Arctic Fire

CHAPTER 25

“Did you say you were a cop?”

Karen glanced over at Jack from the passenger seat of the rented Taurus as they sped west away from Baltimore. “Yeah,” she answered deliberately. “So?”

He raised both eyebrows. “Wow.” He was pretty sure she’d dropped that main-course cut of background data on him last night as they were sprinting down the alley trying not to get killed. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“What’s so interesting about it?” She held her hands out and signaled in with her fingers. “Come on, come on, let’s have it.”

He’d wanted to confirm it in the hotel room, but hadn’t had a chance because she’d fallen asleep so quickly…which he liked. It meant she felt safe with him even though they’d just met.

“Oh, no,” he said innocently. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

When he’d come out of the bathroom after taking his shower, she’d been curled up on her bed asleep hugging a pillow, and he’d pulled the covers over her shoulders gently. Her long black hair was still wet — the low-budget place didn’t have hair dryers in the bathrooms — and he hadn’t wanted her to catch cold.

“I just think it would be cool to—” He stopped himself. “I just think it’s very cool. I really respect you for it.”

“That’s not what you were going to say.”

He laughed loudly. “What are you talking about? Yeah, it is.”

“Come on,” she encouraged in a half-friendly, half-aggravated tone. “Say what you were really going to say, Jack. I bet I’ve heard it before. I’ve probably heard every crack about female cops ever invented. Don’t be afraid.”

“It’s got nothing to do with being afraid.”

“You don’t have to worry about us getting off to a bad start.”

That sounded good to Jack. “Well, I’m glad because—”

“Because we already have.”

That didn’t. “What? Why?”

Maybe it was the near-death experience they’d shared last night that had him interested in her so fast, he figured, trying to be analytical about it. Maybe being shot at together was an aphrodisiac, so then maybe what he was feeling was just infatuation.

But as he glanced over at her something told him that what he was feeling wasn’t going to fade anytime soon. He was more taken by her every minute, but they hadn’t been shot at in a while. Karen was definitely something special.

“What did I do?” he pushed.

She looked at him like it was obvious. “It’s what you didn’t do, Jack.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to push you out of that warehouse window last night. I mean, come on, who’s really wearing the pants in this relationship?”

He didn’t like his manhood being called out, but hearing that she thought they already had a relationship wasn’t a bad thing. “I didn’t even know we had a relation—”

“And let me tell you something,” she interrupted as she pointed at him. “Yeah, yeah, I was a cop, but I love being a woman too. I love wearing cute dresses and heels and doing my nails and dancing like crazy at a cool club. Tell those guys on the trading floor that.”

“Huh?”

“You know, all those animals you told me you work with in New York City.”

“We’re not animals,” he said indignantly.

“Blah, blah. I’ve seen the movies about you Wall Street guys. And I’ve read the books. You’re all blue bloods, but you’re Neanderthals while you’re on the trading floors.”

“We’re not all blue bloods either.”

“Look, I’m not some stubborn bitch who gets off arresting men and gets offended by guys who treat her like a woman. I love it when a guy holds a door for me or stands up when I get to the table. I love being treated like a woman.”

She reached out, grabbed the rearview mirror, turned it so she could see her face in it, and muttered angrily that despite brushing it out for fifteen minutes this morning, her hair still looked like a rat’s nest because she’d slept on it wet.

He grinned as she muttered. Her hair looked sexy like that — not bad.

“That’s how Charlie was,” she continued. “That was one of the things that really impressed me about him on our first date. His manners were so awesome.”

“I’ll remember that.” He would too.

“But what really impressed me was that it never stopped. He wasn’t just doing it on our first date to get my attention. He cared about me enough to keep doing it.” She hesitated. “I like being pampered, but I can handle myself in the tough situations too. I want you to know that, Jack.”

“I think I’ve already seen you handle yourself in a tough—”

“So I’ll keep wearing pants when it’s the two of us if I have to,” she cut in again as she turned the mirror back in the general direction it had been facing before.

“No problem.” Jack adjusted the mirror so he could see out the rear window again.

“Charlie didn’t have a problem with me being a cop.”

“I don’t either.” He’d obviously hit a sensitive button on her personal remote.

In-charge women didn’t bother Jack at all. He liked a woman who knew what she wanted and went out and got it…as long as she could be sexy and romantic too. OK, so his standards were ridiculously high.

That, along with not being much into compromise, was probably why he’d never gotten permanently hooked. But he wasn’t like Troy either. He wasn’t a one-night-stand guy. He enjoyed getting to know a woman and having a serious relationship. He just hadn’t found a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Jack looked over at Karen for the hundredth time since they’d gotten in the car. Not yet, anyway.

“Not going to argue about it?” she asked curiously. “Not going to get all macho on me and tell me you didn’t really need me to push you out that window after all?”

“I definitely needed that push.”

“Amazing,” she said after a few moments, clearly impressed. “I’ve finally met a guy who admits to being scared of something.”

“Hey, I hate heights. They scare the crap out of me. They always have, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He gestured at her. “At least I had you push me out, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed softly, “you did.” She reached over and touched his arm reassuringly. “Hey, I was just kidding about our start. I have liked it.” She let her hand linger on his arm. “I mean, it’s been kind of crazy,” she said with an overwhelmed expression. “I’ve gotta give you a big ‘A’ for creativity and excitement. That’s for sure. But I’ve got to go low in the safety category. The bullets were a bit much. A roller coaster would have been fine,” she said with a grin.

“We’re alive, aren’t we?”

“So far,” she murmured as her smile faded. “So, Jack, what were you going to say before about me being a cop?”

“I said what I had to say.”

“You can’t start something like that and not finish it.”

“I sure can.”

“Come on, I want to hear it. I mean it.”

“Don’t boss me.”

“I’m not. I would never do that.” She laughed loudly, making it abundantly clear with her sarcastic tone that she knew very well she was bossing him. “Now tell me, damn it.”

“OK, boss.”

“Now!”

He chuckled as he thought about whether or not to say it. He wanted to build that bridge to her quickly. He wanted her all-in as fast as he could get her there…so what the hell, he figured. “OK, OK. All I was going to say was that Baltimore seems like a good city to get arrested in now that I know you.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “Why, because now you figure the force is all full of little hotties and it might be fun getting booked by a good-looking chick? What? Is that what you guys yak about on the trading floor in the afternoon when things get slow?”

She had this sizzle about her he couldn’t resist. Those friendly eyes he’d spotted at the restaurant last night could flash red-hot quickly, but that was OK. She certainly wasn’t as vulnerable as he’d first thought. But those tears she’d cried for Charlie last night had been genuine and heartfelt. That was obvious. She was tough, but it didn’t seem like her skin was that thick.

“All I was going to say,” Jack answered, “was that you seem like a really nice person, Karen. All the cops I’ve ever dealt with have been pricks, real hotheads.”

Jack had been arrested both times he’d put those guys in the hospital with broken jaws. But the cops hadn’t bothered to listen to how he’d been acting in self-defense either time. In fact, they’d told him to shut the hell up or they’d pile a resisting arrest onto the assault charge — which had been dropped quickly in both cases after witnesses had come forward and the facts had played out.

“But you aren’t.” He shrugged. “Maybe the police force you were on was better trained. That’s all I meant, Karen.”

“Oh.” She hesitated. “Well, don’t I feel like an idiot now?” she murmured apologetically. “Sorry, Jack. I guess I’m still a little sensitive about all those cracks I heard about being a woman cop.”

He raised an eyebrow as he looked over at her again. “You think?”

Hunter sat at the kitchen table of their small country house gazing at a wedding picture of Amy in her long white dress. She looked more beautiful to him this morning than she ever had.

She didn’t turn heads when she walked into a room, but she wasn’t unattractive either. She was plain. That was the best way to describe her.

But that was fine with Hunter, because on the inside Amy was the most beautiful person he’d ever known. She’d do almost anything for anyone, and she cared so very deeply for any child who was in trouble in any way. And that was why he really cared about her. Because of her innate and uncompromising affection for human life and her desire to solve everyone’s problems no matter who they were.

Hunter put the wedding picture down and picked up a photograph of Jack and himself together on a fishing trip out on Long Island Sound. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders, and Jack was giving the camera one of those big, charismatic smiles he rarely gave anyone or anything. If he only understood how contagious that smile was and the confidence it engendered, he’d give it a lot more often, Hunter figured. But Jack still had so many issues, so many demons inside himself left to conquer. And most of them were born of still being so intimidated by Troy.

Hunter shook his head. Jack didn’t need to be intimidated by anyone anymore — even Troy. He’d become his own very fine person over the last few years. Hunter had seen the progression from the front row and tried to help Jack see it too with as many psychological mirrors as he could find. But it hadn’t worked. Maybe Jack never would see himself as that capable, confident person he’d become. Maybe that was the sad truth. And, perhaps, in an awful way, Troy’s death had put a cover on that possibility forever. As Hunter had overheard Jack whisper to himself at the memorial service, how was he supposed to compete with his younger brother now?

They’d been friends for a long time, and now Hunter understood why Jack had acted so mysteriously at the bar the other night. He wasn’t going to Florida for the winter to pick up some stupid bartending job. Based on what Hunter had been through in the last thirty-six hours, Jack was into something very dangerous. Though what that was, Hunter had no idea.

All Hunter knew for sure was that the little man who’d demanded information about Jack, used the clear plastic bag as his torture weapon of choice, and ultimately had Amy kidnapped was one serious motherfucker. Hunter had seen the evil in his eyes, and it had terrified him on a level he’d never even known he was capable of experiencing. The man was a predator and that was all. He knew no other way. Even more frightening, he obviously didn’t want to know any other way.

Hunter placed the picture of Jack down beside the picture of Amy and took turns staring at their faces. He had to make a terrible choice between the two people who meant the most to him in the world. That little man had called early this morning and made him listen to Amy scream for help in the background, so he didn’t have much time to decide. He had to make his choice very soon.

Jack had been his best friend for fifteen years, and he’d proven his loyalty time and time again.

Amy was his wife, and he loved her dearly.

He glanced at the cell phone lying on the table beside Jack’s picture. There was one missed call registering on the tiny screen.

“My God,” he whispered. “Somebody help me.”

CHAPTER 26

Maddux stopped O’Hara outside the heavy iron door with a strong grip to the shoulder. They were just about to enter the soundproof interrogation room, which was at one end of the narrow, stone-walled corridor of the farmhouse basement. It lay directly beneath the study in which Maddux had welcomed O’Hara into RCS.

“Put this on, Ryan,” he ordered, handing the young man a crude hood. It was a faded white pillowcase with two small holes cut out of the poly-cotton blend near the closed end of the case. “And keep it on until I tell you to take it off.”

“Are you serious, sir?” O’Hara asked, grinning self-consciously.

“I get the Klan irony,” Maddux muttered as he slipped a hood on himself. “At least you don’t have to wear the robe,” he added in what was now a slightly muffled voice.

He was enjoying this moment, and he allowed himself a grin beneath the hood because now O’Hara couldn’t see his reaction. Something inside Maddux had always enjoyed putting people on edge.

“Put these on too.” Maddux pulled a pair of gloves from a pocket of his jacket and tossed them at the kid. “And make sure your shirtsleeves come down over the wrist end of the gloves at all times while we’re in there.”

“Why?”

“You said it yourself. You’re black and you’re the first one to make it in. Never give away anything about yourself you don’t absolutely have to.” Maddux nodded at the door. “Other than the man we’re interrogating today, there’s a guy from another RCS division in there as well. I don’t want him seeing your hands and figuring out it’s you if somehow he’s heard through the grapevine about you making it in.”

“Are you embarrassed by me?” O’Hara asked tersely. “Is that what this is about, sir?”

It was the first time Maddux had heard the kid’s voice grab even a slightly irritated edge. And this one wasn’t slight, it was pure resentment. “I don’t want you identified at all,” Maddux replied as deliberately as he could, controlling his rage at the kid’s audacity in using that tone with his new superior, but at the same time showing the young man how irritated he was in no uncertain terms. “It has nothing to do with your skin color. I already told you, Ryan. I don’t see color when I look at you. I see bravery.” He hesitated. “The bottom line is I don’t want any of my Falcons identified by anyone at any time. But everyone in RCS knows that we haven’t had an African American make it into the Falcon division before you. If the RCS guy behind the door saw your hands, it wouldn’t take him long to connect the dots. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” O’Hara mumbled. “Sorry.”

“It’s for your protection,” Maddux continued. “That’s all. I’d do the same thing for any other Falcon whether he was white, black, green, or purple. It’s always best to fly under the radar whenever you can, even when you’re flying over friendly territory. You’ve probably heard that a thousand times during your training, but it’s true.” He pointed a stubby finger at the kid. “Follow our training techniques at all times to the letter, son. I can’t emphasize that enough. It will save your life one day.”

“So, we stay that secretive even from other RCS divisions?” O’Hara asked.

“Absolutely,” Maddux replied, watching the kid pull the hood down over his face. Maddux focused on the eye holes when the hood was in place, trying to see if anyone could tell the kid was black under there. But the holes were small enough to keep out any gaze, no matter how penetrating. “Pull those sleeves down,” he ordered. “No skin showing.”

“Why do I have to be worried about somebody from another Red Cell Seven division? Isn’t he one of the good guys?”

“He is,” Maddux agreed. “He’s a counterterrorism guy and a damn fine one. But, in my opinion, he’s got a big mouth.” Maddux shrugged. “I mean, he doesn’t say much because he is counterterror, but those guys shouldn’t say anything.”

“I don’t under—”

“Not everyone’s as smart as I am. Not everyone sees it all the way I do.”

“Huh?”

“There’s one more thing I have to make clear to you before we go in there,” Maddux said quickly as he gestured at the door. “It’s the most important to me.”

“What is it, sir?” O’Hara asked expectantly.

“From now on you must be completely loyal to me no matter what happens. Do you understand that, Ryan? At this point it isn’t about the rest of the Falcons, Red Cell Seven, the DOD, the CIA, or even the United States of America. It’s just about your loyalty to me. Am I clear?”

O’Hara swallowed hard and gave Maddux a confused look. “Yes, sir, but if I could ask you just one more—”

“Let’s go.” Maddux hustled O’Hara toward the door. He didn’t like the kid asking so many questions. He needed to put a stop to that ASAP.

Maybe it was a generational thing, Maddux figured. Maybe kids today simply couldn’t keep from asking questions because there were so many ways to get information. As a result, they expected answers immediately all the time. Whatever the reason was, he didn’t appreciate it. Young people were made to be seen and not heard, like his grandfather had always said.

He’d always liked his grandfather, but then the old man had up and died right in front of him of a heart attack when Maddux was only seven. And then he hadn’t had any protection from his father’s nightly beatings.

“We’ll talk more after the session,” Maddux promised as he pushed the door open.

“Yes, sir.”

It was rare for Maddux to allow so new a Falcon into an interrogation like this, especially a session that would end up getting so brutal. But he had a good feeling about O’Hara, and he wanted to connect with the kid quickly. O’Hara was an expert marksman, one of the best to ever come along. The kid could literally put a bullet through the eye of an eagle in the sky from three hundred yards. Maddux wanted to practice with O’Hara over the next few days to try to improve his own marksmanship, which was excellent, though nothing compared to the kid’s. Maddux wanted every extra bit of training he could get to make certain President Dorn died with the first shot.

Maddux’s second reason for allowing O’Hara into this session was shock value. He wanted to see the kid’s physical reaction to an actual torture session even if he couldn’t actually see O’Hara’s face. He’d still know what was going on behind the hood from the kid’s body language and the debriefing meeting afterward. O’Hara had seen several gut-wrenching videos of sessions during his training, but never the live, in-your-face, blood-and-death performance.

He’d puked a few months ago while watching a particularly vicious session during which a subject had been slowly decapitated, but otherwise the kid had passed with flying colors. Most importantly, he’d never once questioned the need for brutal torture sessions as a tool to protect the United States. Not even if it involved American citizens.

Then there was that third reason Maddux wanted O’Hara in the interrogation session, which was the most important reason of all.

As they headed into the dimly lit room, Maddux motioned for O’Hara to move to the wall opposite the one the subject was hanging near. The guy’s wrists were tied tightly above his head by a thick rope leading to a hook on the ceiling, and his feet barely touched the floor. He was moaning loudly while he tried to keep himself balanced on his toes as he strained toward the ceiling.

“Ready?” Maddux called in a low voice to the fourth man in the room, who wore a hood like the ones he and O’Hara were wearing.

His name was Nick Telford, and he ran the RCS counterterrorism division for Roger Carlson. Maddux and Telford had come aboard RCS about the same time twenty years ago. As far as Maddux was concerned they had a healthy respect for each other, but that was it. Of course, that was the most intense relationship Maddux could have with anyone — except Carlson. He loved that old man — as much as his ultimate loyalty to the United States allowed him to love anyone.

“Have at it,” Telford answered indifferently. “He’s all yours.”

The subject’s name was John Savoy. He was fifty-two, but he looked older than that to Maddux, like he was in his early sixties. He had thinning brown hair, pasty skin, and an obvious paunch. He also had a wife and two kids in college, and he worked for the Department of Energy. He was a bureaucratic lifer, and he looked boring because he was boring, Maddux knew. His appearance and his career weren’t covers at all. He was just an ordinary man trying to make a little extra money on the side by selling what he figured was a little harmless information.

He had no idea how big a shit-storm he’d stepped squarely into the middle of by selling that information — until now, anyway.

At Maddux’s orders, Telford and several of his men had picked up Savoy in Arlington early this morning on his way into work, thrown him in the back of a white van, and whisked him down here to the farmhouse in central Virginia. As Maddux stared at Savoy, he could tell the guy was already on the verge of tears.

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Savoy?” Maddux asked gruffly.

“No,” Savoy whimpered. “I have no idea.”

With no warning, Maddux delivered a sharp kick to Savoy’s groin. Savoy screamed in agony and tried to double over against the pain. But he couldn’t because his hands were tied so tightly above his head. All he could do was scream. Then scream even louder and more pitifully when Maddux delivered a second, even harder kick to the exact same body organs. Savoy lifted his knees to his gut, but he didn’t have the strength to keep them there for long.

“We know who you are, you piece of shit!” Maddux shouted at Savoy, who was coughing so violently he was already starting to spit up blood. “We know what you’re doing.”

“I’m just a midlevel guy at DOE,” Savoy gasped. “I’m a nobody in the Office of Fossil Fuels, for Christ’s sake. I swear it.”

“Like hell!” Maddux snarled. “You’ve given away some very sensitive information about LNG tankers heading toward American soil to the wrong person, haven’t you, Mr. Savoy?”

“What? No, I don’t even—”

Maddux delivered a blistering right cross to Savoy’s jaw, which sent several of the older man’s teeth flying from his mouth and into the room.

Savoy began sobbing hysterically through his pain when he saw Maddux pull a pistol from his jacket.

“Russian roulette,” Maddux whispered as he moved close to Savoy and pressed the barrel to Savoy’s head. “That’s what we’re about to play. Six chambers and one bullet, and I keep pulling the trigger until you tell me what I want to know or the gun goes off. Got it?”

Right away Savoy began screaming and shouting and doing everything he could to keep the gun away from his head.

Maddux chuckled as Savoy danced beneath the rope. He pressed the gun back to Savoy’s head whenever he tired and went still for a moment. Finally, Savoy had nothing left in the tank and hung limply from the hook, exhausted and defenseless.

Maddux spun the gun’s six-chamber ammunition cylinder so it sounded like a drumroll. As the clicking faded, he pushed the barrel to Savoy’s head one more time.

“What the hell are you doing?” Telford demanded. “This guy doesn’t know anything. He’s a fucking bureaucrat, for God’s sake. Let’s get him out of here.”

“This is my interrogation,” Maddux snapped. “Not yours.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Tell me what you know, Mr. Savoy, or I pull the trigger!” Maddux yelled as he pressed the gun hard to Savoy’s head. “You gave information about those LNG tankers coming at this country to someone you shouldn’t have on the outside, didn’t you? Well, it turns out that someone on the outside was a person of interest to us.” Maddux dropped the barrel of the gun from Savoy’s head and forced it down the man’s throat so he gagged violently. “Don’t deny it!”

“No, no, I didn’t do anything like that!” Savoy screamed past the gun barrel in a garbled voice as he gagged. “All I do is watch those ships after they leave port,” he explained when Maddux pulled the gun from his mouth. “That’s it as far as the LNG tankers go. I haven’t given any information to anyone except my bosses at DOE. My information isn’t even that important.”

That wasn’t all Savoy did, Maddux knew very well. He was selling himself short in a big way. Savoy also interfaced with Naval Operations in Norfolk, Virginia, to keep them up to date on where those ships were. So the military could track the tankers in case decisive defensive action was required.

Maddux knew this because he was the one who was paying Savoy not to tell the Navy that a huge LNG tanker called the Pegasus was heading directly for Virginia Beach and not toward Savannah, Georgia, where it was supposed to be heading. He was the one paying Savoy to tell the Navy that the Pegasus was still on course for Savannah. He knew all that because he was that person of interest, though Savoy couldn’t tell, thanks to the hood.

Maddux smiled as he pressed the barrel to Savoy’s head one more time. He’d told Carlson that the ship hadn’t even left Malaysia yet. “Tell me, you bastard. Tell me what I want to know!” And, of course, Carlson had believed him.

“Please don’t hurt me anymore,” Savoy pleaded.

“Tell me!”

“All right, all right, I’ll tell you what you want to—”

The bullet exploded from the pistol with a deafening blast and slammed through Savoy’s brain. His body went limp instantly as blood and gray matter splattered the wall behind him.

“What the hell?” Telford shouted. “He was about to break!”

Maddux brought the revolver up in front of his face and stared at it for a few seconds. Then he glanced at O’Hara. “Did you not fix this gun like I told you to?” he demanded accusingly. This was the third and most important reason he’d wanted the kid in the room — so he had plausible deniability. “What the hell?”

Maddux pointed the gun at the ceiling, flipped the ammunition cylinder out to the left of the gun, and pushed the extractor rod. Five live rounds and an empty shell fell from the chambers and clattered across the tile floor. “Jesus Christ,” he hissed. “This thing was fully loaded. What the hell’s wrong with you, kid?”

“What do you mean?” O’Hara asked hesitantly. “I, I didn’t…what are you—”

“Be loyal to me, damn it!” Maddux shouted. “Remember what we talked about outside. Why the hell didn’t you fix this gun like I told you to? I told you to leave one bullet in it. That was it. Just one fucking bullet!”

O’Hara hesitated for several seconds, then looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry, sir,” he finally mumbled, kicking at the cement floor.

“Christ,” Telford hissed, yanking the hood off. He had a huge head with a square jaw and a shock of blond hair. “This was a fucking joke,” he said as he stalked toward the door. He stopped before pushing it open and stared at Maddux. “Do you really not check your own guns before you come in here to do this, Shane?”

“I was too busy.” The plausible deniability had worked. Telford was irritated, but not suspicious. “I didn’t have time.”

“What a moron.” Telford banged the door open. “Fuck this. You guys can bury the body yourselves.”

“You can take off your hood,” Maddux said when Telford was gone. “You did great, Ryan.”

“What exactly did I do?” O’Hara asked as he gazed at Savoy’s body, which was still swinging back and forth beneath the hook. “I didn’t know anything about that gun. I didn’t even know you had a gun on you.”

Maddux pulled off his hood and tossed it into a corner of the room. “No, you didn’t, Ryan. But you did the right thing.”

John Savoy had been executed in the nick of time. Maddux had found out yesterday that the CIA was closing in on him. They’d determined that Savoy was giving some kind of vital information to someone outside the Department of Energy, though they hadn’t identified who he was giving it to or exactly what the information related to. They’d intended to take Savoy to Langley for a tough round of questioning this afternoon that likely would have ended in his arrest, though not his death.

During the session, Savoy would have undoubtedly identified the man on the outside as Shane Maddux. He was too weak a man to keep his secrets for very long.

And that had left Maddux with only one alternative: murdering Savoy. He couldn’t risk being identified as that person of interest and putting all of RCS — and himself — at risk.

Certain individuals at the CIA might understand and agree with Maddux’s plan of causing a domestic disaster in order to scare the president and Congress into giving America’s intelligence community greater powers. Those individuals might agree with the strategy, but they couldn’t risk actually being involved in that scenario. It was far too risky for them personally, so they would have stopped the Pegasus from plowing into Virginia Beach.

Well, the CIA wasn’t getting anything out of Savoy now. And, importantly, the man who would replace Savoy at the Department of Energy was an individual Maddux knew and trusted. A man who believed in everything Maddux and RCS were doing to protect the country. The fact that the Pegasus was heading for Virginia Beach instead of Savannah would remain a secret for a few more days. And that would be all the time Maddux needed. The crew would sail the ship right up onto the beach and then blow it up. The resulting fireball would probably kill half a million people in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk metropolitan area, wound another half a million, and scare the hell out of the rest of the country.

Liberal bastards like David Dorn who believed the United States needed to be a kinder, gentler nation would be ignored, laughed at, and scorned again — like they had been right after 9/11. Homeland security would once again become a top priority for the nation, and there would be no more discussions of doing away with critical groups like Red Cell Seven. Widespread wiretapping, torture, and domestic spying would be available to those groups…again. The liberals would be sent packing and the neocons would rule the landscape…again.

Americans were becoming apathetic about security at home, Maddux believed. It had been more than a decade since 9/11, and people had forgotten how awful that attack had been. They needed to be reminded to keep the country strong. One way or another, Maddux was going to remind them. And keep reminding them.

A terrorist group in Syria would claim responsibility for the attack, and that was fine. Let the militant idiots shoot their guns off in the air on TV newscasts and grunt and cheer like the animals they were. Let them think they’d won a glorious victory, and let their arrogance and their stupidity cause their demise. In the end, the attack by the Pegasus would only make the United States much stronger.

He grimaced. He didn’t want to kill all those people in Virginia, but sometimes innocents had to be sacrificed. Sometimes individuals had to die so the rest of the country could survive. This was one of those times.

“Sir?”

Maddux looked up. “Yes, Ryan?”

“I want you to know something.”

“What?”

“I am loyal to you, sir,” O’Hara said. “One hundred percent loyal.” He motioned at Savoy’s body, which was hanging almost still now. “I have no idea what just happened in here, but I won’t ask any questions. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect this country. I believe that you know what you’re doing, and that you’re doing the right thing.”

For the first time in a long time, Maddux felt himself choking up. Ryan O’Hara was one of the finest Americans ever minted.

Fortunately for Maddux his cell phone rang, and he gestured for O’Hara to leave.

“Hello.” He cleared his throat several times. “Hello,” he said more firmly this time. No incoming number had appeared on the phone’s tiny screen, but only a few people had this number, and they wouldn’t call unless the issue was vitally important. “Who is this?”

“You all right?”

“I’m fine.” It was Captain Sage Mitchell. Maddux recognized the voice immediately. “What do you want?”

“Do you know who this is?”

“Of course I know. What do you want?”

“We may have a problem.”

Maddux checked the door to make certain O’Hara had closed it all the way. “What do you mean?” He could feel his chest tightening. He didn’t like the tone he was picking up in Sage’s voice.

“That excess ballast we tossed over the side a few days ago may not have gone to the bottom after all.”

Maddux froze. “What?”

“One of my friends may have helped the ballast.”

“Christ! Why?”

“The ballast had saved my friend’s life right before that.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No,” Sage said dejectedly, “I’m not.”

This could spell disaster in capital letters, Maddux realized. This could blow everything sky-high.

Because Troy Jensen had discovered that Maddux was planning to assassinate President Dorn. Because Troy had figured out that the Olympian was headed for Boston not to unload its cargo but to detonate it — and that Maddux was facilitating the ship’s entry into Boston Harbor. And because Troy had discovered that Maddux executed American citizens who’d dodged justice on a technicality or were suspected of committing treason but hadn’t been found guilty yet. Troy had dug up all of those skeletons and was about to go outside the chain of command to report what he’d found. Fortunately, they’d short-circuited Troy in Mexico.

Or maybe they hadn’t.

If Troy was still alive, he and Carlson had a huge problem on their hands. The man in Mexico who’d met with Troy after the bullfight had taken copious mental notes. Troy hadn’t been bluffing about what he knew.

“I’m having a conversation with the friend who might have helped the ballast when he gets back here later,” Captain Sage explained.

Maddux was so angry he could barely contain himself. “You listen to me, and you listen to me good,” he hissed. “As soon as you finish talking to him you call me and tell me what he said. Find out what you need to find out and use any methods you have to use to get answers. We must know what we’re facing. Everything depends on it. You understand me?”

“I understand.”

“I don’t want to have to cut you off,” Maddux warned tersely. “You wouldn’t like the consequences.”

“I’m sure,” Sage agreed in a low voice. “At least I called to tell you what was happening.”

As he should have, Maddux thought to himself. There wasn’t anything heroic in making this call. “One more thing,” Maddux said before Sage could disconnect.

“Yeah?”

“Any chance that ballast you threw over the side last year might have survived too?”

Captain Sage hesitated. “You mean—”

“Yeah, that’s exactly who I mean.”

No,” Sage answered confidently. “I don’t think so.”

“Did that ballast ever wash up anywhere? Did anyone ever find it?”

Sage hesitated again. “Not that I know of.”

Still, Maddux figured the chances that Charlie Banks had survived were minimal. They would have heard something by now. But you never knew. If this life had taught him anything it was that you could never count on something without absolute proof. Even then, you couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.

Maddux took a deep breath. Suddenly he wasn’t feeling very well. “Call me as soon as you know something,” he ordered.

“I will,” Sage promised.

“Out.”

Maddux gazed at John Savoy’s dead body as he ended the call. For some reason Savoy reminded him of the bully he’d killed when he was fourteen years old. He’d shot the kid with one of his father’s pistols. Then he’d buried the body in the woods. Murdering the kid hadn’t bothered him at all, not one bit.

In fact, he’d enjoyed watching the life ebb out of the kid as the son of a bitch had gasped for help from the ground with a bullet hole in his heart. He’d enjoyed watching the search for the kid’s never-to-be-found body from the front-row seats too.

The only killing Maddux had ever regretted had occurred the other night, a few miles from here. He’d managed to turn the tables on the man who’d surprised him coming out of the kitchen in the brick house and break the man’s neck, the man who was helping the Chinese. But not before his wife had come screaming down the stairs.

He’d been forced to kill her too, and he was sorry about that. But sometimes innocents had to die for the good of the whole. That had been one of those times.

As he gazed at Savoy’s body, Maddux realized that he might need to go to Alaska — which meant that Ryan O’Hara would have to kill David Dorn.

CHAPTER 27

“I’m really sorry,” Karen murmured.

“Are you always going to think the worst of me?” Jack asked, trying to sound offended even though he wasn’t at all. “Is that how it’s going to be?” He gave her his best hurt-puppy-dog expression. “I try to give you a compliment about how nice you are and that’s what I get?”

“I said I was sorry. OK?”

“OK, I guess.” A sly grin slowly replaced Jack’s sad expression. “Of course, the arrest would be even nicer if you were wearing a tight white blouse, a blue miniskirt, stiletto heels, and—”

“I knew it,” she snapped, recovering from her momentary shock at his answer. “Sex is all you guys think about,” she muttered with a disgusted groan.

“No, it’s not.” He’d spotted the flash of a grin tucked into the left corner of her mouth. She was trying to make him think she was angry, but she wasn’t really. She knew he was kidding. “We have one or two thoughts a day that don’t involve sex.”

“At least you can admit it.”

“I’m actually better than most guys. Some days I have three or four thoughts about other things.”

“Whatever.” She gave him a quick talk-to-the-hand wave along with a little neck jive. “Like I said, at least you can admit it.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist. I’m just kidding.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

He hesitated. “Do you want me to be?”

“Not telling. You’ll have to find out.”

She was cool. She could take it as well as she gave it. He liked that.

As they made it to the top of a steep hill, the Blue Ridge Mountains appeared in the distance. “So, why’d you decide to be a cop?” he asked as he admired the view.

“I grew up in a house full of men,” she answered as she gazed at the mountains too. “My mom died when I was little, and I’m the youngest of five. I have four older brothers.”

Jack whistled. “Wow, four older brothers. And I’m sorry about your mom. But what does that have to do with—”

“My dad’s a cop, and three of my older brothers went into law enforcement,” she explained. “I wanted my dad’s attention when I was growing up, but it was tough to get with all those boys running around doing crazy guy things he could relate to. Being a cop seemed like the best way to get that attention in the end. I mean, he didn’t care that in high school I was a cheerleader or captain of the dance team. But that wasn’t his fault,” she added quickly. “Mom died real suddenly, and Dad wasn’t ready to be a daughter’s father when she did. He didn’t know how to raise a girl or appreciate her. So I had to be the fifth son, I had to do something he didn’t expect. You should have seen him when I graduated from the academy,” she said, shaking her head nostalgically. “He couldn’t believe it. It’s the only time I ever saw him cry.”

“That’s nice,” Jack said, thinking about how much he’d always craved Bill’s attention as a kid. But it seemed like nothing he did ever topped Troy’s achievements. And it wasn’t Troy’s fault. It wasn’t like Troy was trying to excel. He was just that good at everything. “He must have been really proud of you.”

The image of Bill crying in his office yesterday drifted through Jack’s mind. That was the only time he’d ever seen Bill break down. At least Karen’s father had been crying tears of joy.

“He was proud,” she said quietly, “for a while, anyway.”

“What happened?”

“I resigned a year ago.”

Jack appreciated that Karen wasn’t dodging his questions. This had to be a sore subject for her, but she wasn’t shying away from it. It was another sign that she felt comfortable with him. “You mind telling me why?” he asked gently. He didn’t want to push too hard.

She inhaled and exhaled deliberately.

As if she had to gather herself to answer this.

“It was a really rough time for me,” she began. “I’d just gotten back from Alaska, from trying to find out about Charlie. I’ve never been so depressed in my life.” She shook her head. “That’s when it happened.”

“What?”

She took another deep breath. “So I’m on patrol with my partner in the prowler the second night back, and we get a call about a robbery in progress at a store in East Baltimore. It’s like four in the morning, and we’re the third car to respond. By the time we get there, three other officers are already interrogating this guy. One of the first two cops to get there was shot and killed, and the unsub got away.” Karen closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds. “The cop who was shot is facedown in a pool of blood in the alley behind the store, and the other three cops are going after this guy who they claim is the unsub’s accomplice. I mean they’re really going after him. They have him jacked up against a brick wall, and they’re beating the hell out of him with their nightsticks.” She shut her eyes again. “They’re beating him in the arms and legs, you know? Nothing deadly, but I know it’s still hurting like hell. I mean, he’s screaming bloody murder.”

Jack could tell by her expression that though it had been a year, the scene was still incredibly vivid for her.

“They start beating this guy in the chest and back when they can’t get what they want out of him. He’s begging them to stop, and they yell at him that all he has to do is tell them who the other guy is.”

Jack winced as he imagined the attack. It must have been horrible to watch.

“The guy finally gets down on the ground, but they don’t stop. In fact, it’s the worst thing he could do because now they start hitting him in the head.” Karen put a hand to her mouth. “I try to help him, I try to get to him, but my partner holds me back. I mean he literally holds my arms behind my back and won’t let me go. He’s a big guy and I can’t break away. I can’t do anything.” She swallowed hard. “Then the guy goes still,” she whispered. “One second he’s screaming and yelling and begging for mercy, and the next second he isn’t doing anything even as they keep beating him.”

“Was he dead?” Jack asked in a low voice.

“Yeah, they’d literally bashed his skull in. I could see his brain.”

“Jesus.” Jack could taste the bile in his throat. “What happened after that?”

“They dump his body in the harbor,” Karen answered. “Then they tell me and my partner if we ever say anything to anyone we’ll be in trouble. They say they’ll kill us, and they actually use the word kill. And let me tell you, we believed them,” she said, nodding with her eyes wide open. “They were crazy. They were all guys who’d been around for a while, and they didn’t operate by anyone’s rules, especially when one of their own was killed. It was nuts. My partner and I even talked about how those guys had crazy reputations inside the department as we were going to the scene. But we never thought it would be that bad.”

“Wow,” Jack said quietly when she was finished. “I guess I was wrong. I guess the cops on your force aren’t trained very well either.”

“No, no.” She spoke up firmly. “Most of the officers on the Baltimore force are good people. They’re fair and honest and they’re doing their best to protect law-abiding citizens. This was just a bad crew. My partner was a good guy, but he didn’t want to screw with these guys either.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t blame him.”

“So, you resigned?” Jack asked.

“Two hours later, and maybe I was wrong,” she admitted, looking off through the passenger side window. “Maybe I should have fought those guys.”

“Doesn’t sound like it, Karen. Sounds like you would have ended up in the Baltimore Harbor along with the other guy. Your partner too.”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Did you tell your dad why you quit?”

“No, I made up some crap about burning out even though it had only been a year. I could see how disappointed he was and how he thought I was a quitter. But I couldn’t tell him the real reason I ditched. He was old school all the way. Cops were never wrong as far as he was concerned, no matter what they did. And you never outed one of your own under any circumstances. It was an unwritten rule written in stone, and anyone who broke the rule had it coming. That was how he and his friends saw it, anyway. He told me that right before I graduated from the academy. He would have told me I was dead wrong if I’d snitched on those guys.”

“You wouldn’t have been wrong,” Jack said firmly. “Cops can’t be allowed to do things like that. It’s ridiculous. Today it’s a killer’s partner, but tomorrow it’s somebody who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it’s you or me. Citizens have to be protected, even if they end up being guilty. We have to let the system work. Everyone has rights for a reason. Even people who we think are guilty of terrible crimes have rights. I know some people think that’s bullshit, but it’s the only way.” He paused. “And there’s no excuse for torturing anyone, like those cops were doing to that guy. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept allowing torture for any reason.”

“I agree,” she said somberly. “You couldn’t be more right. And it sounds like you’ve said it before.”

So she’d picked up on that. “Why?”

“It sounded like a sermon. One you’ve been preaching for a while.”

“Well, I guess I—”

“Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate it.”

“Oh?” Something in her voice told him to press. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it turned out the guy those cops beat to death was innocent. He was a homeless guy, and it was exactly like you said. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had no idea who shot the cop. He was passed out when the gun went off.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Awful, right?”

“But how do you know? I thought you said everything got swept under the carpet.”

“A week after it happened, my partner was in the locker room after his shift and he overheard a couple of other cops talking about how this homeless guy they used to help out had disappeared. I guess they gave him food and stuff when they were on the beat because he was a nice guy and they felt sorry for him. And because he was helpful when it came to telling them what was happening on the streets. You know, he gave them inside stuff on who was dealing drugs, who was pimping girls, who was running the numbers. Stuff like that. Well, this guy had a big scar over his left eye in the shape of a hook.” Karen bit her lower lip as she glanced down into her lap. “The guy they beat to death had a scar in the shape of a hook over his left eye. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I’ll never forget looking at it as he begged them to stop beating him.” She let out a long breath. “My partner and I had lunch a few weeks after I quit, and he told me what he’d heard in the locker room. I tried to convince him that we should do something, but he was still completely against it. He was still worried about what could happen to us if we did.”

“And he was right,” Jack agreed quietly, although he couldn’t help feeling a tiny seed of doubt about what she hadn’t done. The weak needed the strong, and sometimes the strong had to be crazy brave if the weak were going to get a fair shake. “He was right,” Jack repeated, more firmly this time as he thought about it again. Maybe it wasn’t fair for him to judge Karen that way. It would have been a terrifying situation, and there was no way for him to really understand it without experiencing it himself. Maybe she wouldn’t be sitting here next to him in the car if she had tried to do something.

Karen looked over, and they stared at each other for several moments before his eyes finally flashed back to the road.

“Why did those guys show up out of nowhere last night and start shooting at us?” she asked. “They didn’t even try to arrest us first. I mean, I don’t know what they would have arrested us for, but my point is that they tried to kill us without even talking to us. Why?”

The same thing had been bothering Jack, but he didn’t want to get into it with her. “If you aren’t a cop anymore, Karen, why do you still carry a gun?”

“Don’t ignore me, Jack. Answer my question first.”

He’d been afraid of that. She didn’t seem like the type who’d let something slide. “I was going to ask you the same thing, Karen. Why did those guys show up out of nowhere?”

“Come on, Jack!”

“Why’s it my fault all of a sudden?” He glanced over and saw those dark eyes flashing angrily at him. “Maybe it was those cops coming after you. Maybe they heard you were talking to the higher-ups in the department.”

“No way. I haven’t gone anywhere near anyone in the Baltimore Police Department since I had that lunch with my ex-partner. That was almost a year ago.”

“Well, you told me you were being watched. Maybe it was those guys who showed up at your door asking questions.”

“No way. Look, you show up at the restaurant out of nowhere. You call me by my name even though I don’t have a name tag on and I haven’t told you what my name is. You chase me like a maniac—”

“I get it, Karen,” he acknowledged stiffly, “but that doesn’t mean I—”

“And right after you catch up to me,” she interrupted right back, “two guys jump out of a black Escalade and start shooting. Call me crazy, but I think there’s a direct connection between you running me down and those guys showing up with their guns on fire.”

As far as Jack knew, only three people in the world — Bill, Cheryl, and Karen — knew he was going to Alaska. What bothered him so much about Cheryl knowing was that she seemed so frightened of Bill finding out that she’d come to the apartment the other night to give him the cash. Jack had never seen her so scared.

And, apparently, Bill was involved with Red Cell Seven — as Troy and Charlie had been. Maybe for most people the way three men were standing in a few photographs wouldn’t be proof positive of their co-involvement in a covert government intelligence operation. But it was enough for Jack.

As he gazed across the Maryland landscape, he thought about that white van barreling down Broadway through a red light. The near miss had happened only minutes after he’d left Bill’s office, and Bill had been so completely against him going to Alaska. It seemed too coincidental.

And it still made no sense to him that Bill had accepted Troy’s death so passively. The old man had clearly been devastated by what had happened, but he hadn’t shown any interest at all in getting the details of Troy’s death or questioning the captain’s account of the accident. Some months the old man didn’t accept his residential electric bill at face value, for Christ’s sake.

Jack shook his head. He just hoped the answers to those questions were waiting for them in Alaska. Along with what had really happened to Troy.

“Talk to me, Jack,” Karen said. “Why do you think those guys showed up when they did? And why were they so hell-bent on killing us?”

It was a clear, crisp morning, and everything in front of them was bathed in bright sunshine. They were only a few miles from the mountains now, and as Jack stared at the peaks he knew he had to tell her everything. What lay ahead could end up being even more dangerous than what had already happened, so he had to treat her like a true partner. After all, he was the one who’d asked her to come with him.

“My father’s name is Bill Jensen,” he told her. “He runs one of the biggest banks in this country.”

“First Manhattan,” she said. “It’s huge. I know.”

Jack nodded, impressed. “How?”

“Troy told Charlie and Charlie told me. Troy and Charlie told each other a lot. More than they were supposed to, I guess. He told Charlie a lot about your family. Not just that you were his brother.”

“Oh.”

“They were really good friends.”

It was silly, but Jack was starting to feel a little jealous. “Troy never mentioned Charlie to me.”

“I’m sure Troy never mentioned Charlie or Red Cell Seven to anyone outside RCS.”

“Charlie mentioned it to you.”

“I was Charlie’s fiancée.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Charlie and I told each other everything, and I mean everything.” She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “He knew I’d never say a word to anyone. While he was alive,” she added softly.

Jack winced. Charlie’s death kept coming up. “Still, I think Troy would have—”

“Have you ever been engaged, Jack?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t understand.”

Jack glanced over at her and nodded slowly. “I guess.”

“It’s just different.”

He didn’t want to push this. He was tired of making her sad. “OK.” He could see she knew what he was thinking.

“According to Charlie,” Karen said after a few moments, “Falcons aren’t supposed to tell each other about their personal lives. But Troy told Charlie about your dad and how he ran First Manhattan. Troy never said as much because he seemed like a modest guy, but it was obvious to Charlie and me that your family’s really well off.” She paused and gave him a warning look. “I’m working class all the way, Jack, and I’m not trying to be rude, but I’ve never had much luck with rich people. I hate arrogance more than I hate anything else in life, and it seems to me like a lot of rich people are really arrogant.”

“Am I arrogant?” he asked directly.

He’d never asked out that blonde on the trading floor because he hadn’t wanted her finding out that he wasn’t really a Jensen and then dumping him for it. Not that he thought she was that kind of person, he just hadn’t wanted to take the chance. So he understood exactly where Karen was coming from.

Of course, now he knew he was a Jensen — halfway, at least. But he was still sensitive about that other half being an outsider.

“No,” she said quietly. “But I haven’t known you for very long.”

“I’m not like that.”

“We’ll see, I guess.”

“You just said Troy was a modest guy,” Jack pointed out.

“I said he seemed to be. I didn’t know him that well.”

“Look, I didn’t tell you about my father to impress you,” Jack said. “I told you about him to warn you.”

Her eyes raced to his. “Why?”

He could tell he’d gotten a hundred percent of her attention in that instant. “I think Bill’s involved with Red Cell Seven too.”

Her mouth fell slowly open. “Really?”

Jack nodded down at her purse. “Take a look at that picture of Charlie you showed me last night.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, will you?”

She pulled it from her purse and held it up. “So?”

“Look at the way Charlie’s holding his hands with his thumbs tucked into his belt.”

“So?”

“Count the number of fingers he has pointing at the ground.” He could hear her whispering to herself as she counted. “Seven, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, nodding at him excitedly as she turned to face him. “Seven. My God.”

He could see the recognition in her eyes. She understood exactly what he was saying, what seven fingers pointing at the ground meant. “I’ve seen pictures of Troy standing exactly the same way,” Jack explained. “Like the one my mother used for his memorial service.” He hesitated for a moment as he replayed the sound of himself saying “my mother.” He’d said it so many times over the years, but it meant so much more now. “He was standing in front of the Arctic Fire right before she sailed a few weeks ago, and in it he was standing just like Charlie’s standing in this one.”

“So you think that’s how you can tell someone’s a Falcon.” She glanced back down at Charlie’s image. “But why would they risk people finding out?”

“Secret groups always do things like that. I could show you plenty of examples in history of hush-hush groups giving clues to what’s really going on. The cold, hard truth is that almost no one in the world can really keep a secret.”

Karen nodded. “Isn’t that the damn truth?”

“Here’s the really interesting thing,” Jack continued. “While I was in my father’s office the other day down on Wall Street waiting for him, I was looking at a couple of pictures on his credenza. In one of them he was standing next to a guy and he had his thumbs hooked into his belt the same way with seven fingers pointing down.” He didn’t tell her that the guy beside Bill in the photo was the governor of New York because he didn’t want her jumping to any conclusions about the governor.

Karen’s eyes opened wide. “You think Bill Jensen is a Falcon?” A puzzled expression clouded her face. “But Falcons are all young and athletic because they go crazy places and do crazy things. At least, that’s what Charlie told me. And they try to be as anonymous as they can be.” She shook her head. “Your dad’s the chief executive of one of the biggest banks in this country. He’s not a rock star or a star athlete, but he’s still pretty well known. It would be hard for him to move around without being identified. Not to mention the fact that he’s got to be in his sixties, right?”

“When I told him I was going to Alaska, he freaked out, and he never freaks out. He told me to stay away from there in no uncertain terms. He basically told me he’d do anything to keep me away from there. I’ve never seen him react like that before in my life. It was weird.”

Karen’s eyes opened even wider. “You think your father sent those men to kill us last night?” she asked incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Karen didn’t understand the dynamic. She couldn’t; she’d never even met him. Bill was a fanatic when it came to the United States. He would literally do anything to protect it. Maybe even not pursue what had really happened to Troy because pursuing the truth about Troy might compromise some bigger picture he was unfailingly loyal to — as incredibly coldhearted as that sounded for a father.

And maybe Bill had always hated having someone living in his house who was someone else’s son. Maybe Cheryl’s out-of-wedlock kid had always been a terrible right-in-the-face reminder to Bill all these years that Cheryl had been intimate with another man. And having those guys shoot him last night would have been an excellent way to erase that awful reminder without Cheryl knowing who was behind the killing. It sounded so cold, but Bill could be a cold man.

“A week after he’d lost his younger son?” she asked.

“Yeah, I know how it sounds,” Jack said dismissively, trying to act like what he’d implied was probably stupid, even though he didn’t really think it was. He just didn’t want to dwell on it right now. “I’m just trying to come up with some kind of explanation for what happened. Hey, you asked.” He watched her slide the picture of Charlie back in her wallet. “So, why do you still carry a gun, Karen?”

“It’s my old revolver from the force. I never handed it in, and they never asked for it back.”

“But why do you still carry it on you? I mean, you’re a waitress.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Hey, that little bite of crab cake I got was awesome, and the place has a great reputation. But I’m sure you still get some complaints.” He chuckled. “Do you really need to pull a gun when customers bitch?”

“Very funny.”

“It certainly brings new meaning to the term ‘dealing with customer complaints.’”

“Whatever. Look, like I told you, awhile ago I got a visit from a couple of guys who wouldn’t tell me who they were or what they did. They asked me some really weird questions about Charlie.”

“Like what?”

She hesitated. “Like if he’d tried to contact me recently.”

“But he was…” Jack’s voice trailed off. There it was again — Charlie’s death.

“I told them he was dead, but they kept asking me. Finally, they left. A week later they showed up again at my door asking the same questions. But they were a lot more aggressive about it that time. After that, I started carrying my gun wherever I went.”

“So then maybe that’s why those guys showed up last—”

Karen sobbed out of nowhere, and it caught Jack by surprise. Tears were suddenly streaming down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?”

She tried to wipe the tears away, but they kept coming. “I was just thinking about Mick getting killed. He was just trying to help me.”

The bullet had smashed into the back of Mick’s head and out his eye. She’d been lucky not to have been hit by it herself, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about him last night at the hotel or so far this morning.

“It’s my fault he’s dead,” she whispered.

“It is not your fault,” Jack said quickly and firmly. “Not at all.”

“I feel so bad for him.”

She was sobbing hard, and he reached over and took her hand. It was still early in their relationship, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stand seeing a woman cry like that. Especially one he was starting to care about so much. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Thanks.”

He started to pull his hand away, but she squeezed his fingers tightly and wouldn’t let go.

CHAPTER 28

Carlson had answered Stein’s anxious telephone call at exactly seven o’clock this morning, as he was making sure to savor every delicious bite of the breakfast Nancy had made for him.

To reach him so directly, Carlson knew, Stein had used a cell number that had been subtly slipped to him at his first national security briefing — the one that had occurred in Langley, Virginia, a few weeks after Dorn’s landslide victory.

On the call this morning, Stein had mentioned only that he wanted to place a bet on a horse named Big Blue. In response to the strange request, Carlson had given Stein odds of Big Blue winning, placing, and showing in the seventh race at Belmont Park that afternoon. Except they were the wrong odds, they weren’t even close. A horse named Big Blue was actually running in that race, but the numbers Carlson had reeled off had a vastly different purpose than handicapping a horse race.

Immediately after giving Stein the numbers, Carlson had hung up. There was no need to say anything more, and Carlson wanted to finish his breakfast while it was warm. He hated cold food because he’d been forced to eat it that way so many times during his career thanks to inopportune phone calls like Stein’s and being stuck in remote places where hot food wasn’t even available.

While finishing the last few bites of the three-egg bacon and cheddar omelet, Carlson thought about how Stein was probably already staring intently at a laminated sheet of paper he’d also received at that same security briefing in Langley. By matching the numbers Carlson had given him on the call to specific columns and rows on the sheet of paper, Stein would be able to determine the location and time of the meeting. Carlson just prayed that Stein took his time with the calculations. He put his dishes in the sink for Nancy to wash. He didn’t want to wait around. His time was too valuable — especially now that he’d seen the doctor again.

Fortunately, Stein had calculated everything correctly and arrived in Reston seven minutes ago, which was seven minutes early. Carlson was favorably impressed — so far. The only thing marring their first-ever face-to-face meeting was that Stein worked for David Dorn. Unfortunately, nothing could make up for that.

“Thanks for seeing me so quickly, Roger,” Stein began politely after they’d shaken hands and were sitting down facing each other.

To Carlson’s almost immeasurable satisfaction, Stein was acting low-key and deferential this afternoon, almost apologetic in his tone and manner.

“No problem, Rex,” Carlson answered. They were meeting in the same room in which he’d given Maddux permission to kill that child molester. Stein had entered a house down the street and then followed one of Carlson’s associates through a maze of underground passages to this house. “What’s on your mind?” Carlson was confident he knew what was on Stein’s mind. It was how the chief of staff presented his agenda that would be the interesting part of this meeting. “How can I help you?”

Stein adjusted his bow tie before answering. “First of all, Roger, let me tell you how impressed I am and, as a citizen of this country, how much I appreciate all you’ve done during your career to protect the United States. I’d heard rumors about it for a long time, of course. But I really had no idea what the amazing scope of your contribution to national security was until that first CIA meeting at Langley after the election.”

It sounded so scripted, but that was all right with Carlson. Stein was starting off by kissing the ring — slurping on it, really — which meant that his assumption about Stein’s agenda was exactly right. “So how can I help you?” Carlson asked a second time after nodding politely.

Stein grinned painfully, as if he wished he didn’t have to answer the question. “My boss, the president of the United States, was,” he hesitated for a moment as he searched for the most appropriate word, “shall we say, well, emboldened by his margin of victory in the national election a year ago.”

The formality of Stein’s delivery told Carlson that even though Stein was a consummate Washington insider, he’d never dealt with the guys in the longest, darkest shadows of the intelligence world. That gave Carlson a huge advantage in this meeting.

“Unfortunately,” Stein continued, “and I say this delicately and with all due respect, President Dorn still feels the same way. Emboldened, I mean. He basically believed that his landslide victory gave him a mandate to do pretty much whatever he wanted. And he still does, Roger,” Stein added after a short pause. “I’ve tried to steer him away from situations where he might have gotten ahead of himself and acted more like a bull in a china shop than a polished politician. I think I’ve been successful for the most part in doing that, and I think the Democratic Party appreciates that I have.” Stein took a deep, obviously frustrated breath. “The problem comes when—” Stein interrupted himself. “Problem isn’t a good word in this instance. What I really should have said was that—”

“For Christ’s sake, Rex, leave the fucking bullshit back at the barn.” Carlson could tell he’d shocked Stein with his outburst and instantly put him off his game. The guy looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Maybe he was supposed to be a ballbuster in the West Wing, but he was out of his element here. He wasn’t just groping for words. He was groping for his way. “Say what you have to say. I don’t have the time or the inclination to listen to all this crap. Be blunt, man.”

Stein’s expression turned into one of steely resolve. “Daniel Beckham met with you without my approval. I didn’t see the asset list he presented you with before he presented it to you. A man in your position might get the wrong impression after seeing that list. The second I saw it, well, that was my reaction.” Stein rolled his eyes. “I should say, when I finally saw it.”

Carlson masked his grave disappointment. Without realizing it, Stein had just confirmed everything. President Dorn definitely intended to destroy Red Cell Seven. The simple fact that Beckham had been allowed to leave the White House without first showing that list to the president’s chief of staff confirmed everything Shane Maddux and his Falcons had heard.

The president had no chance now. Carlson might have been able to stop the attack before…but not now. The assassination was a full-ahead go, and the president was a dead man. Now it was just a question of when and where the shooting would occur.

“Spin that all the way out for me, Rex,” Carlson said calmly. “What are you saying?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying, Roger. I’m saying that President Dorn shouldn’t have let Beckham show you that list. It was a goddamned huge mistake.” Stein put his hands up and out as a clear indication of diplomacy and contrition. “And the president understands that. I promise you he does.”

Bullshit, Carlson thought to himself. Bull fucking shit. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Rex, because, to be honest, I was concerned when I saw that list. Very concerned.”

“You don’t need to be anymore, Roger,” Stein said quickly. He shook his head hard. “Sometimes the president acts too quickly. As I said before, for the most part I’ve been able to corral that impulse before it was too late.” He exhaled heavily. “But not in this case.” Stein glanced over at Carlson. “I’m sorry about all of that. But I’m glad we’ve been able to clear it all up before things got out of hand. Maybe the good in the bad is that you and I finally met face-to-face after hearing about each other for so many years.”

Carlson didn’t like Stein alluding to clearing things up before things got out of hand. It could mean that Stein understood exactly how dire the situation was for his boss. And if he could convince the president how dire the situation was, he might even be able to convince Dorn and the Secret Service to be more careful than usual for a while. So careful that Maddux might not be able to get his people in position for the all-important kill shot, which needed to happen sooner rather than later.

“Unfortunately,” Stein kept going, “President Dorn still doesn’t appreciate all that you do and how valuable you are. He says he does, but he doesn’t. However, I guarantee you he will.” He chuckled like what he was about to say was going to sound absolutely ludicrous. “He’s got some pretty crazy notions about what you people do on the side, Roger. I mean, he must be reading some version of the left-wing handbook I’ve never read. It must be the Vermont version. They’re pretty fanatical up there.”

“What kind of crazy notions are you talking about, Rex?”

“He thinks you’re running around the country carrying out vigilante justice. He thinks you’re killing criminals who got off on technicalities. He thinks you’re torturing American citizens to get information about the activities of others. He basically thinks you’ve become Big Brother or something. It’s all a massive misunderstanding, Roger. I’m taking care of it, I promise.”

Carlson laughed sincerely even though he wasn’t being sincere at all. He’d learned a long time ago how important it was to do that. “We protect American citizens.”

“Of course you do. And he knows that,” Stein assured Carlson. “He just needs a little more time and some more of my coaching.”

“Maybe you can do me a favor, Rex. I’d certainly appreciate it if you would.”

Stein’s eyes ran straight to Carlson’s. “Of course. What do you need? Name it.”

This had been bothering Carlson ever since the president had mentioned it at the end of their last meeting. “Your boss asked me about an individual when he and I last met at the White House. He said there had been an inquiry about him. The individual’s name was Troy Jensen. Can you find out where that inquiry came from and let me know? I sure would appreciate it.”

Stein nodded. “I’ll get you a name as soon as I can, Roger.”

The leader gazed out from the bridge over the five huge refrigerated holds of the massive LNG tanker Pegasus. Inside those five holds with the domed tops were two hundred thousand cubic meters of liquefied natural gas. The fireball this ship could instantaneously release would dwarf the explosive power of the Olympian, which had somehow failed to destroy Boston. They were still trying to figure out exactly what had happened there. No one at home had yet been able to contact the leader of that ship — or any of the other men who’d been on it.

He picked up his binoculars and scanned the afternoon sky. They were heading toward the Virginia Beach-Norfolk area of Virginia, not, as they were supposed to be, toward the Elba Island regasification facility that was just downriver from Savannah, Georgia. The clandestine change of direction was on the orders of the same man who’d secured the Olympian her documentation to sail into Boston Harbor. A man who seemed bent on assisting their group’s goal of destroying an American city with a huge fireball from an LNG tanker.

The beauty of this attack plan was that the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area had a population of almost two million people, the ship wouldn’t be subject to any inspections, and he wouldn’t need to present any documentation in order to reach a point near enough to shore to cause incredible damage to that population and its property. It wouldn’t be quite as devastating to the United States as the obliteration of Boston, but the destruction it caused would still be made with an exclamation point. Especially because one of America’s largest naval bases was in Norfolk.

The trouble with this attack plan was that US officials monitored the movement of all LNG tankers that had their bows aimed at American shores. There was a regasification facility farther up the Chesapeake Bay beyond Virginia Beach and Norfolk called Dominion Point Cove, so those officials wouldn’t be surprised by an LNG tanker heading in that direction. Many did. The problem would come when they tried to figure out why the Pegasus was heading for Norfolk when it was supposed to be heading for Savannah.

United States military planes ran reconnaissance missions to monitor the progress of LNG ships headed for her shores. And, the leader realized ruefully, those planes would probably be on high alert after the US had intercepted the Olympian, which it somehow must have done. So if those planes sighted the Pegasus headed in the wrong direction, she would be boarded or blown up before she could get close enough to annihilate the Virginia Beach-Norfolk metro area.

But the man in the United States who they’d been working with claimed he had that covered. He claimed he was giving naval operations in Norfolk wrong information so the Pegasus could get close enough to complete her mission. So those planes wouldn’t be looking for an LNG tanker heading for the mid-Atlantic and wouldn’t have her coordinates. So they could literally drive the ship’s bow right up onto the sandy beach, blow her up, and incinerate half a million people.

Maybe more.

CHAPTER 29

“Thanks for buying me this coat back in Baltimore.” Karen pulled the heavy down jacket tightly around her slim body. “It’s freezing out here.”

“Yeah, it said eleven degrees in the car back at the gas station.”

“And it’s only December. How do people stand it here?”

Jack glanced over at Karen through his crystallizing exhalation. Her black hair was cascading down onto her shoulders in shimmering waves, she’d done her makeup just right, and she was wearing a cool pair of wraparound sunglasses. She looked more like a movie star who should have been walking down the streets of Vail, Colorado, with an entourage than an ex-cop stuck in the frozen northland with a crazy bond trader. But she wasn’t complaining.

Despite being thrown together so intimately so quickly and coming from such different backgrounds, he and Karen were getting along great. They’d driven over a thousand miles since yesterday morning, but the time had gone quickly for both of them. She’d told him that very directly as they’d crossed into Illinois last night. And he’d agreed immediately. They’d laughed and joked, and in no time, it seemed, they were driving past downtown Minneapolis at midnight.

It had taken them another couple of hours to get up here to Bemidji, where they checked into a quiet, picturesque motel on the outskirts of town just after two a.m. Once again, Jack persuaded the man behind the desk not to take a credit card imprint. Once again, he and Karen stayed in the same room because she wanted to save him money. Once again, there were two beds in the room.

“Welcome to northern Minnesota,” Jack said as he glanced around. “If you don’t like cold and snow, you probably shouldn’t stay long. And you definitely shouldn’t live here.”

The early morning sun was streaming down onto the snow-covered Upper Midwest through a cloudless blue sky. Despite the sunshine, it was brutally cold. Cold but eerily beautiful, and a place Troy probably would have loved, Jack figured.

“The guy behind the front desk at the motel was telling me that some years they grill out on Memorial Day in their coats and ski hats. On Labor Day too,” he added.

“But I bet he said the summers are really nice.”

Jack looked over at her in surprise. “He did say that, exactly that.”

“All two weeks of them,” she said grimly as she shivered.

She was exaggerating, he knew, but she probably wasn’t that far off. “And I bet with all the lakes and ponds around here, the mosquitoes are terrible.”

“The mosquito’s the state bird, Jack. Didn’t you know that?”

He chuckled softly. She was quick with those funny comments, and she had more jokes ready to go than most Wall Street traders — which was impressive. She was smart too — really smart, he was coming to find. They’d had a few intense discussions about certain highly charged areas of the world, and she’d actually changed his mind on a few things, which was also impressive. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had changed his mind about an important world issue.

“You sure you know where this box is?” he asked, nodding toward the Bankses’ cabin.

The cabin was built in a small clearing not far from the shore of a large lake. The pine tree cover around the lake was dense, and anyone in the cabin would have had a difficult time seeing them even though they weren’t far away. There were no cars in the small circular driveway in front of the cabin, and Jack didn’t see any footprints in the three inches of snow covering the yard around the house. It didn’t look like they were going to run into anyone when they went inside, but he was still worried.

“Troy’s letter was very specific,” she answered. “It’s in the closet of the downstairs bedroom.”

They’d left the rental car at a gas station out on the main road, then hiked to here along the quarter-mile driveway. They’d stayed inside the tree line the entire time to keep out of sight. It had taken a lot longer to get here than if they’d driven, but there was no way for a vehicle to get in or out other than the driveway. Jack didn’t want to get trapped back here in case someone followed them in, and he wanted to approach the cabin as quietly as possible — in case it was being watched, or someone was inside.

“When did you get that letter from Troy?” he asked.

“Like a month ago, I think.”

“Why would he put the box here?”

“He and Charlie hung out here. They had a pretty intense life, and this was a great place for them to get away to.” She pointed through the trees at the glittering surface of the lake, which still hadn’t frozen because it was too early in the season. “Charlie told me they fished a lot.”

Jack didn’t agree with everything Troy had been involved with, but he could still respect and appreciate most of what his brother had done to protect the nation. And he could certainly understand the need to get away from that intense life every once in a while. This would have been a great place to do it — despite the cold and the mosquitoes.

“He probably figured nobody from Red Cell Seven would ever think of looking here for anything now,” she said. “Charlie’s been gone a year. Why would anybody from RCS come here? I think it was a great place for Troy to hide something.”

Jack glanced over at her. They hadn’t talked about Charlie in a while, and he was glad to see no tears came to her eyes at another mention of his death. “All right, let’s go. But keep your eyes peeled.”

He had a bad feeling about this.

Speed Trap glanced up from his bowl of fish soup when he heard a pair of heavy footsteps trudging down the hallway outside the galley. They’d left Dutch Harbor two hours ago for a cod run on the Bering Sea to get bait for the opilio crab season, which was about to start. The engine hum coming from below was loud as the Arctic Fire churned up and down through seven-foot waves. He hadn’t heard the footsteps coming toward him until they were close.

He knew something was wrong when he saw Sage’s expression. “What’s up?” he asked as his uncle sat down across the table. Grant had stayed behind in the doorway — which was the only way out. “What’s the matter?”

“What happened the night we threw Troy Jensen overboard?” Sage asked directly.

“What do you mean?” Speed Trap asked innocently.

Sage clenched and unclenched his jaw several times. “You know what I mean,” he finally said, doing his best to keep his anger in check. “Did you throw a raft off the back of the ship to that guy?”

“No.”

“He saved your life,” Grant called out from the doorway. “You felt like you owed him. That’s what you told me.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Did you throw him a raft?” Sage demanded again. “Tell me the goddamned truth. It was dark. I wouldn’t have seen it.” He hesitated. “Did you?”

“No,” Speed Trap shot back defiantly. He couldn’t tell them the truth. If he did, they’d really take it out on him. If he kept denying it, they couldn’t throw him overboard. Not with a clear conscience, anyway. “I didn’t.”

As Sage rose from the chair across the crumb-strewn table, he pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and pointed it at Speed Trap. “Get up,” he ordered. “We’re going out on deck.”

“What the—”

“Grant,” Sage called over his shoulder, “get your brother moving.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jack watched as Karen removed a stack of neatly folded towels from the bottom shelf of the cedar closet and placed them on the floor. Then she reached for the back of the shelf and picked up a black box the size of a thick hardcover book.

“Bingo,” she whispered excitedly. “This must be it.”

As Jack took a step toward her there was a loud banging on the front door. He froze as it quickly grew louder.

“Open up!” someone yelled. “Open up now!”

Jack hustled to the bedroom window and pulled the curtain back slightly. He couldn’t see the front door from here, but he could see a police cruiser parked in the driveway. “We’ve gotta get out of here, Karen.” They couldn’t afford the time it would undoubtedly take to straighten this situation out with the cop. “Let’s go!”

Carlson checked the number on his personal cell phone. It was Rex Stein calling. This wasn’t the phone Stein was supposed to use in case of emergencies.

“Hello.”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“I know who it is. What’s going on?”

“I have that information you wanted.”

Carlson nodded. Good for Stein. He’d followed up quickly on the request. “OK.”

“Is it all right if I use names on this phone?”

Carlson nodded again. Good for Stein for asking that. He was showing respect for the man, Red Cell Seven, and the situation. Too bad it wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference as far as David Dorn’s life went. He and Maddux were meeting later today to make final preparations for the assassination.

“It’s all right to use names,” Carlson said.

“OK, well, the person who called the president to ask about Troy Jensen was Troy’s father, Bill.”

Carlson was glad he hadn’t been with Stein when he’d gotten this answer. He would have given away his surprise and disappointment with the shocked expression that had flashed across his face. The way he had with the same troubled expression the other day in the Oval Office.

“Are you sure?” Carlson asked calmly.

“Absolutely. One of the operators checked the incoming calls for me, and we traced the number to Bill Jensen. The call came in right before you and he met the other day.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“And one of my direct reports confirmed that it was Bill Jensen who asked about Troy. President Dorn mentioned it to him.”

Carlson wanted to ask another question, but Stein would quickly pick up on the obvious and might try to turn this situation to his advantage. That was politics and that was Washington, and while Stein was way out of his league in the intel world, he was a master at making hay in the marbled halls of downtown Washington.

“Did Mr. Jensen speak to the president?” Even in the silence coming from the other end of the phone, Carlson could hear Stein sensing an opportunity. “Do you know?”

“Yes, he did.”

Carlson hated being in such a weak position. Thank God he rarely was. “Did you ask President Dorn about the specifics of their conversation?”

“I haven’t had a chance to. I’ll do that as soon as I can.”

Bullshit. They’d probably spoken at length about the call. “That’s all right,” Carlson said quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Troy is one of yours?” Stein wanted to know. “Is that right?”

“I hope you were being sincere during our visit yesterday,” Carlson said, ignoring the question with another question and a stern warning tone.

“Uh, yes, I was. Of course I was.”

“Good.” That quickly he’d turned the tables back on Stein. “I’d hate to think otherwise.” He paused for a moment. “Goodbye, Rex.”

Carlson stared into space as he closed the cell phone and ended the call. He knew that Bill Jensen and President Dorn spoke at least once a month about the economy because, after all, Bill ran the biggest bank in the country and he was a great resource for the president to have on that subject. But Bill always alerted his old friend and RCS partner Roger Carlson that he was calling Dorn. He hadn’t this time, though. This time Bill had violated their pact.

Carlson’s eyes narrowed. Could Bill Jensen be putting his family in front of the country?

Jack slipped halfway through the back doorway — just as the officer moved around the corner of the cabin to the right.

“Go back,” Jack whispered over his shoulder to Karen. He was pretty sure the guy hadn’t seen him. “Now.”

They retreated into the house, closed the door — the top half of which was a nine-pane window — and flattened themselves against either side of the kitchen wall beside the door.

“Open up in there,” the officer called as he moved to the door. “I see your footprints in the snow coming across the yard. And I don’t see any footprints coming back out. I know you’re in there. Open up now. Give yourself up. My weapon is out and ready to fire.”

Jack closed his eyes tightly. This was the last damn thing they needed right now.

“Jeeeeesus!” Speed Trap screamed as the Arctic Fire burst through the crest of a big wave. Salty spray went flying as the ship plunged toward the next trough. “Don’t do this to me, Grant. Pleeeease!”

Grant was holding Speed Trap upside down by the ankles over the port side of the ship near where Troy had pulled him back aboard by that sliver of a yellow harness. The ship was plowing through the rough seas, and Speed Trap was absolutely terrified — almost as terrified as he’d been that day Troy had pulled him back aboard.

“Tell me the truth, Speed Trap,” Captain Sage shouted down at him. “Tell me the goddamned truth!”

“Let him in,” Karen whispered.

“Are you crazy?”

“Let him in,” she repeated. “We’ll talk to him.”

“No way,” Jack whispered back, his anger at her boiling over quickly. He was shocked that she’d do this, and suddenly the suspicious side of his brain was getting the better of him. “I’m not getting arrested. We don’t have time for that. And you know that’s what’s going to happen if we—”

“Open up!” the cop yelled from outside.

“Do it,” she ordered quietly. “Open the door or I will.”

“Karen, you’re going to ruin our chances of—”

“Do it!” she hissed. “Now.”

Jack stared into her burning eyes. She wasn’t backing down. That was clear. “All right, officer,” he called loudly. “I’m opening it now.” He stepped slowly in front of the door and pulled it back.

“Move into the kitchen slowly,” the officer ordered as he aimed his revolver at Jack’s chest. “Move it,” he demanded, moving forward as Jack backpedaled. “Go on. But take your time.”

As the officer moved past the door and into the kitchen, Karen darted out from the wall and slammed him on the back of the head with the revolver she’d whipped out of the back of her jeans. The officer tumbled limply to the tile floor as his gun crashed into the bottom of the stove.

“Jesus Christ!” Jack shouted, his suspicions gone that quickly. Now he was nothing but impressed. “What the hell?”

“Hey, we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do.” She knelt down beside the officer to see if he was OK. “I hit him just right. No blood, just a lump. He’s gonna wake up with a big headache, but other than that he’ll be fine.” She looked up at Jack. “He’s gonna wake up tied to that chair too,” she said, motioning at one of the big wooden chairs around the kitchen table.

Jack shook his head and grinned as he stared down at her. “I…I can’t believe you just—”

“Go find some rope,” she interrupted. “There’s probably some in the garage. Hurry up!”

Maddux answered his cell phone before the second ring. “What?”

“It’s me.”

It was Captain Sage. “What do you have?”

“Well, we went at the friend of mine pretty hard, and he denied helping out the ballast.”

“Are you sure he’s telling the truth?” Something told Maddux that he needed to get to Alaska immediately. Captain Sage was a tough, tough man, but he might not have really put the screws to his nephew during an interrogation. “Absolutely sure?” He could already hear Sage struggling with his answer even though he hadn’t said anything. Maddux’s gut was telling him that Speed Trap had definitely floated Troy Jensen a raft from the back of the Arctic Fire that night on the Bering Sea. “I’m coming out there,” Maddux said decisively, not even giving Sage a chance to answer. “If you’re not in port now, get your ass back there within forty-eight hours.”

“I owe you an apology,” Jack said. They’d been driving in silence as they headed south from Bemidji. They were only a few miles from making it back to Interstate 94 and continuing their journey westward. He was hoping to reach Montana by late tonight. His target was Missoula.

“You thought I was going to ruin everything by trying to talk it out with that cop, didn’t you?” Karen asked as a grin tugged on the corners of her mouth. “You thought I was going to tell him how I used to be a cop and all, right? You thought I was going to try and negotiate our way out of it.”

“Maybe,” Jack admitted as he eased off on the accelerator. He was doing ten miles over the posted limit. The last thing they needed right now was to get pulled over. “I sure as hell didn’t think you were gonna nail him in the back of the head with your pistol.”

She laughed. “Well, I guess you better watch out, huh? Maybe you better keep your eye on me.” She opened her eyes wide and waved her fingers at him like she was putting a curse on him. “Woooo. Maybe I’m crazy.”

He broke into a wide smile of his own as he watched her put her head back in the passenger seat and laugh even louder. He could feel himself falling for her. She loved life like no one he’d ever met. She wasn’t scared of anything. And that laugh of hers was so contagious.

“I just hope that cop’s all right,” Karen said as her laughter faded. “I felt bad about that. The guy was just doing his job.”

“He’s fine. He was coming to as we left.” Jack checked the rearview mirror. “I just hope he doesn’t get out of there too fast, or we could be in real trouble.”

Karen reached for the black box they’d taken from the cabin closet. It was on the floor by her feet. “How could we get in trouble?” she asked as she put it on her lap. “That cop has no idea what kind of car we’re driving, and we’ll be out of Minnesota and into North Dakota pretty soon. Then we’re really fine.”

“I guess,” Jack agreed. “Hey, that was a pretty cool thing you did with the footprints.”

As they’d moved across the yard toward the back door, Karen had followed in Jack’s footsteps in the snow so it looked as if only one person had entered the house. He’d thought it was overkill at the time, and he’d needled her about it. But it had turned out to be a stroke of genius.

“That cop thought I was the only one in the house when I opened the door. If he’d seen two sets of prints coming across the lawn, he probably wouldn’t have come inside and you wouldn’t have had a chance to knock him out.”

“Hey, I learned a few things on the force.”

“A lot of things, actually.”

She smiled appreciatively and then shook her head slowly. “You and Troy are so different, Jack.”

He shifted in the driver’s seat. He didn’t like the sound of that. When a woman said something like that it usually didn’t end on a good note. It usually ended up with him finding out that the woman wanted Troy — not him. “What do you mean?”

“You see things he didn’t. Or maybe he saw them, but he wasn’t willing to say anything.” She hesitated, and then she shook her head again. “Nah, that’s not it. He just didn’t see them. His mind was on other things. I only met Troy a few times, but from what I picked up face-to-face and from what Charlie told me, he was only really into two things: being a daredevil and the Latin girls.”

“There was more to him than that. A lot more.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

Jack smiled sadly. “I do.”

“Troy saw the things he needed to see, things that would save his life while he was into his extreme situations.” She nodded at Jack. “But you see a lot more than that. And you’re willing to talk about what you see. That’s the difference with you.” She paused. “I love it.”

Those last few words had sounded so good to him. “I’m older.”

“Two years doesn’t make any difference in terms of that. Not at the ages you guys are now, anyway.” She looked down. “Sorry,” she said softly. “The age he was.”

Jack took a deep breath. It was time to tell her. “We were only half brothers, Karen.”

Her eyes shot to his. “Really?”

Jack quickly told Karen the story of Cheryl leaving and being eight months pregnant with the child of another man when Bill asked her to come home. “I guess that’s why we’re so different.”

“Wow.”

“For a long time I thought I was adopted.”

She stared at him for a few seconds. “You mean they didn’t tell you what the real deal was?”

“No. Some psychiatrist told Bill and Cheryl to tell everyone I was adopted. I guess he figured it would be easier that way. Less explaining for Bill and all that.” It seemed like it had always been what was best for Bill. “Times were different thirty years ago.”

“Not that different.”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Troy never mentioned that you were adopted. All he ever told Charlie was that you were his brother.” She hesitated. “He said you were the best brother a guy could have.”

God, he missed Troy. “I only found out a few days ago that Troy and I were half brothers.”

“What? No way.”

“Yup.”

“How?”

“Bill told me in his office on Wall Street.” Jack sped up as the turned onto the I-94 ramp. “It was after I told him I was going to Alaska to find out if we’d really gotten the truth about what happened to Troy.”

“He waited all this time to tell you that you weren’t adopted?” Karen asked in a hushed voice.

“Amazing, huh?”

“Disgraceful.” She shrugged when Jack didn’t say anything. “Well, it makes more sense now.”

His heart sank as soon as she said that. He knew he shouldn’t ask…but he had to. “What does? What makes sense?”

“You guys look so different.”

Jack turned away so she wouldn’t see his irritated expression. Women just couldn’t resist Troy. It was so damn frustrating.

CHAPTER 30

Bill glanced across the kitchen table at Cheryl. For the last hour he’d been trying to find the right moment to talk to her. But he’d put it off every time he got the chance because he knew what was going to happen. Having “free and clear” money, as Cheryl had always called it, was a major hot button for her.

He couldn’t stall any longer. Personal relationships had to run a distant second to the country’s needs. The United States always had to come first. Lately he had to keep reminding himself of that. He never had before.

“Cheryl?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Why did you take ten thousand dollars out of your Citibank money market account a few days ago?”

Her gaze rose deliberately from the magazine she was reading. “What?”

He could see her eyes already burning. This was going to get nasty if he wasn’t careful. Normally she avoided conflict like the plague, but not when it came to this. Having her own account gave her independence. At least, she thought it did.

“What did you do with the money, Cheryl?”

“How do you know I took money out of that account, Bill?”

“Because I—”

“That’s supposed to be my account,” she snapped as she slapped the magazine shut and slammed it down on the wooden tabletop. “Only my account.”

He just prayed she hadn’t given that cash to Jack. If she had, she’d probably signed his death warrant. There were people waiting for him out there who were extraordinarily talented killers, and Jack would be helpless against them. Almost anyone would.

“That’s supposed to be my money to do whatever I want with,” she reminded him icily. “You always said that once it went into that account you’d never ask me what I did with it.”

“I never have.”

“You just did.”

“Things change,” Bill answered solemnly. “There are exceptions to every rule.” In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never seen her get this angry this fast. “You know that, Cheryl.” He shuddered as he thought of what those killers would do to Jack. “I need to know what you did with that money.”

“I can’t believe you!” she shouted. “I can’t believe you’re doing this!”

“Quiet!” Bill hissed.

Rita Hayes, his executive assistant, was just down the hall. She’d taken a Metro North train out from the city yesterday afternoon to have dinner with them, and she’d stayed the night. This morning she and Cheryl had ridden horses while he’d worked in his first-floor office of the mansion. Now she was watching TV in the living room.

“I don’t want Rita hearing us,” he muttered under his breath, motioning toward the kitchen doorway. “Please.”

“Do you have someone watching my account?” Cheryl demanded. “Are you so powerful you can have someone at another bank tell you when I make a withdrawal even though your name isn’t on the account?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“My God,” she whispered. “You’ve been watching me all these years.”

“Come on, Cheryl. You know what I do.” He’d been watching that account all these years because he never completely trusted anyone — which was an awful curse. Until now she’d never done anything suspicious with all that money he gave her every month. “I run First Manhattan, for Christ’s sake. It’s the biggest bank in the country.”

“I never thought you’d use your power against me.”

It was time to drop another bombshell. The shock value might be just what he needed to get the answer he sought. “Do you know that Troy just had a son with a young woman who lives in Brooklyn?” He saw that the newsflash had taken Cheryl completely by surprise. “Her name is Lisa Martinez.” She’d gotten no early warning about it from Troy. “The boy’s only a couple of months old. His name is Jack.”

Cheryl’s expression turned from shock to confusion. “What? I thought you said—”

“Jack’s been taking care of Lisa for Troy,” Bill explained. “And since the baby was born he’s been taking care of both of them. So she named the baby after Jack.”

He watched emotion overwhelm his wife — for her lost son and her unseen grandchild. Then he felt heat come to his own eyes. He loved Cheryl so much. He didn’t tell her that enough. In fact, he rarely did. He’d always regretted sending her away when they were young, when he’d been a foolish young man. And he’d always regretted not treating Jack like his own son when Cheryl had come back pregnant with him.

“So…we’re grandparents,” Cheryl murmured.

To a boy whose mother’s last name was Martinez, Bill thought to himself in amazement. Never in his life would he have predicted that. But Lisa was a lovely young woman, and he was going to take excellent care of her — and Little Jack — now that Troy was gone. He was actually thinking of moving them here to the mansion.

“Yes, we are grandparents.”

“I don’t understand, Bill. Why wouldn’t Troy have told us that he’d—”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about Troy.” He’d explain all of that to her at some point, but there wasn’t time for a discussion of that magnitude right now. “Right now we need to focus on the ten thousand dollars you took out of Citibank.”

“Tell me what really happened to Troy,” she whispered as the emotion building in her heart worked its way into her voice. “I know you know.”

“Did you give that money to Jack?” he said, his voice steely. “Tell me, Cheryl.”

She stared back at him for several moments. “What happened to Troy?”

“Did you give that money to Jack?” Bill roared suddenly, rising from his chair and coming around the table to where she was sitting. He’d had enough of this. If Rita heard, so be it. “Damn it, Cheryl, you’ve got to tell me!”

“Why should I tell you?” she shouted back, rising quickly too. “And why do you care if I gave money to Jack? Do you hate him that much?”

He didn’t hate Jack. Down deep, he loved the boy. He’d just never been able to get over his bitterness at the fact that Jack was another man’s child. It wasn’t Jack’s fault, but he’d never been able to climb that tall mountain of terrible regret. He hated to admit it, but every time he looked at Jack, he saw that other man. And Jack had paid the price.

God, he wished he could do things over.

“Have you spoken to Jack since that day you took the money out?” he asked, trying to push those regrets out of his mind for the moment. But he still couldn’t. “You’ve got to tell me if you have.” The only thing he could do now was try to help Jack. “You must tell me where he is.”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

Bill couldn’t believe how hard she was fighting him. The few times they’d ever argued, she’d always crumbled when he’d started to yell. He’d never touched her in anger before, but he had to know what was going on. He grabbed her by both shoulders. “I’ve got to know right now—”

“What in God’s name is going on?”

Bill’s gaze shot to the hall doorway. Rita was standing there staring at him. He took his hands off Cheryl immediately, spread his arms, and tried to smile sincerely. “Rita, I was just—”

“Don’t touch her again,” Rita ordered sternly, stalking through the kitchen to Cheryl’s side and taking her trembling hand. “I mean it, Bill. I’ll call the police if you do. I don’t care who you are, I’ll call the cops.”

“I’m fine,” Cheryl whispered as she sobbed quietly. “I really am.”

“No, you’re not,” Rita said calmly, shaking her head at Bill as she led Cheryl away. “Come with me.”

Bill glared at them as they walked from the kitchen. Then he glanced out the bay window at the fields leading to the tree line in the distance. He couldn’t believe what he was thinking. It was the first time he had in as long as he could remember.

Maybe the country couldn’t always come first no matter what. Maybe there were actually times when family had to be the priority. Maybe this was one of those times.

He gazed at the far-off trees. He’d already lost one son. He couldn’t lose another.

“He’s beautiful,” Hunter murmured as he gazed down at the little boy Lisa was cradling in her arms. “This is Jack?”

She nodded happily. “Sí, this is Little Jack.”

He glanced into Lisa’s soft brown eyes. She was beautiful and sweet, and all she’d tried to do since he’d gotten here to Brooklyn was take care of him. She’d offered him food and drink over and over. She was a lot like Amy in that way. She just wanted to make people happy.

Hunter shut his eyes tightly. He still hadn’t called Jack. But if he didn’t soon, Amy would die. He was in hell, absolute hell. He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. He was paralyzed, and the only thing he could think of doing today to make himself feel better was coming here to see if Lisa and Little Jack were all right. It had worked a little.

“Are you OK?”

He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice and the warm touch of her hand on his arm. “Yeah, Lisa, I’m—” The knock on the door interrupted him.

“Will you see who that is?” she whispered. “If it’s a man, please don’t answer. It’s probably my landlord, and I’m late on rent. My sisters and I won’t have it until tomorrow or the next day.”

“No worries.”

Hunter moved to the door and peered through the tiny peephole. When he did, his body froze. There was a man standing outside, all right, but it wasn’t the landlord. It was the little man who’d put him in hell. Hunter would never forget that face as long as he lived. He’d never forget how the man had watched calmly as the clear plastic bag did its work.

What in the hell was he doing here?

“Hello,” Speed Trap answered hesitantly.

“Is this Bobby Mitchell?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name’s Ross Turner. I’m a hunting guide out of Wasilla. I got a buddy named Wilson Keats who told me he talked to you about a hunt you went on last year on Kodiak Island. He said you bagged a huge bear on that trip. A nine-footer.”

“Yeah, that was in early October.” Speed Trap knew a guy named Wilson Keats, so Turner’s story sounded legit. “The thing was a monster.”

“You’re in Dutch, right? Wilson told me you’re on one of those crab boats over there.”

“Yeah, I’m on the Arctic Fire. So what?”

“Right. The Arctic Fire. Well, I’m gonna be over in Dutch real soon because I’m gonna try to hook on with a boat for the opilio season to make some quick cash. I was just hoping we could talk about your hunt. I’ll buy you a beer while we do.”

Just because Turner had mentioned Wilson Keats, Speed Trap wasn’t buying the story at face value. He had too much experience with Grant telling him lies to go for the bait that quickly. “Or we could talk about it right now on the phone.”

“We could,” Turner agreed deliberately, “but I’d rather talk about it in person. That OK?”

The odds were good that Ross Turner didn’t really want to talk about a bear hunt. He might at first, as a way in, but in the end he probably wanted to talk about something very different. Turner was probably a cop, and he probably wanted to talk about two people being lost off the Arctic Fire in two years — not what had happened on Kodiak Island last October. Uncle Sage might get away with throwing one greenhorn overboard…not two.

But maybe it would be OK to talk to somebody outside the circle about what had happened, Speed Trap figured. He’d been terrified while Grant was holding him over the side of the Arctic Fire by his ankles, and maybe he needed to make a big decision after all. Because he was pretty sure that the next time Grant held him over the side of the ship by the ankles, he was going to drop him into those freezing waters.

“Hi.”

Bill looked up from behind the sprawling desk of his home office at the sound of the soft voice coming from the doorway. “Hi.”

“Sorry about that scene in the kitchen,” Rita apologized as she closed the office door and moved toward him. “You know I’d never call the cops on you, Bill.”

There’d been that moment of weakness a few years ago, and he would forever pay the price if he ended this thing between them. Rita was careful to make that very clear every so often. “I know you wouldn’t.”

She went to sit on his lap, and she gave him a curious then irritated look when he didn’t turn in the chair right away and swing his legs out so she could. “I gave Cheryl a sleeping pill. She won’t be bothering us,” Rita assured him as she turned the chair to the side herself and eased herself down onto his lap. “She’s already out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I did all that stuff in the kitchen for her benefit,” Rita whispered, nuzzling his neck. “You know that.”

“Of course.” Why couldn’t he have been stronger? He had been with everything else in his life. And he’d never even thought about cheating with any other woman, even when he’d sent Cheryl away when they were young. Why had he taken Rita to the hotel that day? Yes, yes, she’d been begging him to do it for months, but he should have been able to resist her. “And you were very convincing.”

She leaned back and gave him her vixen smile. “I was, wasn’t I?”

Rita was so damn passionate. Cheryl never had been that way during their lovemaking, not even when they were young. Cheryl had always been passive in bed, and he’d missed that passion in their relationship. But he still shouldn’t have cheated. And now his weakness was putting him squarely in the crosshairs.

She kissed his neck. “Let’s make love, Bill. Right here, right now.”

“Jesus, Rita, I don’t know if—”

“Don’t do that, Bill,” she warned sharply as the softness in her voice evaporated. “Don’t deny me.”

Hunter pressed his ear to the bedroom doorway. He’d hustled back here after he’d heard the man outside the apartment starting to jiggle the lock. It had occurred to him as he’d listened to the clicking and the rattling that the guy was probably capable of getting into anyplace he wanted to very quickly. He had that evilly competent look about him, even through the peephole, and it had scared Hunter to death — again. The same way it had the other night when the guy had his men force that plastic bag over his head the first time.

He’d been right to run back here. The guy had made it into the apartment only moments after he’d run into the bedroom and shut the door hurriedly.

The voices coming from the other side of the door were muffled, but Hunter could still hear the words. He felt terrible for leaving Lisa out there alone with the bastard, but what else was he supposed to do? If the guy found him here in the apartment, he’d probably kill him, which meant Lisa was in mortal danger as well because the guy wouldn’t leave a witness to a murder. It would probably mean the end for Amy too, Hunter realized. So it was better for everyone for him to cower back here like a little kid.

“Where’s Troy Jensen?” the man demanded loudly.

“I don’t know,” Lisa answered. “I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“Awhile,” she replied.

Hunter could hear her voice shaking with fear.

“When was it exactly?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When was it, damn it?”

“Ay dios mio. Get your hands off me!”

“You don’t tell me what I want to know, and I’ll hurt your baby.”

“No, please,” she cried. “Please don’t touch him! Please!”

Hunter reached for the doorknob. He felt so guilty standing here doing nothing. He’d told Jack he’d take care of the girl, and here he was hiding out like a complete coward.

But he pulled his hand back as soon as his fingertips touched metal. It was as though he’d been shocked by a powerful electric current. He’d never been in a fight in his life. What chance did he really have against the man out there? The guy was small, but Hunter sensed that he was still so very dangerous.

“Where’s your damn cell phone?” the man asked harshly. “I want to see for myself if he’s called you. Show me!”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

“Yeah, sure,” the guy muttered cynically. “Everyone has a cell phone. Even poor girls like you. Now where is it?”

“Ouch!” she screamed. “Stop it!”

“Give me your damn phone.”

“Not my baby, not my baby!”

Hunter burst from the bedroom and raced straight at the little man. He couldn’t take it anymore.

As Hunter was about to hurl himself into Maddux, the little man stepped aside and shattered Hunter’s kneecap with a wicked chop kick.

“Oh, Geeeoood!” Hunter screamed in agony as he collapsed to the floor and shut his eyes tightly. “Oh my fucking God!”

When he grabbed his knee it felt as if the cap had spun around to the back of his leg. There was nothing but a depression where the kneecap should have been, and there was a huge lump at the back of his leg. He heard Lisa and the baby scream, but the pain in his leg was so intense he couldn’t pry his eyes open.

Then there was a muffled bang and he thought he heard something fall to the floor beside him.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring directly into the pretty face of Lisa Martinez. It was only a few inches away.

“Lisa, are you—”

He cringed when dark red blood began pouring from her mouth and nose and pooling on the floor. Then he felt something pressing against the back of his head. It was the working end of a pistol with a silencer screwed to the end of the barrel.

Then Maddux fired a second shot from the pistol.

Rita pulled back from their kiss. “Do you love me, Bill?”

That was a question he didn’t want to answer. Either way, it was trouble. “Rita, I—”

She pressed her fingers to his lips and smiled wryly. “Don’t answer. I know you don’t want to. I know you’ll never leave Cheryl.” She hesitated. “But you can love two women, Bill, I know you can. You’re that kind of man. So I’ll just assume you love me too.”

The fact that Rita had even thought about him leaving Cheryl shook Bill to his core. It was all suddenly getting out of control. And he should have known that someday it would. “It’s just not something we should—”

“Why did Jack come to visit you in your office on Wall Street the other day?” she interrupted.

“Um, he just…well…”

“Was it to talk about Troy?”

“Yeah,” Bill muttered. “It was.”

Rita kissed Bill on the forehead. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I wish he hadn’t gone on that crab boat. He was such a good kid.” She smiled sadly. “He was you.”

“Thanks. That’s nice.”

He’d told Rita right away what had happened to Troy. For better or worse she was part of the family, and it would have been wrong not to say something to her immediately. It would have looked wrong too. It was a bizarre thing, but Rita and Cheryl were that close. If Cheryl ever found out what had been going on, she’d leave a husband and a best friend.

Bill shut his eyes. He’d been such a bad person. And Cheryl had always been so good to him.

“He was a great kid,” Bill murmured.

“And that was why Jack came to your office? To talk about that?”

“Yes.”

“That was the only reason?”

It seemed strange for her to push so hard. “Yes,” he repeated. “Why?”

“It’s just that I thought Jack told me he was going on a trip or something before you got to the office. I thought he said that, and I was just wondering where he was going.”

Bill’s eyes moved deliberately to Rita’s as a cold chill crawled up his spine. Fortunately, he was able to hide its effects.

He couldn’t believe what Rita had so blatantly asked.

“This is nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“There’s been an accident in Building 2 of the Bayside Projects on Temple Avenue in Brooklyn,” Maddux answered calmly. “Get somebody to apartment 312 as fast as possible. You’ve got two individuals down and a baby in distress.” The two individuals who were down were dead, so there was nothing the EMTs could do for them.

“Who is this?” the 9-1-1 operator demanded.

But Maddux couldn’t leave a baby alone in that apartment with his mother lying dead on the floor. He wasn’t that cold. Close, but not quite. “Did you get the damn address?” he asked as he hustled toward the subway that would take him back to Manhattan, where he would catch an Amtrak to Washington.

“Yes, I got it. I already have a team responding. Now tell me who I’m talking—”

“Read it back to me,” he ordered.

When the operator had read the address back correctly, Maddux ended the call with her immediately and dialed the man who was watching Amy Smith.

“What is it?” the man answered before the first ring had ended.

“She’s expendable at this point,” Maddux said matter-of-factly. “But make it humane. Got it? Don’t drag it out. Don’t even let her know it’s coming.”

“Yes, sir.”

He tossed the cell phone he’d been using into a sewer. Then he pulled out one of the two other cell phones he was carrying. He cursed under his breath when he saw that there were no messages waiting for him on the screen.

They had to find out where Jack Jensen was going. If Troy really was alive, that was undoubtedly where Jack was headed. Jack would lead them right to Troy, Maddux was certain, and then they’d kill both of them. Then everything would be fine.

As Maddux slipped the phone back into his pocket, he thought about the Pegasus and the two hundred thousand cubic meters of LNG that were churning steadily toward Virginia Beach. And how so many people had no idea what was coming straight for them. Then he thought about how President Dorn had no idea what was coming straight for him either.

Just a few more days and everything would come together.

Maddux shook his head as he moved down into the subway. Troy Jensen was the only person who could crash the party at this point.

“I feel bad, Bill. I’m going in and check on Cheryl one more time. I’ll be right back.”

“OK.”

Bill watched Rita trot back toward the mansion. As soon as she disappeared inside, he reached across the front of the Mercedes for her purse, which was sitting on the passenger seat.

He found her cell phone right away and scrolled through her saved numbers. There were no names attached to the numbers he quickly focused on, just unrelated letters as identifiers. But he recognized the digits anyway. One was Jack’s cell phone and the other was the landline at Lisa’s apartment. He knew because he’d dialed both numbers very recently.

Panic tore through Bill’s system. He couldn’t believe it. Rita Hayes was a spy. She’d gotten these numbers from his cell phone, which she always had access to for business reasons. It was the only explanation.

He’d known Jack was in danger. Now he knew Lisa was too.

CHAPTER 31

Jack finished the last sentence, then placed the paper carefully down on the stack of pages he’d already read. The stack rose from inside the black box, which was sitting in front of him on the desk of the Missoula, Montana, motel room.

The story Troy had written on the pages was astonishing, almost unbelievable, really. It centered on a man named Shane Maddux…and another man named Roger Carlson…who seemed almost like mythic characters to Jack. Troy had basically told the story of Red Cell Seven.

After he’d placed the last page carefully back in the box, Jack lifted his hands in front of his face and stared at them. They were shaking like mad, and he couldn’t make them stop.

Troy had been specific about dates and times and people other than Maddux and Carlson who were also involved with RCS. And he’d been specific about why he believed his direct superior was clinically insane by listing the reasons that provided absolute proof.

First, Maddux was going to assassinate President Dorn because he believed that Dorn intended to destroy Red Cell Seven.

Second, Maddux was going to create another horrific 9/11-type disaster by detonating an LNG tanker in Boston Harbor. He was going to blow the ship up to throw the country into chaos. So the United States intelligence infrastructure could gain broader spying and interrogation powers on citizens at home and abroad.

Last, Maddux was routinely carrying out vigilante justice. He was murdering people in cold blood who he and Carlson believed had wrongly escaped criminal justice. People who’d been released from prison or jail on technicalities, even people who’d been found innocent by juries but who Maddux and Carlson still believed were guilty. And they were killing anyone who the CIA believed might be spying on the United States. In some cases, people who the CIA didn’t really have much tangible evidence against.

What really frightened Jack was that Troy had emphasized over and over in those pages how dedicated and incredibly capable Shane Maddux and Roger Carlson were. How almost nothing could stop them.

“So what do you think?”

Jack turned around as Karen sat down on the queen-size bed closest to the bathroom. She had only a towel wrapped around her slender body, and she looked sexy with her dark, wet hair hanging down on her slim shoulders. But he barely noticed how beautiful she looked. He was still so blown away by what he’d read.

“I think it’s incredible.”

Karen had read the material during the drive through North Dakota, but Jack had waited until he could concentrate completely on the pages. He’d gone through the single-spaced saga while Karen had taken a long, hot bath, and now he was glad he’d waited and that he’d asked her not to tell him anything about it. He would have been so distracted he might have run off the road and killed them both.

“I think we’ve basically got a time bomb on our hands.”

“And I think it’s as dangerous to us as it is to the entire intelligence network of the United States.”

“Exactly,” Jack agreed. He moved to the other queen-size bed and sat down on it so he was facing her. “If this got into the wrong hands, it would compromise the lives of so many individuals, and that could mean a lot of damn trouble for us. It’s so specific about places and dates and people.”

Karen nodded at the box. “Why would Troy write that?”

“He must have thought he was in trouble,” Jack answered. “And he must have been really pissed off about it. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Troy was too much of a patriot. He was too damn dedicated to this country.”

“He didn’t send it to anyone,” she pointed out. “He just wrote it. Maybe that was enough for him.”

“Maybe.” It seemed logical to assume that Troy hadn’t sent the information to anyone. Why would he have taken the time to hide the box in the cabin and then send the letter to Karen?

“Do we call someone?” she asked.

Now Jack understood what Karen had gone through when she’d gotten Troy’s letter. Who exactly were they supposed to call? If they gave all of this information to someone, they might never find out what had happened to Troy. Worse, they might become targets themselves. In fact, they almost certainly would, Jack realized. Even if they somehow got the information to the right people — whoever the “right” people were — it was logical to believe that the wrong people would ultimately find out what had happened. Presumably, those were people who knew how to kill very effectively and were comfortable taking that step to solve a problem or satisfy their desires for revenge — based on what Troy had written, anyway. And those weren’t the kind of people Jack wanted to piss off, even if President Dorn’s life was hanging in the balance. It sounded selfish, but after reading Troy’s story, Jack had no desire to get into it with anyone from Red Cell Seven, no matter what was at stake.

“Do we at least call someone about Shane Maddux going for the president?” Karen asked.

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like we’d be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives if we did.”

She nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought after I read Troy’s letter.”

“Yeah, I get it now.” He shook his head. “What’s amazing is that Maddux and Carlson think what they’re doing is right.”

“Maybe some of it is,” she said after a few moments.

Jack looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I was just thinking. What if you and I were married and some animal raped and murdered me. Would you want him to go free because of some stupid technicality? You know, like the cops not reading him his Miranda rights or evidence being collected the wrong way? Which, I’m here to tell you as an-ex cop, happens all the time.”

It was incredible that she’d just alluded to them being married, even if it was in a hypothetical situation. He’d actually thought about it during the drive today, and he’d been forced to admit to himself that he was totally into her. She was the woman he’d been waiting for. He knew that for certain. It seemed crazy for him to fall for her so fast, but maybe that was the crazy part about love. Maybe you knew right away because it was so right.

He glanced away from her and back toward the black box. He just wished she hadn’t made that crack about Troy being so much better looking than him as they were getting on I-94 back in Minnesota this morning. It was stupid, but it was still haunting him.

“Of course, I wouldn’t want that,” he admitted.

“But if he did,” Karen said, “wouldn’t you want justice for me?”

“Sure I would. I’d do everything I could to get him another trial.”

“What if that didn’t work?”

He knew where she was going with this. “I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you want to get justice for me any way you could?”

“You mean—”

“Yeah,” she said emphatically. “Wouldn’t you want Red Cell Seven’s help?” She started ticking the facts off on her fingers. “You have irrefutable evidence, you have his confession to the cops, and you have him laughing to the press about it when he gets wrongly released. He’s guilty, but he beat the rap and he’s having fun with it.” She hesitated. “Wouldn’t you want Shane Maddux and Roger Carlson on your side?”

Jack took a deep breath. “But can that really ever be the right way to get justice, Karen? It’s wrong to ignore the system, it’s completely wrong. And you know it.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “It’s easy to say that when it hasn’t really happened. But what if it did?”

“I understand.”

Of course, he’d want to tear the guy apart with his bare hands. But agreeing with her that vigilante justice was acceptable, even in just a single case, would violate one of his most basic beliefs — which was that you had to let the system work and you had to abide by its decision even if you hated it. If not, society disintegrated and mob rule reigned.

“But I can’t agree with you on having some secret government crew getting revenge for us. I just can’t.”

They stared at each other in silence for several moments.

“Let’s go out for a while,” she suggested, changing the subject. “There’s a bar down the street I saw on the way in that looked pretty cool. Let’s have a few beers and some laughs and try to forget about everything that’s going on for a little while. What do you think?”

“Are you serious?” It was almost midnight and they still had a long way to go. “We should get some sleep. We’ve got another long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Please, Jack. Let’s go out for a little while.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Have I fallen asleep on you in the car?”

“No.”

“And I won’t. I’ll stay right with you all day tomorrow. I’ll do half the driving, and I won’t sleep when I’m not driving. I promise. I know you’re thinking I’ll pass out, but I really won’t. I’m good at that kind of stuff.” She eased down onto the floor, crawled over to where he was sitting, and rested her arms on his thighs so that her face and those beautiful lips were very close to his. “I just want to have some fun. Come on. Please.”

He gazed into those dark eyes of hers. He wasn’t going to turn down that invitation even if he had to keep his eyelids pried open with toothpicks tomorrow.

From the bridge of the massive ship, the man gazed past the huge domes and into the darkness ahead. Then he looked up and cased the sky for any moving lights. But there were none.

The Pegasus was only two days from Virginia Beach, and he was getting nervous. He was prepared to die in the inferno they would create when they blew up the ship. But he couldn’t take the thought of being stopped and boarded. He couldn’t take the thought of living out the rest of his life in some awful prison somewhere, tortured every day.

He moaned in a low voice so the other man on the bridge wouldn’t hear him. He wanted all those virgins he’d been promised on the other side. He only hoped that his contact in the United States was as crazy and bitter as he claimed to be.

CHAPTER 32

Maddux and Carlson were sitting in the same room of the central Virginia farmhouse in which Maddux had welcomed Ryan O’Hara into the Falcon division of Red Cell Seven. The only difference was that tonight Carlson was sitting behind the desk and Maddux was out in front where O’Hara had been.

They were the only people in the house. Carlson’s driver was waiting outside in an idling Town Car, and Maddux had sent O’Hara to California yesterday to prep for his first assignment. It was the most important first assignment any Falcon ever had.

Carlson spoke up first. “Hello, Red Fox One.”

It had been a long time since Carlson had called him that, but it didn’t necessarily strike Maddux as strange. “Good evening, Roger.” Maddux hadn’t slept in three days. Despite that, he felt good. All in all, things were going well. There were challenges, but there were always challenges in this line of work. One way or the other, he’d overcome them. He always did. “I hope you’re doing well.”

“Doing fine.”

“Do you have the information we talked about?”

President Dorn was going to Los Angeles and would be making two very public outdoor appearances while he was there. Carlson had acquired the details of the trip, including a dossier of the president’s minute-by-minute schedule. Carlson had promised to bring that dossier with him tonight. Having those details would enable Ryan O’Hara to get in perfect position to take a clear shot at Dorn’s head from no more than three hundred yards while the president was standing unprotected behind a waist-high dais. It would be a slam-dunk shot for a marksman of O’Hara’s caliber, and Dorn’s blood would end up splattered all over the California stage.

Maddux was disappointed he wouldn’t be able to kill Dorn himself, but he had to get to Alaska quickly and there was no telling how long he’d be there.

He’d already informed O’Hara of who the target was, and O’Hara had claimed that he wouldn’t be deterred from firing his rifle because he was aiming at the president of the United States. Several times during the briefing O’Hara had reaffirmed his absolute loyalty to Red Cell Seven — and, more importantly, to Maddux — and sworn that he understood the need to take such an extreme action during such an extreme time in the country’s history. In fact, O’Hara seemed enthusiastic about using his skills so early in his career at RCS for such an important purpose.

But Maddux wasn’t stupid or gullible. Another RCS agent who Maddux was close to and who hated President Dorn just as much would accompany O’Hara to Los Angeles to make certain the assassination went off as planned. That man would stand beside O’Hara to make certain the kid took the kill shot. To make certain O’Hara understood the grave consequences he would face should the president’s blood end up not being splattered all over that California stage. He was the same man who’d gone to Mexico to talk to Troy after Troy had killed that bull in Nuevo Laredo.

“It’s all right here.” Carlson tapped his chest above his shirt pocket as he leaned over the desk. “Everything you need.” He hesitated. “But before I give it to you, we need to talk about something.”

“Oh?”

“We have a problem, Shane, a serious problem.”

Maddux glanced up. He’d been checking one of his cell phones for another message from Rita Hayes, but nothing else had come in yet. She was doing her best to break Bill Jensen, but he was deflecting all her questions.

Maddux had been tempted to tell Rita to stop asking because Bill was no fool. He’d figure out what was going on sooner rather than later, and that could spell trouble. But now that Hunter Smith and Lisa Martinez were dead ends, Bill was their best shot at finding out quickly if Troy had survived his ordeal of being hurled from the Arctic Fire. And if Troy had survived, where he was. If Bill would just give them a clue about where Jack Jensen was headed, Maddux would feel so much better. Jack, Maddux was certain, would lead them straight to Troy.

Maddux had recruited Rita ten years ago to keep an eye on Bill, and until now she’d never let him down. He was confident she wouldn’t this time either. Bill had too much to lose in all of this.

“What is it, Roger?” Maddux asked as he thought about how Bill owned the farmhouse he and Carlson were now meeting in. How Bill owned a lot of things Red Cell Seven used. They’d have to kill him if he figured out what Rita was doing or that RCS had killed his son, and replacing a man like Bill Jensen wouldn’t be easy. But so be it. “What’s the problem?”

“Remember I told you we shot down the G5 that was supposed to blow up the Olympian after she made it into Boston Harbor?”

“I remember,” Maddux answered. “You said one of our pilots off the Reagan shot it down out in the Atlantic. He played with the G5 pilot a little bit while he was trying out some new high-tech stuff, but he took the guy out before he ever got close to Europe.”

“I also told you that we had a recon crew heading for the crash site to see what they could find.”

Maddux made certain to stare impassively at Carlson. “And?”

“And they found some documents.”

Carlson’s eyes were flashing in a way Maddux had never seen them flash before — which wasn’t good. The old man was furious. “Oh yeah?” This was bad. “So?”

“Anything you want to tell me, Shane?”

Maddux leaned down to brush something off his shoe. “What are you talking about?” he asked innocently as he rose back up after a few moments.

“We’ve known each other too long to go through this stupid song and dance,” Carlson hissed. “You know more about the Olympian than you’ve told me, don’t you, Shane?”

“What the—”

“I can’t believe it!”

“Can’t believe what?”

“You were going to let that ship sail into Boston Harbor and blow it up. You got them the clearances they needed to get into the harbor, didn’t you?”

“There were foreign terrorists aboard that ship. The CIA confirmed the identifications of several of the bodies from the Olympian. They were foreigners, and they were members of a terrorist group based in Syria that our people are very familiar with.”

“You helped them,” Carlson said accusingly. “You facilitated it. You got them their clearances,” he repeated.

“I was the one who blew the whistle on what was happening, Roger. I was the one who told you the Olympian had to be stopped. This is ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous at all,” Carlson snapped. “You blew the whistle on that ship because you had to. Because someone else would have if you hadn’t, and then you would have been identified as a traitor. I saw the documents they recovered from that G5. I knew the rat was you as soon as I saw the papers.” He hesitated. “One of your Falcons figured out what you were doing, right? Is that what happened?”

“No.”

“Was it Troy Jensen?”

“No!”

“You little bastard.”

Maddux clenched his teeth together hard. “What the hell did you just call me?”

“How dare you go outside the chain of command, Shane? How dare you put me and Red Cell Seven in jeopardy like that? After all I’ve done for you.”

“Look, I—”

“I know what you were thinking, Shane. You figured you’d blow up that LNG tanker, that some terrorist group would get credit for the disaster, and then we’d have another 9/11 on our hands. You figure the intel world gets anything it wants after that, and David Dorn has to bend over and take it up the ass when we want to tap people’s phones and study people’s credit card bills and torture anyone we want to torture whenever we want to.” Carlson shook his head. “But you can’t kill millions of innocent Americans, Shane. Those are the people we’ve sworn to protect. I mean, maybe a few could be sacrificed every once in a while. Maybe I could understand that. But if you’d been successful and the Olympian had blown up in the harbor, you would have destroyed one of the most important cities in our country. That’s insane. You’re insane.”

The old man needed to settle down. He wasn’t thinking straight. Somehow President Dorn must have gotten to him, Maddux figured. That was the only explanation for all of the treason spewing from Carlson’s mouth.

“Roger, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Deny, deny, deny. It was all Maddux could do right now. Carlson wasn’t going to calm down, so he had to keep denying and hope the man would just let it go.

Carlson pointed at Maddux accusingly. “Was Charlie Banks really washed off the Arctic Fire by a wave a year ago? Or was he thrown off that ship by the crew?”

“That’s not relevant right now, Roger.”

“Tell me, you midget,” Carlson snarled.

Maddux could feel himself losing control. “Don’t go there, Roger.” He knew what Carlson was trying to do, and he couldn’t let himself be driven out of control to the point of admitting everything. He was still hoping they could get past this.

“Did you have Charlie thrown overboard?” Carlson demanded. “Did you have Troy Jensen thrown overboard too?” The old man reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his cell phone. “I think I better talk to Sage Mitchell myself.”

Maddux stood up slowly from the chair. “Don’t do that, Roger. Don’t call Sage Mitchell.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m begging you not to make that call.”

“You couldn’t beg hard enough, Shane,” Carlson retorted as he began to push buttons on the phone. “Nothing could keep me from making this call. I can’t wait to hear Sage’s answer.”

“Roger.”

Carlson glanced up angrily from behind the desk. “What?”

“I love you. I’m sorry about this.”

Maddux raised his right hand, aimed the tiny dart gun at Carlson’s neck, and fired. Carlson’s eyes opened wide when the razor-sharp end of the dart hit his skin.

A moment later the old man rose unsteadily from the desk chair, staggered a few feet toward Maddux with his arms outstretched, and collapsed to the floor with a loud moan.

Maddux shook his head grimly as he gazed down. Carlson had actually been dead before he’d hit the floor. The shit really worked.

The dart inside the gun was filled with a concoction that perfectly simulated a heart attack. The bright orange liquid was basically an incredibly powerful shot of adrenaline that even a healthy young heart wouldn’t have been able to handle. Carlson’s heart had exploded in his chest almost instantaneously. The best thing about it: all remnants of the concoction would dissipate well before anyone could detect them during an autopsy.

Maddux knelt down, removed the dart from Carlson’s neck, and began to perform CPR. The illusion had to seem real. Maddux’s DNA needed to be in Carlson’s throat, and Carlson’s chest had to be bruised by his fists.

When he was done, he glanced at where Carlson had been sitting. The old man hadn’t brought a cane tonight, and suddenly Maddux felt no guilt at all for what he’d done. Roger Carlson had been lying to him for twenty years.

Maddux reached into Carlson’s jacket and pulled out an envelope. Inside it was the dossier for President Dorn’s trip to Los Angeles. Now Dorn really was a dead man.

It was midnight and the bar was going crazy. The place was packed, the rock-and-roll band was in high gear, and alcohol was flowing freely. The clientele was a mix of locals and students because Missoula was home to the University of Montana, and right outside of town huge cattle ranches extended in all directions throughout Big Sky Country. So cowboys were dancing with coeds, and everyone was having a hot time.

Jack grinned as he watched Karen lean over the pool table to line up the last shot. She was wearing a sexy top, a snug pair of jeans, and cool suede cowboy boots. He’d bought her the outfit at a boutique in Bozeman, where they’d eaten dinner a few hours ago.

He took a long swallow of beer as he watched her stretch across the green felt to make the shot. His grin grew wider. He was glad she couldn’t wait to wear her new clothes, because he couldn’t wait to see her in them. And he hadn’t been disappointed when she’d come out of the motel and he’d seen her in them the first time. She looked incredible.

He took another swallow from his mug. He was going to be exhausted when they pulled out of Missoula at dawn, but she’d been right to want them to go out. He’d had a great time for the past hour. She was awesome.

“Damn!”

The cowboys he and Karen had been playing for the last few minutes shouted their disappointment together as she dropped the eight ball in the table’s far corner pocket.

It turned out he and Karen had something else in common. They were both excellent pool players. They’d held the table for the last forty minutes. No one had come close to beating them. And they’d won several hundred bucks.

Karen tossed her cue on the table, ran up to Jack, threw her arms around him, and gave him a huge hug. “I love this game!” she shouted over the music as she leaned back and gazed up at him.

He chuckled. “Me too.”

“Know what else I love?”

“What?”

“That you’re so damn handsome!”

He couldn’t possibly have heard her right. “What?”

She smiled and shouted while she twirled around in front of him. “I think you’re handsome, Jack. I love your dark hair and your eyes and how tall you are. I love everything about you.”

“But you—”

“No, no, I said you and Troy looked different. I never said anything about who I thought was better looking.” She stopped twirling and pointed at him. “I saw that face you made when I said it, even though you tried to turn away.”

Jesus, she was amazing. It was as if she could read his mind.

She slipped her arms around his neck again and kissed him deeply. “Gotcha,” she murmured when she pulled back. Then she kissed him again even deeper.