CHAPTER 112
Thomas stood on the beach, feeling the sleeplessness of the night suddenly weighing on him, making him somehow heavy and light at the same time, sleepy but full of nervous energy that turned his stomach. It wasn’t just exhaustion, of course. It was also the surreal nature of the situation.
Kumi was holding his hand, a connection without romance or promise, and Jim was sitting bandaged in the sand. Ben Parks, his eye black from some previous encounter, was standing with him doing his best to look surly. Senator Devlin, dapper in a light linen suit, carried off with the air of a man incapable of looking effete, stood in front of them, smiling his practiced politician’s smile. The flying boat’s pilot stood to the side, shading his eyes, the flap of his sidearm unbuttoned, and Rod Hayes hovered formally behind like a butler, some kind of cell phone looped round his wrist. It was all oddly civilized, and Thomas had to fight a sense of embarrassment, as if the last few days had been some Lord of the Flies dream evaporating into irrelevance as normality asserted itself once more. Except, of course, that it had been no dream. The jungle was still smoking where the chopper had come down, and the meeting on the beach was being watched closely by soldiers and spies and killers.
Brad—the man they called War—was standing to his right, submachine gun cradled loosely in his hands. The woman he had known as Sister Roberta, unrecognizable now in shorts and tank top, was sitting by the torched bungalow, smoking, watching through impenetrable shades, a large automatic pistol trailing from one well-manicured hand. The two surviving soldiers, a lithe and clever-looking black man and a hardfaced guy with a shaved head who seemed to be the squad leader, stood with the sea at their backs, their weapons ready. For a long time, no one spoke.
The sun was still rising, color filtering slowly into the landscape. The sky was already blue, the sand pinkish white and the palms a vibrant green, but the sea that lapped around the lifeboat still seemed muddy.
“So,” said Devlin at last. “Time to get a few things cleared up, I think.”
Parks spat into the sand and Thomas saw that there was blood in his mouth. Everyone waited.
“I gotta be honest,” said the senator, looking directly at Thomas. “I’m not really clear why we’re here. Perhaps you can fill me in.”
“I found what my brother was looking for,” said Thomas. “The reason you killed him as you will now kill us.”
Kumi gave him a sharp look, and the two soldiers exchanged glances. Devlin only smiled and shook his head.
“Ed Knight was my friend,” he said. “We didn’t see eye to eye on some things, but I respected him. I certainly didn’t kill him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t pull the trigger or toss the grenade or whatever it was,” said Thomas, “but you killed him sure enough. You didn’t see eye to eye with him? Isn’t that something of an understatement?”
“I don’t think so,” said Devlin.
“But you didn’t want him on the school board, did you?” said Thomas. “You thought he’d be in your corner, being a priest and all. And then you started finding out what he really thought . . .”
“The evolution thing?” said Devlin. “Yes, I admit I was surprised. Even disappointed, and you’re right that that was why I didn’t put him on the school board. It wasn’t about that issue per se. That subject is dead, at least for now. But I didn’t want him sideswiping me on other issues down the line. So we agreed to disagree and I removed his nomination from the school board.”
Parks snorted. “You’re all the same,” he said. “Liars and fools.”
One of the soldiers tensed, his weapon shifting, but Devlin gave him a look and he stood down.
“You think you can change my mind by talking?” said Thomas, genuinely surprised. “After all this?”
Devlin shrugged. “What else am I going to do, Thomas?”
Hayes stepped forward and muttered into Devlin’s ear, checking his watch as he did so, but Devlin shook his head and waved him away. Hayes stepped back and looked at the ground.
“I told you before,” Devlin said to Thomas, “that I didn’t believe your brother was a terrorist and I still think that. I still believe that you aren’t a terrorist either, but this is a strange place for a U.S. citizen to be. I happen to know that the CIA has a secret airbase not two hundred miles from here that they use for antiterrorist surveillance. Strange place to find a Chicago high school teacher, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not all terrorists are foreigners,” said Parks. “We grow a pretty good variety right in the good old U.S. of A.”
“And where would they be?” said Devlin, smiling indulgently.
Thomas nodded to the soldiers on either side of them.
“Right here,” he said. “You’re looking at them.”
“These are counterterrorist agents,” said Devlin, “yes?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” barked the black man.
“And those two?” said Thomas, gesturing in the direction of War and the woman.
Devlin looked to Hayes.
“Also counterterrorism agents,” said Hayes. “Undercover operatives.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Thomas, suddenly irritated. “They’re killers, plain and simple, and have followed me across the damn world. Now can we cut the pretense? I’m tired and I don’t want to listen to any more crap. Take us to our boat, or finish us off here.”
There was another long pause and Devlin’s face tightened, though whether with decision or confusion Thomas couldn’t say. It took a moment to realize that he was staring past Thomas to the ocean, his eyes focused, and when he spoke it was slowly and with baffled alarm.
“Why is the water red?” he said.
Thomas turned and saw that he was right. The sea, which had been cloudy last night before the sun went down and had looked odd at dawn, was—now that the sun was properly up—clearly red, a vibrant scarlet that pinked at the shore and darkened to the rusty color of old blood as it deepened.
Parks had gotten to his feet.
“They’ll come ashore,” he said, breathless with the realization.
“What will?” said Devlin.
Once more Hayes stepped up out of the background, whispering and tapping his watch still more urgently, and once more Devlin waved him away.
“The fish,” said Thomas, watching Devlin carefully. “The ones my brother was looking for. The fish with legs like the fossils found in Alaska. The missing link.”
Devlin stared. “He found it?” he said.
“You know he found it!” Parks shouted. “That’s why you and your right-wing goons killed him. That’s why you are going to kill us.”
But Devlin looked utterly confused. He kept looking to those around him, whether they were speaking or not, and his gaze kept straying back to the red water lapping on the sand.
“Sir,” said Hayes. “I think we have to leave this matter to counterterrorism. We need to be getting back.”
“No,” said Devlin. “Something about this isn’t right.”
Thomas considered the big old man’s thoughtful, anxious eyes, and at last, he knew. He looked at Hayes, and suddenly he saw it, the last pieces of the mosaic clicking into place so that the picture shifted one last time and he knew.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” he said. “You are the one who’s been pulling the strings from the start. The trust-fund Republican. A bit holier-than-thou, you said, senator, right?”
Devlin had turned slowly to face Hayes, his expression uncertain, expectant.
“Sir,” said Hayes, ignoring Thomas. “We really need to go.”
“Why?” said Thomas, defiant and genuinely curious, though it was a curiosity touched with dread. “What is going to happen?”
The tension of the moment was broken by a phone ringing. The pilot of the flying boat took out what looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie and spoke into it. The answering voice boomed and crackled but was too indistinct for Thomas to catch the words.
“Say again?” said the pilot.
The voice boomed back and the pilot’s face fell.
“When? . . . This is nuts. Can’t it be stopped?”
Again the staticky response, urgent, even shrill.
“Hold on,” said the pilot. He lowered the handset and turned to the senator. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m getting a report of an incoming CIA strike on our present location. A missile-equipped aircraft is in the air. It has our present coordinates.”
“Tell them to recall it,” said Devlin, something of the confusion slipping away as he took control.
“Negative, sir,” said the pilot. “The aircraft is a pilotless drone. It has been programmed to attack us here and the system hacked so that it cannot be recalled.”
“How many?” said Hayes.
“There were four,” said the pilot. “They were supposed to be on recon, but have been programmed to come here. One was destroyed on the ground, another two shot down by an F-18, but the first was too far ahead. They can’t stop it.”
“Let me speak to them,” he demanded, reaching for the handset. As the pilot extended it toward him, Hayes snatched it, reached back, and flung it as far as he could into the crimson waves.
“What the hell . . . ?” exclaimed the pilot.
Hayes looked momentarily down at his own phone, pushed a button, and then, while everyone watched, snatched the pistol from the holster under his jacket. He shot the pilot twice in the chest and the man fell like a stone.
“Rod?” Devlin gasped, staring at his private secretary with horror.
Thomas stepped forward, but War and the woman were already moving in, guns raised. The two special forces troops looked panicked and unsure.
“Sir?” said the team leader, looking from Devlin to War.
“You’re with me,” said War, striding in, submachine gun level. “Pestilence! Over here.”
Pestilence? thought Thomas.
“What is this?” said Devlin, still staring at Hayes. “What did you do?”
“None of your concern, sir,” said Hayes. “Just do as you’re told and you can walk away from this.”
“Rod,” said Devlin, “what are you doing? Is he right?” he said, nodding toward Thomas. “Is this about the fish?”
For a second Hayes just glanced at the ocean, and then he spoke softly with something like sadness.
“Faith is weak,” said Hayes. “It has to be protected.”
“From the truth?” said Devlin.
Kumi looked at Thomas, and he knew she felt as he did, out of it, forgotten.
“It would only confuse people,” said Hayes. “And in that confusion would countless souls be lost.”
“But murder for a Christian cause?” said Devlin, incredulous. “How could you think that was acceptable?”
“Sometimes the ends justify . . .”
“Are you crazy?” Devlin cut in. “All this intrigue and bloodshed over whether or not the Jesus fish on your bumper sticker has legs? This is insane. Blasphemous.”
“The blasphemy is that scientists are given more credence than the Word of God!” Hayes exclaimed, his composure melting fast. “ ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ ” he exclaimed suddenly, intoning the words like a prophet. “ ‘And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.’ ”
There was a moment of silence. War’s eyes were wide and bright. Pestilence smirked. Parks gaped with disdain. Everyone else looked uncertain, rattled by Hayes’s conviction.
“That’s the way it was, is, and will be,” Hayes concluded. “No debate, no analysis, no literary criticism, no historical contextualization, except for the damned. The Word of the Lord is Truth and there shall be no second-guessing of it.”
He smiled at their shocked silence and, with the toe of his polished wingtip, drew the two interlocking waves of the ikthus symbol in the sand at his feet. Everyone stared at it.
“I am the Seal-breaker,” he said, “And this is the only fish we need to talk about.”
“No,” said Devlin, and his earlier confusion was quite gone now. The situation was clear to him and he had chosen his side. “Now, I can lend you some protection, but this will all have to come out. Put down the gun, Rod. This ends here.”
There was a stillness, a moment of decision.
“Very well,” said Hayes. He nodded to War, a small, almost casual gesture.
War’s weapon coughed twice and the senator fell into the sand, clutching his chest.
There was a horrified pause, and Kumi put her hands to her face in horror and desolation. Hayes saw her and shook his head.
“Sometimes even the faithful make bad choices,” he remarked.
No one really heard, because the lean, black soldier had swung his weapon round and pointed it into War’s face.
“Sir!” he yelled. “Drop your weapon! Drop it or I will fire.”
War, his smoking gun still trained on the fallen senator, hesitated.
“I am your commanding officer, Edwards,” said War.
“No, sir, I don’t believe you are,” said the soldier. “This is not an antiterrorist operation. I believe we have been misled, sir.”
“Your job is to follow orders, Edwards,” said Hayes, “not to question them.”
“I don’t believe you have a part in the legitimate chain of command, sir,” said Edwards, still staring down the barrel of his weapon at War, gripping it so that the muscles of his arms flexed and tautened and sweat broke out on his face. “You are a civilian,” he said to Hayes, his eyes still on War, “and have no authority here.”
“Edwards?” said War carefully. “Lower your weapon.”
“Sir, no, sir,” said Edwards. “This is not a counterterrorist operation.” Then, his voice lower, and his gaze flitting from War to the team leader, who had been watching in tense silence, he added. “Did you know? Sir? Did you know?”
The soldier hesitated, his hard face and harder eyes giving nothing away.
“You did,” said Edwards. “You said this was counterterrorist Black Ops. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even national security. So what was it?”
“Hey,” said the team leader, a crooked smiling snapping across his face. “We all have a living to make.”
And then the gunfire started.
Thomas dropped to the sand, pulling Kumi down with him. The team leader went down first, hit twice in the head, but as Edwards brought his weapon around to War, he seemed to sag and his face aged suddenly, freezing in position for a moment before he fell face first into the sand. Behind him, Pestilence, the woman Thomas knew as Roberta, was on one knee, her pistol smoking. Then Parks was snatching the diver’s knife from Thomas’s belt and lunging at her with a roar of fury.
War aimed at Parks and Thomas swung one foot around, cutting his legs from under him. He fell as his machine gun rattled a handful of slugs wildly into the air and Thomas pounced, grabbing madly at the hot metal of the gun, fighting him for control.
For the next ten seconds Thomas knew only a haze of desperate fury and the sure knowledge that he would be dead in a matter of moments, as somehow he rolled onto his back with War on top of him. He heard Roberta scream with pain and anger, he heard more gunfire, and then the man who called himself War, the man who had tailed him from Naples and shot at him in Bari, had his gun across his throat. War pushed with both hands and Thomas felt his breath tightening to nothing. War and Pestilence. The absurdity of this hired thug masquerading as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, the sheer, unironic, pompous stupidity of the thing filled him with a sudden rage that had been building since he first heard that his brother was dead. He kicked and punched and clawed with an animal fury, but War held on.
Thomas never saw Kumi’s approach, and War realized she was there only a second before the kick. He turned into it and her foot broke his nose, snapping his head back and allowing Thomas to thrust him off, machine gun in hand. He rolled into a crouch and took a second to assess the situation.
Roberta lay face up in the sand, Parks’s knife sticking out of her chest, her eyes open but sightless. Parks was slumped across her, two bullet holes in his back. War was down and holding his face, Devlin and the two soldiers were already dead, Jim was probably dying. Only Kumi and Hayes were still standing, and he had her in the sights of his revolver. She hadn’t seen him . . .
“Stop!” shouted Thomas. “Kumi!”
She turned impossibly slowly and her eyes widened at the sight of the gun’s dark eye, but Hayes didn’t shoot.
“Kick the gun over to me,” he said.
Thomas did so. Hayes picked it up without taking his eyes—or his gun—off Kumi. For a long moment, nothing happened. After the gunfire, the shouting, the fierceness of the struggle, it felt like being thrust into a vacuum.
“Okay,” said Hayes, “now we wait patiently.”
“For what?” said Thomas, his breath still coming in urgent gasps, his nerves singing with adrenaline despite the stillness.
“For the Wrath of God,” said Hayes with a quick smile. “That’s the name of the aircraft. A wonderful thing, technology.”
“Hold it,” said War, looking up, his face blood streaked. “We wait? Why don’t we just take the plane and go? Leave them here.”
“Come on now, Steve.” Hayes smiled at War. “You know better than that. This was never going to be a round-trip mission. You ensured that by failing to get them before they left Japan. The moment we all had to come here was the moment it became clear that none of us would leave.”
“Steve,” said Thomas, liking the smallness of the name, the ordinariness. “The rider on the red horse is called Steve. That’s great.”
“That’s all you people have to offer, isn’t it?” said Hayes. “Irony. Relativism. An anchorless moral universe without God or principle.”
“How is silencing the truth and killing those who disagree with you principle?” said Thomas. Kumi gave him a warning look but it didn’t matter. They were all going to die anyway. He would not die in silence.
“How convenient it must be,” said Thomas, “to always assume you have the moral high ground. You’re a terrorist, Hayes, you know that? Nothing more. And as with most terrorists, I’ll put my morality over yours any day.”
“Faith must be protected,” said Hayes. “Faith is all.”
“No,” said Jim. His voice was low, struggling. “Love is all. Without that you are just . . .”
“A gong booming or a cymbal crashing?” said Hayes, bitterly amused, training his weapon on the priest. “You people have nothing to offer.” He looked hard at Thomas. “You believe in nothing so you have no strength to stand against those who do.”
“Sir,” said War, insistent, “I still think we can get out of here. I mean, I have a family, a son . . .”
Hayes aimed and fired once. The bullet went through the other man’s head just above the right eye. War, or Brad, or— most pathetically perhaps—Steve, was dead before his body hit the ground.
“I thought you were with me all the way,” said Hayes to the corpse. “I have no room for the self-interested.”
“You’re a crusader,” said Jim quietly.
“That’s right,” said Hayes. “I am.”
“Some sort of history lesson seems in order,” said Jim, with a wry smile. “The Crusades were, after all, exercises in military barbarism and their goals had no place in religion.”
“More watered-down relativism masquerading as Christianity,” said Hayes with abject scorn. “You are as bad as Knight was.”
“Thank you,” said Jim, wearily. “Ed lived for truth and justice. I’m honored to be compared to him. So, you want to tell us about this plane that is going to take us all off to the fires of Hell reserved for liberals and relativists?”
Hayes blinked, apparently confused by Jim’s composure, and then his former smile returned.
“See this?” he said, raising his left hand and showing the phonelike device dangling from his wrist. “It’s a GPS navigation system that the drone uses as a targeting beacon. But here’s the neat part. It’s attached to a pulse monitor. If the drone loses my pulse, the Wrath of God is programmed to relock on the coordinates of your boat over there. How many crew are still on board? Twenty? More? I would have gotten them all if all four aircraft had made it, but someone has obviously meddled and now my one strike aircraft will have to make a choice of target. It’s unfortunate, but one is more than enough.”
Kumi shifted, her eyes lowered.
“So if I die before the Wrath of God arrives,” Hayes continued, “so do the crew of the Nara. It’s a moot point, of course, but I thought I’d mention it in case you had any more tricks up your sleeve. I have to say, you’ve been most tiresome, but it’s nice to know that you’ll die before me. Now, who first?”
And so saying, he holstered the pistol and swung the machine gun around to fire.