Kodiak Sky (Red Cell Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

“How did you know John Ward was with Red Cell Seven?”

“Stewart Baxter gave me a list of all the RC7 agents.”

“Has Dorn convinced you to kill all RC7 agents?” Bill asked. “Has he declared war on us?”

“He’s convinced me that every person inside this cell, including you, is a traitor.”

“President Dorn is the traitor,” Bill retorted calmly. “Make no mistake about that, Commander.”

“I don’t think so. Your son, Troy, murdered my younger sister, Bianca. President Dorn confirmed that for me. Only a traitor would do that.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that. You get no government funding for Red Cell Seven.”

“That is true,” Bill agreed, “because it helps us stay hidden, which I’m sure you can appreciate. So what?”

“So you fund your unit by selling weapons to outlaw nations.”

“I’m afraid President Dorn and his chief of staff have sold you a serious pack of—”

“You arrange the sales and skim a piece of the profits to bankroll Red Cell Seven. Just like President Reagan’s crew did with Iran-Contra.”

“What does any of that crap have to do with your ridiculous claim about my son killing your younger sister?”

“My father discovered what you and Red Cell Seven were doing. That you were selling arms illegally. You had my sister killed in Alaska for revenge when you found out he’d reported you.”

“That’s absurd, Commander. It wouldn’t matter to me what your father had discovered about RC7. We’re immune from prosecution of any kind. We can do anything we want.” Technically, Bill shouldn’t have said that. But this situation called for desperate measures. “Or did President Dorn fail to mention that?”

“You’re immune from prosecution of any kind?”

“Yes.”

“That’s rich, Mr. Jensen.”

Desperate measures might also require showing her the last original Order, which was hidden back in his room. Of course, if she wasn’t convinced, and she took it with her, Red Cell Seven would be completely vulnerable to President Dorn.

“If you’ll give me a second, I can prove—”

“Sit down,” Skylar ordered loudly as Bill began to rise from the chair. “Are you denying that you’ve sold weapons to outlaw nations?”

As he eased back into the chair, Bill thought hard about his answer. The president might have given Commander McCoy irrefutable evidence of what they’d done in the early days to funnel cash into RC7’s numbered accounts. If Dorn had given her that proof, and Bill denied what she’d accused him of, he’d lose his credibility—and probably his life.

“I’m not denying it,” he said quietly. “But we stopped doing that a long time ago. Once I found well-heeled angels in the private sector, we didn’t need to do that anymore. In fact, Ollie North got the idea from me
after
we’d stopped doing it. I regret it, but it got us off the ground. And I doubt President Dorn told you this, but Red Cell Seven has saved this country’s ass many times since it was founded in the early seventies.”

“You missed on 9/11. And the Holiday Mall Attacks.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed. Skylar McCoy had a compelling existential irreverence, even as she pointed that revolver at him. An irreverence that came from ultimate confidence in herself, he knew. He’d seen that same thing before in just two people—Shane Maddux and Troy Jensen.

“We did miss on 9/11,” he admitted. “Everyone did. But the Holiday Mall Attacks would have gone on for quite some time without us. We figured out who was behind them, and we stopped them immediately.

“I could take a few hours of your time to describe all the other potential attacks we’ve intercepted,” Bill continued. “But I know how valuable your time is, so I’ll give you just the highlights, instead. First, we intercepted an assault on the Nyack nuclear power plant across from New York City, and we—”

“This won’t keep me from—”

“
And
we uncovered a plot to set off missiles of the old Soviet Union, which could have caused world war.”

The barrel of Skylar’s gun dropped down slightly. “You know about that, too?” she murmured.

“I knew about it before anyone else on our side did.” Bill hesitated. “Except, of course, John Ward, because he was the one who uncovered what was going on and which missiles were going to be set off by the terrorists.”

He’d just scored another direct hit, Bill saw. She’d killed the man who’d stopped an almost unimaginable threat to the United States. If she was any kind of patriot, she had to feel at least some sense of guilt at this point.

“How was your father supposed to have found out about the arms sales I arranged?” Bill asked.

“He was a crab boat captain on the Bering Sea. But he worked covertly for the ONI out there, too. One night he picked up the wrong man, and the guy—”

“Wait a minute. Your father was Kevin McCoy, captain of the
Alaskan Star
?”

“He
is
my father, Mr. Jensen. He’s still alive. He’s in hiding because of his patriotism, and your treason.”

Bill shook his head. “Your father’s been dead since the
Alaskan Star
went down in a storm on the Bering Sea almost ten years ago. He was lost along with his four crewmen. You know that. You must.”

Skylar gazed at Bill for several moments before raising her weapon again and aiming it directly at his heart. “That’s exactly what President Dorn said you’d say.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You’re lying.”

“I know this is difficult to hear, but your father’s dead, Skylar. And I can prove he died on the
Alaskan Star
in that storm.”

She shook her head slowly as she cocked the revolver. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to give you a chance to do that. I have my orders, Mr. Jensen, and I will carry them out.”

“S
O?
” J
ACK
asked.

“So she made contact,” Troy answered, glancing over his shoulder at Jennie. “I listened to her the whole time she was on the phone with the guy.” She’d moved the chair to a corner of the bare room and was sitting in it sobbing, face buried in her hands again. “There was no code going on between them. The conversation was too basic, and there wasn’t any cadence embedded in it. I would have recognized if something was up.”

“And?”

“And we’ve got a meeting place set up out in New Jersey.”

“How long until we meet?”

“Three hours. That’s plenty of time for us to get out there.”

Jack gestured at Jennie. “How do you know she won’t call them after we leave?”

Troy held up Jennie’s cell phone. “And we’re bringing her with us.”

Taking her with them created another set of problems, but it was probably the only option at this point. “How much is the ransom?” Jack asked.

“Two hundred grand. A hundred each.”

“So they have both of them?”

“That’s what the guy said to Jennie on the phone. I heard him say it.”

A wave of relief rolled through Jack. He’d been afraid this human exchange was going to involve only L.J.

The wave that had eased through him was small, not much more than a tide, really. They still had to get Karen and L.J. back. He didn’t know much about this business, but he knew the money-for-human trade wouldn’t be straightforward. And of course, the guy might be lying about having Karen, too. Hell, he could have been lying about having either one of them. They might be walking into an ambush.

“The guy really thinks we can come up with two hundred grand that fast at this hour?” Jack asked, glancing at his watch. It was almost midnight.

“I told her to tell them we had it in a safe at home. I told her to tell them we’d gotten a lot of cash out of the bank today because we figured someone would call.”

Jack patted Troy on the shoulder. The kid wasn’t just an amazing athlete. “Nice.”

“Thanks.”

“You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Jack patted Troy’s shoulder again. He didn’t seem fine. “Don’t worry about all that stuff Jennie said. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“I wish that were true.”

“What do you mean?”

Troy pursed his lips. “I mean, she was right. I was with a woman when I was in Spain two months ago.” He shook his head. “And then there was one in Venezuela,
very
recently.”

Jack shrugged. “It’s not like you and Jennie are married.” That didn’t sound very good, he realized. But, given the danger they were heading for in New Jersey, he had to keep Troy focused on the situation.

“I’ve never been able to stay loyal to any woman I’ve ever been with.” Troy shook his head as he kicked at the floor.

“Life’s pretty fragile for you, brother. I’m thinking that has a way of making you more spontaneous than most of us.”

“You mean more irresponsible, don’t you? I told Lisa and Jennie I was committed to them. But I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”

“Now isn’t the time to beat yourself up about it. And look, you called it. Jennie cheated on you, too. She’s just as wrong as you.”

Troy took a deep breath. “I don’t blame her. She’s right. I was gone a lot, and I was only half there when I was with her. I was always thinking about the next mission. It sucked for her.”

“Like I said, I don’t think now’s the—”

“It isn’t just that I cheated, Jack. It’s more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean somebody knew I was in Spain.”

“So?”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“I thought I did.”

“Someone knew I was in Spain.”

“Help me here.”

“When we go on covert missions, which this mission to Spain was, we follow extensive procedures to lose ourselves in the background, if you get my drift. When I leave for a mission, I don’t just drive to JFK, get on a commercial airliner, and head to Europe. From the moment I leave my door, wherever that is, I take strict precautions to make sure no one knows what I’m really doing. And I don’t use civilian transportation.”

Jack stared at Troy for several moments. “You mean, it would be tough for someone to follow you?”

“Impossible,” Troy replied, “especially at this point in my career. Not to brag, but I’ve gotten pretty good at disappearing, since I’ve been doing it for a while. So it was someone who had significant resources, because—”

“Jesus Christ!”

Jack dashed past Troy for the window just as Jennie reached it. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her rise up from the chair. But he hadn’t put two and two together fast enough. She was going to jump—and it was five stories down.

As she hurtled through the glass, Jack tried desperately to catch her—but missed.

Jack stared down as she fell, unable to turn away and shut his eyes even as she crashed into the pavement.

“T
HIS IS
crazy,” the man muttered as he glanced over his shoulder into the back of the van at the woman and the little boy. “I mean it was crazy to start with, but now it’s out of control.”

Both kidnapping victims lay on the floor, bound and gagged tightly—even the toddler, who hadn’t stopped crying since they’d picked him up from Jennie this afternoon. The man felt bad about what both of the victims were going through—the little boy was so young, and the woman was handicapped—but his partner, Kyle, didn’t. And Kyle was in charge.

He always was whenever they did something like this. He had been, ever since they were kids growing up together, though they’d never done anything like this before.

“We could end up getting killed or going to jail forever,” the man said, looking over at Kyle, who was driving. “And the guy in Harpers Ferry is not gonna be happy about this.”

“Fuck that Aussie prick. And who says he has to know about this, anyway?”

“He’ll find out. That guy finds out about everything sooner or later. You even said so yourself.”

“When it comes to this, we’ll be long gone by the time he does.” Kyle sneered. “He’s not paying us nearly enough for the risks we’re taking driving these people around. I mean, a hundred grand each? We should be getting way more than that, Ray, especially since we’re doing overtime duty. That jet was supposed to be here to pick up these people at ten o’clock tonight. That was over two hours ago. Now it’s not gonna be here until five this morning, maybe.”

“So it had mechanical trouble. Shit happens. There’s not much they can do about it. It’s not like they don’t want to make the pickup.”

“Yeah, but we should get paid more now because we’re taking more risk.”

“Hey, I’m happy with a hundred grand.”

“I’m not, and I’m calling the shots.”

“Tell me about it,” Ray muttered. “It’s just that all we got left to do in this is drop them off when the plane finally gets here from Philly. And we make a hundred grand each. A hundred thousand dollars means a lot to me, Kyle.”

“Me, too.”

“Then why take a chance to screw it up?”

“Because now I got us
two
hundred grand each. These guys who are trying to get the kid and the woman back are bringing another hundred grand each for us in a couple of hours. So now we’ll have two hundred grand each.”

“Come on, man. Where are they getting two hundred grand at this time of night?”

“Jennie said they had it. She said they figured somebody might call them about a ransom, so they took it out of the bank today.”

“It’s bullshit. They don’t intend on paying us nothing. They intend on killing us.”

“I know that,” Kyle said as he pulled the van into a Walmart parking lot beside Ray’s beat-up old Explorer. “You really think I’m that stupid?”

“Of course not,” Ray answered unsteadily. Actually, he did. “So what are we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna ambush ’em, Ray. We’re going to leave the van out in the open, at the spot we agreed to meet ’em at, where we can see it and them good. And then we’re going to ambush ’em when we’re sure they’re alone.” He gestured toward the back of the van. “We’re gonna leave one of those people in the van as bait and watch it until they come. Then we’re gonna kill everybody.”

“Holy shit,” Ray whispered.

“What’s eating you? We’ve been in combat together. This won’t be any different.”