An Armageddon Duology (43 page)

H
ouston squinted
through the sunglasses as the morning sun glinted off the wet road in front of them. The mists had begun to clear but left a thin layer of water on the highway. It would evaporate quickly, but the surface blinded them for the moment.

“How’s the glare, Francisco?”

Lopez grunted, his eyes behind shades heavy and dark from the sleepless night. He still favored his left shoulder, but it functioned better each day, the wound closed and shrinking. Houston knew the muscle damage would take longer to heal, and one hundred percent was months away. Dominantly right handed for most activities, it would have to do.

And they would need him. She had no doubts. Desperate men hunted them, assassins who stopped at nothing to prevent them from piecing together the mystery waiting in Princeton. The priest would have to become a killer again. His inner conflict would continue.

For now, she clung to the relative peace. The remainder of their voyage through the harbor and subsequent ride down the interstate had been uneventful—if one could call wrecking a cruise boat while trying to dock it, scampering to safety as it sunk beside a mooring, and hot-wiring an SUV
uneventful
. But by the standards of the last few weeks, it was almost relaxing.

Lightfoote slept soundly in the back of the black SUV, her body splayed out across the rear-most seat like an unruly teenager. She’d pushed herself more than anyone. Houston turned her head and stared at the strange woman—hacker, FBI agent, shaved and pierced cyberpunk, as much a mystery to her as whatever waited for them in Princeton. Houston sensed a darkness hidden within her.

Within each of us
.

She returned her gaze to the road. “Two more lights and it’s a right on Washington Road.”

“I remember,” he said gruffly. “We’ve gone over the route ten times.”

Houston leaned across the seat and placed her head on his shoulder. “I’m tired too, Francisco. But we can’t get down now. Everything is on the line.”

“I know. Just on edge.”

“Still, when we’re together—it’s a shield. Makes me feel we can do anything. I hold on to that.”

He kissed her forehead, returning his eyes quickly to the road.

“God, and I thought working for my boss was a Hallmark card.”

The rustling of fabric against the back seats was followed by a thud and vibration in the car. Behind them, Lightfoote leaned against the door, her feet flat on the floorboard.

Houston laughed. “Up already?”

She yawned. “So, where’d you two meet? Assassin school?”

“At a funeral,” said Lopez.

“Touché,” she said.

“He’s serious,” said Houston.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. What funeral?”

Lopez sighed. “My brother’s. Murdered by a madman who nearly brought down the CIA.”

Houston cut in. “But that was before we were paraded across the front of the tabloids as some murderous, sex-crazed Bonnie and Clyde. Before we uncovered the CIA dirty laundry that got us smeared and on the most wanted list. Before your boss helped save our asses when we were caught hunting down the
real
killer of the former VP. The same man who killed his brother.”

Lightfoote whistled. “Well
damn
, girl. John never said anything. He and Rebecca were unmovable. We all knew something was going on, but this? I’ve got to hear this story.”

“Better story to hear than live through,” Houston whispered.

“No time for stories,” said Lopez, the car slowing. “Washington Road. Princeton University on the right.”

Lopez swung the car off NJ 1 and onto Washington Road. The car sped through a short forested region, opening into extended fields of green as they approached a stony bridge. They passed over a body of water and into a tree-lined and well-manicured region.

Lightfoote mumbled. “Einstein. Woodrow Wilson. John Nash. Up ahead.”

“On the left, actually. Faculty Road,” said Houston.

Lopez turned at the junction and followed the road deeper into a forested patch. Just as they were getting used to the broken light and shadows, the environment shifted violently from pastoral to industrial and back again as they crossed railroad tracks. Lopez slowed at a sign reading Alexander Street.

“Right here, and then left on College, yes?”

“That’s it,” said Houston, staring at the campus buildings around them.

Ahead, a tower rose into the air. Stunted by Manhattan standards, in this rural enclave it rose majestically skyward, gothic spires and the gray stone facade giving the impression of medieval England more than southern New Jersey.

“Cleveland Tower,” said Lightfoote, following Houston’s gaze. “Built as a memorial for President Cleveland in 1913. Sixty-seven bells in a carillon at the top. Center of the Graduate College of Princeton University. Where John Nash got his Ph.D.”

Lopez pulled the car into a circular drive in front of a row of stony buildings. He switched the engine off and got out of the car. The two women followed.

“It’s completely deserted,” he said. “We haven’t seen a car or human being the whole way in. Where the hell is everyone?”

“A few weeks of Last Days events likely had everyone scrambling for home or the hills,” said Houston. She turned to Lightfoote. “Looks like you’ve done your research. Where now?”

Lightfoote scanned the area. “Inside is the main quad. Tower’s there on our right. The Nash Museum is directly behind it, built right beside a golf course.”

Houston laughed, “So, after a hard day of schizophrenic econ, you can go tee off with the boys.”

Lopez shook his head. “All right, let’s go get the rest of that image.”

“Don’t move!” A man’s voice shouted.

Footsteps sounded from behind them. They turned to see four men approaching, one with a raised handgun. Two of them seemed hardly out of high school, fear in their eyes. They dropped several bulging sacks to the ground.

A blond man walked slightly forward, the gun in his hand. A thin smile crept across his face.

“Well, what have we got here?”

“
Y
ou boys from around here
?” asked Houston with a smile. “We’re a bit lost.”

The two groups were separated by about ten yards, the car to the side. The men looked ragged, unkempt, and their thin leader stared with a wild glare. He kept moving the weapon from Lopez to Houston to Lightfoote, settling longest on the large form of the former priest.

“None of your business!” he yelled. “Who are you? Why are
you
here?”

“We’re looking for someone,” said Lopez. “We’ll stay out of your way.”

“Well, you found someone, asshole!” he barked, spittle coating the fuzz of blond hair on his chin. He inched forward, pointing the weapon at Lopez.

“Come on, Henry, we ain’t got time!” cried another. “Those fucking soldiers are
here!
We got what we came for. Let’s go.”

Henry licked his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Nick! We’re going. Yeah, we’re going. We’re just not going empty handed.” He motioned with his gun. “Wallets. Purses. Any fucking gold or jewelry, you throw it over here.”

Lopez looked at Houston. She nodded. Lightfoote said nothing.

“No problem. We don’t want any trouble,” said Lopez, carefully fishing his wallet out from his robes and tossing it to the feet of the man.

“You bitches, yours! Now!”

“I have to get my purse from the car,” Houston said.

“No, no, no, no. Don’t go near the fucking car! Got your little 22 in the glove compartment, am I right?”

“Henry, fuck it! Let’s go. We got more than we can carry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Henry, a smile on his face. “We don’t need no more money. But it’s a long trip. Lonely trip.” He waved the pistol. “You girls are coming with us.”

The other three men looked at each other. Two of them smiled while Nick continued to protest.

“Dammit, no! We can’t take more. We got too many already!”

Henry spoke coldly. “That’s for sure.”

He turned toward Nick and pulled the trigger. The weapon cracked crisply in the cold air. The teen grabbed at his throat as his legs gave way. His screams turned to gurgles as he convulsed on the ground.

“
Jesus
, man,” said a man behind him, his eyes wide as he gaped at the twitching form of the dying man.

“Shut up or you’re next!” Henry stepped toward Lopez. “World’s gone to shit. Ain’t no rules, not no more. We do what we want.” He glared at Lopez. “You, wetback! You want to be next?”

With a final glance at Houston, Lopez shook his head.

“
No mas, señor
. I don’t know these girls. After all the crazy, I was just carpooling with them. Not my problem.”

“Down on your face!”

Lopez kneeled and fell prostrate on the manicured grass in front of the graduate college building. Houston began to cry as Lightfoote placed her hands over her eyes.

“Now, you two, this way. You run, I shoot you. You try anything, I shoot you. Look at that!” He pointed to the corpse beside him. “
See?
I will. I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

The women moved slowly forward, their bodies shaking in fear.

Henry turned to his remaining companions. “I did all the work here for you pussies. I get a go at each before either of you. You understand?”

One on his right nodded. “Yeah, man. Whatever you say. Jesus Christ. I can’t believe you shot Nick.”

“No rules but my rules. I make the rules.” He turned to the other on this left. “You got that, Bill?”

“Yeah. You make the rules.”

He looked Lightfoote up and down. “You, metal face.” She stopped. “Put your hands down. Come here. I want to get a look at you.”

Lightfoote walked up slowly, Houston following a pace behind.

He smiled. “Green eyes. Cool. You looked
fucked up
girl. I bet you can do some shit. Twisted, huh? Fuck me good?”

Lightfoote smiled and looked into his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll fuck you up good.”

Her hands shot forward and grasped the gun as she sidestepped. Using her body weight in a continuous motion, she twisted the wrist, bones snapping audibly. Henry screamed, staring down at his arm in shock, the hand wrenched at a grotesque angle to his forearm. Lightfoote crouched on one knee, his gun in her hand, the barrel pointed forward.

Stunned, the other two men barely reacted. Like a drunk, the one on the right began feeling around the middle of his lower back for the weapon tucked in his belt. His head snapped backward as a gunshot reverberated off the stone. At the same moment, Houston sprang like a panther toward the man on the left. He swung his arm in a haymaker from the side, only to find himself in her embrace as she redirected his unbalanced attack into a twist and flung him onto the grass. He landed heavily, the wind knocked out of him. He wheezed as he looked up into the massive barrel of a Browning 1911.

Henry fell to his knees. He cradled his wrecked hand.

“What the
fuck?
You broke my fucking arm!” Tears streaked his face from the pain.

Lightfoote dropped his weapon on the roof of the car with a clank. She nodded to Lopez as he stood up. “We can keep theirs as backup.”

Lopez examined the gun. “Only when we’re desperate. What a piece of crap. Guy’s lucky this thing didn’t blow up in his hand.”

“He’s got other hand problems,” said Lightfoote.

“Who
are
you?” asked Henry.

Lopez checked the chamber and removed the magazine, continuing to examine the weapon. “We need to question them about the soldiers.”

Henry’s face reddened. “Always get girls to do your dirty work, Spic?”

Lopez smiled grimly and walked to the trunk with the weapon.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Lightfoote struck the man in the chest with her foot. He crashed to the ground with a groan.

“You bitch, I’m going to—”

“Shut up,” said Houston, kicking him lightly in the head. He shut up. Her weapon remained aimed at Bill.

Lightfoote stared down at Henry. “Your dead friend said
soldiers
. What soldiers?”

“You’ll find out. Not telling you shit!”

Lightfoote sprang forward to land on his abdomen, her right hand like a claw smashing into his crotch. He screamed, began to struggle but froze, a high-pitched squeal tearing from his lips.

“Yeah, I can do all kinds of shit with your junk.” Her hand pinched like a vice on his pants. He screamed. “Two little balls. So much pain.” She squeezed tighter and the man’s face reddened, the scream cut off, his body paralyzed. “I’m going to ask this one more time. And you’re going to answer, or you’re going to learn about a pain you never knew could exist.”

“
T
here’s a shed
over by those trees,” said Lopez, moving in its direction. “Likely for the grounds crew. I’ll be right back.”

“Where is he going?” moaned Henry.

Billy and Henry were tied with hands behind their backs and set against the car. The bodies of their companions lay in the grass directly in front of them.

“Ah, God! My arm! It hurts!”

Lightfoote scowled. “Maybe we should just shoot the ass and put him out of our misery?”

“No, I like to hear him whine,” said Houston, a dark look in her eyes. “Reminds me of what he was planning to do with us.” She walked up to the man and crouched down. “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it, asshole? If your friend hadn’t sung like a bird, things might be much worse for you.”

“Bad song,” said Lightfoote. “Sounds like it’s a scouting party. They’re sweeping through Princeton, but my bet is they’re headed here. I think the NSA mainframes cracked the encryption before York got to them.”

“You’re sure she hit them?”

Lightfoote lit up. “Oh, yeah. It’s like a thousand digital gnats suddenly disappeared. I’d love to see them scrambling to get back up and running. But right now, we have our own problems.”

Houston stood back up and nodded. “Yeah. We don’t have much time. More will come even if we can take these out.”

A strained voice came from behind them. “Let’s divide this up.”

They turned to see Lopez laden with a pregnant tarp over his shoulders. He bent his neck and tossed it to the ground with a heavy thud and rattle.

“You two go to the museum. Take photos of the giant cork board. We can analyze them later when we’ve found a place to hide out.”

“What about you?” asked Houston, looking toward the bulging tarp.

He bent down and unfurled the stained fabric, revealing shovels and gardening equipment. His head turned toward the two men.

“We’re going to dig two graves. Better than leaving them out to rot.”

“We?” asked Houston.

“Dumb and dumber there,” he said. “They’ll dig.”

“I’m not digging nothing,” said Henry.

Lopez stood up straight and his arm pointed toward them in a fluid motion. A dark barrel gleamed at the end of it. He screwed a long silencer to the end.

“You’re going to dig those graves. Or I’m going to dig all your graves. Your choice.”

“You broke my fucking hand! I can’t dig!”

He kicked a spade forward from the open tarp. “You’ve still got one good arm. Use it. Your friend will use the shovels, and I’ll be keeping both of you in my sights.”

The ground in front of Henry exploded, dust and rocks coating his face, snow and mud stuck to his blond locks. He screamed and turned his head from Lopez’s gun, coughing as tears ran from his spattered eyes.

“And you’ll do it quickly. We don’t have much time.”

The men nodded.

“Wise move,” said Houston. She reached down with a blade and cut their bonds. Both flinched from the knife. Lopez kept his weapon trained on them. She moved around the car and opened the trunk, ducking under the lid and back out holding a red canister.

Lopez squinted. “You’re going to torch it?”

“Not going to leave any clues in that place once we leave. Let those bastards spin their wheels and wonder what we found out. Bring the bodies. Save the digging.”

“The older Catholic rites die hard,” he said cryptically. He nodded to the canister. “That’s our reserve. Hope the fuel pumps are working around here.”

“I’ll use sparingly,” she said. “Place is full of paper. Should go up like a straw man.” She jerked her head toward the tower and looked at Lightfoote. “Ready?”

The pair set off at a jog to the museum.

Lopez never took his eyes off the two men as they winced, bringing their hands around.

“Now, both of you—dig.”

T
he two men
were dripping with sweat when the women returned. Henry whimpered against a nearby tree, clutching his hand to his chest. Two shallow and uneven holes had been dug and the bodies dragged into them, the dirt placed on top barely covering the corpses. A light snow had begun to fall, coating the ground in a patchwork of white.

“Got the photos, several angles to make sure,” said Houston breathing heavily, bursts of fog coming out of her mouth. “It’s the same board from the file photo, but we have the rest of it. Still more than half the gas in this thing,” she said, shaking the canister.

“Good, give me five minutes here.”

Lopez held a flat black box and removed a folded red item from within. He placed the box on the thickening layer of snow and as he stood back up, unfurled a crimson stole trimmed along the sides with golden embroidery. He placed it over his head, the two tracks of red and gold offset strongly by his black robes.

“Blessed is God, Who poureth out His grace upon His priests, like the oil of myrrh upon the head, which runneth down to the fringe of his raiment.”

Lightfoote leaned over to Houston and whispered in her ear: “What is he doing?”

“Giving them a funeral.”

“Why
these
guys?”

Houston shrugged. “Not running for our lives right now. Got a little time.”

Lightfoote smirked. “The Priest and the Whore.”

Houston didn’t reply. Her eyes didn’t leave Lopez. The snow had begun to fall heavily, the day darkening from the heavy clouds.

“Lord God, by the power of your Word you stilled the chaos of the primeval seas, you made the raging waters of the Flood subside, and calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. As we commit the body of our brothers to the deep, grant all peace and tranquility. You promised paradise to the repentant thief; here also bring us to the joys of heaven. Gracious Lord, forgive the sins of those who have perished.”

The two men looked on in shock at the proceedings. Henry had even stopped his whimpering.

“Lord God, whose days are without end and whose mercies beyond counting, keep us mindful that life is short and the hour of death unknown. Let your Spirit guide our days on earth in the ways of holiness and justice, that we may serve you, sure in faith, strong in hope, perfected in love. And when our earthly journey is ended, lead us rejoicing into your kingdom, where you reign for ever and ever. Amen.”

He made the Sign of the Cross over the graves.

“All a waste, you stupid priest. They wasn’t even Catholic.”

“That’s all right. I’m not a priest.” He folded the stole and replaced it in the black box. “And I’m not Catholic. Not anymore.”

An orange light flickered off the low-lying clouds. The brightness intensified near the peak of the tower and cut through the heavy snowfall. Lopez approached the men.

“Now, you two are going to get the hell out of here. I don’t think I need to explain that if you try anything, or if we catch wind you have given the soldiers or anyone else information about us, we will not pause to plant you in the ground along with your friends.” He fit his hands one by one into a pair of black gloves. “I might not even give you last rites.”