Nightwatch: The Peacekeeper
By Robert Moriyama
Nightwatch Created by Jeff Williams
Developed by Jeff Williams and
Robert Moriyama
The Entries,
Jerry Sullivan took a
long swallow of Guinness draft, savoring the thick, dark taste of it. "Ah, now there's a pint the way it
should be," he said. "You
can't get it served proper-like on t'other side of
the pond. Even in so-called Irish pubs,
it's always chilled a little too much."
His lean, angular face tilted back as he inhaled the familiar scents of
Guinness and kidney pies.
Kevin Brand shook his
head. "Ye're
risking a lot showing your face here, Jerry.
They're still keeping a dark, dank cell for you in Maghaberry."
Sullivan laughed,
running his fingers through the soot-black hair framing his face. "If this face was the one I was born
with, I'd be worried. But a little pain
and a lot of money bought me a mug that no computer can match with the old
one. And they never had me fingerprints,
Saint Paddy be thanked. Besides, it's no
safer for me in
The Sword and Shamrock
was one of the newer bars in the narrow, twisting laneways of The Entries, and
had no reputation as a meeting place for either of the factions in The
Troubles. Brand had recommended it for
precisely that reason -- the likelihood of surveillance by the Brits or the
Ulster Defense Association or others of the
Sullivan guessed that
the 'decor' (and there was a word his
Mum would have laughed at) was meant to mimic the appearance and atmosphere of
a real pub, but even in the dim, yellowish light cast by the 'lanterns' mounted
along the walls, the exposed beams and brick looked too new and
too perfect to be believable. Still, the
beer on tap was real enough, and the steak and kidney pie smelled and tasted
like its contents may have come from the general vicinity of an actual cow.
This was the new
Kevin Brand was one of
those most likely to Make a Statement of the explosive
kind. He'd worked with Jerry in the
past, building and placing little surprises that took the shine off Harrod's or leveled hotels where Brit Lords and the like
were resting their fat arses, and he'd been happy to
hear from Sullivan after so many years.
"So, Jerry, will
you be lending a hand in our current campaign?
We've a few locations in mind, and your talent for fitting the most in
the smallest package would be handy."
Sullivan sighed. "That's not why I'm here, Kevin,"
he said. "I came to ask if you'd
change your plans --"
"If yeh've better ideas for targets, I'd be happy to --"
"I meant
forgetting about packages and surprises," Sullivan said. "They never really got us what we
wanted, did they? Them in power, they do
what they want, surprises or not. Knock
one down, there's always another one waiting to take over. The only ones who suffer --"
"Jerry, what's
happened to you? Yeh were a soldier for
the cause, one of the best! Has living
with the Yanks made yeh go soft?"
"The only ones
who suffer are the innocents," Sullivan said. "Yeh can't hurt the ones who make the
decisions -- lives don't matter to them, even the lives of their own kind. So there's no point, no point at all."
Brand shook his head
in disbelief, his ruddy face contorting into a goblin mask framed with red and
silver hair. "So yeh'd let the Brits take us over for good and all. Yeh'd just
surrender to them without a fight."
"Killin' randomly isn't fighting," Sullivan said. "Even taking down High Lord Muckety-muck surrounded by half the Army isn't fighting if
yeh kill women and children to do it."
"I can't believe
my ears," Brand said.
"Believe
this," Sullivan said, leaning forward.
"Whatever the cause, I don't believe in making innocents suffer for
it. In fact -- I've taken to protecting
them. I'm a peacekeeper now, not a soldier; I do my best to keep the likes of
the Real IRA from hurtin' folks who never deserved
it."
Brand shook his head
again and tilted his head back to drain his glass of beer. "So now all yer old comrades in arms are
villains, is that what yeh're tellin'
me, Jerry? Yeh've
changed, and not for the better."
He set his glass down on the scarred wooden table top (which Jerry
suspected had come that way from the factory), waving off an inquiring look
from the barmaid.
Sullivan lowered his
eyes, moving his hand so the dregs of his beer formed a dark whirlpool in the
bottom of the pint glass. "If yeh'd seen the things I've seen -- in
"Back before yeh
lost your nerve, you mean," Brand said, sneering.
"I was hoping --
I was hoping that you might join me, instead of t'other
way around," Sullivan said.
"And do
what? Kiss the arse of the first Brit I
see? No thank you, Jerry. No thank you."
"I'm sorry to
hear that," Sullivan said. "I
guess we've nothing more to talk about, then."
They stood and Brand
strode toward the door, leaving Sullivan to pay the bill. Sullivan rummaged in his pocket and dropped a
ten-euro note on the table -- overtipping to
compensate for spoiling the jovial atmosphere of the place -- and followed.
He reached the street
in time to see Brand sliding his bulky body behind the wheel of a battered red
MINI -- an ironic choice given the man's hatred of all things English -- and
waved. Brand responded by raising the middle
finger of his right hand while he fumbled to insert the key into the ignition.
Sullivan turned away
and looked down at the small device in his own hand. It could have been a keyless door lock
transmitter, but it wasn't.
"Goodbye, Kevin," he said. Then he moved his thumb over the larger of the
two buttons and squeezed.
Brand vanished in a
near-soundless ball of flame that seemed to emerge from the doors and roof of
the little car and move inward. The
windows shattered, not from the blast, but from the contraction of the roof and
side panels of the car as they collapsed like a punctured balloon.
Sullivan turned back
to survey the damage. He smiled.
Aside from the burning
wreckage of the car, there was no sign that anything unusual had happened. There was little debris scattered around;
there were no broken windows on the surrounding buildings; even the alarms on
cars parked only a few meters away from Brand's vehicle hadn't been triggered.
Whistling softly,
Sullivan walked briskly (but not too briskly) away. It was several minutes later that a couple
emerging from the Sword and Shamrock noticed the burning mass of metal and
rubber and called for help.
***
Nightwatch Institute,
"Surely you're
joking," Simon Litchfield said, peering at the image on Callow's fold-out
display screen. "There is no way in
hell that was a car."
Callow smirked. "It was a car, all right. A 2008 MINI, one of many thousands of its
type puttering around Europe and the
"Could you guys keep
it down a bit? This is a library, you
know."
Callow frowned and
turned toward the speaker, who had just poked his head around the corner of the
bookshelves separating the Popular Culture section from the rest of the
Nightwatch Institute Library.
"Hanson, isn't
it? Logistical
Support?"
Hanson, a
slightly-pudgy man with reddish-blonde hair and tiny rimless spectacles,
cringed. "Er,
sorry, Mr. Callow, I didn't know it was you."
"The Popular
Culture section of the Nightwatch Institute library hardly seems like someplace
you should be in the middle of the
working day, Mr. Hanson," Callow said.
"I -- er, I was in the Transportation section, looking up specs
for a Russian transport plane," Hanson said. "We're coordinating a relief mission
with --"
"Very well, Mr.
Hanson, get on with it and leave us alone," Callow said.
Hanson withdrew, obviously terrified that Callow would retaliate
for his intrusion in some unimaginably unpleasant way.
"How is it that
someone from Logistical Support knows you -- and apparently knows you
well?" Simon asked. "Your official title and function is rather unimpressive, however
powerful you may be in reality."
Callow sighed and
smiled. "Apparently there are
rumors that I am more important than I seem."
Simon snorted. "And we all know who starts and controls
the spreading of rumors around here ..."
"C'est moi, c'est moi,"
Callow half-sang. "Life is much
easier when those around you offer you the respect you truly deserve. You, for one, should try it sometime."
"Bollocks, as my
dear mother would say," Simon said.
"And I'd be careful about mangling Lerner and Loewe
show tunes while standing in the middle of the Popular Culture section. If that smoldering ball of metal was a car,
how did it end up like that? Was it
crushed in a wrecking yard and dropped off in the street when no one was
looking?"
Callow shook his
head. "Review of traffic
surveillance footage showed this car -- identified from the license plates,
which were relatively intact -- was driven to that area less than an hour
before it was found in its rather unusual state. More to the point -- it was occupied at the
time of its -- collapse."
Simon winced. "The occupant's dead, I presume? He'd have to be Tom Thumb to have survived
having the car crushed around him like that."
"If Tom Thumb was
made of asbestos and titanium, he might
have survived such an incident," Callow said. "The driver, one Kevin Brand, was made
of flesh and blood. And I repeat, the
car collapsed inward -- it was not crushed from outside."
"An
implosion bomb? I'd
heard stories about some new vectored-force explosives -- but I never believed
them."
"Forensic testing
revealed that Mr. Brand was the victim of a trap constructed using NVXP5, the
next step beyond conventional plastic explosives," Callow said. "NVXP5 -- Nano-assembled Vectored force Explosive,
Plastic -- is a substance that can be
molded to conform to a surface. When
activated -- 'detonated' doesn't seem like the appropriate word -- it produces
a highly-directional pulse of heat and pressure, thanks to nano-assembly
techniques that align the molecular bonds almost perfectly. As you can imagine, its possession and use is
restricted to certain branches of the defense establishment."
"Just as a matter
of curiosity, what were NVXP1 through NVXP4?"
"Less
effective," Callow said drily.
Simon peered closely
at the image of the collapsed microcar. Now that he knew what it had been, he could
assess the damage more precisely. The
roof and side panels had been pushed inward by what looked like a few
centimeters. For normal atmospheric
pressure to have achieved such an effect, the air inside the passenger
compartment must have been burned or compressed or both, creating a sudden
near-vacuum. "The heat and pressure from a single charge would probably be
lethal," he said. "Balanced
charges would cancel each other out, or almost.
Anything in the middle would be incinerated or crushed. But that brings us back to the usual question
-- why is the Institute interested? And
why do you want me involved?"
"Several
reasons," Callow said. "First,
NVXP5 is beyond top secret, and very rare.
It was, in fact, being considered for use in the matter that has
occupied your Mr. Weldon's attention of late, as a backup measure, at
least. Second, the man who was killed --
Kevin Brand -- was a known member of the 'Real IRA' faction of the Irish
Republican Army. MI6 has reported that
there have been rumors of some kind of violent and spectacular action by the
late Mr. Brand's group to protest plans to merge
"That's not the
sort of thing we deal with," Simon said.
"We're not the police -- or MI6 -- or the bloody British
Army."
"I wasn't finished," Callow said. "Where was I? Ah, yes -- third, Mr. Brand had just had an argument with this man." He slid his
fingertips over the control pad on his handheld computer, and the image of the
imploded car was replaced by a full-color computer-generated composite sketch
of a man with dark, wavy hair and a narrow, angular face.
"I've never seen
'this man' before," Simon said. But
then he frowned and looked closer.
"There is something about his eyes, though, something familiar
.."
"Perhaps this
will help," Callow said. A few
quick keystrokes brought up a photograph next to the sketch, and this face
Simon recognized immediately.
"Jerry Sullivan! " He studied
the photograph and the sketch for only a few seconds before he shook his head
in disbelief. "The man in the
sketch is Sullivan. But I thought the bastard was dead."
"You and every
counterterrorism and intelligence agency in the world," Callow said. "We only made the identification by
accident. You see, we neglected to
exclude the supposedly-deceased from the database of known associates of Mr.
Brand when looking for a match for the man in the composite sketch. Mr. Sullivan must have had an excellent
facial reconstruction specialist -- even the spacing between the eyes and
the distance from the bridge of the nose to the upper mandible has been
changed. But when the two faces are seen
side by side, the eyes, as you noticed, have it."
"So I'm to be
involved because I know -- I knew
Sullivan years ago. Bloody
wonderful." Simon suppressed
a shudder as images flashed through his mind.
Limbs and heads and sundered torsos strewn
about like fallen leaves. Skin the color of dark chocolate framing gaping red
wounds. Women and
children weeping, eyes wide in shock and grief. The stench of blood and
shit and smoke filling the air in choking clouds. Sullivan's legacy in
Callow cleared his
throat. "If you are through
reminiscing --"
Simon blinked, nodded,
and gestured for Callow to continue.
"Sullivan is not
the man you knew, and I do not mean only that his appearance has changed,"
Callow said. "He seems to be
pursuing an entirely different agenda -- as his murder of a former confederate
demonstrates. Nonetheless, your
familiarity with the man he was might
still give you an edge in dealing with him."
"'Dealing with
him'. What a lovely euphemism,"
Simon muttered.
"We have informed
the various intelligence services that Sullivan is alive, and has radically
changed his appearance," Callow said, ignoring Simon's comment. "Unfortunately, he was long gone from
Simon massaged his
temples with his fingertips. "So
he's out there, god knows where, with a weapon that could be a more precise
equivalent of a neutron bomb ..."
"I'm sorry --
what do enhanced radiation weapons have to do with this? NVXP5 is not radioactive, and produces no
radiation when it is activated."
"Remember how
wonderful neutron weapons were supposed to be?
Death from above, with minimal damage to land and
property. No lingering fallout --
ideal for wiping out a population and moving in. 'Clean' war, mass slaughter without lowering
the real estate values --"
"I still don't
see your point," Callow said. "Assuming, of course, that you have a point."
"This new
explosive -- implosive -- whatever -- is a small-scale equivalent. You can kill a target -- one man, or a
roomful of people -- and hardly muss the hair of anyone outside that room. Perfect for 'clean' terrorism, if you like,
or 'clean' assassination. Less precise,
I suppose, than a hypervelocity sniper rifle, but also less risky for the
assassin -- you have to be there, with a clear line of sight, to shoot
somebody. An implosion device could be
on a timer, or triggered by any number of different kinds of input -- sound,
vibration, weight, even chemical traces from the
target's cologne or favorite brand of cigars."
Callow pursed his
lips. "I see your point. Well, that should give you ample motivation
for ensuring that Sullivan is taken out of circulation -- which need not mean killing him, before you grumble
about that again -- and that access
to the implosion technology is once again limited to the proper
authorities."
"There are no
'proper authorities' that can be trusted with something like that," Simon
said. "But I'd rather it be in the
hands of a
government that may never use it than in those of a killer who already has used it -- and who will undoubtedly
use it again."
"I presume that
means that you will take the assignment, then," Callow said. "You do have a choice, in this instance
at least -- but we believe that you are the best man for the job, and most
likely to succeed before Sullivan strikes again."
Simon nodded. "I'll find him, and I'll do whatever it
takes to bring him in -- or bring him down.
Sullivan was responsible for a lot of death and suffering before he
disappeared ..."
"Very well,"
Callow said. "I've placed Nightbird
One on standby. As soon as we have any
indication of where Sullivan is, or what his next target may be, you will be
informed."
Simon stood and walked away, feeling his chest
tighten as memories of the horrors he had experienced in
****
Furawiyah, Northern
The bar, such as it
was, was the only refuge from the heat and glare and dust of midday for perhaps
fifty kilometers in any direction. If it
had a name, aside from 'BAR', it was not considered worth mentioning on any
signs. While most of the structures in
the village were huts with thatched roofs and walls of loosely-assembled stone
or wood, the bar had a tarred concrete roof, concrete block walls, and a
somewhat uneven poured concrete floor.
The place even had air conditioning, although the single unit, intended
to cool a much smaller room, was barely able to bring the temperature much
below blood heat. Slowly-turning ceiling
fans kept the results moving like currents of warm treacle in a vat of -- well,
warmer treacle.
It was inevitable that
the handful of non-resident engineers, aid workers, teachers, and bureaucrats
working in the area would congregate there.
Simon and his colleagues had been coming there every day to wait for the
worst heat of the day to subside, drowning their sorrows in 'ice cold' local
beer that was only slightly cooler than the air.
"I don't know
what the point of this project is," Alan Murchison grumbled. Balding, round of face and body, Murchison
wore an outfit similar to Simon's khaki safari ensemble, but the short-sleeved
shirt was tight across the belly and loose in the shoulders and chest instead
of the other way around. "Even if
we get the wells dug and the pumping equipment in, those Janjaweed assholes
will either blow it up, or kill everybody and take the place over."
"They haven't
bothered us yet," Simon said. What
he did not say was that the possibility of such an attack had probably led to
his assignment to the project. He had a
reputation for surviving in situations as nasty as this one, and he suspected
that he was there more as a one-man goon squad than as an engineer. The assortment of small arms he had been
given (under cover of darkness) suggested as much; the way his engineering
skills and experience as a foreman were being underutilized seemed to confirm
it.
"Yeah, but how
long can our luck hold out?" Bob Sienkewicz asked. Like Murchison, he had a 'high forehead' --
any higher and it would have met the back of his neck -- but he had the compact
body of a flyweight boxer. His clothes
-- a faded denim shirt and patched jeans -- fit him loosely, but the thick-lensed glasses he wore made it likely that his physique was
more the result of a fast metabolism than boxing or any other vigorous
exercise. "If the government --
excuse me, the Janjaweed militia who are not
under government control at all, at all, at all -- even suspects that there are
rebels operating around here --"
"Mind if I join
you fellas?"
Simon looked up and
saw a lean, dark-haired man with deep-set eyes that looked like chips of
amethyst, at least in the blessedly-dim light in the bar.
"Name's Jerry
Sullivan," the man said.
"Simon
Litchfield," Simon said, extending his hand. As Sullivan leaned over and shook hands with
him, Simon said, "These gentlemen are my colleagues from the Nightwatch
Institute, Alan Murchison and Bob Sienkewicz.
We're all here trying to provide the locals with a supply of clean
water."
"Ah, so the
equipment with the fancy logo -- from a Rembrandt paintin',
I'm thinkin' -- belongs to you lot. You might say that I'm here as a consultant to make sure that nothin'
unfortunate befalls you and your work."
Simon frowned. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean
by 'consultant'."
Sullivan grinned. "Well, the locals have a problem with
weeds -- Janjaweeds, they call them. I'm
here to teach them how to commit herbicide."
"Er, you do know that 'Janjaweeds' are people, don't
you?" Sienkewicz said.
"He knows exactly
what they are," Simon said.
"Were you hired by the Institute?"
Sullivan dragged
another chair over from a nearby table and sat down. "No, no -- never heard of them before
now. There's groups all over the world
concerned about the terrible things happening here -- mostly people from these
parts, but some who're just do-gooders.
One of them -- I won't say which -- heard I was available, and arranged
for me to come here."
"I don't get
it," Murchison said. "What
kind of consultant are you? And what do
you mean by 'herbicide', if you know what the Janjaweed are?"
"He's a mercenary,"
Simon said. "And from his accent
and name, I'd guess Mr. Sullivan learned his skills as a member of the
Provisional Wing of the IRA. By
'herbicide', he means killing. He's
going to teach these people how to kill the Janjaweed if they're attacked. I presume your sponsors supplied you with the
appropriate -- tools?"
Sullivan grinned
again, but the look he directed at Simon was anything but friendly. "Oh, aye. My sponsors
gave me drills -- tools that make holes, that is -- and shovels -- tools that
make bigger holes, faster -- and plenty of both."
"Guns and
explosives," Simon translated.
"You're quite glib about these things, Mr. Sullivan, which leads me
to believe that you don't place a high value on a human life. I'm afraid I'm going to find it difficult to
like you."
Sullivan winked. "Well, Simon me boyo,
give it time. The Irish charm always
works in the end." Then he stood
and strolled out of the bar.
On the one hand, Simon
found Sullivan's presence troubling.
Once word got out that an outsider was providing arms and training to
the locals, the likelihood of an attack by Janjaweed raiders would increase
tenfold. On the other
hand, if trouble arrived (as it probably would have in any case), at least
Simon would not be the only one able to fight back. But he'd sit on an anthill before he admitted
that to the Irishman.
****
Nightwatch Institute,
"Callow,
hold up!" Simon broke into a run to overtake the Lower
Echelon liaison as the younger man exited from the Library.
"You haven't
returned any of my messages," Simon said.
"Surely your contacts must have found some trace of Sullivan by
now."
Callow grimaced. "This is not something we should be
discussing in the corridor," he said.
"I could talk
about the other pressing matter,
instead," Simon said. "How far
out is Tom's ship now? Would he be able to see the --"
Scowling, Callow
grabbed Simon's arm and pulled him into the Library. It was only when they were safely within the
deserted (as usual) Popular Culture section that he spoke again.
"That kind of
loose talk can have dire consequences, Litchfield," Callow said. "We have managed to avoid any kind of
widespread panic so far, but --"
"Where is
Sullivan?" Simon said. "Why hasn't he been spotted somewhere, now
that every government security and border agency in the world knows what he
looks like?"
Callow shook his
head. "We have a composite sketch
that may or may not be precise enough to allow facial-recognition scanners to
pick Mr. Sullivan out of a crowd. If he
adds even a rudimentary disguise, he may be able to fool that level of
automated security. And he may be
traveling by less-conventional means that bypass border crossing points and
airport security."
"So what do we
do? Wait for another case where some
poor sod gets blown in instead of blown up?"
"It would help, Simon, if you could figure out
what the hell he is doing," Callow said.
"We have ruled out any dispute between IRA factions as a motive for
Sullivan's assassination of Brand, and I believe it is safe to assume that he
was not working for the authorities."
"It's been years
since I knew him, and we were hardly what one would call 'close' even
then," Simon said. "How in
hell should I know what he's up to?"
Callow smirked. "Perhaps it's
hell you should be thinking
about. It was just after your time in
"I have thought about it," Simon
said. But he knew that he had shied away
from the worst of it, the moments that might have changed Jerry Sullivan
forever. He would have to relive those
moments to find the truth.
****
Furawiyah, Northern
In the days that
followed their encounter with Jerry Sullivan, Simon, Alan, and Bob continued
their work. Two wells had been
completed, and soundings indicated that they should be capable of supplying
drinking water almost indefinitely; the shafts extended well below the level of
the current water table, which had already receded to the point where many
older wells had long since failed.
Simon took the time to
dig a trench well away from the other work sites, about two meters long, one
meter wide, and two meters deep, using a Nightwatch Institute backhoe for most
of the work. He squared off the
excavation and installed supports to prevent the sandy soil from collapsing,
and prepared plywood sheets with netting and glued-on sand to cover and
camouflage the trench when the need arose.
"Looks like a
grave, Litchfield," Sullivan said.
"Is it for me -- or for you?"
Simon spat, mostly to
clear the dust from his throat, but partly to inform Sullivan that his 'Irish
charm' wasn't working. Sullivan laughed
and walked away.
For his part, Sullivan
taught the locals, mostly Zaghawa and Masaaleit tribespeople,
how to shoot, how to place mines and set explosive booby traps. He turned one stone-and-thatch hut near the
center of the village into his headquarters, storing the spare ammunition and
explosives there, with a large sketch map of the area tacked to one wall.
Sullivan was very good
at the teaching part of his job, Simon had to admit -- he seemed to be able to
turn boys who had barely reached puberty into efficient killers. The boys seemed to enjoy Sullivan's company,
and Sullivan was surprisingly patient and cheerful with them, while still
managing to impart the skills they would need.
And Simon also had to admit that Sullivan's work might be all that
prevented a Janjaweed attack from slaughtering most of the village, as had
happened to other villages in recent months.
Still, it sickened him
to see boys who should be playing soccer or chasing the chickens that strutted
about in the village handling AK-47s and grenades like commandos
..
****
Simon Litchfield's apartment, Georgetown,
"Any
new insights, Dr. Litchfield? You have
been contemplating your brief time with Mr. Sullivan, have you not? I presume that is why you left the Institute
in the middle of the day."
Callow's face filled the video screen of Simon's home
communications deck, making Simon wish that he had an erasable pen handy. The permanently-smug expression on Callow's
face seemed to beg to have a nice handlebar moustache painted on ... A little
surgery with the second-rate (but authentic) samurai katana in the black lacquered stand near the desk would have been
even more satisfying, but too costly to be worth it.
"Simon, are you
listening to me? Have you been reviewing
your time with Mr. Sullivan, or not?"
"I have,"
Simon said, suppressing the urge to sneer. "I'm beginning to have a
feeling about this, about what he's doing.
When I focus on how he --"
"Results,
Simon. I'm only interested in the
results."
"All I can say is
that I don't think he's doing whatever he's doing for money, at least not
entirely. I think he is -- or was -- a
'True Believer', an idealist of sorts, if a multiple murderer can be an idealist."
"Wonderful. So you think
you've eliminated one of Sullivan's
possible motivations. Do let me know
when you narrow it down to something we can actually use." The screen went blank as Callow disconnected.
****
Furawiyah,
Northern
As Simon might have
expected, the attack came after the last well had been completed and the water
was flowing.
A muffled whump was
followed by the firecracker rattling of automatic weapons. Jerry Sullivan emerged from the hut he had
been using as his headquarters and armory, struggling into a Kevlar vest while
juggling an AK-47 and a pack with extra clips.
"Sounds like the
party's starting, Litchfield," he shouted.
"Better get your delicate arse under whatever cover you can find,
and pray me boys learned their lessons well!"
Cursing, Simon
collared Murchison and Sienkewicz and dragged them bodily toward the trench he
had prepared in anticipation of this day.
"Get in, and stay low. I'll
bring you some weapons in a moment -- as a last resort, hear me? No heroics from you two."
Before they could ask
any questions, Simon turned and sprinted for the Institute Land Rover. He opened a locked box in the rear of the
vehicle and extracted two Uzi submachine guns -- old, but well-maintained -- and
a Glock 9 mm automatic. He filled
several of his pockets with spare clips for the Glock, clipped the holster to
his belt, then ran back toward the trench. Murchison and Sienkewicz were still standing
at the edge of the excavation, looking bewildered and more than a little
annoyed at his rough treatment of them.
"Damn it, I said
get in! And take these -- be bloody
careful, the safeties are off and you could empty the clip in seconds
flat."
"Litchfield, what
are you doing? Where did you get these
guns?" Murchison said. "If the Janjaweed are here, we should be
trying to talk to them --"
"Or running for
our lives," Sienkewicz said.
"I'm afraid our
friend Sullivan's trainees have made it unlikely that the Janjaweed will be in
a talking mood," Simon said.
"If I'm not mistaken, that was a land mine we heard a few minutes
ago, followed by an exchange of gunfire.
If the Janjaweed make it here, it will be with guns blazing."
"And if they
don't?" Murchison asked.
"Then tomorrow or
the next day, more of them will come,
and whatever advantage surprise may have given Sullivan's recruits today will
be gone. If we survive this day, we are
leaving. Now, get in the bloody trench
so I can cover it up. If you're lucky,
the Janjaweed will think we were digging a latrine ditch. If not -- you have the Uzis."
Their faces pale in
spite of several months of African sunlight, the Nightwatch engineers clambered
down into the trench. Simon dragged his
camouflaged cover sheets over the trench, leaving only a narrow gap for ventilation.
"Don't come out
unless I come and get you," he said.
"And if anybody except me pulls the cover off your hidey-hole --
shoot him."
The sounds of gunfire
were coming closer. For all their
enthusiasm and naïve courage, Sullivan's young troops couldn't match the skill
and murderous efficiency of the Janjaweed.
Sullivan himself was probably doing better; Simon guessed that the
Irishman had probably been in battle more than once before the relative calm of
the last few years.
Simon debated whether he
had time to send out a distress call -- cursing his failure to do so when he
had been at the Land Rover -- but decided that the sounds of gunfire were too
close. For his skills to be effective,
he had to be out of sight and able to approach his targets one or two at a
time. He checked the Glock, removing the
clip and dry-firing it, then replacing the clip. Then he slid the pistol into its holster --
he would use it only as a last resort.
The problem with guns, he thought, is that any damn fool can point one and pull the trigger. And
once the trigger has been pulled, bullets are free agents -- they hit what they
hit, whether it is the intended target or not.
As the Janjaweed
troops entered the village, they spread out in a loose skirmishing line, keeping
each other in sight except when they passed on opposite sides of a hut. They wore no uniforms; their clothing was of
various colors, except for their turbans, the tails of which covered all but
their eyes. Each was armed with a rifle
-- most had AK-47's, a few carrier old bolt-action guns that might have been a
century old -- plus a machete or other large knife. Some carried grenades, and one or two had a
handgun of some sort.
There was enough noise
-- scattered fire from Sullivan's remaining child soldiers, the explosions of
grenades lobbed by the Janjaweed into the wood and stone huts as they passed --
that Simon was able to reach the edge of the village furthest from the
camouflaged trench without being detected.
He approached the closest Janjaweed fighter from behind and used a
stranglehold to choke him into unconsciousness, then gagged him and bound his
ankles and wrists with plastic restraints.
The second man was
more alert, but chose to attack Simon with the machete he held in his right
hand while still holding his AK-47 with his left. Simon surprised him by stepping into the
attack instead of dodging. Once inside
the radius of the swing, Simon trapped the man's wrist, locked the elbow, then dislocated it with an upward palm strike. Then he silenced the man's cry of pain with
an elbow strike that fractured the nose and splintered teeth.
Once again, Simon
gagged his victim and bound his wrists and ankles. He was none too gentle, in spite of the
injuries he had already inflicted; there was fresh blood and -- other things --
on the blade of the machete that had been aimed at him.
"Nice enough
work, Litchfield, but ye'd be better off using that
peashooter ye have on yer belt."
"You're quieter
than I would have expected, Sullivan," Simon said, his heart spasming in his chest.
"Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, your troops have gone pretty
quiet, too."
Sullivan grunted. "Aye. Most of me lads are down, poor bastards. They were brave enough, but I guess I didn't
teach 'em how to duck."
"The Janjaweed
are likely to slaughter everyone in the village now," Simon said. "They don't take kindly to the medicine
they like to dispense themselves."
"Well, if you're
like me, and you'd rather they didn't, I suggest we try to stop 'em,"
Sullivan said, grinning.
Simon shook his
head. "I'm not like you, Sullivan. I
don't believe that the ends justify the means."
"Is that why
you're not killing these Weedy-boys when you take them down? Killin' offends yer
delicate sensibilities?"
"Partly,"
Simon said. "Of course, I also
thought that hostages might be useful when word gets out and ten times this
number comes this way."
Screams of fear and
pain from the other side of the village ended their discussion. "We're falling behind in our work,"
Simon said. "You do things your
way. I'll do things my way. But let's do them bloody fast."
The next man Simon
encountered was ready for him. Too many
of his fellow militiamen had vanished on their way into the village to be
attributed to 'normal' delays -- women to rape, valuables to loot -- so he knew
that hostile forces were at work.
"'American,
yes? You kill my friends?" The Janjaweed soldier was tall and lean, with
high, angular cheekbones and skin even darker than some of the villagers. He held his assault rifle loosely, not quite
aimed at Simon, but ready to fire at any moment.
Simon shook his
head. "The ones who've met me will
live. Can't say the same for some
others, I'm afraid." He drew the
Glock and leveled it.
"I have bigger
gun," the Janjaweed said. "But
I not use if you put yours down. I fight
you like man, to honor my friends."
When Simon let the
Glock fall to the ground, the Janjaweed fighter let his AK-47 drop as
well. Then both men moved several paces
to one side to put some distance between them and their guns.
Inwardly, Simon
thanked God that machismo wasn't dead in
He almost changed his
mind when the Janjaweed attacked. This
man was far more dangerous than the other machete-wielding man Simon had
fought, if for no other reason than his decision to unburden himself of his
rifle before striking. Simon barely
avoided the first few strokes of the blade, even sustaining a shallow cut
across one hand as he backpedaled and tried to circle away from his opponent's
blade hand.
"You are mine," the Janjaweed said, seeing
the thin trail of blood winding its way down Simon's forearm. He raised the machete high over his head and
brought it down in a stroke that would cut Simon in half if it connected.
Simon rushed in,
closing the distance and preparing to perform an arm lock and break. But the Janjaweed flipped the machete to his
other hand even as Simon caught hold of his wrist. The blade came hissing inward in a thrust
that promised to gut Simon like a trout.
Simon spun, arching
his torso to let the blade slide by, and then used his right arm to add his own
momentum to the Janjaweed's stabbing motion.
He felt the sting of another shallow cut across his back and then the
hot gush of blood as the machete blade penetrated the Janjaweed's own chest.
The Janjaweed gasped, his eyes wide in surprise. Then he folded to the ground, his fingers
still locked around the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest.
Simon stood there for
almost a minute, panting, assessing his own wounds, and staring in horror at
the blood covering his hands and staining his clothes. Some of it was his; most of it was not. All of it looked the same.
This fight had taken
far too long, and his injuries meant that he could not rely on his skills to
prevail in any more hand-to-hand fights.
Reluctantly, he picked up the Glock, and continued to move toward the
center of the village.
He shot two more
Janjaweed fighters, going for head shots in case any of them might be wearing
body armor. Every time he pulled the
trigger, he felt something inside him tumble and crash like a body bouncing off
ledges as it fell down a narrow shaft between skyscrapers. He had never thought of himself as a killer
before, but the proof was there, lying in the sand; it was there, staining his
hands and clothes.
And then he was at the
edge of the village square, where the Institute equipment had been parked and
where Sullivan had his headquarters.
Despite Simon's and
Sullivan's best efforts, five or six of the Janjaweed troops had survived to
reach the center of the village. Worse,
they had herded more than a dozen of the surviving villagers with them. The prisoners looked stunned, their eyes wide
and staring, mouths hanging open in silent screams. Small children clung to their mothers' legs;
old men examined the sandy ground as if seeking something, anything,
that made sense in the midst of all the chaos and death.
A panting and bloodied
Sullivan found Simon crouched behind a Nightwatch Institute backhoe, assessing
the situation.
"You
still alive, Litchfield?" Sullivan hissed. "Guess you
must be pretty good at that Ori-en-tal fighting shite, though ye're a bloody mess
--"
"Shut up,
Sullivan," Simon muttered. "This lot have killed dozens of the villagers, and it looks
like they have the survivors penned up near your little fireworks
warehouse."
"Five -- no, six
of them, two of us -- I say we rush the buggers," Sullivan said.
"And kill the
rest of the villagers in the crossfire?
You really don't care who gets hurt, as long as the other side is wiped
out."
Sullivan scowled. "I care, all right," he said. "Maybe there'd be fewer Weedies standing and more villagers alive if not for your
genteel ways. Ah, Christ -- that's
little Salah and his Mum down there, ain't it?"
Simon looked carefully
at the gathered villagers, then nodded.
"Cute little
ankle-biter," Sullivan said.
"Really wanted to join in and learn to shoot, but his Mum wouldn't
have it. 'No guns for my baby,' she said
-- which made him frantic, of course, bein' called a
baby --"
"Something's
happening," Simon said.
One of the Janjaweed
soldiers entered the stone hut, emerging a few moments later holding a grenade.
"That's torn
it," Sullivan said. "No more
ammo for the good guys."
Then the Janjaweed
began to herd the villagers into the hut.
It was a tight fit -- the building was small to begin with, and Sullivan
had half the floor covered with crates full of ordnance. Immediately after the last villager had been
pushed through the door, and the door closed behind him, the Janjaweed
scattered, breaking into a run.
"Bloody
hell," Simon said. "I think
they're going to --"
A single, muffled
explosion was followed by a larger one that sent flame-edged clouds of black
smoke boiling out through the doorway and windows. Then the entire structure vanished in a ball
of fire that sent peppered the ground with slivers of wood and shards of
mud-brick. The sound was so loud and so
deep that Simon felt it like a solid punch to the gut; he fell back, dazed, his
ears ringing and nausea trying to turn him inside out.
"Ah, Jesus, they've
killed 'em all! Salah
and his Mum -- Jameel, Amina
-- all dead ..."
"Sullivan, get -- get down," Simon said. "You can't --"
Still half-stunned,
Simon watched as Sullivan used the backhoe as a ladder to help him stand
up. He drew a pistol from a holster at
his waist and fired several shots, apparently at nothing at all.
"Ye
baby-killin' cowards! Come
back here! I've got something for you,
every bleedin' one of you!"
Three Janjaweed
bullets struck Sullivan, at least one tearing through his chest near the base
of his throat, above his Kevlar vest.
Satisfied that he was dead -- or soon would be -- the Janjaweed walked
away.
"Sullivan
--" Simon said, dragging himself toward the Irishman. "Sullivan, are you --"
But then Simon felt
the hot, wet flow of his own blood, streaming from a new gash in his side. When he thought the Janjaweed were far enough
away, he shouted, "Murchison!
Sienkewicz! If you're still
alive, come out! I need --" Even that
effort drained what little strength he had left. He felt his head sway as the muscles in his
neck grew weaker; then his eyes closed, and time ... stopped.
When he opened his
eyes again, he found Murchison using surgical glue to try to close the wound in
his side. Sienkewicz was standing by,
passing supplies from the field medical kit to Murchison as the larger man
asked for them.
"Christ,
Litchfield, there was so much blood on you that I was sure you must be
dead," Murchison said.
"Not -- all --
mine," Simon said.
"Sullivan. Where's
Sullivan?"
"Was he here with
you?" Sienkewicz asked. "You were alone by the time we got
here."
"They shot
him," Simon said. "He took a
hit -- above his vest, Kevlar vest --"
"Either he got up
and walked away, or the Janjaweed took him," Murchison said. "There, I think that'll hold until they
can get us out of here. You probably
need a transfusion, but all we have here is that Ringer's lactate stuff."
"I'm okay -- just
need to rest for a while," Simon said.
And after he had eaten a ration bar and consumed a liter of water, he
did feel somewhat stronger -- strong enough to keep his head from drooping like
the blossom on a dying tulip plant, anyway.
Later, the trio began
to search the village for survivors. The
first decapitated and mutilated body they found was enough to send Sienkewicz
scurrying off to vomit up the remains of his breakfast; Murchison was obviously
deeply affected as well, but managed to stay with Simon as they continued their
grim task.
Everywhere they
looked, they found only the dead, and every body they found -- male or female,
young or old -- had been dismembered or slashed until it was barely
recognizable as human. Simon found his
dizziness dissipating in the face of so much horror. In its place, he felt something he had never
experienced before, a dark desire to punish those responsible for these
atrocities, to break their bones and rend their flesh. His hands closed into fists so tightly that
the joints crackled, relaxed, tightened again, relaxed ..
In the last intact
hut, they found a mother and two children, all savagely mutilated.
"Those Janjaweed are animals,"
Murchison wheezed. "Worse than animals. Everyone dead. Everyone cut to pieces! How can any human being do -- those things --
to another?"
Simon bent down to
close the eyes of one child whose torso had been almost cut in two by a
machete. "That's it, then. Not one left alive." With that gesture, he felt the last traces of
any civilized restraint fall away. If he
could lay hands on one of the raiders now, he would -- he would --
Suddenly Simon
remembered the two Janjaweed that he had left bound and gagged near the edge of
the village. "Murchison, there's
something I have to do. Go find
Sienkewicz and see if the satellite phone is working. Report -- report what's happened here."
"We already
called," Murchison said, but he caught the look on Simon's face and
cringed. He had heard things about Simon
Litchfield around the Institute, hints that he was a dangerous man, but had
dismissed them. After all, he'd spent
plenty of time with the British-born engineer, and knew him to be a charming
and affable sort, if a bit arrogant and vain.
But this Simon -- he had no doubt at all that this Simon was a dangerous
man indeed. Trying to seem casual, he
turned and stumbled off to look for Sienkewicz, glad
to have something to do, glad to put even a small distance between himself and
the horrors they had been wading through for almost an hour now -- and between
himself and this new and different Simon Litchfield.
Simon walked slowly
toward the edge of the village, limping, his wounds alternately throbbing and
burning with every step. The pain only
served to deepen his fury, as a picador's blades goad a bull to its doom.
He reached the second
man he had neutralized, found him struggling feebly to escape his bonds -- an
excruciating process with one elbow dislocated.
The man's machete lay a meter or two away, the
brightness of its blade half-concealed by a dark red-brown coat of dried blood.
"Here, here, old
man," Simon said, through clenched teeth.
"Can't have you suffering like that. Let me help you."
The Janjaweed looked up, saw Simon's face, and redoubled his
efforts to free himself. He tried to
scream, almost choking himself on the gag.
Simon picked up the machete, his teeth bared in a hideous grin, and brought it
down in a vicious stroke that cut the man's right leg to the bone. Blood spurted from the severed femoral artery
and painted the sand bright red in a broad arc around the Janjaweed fighter's
wildly writhing form. Simon circled
quickly, avoiding most of the blood, and swung the machete again, this time
cleaving the skull above the left ear.
The man shuddered once
more, then was still.
"That's for the
children, you sand-louse. That's --
that's for all of them, all the ones you lot slaughtered today."
Simon used the machete
once more, this time cleanly severing the head.
This grisly trophy he carried with him when he went to finish what he
had started.
The other
bound-and-gagged Janjaweed went into hysterics when he saw Simon approaching,
bloody blade in one hand and severed head in the other. He tried to scoot away by pushing with his
bound legs, but only managed to travel a few meters before Simon caught up with
him.
"Is this a friend
of yours?" Simon asked, throwing the severed head at the terrified
man. "I gave him what you lot like to hand out to bloody farmers who get in your
way."
He raised the machete
and moved in -- but the sick fury that had driven him to murder the other man
was fading. Now when he saw the stark
terror in the eyes of the helpless man on the ground, he felt -- shame?
He was supposed to be
a civilized man. But the Janjaweed deserved terror and pain
and death!
He was supposed to
represent the best of Western culture, as exemplified by the mission of the
Nightwatch Institute, and more -- he should also be living up to the ideals of
his sensei in
Killing in combat was
one thing. Executing a criminal was
another. Deliberately terrorizing and
torturing a man was -- unworthy, a betrayal of his principles and the
principles of his mentors. But --
Simon closed his eyes,
took in a long, deep breath, letting the air flood through his body from his
nostrils to his hara,
his center, then exhaling slowly through his
mouth. When he opened his eyes again, he
opened his hand as well, and the machete fell to the sand.
He rummaged in his
pockets, found a folding knife, and knelt beside the Janjaweed,
who had stopped struggling, either surrendering to his fate, or confused by
Simon's hesitation. Simon opened the
knife, and carefully cut the plastic restraints holding the man's legs.
"Get up. Get up, and run for your worthless
life."
And stumbling,
weeping, the man did just that.
Simon looked down at
the mangled face on the head he had removed, looked at the blood-slick machete,
looked at his hands -- and wept. He had
treated Sullivan with contempt because Sullivan was a killer, while he, Simon
Litchfield, was a nobler sort. But his
supposed superiority had fallen away, first by necessity, then by choice.
Simon wondered if
Sullivan had learned anything from this disastrous day. Would he realize now that the lives of the
innocent meant something? That a victory -- killing many of the Janjaweed raiders -- was no victory at all if the lives he
intended to defend were lost in the process?
****
Nightwatch Institute,
"I think I know
what Sullivan is doing," Simon said.
He leaned back in Stephanie Keel's guest chair, caught himself when the
supposedly-ergonomic monstrosity threatened to eject him, then
straightened with his best 'I meant to do that' expression firmly fixed on his
face.
Stephanie Keel, her
right arm still supported by a sling, managed to stifle a laugh. Clearing her throat, she said, "I'm
guessing it has something to do with blowing people up -- or rather sucking
them in, with this implosion gimmick you say he has."
Simon sighed. "What I meant was,
I know why he has changed targets. All
our previous knowledge of him suggests that he was an idealist of sorts,
attacking those in power -- usually governments, sometimes corporations -- on
behalf of what he viewed as the underdogs.
But this most recent incident involved the murder of one of his former
IRA colleagues -- and in particular, one who was reportedly in the process of
planning and organizing a major terrorist offensive."
"You think he's
sold out? Gone to work for the
"Nothing so
prosaic," Simon said. "I think
he is trying to prevent the deaths of innocent bystanders -- the kind who are
most often killed by terrorist acts, even when a specific military or political
figure is the primary target."
Stephanie
frowned. "So he's not against
killing, per se -- just sloppy
killing?"
"As ridiculous as
you make it sound, I believe you're correct," Simon said. "When I met him, he was a wanted man in
"The bad guys
never think they're bad guys," Stephanie said. She caught Simon's look of disbelief, and
qualified her claim. "Okay, some of
the crazier ones are proud to be bad
guys, but in general ..."
"Sullivan is
targeting terrorists, or what the world views as terrorists," Simon said
impatiently. "If we identify the
most significant imminent threats --"
"Excluding the
biggest one in recorded history, I presume?"
"Yes, yes,
excluding that one. I think it's safe to
assume that Sullivan lacks the means to do anything about that threat, even if
he is fully aware that it exists!"
Stephanie winked. "Breathe deeply. Your sensei wouldn't be pleased if he saw you
freaking out like that. Now, if I set an
intelligent agent loose in the CIA and NSA and Interpol networks, I should be
able to see who the spooky set consider to be the next
Big Bad Whatever."
"An
agent? Since when did you have agents working for
you?"
Now Stephanie did
laugh. "Simon, I'm going to
schedule you for some refresher courses on computer terminology. I meant a little computer program that can
search for keywords and phrases and compute relevancy scores. A little beastie like that can sift through
gigabytes of message traffic and reports and tell me where the hot spots are
for the kinds of things you were talking about, and who's holding the
matches."
"And what would
the CIA and Interpol and whatever other agencies you intend to pillage say
about this sort of thing?"
"Not a word that
you'll ever hear. However, if I don't
show up for work tomorrow, and my apartment is so empty that it looks like it's
never been occupied, and my name is missing from every computer system in the
world ..."
"I'll find
you," Simon said. "No matter
what they do, I'll find you."
"C'mon, Simon, I
was just kidding," Stephanie said. "I've
done this sort of thing hundreds of times, and if they've ever noticed,
apparently they didn't mind."
"I wasn't
kidding," Simon said. "Having
rescued you once, I feel that I am obligated to watch out for you for the rest
of your life. It's something I picked up
in
"Yeah, well, you
can drop it here and now," Stephanie said.
"It's kinda heartwarming to hear you talk
like that, but it's also kinda creepy, you
know."
"If it makes you
feel any better, I consider the obligation to be reciprocal -- you have, after
all, saved my life on a few occasions, through your work or by direct physical
action. So has Tom."
"Great. So we're a co-dependent trio, bonded for
life. I feel much better now. How about you leave me alone now so I can set
loose the hounds to track down Sullivan or his next likely target?"
Simon nodded,
carefully disentangled himself from the chair, and exited from Stephanie's
office, closing the door behind him.
Stephanie shook her
head and smiled. The funny thing was,
she did feel better, thinking of Tom and Simon and herself as a sort of family.
Then she turned her
attention back to the oversized flat-panel monitor and wriggled her right arm
out of the sling, wincing as pain shot through her still-mending shoulder. Her fingers began to dance over the keyboard,
assembling blocks of code from her libraries of thousands of routines, writing
new commands, linking and cross-linking ...
****
"By George, I do
believe I've got it," Stephanie said.
Days had passed with
no word of any sightings of Jerry Sullivan and, fortunately, no reports of
incidents where an implosion device had been used. Still, Simon had been worried; even if
Sullivan was not using his new 'clean' weapon, the likelihood that it would
spread to other factions would continue to increase until and unless the
technology was recaptured.
"Is it contagious?" Simon asked. "Should I be wearing one of those
ridiculous protective masks?"
Stephanie peered at
Simon through one eye, intending to tease him for worrying about his appearance,
but hesitated when she saw the dark circles under his eyes. He had not been sleeping well since he had
been 'asked' to dredge up his memories of Jerry Sullivan, and it was starting
to show.
"Um, fortunately,
no," she said at last. "I
don't think they make those masks in that shade of khaki anyway. What I meant was, I
think I know where Mr. Sullivan might make his next appearance."
She tapped a few keys,
and brought up a map of
"A good
bet," Simon said. "There's
certainly enough terrorist activity there for him to find a target."
"Yeah, but here's
the kicker -- his target will probably be an American."
Simon grunted. "An American Muslim, you mean? Someone providing funds and
materiel to an Indonesian Al Qaeda group?"
Stephanie shook her
head. "An
American Christian. A Dominionist, to be more specific."
Simon lowered himself
-- very carefully -- into Stephanie's guest chair. "I'm afraid you've lost me. Is this fellow a representative of the
Stephanie rolled her
eyes. "Nooo. I
realize the America-First and Christians-in-charge types are still pretty
powerful here, but this guy is from the extreme loony fringe -- which is a
rather wide fringe, and wealthy at that, but still not likely to make it in the
civil service."
"Then why would
he be Sullivan's
target? Especially
when
"This is where it
gets a bit dicey," Stephanie admitted.
"This guy -- his name's Emmanuel Goodman, believe it or not -- may
be planning to release a tailored bioweapon in
"Millions of innocents," Simon said. "That would make him a prime target for Sullivan, if I'm right about his
current agenda."
He yawned, massaged
his face with both hands in an attempt to get his blood moving, and said,
"One thing puzzles me. What,
exactly, is the 'nutbar grapevine', and how were you
able to access it?"
Stephanie
laughed. "It's -- websites, blogs, bulletin boards, members-only discussion sites. And, of course, e-mail, text, and voice
traffic flagged and captured by NSA spy programs. Every special-interest group in the world has
stuff like that now, and the loonies have more than their share. A lot of it is encrypted, but very little of
it is beyond NSA cracking programs; hell, most of it I can hack into with my
own little toolkit."
Simon nodded. "So that explains what it is, and how
the NSA would have access to it. I
gather that your -- what was the term? -- your agent was able to borrow this information without being
detected."
Stephanie held up her
wrists, then pulled up her pant legs to display her
ankles. "No cuffs, manacles, or
electronic locator doodads. Like I said
before, either they haven't noticed what I'm doing, or they don't care --"
"Or someone is
protecting you," Callow said.
"Next time,
Simon, don't just close the door behind you when you come in -- lock it."
Callow smiled. "I have access to the keys and codes for
every door on Institute property," he said. "But feel free to lock anything you
like, if the illusion of privacy comforts you."
Stephanie said
nothing, but Simon saw her hands fold into fists.
"Now, my dear Ms.
Keel, you were discussing a possible target for Mr. Sullivan?"
"A Dominionist named Emmanuel Goodman," Simon said. "Apparently he intends to release a
biological weapon in
"He believes that
his virus, or whatever it is, will only affect Muslims," Stephanie said.
Callow chuckled. "Targeting a virus to a specific ethnic
subtype is nearly impossible -- only a complete idiot would ever believe that a
virus can be made to distinguish between people based on religion."
"Idiot or not, he
might believe it if he believes that God is on his side -- literally,"
Simon said. "Since his
co-religionists believe that Christians are destined to rule the world, and are
justified in taking extreme measures to bring that destiny to fruition, it is
safe to assume that he does think
that his cause has divine backing."
"There's a
pharmaceutical plant in
"Theophilus -- from the Greek for 'God-loving'," Simon
said. "Goodman
and his fellow extreme Dominionists?"
"There are two
threats to be dealt with, then," Callow said. "Obviously, the Institute can't stand by
and allow Goodman to commit mass murder.
But at the same time, we can't allow Sullivan to assassinate
Goodman."
"Why hasn't the
NSA or the CIA done anything about Goodman?
If Stephanie was able to extrapolate this threat from NSA data, then
--"
"Friends in very
high places," Callow said.
"Fortunately, this won't deter us
from taking appropriate action. I will
contact the Indonesian authorities and have them prepare to -- investigate,
shall we say -- unusual activity at the Theophilus
drug plant. And you, Simon, should be
packing for
Callow left the room
to make his phone calls. Simon untangled
himself from the ergonomic chair and stood, also preparing to leave.
"I wish I could
go with you," Stephanie said.
"But my shoulder is still pretty bad. I can work the keyboard and touchpad all
right, but I'd be less than useless in a fight."
"It's just as
well," Simon said. "If
Goodman's biological weapon is less discriminating that he believes -- as it
almost certainly is -- I'd rather you were nowhere near it. I'm in my autumn years --"
"Ah, blow it out
your years," Stephanie said.
"You'll probably outlive me, if you can just avoid getting shot to
pieces, blown up, blown in, or poisoned."
"You could wish
me good luck instead of mocking me," Simon said.
"That would just
confuse you," Stephanie said. As
Simon turned to go, she added, "Try to get some sleep on the plane. You're gonna need
to be wide awake when you get to
"Goodbye,
Stephanie."
Stephanie watched him
walk away, looked down at her injured shoulder, and cursed. "You'd better come back in one piece,
Simon. I still have to wax your ass on
the racquetball court."
****
On board Nightbird
One, over the
The great-circle
distance from the Nightwatch hangar near
Since the Indonesian
authorities were expected to take care of neutralizing the threat posed by
Emmanuel Goodman, Simon's preparations for the trip had not included the
requisitioning of any special weapons from Melvin Squibb. He had his usual complement of gadgets -- a
satellite phone with encryption capabilities, a disguised Taser stun-gun, a
hand-held ultrasound scanner, and a stealth field generator -- stowed in the
many pockets of his specially-tailored khaki jacket, but no guns or explosive
devices. If the situation required more
firepower, Nightwatch contacts in
Bill Starsmore, Ed Wendell, and Allison Corwyn
were all on board (leaving the Institute rather short of hot-zone experienced
pilots, Simon suspected). Allison was
flying the left seat on the first shift, with Jan Aardsma
as copilot; Ed and his partner Ivan Semeniuk would
take over in