not know what I was doing. I hacked into the Brotherhood’s systems and files. And then, quite illegally, I began to give little bits and pieces to the press. I was growing very close to exposing them to the public when they attempted to kill me and instead killed my friend. She was…well, I loved her a lot, Lawton. Not…that way. But maybe even more than that.”
“I’m sorry.” He could identify with her feelings and had an urge, the first one in a long time, to reach out and embrace someone simply to offer comfort. He had some idea of the hell this woman had gone through.
“That is when Office 119 snatched me away. Literally. Before I could do something stupid, like reappear. When they told me what my job would be here, I refused at first. I wanted to go after them right away. Maybe I should have. Maybe my family would still be alive.”
“I’m so sorry, Renate.”
She faced him then. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, revealing the grief that was tearing her apart. But her eyes were as hard as steel.
“I will not rest until I have broken them.” Her voice was level, harsh. “The world is full of conspiracies, but these…Schweine.” She shook her head and a tremor ripped through her. “They are responsible for Black Christmas. I know it. I just need to find out why.”
“Power,” Steve answered. “Isn’t it all about power?”
Renate nodded. Soundless tears still poured down her face. “I know these people. They financed all of this for some arcane reason of their own, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
“And then?”
But she didn’t answer, as if she knew the Hydra had too many heads. They might foil the Brotherhood’s plans, but how could they ever root out all the members themselves?
Another tremor ripped through her, and this time Lawton didn’t hesitate. He pulled her close and hugged her. She leaned against him, weeping silently for a long time, and all the while Lawton stared over her head into the night and began to consider the utter hopelessness of their goals.
Wipe out this evil of man against man?
Perhaps when the last two humans disappeared from the planet.
5
Washington, D.C.
President Harrison Rice sat in a wingback chair, looking at his National Security Advisor. Phillip Allen Bentley had not been Rice’s first choice for the position. In fact, Rice would not have chosen Bentley at all. When he had announced the nomination, Rice had spoken to the press of Bentley’s twenty years of service with the State Department, in a variety of postings. And that, coupled with Rice’s close association with the key senators on the Foreign Affairs Committee, had set the tenor for Bentley’s confirmation hearings.
The name of Jonathan Morgan had never come up, and certainly not in the White House. But Bentley’s presence, so unwelcome, served as a constant reminder.
What Harrison Rice knew—and hoped no one else had discovered—was that his old college roommate and lifelong friend Edward Morgan had masterminded the assassination attempt on Rice’s rival in the Democratic primaries: Grant Lawrence. Edward was dead now, a loose end tied up. Edward’s father, Jonathan Morgan, had come to Rice shortly after the election and explained Rice’s tenuous political position, making it clear that “his people” would expect Rice’s obedience. And the death of Edward left no doubt as to the price of disobedience.
Afterward, wild for some escape hatch, he had called for a private meeting between himself and the Director of the FBI, seeking an update on the Lawrence assassination attempt. The meeting had been held away from any possible ears or microphones, at a hunting lodge in West Virginia. Instead of learning that Jonathan Morgan had been lying, he learned that the Bureau had suspected Edward Morgan’s involvement but could not find hard evidence. If the FBI couldn’t prove it, then Rice had no hope of blowing a noisy whistle on the conspiracy. The “debt” would have to be paid.
Bentley’s appointment was the first installment, and although his influence in the administration had thus far been minimal, Rice knew that couldn’t last. Black Christmas had changed everything.
“If we handle this well,” Bentley continued, “we can form an international consensus. Black Christmas proved to the world what 9/11 should already have made obvious, that Islamic terrorism is an imminent threat to global security. The United States must act, and act decisively.”
“Of course we must,” Rice said. “But this kind of response…I mean, do we even know for sure who did this? As heavily as we’ve infiltrated Al Qaeda, wouldn’t we have known if they were planning something on this scale? And let’s not forget that Pakistan has been an ally in the war on terrorism. And they have nuclear weapons of their own.”
“Who else but Al Qaeda could have carried out such an attack?” Bentley replied. “We know they’ve wanted another high-profile strike, and we know they’ve become a global, pan-Islamic ideological movement. As the 2003 subway bombings in Madrid demonstrated, Al Qaeda’s leadership doesn’t have to be directly involved in a given attack. They’ve become a rallying cry for disaffected Muslims around the world. A mention here, a suggestion there, and indigenous Muslim radicals would gladly have performed the Black Christmas strikes on their own.”
“But the coordination,” Rice said. “You can’t tell me these attacks were independent, coincidental actions.”
“No,” Bentley conceded. “There would have been some coordination in terms of time. But the varying nature of the attacks themselves suggests multiple actors, working independently. And the complete absence of solid intelligence before the attacks seems to confirm that. So yes, Mr. President, I think it’s safe to conclude that this was an Al Qaeda coordinated operation. And we know their senior leadership is clustered in the remote regions of western Pakistan.”
Rice rose to his feet and turned to look out at the White House lawn. The snow on the ground was white and even, a pristine backdrop to a conversation that no U.S. president had seriously entertained since the end of the Second World War. For a moment, he let himself wonder if the mountains of Pakistan were also covered with snow at this moment, and whether some Al Qaeda leader was looking out from a cave entrance at a scene of picturesque beauty. He shook the image from his head and turned back to Bentley.
“Why not special operations forces? If we know where these people are, why not go in and get them?” He picked up Bentley’s memo. “I mean, why this, of all things?”
Bentley opened his hands, palms up. “Those caves are natural fortresses, Mr. President. They stretch hundreds of feet into the mountains, and they’re interconnected by man-made tunnels. That’s too big a target for commando-style operations. Defense tells me they would need at least a reinforced brigade to assault that kind of target, and we would take heavy casualties. Their projections are based on operations against cave complexes in Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands during World War II. They’re saying forty to sixty percent.”
Rice recoiled at the prospect of three or four thousand dead Americans. “But this isn’t 1945, Phillip. We have better technology now. We have the best military the world has ever known. I can’t believe—”
“Mr. President,” Bentley said, “cave-clearing operations are straight-up infantry battles. Those fights haven’t changed much in centuries. All the high-tech gizmos in the world mean little or nothing in that setting. It would come down to men
