Free The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell Page A

the priest and shot him.
    "Are you sure?" the CIA director blurted into the phone. "Completely," the KGB director answered on the emergency long-distance line. He spoke in English since his counterpart did not speak Russian. "Understand-I didn't call to ask permission. Since the rogue is yours, I'm merely following protocol by informing you of my intention."
    "I guarantee he wasn't acting on my orders."
    "Even if he were, it wouldn't matter. I've already sent the cables. At this moment, your communications room should be receiving yours. Under the terms of the Abelard sanction, I've alerted every network. I'll read the last three sentences. "Find Remus. Universal contract. Terminate at your discretion.' I assume since your agency has been embarrassed, you'll go after him more zealously than all the other networks."
    "Yes... you have my word." The CIA director swallowed, setting down the phone.
    He pressed a button on his intercom, demanding the file on Christopher Patrick Kilmoonie.
    Thirty minutes later, he learned that Kilmoonie was assigned to the paramilitary branch of Covert Operations, a GS-13, among the highest-ranking operatives in the agency.
    The director groaned. It was bad enough to be embarrassed by a rogue, but worse when the rogue turned out to be a world class killer. Protocol-and prudence- required that to execute this man the director would have to use a team of other GS-13s.
    the file on Remus told the director something else. He stood in anger, stalking from his office.
    Eliot was Remus's control.
    "I don't know anything about it," Eliot said.
    - "Well, you're responsible for him! You find him!" the director said, completing the argument, storming from Eliot's office.
    Eliot smiled at the open door. He lit a cigarette, discovered ashes on his black suit, and brushed them off. His ancient eyes gleamed with delight that the director had come to him instead of demanding that Eliot go to the director. The angry visit was one more sign of the director's weakness, of the power Eliot enjoyed.
    He swung his chair toward the window, letting sunlight warm his face. Below, a massive parking lot stretched to the fence and the trees that buffered the agency from the highway at Langley, Virginia. From his perspective, he saw just a portion of the ten thousand cars surrounding the huge, tall, 14shaped building.
    His smile dissolved. Already preoccupied by the hunt for Saul, he'd been troubled yesterday when told that Chris, Saul's foster brother, had arrived at the Abelard safe house in Bangkok. Eliot hadn't instructed him to go there. For the past several weeks, since Chris had abandoned his station in Rome, he hadn't been reporting in. Assumption: Chris had been killed.
    But now he'd suddenly reappeared. Had he been on the run for all that time, finally able to reach asylum? Surely he could have found a way to contact Eliot before then, or at least have got in touch with him when he arrived at the Church of the Moon. It didn't make sense. To ask for a dentist not affiliated with the agency. To violate the sanction by killing the Russian. What the hell was going on? Chris knew the rule. The best assassins from every network would be hunting him. Why had he been so foolish?
    Eliot pursed his wrinkled lips. Two surrogate brothers, both on the run. The symmetry appealed to him. As sunlight glared off the cars in the lot, his smile returned. He found the answer to his problem.
    Saul and Chris. Saul had to be killed before he guessed the reason he was being hunted. So who knew where he would hide better than his counterpart?
    But the dentist... Eliot shivered. Something troubled him about that detail. Why, before he killed the Russian, would Chris have wanted the name of a dentist?
    Eliot's spine felt cold.
    "Mexico City," Chris said. "The soonest flight." Behind the airline's ticket counter, the Hawaiian woman tapped on a computer keyboard. "Sir, how many?"
    "One," he answered. "First class or coach?"
    "It doesn't