisp winter air, the cloud of water vapor heavenly after the chemical fog.

“Jesus, John, you’ve got blood all over your neck.” Cohen removed a scarf from inside the heavy coat she wore and pressed it to the back of his head.

“Easy!” said Savas, pulling away. “Damn, that hurts.”

“Sit still. You always find a way to bleed on these missions.” He sat down as Cohen applied pressure to the back of his head. She shook her head. “You need stitches.”

“The old man—Zero?” he sighed. “Who was he?”

Cohen looked out over the water, a mist rising off the river, no sign of the boat or other activity. Across from the university, Roosevelt Island ran along the water like a thin canyon wall.

“I have a theory,” she said.

“Yes?”

“There is one name that comes up over and over in all this. A key member and organizer of the Bilderberg group meetings. A well-known proponent of a one-world government, on the record as preferring it and that it be run by a small group of financially aware people. The key figure funding this university, selecting its leadership, and whose family set the entire project in motion.”

Savas grimaced as he turned toward her. “You mean?”

“And of the right age and health to be trapped in the constraints of a wheelchair,” she ended.

“Daniel Ramsey.”

Cohen nodded. “I didn’t get a good look at him, and I wouldn’t likely recognize him anyway. Like the old Soviet leaders, he’s been rumored to be dead fifty times. He’s over one hundred years old.”

“One hundred?” asked Savas. “How?”

“Through his nineties publicly active. I don’t know how. Ramsey biomedical science miracles?”

“This is crazy.”

“I agree. And I’m sure it’s not over.”

The heavy boots of Sergeant Williams tramped down the wooden ramp toward them. She crouched beside the water.

“Reached a relay. NORAD’s in the know. New intel: Hastings is dead. The coup had its own coup. It’s chaos over on this side of the country right now, but the president is moving fast to reassert authority. Looks like this might be over soon.”

“The boat?” asked Savas.

Williams shook her head. “Not many assets in the area we can use. They’ll do what they can.” She fixed her eyes on them. “But I think it’ll be long gone before they do.”

“
I
like what
you’ve done with the place.” York sat down in a chair beside Cohen, the cluttered surface of a desk separating her from Savas. The newly outfitted office smelled of wood finish and plastics. “This is yours, John?”

Savas nodded. “Rebecca’s is down the hall, next to the data centers. She wanted to be close to the raw intel.”

“You two look a thousand percent better.” The president smiled. “I think John’s nose almost looks normal.”

“We’ve all recovered a good bit since Ramsey,” said Cohen.

“At least physically,” said York.

Savas shifted uncomfortably. “Still nothing on our Zero?”

“No,” said York. “Coincidentally, the Ramsey family has let it be known that Daniel passed away peacefully during the crisis. A funeral attended by big names will occur soon. By invitation only.”

“Amazing,” said Savas.

“Could be true,” Cohen said. “He was over one hundred. Maybe the stress of what happened at the university? Or should I even call the place that?”

“A university?” asked York. “It certainly was a research institute handing out PhDs, did real science. But it was a golden facade over a skull. While you two were holding the East Coast together, I turned loose some less gifted detectives. Their job wasn’t hard, once we knew where and what to look for. The place was a cesspool of corruption and fraud. Researchers bought like free agents, showered with insane amounts of money. Biotech and Big Pharma on their leash. Oligarchs laundering support for Bilderberg through the financial ledgers. Nobels bought and paid for. All to construct an unassailable reputation, one that would shield the university from all prying eyes.”

“How on earth do you buy a Nobel prize?” asked Cohen.

“Like anything else. Meet the market price. You don’t think the old farts in Sweden handing those things down are the Twelve Disciples?” York smiled ruefully. “They even had one poor researcher on ice for days, hiding his death from the world. Paying off the hospital and doctors for a week until the prize was announced.”

“Why in the world?” asked Cohen.

“Nobel Prizes only go to the living. And Ramsey had put a substantial down payment on this one and wanted to get the return on his investment.”

“I expected something more,” she said. “A lot more. Science is supposed to be about truth.”

“A hundred years ago, Alfred Nobel dumped a ton of money on the prize. Money spoke loudly then. It speaks loudly now. Always has, always will.” York laughed. “You wouldn’t believe the email exchanges the NSA dug up. The Nobel committee’s a tired group of Swedish has-beens, mostly unknown in the world, even in the fields of science. Poor bastards are charged by history with the important yet unrewarding task of bestowing the ultimate scientific prestige on others. Think of the power they hold. Think of the
temptation
to make that job a little more
rewarding
. Many had their price. And Ramsey had the means to meet
any
price.”

“This is science, not politics!” said Cohen.

“My dear, everything is politics. And with so much power and money involved, bring in the plumbers. Because you’ve got a nasty brew. Priests, senators, and scientists—dirty laundry all the same. Human nature.”

“They should be held to higher standards.”

“They are. Just means the price goes up. Ramsey had more than enough to shape things as he wanted. And those investments did bring a return, a shield of false honor. Behind it Bilderberg operated with impunity.” She shook her head. “It’s so ironic. Nobel and Ramsey were rivals for the world’s oil supply before the Communist Revolution. Some accuse the Ramsey family of funding that coup. It blew up the oil region, and Nobel suffered a crippling loss while Ramsey locked in control of the world’s petroleum supplies. Nobel actually had to sell his remaining shares in oil companies to Ramsey!
Humbling
.”

“You know a lot about this,” said Savas.

“Former law and history teacher, John. Also, it’s been an eye-opening read of the intel reports the last few months.”

“So, Daniel Ramsey inherited a Nobel Prize that owed his family deeply,” said Cohen. “Zero had a lot to work with. A brilliant use of resources.”

“Assuming Zero
is
Daniel Ramsey,” said Savas. “With his disappearance, or perhaps death, we might never know. Meanwhile, with or without him, Bilderberg will be regrouping.”

“With Angel’s data, it’s not going to be easy for them,” said York. “We’ve busted four of the sites on her list, apprehended several powerful and shadowy figures. The others managed to make a getaway, but their organization is trashed, their web of influence shredded. They’ve got
a lot
of rebuilding ahead of them.”

“And so do we,” said Savas.

“We do.” York looked them in eyes. “I won’t forget what all of you went through for me, for this nation. I won’t forget what you lost.” She pulled out a set of papers and placed them on the desk. “Here are the orders for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Frank Miller and Jean-Paul Rideout. Congress has too much on its plate with elections and reconstruction. Had to go executive order for the funerals.”

“Without the bodies, it’s a hollow ceremony,” said Savas.

“Not at all,” said York. “Funerals aren’t for the dead. The dead get nothing from them. They’re for us, the living. For grief and something even more important—for memory. It’s what holds our society together. That’s why we need them. And that’s why I’m going to make sure these men are remembered well.”

Savas didn’t yield. “Even so, they deserved better.”

“It’s all very much appreciated, Elaine,” said Cohen, reaching across the chair and squeezing the president’s hand. “John never really lets go. It’s why he’s up at 3am too many nights. But he does appreciate what you’re doing.”

“I know he does,” York said, smiling toward Savas. “It will be a beautiful service in DC. Many of the cherry orchards survived the riot fires. They’re beginning to bloom. Colors everywhere.”

“A rumor of spring,” said Cohen wistfully. “This bunker has some strong downsides. Most of us don’t get out for weeks at a time. It’s a problem for morale. We need to schedule more frequent top-side rotations, even if it means some risk of exposure.”

“You’re the bosses,” said York. “But I think you’re right.”

Savas shifted in his chair. “On that point, Elaine—the coup is over. The military and civilian leadership stabilized. We still have distribution problems, but beyond the function of this bunker. I think we’ve done our job in the crisis.”

“Indeed you have, John. And it’s been a critical one to getting things back on track quickly. You two have coordinated a truly remarkable East Coast intervention.”

“Then we’re wondering what the end game is. We need to get back to Intel 1, to the FBI. I know there’s an interim leadership in place, but I’m anxious to make sure things are done right.”

“Anxious to get your crime-fighting division back into the game?” asked York. “After all this, you’re not looking for a break or early retirement? You could ask for a helluva severance package.”

“You have to ask after Kansas City?” Savas shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll pass any emotional quotient tests or whatever they’re called. My therapy is work, the only one I’ve known or will know. Work to protect this country. Over and over again I’ve seen how much needs to be done. What’s happened hasn’t changed that. It’s only strengthened it. And I’m not done with Bilderberg quite yet.”

“And you?” she asked Cohen.

“This is what we do, Elaine. This is what we love to do. At least when we’re not getting shot or tortured for it.”

York nodded. “Well, you’re right. The need for this Manhattan bunker is coming to an end. Fawkes and his brand of Anonymous are gone. Bilderberg is on the run. The country is coming back online.”

“I’m glad you agree,” said Savas, relief evident in his voice.

“I do. And that’s why I’m here today. Canceled some terribly important and boring meetings with Congress to make it.” York stood up and looked through the window to the hive of activity outside the office. “You’ve taken a decayed infrastructure and turned this bunker into a formidable enterprise. Of course, you had ample funding and top personnel we supplied. But give people a mound of clay and only a few can turn it into a masterpiece.” She pivoted back to them. “This site is too valuable to simply shut down. Our world has changed, my friends. Become too fragile, at the mercy of poorly secured systems and encircled by terrible weapons too easy to use. And we know too well that powerful forces want to control our destiny beyond the will of the people. After what’s happened, after we nearly lost our nation—well, I think this place needs to go on functioning. But perhaps in a different guise.”

Cohen arched an eyebrow. “What kind of guise?”

York sat down again, placing her fingertips together in front of her face. She stared intensely at the two agents.

“Well, that’s what I really came to talk to you about.”

T
he construction vehicles
passed by the unusual military checkpoint, a wall of concrete slabs and scaffolding obscuring what lay behind. Alongside the checkpoint, cars continued to rumble through the Lincoln tunnel, traffic beginning to pick up again in the intervening months since the crisis ended. All was not back to normal, as the armored Army vehicles lining the toll booths testified. But for many, normal appeared to be on the horizon at last.

Lopez and Houston sat in the far back of one of the beat-up vans passing through the hidden entrance. They wore laborer’s work gear—boots and blue jeans, yellow hats on their laps—distinguishable only by the looming bulk of Lopez behind the other workers.

They passed under the archway in the bedrock, the van rocketing down an orange-lit tunnel under the Hudson. The driver spoke. “Clear of the final checkpoint. We’ll be at the facility in five.” The passengers relaxed, some loosening and removing the hot costumes, revealing other clothing beneath.

“So, the bat cave?” said Lopez, his large hands spinning the hard hat. “Are we sure about this?”

Houston shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Good answer.”

She whispered to him privately. “Look, Francisco, cons: we’re disappearing again, giving up the hope of a pardon or vindication. Getting a new set of laundered identities.”

“I love it when you talk dirty in my ear.”

“Shut up.” She smiled. “York was right. Her political situation is too fragile right now. The country is barely on its feet again. We’re too radioactive. But the pros! We get to fight bad guys with people we trust and believe in, with ridiculous,
presidential
resources to conduct investigations.”

“Doesn’t this secret presidential force scare you a little?”

She looked out the window at the rock walls speeding by. “It does. Sounds a little too much like something Cheney would have done.
Or did
. Don’t forget his secret assassination squads. But, I trust York. More than most, anyway.”

“Maybe more than you should.”

“Maybe. But she’s proven to me where her heart lies. She could have
been
Hastings, held on to power, been Bilderberg’s puppet.” She exhaled, a smile on her face. “And Intel 1! John, Rebecca, and Angel—we’ve been through fire with them, more than once. I’m alive because of them.”

“That I don’t forget,” said Lopez, running his hand through her hair.

“They’re gold in my book. Besides—all of us, we did good. We did
damn
good. I don’t know, but if we’re gonna get the bang-bang toys and put on a fucking cape, who else would you pick for your team? I trust them. Not just to do the job, but to do it honorably.”

The orange light began to fade, replaced slowly by a sterile fluorescent glow. Through the front windshield, they could see the opening in the tunnel and large underground lot that lay behind it, two monstrous metal doors swinging inward to allow their passage

“I hope you’re right, Sara. Good intentions and the path to hell and all that.”

Houston stared forward, the vehicle passing through the blast doors. She set her jaw. “You know, Francisco, so far every damn road we’ve been on has been to hell. We might as well do what we want while we’re traveling.”

Lopez grunted. “And Angel? You think it’s wise to put it all in her hands?”

Houston sighed. “I don’t know. Power for good or for evil. Crazy stuff. If you had sole control of the plans for the atomic bomb back in ’45, what would you do? Turn the tech loose on the world? Destroy it? Either way you play God. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. Do you?”

“No,” said Lopez. “I’m glad I’m not able to make the choice. But two times she’s held the fate of the world in her hands. Now a third. I hope she makes the right choice.” The van pulled to a stop and the giant doors slammed shut behind them. “Whatever it might be.”