by Stephen Frey
“Don’t get killed tonight. You hear me? You come back safe.”
“I will.”
“Your mother couldn’t handle it if you were gone, too. She just lost one son. She can’t lose another.”
Troy smiled wryly. He’d never heard this kind of worry from his father, either.
“Troy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I couldn’t handle it, either.” Bill paused several seconds. “There, I said it.”
After climbing out of the cab Troy was still distracted by the conversation with his father. For a few seconds he didn’t notice anything unusual as he walked into the terminal. Finally it hit him, and he stopped to take it in. The show of force inside the terminal was incredible. He’d never seen so many police and military personnel in a U.S. airport at one time. Many of them had their weapons drawn as they moved about the huge building, even though there was no immediate emergency.
Life in the United States had changed forever.
MADDUX HAD taken nearly an hour to thoroughly clean up the basement of the Pennsylvania house. Not that anyone official would ever come looking for anything, but he wanted to make certain the place was spotless out of respect for the associate who’d made the site available. The man wouldn’t have been very happy if he’d known what had happened here today. But fortunately, he hadn’t asked, so Maddux hadn’t needed to lie. Besides, Maddux had taken care of an abusive fiancé for the man—permanently—so what was he really going to say? He had the man by the balls, and they both knew it. And the man had to know Maddux wasn’t using the house for R&R.
Maddux chuckled. That was always a problem with getting into bed with the devil. It felt good at first, but there was no such thing as divorce when it started feeling bad.
He liked being the devil. He always had. And you had to like a job to do it well.
Imelda’s interrogation had ended up yielding nothing of significance except the fascinating revelation that she’d recognized Jack Jensen’s name. What she’d said was irrelevant—that she did recognize it. She could easily have been lying. It was the look in her beaten eyes that was important. They couldn’t lie, and they told the same story. Imelda had recognized the name.
She hadn’t told him anything more, and he’d done everything in his power to get her to talk. He’d done things to her that most men he’d tortured hadn’t been able to stand up to and had quickly begun to babble information to try to stop the horrible suffering they were enduring any way they could. In some cases, those men had been tough intelligence officers, even battle-tested terrorists.
He admired her for that—just as he admired her for allowing her child to die in front of her rather than yield information. Too bad she was on the wrong side of this fight. She would have been a valuable addition to his team.
In the end he’d strangled Imelda and stared deeply into her eyes as her life’s light faded while she’d strained pitifully against the ropes binding her to the chair. He always stared deeply into his victim’s eyes at the end. He thought maybe he’d see the answer to it all as the last breath left the body. He hadn’t so far, but he wouldn’t stop looking.
This house was two hundred miles from Manassas, Virginia, where Maddux had kidnapped the family. And it was completely isolated in a dense pine forest. So he was confident that the odds of anyone showing up here as part of an investigation into the disappearance of Imelda and her child were zero.
Despite Maddux’s confidence that tonight’s murders would remain forever unsolved, he’d taken extra precautions to ensure it. He’d cleaned everything twice and buried the bodies in a pre-dug grave forty miles to the west on a lonely ridge before returning to the house to make absolutely certain everything was perfect. He wanted it to shine when the associate arrived next time with his wife. The man was showing amazing loyalty by continuing to support him even though Bill Jensen had put out the word to stop. And the man’s wife was obsessive about neatness. He definitely didn’t want her finding anything down here.
Three of the twenty associates were still supporting him, despite Bill’s warning. It was the pinnacle of loyalty as far as Maddux was concerned. Of course, he’d done those personal favors for two of them, so their loyalty couldn’t be held in the highest regard. There had been quid pro quos in those instances. But he hadn’t actually done anything for the third associate who was remaining loyal. That man just believed everything Maddux told him—probably because he was too scared not to.
The great thing was that the three associates who were still secretly supporting him had homes in enough places around the world to keep him operating efficiently and effectively. More important, they were supplying him with cash as well. There’d been a suitcase waiting for Maddux in an upstairs bedroom with ten thousand dollars in it. That would tide him and his followers over for a while. And there would be more money to follow, he’d been assured.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made certain the incoming number was familiar before answering.
“Are you serious?” Maddux clenched his jaw. “All right,” he muttered angrily. “I’ll call you back in a little while.”
He slid the phone back into his pocket, grabbed the suitcase full of cash off the dining room table, and hustled for the door. Ryan O’Hara was dead. The bodies of O’Hara and the young man who had accompanied him had been found in a clearing in the Delaware woods outside Wilmington. The clearing was a mile from where Harry Boyd’s body was found alongside a white van.
Suddenly Maddux needed to get to North Carolina quickly. A leisurely drive south from Pennsylvania had turned into a sprint. If he pushed, he might make the farm by midnight.
CHAPTER 15
NIGHT HAD fallen on central North Carolina some time ago. Even though Troy and the two men who were with him had been here for a while, they continued to watch and wait. They wanted to be as sure as possible of the enemy’s numbers before they attacked. Being outnumbered wouldn’t stop them—unless they determined that the defending force was overwhelming. They simply wanted to be as prepared as possible.
The location they’d chosen for their reconnaissance was a large, flat rock atop a slight ridge just inside a tree line several hundred yards west of the sprawling horse farm’s main house. Cover and visibility were good. Unfortunately, so far, their recon wasn’t paying dividends. They were ninety percent certain the mission’s target was on the property. But that was the extent of what they knew, and there were several buildings to consider as objectives. Two vehicles had come and gone since they’d taken up this position beneath a grove of tall oak trees several hours ago, but they’d gleaned little from the activity. People had gotten out of the vehicles and gone into the main house. The same people had come back out a few minutes later and driven off.
After reboarding the Jensen G450 at Dulles Airport outside Washington, Troy had made the short flight south to Raleigh, where he’d met the two men who were with him tonight. They were also RCS agents—from the Counterterrorism Division. Bill had arranged everything after assuring Troy that both men were loyal to Red Cell Seven and nothing else—that there was no risk whatsoever of their being somehow secretly allied with Shane Maddux.
Troy had never met them before, didn’t know their names and didn’t want to—just as it was clear they didn’t want to know his. These men were members of a different RCS division; it was safer to partition sensitive information such as real names as much as possible, and all three of them understood that. It was how they’d been trained from day one.
Tonight Troy’s code name was Agent Montana, and the other two men were Agents Idaho and Wyoming.
The main house was a large, three-story brick structure ringed by a halo of tall maple trees. A hundred yards to the other side of the house from where they were hiding were two barns and a guest cabin. Between the tree line and the house were open pastures with blanket-wrapped horses grazing beneath what w
as a star-laden but, as yet, moonless sky. Once they left the cover of the trees and started crossing that pasture, they would be vulnerable to anyone watching the open ground with night-vision capability. And it wasn’t a stretch to suspect that people in the houses or the barns would have that capability. In fact, it was almost a given.
Another vehicle—the third of the evening—moved quickly up the long, paved driveway from the left and skidded to a stop in the circular driveway before the house. The headlights remained on and the engine continued to run while Troy watched through his night-vision glasses. Two men climbed out of the older SUV and hurried inside. A few moments later what looked to be the same two emerged from the house, climbed back into the SUV, and drove back down the driveway.
When the taillights disappeared, Troy scanned the shadowy horizon before him from left to right. The nearest house that was not part of the farm was a mile away, and behind him were fifty thousand acres of national forest. The sounds of gunfire wouldn’t be audible to neighbors if a battle broke out, which was good. Red Cell Seven did not want interference from local law enforcement.
He glanced up at the sky. A full moon would be rising within the hour. Yesterday’s storm had cleared out of the East Coast and been replaced by a high-pressure system that had fallen out of western Canada. Temperatures had dropped along with it—drastically. Gusts accompanying the system had nighttime windchills in the low twenties as far south as Georgia. They were a day late, Troy figured. The gusts and the cold didn’t bother him, but clouds and rain would have made much better cover for tonight.
“All we really know is there’s been no net increase in manpower,” Troy said quietly. “Of course, we still have no idea how many people were on the property when we got here.” He gestured at the sky. The horizon off to the left was already starting to brighten. “We’re gonna have a lot more light on the matter very soon.”
“I say we go,” Agent Idaho suggested.
“Absolutely,” Agent Wyoming agreed.
Troy hopped down from the rock and grabbed the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun leaning against a tree. It was the same type of weapon the other two men would be carrying. He’d brought all three guns and plenty of extra clips with him on the G450 into Raleigh. That was another advantage of flying private, along with coming and going whenever you wanted. You could carry guns on board and not have to worry about it.
The MP5 used 9mm rounds, which would be largely ineffective against body armor. However, Troy and the other men were not trained to shoot at center mass—between the throat and waist—as most law-enforcement and military personnel were. RCS agents were trained to fire at the head, because most individuals didn’t wear helmets in situations they were involved with. A head shot was obviously more difficult, but also much more effective.
All three submachine guns were outfitted with sound suppressors, which slightly reduced the velocity of the round and therefore its effectiveness, but Troy was willing to give up a certain amount of firepower in exchange for stealth. Hopefully they could neutralize the individuals inside without using guns. But if it turned out otherwise, these weapons outfitted as they were would enable them to pick off enemies one at a time without alerting others. All three guns were also equipped with dual magazine clamps.
“All right, let’s go.”
As the men broke from the trees and approached the tall, four-slat fence, they spread the distance between themselves to make for more difficult targets in case they were being glassed.
“Just confirming we have full license from COC tonight,” Agent Idaho called over in a low voice as they dropped down off the fence and began jogging toward the main house. “Is that correct?”
“That is correct,” Troy confirmed. “If you acquire a target and you believe you are in danger, shoot to kill. Don’t bother asking about intentions.”
“Roger.”
Troy motioned to Agent Idaho by tapping his right ear. Then he veered off from the other two men until he was fifty feet away and then flipped a switch on his belt that engaged the mobile intercom system they were using tonight. “Testing Idaho, come in, Idaho.”
“I got you, Montana.”
“Testing Wyoming, come in, Wyoming.”
“I got you too, Montana.”
Troy veered back toward the other two men as they headed across the field past three horses grazing peacefully on the scraggly grass. He glanced at his watch. It was after midnight.
THE FORD EXPLORER was ten years old and looked every bit its age. The fenders were rusty, its dark blue paint was chipped and fading, and the front seats were in desperate need of reupholstering—the cloth covers were ripped, coffee stained, cigarette burned, and smelled like mildew. But the truck could flat-out fly. Maddux kept the engine and the transmission in perfect condition. He always kept pristine what couldn’t be seen. It was one of his “live by” rules. He believed that things that couldn’t be seen were much more important than things that could. Image was unimportant. Effectiveness was everything.
Too bad he couldn’t fully take advantage of the vehicle’s speed tonight, he thought as he came out of a long, gentle left-hand curve in the middle of the North Carolina countryside east of Raleigh. He couldn’t risk being pulled over. Not with all the guns in the back. Some bored hillbilly cop might want to search the vehicle for anything he could plunder. Then there’d be an ugly incident. Maddux didn’t have any problem with killing a cop if he was getting in the way of what the country needed. It was the time being pulled over would take up that would be the problem. As far as he was concerned, time was life’s most precious gift and was never to be wasted.
It had been a long trip from Pennsylvania, and his interrogation of Imelda seemed like days ago now. He couldn’t shake the fact that she’d watched her child die without giving up any important information. He had no doubt that she was involved in the mall attacks somehow, or at least knew a great deal about them. But she hadn’t said a word. She was an amazing patriot—for the enemy.
Maddux glanced at his watch. It was after midnight. He’d make the Kohler family farm in ten minutes.
A SOLITARY individual, tagged Agent Bridger for the evening, knelt in the thick brush beneath the tree line fifty yards north of where Troy and the other two men had been watching and waiting. Agent Bridger grabbed the nightscope off the ground and watched as Troy and the other two men jumped the fence and headed across the field past the horses toward the main house of the farm.
Troy had no idea he was being watched, but that was for the best. Hopefully there would be no need to intervene. Hopefully everything would go smoothly and Troy would rescue Major Travers without incident.
Agent Bridger stowed the night-vision glasses. It was time to follow Troy and the other two agents. Staying here wouldn’t help them if things got hot in one of the buildings across the pastures.
TROY AND the other two men had searched the cabin and the first barn. There was no one in the cabin and nothing in the smaller barn except two horses. After rapidly overpowering a lone individual in the second, larger barn, they’d hog-tied and gagged him. Troy was fairly sure the guy had no idea what was going on. But it was better to neutralize him and come back later, after the fireworks were done, if there were any. So they’d stuffed a rag in his mouth and left him in a corner of a stall with a big mare who looked terrified, too.
Now they were headed for the main house.
A covered porch wrapped around all four sides of the huge home. As they burst out from behind three old maple trees and raced up the wide set of stairs at the back of the structure, a silhouette appeared at the door and fired. The lone bullet missed, and whoever had just fired disappeared. Surprise was no longer in their corner. The sound suppressors on the MP5s had quickly become irrelevant.
Shrill, muffled voices rose from inside as Troy pressed himself against the bricks beside a window. With the butt of the MP5 he broke out
several panes of glass. Then he unloaded his first clip of twenty-five rounds into the darkened room beyond with an across-and-back motion. He had no desire to be shot at, but, in a way, he was glad that person at the door had fired first without yelling out for any ID. They were completely justified now. No question.
As Troy quickly switched clips on his gun, Agents Idaho and Wyoming crashed through what was left of the window. When the new clip snapped into place on the underside of the barrel, he dove through the window and rolled, following the other men into what turned out to be a large formal dining room. He scrambled to his feet and quickly glassed the area. It wasn’t much of a dining room anymore. Everything was basically shot to hell.
He motioned to the other agents and then stabbed in the air at the curving double staircase to their right. They nodded and, with their submachine guns leading the way, raced for the steps. They had to make certain the upper floors were clear first. They couldn’t have enemies trapping them in the basement, where they figured the target was—because as far as they could tell from the recon there were no exterior steps leading out of the basement and back up to the ground.
Troy pressed his back to the wall outside the large kitchen as Agents Idaho and Wyoming sprinted up opposite staircases, came together on the landing at the top, and then disappeared. Troy quickly became aware of how alone he was. For the next few minutes, as Idaho and Wyoming made certain the two floors above were clear, things could get dicey down here depending on the number of adversaries in the house. Because they definitely knew they were under attack now.
Troy kept the barrel of the gun swinging back and forth in front of him as he listened intently for any sounds of a battle breaking out above him.
MADDUX COULD feel the coming combat. He’d always had that sixth sense about battle. He figured any warrior worth his weight in gold on the field did.
He had no reason to believe anything was amiss. He’d received no alerts from the farm. But Bill Jensen must be aware by now that something was wrong, and had probably put three and three together.