Guardian (2 page)

 

Chapter Two

G
lenn Cheatum stood at his desk, looking down at a brief he'd prepared to present to the director, when his cell phone vibrated on his hip. He grabbed it without tearing his gaze from the paper. Deep musings on the chances of civil unrest in Lebanon. Fucking scintillating stuff. Once he finished the last line, he glanced at the phone.

Not a call, a text message. From Mike.

He read the text: 9-­9-­9.

“Shit.”

Glenn called Mike.

Pick up, pick up, pick up.

It rang five times before going to voice mail.

“Fuck.”

Glenn hung up, clipped the phone back on his belt and left his office. It took him three minutes to reach the Operations Center in the CIA Headquarters at Langley, Virginia. When he walked in, silence greeted him.

Four ­people sat at computers, monitoring operations around the world. Not a busy day. Most days, the center buzzed with life. Today, though, nothing much was going on in CIA land.

Glenn approached the guy closest to him, sitting at a flat-­screen monitor watching video surveillance from the Kingdom of Saud. “What's your name?”

“Who's asking?” the guy said before he turned around. When he did, his eyes widened and his plump cheeks deflated. “Oh, shit, sorry, Deputy.”

“Don't worry about it. What's your name?”

“Terry Kolchak.”

“Terry, who owns Iraq today?”

“I do, along with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.”

Glenn nodded and put a hand on Terry's thick shoulder. “Any air assets up over southeastern Iraq?”

“Yeah, we have a Global Hawk north of Basra near the border.”

“Reroute it to Ur.”

“Ur?”

“Outside An Nasiriyah. North.”

“Any specific location?”

“I'm going to give you an asset number, and you should be able to pull up a GPS squawking. The coordinates it gives is where I need the bird to go.”

“No problem. What's the number?”

Glenn released Terry's shoulder and pulled up Mike's info on his phone: 700316.

Terry punched in the numbers. “Got it.” He hummed.

“What?”

“Well, it's an unknown subject. Never seen an asset come up as unknown.”

“That's for me to worry about. Copy?”

“Yes, Deputy.”

Good,
Glenn thought, thankful Mike was smart and knew to leave his phone on. “How long before we've got video?”

“Seven minutes, give or take.”

“I want it on the big screen.”

While Glenn waited, he pondered what might have happened. The code 9-­9-­9 was for an agent in duress. Mike had gone to site R91 on his orders. The military handed the site back over to the construction company. Work had resumed. The area should have been safe.

Should have been.

“Global Hawk on station, Deputy,” Terry said.

Glenn fished a pack of cherry antacids from his pocket, popped one in his mouth and ground it between his back molars while watching the live feed from the UAV. The real-­time color imagery from the drone was displayed on the giant digital screen at the front of the Operations Center. It circled a ­couple of hundred feet above a black Lincoln Town Car and a blue Renault, both shot-­up and beat to shit.

Fuck
.

“Geez,” Terry said. His pale face had turned a slight pink. “Hope no one was hurt.”

You and me both,
Glenn thought. He stared at the footage for a few more seconds. No bodies. No cars other than Mike's and the pursuit vehicle. Whoever had him now had left in a different car for sure. And he had to assume they had Mike, because his agent would never have left his phone behind.

You went to R91 like I told you to. Someone saw you there, remembered you from the attack last month. Wanted some payback or to finish the job.

It was the only thing that made sense. Glenn doubted it was a foreign agency or a terrorist group. No, it had to be someone familiar with R91. The only group outside coalition forces and Iraqi regulars to visit the site in the last few weeks was the little band that had attacked it.

What had Mike called them? Guardians of the Prison, or some shit like that?

He still couldn't fully swallow the whole tale. Mike had been serious when recanting the events at R91, and Glenn admitted something strange had happened, including the prison disappearing. But he had a hard time accepting that whatever was in the prison was supernatural in origin or worth protecting by a bunch of desert dwellers for thousands of years. More likely the prison had been temporal, excavated by looters and sold on the black market. Nothing supernatural about that.

Of course, he didn't know what Mike meant by supernatural. Mike had only told him that it wasn't a weaponized hallucinogen or any other chemical agent. Even getting that much out of him had taken a direct order. The rest, Mike said, would have to be told in person, once he got back to Langley, where he'd have a better chance of convincing him it was all true. Mike had thought that if he tried to convince him over the phone, he would have had him committed or killed for being insane.

I still might,
Glenn thought
. First I need to get you back to Langley alive to hear it.

He ran through possible plans. He had zero CIA assets available in the immediate area. The closest ones, he wasn't willing to divert from current operations. Not to mention that he'd have to admit he had a rogue agent working in-­country. If he did that, the chain of command would go ape shit, arrest him for conducting illegal operations, he'd end up in jail and Mike would end up dead.

He could call in the Iraqi military. But then he'd still have to explain to his boss what was going on without giving away Mike's identity and their relationship. Not an option.

Shit.
No, he needed to handle this on his own if he or Mike stood a chance of coming out of it unharmed and free of prosecution. Free of the pokey.

So how do I save our asses?

“Thanks, Terry. Break off the bird and return it to its normal operation.”

“What happened, Deputy?”

Glenn shrugged. “Don't know. Probably chasing a ghost.”

“None of our ­people were involved in this, were they?”

“No.”

“But the GPS for the asset number—­”

Glenn clamped down on Terry's shoulder and squeezed while fixing the fat man with his gaze. “Is no longer your concern, Terry. Do you understand?”

Terry nodded, his cheeks jiggling.

“Smart man.” Glenn let go, straightened his jacket and tie, and focused on the screen. Two destroyed cars and one missing rogue agent. Wonderful. “You do good work here.”

Turning away from the screen, Glenn walked over to a nearby empty console. He lifted a phone and punched a number.

“Special Activities director,” the voice said. “This is a secured line.”

“Steve, it's Glenn.”

“Deputy, what can I do for you?”

Always formal. “I need a favor.”

“This have anything to do with you redirecting a UAV over Ur?”

“Word travels fast, I see.”

“When the deputy director walks into the Operations Center and diverts a UAV without any explanation, ­people notice.”

“Guess I should come down here more often.”

“So, does this have something to do with why you're there?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“You know I don't have any assets in Ur. Wonder why you're so interested in that area, being there's no CIA there.”

“The asset doesn't belong to you or Clandestine Ser­vice.”

“Are you going to tell me who he does belong to?”

Glenn gritted his teeth. Although Steve Ogden, as the SAD, worked for the director of the National Clandestine Ser­vice, and the NCS reported to Glenn, the two had come to the CIA at almost the same time and therefore were equals, experiencewise. Steve was formal, but he wasn't against busting his chops from time to time. Even so, Steve was solid and damn good at keeping his mouth shut. Basically, he was the only guy at Langley that Glenn knew he could trust right now.

But would he back a rogue player?
Time to find out, because you don't have any other angle.

“He's my guy,” Glenn said. “Mike Caldwell.”

A moment or two of silence passed.

“I'll meet you in your office, Glenn.”

Click.

Glenn hung up and sighed. Shit. This wasn't going to be easy.

S
teve was already in his office and sitting in front of his desk when Glenn walked in. The man was over fifty but still had the body of a linebacker, and every inch of it filled the chair. Before Glenn could say anything, Steve launched in on him.

“Mike Caldwell resigned earlier this year.”

“This needs to stay quiet, Steve.” Glenn eased into a chair. “And no, he didn't. Well, he did, sort of. I made it look that way.”

“He's working for you, huh? Doing projects outside the scope of Special Activities and the Clandestine Ser­vice?”

“You don't want to know the details. Most of it isn't legal, so you want to keep your knowledge limited. He's working projects for me, yes, which puts my nuts in an even tighter vise than they normally would be. That's all I want to say about it for your sake.”

“And DNCS has no idea?”

“Nor does the director. No one does but you and me now.”

“What happened to him?”

“Got snatched. Don't know by whom, or where he's been taken.”

“Why not just write him off? No one knows he's there but us. Wash your hands and it all goes away. Sounds like the best play if you want to stay out of jail.”

Glenn swallowed a mouthful of spit. “Because he's my guy. And you couldn't do it, either, so don't suggest it again.”

Steve rubbed his chin. “You're putting me in a tight spot, Glenn. I can't pull resources to help someone who doesn't technically work for us anymore.”

“I know.” As Special Activities director, Steve oversaw all US HUMINT operations in hostile areas. His were the operations Glenn had not wanted to jeopardize. “I'm not asking you to do that.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“Mossad's doing a snatch-­and-­grab op in Iraq, right? In An Nasiriyah. Coordinating through you to keep the locals calm.”

“Yes, I briefed the DNCS two weeks ago. It goes down tomorrow. Some fucking kraut arms runner funneling shit to Hezbollah and Hamas. He should have relayed that to you—­”

Glenn waved him off. “He did. I need the lead Mossad agent's contact info.”

“You're going to need Mossad's approval to change their operation.”

“Won't work. No, I need to talk to the lead agent in the field. I need her to redirect efforts to find Mike. And I need to keep this all between you, me, and the wall.”

“And what makes you think I'll give it?”

Glenn leaned back and fixed Steve with his gaze. “You will.”

Steve waved a finger. “Don't try that dead-­eyes shit with me, Glenn. We've known each other too damn long for that to work. My reflection scares me more than you do.”

“Right.” Glenn chuckled. “What was I thinking?”

“Even if you convince the Mossad agent, she'll still inform her controllers.”

“No, she won't.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I know her. We go back a ways. She's their most senior clandestine agent and director of Metsada. I just don't have her contact info in the field. You do. So I need you to help me out.”

“What are you going to tell the director about the UAV?”

“Say I chased a hunch and found nothing.”

“You think he'll buy that shit?”

“After I saved his ass from the presidential fire over Basra? Yes, he'll buy whatever I sell him. Plus, who gives a shit? So I diverted a UAV for a few minutes. Not like I assassinated anyone.”

Steve's right eyebrow flicked up. He steepled his fingers together and rested them under his chin. Glenn watched him, knowing the thoughts racing through his counterpart's head, weighing what he should do versus what he would do.

“Come on, Steve,” he said. “I need help on this one. You know it would take a lot for me to ask a favor like this. Besides saving my ass from a congressional inquiry and certain jail time, you'd be saving the CIA's rep and brother agent.”

“The perception is he resigned, and perception is reality.”

“He's an operator. Don't hold his status against him.”

After another minute of silence, Steve said, “You're going to owe me a ton for this, Glenn.”

Glenn smiled. “I wouldn't expect anything less.”

 

Chapter Three

M
ike felt like he floated in the calm waters of a lake on a dark starless night. Everything seemed still and peaceful and somehow right. Then something blew by him in the darkness. He searched, looking, and found only a shroud of black enveloping him.

It blew by him again. He spun and felt something surging up his legs and torso. Something moving, swirling. It constricted as it covered every inch of him. He couldn't move. Couldn't scream.

But he could hear. Flies buzzing. Locusts singing. They bit at his skin. First in random intervals. Then all at the same time. Biting and ripping while their wings beat the air louder and louder and louder . . .

M
ike fluttered his eyes and breathed deep, grateful to be awake from the nightmare. Then he realized he was lying on a metal table, staring at the framing of an old drop ceiling lacking fiberglass tiles. Any feelings of gratefulness vanished.

He tried to sit up but couldn't. Lifting his head, he found his naked body strapped to the table. Leather belts wrapped his ankles and his waist and chest, pinning his arms against his sides.

Not good.

The hole in his shoulder had a big gauze pad covering it. Surgical tape held it in place. As he wriggled, no pain emanated from the wound.

Local anesthetic. They wanted him alive, that was for sure. But why?

He let the question go. The more important thing to do now was try to get the hell out of Dodge. Easier said than done, though.

Mike glanced around him. The room was fairly large, like an open work bay or schoolroom with no furniture. Only the table he lay on and another table next to him. That one was smaller, metal, and covered with—­

“Oh, shit.”

Spread out on a white rag was a needle for the local anesthetic, a rubber mouth bit for biting down, and a silver amputation saw.

Maybe it's not for you
.
Why would they keep you alive only to cut your ass up? How about we get out of here before we get an answer to that question?

Some things are best left unknown. And he wasn't going anywhere fast.

Unable to move anything but his head, he quickly accepted the fact he was at the mercy of his captors. Unless he could manage to become Houdini right quick.
Fat chance.
Maybe, when someone showed up, they might slack a strap or two. Maybe just enough to get a hand free. Then he might be able to escape. But until that happened, he had no choice but to play the waiting game.

Preserve your strength
.
Sharpen your mind. Relax.

Then he looked at the saw again and all motivation died.

He tried his best to focus on the ceiling. His will lasted about five seconds before his eyes were locked on the gleaming serrated blade. Christ, what did they have planned for him?

A door creaked open behind him. Mike forced himself to remain cool and collected. Footsteps grew closer and then the skinny frame of an Arab with a short, well-­trimmed beard appeared next to him. He wore a light khaki shirt with the collar open. Mike noticed the curve of a tattoo arcing over the top of his sternum. The two locked eyes.

“Greetings, Mr. Hosselkus,” the thin man said to him in Arabic. “I hope you are comfortable.”

Hosselkus.
So they only had the alias from his wallet. Nothing else. He tried to find the positive in anything he could. Hopefully, they hadn't snagged his cell phone from the car.

“The table's a bit chilly,” he said. “I swear I'm a grower, not a show-­er.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but nothing can be done about that.” The man leaned over and inspected the dressing on his shoulder. “I think you will find our treatment of your injury, though, more than hospitable.”

“Sure. And since you're being so kind, why don't you let me go?”

“No.”

“That's a shame.” Mike jerked his chin at the man's tattoo. “So, you guardians got a personal grudge with me, huh?”

The man smiled. His teeth were straight and perfectly white. “No grudge at all. In fact, you have become very important to us. Hence the reason we have gone to such great lengths to ensure your wound heals properly. Your health is our great concern.”

He wasn't digging the vibe coming off this guy. Part of him wished the stranger would just straight up say he wanted him dead or something. This whole concern for his comfort was creeping him out.

“You mind telling me why I'm so important?”

The smile faded. “Oh, I think you know.”

Mike thought about it. It only took a moment. Only one thing connected him to the guardians and the prison they'd done such a shitty job protecting.

“Your demon.” Mike shook his head. “But it's gone. I thought that was a good thing.”

“It is. But it was not the only one.”

Mike swallowed, remembering his face-­to-­face encounter with Semyaza. Oh, how lucky he'd been to survive—­only to die naked on a metal table.
God has a sense of humor.

“So, there are more,” Mike said. “What's that got to do with me?”

“We do not know where the other prisons are.” He straightened up and walked over to the table with the saw on it. “The one outside Ur was well known to us, discovered by our ancestors by accident long ago. They ensured it remained hidden after one of them received a vision—­”

“A vision?”

“Yes, an angel instructed him to never open the prison. That a monstrous demon dwelled in the darkness, bound in chains. It became his and his tribe's task to guard it, to prevent an outsider from ever freeing the beast within.”

“And you failed.”

The man picked up the saw and turned it in his hand. He touched his thumb to one of its teeth as if checking its sharpness. The light reflected off the polished blade, and Mike bit his tongue.

Shut up,
he told himself.
Being a smart-­ass is not a wise play at this juncture.

“Yes, we failed.” The man put the saw down, and Mike breathed a little easier. “But you did not. You confronted it on the navy ship and survived. Which means it let you live. Which means it found something in you worth leaving alone.”

“How do you know about the ship?”

The smile again. “We have our own sources of intelligence.”

“Pretty fancy for a bunch of tattooed tribesmen.”

“We were once a tribe. Over the years . . . well, we have become more of an organization.”

Mike didn't like the sound of that. They knew a lot of crap they shouldn't. How big were they?

“It wasn't what you thought it was, by the way.”
Dumb fucks.
“You seem to have access to trivial information, but when it comes to the most important, like where specifically the prison was and what was actually in it, you suck.”

“Jinn, demon, fallen angel. They have had many names throughout time. They are more accurately known as the ‘Fallen.' ”

Maybe not so dumb,
Mike thought, and regretted losing his cool.
Don't play this guy's game.

“Anyway,” the man said, “the entity is gone, as is its prison. But there are still more Fallen out there. More prisons, too.”

“How do you know?”

“The vision. The man who received it so long ago was told of a war in heaven. Four angels, leaders of Satan's four great legions, were bound in these prisons under the creatures they refused to serve: us, humans. The vision, though, did not specify the locations. Nor would my ancestor have understood where they were, since the known world at the time was so small.”

“You think they're spread out around the world?”

“It is logical to think so. But we are not certain. We do have some theories, though.”

“And you want to find them?”

“Yes.”

“And do what?”

“Well, guard them, of course. That is our appointed task.” He opened the top button of his shirt and exposed the tattoo some more. “That is why we are marked. A reminder of our purpose in life.”

Mike swallowed saliva pooling in the back of his throat. “So where do I come in?”

The man moved away from the table, turning his back to Mike. “We believe you are marked, too.”

“I don't have any tattoos.”

“Not that kind of mark.”

“Semyaza never touched me.”

The man spun around. “You know its name?”

“Yeah, it told me.”

“You conversed?”

“There wasn't much else to do.”

“Why did it not kill you?”

Mike stared at the ceiling, not wanting to explain that Semyaza had seen the goodness of man through his actions. “He realized he couldn't stay free forever.”

“He surrendered?”

“So to speak.”

“Amazing.” The man moved close again and leaned over him. His breath smelled of mint.

“I know now. And that makes me special, huh?”

“Very.”

“But how am I marked?”

“Since you are the only one to survive a direct encounter, we believe you may have a trace—­call it a residual essence—­from the entity.”

“You planning to make fallen angel cologne or something?”

The man smiled. “No. We are planning to locate the remaining prisons.”

“With my supernatural essence.”

“So to speak.”

“Like a divining rod? How do you know it'll work?”

“We do not.”

Mike sighed. “So, you're swinging at balls in the dark.”

“I do not understand this expression.”

“You're taking a chance, hoping I'll start glowing or something when I'm close to one.”

“Perhaps.”

“You're fucking nuts.”

The man's smile disappeared. “You think you are very clever, Mr. Caldwell.”

Mike's veins froze. He knew his real name.
Shit, shit, shit.

“Oh, yes, I am well aware of your true identity,” the man continued. “Michael Caldwell. Clandestine field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. Until recently, when you resigned. Yet here you are, still working covertly. Interesting.”

The man has top secret information
.
Which means he has a source inside the Agency. Which means his organization is serious and possibly powerful. Double shit.

“I said we have our own sources of intelligence.” The man clapped his hands together. “And we have narrowed down where the other prisons may be, within a few dozen square miles. If we take you to one and our plan works, all is the better. And if it does not, then we kill you.”

Mike swallowed another mouthful of spit. “Guess I don't have much of a choice right now.”

“No, you do not.”

“Well, seeing that I'm not going anywhere fast, would it be possible to get some clothes and just handcuff me to the wall or something?”

The man shook his head. “I am afraid not. Because you will no doubt attempt escape at the first possible opportunity, we must take certain precautions to ensure you do not flee.”

“How about some clothes, then? This table is a bit cold.”

“Again, I am sorry.” The man turned to the door. “Gazzar!”

The door opened and another man, this one portly and with a long beard, walked in. He took up station at the table with the equipment on it. His eyes settled on Mike's legs.

“As I said,” the man said, “we must take certain precautions.”

Despite his best efforts, Mike felt his hands start to shake at his sides. “What kind of precautions?”

“Gazzar is going to amputate your legs just above the knees.”