Split-second decision time again. This was an easy one. Jack had gotten nowhere inside this little ranch house until revealing the truth. He wasn’t about to change course now.
“No ma’am. I’m not going to the authorities.”
“You’re going to try to get that little girl back on your own, aren’t you?”
“Yes ma’am. And I’m going to need your help to do it.”
“How so?”
“I’m counting on you not to call Michael and warn him I’m coming.”
“You expect me to betray my own son? Even more than I already have? How can I do that? My desire to protect my flesh and blood is every bit as strong as your desire to protect your girlfriend’s child. Probably stronger.”
“I understand that, Mrs. Hargus. But if Michael knows I’m coming, he’ll take Janie and disappear, and that seven-year-old child will end up at the bottom of a shallow grave. Her body will never be found. Her mother will suffer every single day for the rest of her life. You’re a mother, ma’am. Try to imagine the level of pain that woman will feel.”
“I don’t have to imagine it. I lost my boy a long time ago.” The tears flowed freely down her face now, but she held Jack’s gaze steadily.
“Do you want to be the reason another mother suffers as you’ve suffered?”
They stared into each other’s eyes, one elderly woman approaching the end of her life and one desperate man trying to save an innocent child. A child he had put in harm’s way.
Bruce Hargus seemed to have checked out; his head hung on his chest and he almost appeared to be sleeping.
Marge whispered. “Please don’t hurt my boy.”
“I don’t want to hurt anybody. All I want is to get that little girl back.”
The lie passed Jack’s lips easily, and even as he spoke it he wondered what that said about him.
25
“This ain’t exactly the toughest job I’ve ever had to do, but it might very well be the boringest.” Mike Hargus worked to keep the amusement out of his voice as he spoke into the phone. He knew how much his boss hated when he used poor grammar, which was why he tried to do exactly that as often as possible around the prissy little fucker.
Despite all he’d gained through his partnership with Bradley Chilcott—and all he yet stood to gain—he’d always resented the Maryland lieutenant governor. To Mike, Chilcott was nothing more than a pansy; a rich pretty-boy who’d benefited from all of life’s advantages without ever having to get his hands dirty.
He was the opposite of Mike Hargus, in other words.
“Boring is good,” Chilcott said. Mike was surprised the boss hadn’t taken his bait but decided it must be because the pussy was so focused on their current operation he was barely paying attention to anything else. He was probably pissing his pants with worry.
They had agreed to touch base on the second night despite the obvious risk in doing so, just in case anything had happened on either end that might force them to amend their plan. Mike initially resisted agreeing to the phone call, but decided it was important to keep the nervous bastard reassured.
Besides, their phones were encrypted using technology similar to that employed by operational CIA case officers. The risk would be minimal.
“Things are going just fine here,” he said. “Me and my partner—” he hadn’t told Chilcott Byron Hunt’s name and had no intention of ever doing so; it wasn’t a detail the lieutenant governor needed to know—“are just sitting here with our thumbs up our asses watching one scared little kid and waiting to get back to civilization. There is literally nothing to do out here.”
“Like I already said, boring is good. Sheridan still has five days to get the job done and I’m confident he’ll do it. Then we’ll be back on track for the White House. Just don’t get antsy and do anything stupid.”
Don’t do anything stupid? Mike felt his blood pressure skyrocket. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of the irony of his boss tweaking him unintentionally when Mike so loved doing it to Chilcott on purpose, but right now he was too pissed off to really give the notion the attention it deserved.
There was nothing Mike hated more than when the prissy son of a bitch talked down to him. He was the one with his ass hanging out doing all the heavy lifting and taking all the chances, while Mr. Bigshot Lieutenant Governor sat down there in his cushy mansion drinking too much and second-guessing everything. Fucking sanctimonious little asshole.
Mike took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself.
It mostly didn’t work.
He said, “Listen, college boy, don’t you worry about me. I was running covert ops in Afghanistan while the girls in junior high were beating you up for your lunch money. I’ll be fine. I’ve done jobs like this a dozen times and I’m not worried about holding up my end. You wanna know what does worry me?”
Silence. Chilcott was either too surprised by Mike’s reaction to answer or too angry.
Either way, Mike considered it a win and he continued. “I’m worried about you. You just try to keep your dick in your pants and not get caught roughing up any hookers or, God forbid, high school girls. I can’t clean up your messes while I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, babysitting a seven-year-old.”
“Don’t you talk to me in that tone of voice. Remember who signs your paycheck every two weeks. I expect a certain level of respect out of my employees.”
“Is that so? Well don’t you forget who knows where all the bodies are buried. Literally. We stopped being employer and employee a long time ago. We’re partners now, sir. I’ll show deference in public but at moments like this we’re equals right down the line. You’d do well to remember that.”
More silence on the other end of the line. Bradley Chilcott’s shock and fury at this mutiny couldn’t have been more obvious, and once again Mike had to work to suppress a chuckle. God, he loved fucking with the big pussy.
After maybe ten seconds, Chilcott answered. His voice was cold and hard and a little shaky. “Just keep an eye on the girl. This will all be over in a few days.”
The line went dead and this time Mike laughed out loud.
***
Bradley slammed his cell phone down so hard it made the photographs of his wife and kids skitter nervously toward the edge of his desk. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry.
Stress probably had something to do with it, but still, to be treated so rudely by a man who didn’t even have the sense to recognize Bradley’s place in the pecking order was galling.
It was also cause for concern.
Mike Hargus had always been difficult to control. He was a hard man, and dangerous, which was exactly what made him so valuable to someone like Bradley Chilcott.
But his value evaporated the moment he became a threat.
And his statement—that he knew where all the bodies were buried—was not only accurate it was dangerous. Bradley wasn’t stupid, he knew full well Hargus resented him and enjoyed nothing more than needling him.
But this time the man had crossed a line. This time he’d issued a direct challenge to Bradley’s authority, and that was something Bradley Chilcott could not let stand.
Mike Hargus was not Bradley’s equal. He would never be Bradley’s equal. He had clearly forgotten his place in the grand scheme of things.
It was time to consider cutting Hargus loose. Of course, firing him would be out of the question. Hargus would never take something like a dismissal lying down. He would hit back hard, and in so doing could demolish Bradley’s career like a stick of dynamite blowing up a house of cards.
There was only one reasonable option.
Mike Hargus would have to be eliminated.
Permanently.
Because he was right about one thing: he did know where the bodies were buried. Most of them, anyway.
But what he didn’t know—or didn’t seem to appreciate—was that while Bradley’s intelligence community connections were growing colder the l
onger he sat in the Maryland State House, for the moment at least they remained viable.
The same connections that had been mined to recruit Mike Hargus from the CIA six years ago could be mined again and used to recruit another director of security, one who wouldn’t represent the potential for personal and professional ruin. One without Hargus’s goddamned independent streak.
Bradley leaned back and stared off into space as he considered the disturbing phone call he’d just taken. He had hoped to feel better after talking to Hargus but instead he felt immeasurably worse.
More threatened.
Much more worried.
Kim knocked on his office door and he ignored it. Her muffled voice floated through the heavy oak telling him dinner was ready and he ignored that, too.
Obviously he could take no action against Hargus until this operation was over, and that was fine. He wasn’t ready to proceed with the man’s elimination yet, anyway.
But in five days or less, Jim Studds would be dead and Mike Hargus would become a liability. A loose thread that would have to be snipped.
Bradley leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet onto his desktop. Kim had finally gotten the message that Bradley didn’t want to be disturbed and had stopped banging on the door.
Getting rid of Hargus would require some scheming. The last thing Bradley wanted was to go about it the wrong way, to act rashly and end up in exactly the same situation with someone else that he was currently in with his director of security.
But scheming was what he did. It was his dominant trait and he was certain that if he gave the issue the attention it deserved he would come up with a workable solution.
Maybe there was even a way to get Jack Sheridan to eliminate Hargus. That would be as fitting as it was ironic.
Bradley nodded, all alone in his office. He had some serious thinking to do.
26
The first thing Jack noticed about the cottage was that the blinds on all the windows visible from his location had been drawn tightly. A car was parked in the dirt driveway, and even though it was tagged with New Hampshire plates, Jack took its presence as a very good sign. The kidnapper wouldn’t have used his own car, so this one was obviously stolen.
He hadn’t been convinced Marge Hargus wouldn’t change her mind and warn her son that Jack was coming for him. He’d given the subject a lot of thought on the drive north from New Jersey and placed the odds at roughly fifty-fifty. But if she’d contacted him, Hargus and Janie would have been long gone and the cottage abandoned by the time he arrived.
And someone was in there.
He’d driven straight to Lake Winnipesaukee after leaving Newark. The route to the lake would take him straight past the I-93 exit for his home, and the urge to stop and check in on Edie was almost overwhelming. But he forced himself to maintain his speed and continue past the exit. He simply could not afford to sacrifice the time it would take to stop at his house.
He planned his arrival at Winnipesaukee for the dead of night, which came with obvious advantages but also considerable risk. Jack would be approaching a home he’d never seen that was located in an area he’d never visited. The cottage was isolated, which meant his presence would stick out like a sore thumb were he to be spotted by Hargus.
GPS navigation simplified the process of locating the cabin, but for a short while Jack feared he’d been snookered by Marge Hargus and sent on a wild goose chase. The road providing access to the cottage was narrow and winding, filled with potholes and bordered on both sides by thickly forested wilderness. Residences were few and far between, and the ones Jack passed all looked empty—summer homes whose owners had not yet opened them for the season.
No wonder Hargus had chosen this area to stash Janie.
When the GPS informed him he was roughly a quarter-mile from his destination he killed the headlights and inched forward, his truck’s engine growling softly, almost but not quite at idle power.
Five hundred feet from the cottage he pulled as far to the side of the road as he could and shut down. The rest of the way he would travel on foot. He would have to return for his supplies and to hide the truck, but based on the lack of activity he’d observed as well as the time—it was now well past midnight—he felt comfortable leaving it exposed for the time being.
In the unlikely event someone came by and the even more unlikely event that person became suspicious and stopped, Jack would simply feign a breakdown. He’d done it before and it always worked when accompanied by a gruff demeanor and an open engine compartment.
He lifted the truck’s hood and then hiked the rest of the way to the cabin, melting into the woods on the opposite side of the narrow access road when it came into view. Then he searched until finding a satisfactory surveillance location: one that would provide unobstructed sightlines for as much of the home as possible but which would also minimize the chances of him being seen by the occupants.
He settled in and slipped on his night vision goggles. For more than three hours he kept watch, expecting no activity and seeing none. The cottage was small and Jack guessed its interior featured a combination kitchen/living area, a bathroom and probably two tiny bedrooms, one of which undoubtedly held Janie Tolliver.
A light shone through the blinds covering one of the windows. That would be the kitchen/living area. Jack wondered whether Hargus was alone or if he’d recruited a conspirator. He guessed, based on Hargus’s history as an operator, that there was one other person inside the cabin besides Janie and Hargus. Even though their captive was a little girl and essentially harmless, Hargus would want to maintain a round-the-clock watch in order to stave off any potential difficulties that might arise while asleep.
It’s not how Jack would have handled things, but Jack was a loner. He always had been.
At four a.m. he returned to his truck. Not a single car had driven past on the access road during the three hours he’d been monitoring the kidnappers’ hideaway, but Jack wasn’t prepared to assume the situation wouldn’t change in the morning.
Locating an appropriate-sized opening between the massive trees took some time. The forest was thick and ancient and overgrown with towering Douglas firs as well as smaller but still significant oaks and cedars. Jack started searching at the spot he’d parked the truck, moving slowly away from the cottage.
Eventually he found the gap he was looking for.
He returned to his truck and lowered the hood. Then he started it up and reversed along the road, backing tailgate-first into the area he’d selected. He killed the engine and then screened the opening between the truck and the road as effectively as possible in the darkness and without a saw to cut branches. He worked quickly, straightening and restoring the underbrush that had been crushed beneath the truck’s wheels.
The results seemed acceptable if not perfect. From the road, Jack thought it was unlikely the Ram would be seen by anyone not specifically searching for it.
The sun began insinuating itself into the sky a little after five a.m., but by that time Jack had removed his backpack from the truck and returned to his surveillance location directly across the pockmarked road from the kidnappers’ cottage.
The rest of the day he spent watching.
Planning.
Preparing.
***
The time passed slowly, but that was fine with Jack. He needed as much prep time for his assault as he could reasonably manage without further endangering Janie.
Taking on an experienced operator would be difficult enough, even with the advantage of surprise on his side. Hargus was on his own turf and knew the area; Jack was in unfamiliar territory and did not. Hargus was ensconced in an easily defensible structure; Jack would have to cross at least sixty feet of open ground just to make his approach.
This would not be easy.
Jack didn’t care.
***
Around midday a man stepped out the cottage’s only door. He walked onto the back deck and flipped a cigarette butt into the water
that lapped right up against the massive granite boulders serving as the cottage’s foundation. He stretched and yawned and Jack took the opportunity to study him.
He was a white man, and he was large, with the look of an athlete long gone to seed: big in the arms and shoulders, with thick hips and a gut that hung over his belt. Jack guessed his belly was expanding a little more with each passing year.
The man leaned on the deck’s railing and stared uninterestedly at the empty expanse of water before yawning a second time—apparently keeping watch over a seven-year-old was tiring work—and slouching back inside. He slammed the door behind him and the cottage fell still again.
A couple of hours later the door opened again and a second man repeated the process, duplicating the first man’s actions almost precisely. This man was black, taller than the white kidnapper but slim and wiry. He moved with the quick, herky-jerky motions of a speed freak and Jack made a mental note that when the time came, he would have to put this guy down hard to ensure he stayed down.
The first man out of the cottage had obviously been Hargus. The second must be whomever Hargus had hired—undoubtedly another operator—to help share the workload over the seven-day period while they hid Janie away and awaited the news of Maryland Governor Jim Studds’ assassination.
No one else came or left the cottage over the course of the day. Jack doubted a third man was inside. Two would be plenty—more than plenty, really—to prevent the escape of a child from a secure location, and adding more people to the conspiracy would only make maintaining secrecy upon the job’s completion that much more difficult.
It would be hard enough to do with a pair of conspirators, and Jack wondered whether it had occurred to the nameless second operator that he might just become expendable once the job was over.
He didn’t waste much time worrying about it.
The sun was starting to set when Jack rose to his feet and slipped further back into the trees. He’d nibbled on energy bars over the course of the day and made sure to stay hydrated by drinking water, and he felt strong and fresh. He’d been on plenty of stakeouts that had lasted a lot longer than sixteen hours, and under much more difficult conditions.
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