The Chimera Secret (46 page)

Kurt Agry was about to get what he deserved.

Payback.

Natalie Warner stepped out of the battered house into the night air, her head filled with a thousand revelations that fell like the rain pouring down from the cold dark sky
above. As Anderson closed the door behind her, she knew that there was no way the CIA could keep its illegal program covered up if Anderson agreed to testify to the Senate and maybe even the
Supreme Court. Burning the papers might have worked in 1973, but now she had hard evidence of CIA intervention in the investigation that would be virtually impossible for any district attorney to
ignore.

The CIA would have a hard time stopping the commission now.

The last time the agency had tried to conceal evidence was after video tapes of the CIA ‘waterboarding’ a suspected jihadist after the victim was rendered from the USA into a prison
believed to have been in Thailand. The videos, which had shown the victim screaming and vomiting, had been destroyed by the then head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. When the trials of
major terrorists began, their defenses hinged on the fact that waterboarding at the hands of CIA interrogators was, in any sensible way, considered to be a form of torture. Along with other known
forms of extreme punishment such as sleep deprivation, often for weeks at a time, enforced nakedness, stress positions and suchlike, which the CIA and the US Department of Justice had referred to
as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, the defense would argue that under such torture anybody would confess to just about anything in order to gain relief from their suffering.
Natalie herself had read of men who had experienced extreme rendition to CIA-run prisons in countries non-signatory to the Geneva Convention, who had confessed afterward that they had become expert
liars in order to avoid torture. Their lies had cost the intelligence community millions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted chasing phantom agents and nonexistent cells, all from the imaginations
of men who had committed no crime at all.

Now, she finally understood what had happened to Joanna Defoe. She had not been abducted by militants in the Gaza Strip. She had been the victim of rendition by the CIA in order to silence her
investigation and prevent a scandal in the White House, the support of the then president for a corrupt arms company called MACE and to prevent her exposing whatever she knew about the still
operational MK-ULTRA.

Joanna was still alive. If Natalie could somehow contact her and tell her what she now knew, the evidence she had collated, then she could blow the whole damned thing wide open. The results
would no doubt echo through government for decades to come.

Natalie pulled out her cellphone and started to dial a number as she hurried to her car, using her jacket to shroud her head from the rain.

Natalie had no problem with the intelligence community extracting information from the kind of insane bastards who sought to burn Western civilization to the ground for nothing more than
imaginary religious ideals. What she did resent was the heavy-handed way in which the CIA sought to do so. There were smarter ways to get results, and she intended to make sure that—

The blast did not register in her mind at first.

For a split second Natalie believed that she had tripped on the sidewalk in the dark as her legs crumpled beneath her and she felt herself in midair. Then something plowed into her from behind
and she thought that she’d been hit by a truck as she span through the darkness, the street lights around her flashing crazily past.

Then the heat hit her like a blast furnace, stinging her eyes as they dried out instantly as the heat wave washed over her. Natalie hit the asphalt hard, rolling as the force of the explosion
rattled her brain in her skull and caused her vision to blur.

The noise hit her last, a roaring crash of thunder and shattered glass as behind her Anderson’s home suddenly vanished within a snarling fireball. Chunks of scorched clapperboard and
twinkling jewels of glass crashed down around Natalie as she sat dazed on the sidewalk, blinking and staring into the crackling flames.

She shivered slightly and then bent over as she coughed and spat a globule of phlegm onto the sidewalk. She felt sick but managed to control herself, sucking in a lungful of night air as doors
to other houses opened, people looking out and pointing at the flaming wreckage of Anderson’s home.

Natalie turned and saw her phone on the sidewalk, the screen still glowing and a soft ring tone just audible over the flames and the shouts of alarm. She crawled forward on her hands and knees
and picked up the cell. Her voice was croaky and weak as she spoke.

‘Hello?’

‘
Natalie? Where are you?
’

The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

‘Who is this?’

‘
It’s Douglas Jarvis.
’

Natalie’s fists clenched on the asphalt beneath her. ‘You son of a bitch. You killed him.’

‘
Shut up!
’ The voice crackled down the line with enough force and venom to both surprise and silence her. ‘
You’ve got it all wrong. I’ve been fired.
The CIA are coming after all of us, Natalie. Get away from the case as fast as you can.
’

Natalie blinked in confusion.

‘My chief witness just got killed in an explosion,’ she said meekly.

‘
Natalie,
’ Jarvis said. ‘
Run. Now!
’

Natalie staggered to her feet, one hand reaching out to balance herself on the trunk of her car as she wobbled around to the driver’s door. Her hand, the knuckles scuffed and bleeding,
reached into her bag for her keys and she climbed into the seat.

People were emerging from their houses, some of them pointing at her as others stared, cellphones to their ears. Natalie switched on the engine and pulled away in a screech of rubber.

She saw the headlights behind her almost immediately as they followed her down the road, heading north as she drove out of Coral Hills and toward the district.

Shit. She didn’t care about the potential CIA mole in her office now. The only place that seemed even remotely safe was the Capitol. Then she thought of her parents. Christ, if the
CIA’s cleaning team didn’t get her, maybe they’d head for her parents’ home instead. They could blackmail her, do anything. Worst of all, Ethan was gone, unheard of in
days.

The net was closing in and suddenly there seemed to be no safe place to turn.

Natalie yanked the wheel of the car to the left and headed directly for the Sousa Bridge. Pennsylvania Avenue would take her in a near-perfect straight line into the heart of the district, where
even the CIA would find it hard to make a hit on her without leaving some kind of evidence behind. The avenue was a two-lane that became a three-lane as it crossed the river into the district.
Heavy traffic and plenty of witnesses – if she could get there.

The car headlights behind her grew larger as the vehicle behind accelerated, and then suddenly it swerved out to her left wing and smashed across the trunk of her car. The vehicle swerved to the
right as she fought for control along Marlboro Pike, but the car smashed up onto the sidewalk and skidded out of control onto an abandoned forecourt just off the main road.

Natalie grabbed the steering wheel and turned the key to restart the engine, only to see the huge form of an SUV bump up onto the sidewalk in a flash of headlights and screech to a halt in front
of her car.

From within climbed a tall man, one hand holding a pistol that was pointing directly at Natalie as she sat behind the wheel and stared at him. His outline was distorted by the rain streaming
down her windshield.

‘Step out of the car!’

Natalie froze, unsure of what to do. A moment later and the man fired at her vehicle, the gunshot deafeningly loud as the bullet shattered one of her headlights.

‘Get out now!’

Natalie reached down with a trembling hand and opened her door, then stepped out into the rain. It pummeled her hair and streamed down her face as she stood beside her car with her hands in the
air and stared at the long, gaunt face of the man. His voice, when he spoke, was low and murderous.

‘My apologies, Miss Warner, but you’ll have to come with me.’

‘Where’s my brother?’ she uttered, trembling from more than just the cold. ‘Where’s Ethan?’

The long face cracked with a cold little smile that made the man seem even more cruel.

‘Busy,’ he replied.

From somewhere inside of her a spark of the Warner spirit flared into life, and she dropped her hands. Behind him, a car slid in alongside the sidewalk, its lights extinguished. Natalie kept her
eyes fixed on her assailant.

‘You followed me this morning, and you killed Ben,’ she said with sudden, unshakeable conviction.

The man shook his head.

‘I didn’t kill anybody,’ he replied. ‘They got themselves killed because they didn’t understand the importance of national security.’

Natalie’s anger flared brighter.

‘The only thing the citizens of this country need security from is people like you,’ she snapped back, ‘because you’re the ones killing us.’

The man inclined his head. ‘
C’est la vie.
’

He raised the pistol and aimed at Natalie’s head.

Natalie barely saw the figure that lurched out from behind the parked SUV and rushed at the tall man from behind. The splashing of footfalls on the wet asphalt alerted the agent and he span, but
not soon enough. The figure plowed into him and sent them both sprawling to the ground.

In the light from the SUV’s headlights, Natalie stared in disbelief as she saw Ben Consiglio crash to the ground on top of the CIA man.

‘Get out of here!’ Ben yelled at her. ‘Run!’

Natalie staggered backward as Ben smothered the CIA man with his weight and struggled to keep the man’s gun arm on the ground. She whirled and leapt into her car, started the engine and
slammed it into reverse. The remaining headlight beam flashed across the two men as they fought on the ground in the pouring rain, and she heard another gunshot and saw a flash of light as the shot
went off into the air. Ben twisted the weapon from the agent’s hand and hurled it across the lot.

Ben’s head jerked awkwardly as a knife-edged hand sliced across his throat, and then another slammed palm-first up under his jaw and he was hurled off the CIA man’s body to sprawl
onto the asphalt as he struggled to get away.

The agent rolled sideways and came up onto his knees behind Ben. Two arms folded around Ben’s neck, the CIA man interlocking them with one hand cupping the opposite elbow as the forearm
crushed the knuckles of the opposite fist against Ben’s throat. Natalie saw Ben’s eyes bulge and his tongue leap from between his teeth as he fought for his life in the pouring rain,
his fingers scraping across the agent’s face, searching for his eyes.

She could hear their agonized growls as they strained against one another, saw Ben’s features turn a shade closer to pallid, and made her decision. She leapt out of the car and dashed
across the lot to where the pistol lay in the rain. She picked the weapon up, surprised at how heavy it felt in her grasp, and turned back just as she heard a terrible gagging sound above the hiss
of the rain.

Ben’s head was tilted back, his tongue poking from between his lips and the veins in his neck bulging. Natalie raised the pistol. The CIA man violently twisted Ben’s body to one
side. A shiver of horror snaked down Natalie’s spine as the agent glared at her.

‘You want him to live, you’ll drop the weapon.’

Natalie gritted her teeth.

‘You let him go,’ she snarled, ‘or you’ll get nothing.’

The agent watched her for a long moment. In the distance she could hear police sirens wailing, could see far off down the freeway the flashing lights closing in on them. The gunshots must have
alerted people close by.

‘Time’s running out,’ she snapped. ‘Let him go, now!’

The agent smiled coldly, and was about to twist Ben’s neck further when another voice called out.

‘Mr. Wilson.’ The agent turned as Doug Jarvis appeared, a pistol in his grasp aimed at the agent. ‘Game’s up.’

The agent released Ben, who slumped forward. His head smacked against the cold, unforgiving asphalt. The agent stood up, watching Jarvis.

‘You’re out of your league, old man.’

Jarvis didn’t reply, simply keeping the pistol trained on Wilson. Wilson looked at Natalie.

‘Time for us to leave, Miss Warner.’

Natalie kept the pistol pointed at him, ignoring the rain that had plastered her hair in across her face.

‘Go to hell.’

In a flash the agent dropped down onto one knee as his hand flicked to his waist and whipped out another, smaller pistol with frightening speed, the snub-nosed weapon flashing up to point at
Jarvis.

Natalie pulled the trigger.

The huge noise and recoil of the pistol shuddered through her arms and threw her backward as the muzzle flash lit up the shards of rain pouring down around her. As she fell she heard another
gunshot that echoed across the parking lot as the agent’s pistol fired uselessly into the air. She landed flat on her ass in a deep, cold puddle and stared blankly in front of her.

The tall man lay motionless on his back in the rain, the pistol lying by his side.

Natalie looked down at herself. The rain had drenched her jacket, blouse and skirt, and her legs were splashed with muddy water. She ran one shivering, numb hand across her chest but could find
nothing to suggest that she had been hit.

The sirens were closer now, flashing red and blue as they tore down Pennsylvania Avenue toward her.

Doug Jarvis ran to her side. ‘Natalie, come with me, now!’

Natalie stared at Jarvis for a moment, and then she got up and dashed to Ben Consiglio’s side.

Ben’s face was slowly regaining color and he was now breathing in short, ragged bursts. Fresh blood was oozing from a savage cut in his forehead, running in rivulets down his face in the
rain as his dressings fell away.