The Perfect Angel, page 17
part #3 of Lance Priest-Preacher Series
"Damn." The guy said as he accepted the cash and reached into his pocket for the keys.
"You got a lot more than 2K there man. You need to pay D-Jack $3,000. Yep, three grand is the price of this ride." The second drunk was emboldened by the flash of cash.
Preacher had masses of adrenaline coursing through him from his 40-minute run from Wyrick's office. Times like these, with withdrawal howling like an inner wolf, made him cranky and impatient.
He reached out and took the other guy's hand and squeezed it. "Brother," the Russian accent thicker and menacing. "Two thousand is more than fair and D-Jack has accepted the offer. If you want to get in and come with me out to the swamps, we can negotiate further. My friends will enjoy meeting you. Come on." Preacher pulled the guy to the car as he accepted the keys from D-Jack, who started counting the bills.
The grip he had on the dude's hand was sending shockwaves up through the guy's arm. He tried to pull back, but Preacher pulled him in close. In the dark, his black eyes were holes. "Please, come with me." His smile drooled with evil intent.
"No, no man. You go on. I think 2k is good, right D-Jack?" The guy was pulling back for all he was worth now. His friend was busy kissing the bills.
Preacher let go of his hand and pushed him back from the car. "Good. You gentlemen have a nice evening." He got into the filthy car and drove out of the parking lot heading west a quarter of a mile to enter the onramp onto I-95 South.
It was all coming together as he drove south with the windows down. If he had half of it right, then this was one whopper of a tale. His wizardry at spinning lies paled in comparison to this epic saga. He was living; had been living it for the previous year. But this Greek tragedy, Shakespearian three-act marvel and Tolstoy 1,000-page treatise was not a creature of the present. This story was a relic of the past. This was all about the puppet master, the wizard, the one and only Geoffrey Seibel.
Chapter 31
The past caught up with the master in the morning.
Geoffrey Seibel, master of his own empire, king of his personal, worldwide fiefdom, high priest in the order of the cloak and dagger, awoke to his last day as such. Neither he, nor his current wife asleep beside him, knew what the day held.
He rose well before the sun as usual. Waking up in his bed had been a rare luxury for the past week. He started a pot of coffee, stepped out the front door onto the walk and then down the long driveway to retrieve the Washington Post and New York Times.
Something was wrong.
The Times weighed too much for a Wednesday. He raised the cylindrical shape and rotated it. He couldn’t see in, but it just felt too solid. He instinctively looked around into the gathering dawn. No one was out. Everything still.
He was bending to put the Times back down on the ground when he saw the piece of paper sticking out of the Post in his right hand. After setting the Times down, he slipped the band off the Post and the piece of paper fell into his hand.
Geoffrey Siebel was done.
It happens like this to men of his caliber. Growing old and rocking on the front porch was never a possibility. He expected to die long before he reached retirement. It was only fitting for a killer, a destroyer. He expected nothing more.
Instead of death this crisp, cool morning, Siebel received something colder, something significantly crueler. Geoffrey Siebel was relegated to CIA history, his world dismantled in seconds. The note contained only a few sloppily scribbled sentences. The words forced America’s premier spymaster to suck in air and exhale slowly. It read:
“I am the Black Angel. Wife 3 did not die last night. Daughters 2 and 3 off at college will wake from their sleep. Number 1 did not meet her maker along with your two grandchildren on a hillside in Carmel, Indiana late last evening. I spared them.
“Fall to hell. Watch them rise to heaven. Death meets us all. It never forgets a face.
“It will come back for you, tomorrow. Today you die a different death.
"You put faith and trust in three. Two have reciprocated. One has guided you for 25 years. He has done so on behalf of another master.
"This life is over. Join me."
Siebel picked up the New York Times and removed the rubber band to unroll it. He found a worn paper sack. Inside, he found a plastic bag with rocks and powder, a spoon, two syringes, cigarette filters and a lighter. He ran back in the house. He was inside for 17 minutes. Leaving, he knew he might never return. He left wife three sleeping peacefully.
Chapter 32
Looking through the filthy windshield of his $2,000 Monte Carlo three hours earlier, Lance Priest, not the Black Angel, reached a brilliant conclusion. He was driving south on I-95, just north of Baltimore. He pulled over and "borrowed" a cell phone from a car in the parking lot of roadside diner.
The pull, the tug of gravity he had been battling while driving the past two hours proved too strong. Preacher dialed a number he memorized a couple of years ago and left a brief message. He had left several painful messages over the past year, mostly when completely stoned or strung out.
He then used data imparted by Wyrick to call information and track down a number in West Virginia. He placed the call, told a few beautiful lies to the human who answered the phone, and then a couple more lies and an offer of money for services rendered. He then let magic take its course as he continued south past downtown Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay. He stayed on 95 until he reached 495 north of Washington, D.C. He went west, toward McLean, Virginia.
Chapter 33
Marta Sidorova left a deeply troubled and violent childhood behind when Seibel and crew rescued her at 16 from a life in institutions and prisons. Being deposited on the side of the road near an orphanage in Russia was a new beginning. The successive years of violence and death and manipulation were exciting but unfulfilling, until she found herself face-to-face with a young man with that certain something in his eyes.
She was born anew in that moment and can barely recall the pain from him shooting her, twice. As always, she instinctively rubbed the scar on the palm and back of her left hand where his bullet passed through.
She had tried, without success, to explain her plight to Braden after Lance was lost in the World Trade Center bombing. Braden was kind and considerate and always patient with her. It seemed that he genuinely cared. She knew part of that compassion was directed at Lance and the big hole his absence left in their lives.
A knock interrupted the book Marta was reading. She looked at the clock and then the door. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. She got up to look through the peephole in the door. It was Pete, the maintenance man.
“Yes?” She called through the door.
“Miss Parsons, I have a delivery for you,” the man answered.
This didn’t fit. She tensed and felt something she hadn’t in months. She recognized it right away – adrenaline. “What is it?”
“I have a message for you ma’am,” he answered.
“Who’s it from?”
“Ma’am, I know this is strange. I don’t know who it's from. I got a call a few minutes ago from a man who described you and had me write down the message and deliver it to you now and I get $200. I'm sorry, that's all I know ma'am." The man’s accent turned ma’am into three syllables. “I can leave it right here on your doorstep.”
“No, that’s okay.” She opened the door a few inches and he stood back at a respectable distance. Another response flashed through that hadn’t in over a year. She looked at the human standing in front of her and analyzed the best method to kill him. Shocking how quickly it came back. She reached out her hand and took the note.
“Thank you.” She whispered.
“No problem ma’am. He said to deliver it tonight. That it was very important. Sorry if I disturbed you.” Pete backed up as he said it.
“Thank you again.” She smiled and closed the door.
Marta looked at the piece of folded paper and turned it over in her hands. She limped over to her sofa and sat, just in case something troubling was inside.
After taking a deep breath, she unfolded the piece of paper. It simply read: “check your messages.” Her forehead crinkled as she reread it a dozen times.
What messages?
The answer shocked her. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
And then it was clear. Self-preservation had prevailed.
It was self-preservation, no matter how weak or feeble, that prevented her from thinking of it before now.
She needed a telephone.
That was a challenge out here in her cottage, but by no means impossible. She rose and walked across the room to the front door and pressed the intercom button. It was a direct connection to a central nursing station inside the hospital. Pressing the button was something she had never done before.
A minute later, Marta took her finger from the intercom and opened the door. She limped out onto her porch, down the ramp and up the walk toward the main building. At this time of night, no one was out. She didn’t encounter a guard as she traversed the 200 yards from the back gardens where her cottage sat. The place was still a prison. Call it a hospital and have guards walk around in nurse’s uniforms. It was still a prison for people with mental health problems.
She came to the building's rear entrance and found it locked, as expected. She pushed an intercom button. The same nurse came on. “Yes?”
“I really need to use a phone. Please let me in.” Marta was the voice of courteousness.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. Like I said a few minutes ago, you will have to wait until morning. Please, you need to go back to your quarters.” The nurse put a little more emphasis on the please this time.
Marta pressed the button again. “I don’t think I am being unreasonable. I have not made this request before, but this is something of an emergency. I must insist that I be allowed to use a phone.” Her request was met by silence.
Less than a minute later, she saw activity through the glass door. Two people were approaching. Lights flicked on and she could see a woman, most likely the nurse. A man in uniform walked beside her. A guard. They approached the glass door and stood on the other side without opening it.
The guard spoke this time through the glass. “Miss Parsons, now please, you need to wait until morning to use a phone. Those are the rules. Please go back to your residence.”
Marta continued to smile. She took two steps back from the door, left her hands at her sides. She was non-threatening. Her retreat did as she’d hoped. The guard opened the door so he wouldn’t have to shout and disturb others. He took a half step out. “You understand the rules Miss Parsons, don’t you?”
She looked him up and down. She’d seen him hundreds of times from a distance, spoken with him in passing maybe three times. “I understand the rules. But I hope you understand that emergencies happen and rules need to be bent for times like these. Please.”
He looked back at the nurse standing behind him and then moved further out the door to expand his presence in front of Marta. He was creating a somewhat menacing human wall. “I understand you feel you need to use the phone. But I am going to have to ask you to wait until the morning. We can tell the morning crew when they arrive and you will be the very first to use the phone. I promise.” He slid his foot another few inches out the door. He was now holding the door open behind him.
She did not like having to do it, but she changed tactics in a quarter second as she leaned forward just an inch.
“You will allow me to use a phone now, within the next two minutes.” Her voice was hard, deeper. A Russian accent crept in. The smile was gone as she spoke to the guard only, leaving the nurse out of it. “Your name is William Taft Hicks. You weigh 194 pounds, are 43 years old, left-handed, asthmatic with a limp from a knee injury, most likely football in high school. You have no weapon and no means of defending yourself from one who knows hundreds of ways to kill you. You are not fast enough to take two steps back and pull the door closed to protect our good nurse before I move from my current position and break your nose, fracture your sternum and collapse your esophagus. When you have crumpled to the ground, your wallet and identification will be easily accessible. Your address, family members and other pertinent facts will be obtained and evaluated for exposition and involvement.” She smiled slightly.
“I have no desire to harm either of you or your families. I understand the challenges inherent when you chose to make your living in a place such as this. Encountering individuals who have killed many is a fact of life for you. But enough; you have only seconds to disregard protocol and permit a model patient access to a telephone. Quickly now, don’t delay or deliberate.”
Her words worked. She was pleased that she did not have to resort to actual violence. The guard and nurse accompanied her, a few paces behind, in through the door, down the hall to the community room and the telephone on the wall.
She smiled at them and nodded. They got the message and stepped back to the doorway to give her privacy. “Thank you.”
Marta picked up the receiver and hesitated. She dialed a number she hadn’t since, that day. Since New York. The adrenaline of her little show with the guard was already wearing off and trepidation was taking over. Her hand shook as she pressed the buttons in a sequence that started with a toll-free number and progressed through a secure, password-protected system to eventually reach a voicemail box. It was one of the accounts she and Preacher had established after moving operations to the US while tracking Anwar the terrorist bomber. Neither of them trusted cell phones.
She heard the familiar female voicemail prompt. The electronic voice was a comfort to her.
“You have five new and four saved messages.” The pleasant voice gave her the option to listen to the new messages or access the saved audio files. Marta assumed the new messages were from that day when she was incapacitated after nearly being killed by bullets and a horrific explosion. She smiled as she pushed the number 2 to access the saved messages. She knew the one she wanted to hear.
A moment later, her smile broadened and tears flowed as she heard Lance’s voice, well not his exactly. It was him doing Bart Radish a car salesman, Marta’s favorite character, among the hundreds he could assume. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Bart spoke very slowly in a deep Texas drawl. “Your friend, a fool by the name Rance or Vance or whatever, forgot to tell you something very important last night. That damn fool up and left you without telling you he likes you. He really likes you ma’am. I believe the fella might even love you. He’s just such an im-bi-sell,” he drew out the word into three excruciatingly long syllables. “I hope you’ll find it in your sweet, loving, kind and generous heart to forgive the fool.”
Marta laughed. She actually laughed for the first time in what felt a whole lot like forever. Bart finished his message, “And ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, I got to tell you, you are one fine filly. I mean one fine specimen of a woman. I hope that fool you let come around tells you that the next time he sees you. Bye now.”
She bent over and then fell back against the wall to slide down to the floor. She had been right to keep these reminders from coming into her mind. She needed time to pass before she could expose herself to this. She felt like a fool who’d just won the lottery. Marta had discovered a treasure trove of recordings that she could keep forever. She took a deep breath and dove into the next message.
After listening to the four in history, she debated hanging up and keeping the five new messages for another time. She didn’t really want to hear his voice mails as he looked for her, wondering where she went that night, why she hadn’t returned his calls. These messages would hurt. His voice would bring that horrible day back to her.
She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arm around them to rest her chin on her knees. The attraction, the allure of his voice was too much. She did not have the strength to wait. The nice electronic voicemail lady asked again if she would like to listen to new messages or saved recordings.
She took a deep breath, pressed 1 for new messages and was reborn in the next moment.
Chapter 34
"How'd I do boss?"
He shouted to Seibel who was getting out of his car.
"About like I expected." Seibel called back to him and began to walk his way, weaving through the trees.
Lance was sitting against a towering oak tree 22 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. It was a place at which they had met several times before. The trees provided shade, but more importantly, obstruction for anyone looking down from a plane or satellite.
"You just had to do it." Lance looked up at Seibel and shook his head. "Couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"Some problems call for extreme measures." Seibel looked down at him without emotion.
"Where do you go now?" Lance leaned his head back against the tree. He looked as tired as he was.
"I'm going somewhere?"
"Either you leave or you get locked up. If you're lucky. You're done." Preacher looked away, then up at the waving leaves. "The CIA can't allow the guy who let a 25-year mole under the covers stick around. Congress and the public can't hear about this one."
Seibel plopped down and leaned back against an oak. "Who knows?"
"Beside me?"
"Yes."
"Wyrick, if he's figured it all out."
"How did you?" It was a simple question that carried mountains of complication, obfuscation and misdirection. Seibel had dumped the entire thing on his young protégé’s head. It could have very well killed him. "Well, who is it?"
"Which one do you think?" Lance smiled.
"I don't care for games right now Preacher."
"Oh, I'm sorry. No time for games. Only time to put me in the middle of your chess board and spin me like a top." Lance could always give Seibel as good as he got.
"Do I really need to explain it all to you?" Seibel leaned his head back and looked up at the undersides of the waving, shimmering leaves. They whispered as the breeze ignited their dance.
