Father Bradbury shook his head vigorously. Shaking it helped him to work through the aftershocks of the blow.
'I am going to punch in the number,' the man went on. 'If you do not speak to the deacon, then we will have no choice but to go after him and kill him. Do you understand?'
Father Bradbury nodded. 'I still... will not say ... what you want,' he informed the man.
The priest expected another blow. He was trembling uncontrollably, too unsettled now to even try to prepare for it. He waited. Instead of striking him, someone relied the hood under his chin. Then he lifted the prisoner to his feet. His legs seemed to be disconnected, and the priest began to drop. The man grabbed the meat of his upper arms and held him tightly. It hurt, but not as much as the rest of him.
The priest was dragged back outside. He was taken to another structure and tossed roughly inside. His hands were still tied behind him, so he tucked his head into his chest to protect it from a fall to the floor. The fall never came. Father Bradbury struck a corrugated metal wall and bounced back toward the door. He landed against metal bars that had been* shut so
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quickly they literally pinned him to the wall. His legs were still wobbly, but that did not matter. His body sagged but did not drop. There was no room. He tried to wriggle to the left and right, but that was not possible. The side walls were as far apart as his aching shoulders.
'Lord God,' he murmured when he realized he was in a cell, a cell so small that he would not be able to sit, let alone sleep.
Father Bradbury began to hyperventilate through the hood. He was frightened and rested his cheek against the metal. He had to calm himself, get his mind off his predicament, off his pain. He told himself that the man who had been leading this action, the man in the hut, was not an evil man. He could feel that. He had heard it in his voice. But Father Bradbury had also heard strong determination. That would cloud reason.
The priest folded the fingers of his bound hands. He squeezed them together tightly.
'Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with Thee,' he muttered through the damp cloth.
In the end, only the body dies. Father Bradbury would not stain his soul to save it. But that did not stop him from fearing for the lives of his friends the deacons, from acknowledging that he had no right to sacrifice them.
Yet he also feared for his adoptive home. Only one group spoke of white and black magic. A group as old as civilization and terrifying to those who knew of the pain black magic could cause. Not just supernatural magic, but dark deeds such as drugging, torture, and murder.
A group that had the power to subvert the nation and the continent. And then, possibly, the world.
EIGHT
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 5:55 P.M.
It was Mike Rodgers who informed Bob Herbert of Paul Hood's proposed new intelligence unit. The general had come to Herbert's office and briefed him about the meeting with Hood. Then he went off to contact the personnel he hoped would join his new unit.
Bob Herbert was not happy when he heard about it. He was pretty sure he understood why Hood did this the way he had. Rodgers had lost Striker twice. First in Kashmir, then in a wood-paneled office on Capitol Hill. The general needed something to get him back on his feet. The combination of briefing, pep talk, and eye on the prize seemed to have done that. Rodgers had been upbeat when he came in to talk to Herbert.
But Herbert was the intelligence chief. Hood should have consulted him. Herbert should have been briefed about this new unit at the same time that Mike Rodgers became involved.
Hood did not speak to Herbert about the new undertaking until after the routine five P.M. intelligence briefing. The briefings were held at both nine in the morning and again at five P.M. The first briefing was to keep Hood abreast of activities in Europe and the Middle East. Those regions had already been active for hours. The second meeting was to cover the day's intelligence activities involving Op-Center as well as events in the Far East.
After the fifteen-minute update, Hood regarded the Mississippi-born intelligence chief.
'You're upset, aren't you?' Hood asked.
'Yeah,' Herbert said. • *'*
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'About Mike's new operation.'
'That's right,' Herbert replied. 'Since when is my input a threat?'
'It isn't,' Hood told him.
'For that matter, since when is Mike's ego so delicate?' Herbert asked.
'Bob, this had nothing to do with letting Mike ramp this thing up on his own,' Hood assured him.
'What then?' Herbert asked indignantly.
'I wanted to keep you clean,' Hood said.
'From what?' Herbert asked. That caught him off guard.
'From the CIOC,' Hood said. 'My sense of what they decided last night was to try to push Mike to resign. Senator Fox and her allies can't afford public hearings, and they don't want Mike around. He's a loose cannon who gets things done. That doesn't work in their bureaucratic worldview. The solution? Terminate his primary responsibility. That gives him a disciplinary kick in the ass, and it leaves him without much to do.'
