Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

Muhaddar’s scream startled him, and he almost dropped the bottle.

“Who are you?” Muhaddar asked, his voice tight and his eyes wide. He was staring right at Aziz as though they had not known each other their whole lives. “What are you doing here? Where is Aziz?”

“Muhaddar? Are you well?”

“Where is Aziz?” Muhaddar shouted, his face twisting in anger. A line of drool dangled from his lower lip, but he didn’t seem to notice. His face looked flush, his eyes bloodshot, and his whole body trembled. “What have you done with Aziz?”

“What are you talking about?”

Muhaddar launched himself forward, grabbing Aziz by the throat and knocking him to the ground. The bottle of water flew from Aziz’s hand as he and his friend toppled over onto the concrete, spilling its contents across the floor as it rolled away.

Aziz’s head banged on the floor, causing his vision to go white with pain. When it returned to normal, he found himself staring up at his lifelong friend and fighting for breath under Muhaddar’s crushing grip.

“Muhaddar,” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Where…is…Aziz?” Muhaddar shouted, banging Aziz’s head on the floor with every syllable. “What did you do with him?”

“Muhaddar,” Aziz croaked. “I am Aziz. Don’t you know me?”

“Lies!” Muhaddar pistoned his arms back and forward, bashing Aziz’s head on the floor again and again, choking the breath from his friend’s body.

Aziz tried again to reason with Muhaddar, but he couldn’t find the breath to speak. He was starting to feel woozy and tired.

The last thing he saw was the crazed, furious face of his lifelong friend as his head hit the floor one last time, then everything went dark.





1.



Pinckney, NH.



The small, single engine Cessna rolled to a slow, rough stop. The potholes in the asphalt caused the cabin to bounce and jerk, spilling the passenger’s drink in his lap. Cold coffee, several hours old and barely touched. On either side of the pocked runway, a short grass field extended for fifty or so yards before giving way to a huge green forest of maples, birches and assorted evergreens. The scent of pine filtered in through the plane’s vents, mixing with the smells of coffee and aftershave.

“Son of a bitch,” the passenger said, trying to dry his pants with a napkin with little success. “Good thing it wasn’t hot.”

“Small favors,” said the pilot.

“Yeah, yeah. Thank God for ‘em.”

The pilot chuckled. “As well you should, Mr. Duncan.”

“Don’t start, Billings.”

Billings turned his face away, but not before Duncan saw the smirk on his face. Sanctimonious SOB, he thought.

“Looks like your ride is here,” Billings said, pointing out the starboard window.

Tom Duncan, former President of the United States, shifted in his seat to look right. The Cessna didn’t have much for windows—or passenger space, for that matter—but he was able to spot a single black SUV rolling its way up a thin gravel road toward the plane. Other than Billings, only one other person on the planet knew Duncan was coming to Pinckney.

Jacobs, Duncan thought. Let’s see what’s so important.

Eli Jacobs headed Duncan’s cleanup team at the site of the old Manifold Genetics lab nearby. Jacobs and his men were responsible for going through Manifold’s records, storage facilities, computers and anything else they found to try to figure out just what the hell Ridley had been doing. With all the strange genetic experiments Manifold was involved in, it was often difficult to keep track of everything. Judging by the spotty record keeping in the Manifold Alpha lab, even the Manifold employees had had trouble sorting through all the data.

But Jacobs had found something. He wouldn’t have called Duncan if it wasn’t important. Not long ago, Duncan would have had to fly to the site in a large private helicopter. Two fighter jets would have flown escort and it would have been impossible to hide his presence from the locals. Those days were long gone. He had even waived his right to a Secret Service detail. Now he was as anonymous as it gets, sitting on an overgrown, pothole-filled runway in the backwater of New Hampshire. The tiny Cessna would have fit easily inside the belly of Air Force One.

Duncan smiled a bittersweet smile, then moved toward the door.

It’s better this way, he told himself. The chains are broken. He was free now to pursue his role as Deep Blue, Chess Team’s handler, mentor and operations eye-in-the-sky, without the constraints of his former role as President getting in the way.