“We’re not torturing him,” Jack said firmly, stepping between Troy and Maddux. “We’re not torturing anyone.”
“We’re doing what we need to do, Jack. Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“Are you out of your mind?” the old man asked incredulously. “This guy killed my wife. There really isn’t anything left of her upstairs. I saw a few fingers and a leg, but nothing else I recognized as human. That’s all I have left of her, and you have sympathy for him?”
“I have no sympathy for him at all,” Jack assured the older man compassionately. “But we can’t sink to his level. We have to do the right thing here.”
Troy stepped toward Maddux, but Jack intercepted him. They were standing face-to-face in the middle of the room.
“I’m not letting you do this,” Jack said evenly. “I don’t know what you think you’re gonna do to him, but I can’t let you do it. We have to let the system work, Troy.”
“There is no system for a man like Shane Maddux. Who would we turn him over to? He has immunity from everything, Jack. He really is bulletproof, at least from the United States government. If they prosecute him, every other agent who has his kind of immunity quits because they can’t trust what they’ve been told, and then the country’s fucked. Believe me when I tell you that we’d have chaos on our hands if that happened. There are plenty of very brave men and women out there protecting us who need that immunity. Our enemies would take immediate advantage of it if we took it away from them.” Troy shook his head. “Shane Maddux will never be prosecuted for anything, Jack. He’ll go free a day after we turn him over to the authorities, if not sooner. Then you and I are fucked.” He pointed at Maddux. “Because that man would never stop looking for us until he found us and killed us.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jack,” Maddux called defiantly from the chair. “Let him torture me.” He laughed loudly. “He won’t get anything out of me.”
“You can’t imagine what that guy was going to do to you,” Troy said, nodding over Jack’s shoulder at Maddux. “And he wouldn’t have given a damn about how much pain he was causing you. In fact, he would have enjoyed watching you suffer.”
“I don’t care.” Jack couldn’t give in to this. It went against everything he believed in.
“Just like I don’t care about what’s happening to Karen right now,” Maddux said. He laughed harshly. “They’ve probably got her bent over something and they’re all taking turns on her. I just wish I could too. But I’ll get my chance at some point. Troy’s right. I have immunity from everything.”
“Get out of my way,” Troy ordered.
“I bet they’re doing her real good right now!” Maddux shouted at Jack. “And there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s just got to take all of them any way they want to take her and deal with it.”
Jack shut his eyes tightly, trying to block out what Maddux was yelling.
“And then they’ll kill her real slow when they’re done with her,” Maddux continued. “So maybe I won’t get my chance with Karen after all. But that’s OK. I’ll just do it to some other bitch I feel like doing it to. Yeah, I’ll do it to—”
“Shut up, Maddux!” Jack shouted. “Shut your fucking mouth!”
“What’s wrong with you, Jack?” the old man demanded. “How can you protect this prick? Did you hear what he just said?”
“He can handle doing nothing because he’s a goddamned faggot!” Maddux roared. “That’s what’s wrong with Jack Jensen.”
Jack clenched his teeth, calling on all of his self-control. “Let’s just get him out of here and turn him over to someone.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? There’s no one to turn him over to.” Troy shook his head. “Jackson, what’s wrong with you?”
“I can’t let you do it, Troy.”
“But I can,” the old man said firmly, placing the barrel of his pistol against Jack’s head. “Give up your weapon,” he demanded calmly, “or I shoot. I swear to God I shoot. I can’t watch this any longer. Five, four—”
“Give me the gun, Jack!” Troy shouted. “Don’t let him shoot you. He just lost his wife. He’s not thinking straight. He’s gonna kill you, for Christ’s sake.”
“Three, two—”
“Jack! Drop the fucking gun.”
“One—”
Jack’s gun banged loudly on the floor after he dropped it.
“You did the right thing,” Troy muttered breathlessly. “Now get out of my way.”
Jack turned around and watched Troy approach Maddux. He could barely feel the steel barrel of the pistol the old man was still holding to his head. He could barely feel anything at this point. He was completely numb, physically and emotionally.
“What do you think you’re gonna do with that?” Maddux asked smugly, staring at the wooden box in Troy’s hands.
Troy smiled thinly. “I found your diary, and shame on you for keeping one. You always told us Falcons never to write anything down. But you broke your own rule, and now you’re going to pay.” Troy held the box up so Maddux could get an even better look at it. “I just made this thing, and I know it doesn’t look very good. But it’ll work just fine.” He placed the box on the seat of the empty chair beside the one Maddux was lashed to and pulled a dark plastic trash bag from his back pocket. “Now,” Troy said calmly, “tell me what I want to know.”
“Fuck you, asshole. You’ll never get anything out of me and you know it.”
They were defiant words, but Jack had seen a chink in Maddux’s armor. He’d seen that slight wince as Maddux looked at the box sitting on the chair beside his.
“Where’s Karen?” Troy asked as he opened the bag. “Tell me now or I put you in that tiny, tiny space you can’t stand. The same tiny space that priest put you in when you weren’t a good little boy. When you wouldn’t do all those terrible things he wanted you to do in that room beneath the altar.”
Maddux licked his lips over and over and shook his head hard. “No. Fuck you.”
Jack saw how fast Maddux was starting to breathe. Troy was getting to him.
“Where and when is President Dorn going to be shot?” Troy demanded. “Is there another LNG tanker coming at the United States? Where’s Karen? Tell me everything, Shane, or your head goes in the box. That hole in the bottom of it is for your neck. See, I put the bag over your head, then the box over the bag, and suddenly you’re in that closet that priest made you go in.”
“No, no!” Maddux shouted as he began to strain frantically against the ropes holding him to the chair.
“Claustrophobia,” Troy hissed. “That’s what’s waiting for you inside the bag and the box. You can’t take the tiny, dark spaces. I know it because I read it on those pages. You did all those terrible things for the priest because you couldn’t handle the darkness in the closet, and you hated the way you thought the walls were coming in on you. Like he told you they were. You couldn’t handle the thought of him making you go back in there.” Troy moved toward Maddux with the bag wide open. “And you still can’t.” He hesitated a few inches away as Maddux strained desperately against the ropes and moved his head wildly from side to side. “Now where’s Karen?”
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
Jack grimaced as he watched Troy roughly pull the bag down over Maddux’s head. Then Troy picked up the box off the chair, closed it on Maddux’s head using the hinges, and hooked it shut.
For several seconds Maddux managed to remain calm. Then he began to shout and scream from beneath the bag and the box, and suddenly he and the chair went tumbling over. As he hit the floor, his screams grew louder.
Instinctively, Jack took a step forward to help.
“Don’t move,” the old man ordered, grabbing Jack’s arm and pulling him back. “Stay right where you are, son.”
After listening to thirty seconds of screaming and shouting, Troy removed the wooden box from Maddux’s head and then pulled the bag off. “Now talk,” he ordered firmly. “Tell me everything.”
Maddux couldn’t spill his guts fast enough. In a matter of seconds he’d told them everything.
First, he told them where Karen had been taken. Then he gave them details of President Dorn’s imminent assassination. Then he told them that the Pegasus was heading for Virginia Beach, not Savannah, and that the huge ship had almost reached its target.
When Maddux was finished answering Troy’s questions, Jack stepped forward as the old man let the gun barrel drop. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the bastard who was still sprawled on the floor tied to the chair. “I’ve got one more question.”
After Maddux had answered it, Jack glanced at Troy. “What now?”
“We find the Arctic Fire. Fast!”
“How?”
“We take that chopper outside.”
“Can you fly it?” Jack asked incredulously.
“I sure can, Jackson.” Troy smiled. “I can fly almost anything.”
The leader of the small band of desperate men sailing the huge ship westward gazed ahead through the darkness. The Pegasus was only hours from reaching the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America. They were going to make it after all. He could feel it.
Stein stared through the darkness at the ceiling fan, which was rotating slowly above him as he lay on his hotel room bed down the hall from the president’s suite. He had a terrible feeling about this, like no feeling he’d ever had before. He hated David Dorn now, but the man was still the president of the United States.
He ran both hands through his gray hair and swallowed hard. What would he do at that critical moment if it actually occurred? He honestly didn’t know.
Emotionally, that was tearing him apart.
CHAPTER 37
“THERE SHE is,” Troy called out as he pointed through the helicopter’s windshield toward the lights in the distance. “That’s got to be her. She’s supposed to be the only ship in the area.”
One call to the Coast Guard station on Kodiak, a quick call back moments later from the CG, and they had the Fire’s position. Captain Sage had only gotten about thirty miles outside of Dutch Harbor, and the chopper was coming up behind the ship quickly.
“You ready, Jack?”
There were no doors on the chopper, just open spaces where the doors definitely should have been as far as Jack was concerned. As he peered cautiously down over the side of the helicopter at the dark ocean they were skimming across, he held on to his seat with a death grip. They were only thirty feet above the water’s relatively calm surface, but thirty feet was thirty feet. It was twice fifteen, and the chopper was bouncing around in rough turbulence, which made everything even more gut-wrenching.
“Yeah,” Jack answered in a hollow, unconvincing voice, more to himself than Troy. But he had to go over the side if he was going to save Karen. “I’m ready.”
After Troy had removed the box and the bag from Maddux’s head, and Maddux had answered all of Troy’s questions, he’d told them that Charlie Banks had to be dead. That there was almost no chance he could have survived the way Troy had. It had been a year. Someone would have heard something by now. And Speed Trap hadn’t floated a raft to Charlie.
The Coast Guard was heading for the Fire too, by air and sea. But Jack and Troy weren’t waiting for them. Every second was precious, and they had to get to the ship and get on it as soon as possible—if they were going to save Karen.
“You really think we should have left Maddux with that old man at the house?” Jack was trying to think of anything but how he had to go over the side to get down to the Arctic Fire. “You know he’s gonna kill Maddux.”
“If he does, then I don’t have to.”
Jack shook his head. “You’re really going back to that house after this to kill him?”
Troy nodded regretfully. “I told you. We don’t have any choice. If we turned Maddux over to someone, he’d be free almost right away, and sooner or later he’d come after us. We’d live the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders. And we probably wouldn’t see him until it was too late, no matter how hard we looked. If Maddux doesn’t want to be seen, he won’t be. He has the infrastructure available to him to remain invisible as long as he wants. That’s what people don’t understand. You could never stay hidden like that, Jack, but Maddux can. He has fanatics around the world who’ll help him do almost anything.”
“Why didn’t you just kill Maddux before we took off?” Jack hated to admit it, but what Troy had just laid out scared the living hell out of him. He’d already been nervous because they were racing over the ocean with no door between him and the water, but now that speech had him really thinking. “Why make it so you have to go back?”
“I don’t want to kill anyone in cold blood, even that bastard. I…I…” Troy faltered.
“What?” Jack asked loudly. “What is it?”
“I hope the old man does kill him.” Troy grimaced. “That’s a terrible thing to say, but I do.”
Jack had been wondering about this since he’d found out that Troy was in Red Cell Seven, and now seemed like an appropriate time to ask the question. “You ever killed anyone, brother?”
“We’ll talk about that someday, Jackson. I’ll tell you everything. But not now.” Troy pointed at the ship. They were almost to it. “This is gonna have to be fast!” he shouted over the roar of the rotor and the engine. “There’s only one of you, and surprise is the only advantage you’ve got. You can’t hesitate at all when we get close. You’re gonna have to be on the rope and ready.”
“Jesus,” Jack muttered. His heart was already pounding so hard his vision was blurring with each beat.
“I wish I could do it for you!” Troy yelled. “But somebody’s gotta fly this thing.” He reached over and patted Jack’s leg. “Maddux said they didn’t leave any Special Forces guys behind on the Fire after they dropped Karen off.” He grimaced. “But if you think you see one of those guys, get over the side of the ship right away and throw yourself in the water. They’ve got too much training on you. The Coast Guard will pull you out of the water when they get here.” He hesitated. “Unless, of course, the sharks get you first or the SF guys shoot down the CG chopper.”
“Jesus,” Jack muttered again. He wasn’t finding this outdoor stuff at all exciting or invigorating anymore. All of a sudden trading bonds at Tri-State was looking pretty good again.
When they were a hundred yards off the Arctic Fire’s stern, Troy patted Jack’s leg again. “Time to go over! Come on, pal.”
Jack glanced down at the water again and instantly felt his body seizing up the same way it had on the plane that night over Connecticut after the jump door was open. The thought of even tossing the rope over the side of the chopper was paralyzing him.
“Come on, brother! You’ve got to do it.” Troy grabbed Jack’s chin and pulled it left so they were staring into each other’s eyes momentarily as the helicopter barreled ahead. “Show me something, Jackson!”
Jack gazed back into his brother’s piercing stare. Troy was right. He cared about Karen too much to let this stupid phobia control him. He’d asked her to come along with him on this crazy ride, and it was his responsibility to get her out of what he’d gotten her into. And he needed to show Troy that the little brother wasn’t the only one in the family with guts.
He tossed the rope over and watched it drop sickeningly fast down toward the water. That was where he had to go.
Maddux stole through the back of the house and into the night. There were no ties that could bind him permanently. Troy Jensen was as good as any man alive at securing a prisoner, but it didn’t matter. Harry Houdini was a rank amateur compared to Shane Maddux when it came to escape.
He’d thought about killing the old man, but then decided against it. He had nothing against the guy, and, in a small way, he felt bad for killing his wife. The woman had fired on him and killed one of his men during the battle, but she’d been protecting her home. If she hadn’t been shooting at him, he wouldn’t have tossed the grenade a
t her. It had been a kill-or-be-killed situation in battle, and that was all.
Maddux took a deep breath. He had a long trek ahead of him, but that was all right. He was back in the shadows where he felt completely comfortable, and he loved it. There were enemies to kill.
When Jack dropped to the deck of the Arctic Fire, Grant was on him before he could even draw his pistol. In seconds, Grant had him pinned to the deck wall near the crane and was lifting him over the side as Troy circled above in the helicopter, unable to help.
But just as Grant was about to toss him into the frigid water, Jack got his right arm free, whipped Turner’s .44 Magnum from his belt, and slammed the big man in the head with it. Grant crumpled to the wet deck just as Duke emerged from a doorway beneath the bridge.
“Don’t move!” Jack shouted, leveling the huge pistol at the man as he sucked in air. “I’ll shoot you where you stand if you do.” He’d had enough. He had to help Karen if she was still alive, and he didn’t care what he had to do to find to her. If he had to shoot this man, so be it.
“Please don’t shoot,” Duke begged, throwing his hands in the air.
“Where’s the girl?” Jack shouted.
“I’ll take you to her,” Duke called.
Moments later Jack and Karen were in each other’s arms. She’d been hit in the thigh during the initial helicopter attack on Unimak Island, but the wound wasn’t life threatening and Duke had bandaged her up after Maddux’s people had dropped her off on the Arctic Fire.
“Thank God you got here,” she murmured. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t.”
Jack smiled down at her as he shook his head in disbelief. “My brother’s a pretty amazing guy.”
She smiled back at him. “So are you, Jack.”
Ten miles, the leader realized as he stared sadly through the night-vision binoculars. Two fighter jets were streaking toward the Pegasus through the darkness. Just ten short miles and they would have plowed into the sands of Virginia Beach. That was how close he’d come to changing world history.
He saw a flame erupt from the wing of the fighter to the left, and he knew that the remainder of his life could now be measured in seconds. They could have boarded the ship, but the United States military had decided to send a message to any other would-be terrorists. And that message was clear: they weren’t afraid to blow an LNG tanker to hell.
Arctic Fire Page 27
