Covenant Of The Flame

  At eight, the smog was already thick, the air sultry, as three cars turned into the teachers' abandoned parking lot beside the school. The cars were dark, four-door, American sedans, each with F AND S REALTY stencilled in yellow on their sides. Two men got out of each car, greeting the others with a nod. In their late thirties to early forties, they wore subdued, light-weight, polyester suits. Five held clipboards, the sixth an oversized metal briefcase. They considered the once vital school and the plywood that now covered its windows.

  'A pity,' one man said.

  'Well,' another man said, 'nothing lasts forever.'

  'Nothing?'

  'At least, on earth.'

  'True,' the third man said.

  'And you know what the bottom line is,' the fourth man said.

  The fifth man nodded. 'The collection plate.'

  'Did you bring the key?' the sixth man asked.

  The first man patted his suitcoat pocket.

  They approached the school's front door, waited while the first man unlocked it, and stepped through its creaky entrance, letting their eyes adjust to the shadows, smelling dust and mold.

  The first man shut the door and locked it, the shadows thickening. His voice echoed, emphasizing the building's desolation. 'I suppose any room will do.'

  'It's better on the second floor,' the man with the briefcase said. 'Less chance of our being overheard in case someone stands outside near a window. I noticed gaps in some of the plywood.'

  'Agreed,' the second man said.

  'All the same, we'd better check this floor.'

  'You're right,' the first man said. 'Of course.'

  Now the echo came from their footsteps as they crossed the hallway. While four of the men inspected each classroom, the boys' and girls' rest rooms, a storage room, and the various closets, the fifth man made sure that the back door was locked, and the sixth man checked the basement. Only then did they proceed up the creaky stairs.

  Throughout, the first man had the eerie sense that they were intruding, that the spiritual residue of more than eighty years of eager, laughing children had been absorbed by the building, that there were. for lack of a better word. ghosts here, and that all they wanted was to be left alone to play here one last time, their final summer. Sentimental, he admitted, but in a profession that so often required him to be cynical, he decided that for a few harmless seconds at least, he could indulge himself.

  The man was of medium height and weight, with brown hair, hazel eyes that tended to assume the color of the clothes he wore, and unremarkable features, so average that no one ever remembered him. Over many years, he'd trained himself to be a chameleon, and yesterday afternoon, he'd followed Tess to LaGuardia Airport.

  When he reached the second floor, he squinted higher toward the continuing stairs, then right and left, noticing open-doored classrooms and two drinking fountains that seemed unnaturally low until he recalled that they weren't designed for adults. Shrugging, deferring to the man with the oversized briefcase, he said, 'Which room do you like?'

  'The one on the left above the parking lot.'

  'As you wish.'

  'But not until.' The man with the briefcase pointed upward toward the final floor.

  'Do you really think it's necessary? The dust on the stairs hasn't been disturbed.'

  'I was trained to be thorough. Your expertise is surveillance, but mine is.'

  The first man nodded. 'And you do it superbly.'

  'I accept the compliment.' The man's eyes glinted.

  'I'll check the upper floor while the others inspect the rooms on this floor. In the meantime, since we're under pressure, can you.?'

  'Yes, I'll set up my equipment.'

  Five minutes later, after having inspected the musty upper floor where he found no one, the first man descended to the middle floor and the room on the left above the parking lot. He and his associates had been very careful in selecting this meeting place. It was highly unlikely that their enemy had managed to trace them here. Mostly - he suspected - the man with the briefcase was concerned that despite the abandoned school's locked doors and barricaded windows, a drug addict or else one of the city's innumerable homeless might have discovered a way to gain access and find sanctuary here. Even a drug addict might make sense of their conversation and become an informant.

  At the same time, the chameleon reminded himself that the enemy, over many years, had demonstrated remarkable cleverness, extreme survival characteristics, ruthless determination, including the ability to counterattack. No matter how carefully this abandoned school had been chosen, the fact was that the rendezvous site had been used four times already. A pattern had been established, and whenever a pattern occurred, that pattern could be discovered. The man with the briefcase was right. There was no harm in being cautious.

  The chameleon noticed two things when he entered the classroom. First, the sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, had opened his oversized briefcase, plugged a monitor into a battery, and was using a metal wand to scan the blackboard, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, and the furniture. Second, the other men - normally so serious and dignified - were seated in cramped positions in miniature table-topped chairs designed for ten-year-olds. The absurd situation reminded the chameleon of scenes from Gulliver's Travels and Alice in Wonderland.

  'It's clean,' the sixth man said, replacing his equipment in the briefcase, shutting it, and locking it.

  'Then we'll begin.' Although the chameleon had been deferential until now, he assumed the place of authority, sitting at the teacher's desk.

  As one, each member of the group reached into his suitcoat pocket, removed a ring, and placed it on the middle finger of his left hand. Each ring was identical, handsome, distinctive, a twenty-four karat band on top of which a large gleaming ruby was embossed with the golden insignia of an intersecting cross and sword.

  'May the Lord be with you,' the chameleon said.

  'And with your spirit,' the five men replied.

  'Deo gratias,' all six of them said together, completing the ritual.

  The chameleon scanned his fellow hunters. 'To begin, I must make a confession.'

  The group narrowed their eyes, straightening as best they could in the confinement of their diminutive chairs.

  'You.' The chameleon nodded toward the sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, who unlike the others was somewhat overweight. 'Earlier we exchanged compliments about our respective skills. But I'm forced to admit that I've made a mistake in terms of my skills, or at least my team has made a mistake, and I always take responsibility for the men I've trained.'

  'What sort of mistake?' The second man tilted his glasses, frowning over them.

  'One of the enemy tried to intercept photographs that the woman took in our target's apartment.'

  The fourth man hunched his broad shoulders. 'Perhaps the attempt was an unrelated matter. We've been distracted by false alarms before. How can you be positive that this person is one of the enemy?'

  'He has gray eyes,' the chameleon said.

  'Ah.' The third man pursed his thin lips. 'In that case.'

  'Indeed.' The fifth man's gaunt cheeks throbbed.

  'I entered the photo shop and pretended to be a customer. I stood as close to him as I am now to you,' the chameleon said. 'I couldn't fail to recognize the characteristics. He might as well have been the target's brother.'

  'Perhaps he was,' the broad-shouldered fourth man said. 'I still don't understand. What was your mistake?'

  'My responsibility was to follow the woman. My team's responsibility was to pursue and capture the man.' The chameleon shook his head in distress. They failed.'

  'What?' The sixth man, the electronic-security specialist, glared. 'They saw him leave the shop and.!'

  'He was brilliant. From reports I was given, he seemed to sense immediately that he was being stalked. He ran. My team gave chase. He darted down alleys. He rushed across streets, veering through traffic. Still he was chased. He entered
a restaurant.'

  'And?'

  The chameleon raised his hands. 'He vanished.'

  'How?'

  'If my team had been able to determine that, they certainly would have continued to chase him. I repeat, I accept responsibility for their failure.'

  'But that does no good,' the sixth man continued. 'Accept as much blame as you want. The ultimate fact is, the enemy was within your team's grasp, but they didn't succeed.'

  'Yes.' The chameleon lowered his head. 'That's the ultimate fact.'

  'He must have had an escape route planned.' The third man pursed his lips again.

  'No doubt,' the solidly built fourth man said. They're like ferrets. They can dodge and squirm and find holes where you'd never expect. How else could they have eluded us for so long?'

  'That's not the point,' the overweight sixth man objected. Their survival skills are well known. But we're supposed to be better.'

  'And we are.' The second man adjusted his glasses. 'Because virtue is on our side. But sometimes it appears that providence tests our determination.'

  'I don't accept rationalizations. If what you're telling me is that the Lord helps those who help themselves, then we're obviously not trying hard enough!' The sixth man glowered toward the chameleon. 'Or in this case, you and your team aren't trying hard enough. Certainly I've done my part. I installed a tap on the woman's phone and on the policeman's phone within an hour of your instructions. I also arranged for our people in Washington to be able to monitor calls made from car phones. Every important government executive has one these days, although I don't understand why they use them, given the security risk.'

  'What more do you want me to say? I can't change the past. However, I can resolve to do better in the future.'

  'But this isn't the first time you've made mistakes!' the sixth man added. 'When you managed to find our target, you should have arranged immediately for his abduction and interrogation!'

  'I disagree.' The chameleon gestured. 'Since the target didn't realize he'd been discovered, I thought it prudent to continue watching him in case he might lead us to other targets or.'

  'But why would he have done such a foolish thing? The man was a fugitive from his group. They wanted him as much as we did.'

  'Exactly,' the chameleon said. 'We waited in case his group caught up to him. As a consequence, we'd have had other vermin to capture, question, and eliminate.'

  'Regardless, the tactic failed,' the sixth man complained. 'His group did discover where he was, and instead of being captured, they succeeded in eliminating him.'

  'It was raining that night. The weather interfered with-'

  The sixth man scoffed, 'The weather. How did the target's fellow vermin catch up to him?'

  The chameleon scowled. 'Probably using the same method we did. The target was skilled in hiding. He constructed a new identity for himself. He never stayed longer than six months in any city. He arranged for elaborate smoke screens to conceal where he lived. In theory, he was undetectable. But human nature is imperfect. There were certain things about the man that he couldn't or wouldn't change. Specifically his fascination with video documentaries. That's how we found him the first time in Los Angeles, by checking the video companies. Of course, he'd moved on before we found his employer. But then we picked up his trail once more, the same way, in Chicago. Yet again he'd moved on. But finally, after using all the resources at our disposal, we located him at Truth Video in Manhattan. And if we could find him that way, I take for granted that the vermin he was running from could.'

  'Still, that raises another question,' the muscular fourth man said. 'After they executed the target, appropriately by fire, the same method we would have used, why did they also set fire to his apartment, and why did they wait several days before they did it?'

  'My surveillance team tells me that the target's hunters never entered his apartment the night they killed him,' the chameleon said. 'From Friday evening onward, he acted with greater caution, as if he suspected he'd been located. He broke an appointment with the woman, Tess Drake, on Saturday morning. He remained in his apartment all that day. Saturday night, he apparently decided to flee under cover of the storm. My team had concluded that his behavior was too erratic. They planned to grab him while they could, in the middle of the night as he slept. But that plan was interrupted when other targets arrived, with the same intention as our group. Events occurred quickly. The hunters discovered their quarry when he rushed down the stairs. As we know, the man was in superb physical condition.'

  'Well, aren't they all?' the second man asked rhetorically.

  'But he was also skilled in hand-to-hand combat,' the chameleon said. 'He fought with his hunters, eluded them, raced from the building, but during the fight, he'd injured his leg and-'

  'Yes, yes,' the electronics expert said impatiently. 'They trapped him and burned him alive before your team could formulate a new plan and, if not capture and interrogate, at least exterminate them all. Another nest would have been wiped out.'

  'You weren't there. Don't make judgments,' the chameleon said. 'My team was composed of three men, sufficient for their original mission. But the target and his hunters amounted to six. The only equalizer would have been pistols. But in so heavily guarded an area as the mayor's house near Carl Schurz Park, if there'd been shooting, the police would immediately have been put on alert and blockaded the district. My team could not take the risk of being captured and questioned by the authorities.'

  'What risk?' the sixth man growled. 'Your men knew the rule. If they were captured, before they could be interrogated, they had an obligation to kill themselves.' He tapped his ruby ring and the poison capsule hidden beneath the stone on his and every other ring.

  'I wonder,' the chameleon said. 'In my team's place, would you have been eager to take a chance that you knew would fail, with the certainty that you'd have to kill yourself?'

  'You bet your soul, I would.'

  'No, not my soul. Yours,' the chameleon said. 'I doubt you'd have risked being captured. You're a technician, not a combat operative, and your pride makes you want to live too much.'

  'Maybe you don't hate the vermin as much as I do,' the sixth man said.

  'I doubt that as well.'

  'You're evading the issue. The fire in the apartment. What about it?'

  'My assumption is that the other targets had made such a commotion in the apartment building that they didn't dare go back right away for fear of being found by the police. Also it may be that the targets concluded that the man who called himself Joseph Martin had been so scrupulous about hiding his true nature that he wouldn't leave anything incriminating in his apartment. That's all speculation, but this is not. We know that they decided to watch the woman he'd befriended, in case she behaved in a way that suggested she knew his secret. We, of course, watched the woman because she was the only connection we had with the target. She went to the morgue and managed to identify his body. The next day, the detective from Missing Persons took her to the target's apartment. Immediately afterward, she left a roll of film at a one-hour developing service. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that she must have found something of such interest in the target's apartment that she took photographs there and wanted them developed at once. When one of the target's executioners failed to get the photos, he and the others decided that the apartment now had sufficient priority for them to risk going back. Whatever they found, they needed to destroy it. And fire, of course, not only purifies. It conceals theft.'

  'But what did they find?' the third man asked.

  'My guess?' The chameleon hesitated. 'An altar.'

  The fourth man gasped.

  'Probably one of their statues. That, above all, they would have to retrieve. Regardless if someone had seen it and taken photographs of it, the revelation wouldn't matter as much as the object itself. The statue would be too sacred to them for it to be allowed to fall into unclean hands.'

  The group squinted in disgust.

&nbs
p; 'God damn them,' the second man said.

  'He has,' the sixth man said. 'But now, after having come so close, we've lost them.'

  'Not necessarily,' the chameleon said.

  'Oh?' The fifth man raised his head.

  'You've got a new lead?' the fourth man asked.

  'They appear to have become fixated on the woman,' the chameleon said. 'Recent events suggest that they believe she knows too much, especially given the photographs she took and then, of course, her sudden trip to Alexandria, Virginia. As we know from our background check, her father was powerful in the government and had many even more powerful associates with whom her mother remains in contact. It would appear that the woman, Tess Drake, is determined to find out why her friend died. It would also appear that our targets are equally determined to stop her and conceal all evidence of their existence.'