Dark Vessel (COIL Book 4), page 21
Exhausted, I arrived in New York and drove to COIL headquarters. I didn't want to see or speak to anyone, and only wanted to plant my head on a bunk until my body adjusted to the time zone whiplash.
But in climbing the stairs to the COIL offices, avoiding the frequented elevator, I sensed someone in the stairwell with me. My hand rested on the door handle leading to the COIL suites. In an instant, I could have COIL's twenty-four-hour security to back me up. My weariness left me, replaced by the awareness of danger.
"Who's there?" I said softly, for my shadow was but one flight below me, and it was a quiet evening. "Luigi? Is that you?"
Someone moved, and I was afraid I'd frightened the person away. Instead, he moved up to the next landing and stopped in full view, but his dark sweatshirt hood hid his face. He was a large man with muscled shoulders, light on his feet, except for the hint of a limp on his left side. Looking up at me, his face was still too hidden in the dim stairwell. This was him! I knew this was Luigi's muscle, his student, Corban's secret, COIL's shadow operator! I hardly dared to breathe.
"Friend or foe?" I queried.
"Friend." His voice was low and clear, maybe younger than I expected. "You've made a mess of things without me, Chloe."
I gasped. He knew me! My head was spinning.
"Your voice—we know each other?"
"Corban gave me the option to disappear, to use my death against the darkness."
"No. It can't be you . . . It can't be!"
"Luigi just called me. He said you needed me now."
"No. You died in Germany two years ago. You're dead!"
"It's been a long time since we argued on that water tower, Chloe." He chuckled—at a time like this! "I'm hesitant to argue with you again, but I'm very much alive."
Only Corban knew about my quarrel on the water tower in Malaysia during Operation Helena—a quarrel I'd had with Nathan "Eagle Eyes" Isaacson.
Somehow, I flew or dove down the stairs to land in Nathan's arms. He fell back against the wall, but he remained standing, holding me as I sobbed into his chest and clung to this miracle before me. I didn't know how he was alive, or how Corban had hidden that fact from me, but God knew I needed him now.
"You're right, you know." I laughed, stepping away and wiping my face. "I've made a mess of things."
"Well, Luigi didn't help, splitting on you in Africa." Placing his hands on my shoulders, he was the same COIL commander I remembered, yet he'd changed. He seemed more weathered, and there was a new loneliness in his face. "Things are worse than you know, Chloe. While you were in Africa, I played with a little toy called a directional microphone."
"What've you found?"
"Senator Nettleton is working for the other team. He and Rod Chang are not our allies. Nettleton, Chang, and Coleman all intend for General Forglade to go down for everything."
"Really? Nettleton is dirty? He's given us autonomous Homeland Security authority!"
"Only as far as you keep them involved and do their dirty work of finding General Forglade. Luigi told me everything, and I've shared with him what I know. We're ready to go get Corban, if he's alive."
His words made my stomach muscles tighten.
"Do you know where he is?"
"If I know Corban, and I think I do, he's on the trail of the bad guys. With the satellite info from Luigi, by dawn we'll know where they are."
"Two things." I held up two fingers. "First, you have to convince Luigi to come in. He'll get himself killed if he keeps this up. Whoever he used to be, I don't think he's the same man anymore. And I think he needs us more than he realizes."
"Well, it's actually good he's not who he used to be, but that doesn't mean I can get him to come in. He'll tell you himself that he won't listen to anybody but Corban. What's the second thing?"
"You have to tell me everything from why you're wearing a leg brace to what you've been doing the last two years. I want to know everything!"
Waking Brody and Gail, we went to Corban's office and celebrated with tears and praise to God over Nathan's return. Though neither Brody nor Gail had met Nathan when he was team leader of COIL's primary extraction team, they'd heard of his past exploits. He explained how he was deathly ill in Germany after getting captured during the journey home, but he'd recovered miraculously. Corban hadn't been able to overlook the opportunity to train him as a solitary operative.
"I don't mean to be rude," Brody interrupted, "but if Luigi could call any minute with coordinates in the Caribbean, we need to know what you know, then get some sleep."
"Well, I'm still putting it all together myself." Nathan stood against the bulletproof glass, and I sat behind Corban's desk while Brody and Gail settled on the two chairs. The door was closed since the caseworker nightshift had arrived to coordinate COIL's field operations. "It was Flight 524 that didn't make sense to me, and in talking with Luigi before you two went to Nigeria, it hasn't made any sense to anyone else, either."
"That's the plane the TaTD took out, then they wanted to pin it on Corban's alias," Gail said. "It's bothered me, too. Why Flight 524?"
"It's been right in front of us, and Senator Nettleton's been behind it the whole time. He's finished." Nathan shook his head. "See, it's personal for him. Corban and his old alias were just handy. The US has been tired of Corban for a long time. They feel he knows too much and still has too much power."
"Stay on Nettleton, Nathan," I urged, my hands shaking. This was it. We were getting close to figuring out the end of this nightmare!
"Nettleton's been abusing his authority for a long time. A congressional investigator was on Flight 524, returning with what must've been serious evidence of Nettleton's senatorial compromises." Nathan smiled, as if we were to applaud, but we were still lost. "It took me hours running that passenger casualty list, but I found it. Once I found that investigator's name, I looked him up. His office, once I got them talking, wasn't aware of the connection. Everything the guy had would've brought Nettleton down. Senator Shannon Griffin's death, Nettleton's predecessor, was even being questioned. A supposed heart attack was the initial story. Nettleton killed the previous chairman to get his hands on billions in domestic spending. He was either going to jail or he had to silence that investigator. My guess? The senator couldn't resist the military resources at his fingertips, just like he'd been abusing his power for years. He used General Forglade to take down Flight 524. It has nothing to do with Corban, but it has everything to do with Corban, because Forglade intended to cover it all up by blaming it on Muhammad ibn Affal. At first, it seems they didn't even know the alias belonged to him, but once they blew Flight 524, they had to pin it on someone plausible."
"Corban's in more danger than we realized," I said.
"The senator found the perfect patsy." Brody threw up his hands. "A Muslim name, a photo of Corban in disguise, and an ignorant public."
"I get Senator Nettleton and General Forglade's involvement, but what about this Karl Coleman?" Gail asked.
"According to what I heard Chang and Nettleton talking about, it sounds like Coleman is the worst of the whole lot. He's led execution squads into South America—black ops. I've known guys like him over the years. No conscience, walking death. That's why he didn't hesitate to order Janice and Jenna killed, but he hired the wrong assassin this time—our assassin, who's not an assassin any longer: Luigi Putelli."
"Who've you told this to?" I asked.
"Just Luigi and you three." Nathan took a moment to look each of us in the face. "At some point, I think General Forglade figured out Coleman was going to take him out. Nettleton used Forglade, but now Forglade knows too much. So the general is using military jamming tech to hide from Coleman, but it's a farce because Nettleton and Coleman are working together now. They both want Forglade. Apparently, General Forglade has bragged about a hideout in the Caribbean, but everyone is waiting to learn the exact location."
"It's a mess." Brody rubbed his sleepy eyes. "The public will never sit still to hear all the evidence, the twists and turns. Setting up an ex-CIA agent who had a Muslim alias? Without a confession, we've got nothing. Corban could still go down for Flight 524 if we don't take them all down in perfect order."
We were silent for a few moments, realizing how much we knew now, but also how far we were from finding Corban.
"I'm going to the Caribbean," Nathan said, "as soon as Luigi comes through with the coordinates."
"Me, too." I nodded at him. "And we're not sharing the coordinates with Nettleton or Chang."
"Not the correct coordinates, anyway," Gail said with a sly look. "Brody and I can take down Rod Chang with a little squeezing here on the home front. Now that we know the facts from Nathan's snooping, it's just a matter of presentation and recording. The flight passenger manifest ruins the senator. He killed the investigator. Besides all the other people on board!"
"Which is why the passenger manifest was buried," Nathan said. "It wasn't made public record since the crash investigation was supposedly still underway. It took some, well, impersonating to get my hands on that passenger list."
"General Forglade or Coleman could be holding Corban for collateral," I said, "to use against the senator or for their own freedom. Corban's still the king in this chess game."
"Good thing we've got another knight on the board." Brody winked at Nathan. "God's given us the muscle we need. Now, let's bring our man home."
"Right." I chuckled uneasily. "Unfortunately, everything now depends on Luigi to come through with those coordinates. It wouldn't hurt for us to start for the Caribbean, Nathan, just to be closer if Luigi calls."
"He'll call." Nathan frowned, as if he were trying to believe his own words. "I hope, before he tries to help Corban by himself."
PART IV – Corban
*~*
Chapter 35
I was struggling with murderous hatred. My family—the Corban Dowler family—had been slaughtered, and my heart felt like a volcano inside of me. Every impulse I'd been trained to exercise as a spy hunter compelled me to respond violently against my enemies: General Logan Forglade and Karl Coleman.
General Forglade was certainly a prize, and my sites were firmly set on him exactly where Karl Coleman said he'd be—somewhere in Gustavia, on the island of St. Barts. However, Coleman hadn't shown himself in the two weeks I'd been hiding out, shut off from the world, waiting for the killers of my wife and daughter.
My arrogance continued to swell within me. Many times a day, as I studied the general's cottage through my spotting scope, I asked myself, didn't my enemies know who I was? I'd been a ruthless CIA agent for many years, surviving countless missions through the end of the Cold War. And afterward, I mopped up loose ends, silencing enemies before they could become free agents for anyone else in the world once the Iron Curtain collapsed and the Wall crumbled. Was my reputation so ancient that new foes scorned me and dared to kill my loved ones?
This pride was ugly even to me. It was an attitude of self, and God was pushed to the recesses of my mind. I still knew the difference between right and wrong, but I was intent on doing wrong, and the patient fury in me made great effort to set aside my conscience. Had I served Christ so faithfully for so many years, only to fall to the level of darkness now, in my hour of greatest anguish? Did God not know my potential to hate and destroy? Bitterly, I knew God was rooting out this stronghold of sin in me, but it was most painful, and my animosity against His discipline had made me wish for the worst against my enemies.
Gustavia was a popular resort town built around a protected harbor. Coral surrounded the volcanic island. Green water reflected with clarity the vegetation beneath. Though winter was approaching, the moderate temperature was warm enough at that latitude for me to sleep for several nights on the hillside above the town that many called paradise.
In a matter of weeks, tourists from around the world would flood the island for its winter escape, its iced mango and grilled tuna steaks. But none of these luxuries intrigued me. Since I had no family to return to in New York, my only remaining objective in life seemed to be vengeance. COIL no longer needed me. Whatever I would do after my revenge was satisfied wasn't a matter of concern. These wicked men wouldn't live. If only I could get them both in one location!
General Forglade was the bait for Coleman. Coleman was the man I thought to be Roy Turpin. It seemed a lifetime ago when Roy Turpin and I had corresponded, me mentoring him for those two years. All the while, he'd been waiting for his plan, grooming me for destruction—my family, my livelihood, my faith. Roy Turpin, the man I'd thought would be God's vessel, had proven otherwise—a dark vessel. And he'd been a cancer to all those he'd touched.
All the details and all the unknown players in this nightmare were no longer important. I knew who had blood on their hands. If Coleman had been tasked to destroy me two years ago, and Flight 524 gave him a purpose—it no longer mattered. Coleman and others had found one another, and sealed their fate.
My last contact with Coleman had been in the underground bunker in Maryland outside Arlington. He hadn't known it was me, but he'd shot me with what he thought was a lethal toxin. After hearing he'd killed my family, I indeed wished he would've killed me. But since I was alive, he would pay. They would all pay. My skills were more than sufficient to obliterate those who all others seemed unable to take out.
It was a ten-minute climb up the steep hill from the town to the lighthouse that overlooked the eight-square-mile island. The scrubby bushes and trees on the rocky terrain were more than adequate to conceal my activities while hiding so far away from my target. Around the lighthouse and the nearby weather station, the Swedish ruins of Fort Gustav lay collapsed, but various sections remained, providing me cover from the town below. Occasionally, hikers ventured up the hill to check out the 360-degree view, but they were mostly tourists, unfamiliar with the hidden corners of the crumbled ramparts.
Using a high-powered telescope, I peered nearly six hundred yards down the hill, over the town with its few streets, across the harbor where sailboats bobbed, to the broad peninsula. The peninsula itself, lush with vegetation, had a wide road running down its length, ending at La Pointe. About four rows of cottages lined the narrow avenues on both the ocean side and harbor side of the peninsula. Then I focused on a particular red-roofed cottage across the harbor.
Though I couldn't see inside Forglade's cottage, my telescope was powerful enough to count every tile on the roof. At night, I watched mostly one lit window for movement, which occasionally went dark for a few seconds at odd times. Day after day, I watched the dwelling, occasionally spying on Forglade when he went around the bay to the Boulangerie Choisy, where I also picked up snacks for myself. And day after day, I waited for Coleman to show himself. The whole town and most of the island were in my view. No one could arrive in Gustavia without me noticing them.
When my stomach growled, I pushed the hunger away. I couldn't leave my post. Eventually Coleman would come for the general. The two men were enemies, weren't they? Hadn't I provoked Coleman to go after the general? Maybe Coleman didn't know exactly where Forglade was living, but he'd find him, as I had. He had to come!
Near sundown, I lowered my head from my scope and squeezed my burning eyes shut. I was standing vigil in the memories of my wife and daughter, wasting away, ready to exact what justice I deemed right from my own heart.
"I'm dying inside," I whispered, my own lips betraying the condition I kept denying.
Standing behind the ruins, I looked up at the lighthouse to my left. It flashed every twelve seconds, white, red, or green. It depended from which direction the viewer stood as to which color was visible, but this close to the lighthouse, in that lighting, I could see all three colors.
The lighthouse—it meant something to me right then. God was calling me, warning me, drawing me into the light, to see all the angles, but I continued to resist. My pain caused me to rebel. Could I give it up? Could I give up my hatred?
Looking away from the lighthouse, I considered what it would mean if I were to leave my path of revenge. Could I return to a life back at COIL, executing missions selflessly, knowing I was this selfish in my flesh? And what was I to return to—an empty house?
The pain of loss was immense, but my pain over avoiding the spiritual voice of my Lord and Savior was agony of a deeper sense. My own desires were killing me the longer I remained on that hill. There was a little water still in my dirty water jug, but I had no food left. I'd lost nearly fifteen pounds in two weeks, starving myself. If I didn't do something different, I'd die, with or without revenge. This way was clearly not working. How often I'd realized this in life, and yet I'd fallen into the same trap again!
"Father," I prayed from my heart, "I'm in sin, and I confess it before You. It's sin against You because I'm Yours eternally. Refine me, Lord, and give me the strength, Your strength, to live by the new nature You've given me. Correct my will, dear God, because I hate this evil that clings to me. I need You. Help me . . ."
"No revenge," I said aloud. My resolution seemed to come from outside my body, and yet it was immediately calming. I'd served God for too long to now turn and scar His mighty name by my selfishness. What a coward I'd been of what was holy and true! Even my Janice would've been ashamed of me.
I took a deep breath. If I was alone now, then I was alone. But I couldn't waste what God had built through me. And I wouldn't allow those men to blind me by their darkness any longer. A battle had raged, yet in my weakness, my Lord's strength had prevailed. Oh, I'd still get the enemy, but not for myself now. Vengeance belonged to the Lord. He always repaid the debts that were due. God would keep me from evil, and I would trust Him.
General Forglade hadn't left Gustavia in two weeks. He would await capture a little longer while I got food and rest. Regardless of the tragedies of my family, I had to believe God was still sovereign, that all things were moving in a direction for a singular end, for a good end. There was comfort in this thought, a thought I could only attribute to the Holy Spirit in me since I knew well my mind and my flesh.
