The Iscariot Agenda

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The ride to the D.C. suburb was a quiet one for the Hardwick brothers and Kimball Hayden. Hardly a word was exchanged between them as they drove in a muscle pickup truck. Kimball was sitting in the backseat of the crew cab, breaking down and reexamining his firearm, a.40 caliber Smith & Wesson with a suppressor that was as long as the weapon’s barrel.

Like the Hardwick’s, Kimball dressed in a black tactical jumpsuit with cargo pockets, duty belt and military issue footwear. The cleric collar was missing. In the breast pocket of his shirt was a flat can of black shoe polish. Before they breached the site it was determined that they would go in black face.

When they reached Senator Shore’s estate they parked the vehicle approximately 200 yards away. Not too close, but not too far, either. Just in case things didn’t pan out.

Slowly, carefully, with their heads on a swivel, they used the shadows as camouflage as they made their way to Shore’s property on the hill. From their point they could see the six-foot- high perimeter wall with ornamental spiking running its length. The grounds were perfectly kept and the shrubs neatly pruned. The house was a magnificent two-story Colonial featuring columns and decorative fascias. Capes of roses hung from trellises. And immovable shutters surrounded windows with bullet-shaped arches. The bedroom, they knew, would be in the rear overlooking the pool.

Mounting the wall had been easy, the height hardly a deterrent. And the row of privet bushes in the center of the grounds provided a wonderful cover as they hunkered down behind them, the target of Senator Shore within striking distance.

“There should be at least three security officials from Capitol Police acting as Shore’s security detail,” Kimball whispered. “They won’t be easy targets. But we’ve been here before. So I’ll reiterate what I said before: no killing.”

Jeff snickered, his lips drawing into a smirk. “We do what we do to achieve the means. These guys aren’t exactly going to let us walk right into the senator’s bedroom.”

“They will if they don’t see us.”

“And if they do see us?”

When they were warriors of the Pieces of Eight there was only one answer: Remove the opposition without prejudice, so as not to compromise the mission. That had always been the rule of engagement. And some things just don’t change.

“The Pieces of Eight are never seen until the moment of contact with the prime target. We’re never to be seen by secondary units and that’s what we were always about, Jeff. Stealth. Are you telling me you lost your edge?”

Jeff appeared insulted, the muscles in the back of his jaw working. “I haven’t lost a thing,” he returned. “I’m just saying that sometimes the possibility of engagement can’t be helped, even with secondary units.”

“I’ll tell you something right now,” added Stan, silently drawing back the slide of his firearm and charging his weapon. “If Shore’s detail gets in the way, then I will engage them in a manner I see fit to see that the mission succeeds. And that, Kimball, is the bottom line. It’s all about the mission. Not about some moral crisis you happen to be going through.” He held the Glock up, the suppressor giving the gun’s barrel extraordinary length.

“We didn’t come here to murder. We came here to gather information. We’re not even sure he’s behind any of this.”

“Are you kidding?” said Stan. Then: “Tell me something? Weren’t you just in the cab of my truck for the past half hour breaking down your weapon to make sure it was in working order?”

“Listen. I see my weapon as a last resort. You and your brother have always been in the mindset of kill first and ask questions later.”

Jeff couldn’t help the smile. “Now tell me, is there any better mechanism of defense other than to kill your enemy before they get a chance to kill you?”

“That’s the point. They’re not our enemies. They’re people doing their job and earning a paycheck.”

Jeff then fed a bullet into the chamber of his weapon by drawing the slide back. “Then they should have worked safer jobs.”

“No… killing.”

“What… ever.”

They moved to the end of the privet hedges until they had a full view of the estate.

“I don’t see anybody,” whispered Stan.

“They’re around… Somewhere.”

Kimball moved forward. “Stay close to the hedges. I’ll maintain point; Jeff, you watch the periphery; and, Stan, you keep an eye on the rear flank.”

“Who in the hell died and made you boss?” queried Jeff.

Kimball turned on him with the same bearing and intensity he once held as a member of the Pieces of Eight — that look of murderous fortitude. “Look. I didn’t come here to argue. So do you want point? Or do you want the periphery position? I don’t care.”

Jeff noted the fire in the warrior’s eyes. It was the same vicious ferocity Kimball held moments before making a kill. And Jeff realized that he was the current object of his focus. “No, you’re good,” he told him, his tone less brash, less cocky. “You can take lead.”

Kimball met his eyes a little bit longer before breaking off. And then he moved toward the house with the Hardwick brothers in tow.

A plain clothed Capitol police officer was making a round of the grounds. Cradled within his arms was a TAR-21 mini assault rifle with holographic view and NV scope. The man, however, moved with all the ease of taking a leisurely stroll, a telltale sign of complacency. When the officer rounded the corner of the house, Kimball and company moved quickly and took position beneath a semi-round balcony that overlooked the swimming pool. To the sides of the balcony stood trellises covered with roses that were thick and lush and blood red. And the balcony doors stood open, allowing for a crisp, midnight breeze to circulate the air of the senator’s bedroom.

Kimball raised a fisted hand in the air, and then pointed a finger to the balcony’s landing. The brothers acknowledged his gesture, holstered their weapons, and quietly climbed the trellises while Kimball maintained his position on a bended knee and kept watch, the point of his firearm held out in front of him, scanning.

When the brothers quietly hit the landing they motioned for Kimball to follow, with Stan watching his back by monitoring the grounds from above.

Quietly, Kimball scaled the trellis. His movements were silent, stealthy, the man bearing incredible athletic economy as he mounted the balcony rails and took footing.

The doors were open, the scrim-like drapes floating with the course of a slight breeze, the gossamer fabric moving with phantasmagoric grace. Inside, the room was dark.

For a brief moment the men stood silhouetted in the balcony’s doorway, the light of the pool serving as the backdrop.

And then, in unison, they moved into the room and became a part of the darkness.

They closed the doors softly behind them, all spreading out, the points of their weapons directed to the bed. Stan went to the left side, Jeff to the right, and Kimball stood at the foot of the bed.

Senator Shore lay beside his wife, both beneath a single blanket that was being worked into a wild tangle by their shifting legs.

The senator lay on the left side of the bed slack-jawed, his limbs contorted in such a way it seemed impossible to be a position of comfort.

Carefully, Stan hunkered over the senator, his lips inches away from the senator’s ear. “Wake up, Sunshine,” he whispered.

The senator didn’t move.

“Come on, Sunshine, wakey-wakey.” Stanley reached out with the tip of his middle finger and flicked the lobe of the senator’s ear.

The senator snorted in surprise, his eyes fluttering, then opening, his jaw closing with the snap of a bear trap. And then his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, his brain registering certain shapes and forms of things that did not belong.

Looking down, Stan smiled with malicious amusement. “How’re you doing, Sunshine?”

But before the senator could react or respond, Stanley Hardwick clamped a gloved hand over the senator’s mouth.

“Now listen to me,” he whispered. “And listen well. You make a noise, you’re dead. Do anything stupid, you’re dead. Understand?”

The senator nodded.

“And that goes for your wife, too.”

The senator’s wife, however, remained dead asleep.

“Now I’m going to take my hand away. And when I do, you will answer our questions accordingly. Is that understood?”

The senator’s eyes moved in their sockets, scanning. There was a large man standing by the foot of the bed and another standing over his wife, the point of his firearm aimed at her skull.

Then again, from Stanley, and in the same measured whisper: “Is that understood?”

The senator nodded once again, the gesture telling Stanley he had no doubt about his mortality should he disregard the intruder’s wishes.

“Good boy.” Stanley removed his hand while directing the mouth of the pistol’s barrel at the senator’s head with the other.

Defensively, the senator began to draw the blanket toward the point of his chin, a weak barrier against a bullet. “What do you want?” he asked.

The level of his voice caused his wife to stir. He was not whispering.

“We just want to ask a few questions,” said Kimball, who stepped closer to the foot of the bed. “And then we’ll be on our way.”

From what the senator could see, the large man was not aiming or bearing a weapon like the other two. But there was something about his features, the angle of his jaw line, the breadth and width of his shoulders, the tone of his voice. This particular man reminded him of an old-time warrior he once knew nearly two decades before — a man whose empty coffin was buried as an honorary gesture by the Pentagon brass at Arlington.

“Do you remember me?” asked the large man.

The senator searched his memory further. “Should I?”

Kimball leaned forward, no longer leaving any doubt in the senator’s mind.

The senator’s eyes flared to the size of an owl’s, the sudden realization as palpable as a slap in the face. “You’re dead.”

“People keep telling me that. But apparently I’m not.”

The senator’s wife began to raise her head, slowly, suddenly realizing the voice was not her husband’s. When she looked up and saw Jeff proffering her a wink, she attempted to scream. But Jeff quickly nullified that by placing hand over her mouth. In an act of self-preservation she began to beat his arms with open hands. But when she saw him calmly raise his firearm and felt the tip of the suppressor planted against her forehead, she quickly stilled.

“Calm down,” he told her. “Or I put your pretty little brains all over this expensive silk you’re lying on.”

“Remember what I said,” reminded Kimball. No killing.

“Just get on with it.”

The senator sat up so that his back was square against the headboard. “Kimball Hayden,” he said, his voice sounded awed, the surprise genuine. “You were supposed to have been killed in Iraq.”

“Only he ran away from the mission like a spineless coward,” said Stanley. “Isn’t that right, Kimball? Tell him how you ran away from the mission like a spineless coward.”

Kimball refused to respond.

Jeff, however, snickered in amusement.

Suddenly a visual of stereotypical inbreds flashed in Kimball’s mind: the brothers no doubt poster children as descendents from the backwoods. How much he hated them.

Kimball took a seat opposite the bed. The Hardwick brothers maintained their positions with guns in hand, the mouths of the suppressors inches away from the temples of their quarry, that of the senator and his wife.

The senator looked into the mouth of the barrel and could feel the power of the weapon. And then he looked Stanley in the eye, once again recalling the man and the wickedness of his personality. “Jeffrey Hardwick,” he said.

“Actually I’m Stan. Jeff’s the one holding the gun to your wife’s head.”

Jeff smiled and waved his weapon the same way a friend would greet a close associate because he was happy to see them. But the action was committed simply out of cruel enjoyment.

“Why are you here?” asked the senator. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you killing off the Pieces of Eight?” asked Jeff.

The senator gave him a questioning look.

“I’m not killing anyone,” he stated. “You people are nothing but a dark part of my history that I just want to forget.”

“Exactly,” said Jeff. “And what better way to do this other than by assassination?”

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Stan pulled out a folded photograph, a copy, from one of his cargo pockets and tossed it to the senator. “Open it,” he said.

The senator’s hands shook as he picked up the photo and peeled it open. It was a print of the old unit, the Pieces of Eight, posing when they were in their prime. There was Walker and Arruti, faces he never wanted to see again, Kimball and that crazy drunken Irishman. What was his name? And of course there was Grenier and Hawk and the Hardwicks. They were young and brash and full of the piss and vinegar of true warriors who romanced thoughts that they were the meanest bastards to ever walk the planet. The thing was, they were and they knew it.

The senator examined the photo, the memories of when he was a part of the presidential circle flooding back. He could recall with cloudless detail the moments he conferred with the president regarding missions as to who was to live or die, or where to send them in order to kill for the good of all nations by preserving and justifying our nation’s right to operate not only as the policeman of the world, but as judge, jury and executioner, as well. The Pieces of Eight had served them admirably.

Scrutinizing the photo with what could have been construed as scientific examination, the senator became aware of the faces circled in red marker and the letters within: I-S-C-A-R. And then he traced a finger over their images with a soft touch.

“That’s right,” said Stan. “They’re all gone, you son of a bitch.”

“You think I had something to do with this?”

“Who else?”

“For what possible reason?”

Jeff looked the senator square in the eyes, both firing off solid gazes of determination. “Several years ago you supported the act to assassinate a U.S. senator, yes?”

Senator Shore quickly glanced at his wife, who managed a look of surprise.

Jeff pressed the point of his suppressor against the woman’s temple, causing her to mewl. “The one thing I don’t have, Senator, is patience. So answer my question. Several years ago you supported the act to assassinate a U.S. senator, yes?”

The senator looked over at his wife who lay there as a wide-eyed doe while waiting for his delayed response. Then finally: “Yes,” he said. “I did.”

She closed her tear-filled eyes and turned away from him.

“Senator, were you keeping deep, dark secrets from the old lady here? Not good.” Jeff clicked his tongue in mock chastisement. “You naughty, naughty senator.”

“For chrissakes, Hardwick, Senator Cartwright was a monster who didn’t know his limitations. That man eventually got to the point where he thought he was more powerful than the president and was willing to bring the man down, along with anyone else who stood in the senator’s way. The process of democracy meant nothing to the man. It was either follow him to the end or fall where you stand. The man ended careers through blackmail rather than tact political lobbying.”

“Senator, I didn’t ask you why you thought the action to be justified. I simply asked you if you were a factor on deciding whether or not the senator should have been assassinated. And the answer — justified or not — is yes. You conspired and sanctioned the assassination of a powerful political figure serving within the United States Senate.”

To the senator’s left his wife began to sob uncontrollably.

“Honey?” When the senator reached for her she shunned him, shrugging her shoulder away from his touch. “I’m sorry.” And then he confronted Jeff with a firm tone. “Get to the point.”

“It’s a simple equation, Senator, and not a very hard trail to follow.”

“Your… point?”

“I’m getting there,” he said. And then: “Right now you’re the leading candidate in the polls to succeed President Burroughs as the new Commander-in-Chief, yes?”

“If you say so.”

“I don’t say so. The polls say so. You have a double-digit lead over your next opponent and the leader of the opposing party is very weak.”

“So.”

Stanley snatched the photo from the senator’s hand. “So, the skeleton inside your closet about you conspiring against Senator Cartwright and sanctioning his assassination would doom your run as the next president of the United States.”

“Nuts like you come out of the woodwork everyday,” he said. “People like you — those within the Pieces — never had a background or even existed per say. You’d just be cast off as doomsayers and idiots. No one would believe you.”

“That doesn’t detract from the fact that we’re still a threat, yes?”

“So you think in order to cover up my past oversights that I need to destroy the source, is that it?”

“Bingo.” Stan tossed the photo back at the senator. “And there’s the source: the Pieces of Eight. The group you sent to murder a United States senator.”

Shore examined the photo. “And what are the letters all about?”

“You tell us,” said Jeff. “It’s your game. Apparently you’re spelling the name Iscariot.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the senator, and then tossed the photo toward the foot of the bed.

“Iscariot,” said Stan. “The betrayer of Christ.”

“I know who Iscariot is. I just don’t understand the concept of the lettering in the photo.”

“Neither do we, but apparently you’re not going to give it up and tell us why, are you?”

“There’s nothing to give up. I have nothing to do with anybody within the Pieces of Eight getting killed.”

Kimball rubbed his chin thoughtfully. During the interrogation he studied the senator with close examination and noted the man’s responses through micro-facial expressions. So far he could not find a crack in the senator’s argument for his defense, and believed him to be telling the truth.

“As long as we exist, Senator,” said Jeff, “then we will remain a threat to your candidacy as long as we remain alive. Therefore, it makes sense to eliminate that threat, yes?”

“Again, you guys never existed in the eyes of the proper government body. Even to this day only a few know of your existence—”

“Which certainly narrows down the field of suspects greatly, don’t you agree?”

“But you’re the only one who stands to lose quite a bit if news of this hits the media,” added Stan. “And you know how much the media loves fodder.”

“Do I have to say this again? Something like this would be immediately disavowed by Bush and me, should it come to light.”

“Nevertheless, Senator, you know as well as I do that negative press — no matter its insinuations — would be a candidacy killer for you, especially when your opponents cry out for an investigation… Don’t you agree?” asked Jeff. “As popular as you are, even you could not carry on through the backlash of negative press and survive.”

“Seriously, after all these years, you think you’re a threat to me out of the blue? If that were the case, I would have acted against you long ago.”

Neither of the Hardwick brothers could argue that point. It was strong, solid and viable. The man had grown to be a supreme statesman and now stood at the threshold of the presidency.

“Still,” Stan finally said, “we pose a threat to no one but you, Senator.”

“Apparently you’re wrong.”

“No, Senator, we’re not.” Stan turned to his brother and met his gaze. And Kimball could almost see the symbiotic connection between the two brothers like arcing synapses from one point to the other, the communication between them unmistakable, the agreement of what they had to do quite clear.

In unison the brothers simply nodded to one another and stood back, both aiming their weapons at the senator and his wife. It was time to take measures.

With the slowness of a bad dream Kimball could not move fast enough as he reached out with a hand, not sure what he was going to do, and cried out. “No!”

The brothers were oblivious to Kimball as they fired their weapons in rapid succession, the room lighting up with muzzle flashes as the bullets penetrated their targets, the senator and his wife taking the shots and jittering with multiple impacts, the opulent backboard and wall becoming a canvas of blood and gore.

When it was over and the targets stilled, the room smelling like cordite, silence reigned.

Kimball stood in disbelief not knowing why he was surprised at the outcome since the Hardwicks were involved. When he told them there was to be no killing, apparently they took it as a suggestion rather than a command.

“I said no killing.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the food chain,” said Jeff. “Did you really expect that he would just let us walk away without retaliating in some form? What we did had to be done. You know that. And stop trying to be something you’re not, Kimball. You’re no priest. You’re going to Hell just like the rest of us.”

Kimball stood immobilized and stared at the bodies. The senator and his wife had been efficiently riddled with bullets, the sounds of the weapons silenced by suppressors no louder than spits, and no cries of pain from either victim. Yet Kimball knew he had compromised their position by yelling out in gut reflex. He turned to Jeff who was glaring at him with fury.

“Nice going,” Jeff told him. “Now we’re gonna have to fight our way out of here.”