“Baxter’s a very slippery, very resourceful guy. You know that, Shane, better than most.” Bill pointed at the screen. “He looks scared.”
“Who?”
“Espinosa. In fact, he looks terrified. He looks like—”
Maddux held up a hand. “Someone’s coming up the driveway. It should be Ward, but go back in your bedroom until I call you.”
Bill stood up and headed away obediently. He’d almost asked Shane about Rita’s fate several times. But he’d been afraid that he’d get some very bad news. Maddux wouldn’t screw around with that answer.
Bill sighed deeply as he closed the bedroom door behind himself. Suddenly he was feeling very old and vulnerable.
“Bill,” Maddux called after a few minutes. “Come on out. It’s Ward.”
“I’ve turned up an interesting development,” Ward said as he shook hands with Bill and they all sat down. “If it had only been one report, I wouldn’t have worried about it.” He pointed at the big golden retriever and then at the floor by the chair he’d sat in. Drexel quickly obeyed and sat beside him. “People get on planes, but three of these guys all traveling at the same time and all coming to the same place? That seems like too much of a coincidence. That’s why I’m here.”
“What are you talking about?” Bill asked.
“I got three separate reports yesterday about several individuals of significant interest all heading for Washington, DC. All three of them are high-octane assassins. I’m talking best in the business.” Ward pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. “I think we’ve got a serious situation on our hands.”
“Who’s the target?” Bill asked. “David Dorn?”
“If you made me bet my last dollar,” Ward answered, taking a puff from the cigarette, “that’s who I’d say it is.”
“Who’s ultimately behind it?” Bill asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Ward replied. “I’m still digging.”
Maddux glanced over at Bill smugly, then reclined in his chair and put both hands behind his head. “Now the question is: What do we do about it? Do we anonymously alert the Secret Service?”
Bill shook his head. “No, we wait and watch.”
“Exactly,” Maddux agreed. “Fuck David Dorn.”
CHAPTER 25
Jack and Troy sprinted through the forest as afternoon sunshine filtered down past a thick canopy of oak and maple leaves, a few of which had already turned to red, orange, and gold. Pistols leading the way, the brothers raced through the dense woods just inside a tree line paralleling a long, gravel driveway. Their objective was a weather-beaten, gray-shingled farmhouse, which, now that they were close, they kept in sight as they ran.
They’d caught a break at the jewelry store. The shop’s owner had allowed them to look at that morning’s video from the security camera mounted on the front wall of the building. The camera had recorded Little Jack’s kidnapping. The men who’d committed the crime had worn masks, so there was no way to ID them from the video. But after enhancing a few frames, they’d gotten the van’s tag number and run it through the Connecticut DMV quickly, using one of Troy’s contacts at National Security. The van’s registration identified the owner as living at this address thirty miles west of Greenwich, deep in the Connecticut countryside. His name was Wayne Griffin.
They’d parked Troy’s SUV a half-mile away, a hundred feet down an old dirt road that led off into the forest and appeared abandoned, judging by the branches on it and the height of the weeds growing out of it. After climbing out, Troy had tossed Jack a Glock 9mm, which he always kept in reserve under the driver’s seat. Then they’d set off through the woods to find L.J.
Only one vehicle was parked in front of the farmhouse, and it wasn’t a van. It was a brand-new, bright red F-150 pickup.
“Don’t hesitate to shoot,” Troy said as they stopped behind two large trees so they could survey the situation before breaking from the woods.
The farmhouse was fifty yards away across an open field of closely mown grass. However, there was a barn between their position and the home, which they could use to veil the first part of their approach.
“You hear me, Jack?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t wait for them,” Troy said firmly, waving his gun at the barn and then the house before making certain the first bullet was chambered. “Put them down if you think they even might have a weapon. And aim to kill, Jack. Aim for the middle of the chest and squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk. Remember, they’ll be more scared than you are.”
That was hard to believe.
“They’ll fire wildly,” Troy continued, “I guarantee it. I’ve seen it before. Calm always wins a shootout, at least with guys like this. And like I said, shoot to kill. Make sure to put them down, and we’ll sort things out later, after the dust settles. No pity, no sympathy. That’s the mantra going in. They sure as hell won’t have any for you.” Troy hesitated. “And Jack, whatever happens, I take the blame for everything.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Jack’s heart was pounding. And it wasn’t from running through the forest, because he was in excellent shape. “I got you out of Alaska last October, didn’t I?”
Troy smiled grimly. “Yeah, you did okay.”
“So, then don’t worry about me.”
“Okay.”
Jack heard no conviction in that “okay.”
“Did you hear what I said about me taking the blame for anyone getting killed?” Troy asked. “If we’re arrested and people are down, you didn’t actually shoot anyone, as far as the cops are concerned. As far as they’re concerned, I shot everybody. You lose that gun before they get here. Throw it in some bushes somewhere, and you tell them you’ve never fired a weapon in your life. You got me?”
“I’m not letting you take the blame for something I—”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Of course, but—”
“No, Jack, I don’t think you did. Let me say it one more time so I’m sure. I shot everyone, as far as any law enforcement investigation goes.”
Troy rarely went animated like this, and never in the face of pressure. He usually got calmer as the stress level built. “Okay.”
Troy nodded ahead. “We’ll check the barn first. Then we’ll head to the house if we don’t find anything in the barn. I still don’t see anybody. You?”
“No.”
“Your first bullet chambered?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“All right, let’s go.”
Keeping the barn between them and the house, they broke from the tree line and sprinted ahead across the field side by side. The barn wasn’t large, a hundred feet long by fifty feet wide. Fortunately, it had a small door on the side they were racing toward, the side away from the house.
When they reached the structure, they pressed their backs to the stone foundation. Troy peered around the near corner to check the house one more time, and then they stole along the wall to the small wooden door.
As they moved through the doorway and stepped onto the dirt floor inside the dimly lit space, they were met by a wave of cool air. It was refreshing down here in the low-ceilinged lower level, out of the late-afternoon heat.
“Look,” Troy said, pointing.
“A black van,” Jack whispered breathlessly, digging a small piece of paper from his shirt pocket as they hustled toward the vehicle. “This is it,” he said after he’d matched the tag on the van to the string of letters and digits on the paper. “This is the one we’re looking for.”
“That’s how they got it in here,” Troy said, gesturing at a large garage-style door on the far side of the barn, then at a pair of tire tracks in the dirt leading from the closed door to the vehicle. “They were definitely trying to hide it.”