The Iscariot Agenda (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Baltimore
, Maryland

“Who stands to lose the most by our presence?” asked Jeff.

“After twenty years, who would care?” said Stan.

“Exactly.”

Kimball remained silent, obviously musing.

Jeff watched him with a keen eye, then, “Any ideas, Kimball? Any ideas at all?”

Kimball leaned forward, his eyes focusing to an imaginary point on the opposite wall. “Let’s begin with the obvious,” he started. “We know that it has to be somebody involved with the knowledge of the Pieces of Eight, right?”

“OK.”

“And those with knowledge of the Pieces of Eight were basically whom?”

Jeff nodded his head in agreement. “The highest political factions,” he answered.

“And the Joint Chiefs,” added Stan.

“True. But the role of the Joint Chiefs was strictly to inform us of our targets in foreign locales. Engagement was only approved by the political brass.”

Jeff added, “So it wouldn’t make sense for anybody from the JCOS to get involved in this. Their job was strictly to identify insurgent forces and assess whether or not such targets posed a threat to the sovereignty or safety of the United States.”

“And how to act was basically the decision of the Commander in Chief,” said Kimball.

“But why now?” asked Stan. “Why twenty years later?”

Kimball raised a finger for emphasis. “Now we get into the Who, What, Where, Why and How of things,” he said.  “We all know that the Ford administration banned the CIA to commit assassinations against foreign targets abroad. But that didn’t stop ensuing presidents to engage in covert operations. Remember, people, espionage is espionage; it’s not child’s play. That’s why they created the Force Elite and groups such as the Pieces of Eight. Guy’s like us kept the world in check without the backlash from the court of public opinion, if things didn’t go well.”

“So what you’re saying,” began Jeff, “if I’m reading you correctly, is that you believe George Herbert is involved in this?”

“All I’m saying is that Bush was the main player who signed off on every mission we performed, all of them. I’m simply trying to look at this from a logical point of view. But logic doesn’t seem to be fitting in any of the scenarios I’m running through my head right now. But maybe if we come up with the ‘why’ of things, then maybe pieces will start to come together.”

Now Stan piped in. “Yeah, but why not do this ten years ago? Fifteen years ago? Why now?”

“Good question. So the new question would be: Why are we a threat now and not ten or fifteen years ago as Stan just stated? Why would George Herbert be afraid of us all of a sudden? What has he to lose, if anything, right now?”

“I think you’re reaching,” said Jeff. “George Herbert has nothing to fear from us.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But there was one event he signed off on with extreme reluctance, do you remember?”

Jeff nodded, slowly at first, the memory coming to the fore. “A close ally of the president informed him that Senator Cartwright was blackmailing others within the Senate to argue points of his support against the president, or he would ruin their careers by making public information regarding unscrupulous backgrounds. Cartwright became a pariah who promised to take down leading people in the Bush administration including Bush himself with the material he gathered against certain alliances. Cartwright was strong-arming decisions that shouldn’t have been made from those in the Senate due to his blackmailing techniques, and was about to be investigated for inappropriate activity.”

“But it would have opened up an entire can of worms, so to speak.”

“That’s right. And do you remember what happened next?”

Kimball nodded. It was all too clear. “Senator Shore proposed in closed quarters with the president that Senator Cartwright was too dangerous and needed to be taken out of the equation. You eliminate the source of the problem, and then the problem goes away. It has always been the solution since the beginning of time.”

“True. However, it was the first proposition made by rulers of our government to take out a political giant within our own ruling body. Senator Shore spearheaded the motion to get it done, remember? Bush was dead set against it. And it’s never been confirmed that he actually signed the paperwork to initiate the attack against Cartwright. He was CIA, so he had to weigh his options first until he could see no other way to rectify the situation. But he may not have had anything to do with it. If you remember, it was Senator Shore who sent us to rectify the situation. Not Bush. And nobody knows that better than you, Kimball, since you were the one to run the blade across Cartwright’s throat on Shore’s demand.”

Kimball had an instant flash of recall, the driving of the blade across the old man’s flesh, the way his lungs naturally coughed up the blood in gag reflex, and the way the senator slumped against his desk and died as the staccato flashes of lightning filled the room.

Yeah, I remember
.

“Things like that happen in third-world countries, not in the United States,” Jeff added. “If something like that ever resurfaced—”

“It would be emphatically denied,” Kimball interrupted testily.

“Maybe not,” said Stan. “The killer was never found. It makes for good fodder.”

“You’ve forgotten one thing.”

“Yeah. And what’s that?”

“You brought it up yourself. Why now? Why not ten or fifteen years ago? Why not when it happened?”

Stan conceded.

“Because Bush has nothing to do with it,” said Jeff. “And you’re right, it would be great fodder. Bush has nothing to lose. But . . .” He let his words trail, the corners of his lips edging upward.

 “OK?” Kimball said it in a way for Jeff to lead on.

“OK, but . . . Senator Shore has everything to lose. Think about it. I think those pieces are starting to come together, Kimball.”

And he was right. The Senator had recently won the primaries and was positioning himself for a run at the White House seat. In fact, his ratings held a double-digit lead above the incumbent.

“The only thing that stands in his way is his past, which we are a part of. If the nation knew he was directly responsible for sanctioning a hit on a US senator, his career, if not a lot more, is gone.”

“So now you think he’s cleaning up the mess, just in case?”

“Think about it: Only a handful of men outside the JCOS knew we existed. But only one man fought hard for the eradication of Senator John Cartwright. Senator Shore lobbied and conspired to have that man murdered, a leading senator no less.”

Kimball looked at a photo of the senator. Although Senator Shore had aged over the past twenty years he was still youthful in appearance, his once raven hair having gone silver gave him a distinguished appearance. But Jeff was right, the man conspired and led the charge for Cartwright’s dispatching from the senatorial ranks and won. It was the only time that a US government official was assassinated by the hand of his political constituency.

“But Shore thinks I’m dead,” said Kimball.

“Not anymore. Not if what you told me was true about the assassin having the chance to kill you at Ghost’s ranch, but didn’t. Don’t you think he alerted Shore by now?”

Kimball fell back in his chair, thinking. Sure, everything sounded plausible, but that was about it. Plausibility wasn’t actually palpability. It was simply theory.

“You know what I think,” said Stan. “I think we need to set the senator straight, see what’s on his mind.” His lips curled with impish amusement and Jeff followed like the second pea in the pod, his smile mirroring his brother’s.

“You know something, kin, you might just be right.”

Great
! “You expect to walk right into a senator’s residence and have a chat, is that it?” asked Kimball.

Jeff steadied a hard glare. “I’m sorry, but would you rather we wait here for his goon to walk in and put a bullet in our heads?”

“We’re just speculating,” he returned.

“Whatever we come up with is just speculation. We need to act and find out.”

“I agree,” said Stanley.

Kimball hesitated. How he wished the Vatican Knights were here, he thought. Working with the Hardwick brothers was always spontaneous and chaotic. You never knew what was going to happen, no matter how much you planned for the perfect outcome.

“Well?” asked Jeff.

“You know where he resides?”

“The guy lives in a half-million dollar estate a few miles north of D.C.”

“He’ll most likely have security, you know.”

“Of course he will. That just makes it all that much more fun.”

“And no killing.”

Jeff clicked his tongue. “Jesus, Kimball, you take the fun out of everything, you know that? What’s the matter? That collar getting to you?”

“Or maybe you lost your nads or something?” Stanley added.

But Kimball remained adamant. “I said . . .
no
. . . killing.”

Jeff got up from his chair. “Yeah. Right. Whatever . . . Are you hitching with us or not?”

Kimball stood to his full height, towering over the Hardwick brothers. “Let’s move,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

25 Miles North of Washington, D.C.

The ride to the D.C. suburb was a quiet one for the Hardwick brothers and Kimball Hayden. Hardly a word was exchanged between them as they drove in a muscle pickup truck. Kimball was sitting in the backseat of the crew cab, breaking down and reexamining his firearm, a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson with a suppressor that was as long as the weapon’s barrel.

Like the Hardwick’s, Kimball dressed in a black tactical jumpsuit with cargo pockets, duty belt and military issue footwear. The cleric collar was missing. In the breast pocket of his shirt was a flat can of black shoe polish. Before they breached the site it was determined that they would go in black face.

 When they reached Senator Shore’s estate they parked the vehicle approximately 200 yards away. Not too close, but not too far, either. Just in case things didn’t pan out.

Slowly, carefully, with their heads on a swivel, they used the shadows as camouflage as they made their way to Shore’s property on the hill. From their point they could see the six-foot- high perimeter wall with ornamental spiking running its length. The grounds were perfectly kept and the shrubs neatly pruned. The house was a magnificent two-story Colonial featuring columns and decorative fascias. Capes of roses hung from trellises. And immovable shutters surrounded windows with bullet-shaped arches. The bedroom, they knew, would be in the rear overlooking the pool.

Mounting the wall had been easy, the height hardly a deterrent. And the row of privet bushes in the center of the grounds provided a wonderful cover as they hunkered down behind them, the target of Senator Shore within striking distance.

“There should be at least three security officials from Capitol Police acting as Shore’s security detail,” Kimball whispered. “They won’t be easy targets. But we’ve been here before. So I’ll reiterate what I said before: no killing.”

Jeff snickered, his lips drawing into a smirk. “We do what we do to achieve the means. These guys aren’t exactly going to let us walk right into the senator’s bedroom.”

“They will if they don’t see us.”

“And if they do see us?”

When they were warriors of the Pieces of Eight there was only one answer:
Remove the opposition without prejudice, so as not to compromise the mission
. That had always been the rule of engagement. And some things just don’t change.

“The Pieces of Eight are never seen until the moment of contact with the prime target. We’re never to be seen by secondary units and that’s what we were always about, Jeff. Stealth. Are you telling me you lost your edge?”

Jeff appeared insulted, the muscles in the back of his jaw working. “I haven’t lost a thing,” he returned. “I’m just saying that sometimes the possibility of engagement can’t be helped, even with secondary units.”

“I’ll tell you something right now,” added Stan, silently drawing back the slide of his firearm and charging his weapon. “If Shore’s detail gets in the way, then I will engage them in a manner I see fit to see that the mission succeeds. And that, Kimball, is the bottom line. It’s all about the mission. Not about some moral crisis you happen to be going through.” He held the Glock up, the suppressor giving the gun’s barrel extraordinary length.

“We didn’t come here to murder. We came here to gather information. We’re not even sure he’s behind any of this.”

“Are you kidding?” said Stan. Then: “Tell me something? Weren’t you just in the cab of my truck for the past half hour breaking down your weapon to make sure it was in working order?”

“Listen. I see my weapon as a last resort. You and your brother have always been in the mindset of kill first and ask questions later.”

Jeff couldn’t help the smile. “Now tell me, is there any better mechanism of defense other than to kill your enemy before they get a chance to kill you?”

“That’s the point. They’re not our enemies. They’re people doing their job and earning a paycheck.”

Jeff then fed a bullet into the chamber of his weapon by drawing the slide back. “Then they should have worked safer jobs.”

“No . . . killing.”

“What . . . ever.”

They moved to the end of the privet hedges until they had a full view of the estate.

“I don’t see anybody,” whispered Stan.

“They’re around . . . Somewhere.”

Kimball moved forward. “Stay close to the hedges. I’ll maintain point; Jeff, you watch the periphery; and, Stan, you keep an eye on the rear flank.”

“Who in the hell died and made you boss?” queried Jeff.

Kimball turned on him with the same bearing and intensity he once held as a member of the Pieces of Eight—that look of murderous fortitude. “Look. I didn’t come here to argue. So do you want point? Or do you want the periphery position? I don’t care.”

Jeff noted the fire in the warrior’s eyes. It was the same vicious ferocity Kimball held moments before making a kill. And Jeff realized that he was the current object of his focus. “No, you’re good,” he told him, his tone less brash, less cocky. “You can take lead.”

Kimball met his eyes a little bit longer before breaking off. And then he moved toward the house with the Hardwick brothers in tow.

#

A plain clothed
Capitol police officer was making a round of the grounds. Cradled within his arms was a TAR-21 mini assault rifle with holographic view and NV scope. The man, however, moved with all the ease of taking a leisurely stroll, a telltale sign of complacency. When the officer rounded the corner of the house, Kimball and company moved quickly and took position beneath a semi-round balcony that overlooked the swimming pool. To the sides of the balcony stood trellises covered with roses that were thick and lush and blood red. And the balcony doors stood open, allowing for a crisp, midnight breeze to circulate the air of the senator’s bedroom.

Kimball raised a fisted hand in the air, and then pointed a finger to the balcony’s landing. The brothers acknowledged his gesture, holstered their weapons, and quietly climbed the trellises while Kimball maintained his position on a bended knee and kept watch, the point of his firearm held out in front of him, scanning.   

When the brothers quietly hit the landing they motioned for Kimball to follow, with Stan watching his back by monitoring the grounds from above.

Quietly, Kimball scaled the trellis. His movements were silent, stealthy, the man bearing incredible athletic economy as he mounted the balcony rails and took footing.

The doors were open, the scrim-like drapes floating with the course of a slight breeze, the gossamer fabric moving with phantasmagoric grace. Inside, the room was dark.

For a brief moment the men stood silhouetted in the balcony’s doorway, the light of the pool serving as the backdrop.

And then, in unison, they moved into the room and became a part of the darkness.

#

They closed the
doors softly behind them, all spreading out, the points of their weapons directed to the bed. Stan went to the left side, Jeff to the right, and Kimball stood at the foot of the bed.

Senator Shore lay beside his wife, both beneath a single blanket that was being worked into a wild tangle by their shifting legs.

The senator lay on the left side of the bed slack-jawed, his limbs contorted in such a way it seemed impossible to be a position of comfort. 

Carefully, Stan hunkered over the senator, his lips inches away from the senator’s ear. “Wake up, Sunshine,” he whispered.

The senator didn’t move.

“Come on, Sunshine, wakey-wakey.” Stanley reached out with the tip of his middle finger and flicked the lobe of the senator’s ear.

The senator snorted in surprise, his eyes fluttering, then opening, his jaw closing with the snap of a bear trap. And then his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, his brain registering certain shapes and forms of things that did not belong.

Looking down, Stan smiled with malicious amusement. “How’re you doing, Sunshine?”

But before the senator could react or respond, Stanley Hardwick clamped a gloved hand over the senator’s mouth.

“Now listen to me,” he whispered. “And listen well. You make a noise, you’re dead. Do anything stupid, you’re dead. Understand?”

The senator nodded.

“And that goes for your wife, too.”

The senator’s wife, however, remained dead asleep.

“Now I’m going to take my hand away. And when I do, you will answer our questions accordingly. Is that understood?”

The senator’s eyes moved in their sockets, scanning. There was a large man standing by the foot of the bed and another standing over his wife, the point of his firearm aimed at her skull.

Then again, from Stanley, and in the same measured whisper: “Is that understood?”

The senator nodded once again, the gesture telling Stanley he had no doubt about his mortality should he disregard the intruder’s wishes.

“Good boy.” Stanley removed his hand while directing the mouth of the pistol’s barrel at the senator’s head with the other.

Defensively, the senator began to draw the blanket toward the point of his chin, a weak barrier against a bullet. “What do you want?” he asked.

The level of his voice caused his wife to stir. He was not whispering.

“We just want to ask a few questions,” said Kimball, who stepped closer to the foot of the bed. “And then we’ll be on our way.”

From what the senator could see, the large man was not aiming or bearing a weapon like the other two. But there was something about his features, the angle of his jaw line, the breadth and width of his shoulders, the tone of his voice. This particular man reminded him of an old-time warrior he once knew nearly two decades before—a man whose empty coffin was buried as an honorary gesture by the Pentagon brass at Arlington.

“Do you remember me?” asked the large man.

The senator searched his memory further. “Should I?”

Kimball leaned forward, no longer leaving any doubt in the senator’s mind.

The senator’s eyes flared to the size of an owl’s, the sudden realization as palpable as a slap in the face. “You’re dead.”

“People keep telling me that. But apparently I’m not.”

The senator’s wife began to raise her head, slowly, suddenly realizing the voice was not her husband’s. When she looked up and saw Jeff proffering her a wink, she attempted to scream. But Jeff quickly nullified that by placing hand over her mouth. In an act of self-preservation she began to beat his arms with open hands. But when she saw him calmly raise his firearm and felt the tip of the suppressor planted against her forehead, she quickly stilled.

“Calm down,” he told her. “Or I put your pretty little brains all over this expensive silk you’re lying on.”

“Remember what I said,” reminded Kimball.
No killing
.

“Just get on with it.”

The senator sat up so that his back was square against the headboard. “Kimball Hayden,” he said, his voice sounded awed, the surprise genuine. “You were supposed to have been killed in Iraq.”

“Only he ran away from the mission like a spineless coward,” said Stanley. “Isn’t that right, Kimball? Tell him how you ran away from the mission like a spineless coward.”

Kimball refused to respond.

Jeff, however, snickered in amusement.

Suddenly a visual of stereotypical inbreds flashed in Kimball’s mind: the brothers no doubt poster children as descendents from the backwoods. How much he hated them.

Kimball took a seat opposite the bed. The Hardwick brothers maintained their positions with guns in hand, the mouths of the suppressors inches away from the temples of their quarry, that of the senator and his wife.

The senator looked into the mouth of the barrel and could feel the power of the weapon. And then he looked Stanley in the eye, once again recalling the man and the wickedness of his personality. “Jeffrey Hardwick,” he said.

“Actually I’m Stan. Jeff’s the one holding the gun to your wife’s head.”

Jeff smiled and waved his weapon the same way a friend would greet a close associate because he was happy to see them. But the action was committed simply out of cruel enjoyment.

“Why are you here?” asked the senator. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you killing off the Pieces of Eight?” asked Jeff.

The senator gave him a questioning look.

“I’m not killing anyone,” he stated. “You people are nothing but a dark part of my history that I just want to forget.”

“Exactly,” said Jeff. “And what better way to do this other than by assassination?”

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Stan pulled out a folded photograph, a copy, from one of his cargo pockets and tossed it to the senator. “Open it,” he said.

The senator’s hands shook as he picked up the photo and peeled it open. It was a print of the old unit, the Pieces of Eight, posing when they were in their prime. There was Walker and Arruti, faces he never wanted to see again, Kimball and that crazy drunken Irishman. What was his name? And of course there was Grenier and Hawk and the Hardwicks. They were young and brash and full of the piss and vinegar of true warriors who romanced thoughts that they were the meanest bastards to ever walk the planet. The thing was, they were and they knew it.  

The senator examined the photo, the memories of when he was a part of the presidential circle flooding back. He could recall with cloudless detail the moments he conferred with the president regarding missions as to who was to live or die, or where to send them in order to kill for the good of all nations by preserving and justifying our nation’s right to operate not only as the policeman of the world, but as judge, jury and executioner, as well. The Pieces of Eight had served them admirably.

Scrutinizing the photo with what could have been construed as scientific examination, the senator became aware of the faces circled in red marker and the letters within: I-S-C-A-R. And then he traced a finger over their images with a soft touch.

“That’s right,” said Stan. “They’re all gone, you son of a bitch.”