The Fellowship (51 page)

Carver gazed into the
dead man’s eyes, longing for the secrets they still held. 

Safehouse

McLean, Virginia

Speers let himself into the
unremarkable three-bedroom brick home near ODNI headquarters. The place smelled like bacon and eggs and coffee. The smell turned Speers’ stomach. He had stayed at the office all night with Chad Fordham and Arunus Roth, monitoring the situation in Rome. To stay awake, the two of them had eaten an entire bag of leftover Halloween candy.

Jack McClellan stood from his post in the foyer.
“Morning, director,” McClellan said as Speers took his coat off and hung it on the rack behind the door.

“Evening, Jack.
The girls up yet?”

McClellan nodded.
“Jenna’s always up. She’s going stir crazy. Can’t blame her, I guess. After Haley’s little Mayflower stunt, we’ve really had this little place on lockdown. I’ve got people in the backyard, in the kitchen and in the hallway between their bedrooms. No closed doors allowed.”

“You’ve been spooning them at night too?”

“Everything but,” McClellan grinned.

“And Haley?”

McClellan furrowed his brow. “Quiet. Real quiet. She’s up, though. I heard Jenna bring her some tea a little while ago.”

Speers slapped McClellan on the shoulder. “Unless something changes,
we can all go home in about 24 hours.”

“Good. Haley’s down the hall, second door.”

As McClellan had indicated, Speers found the door to the bedroom ajar. Ellis
was sitting in a rocking chair, sipping tea and gazing out into the backyard. She wore black leggings and a gray wool sweater that the secret service had brought from the apartment she shared with Jenna. A Bible and a pair of rosary beads rested on the table next to her.

Speers
shut the door behind him. “How’s your head?”

“
Numb.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around at the room furnishings. The bedspread, lamps and dresser had all been purchased decades ago
, but they weren’t what anyone would call classic.  “Jeeze,” he said. “You think this stuff would even sell at a yard sale?”

She sighed, but still did not look at him
, and then took a long sip of tea. “What do you want, Julian?”

“
To tell you that it’s over. Wolf and Lang are dead.”

Another long pause.
She drew one leg up, resting the heel against the edge of the rocking chair. “And the ossuary?”

“En route to the Vatican as we speak.
”

Speers frowned. He wasn’t expecting a high
-five, but he resented the lack of any response. Maybe the concussion was worse than they had thought. Maybe he needed to have another neurologist check her out.

“Not that you asked, but Blake is all right, by the way. It’s just a matter of getting him home now.”

“
I’m glad,” she said after a pause. “Is that it?”

“
We also got Preston’s killers. You can thank Blake for that.”

No smile. No reaction.

Ellis set her tea down. “You could have called to tell me all this. Why are you here?”

He pulled a grape lollipop from his pocket, unwrapped it and slid it between his cheek and gum. Screw his
stomach ache. He needed a sugar fix.

“
I need to know if you’ve remembered anything else about Seattle.”

Her answer was quick.
“No.”

“
How did it go with the shrink?”

Ellis turne
d to face him for the first time. “It’s personal, Julian.”

“Obviously, I want to respect your
personal boundaries. But this is mission critical.”

She returned her gaze back to the window.
“Mission’s over, Julian. You said as much.”

“
Your
mission is over. You’re right about that. But Operation Crossbow isn’t. Adrian Zhu is still out there, and my people have to find him.”

“
Really? From what I can tell, your intel about him working on military projects was bogus. His passion is obviously elsewhere.”

“The situation has evolved, I’ll give you that. But we
believe Zhu may be with Mary Borst. She’s still missing. What if she’s being held against her will? If you know anything, now’s the time.”

The hypnotism
had indeed worked. The psychologist had been able to take Ellis back to that moment on Vashon Island. She had been on the ground, banged up and bloodied. Vera Borst had been swinging over her, hanging by a rope, suspended by her wrists, slowly bleeding to death from an array of small incisions to her torso. So much blood. But she had still been conscious. She knew she was dying. She had a message.
Mary,
she had said. The voice had been soft and earnest, as if whispered by a dying angel.

Mary
. My daughter. The virgin. They know. It’s her they’re looking for.

Who knows?

The Black Order.
And those afraid of the Rule of Light will search the Earth for me. As it was in the time of Herod, it will be again. Many innocents will die.

Herod?
Who, King Herod? I don’t understand.

Mary will carry the child.
You must protect them. You must protect the child. The codeword. Shepherd with threes.

What
followed next – a spoken 32-digit string of letters and numbers that Ellis had recounted under hypnosis –had been even more baffling.  Eight sets of four characters. The shrink had copied the string onto a sheet of paper for her, but oddly, Ellis found that she had no need for it. She could recite the sequence from memory, as if she had known it all along. It was crazy. Ellis couldn’t even memorize phone numbers.

And
then last night, she had woken suddenly at 3 am with the realization. She knew what it was.
An IP address.

She had switched on her computer and typed the sequence into a web browser.  When a password prompt appeared, she had entered the codeword
Vera Borst had given her.
Shepherd with threes
. When it didn’t work, she tried a few variations. All caps, all lowercase, with and without spaces. Finally it hit her –
Sh3ph3rd
. Boom. She was in.

The resulting screen was all white except for the sign of the Chi-Rho and
two lines of simple black webtext.
The Rule of Light Begins 6-28. Check back for further instructions.

Now
Speers’ voice broke through. “You all right?” He was standing in front of her now. “You’re not taking your meds, are you?”

“I
’d like to be alone.”

“
Haley, I know this took a toll on you. And I’m very grateful for that. But if you remembered anything that might help us find her, no matter how painful…”

The words seemed to stick to the top of Ellis’ mouth.
“Mary Borst doesn’t want to be found, Julian.”

“You
do
know something, don’t you?”

“
What we all know is that she got on that plane to Rome by herself. We saw the security camera footage. I’d say that’s proof she didn’t go under duress. I think we should just pretend that she died in that fire, like we thought in the first place.”

“
Don’t tell me you actually believe she’s – ”

“
That doesn’t matter. People are going to be gunning for her. They’re going to be gunning for that child. If you bring her in, you’re just making their job easier. You won’t be able to protect them. Do you really want to be responsible for that?”

The hum of
Speers’ phone interrupted their conversation. It was a text message from Arunus Roth. He turned his back for a moment to read it:
Carver never showed at the extraction point. Please advise.

Piazza di Spagna

The hotel elevator climbed past the second floor en route to the
10
th
.  He had come in through the service entrance, avoiding the lobby altogether. Coming back here was insane, Carver knew. As a rule, he never returned to the roost after an operation was finished. Even when there didn’t appear to be survivors, he assumed they were out there, like roaches after a nuclear winter. They always wanted their pound of flesh. They wanted any semblance of payback they could get.

His phone rang.
It was Speers.

“You missed the rendezvous,”
he complained over the spotty connection. “The chopper pilot says he can’t wait any longer. Are you close?”

“You
should already know the answer to that.”

Hadn’t they
triangulated his phone location to the hotel near the Spanish Steps? And as for Nico, hadn’t they already checked the location of the RFID chip in his arm?

After all,
Nico was the only reason he had returned.

He
had not answered the room phone in nearly two hours. Nor was he answering either of the two stolen phones he had hacked into. Carver knew because he had tried them all endlessly. Fearing the worst, he had logged into the mission cloud to get a location on the chip. It was still here, within the hotel.

“
Rome police is all over the villa,” Speers said. “They’re about to shut down all the train stations, the airport, you name it. We have to get you out of the city.”

His tardiness could not be
helped. Tidying up loose ends had taken more time than Carver had imagined. He had freed Callahan so that he could personally deliver the ossuary back to the Vatican. Then he had taken Seven to the British Embassy, where a consulate physician would patch her up before she would be whisked quietly out of the country.

The mission was over. Balance was restored. Except for Nico
. What if he had made a mistake in leaving Nico unguarded again? He had been determined to get keep him alive and return him to the States to receive the pardon he deserved. Carver owed him that.

“You still there?” Speers
demanded.

“Yeah.”

“A local detective named Tesla showed up at the American consulate looking for you in connection with a double homicide. It’s getting too hot. If you can’t meet the chopper in 10 minutes, you’re on your own.”

Carver hung up as the elevator reached the 10
th
floor. Carver exited, stepping lightly as he moved down the unfamiliar hallway. He eased into the staircase, holding the door behind him to avoid any unnecessary noise. He remained motionless for several seconds, watching the shadows in the flights above him until he was confident that he was alone. Only then did he gingerly ascend to the 11
th
floor. As he approached the doorway leading to the corridor, he heard a group of revelers tramping noisily down the hall. Aussies, he figured by their accents. They were drunk.

He opened the door as
the six loud drunkards passed. Just a group of tourists, he hoped. He fell into line behind them, scanning the hallway ahead for any signs of police. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Still, he wasn’t comfortable entering the room through the front door. Too dangerous.

A floor map was posted on the wall to his left. He
stopped and studied it quickly, noting an alcove up ahead outfitted with a fire escape. He backtracked to the alcove, which was just large enough for two armchairs that enjoyed an unobstructed view of the piazza. He pried the window open.

An
earsplitting fire alarm sounded. All the better, Carver thought as he climbed out onto the ironwork. If the cops were there with Nico, they would have no choice but to take him downstairs. If it was Black Order, the sensory overload might help distract them.

It was
cool outside. A light mist was coming down, making footing difficult on the ironwork. Room balconies stretched out in a row on either side of him. If the floor map was correct, their suite was the third to his right.

He
leapt up, gripping a metal rung in the landing above him, just the way Seven had showed him. He swung back and forth until he had enough momentum to propel himself over to the adjacent balcony.

His
didn’t stick the landing. His right foot slipped out from under him. Carver fell forward, crashing into a set of French doors. Fortunately, the glass didn’t break. Looking through it, Carver saw an elderly couple scrambling about half-dressed, preparing to evacuate the building. They didn’t seem to notice him. The alarm was simply too loud.

A waist-high wall was all that separated this deck from the next room.
Carver scrambled to his feet and climbed over it. He was suddenly face-to-face with a little girl. She was inside, looking out the French doors, with her fingers stuck in her ears. Her parents were packing their bags, preparing to take every bit of luggage with them downstairs. Good thing this wasn’t a real fire.

He
smiled and waved at the girl, and then made his way over the final barrier and crouched behind a deck chair. The suite was well lit. Soccer was on the TV. Their dirty room-service plates and utensils were still on the main table and sitting area where they had left them yesterday, the result of leaving the don’t disturb sign on the door. There were no signs of booby traps that he could see.

Holding his SIG out before him, he
slipped his shoes off to be as quiet as possible, and opened the French doors. He quickly cleared the living room and kitchen. He went to the main bathroom. Wet towels were on the floor, just as they had left them. The closet was empty except for an unused ironing board and the room safe.

He moved on. The bed where
Seven had slept was unmade and still held the faint smell of perspiration and Chanel No. 5.

The first signs of danger materialized on the carpet in front of the bedroom where Nico had worked and slept. Two small reddish-brown splotches. Carver dropped to a knee and grazed the spots with his fingertips. It was dried and hardened,
scab-like.

Bad sign.

He entered the bedroom. Nico’s bed was made. Neatly. Impeccably. No sign of his computer or the phones they had taken from the dead men in the deconsecrated church. He silently dropped to his knees and checked under the bed. Nothing but dust.

The blood trail – scant as it was – led to the bathroom, which was also fully lit. As Carver rounded the final corner, he braced himself for what he might find
– Nico’s body in the bathtub, or worse. He imagined the struggle. A whack to the head. Gloved hands holding his head below hot water.

He stepped sideways slowly,
silently, until the bathroom was in full view. The shower curtain was pulled back. Save for some black body hair on the side of the tub, it was empty. The bathroom floor was also clear. There was no body. He was alone in the suite.

Carver let his shooting hand fall to his
side. He stepped closer, noting a few more small splotches on the white rug.

“Not much blood,”
he said aloud, taking comfort in the notion. More blood than he would expect from a paper cut, but certainly less than from an execution.

The fire alarm ceased its ear-shattering clamor as he entered the bathroom. He was suddenly conscious of the sound of his own heart, his
own breathing. He inhaled deeply once, then again, to calm his system.

The vanity was less tidy. Nobody had been killed here, but there was definitely enough dried blood in and around the sink to freak out the maids.

In the wastebasket, he spotted an emptied package of Band-Aids with a red travel sewing kit, no doubt delivered from room service. The handle and blade of the miniature scissors held bloody fingerprints. A tiny needle, with approximately two feet of attached thread, was coated with organic matter.

Then he saw it. S
ituated behind the 10-inch makeup mirror on the corner of the vanity, so that it was magnetized to several times its actual size.  It had been placed there on purpose, he realized. So that he wouldn’t miss it.

A
tiny, clear capsule. No larger than a grain of rice. Smooth, except for four tiny extensions jutting out of either end. Like antennae.

The RFID chip.
It looked a lot like the one he had injected into Nico’s arm.

Carver holstered his gun and called
Arunus Roth.

“I need a
bio update on Nico Gold,” Carver said.

Roth’s tone was curt.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the extraction point?”

“
Just tell me what you see.” All Carver could glean from the mission cloud was the chip’s location. Roth would be able to see Nico’s blood pressure and heart rate.

He waited a moment for Roth to return to the phone. “Judging by his pulse, I’d say he’s sleeping. What’s going on? Shouldn’t he be with you?”

Carver laughed, but not joyously. He was at once devastated and perplexed and concerned and hurt and amazed. The crazy little bastard had actually dug the chip out of his arm and sewed it back up.

How had he managed to deactivate the tentacles?
How had he managed to keep up the illusion that it was still in his body? The reading back in McLean was consistent with a still-embedded chip. In a sleeping man, no less.

“Agent Carver?” Roth
brought him back to reality. “Is everything all right?”

“
Fine.”

“
The pilot has left the extraction point. What are you going to do?”

Then Carver saw the note. It had been taped to the vanity mirror. It was handwritten. There was no salutation, and no signature. Just
a few lines scrawled on hotel notepaper:

This was fun, but I couldn’t chance a trip back to the federal pen. I’m sure you’ll understand. PS – tell yer geeks to fix the java in the admin panel. That’s where I found the vulnerability.

Carver couldn’t help but smile. Nico had freed himself the only way he knew how. He had
hacked
his way out of this. He had located a weakness in the mission cloud code, gotten in, and somehow deactivated the chip’s tentacles. And at the same time, he had created a ghost chip signature that fooled them all.

Maybe that part shouldn’t have surprised him. Nico was the best hacker he had ever seen. But digging it out of his arm? Even though it was tiny, and had been just below the skin, it wasn't
exactly a splinter.

A voice crackled in his ear.
“Agent Carver?”

“
Yeah, Roth. I’m still here.”

“Agent Carver,
I’ve got a fix on your location. There’s a helipad on the roof of the hotel. Should I see if the pilot can circle back and pick you guys up?”

His thoughts turned back to Nico.
Carver couldn’t blame him. Even if they could count on Speers’ support, going back to the U.S. still had its risks.

He had no idea how Nico was planning on getting out of Rome. But he would find a way. That much was for sure.
He was nothing if not resourceful. And a head start was the least Carver could give him. He owed him that much.

But the
idea of heading home alone darkened his mood. Days of debriefings awaited him, to say nothing of the domestic intelligence committee. He shuddered at the thought of how pissed the committee chair would be if he knew that Nico had been here in Rome with him.

Roth was
back in his ear. “Agent Carver? The helicopter – ”

“
Cut the pilot loose,” Carver finally replied.

“What? Seriously?”

“Tell Julian I’ll be in touch.”

He
hung up and popped the battery out of the phone. Then he entered the living room and sat on the white leather couch. His feet were blistered and his throat was scratchy. No telling how much dust he had inhaled in the tunnels. But he would have to ignore that. He had to stay focused. He had to save his strength.

If he could get down to the street without being spotted, he
would be fine. The city was full of hideouts. Its underground was as porous as Swiss cheese. He could lay low until things cooled down. Then he would go to Geneva. He had a safe deposit box there with a fake passport and a little emergency money. He figured he had earned a little time, and he was going to spend it. Not much. Ten days, maybe. Just enough time to get off the grid and recharge. He went out to the balcony, relishing the thought as he began his descent.