Red Cell Seven

by Stephen Frey

  Finally, they’d come through the tree line and into the open at about the spot where Troy thought Maddux had been when he’d shot Jack. Then they’d jogged the last few hundred yards across one of the pastures to a back basement door Bill had unlocked after ordering his five-member private security force to stand down for a few minutes and take a quick break from watching the perimeter.

  The three of them had then gone directly to the card room of the large finished basement after Bill had resecured the door and turned the alarm back on. It was an interior room that had no windows. His father was being careful about everything. Troy had never seen him this uptight or worried. Usually, you couldn’t tell from his face what he was feeling. But the grim, stony expression was an obvious tip-off.

  “What happened in North Carolina?” Bill asked as they all sat down around the six-sided table covered by soft green felt.

  “We got this guy out,” Troy answered, gesturing at Travers. “Unfortunately, we lost the two agents who went with me to rescue Major Travers.”

  Bill winced. “I’ll check to see what the family situation is for both of them. We don’t have many married men in the cell, but there are a few. If they were married, I’ll take care of their families.” He drummed the felt tabletop with his fingertips. “So what happened?”

  “Maddux showed up,” Travers answered for Troy. “One second he was nowhere, the next he was right in front of us. It was like he stepped out of thin air right in front of us. He shot the other agents in the head before they even knew what was happening. Real clean shots, too, dead-on-impact accurate. Then he had a knife at Troy’s throat.”

  “Crazy,” Bill muttered under his breath. “That guy still amazes me even after twenty years.”

  “Agents Wyoming and Idaho cased the grounds and the other buildings with me before we went down to the basement looking for Major Travers,” Troy explained. “Maddux was not around, Dad.”

  “There’s no way to know for sure,” Bill said. “And it isn’t your fault you didn’t find him if he actually was there. Sometimes I don’t think Shane Maddux would show up on an infrared camera after running a marathon in the dark.”

  “Maybe not even on a regular camera on a sunny day,” Travers cracked.

  “Maybe not.”

  Bill was preoccupied and hadn’t even come close to a smile at Travers’s remark. “He’d definitely recruited Nathan Kohler out of RCS,” Troy said. “Now Kohler’s dead, too.”

  Bill looked up from a pad of paper he’d been writing on. “Oh?”

  He’d been penning a note about checking on the family situations of the two dead agents, Troy saw. “Someone else showed up in that basement in North Carolina while we were down there.”

  Bill put the pen down. “Who?”

  “Don’t know, Dad. But whoever it was shot Kohler dead and then bolted when Maddux dropped a smoke bomb for cover. I didn’t get a look at the guy’s face. It all happened too fast.”

  Father and son stared at each other for several moments across the green felt before Bill’s gaze shifted to Travers. “How did Kohler find you at your place in the mountains? How in the hell did he know you were even there, Major?”

  Travers shrugged. “I have no idea, sir.”

  There was a soft knock on the door. All three men sat straight up in their chairs as they glanced quickly at the door.

  “Yes?” Bill called as he stood up.

  “It’s me, dear.”

  Troy recognized his mother’s voice as Bill pointed at Travers and then to a closet in a corner of the room. When Travers was inside with the door shut, Bill let Cheryl in. She gave him a quick kiss and moved to where Troy was standing after he’d risen from his chair as well.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  Cheryl Jensen was tall and slim. In her late fifties, she looked much younger than that to Troy. Every time he saw her he thought that.

  “What do you have there?” he asked, pointing at the bundle in her arms.

  “Someone who misses you,” she answered. As she leaned in to give Troy a kiss on the cheek, she carefully handed him the blue knit blanket and the baby wrapped inside it. “Someone you need to spend more time with.”

  Troy smiled as he glanced down at Little Jack. He was damn cute even if he was only a few months old. Most babies looked the same to Troy, and not cute at all. In fact, some of them were downright ugly, even when everyone was oohing and aahing over them.

  L.J. was different. He was definitely cute, even handsome already with his shock of straight black hair, distinctive features, and beautiful light-brown skin. Of course, Lisa Martinez had been a beautiful woman.

  And the little guy seemed to have a glint in his eye other babies didn’t, Troy noticed. He seemed already aware of all that was going on around him. Troy chuckled softly. Of course, maybe L.J.’s father was a little biased.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said as he took the baby.

  Cheryl smiled lovingly. “You’re welcome, dear.”

  Jack’s death had torn her apart. She’d been a wreck at the funeral the other day. But Karen was right. Having Little Jack around seemed to have boosted her spirits. She had a glow about her when she gazed at the baby.

  “I guess I can give him up for a little while,” she murmured as she touched L.J.’s chin and smiled again.

  “I’ll take good care of him while he’s down here.” They couldn’t continue until she left, and Troy could see that Bill was getting impatient. “Don’t worry.”

  “That’s my cue,” she said as she turned to leave. “I get it.” When she made it to the door she stopped. “See you later.” She smiled up at Bill. “Do tell whoever’s in the closet I said hello.”

  “What?”

  Cheryl pointed at the table and the chairs around it. “Six chairs at the table, and three of them are pulled out. I only see two of you.” She gave Bill another quick kiss. “I’ve been around you too long. I’ve learned to analyze everything. Don’t ever forget that,” she called good-naturedly as Bill closed the door after her.

  As Travers emerged from the closet, Troy eased back down into his chair and gave Little Jack his finger to squeeze. The baby had a nice strong grip and a wave of pride surged through him. Then the guilt fell in behind the pride. Cheryl was right. The little guy needed a father, every little guy did. But that was going to be very tough if he stayed with RCS. Maybe trying so hard to please his father shouldn’t be as important anymore. Jack had spent his whole life doing that, and where had it gotten him? Six feet under.

  “Where were we?” Bill asked when they were all seated again.

  “Who’s that?” Travers asked, pointing at L.J. with a wide grin.

  “We were talking about what happened in North Carolina,” Troy said, avoiding the question. “One thing you should be aware of, Dad, is that Maddux knows you’re running RCS now. He made that clear.”

  “He doesn’t know. He was just guessing.”

  “It didn’t sound like he was guessing,” Travers spoke up respectfully but firmly.

  “It sure didn’t,” Troy seconded. “The other interesting thing about that whole deal in the basement down there was that Maddux wasn’t going to kill me. He was going to leave me locked up, but he wasn’t going to take me out.”

  Bill grinned thinly for the first time. “Think he’s going soft in his old age?”

  “It had nothing to do with personal loyalty, Dad. He made that very clear. He said the reason he wasn’t taking me out was that he didn’t want to piss you off. It had to do with his personal survival and nothing else.”

  Troy and Travers had covered a great deal in the plane on the way up, including what had happened in Alaska; Maddux killing Lisa Martinez; and how Jack had died on the porch of this house. Troy had told Travers about Lisa but not about Little Jack. He was still getting used to being a father, and he hadn’t mentioned the ba
by. Well, he wouldn’t avoid the subject ever again, he promised himself as he gazed down into his son’s bright eyes. “And Maddux claimed he didn’t shoot Jack.”

  Bill raised one eyebrow triumphantly. “I told you.”

  “Just because Shane says he didn’t kill Jack, I don’t think we should necessarily—”

  “Tell me about the young man you recently interrogated,” Bill interrupted, pointing at Travers.

  Troy rolled his eyes. He hated it when Bill cut him off like that.

  “I believe you told me his name was Kaashif when we spoke about him.”

  Travers nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “Did you find out anything important while you had him in custody?”

  “Well, I—”

  “First off, why were you suspicious? Who put you onto him?”

  Travers stared at Bill steadily for several moments, then glanced at Troy. He started to say something—twice—but stopped each time.

  “What’s the problem?” Bill demanded.

  “I can’t give you my specific source, Mr. Jensen. I don’t want you to get angry, sir, but I won’t give my sources up to anyone. Mr. Carlson and I had an understanding on that.”

  “That’s fine, Major. Just say what you’re comfortable saying.”

  “Look, we all know people, right? I went into the Marines in 1991, and since then some of the guys I was in with landed on different boxes of the intel game board, you know? All the usual destinations you’d figure. CIA, NSA, ONI, and a few others I’m sure you two would suspect. Maybe one or two you wouldn’t as well.”

  “Go on.”

  “I keep in touch with those guys,” Travers explained. “Like Carlson always said, work every relationship we have to find out anything we can.”

  “We emphasize that from day one,” Bill agreed. “So, what did you find out?”

  “Six months ago one of my guys who reports into Langley tells me about this kid, Kaashif, who’s a high school student up in Philly. Says I should check him out. That’s it, that’s all he says, just check him out. Claims he tried to get his superior up the Potomac to do the same thing, but the boss wouldn’t listen. The guy told him they don’t have time to chase down leads on teenagers because there’s too much else to do. So he begs me to do it, because he’s got a feeling something’s there, and he’s usually right. I trust this guy with my life. In fact, he saved it one time in Iraq, so why wouldn’t I?

  “So I try doing some prelim back-channel work on the kid, but it all comes up empty. I don’t mean negative, I don’t mean the kid’s all innocent or anything and my guy was wrong. I mean I can’t find anything about Kaashif before he enrolled in that Philly high school last September. There’s nothing on him before that. It’s like footprints ending in the snow in the middle of a field. So I try getting information on his parents, but nothing comes up on them, either. It’s weird, just another trail ending in the middle of nowhere.

  “He’s got a social security card and a birth certificate. He’s got a driver’s license, so he had to have them. And I got copies of them. But get this: They’re completely phony.”

  “How do you know?” Troy asked.

  Travers gave him an ironic smile. “Kaashif’s birth certificate says he was born at Point Pleasant Hospital in Point Pleasant, Wyoming.”

  Bill nodded as if he knew where this was headed. “And there’s no Point Pleasant Hospital.”

  Travers snickered. “There’s no Point Pleasant, Wyoming.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Anyway,” Travers continued, “I figure I’ll just turn their names over to immigration. Those people can be an epic pain in the ass for a family like this, and hey, maybe that’s as far as it goes. A family getting into this country that shouldn’t have, and I’ll do something about it by putting immigration on them. But right before I make the call, the kid’s name shows up in a transmission a contact of mine in London calls me about. It’s a message the Brits skimmed from a group in the Middle East our government isn’t fond of, to put it mildly. So I follow the kid a little, when I have some spare time.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing happens for a while. But then it all breaks loose. One morning the kid walks into his high school through the front door and then two minutes later comes out the back. I’m lucky I see him, too; it’s completely by chance. I mean, I’m driving away from the building when I catch the kid duck out. I’m not even sure it’s him at first, but then I see it is.

  “So he climbs in his car and drives off with me in his shadow. I figure he’s going home, or he’s meeting up with some girl, but that’s not it. He gets on I-95 and heads south down to northern Virginia. I follow him all the way down there past DC, all the way to a house in Manassas, which is about forty miles west of the White House. An hour later he gets back in his car, and I follow him all the way back up to Philadelphia.

  “A few days later the son of a bitch’s name comes up in another transmission from that crew in the Middle East we don’t like. It’s going to somebody in Los Angeles, who isn’t at the apartment when our guys crash the place. It’s pretty obvious the United States is about to take a terrorist hit, if you believe the transmission. But we intercept a lot of those messages, I’m told, so it’s not that unusual. What’s unusual is that the kid’s name comes up again.

  “So Harry and I grab him, and we take him in and rough him up at one of our interrogation sites outside Baltimore. He whines like a little baby the whole time, like he really is in high school and he doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But I’m convinced he’s playing me. I’ve been doing the interrogation thing long enough to recognize the act. I’m convinced he’s not seventeen, either, and I figure high school’s his cover. Pretty good cover, too, right?”

  Troy and Bill nodded, fascinated by Travers’s story.

  “So,” Travers continued, “I zip him the TQ Haze and then plan on monitoring him real closely for a few days after I turn him back out. I figure that’s the best strategy.” The major grimaced sadly. “But Harry and I get nailed in Delaware on our way back from dropping Kaashif off in Philly. Harry’s dead, and somebody’s obviously going to be real pissed at me, because I take out the two guys who got Harry. It turns out one of them is Ryan O’Hara, who I know is with Maddux. I’d heard through the grapevine he was the one who shot President Dorn in L.A. for Maddux. And believe me, I know well enough not to be on Maddux’s hit list. So I go underground. I figure I’ll lay low for a week or so.

  “But then Kohler shows up out of nowhere at my shack out in the mountains, tases me, takes me to that place in North Carolina, and locks me up in the basement. I think I’m about to go free when Troy shows up, but then Maddux appears out of thin air. So that fast I go from thinking I’m saved to thinking I’m done. Instead, Maddux wants to take me with him.” Travers hesitated. “Then somebody shoots Kohler, Maddux throws the smoke down, Troy and I run like hell. And now you’re up to date, Mr. Jensen.”

  Bill nodded. “Thank you, Major Travers.”

  “When you said you zipped him the TQ—”

  “Who did he meet with?” Bill interrupted Troy again. “Down in Manassas, I mean.”

  “A woman named Imelda Smith. I checked her out through normal channels while I was following Kaashif back up to Philadelphia. I got her street address off her mailbox and worked backward. I got a picture of her on my phone, too, when she was saying good-bye to Kaashif. She’s a divorced mother of a young boy who claims she’s a marketing executive on her tax returns. I didn’t have a chance to diligence it myself.”

  “By ‘normal channels’ you mean you called the people at Fort Meade?” Bill asked.

  Travers nodded. “Yes, sir, like we’re supposed to. Specifically, I contacted that group we’ve always been told to use.”

  Troy glanced from Travers to his father. That was a new wrinkle. But
as a Falcon, Troy wasn’t charged with interrogating, so it made sense he wouldn’t have heard about this way of checking on people.

  “What about Kaashif?” Bill asked. “Did you run him through normal channels too?”

  “No, I kept him out of Fort Meade. I did my own stuff on him. I was worried that group in Maryland might cross the lines and figure out who’d told me about the kid. I couldn’t have that.” Travers glanced across the table at Little Jack and grinned when the baby shrieked. “I’m not sure they would have found out anything about Kaashif, anyway. He’s a damn black hole. But I’m pretty sure I’m on to something with him just because of that. And because he was mentioned in those two transmissions.”

  “What does ‘zip him the TQ Haze’ mean?” Troy asked loudly. He wasn’t going to be ignored this time.

  Travers glanced at Bill. “Can we…I mean, am I allowed to—”

  “It’s a new track-and-trace system we’re using,” Bill explained. “It uses a brand-new technology that relies on a cutting-edge metallic composite that adheres to the stomach and intestine walls when ingested with water. Microscopic shards of the composite are mixed in a turquoise-colored powder that enables the shards to embed, hence the name TQ Haze. Once in place, the shards send out a unique signal based on the DNA of the subject combining with the composite, as long as enough of the shards embed in the target’s internal tissue. So, as long as you have a good DNA sample from the subject, you can track his movements. The app’s a lot like a GPS tracking device. In fact, it uses GPS technology once the shards have adhered to the subject’s body. It matches the sample DNA you’ve inputted in your tracking device to the signal being emitted from the subject. It’s like phone-to-phone except this is device-to-body. The difference with TQ is that even if the subject figured out what was going on, he couldn’t turn off the transmission. The shards signal for about a week before the body breaks them down and flushes most of them out.”

  “Who came up with that?” Troy asked.

  “I can’t tell you, son. The existence and membership of that group is as sensitive as the existence of Red Cell Seven. What I can tell you is that the president of the United States doesn’t even know about those guys. Only a few of us do.”