Destiny

EIGHT

Buddy sniffed the morning air and followed close behind Paul Marcus, walking from his restored farmhouse to the barn. A chill hung over the October morning in Virginia, the autumn leaves sprinkled with heavy dew, traces of wood smoke coming from a neighbor’s house a quarter mile away.

“C’mon, Buddy.” Marcus lifted a bale of hay from his pickup truck and entered the stables. Buddy barked once, the dog’s breath a puff of mist in the cold air. Marcus set the hay down and approached the two horses, both in adjacent stalls. He pulled out two carrots and gave each horse a snack.

“You ladies staying warm? Ready for some exercise?” One of the horses snorted.

Marcus smiled. “I thought so. We’ll open these doors and let you run around some, what do you say?” He unlocked the stalls and led the first horse to the stable door.

“Go on, Midnight.” The horse trotted off toward the pasture. He followed with the second horse. “You too, Lightning. Go play.” Buddy gave quick chase, the horse ignoring the small dog with eyes as bright as the fall colors. Buddy abruptly stopped, a movement catching the dog’s attention. Marcus watched the horses in the pasture; his thoughts drifting back to his wife and daughter trail riding.

Buddy barked.

Marcus looked in the direction Buddy had turned. Someone was coming.

Slowly, a black SUV moved down the long driveway. The windows tinted dark. As the car came closer, Marcus could hear the sounds of acorns crushing against the gravel he’d long ago spread over much of the dirt drive leading to the house.

Buddy paced and barked again.

“It’s okay, boy. I have a feeling I know who’s behind those darkened windows. But this is the first time I‘ve seen him make house calls. Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact I wasn’t up to a visit.”

The car pulled to a stop beneath a lofty oak, its red and yellow leaves dusted with frost. The lone driver got out. He wore a black suit and a mid-length grey coat. The man placed his hands in his pockets and smiled as he approached Marcus. He had intense, dark eyes that reflected the cloudless blue sky. He was in his early sixties, smooth face, African-American. The man flashed a wide smile, somewhat like Denzel Washington.

“Hello, Paul.”

“What brings you all the way out here?”

“You brought me out here because you chose not to come into DC.”

“I’ve paid my dues. Ten years at NSA was enough.”

Bill Gray nodded. He looked at Buddy and then at the horses grazing under the pine and maple trees. “But it’s not every day that Secretary of State Hanover asks for a meeting, per the president. And it’s not even once in a lifetime that someone turns down the Nobel Prize.”

“I’ve told you why. I have no interest in that. It’s a prize, and I wasn’t seeking a prize trying to help my daughter. I was looking for a cure. I was trying to save her life. I failed. The discovery for Tiffany was more by default than perseverance. I can’t accept a prize for that.”

“You didn’t cause Tiffany’s death. Someone else did. I know that doesn’t lessen the impact of what happened, but it’s her life that gave you the opportunity to do what you did. The award is in recognition of that.”

There was a distant echo of a rifle firing somewhere in the hills. One of the horses whinnied. Buddy turned a half circle, his eyes following a chipmunk.

Gray said, “Must be the beginning of hunting season. All Secretary Hanover asks is that you reconsider the award. What you and your team did is nothing short of a miracle breakthrough. Since the president is up for the Nobel Peace Prize, it wouldn’t look too great if one from the home team didn’t show.”

“I’m off the payroll. Have been for a few years now.”

“I hear your work is done at Hughes. You were relentless, and your results showed it. A lot of people will live longer because of what you discovered.”

Marcus said nothing.

Gray nodded, his eyes following a red-tailed hawk. “Anything new on the police investigation? New leads, maybe?”

“They don’t even have a suspect.”

“Somebody knows something. It’s just a matter of time. Look, Paul, I’d appreciate it if you’d reconsider the Nobel award. Ceremonies aren’t until December. Give it some reassessment, all right?”

Marcus nodded. “I can’t see anything changing because—”

“Please, just reconsider. Maybe something will happen to change your mind.”

“I have some work to do.”

“Sure…are you going to keep the place here?”

“It’s my home, Bill.”

“I just know how much Tiffany and Jennifer enjoyed the horses, the life you had as a family out here.” Gray paused and nodded. “Loneliness is like a cancer. It’s internal, and the heart is the first organ that turns black. I’m sorry for your loss, but I also don’t want to see you isolate yourself.”

“Do you know what it’s like to bury your child, to bury your entire family?” Marcus started toward the stables.

“Paul…just one more thing.”

Marcus turned around.

Gray cleared his throat and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “I received word that there have been some inquiries about you from the Middle East.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Israel, specifically. Longtime allies with us, of course. However, the Mossad has been known to become, shall I say, curious from time to time. Seems someone there is inquiring about you. They may have seen your file. There’s nothing compromising in it, of course. It is basic background information, and nothing about your cryptography skills. So, I wonder why the Israelis would take an interest in you suddenly; and if they have, who else might be looking at what they’re investigating?”

“I have no idea.”

“As you know, one of the greatest threats this nation faces is cyber-sabotage — malware. Our guys tell me the right cyber worm can wriggle into systems, such as complex software, launch an attack, physically cripple a facility and never fire one bullet or bomb. This intense damage could be inflicted on a nuclear facility or even the power grids to the nation’s cities. Imagine that damn scene. The good side of the story is there are very few people with the skills to figure the coding and algorithms to make those little buggers become miniature destroyers, considering the internal damage that they can do. It’s like an apple when a hungry worm gets in there; you pretty much toss the whole apple away. Would you consider returning to NSA? You were the best we had. Damn, you were the best I ever had.”

“No thanks.”

“You wouldn’t be doing freelance work for anyone, would you, Paul?”

“What are you saying?”

“Everyone has to eat. If you’re turning down Nobel Prize money, maybe it’s because you’re earning it from somewhere else.”

“All the years we worked together, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“It’s a different world now. Cyber-sabotage is the new warfront, but there are very few soldiers who can even read the battle charts. Those who can will be highly paid, especially when billions of dollars are to be made or lost.”

“It’s time you went back to DC.”

“I’m sure you’d let me know in the event anyone casts a hook your way. See you around, Paul.” Gray turned and walked to the SUV with windows dark as coal dust.

A crow called out, flying over an adjacent cornfield. Marcus watched the crow grow to a tiny speck in the distance across the field, long since harvested. Under the bright sky, the twisted and bent cornstalks cast crooked shadows — an army of dark, broken stickmen retreating over the Virginia hills.

The guards were in place. They patrolled the front gate of the oceanfront villa on the Mediterranean Sea. The sun had been up more than two hours when the Syrian general, a handsome man with an angular face and dark eyes, took his coffee and newspaper to a balcony spot by the sea that had a clear view of the water. The general sat in one of the lounge chairs, shook open the paper and sipped Turkish coffee from a small cup. He wanted to relax after spending a week in North Korea.

The luxury yacht off shore attracted no attention from anyone in the neighboring villas. The yacht was one of many that would pass by that day. But it was the only one with an assassin on board.

The general took a second sip of dark coffee. The balmy air felt good coming off the sea, the smell of salt and the warmth of the eastern sun cleared his sinus.

The assassin opened a small, tinted window on the port side of the yacht. The captain, wearing wrap-around sunglasses, kept the speed at six knots on the flat morning sea. The ocean’s surface was as smooth as the blue felt on a billiard table. Through the crosshairs in the high-powered riflescope, the killer watched the general reading the paper one hundred meters away. A bikini-clad woman refilled his coffee, rubbed his chest and kissed him on the mouth. The general grinned, an erection rising in his jogging pants. He glanced toward the sea just as the yacht came in view. He used his left hand to shield the sun from his eyes.

The .30 caliber bullet hit the general in his left eye. The round shattered his sunglasses, exiting out of the back of his skull, leaving a spray of blood against the woman’s white bikini.

Paul Marcus awoke in a profuse sweat. He had fallen asleep on the couch in his living room, Buddy lying on the rug in front of him. The front door was open, a soft, cool breeze coming through the screen door, the smell of pine needles in the house, a half moon rising over the mountains. Marcus went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Buddy followed him.

“You need to pee, Buddy?” Grabbing a hooded sweatshirt from the coat tree, Marcus walked out the screened door and onto the front porch. Buddy followed him outside, trotted off the porch to an oak tree and lifted his leg. Marcus lowered himself into a wicker chair and sat in the dark. Buddy returned and lay down beside him. They watched bats catching insects under the moonlight. Marcus heard the distant cry of a freight train winding across the mountains, a nightingale singing in the oaks, a soft drop of a single yellow leaf falling from a tree onto the porch step. He looked at the hanging baskets and thought of his wife.

“We’ll need to take Jen’s flowers into the barn in case we get a heavy frost.” Marcus scratched his dog on the head, stood and poured the remaining water into a hanging basket. “Buddy, do dogs dream? I’d trade a nightmare for a boring dream any night. Mama Davis used to talk about ‘the handwriting on the wall.’ Something she quoted from the Bible. Is there some crazy handwriting on the wall for you and me, boy? I’m told the Israeli intelligence has my bio. You know that means somebody else does, too. Is it because I said no thanks to the Nobel folks, or because a long-dead scientist allegedly wrote my name on something? If he did, is that the handwriting on the proverbial wall? If it’s there, does it say anything about the man who killed Jen and Tiffany?”