The Ragnarok Conspiracy (4 page)

“Which is?”

“If I do happen to be right, I'm the one who would understand the motives better than anyone.”

“Vengeance?”

“Yes, and more. A removal of the threat and obsessive cleansing of the world.”
Hunting the monsters. Showing no mercy.

“John, you're essentially telling me that if you are right, you'll be very right. That sort of tautology doesn't really give me much to base things on.”

“I know that, Larry.”

“Besides, even if you are right, I think our hands are tied.”

Savas looked up, his brows furrowed. “Why?”

“Jurisdiction. If this has the scope you think it does, it's way beyond FBI. In addition to the thirty or more US agencies involved broadly in criminal activities outside the country, there are the international ones.”

“Well, we'd have our part to play.”

“Yes, but to break this case, it will require access to and investigation of places and people we can't go to.”

“Well, we pound the beat we know, Larry.”

Kanter nodded. “OK, John. That's all I'm saying. Stay in your boundaries on this one. If there is something to this, you'll dig it up.” Savas watched his boss stand up and leave the room. The message was clear.

Savas felt exhausted. In the span of less than half a workday, he had run a roller coaster of emotions from his own elated certainty to the embarrassed rejection by his peers. He glanced at the presentation on
his computer, closed the laptop, and dropped it into his bag. As he left the table and walked to the door, Rebecca Cohen entered. Her eyes told him too clearly what was on her mind.

“Is this a therapy session?” he asked sharply.

“John, please. It's not like that.”

“Isn't it? I saw all your faces. I could hear it perched on their tongues:
Mad John.
Useful in a pinch, but a little too wacko at times. Wasted on his own grief and anger. Unreliable when it comes to certain topics. Ready to see in others all the things churning inside himself.” He marveled that all this spilled out to her. “Doesn't that about capture it?”

Cohen sighed and looked crestfallen. “Yes, John, it does. But I didn't come here for that.”

“Then what?”

“I came to tell you that whatever they think, whatever doubts anyone might have, we've all come too far with you not to back your play. Take it slow, John, but we're behind you.”

Savas was strangely touched. “And you're speaking for the others?”

“I'm sure I am, but it wasn't put to a vote or anything. I know I speak for me.”

Her earnest eyes burned into him, and, not for the first time, he felt them pierce through so many layers of armor and anger. It was a place that couldn't be touched. Not now. Not anymore.
Not a
f
ter Thanos.
He was shaken by it, by the
goodness
of that touch. It made him recoil all the more.

Cohen sensed his withdrawal, and her face tightened slightly as she watched his eyes.

“Thanks, Rebecca. It's good to know.” He turned quickly away from her and left the room.

Across the world in the mountains of Afghanistan, darkness had fallen, and the one called Kamir felt a chill descend. His group of mujahideen sat quietly around a small fire, several smoking, weapons at their sides. He was exhausted from a long day of drills, scrambling to keep ahead of American squads tracking them through the rough terrain. Their leader had posted guards at two positions around their camp, and three others at high and low points more distant. He grunted. They would see no Americans tonight.

His mouth formed a sneer. His group lacked any high-tech equipment—motion detectors, night vision, satellite surveillance—expensive toys used lethally by their spoiled and arrogant American hunters. Instead, they used an older set of tools: their eyes, ears, nose, and skin. Truer tools given from God, each a more finely tuned instrument than anything assembled to take their place. They learned the land; memorized its pulse, the night sounds, the scents that belonged, and those that did not. His troop remained several steps ahead of their pursuers, mocking the grand collection of technology arrayed against them.

Tonight, his senses were charged. No, they would not see the American army tonight. The last few days, a nervous tension had grown within the group. Grown within him. Normal banter had been replaced with sharp whispers, and movements were made with unusual caution. No one spoke of it. There were no reasons, no evidence of danger. Yet all felt it, a sense of encroaching violence. Kamir felt like the prey when the predator was near.

Too many training cells had disappeared. Only months ago, theirs was one of the most promising training centers, already receiving praise
from terrorist groups seeking their fighters. He was proud of the demonstrations of their prowess and the respect they had earned. Suddenly, everything had changed. Groups stopped returning from missions. At first, it was explained as American interceptions, until they became too numerous, too frequent, and often occurred in locations not patrolled by United States forces. Not once had they recovered the bodies of their slain brothers. The mystery fueled a growing superstition: of dark forces, demons, spirits sent out by the Evil One to undermine the jihad.

Today, his small training cell had slipped past a second American patrol just that morning, and the sense of threat had only grown. The Americans were not the threat. His mujahideen brothers began to mutter old nonsense from grandmothers and pagan times to ward off the evil.
Fools!
They did not even understand the words.

Kamir signaled to a haggard man stirring the fire. “Jawad, see that there is little smoke.” Jawad grunted but showed no other sign of having heard him. Kamir stood up and quickly walked over beside the fire, crouching low.

Finally Jawad spoke. “I don't like it. We have not heard from the scouts for too long. We should wake the others. Something is wrong.”

Kamir nodded and muttered a curse. He glanced anxiously around the campsite. “Not even the insects speak.”

The men around him stirred restlessly, and several rose from their pallets and fingered their machine guns. Whatever it was, whatever had been following them like a wraith, it was here now. He felt it.

A harsh cry sounded out from one end of the camp. Kamir turned his weapon toward the sound. He jumped back as a mujahideen warrior staggered into the light of the fire, his hands covered in blood, his neck sliced open. He fell suddenly into the blaze, scattering the logs and tossing sparks into the air, his dry clothing bursting into flames.

From around the campsite, muffled shots were heard, and, one by one, the trained guerrilla fighters around him fell. Kamir spun in circles, unable to identify the attackers. Next to him, Jawad cried out, having been hit simultaneously in the chest and head, and fell backward several feet to land roughly on the ground. Kamir dropped to a prone
position and scanned quickly outside the camp for a target. A blur to his right suddenly came into focus, a metallic gleam of a broad blade glinting. He turned rapidly to aim, fired wildly, but he knew he was too late. He felt an icy burn in his chest, and several gunshots thumped against his shoulders and abdomen. Momentarily, he passed out.

Opening his eyes to a fog of sound and pain, he tried to move but found himself unable to do so. He watched helplessly as several others managed to fire into the darkness, his eyes discerning only blurred shadows and motions. Each man soon fell, brought down by weapons unseen, controlled by hands unknown.

A silence fell around him, and yet he watched. A body continued to burn, now in the center of a circle of bodies, the stink of charred flesh carried on the soft breeze. His vision receding, he heard rapid shuffling sounds from the darkness, and several man-sized shapes sprinted into the camp. The fire was doused, and darkness infiltrated the area. A faint light from the stars weakly illuminated a group of active shadows that seemed to drift above the bodies, dragging the dead forms away. He felt his ankles clamped tightly.

He knew no more.

Savas struggled in a dream like a man drowning in water. It was the same nightmare. Dimly, a part of him recognized this, but his unconscious was in control and doomed him to walk through it again.

It was late September, 2001. He felt the storm rage over New York City. From above, he saw a depression, born in the Gulf, crouched over the Atlantic like an obscenely stretched octopus or some giant thumb of cloud-form pressed firmly on the eastern coast. Slowly rotating, its counterclockwise motion drew in the colder air of the north and built a storm system as cold winds mixed with the moist, warmer air from the sea. Savas's omniscient perspective contracted from the heavens to the streets below. He felt the pull in his stomach as he fell. Rain and thunder blanketed the concrete landscape of the city, and he came to rest near a small church in the Greek American enclave of Astoria.

A blue-and-white car was parked in front of the building. Inside, he saw the metallic finish of a handgun reflecting the orange streetlights at opposing angles, facets blinking underneath the rain-swept window where pouring water blurred the lighted icon of Christ on the church door. Worshippers trailed in, crossing themselves, dropping coins or bills to pick up candles, lighting them with short prayers, kissing the icons before entering. Inside, Savas knew, incense and chanting filled the air. Warmth and the damp smell of wet bodies and clothes mingled. Outside, only the incessant drumming of the rain, swallowing all other sound, blurring all images within the NYPD blue-and-white. No light shone from within. He followed a male figure as it stepped out of the official vehicle and entered the church.

As the doors opened, he saw an old woman inside, barely five feet
tall, draped in widow's black as she hunched over candles, harvesting them, pruning those that had burned too low in the supporting sand beside the icons. She turned with arthritic slowness toward the door. Its opening brought a cold blast of moist air. Savas followed the shadowy man, the soaked and disheveled outline of his police uniform hardly recognizable.

As the dream continued, Savas felt himself approach the form, merge with it, until he felt himself striding with a mad purpose, drenched and chilled in his ruined uniform. He marched past the icons and candles, stepping through the narthex onto the red carpet that ran alongside rows of parishioners. He focused on the iconostasis and the altar, gripping a wet gun in his hand.

A priest was bent over the altar, hands cupped before him. He spoke the prayers before the Eucharist in a soft drone.

Behold I approach for Divine Communion. O Creator, burn me not as I partake, for Thou art Fire which burns the unworthy. Wherefore purify me from every stain.

John Savas, dripping from the pouring rain, walked past the Royal Doors into the nave of the church. He looked neither left nor right; instead he focused intently straight ahead toward the altar and the figure of Father Timothy bent in prayer.

Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of thy Mystery to Thine enemies; I will not give Thee a kiss as did Judas; but like the Thief do I confess Thee. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.

Several heads turned in Savas's direction as he moved toward the altar. Eyes glanced up from prayer books like the wake of a boat, a flowing distraction from the climax of the liturgical service.

Tremble, O man, when you see the divine Blood, For it is a fire that burns the unworthy. The Body of God both deifies and nourishes; It deifies the spirit and nourishes the mind.

Savas passed three-quarters of the pews, walking underneath the high dome painted with the icon of Christ Pantocrator, Christ Almighty. The low prayers of the priest were increasingly disturbed by a surge of murmurs from the faithful, a slowly cresting wave of chaos drowned by the thunder rumbling outside.

Into the splendor of Thy Saints how shall I who am unworthy enter? For if I dare to enter the bridal chamber, my vesture betrays me; for it is not a wedding garment, and as an imposter I shall be cast out by the Angels. Cleanse my soul from pollution and save me, O Lord, in Thy love for men.

By the time shouts rose to warn the priest, John Savas had scaled the four steps to stand within the Sanctuary itself. Chanters and front-row worshippers who had moved forward to take action froze and slowly backed away. A gun was raised, aimed at the back of Father Timothy. The priest paused, perhaps sensing something or perhaps confused by the sudden swell and fall of noise in his church. Hands still raised in supplication, he turned slowly, his eyes at first unfocused over the many faces in the pews. Then they sharply pinpointed on the barrel of the gun not five feet in front of him.

The inside of the church was utterly still, silent, rocked softly by the receding thunder outside, lit brightly in slaps of lightning over the soft candle flames. Water dripped from the policeman's cap and began to form small pools on the white marble in front of him. Savas spoke.

“He can't have my son.”

The priest stared down into the dark tunnel of the weapon, water beading around the slick metal. His eyes began to glow a deep red, and a demonic grin spread across his face. Savas screamed, pulling the trigger repeatedly as the robed figure laughed manically before him.

Savas awoke suddenly, shaken from sleep by a crack of lightning and a deep roll of thunder.

Where am I?

A loud knock accompanied the noises from outside. His watch displayed 10 p.m. He was in his office. He had fallen asleep at his desk, the fatigue of nearly constant late evenings catching up with him. The pounding on the door continued.

He rubbed his temples as he stood up from his desk, walked over to his office door and opened it. An extremely agitated Larry Kanter burst into the room and sat down in the chair beside the desk. He was dressed in his travel clothes—gray suit and briefcase, computer bag in hand. His thinning hair was in disarray, and he sighed loudly, slightly out of breath.

“Sit down, John, please.”

Savas cautiously complied, wondering what emergency Kanter would drop on him.

“I'm off to DC a little earlier than I expected,” he said. “You want to know why, John?”

Savas merely waited for him to continue.

“Because I was foolish enough to take you seriously. Crazy enough to call up my good friends at Langley and ever so subtly raise the issue of a connection between these seemingly disparate assassinations.”

Savas felt his pulse quicken. “Yes? And they said?”

Kanter laughed. “First, they said they'd get back to me. Then my friend called back and told me to get a good lawyer. The next thing I knew, there was the head of the CTD oversight committee telling me to get my ass up to DC on a special flight chartered out of LaGuardia. Before the JTTF meeting this weekend, I'm going to get a special one-on-one with the entire Counterterrorism Task Division overlords. All because I
speculated
on your cracked idea.”

“Did you mention anything about internal hit squads?”

“
Hell
, no, John! I'm not suicidal. But I don't really need to raise the issue, anymore, do I?” Kanter paused ominously.

“What do you mean?”

“Isn't it obvious? A few minutes on the phone linking these attacks gets me hauled up for questioning. What on earth could have them that jumpy?”

“You can't believe this is a possibility, Larry,” said Savas, his smile fading quickly as Kanter remained serious. “But it's
crazy
!”

“I don't know what to think. But if there
were
assassination teams behind these killings, this is
exactly
the kind of response I would expect. That, and my upcoming reassignment to the Alaska division office.”

“Calm down, Larry. We all know this doesn't make sense. There has to be another explanation.”

“There sure as hell better be another explanation, John, or we've just opened a can of Texas-sized worms.”