Overlord (73 page)

He slowly made his way to the car that was hidden behind the old shack. He looked back once more at the eight bodies that lay there as the hot desert wind started to pick up. His red hair blew into his eyes as he saw the carnage not as a disturbing scene, but as a man would look at a broken dish he had dropped in his kitchen. He knew now he would have to run.

Hiram Vickers had one last hope and that was to blackmail Camden and Peachtree. After all, he had been under orders to secure the asset known as Magic.

*   *   *

As the red taillights of his car vanished in the distant desert night, another Black Hawk came low over the desert scrub. The pilot took the large helicopter to two hundred feet as he looked on in shocked silence at the scene below. He switched on his powerful searchlight and scanned the area below. His heart sank when his mind took in the carnage.

Dr. Virginia Pollock, tired and weary from her flight from the east, saw the scene in slow-motion detail as the searchlight played over the fallen. Her head slowly slid against the glass and a loud moan escaped her lips.

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The president was wheeled into the Oval Office by the first lady. Four Secret Service agents flanked them as the commander-in-chief saw the man stand from the couch he had been sitting in. Before the door closed, General Maxwell Caulfield entered and was followed by the reaffirmed director of the FBI and the newly reinstalled director of the CIA, Harlan Easterbrook.

The president reached out a hand and touched his wife’s as he neared the window that looked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. He swallowed and pulled back the lace curtain and took in the view. Gone were the thousands of protesters that had lined the avenue. Being packed up and crated were the many missile batteries that had not only covered the White House grounds, but the entire city. Gone also was the innocence of the nation, along with that of the entire world. Not one person living could ever have that sense of security again. It had been ten days since the battle for Earth and they had lost too many of their own and others. The entire planet was in mourning over the death and destruction.

Speaker of the House Giles Camden watched the president as he allowed the curtain to fall back into place. The small man adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and sternly looked on as the broken and wounded man was turned in his wheelchair by the first lady to take his rightful place behind the Lincoln desk.

The other men in the room flanked the desk and looked at the former acting president.

“Your friend and ally, Mr. Peachtree, is nowhere to be found,” the president started saying. “The FBI says he’s somewhere in Panama, but they suspect he will try to eventually make his way to a nonextradition nation.”

Camden remained standing and silent as he eyed his most hated enemy.

“He should know that there is no such thing as a safe haven any longer. The entire world is searching for Mr. Peachtree and his trained monkey, Hiram Vickers—who, by the way, has forwarded to this office a very cryptic message. It said that he has information on not only who ordered the hit on our asset in Arizona, but also an unsolved double murder in Georgetown last year.”

“I don’t understand, Mr. President. Who is this Hiram Vickers?”

The first lady scowled at the question and wanted to jump over her husband and strangle the man. But the president patted her hand that was gripping the wheelchair so tight it turned her knuckles white with rage.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll know everything in a few days. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, I have had conversations with members of your party and the rest of the House. It seems you have been relegated to minor status—in other words, they want you out. The loss of two hundred and fifty thousand American lives in Antarctica, at sea, and in space has been charged to your account.”

“I only did what I thought—”

The president’s hand came down hard on the reports of death and destruction that lined his work area, and his face grew grave as he slowly stood on his shattered legs and leaned on the desk.

“Peachtree and Vickers will be caught, Mr. Speaker, and we will get to the bottom of this, and your resignation will be the last thing you are thinking about. The FBI and the IRS have uncovered some very interesting paper trails from your office that wind through many foreign bank accounts, and those countries you thought would assist in hiding that paper trail have suddenly become very cooperative. It’s not the same world any longer, Mr. Speaker.”

Camden looked closely at the man behind the desk as he tiredly slid down into the wheelchair. His eyes then went to the men around him and even the Secret Service agents who only days before had guarded his life. The hate there was enough to send chills down the most coldhearted man ever to hold public office. He reached down and retrieved his briefcase, nodded at the president, and then left the Oval Office.

“Mr. President, that’s enough for today,” Max Caulfield said as he took in his exhausted features.

“No, I have one last task to perform. Mr. Easterbrook, do you have that address?”

“Yes, sir, right here.” The silver-haired man reached out and gave the first lady the note.

“Do we have enough to put that son of a bitch Camden away for life?”

The director of the FBI smiled. He just nodded his head.

“Then the testimony of the two traitors, Hiram Vickers and Daniel Peachtree, will not be needed?”

“Not at all, sir,” the director said as he and the others started to leave.

The president waited until he and the first lady were alone before he picked up his secure phone. Before he made the connection he looked up at his wife. She only nodded and smiled, giving her tacit approval of what he was about to do.

“We owe him at least this much.” She patted him on the shoulder and then reached down and pecked him on the cheek.

The president watched the first lady leave the office and then he turned to the phone and made the call. It was answered.

“The Juarez Hotel, Panama City, room 817,” the president said calmly into the phone and then hung up. He then made another connection. It was also answered on the first ring. “After this I cannot protect you. Your status will be as before in the eyes of American law enforcement.”

“I understand,” the voice said from the other end.

“But before I say anything, in my eyes and the eyes of many others you have shown your true quality. I won’t ever forget that.”

The phone was silent.

“1262 Norman Drive, Beverly Hills. He’s there now.”

The phone went dead and the president slowly hung up.

“All family business,” he said to himself. The Oval Office door opened and the Secret Service man allowed the president’s two daughters to come in running. They threw their arms around him and hugged him. His eyes went to the window as he returned their hugs. “All family business.”

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

Daniel Peachtree was staying at the richly appointed home of an old college friend, one who’d invested the millions of dollars he and Camden had made during the technology buy-up of the past four years. He casually walked out to the pool that was a part of the thirty-five-million-dollar home and told the houseman that he wanted a drink. He had been doing a lot of drinking since Vickers’s small fiasco in the desert. He shook his head, slowly sat down, and leaned back in the expensive chaise longue. He closed his eyes until he heard the tinkle of ice inside a glass. He smiled and looked up as his drink was handed to him.

He took a sip and then noticed the houseman had not moved away but continued to block his sunlight. He glanced up and became confused, as he didn’t recognize the man standing over him. The gray suit and white shirt bounced the sun off of him and Peachtree became concerned.

“Who in the hell are you?” he asked as he placed the drink on the glass table next to the lounge chair.

“I, Mr. Peachtree, am no one but a messenger.”

Peachtree swallowed at the blond-haired man standing over him. “What message?”

The man didn’t smile, he didn’t even blink as the large knife was plunged deeply into the former CIA’s director of Operation’s chest. The blade was twisted and the breath exploded from Peachtree’s lungs. Blood flowed from his open mouth.

“Colonel Jack Collins sends his regards.”

Henri Farbeaux pulled the knife free and then slowly and mercilessly sliced the American traitor’s throat.

With that, Colonel Henri Farbeaux once again assumed his most-wanted status in the world. He disappeared into the backdrop of a tired and war-weary society.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

Hiram Vickers was whistling as he turned the old-fashioned lock to his room. He had just left two messages, one at Camden’s Georgetown residence, and one at Peachtree’s. There had been no answer at either home but that didn’t dampen his mood, as he knew the men had been forced into a corner with the simple threat of exposure. He slowly pushed open the door and flicked on the table lamp by the frame. He closed the door and then tossed his room key in the ashtray there. As he turned he saw the man sitting in the room’s only chair.

Jack Collins.

He tried to say something but the words froze in his throat. Collins tilted his head as he looked at the man who had so ruthlessly murdered his little sister. The man was an enigma to a man like Jack. The way he arrogantly pranced through the world affecting the lives of others with no regard to who the men or women really were, and how his decisions affected not only them, but the families of those unfortunates.

Jack Collins was still bandaged from his forehead to his arms from the ordeal in Antarctica and outer space. His eyes were blackened and his nose broken. This made his appearance that much more menacing, even though Vickers easily recognized the man from his apartment in Georgetown and the many nightmares since.

“I—”

Collins shook his head and Vickers stopped before he started. Jack nodded for Vickers to move to the couch and sit. He did.

Collins slowly stood, feeling every one of his injuries from the previous week. He stood before Hiram Vickers.

“I didn’t know what I was going to say before today. What you did to Lynn, and then the taking of so many innocents in Chato’s Crawl…” Jack stopped, unable to continue for a moment. “What turns a man into an animal?”

The redheaded man swallowed and looked away from the piercing blue eyes.

Jack Collins made his way to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the warm day. He took a breath and spotted a small housekeeper making her way down the second-story balcony. Jack placed his sunglasses on and then smiled as he approached the old woman.

“
Llamar a la policía y el cuerpo de bomberos, por favor
,” he said with a smile. “
Vámonos
!” he added and slapped her ample behind.

The housekeeper left her cart and started hurriedly walking away. She turned and with one last look back at the bruised man who had sent her off to call the police and fire departments, decided that she should run.

Jack Collins slowly walked away and down the nearest set of stairs. He was almost to the rented car when a whoosh was heard from above. The large window of the room Hiram Vickers had rented blew outward. Flames licked the hallway as the screaming sounded in the nearly empty hotel.

Jack opened the passenger door of the rental car. Jason Ryan was behind the wheel and he placed the car into gear. The two Event Group officers moved away from the cheap hotel as fire alarms and the distant sound of sirens pierced the beautiful day in Panama City.

EPILOGUE

It’s never good-bye, just farewell.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

The conference room was silent as the department heads filed out. Niles Compton, looking like a smaller version of Senator Garrison Lee, sat with his head down as the six remaining men and women waited for the director to speak. The bandage covering Compton’s face was still in place, and a new black eye patch covered his right eye. The rest of the occupants were in no better shape than Niles.

Virginia Pollock wasn’t injured, but the dark circles under her eyes attested to the mental shape she was in since the night she came upon the slaughter at Chato’s Crawl. She had cried endlessly since that night. Alice Hamilton took her hand as her sobs escaped when she looked up and saw all of the empty seats around them.

“Did Anya Korvesky make it back safely to Tel Aviv?” Niles asked without looking up.

“Yes, I put her on the plane myself. She’s … she’s … well, she’s not taking the loss of Mr. Everett all that well,” Jason Ryan said from his new appointed place beside Jack Collins.

Niles nodded his head and then let out a breath.

Charlie Ellenshaw, with his eyes downcast, just stared at the polished table. He slowly shook his head, wincing slightly at the bullet wound to his back. He had been released from the hospital the day before and had been silent ever since. Gone were the silly comments and the quizzical looks. Now he was broken, saddened beyond measure. He swallowed and looked at the chair Pete Golding used to occupy. He slid his own chair back and slowly stood. He started to say something, but instead just turned and paced to the far wall and leaned his gray and disheveled hair against it. They saw his shoulders heaving as he cried for his lost friend.

“The president is speaking at the memorial in Arlington for…”

Niles removed the glasses that were only assisting one eye and stopped speaking. Alice wiped a tear away. She knew the director was blaming himself for the loss of Gus, Pete, Denise Gilliam, and Matchstick.

Jack Collins reached out and took the hand of Sarah McIntire, then he stood. He walked over to the far wall, brought over a tray of glasses and a large bottle of Kentucky bourbon, and placed it on the table. He then walked to the still crying Ellenshaw and guided him back to the table. He winked at Jason Ryan, who stood and poured out the whiskey. He even poured one for his friend Will Mendenhall, who was in New Zealand recovering from his extensive wounds, and one for a fugitive who was again on the run: Colonel Henri Farbeaux. He passed around the glasses and then waited for Jack.