Brink of Chaos Read online

  “Who told you that’s where I work?” she said with a sudden flash of anger. “I work as a clerk in the statistics department of the IDF.”

  Taken aback, Ethan studied the athletic, pretty Israeli woman. Then he noticed a flicker of another smile. “Okay,” he said, “now you’re playing with me. So, are you or aren’t you? I suppose you can’t say anyway, even though you and I were both in that North Korean deal together — or, well, actually you were, I was just sitting back in South Korea with my hands in my pockets. Though I wondered why Israel was involved in that deal in the first place.”

  She dodged his first question, about which agency signed her paychecks, but she answered the second one. “The last few years, Israel and South Korea have become very close diplomatically. We have more in common than meets the eye.”

  “Like?”

  “They send a high number of tourists to Israel each year, and, like Israel, they have learned to live their lives under the shadow of enemies who are very close. And then there is the matter of our past historic alliances with the United States.”

  “Past historic? You’re making a point, I take it?”

  “American foreign policy is different now and impacts both Israel and South Korea in similar ways. Your country used to be smart about picking its allies, and even smarter about choosing its friends. Things have changed considerably.”

  Rivka shrugged off that topic and took a step toward the edge of the high plateau, looking out over the desert. “So, you’re here in Israel with Colonel Jordan?”

  “Always glued to his side.”

  “But not right now?”

  “Well, almost always. I get some free time.”

  “I’m glad for that,” she said with a smile. She pulled out a water bottle and uncapped it. She raised it to her lips, but instead of drinking from it, she gave it a shake in Ethan’s direction and playfully splashed water on his face, and they both laughed loudly. Rivka took an extra T-shirt from her belt, pulled it out, and dabbed the water from his face.

  Ethan took a long look at Rivka, all five feet six inches of her, as she grinned back at him. And he thought how things seemed just a little bit bizarre at that moment. It was almost laughable.

  Is this woman who’s flirting with me really the same Rivka I met in Seoul? The same one Josh said had kicked a North Korean guard into unconsciousness?

  Apparently she was.

  They started the steep climb down from the high cliffs of Masada, the place where the ancient stone walls and crumbled structures testified to the siege that took place there two thousand years before — the last desperate stand of the Jewish rebels against the legions of the Roman Empire. As Ethan and Rivka began to hike down to the desert floor, Ethan had another thought. Okay, Rivka, let’s see where you and I go from here.

  SEVENTEEN

  Baden-Baden, Germany, Emperor Hadrian Hotel, Headquarters of the Order of World Builders

  Faris D’Hoestra adjusted his steel-gray glasses with two fingers and maintained his expression of calm satisfaction. The session was progressing well.

  He had traveled from Brussels, where the largest of his mansions and office complexes were located, to attend the quarterly meeting of the Order of World Builders — or simply “The Builders,” as its members referred to it — and to preside as its permanent chairman.

  The fifty members were seated around a mahogany table on the top floor of the hotel — the entire level of which had been reserved for the Builders on a hundred-year lease. Four similar leases stretched back to the eighteenth century, when the hotel was founded, but the history of the Builders went back much farther than that.

  D’Hoestra’s last motion had been carried unanimously, just like all the others that day.

  Now for the last one.

  The secretary of the Builders read it aloud — and it was moved and seconded — that “action be taken immediately to circumscribe and limit, by any means necessary, the international authority of the office of secretary-general of the United Nations, while creating an alternative international organization that shall be more receptive to the membership and influence of the Order of World Builders.”

  A small red light on the polished table, directly in front of one of the attendees, lit up.

  D’Hoestra called on the deputy prime minister of India.

  “Mr. Chairman,” the Indian representative said, “I question the wording of the phrase ‘circumscribe and limit.’ You want to reign in the power of the office of the secretary-general when in actuality, you want to reign in the charismatic secretary-general himself, Mr. Alexander Coliquin, perhaps even to depose him. Am I correct?”

  Several heads were nodding.

  “I’ll answer that,” D’Hoestra said. “Because each of us pledged to keep these proceedings secret, as has been our honored tradition, and each of us understands the consequences that come with any violation of that pledge, I can be candid.” D’Hoestra stood up from his executive chair and began to stroll slowly around the circumference of the mammoth table. “Mr. Coliquin has played the game of global chess quite well, squaring nations off against nations, constructing international coalitions behind the scenes to do his bidding. And he possesses what no prior secretary-general has ever had before — a lock-grip over the U.N. Security Council, including having Madam President Tulrude at his beck and call. A singular, titular head of global power like this — resting in the person of one man — is simply not good for the future world order. It is certainly not good for us. It is ruinous for the Builders. Our heritage stretches back through the annals of time. Yes, Coliquin must be dealt with. Quickly and decisively.”

  Another red bulb lit up. Lord Raxtony, an English Lord from the Royal Society, was leaning forward to speak. D’Hoestra recognized him. “Yes, well, if I may, this raises, rather well, I think, the problem I see with the other phrasing in your motion. You say we will limit Mr. Coliquin ‘by any means necessary.’ There is an implication there, clearly, that we will limit him without regard for any moral or legal limits. It has, Mr. Chairman, been a rather long time since this body has been asked to authorize the use of extreme sanctions.”

  D’Hoestra motioned to Deter Von Gunter, the controlling head of the large industrial and military armaments company the Von Gunter Group. He clearly wanted to address Lord Raxtony’s comment.

  “You accurately point out,” Von Gunter said, his voice as smooth as warm honey, “that it has been a long time since extreme sanctions were authorized by this body. Those sanctions are called ‘extreme’ because they are exceptional and to be used sparingly.” He paused. Then his voice suddenly jumped up a pitch, as he slapped his hands on the varnished table top. “But extreme, exceptional sanctions must sometimes be used! Is this not true? Otherwise we should call them unusable sanctions. Or unimaginable sanctions. Personally, I have tired of Mr. Coliquin and his antics. His international treaties entangle the world and have made life difficult for our companies — mine in particular. He is a wasp in our house. Let’s get some bug spray and rid our houses of this bothersome pest.”

  D’Hoestra was surprised by Von Gunter, not by the outburst itself — which was typical of him — but by the degree of his passion. Then again, some intrigues obviously existed within Von Gunter’s world that D’Hoestra could not possibly know about.

  The chairman permitted the discussion to continue for another hour. He was in no rush. He could see the dynamics of the meeting slowly bending to his will.

  In the end, although two members abstained, the rest of the World Builders voted in favor of the motion.

  With his motion passed, Faris D’Hoestra adjourned the meeting. After a few pleasantries with the members, he had his driver take him to his palatial thirty-thousand-square-foot villa on the edge of the Black Forest, outside Baden-Baden. There he would be attended to by his staff of seventy. First, a soaking bath while music from a live baroque quartet in the drawing room would be piped down to his steam room. Then a massage, facial, and m
anicure from a bevy of female attendants. After that, a sumptuous banquet at which he would entertain six Hollywood celebrities, the president of a small island nation, a Nobel Prize winner, and a news anchor and his wife from the American Internet News Channel.

  Finally, at the end of the evening, he would slip into his silk sheets. There, before drifting off to sleep to the scent of rose petals, he would contemplate his expanding empire. And Faris D’Hoestra would wonder at his place among the powerful Roman emperors like Hadrian, who had once trod those very same woods outside his villa.

  EIGHTEEN

  Manhattan

  She shouldn’t have been so stunned. After all, Abigail had reviewed the reporter’s file once before. Yet there was that one little detail in those materials that she must have tucked away somewhere in her memory. Then it came back to her when she was in Denver, attending the Hewbright-for-President campaign event. Now that she was back in New York and had the big manila envelope in hand with all the documents, she checked it again — just to be sure. She had to be absolutely certain.

  Now she was. It was right there in the photo — that unusual ring on Coliquin’s finger. Her head was reeling. Abigail was seated on the wraparound couch in the living room of her Manhattan penthouse with her feet up on the coffee table. She normally would have taken time to gaze through the big windows and enjoy the sunset over New York. But not today. Not with what she had just seen in the file photo. She had been leafing through the unpublished article on Alexander Coliquin by the late Curtis Belltether, the eccentric online journalist, and his other materials. It was the same piece that had been mailed to AmeriNews and the Jordans by Belltether, apparently right before he was shot to death in his hotel room two years before. With a landslide of ever-breaking news to cover, the AmeriNews staff sat on the article. But then, when Coliquin was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, his nasty background suddenly became newsworthy.

  Now, as Abigail poured over her copy of the dead journalist’s notes and his draft article, and the photo, it all came back to her. She realized that the contents of the reporter’s file had become important in ways she could not have imagined.

  Just then, Deborah, who was in New York for the weekend, swung open the front door of the penthouse and announced herself. She strode into the room with Cal. She was slurping a huge plastic cup of soda.

  “Well, howdy,” Abigail called out, perking up a little. “How was the movie?”

  “Pretty good,” Cal said.

  “Average,” Deborah said, then added, “I’m jumping into the shower. I feel grubby.”

  Cal dumped himself down on the couch and looked at his mother hunched over the Belltether file.

  “Homework?”

  “Always.”

  “Dad’s case?”

  “In a way.”

  “That’s a shocker!” Cal said sarcastically and gave a bright smile.

  Abigail chuckled and set the file on the coffee table. “This might be tangentially related. It’s the investigative report by Curtis Belltether.”

  Cal thought for a moment. “The reporter we talked about at the Roundtable meeting … the one who was murdered?”

  “Yep.” Abigail nodded.

  Cal studied his mother’s face. She wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her feelings. “Okay, Mom, what’s up?” he asked.

  She motioned to the file. “When I met with Senator Hewbright in Denver, something triggered a suspicion. So I did some digging on my computer when I got back to Hawk’s Nest that night. Then I had even more suspicions. And then this. For me it was confirmation.” She turned on the couch so she could look straight at Cal. “Every once in awhile in life you stumble across something, and once you see it, you can’t get it out of your head. Something bad. Evil perhaps. And you know that once you see it, you can’t just sit by like a passive observer, as if you’re in a theater watching a movie. You have to do something. You have to take action.”

  “You’ve completely lost me …”

  “Senator Hewbright,” Abigail said. “He’s a good man. This country needs him as president. We discussed all this during the Roundtable.”

  “Right.”

  She chose her words cautiously. “I think he’s in deep trouble.”

  “As in …”

  “Personal danger.”

  Cal thought for a few seconds. Then something registered on his face, and he quickly pulled out his Allfone. “Don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but saw this blurb on AmeriNews.”

  “I confess,” Abigail said, “I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to read it recently.”

  “I got you covered, Mom.” Cal tabbed through the recent news releases until he found the article. He handed the device to his mother. “Here it is. Story out of Wichita. The head of Hewbright’s campaign for that city was found dead. It’s pretty clear it was murder.”

  “What is going on here? Two politically related murders. Things are definitely not right.” Abigail read the article. When she was done, she turned to her son. “Cal, we need to get hold of John Gallagher. Immediately.”

  NINETEEN

  Casper, Wyoming

  John Gallagher was seated in a small roadside diner, reading the plastic menu. He knew what he really wanted to eat — blueberry pancakes slathered with real butter and real maple syrup, a large side of hash browns, a side of sausage links and bacon, and a breakfast steak, cowboy style.

  But alas, that was pure fantasy. He was watching his weight. The waitress finished waiting on several fellows in jeans and cowboy hats, then sauntered over to Gallagher. “What’s yer desire, darlin’ — breakfast or early lunch?”

  “My desire, darlin’,” Gallagher cracked, “is a breakfast big enough to choke a horse. And this looks like the kind of place that could accommodate me. But instead, I’ll take coffee, black, no sugar, and an English muffin, no butter, and sugar-free strawberry jam.”

  She jotted it down and threw him a smile. “Live long and prosper, city slicker.”

  Gallagher leaned toward the plate-glass window and took in the view of the North Platte River and the mountains in the distance. A moment later, the person he was scheduled to meet was standing next to the table.

  FBI Agent Ben Boling reached down and shook Gallagher’s hand.

  “Sit down. I’ll buy you some coffee and breakfast,” Gallagher said.

  Boling sat but shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m all caffeined up and had something to eat already.”

  “Not surprising. You strike me as an early riser, Boling.”

  “And you strike me as a nonriser.”

  Gallagher guffawed. “Gee, didn’t think you knew me that well.”

  “Your reputation precedes you. So, how have you been since leaving the Bureau?”

  “Well, how do you think I look?” he said, stretching his arms out to exhibit his slimmer torso.

  “Honestly, Gallagher, I can’t remember how you used to look. Remember, I didn’t work counterterrorism with you guys in New York. I’ve always done the mundane stuff — kidnapping over state lines, murder, mayhem. A little fraud on the side.”

  “Well,” Gallagher said, “I wouldn’t call that mundane. Your investigation into the death of Perry Tedrich, Senator Hewbright’s Wichita campaign manager, sounds an itsy-bitsy bit exciting.”

  “So, that’s what this meeting is about?”

  “Bingo. I’m doing some checking, a favor for some friends, people who care about Hewbright’s health and personal safety.”

  “Like the FBI doesn’t?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “So, let me guess. You’re here at the behest of that bunch of gun-twirling vigilantes known as the Roundtable?”

  “Ben, they’re good people who’ve been given a bad rap.”

  “All I know is what I read in the Bureau’s 302 reports.”

  “And you believe those?”

  “Gallagher, I know you had a reputation as a maverick, buking the system, pushing
the boundaries. But don’t expect me to trash the Bureau.”

  “‘Course not. You got a kid in college and another in grad school. Rocking the boat doesn’t make sense for you. You see, I’ve done my homework too.”

  “I’d be very careful. I could stand up and walk out of this place.”

  “I know you could, but I don’t think you will.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because as special agents go nowadays, you’re one of the good ones. Staying on even though you’re hamstrung by Tulrude’s insane rules and restrictions. And even with Attorney General Hamburg turning the Bureau into a politically correct day camp, you’ve managed to stick it out and still do your job well — which makes us different.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Because I was never smart enough to figure out how to do that. So I just left. But then again, for me it was time.”

  The waitress came with Gallagher’s English muffin. When she left, Boling gestured to Gallagher’s skimpy breakfast. “Pretty Spartan.”

  “My doc says I need to change my nutritional habits if I want to stay around for a while, which I definitely do. I’ve got some unfinished business.”

  “Like?”

  “Helping you catch the person who’s stalking Senator Hewbright right now … and planning his death.”

  “You talk like that, and it makes my heart go all pitta-pat, makes me want to whip out my little pocket pad and start taking notes. After Miranda-izing you first, of course, seeing as you just inferred a threat against a candidate for the presidency of the United States.”

  “But you’re not going to.”

  Ben Boling leaned back in the booth. “No, I’m not. Instead, I’m going to ask you what you know, and where you got the information.”

  “What I know is that there may be a risk to Hewbright from within his own campaign. And I got the tip from Abigail Jordan.”

  “Ohhh …,” Boling said, rolling his eyes. Then he added, sarcastically, “At least you’ve got a source that isn’t controversial.”