Destiny

ONE-HUNDRED-ONE

Over the course of the afternoon and into the early evening, eleven private jets landed at the four-thousand-foot runway on the Circle M Ranch in Texas. Armed security driving Mercedes and Ford Expeditions, all black with dark, tinted windows, met each member of the Circle of 13. The members were escorted to a large meeting room that resembled an opulent hunting lodge with overstuffed couches and chairs. A slate and river rock fireplace took up half a wall. Trophy deer and elk heads were mounted to the heart-of-cypress paneling. A large conference table sat in the center of the room.

Waiters brought imported water, coffee, snacks. A few members sipped expensive scotch and bourbon, holding separate conversations waiting for the meeting to begin.

Jonathon Carlson entered the room precisely at 7:00 p.m. The service staff left the room; its doors were locked and armed guards were posted at every entrance and exit. A secure satellite feed filled a plasma monitor on the wall behind Carlson. On the monitor was an image of a man in silhouette sitting in a chair, smoke curling up from a Turkish cigarette in his left hand.

Carlson called the meeting to order, set his cell phone next to a legal pad in front of him, recognized the participants — all but the man in the monitor — and said, “Gentlemen, we have a situation, and it is a very grave one. Despite intense efforts to find them, Paul Marcus and NSA employee, Alicia Quincy, are still on the run. Their last known location was in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula. Somehow these two have managed to evade or eliminate our operatives. The microchip implanted in Quincy has been found and apparently abandoned.”

Alicia Quincy sat next to Marcus in the hotel room, adjusted the audio feed from Carlson’s meeting, and then glanced at the healed area of her arm where Marcus had removed the microchip. She half smiled and watched the digital modulation scope on the laptop screen rise and fall each time Carlson spoke. She said, “You bastard. How dare you drug, tag and track me like an animal. Keep talking, because now you’re on the endangered species list.”

Carlson touched the legal pad in front of him with the tips of his splayed fingers. He scanned the room, each man waiting for him to continue. “We have no reason to doubt that Marcus and the woman continue to travel with the spear and an information-packed flash drive. The latter, in and of itself, could prove detrimental or have enormous value to us. However, now that Marcus has somehow managed to open a deep hole into our businesses and the history of our businesses, his silence is of the utmost importance.”

“What exactly do you think he knows?” asked Alexander Van Airedale, his ice blue eyes looking over the frame of his glasses.

“It’s not what I think — it’s what I damn well heard him say. He knows about our falsifying documents to build public and congressional support for wars in Syria and Libya. He knows we executed the two Israeli prime ministers, arranged Al Weinstein’s kidnapping, and that we had Kennedy Junior removed.”

“Jonathon?” the image in the monitor spoke. In silhouette, the others in the room could see the man gesture with his hands, cigarette smoke trailing near his left ear.

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“You said you heard him — heard Paul Marcus say these things?”

“I did.”

“How did you hear him?”

“On the phone. Marcus used Senator Dirkson’s private number to reach me.”

“And did he speak to you on your mobile?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that mobile right now?”

Carlson looked down at the phone on the table in front of him. “It’s here. It’s with me.”

“Destroy it!”

“What?”

“Immediately! You are a fool!”

The monitor faded to black, and Jonathon Carlson felt the bile rise in his throat.

Alicia turned to Marcus. “I recognize the accent. We have a former president of Russia and the other names. Yes! May the circle be broken!”

Marcus nodded and pushed back from the table. “It’ll take me a little time to build the website and post this audio onto it. I’ll see how many current pictures I can dig up of these guys and post their images, too.”

Alicia folded her arms across her breasts. She glanced out the window to the boat traffic on the bay. “They’re sending their invisible army for us. I’m not sure there is any place left on earth for us to go, Paul.”

“That’s why I have to get to the Nobel ceremonies. I’ll have a huge international stage. If I can deliver the information on the flash drive and direct the world to the new website with the eye-opener of what we uncovered about the Circle of 13, we’ll have made the first strike. If anything happens to us, authorities will know where to look.”

Alicia turned to face Marcus. “Who, anymore, are the authorities?”

“One of them is Secretary of State Merriam Hanover. I’d made her a promise I’d attend the ceremony. We can trust her. Now is the time to RSVP. I’ll call her.”

Alicia smiled. “Maybe she can spare a formal dress. I have nothing here to wear.”

“The hotel can make those arrangements, and I’m hoping Secretary Hanover can spare a security detail to get us safely to the Nobel ceremonies.”