Heart of a Hero (31 page)

“What you did was the right thing. You need to understand that. You have to know what a vital role you’re playing.” He leaned forward, arms on his knees, the firelight catching his eyes. “So I’m going to tell you. And what I’m going to tell you is highly classified.”

Interest flickered through her, but she stared intently at the flames. She didn’t want to look into his eyes. They would suck her in again. She
wanted
to stay numb.

“This is not just about a biological attack, Sarah. It’s far worse. If the Cabal—the group I mentioned to you—is successful in what they’re ultimately planning, they will change the
course of global politics, of history. If we don’t stop them within the next—” he checked his watch “—nineteen days, twenty hours and fifty-seven minutes, democracy as we know it will be dead. And the world will be a very different place.”

She turned her head, slowly lifted her eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

His shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly, as if an invisible burden had been lightened just a little. He raised his hand to touch her, but took hold of another stick instead, used it to poke tentatively at the fire. “The Cabal plans to take control of the U.S. government by midnight October 13—exactly three weeks before the presidential election.”

Sarah felt light-headed. She couldn’t quite make sense of his words. “What do you mean, ’take control of the government’? Like a coup?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Is…is that possible?”

“Yes. Very. It’s been in the works for decades, and the Cabal is only days away from succeeding. All that stands between them now, Sarah, is you and me, and a few good men.”

She lowered the tin mug to her lap. “I don’t understand. How would they do this?”

“Like I told you, the Cabal is a clandestine group of inordinately powerful men. We don’t yet know who they are or exactly what they control, but we do know their influence is vast, and it’s global. Their goal is power, the ultimate power—control of the most influential government in the world.”

“But
why?”

He snorted softly. “Why does anyone want power or control?” He placed his hand over her knee. “I’m sorry, Sarah, but when you were handed that biohazard container, you instantly became a pivotal pawn in a deadly global power game.
It’s not fair, you don’t deserve this. And I’m going to do what it takes to get you through it.” He paused. “But I need you to stay strong. You have to understand that what you did back there in that clearing was the right thing.”

She stared at him. “How,” she said slowly, “how does the Cabal plan on overthrowing the U.S. government?”

He chewed on his cheek and studied the fire for a while. “President Elliot is dying. He’s being slowly assassinated by an unidentified stealth disease that appears to be eating away at his brain—a biological bullet administered by his own Secret Service, just one of the organizations the Cabal has managed to infiltrate. It’s a disease very similar to the one in that canister, except this one moves much, much more slowly.”

She felt the blood rush from her head. She glanced at the canister. The orange-and-black biohazard symbol emblazoned on the side flickered in the firelight with a life and warning of its own.
A container of death.
“How…how long does the president have?”

“Months, maybe. But his mental faculties are expected to deteriorate sooner.” Hunter’s eyes pierced hers. “No one knows this, Sarah. Only his personal physician, the FDS, and now you. And it must stay secret. Elliot is trying to hold on to his health just long enough to secure a second term in the November 4 election. At the moment, there is no doubt he’ll win. News of a terminal illness will scuttle that.”

“But why is he even running if he knows he’s going to die as soon as he takes office? It doesn’t make sense.”

“If he bows out now due to ill health, Vice President Grayson Forbes will become the next president of the United States. Elliot can’t let that happen because Forbes is the Cabal’s man.”

Sarah’s brain spun. “But if President Elliot dies
after
winning the election,” she continued, “Michael J. Taylor
becomes the next U.S. president, because Taylor is Elliot’s new running mate.”

“Exactly. The Elliot camp denied Forbes a place on the ticket. An unusual move, but not unprecedented, and a serious blow to a faction that has been trying to maneuver Forbes into the Oval Office for years.”

“A Cabal faction?
Within
the party?”

Hunter nodded. “Grayson Forbes has been groomed by this Cabal faction for years, and they made their big move when they threw his hat into the ring in the lead-up to the last presidential election. Elliot, however, narrowly beat out their man for the presidential ticket at the party convention, and Elliot’s camp picked Charles Landon over Forbes for a running mate—a real slap in the face to Forbes and his people. It cost them both the presidency
and
the vice presidency.”

“But then why did Elliot make Forbes vice president when Landon died of cancer last year?”

Hunter jabbed at the flames with his stick and sparks spattered into the night. “Landon didn’t die naturally, Sarah. He was assassinated.”

A chill ran up her spine. “By the Cabal?”

“Yes. Elliot was then informed via his own bodyguards that he, too, had been inflicted with a biological bullet, but his death would be slower than Landon’s. It would resemble a rapid form of Alzheimer’s, leading first to dementia, and then death within six months—giving him just enough time to name Forbes as replacement vice president. If he failed to do so by the appointed date, they told him a deadly pathogen would be released over Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.”

“Why didn’t President Elliot tell everyone what was happening? Why didn’t he get help?”

“The Cabal told him the virus would be released instantly
if he so much as even
thought
of engaging any of the traditional agencies available to him. The president became a virtual hostage in the White House, his every move, his every communication monitored by his own Secret Service. He was trapped by the very security system designed to protect him. The only man he knew he could trust for certain was his personal physician, Dr. Sebastian Ruger. He’s been communicating with him in secret, in writing, in the White House medical suite.”

Sarah blew out a stream of air. “So President Elliot did the Cabal’s bidding and named Forbes vice president.”

“Only in order to buy time to come up with a plan. The Cabal, however, expected him to become incapacitated and die shortly after the nomination, or at least well before the November election.”

“But he didn’t…he
hasn’t.”

Hunter smiled wryly. “He’s a very determined man, Sarah. Whether he’s still alive because of that, or because the biological bullet is not functioning exactly as anticipated, it’s forced the Cabal’s hand. If they lose this last little window of opportunity to get their man into power now, it will destroy decades of positioning. They won’t get another opportunity like this. So they’ve issued the president an ultimatum—step down from power by midnight October 13, citing health reasons, or they will release the pathogen.”

Sarah shivered in spite of the warmth. “I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but why don’t they just kill him before the election?”

“An overt assassination, especially days before the election, would spin the country and the global economy out of their control, and it would send the world on a witch hunt. That kind of economic disaster and scrutiny is something a bunch of imperialistic
capitalists is
very
keen to avoid. They need this to look completely natural if they are to stay anonymously in control behind the scenes, and they can’t afford to implicate Forbes in any way. He has to appear a strong and
rightful
leader. He has to be respected and trusted by the American people for them to be able to launch the next phase of their plan.”

Sarah could barely begin to comprehend the scope of this, or the fact that she was slam-bang in the middle of it, playing a key role in an American nightmare in the middle of the Congo jungle. “I can’t believe these men would actually kill millions of their own people to get into power.”

“These guys make Machiavelli look like the fairy godmother. They’ll do anything to justify their end, and they’ve shown us they have the biotechnology to do it—
and
the will to use it.”

She fiddled with the handle of the tin cup. “What
is
the next phase, Hunter?”

He took the mug from her hands, tossed the dregs onto the fire with a sizzle. “Once the Cabal gets Forbes into power, they’re going to want to keep him there. They’re going to use their arsenal of high-tech bioweapons, like your pathogen there—” he jerked his chin to the container “—to launch a series of contained attacks in the U.S. The Forbes government will maintain the attacks are being perpetrated by terrorists or rogue nations, and he’ll declare the country at war. Congress will in turn grant Forbes broad powers to manage the national economy and protect the interests of the nation. We suspect he’ll declare martial law, call in the National Guard, curtail civil liberties and declare another election impossible for the foreseeable future.”

Sarah stared at him. Who was Hunter, really? What had brought this powerful man to this point in his life, to this intersection with her? What had made him a mercenary? There was something deeper in him, something gentle buried beneath his
armor—a kindness. She’d felt it in his healing touch, seen it in his eyes. And she had a sudden burning need to know him. Totally.

“What about the election next month?” she asked, her eyes fixed on his.

He shook his head. “I don’t think there will be one—not if this Cabal gets their way. We believe the continued well-timed ‘attacks’ will put the Forbes government in a position to ‘retaliate’ by launching preemptive military strikes against foreign states that allegedly harbor the so-called terrorists or philosophies. And in doing so, the Cabal will be covertly launching a new era of aggressive imperialism designed to feed the pockets of the major transnationals that we suspect are controlled by Cabal elite.”

“Some of this is conjecture, isn’t it?”

“Only some of it. And it’s the president’s conjecture, not ours. He believes that if Forbes gets into power he’ll immediately start the slow process of appointing Cabal puppets into key judicial, military, intelligence and economic positions. The long-term goal will be to effect the kind of legislative and constitutional change that will enshrine Cabal power for decades to come.” Hunter threw another log onto the fire. “And he’ll start by naming a new vice president to replace himself.”

Sarah watched the flames gobble at the fresh piece of wood, and the hunger to know Hunter more intimately burned deeper in her. She studied his stark profile in the flickering light. He might be a mercenary, he might kill people with his bare hands, he might exist in the shadows of civilization, but he helped people sleep at night—whole populations who would probably never find out what he’d done for them.

“Hunter,” she said softly. “How did you—how did the FDS get involved in all this?”

“The president’s physician, Dr. Ruger, was at a U.N. conference in Brussels two weeks ago. So was my colleague
Jacques Sauvage. Sauvage handles FDS operations and was at the conference to lobby for an international standardized code of conduct for private military companies. Ruger managed to get to him in the washroom. He used the opportunity to covertly enlist us on behalf of President Elliot.” Hunter paused. “It’s a close to impossible mission, Sarah. But we took the job. Someone had to.”

“The president
personally
hired you guys?”

“Everything else has failed him, and we were the one opportunity that presented itself. Besides, he knows our work, our reputation. We’ve contracted to the States before through a covert arm of the CIA.”

It dawned on her suddenly. “Hunter, even if we
do
find the antidote to the disease in that container, it’s not going to stop them…is it?”

“No. It won’t. But if we can identify the pathogen within the next two weeks and find an antidote, we could save many lives. But most importantly, we hope to find some kind of biological fingerprint in the pathogen that will lead us to the lab that created it, and in turn that could lead us to whoever is pulling the Cabal strings.”

The fire was dwindling, the jungle night creeping closer. She rubbed her arms. “So this is why they want to kill me,” she said softly.

“Sarah, they don’t know that you know any of this. If they thought you did, and if they knew that I’d been engaged to try and help the president, they’d launch the attack immediately. You’re just a loose end right now.”

He placed his hand on her knee. “And that’s another reason you
had
to shoot that man. If they’d captured and tortured you—and they would have tortured you—you’d have been
forced to disclose your connection to the FDS and by extension, the president. They would have launched the attack. You saved millions of lives by taking that one.”

She bit her lip, trying not to see the dead man’s eyes in the yellow of the flames, trying to understand what she’d gotten herself into. “But they’d prefer to avoid launching the attack before Forbes got into power, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes. However, they
will
risk it rather than lose their last shot at getting their man into the Oval Office.” Hunter took her hand. It was warm, comforting. “You did the right thing, Sarah. And…and I’m proud of you.”

Her heart kicked at his words. “I used to think that taking a life was
never
justified. Now…now I just don’t know.” She didn’t know anything anymore. There was no more black-and-white, just shades of gray.

He didn’t answer. And they sat in silence, watching the flames die. Something screeched in the forest and she moved a little closer to Hunter. He put his arm around her. “We should get in the hammock.”

“How do you do it, Hunter? How do you do this kind of thing over and over again, and still live with yourself?”