by Stephen Frey
“Ward had better not mention my name, Shane. He’d better not mention that he’s seen me. You never know where Dorn’s people are.”
“John won’t say a word about seeing you,” Maddux replied confidently. “But he’ll tell the others that RC7 is absolutely safe, that there is no threat of congressional inquiries or presidential witch hunts. He’ll say he’s seen the Order. We’re good to go at this point. Confidence within the ranks has been restored. You handled that situation well, Bill, as you always do.”
“Thanks.”
The man had no loyalty to anyone or anything except the United States of America. He’d kill his mother for the country, and the rumor was he had. Of course, the rumor was also that his mother hadn’t loved him very much, either. Bill grimaced. With a face as ugly as Maddux’s, maybe that was understandable.
“What is it?” Maddux demanded.
Too late Bill realized Maddux had caught him staring. “Nothing.” Maddux was self-conscious about his looks. “I was just thinking about my family. I miss them,” he admitted.
“Do you think they really believe you’re dead?”
Bill’s expression turned grim. “I don’t know. But the people at First Manhattan certainly seem to. I read yesterday that the board and the new CEO had a ceremony to unveil a painting of me, which is to be displayed permanently in the lobby of the Wall Street headquarters. Beneath my name are the years of my life. Hell, they think I died last year, according to the painting.”
“That’s just the new CEO pissing on the corporate trees and staking out his territory,” Maddux said confidently. “It’s a good move on his part.”
Only the six highest-ranking leaders of Red Cell Seven, the division leaders, understood what was really going on: that Bill was very much alive and still running RC7 from the shadows.
And as far as Bill could tell, only the two of them knew Maddux’s real story. That after the battle on Gannett Peak, Bill and Maddux had decided to keep Maddux completely “off the grid” as far as anyone knew. It was great cover, allowing Maddux to move through the world even more stealthily, because even spooks who’d believed he was immortal were starting to whisper that the little man might actually be gone.
“Is everything okay with the money?” Maddux asked.
Bill was running RC7 and managing the dollars required to fund the cell’s operations, which were substantial now that they had more than two hundred agents inside. So several of the associates—the wealthy individuals who secretly funded RC7—also knew Bill was still alive. But Bill had chosen all of the associates carefully over the years. And though they weren’t actually members of the cell, the three associates who knew Bill was actually in hiding were equally as loyal as the initiated agents and would never give away the secret—or anything else about RC7.
“The money situation’s fine, Shane,” Bill answered confidently.
He just wished he could tell his family what was going on. But that would put them in grave danger, especially Cheryl. Stewart Baxter would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Roger Carlson’s wife had been found dead in the Potomac River. Bill assumed Cheryl would suffer the same fate if Baxter thought he could get information about him and Maddux out of her.
“We have several billion dollars in reserve.”
Bill enjoyed watching Maddux’s mouth fall slightly open. Maddux tried hard never to seem impressed. He always had, ever since Bill had first met the short man with the narrow shoulders and the spindly legs who walked with a limp but wouldn’t tell anyone why. But the comment about “several billion dollars in reserve” had obviously impressed him. They’d known each other too long for Maddux to be able to completely hide his emotions and therefore his awe at the number Bill had just uttered.
“We have that much?” Maddux asked.
“And there’s much more if we need it,” Bill said, “much more. The associates are very loyal to us. They appreciate what we do, and that’s putting it mildly.”
“No one can ever trace the money?”
“Never,” Bill answered confidently.
“I’m sorry the board replaced you, Bill. I’m sorry they hung that painting up.”
This cabin, located deep in the forests of western New York near Seneca Lake, was outfitted with all modern conveniences, including Internet service. So they were able to keep current on everything happening in the world. Maddux had read about the ceremony as well.
“It’s all right.” It was the first time in nine months Maddux had identified in any way the sacrifice Bill had made by disappearing. “Thanks, Shane.”
“Have you heard anything about Daniel Gadanz?”
“What do you mean?” Maddux asked. “What about him?”
“It’s been nine months since we almost got him in Florida. And he’s got to be pretty damn upset about his brother. He’s a vindictive bastard, Shane. It doesn’t figure that he hasn’t stepped up and carried out some sort of revenge. Nine months ago he had kill squads shooting American civilians in shopping malls, for Christ’s sake. It’s not as if he won’t go to extremes to carry out things.”
Maddux shrugged. “Maybe he’s gone soft. Maybe he’s finally satisfied.”
“No chance. Having all that money just makes a man like that even more dangerous.”
Maddux shrugged again. “If he tries something we’ll get him. For now let the DEA deal with him.”
Bill rolled his eyes as he stood up. The DEA wasn’t going to get Daniel Gadanz. More likely, he’d get them. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t be surprised when you get there.”
Bill had been walking away, but he turned back around. “What?”
Maddux gestured toward the bedrooms. “Just go. You’ll see. Happy birthday, Bill.”
“Thanks,” he said hesitantly. Something strange was going on here.
Bill caught his breath when he pushed open the bedroom door. Rita Hayes was looking back at him from beneath the covers. She’d been his executive assistant for a long time, since she’d been a young woman. She’d never married and had been open about her attraction to him from the very start of their working relationship. They’d been intimate over the years, but she’d never made trouble for him—until she’d secretly made that tape of them together for Maddux. But the tape didn’t matter now. He and Maddux had patched up their differences. He certainly hoped so, anyway.
Physical desire surged through Bill as he gazed down at Rita. That urge never left men, no matter how old they were. And it had been a long time since he’d satisfied it.
“Hello, Bill,” Rita murmured. “Join me in bed.”
Bill’s eyes flickered down as she slowly slid the covers back. She still looked good, and he grimaced as he gazed longingly at her. Her death warrant had just been signed and sealed. She knew he was alive now. Maddux would never let her leave here knowing that.
THE SWAT team burst into the basement of the East Los Angeles apartment with no warning. Twelve minutes ago they’d received a code-scarlet alarm from one of the anonymous numbers that they’d been told to always give highest priority.
Within seconds of breaking through the door, they had three men in custody and were already inventorying the staggering cache of bomb-making equipment stored in the four rooms.
The next day they would ascertain from one of the suspects during questioning that the men had intended to detonate a massive bomb that week in the lobby of a downtown skyscraper—at lunchtime.
Troy Jensen had saved hundreds of civilian lives—though none of them would ever have any idea how close they’d come to death.
CHAPTER 19
SKYLAR SAT on a smooth, narrow ledge listening to the waves pound the base of the cliffs a hundred feet below. As the surf crashed against the rocks over and over, she stared into the night sky above the Alaskan mainland, which was due north of her position and across the
wide, deep strait the ledge overlooked.
Her premonition had turned out to be quite accurate. Despite how early in the fall it was, the northern lights were giving her a spectacular show this evening. As she sat with her back against the cliff and her legs dangling over the edge, yellow and green waves of gleaming light rolled back and forth across the dark canvas above her in space like soft, slow-motion lasers. It was an incredible display of what nature could create. So much more impressive than what any Hollywood hotshot could produce with high-tech cameras and manipulated pixels.
She took a long drag off the joint, which she’d rolled tightly with Blackberry Kush, held the powerful smoke in for a seven-count, and then exhaled it deliberately through her pursed lips. She loved watching arctic fire glimmer through the night, especially when she was stoned.
Her eyelids were growing heavy. Sleep was quickly coming on, and thankfully, she was roped securely to the thick metal hooks she’d hammered into the cliff. She’d made certain to do that as soon as she’d rappelled the thirty feet down here from Kodiak’s forest floor. She might not have remembered after smoking the Kush, and she definitely didn’t want to wake up in the middle of tumbling a hundred feet down the sheer rock face. She moved a lot in her sleep, even after smoking this stuff. Lovers had told her that.
She was camping on this precarious ledge—six feet long and two wide—because she didn’t trust that bear she’d scared off earlier. Grizzlies had unique personalities just like humans, and the one she’d run off earlier had a sinister look in his eyes. Despite his great size, he was a damn coward. But he’d probably be back. One of the rainbows and a good deal of venison lay beside the smoldering fire on which she’d done her backwoods gourmet cooking.
She wanted no part of that bear while she was stoned. She just wanted to kick back and mellow out. Thankfully, no matter how much that bear might want to, he couldn’t get down here.
Her cell phone buzzed as she was about to take another hit from the joint. “Jesus,” she muttered, “can’t people leave me alone for one night?”
She pulled the phone from her jeans and glanced at the tiny screen. Not surprisingly the incoming call was tagged “Unrecognized.” She didn’t want to answer, but at the start of all this she’d taken that oath to always serve and protect, and part of what that oath required was the responsibility to respond as soon as a call came in—not when she felt like responding to it.
“Hello,” she answered deliberately, conscious of what she was saying and how she was saying it. If this had been the regular stuff, she might have been too paranoid to answer. You got what you paid for in life. And what you deserved. This stuff was good.
“Agent Jet?”
That was her handle when she was needed immediately. “Yes.” Christ, what a time for this call.
“You know who this is?”
“Yes.” It was her direct superior. He was supposed to be somewhere in Nigeria by this time. That had been the plan forty-eight hours ago, but he could be anywhere by now. “What do you want?”
“I need you to get west as fast as possible.” He hesitated. “You’re not going to believe this, but the Eagle wants to see you.” He laughed a sincerely blown-away laugh from the other side of the earth. “I know I don’t believe it.”
Despite the marijuana coursing through her, adrenaline was suddenly pouring through her system as well. “West” was code for east. And “Eagle” was code for President David Dorn. Apparently her premonition earlier had nothing to do with the northern lights.
BILL LAY on his back, naked, staring up at the ceiling fan as it rotated above him in the dawn light seeping into the cabin bedroom. If he followed the blades closely enough as they raced clockwise, every once in a while he could make out one as if it had stopped. As though for a very brief second it was in freeze-frame.
It was a stupid game, but he had to distract himself somehow. Maddux had just come in to take Rita away after they’d spent an hour making love.
“PLEASE DON’T kill me,” Rita begged as she knelt before Maddux in the woods. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.”
“Yes, you have,” Maddux agreed as he pressed the hot end of the Glock to her forehead. “You’ve been a patriot.”
“Please, Shane. I’m begging you. My God, this is my life.”
“You’re a good person, Rita, but you know too much. Your survival wouldn’t be best for the country. But you did a good thing for Bill. He needed that.”
“Shane, I—”
He fired once as she looked up at him through the tears streaming down her face. He’d used a silencer so Bill wouldn’t hear.
He smiled nostalgically as he gazed down at her corpse. She had been a patriot. So she hadn’t suffered. It had been a while since he’d thrill-killed anyone, and he was thirsty for one. But he hadn’t made her suffer at all. This hadn’t been about him.
If it had, the victim would have suffered, because he enjoyed watching that. But he’d made it quick for Rita. Out of respect.
SKYLAR SLIPPED the cell phone back into her pocket, took one more hit from the joint, and then flicked it over the side of the cliff. When the tiny orange ember disappeared halfway down to the crashing waves, she unclasped herself from the ledge and began climbing the rope dangling down the face of the cliff.
If she was getting to DC as fast as possible, she was leaving now. That seemed rational to her, even in her slightly encumbered state of mind. It was a long hike through the dense woods back to the canoe. And then a long paddle to town.
As she climbed the last few feet over the top of the cliff to the forest floor, she became aware of a presence out there in the night. Even in her condition she had an acute and unique awareness of her surroundings, which people had always told her bordered on the extrasensory. Danger was close at hand, and she’d left the rifle at the campsite, which was about fifty yards in front of her.
Hadn’t she? She touched her shoulder without taking her eyes from the gloom ahead. No rifle.
She had the bowie knife on her belt—she could definitely feel that—and her wits about her despite the buzz. But that was all. The knife and her wits against whatever enemy she was facing. Was it human or animal lurking out there in the darkness?
The growl and the snort from forty yards away answered her question. She couldn’t see the bear, but she could tell from the growl that it was the same animal she’d confronted this afternoon, the same huge male. Just as all bears had unique personalities, they all made distinct sounds, at least to the trained ear. And she recognized this one after hearing the growl, as quickly as if she could see it and it was wearing a name tag. In general bears were very much like humans, though not quite as evil as a whole, she believed.
The coward had overcome his fear. The scents of sautéed Sitka and rainbow trout almandine had been too tempting and drawn him into camp, probably against his better judgment. So he was going to be a prickly bear, even more so than normal, because the human smell in among the scents of the delicious food naturally made him wary and uncomfortable.
Well, so be it. She was going to test his survival skills to the limit. A bear’s sense of smell was epic. His eyesight, not so much.
As the heavy breathing and snorts grew louder, Skylar carefully unhitched the end of the rope from around the rock she’d used as a tether and then calmly coiled it in semi-equal loops against one leg. She couldn’t be exactly certain how uniform the loops were, because she wasn’t about to take her eyes off the landscape in front of her right now.
She could have shinnied back down the rope to the safety of the ledge and avoided this confrontation, but there was no telling how long the bear would hang around. He might gorge on the deer for an hour. Or he might guard his prize for days. Either way, she wasn’t having any of it. She needed to get to Washington. She appreciated what her superior had done—getting her the pass to come to Kodiak and the Raptor to g
et her here. And he’d promised to do the same for her again as soon as she’d finished whatever it was the president wanted from her. So she wasn’t going to let him down.
Despite her natural composure in the face of danger, everything in her body went on high alert as the massive animal loomed out of the darkness in front of her. A single swipe from one of those huge front paws, and the six-inch claws embedded in them could slice her in half. And the canines on this monster had to be at least three inches long. She couldn’t see either of his weapons in the darkness, but she remembered them from this afternoon. And this was definitely the same bear. She recognized the huge silhouette along with the sounds.
She took several deep breaths when the bear finally stopped twenty feet away. As it gazed at her with what she knew were beady brown eyes, it swayed gently back and forth like a huge, shadowy cobra. This thing had completely overcome its fear, which she took as a compliment to her cooking. She could tell from its body language that it had no intention of backing off that food anytime soon. This was his territory for now, and anything or anyone who trespassed here was in mortal danger.
She knelt down and felt around the ground. She was searching for a rock the size of a baseball, one she could hurl easily. Her fingers closed around one that was slightly larger, the size of a softball, but that would do. The bear had stopped swaying. It was getting ready to charge.
Skylar rose back up again, took aim, and threw. The rock caught the grizzly in the side of the face, enraging it instantly, exactly as she’d intended. The animal pawed the ground three times, roared, and charged.
She turned, tossed one end of the rope over the thick branch above her, caught it as it fell back to earth, dashed at a forty-five-degree angle for the edge of the cliff—and leaped. As she hung on to both ends of the rope, she literally prayed for dear life.
She could almost feel the heat of the bear’s breath as the ground gave way beneath her and she swung out in an arc over the crashing ocean 130 feet below. As the rope began to swing her back toward the cliff, she was aware of the bear hurtling past and heard its desperate grunt. That naturally bad eyesight had failed him. In his rage, he hadn’t seen the cliff and was now plummeting toward the rocks below.
