Red Cell Seven

CHAPTER 18

Jacob Gadanz swung his five-year-old metallic brown Honda Accord into a narrow, unmarked parking space of the Manassas, Virginia, industrial park. This location was twenty miles from Tysons Corner and thirty-five miles west of the White House.

Gadanz came to a quick stop between a pickup truck and an old white van — vehicles he recognized as owned by two of his delivery drivers. He made a point of knowing his employees well. He wanted them motivated, and he found that taking a sincere interest in them helped that cause. Even more crucial, that interest made them loyal. It made them think they were family, though they weren’t and never could be.

It was seven o’clock in the morning, but Gadanz had already been awake for two hours. And he’d enjoyed every moment of it. He and his common-law wife, Sasha, had two beautiful daughters — Elaina and Sophie — who were his pride and joy. He fixed breakfast for the girls every morning while Sasha slept in until six-thirty. The girls loved his blueberry pancakes most, but fixing anything for them was always the best part of his day. It was his only time to be with them, because from the time he left the house until well after both girls had gone to bed, he was completely committed to work. So much so that he didn’t call them or take their calls unless it was a dire emergency. So they didn’t bother anymore. They’d learned.

Sasha took over all parenting duties as soon as Gadanz walked out at six forty-five sharp, and she was in charge of the house until he got home. She did an excellent job, too. He had no complaints. He didn’t ask her how she kept the house and the girls in such good order, and she never asked him how he made the money that enabled her to do that. They respected each other, and they had a system. They’d been together for sixteen years, and the passion was mostly gone. Acknowledged or not, their relationship was more of a business partnership now than anything else. But it worked — for both of them.

Elaina, the older daughter, was halfway through sixth grade, and she’d never earned anything less than an A in any course she’d ever taken. She was a bookworm, and that was perfect. It fit snugly into Gadanz’s long-term plan.

Sophie was nine years old and didn’t care in the least about her grades, which were never very good. But that didn’t matter to her — or Gadanz. It wasn’t that Sophie was slow, either. In fact, she was quite smart. She’d always scored extremely high on standardized tests, and she usually figured out problems before any of her friends, even before her older sister, which irritated Elaina no end and amused Gadanz greatly.

Sophie simply didn’t see the point of spending time memorizing facts and figures. Her natural gift was the ability to influence people, which she seemed to smoothly wield with everyone she came into contact with. Even her teachers admitted that she had an incredible gift for convincing people to do things, the likes of which none of them had ever seen in a girl her age. She seemed able to get anyone to do anything with her charismatic smile and her engaging way. And even at nine years old, she seemed completely aware of how to use her talents to her best advantage and absolutely comfortable doing so.

Ultimately, she would take over the family business, and Elaina would be the chief financial officer. Gadanz already had the line of succession mapped out. The older sister would report to the younger one. If Elaina didn’t like it, well, that would be too bad. She’d have to get over it. He’d never admit this to anyone — even Sasha — and he always made certain to treat Elaina and Sophie exactly the same way and never show either of them any favoritism. But Sophie was the diamond of his eye. She would be the CEO of Gadanz & Company. She would be the next leader of the family.

Their husbands would never be allowed to work at the company, which Gadanz believed Sophie would completely agree with when the time was right to tell her. The husbands would simply provide the seed for the next generation and work at menial jobs that were in no way related to or connected with the family business. They would be at their wives’ beck and call.

It would forever be a family business, and for Gadanz, family was only about blood. People were simply acquaintances unless they were physically related. He made his top few executives believe they were family in order to get the most out of them, but they were really just acquaintances like everyone else at the company. Just like the lowliest janitor.

Even Sasha had been merely an acquaintance until she’d borne Elaina. Only then had she become tantamount to blood, and she was the only exception to his rule. She’d truly become family when Sophie was born. Sophie was “the gift,” and he’d rewarded Sasha with her own generous bank account, though he monitored it closely and forced her to come to him with any expenditure that wasn’t a “normal” household cost. The same way he made the company controller come to him with any corporate expenditure that was unusual or nonrecurring.

Gadanz hummed along while he listened to the end of the Rolling Stones song on the car radio—“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”—as he sat in the car thinking about how lucky a man he was. He owned a significant business that he’d built from the ground up — a string of twenty-four convenience store/gas stations that were located throughout northern Virginia and stretched from Falls Church all the way west to Leesburg. He’d added three this year; the plan for next year was to add another seven. And he’d never borrowed a dime to expand, so he didn’t have bankers constantly in his face thinking they could tell him what to do. He used banks only for depositing cash. His base of operations was the two-hundred-thousand-square-foot warehouse he’d just pulled to a stop in front of. From here he supplied his twenty-four stores and generated well over a hundred million dollars of annual revenues.

Still, he drove a five-year-old Honda Accord, and Sasha drove a two-year-old minivan with a dent in one side. They lived in a modest three-bedroom townhouse in a modest neighborhood that was a short drive from here and was squeezed in between two major strip malls. The girls went to public school and rode the bus. The family dog was a mutt. And summer vacation was a week in Ocean City, New Jersey, in a rented house three blocks back from the beach. He didn’t even have a personal parking space right in front of the company entrance with his name on it as the lease stipulated he could. It wasn’t that Gadanz shied away from attention and conspicuous consumption — he despised them. Maintaining modesty was his personal religion, and it had nothing to do with God.

Stones song over, he climbed out of the car and headed into the building. The lobby of Gadanz & Company was ultimately plain. In it were six wooden chairs, an old coffee table littered with dated magazines from home, and some cheap wall art. The corporate offices beyond were just as utilitarian.

However, the company trucks and computer systems were the best Gadanz could buy. He spent willingly on infrastructure and paid his people well — again, so they were unfailingly loyal to him. But the aesthetics of the offices were of no concern or consequence. After all, they didn’t generate revenues.

He eased into the chair behind his desk, turned on the computer, and picked up his favorite picture of Elaina and Sophie as the CPU came to life. They were smiling their most beautiful smiles and hugging each other adoringly.

“Hello, Jacob.”

Gadanz put the picture calmly back down beside the computer screen, and then swiveled in the chair until he was facing the young man who’d just stepped out of the small anteroom next to his office.

“Hello, Kaashif.”

CHAPTER 19

“Decus Septum,” Travers muttered across the laminate tabletop as he picked up his mug and took a careful sip of steaming coffee.

Troy took a careful sip from his mug, too. “Honor to the Seven.” God, this coffee tasted good. Maybe it would have tasted good even if it was mud after what had just happened on the Kohler farm.

Troy always made certain to appreciate being alive after a close call. He’d actually take a few breaths and consciously consider the wonder of life when death ran close to the line — as it just had. He’d taken those deliberate breaths in this booth a few minutes ago, as soon as they’d sat down.

“Protect the peak,” Travers said.

Troy glanced across the table. Travers was still studying the menu even though they’d already ordered breakfast.

He’d asked his father about those words the other night on the plane ride back up to New York. He’d asked Bill specifically what “protect the peak” meant. The old man had shrugged and claimed it was already a custom to say it when he’d signed on to run the RCS associate pool thirty years ago. And that he’d never asked Roger Carlson what, if anything, it actually meant.

Troy doubted that answer but hadn’t pushed. Bill Jensen would always be a secretive man, even to his family. Even to a son who was inside Red Cell Seven.

“Yeah,” Troy murmured as he looked around the Denny’s. It wasn’t crowded in here for this time of day, and he found that odd, given it was morning and the place was best known for breakfast. “Protect the peak.”

After spraying the basement with bullets, he and Travers had sprinted up the steps through the smoke and burst through the door to the outside. Then they’d raced back across the pasture beneath the moonlight, jumped the tall four-slat fence twice within a few seconds — Travers with Troy’s help each time — and hustled into the protection of the forest. When they were certain they weren’t being followed, they’d stopped only long enough to catch their breaths — and bust the handcuffs still snaring Travers’s wrists. Then they’d taken off again.

They couldn’t return to the car Troy and the other two agents had driven to the farm from the Raleigh airport. They’d parked the car on the side of the road that passed the driveway leading to the farm, a few hundred yards south of the entrance, and then hiked into the spot on the ridge they’d used to watch the place. He’d tried to hide the car as best he could — he’d pulled it a little ways into the woods through a slight opening among the trees — but he was worried Maddux would still locate and watch it, figuring Troy would return at some point. He wasn’t at all confident he’d killed or even wounded Maddux with that burst of fire he’d sprayed the basement with.

Troy didn’t want another knife blade to his throat. He’d never experienced that before, and it was much more terrifying than having a gun leveled at him, which he’d already experienced several times. A bullet was fast acting; a knife, not so much.

An hour ago they’d finally come out of the trees onto a twisting country road. Fortunately they’d quickly hitched a ride from a passing farmer who was headed into a Raleigh suburb for supplies — Troy hadn’t wanted to stay out on the road long, vulnerable to being seen by Maddux out there. The guy hadn’t asked any questions, not even “Where’re you headed?” and they’d ridden into town in the bed of his pickup. Starving, they’d come into this Denny’s for a big breakfast as soon as they’d jumped out of the vehicle and waved their thanks to the farmer.

“Thanks for getting me out of there, man,” Travers said. “I figured I was done.”

“It wasn’t very graceful. And we lost two of our own.” He’d have to tell his father about Agents Wyoming and Idaho. He wasn’t looking forward to that. “They were good men.”

Travers nodded solemnly. “There’s been a lot of that going around lately. I lost my—”

“I know. You lost Harry Boyd in Wilmington. You two were close.”

Travers gestured at Troy with his mug. “How the hell did you find me anyway?”

“My father had it figured.”

“Your father’s Bill Jensen?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s how you know about Harry Boyd being my partner.”

According to Bill, Travers was intensely loyal to RCS. And it was very possible that he held the key to everything — which was the reason Troy had led the rescue mission to get him out. They were going to be partners through all of this, and they needed to forge strong trust quickly. Being completely transparent about everything would help that process along.

“Yup. And he told me that as close as you and Boyd were, you and Kohler were the same distance apart.”

“He was right.”

“Why. What happened?”

“Nathan and I got into it bad during his first training sessions last summer, one time in particular. I was hard on him, but I’m hard on all new recruits I train.” Travers shook his head. “He never got over it. More to the point, he wasn’t very fond of us black people.”

“I heard, but that makes no sense. His father, Douglas, was—”

“A senator. I know.”

“And a huge civil rights advocate,” Troy added. “It was one of his passions on the Hill. How does that work?”

Travers shrugged. “I know Nathan and his father didn’t get along. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Everything Douglas loved, Nathan hated. It wouldn’t be the first time a father-son story exactly like that’s been written.”

Absolutely true, Troy thought. In a way, that was how Jack had been with Bill — until recently, until he’d finally felt like a true member of the Jensen family.

“My father mentioned that,” Troy said. “He also heard about Nathan and Maddux getting close.”

Douglas Kohler was one of the few associates who had a direct relationship with Shane Maddux. However, Bill had made clear to Troy that he had no knowledge of Maddux doing any personal favors for Douglas. No taking out abusive fiancés or influencing fraud-committing CFOs. As far as Bill knew, the senator had kept his relationship with Maddux strictly professional. Of course, the nothing ever being a hundred percent certain rule always applied.

“All that led us straight to the Kohler farm. That’s why my father sent me down here. It was a guess, but it was a damn good one.” Troy hesitated. What he was about to say was tricky. “You know why I came after you so fast, don’t you, Major Travers?”

Travers stared at Troy grim-faced for several moments. Finally, he broke into a wry smile. “Well, since we’ve never met, I know it wasn’t because you liked me so much.”

“It was because my father says you have something—”

“Or because I’m so damn good-looking.”

Troy chuckled. “No, not that either.” Travers seemed to be taking this the right way. “My father says you have something very valuable.”

“I figured it had something to do with that,” Travers mumbled as their waiter approached the table, carrying a large tray stacked with food.

“So what is it?”

“Can’t tell you. Not without your father’s permission. Sorry.”

Troy wanted to know badly. But he knew Travers wouldn’t say anything if that violated a direct order. So pushing for an answer would prove futile. “Okay, well, I’m glad we got you out of there. My father has a lot of respect for you, Major. He says you’re the real deal.”

It took the waiter thirty seconds to serve all the food. They were both famished. They’d ordered heaping portions of eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage gravy, biscuits, pancakes, and fruit.

“Where is everybody?” Troy asked the waiter as he refilled their coffee mugs.

“Those death squads have people spooked,” the kid answered in a heavy southern drawl as he glanced quickly over his shoulder at the entrance. “Everybody’s staying home.”

“Is everybody worried because of the mall shooting in Charlotte?” Travers asked. One of the squads had hit a major mall in Charlotte, 170 miles west of Raleigh. “That’s pretty far from here, isn’t it? And that was the closest one.”

“I think it was more them hitting that school in Missouri that’s got to everybody,” the kid answered. “Ain’t nobody safe when they go out now, you know? And they killed little children. That’s what really has everyone going. You guys need anything else?” he asked when he’d finished refilling Travers’s mug.

“This is fine for now,” said Troy as he looked at all the food hungrily. “Thanks.”

He watched the waiter walk away, and glanced at the entrance. How horrible would it be to look over there and see several men come in wielding submachine guns? Mostly it would be the desperation of knowing you were helpless, especially if you had children with you. For a moment he pictured Little Jack sitting beside him. It was just like the waiter said. The baby would be so vulnerable. But the bastards wouldn’t give a damn.

As he picked up a piece of bacon, Troy thought back to that comment Maddux had made about Jack. It seemed as if Maddux was saying he hadn’t been the one who’d shot Jack on the back porch of their parents’ home in Greenwich. But he was probably just trying to fool them, worried about Bill coming after him, and using the opportunity to raise doubts about being guilty of the shooting. Maybe that was actually why he hadn’t intended to kill Troy in the basement. He wanted the lie about not killing Jack to get back to Bill fast.

“Why do you think Maddux shot Kohler back there?” Travers asked through a mouthful of biscuits and sausage gravy.

“Maddux didn’t shoot Kohler,” Troy answered as he glanced warily at the restaurant’s entrance once more.

“What do you mean? He was the only one who could have.”

Troy shook his head. “Somebody else was down there. I heard a pistol go off, and Maddux didn’t have a pistol. He had one of the submachine guns.”

He’d been thinking about that bullet tearing through Kohler’s throat ever since he and Travers had raced from the house. Who the hell had shot Nathan Kohler?

THE MUSLIM family of six climbed out of their minivan and began walking leisurely toward the mosque to attend morning prayer service. It was early, but the temperature had already reached sixty degrees, which, for December in this area of the country, was quite warm. Tomorrow it was supposed to turn cold and possibly snow. But today they would enjoy the beautiful weather.

The mosque was located in a quiet suburb of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was a beautiful building with an imposing minaret rising from the center surrounded by several smaller spires. The mosque was only a few miles from the Mother Mosque of America, which had been built in 1934 and was the second oldest mosque constructed in the United States as well as the oldest still standing. But this one was much larger than the Mother Mosque, and the family admired the towering spires in the morning sunshine as they strolled leisurely toward them.

The couple had four children. The girls were fourteen and twelve, and the boys were eight and seven. They laughed with each other and waved to friends as they threaded their way through the large parking lot, which was filled with cars even at this early hour. At the door the boys would go with their father and the girls with their mother. Muslim men and women prayed in separate areas.

The two boys were tussling with each other in front of the rest of the family when a pickup truck pulled slowly out of a parking space fifty feet ahead and then stopped in front of them. As the boys ceased their pushing and shoving, a man wearing a soiled John Deere cap, a checkered flannel shirt, and dirty jeans climbed out of the vehicle. He smiled and waved, then pulled an over-and-under twelve-gauge shotgun from inside the truck and began firing.

By the time he climbed back into the pickup he’d killed the mother and father and mortally wounded the two girls.

“That’s for those kids in Missouri!” the man shouted at the two little boys, who were cowering between cars as he roared past them. “I hope you’re next, you little bastards.”

CHAPTER 20

Jacob Gadanz leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk that triggered the office door’s magnetic lock. It did so with an audible thump, and now he was comfortable that they had complete privacy. He didn’t want anyone barging in and interrupting this meeting. That could prove problematic for both of them. Of course, he had more to lose if that happened — much more. Perhaps that was how Kaashif was able to rationalize what he was doing and stay so calm. He had nothing to lose.

“Sit down,” Gadanz ordered gruffly, motioning toward the wooden chair beside the desk.

“I am always so impressed by the physical beauty of your operation,” Kaashif said sarcastically as he eased into the uncomfortable chair and gestured around the starkly furnished room.

“And I’m always so impressed with your gratitude,” Gadanz replied tersely.

“Why should I be grateful?”

Gadanz scowled at the younger man. “How can you even ask me that?”

“You are not doing this for me, Jacob. That fact cannot be more certain.”

“But I’m doing it.”

Kaashif pointed at Gadanz. “You only do what you do for blood, Jacob. We both know that. And you are doing this specific thing because you owe a large debt to that blood.”

Gadanz glanced at the photograph of Elaina and Sophie. So Kaashif knew more than he was supposed to. At least, more than Gadanz was told he would know, which surprised him and wasn’t a good sign. Not everyone was as loyal to the family as he, apparently. But he couldn’t raise the issue. It would not be well received if it got back — and that was an understatement.

“Did your people have to attack that school in Missouri?” he asked. “Was that really necessary?”

“Absolutely. In fact, I believe that school attack has had more of an impact on the United States population than all eleven mall attacks combined. People are terrified now.”

“And furious,” Gadanz snapped.

Kaashif scoffed. “They would have been furious anyway. By attacking malls we took away their beloved shopping. But they would have gotten over that, especially in today’s world.” He laughed loudly. “By attacking that school we took away something much more precious. We took away their freedom. Now they are afraid to go anywhere. They are even afraid while they are in their homes. And if they are not now, they soon will be.” His eyes gleamed. “I love it, Jacob.”

“I know you do, Kaashif.”

“There will be more blood soon. There are so many small towns with so many soft targets to choose from.” Kaashif closed his eyes and smiled like he was having a good dream or he was inhaling a wonderful aroma of food that was wafting to his nostrils from a gourmet kitchen. “Homes, movie theatres, gas stations, grocery stores, more schools, churches, and they are all protected by pathetic local police who have no chance against our superior weapons, training, and planning. We will change the way this country lives. The public will begin to order everything ‘in,’ and then we will start attacking the delivery people so they are scared to supply the population. It will be chaos.” His smile grew. “It already is, to some extent. It is beautiful.”

“He’s using you. You know that, don’t you?”

“And we are using him. It is symmetric, which is how any important partnership should be constructed.” Kaashif gestured impatiently at the anteroom to this office where he’d waited for Gadanz. “I brought two suitcases, Jacob. Inside them is a total of one hundred thousand dollars, which is the two-week burn for what are now ten teams of four men each, thanks to that unfortunate occurrence in Minneapolis.” His eyes flashed angrily at the admission of losing one team already. “You will wash the cash through Gadanz and Company as agreed and as you have before. Then the teams will access the money through the corporate accounts with their cards.”

“This can’t go on.”

Kaashif winced as he changed positions in the chair. He’d been bothered by an upset stomach for the last few days, but it wouldn’t slow him down. Nothing would. There was too much momentum to let anything slow them down. “What do you mean by that?”

“First of all, I have to pay taxes on all that money.”

“Why?”

“I put that cash in my registers at my stores so you don’t have to deposit it in a bank and risk that deposit being reported to federal authorities.”

All cash deposits over ten thousand dollars were required to be reported to the Treasury Department by the receiving bank. The government couldn’t realistically investigate every cash deposit over that amount, because there were so many on a daily basis. However, computer programs enabled agents to quickly hone in on deposits that were more likely to generate criminal leads than others. Large cash deposits made by stores that normally received large amounts of cash on a daily basis were not typically investigated. Gadanz & Company was the perfect washing machine for the cash the death squads needed.

“So it looks like I received it from customers who are buying items from my stores,” Gadanz continued. “And then it goes into my bank as though I earned it. But then my accountant must declare all of that cash as revenue at the end of the year. So I must pay taxes on it.”

“So what? I still do not understand.”

Gadanz clenched his jaw. Kaashif was incredibly arrogant, but he was smart, too. These questions were being asked simply to annoy. But Gadanz would finish this out. He wanted his objection heard and noted.

“So if your teams use all one hundred thousand dollars I’ve deposited for you in my company accounts, I’m being shorted. With state and local income taxes, my total rate is nearly forty percent. That means I have to pay another forty thousand dollars on each hundred thousand you have me launder.”

Kaashif waved. “Deal with it.” He chuckled. “Consider it your contribution to the greater good.”

Gadanz clenched his jaw again, harder. “And I hate them withdrawing amounts all over the country from random ATMs.” That was what could really get him in trouble. That was what could land him in jail forever, maybe even get him strapped to a gurney waiting for a lethal injection to cascade into his arm.

“I’m not sending cash through the mail, Jacob. The Feds are getting too good at spotting that and following it. People don’t know it, but even Federal Express and UPS must notify the Feds of large cash mailings when the machines identify them.”

“But I—”

“If anyone asks,” Kaashif interrupted, “tell them you are paying suppliers. Tell them you buy things for your stores from many different locations.”

“Yes, I’m sure that will convince everyone and there will be no blowback. Come on. You know that won’t work.”

“Think of something else, then. I do not have time to deal with your issues. I have many of my own.”

“What you mean by that is, if this thing is uncovered then I get screwed while your people have time to scatter with the wind.”

Kaashif rubbed his stomach again. He really needed to get something at the store for the pain. It was getting bad. “I may need you to get even more involved, Jacob.”

“What are you talking about? This is all I agreed to do.”

“My team here in northern Virginia may need another place to hole up. They have been in the same apartment complex for a while, and they are getting nervous. I want them to stay around here because I want a team causing chaos at least somewhat in proximity to Washington, DC. It will get much play in the press.” Kaashif nodded to Gadanz. “Yes, I definitely want you more involved. I want you to rent them a new place through the company. Do it today.”

This was getting out of control, Gadanz realized. The problem was he was already in so deep. That rule about only blood mattering wasn’t working out as it was supposed to. It was what he had held on to as the saving grace of everything when this had all been initially proposed to him, and what he had hoped would see him and his family through all of this. But it was now obvious that his hope had been hollow at best.

“Imelda has been taken, along with her child,” Kaashif spoke up.

Gadanz’s eyes raced to Kaashif’s. “What?” he whispered.

“She’s gone.”

Gadanz felt his chest tighten and his breathing go fast. “Maybe she ran.”

Kaashif shook his head. “No chance. She would never have done that. She was completely committed to the cause.”

“Well, I—”

“You will take her place in everything,” Kaashif ordered, “and there will be no further discussion about it. Do you understand me?”

The little bastard. He would kill him right now with his bare hands — but that would be suicide. Worse, it would mean the end for his daughters. There would be no mercy.

CHAPTER 21

“Who shot Nathan Kohler in that basement?” Travers asked directly as he scooped up a forkful of scrambled eggs. “Who was the other person down there?”

Troy shook his head even though a possibility had actually just occurred to him. “I don’t know.” He wasn’t trying to dodge Travers. It was just such a wild guess it wasn’t worth saying anything. At this point he needed to build credibility with Travers, not blow it.

“It had to have been someone on our side. Otherwise, they would have shot us.”

Once more Troy thought about suggesting who it might have been. But again he held off.

“Unless Maddux got that smoke bomb off before whoever it was had a chance to take out the rest of us, too.” Travers hesitated. “And wasn’t necessarily on either of our sides.”

Troy wanted to make sure of something before this conversation went any further. “You know Maddux defected, right?”

Travers nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

“How’d you find out?”

“And I know he and Ryan O’Hara tried to kill President Dorn a few weeks ago in Los Angeles,” Travers kept going without answering. “O’Hara’s the one who tried to kill me in Delaware.”

Troy glanced up. He was aware that Travers had dodged the question, and he wanted an answer. But he’d get to it later. “What?”

“O’Hara and another young gun were the ones who ambushed Harry Boyd and me in Wilmington two days ago.”

That didn’t make sense to Troy. “But they aren’t the ones who brought you down here to the farm. I thought that was Kohler.”

“It was Kohler,” Travers confirmed. “I took out O’Hara and the other guy after they got Harry. Kohler got me later, at my place in the Appalachian Mountains.” He stopped gulping down food for a moment. “Hey, you think you got Maddux when you shot the basement up?”

“I doubt it.”

“Me too. I always heard that guy basically survives everything.”

Something else occurred to Troy. “You know, I don’t think O’Hara was trying to kill you in Delaware. I think he was trying to do the same thing Kohler actually did. Maddux wanted you under his control. He didn’t want you dead. He made that clear in the basement. I think O’Hara was trying to bring you to Maddux, not kill you.”

Travers had been about to eat a mouthful of hash browns, but he stopped the fork’s progress in front of his mouth for a moment. “Maybe.” He shrugged then ate the bite hungrily. “How was I supposed to know? I didn’t even know who they were when they killed Harry. I was just trying to survive at that point. And they were shooting while they were chasing me.”

“From what I’ve heard about Ryan O’Hara, if he was trying to hit you he would have, even if you were a moving target.”

“He missed the president in Los Angeles.”

“Well—”

“He didn’t kill him. That’s what I meant. He hit him, but he didn’t assassinate him.”

“Only because Rex Stein deflected the bullet at the last second by diving in front of Dorn on the platform.”

“How did Stein know? Who tipped him off? I never heard an explanation of that in the media.”

Troy hesitated. “My brother Jack called him on the stage.”

“Your brother’s in RCS, too?”

“No.” He quickly explained to Travers what had happened — about Jack going to Alaska and stopping the LNG attack, about his calling Stein on the stage, and then about Maddux shooting Jack.

“Now I get what you and Maddux were going back and forth about in the basement. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“So who was Lisa?”

Troy gave Travers an even briefer explanation about her.

Travers shook his head. “You must really hate that guy.”

Troy glanced at the entrance. A Middle Eastern family was standing there waiting to be seated. The man and two small boys were dressed in casual pants and shirts. But the woman wore a full-length black cloak along with a traditional abaya over her head and neck, which left only a thin space for her to see.

“How’d Maddux get down into the basement?” Travers asked as he took another big bite of food. “You guys checked that place out hard. I watched you. It was like he came out of nowhere.”

“Like a ghost,” Troy agreed as the hostess led the family to a booth near the back of the restaurant. The booth was well away from where anyone else was sitting. “I don’t know, Major. There had to be a hidden access from outside or from another floor. I know there was no other stairway down there from the first floor.”

“I guess.”

“How did Kohler find you?” Troy asked. Other patrons in the restaurant were watching the Middle Eastern family closely. Troy could feel the hatred building around him. It was almost palpable. It wasn’t right; it was totally misguided. Unfortunately, it was human. “Where were you?”

“I’ve got a place in the mountains west of Washington, DC. That’s what I was telling you before. It’s where I go when I need to hole up. It’s in the middle of nowhere in the woods. It’s really just a shack.” Travers shrugged. “I don’t know how in the hell he found me there.”

Troy gestured to Travers without looking at him. He was watching two men on the far side of the restaurant who seemed to be taking more than just a passing interest in the family, which had just sat down in the booth. “Check this out.”

Travers followed Troy’s gaze. “What’s up?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something.” A moment later the two men they were watching stood up from their table and headed toward the family. “Christ,” Troy muttered. “Here we go.”

Words had already been exchanged by the time he reached the table.

“You people ought to leave,” one of the men was saying to the family, “before one of you gets hurt.”

“And don’t ever come back,” the other man hissed. “Or one of you will definitely get hurt.”

The two little boys were terrified, and their father seemed paralyzed. The woman was holding one hand to the thin opening of the abaya.

“What’s the problem?” Troy asked evenly.

The men spun around toward Troy and stepped a few paces back, obviously surprised. But they collected themselves quickly.

“Don’t get involved, boy. This ain’t your fight.”

“Yeah, it is. When you treat someone—”

One of the men reached inside his jacket. Before Troy could react, Travers had cut in front and put the man to the ground with a single, vicious right to the jaw. Travers grabbed the pistol the man had been going for — it had clattered to the floor beside him — and leveled it at the other man, who threw his hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot!”

Troy stared at Travers for several moments, then glanced down at the man, who lay prone on the floor, not even moving. That was impressive.

“Come on, Captain,” Travers said with a thin smile. “Let’s go.”

Troy nodded, still impressed by what he’d just witnessed. “Yeah, right.”

That afternoon Jacob Gadanz left the office at three-thirty. It was the first time he’d left his business before eight o’clock at night in three years. He was waiting for Elaina and Sophie when they got off the school bus, and he hugged each of them tightly before holding their hands as they walked on either side of him all the way back to the family’s townhouse.

Sasha knew something was wrong. If everything had been all right, he never would have come home so early this afternoon and then gone right to the bus stop after asking her where it was.

But she was too afraid to ask him what was wrong. The only reason Jacob would have come home this early was because he was scared. And that frightened her more than she could have ever anticipated. In their sixteen years together, she’d never seen Jacob Gadanz even remotely scared. He was the bravest man she’d ever known. Perhaps because of who his brother was. And what difference did it make?

But Jacob was terrified today. She’d seen it all over his face as soon as he’d walked in the door — which was why she was sobbing uncontrollably in the bathroom off the bedroom with the door locked. His terror had petrified her.

And then there was that other thing that was driving her insane and making the tears flow like rivers. She knew a little about what was going on — by accident, of course, but she knew. She’d stumbled on it so now she understood a shred of the terror she’d seen on Jacob’s face. She wished to Almighty God she didn’t, but there was no denying it.

The soft knock on the door interrupted a harsh sob, and she held her breath. Now she knew what it felt like to be hunted.

“Sasha.”

“Go away, Jacob.” She didn’t want him to see her like this. “Please.”

“The girls are wondering why you’re in here.”

She pressed a tissue to the bottom of her eyelids. “They’re wondering why you met them at the bus stop, too.”

“Please open the door, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. He hadn’t called her that in years. “Please go away, Jacob,” she begged through the bathroom door. “Please.”

CHAPTER 22

It seemed strange to Troy to have to sneak into his parents’ house in Connecticut. He never had before, but Bill was requiring it this time. He’d made them wait until nightfall, too, so they had the cover of darkness. Because Travers was with Troy, Bill had claimed — he was taking absolutely no chances on anyone seeing that.

But Troy had a feeling Bill would have been this cautious even if it had just been the two of them meeting tonight — which meant his father was worried about President Dorn monitoring everything they were doing. That was the only explanation he could think of for this intense level of stealth.

It also meant Stewart Baxter was probably operating behind the scenes on Dorn’s behalf, which made it likely that Dorn had told Baxter everything he knew about Red Cell Seven. Bill’s gamble of letting the president get his nose even farther under the cell’s tent wasn’t paying off. Bill was trying to be reasonable, but Dorn was showing his true colors, even in the face of the Holiday Mall Attacks.

Once a dove, always a dove, his father had always preached. The mantra had been drilled into Troy’s head over and over as he was growing up. Even about Jack, who always banged the liberal drum — sometimes just to irritate their father, Troy believed. Still, it begged the obvious question: Why would Bill violate his own mantra now, especially when the fight involved the president?

As ordered, Troy and Travers had taken a roundabout route to the Jensen property outside Greenwich. An hour ago they’d hopped a cab at the Westchester Airport after flying in on the Jensen plane from Raleigh. And Troy had directed the confused driver to drop them off in the middle of nowhere, in the woods on a lonely country road several miles from the house. They’d hiked the rest of the way through the forest.

Finally, they’d come through the tree line and into the open at about the spot where Troy thought Maddux had been when he’d shot Jack. Then they’d jogged the last few hundred yards across one of the pastures to a back basement door Bill had unlocked after ordering his five-member private security force to stand down for a few minutes and take a quick break from watching the perimeter.

The three of them had then gone directly to the card room of the large finished basement after Bill had resecured the door and turned the alarm back on. It was an interior room that had no windows. His father was being careful about everything. Troy had never seen him this uptight or worried. Usually, you couldn’t tell from his face what he was feeling. But the grim, stony expression was an obvious tip-off.

“What happened in North Carolina?” Bill asked as they all sat down around the six-sided table covered by soft green felt.

“We got this guy out,” Troy answered, gesturing at Travers. “Unfortunately, we lost the two agents who went with me to rescue Major Travers.”

Bill winced. “I’ll check to see what the family situation is for both of them. We don’t have many married men in the cell, but there are a few. If they were married, I’ll take care of their families.” He drummed the felt tabletop with his fingertips. “So what happened?”

“Maddux showed up,” Travers answered for Troy. “One second he was nowhere, the next he was right in front of us. It was like he stepped out of thin air right in front of us. He shot the other agents in the head before they even knew what was happening. Real clean shots, too, dead-on-impact accurate. Then he had a knife at Troy’s throat.”

“Crazy,” Bill muttered under his breath. “That guy still amazes me even after twenty years.”

“Agents Wyoming and Idaho cased the grounds and the other buildings with me before we went down to the basement looking for Major Travers,” Troy explained. “Maddux was not around, Dad.”

“There’s no way to know for sure,” Bill said. “And it isn’t your fault you didn’t find him if he actually was there. Sometimes I don’t think Shane Maddux would show up on an infrared camera after running a marathon in the dark.”

“Maybe not even on a regular camera on a sunny day,” Travers cracked.

“Maybe not.”

Bill was preoccupied and hadn’t even come close to a smile at Travers’s remark. “He’d definitely recruited Nathan Kohler out of RCS,” Troy said. “Now Kohler’s dead, too.”

Bill looked up from a pad of paper he’d been writing on. “Oh?”

He’d been penning a note about checking on the family situations of the two dead agents, Troy saw. “Someone else showed up in that basement in North Carolina while we were down there.”

Bill put the pen down. “Who?”

“Don’t know, Dad. But whoever it was shot Kohler dead and then bolted when Maddux dropped a smoke bomb for cover. I didn’t get a look at the guy’s face. It all happened too fast.”

Father and son stared at each other for several moments across the green felt before Bill’s gaze shifted to Travers. “How did Kohler find you at your place in the mountains? How in the hell did he know you were even there, Major?”

Travers shrugged. “I have no idea, sir.”

There was a soft knock on the door. All three men sat straight up in their chairs as they glanced quickly at the door.

“Yes?” Bill called as he stood up.

“It’s me, dear.”

Troy recognized his mother’s voice as Bill pointed at Travers and then to a closet in a corner of the room. When Travers was inside with the door shut, Bill let Cheryl in. She gave him a quick kiss and moved to where Troy was standing after he’d risen from his chair as well.

“Hello, Mother.”

Cheryl Jensen was tall and slim. In her late fifties, she looked much younger than that to Troy. Every time he saw her he thought that.

“What do you have there?” he asked, pointing at the bundle in her arms.

“Someone who misses you,” she answered. As she leaned in to give Troy a kiss on the cheek, she carefully handed him the blue knit blanket and the baby wrapped inside it. “Someone you need to spend more time with.”

Troy smiled as he glanced down at Little Jack. He was damn cute even if he was only a few months old. Most babies looked the same to Troy, and not cute at all. In fact, some of them were downright ugly, even when everyone was oohing and aahing over them.

L.J. was different. He was definitely cute, even handsome already with his shock of straight black hair, distinctive features, and beautiful light-brown skin. Of course, Lisa Martinez had been a beautiful woman.

And the little guy seemed to have a glint in his eye other babies didn’t, Troy noticed. He seemed already aware of all that was going on around him. Troy chuckled softly. Of course, maybe L.J.’s father was a little biased.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said as he took the baby.

Cheryl smiled lovingly. “You’re welcome, dear.”

Jack’s death had torn her apart. She’d been a wreck at the funeral the other day. But Karen was right. Having Little Jack around seemed to have boosted her spirits. She had a glow about her when she gazed at the baby.

“I guess I can give him up for a little while,” she murmured as she touched L.J.’s chin and smiled again.

“I’ll take good care of him while he’s down here.” They couldn’t continue until she left, and Troy could see that Bill was getting impatient. “Don’t worry.”

“That’s my cue,” she said as she turned to leave. “I get it.” When she made it to the door she stopped. “See you later.” She smiled up at Bill. “Do tell whoever’s in the closet I said hello.”

“What?”

Cheryl pointed at the table and the chairs around it. “Six chairs at the table, and three of them are pulled out. I only see two of you.” She gave Bill another quick kiss. “I’ve been around you too long. I’ve learned to analyze everything. Don’t ever forget that,” she called good-naturedly as Bill closed the door after her.

As Travers emerged from the closet, Troy eased back down into his chair and gave Little Jack his finger to squeeze. The baby had a nice strong grip and a wave of pride surged through him. Then the guilt fell in behind the pride. Cheryl was right. The little guy needed a father, every little guy did. But that was going to be very tough if he stayed with RCS. Maybe trying so hard to please his father shouldn’t be as important anymore. Jack had spent his whole life doing that, and where had it gotten him? Six feet under.

“Where were we?” Bill asked when they were all seated again.

“Who’s that?” Travers asked, pointing at L.J. with a wide grin.

“We were talking about what happened in North Carolina,” Troy said, avoiding the question. “One thing you should be aware of, Dad, is that Maddux knows you’re running RCS now. He made that clear.”

“He doesn’t know. He was just guessing.”

“It didn’t sound like he was guessing,” Travers spoke up respectfully but firmly.

“It sure didn’t,” Troy seconded. “The other interesting thing about that whole deal in the basement down there was that Maddux wasn’t going to kill me. He was going to leave me locked up, but he wasn’t going to take me out.”

Bill grinned thinly for the first time. “Think he’s going soft in his old age?”

“It had nothing to do with personal loyalty, Dad. He made that very clear. He said the reason he wasn’t taking me out was that he didn’t want to piss you off. It had to do with his personal survival and nothing else.”

Troy and Travers had covered a great deal in the plane on the way up, including what had happened in Alaska; Maddux killing Lisa Martinez; and how Jack had died on the porch of this house. Troy had told Travers about Lisa but not about Little Jack. He was still getting used to being a father, and he hadn’t mentioned the baby. Well, he wouldn’t avoid the subject ever again, he promised himself as he gazed down into his son’s bright eyes. “And Maddux claimed he didn’t shoot Jack.”

Bill raised one eyebrow triumphantly. “I told you.”

“Just because Shane says he didn’t kill Jack, I don’t think we should necessarily—”

“Tell me about the young man you recently interrogated,” Bill interrupted, pointing at Travers.

Troy rolled his eyes. He hated it when Bill cut him off like that.

“I believe you told me his name was Kaashif when we spoke about him.”

Travers nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

“Did you find out anything important while you had him in custody?”

“Well, I—”

“First off, why were you suspicious? Who put you onto him?”

Travers stared at Bill steadily for several moments, then glanced at Troy. He started to say something — twice — but stopped each time.

“What’s the problem?” Bill demanded.

“I can’t give you my specific source, Mr. Jensen. I don’t want you to get angry, sir, but I won’t give my sources up to anyone. Mr. Carlson and I had an understanding on that.”

“That’s fine, Major. Just say what you’re comfortable saying.”

“Look, we all know people, right? I went into the Marines in 1991, and since then some of the guys I was in with landed on different boxes of the intel game board, you know? All the usual destinations you’d figure. CIA, NSA, ONI, and a few others I’m sure you two would suspect. Maybe one or two you wouldn’t as well.”

“Go on.”

“I keep in touch with those guys,” Travers explained. “Like Carlson always said, work every relationship we have to find out anything we can.”

“We emphasize that from day one,” Bill agreed. “So, what did you find out?”

“Six months ago one of my guys who reports into Langley tells me about this kid, Kaashif, who’s a high school student up in Philly. Says I should check him out. That’s it, that’s all he says, just check him out. Claims he tried to get his superior up the Potomac to do the same thing, but the boss wouldn’t listen. The guy told him they don’t have time to chase down leads on teenagers because there’s too much else to do. So he begs me to do it, because he’s got a feeling something’s there, and he’s usually right. I trust this guy with my life. In fact, he saved it one time in Iraq, so why wouldn’t I?

“So I try doing some prelim back-channel work on the kid, but it all comes up empty. I don’t mean negative, I don’t mean the kid’s all innocent or anything and my guy was wrong. I mean I can’t find anything about Kaashif before he enrolled in that Philly high school last September. There’s nothing on him before that. It’s like footprints ending in the snow in the middle of a field. So I try getting information on his parents, but nothing comes up on them, either. It’s weird, just another trail ending in the middle of nowhere.

“He’s got a social security card and a birth certificate. He’s got a driver’s license, so he had to have them. And I got copies of them. But get this: They’re completely phony.”

“How do you know?” Troy asked.

Travers gave him an ironic smile. “Kaashif’s birth certificate says he was born at Point Pleasant Hospital in Point Pleasant, Wyoming.”

Bill nodded as if he knew where this was headed. “And there’s no Point Pleasant Hospital.”

Travers snickered. “There’s no Point Pleasant, Wyoming.”

“Jesus.”

“Anyway,” Travers continued, “I figure I’ll just turn their names over to immigration. Those people can be an epic pain in the ass for a family like this, and hey, maybe that’s as far as it goes. A family getting into this country that shouldn’t have, and I’ll do something about it by putting immigration on them. But right before I make the call, the kid’s name shows up in a transmission a contact of mine in London calls me about. It’s a message the Brits skimmed from a group in the Middle East our government isn’t fond of, to put it mildly. So I follow the kid a little, when I have some spare time.”

“And?”

“And nothing happens for a while. But then it all breaks loose. One morning the kid walks into his high school through the front door and then two minutes later comes out the back. I’m lucky I see him, too; it’s completely by chance. I mean, I’m driving away from the building when I catch the kid duck out. I’m not even sure it’s him at first, but then I see it is.

“So he climbs in his car and drives off with me in his shadow. I figure he’s going home, or he’s meeting up with some girl, but that’s not it. He gets on I-95 and heads south down to northern Virginia. I follow him all the way down there past DC, all the way to a house in Manassas, which is about forty miles west of the White House. An hour later he gets back in his car, and I follow him all the way back up to Philadelphia.

“A few days later the son of a bitch’s name comes up in another transmission from that crew in the Middle East we don’t like. It’s going to somebody in Los Angeles, who isn’t at the apartment when our guys crash the place. It’s pretty obvious the United States is about to take a terrorist hit, if you believe the transmission. But we intercept a lot of those messages, I’m told, so it’s not that unusual. What’s unusual is that the kid’s name comes up again.

“So Harry and I grab him, and we take him in and rough him up at one of our interrogation sites outside Baltimore. He whines like a little baby the whole time, like he really is in high school and he doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But I’m convinced he’s playing me. I’ve been doing the interrogation thing long enough to recognize the act. I’m convinced he’s not seventeen, either, and I figure high school’s his cover. Pretty good cover, too, right?”

Troy and Bill nodded, fascinated by Travers’s story.

“So,” Travers continued, “I zip him the TQ Haze and then plan on monitoring him real closely for a few days after I turn him back out. I figure that’s the best strategy.” The major grimaced sadly. “But Harry and I get nailed in Delaware on our way back from dropping Kaashif off in Philly. Harry’s dead, and somebody’s obviously going to be real pissed at me, because I take out the two guys who got Harry. It turns out one of them is Ryan O’Hara, who I know is with Maddux. I’d heard through the grapevine he was the one who shot President Dorn in L.A. for Maddux. And believe me, I know well enough not to be on Maddux’s hit list. So I go underground. I figure I’ll lay low for a week or so.

“But then Kohler shows up out of nowhere at my shack out in the mountains, tases me, takes me to that place in North Carolina, and locks me up in the basement. I think I’m about to go free when Troy shows up, but then Maddux appears out of thin air. So that fast I go from thinking I’m saved to thinking I’m done. Instead, Maddux wants to take me with him.” Travers hesitated. “Then somebody shoots Kohler, Maddux throws the smoke down, Troy and I run like hell. And now you’re up to date, Mr. Jensen.”

Bill nodded. “Thank you, Major Travers.”

“When you said you zipped him the TQ—”

“Who did he meet with?” Bill interrupted Troy again. “Down in Manassas, I mean.”

“A woman named Imelda Smith. I checked her out through normal channels while I was following Kaashif back up to Philadelphia. I got her street address off her mailbox and worked backward. I got a picture of her on my phone, too, when she was saying good-bye to Kaashif. She’s a divorced mother of a young boy who claims she’s a marketing executive on her tax returns. I didn’t have a chance to diligence it myself.”

“By ‘normal channels’ you mean you called the people at Fort Meade?” Bill asked.

Travers nodded. “Yes, sir, like we’re supposed to. Specifically, I contacted that group we’ve always been told to use.”

Troy glanced from Travers to his father. That was a new wrinkle. But as a Falcon, Troy wasn’t charged with interrogating, so it made sense he wouldn’t have heard about this way of checking on people.

“What about Kaashif?” Bill asked. “Did you run him through normal channels too?”

“No, I kept him out of Fort Meade. I did my own stuff on him. I was worried that group in Maryland might cross the lines and figure out who’d told me about the kid. I couldn’t have that.” Travers glanced across the table at Little Jack and grinned when the baby shrieked. “I’m not sure they would have found out anything about Kaashif, anyway. He’s a damn black hole. But I’m pretty sure I’m on to something with him just because of that. And because he was mentioned in those two transmissions.”

“What does ‘zip him the TQ Haze’ mean?” Troy asked loudly. He wasn’t going to be ignored this time.

Travers glanced at Bill. “Can we…I mean, am I allowed to—”

“It’s a new track-and-trace system we’re using,” Bill explained. “It uses a brand-new technology that relies on a cutting-edge metallic composite that adheres to the stomach and intestine walls when ingested with water. Microscopic shards of the composite are mixed in a turquoise-colored powder that enables the shards to embed, hence the name TQ Haze. Once in place, the shards send out a unique signal based on the DNA of the subject combining with the composite, as long as enough of the shards embed in the target’s internal tissue. So, as long as you have a good DNA sample from the subject, you can track his movements. The app’s a lot like a GPS tracking device. In fact, it uses GPS technology once the shards have adhered to the subject’s body. It matches the sample DNA you’ve inputted in your tracking device to the signal being emitted from the subject. It’s like phone-to-phone except this is device-to-body. The difference with TQ is that even if the subject figured out what was going on, he couldn’t turn off the transmission. The shards signal for about a week before the body breaks them down and flushes most of them out.”

“Who came up with that?” Troy asked.

“I can’t tell you, son. The existence and membership of that group is as sensitive as the existence of Red Cell Seven. What I can tell you is that the president of the United States doesn’t even know about those guys. Only a few of us do.”

The room went still for a few moments. Even the baby was quiet.

“Well,” Travers finally spoke up, “I gave Kaashif TQ during the interrogation. It’s the first time I’ve used it. I checked my phone while he was still tied up, and the trace was already working.”

“How’d you get him to take the stuff?” Troy asked.

“I didn’t give him anything to drink for almost a day. He sucked down every drop when I finally gave him a glass of water. He was begging for it. I doubt he would have noticed or cared what was in it at that point.”

“And he never knew the difference?” Troy asked. “He was that thirsty?”

“It gives most people stomach problems for a while after they’ve ingested it,” Bill spoke up. “It feels like a mild case of food poisoning, I’ve been told. But it’s tasteless going down. He wouldn’t have noticed, especially if he was craving something to drink that badly.”

“It feels like food poisoning?” Travers spoke up hesitantly.

Bill nodded. “That’s the only thing people have noticed so far. Of course, we’ve only been using it for a few weeks.”

Troy had spotted Travers touching his stomach just then. “What’s up, Major?”

Travers grinned wryly. “I thought I had a little of that the past day or two.”

Bill leaned over the table. His expression had turned from grim to intense. “Really?”

“Yeah, I—”

“How did you get the stuff you gave Kaashif?”

“Nathan Kohler delivered it to our interrogation site outside Baltimore.”

“Did you drink anything after Kohler got there?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did have a drink of water, now that you mention it. And,” he continued as his tone grew stronger, “Kohler got it for me. But how would he have known what was in the package he was delivering?”

“Maddux knew about it,” Bill replied. “And Kohler was obviously already working with Maddux at that point. The division leaders all knew about it two weeks ago.”

“Damn. If Kohler put the TQ in my water, that means Maddux can—”

“Exactly,” Bill cut in, anticipating where Travers was going.

Maddux could be tracking Travers even as they were speaking, Troy realized. “Does Maddux have your DNA?” he asked Travers. So it meant Maddux might have followed them up here to Connecticut from North Carolina. “Spit, blood, anything?”

“Probably. I don’t know. Maybe Kohler got it for him.”

“You’ve got the TQ trace app on your phone, right?” Bill asked.

“Yes. It’s like you said. It’s just like a GPS tracking app, except Kaashif can’t turn it off.” His expression turned grave. “Which means, if Kohler really did get the stuff into me, Maddux can track where I’ve been and,” he hesitated, “where I am. Just like I can tell where Kaashif has been.”

“Maybe that’s why he wanted to take you with him in North Carolina,” Troy said. “Maybe somehow he knew about Kaashif, and of course, he’d want to track the guy himself.”

“Very possible,” Bill agreed. “All right, let’s wrap this up and get you guys out of here. I don’t want Maddux showing up. What are your next steps?”

“I check on Kaashif,” Travers answered. “I see where he’s gone and follow up.”

“I’m going with the major,” Troy said firmly. “And at some point, I’m going to see that girl in the hospital again, the one who survived the attack at the mall in McLean. Jennie Perez. I talked to the doctor while we were on the flight up here. She’s doing better. Maybe she can tell me something.”

“Don’t waste your time with her,” Bill advised as he donned his reading glasses and scanned the screen of his phone. “She won’t be any help.”

Troy watched Bill scroll down on the phone. He’d said the same thing about Jennie the other night, that it was a waste of time. “Yeah, well, I think I’m still—”

“Jesus,” Bill muttered. “People around this country are starting to lose it.”

“What is it, Mr. Jensen?”

“It says here that a crowd in Dayton, Ohio, attacked two men who they thought were ‘acting suspiciously’ in front of a strip mall,” he answered, tapping the phone. “They beat one of the men to death, and the other’s in a hospital in critical condition.” Bill glanced up, over his half-lenses. “It turns out they worked at one of the mall’s stores and they were outside just having a smoke. Somebody thought one of the guys had a gun, but he didn’t.”

Troy looked down at Little Jack. This was the world the boy was entering. He’d never thought much about the danger before. All he’d ever had to worry about was taking care of himself, and he’d always figured he was bulletproof. Now he had to worry about this little guy’s well-being.

“Here’s another result of the attacks,” Bill said, tapping the small screen again. “The eleven malls that were hit two days ago are reporting a drop in traffic of between sixty and eighty percent. There’s a picture on here of the interior of one of them. We’re six days before Christmas, and the place is empty. It’s killing the economy.”

“Have any of the death squads hit anything since shooting up that elementary school in Missouri yesterday?” Troy asked as he continued to gaze down at Little Jack.

“No.”

Troy felt that fear again as the baby squeezed his finger hard and seemed to grin up at him. “You know it’s going to happen again soon, Dad.”

“Absolutely,” Bill agreed. “They aren’t going to sit around and wait with Christmas only a few days away. That’s why they did it at this time of year, to have the maximum effect on the season.”

Troy lifted L.J. up and kissed him gently on the forehead. He and Travers had to get out of here. “You ready, Major?” he asked, standing up.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

Five minutes later he and Travers were headed down the Jensens’ long driveway in a Jeep Cheryl used to get around the large property to deal with her horses and to run errands into town.

“So check your phone,” Troy said from the driver’s seat.

“What?”

“Check the app on your phone to see where Kaashif’s been over the last two days.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The phone’s at my place in the mountains. I always hide it someplace when I go to sleep, in case of exactly what happened the other night.”

Troy nodded. That made sense. “I guess I know where we’re going first.”

CHAPTER 23

Karen stood statue-still in the darkness of the lonely cemetery as she gazed sadly at Jack’s tombstone. How long had she been here like this, motionless beneath the leafless trees that ringed the cemetery’s stone fence — three minutes, five, ten? She had no idea, and she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop thinking about how both men she’d loved had been killed by Shane Maddux — first Charlie and now Jack.

Tears trickled down both cheeks as Jack’s handsome image drifted through her memory. Those dark, rugged features and that haunting and unmistakable honesty always present in his expression, no matter his emotion, which she’d recognized right away and found so attractive. She muted a sob as she thought about how much she missed that crooked smile of his, too.

She leaned down to place a single red rose on the ground in front of the stone, and wiped her face as she lifted back up. But the tears kept coming.

She was thinking about that poor guy she’d shot in North Carolina, too. And the terrible result of the bullet tearing into his chin and neck. How his time left on earth had suddenly gone from being measured in years to seconds. Had it been necessary to kill him? She absolutely believed so in the moment, but having had time to second-guess herself now, wondered if maybe she acted too quickly. Either way, she’d put a man down for good. The finality of the act was still hard to accept.

She sobbed again, loudly this time.

“Stop it.”

She shrieked and spun around. Ten feet away stood the same man who’d held the knife to Troy’s throat in North Carolina. Her heart was suddenly racing a thousand miles an hour, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She’d recognized him instantly even though he wasn’t at all memorable. He was small and plainly unattractive, not someone who would stand out in a crowd.

“What do you want?” she asked, trying to make her voice strong.

“First I want you to stop crying,” he answered.

He wasn’t armed. At least he wasn’t holding a weapon. But she was still terrified as she stared into his cold, dark eyes through the dim light. Death seemed to surround him like a terrible aura. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. Her pistol was in the holster at the small of her back, but, God, what a risk it would be to draw. The man in front of her wasn’t physically imposing at all, but if he could neutralize Troy, he was no one to trifle with.

“You did the right thing in North Carolina.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guy you shot would not have killed you, Karen. I wouldn’t have let him. But you didn’t know that. You did the right thing, and I liked that. You had an objective, and you stayed true to it.” He smiled thinly. “Don’t beat yourself up too much for killing him.”

How could he know what she was thinking? “How do you know my name?”

“I know all about you.”

“Who are you?”

He chuckled softly. “Oh, that’s right, you and I never met. It was rude of me not to introduce myself right away.”

“Who are you?”

“Shane Maddux.”

For several moments the world before Karen blurred to a haze of nothing recognizable. Shane Maddux. Charlie had told her all about him before he’d been “lost” off the Arctic Fire. He’d been a Falcon, Maddux was his superior, and at first, her fiancé had been in awe of the man who he claimed could do anything.

But over time, the bright shine from the star had faded until it died completely the night Charlie secretly discovered a terrible truth. Maddux was using his privileges and immunity from prosecution as a member of Red Cell Seven to further his own lurid agenda — murdering civilians in the name of justice, vigilante-style. It seemed some of the victims weren’t as guilty as Maddux claimed.

Not long afterward Charlie had been washed overboard by a storm on the Bering Sea. At least, that was the official explanation. But the tragedy had seemed far too coincidental in its timing. So she’d gone to Alaska with Charlie’s parents to get more information. However, the captain of the Fire, Sage Mitchell, was not forthcoming, and the authorities couldn’t press charges or even continue to investigate because the other men of the crew — all family members — backed up the captain’s story.

Troy had met the same fate off the Fire. But he’d survived Shane Maddux, thanks to Jack. Still, Maddux had gotten his revenge on the back porch of the Jensens’ home outside Greenwich.

“Where is Wilson Travers?” Maddux asked.

The world came back into focus. “Who?”

“Don’t play games with me,” Maddux warned. His tone took on an icy edge. “Where is Major Travers? The man you and Troy went to rescue in North Carolina.”

She hadn’t gone to North Carolina to rescue anyone. She had no idea what the mission was. She’d gone simply to back up Troy, at Bill’s direction. She’d asked Bill if she could get involved. She’d needed something to distract from her sadness, and he’d agreed, though tentatively. Troy hadn’t even known she was following him. At least, Bill had promised he wouldn’t say anything.

“I don’t know a Major Travers. I didn’t go there to rescue anyone. I only went to—”

“Stop it. I know about your cop background in Baltimore. And I know you and Troy are working together. I know what you’re capable of. I saw what you did to Nathan Kohler.”

“Yeah, and it’s the same thing I’d like to do to you.”

“I’m sure.” Maddux sneered. “But believe me, you wouldn’t have time to draw the pistol that’s snug in the holster at the small of your back. You’d be dead before you could pull the trigger.”

For several moments she stared at him, hating him more and more as each second ticked past. She wanted to kill this man. It was a horrible thing for her to admit, because all of her training had taught her to protect life — which was why she was still having a hard time with shooting the man in North Carolina. But Maddux deserved death. She was certain of that.

He took a step forward, and she took one back. She wanted to draw, but this was a very dangerous man. Charlie and Troy had made that very clear. As she stared into his eyes, she believed he could kill her as fast as he’d bragged.

“Tell me what I want to know or I will kill you, Karen. It’s a matter of national security. If you have to be sacrificed, so be it.”

“Don’t come near me.”

When he took a second step at her, she turned and fled. As she sprinted through and around the tombstones, she could hear him behind her, breathing hard. She reached the waist-high stone fence, hurdled it in a single leap, and raced into the forest surrounding the cemetery. She couldn’t head back to the parking lot. He had that route cut off. Besides, she wouldn’t have time to get in her car and get away. He was too close.

She pushed herself to her absolute limit, dodging trees and changing directions on a dime, doing everything possible to escape. She was fast…but he was faster. The inevitable lay only seconds away.

As Maddux’s footsteps on the leaves edged nearer and nearer and he closed the distance between them, she screamed in terror. She tried reaching behind herself for the gun, but it slowed her down, and he tripped her. His foot caught her ankle, and she tumbled forward, glancing off the base of an oak tree and sprawling to the cold ground. Before she could make it back to her knees, he was straddling her lower back and had her right wrist lifted up her spine to her neck. Pain knifed through her shoulder, and she screamed again.

“Where is Travers?” he hissed into her ear. “I had him right in my sights, and then he fell off my screen.”

“Off your screen? What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry about it. Now where is he?”

Maddux wasn’t heavy. In fact, he felt light on her back. She should be able to move him, but she couldn’t. Somehow he had her left wrist locked beneath his left knee, and she could barely twist her body without feeling excruciating pain.

“Let me go!” she shouted. The pain was almost too much to bear — almost, but not quite. He knew what he was doing. “Please,” she begged pathetically. She’d never felt anything like this.

“I will gouge out your eyes one by one. You tell me where Travers is, or there goes your vision.”

“I don’t know.” His lips were touching her ear, then her cheek. It felt almost as if he’d kissed her gently. “I swear to God I don’t know.”

“Is he still with Troy?”

“I don’t know!” she yelled, writhing desperately to move away from his mouth despite the pain.

“I need to save this country, Karen. I need to know where Wilson Travers is!”

She screamed as loudly as she could. It wasn’t from pain anymore. It was from the prospect of pain. His finger was crawling slowly but inevitably across her face toward her left eye, about to inflict possibly the worst pain she could imagine. He was going to do exactly as he threatened. He was going to gouge it out with his bare hand. She struggled violently, but Maddux was a human vise.

“Tell me.”

His fingertip was almost there. “No. God, no, no, no!”

“At this point you are going to lose at least one eye, Karen,” he hissed as his weapon reached its target. “Don’t make me gouge out both of them so you never see—”

Suddenly he was gone from her back, and a wave of physical relief surged through her entire body as the pain in her shoulder dissipated. She scrambled to her feet, drew her pistol, and aimed it down at him. Maddux lay on the ground a few feet away, shaking and quivering and slowly but inevitably constricting into a fetal position. He was trying to speak, but the tremors wouldn’t allow it. His words were just garbled mutterings. He’d obviously been tased hard.

“Hello, Karen.”

Her eyes darted left, toward the voice, and she whipped the barrel of the gun around and pointed it at the shadowy figure standing only a few feet away. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

CHAPTER 24

For the first time ever, Jacob Gadanz had spent an entire weekday afternoon away from company headquarters with Elaina and Sophie — he’d even turned off his cell phone while he was with them, which he never did. In fact, he’d needed Elaina to show him how. He’d lost that phone for a few hours one morning last month and never felt more naked in his life. But after turning it off today, he’d completely forgotten about it.

He didn’t regret being out of touch, either. In fact, he found, after a great deal of trepidation about turning it off, that he loved the freedom. Even more amazing, the company actually survived without him. The only thing he ended up regretting was that he hadn’t started doing this a long time ago.

The three of them had gone ice-skating at a rink near the townhouse, and it brought tears to his eyes to see how athletic they were, especially Sophie. She was fast and agile and skated rings around Elaina, who wasn’t bad herself but clearly couldn’t keep up with her younger sister. It wasn’t that Sophie was so much more physically capable. In fact, Elaina was slightly more coordinated, Gadanz judged, and definitely stronger. It was Sophie’s daring spirit that enabled her to be so much more entertaining. She was fearless, and it was emotional for him when several people watching from the bleachers clapped out loud and cheered at one of her moves.

Afterward he’d splurged for an expensive dinner at an upscale restaurant near the rink. They’d all laughed until they’d cried as the girls regaled him with story after story about younger days when they’d shared a bedroom and played tricks on each other at night while the other slept. Bygone days when things were much simpler, Gadanz concluded ruefully as he’d sipped on a delicious glass of pinot noir and watched them enjoy themselves so fully, struck by how little he really knew about them and vowing to make it up to them as the wine took effect. It was the first alcohol he’d consumed in three years — since Sasha’s brother had married, he’d realized as he wiped the tears of joy and laughter from his eyes, which he wasn’t at all embarrassed by.

He came to another, much more important conclusion as he sat there listening to them tell their tales, innocently enjoying himself in a way he hadn’t for as long as he could remember. It was time to take control of his life — and theirs — and move everything in a drastically different direction. His girls deserved that, and so did he. He’d been an absent father too long, far too focused on business and not family. There was more to life than numbers on a computer screen and checking per-store sales figures every fifteen minutes. Maybe they wouldn’t join the family business after all, he realized. Maybe they should be free to choose their life pursuits — even their husbands — for themselves. Perhaps freedom to go their own way was truly the greatest gift he could give them.

When the girls were asleep, he’d kissed Sasha good-bye on the lips — another first in forever, which had drawn a wide-eyed look of surprise from her and then a nostalgic smile. Then he drove the old Accord to Dulles Airport, parked in the cheap lot far from the terminal, and boarded the last Delta flight out, sitting middle seat in coach. He’d almost paid the considerable extra fare for the last seat in first class, which was available, but then decided against it. Too much change in one day might not be a good thing.

After landing in Miami, he’d rented a midsize sedan and driven into the central part of the state, north of the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee. The coasts were densely populated, but for the most part central Florida was quite desolate until one neared Orlando and the thriving American metropolis a cartoon mouse had created.

Under the cover of darkness he’d moved past the gate of the sprawling compound — after having his license carefully inspected beneath the bulb of a glaring flashlight — and parked the rental car inside a huge barn in between two sleek-looking private jets, as directed. The compound was well guarded, though not obviously so, all in an effort to keep prying eyes in the sky — humans in planes and satellites in orbit farther up — from becoming suspicious.

Unwanted visitors to the property were swiftly and effectively dealt with, but they didn’t even know they were in danger until they were within a hundred yards of anything sensitive. Only then were trespassers confronted by an overwhelming force of guards and dogs after being watched by well-hidden surveillance cameras from the moment they’d stepped onto the five-thousand-acre property. And it wasn’t as if many people trespassed, anyway — intentionally or accidentally. As far as the locals and migrant workers were concerned, this was just another huge citrus plantation.

“This way,” one of the men ordered in a heavy Spanish accent as Gadanz rose from the car and the barn door slid smoothly shut behind it, hiding the planes and his car. “Come on, let’s go. Hurry up.”

Three men carrying automatic weapons escorted him out of the barn and down a long, narrow, crushed-gravel path lined by tall palm trees that swayed gently in the warm breeze. It was eighty-one degrees here, even at this time of night, even at this time of year — which was nice. What made it unpleasant was the humidity. It made him sweat like a dog, it always had. He would never retire to Florida, he promised himself as he moved quickly along with the gravel crunching loudly beneath his hard-soled shoes. Northern Virginia summers were bad enough as far as humidity went.

“In there,” the man directed, motioning at the door of a small outbuilding with the barrel of his gun, which was strapped over one shoulder.

Gadanz moved into the dimly lit one-room building first, followed by the three men. It reeked of mildew, and he grimaced when he caught the first major whiff. He’d always been sensitive to nasty odors.

“Over by the far wall.”

He did as he was told. This detour did not surprise or scare him. It was simply par for the course, drama for a man who lived for drama — by a creed of drama, really — and always had. But in the final analysis, perhaps that flair for the dramatic was a key to his success, one of them, anyway. If success was what all of this could really be called.

“Turn and face us.”

Again, Gadanz did as he was ordered. It was all bullshit, but he would oblige them as he always had before — though coming in this building prior to the meeting was a first and did set off a faint alarm in the back of his brain, as he thought about it again. But it was probably nothing.

“Now what?” he asked impatiently.

“Take off your clothes,” one of the men ordered as an incredibly bright row of track lights illuminated in Gadanz’s face from in front of the men.

The blinding rays were coming straight at him, and he could no longer see the men. “What?” he asked incredulously, holding one hand to his eyes to protect them. He couldn’t have heard right. “What did you say?”

“Strip.”

He’d heard them all right. This was absurd. “I will not.”

“You will.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“We know exactly who you are. Now strip, before we take your damn clothes off for you. We search everyone the same way, no matter who they are. Those are the orders from the top.”

A few moments later he stood naked before them, with his clothes lying in a heap on the cement floor beside him. He could hear them chuckling at his doughboy physique.

“Turn around.”

Or maybe they were laughing because it only took one hand to cover his genitals.

“Now!”

“All right, all right.”

“Hands above you, palms on the wall, legs spread wide.”

“Jesus,” he muttered as he obeyed once more. That alarm in the back of his head grew louder.

Ten minutes later Gadanz sat in a spacious, starkly furnished room in one corner of the large main house. It was nearly dark in here, and he was wearing just a robe. He’d been informed that he’d get his clothes back when he left. The robe smelled pungently of detergent, and he’d noticed when he’d first entered the room that it smelled almost as strongly of disinfectant. Now that he was getting accustomed to it, it wasn’t so noticeable.

Wasn’t that always the way with everything? First impressions were so important, he thought as he looked around and his eyes became more accustomed to the lack of light. He had to admit he was relieved. He’d thought maybe there was more to all of what had happened in the outbuilding than simply a search of his person. He hadn’t been worried about his life, not really. But he’d come to the conclusion that people as a whole were pretty depraved sexually, and he’d been concerned that the search was going to get personal.

Gadanz was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair that was decidedly too small for him and felt as if it might collapse beneath his weight at any moment. It was positioned directly in front of a much larger chair that was set on a raised platform such that anyone sitting in it would be several feet above him. It was as if he were waiting for an audience with a king.

Gadanz hadn’t visited here in three months. In that short time, the level of eccentricity, arrogance, and delusions of grandeur had clearly reached new, unprecedented, and frightening heights, he realized as he gazed at the platform and the large chair on it. Daniel had to be out of his mind by now — or within a razor’s edge.

After fifteen painfully slow-passing minutes, a door on the far side of the dimly lit room finally opened, and a hooded figure entered, followed closely by two more individuals. The lead figure moved deliberately toward the platform, climbed the stairs at the back of it, and eased into the large, comfortable-looking chair. As he climbed the stairs, the other two individuals peeled off on either side of the platform until they were parallel to the chair atop the platform, where they stopped and stood with their arms at their sides.

Only then did Gadanz realize that these other two individuals were women — gorgeous women who were completely naked.

“Hello, Jacob.”

“Hello, Daniel,” Gadanz replied respectfully as his younger brother pulled the hood back and gazed down from the platform.

Jacob had been completely prepared to lambaste Daniel for the terrible treatment he’d received since arriving at the compound. But now that he was in his brother’s presence, he was not so keen to criticize. The naked women were staring straight at him, making him nervous. Worse, Daniel scared the hell out of him. He always had, ever since they were children, despite being the younger sibling. The thing about Daniel: From a very young age he would always do what others would not to get what he wanted. He was always willing to go one step further, no matter the consequences. So at that early age he’d developed a fierce reputation. He’d carried that attitude with him into adulthood and had become fabulously wealthy. Of course, the cause-and-effect dynamic had followed Daniel around, as it inevitably followed everyone. He wasn’t immune from the laws of nature just because he was fierce.

“I trust you’ve been well, brother.”

Daniel sniffed as though he had a cold or a nasal infection. “Well enough.” But it was probably the cocaine causing his irritation.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Like Jacob, Daniel was tall and swarthy with a prominent belly. They were only a year apart in age, and physically they looked quite similar. But somehow, Daniel managed to cut a noticeably more imposing figure. Even Jacob recognized that. Daniel was naturally charismatic — Jacob not at all. It was just one of those intangibles for which there was no reasonable explanation. But that was okay. Charisma inevitably brought attention, which Jacob reviled.

“How are Elaina and Sophie?” Daniel asked in his whispery, gravelly voice.

“They’re fine. In fact, they’re the main reason I’ve come all the way down here to see you tonight. I need to talk to you about—”

“How is the business?”

“It’s fine, Daniel, just fine.”

“Are you keeping Kaashif’s men well supplied with cash?” Daniel asked, sniffing hard twice.

“Yes, but I—”

“It’s so important that you do,” he said, nodding at the women in turn. “So important,” he repeated. “They are doing my most important work.”

The women moved to where Jacob sat and knelt down in front of him side by side. They were young, beautiful, and blond, and both of them placed their hands on his bare knees after spreading his robe slightly apart. It quickly became embarrassing for him, but he tried to ignore his obvious physical reaction. Sasha had been reasonably pretty at one time long ago, but never anything like these girls. He’d never been with any woman who was even close to as beautiful as they. Now that they were so near and he could see their delicate features more clearly, he wondered if they were even eighteen.

“Daniel,” he spoke up, trying desperately to block them out of his mind, “I can’t be involved in that situation anymore.”

“You can and you will,” Daniel retorted gently but firmly as one of the girls dutifully lifted a small mirror to Jacob’s face and handed him a short straw while the other slid her hand far up Jacob’s thigh. “You must. I trust you to carry out my work.”

Jacob took the straw, placed one end in his nose, leaned down, pointed the other at one end of a thick, caterpillar-like formation of white powder, and inhaled deeply as he snorted all of the powder into one nostril. The effect was instantaneous. Adrenaline began coursing powerfully through his system, and there was a pleasant, numbing drip at the back of his throat, which helped drive the buzzing in his body to an intensely pleasurable level.

“Have you met with Kaashif directly?” Jacob asked, handing the straw back to the beauty kneeling at his feet.

“Yes. It was necessary for planning purposes.”

“That puts me in so much danger, brother. How could you do that to me? You told me I would always be the go-between. You told me you would never meet with him.”

“Things changed. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, Jacob.”

“My business must be completely legitimate. No more money laundering for these people. Please, Daniel.”

“I’m sorry, Jacob, but you must continue your commitment to me. This is the most important time.”

“I’ve paid you back for staking me. You gave me a million dollars to found Gadanz and Company, and I’ve given you ten million in return. Let me go. My debt is more than repaid, brother.”

“I told you I’d need a favor someday that didn’t involve money. This is it. I need your loyalty now more than ever.”

The same girl handed Jacob the mirror and the straw again. She’d prepared another huge line for him from out of a small clear package. Once again he did the entire length of it in a single snort, though with the other nostril. He closed his eyes in quiet ecstasy as the powder worked its magic. This was the good stuff. Not the shit the street snorted.

“Kaashif wants me to set the squad up in another location,” Jacob explained. He was aware that he was suddenly talking louder and faster, but he couldn’t rein himself in.

“They cannot be apprehended. Not yet, Jacob. They haven’t created enough chaos yet. I want many more people dead. They need a safe place to hole up. You must take care of them.”

“Why has this responsibility to take care of the squad in northern Virginia fallen on me?”

“Because Imelda was taken, and she has not resurfaced. Kaashif told you that.” Daniel cleared his throat loudly. “You may need to help me in other areas of the country as well. Kaashif cannot do everything himself. The squads must be supplied.”

Jacob licked his lips and clenched his teeth. The girls were kissing his thighs and running their fingers all over him. His embarrassment had grown to epic proportions. Flaccid, he was small. Fully inflated, he was immense. The men in the outbuilding had laughed. They wouldn’t laugh now.

“Please, Daniel, don’t make me do this. My daughters could be in danger.”

“They’ll be fine. They’re in no danger. I would never let anything happen to Elaina and Sophie. They are my nieces.” Daniel laughed softly as he rose from the large chair and moved carefully back down the steps. “You’ll do my bidding, brother,” he called over his shoulder as he neared the door, “as you always do.”

As Daniel exited the room, one of the girls stood up, then leaned over and began kissing Jacob deeply while the other spread his robe and his legs far apart before running her tongue up the length of him. He gasped with pleasure and then allowed himself to be led from the small wooden chair to the large comfortable chair Daniel had just vacated.

When he had relaxed into it, the girls began to please him again. While one straddled him and slowly moved up and down, the other fed his nose the purest cocaine he’d ever experienced. Then the girls switched positions. Over and over they did this, whispering to him that he could do anything he wanted to them — which he did. He’d never experienced anything like this in his life.

For the next five hours Jacob Gadanz took full advantage of what Daniel had unexpectedly made available. Jacob had made his deal with the devil. He knew that absolutely, but he couldn’t help himself. He was weak. He knew that, too. This was the carrot — but there was a stick, too. A very big and very bad stick, which would do immense damage.

He would have to run when he got home, he realized as his pleasure reached the tipping point for the first time. It was the only alternative now. His brother had politely but absolutely conveyed to him that if he did not comply, he would be murdered — as would his daughters. Daniel had not said so in so many words, but Jacob knew his brother. The code was clear.

CHAPTER 25

“Who is your contact?”

“What are you talking about, Mr. President?”

“Don’t give me that, Stewart,” Dorn growled as he glanced out the Oval Office window at a cold, clear late-December dawn that was just breaking over Washington, DC. “Don’t play your goddamn mind games with me.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I really wasn’t trying to—”

“Enough.”

He and Baxter were the only two people in there, since Connie had gone to get a Coke and a cigarette. He was feeling much better this morning despite the Holiday Mall Attacks and the attack on the elementary school in Missouri. He’d actually gotten some decent sleep, the pain in his chest wasn’t as sharp anymore, and he was starting to feel like his old self again — headstrong and convinced he was right about everything. He still had a ways to go to full recovery, but the end of his rehabilitation was finally in sight.

“I’m tired of you doing that to me, Stewart,” Dorn kept going. He was thinking about giving Connie the day off, actually ordering her to take it off. He felt that good; he couldn’t have her listening to a lot of what was said in here today; and he didn’t feel like telling her to get lost every time he needed privacy. “Who told you Bill Jensen was the one who gave the ultimate order to have me assassinated?”

“Sir, I don’t think that’s something you want to—”

“Damn it, Stewart, no more. I want to know, and I want to know now.”

Baxter drew himself up in the chair. “A man I’ve known for twenty-three years. He’s a friend of my son’s. They trained together. They’re close.” Baxter paused. “His name is Shane Maddux.”

Dorn caught his breath.

“Maddux is a member of Red—”

“I know who Shane Maddux is.” Baxter seemed shocked by the revelation, which Dorn enjoyed tremendously.

“You do, sir?”

“He was a member of Red Cell Seven,” Dorn said. “But he defected after he was told by Roger Carlson that I intended to obliterate the cell. He’s a man on the run.”

“Well, that’s true, but there’s more to the story than—”

“Maddux was behind the attempt to assassinate me,” Dorn continued. “He didn’t actually pull the trigger. He had one of his subordinates do that. The kid’s a sniper specialist named—”

“Ryan O’Hara.” It was Baxter’s turn to interrupt, to show what he knew and confirm his credibility. “Maddux told me that, too.”

The president stared at his chief of staff for several moments, wondering who to trust, how much to trust, and when to open up. As he gazed at Baxter, he made his decision. He had to trust someone. It was one of the worst parts about being president. Having to work with Congress was a bitch, too.

“Stewart, I want to destroy Red Cell Seven. Even in the face of what’s going on in this country right now with these terrible death squad attacks, I want to burn RCS to the ground and scatter its ashes to the wind. I don’t care what they’ve done to save this country in the past, and I don’t care how valuable they could be in the future. We cannot call ourselves a great society or a true democracy when we allow a small group of men to live among us who can operate outside our laws and follow their own creed. When we do, they take advantage of it. And I don’t care about some goddamn Executive Order that Richard Nixon signed forty years ago as he was going clinically insane thanks to Watergate. Do you understand me?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Baxter could barely control his smile. Much wider and it would seem unprofessional.

“I’ve been playing Bill Jensen for the last few weeks.”

Baxter exhaled a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank God.” His smile inched even closer to unprofessional. It was teetering on the edge now. “You should get an Oscar for your performance, sir, and I’ll be happy to contact the Academy on your behalf. Let me tell you, I was worried there for a while that you’d actually switched colors and gone to the other—”

“And you were exactly right, up on the third floor of the residence the other day,” Dorn broke in. “They did miss this one. They didn’t short-circuit the mall attacks. They didn’t ID the death squads ahead of time. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do, and they didn’t.”

“No, they did not.”

The president’s expression turned steely. “Or worse, they intentionally missed it. They ignored it.”

“Sir?”

“They wanted it to happen, they let it happen. They knew about it ahead of time, and they did nothing to stop it because they want more-invasive and aggressive investigative powers over the civilian population. They want Congress to roll over and play dead when U.S. intel inevitably demands greater surveillance flexibility as a result of the Holiday Mall Attacks. At the heart of it, they want unlimited powers to spy on anyone, civilian or otherwise. I wouldn’t be surprised if some very senior people at CIA and NSA were involved in this thing.”

“Jesus,” Baxter whispered.

“Either way, whether they knew ahead of time or not, Red Cell Seven is directly to blame for the bloodshed this country has suffered over the past few days. It’s just another in a long line of reasons to take them down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dorn gritted his teeth hard. “On top of all that, it’s personal for me, Stewart.”

“How could it not be?” Baxter agreed.

“I will destroy the people who tried to kill me. And I will bring them to justice.”

“As you should, sir.”

“Which presents us with a problem.”

“Maybe not as much of one as you think, Mr. President.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shane Maddux is a friend,” Baxter spoke up, anticipating what his president was about to say. “But first and foremost he is a confidant.”

The president’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand why he’d indict himself to you, why he’d admit his guilt, even if he is a friend and a confidant and believed you would keep his secrets.”

“He claimed killing you was simply an order that came from above. He was only doing what he was told to do in his capacity as the leader of a Red Cell Seven division. He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as being guilty of anything. He was only being loyal to the chain of command, as he took an oath to always be, long ago.”

Dorn shook his head. “He’s one of them. He can’t be trusted.”

Baxter nodded. “Maybe not, but he can be used.”

“Spin that out for me.”

“Shane Maddux is in no-man’s-land right now, Mr. President, and that’s a horrible place to be. He’s vulnerable, and he’s not accustomed to being in this position. We can take advantage of his weakness.”

“How?”

“Maddux’s defection from Red Cell Seven was cover. Roger Carlson and Bill Jensen believed that Red Cell Seven could not be seen in any way as endorsing the assassination of a United States president. They were worried, and rightfully so, that rank-and-file RCS agents would not accept a course of action that was so drastic and blatantly unpatriotic. They were worried that it could lead to massive defections. So they gave Maddux the go-ahead to create his defection story, whisper it out to some people, as they did from the top as well. And they gave him authority to recruit a limited number of agents to help him.

“Then Carlson died, and Jensen saw his opportunity when Maddux lost his mentor and protector. Jensen turned on Maddux. He ordered Maddux’s execution so he could absolutely distance Red Cell Seven from anything Maddux had done, especially after the assassination attempt failed. In the last few weeks he has subtly convinced the rank and file that Maddux is truly a defector of his own doing. And that the man must be taken out if RCS is to maintain its sterling reputation among the few senior intel people in this country who know about it.”

“That’s why he begged me for more time to find Maddux,” Dorn whispered.

“What, sir?”

“Bill told me that Maddux was responsible for the assassination. He’d blamed it totally on the guy, of course. Said he was rogue, operating completely on his own. I told Bill I couldn’t allow the FBI to continue searching blindly for my assassin. It was too much wasted time and money, and besides, the country needed to know who’d shot their president and that the assassin would be punished. I told Bill that very soon I’d have to put the FBI onto Maddux, anonymously, of course.”

“Of course.”

“That’s when he begged me for time. We had that discussion when we were up in the residence.”

“Interesting.”

“Bill did not want me putting the FBI onto Maddux. He was very firm on that. He told me he wanted to find Maddux and deal with the man himself. He claimed he was afraid Maddux might try to cut a deal with the authorities if he was apprehended. He claimed Maddux would spill everything he knew about Red Cell Seven to try and get leniency.”

“Sir, I believe that was simply an expertly crafted cover story. A story Bill put forward to mask a hidden agenda, Mr. President.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bill Jensen had a more personal reason for finding and dealing with Shane Maddux himself, another reason that was literally much closer to home for him.”

“Which was?”

Baxter grinned smugly. “Do you remember when I asked Bill about Rita Hayes the other day?”

“Of course. He was sitting right where you are now.”

“He got animated, very upset.”

The president nodded. “Yes, he did. I remember that.”

“Rita Hayes was his longtime executive assistant at First Manhattan. She’s an attractive woman.”

Dorn’s eyes widened. The code was clear. He understood immediately why Baxter had used the word attractive. “Bill was having an affair with her.”

“That’s right,” Baxter confirmed. “And Maddux knew about it. He had a video she’d secretly recorded of Bill and her having sex. You see, Rita Hayes was working for Shane Maddux. Maddux was afraid all along that Bill wasn’t loyal to him, so he did something about it. He recruited Rita to be his eyes and ears at First Manhattan. Now Maddux is convinced Bill knows he has the video. Maddux believes Rita might have told him about it if he’d threatened her, and Bill is desperate to eliminate any possibility of the affair coming to light.”

“For obvious reasons, Bill wants to make certain that tape is never played, especially because of all that happened with his wife and him so long ago.”

“Cheryl has never truly trusted him since,” Baxter said. “That’s my information, anyway.”

“Would you trust him if you were she?”

“Of course not. So,” Baxter continued, “the only way to eliminate the tape coming to light is to eliminate Shane Maddux.”

“What about Rita Hayes?” the president asked. “She could talk.”

“I don’t think so. I think that’s why Bill got upset when I mentioned her.”

“Why?”

“She’s disappeared. No one can find her. He was worried about me digging deeper into all that.”

“Do you think…” Dorn’s voice trailed off.

“Do I think Bill had her murdered because he found out she was being disloyal?” Baxter nodded. “Absolutely. And he has plenty of people who’d do his bidding.”

Dorn stared steadily over the desk at Baxter for several moments. “We must destroy Red Cell Seven, Stewart, and this is our chance. They are weak.”

“I agree, Mr. President. But we have to wipe them out completely.”

Had Maddux told Baxter everything? Dorn wondered. “Where is it that you believe we start?”

“You mentioned it earlier.”

“What? What did I mention?”

“The Executive Order Richard Nixon signed back in 1973,” Baxter replied. “I know you said you don’t care about it, but if we’re really going to wipe these guys out we have to care.”

“I know,” Dorn agreed, frustrated by the obvious.

“Maddux told me that Nixon signed two originals in 1973, giving Red Cell Seven the power and authority to exist and to carry out the laws of the land as an agent of the executive branch of the United States government. Apparently, Roger Carlson took both of them after a meeting he had in the Oval Office with Nixon and his two top aides, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. We must get possession of at least one of those original documents, sir.”

“We need to get both originals, Stewart. If we do, then RCS has no credibility, no authority to exist.”

“Maybe not,” Baxter disagreed gently. “If we have one of them, we’ll know what we’re dealing with, and I believe we’ll be able to prove that RCS is effectively unconstitutional. Remember, history has not been kind to Richard Nixon. We may be able to get that Executive Order overturned simply on the basis that it was he who wrote it. Most people around the world regard Nixon as a criminal. I’m willing to bet the current members of our Supreme Court will, too.”

The president smiled thinly and nodded. Baxter was very good at this kind of thing. Despite the man’s notoriety for being a consummate prick, he was incredibly valuable. Down deep, Dorn didn’t like the man very much, though maybe his feelings were starting to change based on this conversation. “You’re probably right.”

“Here’s the other thing, sir,” Baxter continued. “According to Maddux, one of the original documents may be lost forever anyway.”

“Why?”

“It was the document Roger Carlson kept for himself, the one he always kept close by. According to Maddux, Carlson never told anyone where he kept it, so it may be lost permanently.” Baxter held up his hand, indicating that he wasn’t finished, when Dorn began to speak. “But we may be able to find the other one.”

“How?”

“Maddux told me that RCS agents greet each other with two phrases. One of them, the first one, is ‘Decus septum.’”

“Honor to the seven,” Dorn spoke up.

“You obviously took Latin in college.”

“It was high school, Stewart, and I saw that phrase penned in some of the files Bill gave me. There was another phrase written in those files, usually just after Decus septum.”

“‘Protect the peak,’” Baxter said.

Dorn nodded. “Yes.”

“Maddux told me that ‘protect the peak’ is the second part of that traditional RCS greeting.”

A chill raced up Dorn’s spine so fast and furiously it almost hurt as the meaning dawned on him. “The hiding place of the second original document.”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?” Dorn asked breathlessly.

“Maddux couldn’t tell me.”

The disappointment was palpable for Dorn. He’d felt they were suddenly so close. Now they were back to being miles away. “You mean wouldn’t tell you. His desire to be your confidant clearly has its limits.”

“I don’t think so, sir. I really don’t think he knew where it was when we spoke.”

“Maybe no one does. Maybe that secret died with Carlson as well.”

Baxter shook his head. “Maddux believes that one other person knows where it is, which peak the phrase refers to.”

“Why does he think that?”

“Carlson told him.”

Dorn gazed across the desk at his chief of staff. “It’s Bill Jensen.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dorn shrugged. “What do we do? Arrest and interrogate him?”

“On what charges?”

“I don’t know, Stewart. I was counting on you to figure that out.”

“And do you really think he’d tell us anything if we did arrest him?”

The president shook his head. “So you’re saying we’re dead in the water. We’re an inch from destroying them, but once again they slip away.”

“Not necessarily,” Baxter replied.

“Talk to me.”

“I have another confidant.”

“Who?”

Dorn smiled when he heard the name. He’d definitely made the right choice for chief of staff. “You know, Stewart, maybe we should search Carlson’s townhouse in Georgetown just to be thorough.”

“His wife, Nancy, still lives there. She rarely leaves.”

“So?”

Baxter nodded. “All right, I can take care of that.”

Dorn relaxed into the wheelchair for the first time in fifteen minutes. Until now he hadn’t realized how tense he’d been during this conversation. “Where are we with the attacks, Stewart? Is there any new information in terms of leads or clues?”

“Nothing credible, sir,” he answered in a low, frustrated tone. “Thousands of crazy tips from terrified civilians, but nothing we can use. Not as of an hour ago, and I spoke to everyone before I came in here.”

Dorn shook his head and glanced out the window into the sunshine of the new day. His relaxation had been short-lived. “They will strike again,” he said as he looked back at Baxter.

“Undoubtedly.”

“Why can’t we find them? Why can’t somebody do something?”

Baxter exhaled heavily. “I hate to admit this, Mr. President, and not because you were right but because it’s such a terrible reality for all of us to face. I think you were absolutely on the mark the other night. George W. Bush couldn’t find the DC Snipers for three weeks even though every law-enforcement official in this area was looking for them. And as you pointed out, the DC Snipers were just two incompetent idiots. What we’re facing now in this country is a hundred times worse. These are trained killers with tremendous resources who are absolutely committed to a common cause.”

“It’s guerrilla warfare by zealots. It’s the nightmare scenario.”

“Here’s something else you should hear, sir.”

Dorn looked heavenward for divine intervention — or something that would take the edge off. “More good news, I’m guessing.”

“Economists are already estimating that the attacks are taking approximately four billion dollars a day out of the economy. That’s one-point-five trillion dollars annualized, and that’s three hundred billion dollars in federal taxes. And that’s now. The longer the attacks go on, the worse it’s going to get, sir. We’re already in recession territory, and it’s only been a few days. If these guys stay out there much longer and keep hitting us, it’ll be catastrophic for the economy. Obviously the loss of life is the most tragic thing, but”—Baxter hesitated—“what’s happening to our economy isn’t far behind. If things keep going like this, it’s going to be far worse than what happened with the real estate and mortgage debacle of a few years ago. It’ll make that look like a speed bump, and a small one at that.”

President Dorn turned to stare out the window again as Baxter’s words faded. He needed a break, and he needed it fast. Very soon the country was going to start wondering about his ability to lead, even though he’d almost been murdered a few weeks ago. The country had a short memory, and in this ADD world the mantra was “What have you done for me lately?” no matter who you were — even a president who’d almost been killed.

He muttered to himself, suddenly furious. The bastards had finally figured it out.

CHAPTER 26

“How are you feeling?” Troy asked as he moved across the hospital room toward her.

Jennie smiled up at him sweetly and appreciatively from the bed, which had been raised so she could sit up. “Much better. Thanks.”

There was a book on the nightstand, he noticed, with a page marker in the middle. “I understand you had a pretty rough trip to the mall the other day.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, I heard there were a lot of sales going on. You know, because of the holidays. But honestly, I didn’t think the prices were very good.”

Jennie had a sense of humor even when she was hurting. He liked that.

Her smile faded. “Look, a lot of people had a much worse trip that day than I did.”

He liked that, too. She kept things in perspective. It wasn’t all about her.

“I’m Troy.” She reminded him of Lisa. That beautiful smile of hers was a perfect replica. “I’m with the Feds.”

She nodded. “I know. One of the guys outside told me you were coming. Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For having those guys posted outside my door twenty-four/seven.”

“Well, I don’t want somebody trying to finish what he started.”

“Neither do I, believe me.”

The bandages on her shoulder were obvious, even beneath her pajama top. But he couldn’t see evidence of anything on her chest. If the bullet had entered her back where Dr. Harrison claimed, it must have come through her chest somewhere. And it amazed him that she could be sitting up like this so soon after being shot. She was tough. He liked that, too.

He’d confirmed that two other people in the mall had been shot from close range, execution-style, after taking a bullet from an automatic weapon in the initial burst of fire. They’d both died. As Dr. Harrison had said, Jennie Perez was a very lucky young woman.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

“Dr. Harrison says I’ll be okay eventually.” She grinned. “But I won’t be playing tennis anytime soon.”

Troy chuckled. “And your back?”

“Fine.”

“The bullet came out of your chest, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

“It didn’t stay in there.”

“No.”

“A one-in-a-million wound.” She didn’t touch herself anywhere on her chest when he’d asked that. She hadn’t even looked down at the spot. Most people would have. Maybe it was nothing. He glanced at the end of the bed, then around the room. No charts anywhere.

“That’s what he keeps telling me.”

He was so suspicious of everything, a function of being in RCS for six years. “You’re a hero. You saved that little girl.”

“I just did what anyone else would have done.”

Troy gazed at her for several moments. He was attracted to her, he couldn’t deny it. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he said softly, reaching out to take her hand. It was a very forward action, but he liked it when she squeezed his fingers. “I’m not sure everyone would have been that brave. That little girl owes you her life.”

“Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”

She squeezed his hand again with her warm fingers, even more tightly this time. It felt good. “Did you see the men who did this to you, Jennie?”

She nodded. “I saw them, but not up close. I was facedown on the mall floor when the guy shot me from close range. I was lying beside the little girl. After that I don’t remember anything.”

“You didn’t notice anything at all about him? Shoes, a smell, his voice, something he said?”

She shook her head as she pulled her hand away and glanced at the other side of the room. “No.”

She didn’t seem comfortable with the question. Maybe it was too hard to think back on those moments. He could understand that. “Well, I—”

“Hello there.”

Troy turned quickly. It was Dr. Harrison. And over the doctor’s shoulder, he noticed Travers standing by the door. The major had gone to his place in the mountains to retrieve his phone while Troy had taken care of several things in downtown Washington, and then hopped a taxi here to northern Virginia and the Fairfax County Hospital. Troy wondered how long the major had been standing there at the doorway.

“Hello, Dr. Harrison.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” Harrison said as they shook hands. “I would have appreciated that.”

“Sorry.”

“Ms. Perez is still recovering.”

Troy glanced at Jennie and grinned. “She seems to be doing pretty well.” She smiled back, but it didn’t seem as sincere this time.

Becky Kimmel gazed up at the golden dome of the university’s main building as she walked across the God Quad — crowded by students at this hour — with her friend Vanessa. One more early class, and she was going home to San Diego for a few weeks of sun and fun. Just like all the other kids around her were headed home today. She couldn’t wait to hit the beach. It had been brutally cold in South Bend during the last few days, especially for a Cali-kid.

Becky and Vanessa didn’t make it much farther. Three men came around the corner of the main building, in the shadow of the statue of St. Mary that topped the dome, and opened fire on the God Quad.

The bullet that struck Becky pierced her lung fatally. As her life quickly ebbed away, she gazed at Vanessa, who was lying beside her and staring at her with doll eyes. Vanessa had taken a round directly in the middle of her forehead. She was already gone.

Three more universities, four churches, and two more restaurants were hit during the course of the day — including the University of Richmond by the northern Virginia squad. All of the attacks were well away from the big malls that had been hit initially, and they were all in smaller towns. The squads were spreading out, and the country was shutting down completely.

Everything was playing out exactly as Daniel Gadanz had anticipated — and prayed for. His father would have been so very proud.

He nodded to the pair of naked women, and they approached the man who was seated in the uncomfortable chair before his throne. The man would have them for a few hours and then be killed for stealing. The man was in charge of distribution in three southern states, and he was holding back more than his share of the take. His bookkeeper had squealed, and action was about to be taken. But not before Daniel enjoyed watching the women pleasure the man.

Daniel took a deep breath as he watched the scene unfold. If Jacob hadn’t been Daniel’s brother, he would have been murdered as well. The bloodline had provided him one more chance. But that would be it.

CHAPTER 27

Bill Jensen eased into the chair in front of the vertical bars, while keeping a watchful eye on the prisoner the entire time.

Shane Maddux stared back unflinchingly from inside the cell.

Bill had made certain that the chair was positioned well back from the bars, well beyond Maddux’s reach. He knew better than anyone what Maddux was capable of, and he wasn’t about to give the man a chance to take a hostage in case this exchange grew testy. Bill had a member of the new security team at the house watching via hidden camera, too. The guy had orders to get in here immediately if anything seemed even slightly amiss on the screen.

There was a camera but no microphone. Bill couldn’t have anyone but the two of them privy to this conversation. Maddux couldn’t, either. It was a good standoff.

“Decus septum,” Bill murmured.

“Decus septum,” Maddux replied. “Protect the peak.”

“Protect the peak. You okay?” Bill asked.

“Of course.”

“You were tased three times on the way in here from the cemetery.”

“What was that?” Maddux asked, putting a hand to his ear.

Bill began to lean forward, closer to the bars, and then stopped abruptly. That had been a subtle attempt to draw him physically closer. He could tell by the smug look on Maddux’s face.

“You heard me, Shane.”

“So, what are you going to do with me?” Maddux asked.

“First, we need to talk. Karen said you kept asking about Travers after you chased her down. Why?”

“You know why.”

“Was it because Travers gave Kaashif TQ Haze at the interrogation?”

Maddux nodded. “And I want to find Kaashif. If I have Travers, I have Kaashif. As long as the Haze is still working on Kaashif, of course.”

“But why did you come after Karen? You had Nathan Kohler slip Travers some of the TQ he was carrying. I know you did. Travers said his stomach hurt like he had food poisoning. And Kohler got him a drink before Travers went in with Kaashif again. That must mean Kohler lit Travers up like a TQ neon sign.”

Maddux nodded once more. “Very good, and my phone had Travers covered just fine. Then, poof, all of a sudden the track-and-trace app stops working.” He shrugged. “Sometimes that happens. I’m sure you’ve been told. Some bodies flush the micro-shards faster than others, and some do it really fast. Travers was one of those; he turned out to be a bad host. The guys who came up with the stuff are still working out the kinks.” He shrugged. “I figured Karen knew where Travers was because she showed up in North Carolina the other night.”

Bill shook his head. “She doesn’t even know who Wilson Travers is. She was telling you the truth when she said that. I was the one who had her go to North Carolina, not Troy.”

“Interesting, you putting a woman who isn’t even in RCS directly in the path of danger like that. What’s your real motive in all that?”

“No hidden agenda, Shane. She’s very capable, and she asked if she could help. She can handle herself very well.”

“So I saw.” Maddux stood up and began pacing slowly back and forth. It was a decent-size cell, so he had room to take several paces in each direction. “Who tased me, Bill?”

“Not saying.”

Maddux stopped directly in front of where Bill was sitting and wrapped the fingers of both hands slowly and tightly around separate bars. “Why do you and I have so many secrets these days?”

“You know why.”

“We used to work so well together.”

“Yes, we did.”

“It wasn’t that long ago, either.” Maddux glanced at a corner of the room behind Bill. “Maybe we should consider joining up again,” he suggested, covering his mouth with one hand as he spoke.

Amazing, Bill thought. Maddux had already pegged the camera’s location, and he’d covered his mouth so no one looking through it or examining a tape later could lip-read. “How did you find Imelda? What led you to her in Manassas?”

“I got a tip from one of my guys at Fort Meade.”

“Did she tell you anything during the interrogation?”

Maddux shook his head. “All she did was scare the hell out of me, Bill.”

That didn’t sound good. As far as Bill knew, the man standing in front of him wasn’t scared of anything. “What do you mean?”

“I know she was in on it somehow. I’m convinced. I can always tell when they’re lying.”

Bill was convinced, too, and he’d never even seen the woman. “But why did she scare you so much?” He’d heard Maddux refer to the woman in the past tense.

“I killed her son right in front of her. I sliced the boy’s neck wide open while she watched.”

Bill grimaced and glanced at the cement floor. How had the world come to this? How could a civilized man kill a small child, even in the name of protecting a country?

His eyes raced back to Maddux, aware that he’d let down his guard for a split second, and that was all it would take. But Maddux hadn’t moved. A wave of relief rushed through him.

“Imelda didn’t blink. I gave her a lot of chances to open up, Bill, but she didn’t.”

“Maybe you were wrong. I know how good you are at interrogation, but maybe this once you had it—”

“Imelda recognized Jack’s name when I said it. When I said Jack Jensen, she showed me her hand. She couldn’t hide it.”

Bill nodded. “That makes sense,” he muttered, thinking about what the woman had said when she’d first contacted him. “How did you get in that basement in North Carolina?” he asked. “Troy and Travers swore you weren’t down there when they cased the place initially. Travers said it was like you appeared out of thin air.”

Maddux grinned. “I’m a ghost, Bill. You know that.”

“Come on, Shane.”

“One of the fireplaces down there isn’t a working fireplace. The chimney is really a tiny elevator, big enough for one small person. There’s an entrance to the chimney from the house’s porch. I’d used it before.”

Bill stared at Maddux for a long time, then, against his better judgment, stood up and moved close. “Do you have a tape of Rita Hayes and me?”

Maddux stared back. “Did you have her killed?”

“Was she your mole, Shane?”

Maddux nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you have a tape of Rita and me?” Bill asked again.

“Protect the peak, Bill.”

“Yes, yes, protect the—”

“Which one is it?”

“Which one is what?”

“I know you know, Bill. Where is the Executive Order that Nixon signed? What peak is it hidden on?”

“I have no idea.”

“Carlson told you. He swore to me he did. We must move it. The enemies are closing in.”

Bill stared at Maddux. He hated and loved this man at the same time. How could that be?

“Let me go, Bill. Let me do what I do best. Let me protect this country.”

“I–I can’t.”

“More people were killed today.”

How could he know that? Bill wondered as he glanced at Maddux’s knuckles, which were milky white because they were gripping the bars so tightly. The attacks had started a few hours ago. Maddux had been in here the entire time.

“I must be allowed to stop them. Please, Bill. I’ll get you the tape Rita made. No one but you will ever see it again. I promise.” Maddux hesitated. “Decus septum.”

Bill stared hard at Maddux, trying to decide. Ending a promise with “decus septum” was tantamount to taking an oath. Shane Maddux would never break an RCS oath. Would he?

“There’s a deal here, Bill.”

Bill’s head was pounding. He absolutely could not have that tape out in the ether. He cringed and nearly vomited at the thought of it being played on some Internet site. At the thought of his business associates watching the intimate things he and Rita had done over the last few years. He put his hands to his face and shut his eyes tightly as he thought about Cheryl watching it, after he’d promised her he’d be faithful to her forever so long ago. He was close to the bars, and he wasn’t watching Maddux, but he didn’t care. For a few seconds, he hoped Maddux would do something. But what would that get Shane? Nothing at all, which meant he was safe.

“If I don’t check in by noon, that tape of you and Rita goes viral,” Maddux spoke up, his tone turning nasty. “That’s the agreement I have with one of my people. You don’t want that, Bill.”

“No, I don’t,” he whispered.

“Set me free,” Maddux pushed, “and tell me which peak it is. Tell me where that original of the Executive Order is hidden. You do, and you get your tape.” He shook his head. “Do I really need to describe all the ways she pleases you in the recording, Bill? Do you need me to remind you that in the opening scene you use your tie to secure her to the bed while you—”

“Stop it,” Bill hissed. Why had he been so damn weak? “No more, Shane.”

“And tell me where Kaashif is,” Maddux demanded. “I swear to God if you don’t tell me that right away, your video will grow wings and fly. Everyone from Washington to Wall Street to Greenwich will see it. Do you really want that? Above all, do you really want Cheryl to see it?”

Bill swallowed hard. He’d never before considered suicide. He’d always called people who took that route weak and cowardly. He’d always sworn to himself that no matter how bad anything got, he would never take his own life. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

CHAPTER 28

“That young woman likes you,” Travers said as they hustled through the Tysons One Mall together. It was the first day the mall had been open since the attack, and it was like a ghost town in there when it should have been jammed.

“What woman?” Troy asked.

They were almost to the cell phone store. They’d been inside the cavernous building for thirty seconds, and he’d counted a grand total of nine shoppers, none of whom looked comfortable being here. This morning’s attacks obviously had the majority of the population barricaded inside their homes for good, terrorized. No one was coming out now, not until they were convinced the insanity had been stopped and the bloodshed was over.

Travers snickered. “What woman? You know what woman — the woman in the hospital. Jennie Perez.”

“Give me a break.”

“Give me a break. I saw the way she was looking at you. I saw how you took her hand, and the way she squeezed yours back.”

Troy grinned as they headed inside the store. He couldn’t help it. She’d definitely snagged his interest — which made all of this so much more difficult. “How long were you standing there, Major?”

“Long enough to see sparks, Captain.”

“Hey,” Troy called loudly as he approached the first salesperson he saw inside the store.

“Hello, sir,” the young man answered in a deliberate, bored tone. He glanced up from the People magazine he’d been flipping through. “How can I help you?”

The kid was probably wondering what in the hell he was doing here today, Troy figured as he pulled a heavy gold badge from his pocket and held it up. He probably wasn’t afraid of the place being attacked again — why would he be? There was no one here to kill.

“I’m a federal agent, and I’m investigating the Holiday Mall Attacks.”

The kid had been leaning on the glass counter, which was filled with different phones, but he stood straight up to look at the badge when he heard that. “Yes, sir.”

The badge was fake, but it looked heavy and real, and the kid bought in to its authenticity immediately. “I want to know who in here helped this woman,” Troy said, stowing the badge before pulling out his cell phone and showing the kid the picture of Jennie he’d taken during his first visit to the hospital.

“Wow,” the young guy murmured as he glanced at the picture, “she’s pretty.”

“She was in a few days ago,” Troy continued, “a few minutes before the attack here went down. I have her credit card receipt. She bought a phone in this store. And according to those credit card records, your company is her service provider as well.”

“Okay.”

Troy skipped to a picture he had of the sales receipt for the phone. One of Travers’s contacts had found it and e-mailed it over. Troy pointed to a number on the screen after he expanded the receipt. “That’s the salesman’s number on the receipt. Who is it?”

The kid’s expression brightened. “That’s Chad’s ID number. He’s right there.”

Chad was on the other side of the store and looked over when he heard his name. “How can I help you, sir?”

Troy moved quickly to where Chad was standing. “You helped this woman just before the attack here.” Troy showed him the picture of Jennie lying in the hospital bed. “Do you remember her?”

Chad rolled his eyes. “How could I forget her? She’s beautiful. I asked her out while she was buying the phone. I thought I was golden, but then all of a sudden she had to go.” He shook his head as he glanced at her photo again. “Is she all right? My God, did she get shot in the attack?” he asked as his voice rose quickly.

“She’ll be fine,” Troy answered, stowing the phone in his pocket and quickly pulling out and flashing the badge again. “According to the records I have in my possession, your company is also her service provider.”

“Yeah, I remember. That’s right.”

“I want to see the record of her calls for the last thirty days.”

Chad spread his hands wide. “Hey, man, I can’t let you—”

“You can, and you will,” Travers interrupted, leaning past Troy and over the counter so Chad had to lean back. “Otherwise you’ll be in direct conflict with the federal government’s ongoing investigation of the Holiday Mall Attacks. Is that what you want, son? I don’t think so,” he said firmly, answering his own question. “With what’s going on in the world right now, that could land you in Leavenworth doing hard time for ten-to-twenty. Now show us those phone records of hers.”

“We have to leave,” Gadanz said into Sasha’s ear when he’d made it inside their Manassas townhouse and turned the stereo up loud.

For all he knew Daniel had planted listening devices in the home. Hopefully, the stereo would give them cover if there were bugs in here.

“I need time to get my affairs in order at the company, and then we have to leave.”

Forty minutes ago, he’d hurried off the plane from Miami and raced home from Dulles in the Accord, terrified that something had happened to Sasha when he couldn’t reach her after calling her number three times on the way. He’d prepared himself to find them all dead, murdered by Kaashif or one of Daniel’s men as a clear message not to fuck up and to toe the line.

“Do you understand?”

Jacob had almost been overcome by relief when she met him just inside the door a moment ago. Maybe he’d let his paranoia go too far; maybe the cocaine was still playing tricks on him — he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours now, and it had been so pure he was still feeling it. Whatever it was, he was completely convinced they had to get out fast even though everything appeared to be fine. This afternoon Jacob was going to arrange a move to new quarters for the death squad here in northern Virginia, to make it seem like he was cooperating and doing what he’d been told. But once that was checked off the list, he wasn’t doing anything else for Daniel or Kaashif. Once the squad had been moved, he was going to transfer two million dollars out of Gadanz & Company — the most he possibly could — to where it would never be found. He and the girls would have to live on that money for the rest of their lives, because he could never lift his head above ground again and expect to survive.

“We’ll pack whatever we can, put it in the minivan tonight, and take off first thing tomorrow morning.” Tears were already spilling down Sasha’s cheeks. “We’ll be all right, sweetheart, I promise we will.”

“Jacob,” she said as he gently wiped moisture from her face, “does this have anything to do with the Holiday Mall Attacks?”

He gazed down at her for several moments, and then nodded once.

She turned and raced for the stairs to pack.

“Jesus Christ,” Travers muttered as they pulled to a stop in a parking spot at the Fairfax County Hospital.

“What is it, Major?”

Travers glanced up from his phone and over at Troy with a shell-shocked expression. “Don’t get too fond of Jennie.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Remember I told you and your father about following Kaashif from Philadelphia down here to northern Virginia?”

“Sure.”

“How Kaashif went to see a woman in Manassas named Imelda Smith?”

“Yeah, so?”

Travers held his phone up. “I just got a report back from one of my guys. You’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“One of the numbers on Jennie’s list of calls for the last thirty days is for Imelda Smith.”

Troy’s heart skipped a beat, and the world suddenly seemed to be closing in around him. And then his phone went off with a text. “Holy shit,” he whispered as the words on the tiny screen blurred in front of him. He’d run a detailed background check on Jennie Perez, and the results were in.

Jennie was Lisa Martinez’s first cousin. No damn wonder they reminded him so much of each other.

Sophie and Elaina shrieked with joy as they jumped from the school bus and ran for their father.

Jacob scooped up Sophie in one big arm and hugged Elaina with the other. He kissed Sophie several times, then put her down and hugged and kissed Elaina.

He didn’t care about money anymore, he realized as he gazed at Sasha over Elaina’s slender shoulder. She was doing her best to hold back her emotions, but he knew what she was going through. She wanted to get out of here right away, but he had to move the squad and the money.

He’d been a bastard last night in Florida, he’d given in to terrible temptation and all that Daniel held dear. Well, that would never happen again, he promised himself as he hugged his girls. Tomorrow morning they would drive somewhere, anywhere that was far, far from here, and settle down quickly into an anonymous life. From this day forward he would cherish and do anything he could for the three people he cared most about in the world — his three girls.

And he would kill anyone who tried to harm them.

CHAPTER 29

Troy kissed Little Jack’s forehead and then handed him carefully back to Cheryl. He loved the way the boy smelled; he couldn’t get enough of that new-baby aroma. It was so fresh and beautiful — except when the little guy had an accident, like now.

“I’ll take care of everything,” Cheryl said, laughing and rolling her eyes as she took the bundle from Troy.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Bill and Troy were sitting at the card table in the Jensen basement. His father hadn’t seemed himself tonight at all, Troy realized. It wasn’t that he seemed preoccupied; he seemed depressed, which worried Troy. Bill was always the rock. He wasn’t always pleasant, but he was always calm and collected at crunch time when people around him were panicking.

Right now was one of those times the country needed Bill to be calm and focused. Ten more attacks today, and once again, none of the guilty had been apprehended. Local law enforcement had arrested two men in Boise, Idaho, where an attack believed to have been perpetrated by one of the death squads had been carried out at a shopping center in the suburbs, killing five and wounding seven. But the arrests had turned out to be false. Just a couple of guys in a pickup truck heading into the mountains to hunt elk and loaded down with weapons and ammunition, pulled over on their way out of town by ten cop cars and a SWAT team.

“You all right?” Cheryl asked as she leaned down to kiss Bill’s cheek on the way out of the room.

“Fine. Why?”

“You’re not yourself tonight,” she said as she headed for the door.

“That’s ridiculous. And do not bring that baby back in here.”

“See?”

“Stop it, Cheryl.”

“I know you too well,” she said as she reached back for the handle to close the door behind her. “Something’s not right.”

When she was gone, Bill muttered a few unintelligible words and then pointed at Troy without looking. It was another sure sign that something was wrong. He always made direct eye contact when he was giving an order. It was a holdover habit from his Marine days.

“Come on out, Major,” Troy called toward the closet.

When Travers had emerged from his usual hiding spot and was seated at the table again, Bill took a deep breath. “Where are we?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“We wanted to give you an update.” He and Travers had been at the house for an hour, but Bill had been on the phone until ten minutes ago, supposedly dealing with an issue at First Manhattan. Troy could tell Travers was starting to get impatient. Taking another roundabout way through the woods to get to the mansion tonight hadn’t helped the major’s demeanor, either. “It’s important.”

“Okay, go.”

“I know you weren’t happy about me seeing this Jennie Perez woman in the first place, but—”

“It wasn’t that,” Bill interrupted. “I just thought it was a distraction.”

“Well, it turns out it wasn’t.”

“Oh?”

His father’s tone just then had seemed odd. It was almost as if he’d been expecting this development, Troy thought. “She knew a woman named Imelda Smith,” he explained. “Or was at least having consistent contact with her.”

“Imelda Smith is the person Kaashif went to see in Manassas, Virginia,” Travers reminded Bill. “It was the day I followed him all the way down there from Philly. Kaashif is the young man who I interrogated last—”

“I remember, Major. How do you know they were in contact?”

“Phone records. Apparently, Ms. Perez and Imelda spoke nine times in the two weeks prior to the attacks. Some of the calls lasted for over ten minutes.”

“After we left the hospital the second time,” Troy spoke up when Travers was done, “we drove out to Imelda’s place in Manassas, but nobody was there. A neighbor told us he’d seen a van out in front of her place a few days ago. He’d never seen the van before, and since then Imelda hasn’t been around. He admitted that maybe it was just a coincidence, but he was genuinely concerned, no doubt. He told us Imelda has a five-year-old son. The guy hasn’t seen the boy lately, either, and he was worried about it. We went inside after we finished talking to the guy, and it looked like there’d definitely been a struggle in the kitchen. Dishes and pans were scattered everywhere, and there were several chairs overturned. The door to the outside wasn’t locked, either.”

“That’s terrible,” Bill said quietly, chin almost on his chest.

“You okay, Dad?”

“I’m fine,” Bill retorted angrily, forcing emotion into his voice. “I’m dealing with something at the firm, that’s all. You all need to stop this crap.”

His father dealt with difficult issues all day long at First Manhattan, and he never acted like this. Oftentimes, in fact, he seemed to revel in problem-solving through confrontation. The explanation about First Manhattan causing his sour mood seemed pretty lame.

“You said you went to the hospital a second time today,” Bill spoke up. “Why?”

“I wanted to see Ms. Perez’s physical charts.”

“Why?”

“I just did.”

“And?”

“And we got into a records room, and it turns out she hadn’t been shot in the back like Dr. Harrison told me she had. That was all a lie.”

Bill’s expression remained impassive.

“She’s Lisa Martinez’s cousin,” Troy continued. “I ran a background check on her, and that connection came up right away. Ms. Perez was born in Brooklyn and moved to Virginia when she was ten. But I’m betting she and Lisa stayed close after she moved.”

“What are you saying?” Bill asked.

Troy glanced at Travers, then back at Bill. “I think what’s going on is pretty obvious.” He and Travers had run this logic through their collective gray matter several times today on the way up to Connecticut. “Jennie Perez is working with whoever’s behind the Mall Attacks.” Troy waited for a response from Bill, but got nothing. “These people must know something about Red Cell Seven, Dad. They must have contacted her to try to get to us, maybe to you specifically. I think they figured out somehow that Lisa and I were involved and that I was in RCS.” He paused. This was the key to the connection. “Maybe Maddux had something to do with them finding out — maybe everything, in fact. Maybe Maddux put together the whole thing, like he did with the LNG tankers heading for Boston and Virginia. Maybe the terrorists told Ms. Perez that I murdered Lisa after Maddux told them to tell her that.”

“Why would you murder Lisa?” Bill asked, obviously unconvinced.

“Maybe because Troy had told her to get an abortion,” Travers spoke up, “and she wouldn’t.”

“She’d already had the baby at that point.”

“Maybe we argued about it,” Troy said. “Maybe it was just passion boiling over. Ms. Perez would have been bitter and ready to believe anything if she and Lisa were close. They figured she’d want to get revenge, and they were right. They would have had an easy time signing her up to be their agent if they fed her all that. Look, it could be the same terrorist group Maddux was involved with on the tankers. In fact, it probably is.”

Bill shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“So what was Jennie Perez doing talking to Imelda Smith? And what was she doing in the mall right before the attacks went down? It’s too coincidental.” Troy was getting revved up, pissed at Bill’s stonewalling. “The sales guy at the cell phone store said Ms. Perez was real calm one second, but when she suddenly realized what time it was, she took off. Why would she do that?”

“It’s a stretch, Troy. And you know it is.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.”

“Usually but not always.”

Why was his father doing this? “We couldn’t find her new phone anywhere. It wasn’t with her possessions at the hospital, and no one turned it in. I think she had information on it that was important to them. The guy at the store who helped her said he transferred a lot of data over from her old phone. It’s a natural to think that’s what was going on.”

“Someone at the mall must have gotten the phone,” Bill said. “If she was working with them, why would they shoot her?”

Bill kept putting up roadblocks everywhere on this. Unfortunately, that was the one question Troy and Travers couldn’t find an answer to, either.

“What about Kaashif, Major?” Bill asked, glancing at Travers. “Did you get any data on him from your phone, from the TQ app?”

“Yes, sir. We believe Kaashif met very recently with a man named Jacob Gadanz who lives in Manassas. The data from my phone shows us that Kaashif went to the offices of a company Gadanz owns, and then later went to a location very near Gadanz’s home. So we assume it was Gadanz who Kaashif was meeting with.”

“What kind of company is it?”

For the first time tonight Troy saw fire in his father’s eyes. “Gadanz and Company operates a chain of convenience stores.”

“So it deals with lots of cash,” Bill said quietly. “So it has money-laundering capability and would be able to spread lots of cash around easily.”

“That’s right,” Travers agreed, gesturing at Troy. “That’s what we thought, too.”

“Did you run any lines on Gadanz?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it,” Bill ordered. “Immediately. Sounds like you’re on to something there.”

“Please tell me,” the man whispered compassionately. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just tell me where it is.”

Nancy Carlson gazed forlornly at the ski-masked man, her mouth dry from the nasty-tasting gag he’d stuffed in there hours ago. In the end, Roger had told her where only one of the two documents was hidden. He’d told her there were two, but he hadn’t told her the hiding place of the other one. She was terrified this man would be furious when he realized that she only knew of the whereabouts of the one document and he’d go into an insane rage. She’d been worried about this day coming for forty years, but her worry had grown to terror the moment she’d found Roger slumped over the steering wheel of his car outside the townhouse in Georgetown. She’d cried for him when she’d realized he was dead — and then for herself. She’d considered leaving immediately, but she’d put it off. Now she was regretting that decision.

Her eyes flickered around the dimly lit room. She didn’t know where she was now, but she knew it wasn’t Georgetown. He’d stashed her in the trunk of his car, and the frigid drive had to have been at least thirty minutes long.

She finally nodded to him, and he removed the gag. “I only know where one of them is,” she whispered, “and that’s all I know. I don’t even know what the document is. I swear I don’t.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered back, smiling through the hole in the ski mask as he patted her shoulder comfortingly. “That’s all I need. I’m keeping you here until I get it. When I get back I’ll let you go. I promise I will. I just have to make sure you’re telling me the truth.” It seemed silly to say that. She was obviously so scared out of her mind she wasn’t going to lie. But he had no choice. “Okay?”

She nodded back. “Okay.”

CHAPTER 30

Troy stepped into a large room of the mansion’s basement. In one corner was a prison cell. It reminded him of the cell in North Carolina, though it was bigger and didn’t have that Inquisition-like ring hanging from a chain bolted to the wall. But the steel bars were the same — vertical, black, and cold-looking.

The Jensen family had moved to this house in the countryside outside Greenwich twenty years ago, when Troy was eight. But he and Jack had never been allowed into this section of the massive basement while they were growing up. They’d tried getting in many times when they were left alone. But the thick, metal door was always triple-locked, and there was an alarm — which they’d tripped twice and paid the price on each occasion, the second time dearly, when Troy was eleven and Jack thirteen. It had been the summer, and for two weeks they’d been allowed out of their rooms only long enough to use the bathroom. They’d even taken meals in their rooms.

Troy had found out what was in here only after he became a member of Red Cell Seven. As far as he knew, Jack had died never knowing.

As he looked around, he wondered whether this room had been used not just to hold human beings but to interrogate them as well. He’d made his peace with the need for RCS interrogations to be thorough — rough, even — but for some reason it would bother him to know that torture had occurred in the house where he’d grown up. Which didn’t make much sense, he realized. You were either in or out when it came to the tough calls in life — and he was all-in when it came to RCS agents using any means necessary to protect the United States.

Still…

The cell was unoccupied tonight — which wasn’t a good sign, and there could only be one explanation for that, only one person who could have allowed the prisoner to go free.

Karen had called Troy to tell him that Maddux was locked in the cell, but she wouldn’t say exactly how he’d gotten there. She was an ex-cop, but she couldn’t possibly have gotten him in there by herself. Troy wasn’t sure he could have taken in Maddux alone. So he’d pressed her on what had happened several times. But she wouldn’t divulge anything more about the help she’d received — she wouldn’t even confirm that she had — though she’d apologized three times for being circumspect.

It had to be Charlie Banks, Troy figured. That had to be the person who’d rescued her at the cemetery and helped her bring Maddux to the house. Charlie must have survived being thrown from the Arctic Fire as well, and then laid low all this time. His body had never been found. It was the only possible explanation. She’d sounded happy when they’d spoken. That was a tip-off, too.

Charlie must have realized Karen had found happiness with Jack and not interfered, not made contact with Karen until after Jack was gone. Charlie was a good man. Troy looked forward to that reunion. He just wished it could have been Jack. It was a terrible thing to think, but he couldn’t help it.

“What are you doing in here?”

Troy turned around quickly. “I think you know, Dad,” he answered when he’d calmed down after the voice coming from nowhere had startled him.

“How did you…?” Bill’s voice trailed off.

“Karen called me. She said she was visiting Jack’s grave last night when Maddux confronted her. She said he tried finding out where Travers was, and assaulted her when she couldn’t tell him. He figured she was holding out, but she wasn’t. At least, that’s what she told me.” Troy shrugged. “Why was Shane looking for Major Travers?”

“He figured Travers knew where Kaashif was. You were right, son. Maddux is a patriot. He wanted his turn at Kaashif. He figured he could break the young man even if Travers couldn’t. He figured he could find out who was behind the attacks. As you are aware, he’s very confident in his ability to extract information from anyone.”

“Did you tell him where Kaashif was?”

“I gave Shane the address to the house in Philadelphia where Kaashif lives.”

“Any possibility there was another reason Maddux was looking for Travers?” Troy asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Troy, if you know anything at all, you must—”

“I don’t.” Troy nodded at the empty holding cell. “What happened? Why isn’t Maddux in there?”

“I let him go,” Bill admitted.

“Why?”

“I had to.”

“What do you mean?”

Bill stared at Troy hard for several moments. But his gaze dropped to the floor when his son wouldn’t look away. “He…he had leverage on me,” Bill finally said in a faltering delivery.

“What does that mean, Dad?”

“It means if I hadn’t let him go, he would have released something about me that I could not have released. It was something that would have hurt your mother very badly. I couldn’t have that.” Bill grimaced as he finished. “There, I said it.”

His father’s voice was shaking, and that was unnerving for Troy. The rock of the family was disintegrating right in front of him. “What is it?” It seemed to Troy that whatever Maddux had on his father, his father was more concerned about himself than anyone else. “What does Shane have on you?”

Bill said nothing, just looked away.

This was a shot in the dark, but Troy figured he’d take it. “Dr. Harrison, the man who was taking care of Jennie Perez.”

“Yes?”

“You asked me what his name was when I was heading for Dulles to go to North Carolina. But you already knew him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Bill answered, almost inaudibly.

“Why didn’t you just—”

“You were right about Jennie,” Bill cut in, “in a way, at least. She was approached by people claiming to be terrorists. Imelda Smith contacted her, and they were trying to get information on RCS, as you assumed. And they did tell her Lisa had been murdered by someone inside U.S. intel. But it turns out Jennie Perez is a patriot as well. She told me exactly what was going on when she contacted me. Apparently Lisa had told Jennie about the two of you and that I was your father. I asked Jennie if she would help us by appearing to cooperate with the terrorists. She said she would. She’s a brave young woman, Troy.

“And yes,” Bill continued, “there was information on that cell phone she bought at the store the other day. She had it transferred from her old one before she left the store. I told her she needed to make certain she had a record of what she gave them, even though the information was useless. It was full of red herrings. It would have seemed important to the people who got it, but it really wasn’t.”

Troy nodded as it all hit him. “She had no idea about the attacks. She thought she was just meeting her contact that day at the mall.”

“That’s right, and I don’t think they meant to shoot her. She got in the way of a bullet, probably when she was saving that little girl’s life. But they still got the phone.”

“How do you know?”

“Someone followed up on information on that phone. We set up a couple of data traps, and one was hit.”

“So that’s why they didn’t execute her the way they did the other two people.”

“I can only assume,” Bill agreed.

“Why did you have the doctor tell me she’d been shot in the back?”

“I wanted it to look real to you because I wanted you to leave her alone. I figured you’d hear about the other two being killed at close range and wonder why Jennie hadn’t been.”

“That’s why you told me it was a waste of time to see her.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“I couldn’t have anyone else knowing what was really going on with her. It was too big a risk for her and RCS, too covert an operation. I trust you completely, of course, but you could have been kidnapped and tortured, had drugs administered. All the typical stuff, so I was simply keeping to the RCS code. Need-to-know only.” Bill hesitated. “Once the attacks hit, I was hoping we could get information on the identity of the terrorists through Jennie. But they haven’t reached out to her again.”

“Her contact went missing,” Troy pointed out. “Something happened to Imelda Smith. Maybe her own people figured she had to be taken out. Maybe they suspected something.”

Bill shook his head. “No, it was Maddux. He got a blind tip about her from somebody at Fort Meade, I’m guessing, and he interrogated her. You know what happens to anyone Maddux interrogates.”

A sinking feeling rushed through Troy. “What about her son?”

Bill shook his head again. “No.”

“Maddux killed him, too?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s…that’s awful.” Troy glanced back at his father. “Did you know about the plan to assassinate President Dorn? Did you back it?”

Bill stared at his son for a long time without answering.

“Tell me the truth, Dad.”

“Yes,” Bill finally murmured.

For a few moments all Troy saw in front of him was a fury-wall of red. “When we were at the White House,” he spoke up, doing his best to control his anger, “you gave me that whole song and dance about how there could be no excuse for killing the president of the United States.” But the emotion was still coming through.

“It was a matter of national security, Troy. David Dorn is making us weak. He and people like him are bringing this country down. Look at the attacks that are happening around us right now. This country is being shut down by a small group of lunatics, and Dorn can’t seem to do anything about it. Despite the mayhem, he wants to shut RCS down.”

“I thought we were going to be a cornerstone of his intel strategy going forward.”

“Come on, son.”

Troy couldn’t argue with that. Hell, he’d felt the insincerity himself at the White House the other day, even mentioned it to Bill. Dorn had been on a fishing trip, nothing else. And Baxter clearly wanted to do anything he could to destroy Red Cell Seven. “We didn’t catch the Holiday Mall Attacks, Dad.” Another sinking feeling rushed through Troy. In fact, maybe they had, but his father had another agenda. “Or did we?”

“No.”

These multiple shades of gray were hard to deal with. How could he know if his father was telling the truth about anything at this point? What about Roger Carlson? What if his father had known and hadn’t done anything? What if he’d known about the LNG tankers as well? “Was Carlson backing Dorn’s assassination, too?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Protecting the United States is a complicated proposition, son.” Bill had suddenly gone pale. “It’s a minute-by-minute ordeal on a global scale, and it’s getting harder by the day. You of all people should understand that.”

“There has to be a chain of command that’s never broken, Dad. This is a democracy.”

“Grow up, son,” Bill snapped angrily, though his face was still ashen. “Democracy doesn’t work anymore. It’s a fractured model of government for our country at this point. Our society’s too splintered. We’ve got too many special-interest groups fighting to get a piece of a federal pie that isn’t big enough to go all the way around, not nearly. Too many lazy bastards want entitlements, they don’t want to work for a living anymore, they want it all for nothing. It’s too easy, and worse, too profitable not to steal from the government. Decisions can’t be made by the population anymore, son. Congress can’t agree on anything. How can you expect the population to? So, in effect, we’re paralyzed. A small collection of individuals have to make the decisions that really matter. It’s the only way we survive. Otherwise it’s gridlock that only gets worse and worse. It’s a few of us taking matters into our own hands because we have to. It’s called leadership.”

“I hope you’re not serious,” Troy murmured. But he knew Bill was. He recognized the truth tone. “You’re rationalizing what you’ve done, you’re making excuses.”

“When was the last time you looked at one of those old paintings of the founding fathers ratifying the Declaration of Independence or signing the Constitution?”

Troy shrugged. “I don’t know.” Where had that question come from?

“Look at one when you get a chance.”

Was this some kind of secret that had been handed down for hundreds of years to a limited few? Was there some kind of code embedded in those paintings, and now he was finally being let in on the secret — like the real meaning of the eye atop the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill?

“Why should I?”

“All those men in the paintings look the same.”

Troy stared at his father quizzically. “What?”

“They’re all the same, Troy. They’re all middle-aged white men. Some are skinny, some are fat. Some are wearing white wigs, some dark. Other than that, they couldn’t be a more homogeneous group if they tried. They all basically wanted the same things, and they’d just come off all having a common enemy, which they’d beaten against all odds. They were one. Democracy was easy back then, but it isn’t now. We have lots of enemies now, and the worst and most powerful one is ourselves. Troy, every face in that painting of the Constitution signing would be a different color if the signing was today.” Bill’s eyes were flashing. He wasn’t visibly upset anymore. He’d regained his signature calm, and the color was back in his cheeks. “And I’m not saying that’s bad. Don’t mistake what I’m saying for bigotry. Have I ever once made any remark about Little Jack’s bloodline?”

Troy shook his head. “No.”

“No, I have not, and I never will.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I never met Lisa. You’ve never even shown me a picture of her.”

Suddenly Troy felt bad. “I’m sorry, Dad, I just never—”

“But judging by Little Jack, she must have been a very beautiful girl. And from what you and Jack have told me, she was wonderful.”

“She was.”

“And that’s what America should be about at its core. Ethnic, religious, and economic diversity coming together to form the greatest union this world has ever known. It’s beautiful and amazing when it works like it did for you two.” Bill spread his arms wide. “Unfortunately, the reality of every individual having a vote gets complex very fast when that ethnic and religious diversity broadens as dramatically as it has in our country. We’re more diverse than any other meaningful country in the world ever has been, and that’s remarkable in and of itself. It’s our single greatest achievement. It’s also our single greatest problem. It slows our progress to a crawl because we all want what’s best for our immediate families and the people we know and care about. It creates that gridlock, which makes us vulnerable to external enemies, and ourselves. And it creates a scenario where the opportunists within our society thrive.

“Sometimes some of us have to take extraordinary measures to make certain that our vulnerability doesn’t turn into a situation in which we find ourselves utterly defenseless. Roger and I believed that President Dorn was leading us directly down that path.”

The room went still as Bill finished his speech.

As Troy gazed at his father, he realized that Bill had never looked older. He suddenly seemed like an elderly man, a man who’d been carrying around too many secrets for too long. The pressure of it all had finally worn him down. It was sad, and Troy felt heat at the corners of his eyes. For the first time he could remember, Bill Jensen looked weak.

Troy gestured at the bars. “Was that cell ever used for anything other than just to hold people?”

“What do you think, son?”

Troy glanced down. He had his answer. While he’d been sleeping upstairs as a kid, men had been interrogated here in the basement. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to catch up with Travers, and then we’re headed to Virginia, to Manassas, to see if we can get anything out of Jacob Gadanz.”

“Good. I hope you find something out. We need a break.”

“Bye, Dad,” Troy said quietly as he turned to go. He wanted to hug his father, but he couldn’t. The emotional divide was too wide.

“Son.”

Troy stopped and turned back. “Yes?”

“Did Karen tell you everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she tell you who helped her get Maddux in here?”

“No, Dad, she kept the secret. But I think I still know. It was Charlie Banks.”

Bill pursed his lips. “Of course you knew,” he whispered.

Baxter reached across the desk and handed a manila envelope to the president after waiting for Connie to shut the Oval Office door behind her. She’d given him a nasty look when he’d ordered her out with a gruff “get lost.” Two, actually, the second being even more obvious. Well, screw her. She’d better watch herself. He had the ability to punish people now — harshly. And he’d use it again if he felt like it.

Baxter had been nervous about sending the ex-con out after Nancy Carlson. It was the first time in his career he’d ever ordered anything violent like that. But the guy had executed the job perfectly — except for initially wanting to let the old woman go free when she’d given him what he wanted — and Baxter had to admit the power was intoxicating. And he felt no remorse whatsoever for ordering the guy to finish the job because they couldn’t risk having any loose ends on this. He’d been a little worried about that guilt thing rearing its ugly head. But it hadn’t, not at all.

“Is this what I think it is?” Dorn asked excitedly, grabbing the envelope from his chief of staff and pulling out the contents. “My God, it is,” he whispered in awe. “It’s an original of the Executive Order Nixon signed back in 1973.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I hate what it stands for, Stewart, but I’m a sucker for history. This is amazing,” he murmured, tapping Nixon’s neat, flowing signature at the bottom of the page. “Truly amazing,” he repeated.

“More amazing than we’d anticipated,” Baxter muttered regretfully.

“What do you mean?” Dorn asked as the enthusiasm drained from his expression. He’d recognized that concerned tone of Baxter’s.

“I took the document to two people to confirm its authenticity and to try to determine its potential impact. The first person absolutely confirmed Nixon’s signature. He said it was quite extraordinary, too.”

“Why?”

“By late 1973, Nixon’s signature was illegible, for all intents and purposes. In fact, his signature on his letter of resignation in 1974 is basically nothing but a horizontal straight line. The guy I took the order to showed me that signature. It’s as if Nixon didn’t want anyone recognizing it, as if he was ashamed and completely exhausted from being president and wished he’d never even considered running. Which is understandable, I suppose, given everything that happened to him.” Baxter gestured at the paper Dorn was holding. “But the signature on that document is bold and flowing. It’s what his signature looked like back in ’68 when he was first elected. The expert showed me that signature as well, and it was very different. You could tell he was excited about being president back then.” Baxter pointed at the page again. “He wanted people to know he’d signed that order. He was proud of signing that order, maybe the last thing he was truly proud of.”

“Who else did you take this to?” Dorn asked, dropping the page on the desk.

“A man who is a recognized expert on constitutional law as well as on the current Supreme Court justices as individuals. He knows them all very well, and he knows how they would react to something like this.”

“And?”

Baxter took a deep breath. He knew how Dorn was going to react, and he wasn’t looking forward to it now that the man was feeling like himself again. “And we need to get the other original of Executive Order 1973 One-E. Only then will we feel completely confident of our ability to crush Red Cell Seven,” he said, glancing at his watch.

He had a meeting he had to get to, and he didn’t want to hang around here. He could see Dorn already starting to boil over.

Bill hung up the landline in his home office. It was the third time he’d tried to reach Nancy Carlson, but the ring had just gone on and on. She was a sweet woman, and he hoped she hadn’t gotten caught up in all of this. But it made sense that she would. She was the only person Roger had ever completely trusted. He hoped like hell she hadn’t paid the ultimate price just for being a good wife.

CHAPTER 31

Five-thirty A.M. and bitter cold in Manassas, Virginia. During the last few hours another Arctic blast had invaded the Lower Forty-Eight from Canada on the wings of an icy northwest wind. The mercury was plummeting in the Mid-Atlantic.

So far, the three men had been waiting thirty minutes for their fourth team member, and Troy was tempted to go in without him. They had to take advantage of the darkness cover going in — and coming out. If they waited much longer, they’d be risking a dawn exit from the townhouse, which was completely unacceptable.

Finally, Troy spotted headlights coming toward them. Relief and anger filtered through him as the twin beams got bigger and brighter. “You’re late,” he muttered as Travers came to a quick stop and climbed out of the Jeep. It was the first time since he’d met the major that there’d been a problem. But this was a big one. As far as Troy was concerned, you always posted on time in RCS — no excuses. “What the hell?”

“Decus septum,” Travers said, aggravated that Troy had omitted the greeting.

“And protect the peak, but look, I—”

“Hey, I hit traffic.”

“At this hour?”

“Come on, it’s DC. Anytime, anywhere, pal. You know that.” Travers gestured at the cluster of townhomes closest to them. “Which one is it?”

“It’s not in this area. It’s two clusters down.” Troy pointed farther along the lane. “I wanted no chance of them spotting us early.”

“Two entrances to the place?”

“Yeah, front door and back terrace.”

“Floors?”

“Three.”

“Do we know how many people are in there?”

“Four. Gadanz, the woman he lives with, and their two kids. I have no reason to believe anyone else is inside the home. I’ve had the place watched since five p.m. yesterday, and no one’s gone in or out since Gadanz got home at seven o’clock last night.”

Travers reached back into the Jeep for a pistol that was hidden beneath the driver’s seat. They were all carrying the standard Heckler & Koch MP5s tonight, but he was bringing his Colt .357, too. “You say kids are in there?” he called softly over his shoulder.

“They’re twelve and nine, and they’re both girls. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“But I assume we’re operating under normal procedures,” Travers said in a low voice as the four men huddled close together so they could all hear. “Anybody sees us, we take them out, right?”

“We’ve all got our ski masks with us. It won’t be a problem.” Troy glanced at the other two men. “Make sure you keep those things on,” he said, gesturing at the masks dangling from their belts. “Don’t let anyone rip them off.”

They nodded.

“Still…” Travers said deliberately.

“It’s a family in a townhouse,” Troy replied. “It’s not like we’re storming an embassy that’s been taken over by hostiles.”

“And these guys are my family.” Travers gestured at the other two men. He’d recruited them quickly for this morning’s mission from inside the Interrogation Division. They were Agents Potomac and Shenandoah, as far as Troy knew. “I can’t take any chances.”

“It won’t come anywhere near that,” Troy said confidently. “We’re grabbing Gadanz, and then we’re getting out. We shouldn’t be inside for more than five minutes. If we have to secure the other three, we will. Then we’ll call the cops after we’re gone, to set them free again.”

Travers nodded at Potomac and Shenandoah, indicating that they should move off a few paces. When they had, he leaned close to Troy so they couldn’t hear what he was about to say. “You’re not easing up, are you?” he whispered. “You’ve got to stay tough.”

“What are you talking about?” Troy demanded.

“I don’t want to jump bad on you, pal. God knows, you saved my ass in North Carolina the other night.”

“Say what’s on your mind.”

“You’ve got a little boy up north. I saw you with him. I saw how much you love him. I don’t want that getting in the way of what might happen in there,” Travers said, nodding down the lane. “Or any other place in the future, for your sake and anybody with you. We gotta stick to procedure. Anybody sees us, and they do not greet the morning light, no matter who they are or how young they are. We clear on that?”

“Major, I—”

“I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen guys in RCS back off the edge just a little because they get compassionate when they have kids, sometimes even when they just get married. Something happens when they see that baby or they tie the knot, and they lose our religion. And just a little loss can be plenty. It doesn’t happen often, but it does. And when it does, it’s a huge risk. That’s why Carlson didn’t want married guys, especially not fathers, in the cell. We are not in the business of being compassionate. Do you understand me, Captain?”

Troy stared at Travers for several moments, then finally nodded. “Don’t worry about me, Major. Do you understand me?”

Travers grinned and patted Troy on the shoulder, then waved the other men back in. “Okay, tonight I’m Agent Walker.” He pointed at the other two. “They are—”

“I know, I know,” Troy interrupted, “Shenandoah and Potomac.”

“And you’ll be Agent Smirnoff.”

It was Troy’s turn to grin. Travers had told him that Harry Boyd had always been Agent Smirnoff in these situations, and Troy understood that Travers was sending a big compliment his way. “Okay.”

For several minutes the four men went over the plan. Troy and Travers would enter the townhouse together through the terrace entrance while Shenandoah and Potomac would cover the front door and cut off that escape route from the shadows until Troy or Travers let them in.

When they were all clear on their orders, the four men checked and rechecked their weapons. Then they donned their ski masks and headed through the darkness toward the target location.

“You get all your errands taken care of?” Troy whispered as they hustled along. Travers hadn’t been at all forthcoming about where he was going before meeting back up with Troy.

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” He pointed ahead as they jogged. “Any dogs?”

“No.”

“Good. I hate it when I’ve gotta deal with dogs.”

“I don’t know why you are so hating me. It must be because I am a—”

“You’re part of a group that’s attacking the United States,” Maddux cut in, anticipating the card his victim was about to play. “This morning has nothing to do with what religion you practice. But you’re right about one thing. I do hate you. Anyone messes with my country and they go on my hate list.”

“I am not part of any group doing that,” Kaashif replied, moaning when he strained at the chains stretched tightly across his bare back and legs, securing him to the cinder-block wall so he could barely move. A muffled sob escaped his lips as the first tear rolled down one cheek. “I am a high school senior.”

“That’s your cover, terrorist-boy. It’s a pretty good one, too. I’ll give you that. And stop crying. I’m not buying it. Besides, even if you really are in high school, you should be a man about this. You chose this path.”

“I chose nothing. I should be taking a chemistry test today,” Kaashif said through his tears.

“Don’t give me that crap,” Maddux snapped as he lit a cigarette. “School’s out for the holidays. Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Kaashif glanced over his shoulder fearfully as Maddux took a long drag on the cancer stick, then moved his way. “I just want to go home, sir. Please let me go home to Philadelphia to my mother and father.”

“I’ll be happy to let you go home just as soon as you’ve finished answering all my questions.”

“But I do not know anything about what you asked me before. I swear I do not.”

Maddux chuckled. “Well, we’re about to find out for sure now,” he said as he pressed the hot end of the cigarette to the skin of Kaashif’s bare shoulder…and the screaming began.

Jacob Gadanz headed into Elaina’s room first. She was the easy one to awaken. As he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, he could see in the dim light that her eyes were already open and glistening. She was like him, a very light sleeper. In fact, she was like him in a lot of ways.

As he rose back up, it struck him for the first time that perhaps he didn’t appreciate her as much as he should, and he vowed to do better at that. He’d have plenty of time, too. It wasn’t as if he was going to be working anytime soon. That would be far too risky, especially early on. Besides, they should be able to stretch two million dollars a long way. It should provide them a respectable runway and the chance to settle into their new surroundings with their new names.

He’d moved the money yesterday afternoon. It was hidden and safe but still available. The only good thing about what he’d done for Daniel and Kaashif was that he’d become an expert at cleansing cash.

“Morning, Papa.”

“Good morning, angel.”

“So, where are we going?” Elaina asked as she slowly sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s a surprise,” Gadanz answered. He’d told the girls last night that they would all be taking a long trip today. But that was all he’d said; there were no details even though they’d both tried hard to have him say more. “A big surprise.” Fortunately, this escape was timed perfectly with the beginning of their holiday from school, so they seemed unsuspecting and excited about what was happening. They believed this was the start of a family vacation. He could ease them gently into the realization that the move was permanent, and he didn’t have to explain anything today. “And I want you to help your sister this morning with everything, okay? We have to get going quickly.”

“Why, Papa?”

“So we get where we’re going faster,” Gadanz called back with a laugh as he headed out of her room and into Sophie’s, trying to make light of everything. “Good morning, Sophie,” he said loudly, “wake up, honey.” She was on her side, turned away from the door, which was strange. She’d always slept on her stomach as far back as he could remember. A faint alarm went off in the back of his head as he reached out and shook her shoulder gently. “Sophie, wake—”

“I’m awake, Papa!” she shouted, turning over quickly and jumping up on the mattress with a big smile.

His heart nearly exploded as she leapt from the bed into his arms. “God, you scared me,” he murmured as he grabbed her and held her tight.

“I’m excited, Papa. I couldn’t sleep, I was so excited.”

Now he felt terrible. For not telling them where they were going and how permanent it was; for yielding to the temptations Daniel had plied him with in Florida; for putting his family in this situation to begin with. But he’d needed that money Daniel had staked him with to start the company. Unfortunately, from that moment on he’d been in his brother’s debt — which was a bad place to be, even if you were Daniel’s brother. It hadn’t seemed so bad at the time, but down deep he’d figured this day would come sooner or later.

“Tell me where we’re going, Daddy.”

“It’s a surprise, a big surprise.”

As she hugged him again, he thought he heard something downstairs. It had to be Sasha starting breakfast. But he could have sworn she was still in the bathroom, which was off their bedroom on this upper floor.

Kaashif was strong and committed to the cause, but not as strong and committed as Imelda had been. Not even close. As Maddux thought back on his interrogation career, he marveled once more at Imelda’s fortitude and thought again about how it would have been good to have her on their side.

“I think I know what your vulnerability is, Kaashif.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Kaashif asked respectfully as he continued to sob. “Please let me go.”

“I think you’re just like me. I think you hate small, confining places.” The moment the young man hesitated, Maddux knew he’d broken through the veneer. “You’re claustrophobic, aren’t you?”

“I do not even know what that word means.”

Maddux laughed harshly as he lifted the wooden box off the floor. “You’re not a very good liar, Kaashif.” The box was hinged in the middle of the front with a hole for the neck in the bottom. It would fit snugly around Kaashif’s head and, once closed, very accurately replicate the feeling of being buried alive in total darkness. Maddux knew only too well how hideous that feeling was. It was his only vulnerability, too.

As Maddux began to fit the box around Kaashif’s head, the young man began to struggle violently.

Maddux laughed again, louder. “I got it, didn’t I, you little bastard?”

“Don’t do this!” Kaashif shouted, moving his head about as fast and furiously as he could. “Please, no, no, no!” But he could only resist for so long.

As Maddux snapped the latches at the back of the box tightly shut, Kaashif began to scream much more desperately than he had from any of the five cigarette burns on his shoulders. “Now, tell me what I want to know.”

The muffled, panic-stricken screams went on and on until finally Maddux realized he was only seconds away from all the answers he sought.

“You’re not touching her,” Troy said firmly as he stood in front of Elaina, who was lying in one corner of the bedroom floor, hog-tied and crying into the gag that had been shoved roughly into her mouth. “I mean it, Agent Walker.” He’d been afraid of this. If only they hadn’t talked about it beforehand, it never would have happened. He’d always been suspicious like that, and he knew how irrational it sounded. But things always seemed to work out more often when he was. “I’m serious.”

“Get out of my way,” Travers ordered gruffly as he moved farther into the room, pistol drawn. “She has to die. We all agreed on this before we came in here.”

Agent Shenandoah stood by the door clutching his MP5, clearly agitated. His black ski mask lay crumpled on the floor beside Elaina.

“Where are the others?” Troy demanded as he brought the barrel of his MP5 up at Travers. Troy had come to respect Travers as much as he could in the short time they’d known each other, and he was not a naturally trusting young man. But he was learning that Travers had a short temper. And he was not a negotiator. “Where are Gadanz, the woman, and the other little girl?”

“They’re tied up in the master bedroom,” Travers answered, raising one eyebrow as he glanced at the gun barrel. “Agent Potomac is watching them.”

“What happened in here?” Troy demanded, gesturing at Agent Shenandoah.

“She was hiding behind the door when I came in,” he answered angrily. “She tried to run, but I caught her. She tore my ski mask off before I could do anything about it. This sucks, but it’s not my fault.”

Debatable, Troy figured, but they didn’t have time to argue about it. He glanced at the nightstand and the cell phone on top of it. “Did you—”

“She didn’t make any outbound calls. I checked. Not since last night, anyway.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Travers spoke up. “We need to get out of here, but we need to take care of this situation first.”

Once again he tried getting at the girl, but once again Troy stepped in front of him. “You’re not killing her,” Troy said firmly. “She’s not a threat to anyone.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t have to worry about it,” Agent Shenandoah hissed. “She hasn’t seen your face.”

Troy pulled the ski mask off his head immediately. “There,” he said, glancing down into Elaina’s petrified eyes. “Now she’s seen me, too. You satisfied?”

“Damn it,” Travers muttered. “That was stupid, Agent Smirnoff.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t care,” Travers said, taking another step forward, “she’s not getting out of this alive. I won’t risk one of my men for her. These men are like blood to me.”

“No,” Troy shot back. He could hear Elaina whimpering pathetically beneath the gag. She knew her life lay in the balance. She’d heard the conviction in Travers’s voice. “We’re better than this. You’re better than this, Agent Walker.”

Pistol still in his right hand, Travers grabbed Troy by the collar. But Troy flipped Travers to the floor, then backed off and swung the barrel of the gun back and forth quickly between Travers and the other agent.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said loudly as Travers scrambled to his feet and looked as if he was going to make another charge. “Give it a chance, Agent Walker. Please.”

Jacob Gadanz groaned as the two men picked him up beneath his arms and dragged him roughly off the floor, sat him on the edge of the bed, and pulled the gag from his mouth. “What’s going on?” He glanced down at Sasha and Sophie, who lay on the carpeted floor where he’d been, wrists and ankles lashed together, gagged and blindfolded. His wrists and ankles were still secured, but not tied together anymore. “Why are you doing this to me and my family?” he demanded.

“Who’s Kaashif?” Travers demanded right back. “Tell me, or your daughter dies.”

At that moment Troy and Agent Shenandoah hustled Elaina into the room. They had put their ski masks back on.

Gadanz gazed at Elaina’s tear-streaked face. Did it really matter if he held out on what he knew? As soon as Daniel realized that they’d fled, he would send killers — irrespective of what was conveyed or not. And maybe, if he played his cards right, he could get protection from these people. As much as anyone could be protected from Daniel Gadanz.

He swallowed hard as he made his decision. The life he’d known for a long time was over forever. “Kaashif is a man who helps my brother.”

Travers snapped his fingers at Troy and the other two agents immediately, then pointed at the doorway. “You guys get the rest of these people out of here. Potomac and Shenandoah, I want you to stay with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Agent Smirnoff, you come back as soon as you have them in the other bedroom.”

Troy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Hey there,” Troy called from the doorway.

Jennie glanced up from her book. “Well, hello.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked, moving toward her after shutting the door. She smiled that completely unbelievable smile, and he couldn’t help thinking about Lisa.

“My shoulder’s feeling okay, but that wound in my back is still pretty bad.”

Troy chuckled. “Yeah, well, I know—”

“I know you know,” she interrupted as she put the book down on the hospital bed. “Your father called. So, what are you doing down here?”

When Jacob Gadanz had made his decision to talk and his family was out of the room, the words had gone on uninterrupted for fifteen minutes. They’d learned a great deal very fast, and now they needed to act on it quickly — to determine if Gadanz had told them the truth, and if he had, to jump all over this chance to stop the bloodshed. But the Fairfax County Hospital was close to the townhouse and basically on the way to Dulles Airport, so he’d taken this quick detour. Travers was waiting outside with the Jeep running.

“I came to thank you.”

“For what?”

“You know what, Jennie.”

She reached out and touched his hand when he made it to the bedside. “I hear you thought I was a terrorist.”

He grinned. “I guess I’m getting pretty paranoid in my old age, huh?”

She gave him a coy up-and-down look. “That’s okay. I like older men.”

“I’m sorry I thought that. It’s just the way I’ve been trained.”

“Lisa cared about you very much,” Jennie said after a few moments of silence. “From what she told me, it was a quick romance, but it meant a lot to her. And she was waiting for you. She would have been very devoted.”

Troy exhaled heavily. Those were bittersweet words for him to hear. He hadn’t been so devoted, and it still ate at him. “Well, I’ve gotta go. Like I said, I wanted to come by and thank you. What you did took a lot of guts.”

“I didn’t like the getting shot part. I’m not going to lie to you. But I liked thinking I was making a difference.”

“You definitely did, and you should be proud of that.” He wasn’t sure about this, but what the hell. Sometimes life was all about taking chances. “Um, I was wondering.”

“Oh, yeah, what were you wondering?”

“I was wondering if I could take you to lunch sometime.” That sounded better than dinner, less intrusive somehow.

She nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

“Good,” he said as he turned to go. “I’ll call you.”

“Troy,” she called.

He stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

“Just so you know.”

He gave her a confused look. “Know what?”

She gave him a great smile. “You were right.”

“What about?”

“If you’d asked me to dinner I would have said no. It would have been too soon for that. But lunch is good.” She hesitated. “Don’t wait too long to call.”

From his comfortable chair atop the raised platform, Daniel Gadanz watched the two young women please his number three in command, Emilio Vasquez. Vasquez was in charge of all distribution east of the Mississippi River. Since Gadanz had promoted him to that important position two years ago, revenues had skyrocketed in the territory, particularly sales of cocaine and particularly in the small towns. Vasquez was single-minded in his approach to driving revenues higher and higher. Anyone who got in the way was murdered. Competitors, law-enforcement officers, pushers, users — it didn’t matter. It was a bullet to the head and on to the next problem.

The man in Colombia who manufactured all of that cocaine was impressed with the increased demand, which was a good thing. Daniel Gadanz feared only one person in the world. That man. Few people knew it, but that man was richer than Warren Buffett and Bill Gates combined — and infinitely more vindictive.

Instead of the wooden chair Daniel had forced Jacob to sit in the other night, there was a comfortable mattress in its place today. Gadanz watched as the two women began to drive Vasquez out of control. They were both voluptuous and absolutely gorgeous with dark features, exactly as Vasquez had requested. In fact, they were sisters, which Gadanz had told Vasquez right before they’d come in here — and that had made the little man with the crooked yellow teeth even happier.

A year ago Gadanz had suffered a terrible injury that had almost killed him. He’d recovered, but the near-death experience had left him physically impotent. So now he took his bitterness out by watching. Perhaps, he mused as Vasquez began to arch his back higher and higher off the mattress, because he subconsciously believed that if he watched enough sex his body might recuperate. Gadanz missed the pleasures of the flesh. It was maddening to have so much money and so much power but be unable to use it on women. The only real pleasure Gadanz took from what was unfolding in front of him involved the fact that Vasquez was married with three children and went to church every Sunday.

He groaned when his cell phone pinged softly. He didn’t want to be interrupted, particularly as Vasquez closed in on the critical moment, but he had to look. Only a few people had this number, so the message was important.

Daniel Gadanz’s eyes narrowed as he read the brief transmission. “Oh my God,” he whispered.