by Stephen Frey
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.”