The Solomon Key (14 page)

He was about to check his watch again when he spotted a figure leaning against a nearby tree. Suddenly, half a dozen more appeared stepping from behind other trees, all in black suits and sunglasses. They were not part of the Secret Service entrusted with protecting the man across the street.

A black car with tinted windows rolled to a stop along the curb.

“About bloody time,” the man whispered.

A large man struggled to get out of the car as three more security guards exited with him, their eyes searching the grounds, the nearest windows, the streets, everything.

The fat man walked toward him, and they met with a cold handshake.

“You’re late, Marcus.”

“You are very fortunate that I am here at all,” replied the shorter, older man. His accent was thick, his hair white, his face pudgy. His real name wasn’t Marcus.

Looking at his watch again, the man who had been waiting said, “We only have thirteen minutes left, so make it quick.”

Marcus smiled, pulled the hood from off his head and pointed at his ears, at some kind of appendage he had over them. “Keeps me safe from the facial recognition scans...”

The man didn’t like Marcus, and he didn’t care to hide it. “With a nose like yours, changing your ears is a wasted effort.” He looked away and sighed. “And your fat.”

A flash of fire erupted in Marcus’ eyes.

The guy held up his hands in defense. “I’m just saying you don’t want to get fined is all. Obesity laws won’t be kind to you over here.”

Marcus grumbled under his breath. “I hate this godforsaken country.”

“And I, yours. Now can we please get on with it?” The only downside to this game of global conspiracy was who he was forced to be friendly with — the whole “enemy of my enemy” thing.

“I need to see him.”

His eyes widened. “Who, the President?”

Marcus moved closer. “There are things we need to discuss before the next phase.”

“So call him.”

“Things that cannot be uttered over a phone.”

The man looked around as if he were contemplating the possibility of such a request, but ultimately shook his head. “No. You can’t. It’s just not possible.”

“Maybe you are not understanding me.” His tone changed through the accent, a sharp edge attaching itself to his words now. “So let me make myself clear. If you do not get me an hour with the President, immediately, I am going to leave this whole situation unresolved, and it will be up to you to clean it up.”

He swore. “You know there’s a million people just waiting to catch you with the President. And if they do, we’ll have to postpone again. The public will crucify us. And then there’ll be war.”

The shorter man smiled. “‘We shall have world government, whether we like it or not. The only question is whether world government will be achieved by conquest or consent.’”

“James Paul Warburg to the US Senate in 1950,” the thin man referenced the quote. “We would like to avoid conquest if possible.”

“I understand the risk involved,” Marcus answered, clearly not going to take no for an answer.

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do. It can’t be today though. He’s got a joint meeting with the Canadian and Mexican presidents. If we change something last minute, it’ll draw way too much attention.”

A simple nod.

“About that situation you spoke of…”

Marcus answered, “It is
our
problem. Get me an hour with the President, and my people will deal with it. You can call your troops off.”

“Personally, I don’t understand why it’s so important,” he grumbled.

“And nor could you.”

He swore again. “Is that what you need to speak to the President about?”

“All I will tell you is that I would like to have the ring in my possession and my people off the continent before the next phase goes into effect.”

He stared at Marcus. “He’s not going to call off the next phase, whether you have your stupid ring or not. I guarantee you that.”

Marcus just nodded. “Do you have the identity of this mysterious man, this
Rambo
, who took out your Intelligence team and slaughtered your NAU troops?”

He clenched his teeth, mumbled, “We’re still trying to get a lead from his vehicle. The license plate was a dead end. He knows what he’s doing. Until we have a name or a face, there’s nothing we can do.”

“And Cairns?”

“Dead. Your people I believe.”

“What about the girl?” Marcus was looking at his watch now.

“She just came out of the coma. She’ll be sedated so she can’t talk to anyone, and in a day or two she’ll be taken to a FEMA camp to satisfy many a lonely guard. Until of course, she hangs herself to escape her grief.”

Marcus nodded as if he was okay with that. “I lost some of my best men up in Vermont to this man.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“Who else could it be?” Marcus responded, trying not to sound uncomfortable. But his eyes said that there was a lot he was withholding. And then he said, “Get me that meeting.” Without another word, he flipped his hood back up, turned, and began walking away, back to wherever he came from. His security guards quickly took up their positions around him, escorting him to the car.

“Enjoy your stay!” he called after him as he stole another glance at the time. Five minutes before his window closed, and the cameras made a record of his presence — something that was obviously out of the question...

There would surely be hell to pay if someone found out about his meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel.

He pivoted on his heel and began walking back along the reflecting pool.

He had told the Prime Minister that he didn’t know what the fuss over the ring was about. That was true. What wasn’t true was that they were going to sit back and let Israel tidy up the mess alone. Because there were more people that wanted this ring than just the Prime Minister. And though he didn’t know why, the Secretary of State did know that his friend, the President of the new America, was one of them.

15

S
cott found Daniel and Mayhew making breakfast in the kitchen. Bacon was frying on the stove, and the smell of it sparked a memory, a happy one — her working over the stove in that black lingerie the first morning of their married life.

But that wasn’t what was in this kitchen. Not even close. That life was gone… forever.

“Thought you were Jewish,” said Scott, walking into the kitchen.

Daniel looked at him, confused.

He pointed at the stove.

“Oh, the bacon.” He nodded. “It is for you two Gentiles.”

Scott leaned over the stove, the smoke filling his nostrils, as Mayhew referenced Peter’s vision in the book of Acts.

“Rise, kill and eat.”

Scott mumbled, “Amen.”

“Hungry?” Daniel asked.

Scott’s rumbling stomach answered for him.

Daniel slid two fried eggs off a frying pan and onto a plate before handing the pan to Scott. “Eggs are in the refrigerator.”

Opening the fridge, Scott grabbed two eggs, though he wanted to grab six, and took them over to the stove, cracking them on the pan’s edge and jettisoning their innards onto the sizzling surface. Mayhew was standing next to him, over the bacon on the next burner.

“Feel any better?” he asked.

Scott nodded. “Sure.” In truth, he felt much better. He wondered where the eggs had come from — there weren’t exactly supermarkets around the corner, and the eggs weren’t in recycled cardboard containers — but there were more important things that needed asking at the moment. “Who are you?”

Mayhew nodded, understanding the question to actually mean something along the lines of, “what are you doing here with the Mossad and a Catholic priest?” He looked up from the bacon, shrugged. “Joined the Marines after Los Angeles, went to Iran and Syria. Got out, went to school, became a teacher, got married.”

Scott flipped the eggs. “You still married?”

“No. I became a Christian, and she started hanging out with cooler guys. By that time the Constitution was being replaced by the NAU Charter, so I just went underground, joined the Resistance.”

“The Resistance, huh?” He looked out the window. “And where, pray tell, are we now?”

Without looking up, and through a mouthful of egg, Daniel answered for Mayhew. “New York.”

“Adirondack Park?”

Mayhew nodded. “Just west of I-87.”

“That’s a hundred and forty miles away from Jamaica. How’d we get here?”

“Helicopter,” said Mayhew.

“Helicopter,” Scott repeated, disbelief obvious in his tone. “You just fly around in restricted airspace at will?”

A pause. “Not exactly.”

Scott sighed, growing impatient. “You started to say something about the guy who lived here.” He sat down across from Daniel with his eggs.

Mayhew came over and pushed some bacon onto Scott’s plate as Daniel answered. “Yes. He was the overseer of the prison camp.”

“What happened to him?”

“We killed him. Took his house, took his prison. Made it ours.”

Scott leaned back in the chair, his eyes set on Daniel’s face, searching him. Then he looked over at Mayhew and said, “Doesn’t seem like a very Christian thing to do.”

Mayhew didn’t respond.

Daniel explained, “The attack on the camp yesterday was most likely a response to what happened in the park and didn’t have anything to do with our capture of the camp or the ring. The military simply tracked us and sent a strike-force to eliminate us.”

“But even if they hadn’t tracked you, when they eventually came to retake their camp, you wouldn’t have stood a chance against an assault, even with a hundred men.”

Daniel nodded as Mayhew pulled up a chair and sat beside them at the table. “We would not have been there when they arrived.”

“So your objective wasn’t to establish a base of operations.” He put eggs into his mouth.

“We move around a lot, guerrilla warfare. Makes it hard for them to concentrate a large force against us,” Mayhew said.

Daniel waved his hand, intent on bringing the conversation around to another topic. “Melissa Strauss. She was caught on surveillance cameras inside a restaurant in DC.”

“You have access to the security feed throughout Washington?”

“We have insiders everywhere, Matthew,” he answered. “We knew the ring was being kept in an underground NASA lab in DC, so we knew what was really happening when it broke on the news.” A slight pause. “We were hoping to intercept Melissa Strauss before they did, but that didn’t happen.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t they seize the envelope before it got to Ed? All they had to do was stop the mail and go get it.”

“Because, by the grace of God, the video did not reveal who she gave the envelope to, or that she even still had it at that point. They had to consider the possibility that she had gotten rid of it prior to entering the restaurant. They spent hours going through the footage from the streets. And then it took them a while to track down everyone who was in the restaurant. By the time they found the right guy, who I imagine is dead by now, the ring had already arrived in Vermont.”

“And then you get the call since you just happen to be so close.”

A nod. “If not me, than it would have been someone else. We were too late to get to Edward first. But we were able to intervene in the park.”

Scott was growing more suspicious. “And how’d you know we were in the park?”

“Because they did. We were monitoring your little escape from the police, knew you ditched the truck in the woods. A Global Hawk pinpointed your general position, but you took care of the troops before they could use the information, which allowed us to. We found him sitting nearby, presumably waiting for you to get back.”

The knowledge that Edward hadn’t stayed in the cave made Scott frown. “So then who killed him?”

“An Israeli death squad.”

He pondered it for a second. “You said you’re Mossad.”

“I am.”

“And the others that were with you at the camp?”

“Yes, all of the men you met were Mossad.” He paused. “They are dead now.”

“And this all has to do with that ring?” he asked, skeptical.

“Yes, it does.”

“The Israeli death squad was waiting for
you,”
he realized. “They were in position to cut off your escape. You rode right into them.”

“They didn’t know who they were shooting, only that Edward was with them. You showed up in time to hold them off until we could get there. Otherwise, they would have gotten the ring and everything would be over.”

“What do you mean?” Scott asked.

“If the secular arm of my country acquires the ring, it may end up buried for the rest of time.”

Scott finished his eggs without a word, thinking. Then he stood up and began walking around the kitchen. Daniel and Mayhew gave him time to think by gathering up the plates and taking them over to the sink. Finally, when he was ready, Scott spoke. “How long have you been here, Daniel? In North America?”

“A month. As soon as we knew that the ring was found and taken to Washington.”

“And what, you were just sort of laying low, praying and hoping an opportunity would present itself?”

“We were accepted by the Resistance group here, of which Mayhew was part. We began working with them, doing our part to slow down the World Order. But yes, we were waiting for an opportunity to get the ring.”

Scott turned to Mayhew. “And you’re okay with that?”

But Daniel answered for him. “He is okay with that because I have explained to him what is at stake. And he has been persuaded by those facts.”

“Is that true, Titus Mayhew?” Scott asked.

Mayhew sighed. “Yeah. If what he says is true, then keeping that ring out of their hands is the greatest priority.”

“Because they’ll make it disappear?”

Daniel smiled. “It’s more complicated than that.”

The affect of Scott’s hot shower was beginning to wear off, and he felt a sudden sense of dizziness returning. He swore out loud. “It’s a
ring
!” He was getting frustrated. This didn’t make any sense to him.

Daniel dropped his gaze. “I apologize for having to include you in all of this. I didn’t see another way in which your life could be spared.” Then he met Scott’s eyes with his own. “Seems that God has bigger plans for you than you might have imagined.”