William Tyree - The Fellowship

“Maybe she just wants you home more.”

“We’re not here to talk about my personal life. Come in and close the door.”

Carver did so reluctantly. His office was about the size of a large walk-in closet.

Speers pulled a purple lollipop from his pocket and began unwrapping it. “You handled that briefing well today.”

“What do you want, Julian?”

“To give you a compliment.”

“You must want something. My target in Rome is missing, and you’re dishing out compliments. Doesn’t add up.”

Speers slid the lollipop between his cheek and gum. “You say you’re not good at case management, but you are.”

Carver frowned. “So you want me to take on a larger role. We both know I’m not wired to sit behind a desk. You promised me this was temporary.”

“And I meant it. Stop being so paranoid. I’m just stashing you here until the whole thing blows over.”

It didn’t feel temporary. By the time he had returned to Washington from Arizona, he’d found that Eva Hudson’s enemies were already hard at work trying to find ways to invalidate her line of succession to the presidency. They were demanding investigations into every aspect of the operation that had discovered and ultimately suppressed the mutiny. That in itself hadn’t been so shocking, until Carver found that he himself was the focus of a misguided witch hunt that threatened to blow the anonymity he had spent so many years cultivating.

“How much longer until I can get back into the field?”

“It’s up to you,” Speers said.

Carver looked up. He hadn’t heard that one before. “Up to me?”

Speers nodded. “You have to appear before the committee tomorrow.”

So that was it. The House Committee on Domestic Intelligence had been pressuring the president for months to make Carver testify. Then they had gone to Speers, who had bought him some time. Apparently there was very little sand left in the hourglass.

“The administration has,” Speers said, “for the most part, satisfied the committee’s appetite for bloodlust already. You’re the last person on their list. And you can make this go away for all of us. Just tell them is where Nico Gold is.”

They had been through all this before. The committee needed one person they could single out as a scapegoat. Nico Gold was one of world’s most gifted cybersecurity experts. He was also considered a convicted felon who, in Carver’s opinion, had earned a pardon for his good deeds.

“If it wasn’t for Nico,” Carver said, “there probably wouldn’t be any committee. There might not be any congress either, for that matter.”

“You’ve gotten too emotional,” Speers said. “It’s enough to save your country. You can’t save everyone.”

“That’s your rationale for throwing a hero under a bus?”

“I disagree. One heroic act doesn’t change the fact that Nico Gold is a criminal.”

“It was actually a bunch of heroic acts that added up over a period of days.”

Speers shook his head and opened the office door. “Give it some thought, Blake. They’re not asking you to be the judge and jury. They just want to know where they can find him.”

He didn’t need to think about it. The committee could crucify him, for all he cared. There was no way he was selling out the greatest intelligence asset he had ever worked with. Besides, someday, they were going to need him.

Piazza del Popolo

Rome

Lars drove the motorcycle around the enormous piazza once, and then again, so that he could make sure he and Adrian Zhu had not been followed. At this time of night, only a handful of tourists were present, all of whom seemed to be photographing the 24-meter-high obelisk at the center of the square known as the Flaminio. Like most of the obelisks in Rome, the Flaminio had been taken from Egypt. After being brought to Italy in 10 B.C., the obelisk had stood at the Circus Maximus, where it witnessed countless chariot races before being moved to the Piazza del Popolo, where it had seen an equal number of public executions.

Although the sun had been down for nearly four hours, Lars kept the tinted visor of his helmet pulled all the way down, covering his entire face. The visor on Zhu’s helmet was painted black. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust him. They had spent years vetting him. But at least if he were captured, he would not, under the pain of torture, lead them to the Shepherd.

Spotting only the tourists and a few parked taxis hoping for a fare, Lars gunned the motor. The bioengineer gripped the seat frame for balance as the bike shot through the Porta del Popolo, an elaborate archway leading to Via Flaminia. He drove east for two and a half blocks, and then made a sharp left into the courtyard of an enormous villa that had originally belonged to a Venetian bishop. The mechanized iron gate closed behind them as Lars shut off the engine and dismounted the bike. He then led Zhu through the private courtyard to the immense double front doors, where two guards stood, brandishing TEK-9s like the one Lars had under his jacket.

Inside at last, Zhu was finally allowed to remove his helmet. “ Bellissima ,” he said, trying on one of the few Italian words he knew as he looked around the enormous foyer. The walls were painted crimson. Portraits of the Venetian bishop in various poses hung on opposing walls. An enormous Murano glass chandelier hung overhead.

The living area was hardly as pristine, resembling a war zone more than a historic villa. Enormous piles of earth and debris occupied most of the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Perhaps they had been tunneling, he thought. How else to explain this much dirt? It was a preposterous sight.

Now Lars led him up a creaky mahogany staircase. The entrances to the second and third floors had been sealed off with razor wire. On the fourth floor landing, a carpenter appeared to be engaged in some sort of construction project in the middle of the hallway. Several floorboards were pulled up and stacked in a row. Lars and Zhu stepped around him and proceeded to the end of the hall, where another pair of plain-clothed bodyguards stood.

“Is he awake?” Lars asked one of the guards.

“Very. He’s been expecting you.”

Lars opened the door, revealing a spacious study with dark wood paneling and a high ceiling. Another magnificent glass chandelier provided flattering overhead lighting. Several steamer trunks were lined up against the east wall.

An Alsatian sat vigilantly in the middle of the room. He wagged at the sight of Lars, but growled menacingly when Zhu stepped into the room.

“Off,” a wizened voice called from the far corner of the room. The Alsatian instantly curbed his aggression.

Sebastian Wolf — known to his flock as the Shepherd — stood at a workstation that was easily the most modern piece of furniture in the place. The old man wrote long, looping cursive in a large leather-bound book. He wore a dark suit with a white silk tie, and a white shirt with French cuffs and black marble cufflinks. Aside from his full head of perfectly groomed white hair, he looked far more youthful than Zhu had imagined. The skin of his face was somewhat smooth, but he had none of the grotesque signs of excessive plastic surgery. Nobody knew exactly how old the Shepherd was, but even if he didn’t look like an octogenarian, he had to be at least in his mid-80s, if not older.

At the sight of the old man, Zhu was suddenly overcome with emotion. And there will be a Shepherd who walks among you who has seen into the heart of the tyrants, because he was born among them and has lived among them. And his name will be Sebastian.

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, sobbing. Wolf’s Alsatian, Magi, growled and bared his teeth. This time the Shepherd did not correct the animal.