Covenant (17 page)

            He should have known they would find out about the Judas.  They knew everything.  The Director, in particular, had a reputation as a man who rarely slept, who constantly scanned Genesis in search of updates on the dozens of division missions in progress throughout the world at any given time.  A whippet of a man in his late-sixties, with close-cropped steel-gray hair, hawk-like eyes, and a pointed chin, he’d once been a legendary Army master sniper, and had in fact recruited Cutty into the organization, trained him, and drawn him up through the ranks.

            Their teacher-student relationship hadn’t afforded Cutty any special privileges.  The Director actually seemed to drive him harder than he did the other servants, was quick with a lacerating rebuke, and downright parsimonious with his praise.

            He often reminded Cutty of Father.

            “I did indeed lose the target, sir, and I apologize for not yet sharing that information with my dispatcher,” Cutty said.  “I’ve been engaged with a secondary target that I have reason to believe is significant.”

            “The primary target is off the grid.  We’ve lost it, due in part to your botched efforts at containment.”

            Cutty pulled in a tight breath, silently suffered the tongue-lashing.

            “But that target is no longer relevant,” the Director said.  “You are correct.  Your secondary target is indeed more significant.”

            Cutty released a pent-up breath.  “Praise God.”

            “Mr. Anthony Thorne poses an urgent threat,” the Director said.  A target’s name was rarely invoked, certainly not during phone calls, though they communicated over encrypted lines.  The Director’s break with protocol suggested the gravity of the situation.

            “I’ve been studying a background report on Thorne,” Cutty said.  “He’s a Marine.”

            “I know that,” the Director said.  “That’s not why he’s a threat.”

            “It isn’t?”

            “The Prophet himself summoned me to speak of Thorne.  He awakened from a
most
disturbing dream of the man, this very night.  What do you say of that?”

            Cutty couldn’t say anything.  The Prophet had dreamt of Thorne?  In Cutty’s eight years of service in the division, the Blessed One had never expressed a personal interest in one of his missions.

            “Your silence speaks volumes,” the Director said. 

            Cutty swallowed.  “What message did the Prophet receive in his dream?”        

            “That’s not for you to know.  Suffice to say, it was most troubling.”

            Although the Director declined to supply more information, Cutty’s vivid imagination offered only one possible answer:
assassination.
   The Judas was more than a mere betrayer, and Thorne was much more than an intriguing accomplice.  The two men, and whatever other co-conspirators they had engaged, were scheming to murder The Prophet.

            It was such an unthinkable idea that he dared not speak it aloud. 

            “Eliminate Thorne, his wife, and anyone who stands in your path,” the Director said.  “This must be done most expeditiously.  The Prophet is eagerly awaiting a report of the successful completion of your mission.”

            Cutty was trembling.  To be charged with a mission in which the Prophet had a deeply-vested interest . . . this was the opportunity of a career.    

            “It will be done,” Cutty said.  

            “The one who performs this divine service will be blessed beyond measure,” the Director said.  “Those were The Prophet’s words.  Consider the blessings in store for you, the desires of your heart, and they will be granted.”

            Cutty looked at Valdez, and his pulse quickened.  The desires of his heart, indeed. 

            “I’ll expect your report of completion by oh-nine hundred hours—today,” the Director said, and terminated the connection.

            “What did Director say?” Valdez asked.

            “The Prophet—yes,
the Prophet himself
—is demanding that we eliminate Thorne and his wife,” Cutty said.  He read his watch.  “And we’ve got less than eight hours to do it.”

26

            Anthony and Lisa had begun to work through the highlighted passages in the Bible.  He had brought his laptop inside to the kitchen table, and as she read each citation aloud, he typed it into a text document, also noting the color in which each verse had been highlighted. 

            Lisa’s theory was that once they’d transcribed all of the scriptures, they could review them as a whole and search for patterns, perhaps in the color coding or the order in which they’d been marked, and maybe a coherent narrative of some kind would emerge.  He tended to agree with her idea.  In light of what they knew thus far, it was the only theory that made any sense. 

            In the past half-hour, they had transcribed about a dozen passages from the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.  Such as:

            Genesis 1:1-2, in green:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters.

            Genesis 34:1-2, in yellow:
And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.  And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

            Exodus 23:20, in blue:
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

            Numbers 20:11, in lavender:
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.

            Deuteronomy 32:35, in orange:
To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

            And on it went.  They had over a hundred more left to review.  It would take hours to cover them—and he could only guess how much longer it would take them to decode the overall meaning.

            “Good Lord,” Lisa said.  She set down the book and rubbed her eyes, which had begun to show faint red veins.  “And when I was a kid, I thought Sunday school was brain-numbing.”

            “Let’s take a break.”  He pushed away from the table.  “Want more coffee?”

            “No, thanks.  I already have the caffeine shakes.  Look.”

            She held up her hand, palm facing parallel to the table.  It trembled slightly. 

            He refreshed his own cup.  “Well, so much for grabbing some shut-eye anytime soon.”

            She laughed bitterly and picked up the Bible again, riffled through the pages.

            “I’m really not feeling Bob right now,” she said.  “Why couldn’t he send you an e-mail with everything you need to know?  He could’ve set up a free account for you under a fake name and no one would have been the wiser.”

            “He said they monitor the Internet, though.”        

            “Right.  Never mind me, I’m not thinking straight.” 

            “We’ll get through this.”  He sat beside her, glanced at his watch.  It wasn’t yet two am, but he felt as though he’d been awake for two days straight.  He sipped his coffee.     

            She yawned into her hand.   “Question for you.”

            “Shoot.”

            “What do you think of all this focus on the Good Book?”

            “Meaning?”     

            “Do the scriptures inspire any ideas, any reflection?  Or would it make no difference if we were copying passages from
The Cat in the Hat
?”

            “I love Dr. Seuss.  All his stories rhyme.”

            She gave him her please-be-serious look: eyes narrowed, lips curled.

            “Okay, honestly, I haven’t thought much about it,” he said.  “At the moment, it’s just work to me.  I hope it leads us to answers about my dad’s murder.  That’s all I care about right now.”

            “Revenge,” she said.   

            “Justice.”

            “ ‘To me belongeth vengeance.’ We read that verse in Deuteronomy.”  

            “A book that was written what, thousands of years ago?  It’s not relevant to my situation, my life.”

            “Do you think any part of the Bible is relevant to your life?”

            “Ah, I know where this is going.  Yes, I never go to church with you, I don’t read the Bible, I don’t pray, and all that bothers you.  But it’s not my thing, Lisa.”

            “Not until you’re in your hour of need.”

            “I was in my hour of need fifteen years ago, and God was nowhere to be found.”

            “You can’t blame God for that, Tony,” she said softly. 

            “So if I can’t blame God for what happened, why should I depend on God to give me justice?  Face it, God doesn’t give a damn, Lisa—certainly not about me and my family.”  He pointed at the Bible, finger shaking.  “That book?  It’s full of fanciful stories and wishful thinking.”

            “A lot of people would disagree with you on that, including me.”

            “To each his own.  Until someone’s walked in my shoes they have no right to tell me how I should think or feel.  I saw my dad
murdered
. . . he bled to death in my arms.  Am I supposed to take comfort from some old book written by dead men?  Is that going to make it all better, make me put on a happy face?”

            “I’m sorry,” she said, voice so hushed she was nearly inaudible.  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

            “No, you shouldn’t have.”  Tears had welled up in his eyes.  He wiped them away, almost angrily, but that didn’t stop the flow.  A thick sob was building at the base of his throat, waiting to explode out of him. 

            He excused himself to the bathroom.  At the sink, he washed his face with cold water.  He bowed his head and pulled in several deep, quavering breaths. 

Don’t cry, man.         

            Gripping the edge of the porcelain vanity with white-knuckled fingers, he stared at himself in the oval-shaped mirror.  His eyes were red, glassy.  He told himself no murderer had even been brought to justice by a victim’s tears.  That Mom, Danielle, and even he had cried often in the days and weeks after the murder—and those collective rivers of tears had changed nothing.

            Self-control.  Iron will.  Guns.  Power.  Those were the tools that would deliver real justice.  Not some old book.  Not God.  Not tears. 

Toughen up, Marine.

            The wave of grief receded.  He snatched a tissue out of a box, blotted his eyes again, and left the bathroom. 

            Mike met him in the hallway.  “Hey, AT.  Everything okay?”

            “Fine as can be,” Anthony said, and went back to the kitchen. 

            Lisa looked up from the Bible, eyes redder than before, and probably not solely from fatigue.  She offered a conciliatory smile.

            “It’s cool,” he said.  “Let’s move on.”          

            His cell phone rang.

27

            He read the Caller ID display.  “The number’s blocked.”

            “Don’t answer it,” Lisa said.

            “If it’s them, maybe I can find out something that’ll help us,” Anthony said.

            “Go for it, dude,” Mike said.  Reluctantly, Lisa nodded.   

            Anthony answered the call.  “Hello?”

            “Mr. Thorne.”  It was a man with a gentle voice.  “As this may be my only opportunity to speak to you before I eliminate you, I first wanted to gain insight into the root of the evil that’s corrupted your soul.”

            “Who is this?” Anthony asked, though he suspected it was the pale, stout man who had fired on them.

            “I was especially intrigued by the books I discovered in your home library.  You appear to be a successful author, in a secular sense.”

            These people had gotten into their home?  He put his hand to his sweat-filmed forehead, trying to remember if they had activated the alarm system when they’d left.  Probably not.  They had been in a helluva hurry.

            Besides, he wondered if a locked door, or an engaged security system, would have held these people at bay.

            “Why the hell were you in our house?” Anthony asked.

They were in our house?
Lisa lip-synced, outrage twisting her face.

            Anthony pressed the button on the cell to activate the speakerphone feature.  When the fanatic spoke again, his disconcerting choir-boy voice carried throughout the kitchen.

            “You have a beautiful home, clean and tastefully designed, yet your work reeks of hatred,” he said.  “Tell me, Thorne: why have you chosen to sow discord and wickedness through your books?”

            “You called our house earlier, didn’t you?” Anthony asked.  “How do you know all this stuff about us?” 

            “At the end of the age of man, that which is hidden shall be made clear.”

            Mike and Lisa frowned.

            “What the hell does that mean?” Anthony asked.

            “God delivers the wicked into the snares of the righteous.  He’s a mighty god, indeed, worthy to be praised.”

            The three of them looked at one another, and Anthony knew they were all thinking the same thing.  Was this guy for real?  It was like having a conversation with someone from another planet.

            “Listen, who are you working for?” Anthony asked.          

            “The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent from your wickedness.”

            “Start talking, sense, dammit!  Who the hell are you working for?”