The Bergamese Sect (36 page)

A few minutes later, as the doctor began the procedure on Linsky, the door opened and Weber stepped in. He ignored the visitors and the doctor, reached over for Hughes’ arm and tugged at his shirtsleeve. ‘Can I have a word?’ he said.

Hughes dragged his eyes away from the doctor’s deft hands and went out with his colleague. Lewis took another swig of his lukewarm coffee as he watched them leave.

―
§ ―

Outside, Weber led Hughes down the corridor and motioned him into a small interrogation room. He quietly closed the door behind them.

‘
What’s up with you?’ asked Hughes, but Weber put his finger to his lips.

‘
Quiet,’ he said. ‘Those two guys. They’re wanted by the FBI.’

‘
They’re NSA agents, Russ.’

‘
I know. Look.’ Weber pulled out a sheet of paper from his jacket and unfurled it. ‘I thought I recognised them,’ he said. ‘We got this Friday. It was on the notice board above your desk.’

He handed Hughes the paper. On it were Lewis and Linsky’s mug shots and NSA badge numbers. The notice said the FBI wanted the two men for severe dereliction of duty and possible treasonous activities, that they should be apprehended at all costs. That they should be considered dangerous.

‘
Shit,’ said Hughes. He looked at the door, then back at Weber. ‘That explains why they want their implants removed.’

Weber was nodding.

‘
I can’t believe I missed this.’ Hughes was shaking the piece of paper. ‘I wonder what they’ve done.’

‘
Never mind what they’ve done. We need to arrest them, hole them up till the Feds get here. I’ve already called for backup.’

Hughes reached into his jacket and pulled a gun from its holster. He checked the barrel and slung it back under his arm.

‘
Okay, let’s be careful, we don’t want anyone getting hurt. Let’s get their weapons off them first.’ Hughes paused for a moment, a strange grimace creasing his lips. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I’m the one who armed them. Ironic.’

Weber smiled.

‘
Follow me,’ Hughes said as he stepped out into the corridor.

―
§ ―

The doctor was busy tidying away, sterilising the surgical instruments. ‘The numbness should wear off in a few hours,’ he said. ‘Like I said, take some codeine.’ He threw Lewis a small plastic bottle of pills.

Lewis tucked it in his jacket. Turning, he brushed the debris of the two implants off the counter into his hand and inspected it. It was essentially dust. He tipped it into the wastebasket.

‘
Thanks, Doc,’ he said. ‘We appreciate that.’

The doctor just mumbled something under his breath, something about out-of-hours policy.

The door opened and Hughes and Weber entered.

Immediately, Lewis’ sharp mind detected a change in their posture. They were scared, unsure; like foxes cornered in a barn, timid delegates sent to complain to a tyrannical employer. In that fraction of a second, Lewis had sensed an approaching danger, calculated his response and held it poised, waiting for the moment to act.

The CIA men checked over the room; Weber blocking the door, Hughes quickly stepping away from his colleague to an attack position. They quickly pulled out their guns, pinning Lewis and Linsky where they stood.

‘
Don’t move,’ Hughes said. ‘You’re under arrest.’

‘
What the hell is this?’ Linsky shouted.

‘
You tell me. The Feds have issued a warrant for your apprehension.’

‘
What?’

‘
Now, put your hands on your heads and make no sudden movements. Slowly.’

Lewis’ response was released. He leapt at the doctor, span him around and jammed the crease of his elbow under the man’s chin. Hughes’ gun followed the struggle, but pulled away toward the ceiling, unsure. Lewis pulled his arm lock tight. The doctor struggled but Lewis gripped him harder, forcing a choking cough from the man. Grabbing the hypodermic from the counter, he thrust the tip of the syringe against the doctor’s neck. The man winced, straining to keep the needle from puncturing his skin.

‘
You know what fifty mils of Lignocaine in the carotid will do?’ Lewis said calmly in the doctor’s ear.

The doctor nodded, wrenching at Lewis’s asphyxiating grip. ‘Sure,’ he croaked.

‘
Then I suggest you tell your buddies to back off.’

‘
Walt, Russ, let them go, this’ll kill me,’ he strained.

Hughes and Weber were confused. They took a step forward, but halted. Linsky was frozen to the spot, waiting for the CIA men to make a move, keeping his hands visible but poised.

‘
Seriously, Walt,’ the doctor pleaded. ‘A dose this big in an artery will finish me.’

‘
Don’t be stupid, Lewis,’ said Hughes. ‘It’s not worth it. Whatever you’ve done, it can’t be worse than killing an innocent man. Put the syringe down. Let him go.’

Lewis’ cold eyes flicked from man to man, from gun to gun. ‘No chance,’ he said. ‘Someone’s fucking me around here. I’m not in the mood for games, so put the weapons down and Linsky and I will get off your patch.’

Hughes was unmoved. ‘Sorry, Lewis. If the Feds want you brought in, I’m not going to get the stick for letting you get away.’

‘
I don’t know what’s going on here, Hughes. There must have been some mistake. But I have my orders. Our target is too crucial. You’re not stopping us leaving. Forget the bravery award.’

Hughes just stared back at Lewis. A bead of sweat was trickling slowly down his cheek.

‘
Seriously,’ Lewis continued. ‘I don’t want to hurt the good doctor, but were leaving, so ditch the weapons.’

Suddenly, Hughes lunged forward. Linsky stepped into him, pounded a fist into the man’s stomach and dropped him to the floor. Weber’s gun circled the air, searching for a clear target, but Linsky was on him in an instant. He grabbed the weapon, wrenched it free of his hand and threw him against the wall.

The doctor panicked, struggled briefly, but too strongly. Lewis felt the needle popping through the skin, the plunger forced down as far as it would go.

Grasping at his neck, the doctor slipped from Lewis’ grip onto the floor. ‘Shit!’ he said.

‘
Fuck!’ Lewis screamed. He threw the syringe on the counter.

Hughes and Weber were wide-eyed, backing up against the wall.

‘
What have you done?’ the Doctor screamed. He tried to stand, but his legs slipped away from him. A hand, trembling, shot to the side of his head. Screwing up his face, the man began to blink uncontrollably. Suddenly, with unbelievable fury, his back arched, an ugly shudder contorting his spine like a snake poised to strike. A convulsion raced through his muscles, the body jolting uncontrollably. His eyes closed and a breathless, deathly murmur came from his throat. The doctor collapsed on the floor, twitching.

The CIA men were staring at the comatose doctor, mouths agape.

‘
Let’s get out of here,’ yelled Lewis. He stepped over the limp body and pushed Linsky toward the door.

At the end of the corridor, Lewis shot a hole through the security panel, pulled the door open, and raced up the stairs. Linsky bounded after him.

―
§ ―

About twenty miles out of the city, Lewis veered off the highway into a rest area. He shut the engine down, turned off the lights and stared into the dark line of trees that surrounded the deserted parking lot.

An exhaustion was clouding his vision, a confusion making his head pound. Clearly, this wasn’t the usual kind of operation. The NSA was the Earth-bound eyes and ears of the intelligence community. It was rarely an agency of active retribution, or of violent exchanges on foreign soil. Sure, it needed agents with skill in infiltration, with the expertise to place surveillance devices in the most inconvenient of locations, to track and subvert opponents. To build that global knowledge, to monitor and understand the adversary, which these days was the entire world. But Lewis knew that this was much more than getting a tracking device on someone of passing interest to the men of power. There were active opponents involved. Dangerous opponents.

Lewis was getting tired of the blindness. That was the biggest problem with a show run out of Fort Meade or Virginia Avenue. The men making decisions were too far removed from the reality of operations. Not only that, but for years they’d been sinking into a quagmire of ‘need-to-know’ bureaucracy. They’d spit a droplet of information for their agents and expect them to accomplish the impossible.

Each time Lewis had flown out of Andrews, dropped incognito on some foreign soil, he’d known less and less about his mission. It was getting out of hand. And this last one was the worst.

Well it wasn’t enough. Not anymore. Not when your own kind turned against you, when collateral damage meant innocent deaths.

Lewis took a deep breath, turned to Linsky. The rookie had his face in his hands.

‘
You okay?’ Lewis asked.

Linsky’s hands dropped. ‘Sure,’ he said. But his eyes were confused. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Lewis took another deliberate lungful of air. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Things are falling apart. And now the Agency and the Bureau are after us. Something serious has happened. It seems we’re now renegades. This case must be more important than I thought. I bet this target isn’t just another terrorist.’

‘
What do we do now?’ Linsky asked.

‘
I’m tempted to throw in the towel.’

Linsky turned slowly to his mentor. Lewis was staring again into the blackness.

After a moment, he looked at Linsky. ‘But I’m not going to. We have to trust in Walsh, in our orders. We continue. Our mission is to protect the target. We get back on their trail and wait for Walsh. We should do what we’d planned to do yesterday; eliminate those other agents before they attack the target. At least now they won’t see us coming.’

‘
Walsh should get our contact tomorrow,’ Linsky said.

Lewis nodded slowly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘He better show up Wednesday. He’s got a shit load of explaining to do.’

Lewis fired up the ignition.

―
§ ―

Walsh enjoyed this kind of weather. The sun was ferocious, so torrid it seemed the melting sidewalk would slip away under your foot like rain-soaked mud.

He stood outside the T station, still squinting at the increase in brightness as he’d stepped out of the subterranean commuter world. People were filing past him in all directions. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pair of shades.

The past few days had been overcast. It had depressed him, made him lose just an ounce of faith in his purpose. Traipsing the dim streets with just a bag on his shoulder had made him feel like a hobo. Strangely, the idea of a life struggling to stay warm, sheltered, was inviting. It would be bliss just to walk away.

But the brilliant sunshine was awakening something in Walsh. The return of the heat felt good; he felt in control. If Daintry had done what he’d asked, and Walsh was sure he had, Lewis should have got the message two days ago. That was enough time. His reply had to come today. If it didn’t, then this part of the war was lost. His men history, his last link to Sebastian gone. He couldn’t bear to think about that. It had to be today! The sunshine demanded it.

He strode down the busy street, dodging the businessmen and shoppers. A block down he came across what he was looking for; a bookstore. He went in.

Ignoring the books, he went over to a large newsstand against one wall. He picked up copies of the
Boston Globe
and the
Boston Herald
– the morning issues. He wandered over to the cashier, paid her and walked out.

Standing on the baking sidewalk outside, he leafed through the
Herald
, found the obituary page and scanned down the columns of text. There was nothing. He checked again before tossing the newspaper in a nearby trashcan.

He unfurled the
Globe
and fought through the thin sheets of paper to the back. His eyes fell through a list of recent deaths – a local democrat, a prominent doctor, an accountant from Quincy.

Then it leapt out at him; the contact from Lewis: ‘
Harry Westport of Boston, a retired office clerk, formerly of Calgary, brother of Hennesey and Rick, August 23
rd
, after a long illness, gained peace. Funeral from Golden Funeral Home, Wednesday 9am, followed by a Funeral Mass at Purcell 10
th
Avenue Church’.
 

Walsh smiled. A retired office clerk? He’d have to reprimand Lewis for that.

He read the text again, assuring himself it was what he was really looking for. Not just an unfortunate fluke. Harry Westport was one of Walsh’s pseudonyms. The one he used only with his most trusted associates – Greg Chapman at Fort Meade, Lewis, his top field agent and the dead Petersen. Rick was Rick Diaz, Lewis’ pseudonym. Hennesey was obvious – NSA. It all fit; the connections were too strong to be coincidental, the disguise obvious only to Walsh. It meant Lewis had got the broadcast – they were in Canada, Calgary. Walsh only hoped they’d understood what he’d said and had acted on it. They were within the jaws of the lion if they hadn’t.

Walsh folded the
Globe
and stuck it under his arm. He turned and went back into the shop, heading for the reference books.

He picked up an atlas of North America, thumbed through to Canada and found a map of Alberta. His eyes wandered over the area, searching for the key to Lewis’ response. At first, nothing jumped out at him, nothing to guide him to his isolated agents. Then he saw it – Golden, a town to the west of Calgary, in the Rockies. They were in Golden.

Walsh placed the book back on the shelf and looked at his watch. It was 11:50, Tuesday. He had to get a flight to Calgary, get to Golden by morning. It would be tight, but possible.