Red Cell Seven

by Stephen Frey

  She nodded back. “Okay.”

  CHAPTER 30

  TROY STEPPED into a large room of the mansion’s basement. In one corner was a prison cell. It reminded him of the cell in North Carolina, though it was bigger and didn’t have that Inquisition-like ring hanging from a chain bolted to the wall. But the steel bars were the same—vertical, black, and cold-looking.

  The Jensen family had moved to this house in the countryside outside Greenwich twenty years ago, when Troy was eight. But he and Jack had never been allowed into this section of the massive basement while they were growing up. They’d tried getting in many times when they were left alone. But the thick, metal door was always triple-locked, and there was an alarm—which they’d tripped twice and paid the price on each occasion, the second time dearly, when Troy was eleven and Jack thirteen. It had been the summer, and for two weeks they’d been allowed out of their rooms only long enough to use the bathroom. They’d even taken meals in their rooms.

  Troy had found out what was in here only after he became a member of Red Cell Seven. As far as he knew, Jack had died never knowing.

  As he looked around, he wondered whether this room had been used not just to hold human beings but to interrogate them as well. He’d made his peace with the need for RCS interrogations to be thorough—rough, even—but for some reason it would bother him to know that torture had occurred in the house where he’d grown up. Which didn’t make much sense, he realized. You were either in or out when it came to the tough calls in life—and he was all-in when it came to RCS agents using any means necessary to protect the United States.

  Still…

  The cell was unoccupied tonight—which wasn’t a good sign, and there could only be one explanation for that, only one person who could have allowed the prisoner to go free.

  Karen had called Troy to tell him that Maddux was locked in the cell, but she wouldn’t say exactly how he’d gotten there. She was an ex-cop, but she couldn’t possibly have gotten him in there by herself. Troy wasn’t sure he could have taken in Maddux alone. So he’d pressed her on what had happened several times. But she wouldn’t divulge anything more about the help she’d received—she wouldn’t even confirm that she had—though she’d apologized three times for being circumspect.

  It had to be Charlie Banks, Troy figured. That had to be the person who’d rescued her at the cemetery and helped her bring Maddux to the house. Charlie must have survived being thrown from the Arctic Fire as well, and then laid low all this time. His body had never been found. It was the only possible explanation. She’d sounded happy when they’d spoken. That was a tip-off, too.

  Charlie must have realized Karen had found happiness with Jack and not interfered, not made contact with Karen until after Jack was gone. Charlie was a good man. Troy looked forward to that reunion. He just wished it could have been Jack. It was a terrible thing to think, but he couldn’t help it.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Troy turned around quickly. “I think you know, Dad,” he answered when he’d calmed down after the voice coming from nowhere had startled him.

  “How did you…?” Bill’s voice trailed off.

  “Karen called me. She said she was visiting Jack’s grave last night when Maddux confronted her. She said he tried finding out where Travers was, and assaulted her when she couldn’t tell him. He figured she was holding out, but she wasn’t. At least, that’s what she told me.” Troy shrugged. “Why was Shane looking for Major Travers?”

  “He figured Travers knew where Kaashif was. You were right, son. Maddux is a patriot. He wanted his turn at Kaashif. He figured he could break the young man even if Travers couldn’t. He figured he could find out who was behind the attacks. As you are aware, he’s very confident in his ability to extract information from anyone.”

  “Did you tell him where Kaashif was?”

  “I gave Shane the address to the house in Philadelphia where Kaashif lives.”

  “Any possibility there was another reason Maddux was looking for Travers?” Troy asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Troy, if you know anything at all, you must—”

  “I don’t.” Troy nodded at the empty holding cell. “What happened? Why isn’t Maddux in there?”

  “I let him go,” Bill admitted.

  “Why?”

  “I had to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bill stared at Troy hard for several moments. But his gaze dropped to the floor when his son wouldn’t look away. “He…he had leverage on me,” Bill finally said in a faltering delivery.

  “What does that mean, Dad?”

  “It means if I hadn’t let him go, he would have released something about me that I could not have released. It was something that would have hurt your mother very badly. I couldn’t have that.” Bill grimaced as he finished. “There, I said it.”

  His father’s voice was shaking, and that was unnerving for Troy. The rock of the family was disintegrating right in front of him. “What is it?” It seemed to Troy that whatever Maddux had on his father, his father was more concerned about himself than anyone else. “What does Shane have on you?”

  Bill said nothing, just looked away.

  This was a shot in the dark, but Troy figured he’d take it. “Dr. Harrison, the man who was taking care of Jennie Perez.”

  “Yes?”

  “You asked me what his name was when I was heading for Dulles to go to North Carolina. But you already knew him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Bill answered, almost inaudibly.

  “Why didn’t you just—”

  “You were right about Jennie,” Bill cut in, “in a way, at least. She was approached by people claiming to be terrorists. Imelda Smith contacted her, and they were trying to get information on RCS, as you assumed. And they did tell her Lisa had been murdered by someone inside U.S. intel. But it turns out Jennie Perez is a patriot as well. She told me exactly what was going on when she contacted me. Apparently Lisa had told Jennie about the two of you and that I was your father. I asked Jennie if she would help us by appearing to cooperate with the terrorists. She said she would. She’s a brave young woman, Troy.

  “And yes,” Bill continued, “there was information on that cell phone she bought at the store the other day. She had it transferred from her old one before she left the store. I told her she needed to make certain she had a record of what she gave them, even though the information was useless. It was full of red herrings. It would have seemed important to the people who got it, but it really wasn’t.”

  Troy nodded as it all hit him. “She had no idea about the attacks. She thought she was just meeting her contact that day at the mall.”

  “That’s right, and I don’t think they meant to shoot her. She got in the way of a bullet, probably when she was saving that little girl’s life. But they still got the phone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Someone followed up on information on that phone. We set up a couple of data traps, and one was hit.”

  “So that’s why they didn’t execute her the way they did the other two people.”

  “I can only assume,” Bill agreed.

  “Why did you have the doctor tell me she’d been shot in the back?”

  “I wanted it to look real to you because I wanted you to leave her alone. I figured you’d hear about the other two being killed at close range and wonder why Jennie hadn’t been.”

  “That’s why you told me it was a waste of time to see her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

  “I couldn’t have anyone else knowing what was really going on with her. It was too big a risk for her and RCS, too covert an operation. I trust you completely, of course, but you could have been kidnapped
and tortured, had drugs administered. All the typical stuff, so I was simply keeping to the RCS code. Need-to-know only.” Bill hesitated. “Once the attacks hit, I was hoping we could get information on the identity of the terrorists through Jennie. But they haven’t reached out to her again.”

  “Her contact went missing,” Troy pointed out. “Something happened to Imelda Smith. Maybe her own people figured she had to be taken out. Maybe they suspected something.”

  Bill shook his head. “No, it was Maddux. He got a blind tip about her from somebody at Fort Meade, I’m guessing, and he interrogated her. You know what happens to anyone Maddux interrogates.”

  A sinking feeling rushed through Troy. “What about her son?”

  Bill shook his head again. “No.”

  “Maddux killed him, too?”

  “Apparently.”

  “That’s…that’s awful.” Troy glanced back at his father. “Did you know about the plan to assassinate President Dorn? Did you back it?”

  Bill stared at his son for a long time without answering.

  “Tell me the truth, Dad.”

  “Yes,” Bill finally murmured.

  For a few moments all Troy saw in front of him was a fury-wall of red. “When we were at the White House,” he spoke up, doing his best to control his anger, “you gave me that whole song and dance about how there could be no excuse for killing the president of the United States.” But the emotion was still coming through.

  “It was a matter of national security, Troy. David Dorn is making us weak. He and people like him are bringing this country down. Look at the attacks that are happening around us right now. This country is being shut down by a small group of lunatics, and Dorn can’t seem to do anything about it. Despite the mayhem, he wants to shut RCS down.”

  “I thought we were going to be a cornerstone of his intel strategy going forward.”

  “Come on, son.”

  Troy couldn’t argue with that. Hell, he’d felt the insincerity himself at the White House the other day, even mentioned it to Bill. Dorn had been on a fishing trip, nothing else. And Baxter clearly wanted to do anything he could to destroy Red Cell Seven. “We didn’t catch the Holiday Mall Attacks, Dad.” Another sinking feeling rushed through Troy. In fact, maybe they had, but his father had another agenda. “Or did we?”

  “No.”

  These multiple shades of gray were hard to deal with. How could he know if his father was telling the truth about anything at this point? What about Roger Carlson? What if his father had known and hadn’t done anything? What if he’d known about the LNG tankers as well? “Was Carlson backing Dorn’s assassination, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Protecting the United States is a complicated proposition, son.” Bill had suddenly gone pale. “It’s a minute-by-minute ordeal on a global scale, and it’s getting harder by the day. You of all people should understand that.”

  “There has to be a chain of command that’s never broken, Dad. This is a democracy.”

  “Grow up, son,” Bill snapped angrily, though his face was still ashen. “Democracy doesn’t work anymore. It’s a fractured model of government for our country at this point. Our society’s too splintered. We’ve got too many special-interest groups fighting to get a piece of a federal pie that isn’t big enough to go all the way around, not nearly. Too many lazy bastards want entitlements, they don’t want to work for a living anymore, they want it all for nothing. It’s too easy, and worse, too profitable not to steal from the government. Decisions can’t be made by the population anymore, son. Congress can’t agree on anything. How can you expect the population to? So, in effect, we’re paralyzed. A small collection of individuals have to make the decisions that really matter. It’s the only way we survive. Otherwise it’s gridlock that only gets worse and worse. It’s a few of us taking matters into our own hands because we have to. It’s called leadership.”

  “I hope you’re not serious,” Troy murmured. But he knew Bill was. He recognized the truth tone. “You’re rationalizing what you’ve done, you’re making excuses.”

  “When was the last time you looked at one of those old paintings of the founding fathers ratifying the Declaration of Independence or signing the Constitution?”

  Troy shrugged. “I don’t know.” Where had that question come from?

  “Look at one when you get a chance.”

  Was this some kind of secret that had been handed down for hundreds of years to a limited few? Was there some kind of code embedded in those paintings, and now he was finally being let in on the secret—like the real meaning of the eye atop the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill?

  “Why should I?”

  “All those men in the paintings look the same.”

  Troy stared at his father quizzically. “What?”

  “They’re all the same, Troy. They’re all middle-aged white men. Some are skinny, some are fat. Some are wearing white wigs, some dark. Other than that, they couldn’t be a more homogeneous group if they tried. They all basically wanted the same things, and they’d just come off all having a common enemy, which they’d beaten against all odds. They were one. Democracy was easy back then, but it isn’t now. We have lots of enemies now, and the worst and most powerful one is ourselves. Troy, every face in that painting of the Constitution signing would be a different color if the signing was today.” Bill’s eyes were flashing. He wasn’t visibly upset anymore. He’d regained his signature calm, and the color was back in his cheeks. “And I’m not saying that’s bad. Don’t mistake what I’m saying for bigotry. Have I ever once made any remark about Little Jack’s bloodline?”

  Troy shook his head. “No.”

  “No, I have not, and I never will.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “I never met Lisa. You’ve never even shown me a picture of her.”

  Suddenly Troy felt bad. “I’m sorry, Dad, I just never—”

  “But judging by Little Jack, she must have been a very beautiful girl. And from what you and Jack have told me, she was wonderful.”

  “She was.”

  “And that’s what America should be about at its core. Ethnic, religious, and economic diversity coming together to form the greatest union this world has ever known. It’s beautiful and amazing when it works like it did for you two.” Bill spread his arms wide. “Unfortunately, the reality of every individual having a vote gets complex very fast when that ethnic and religious diversity broadens as dramatically as it has in our country. We’re more diverse than any other meaningful country in the world ever has been, and that’s remarkable in and of itself. It’s our single greatest achievement. It’s also our single greatest problem. It slows our progress to a crawl because we all want what’s best for our immediate families and the people we know and care about. It creates that gridlock, which makes us vulnerable to external enemies, and ourselves. And it creates a scenario where the opportunists within our society thrive.

  “Sometimes some of us have to take extraordinary measures to make certain that our vulnerability doesn’t turn into a situation in which we find ourselves utterly defenseless. Roger and I believed that President Dorn was leading us directly down that path.”

  The room went still as Bill finished his speech.

  As Troy gazed at his father, he realized that Bill had never looked older. He suddenly seemed like an elderly man, a man who’d been carrying around too many secrets for too long. The pressure of it all had finally worn him down. It was sad, and Troy felt heat at the corners of his eyes. For the first time he could remember, Bill Jensen looked weak.

  Troy gestured at the bars. “Was that cell ever used for anything other than just to hold people?”

  “What do you think, son?”

  Troy glanced down. He had his answer. While he’d been sleeping upstairs as a kid, men had been inte
rrogated here in the basement. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to catch up with Travers, and then we’re headed to Virginia, to Manassas, to see if we can get anything out of Jacob Gadanz.”

  “Good. I hope you find something out. We need a break.”

  “Bye, Dad,” Troy said quietly as he turned to go. He wanted to hug his father, but he couldn’t. The emotional divide was too wide.

  “Son.”

  Troy stopped and turned back. “Yes?”

  “Did Karen tell you everything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she tell you who helped her get Maddux in here?”

  “No, Dad, she kept the secret. But I think I still know. It was Charlie Banks.”

  Bill pursed his lips. “Of course you knew,” he whispered.

  BAXTER REACHED across the desk and handed a manila envelope to the president after waiting for Connie to shut the Oval Office door behind her. She’d given him a nasty look when he’d ordered her out with a gruff “get lost.” Two, actually, the second being even more obvious. Well, screw her. She’d better watch herself. He had the ability to punish people now—harshly. And he’d use it again if he felt like it.

  Baxter had been nervous about sending the ex-con out after Nancy Carlson. It was the first time in his career he’d ever ordered anything violent like that. But the guy had executed the job perfectly—except for initially wanting to let the old woman go free when she’d given him what he wanted—and Baxter had to admit the power was intoxicating. And he felt no remorse whatsoever for ordering the guy to finish the job because they couldn’t risk having any loose ends on this. He’d been a little worried about that guilt thing rearing its ugly head. But it hadn’t, not at all.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Dorn asked excitedly, grabbing the envelope from his chief of staff and pulling out the contents. “My God, it is,” he whispered in awe. “It’s an original of the Executive Order Nixon signed back in 1973.”