The Alarmists (24 page)

“If you look right there,” Addison went on, directing the colonel’s attention past the gate bars, “you can see the panel Van Camp’s security team uses.”

Richards held his response as he considered their next move. Brent knew the man was weighing the need to do this correctly against the danger posed by allowing the dead bodies to remain as testament to the presence of the Americans.

“How does security get back in if they have to leave the compound?” Richards asked. “They can’t just hope someone’s going to be around to open the gate for them.”

Without waiting for a response, Richards walked toward the gate, and after a slight hesitation, the others moved with him. When they reached it, Brent saw that one of the security guards had collapsed nearby—perhaps close enough.

The professor knelt in front of the bars and reached an arm between two of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t reach the dead man from that position, so he dropped onto his stomach and, with his face pressed up against the cold metal, pushed his arm through up to the shoulder. Even straining he was barely able to insert three fingers around the man’s belt, and once he’d done so he discovered he had no leverage to drag the man forward.

“Hang on to him,” he heard Rawlings say, and then the professor felt hands around both of his ankles. The soldiers pulled him backward as Brent held on to the dead man, who was a good deal heavier than he looked.

Addison took over, kneeling and fishing around in the man’s pockets. He found it in the second pocket and handed it to the colonel, who gave it a once-over before holding it out and pressing its only button. In the top left corner of the gate a light that had been red turned to green. Snyder quickly pulled the gate open, then closed it again once they were all within the perimeter.

Seen from within the walls, the house was massive. And in the middle of the forest it looked like something that had grown up independent of the hands of men. Brent was struck by the beauty of the structure, understanding the inappropriateness of that when three dead men lay on the ground behind him. He avoided looking at them. He had watched them die and felt no need to relive any part of the experience.

The team spread out over the compound while Rawlings and Brent remained by the front gate. Brent watched as Snyder and Richards disappeared around one side of the house, with Bradford and Addison taking the other side. In less than a minute they were coming back and gesturing for Brent and Rawlings to advance.

“The perimeter’s clear,” Richards said once the others were within earshot. He looked toward the front door. “We have no idea what’s inside, so Rawlings and the doctor will stay out here until we clear the interior.”

Brent offered yet another apologetic look to Rawlings. The soldier gestured with his head, indicating Brent should follow him away from the door. It was as Brent moved to comply that he heard a single shot. As when Rawlings had spoken to him in the trees, the loudness of the sound caused the professor to nearly jump out of his skin. Eyes wide, he whirled to see if he could find the shooter and instead found confusion setting in when he saw Snyder with a pistol in his hand, smoke rising from the barrel. Brent followed the line of the man’s gun. It was pointed somewhere past Brent’s right shoulder, and as the professor turned he again saw the three men the team had executed from afar. Except Brent was certain that one of them was not in his previous position.

“We didn’t put him down the first time, Colonel,” Snyder explained.

Richards took a second to assess the situation and then began barking orders, the element of surprise now gone.

Instantly Rawlings pulled Brent away while the rest of the team converged on the entrance, Snyder leading and Addison taking a position halfway up the steps, his weapon trained on the door.

Bradford pushed the door open, and after an eerie moment during which no shots rang out, he slipped past the doorframe and disappeared inside. Snyder and the colonel were right on his heels.

December 19, 2012, 7:19 P.M.

Van Camp understood the meaning of the sound before the blast dissipated. Yet he did not end his review of the documents spread out on the desk. With a red pen he made a note in the margin, and after scanning the rest of the page he capped the pen and returned it to its place.

No other shots rang out after the first one, but now he could hear voices in the courtyard below. He turned to the computer and checked his email. A quick perusal revealed nothing earth-shattering, nothing that couldn’t wait. However, considering his present circumstances, he thought it prudent to send a few updates to his executive leadership team. It took less than two minutes to compose his thoughts regarding the Stratford Industries takeover, and his thoughts about network programming for the coming season, and his decision to try for a share of Major League Baseball broadcast rights.

After the email was on its way, he pushed his chair from the desk and closed his eyes. Without looking outside he had no way of determining what was happening. It was possible a member of his security team had accidentally discharged his weapon. It was also possible that one of them thought they’d seen something beyond the wall and overreacted. There were other possibilities too, but he chose not to consider them. He wondered if the small military unit that had so vexed Alan would have followed him to Brazil.

With a sigh, Van Camp stood and looked over at his wife’s painting. “Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks,” he whispered, quoting Herodotus. He studied the painting for several seconds before turning and stepping out onto the balcony. Looking down into the courtyard, he saw two uniformed men. Despite what their presence signified, he could not help the smile that came to his lips. One of the men below looked up and saw him.

—

“Rawlings,” Brent said, gesturing upward.

The soldier glanced up and released a curse.

“Colonel, Van Camp is on the second-floor balcony,” he said.

Brent heard a muffled reply coming from Rawlings’s headset, but he couldn’t decipher it, which didn’t matter because all of his attention was on the man standing above them, a man they had traveled a very long way to find.

“Good evening, Mr. Van Camp,” Brent called, and it seemed an appropriate thing to say, because unless he was seeing things, the ruthless corporate CEO and potential murderer of several million people was smiling at him.

Meanwhile, Rawlings had raised his gun, aiming it at Van Camp. “Sir, I want you to put your hands above your head and wait for my team to get there!”

Brent had no doubt that Van Camp had heard Rawlings, and yet the man didn’t move.

“Mr. Van Camp, I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

Still no response from the billionaire. Rawlings exchanged an exasperated look with Brent and then refocused his attention on Arthur Van Camp.

Brent saw the shot strike before he heard it, which was the only way he knew that it had not come from Rawlings’s gun, nor from the weapon of anyone inside the house. One moment Van Camp was standing and looking down on them with his strange smile, and in the next instant he was carried back by something that seemed to lift him from the ground before sending him back through the balcony doorway. Only then did Brent hear what sounded like thunder, except that the sky was the purest blue.

Before Brent could make sense of what was happening, Rawlings had his arm in a viselike grip, dragging him toward the open front door.

The first thing that struck Brent was the coolness of the air inside the house—something he registered despite the fear that a second bullet would take him even as it had taken Van Camp. When they were through the doorway and around the corner, Rawlings released his arm and Brent nearly collapsed, keeping himself upright by leaning against the cold tile of the wall.

“Colonel!” Rawlings shouted into his headset. “A sniper took out our target!”

Through the headset Brent heard Richards curse, and he wasn’t sure what surprised him more—that the colonel had uttered the word or that Brent could understand it through the headset speaker.

—

What struck Van Camp most strongly was how quiet it was—like a tomb.

He’d landed against his desk, more surprised than anything, at least at first. It wasn’t until he tried to move that he realized what had happened. And even with that realization he couldn’t stop smiling.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see his wife’s painting and it seemed fitting. With great effort he turned his head until he could see its entirety. He stared at it for what seemed a long while, the thought that what he had purposed to do would have abhorred her not lost on him. She would not have seen the great deed in it, and he wouldn’t have wanted her to.

It was something he had a hard time explaining to himself; that he would do something like this as a monument of sorts for a person who wanted nothing more than to walk through beach sand with bare feet and watch the sunset. He supposed it was one of those grandiose ideas that, once started, could not be halted. At this point far too much water had passed under the bridge for any sort of penitent act. And even had that not been true, he was now out of time.

He wished he could have a last sip of the Mouton.

Then there was movement around him, hands pulling him away from the desk and then lowering him to the floor. He could hear them, but as garbled things. They leaned over him, and through all of it Van Camp smiled.

—

When Brent and Rawlings entered the room, Addison and Snyder were bent over Van Camp, who wasn’t moving. Richards walked past them, reaching to close the balcony doors. Brent understood the necessity of the act, yet he suspected the sniper had hit his only target and had since disappeared.

Moving closer to the huddle of people surrounding Van Camp, Brent found himself marveling at the fact that the man looked so normal, not like some Machiavellian monster. And despite the large bloodstain spreading across Van Camp’s chest, he was still smiling.

For some reason, Van Camp’s eyes picked Brent out of the group. His lips moved, but Brent couldn’t make out a word. He leaned in closer.

“It’s not here,” Van Camp whispered.

“What’s not here?” Brent asked, although he already knew.

“Alan,” Van Camp managed before a cough took his next words. When the fit subsided he found Brent again. “Alan has it.”

“Where?”

“Safe . . .” Again more coughing. “Safe house.” His eyes moved to the desk.

“Will I find information about the safe house in there?” Brent asked him.

Van Camp nodded. The rest of the team had pulled back, understanding there was nothing they could do for the dying man. Brent, though, had to ask the one question that needed an answer.

“Why?” he asked the man.

Van Camp’s smile grew wider, and Brent saw blood on his teeth. But when he answered, his voice was as clear as Brent had yet heard it.

“ ‘To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business,’ ” Van Camp said.

“Tolstoy,” Brent breathed.

And then the man was gone.

December 20, 2012, 3:47 A.M.

From the outside it looked dead—not a single light or movement to indicate anyone was in there. But this was the address for the safe house, right where Arthur Van Camp had said it would be.

Sitting in the SUV, Brent watched the members of the NIIU donning the rest of their gear and checking their weapons. He was under strict orders to remain in the vehicle, and as tired as he was, Brent hadn’t argued. After flying directly from Brazil to Lubbock, Texas, without even sparing the time to clean up the mess they’d made, the team was on the verge of exhaustion. But they were also infused with an energy the professor could feel.

They were nearing the end of their pursuit, and all of them could only hope that the prize they sought was inside.

Without a word the doors of the SUV opened and all but Brent slipped out, and so well did the men blend with the shadows that Brent lost them after only a few steps. At some point he must have nodded off, because he was awakened by the sounds of muffled gunfire, which served to propel him to alertness. He snapped upright in his seat and watched the front door, where he saw no movement. After a time the sounds of weapons fire faded and Brent suspected that was a win for the team. He thought about stepping out of the SUV, but then he remembered the colonel’s strongly worded admonition and resolved to wait until they came and got him.

A moment later he almost missed the shadows that passed by around the building, heading toward the blackness of the street, yet their clothes weren’t as dark as the team’s. As Brent watched, the forms—three of them he could see now—started off down the street. They moved oddly, almost as if the outer two were supporting the one in the middle.

Brent had the SUV door open before the thought could finish forming, and as he stepped out onto the street, he reached back inside and retrieved the pistol that Richards had left him for protection. On tired legs he started after them.

Brent had no experience with this sort of thing, so he did the only thing he could think to do: he shouted. The effect on the three people in front of him was instantaneous. Two heads turned as if on swivels, and seeing their pursuer, one pushed his baggage off on the other and reached for his belt.

The professor nearly froze as the man’s hand closed on his weapon and swiftly brought it up. Brent was late in reacting; the man got his shot off first and it struck true. Brent found the pavement rushing up to meet him, a searing pain in his stomach. But he had the presence of mind to try to break his fall with his free hand, and before he could no longer focus, he steadied his hand enough to squeeze off what he hoped was a straight shot.

Whether the bullet hit its mark or not he couldn’t tell, because his arm suddenly went out from under him and he came down hard on his shoulder. He forced himself to roll over onto his back until he was staring up at the sky, wincing in pain.

Then it occurred to him—as the sounds around him fled so that everything became quiet—that this was how Van Camp had died. He thought there was something poetic about that. But then as his eyes began to feel heavy, Maddy’s face entered his mind, which caused him to smile. He wondered absently if this was why Van Camp had smiled—if he was thinking about someone too.

And then Maddy was gone, and Brent felt an immense sadness take her place. It took several precious seconds for him to understand what it was, and when he figured it out, that too made him smile. His last conscious thought was to lament that he wouldn’t be able to tell Maddy that he’d come down closer on his mother’s side after all.

—

From the motel it was hardly more than a hop to the border. The single-level building sitting just off the 55—its dirty white stucco falling off to reveal the gray surface beneath—had eighteen rooms. Seventy-five miles in one direction lay Los Angeles; in the other direction an inconstant line that marked the division between two countries, a line from which a commingled culture emerged that did not pay homage wholly to either.

The going rate for someone heading north, who looked like they might not have a car, and who may have just survived a trip through the desert, was ten bucks. For anyone with white skin, the rooms went for forty-five. Canfield had one of the more expensive rooms that looked, he imagined, just like one of the less expensive rooms. He also had one, according to the desk clerk, with a working air-conditioner, although when he went to turn it on, the thing shook to life only to discharge air perhaps half a degree cooler than room temperature.

Canfield was in the closetlike bathroom, sitting on the edge of a tub that appeared to have remained unwashed from the day the motel opened. He took a long drag on a cigarette. When he’d stopped for gas a hundred miles out, he bought a pack, his first in more than eight years, and had since worked his way through four cigarettes.

The faucet dripped into a sink holding the remnants of the hair dye that had taken him from brown to blond, the box left on the sink in the absence of a wastebasket. Looking at himself in the mirror, he’d decided he didn’t look good as a blonde. The light from the single bulb flickered as he finished the last of the cigarette. He tossed the butt into the sink, where it hissed as it landed against the wet porcelain.

For the last several hours he’d clicked through all the news outlets, searching for any hint of what was happening with his former company. He knew Van Camp had left for Brazil; he still had friends to tell him things.

He planned to catch a few hours’ sleep and then try for an early morning border crossing, perhaps at six o’clock, when the business travelers began to hit the checkpoint hard. At that time he stood a better chance of being waved through. He wanted to be somewhere remote, someplace where no one knew him, when he pressed the button.

His only worry about the border crossing was that one of the guards would pull him out of line for a vehicle inspection. Explaining a half-million dollars in small bills in a suitcase underneath the spare tire in the trunk might be tricky.

He thought about pulling another cigarette from the pack, but instead decided he needed food more than anything. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten; he didn’t think it had been in the last forty-eight hours. Grabbing the room key and his wallet, he stepped outside into a mugginess that belied the month of December. He stopped for a few moments to peer out over a land rendered in tans and browns that stretched out past the 55, as far as his eyes could follow. If he stared long enough, he thought he could see a hint of higher land—maybe a mountain—far off in the distance, but a sun disappearing below the horizon made that just a guess. In a way, the indiscernible presence of a mountain offered a hint of what lay before him. Abandoned behind was the sum total of all by which he had defined himself; ahead lay a murkiness that frightened him. Feelings of liberation and loss formed something completely different, something as indefinable as the muddied cultural waters around him.

He released the deep breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and started off toward the lobby, his path taking him past a number of other doors, most marked with graffiti in two languages. As he passed one, he thought he could hear crying coming from the other side and yet it didn’t move him. Entering the lobby, a blast of cold air greeted him. He met the desk clerk’s eyes, and if the man noticed the change in hair color, nothing on his face suggested such.

A trio of vending machines lined the wall opposite the front door: candy, chips, tiny doughnuts, beef jerky, and trail mix. Nothing that nutritious, but he thought he might find enough to keep him satisfied until he crossed into Mexico tomorrow. Two minutes later, with something from each vending machine food group, he made his way along the walkway back to his room, skirting a Colt 45 can that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

Inside his room, he deposited his wares on the dresser. Before starting into his meal, he walked to the window and pushed aside the shade. As had been the case when he’d arrived, there were three other vehicles in the parking lot in addition to his own. It wasn’t that he was worried; there was no way anyone could have known he’d run, not this soon anyway. And even had they known, they wouldn’t have tracked him to some seedy motel in the middle of nowhere. He let the shade fall back in place.

Opening a bag of trail mix, he settled into a wooden chair near the air-conditioner and pondered what would come tomorrow.

On the nightstand, next to the mangled cord that might once have belonged to a telephone, he’d placed the handgun he’d pulled from Van Camp’s desk drawer—a trophy of sorts, along with the other thing he’d taken, the detonator. His eyes lingered on the gun, as if it were a concept for meditation rather than a physical thing. And it was, in a fashion, a totem of betrayal. A seemingly innocuous thing. And then his gaze shifted a few inches. Even though he knew what the other object was, it was difficult to distinguish from a television remote. He wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time, how the knowledge of his treachery had settled over his former employer, how the fact that Canfield had fled with the detonator had affected the man. It had to have been in a way none of his other traitorous acts could have.

Minutes passed in that fashion, with the absent munching of the trail mix, the unconscious staring at the dark gray metal. He wasn’t sure when he first felt it, when the thing that seemed just a bit off first took some kind of shape in his mind. It might have been the moment he’d stepped back into the room, when he dropped his purchases onto the dresser. It might have been with him the entire time as he gazed out the window, watching for a threat beyond his door. All he knew was that he felt it now—the corner shadows that seemed to creep further into the room, the single light bulb that seemed to dim even as his eyes remained on the gun. So it did not startle him when a voice came from somewhere he couldn’t see.

“Why do you run, Mr. Standish?” the voice asked.

Canfield emptied the last of the trail mix into his palm, tipping his head back and pouring the handful into his mouth. After he’d finished, after he’d dropped the empty bag to the floor, he released a sigh. “Hello, Dabir.”

It seemed as if the African materialized from out of nowhere, although Canfield knew he must have come from the bathroom, where he’d been waiting and listening all this time. Like the ghosts of Canfield’s past, who waited and listened and would have continued to do so regardless of how far he ran. Dabir stood for them all—all those he had betrayed, who had gone to their deaths on his order. Somehow it made it easier.

He knew there was no point in attempting to lunge for the gun. He wouldn’t make it, and even if he did, Dabir would have emptied the cartridge. Dabir had always been careful.

“What now?” Canfield asked, knowing full well what was next.

Dabir chose to spare him the indignity of a monologue, or of an unnecessary wait for the inevitable. In that way, Dabir was merciful. He fired a single shot, and Canfield’s eyes snapped open as if surprised by the speed with which death came. After his body had crumpled to the floor, Dabir offered a brief prayer, as he did for all the dead, and then he walked over to the door. He did not take Canfield’s wallet, or the handgun on the table next to the remote control, or even the interesting carving he’d found while rummaging through the man’s bags.

Instead, he left everything in the room just as it was, disappearing into the night like the ghost he’d always been.