The Machiavelli Covenant

PART ONE

• MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. THE BANFIELD COUNTRY

ESTATE, HALIFAX ROAD. MONDAY, JUNE 12, 8:40 A.M.

It had been two months to the day when Marten had told Hap good-bye and walked out of Auschwitz. If he'd been worried about keeping his job at Fitzsimmons and Justice, he needn't have bothered. By the time he had returned to Manchester that evening he had a half-dozen very recent calls backed up on his voice mail. Four were from his manager Ian Graff asking him to call him the moment he got in. The others were, respectively, from Robert Fitzsimmons and Horace Justice. Fitzsimmons he knew well from the workplace. Horace Justice, the founder of the company, eighty-seven years old and retired and living in the south of France, he'd never met. Still, he had messages from all three wishing him well and hoping he would be at work first thing the next morning.

The primary reason?

The president, it seemed, had placed direct calls to each man from Air Force One telling them how grateful he was for Marten's personal assistance during the last days and trusting that his unreported absence wouldn't be held against him. Indeed it wasn't. He was put immediately and full-time back onto the Banfield job, which between the arguments and changes of mind between Mr. and Mrs. Banfield, seemed to have been filled with more minefields than anything he'd encountered with the president. Still, he'd eagerly jumped back in and pressed on. Now, finally and at last, things were coming together. The grading had been done, the irrigation was in, the planting was beginning, and the Ban-fields were at peace. Chiefly because Mrs. Banfield was happily pregnant with twins and hence had shifted her time, opinions, and energy to preparing the house for their arrival. Happily too, Mr. Banfield, when he wasn't advancing his career as a professional soccer star, followed her indoors. All of which left Marten to supervise the remainder of the landscape work. Which was what he did while the world hung upside down in massive reaction to the president's speech.

The president had been right when he'd said things "might and probably will be ugly." They were from the outset and still were.

The United States, Washington in particular, was an on-going typhoon of round-the-clock media chaos. Political talk shows owned television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. The Internet was overrun with bloggers saying the president had gone off the deep end and was a nutcase, that he should be hospitalized or impeached or both. Conspiracy theorists everywhere were rife with their trademark "I told you so." Right, left, and center everyone wanted to know what this mysterious "Covenant" was and who belonged to it; what religion the president had been referring to; who had been burned to death in ceremonial rituals; how could the very distinguished members of the New World Institute have been involved with anything like the accusations he had made; where was the proof of any of it?

In the Middle East and throughout Muslim enclaves in Europe and the Pacific, things were no different. People and governments wanted details about this "genocide." In which countries and when was it to have taken place? How many deaths would have resulted? Who was to have occupied their lands? What else would've happened? What was the reasoning, the goal behind it? What had the members of this organization hoped to gain? Was the threat of it truly over? And finally, was this another arrogant move by an American president designed to provoke untold fear in the Islamic world, countering terrorist strikes against the U.S., Europe, and the Pacific with the nightmare threat of all-out annihilation?

Without answers, Islam responded quickly. Massive, violent anti-American and anti-Europe demonstrations took place across the Middle East. Equally violent street clashes and car burnings broke out across France, perpetrated by young, mostly poor Muslims whipped into rage by radical clerics for what authorities termed "dubious purpose." Less violent demonstrations took place in England, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Demands were made in the United Nations for further explanation and specific details. None of which were forthcoming because, as of yet, no particulars of Foxx's master plan had been found.

Nor had the interrogations of Vice President Hamilton Rogers, Secretary of State David Chaplin, Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Chester Keaton, and White House Chief of Staff Tom Curran-who proclaimed their innocence after being returned to Washington and arraigned by a federal magistrate and were now being held in the custody of United States marshals at Andrews Air Force Base-turned up new information.

Nor had the interrogations of the members of the New World Institute present at the Aragon meeting-now arrested and being held at various locations around the world, charged with suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit mass murder-revealed facts not already known.

Nor had anything official come from the Secret Service ECSAP unit (Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program) charged with examining the hard drives Hap and the president had taken from the master computer at the Aragon church. Understandably this was a snail's-pace investigation and being done with extreme care, not only for the recovery of information contained within but because whatever was there might well be crucial evidence that would be used in federal court.

Still, and quietly, international security agencies were working in close cooperation to piece together information that would lead to a clear trail of conspiracy. Particularly targeted were political parties in France and Germany where, as Jake Lowe had told the president in Evan Byrd's home in Madrid, "before, our people were not yet in place. Now they are. We have been assured of this by friends of trust. Friends who are in a position to know."

"What friends?" the president had shot back. "Who are you talking about?"

Those "friends" were precisely the people being sought worldwide. In Germany, a minor political party called Das Demokratische Bündnis, the Democratic Alliance, the party of Marten's Salt and Pepper Barcelona shadow, the civil engineer Klaus Melzer, was covertly targeted, its entire membership put under heavy surveillance that included electronic monitoring of phone calls, e-mails, bank accounts, as well as travel records. It was an investigation that quickly turned up a sister organization in France: Nouveau Français Libre, the New Free French party, with headquarters in Lyon, and branches as far north as Calais on the English Channel, and south, to Marseilles on the Mediterranean.

The great explosion and fire in the church and in the miles of old mining tunnels leading beneath and away from the Aragon resort to an ancient church on the far side of the mountains called La Iglesiadentro de la Montaña, the Church within the Mountain, and nearly all the way to the monastery at Montserrat, still burned.

Authorities and mine experts had agreed it would be weeks if not months longer before it burned itself out and cooled enough to be safe for crews to explore. The source of the explosions, like the one barely a day earlier near the monastery at Montserrat, had been attributed to a decades-old buildup of deadly methane gas in the long-sealed tunnels. It was a declaration that immediately raised eyebrows and brought up the question of how anyone could have purposely planned this kind of massive destruction.

Yet, for all of it, there was evidence. The president and Nicholas Marten had been deposed in secret on what they had seen in the tunnels and laboratories and in the church and elsewhere. So had Demi Picard, Hap Daniels, Miguel Balius, and the Spanish teenagers José, Hector, and Amado. Others deposed-USSS Special Agent Bill Strait, U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot Major George Herman "Woody" Woods and the medical team and air crew aboard the Chinook-confirmed the death of National Security Adviser Dr. James Marshall, publicly pronounced a tragic accident, as suicide. The death of political adviser Jake Lowe was presented as a possible homicide, especially after secret testimony by Spanish CNP Captain Belinda Diaz and further questioning of Agent Strait concerning Dr. Marshall's reporting of the incident.

At the same time constitutional lawyers for the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and the others-despite the posturing of outrage and claims of complete innocence-were already trying to plead the case down from high treason to "threats against the president."

All of which gave the president hope that the truth he had told in his address at Auschwitz was not the political suicide many had thought but simply the right thing to do by a man who believed in telling the people "what was what" and "who was who" because he felt that at this fragile point in history there was no other way to do it.

Careful to keep his distance and his name and face from public view, Marten kept his eyes on the news and his attention on the Banfield project.

Then, on Friday morning, May 21st, Robert Fitzsimmons summoned him to his office and asked him to fly to London to meet with a special client, a prominent London surgeon named Dr. Norbert Holmgren, who lived just off Hyde Park and who had a large estate in the Manchester countryside where he wanted to make considerable landscape modifications.

Dr. Holmgren was not at home when Marten arrived but he was shown into the sitting room anyway. When he entered he found two people waiting, Hap Daniels and President Harris, who was quietly in London for private talks with British prime minister Jack Randolph. Marten's immediate response was to grin broadly and to joyfully bear-hug each man in turn. Then, as quickly, a caution bell rang through him and he pulled back.

"Now what?" he asked.

The "now what" was top secret information the president had wanted to share with him.

"Aradia Minor," the president had said, explaining Demi had been debriefed by the FBI in Paris and had told of her decades-long search for her mother and what she had learned about the ancient and secretive coven of Italian female witches called Aradia, which used as its identifying mark the balled cross of Aldebaran, and what Giacomo Gela had revealed about the more secretive order hidden within it called Aradia Minor. An order referred to in writing simply as the letter A followed by the letter M and written in a combination of Hebrew and Greek alphabets as " μ" It was Aradia Minor, a deeply religious cult of true believers that over the centuries had been manipulated into providing the Covenant with their sacrificial "witches."

Later Demi had told of her captivity and of the terrible, torturous videos they had played over and over of her mother's death by fire. Lastly she had told of what she had seen underground when they had brought her via the monorail to the church: the empty experimental medical chambers, the long-abandoned barrackslike rooms, and finally, beneath the church itself and at the end of the monorail track, the large crematory oven.

"That's how Foxx got rid of the bodies." Marten felt the hair stand up on his neck as he said it.

"Yes," the president said. "Look at this," he nodded to Hap who opened a laptop.

"The Secret Service is still working with the hard drives, but already some information has been salvaged. Take a look."

Marten looked at the computer screen. What he saw was a series of still photographs taken in a room in one of Montserrat's tall buildings that overlooked the large plaza in front of the basilica. Apparently taken by Foxx with a remote camera, they showed a small office-sized room, a telescope, and a video recorder. Next came photos taken with a telescopic lens, as if through the telescope itself, and showing a number of close-ups of people in the plaza.

"It was how he selected his 'patients,'" the president said, "a never-ending supply. It was the 'general populace' he was looking for. Photographed handwritten notes suggest he pointed out those he'd selected to the monks, who took it from there. Not right away, but following the victims back to wherever they'd come from and later kidnapping them."

"The bastard thought everything through," Marten said angrily, and looked at them both. "Nothing on his plan for the Middle East or notes on his experiments?"

"No, at least not yet."

"What about Beck and Luciana?"

"Not a trace. They either got away or were trapped when the church went up. They are still on the list of those to be apprehended."

"So that's it? Until more of what the hard drives hold are uncovered or what the ongoing investigations might reveal."

"Sort of," Hap said quietly and looked to the president.

"A simple listing in a separate journal that was kept by my friend and adviser Jake Lowe," the president said, then he hesitated and Marten could see a wave of emotion come over him.

"What is it?"

"You knew my wife was Jewish."

"Yes."

"You knew too that she died of brain cancer in the weeks just before the presidential election."

"Yes."

"They wanted the Jewish vote. They didn't want a Jew in the White House. They thought if she died I would gain a huge boost in the polls not just in sympathy from the Jews but from the general public."

Again Marten felt the hair rise up on his neck. "Foxx killed her with something that mimicked brain cancer."

"Yes," the president nodded and then trembled and tried to blink the tears from his eyes. "It seems," he said with great difficulty, "we both lost someone we loved immeasurably."

Marten went to the president and embraced him, and for the longest moment the two men stood there in each other's arms. Each knowing to his soul what the other was feeling.

"Mr. President, we have to go," Hap said finally.

"I know," he said, "I know."

The men looked at each other and the president smiled. "When this all calms down you'll come to my ranch in California and we'll have that steak and beer. Everyone. You, Hap, Demi, Miguel, and the boys."

Marten grinned, "Hap told you."

Now it was Hap's turn. "I started to but he told me first."

Marten put out his hand. "Good luck, Mr. President."

The president took it, then hugged him once more and stepped back. "Good luck to you too, Cousin, and God bless."

Then he turned and was gone. Hap took Marten's hand and nodded in a way only men who have shared battle and lived can. Then he winked and smiled and followed the president out.

PART TWO

• MANCHESTER, STILL MONDAY, JUNE 12, 11:48 P.M.

Marten lay in the dark in his loft apartment that overlooked the River Irwell. Occasionally lights from passing cars below played across the ceiling. Now and again came the voices of people passing on the sidewalks. But for the most part it was quiet, the end of a long summer's day.

Deliberately he turned his thoughts from the Banfield project and from memories of "The Covenant." He wanted to fall asleep, not rekindle thoughts that he knew would pump him up and keep him awake.

For a moment he thought back to when he'd first come to England from Los Angeles, changing his name from John Barron to Nicholas Marten and trying very hard to find a place where he could fade from sight and from anyone from the LAPD who might be hunting him while at the same time help his sister Rebecca recover from a devastating mental trauma. Her recovery and relocation to Switzerland and her story afterward, as he had briefly hinted to the president, had been truly remarkable, if not fantastic. A great deal of it had been made possible by the most inimitable person he'd ever known; the sexy, bawdy, blue-blooded "Lady Clem," Lady Clementine Simpson, the only child of the Earl of Prestbury, whom he had seriously considered marrying, but who had abruptly shown up one day to tell him she had just become engaged to the newly appointed British ambassador to Japan and as a result would be moving from Manchester to Tokyo forthwith. And she had. As far as he knew she was still married and still there because in nearly six years he hadn't had so much as a postcard or an e-mail from her.

Rebecca's experience in recovering her own mental health and her sensitivity to what recovery meant made her volunteer to spend time with Demi, who, as Marten had told her, had experienced enormous psychological trauma that specialists in Paris had told him might take years to recuperate from. With a leave of absence from her position at Agence France-Presse, she had gone to Switzerland to live with Rebecca, where she was now assisting her in her job as governess to three rapidly growing children and ever so slowly letting go of the memories of her mother and of Merriman Foxx, Luciana, Reverend Beck, and of Cristina and the fire.

• TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1:20 A.M.

Marten was still awake. And he knew why. A vivid portrait burned in his mind, that of a naked middle-aged man lying against the old stone foundation of a shed in Auschwitz, a.45 automatic in one hand, the rest of him shot to pieces. Victor Young, the man he had seen briefly as he'd driven past in a car in Washington, D.C., as Marten had waited for Dr. Lorraine Stephenson to come home the night she committed suicide on the sidewalk in front of him, the same man he later remembered as having seen two nights earlier when Marten had so emotionally and tearfully walked the rainy streets near the White House in the hours after Caroline had died. Young, or whatever his real name was, had been driving the car that had slowly passed him on a darkened, near-empty boulevard. Marten had seen him clearly twice. It made him wonder if even then, Foxx or Beck or both had been concerned about him because of Caroline and had sent someone to watch him.

But that wasn't all.

The Secret Service had traced Victor's whereabouts from Washington to Berlin, to Madrid, to Paris, and then to Chantilly, where he'd taken a hotel room the night before the jockeys had been killed. After that he'd gone back to Paris and then taken a train to Warsaw, where the NATO meeting was originally to have been held. Then, with the location switched to Auschwitz, he'd taken a train there, arriving at the Auschwitz press gate an hour before the president's scheduled speech with the proper AP press credentials, his name on the Secret Service's approved list, and an M14 rifle hidden in a tripod case brought in in a media satellite truck.

How he had heard of the change of venue from Warsaw to Auschwitz in time to change locations himself, how he had gotten his press credentials and been put on the approved list, how and by whom the rifle had been smuggled in, was unclear and still under investigation. What was clear was that from Berlin on he had been clearly stalking the president at nearly every stop along the way during his European tour, even to the point of testing the Secret Service's security at the Hotel Ritz in Madrid.

And that was the thing keeping Marten awake. The thing that had been gnawing at him for some time but that had only now begun to come together. Whether Victor was working alone or for "The Covenant" or for someone else entirely made little difference. With the presence of the M14, it was obvious he had meant to kill the president wherever he spoke either at Warsaw or at Auschwitz. He may well have been planning to kill the chancellor of Germany and the president of France as well, and that was just the problem. In retrospect it was too obvious. Too deliberate. He'd left too perfect a trail.

As good a marksman as Victor was, he was not a professional, and if "The Covenant" with all their resources and connections-from the military to the Secretary of Defense to the National Security Advisor-had meant to kill one or all three, and it seemed they had, at least until their undoing at Aragon, then they would unquestionably have used a professional or a team of professionals. Victor, Marten knew, was their fall guy. Somebody's Lee Harvey Oswald. If he took the shots and made the kill, fine; if not, fine too. He'd left a stalking trail and in doing so he'd left himself wide open to be killed if anything went wrong. And it had, not just because of the fiasco at Aragon, but because Marten had remembered the killings in Washington and at the Chantilly racetrack and sounded the alarm.

And that was the thing that disturbed him now and kept him from sleep. The whole thing had seemingly been put to bed. The Covenant was stopped, every piece of it was being investigated and if the information on the hard drives continued to deliver, they would have complete annual records of the events and the identities of members attending, potentially blockbuster revelations that might go back years, even decades, maybe even centuries, depending on what was there.

When Marten had come through London on his way home to Manchester, he'd taken a few hours between connecting flights to go into the city. There he'd heard Big Ben chime out the hour, the same way the hour was chimed out in cities and towns around the globe, by chimes that played the Westminster Quarters, a striking of familiar notes half the world's population knew by heart. The same Westminster Quarters that had chimed-and seemed so out of place-at the Aragon church as the members of the New World Institute entered. It made him wonder if that was a universal signal from The Covenant to its secretive members everywhere, that no matter what happened it was alive and well. And had been. And would continue to be for centuries to come. If so, The Covenant was not stopped at all, but like Foxx's planned destruction of Aragon, had simply chosen to go underground for a time, decades maybe. If that were the case it meant people still existed inside it that no one else knew about or could even imagine.

It was why he remembered now what had happened at Auschwitz after he'd alerted Hap to the possibility of a sniper. Never mind the press credentials or the Secret Service-approved list or the hidden gun. Victor had been fingered by someone else. Bill Strait had been the one who pulled up his press picture on the video screen to identify him as the man who had tested their security in Madrid. Moments later when they were out chasing him, running with the other agents following the dogs and dog handlers, it had been Strait who had suddenly veered to the side of the pond ahead of Marten and away from everyone else, running almost directly to the place where Victor was hiding, as if he knew exactly where he would be.

And when Marten had given chase and shouted for Strait to wait to go into the building until he got there, Strait had ignored him and gone in alone. It was when Marten finally reached the building that he'd heard their very brief exchange inside, just two words spoken between the men.

"Victor," Strait had said clearly.

"Richard?" Victor had asked, as if suddenly surprised by someone he knew by voice but had never seen.

Immediately after that had come the dull, sharp spit of Strait's machine pistol.

Eyes wide, Marten rolled over again. Bill Strait. Hap's trusted deputy-or for a time in Barcelona not trusted at all when Hap, like the president, could afford to place his faith in no one. What if Strait was "The Covenant's" man inside the Secret Service and posted to the presidential detail? A perfect cover for access to all kinds of things that went on deep within the executive branch.

Marten wondered if anyone else knew or even had the suspicion he had. Probably not, because he was the only one who had been there at the end. Had seen the direct route Strait had taken. Had heard him say Victor's name and heard Victor say "Richard?"

If he was right, it meant that only he knew, or suspected. Which also meant that in time, maybe sooner than later, Bill Strait would figure it out too.

• 2:22 A.M.

Marten lay back and closed his eyes. He'd worked in close liaison with people from the U.S. Secret Service off and on for years when he'd been a member of the LAPD. He knew their motto of "Worthy of Trust and Confidence" was not taken lightly and that all of its agents had top secret clearances, and most were cleared beyond that level. Furthermore the organization was far too respected, far too professional, and far too much of a close knit brotherhood for someone to infiltrate it like that.

So maybe, even probably, he was wrong about Bill Strait. Maybe, even probably, he was just thinking too much. Maybe he-

Suddenly there was a sharp knock on his door.