Red Cell Seven

by Stephen Frey

  “And furious,” Gadanz snapped.

  Kaashif scoffed. “They would have been furious anyway. By attacking malls we took away their beloved shopping. But they would have gotten over that, especially in today’s world.” He laughed loudly. “By attacking that school we took away something much more precious. We took away their freedom. Now they are afraid to go anywhere. They are even afraid while they are in their homes. And if they are not now, they soon will be.” His eyes gleamed. “I love it, Jacob.”

  “I know you do, Kaashif.”

  “There will be more blood soon. There are so many small towns with so many soft targets to choose from.” Kaashif closed his eyes and smiled like he was having a good dream or he was inhaling a wonderful aroma of food that was wafting to his nostrils from a gourmet kitchen. “Homes, movie theatres, gas stations, grocery stores, more schools, churches, and they are all protected by pathetic local police who have no chance against our superior weapons, training, and planning. We will change the way this country lives. The public will begin to order everything ‘in,’ and then we will start attacking the delivery people so they are scared to supply the population. It will be chaos.” His smile grew. “It already is, to some extent. It is beautiful.”

  “He’s using you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “And we are using him. It is symmetric, which is how any important partnership should be constructed.” Kaashif gestured impatiently at the anteroom to this office where he’d waited for Gadanz. “I brought two suitcases, Jacob. Inside them is a total of one hundred thousand dollars, which is the two-week burn for what are now ten teams of four men each, thanks to that unfortunate occurrence in Minneapolis.” His eyes flashed angrily at the admission of losing one team already. “You will wash the cash through Gadanz and Company as agreed and as you have before. Then the teams will access the money through the corporate accounts with their cards.”

  “This can’t go on.”

  Kaashif winced as he changed positions in the chair. He’d been bothered by an upset stomach for the last few days, but it wouldn’t slow him down. Nothing would. There was too much momentum to let anything slow them down. “What do you mean by that?”

  “First of all, I have to pay taxes on all that money.”

  “Why?”

  “I put that cash in my registers at my stores so you don’t have to deposit it in a bank and risk that deposit being reported to federal authorities.”

  All cash deposits over ten thousand dollars were required to be reported to the Treasury Department by the receiving bank. The government couldn’t realistically investigate every cash deposit over that amount, because there were so many on a daily basis. However, computer programs enabled agents to quickly hone in on deposits that were more likely to generate criminal leads than others. Large cash deposits made by stores that normally received large amounts of cash on a daily basis were not typically investigated. Gadanz & Company was the perfect washing machine for the cash the death squads needed.

  “So it looks like I received it from customers who are buying items from my stores,” Gadanz continued. “And then it goes into my bank as though I earned it. But then my accountant must declare all of that cash as revenue at the end of the year. So I must pay taxes on it.”

  “So what? I still do not understand.”

  Gadanz clenched his jaw. Kaashif was incredibly arrogant, but he was smart, too. These questions were being asked simply to annoy. But Gadanz would finish this out. He wanted his objection heard and noted.

  “So if your teams use all one hundred thousand dollars I’ve deposited for you in my company accounts, I’m being shorted. With state and local income taxes, my total rate is nearly forty percent. That means I have to pay another forty thousand dollars on each hundred thousand you have me launder.”

  Kaashif waved. “Deal with it.” He chuckled. “Consider it your contribution to the greater good.”

  Gadanz clenched his jaw again, harder. “And I hate them withdrawing amounts all over the country from random ATMs.” That was what could really get him in trouble. That was what could land him in jail forever, maybe even get him strapped to a gurney waiting for a lethal injection to cascade into his arm.

  “I’m not sending cash through the mail, Jacob. The Feds are getting too good at spotting that and following it. People don’t know it, but even Federal Express and UPS must notify the Feds of large cash mailings when the machines identify them.”

  “But I—”

  “If anyone asks,” Kaashif interrupted, “tell them you are paying suppliers. Tell them you buy things for your stores from many different locations.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that will convince everyone and there will be no blowback. Come on. You know that won’t work.”

  “Think of something else, then. I do not have time to deal with your issues. I have many of my own.”

  “What you mean by that is, if this thing is uncovered then I get screwed while your people have time to scatter with the wind.”

  Kaashif rubbed his stomach again. He really needed to get something at the store for the pain. It was getting bad. “I may need you to get even more involved, Jacob.”

  “What are you talking about? This is all I agreed to do.”

  “My team here in northern Virginia may need another place to hole up. They have been in the same apartment complex for a while, and they are getting nervous. I want them to stay around here because I want a team causing chaos at least somewhat in proximity to Washington, DC. It will get much play in the press.” Kaashif nodded to Gadanz. “Yes, I definitely want you more involved. I want you to rent them a new place through the company. Do it today.”

  This was getting out of control, Gadanz realized. The problem was he was already in so deep. That rule about only blood mattering wasn’t working out as it was supposed to. It was what he had held on to as the saving grace of everything when this had all been initially proposed to him, and what he had hoped would see him and his family through all of this. But it was now obvious that his hope had been hollow at best.

  “Imelda has been taken, along with her child,” Kaashif spoke up.

  Gadanz’s eyes raced to Kaashif’s. “What?” he whispered.

  “She’s gone.”

  Gadanz felt his chest tighten and his breathing go fast. “Maybe she ran.”

  Kaashif shook his head. “No chance. She would never have done that. She was completely committed to the cause.”

  “Well, I—”

  “You will take her place in everything,” Kaashif ordered, “and there will be no further discussion about it. Do you understand me?”

  The little bastard. He would kill him right now with his bare hands—but that would be suicide. Worse, it would mean the end for his daughters. There would be no mercy.

  CHAPTER 21

  “WHO SHOT Nathan Kohler in that basement?” Travers asked directly as he scooped up a forkful of scrambled eggs. “Who was the other person down there?”

  Troy shook his head even though a possibility had actually just occurred to him. “I don’t know.” He wasn’t trying to dodge Travers. It was just such a wild guess it wasn’t worth saying anything. At this point he needed to build credibility with Travers, not blow it.

  “It had to have been someone on our side. Otherwise, they would have shot us.”

  Once more Troy thought about suggesting who it might have been. But again he held off.

  “Unless Maddux got that smoke bomb off before whoever it was had a chance to take out the rest of us, too.” Travers hesitated. “And wasn’t necessarily on either of our sides.”

  Troy wanted to make sure of something before this conversation went any further. “You know Maddux defected, right?”

  Travers nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “And I know he and Ryan O’Hara tried t
o kill President Dorn a few weeks ago in Los Angeles,” Travers kept going without answering. “O’Hara’s the one who tried to kill me in Delaware.”

  Troy glanced up. He was aware that Travers had dodged the question, and he wanted an answer. But he’d get to it later. “What?”

  “O’Hara and another young gun were the ones who ambushed Harry Boyd and me in Wilmington two days ago.”

  That didn’t make sense to Troy. “But they aren’t the ones who brought you down here to the farm. I thought that was Kohler.”

  “It was Kohler,” Travers confirmed. “I took out O’Hara and the other guy after they got Harry. Kohler got me later, at my place in the Appalachian Mountains.” He stopped gulping down food for a moment. “Hey, you think you got Maddux when you shot the basement up?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Me too. I always heard that guy basically survives everything.”

  Something else occurred to Troy. “You know, I don’t think O’Hara was trying to kill you in Delaware. I think he was trying to do the same thing Kohler actually did. Maddux wanted you under his control. He didn’t want you dead. He made that clear in the basement. I think O’Hara was trying to bring you to Maddux, not kill you.”

  Travers had been about to eat a mouthful of hash browns, but he stopped the fork’s progress in front of his mouth for a moment. “Maybe.” He shrugged then ate the bite hungrily. “How was I supposed to know? I didn’t even know who they were when they killed Harry. I was just trying to survive at that point. And they were shooting while they were chasing me.”

  “From what I’ve heard about Ryan O’Hara, if he was trying to hit you he would have, even if you were a moving target.”

  “He missed the president in Los Angeles.”

  “Well—”

  “He didn’t kill him. That’s what I meant. He hit him, but he didn’t assassinate him.”

  “Only because Rex Stein deflected the bullet at the last second by diving in front of Dorn on the platform.”

  “How did Stein know? Who tipped him off? I never heard an explanation of that in the media.”

  Troy hesitated. “My brother Jack called him on the stage.”

  “Your brother’s in RCS, too?”

  “No.” He quickly explained to Travers what had happened—about Jack going to Alaska and stopping the LNG attack, about his calling Stein on the stage, and then about Maddux shooting Jack.

  “Now I get what you and Maddux were going back and forth about in the basement. Sorry about that.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “So who was Lisa?”

  Troy gave Travers an even briefer explanation about her.

  Travers shook his head. “You must really hate that guy.”

  Troy glanced at the entrance. A Middle Eastern family was standing there waiting to be seated. The man and two small boys were dressed in casual pants and shirts. But the woman wore a full-length black cloak along with a traditional abaya over her head and neck, which left only a thin space for her to see.

  “How’d Maddux get down into the basement?” Travers asked as he took another big bite of food. “You guys checked that place out hard. I watched you. It was like he came out of nowhere.”

  “Like a ghost,” Troy agreed as the hostess led the family to a booth near the back of the restaurant. The booth was well away from where anyone else was sitting. “I don’t know, Major. There had to be a hidden access from outside or from another floor. I know there was no other stairway down there from the first floor.”

  “I guess.”

  “How did Kohler find you?” Troy asked. Other patrons in the restaurant were watching the Middle Eastern family closely. Troy could feel the hatred building around him. It was almost palpable. It wasn’t right; it was totally misguided. Unfortunately, it was human. “Where were you?”

  “I’ve got a place in the mountains west of Washington, DC. That’s what I was telling you before. It’s where I go when I need to hole up. It’s in the middle of nowhere in the woods. It’s really just a shack.” Travers shrugged. “I don’t know how in the hell he found me there.”

  Troy gestured to Travers without looking at him. He was watching two men on the far side of the restaurant who seemed to be taking more than just a passing interest in the family, which had just sat down in the booth. “Check this out.”

  Travers followed Troy’s gaze. “What’s up?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something.” A moment later the two men they were watching stood up from their table and headed toward the family. “Christ,” Troy muttered. “Here we go.”

  Words had already been exchanged by the time he reached the table.

  “You people ought to leave,” one of the men was saying to the family, “before one of you gets hurt.”

  “And don’t ever come back,” the other man hissed. “Or one of you will definitely get hurt.”

  The two little boys were terrified, and their father seemed paralyzed. The woman was holding one hand to the thin opening of the abaya.

  “What’s the problem?” Troy asked evenly.

  The men spun around toward Troy and stepped a few paces back, obviously surprised. But they collected themselves quickly.

  “Don’t get involved, boy. This ain’t your fight.”

  “Yeah, it is. When you treat someone—”

  One of the men reached inside his jacket. Before Troy could react, Travers had cut in front and put the man to the ground with a single, vicious right to the jaw. Travers grabbed the pistol the man had been going for—it had clattered to the floor beside him—and leveled it at the other man, who threw his hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot!”

  Troy stared at Travers for several moments, then glanced down at the man, who lay prone on the floor, not even moving. That was impressive.

  “Come on, Captain,” Travers said with a thin smile. “Let’s go.”

  Troy nodded, still impressed by what he’d just witnessed. “Yeah, right.”

  THAT AFTERNOON Jacob Gadanz left the office at three-thirty. It was the first time he’d left his business before eight o’clock at night in three years. He was waiting for Elaina and Sophie when they got off the school bus, and he hugged each of them tightly before holding their hands as they walked on either side of him all the way back to the family’s townhouse.

  Sasha knew something was wrong. If everything had been all right, he never would have come home so early this afternoon and then gone right to the bus stop after asking her where it was.

  But she was too afraid to ask him what was wrong. The only reason Jacob would have come home this early was because he was scared. And that frightened her more than she could have ever anticipated. In their sixteen years together, she’d never seen Jacob Gadanz even remotely scared. He was the bravest man she’d ever known. Perhaps because of who his brother was. And what difference did it make?

  But Jacob was terrified today. She’d seen it all over his face as soon as he’d walked in the door—which was why she was sobbing uncontrollably in the bathroom off the bedroom with the door locked. His terror had petrified her.

  And then there was that other thing that was driving her insane and making the tears flow like rivers. She knew a little about what was going on—by accident, of course, but she knew. She’d stumbled on it so now she understood a shred of the terror she’d seen on Jacob’s face. She wished to Almighty God she didn’t, but there was no denying it.

  The soft knock on the door interrupted a harsh sob, and she held her breath. Now she knew what it felt like to be hunted.

  “Sasha.”

  “Go away, Jacob.” She didn’t want him to see her like this. “Please.”

  “The girls are wondering why you’re in here.”

  She pressed a tissue to the bottom of her eyelids. “They’re wondering why you met them at the
bus stop, too.”

  “Please open the door, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart. He hadn’t called her that in years. “Please go away, Jacob,” she begged through the bathroom door. “Please.”

  CHAPTER 22

  IT SEEMED strange to Troy to have to sneak into his parents’ house in Connecticut. He never had before, but Bill was requiring it this time. He’d made them wait until nightfall, too, so they had the cover of darkness. Because Travers was with Troy, Bill had claimed—he was taking absolutely no chances on anyone seeing that.

  But Troy had a feeling Bill would have been this cautious even if it had just been the two of them meeting tonight—which meant his father was worried about President Dorn monitoring everything they were doing. That was the only explanation he could think of for this intense level of stealth.

  It also meant Stewart Baxter was probably operating behind the scenes on Dorn’s behalf, which made it likely that Dorn had told Baxter everything he knew about Red Cell Seven. Bill’s gamble of letting the president get his nose even farther under the cell’s tent wasn’t paying off. Bill was trying to be reasonable, but Dorn was showing his true colors, even in the face of the Holiday Mall Attacks.

  Once a dove, always a dove, his father had always preached. The mantra had been drilled into Troy’s head over and over as he was growing up. Even about Jack, who always banged the liberal drum—sometimes just to irritate their father, Troy believed. Still, it begged the obvious question: Why would Bill violate his own mantra now, especially when the fight involved the president?

  As ordered, Troy and Travers had taken a roundabout route to the Jensen property outside Greenwich. An hour ago they’d hopped a cab at the Westchester Airport after flying in on the Jensen plane from Raleigh. And Troy had directed the confused driver to drop them off in the middle of nowhere, in the woods on a lonely country road several miles from the house. They’d hiked the rest of the way through the forest.