Arctic Fire

CHAPTER 16

Baltimore, Maryland, was more than four thousand miles from Dutch Harbor, but that was where Jack had come to pick up the trail of truth about Troy.

A man named Ross Turner had pointed him there. Turner had been Jack’s fraternity brother at Denison, and he was one of those few friends from way back Jack still had.

After graduation, Turner had gone to Alaska to hunt and fish for a year before going to Harvard Law School. Harvard had given Turner a deferral to get the Alaska bug out of his system. But one year had turned into eight, and any lingering thoughts of the law had been erased by images of the grizzly bears he’d shot and the king salmon he’d landed. Now Turner made his living hunting and fishing — as a guide.

Jack’s second call to Turner in a week — a call Jack had made only minutes after almost being killed by the white van on Broadway — had prompted Turner to dig even deeper into Captain Sage Mitchell’s sketchy reputation. During his years in Alaska, Turner had made contacts everywhere, including police barracks and Coast Guard stations up and down the seaboard. And it didn’t take him long to uncover a fascinating piece of information that had somehow steered clear of the press.

The Arctic Fire had lost a greenhorn to the Bering Sea during last year’s king crab hunt as well. His name was Charlie Banks, and he’d been thrown overboard by a rogue wave during a violent storm while he was up on the crab trap mountain trying to secure equipment that had torn loose in a gale. His body was never recovered, and Captain Sage had provided few details of the incident to the Coast Guard or the police. Banks’s family and fiancée had flown to Dutch Harbor from the lower forty-eight to make sense of the tragedy, but Sage told them even less than he’d told the authorities.

Turner had learned from his source that Banks’s family and fiancée had pushed hard for a more intense investigation, but there was nothing the state or local authorities could do. There was no body and no reason to suspect foul play, so they couldn’t allocate what were always scarce law-enforcement resources in Alaska to the situation. And, after all, crabbing on the Bering Sea was the deadliest job in the world. Men and women who chose to sail those dangerous waters in November understood the risks. If they didn’t, they were stupid. And in Alaska there was little sympathy for being stupid.

Charlie Banks’s story was so chillingly similar to Troy’s that as soon as Turner had called back this morning to relay the details, Jack had gone straight to Penn Station in Manhattan and bought himself an Amtrak ticket for Baltimore. Banks was originally from Baltimore.

More importantly, so was the girl Banks had intended to marry when he died.

Sidewalkers Cafe was just a hole-in-the wall joint on the Baltimore Harbor with twenty wobbly wooden tables and some corny fishing memorabilia hanging from the walls. But everyone around Jack in the Amtrak car had told him this was the place to go to get the best seafood in a city known for its seafood.

Jack leaned back in his chair to give the waitress room to put the plate down. It was piled high with two crab cakes, fried oysters, and a fried filet of flounder as well as heaping helpings of hush puppies and french fries. There was nothing healthy about it, but it looked and smelled delicious, and one bad meal wasn’t going to kill him. He hadn’t eaten since last night, and he was starving.

“Thanks.” He smiled up at the waitress. He was glad the restaurant had gotten great reviews from people on the train, but he would have come here even if it hadn’t. This place had been his ultimate destination all along. “Sure looks good.”

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

The pretty young woman had long black hair, high cheekbones, glistening brown eyes, full lips, and a beautiful smile. All of that black hair was piled together haphazardly on top of her head in a wild bun; she didn’t have makeup on, and she was wearing a loose University of Maryland white sweatshirt and baggy jeans. She wasn’t dolled up, but she still looked great.

She was nice too, really nice. She’d seemed so genuine as she’d taken his order a few minutes ago. And during those brief moments Jack was convinced he’d seen a naïveté and an innocence hiding in her naturally trusting expression and those big brown eyes — which, of course, he was drawn to.

“More tartar sauce, please.” He didn’t want to wreck her night, and his first instinct was always to protect vulnerable women. But he had to stay focused on the fact that he was here to find out what had happened to Troy. “One dish won’t get me through all this food.”

“No problem.” She gave him that easy smile. “Be right back.”

Maybe he should let her finish her shift before he started firing questions at her, Jack figured as he watched her walk away. He hated the thought of making her dredge up such terrible memories.

“Here you go,” she said as she got back to the table and put the dish of tartar sauce down beside his plate. “That should do you.”

He gazed up at her, still going back and forth. “Thanks, Karen.”

She’d been about to turn away, but the sound of her name made her freeze. She wasn’t wearing a name tag, and she hadn’t said her name to him when she’d first come to the table. Jack saw the emotion race through her expression.

“How do you know my name?” she asked in a hollow voice as she stared down at him intently.

It was like she’d seen a ghost, he realized. “I just want to ask you some questions.” The anxiety in her eyes disappeared, and Jack saw a steely toughness rise up to replace it. “That’s all I want, I promise. Please help me.”

She gazed down at him for several seconds more.

Maybe there was a chance, he prayed. “Please.”

But she turned and bolted for the door.

“Damn it!” He grabbed a crab cake off his plate and took a bite as he jumped up and sprinted after her. As he dodged his way through the tables, out of the corner of his eye he saw another waiter quickly put down his tray of food. “Why can’t anything be easy?” he muttered to himself, tossing what was left of the crab cake down onto another patron’s plate as he raced past the table.

He rushed through the entrance out onto the sidewalk just as Karen darted between two parked cars on the other side of the street. He took off after her, avoiding an older couple with a quick juke and an agile sidestep. As he did, he was aware that someone had burst out of the restaurant’s front door behind him.

Karen was fast, and it took Jack several blocks to catch her.

“I just want to talk to you for a few minutes!” he yelled when he was finally only a few strides behind her. At thirty he was still in excellent shape. He’d been a good high school football and lacrosse player. Nowhere near as good as Troy, but good, and he still worked out. “Come on, stop!”

“I don’t have anything to say!” she yelled back over her shoulder. “I already told you people that. Leave me alone or I’ll call the cops.”

“What people? I don’t know who you’re talking about.” God she was fast. “My name’s Jack Jensen. My brother Troy just died on the Arctic Fire.” And she had stamina. She hadn’t slowed down at all. “The captain said he was thrown overboard by a rogue wave, but I don’t think—”

Karen pulled up so suddenly Jack could only avoid crashing into her by diving over the trunk of a car that was parked by the curb. As he scrambled to his feet, someone raced around the back of the sedan at him.

“No, Mick!” Karen yelled. “No!”

Jack heard Karen shriek frantically as he blocked the guy’s punch with a forearm, then delivered a wicked body combination. Mick dropped to his knees and clutched his stomach as Jack coiled up to put the guy down for good with a right hook to the chin.

Before he could pummel whoever the guy was, Karen barreled into him from the side and knocked him away.

“What are you doing?” she shouted.

“What am I doing?” Jack demanded angrily between gasps for breath, impressed by her body block. She didn’t look like she weighed much, but it had been powerful. Maybe she wasn’t as vulnerable as he’d first thought. “That guy’s the maniac.” He pointed at Mick, who was still hunched over, clutching his stomach. “Who the hell is he?”

“A friend,” Karen muttered, breathing hard too. “He was just protecting me.”

“From what?” Jack asked, bending over and putting his hands on his knees.

“You.”

“But I wasn’t doing anything. I just wanted to ask you some questions. I told you that at the table.”

“How was Mick supposed to know that? How was I? You chased me out of the restaurant like a nut job.”

“Well, you ran out of the restaurant like a nut job.”

“Well, you knew my name.”

“OK, OK.” Jack lifted off his knees and held his hands out apologetically. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done it that way.”

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Jack. Jack Jensen. A week and a half ago my brother went overboard off the Arctic Fire. The captain said it happened when a rogue wave hit the ship, but I didn’t buy that. Then I heard about what happened to your fiancé and I had to talk to you. The captain of the Fire told the cops exactly the same story about Charlie Banks that he told them about my brother.”

Karen knelt down next to Mick and patted his back. “How did you find me?” she asked Jack.

“I’ve got a friend up in Alaska who knows—”

The sound of screeching tires drowned him out. In the glow of the overhead lights he saw two men jump from a dark SUV across the street. Both of them had pistols.

“Come on!” he shouted, grabbing Karen’s wrist and pulling her between the cars as the sounds of guns exploding and bullets pinging metal pierced the darkness.

“Wait!” she yelled, yanking her hand from Jack’s. “Mick!”

But as Mick staggered to his feet between the cars, a bullet slammed through the back of his skull and tore out of his right eye, spraying blood and brain matter into the air. Karen screamed as Mick crumpled to the ground in front of her and the red and gray mess splattered her white sweatshirt.

Jack pushed Karen down on the sidewalk behind the car, then whipped the Glock.9 mm out of his belt. It was the same pistol he’d slept with last night at the motel, and now he was damn glad he’d listened to that paranoid voice inside his head.

He chambered the first round, rose up so he could barely see over the trunk, and blasted four shots at the men racing toward them. One of the men tumbled to the street on the other side of the car while the other peeled off to the right and dived behind a car that was several up from the one they were kneeling behind.

“Come on,” Jack yelled, jabbing the barrel of the gun in the opposite direction of the way the second guy had just headed. “Let’s go!”

“I can’t leave Mick here.”

Jack grimaced as he glanced down at her blood-spattered sweatshirt. “There’s nothing you can do for him. Come on!”

“Wait!”

Jack watched in amazement as Karen reached to the small of her back and pulled out a revolver from a holster clipped to her jeans.

She dropped to the sidewalk, put the right side of her head onto the pavement so she could see below the bottom of the car, aimed, and fired twice. As Jack’s gaze flashed in the direction the second guy had gone, he heard a scream and then a loud groan from the other side of the car — just as a dark silhouette appeared between the second and third cars up the street. He fired four shots at the silhouette, which quickly ducked down between the cars again.

As another SUV screeched to a halt behind the first one and two more men piled out, Jack and Karen helped each other up and raced away.

“There!” Jack pointed at the corner of a brick building in front of them, ecstatic that she was so fast and could keep up so easily. They cut quickly to the right and raced down the dark alley. “Let’s get behind that thing and ambush them,” he muttered, pointing at a Dumpster fifty feet ahead on the left. “They’ll never see it coming.”

“How many rounds do you have left?”

“I’m not sure. Not many.”

“You have another clip on you?”

“No.”

“No good, then,” Karen gasped as she ran. “Not enough ammo, and besides, there might be more of them around. Better to get out of the alley altogether,” she muttered as they sprinted past the Dumpster.

All of which made a lot of sense, Jack realized. “Were you in the military?” They’d almost made it to the end of the alley.

“No, I was a Baltimore city cop for two—”

Gunfire rang out behind them, and once again the air was filled with bullets.

A moment later Karen tumbled headfirst to the pavement and her pistol clattered down the alley in front of her.

Amy Smith was tall and blonde with soft though not beautiful features. She was only thirty-two, but she dressed like a matron. It was as if she were advertising how much she wanted to be a mother.

But that hadn’t happened yet.

Amy was the daughter of a Wall Street money manager who’d shot himself in the head six years ago just as the SEC was raiding his lower Manhattan offices. He’d defrauded his institutional clients of over five billion dollars, but no one had ever held her father’s crimes against Amy. She’d never been involved with her father’s firm, and she did a great deal of charity work for children.

She and Hunter were married several months after her father’s suicide, and they lived in the guesthouse of an estate that was a few miles from the Jensen farm. They’d tried desperately to have children for the first several years of their marriage, but it hadn’t happened. Now they were looking into adoption, hoping that would be the answer to their prayers.

Hunter sat on the couch and gazed at Amy, who was in a chair on the other side of the living room. He was wondering if they’d ever have a chance to follow up on their dream. He could see the tears running down her cheeks from beneath her blindfold, but there was nothing he could do. His wrists were tied securely behind his back, his ankles were taped together, and two men were pointing pistols at him.

The small man in the sharp suit and tie who’d interrogated him last night in the basement of the office building in lower Manhattan wasn’t around tonight. Tonight it was a tall, big guy who was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“So,” the big man began with a smirk, “perhaps we were wrong. Perhaps you don’t know anything. I’m sorry for the inconvenience of the last twenty-four hours.”

They’d forced the clear plastic bag down over Hunter’s head four times since last night. He’d passed out each time, and as his eyes were fluttering shut the last three times he was certain he wasn’t going to wake up. In fact, he was hoping he wouldn’t.

“You’re not sorry at all.”

The man nodded. “No, I’m not.”

“Let us go. Please.”

“No,” he said, “you can still be helpful to me.”

Hunter saw him gesture to one of the other men in the room, who moved to where Amy was sitting and pulled her blindfold down roughly. She blinked several times and then glanced over at him, terrified.

“My number’s programmed into your phone,” the man explained, pointing down at Hunter’s cell phone, which lay on the coffee table beside him. “It’s stored into your memory as AAA. Anytime you speak to Jack Jensen, you call me immediately. He’s tried to reach you several times since you two had drinks last night, so I suggest you check in with him as soon as you can. I want you to be in touch with him as much as possible, and I want you to find out all you can about where he is and what he’s doing.” The man hesitated. “But whatever you do, don’t make him suspicious.”

“You want me to spy on my best friend?”

“You catch on fast, Hunter.”

Hunter glanced over at Amy. Her lower lip was trembling, and her tears were flowing in two steady streams. They were going to take Amy with them, and the man standing beside the coffee table was going to say that Amy would suffer the consequences if Hunter didn’t help.

“I assume you know what’s going to happen.”

Hunter nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered dejectedly, gazing at Amy. “I know.”

“Good. By the way, don’t try tracing my phone number. You do and your wife dies. And I will know if you or anyone else tries.”

“OK.”

The man leaned forward. “Hunter, are you absolutely certain you don’t know where Jack Jensen is or where he’s going?”

It didn’t surprise Hunter when the clear plastic bag came sliding down over his face from behind and the rope tightened around his neck. But it seemed worse than the other four times because this time he could see Amy’s horrified expression and hear her petrified screams as he tried pathetically to fight back. It was emasculating to have her watch him panic so badly, to struggle helplessly against his assailants and beg for mercy like a baby just before he passed out. He wanted to kill these men so badly.

It was the first time he’d ever had that horrible urge.

CHAPTER 17

From his hiding place in the dense grove of trees, Carlson watched Daniel Beckham pace back and forth in front of the small country store. It gave him immense pleasure to see the mounting frustration that was etching itself deeper and deeper into the young man’s tight-lipped expression.

The store was set on the north side of a winding road that cut a narrow swath through the thick woods of central Virginia just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains’ first wave. It was after nine o’clock, and the place had been deserted for hours. Except for the light coming from a bare bulb hanging above the front door, it was pitch dark out here. But the bulb was bright, and Carlson could see the aggravation burning in Beckham’s eyes.

They’d been running him all over the state since two o’clock this afternoon, starting with his pick-up by Yellow Cab on Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House. Thirty minutes later the cab had dropped him off at Dulles Airport, where a friendly agent of a privately owned northern Virginia security company had confronted him inside the terminal. That agent had quickly collected his two mobile phones before leading him into the handicap stall of a men’s bathroom, where he’d stripped Beckham of a poorly hidden wire and a more creatively concealed transponder.

Then he’d escorted Beckham to the general aviation terminal and a waiting helicopter, which had flown southwest from the airport to a secluded farm. In the basement of the farmhouse they’d performed a fairly benign interrogation — for them — including a thorough strip search despite his violent protests. Then they’d put Beckham back on the chopper and flown him a short distance to a car, which was waiting at another farm. There were several more exchanges with other vehicles in secluded places around the state before they’d finally dropped him off ten minutes ago at this location, twenty miles west of Charlottesville.

Beckham was a senior aide to President Dorn’s chief of staff, Rex Stein, and he wasn’t accustomed to this kind of treatment, Carlson knew. That was obvious, and it was satisfying to see how easily they’d gotten into his grille.

When Beckham turned away with his head down, Carlson slipped out of his hiding place and moved to the end of the concrete slab that stretched from one side of the storefront to the other. He waited for Beckham to turn around and almost get to where he was standing before he spoke up.

“Hello, Danny.”

“Jesus Christ!” Beckham barked, quickly backtracking several steps. “What the hell?”

“I’m Roger Carlson. It’s good to meet you.”

“Yeah, it’s outstanding to meet you too, Roger,” Beckham shot back sarcastically. “But next time I’ve got to go through a strip search to meet somebody, including a certain body cavity exam I know I’ll never forget, I think I’ll pass.”

Carlson managed to mute his chuckle. Beckham had probably figured his first foray into the intelligence world was going to be more exciting than anything else he’d been doing for the last nine months in Washington — but not as exciting as this.

“You won’t pass if your president tells you not to.”

Beckham was probably wishing he could get back to the more comfortable surroundings of the West Wing as soon as possible. By the end of this battle he was going to wish he’d never come to Washington.

“You understand me, son?”

“Whatever,” Beckham muttered.

Beckham was a tall, red-haired, rich kid whose family had amassed an enormous fortune trading commodities in the last hundred years and felt so guilty about it they’d moved to the left side of the political aisle two generations ago. That was how Beckham had ended up in Dorn’s administration and not the GOP camp where he certainly looked like he ought to be with his tortoiseshell glasses and preppie wardrobe. He’d never had to really work for anything in his life, and that severely stacked the odds against him in this battle, Carlson knew.

Carlson also knew that the twenty-seven-year-old standing in front of him was only marking time in Washington to pad his résumé. He was planning to resign a year from now to found a private equity fund and make some serious dough his father and grandfather couldn’t take credit for. Neither President Dorn nor Beckham’s father knew about all that. But Carlson did, thanks to Maddux’s team of Falcons.

“Let’s go,” Carlson ordered gruffly as a dark blue Town Car pulled up in front of the store. “Get in the back on the right side.”

“Why did I have to go through all that crap anyway?” Beckham demanded when they were inside the car. It was moving through the woods, and the partition between the front and back seats was up. “Why the damn runaround?”

“Welcome to the intelligence world, Danny.” Carlson had wanted to make certain no one was following Beckham, but he’d wanted to put Beckham through hell too. “Now, what do you want?”

“You know what I want, Roger. I’m your new contact at the White House. I report directly to the president on all matters related to what you and I discuss.”

“You aren’t reporting directly to the president,” Carlson replied evenly. Now he was two steps away from the president — maybe more, maybe a whole staircase. At the least, Beckham and Rex Stein were in between his now-lost direct access. “You’re going through the chief of staff on this. You’re going through Rex Stein.”

Dorn was a Washington rookie, but Stein was a DC veteran. The Democratic Party had chosen Stein to be Dorn’s chief of staff, not Dorn. And Stein would have gotten an extensive download on Red Cell Seven during the administration’s first national security briefing, which would have occurred at Langley within a few weeks of Dorn’s election. Stein would never allow Beckham to report directly to the top of the chain on something as crucial as this. He was too savvy.

At least, that was what Carlson had believed a minute ago. But maybe this was even more serious than he’d imagined. Maybe Dorn was hiding this from Stein. That thought sent shivers through Carlson’s body.

“Don’t bullshit me, Danny.”

“Think what you want, old man, I don’t care. But here’s the deal. From now on you and I will meet at least once a week but probably more like two or three times. And there won’t be any more of this run-Daniel-all-over-hell’s-creation crap when we do, or I can promise you Red Cell Seven will cease to exist immediately. Do you understand?” He paused. “Let me say that again so I’m sure you really hear it, Roger. RCS will cease to exist immediately. All I have to do is say the word to President Dorn and it’s over. Even Rex Stein wouldn’t be able to save your beloved cell at that point. I am the key to its existence and yours,” Beckham added proudly. “What do you think of that, old man?”

Jesus. Dorn and Stein had even told Beckham the name of the cell. That violated all RCS protocol. “Watch your tone, Danny,” Carlson warned.

Then it hit him like a freight train. Shane Maddux could be right after all. If Beckham really was reporting straight to Dorn on this, then everything Maddux claimed his Falcons had picked up in the shadows would make perfect sense.

“Red Cell Seven has been in business since the Nixon administration,” Carlson began again. This time it was in a low, unsteady voice. He couldn’t remember feeling this afraid in a long time. “And I’ve been—”

“Now that’s something to be proud of,” Beckham cut in rudely. “Jesus. If only we could erase that administration from the history books we’d be—”

“And it will continue to be in business for a long time,” Carlson interrupted right back, forcing his voice to be strong. “A long time after you’ve hung up your Washington cleats for the private equity world a year from now. That’s when you’ll quit President Dorn’s staff to start your firm in New York City.”

“Red Cell Seven might continue to exist,” Beckham retorted. “Might,” he emphasized, “but not in its present state, I can assure you.” He waved as if he didn’t give a rat’s ass about what Carlson had just said about him hanging up his cleats. “And big deal, Roger, so you found out about me making some money my father can’t take credit for. Impressive, but not that impressive, because digging up information is one of the things you’re in business to do. And if you use it against me, I’ll deny it and say you’re just being a prick and trying to make my life difficult, which Rex and the president will believe right away. Then I’ll tell the president to blow up RCS immediately. Besides, my grandfather’s one of Dorn’s biggest financial backers. He won’t want to piss my family off even if he does think I’m leaving.” Beckham pointed at Carlson. “Here’s the deal, Roger. By the end of this week I want a list of all your agents in the field as well as all overseas twilight contacts and your assets domestic and abroad. Like that maze of safe houses you run out in Reston. You need to understand that your fiefdom’s about to become my fiefdom. And don’t try to hide anything, Roger. We’ve got our own people in the field now, and they’re watching yours. If we find out that you’ve held anything back on us, that you haven’t been completely transparent, we could file criminal charges against you. Then everything would be out in the open. How do you like that, old man?”

Jesus Christ. This was worse than he could have imagined. Maddux had been right on target. So on target Carlson felt physically ill. President Dorn meant to shut down Red Cell Seven, and he meant to do it immediately. That was the reason he wanted a list of all those things Beckham had just reeled off. Dorn wasn’t just trying to get a better handle on what RCS was doing. He had no intention of letting it continue to exist in any form. He was going to destroy it. That was the only way Carlson could interpret Beckham’s request for all of that highly classified information.

Carlson shook his head in disbelief. Dorn had to understand what he was doing. He had to understand that this action would send shock waves down the corridors in Langley, at the Pentagon, and in the Capitol.

If Dorn didn’t understand that, Stein certainly would. Stein would understand that there were many senior people within the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI who would be diametrically opposed to destroying the cell because over the past five years it had morphed into the glue that held the entire national defense structure together. It was the glue that had allowed domestic and foreign-based US intelligence assets to communicate seamlessly without turf wars breaking out all over the place like they had in the wake of 9/11. Those senior people in the respective agencies would view shuttering RCS as an action equal to Jack Kennedy’s attempt to destroy the CIA in the early sixties. They’d view it as treason. For them, Red Cell Seven was indispensible, mostly because no one in RCS ever cared about getting credit for anything. RCS agents didn’t care about credit because RCS wasn’t even supposed to exist — and because they cared more about the country than themselves. Absolute demonstration of that loyalty was a requirement for initiation into the cell.

“By the way,” Beckham said, “my name is Daniel, not Danny. Don’t make that mistake again. You got it, Roger?”

“Yeah.” Carlson had barely heard Beckham. “Sure.”

“I’m your boss now, and one way or the other you will give me respect.” Beckham’s eyes danced. “This is about doing the right thing, Roger. This is about getting control of an intelligence cell that’s been operating basically unchecked for forty years. It’s about getting control of a cell that’s become too powerful in the past five years, a cell that believes it’s bulletproof and doesn’t have to play by the rules. People must be held accountable from now on if the world is truly going to get along.” Beckham sneered. “The hell with people; you need to be held accountable. You’re the only one that matters. You’re the Red Cell Seven dictator.”

Beckham’s image blurred in front of Carlson as he stared. He wasn’t worried about criminal charges being filed against him or Dorn’s people watching them. They were idle threats from naïve people who were already into the quicksand up to their necks, even though they didn’t realize it yet. What terrified Carlson so completely was that he suddenly realized the country had an administration in power that believed it could protect the United States of America without Red Cell Seven. An administration that believed the country could survive without those agents who were willing to do all those terrible things in the shadows that no one wanted to talk about on the Sunday morning talk shows. An administration that seemed to think it could keep the United States safe playing by the rules, within some sort of ethically acceptable global framework.

Which was ludicrous, Carlson knew, absolutely ludicrous.

If Dorn was successful in destroying RCS, it could lead to a disaster for the United States on a scale of unimaginable proportions — abroad and at home. Terrorists would be so much freer to operate because the ability of law enforcement and the armed forces to short-circuit hijackings, bombings, and assassinations before they happened would be severely constrained. Advance information on terrorist activity would be cut to a minimum so that domestic assets would be operating basically in the dark — unable to anticipate, only react.

Carlson actually shuddered as the enormity of all that hit him right between the eyes.

“Do you understand me, Roger?” Beckham demanded harshly.

“I understand,” Carlson replied softly. “I understand perfectly.”

“Why are we going north, Uncle Sage?”

Speed Trap glanced at the compass on the bridge’s control panel as the Arctic Fire’s bow cut a sharp wake through the day’s relatively calm ocean. They’d finished unloading for a second time, and the king crab season was over. They’d reached their quota well before any other ship had, so they should have been headed west for a cod run or south to Seattle before coming back to Dutch for the opilio season, which would start in a week. But they were following a north-northeasterly heading.

“Why are we going this way?”

“Why are you such a question-head, kid?”

The less than friendly answer didn’t surprise or anger Speed Trap. He was accustomed to Sage’s demeanor after so long. “Just naturally curious, I guess.”

“Don’t be,” Sage snapped. “It’s irritating. You remember all those teachers in school who told you that the only bad question is the one you don’t ask?”

“Yeah. So?”

“They were assholes. They didn’t know what they were talking about.”

The ship covered a few miles of rolling ocean before Speed Trap spoke up again. He’d thought about going below to get some sleep in the bunk room like Duke and Grant were doing. But he wanted to make sure Grant hadn’t been bullshitting about the DUI and resisting arrest charges over in Seward. It still seemed too good to be true.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Uncle Sage?”

“What do you mean?”

“About my charges over in Seward.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sage hissed under his breath. “You and your brother are just like your father. Neither of you can keep your mouths shut. It’s like I’m dealing with a couple of old ladies at a quilting convention.”

Speed Trap rolled his eyes. “Well, is it true? Has everything been dropped?”

“When’s your birthday?”

That seemed like an odd question. “Huh?”

“When’s your damn birthday, Speed Trap?”

“Um, the day after tomorrow.”

“OK, well, I was saving it for a surprise, but now Grant’s ruined it. Yeah, everything’s been dropped. You’re free to get more tickets. But do me a favor this time, will you? Do it sober and don’t start swinging at the cop when he pulls you over. Learn to say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ to those guys. OK?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Happy birthday early.”

“Thanks. That’s amazing.”

“No problem. Don’t mention it again, kid.”

Speed Trap’s ears perked up. “Why not?”

“Damn it, Speed Trap!”

“OK, OK. Sorry.”

They went quiet again, and the only sound on the bridge was the constant hum of the two huge engines far below powering the Arctic Fire across the water.

Speed Trap glanced to port and out onto a desolate ocean. He was trying hard to follow Sage’s order, but in the end it was impossible for him not to ask.

“I was just wondering how you got those charges—”

“Goddamn it, kid!” Sage roared. “What’s your problem?”

It had been an incredible king crab season, the best ever, and Speed Trap didn’t want to jeopardize getting paid the huge amount of money he was owed. But he couldn’t control his curiosity.

“It’s just that me and Grant were talking, and it seems like weird things happen on this ship. Like the time we picked up that guy in the raft last year in that place where we’ve never dropped traps before, and how he stayed in your room until we got to Dutch Harbor. Then there’s this deal with us getting all that new equipment so fast after we—”

“Yeah, let’s talk about equipment,” Sage broke in. “Let’s talk about rafts specifically.”

Speed Trap swallowed hard. “What about them?”

“Why do we have a new one?”

“Huh?”

“There’s a new raft in the equipment room downstairs. And an old one’s missing. Why’s that?”

Speed Trap shrugged. “Um, I don’t know. I’m not in charge of that stuff. Grant is.”

Sage lit up a Marlboro and inhaled two lungs full of the cancer stick. “Is there something you want to tell me, Speed Trap?”

Speed Trap tried to calm his pounding heart. As he was about to answer, he spotted something floating on the ocean several hundred yards ahead of the boat. “Hey, there’s a raft out there—”

“I see it,” Sage interrupted, taking another drag from the cigarette. “Time for you to get below.”

“What? Why don’t I help you—”

“Get below!” Sage shouted. “Right now, Speed Trap.”

Carlson climbed out of the Town Car and trudged to the back of it. “Good night,” he mumbled as he and Beckham came together at the trunk. The cold Washington night was making his bones ache. Suddenly he felt ninety-three, not seventy-three. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I want that list of agents and assets, old man, and I want it by Friday at noon.”

Carlson covered his mouth to cough. “You’ll get it.”

“Well, I’m glad to see this spirit of cooperation from you, Roger. Frankly, I was worried that I wouldn’t get it.”

“I’m too old to fight,” Carlson said as they shook hands. “And I do what my president tells me to do because this is the greatest country in the world and he’s the leader of it. OK, Daniel?”

“OK,” Beckham agreed, his tone softening. He hesitated for a few moments, then handed Carlson a thin envelope. “In that envelope is a piece of paper that details the president’s specific information requests with respect to Red Cell Seven. Call me when you’ve answered everything. We’ll exchange the info in person. No e-mails.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Carlson shoved the envelope into his pocket and climbed back into the Town Car. For all his education, Beckham was an idiot, at least when it came to the commonsense aspects of intelligence work. It was amazing that he even thought he had to mention not using e-mail to transmit that kind of sensitive information.

The ride back to Carlson’s Georgetown house took just ten minutes, and Nancy, his wife of forty-six years, was sitting at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle when he came through the door. He smiled sadly as he sat down beside her and took her warm hand in his cold one. She was such a wonderful woman, still so beautiful to him even at sixty-nine. She’d always been so devoted, so loyal to the cause. They’d moved eleven times in those forty-six years, and she’d never complained once. She’d simply nodded and gotten to work every time he’d explained what had to happen.

She’d only asked him once what he did. That was forty-seven years ago, on their first date. He’d told her he was just a boring Washington bureaucrat, but he’d asked her never to ask him again. And she hadn’t. She was old-fashioned that way.

Nancy put the crossword down on the kitchen table and took both of his hands in hers when she caught the look in his eyes. “What is it, Roger? Oh, God, what is it?”

After so many years together, they could read each other’s moods and minds so easily. “I love you very much, sweetheart.” He hadn’t said that enough over the years, and he was going to make up for it with the time he had left. “I have bone marrow cancer,” he explained softly. “I have six months to live.”

CHAPTER 18

Before Jack could get to where Karen had fallen in the alley, she’d already jumped back to her feet and hustled to where her pistol had come to a stop beside a smashed vodka bottle.

“You OK?” he whispered, ducking instinctively when a bullet deflected off the building beside them with a wicked echo. “Karen?”

“It’s my left arm,” she answered, grabbing her gun off the pavement and taking off with Jack. They were almost to the end of the alley. “But it’s not bad,” she said softly. “The bullet just grazed me. It stings like crazy, though.”

At the end of the alley they dashed right and raced across the street. Overhead lights and restaurants had given way to darkness and warehouses. The big commercial buildings rising up all around them were surrounded by tall chain-link fences topped with corkscrewing razor wire. For a few moments there was no gunfire, and Jack thought about calling 9-1-1.

Then the bullets were back. A barrage exploded behind them, and the air was filled with flying steel again.

“This way,” he said, bolting past her. “Come on.”

They rushed down a narrow alley, between two chain-link fences that paralleled each other ten feet apart.

A few strides into the alley a huge Rottweiler exploded from the darkness and hurled itself against the fence directly to Karen’s right. Its front paws and jaw were level with her head, and it barked furiously with its fangs bared.

She screamed and veered left. As she did, she ran into Jack and both of them tumbled to the ground. But they were back on their feet quickly — as more gunfire erupted behind them.

They took off again, darting right and left as the dog raced along the stair-stepped fence with them, barking madly as it kept up. As they reached the next street over, a pair of headlights flashed around a corner.

“Over there,” Jack said, pointing across the street at a building that looked abandoned. Through the dim light he could see that most of the windows on the first and second floor were smashed out; the fence had been cut open in several places along the sidewalk, and a small door on one side of the building appeared to be hanging slightly ajar. “Come on!”

He sprinted to the closest slit in the fence, slicing his palm on the sharp, exposed end of a steel wire as he pulled the links back for Karen to crawl through. Then he caught his ear on another wire as he climbed through the hole after her. “Jesus,” he hissed under his breath. He could feel blood trickling down his neck as he ran for the door to the building. “Friendly city you got here.”

“Yeah, we don’t take crap from anybody. Now move!”

Karen reached the door first, hurled it back, and they both piled through the opening one after the other as bullets smacked the wall around the door.

It was pitch dark inside, but Jack sensed that they were in a large room because of the echoes the door made when it slammed shut behind them. He reached out and grabbed Karen’s wrist, pulling her along. As he pressed his back flat against the wall and slid along, it felt as if he were standing on a narrow ledge high up on the side of a building. He could feel those familiar butterflies starting to wake up in his gut, and he slowed down. Each step felt uncertain as he groped along the rough wall ahead of him with the hand holding the gun, and that fear of heights was suddenly screaming at him.

Then his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the butterflies calmed, and he started moving more quickly. He could make out shapes on the large floor in front of them in the soft light coming from windows on the far side of the building. They looked like stacks of wood or metal, and some were eight or nine feet high.

When they were several car lengths from the door, it burst open and both he and Karen turned and fired through the darkness. The door banged shut again, and Jack pulled Karen toward the closest pile. It was a stack of wood, and they dived behind it. When the door opened again they both pulled their triggers, but only Karen’s gun fired. Jack’s clip was empty, and he didn’t have another one.

“Come on,” he whispered as he made it to his feet and then helped her up. Through the dim light he’d seen what looked like stairs against the wall just behind them. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Up those stairs.”

“No, we should stay down here. Maybe we can find a way out. If we go up, we might get trapped.”

“If we go up, it’ll take them longer to find us. We can buy some time to call nine-one-one and get the cops here. By now they’ve probably got all the doors to this place covered anyway.”

“Could you really tell the cops how to get here?” Karen whispered. “I couldn’t and I live around here. The people at the door will get us way before—”

The door burst open a third time, and Jack pulled Karen hard toward the stairs. The voices over there were growing louder, and it sounded to him as if a lot of people were pouring into the building.

At the top of the stairway they hurried through a door. Then they turned and quickly climbed another set of steps to the third story. As they headed through the open doorway into the top level of the building, the hard floor turned to carpet and Jack realized that they were probably in what had been the administrative offices before the building had been abandoned.

They rushed down the corridor through the darkness and turned into the next-to-last office on the left, where he pulled his cell phone out and frantically dialed 9-1-1. As the phone began to ring in his ear, he thought he could hear the faint sounds of footsteps coming up the metal stairs. Maybe it wasn’t going to take the people as long to find them as he’d hoped.

“Jack!”

His head snapped toward Karen’s voice as the 9-1-1 operator came on the line.

“Let’s go!” she urged.

Karen had raised a window at the back of the empty room and was waving him over. “What?” he asked, feeling those butterflies begin to rage in his stomach again. “What do you want?” But he knew exactly what she wanted. That was why the butterflies were back.

“This is nine-one-one,” the operator called out in his ear. “What is your emergency?”

“Hurry, Jack.”

He moved to the window as the operator continued to ask for information, following Karen’s fingers with his gaze as she pointed down. The dark waters of Baltimore Harbor lay thirty feet below them. The side of the building went straight down into the water.

“We’re jumping,” she said.

The water looked freezing cold, and from where they were standing he couldn’t spot any way out once they were in it. “Like hell we are.”

She grabbed his arm. “They’re gonna be here any second, and I don’t want to die. We’re way outgunned. This is our best chance.”

“We don’t know how deep that water is,” he argued. “It might only be two feet right there. We’ll die.”

“We know we’re gonna die if we stay here. We’ve gotta take the chance.”

He hated to admit it, but he knew she was right. “You’re gonna have to push me out.”

“What? We don’t have time for this crap, Jack.”

“No, I’m serious. I think I can get on the ledge, but you’re gonna have to push me off.”

“Why?”

“No time to explain,” he said as he started carefully climbing. “Just do it.”

“Jack, you’ve got to jump yourself,” she said, starting to climb out on the ledge too. “I don’t want to push you.”

“You have to.” He could feel his body seizing up as he kept glancing down at the water. Another few seconds and he was going to dive back into the office so at least he had those walls around him again. “Just do it!”

CHAPTER 19

Maddux sat behind the wide mahogany desk in the farmhouse’s comfortable study. It was the same Virginia farmhouse they’d used earlier in the day to scare the hell out of Daniel Beckham.

A sardonic grin tugged at his thin lips as he remembered the horrified expression that had raced to Beckham’s face when they’d told the bastard that the last step in the strip-search process was a thorough investigation of all body cavities. Beckham had screamed like a baby — before, during, and after.

Maddux’s grin faded. Carlson had called ten minutes ago to deliver the sobering news that the rumors two of Maddux’s Falcons had unearthed about the president were true. Dorn was going to destroy Red Cell Seven. Carlson had apologized profusely for ever doubting the accuracy of the information — as well he should have, Maddux thought to himself resentfully — and then they’d started to plan.

Red Cell Seven would not be destroyed — at least, not without a fight. Dorn and his people had no idea what they were in for. It would be a war, and it would be carried out hand to hand in places Red Cell Seven knew well and would be comfortable with. In places Dorn’s people would not be comfortable with — even the president’s shadow operators.

During that telephone conversation, Maddux had considered coming clean with Carlson about what he’d done and how he’d acted without prior approval. He figured the old man might have understood the rationale now that he knew for certain President Dorn was a traitor.

But, ultimately, he’d decided against it. Telling Carlson still wasn’t an option. He had to keep acting as if what had happened on the Arctic Fire was a terrible accident. He had to keep acting as if Troy Jensen had simply been lost in the line of duty. The same way he’d acted about Charlie Banks a year ago. He couldn’t tell Carlson he’d specifically ordered Sage Mitchell to throw those young men overboard, because there was still a chance the old man might go ballistic — especially about Jensen.

Maddux glanced over the desk at Ryan O’Hara as he pushed aside thoughts of Troy Jensen and the coming battle with President Dorn.

O’Hara was a good-looking African-American kid with sharp facial features who’d graduated from Dartmouth eighteen months ago. Since then he’d been excelling in an intense training regimen at several military bases around the country as well as undergoing a battery of psychological tests in Arlington and San Diego. The demanding process was designed to make certain he was worthy of getting to this moment, that he was worthy of joining Maddux’s elite crew of Falcons.

A week ago Carlson had decided to officially accept O’Hara into Red Cell Seven. Given his scores in every category, O’Hara was one of the strongest candidates to ever come along, and he was the first African American to make it in. There had been thirty-nine other AA candidates prior to O’Hara, but they’d all missed the cut.

Which wasn’t surprising or in any way a result of prejudice. The attrition rate for all RCS recruits since the cell’s inception was 98 percent — only two in a hundred candidates made the leap. And the 98 percent who didn’t make it were sent to prized Special Forces assignments because they were still outstanding individuals who were completely dedicated to protecting the United States using whatever means were necessary. They just weren’t outstanding enough to be members of Red Cell Seven.

“So, I’ve got a question,” Maddux began. His elbows were resting on the polished arms of the chair, and his fingers were positioned cathedral-style in front of him. “And it’s pretty obvious, at least, given that it’s my first one.” O’Hara had gotten a lot of hype from his instructors, and Maddux wanted to see the kid start living up to it right away. “Know what it is?”

“Of course,” O’Hara answered confidently. “You’re asking about my name. You want to know how in the hell a black guy from east LA gets a handle like Ryan O’Hara.”

The young man had that smooth air of invincibility every member of Red Cell Seven needed. But his was even more impressive than most of the other young men in the Falcon division. His was on that same level with Troy Jensen.

Hopefully, he wasn’t as inquisitive as Troy — or as completely polarized when it came to right and wrong. Troy could have been a valuable asset for a long time. But he couldn’t see the shades of gray in between those two endpoints.

“My father changed our family name from Jefferson to O’Hara forty years ago when he moved to California from Alabama,” O’Hara explained. “He told me he did it for me and my sisters, Meagan and Kristin, even though we weren’t born yet. He said he wanted the top universities around the country to think his kids were Irish because you don’t actually have to check the race box when you fill out college applications. It worked out pretty well too. I went to Dartmouth, Meagan went to Northwestern, and Kristin’s a junior at Stanford. I hate to say it, but it helped in a lot of ways growing up. Not just getting into college.”

O’Hara’s father was a smart man. “You had to have the grades and the extracurriculars to get in too,” Maddux pointed out. “Modesty’s a good thing, but don’t ever shortchange yourself. You’re a good man, Ryan. Crazy brave. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.” He hesitated. “But I admire your father’s creativity.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Maddux glanced out the window into the darkness, thinking about how much he wanted to carry out justice on his own again. How badly he wanted to rid the world of another piece of trash like that child molester he’d just killed. How he didn’t want to wait for another of Carlson’s envelopes because it could be a long time coming.

So he was thinking about acquiring a target on his own without Carlson’s OK — again.

He’d done that before. It had been several months ago, and the killing had gone off without a hitch. But there’d been another problem, and it had almost sent him tumbling into an abyss of trouble.

It wasn’t that Carlson would consider the action going outside the chain of command the way he would the murders of Falcons Charlie Banks and Troy Jensen. Carlson would have no problem with scumbags being killed. What he’d have a problem with would be evidence of the scumbag killings showing up, because that could compromise RCS. That evidence had almost surfaced the last time, and he’d almost fallen into that abyss. If he hadn’t killed Troy, it would have.

He glanced back at O’Hara. “Let me be official about it, Ryan. Welcome to Red Cell Seven.” He paused. “So, how was the initiation?”

“Fine, sir. I was honored, of course.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Why the name Red Cell Seven?” O’Hara asked immediately. “What do cells one through six do?”

“Nothing,” Maddux answered matter-of-factly. “They don’t even exist. In fact, they never did. Red Cell Seven was created during the Nixon administration, when the Cold War was going strong. They called it Red Cell Seven to drive the Soviets crazy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back then, ‘red’ referred to the Soviet Union, which was by far our biggest enemy. So any intelligence cell we created with the word ‘red’ in it would logically be targeted at the Soviet Union. Our people knew they’d assume that, and, of course, we knew the Soviets would hear about Red Cell Seven sooner or later because it’s impossible to keep anything completely secret in the intelligence world. Money talks, bullshit walks, and bribes are everywhere. Money and women can make a lot of men do almost anything.”

“So,” O’Hara said, “our people named it Red Cell Seven to make the Soviets think that cells one through six existed too. To get the Soviets to waste time and energy trying to find six other cells that were just figments of our imaginations. And theirs, right?”

“Exactly. And the more the Soviet higher-ups heard the cells didn’t exist, the harder they tried to find them. I’ll tell you what. They burned through a lot of money and resources in the process. See, the Russians are truly paranoid. I mean, all of us in this line of business are to some degree. But they’re off the charts, and I guess I understand why. It’s in their blood. Everyone’s been spying on each other over there for so long, even neighbors on neighbors, that they can’t help it. You know, I heard they were still looking for one through six even as the wall was crumbling and their world was falling apart.”

O’Hara smiled. “Pretty smart, huh?”

“We have our moments,” Maddux agreed.

O’Hara gestured around the tastefully decorated room. “Who owns this farm? Is it someone in Red Cell Seven?”

“He’s not actually a member of RCS. We have a network of shadow support that’s organized and run by the man who started the cell forty years ago.”

Maddux was careful not to mention Carlson’s name. The kid would have met Carlson at the initiation, but he would have met three other men too. None of them would have given away their positions within the cell to O’Hara because he was as green as they came. It would be several years before he’d learn the names of the Summit Level.

“The network is comprised of about twenty very wealthy individuals who have a general understanding of what we do and are dedicated to our goal of keeping the United States on top as the only superpower.” Maddux held up one hand. “But none of them are ever briefed on our specific activities, which is for their own protection. We call them associates.”

“So these associates make personal assets available to us?”

“That’s right. Planes, boats, cars, and locations like this one.”

“Money?”

“The best kind,” Maddux declared. “The kind that can’t be traced. Cash, and lots of it.”

“But,” O’Hara said, “I thought any deposit over ten grand had to be reported. What we need to run RCS must be way bigger than that. And I can’t imagine somebody running around the country making lots of deposits that are less than ten grand. That would be a full-time job by itself. And the Fed would still get suspicious.”

“The bank we use is huge,” Maddux explained. “It has branches all over the world. But that doesn’t really matter, because all our accounts are numbered. And, most importantly, we don’t have to report any of our deposits no matter how big or small they are.”

O’Hara nodded. “That works out pretty well.”

“More than one black op cell has shut down because of a money trail. It can’t ever happen in our case because there is no trail. Our bank makes sure of that.”

O’Hara leaned forward in his chair. “So what will I be doing?”

“Pickups and deliveries to start with,” Maddux replied. He saw the disappointment register in O’Hara’s expression immediately. But it wasn’t going to stay there. “Don’t get me wrong, Ryan. These won’t be normal, run-of-the-mill pickups and deliveries. You won’t be driving a brown truck wearing a brown suit. You’ll be taking top-secret orders and cash to agents in some of the most politically sensitive areas around the world. As well as bringing back vitally important information from those individuals about in-country activities. Don’t believe this bullshit you see on the big screen. Don’t believe that some guy at the CIA can talk to his top spy in Saudi Arabia by cell phone from the deck of his big, beautiful house in McLean, Virginia, while he’s barbecuing. Not without the very real threat of that conversation being overheard by our enemies, anyway.”

“You mean like Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio did in Body of Lies.”

“Exactly.” Maddux saw the gleam return to O’Hara’s eyes. “I’m not saying they couldn’t talk like that. Of course they could. What I’m saying is that you could never be sure that conversation is secure. I don’t care what kind of cloaking or ciphering technology is used. As Americans, we tend to think our enemies aren’t that sophisticated, that at the very least they aren’t as sophisticated as we are. But that’s just wrong. In some cases and with some technologies our enemies are more sophisticated than we are. Believe me when I tell you that the only way to safely communicate with an in-country agent is to deliver and pick up messages hand to hand. It’s been that way since the beginning of civilization, and it’ll always be that way.” Maddux gestured at O’Hara. “That’s where you and the rest of your Falcon brethren come in. You’ll be going into countries that would execute you if they knew what you were really doing. At the very least they’d lock you away in a nasty prison for a long, long time while they tried to figure out what you were up to. So, whenever possible, you’ll be going in with cover, with a story. To make it more difficult for them to figure out what you’re really doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll be going in to climb a certain mountain or hunt a specific wild animal or explore a cave that’s a major destination for only serious cave divers. And people will be set up there to guide you like they would be if you weren’t on a mission. Like they would be if you were a normal person and you were going into that country just to climb a mountain or hunt or cave dive. Sometimes we even plant a story about it in a big newspaper in the US or Europe to try to draw attention to the trip to make it seem real. Being the athlete you are will help make the illusion seem even more real. Of course, there will always be people watching any American who comes into their country, so you’ll still have to be very careful with every move you make.”

“Of course.”

“Then sometimes all of that won’t be possible. You’ll be slipping across borders by yourself, sometimes without the papers you need. We’ll still give you a suggested story in case you run into trouble, but there won’t be people waiting for you.” The young man was definitely excited again. “You’ll be on your own.”

“Remember those three Americans who were taken prisoner by Iran a couple of years ago?” O’Hara asked. “I think it was two guys and a girl.”

“You mean the three who were supposed to be hiking just across the border when they were arrested?”

“Yeah, and they told the Iranians they didn’t realize they’d crossed the border when they were arrested.”

Maddux shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What about them?”

“Were they Red Cell Seven? I mean, that story sounds a lot like what we’re talking about. In fact, it sounds exactly like what we’re talking about.”

Maddux shook his head. “If they’d been RCS, there wouldn’t have been three of them. My Falcons go solo. The same way the bird hunts.” He was ready to wrap things up. He wanted to get going because he’d decided to kill that target after all. “By the way, you can’t have credit cards anymore. They aren’t allowed. Everything’s done in cash.”

“I already gave my cards up before I got here.”

“Good.” Maddux hesitated. “Once you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll start digging up information on your own. Here and abroad. Not just doing pickups and deliveries.”

“Nice.”

“We’ll get more into that tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And look, sometimes your assignment will simply be to take a job, a real job. I wanted to give you the heads-up on that now just to make sure you heard it early on and you weren’t surprised when it happened. Sometimes we’ll have you working off the books so you can earn money to survive without going on an official payroll. You’re tougher to trace that way. It’ll be good money and you’ll earn it fast, but the work’ll be hard and sometimes dangerous.”

“What are we talking about?”

“You’ll be on fishing and crabbing boats, on oil rigs, in mines. Those kinds of things.”

“Got it.” O’Hara motioned to Maddux. “If we work with a bank that has branches all over the world, why would I take cash to somebody?”

“We can’t ever have our moles going into banks. That’s too much of a risk. Hell, you won’t ever go into a bank except to deposit paychecks from those legitimate jobs we just talked about. I’ll be the one dropping you the money.”

“Oh, OK. So, how many people are actually in Red Cell Seven?”

The kid was thirsting for information and that was good, but Maddux was only going to answer a few more questions. “About a hundred.”

“How many Falcons?”

“Nineteen, including you.”

“What are some of the other areas of RCS?”

“Divisions.”

“What?”

“Divisions of RCS, not areas.”

“Sorry, divisions. What other divisions are there?”

Maddux started ticking them off on his fingers. “Assassinations, out-of-country terrorism, counterterrorism, interrogations, and then there’s intel communication and coordination.”

“So I could be picking up or delivering information to or from other Red Cell Seven agents when I’m in those countries. They wouldn’t necessarily be CIA people I was meeting.”

“That’s right.” Maddux could see that the kid was still champing at the bit, but that was all he was going to get for now. “OK, well look, you’re staying here tonight, Ryan. Get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll meet in the morning at oh six hundred,” Maddux said, standing up. “Over breakfast we’ll start getting into specifics of what those other RCS divisions I just mentioned do.”

“Yes, sir,” O’Hara said, standing up too.

“Again, welcome to Red Cell Seven, Ryan.” Maddux came around the desk, and they shook hands. “We’re glad to have you, kid. Very glad.” He turned to go, but then hesitated. He wanted to get out of here, but he wanted to start getting a feel for the kid’s thought process too. You could never start doing that quickly enough. “So you’ve shot questions at me tonight. Now I’ve got one for you.”

O’Hara looked up expectantly. “Yes, sir?”

“What’s the greatest terrorist threat to the United States right now?”

“What do you mean by ‘greatest’?”

“What kind of attack has the most devastating effect on our country?”

“Death squads,” O’Hara answered confidently. “No question. Three- to four-man kill teams who jump out of vans and shoot ten to twenty shoppers at big malls within a few seconds, then jump back into the vans and, poof, they’re gone like they never existed. Maybe fifteen teams operating in this country, and they’re constantly on the move and they never contact a mother base and the mother base never contacts them so you can’t intercept communications. If they’re well trained, they’re almost impossible to stop, they’re easy to set up, and they shut the country down economically once they really get going.

“Like those two snipers who killed people in the DC area and scared the hell out of everybody else awhile ago,” he kept going. “Remember? They were amateurs, but people around DC were terrified just to fill up their cars with gas. It took the cops forever to find them and, candidly, it happened by accident. Setting up kill teams is basically the same concept, except this time the terrorists are using professionals. The best way to start it off would be simultaneous attacks on the biggest shopping day of the year. On Black Friday. What do you think, sir?”

“Keep that to yourself,” Maddux ordered, wishing now he hadn’t asked. The last thing the United States needed was for someone on the wrong side to hear that idea, because it was that damn good. “See you in the morning.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Ryan.”

“I’m totally dedicated to Red Cell Seven. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, and I won’t ask any questions.”

Maddux stared intently into O’Hara’s eyes for several moments. “That’s what I want to hear,” he said. They’d really drilled the message into this kid. “That’s exactly what I want to hear.”

“And, sir?”

“Yes.”

O’Hara hesitated. “I…I know I’m the first black guy to make it into RCS. And, well, I know that means I have an even higher bar to hit.”

Maddux shook his head. “I don’t see black when I look at you, Ryan. All I see is courage. Do you understand me?”

O’Hara grinned. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Maddux watched O’Hara leave the room, he nodded to himself. This kid was going to be easy to control…which was a relief after all he’d gone through with Banks and Jensen.

CHAPTER 20

Captain Sage grunted approvingly when he caught sight of a bright red raft through his binoculars. It was off the starboard bow at two o’clock about a quarter of a mile away, floating lazily up and down on the calmly rolling sea — exactly where it was supposed to be. He’d gotten the coded message from Maddux two hours ago that the drop had been made and the package was ready to be retrieved now that the sub had resubmerged and was a safe distance away. The kid the sub had picked up off the coast of China was almost home. The Falcon was almost back to its nest. Sage wasn’t supposed to know they were called Falcons, but he’d overheard that last year after they’d picked up another one.

As he guided the Arctic Fire toward the raft, Sage’s good mood faded. Speed Trap and Grant were asking too many questions. They weren’t idiots. They’d figured out something was up.

He cursed under his breath. He was pretty sure Speed Trap had gotten a raft onto the ocean while they were throwing Troy Jensen overboard. That was why there was a brand new one in the equipment room. Speed Trap had tried to hide what he’d done, but the captain knew his boat too well. He knew his nephew pretty well too. The younger one wasn’t cold like Grant. Speed Trap had a heart.

“Damn it!” Sage hissed, banging the control panel hard with his big fist. He couldn’t blame Speed Trap. Troy Jensen had saved his life. He’d felt the ultimate loyalty, as he should have, like any good sailor should have. “I just hope to God Jensen never made it into the raft if the kid really put it out there,” Sage growled to himself over the hum of the engines.

Maddux pulled himself up onto the sill of the first-floor window, then eased down onto the wooden floor inside. The small brick home was thirty miles from the farmhouse where he’d said goodnight to O’Hara an hour ago. It was well back in the woods at the end of a dirt driveway, completely secluded from prying eyes.

The place was owned by a young couple who had no children. They were both in their midtwenties, and they were both teachers at the local public high school.

But that was just the husband’s cover. His more important job was to interface with and give aid to in-country Chinese spies.

Though Carlson hadn’t yet received final confirmation that the CIA was a hundred percent positive of the man’s complicity, Maddux didn’t care. He’d seen the file, and he was sure of what this guy was up to — and it had to be stopped.

He closed the window quietly. The couple ought to be sleeping soundly. He’d watched the last light on the second floor go out thirty minutes ago from the tree line on the north side of the house. He was going to kill the man quickly, and then get out. He had no intention of harming the woman.

As he came around the corner of the living room and into the short hallway that led from the kitchen to the stairs, Maddux almost ran into the guy. For a split second they stared at each other in the dim light cast by the stove’s bulb. Then the man tossed the milk and cookies he was holding at Maddux’s face before barreling into him. He was a big man, and as he landed on top of Maddux on the floor and the wind rushed from Maddux’s lungs, Maddux realized that he might have just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Speed Trap peered out from behind the deck door on the port side just beneath the bridge. He was well hidden here, and he could duck back down the stairs behind him and get to his bunk quickly if he needed to. He wasn’t supposed to be up here, but Duke and Grant were still asleep so they couldn’t rat on him, and he had to see what was going on.

His eyes narrowed as a young man climbed aboard. Sage was holding open the metal gate near the crane so the guy didn’t have to climb over the deck wall. It was the same wall they’d thrown Troy Jensen over.

Speed Trap watched as his uncle and the guy shook hands. It was strange. The guy reminded him of Troy. He didn’t look or talk like him, but the resemblance was still uncanny. He had a certain aura about him that was unmistakable. Just like Troy did.

Speed Trap pursed his lips as he remembered shoving the raft out onto the ocean that night from the back of the ship. He prayed that the Bering Sea fates had been kind to Troy. That somehow Troy had gotten to that raft and by some masterstroke of luck he was still alive.

Troy was too good a man to have died like that.

CHAPTER 21

“You OK?” Jack asked.

“I’m fine.”

They were wet, cold, and exhausted after jumping from the warehouse into Baltimore Harbor, then swimming for their lives. They’d been in the water for at least ten minutes before finally finding a place to climb out, and at one point they’d almost been run down by a tugboat. The crew hadn’t seen their frantic gestures as the big craft bore down on them. They’d barely avoided being crushed by the hull and sucked into the powerful whirlpool created by its two huge propellers.

Now Karen was sitting beside Jack on a side-street bench, holding her left arm gingerly.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” he tried again, taking a slightly more specific tack. “Should we go to the emergency room?”

“I’m fine,” she answered firmly. “But thanks.”

He touched his ear and then checked his finger. The cut he’d suffered while crawling through that hole in the fence outside the warehouse had stopped bleeding. “You sure?”

“The bullet barely hit me, Jack. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I’m one of those people who says ‘I’m fine’ a lot too, Karen. So I know the code. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m fine. It means ‘leave me alone.’” He paused. “Let me check it out, OK?”

She straightened up slowly and turned to look at him. “I told you,” she said deliberately, “I’m fine. I meant it, Jack.”

She was stubborn. “All right.” But she was tough too.

He glanced at her arm again. The sweatshirt was ripped in the triceps area, and he thought he saw a dark stain around the torn material. But it was too dark where they were sitting to tell for sure, even as close as they were to each other. Maybe that was actually Mick’s blood. He didn’t want to say anything to remind her that her friend was dead.

“You’re a tough girl, and I mean that as a compliment.”

“Thanks.” She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and ran her hands through her still-dripping hair. “Why did I have to push you out of that window?” she asked. “Why didn’t you jump? You have a fear of water or something?”

“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested. He didn’t want to talk about his fear of heights now. “Let’s get you someplace warm.”

“I want to know what the deal is. Why did I have to push you out of that window?” she asked again.

“It’s a fear of heights,” he admitted.

“But we weren’t up that high. Thirty feet, maybe a little more. I mean, come on, you’re a big boy.”

“Fifteen feet and I’ve got a problem, Karen. Not even that high sometimes.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

It seemed like she felt sorry for him, like that was a little bit of a pity smile. But that was OK right now. Anything that helped their connection get stronger faster was OK with him. And it wasn’t like he was accepting her pity.

“More specifically, I have a fear of hitting something on the ground that makes my body splatter into a bloody, unrecognizable mass. That’s what really gets to me.”

“It all makes sense now,” she murmured. “No wonder.”

“I was just about to climb back into the office when you finally checked my boarding pass at the Jetway door and put me on the flight.”

The second time he’d yelled at her to push him out, she’d done it with a solid shoulder to his hip as he knelt on the window ledge. Like the one she’d given him when she’d knocked him away from Mick as he was about to pummel the guy. Then she’d followed his scream into the water after somehow managing to pull the window back down so that the people who were chasing them wouldn’t notice it was raised, figure out what had happened, and start scouring the harbor for them.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

Jack had been waiting for her to ask that question again. “An old friend of mine is a hunting and fishing guide in Alaska. He’s been up there awhile, and he’s got a lot of contacts inside law enforcement. I told him my brother was killed on the Arctic Fire and that I didn’t believe the captain had come clean with his story about what had happened. He did some checking around and found out about your fiancé.”

Jack didn’t want to dwell on this because it had already been a terrible enough night for Karen. But she’d asked the question, and he wanted her to know he was disclosing everything and being as transparent as possible. He wanted her complete trust as quickly as he could get it because he sensed that, thanks to Ross Turner, he’d found someone who could be of great help with his search for what had really happened to Troy. He was positive now that he’d been right to stir up all those old memories, positive that Troy and Charlie Banks had suffered the same fate and that he was on the right track. He was sorry about causing Karen so much emotional pain, but he had to see this thing through.

“When I heard about what happened to your fiancé,” he continued, “I was blown away. Like I said before, the captain of the Arctic Fire told the cops exactly the same story about what happened to my brother, Troy, as he’d told them about what happened to Charlie Banks.” Jack shook his head. “Look, my brother was Superman when it came to the outdoors. I mean the real deal, you know, with the ‘S’ on his chest and the cape and all that. And he had beaucoup experience on the water. He made it around the world in a sailboat by himself twice, for Christ’s sake. Plus he always had this crazy sixth sense in nasty situations about where to be and where not to be. People around him got hurt, even killed. The ones he couldn’t save, anyway. But Troy never got hurt too badly. He got banged up and bruised, but he never took a hit that put him on the sidelines even for a day. He was one tough guy.”

“Charlie was the same way,” Karen said. “He was bulletproof. At least, until he sailed on the Arctic Fire.”

Jack could see the memories starting to flood back to her.

“He was an incredible athlete,” she continued, glancing past Jack into the distance, “and he knew everything there was to know about making it in the outdoors and on the ocean. Like you say Troy did. He never would have been the only one washed overboard if a big wave had hit the ship. He would have kept everyone else from going overboard.” Tears filled her eyes. “I tried to make the cops up in Alaska understand that, but they thought I was just being emotional, I could tell. They wouldn’t listen to me.”

“One of them listened.”

“Derek Palmer?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He said you two stayed in touch for a few months after Charlie’s death. He told me who you were, and he sent me a picture of you he’d saved on his phone from when you were up there. He gave me the name and address of where you worked too. That’s how I found you.” Jack hesitated. “I don’t want you to be mad at him. He was just trying to help.”

“I know,” she said softly. “He was the one who called Charlie’s parents to tell them he was dead. He was the first one to respond when the Arctic Fire got back to Dutch Harbor. He tried to push the investigation, but his superiors wouldn’t let him.”

“That’s what he said.”

Tears were streaming down Karen’s face. “Sorry,” she murmured, trying to wipe away the moisture. “I’m really sorry, I don’t usually cry. It’s just that I still miss Charlie all the time,” she whispered. “I wanted to marry him. I wanted to have kids with him.” She sobbed loudly as she dropped her face into her hands. “Sorry,” she whispered again.

“Don’t be.” Jack slid down the bench so he was sitting right beside her. He couldn’t imagine how awful she was feeling. “I think you’re amazing,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. “I really do. You’ve already saved my butt a couple of times tonight. It’s like you’re not afraid of anything.” He pulled her closer and gently guided her head to his shoulder. For several minutes they said nothing as she cried.

“So what do we do now?” she asked when the tears finally stopped.

“We go after these people.”

She took a deep breath and wiped the moisture from her face one more time. “How?”

“We find out what really happened to Troy and Charlie. Then we go to the cops with what we have. At the end of the day I think we’re gonna end up in Dutch Harbor.”

She looked up at him. “You really mean it? You really want to do that?”

“Absolutely.”

“You said ‘we.’ You want me to go with you?”

“Of course. Don’t you want to go?”

“I do.” She grimaced. “But I don’t have much money, Jack.”

“Don’t worry.” The envelope Cheryl had given him had ten thousand dollars in it. And there was a note along with the cash that said to call her before he needed more. “I’ve got you covered.”

“You sure?”

“Yup.” Jack slipped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up. “So, you in?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“Good. I’m glad we got that settled.”

She gazed back at him for several moments with a distant expression. Then her eyes narrowed. “Let me see your driver’s license.”

“Huh?”

“Your driver’s license,” she repeated. “Let me see it.”

Jack dug into a pocket of his jeans, pulled out his wet wallet, and handed the license to her.

She scanned it carefully in the dim light. “OK,” she said, handing it back to him. “I guess you really are Jack Jensen.”

“I guess I am.”

“That license better be real.”

“Of course it is. What’s the problem?”

“There’s a place we should go on the way to Alaska,” she explained after a few moments. “It’s a cabin in northern Minnesota. It’s Charlie’s parents’ summer place.”

“Why there?”

Karen pursed her lips. “Can I trust you?”

“Of course you can. Haven’t I already—”

“No, I mean really trust you.”

“Yeah, damn it. I can’t believe you’d even—”

“OK, OK, here’s the deal. Before he died, Charlie told me he was part of some crazy government intelligence group called Red Cell Seven.”

Jack’s pulse jumped.

“He said it was a super-secret outfit buried in some black ops area of the defense department or the CIA or something.”

“What? Are you—”

“Listen to me,” she interrupted. “Let me finish.”

So maybe Troy hadn’t been joyriding around the world for the last six and a half years after all. Maybe he and Hunter had been right to wonder what Troy was really up to.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Charlie told me that he and a bunch of other guys were responsible for digging up very secret information, and for delivering and bringing back classified information to and from American spies all over the world. Apparently they do crazy things in the countries where the spies are, like climb mountains and hunt wild animals, but they do those things just for cover. They’re really in the country to make contact with our agents, and they do that when no one’s looking. They’re called Falcons, and they’re one division of this Red Cell Seven group.”

A chill raced up Jack’s spine. Everything his brother had been doing since graduating from Dartmouth suddenly made so much sense. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Troy.”

“Obviously, Charlie wasn’t supposed to tell me that,” Karen continued. “The reason he did was because he was convinced his superior had gone insane, that the guy had turned into a certified nut job. I think he was about to go to people in the government outside Red Cell Seven to tell them what was going on, but he never got the chance. I think Charlie’s superior had him thrown off the Arctic Fire before he could tell anybody.”

“Like Troy,” Jack whispered.

Karen nodded. “Then a month ago I got this letter, and it told me about a box up in Minnesota I needed to get. Obviously Charlie wasn’t the one who told me about it. He wasn’t the one who sent the letter. He never said anything about a box in the cabin.

“The letter said there was a lot of valuable information in the box, and that I should get to it as soon as possible, read it, and give it to people who mattered, to people who could do something with the information in it.” She grimaced. “But I haven’t yet.” She glanced around, searching the shadows near them. “The letter said one more thing.”

Jack heard serious fear creeping into her voice. “What?”

“That guy I told you about. You know, Charlie’s leader.”

“The nut job? Yeah, what about him?”

“The letter said the guy was going to kill the president.”

“Of the United States?” Jack asked in disbelief. “President Dorn?”

“Yes. It said that the guy was already taking steps to assassinate him.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would someone in Red Cell Seven want to kill the president of the United States? They should be in business to protect the president.”

“The letter didn’t say.”

“Well if that’s true, then we know why Charlie thought the guy was insane. Why didn’t you get the box?” he asked after a few moments. “Why didn’t you at least show the letter to someone?”

“I didn’t want to get involved. I’m not proud of it, but I had my reasons.”

“Which were?”

“Some pretty scary people showed up at my door a few weeks before I got the letter and made it real clear I was being watched.” She nodded across the harbor in the direction of the warehouse they’d jumped out of twenty minutes ago. “People like those men who chased us tonight.” She shrugged. “And really, who was I going to show the letter to? People would have thought I was crazy if I’d handed them that thing. They probably would have thought I’d written it myself to get attention or something. Then I would have been arrested and thrown in jail for being a nut job. And I never would have been heard from again.”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.” He glanced over at her. This was probably a dead-end question, but he figured he’d ask it anyway. “Did the person who wrote the letter identify himself?”

Karen nodded. “Yeah, and that’s the other reason I didn’t go to the authorities. I didn’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Well, who was it?”

She stared intently into Jack’s eyes for several moments before answering.

“Troy Jensen.”

CHAPTER 22

Carlson nodded solemnly to the other three men sitting around the table. They were about to make an incredibly important decision. And they were doing it in the unfinished basement of his Georgetown home over ham sandwiches and potato salad Nancy had fixed before going to bed to cry about his cancer. He felt bad for leaving her alone right after he told her, but this meeting had to happen immediately. The country still had to come first. They’d cry together later.

Ham sandwiches and potato salad in a Georgetown basement he’d never had time to finish, and it all seemed surreal to Carlson. It seemed too informal an atmosphere for them to consider an action so grave, an action that would change the course of history. He felt like they should be wearing tuxedos and toasting each other with fine wine in a private room of an elite club as they passed judgment on David Dorn.

“Before we get to the most important issue,” Carlson began as the others ate, “I’ll give you a few updates. First, one of our Falcons just left China and is now aboard the Arctic Fire headed for Dutch Harbor. I’ve already gotten preliminary information from him that the Chinese have, in fact, completed development of that tactical missile the DOD and the CIA are so concerned about. The information our Falcon brought back is excellent and should prove extremely helpful to our negotiators as they begin arms talks with the Chinese next week in Rotterdam. We’ll have more details about the system when he gets to Washington tomorrow.”

Carlson paused for a moment as he thought about Captain Sage Mitchell and the Arctic Fire. Captain Sage was a true patriot, a damn fine man. A significant amount of the country’s recent success in terms of bringing back military and strategic secrets from and about China, Russia, and North Korea could be attributed, in part, to his ability to quietly pilot the Fire around the Bering Sea. They’d been smart to recruit Sage Mitchell a few years ago when he was almost broke.

It was too damn bad about Troy Jensen, and he hoped Sage wouldn’t have any misgivings about helping Red Cell Seven in the future because he felt guilty about the kid getting washed overboard in the storm. Better than almost anyone else, Captain Sage understood why they called it the most dangerous job on earth. Accidents happened, especially on the Bering Sea. They were just one of those bad things in life that happened for no apparent reason. Like cancer.

“Second,” Carlson continued, “in the past week our people executed two senior terrorist agents in the United States and three more abroad. From the chatter we’re picking up out of Yemen and Syria, the agents in the US were even more vital to their organizations than we originally thought. And, we kept all of that out of the media.”

Everyone was enjoying the food. He could tell how much because no one was asking questions. Nancy always had been a wonderful cook. Even her sandwiches tasted better than anyone else’s. He smiled sadly. At least to him they did. He hadn’t enjoyed her food as much as he should have over the years, but he was going to start now. He glanced down at his plate and the untouched sandwich lying there. Well, after this meeting, he would.

“Finally,” he continued, “we’ve gotten word from our Falcons that it’s likely another LNG tanker is being prepped in Malaysia by terrorists and will head toward another East Coast target soon. It’ll be sometime after the first of the year, probably. This ship will be carrying almost two hundred thousand cubic meters of liquefied natural gas. We believe that Savannah, Georgia, is the target, but this time we’ll board the ship farther out in the ocean, a few hundred miles, at least. We’ll have a lot more firepower on the scene too, even some underwater. But, as I said, it’s nothing we have to worry about right away. We’ve got a few weeks.”

“Thanks, Roger,” one of the other men said brusquely as he finished the last bite of his sandwich. “But what’s going on with President Dorn? Let’s get to why we’re really here.”

“Yeah, let’s,” one of the other men agreed. “Is the bastard really trying to screw with Red Cell Seven?”

“He’s not just trying to screw with it,” Carlson answered ominously. “He’s trying to destroy us. He wants lists of all RCS personnel and where they’re currently deployed. He wants all of our contacts abroad, the names of CIA and NSA in-country spies, and a list of physical assets here and abroad.”

The room went deathly still as everyone stopped chewing and took a few moments to digest the information instead of the food.

“Then Dorn has to die.”

Everyone’s gazes flickered to the man at the opposite end of the table from Carlson who’d just spoken up in his deep voice.

“It’s simply a question of when and where,” he added.

Carlson glanced around the table. “Are we unanimous? Let me see hands.”

Four hands rose immediately into the air. That fast, a death sentence had been passed. That fast, President Dorn had become a dead man walking. Because once Red Cell Seven identified a target, it didn’t miss. It never had before.

“All right,” Carlson said somberly, amazed as always by their efficiency. “We kill him.”

“What about the vice president?” the man at the other end of the table asked.

“What about him?”

“Are we sure he’ll be with us? We can’t push this button twice in the same decade, Roger. There’d be hell to pay if we did. I mean, there will be this time too, of course.” The man crossed his arms tightly over his chest as if a cold wind had just blown into the room. “But if we did it again…” His voice faded for a few seconds. “Well, that simply isn’t an option.”

“Agreed,” Carlson said, glancing around the table. “I can assure all of you that Vice President Vogel will be very supportive of Red Cell Seven.”

The room went quiet until the man at the end of the table spoke up again. “How long until David Dorn dies, Roger?”

Carlson stared down the table. Maddux was going to carry out the execution. “Two weeks,” he answered in a grave voice. “Maybe less.”

CHAPTER 23

“Mr. President, I should have looked at that list you gave Daniel Beckham this afternoon before you sent him to meet Roger Carlson.”

Rex Stein was a short, wiry man with a full head of gray hair and intense hazel eyes set close together on his face. And he always wore bow ties. It was his trademark.

Stein was a consummate Washington insider who knew his way around the federal government as well as anyone. He knew how to get what he wanted without compromising in a town where few people got anything without giving away the farm.

Stein tapped a corner of the paper with his index finger so it popped loudly. “I just got this, and, well, with all due respect, Mr. President, giving Carlson this was a mistake.” The party had chosen Stein for this position to keep Dorn out of trouble. He had permission from the nonelected leaders to be extremely direct with the commander in chief. “A huge mistake.”

Dorn smiled stiffly at Stein from behind his desk in the Oval Office. “Thank you for your input, Rex, but you were busy this afternoon. You were working on the Europe trip we’re taking next month, and I wanted to get this Red Cell Seven thing started right away.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. Beckham isn’t going to be reporting straight to me on this. He’ll go through you just like everyone else does. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Stein counted to five silently as he shifted in his chair. He knew Dorn didn’t appreciate the directness. He could see the resentment for it building with each new day, and it was a function of Dorn becoming more and more comfortable in his position. But it was getting harder and harder for Stein to control his temper when Dorn decided to sling those sarcastic arrows across the desk.

“I’m not worried about that, Mr. President.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“Frankly, I’m worried that there could be repercussions for shutting down Red Cell Seven. We need to have more respect for how much support there is out there for RCS at the highest levels of—”

“I’m not shutting it down,” the president interrupted. “I’m just getting control of it. That’s all.”

Stein glanced down at the piece of paper in his lap. “I have to tell you that a man like Roger Carlson will interpret this list as you shutting him down. I have a few more years of experience than you in terms of dealing with things like this and—”

“Rex,” the president cut in sharply, “did you know that Carlson allows several of his direct reports to kill people? In fact, he condones it. He even sets it up in some cases.”

Stein slowly raised an eyebrow. At his core he was a liberal, but he still had a healthy respect for Red Cell Seven and what the individuals in it did. Getting older had enabled him to start seeing both sides of the defense and intelligence coin. As had 9/11. He’d lost a brother when the North Tower had come crashing down.

“That’s what they do, sir,” he said deliberately. “That’s their job. They kill the bad guys, and they do it in the shadows so you and I never need to know about it. So we have plausible deniability.”

“I’m talking about civilians. He has them kill American civilians.”

“Can you be more specific on that one for me, sir?” Stein asked calmly, aware that Dorn wasn’t above telling a few white lies to make his point. He was like any other politician.

The president eased back into his big leather chair and made a contrite face to let Stein know that he hadn’t told his chief of staff the whole story. “They carry out vigilante justice. They kill people who’ve dodged a bullet and gotten off serious crimes on a technicality.”

Stein nodded. “Well, I can’t really—”

“Don’t tell me you agree with that.”

“Justice can’t be as blind as we’d like it to be. You know that.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“The country’s side, Mr. President.”

Stein still wasn’t convinced that Dorn had accurate information. And, even if the president did, Stein wasn’t sure he cared. He’d had his doubts over the years, but now he was starting to think that what cells like RCS did in the shadows was necessary.

“How did you find out about this, Mr. President?”

“I’ve been president for ten months, Rex. I don’t need you for everything anymore.” Dorn had been looking at the painting of George Washington on the wall, but now he refocused on Stein. “A minute ago you mentioned repercussions for shutting RCS down. What did you mean?”

You don’t want to know, Mr. President, was what Stein was thinking. But even as direct as he usually was with Dorn, he couldn’t say that. He didn’t want to mention the “assassination” word. “Are you really serious about not shutting down Red Cell Seven?”

“Absolutely. I respect what they do. They just need to be roped in some. Well, a lot,” Dorn added.

Stein took a deep breath. He was going to try his best to do damage control on this, but it was going to be difficult. He knew that list on the paper in his lap had sent a very different message to Roger Carlson than what the president had just laid out. Unfortunately, there might be no stopping the intel reaction at this point.

Lisa Martinez carefully put the baby down in his crib, covered his tiny body with his hospital blanket, and headed for the living room. A few moments ago there’d been a loud knock on the apartment door. She was hoping it wasn’t the super looking for last month’s rent because she still didn’t have it. The five hundred dollars Jack gave her had gone for formula, Pampers, and keeping the lights on.

When she pulled back the door, her eyes opened wide. Standing in front of her was a tall, older man with silver hair, wearing an expensive-looking suit.

“Can I help you?” she asked shyly. He looked so out of place here in the projects. Like Jack did when he came to visit her.

“My name’s Bill Jensen,” the older man said, moving into the apartment without being asked. “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

President Dorn gazed into the autumn darkness outside the West Wing window. Rex Stein had left the office a few minutes ago, and Dorn was congratulating himself on what he considered an Oscar-winning performance.

Stein had left here thinking that his president really had no intention of shuttering Red Cell Seven, that it was all a big misunderstanding. He’d left thinking that his president was still inexperienced and didn’t truly understand the grave message that the request for information would send.

Dorn chuckled. He’d played it perfectly. Now Stein was going to quietly run around Washington and Northern Virginia trying to convince the senior men in the shadows that it really was all a misunderstanding. Stein was going to tell those important individuals that the president was still wet behind the ears and had no idea how his message would be taken. That would give Dorn more time to get the information he needed to actually shut the thing down for good.

But there was no misunderstanding. Red Cell Seven was done as far as he was concerned. He couldn’t have those bastards out there killing anyone they wanted to anytime they wanted to. It wasn’t right. The world could never become the place it was supposed to be with men like Roger Carlson out there acting unilaterally. Even close allies would never truly trust the United States until the decks had been scrubbed clean of men like Carlson and his associates.

He picked up the phone. It was time to get a face-to-face report from Daniel Beckham without Stein around.

Hunter stared blankly into the darkness. The temperature had dipped into the thirties as the December night had fallen. But he barely noticed how cold it was as he stood beside his car in his shirtsleeves and smoked his first cigarette in twelve years.

They’d laughed as they’d led Amy away, and he’d heard her scream once after he’d lost sight of her. But there was nothing he could do to help her. They had him tied up and had let him go at gunpoint only after she was long gone.

He hadn’t cried in a long time, but as he finished the cigarette and tossed it to the parking lot, sobs overtook him as his tears began to flow. They’d made it all very clear to him. Help them find Jack…or Amy would die.

CHAPTER 24

Jack glanced up as Karen came out of the bathroom. He wanted to take a shower, and he’d been watching a movie while he waited for her to finish.

“Hey there,” he said as he stood up from the chair in front of the TV. “Feeling better?”

She had on the pair of jeans and the top he’d bought her at a Target on the way over to the hotel. He’d bought her a new coat too. It was chilly in Baltimore, but it was going to be a lot colder where they were going.

“So much better,” she answered.

He’d offered to get her a separate room, but she wouldn’t accept. There were two double beds in the room, and she’d told him that was fine, that she trusted him after everything they’d already been through tonight — and because the name Jack Jensen was printed on his license, which convinced her he was Troy’s brother. It turned out she had only a few hundred bucks to her name, and she didn’t want to be a burden.

He’d offered her the room twice, but she’d gotten that look in her eyes as he’d started to ask the second time, so he’d quit in midsentence. It was the same look she’d given him on the bench when he’d asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital. She looked so soft on the outside, especially now that she’d showered. But underneath she was turning out to be a firecracker.

“You look great.” She did too. Her still-wet long black hair was down on her shoulders; she’d put on a little makeup she’d picked up at the store too, and she seemed to be in a much better mood. “I mean it.” He liked that she’d put on that makeup. They’d already eaten and they had no plans to leave the room tonight, so it sent him a nice signal.

She smiled back at him. “Really think so?”

He checked her arm when he thought she wasn’t looking, but he couldn’t see anything. They’d bought some stuff at Target to dress the wound, and she’d covered it with bandages while she was in the bathroom. He thought about asking her how it was feeling, but he didn’t. She seemed OK, and they were getting along too well. He didn’t want another one of those looks flashing his way.

“Definitely.”

“Thanks.” She glanced uncertainly at their third-story window. “I hope we’re OK here.”

The hotel was in West Baltimore away from city center. It wasn’t a great place, but it wasn’t too bad. He’d wanted a place where he could bribe the guy behind the front desk so he didn’t have to put down his credit card — the same way he hadn’t last night up north — and that wouldn’t have been possible at a nice place. With no credit card imprint on the room, he was confident no one would find them.

“We’ll be fine.” They were going to get a good night’s sleep before heading west in the morning.

Karen sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to see a picture of Charlie?” she asked.

“Sure.”

He took the photo from her carefully after she took it out of her wallet. It was still wet.

Banks was an athletic-looking guy with a great smile, just like Troy. But that wasn’t what caught Jack’s eye. Instead, he focused on how Banks was holding his hands. His thumbs were hooked into his jeans with most of his fingers out of the belt and pointed straight down.

Jack counted the fingers in the picture again, for the third time. Four on the right hand and three on the left were pointed down at the ground. Only his thumbs and the last finger of his left hand weren’t visible.

“My God,” he whispered as it hit him, as four and three became seven. “Karen,” he said loudly, “what did you say the name of that group was again? The one Charlie told you he was in?”

“Red Cell Seven.”

“Red Cell Seven,” Jack repeated. “Holy shit.”

“What is it?” she asked, staring at him intently.

In the picture, Charlie Banks was holding his hands exactly the same way Troy had been holding his hands in front of the Arctic Fire, as he stood defiantly in the photograph Cheryl had enlarged and put on the easel in the great room for the memorial service.

And the same way Bill was holding his hands in the photograph of him standing with the governor of New York that was on his office credenza. Thumbs hooked into his belt, seven fingers pointed at the ground — four on his right hand and three on his left, Jack remembered.

The realization hit him hard. This was no coincidence. It couldn’t be. Charlie Banks and Troy Jensen were members of Red Cell Seven. Karen had made that clear as they were sitting on the bench.

But now he knew Bill was connected to it as well.