Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

“Let’s be clear about this,” I said calmly. “I give the word, you die. You make a move, you die. You fuck with me one second longer, you die. Screw with me, Lilith, and my team will pile up the bodies of these women and then I will ask you again. Is that clear enough or do I have to shoot your daughter to make my point?”

“You wouldn’t do that,” said Lilith, and Violin’s eyes pleaded silently for me to agree.

Then a voice from the shadows said, “Yes, he would.”

Ghost gave a single sharp bark of surprise and everyone turned to see a tall, blocky figure walk slowly out of the darkness. I don’t know why I was surprised. Not after the day I had. Not considering who this was-but I was still slack-jawed.

In my earbud I heard Top say, “I swear I didn’t see him, Cap’n. Came out of nowhere.”

Yeah, I thought, he tends to do that. Spooky bastard.

Mr. Church wore a summer-weight white suit and dark tie. He carried no visible weapon and his eyes were hidden behind the lenses of his tinted glasses. He walked past me without a comment and stood in front of Lilith, but I noted that he chose an angle that did not block John Smith’s line of sight.

I heard a ripple of murmured voices around me; most of them said the name, “St. Germaine.”

Lilith got slowly to her feet and stood face to face with Church.

“You came,” she said.

He smiled at her, and it may have been the only genuine and unguarded smile I have ever seen from him.

And then Mr. Church pulled Lilith to him and they embraced.

Let me tell you something, this wasn’t the kind of hug the president gives a foreign dignitary, or the kind two football players share after a winning touchdown. No sir. This had familiarity in it that went all the way to the chromosomes, and there was serious heat there. I cut a look at Violin, who had one eyebrow arched as far as it would go. When she saw me looking she gave a tiny shake of her head.

In my earbud I heard Bunny say, “Wow.”

Church released Lilith and stood back from her, and they both turned to face me.

“Please tell your team to stand down, Captain,” said Church. “Bring then in.”

The laser lights vanished at once. I tapped my earbud. “Hold your positions.”

If Church was surprised or annoyed by that, he didn’t show it.

“How did you know where we were?” I asked. “I only gave Aunt Sallie the coordinates of our warehouse.”

“I was invited,” said Church, nodding toward Lilith.

“Okay,” I said, “I am now completely and thoroughly confused. Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

“You aren’t the only one who doesn’t know exactly what’s going on,” said Church. “We know some things and Lilith and her people know some things. We have to hope that if we all put our puzzle pieces on the table it will add up to one clear picture.”

“Thanks for giving me a heads up, Church,” I complained. He ignored me.

Church looked at his watch. “What’s the status of your team?”

“At the risk of sounding like a male stereotype,” I said, “Echo Team is cocked, locked, and ready to rock.”

“Good. I have transport on the way. We roll in one hour. And, yes, Captain, that means all teams are on active standby. On the president’s order we will hit all five of the sites in one coordinated strike.”

“What about the other two devices?”

Church paused and I could feel the eyes of everyone in the place burning into us. “We don’t know where they are. We’re going to have to run the play with what we have. If we’re very lucky we may secure one or more of the people involved in this and see if we can encourage them to unburden their souls.” It was said offhand, but the intent beneath the words was lethal.

“God help anyone who gets in our way, then,” I said.

Church gave me a bleak stare. “I believe they will discover that God has abandoned them.”

He turned toward Lilith.

“Now,” he said.

Arklight Camp

Outskirts of Tehran

June 16, 2:10 a.m.

“It all started eight hundred years ago with Sir Guy LaRoque, emissary for Philip II of France,” began Lilith. “He was a senior member of the Knights Hospitaller, which is a noble order dedicated to good works. However, Sir Guy created within the Hospitallers a second and very much more secret group which became known as the Ordo Ruber, the Red Order. The group was illegally sanctioned by Father Nicodemus, the senior Hospitaller priest in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.”

“Nicodemus,” I echoed, and a chill raced up my spine.

“Sir Guy brought his plan to his counterpart,” continued Lilith, “a man named Ibrahim al-Asiri, who was emissary for Saladin. These two men were much of a mind, and between them they shared the observation that it was remarkable that, during times of the severest strife between Christendom and Islam, people flocked to church in greater numbers and showed much greater fealty to God.”

“No atheists in foxholes,” I said, but caught a reproving look from Church. I mimed zipping my mouth shut.

“Exactly,” agreed Lilith. “They likewise observed that in times of peace, people strayed from the house and the word of God. LaRoque and al-Asiri found this intolerable and feared that extended times of peace would lead inevitably to the decline of faith. Understand, Captain, these men were religious zealots as well as political manipulators. They were ambassadors and spokesmen for great leaders, and also advisors. They could see things from what they likely viewed as a big picture perspective, and indeed history has shown that religions rise and fall. Few endure. So, seeing that this was a trend, and knowing that the Crusades must necessarily end one day, these two men decided to dedicate themselves to a course of action that would ensure the eternal preservation of their churches. They drafted an agreement between them that there should always be tension and conflict between Christendom and Islam. Nothing fills a church, or indeed a mosque, more surely than the need to pray for the confusion and destruction of the enemy, especially when the enemy is the enemy of one’s God.” She paused and fixed me with a penetrating stare. “Sir Guy, with the help of Nicodemus, founded his Red Order to oversee this work. Ibrahim created the Tariqa-the Path-to do the same for Islam, and within months of signing the Holy Agreement, they began a campaign of selective murder, arson, and desecration. There has always been strife here in the Middle East-but this was the birth of a new kind of conflict.”

I goggled at her. “You’re talking about hate crimes.”

“Yes, Captain, in a very real sense the Holy Agreement formed by the Red Order and the Tariqa was the beginning of terrorism as we know it. They invented hate crimes as we know that concept.”

Even though I was standing still I suddenly felt like I was falling. “To get people to go to church?”

In my earbud I heard a low whistle. Probably Top.

Church murmured, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Lilith nodded. “It’s possible, I suppose, that Sir Guy and Ibrahim had the best intentions as they saw it, but it speaks to a very malecentric viewpoint that what a person can see or imagine is his by right to have.”

My Y chromosome wanted me to protest, but anything I could say would be built on shaky ground. Lilith must have caught a look on my face and gave me a slice of a cool smile.

“These secret societies operate totally without the knowledge or sanction of the governing bodies of their religions,” she continued. “Neither the Catholic Church nor the imams of Islam would tolerate such acts. They would decry them as blasphemous and heretical, which they most assuredly are, but not from the perspective of the Red Order and the Tariqa. Much like a shadow government will often act in opposition to, say, the Constitution of the United States or the Magna Carta, because they believe their vision, however illegal and unpopular, is the best course of action. It’s sophistry, of course, and therefore self-justifying. The leader of the Red Order became known as the Scriptor out of respect for Sir Guy LaRoque drafting the original Holy Agreement. The leader of the Tariqa is known as the Murshid, or ‘guide.’”