“If you’ve been considering me for a while, why haven’t you asked me to join the cell yet?”
Bill glanced at the silencer affixed to the end of Commander McCoy’s pistol. “Because some of the men inside RC7 are afraid of that aura I mentioned. It intimidates them.”
“Is that a polite way of telling me you don’t think a woman can do what a man can?”
“No, Commander McCoy. It’s a polite way of telling you that some of my men are insecure.” It was tight-lipped, but Bill saw a look of satisfaction flash briefly across Skylar’s pretty face. “How’d you find me?”
“I killed a man named John Ward,” she answered directly.
Bill’s posture stiffened at the admission.
“Apparently,” Skylar continued, “Ward had met with you recently, and he was careless about it. There was collateral in his pocket about that meeting that led me here.”
“How did you know John Ward was with Red Cell Seven?”
“Stewart Baxter gave me a list of all the RC7 agents.”
“Has Dorn convinced you to kill all RC7 agents?” Bill asked. “Has he declared war on us?”
“He’s convinced me that every person inside this cell, including you, is a traitor.”
“President Dorn is the traitor,” Bill retorted calmly. “Make no mistake about that, Commander.”
“I don’t think so. Your son, Troy, murdered my younger sister, Bianca. President Dorn confirmed that for me. Only a traitor would do that.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Don’t give me that. You get no government funding for Red Cell Seven.”
“That is true,” Bill agreed, “because it helps us stay hidden, which I’m sure you can appreciate. So what?”
“So you fund your unit by selling weapons to outlaw nations.”
“I’m afraid President Dorn and his chief of staff have sold you a serious pack of—”
“You arrange the sales and skim a piece of the profits to bankroll Red Cell Seven. Just like President Reagan’s crew did with Iran-Contra.”
“What does any of that crap have to do with your ridiculous claim about my son killing your younger sister?”
“My father discovered what you and Red Cell Seven were doing. That you were selling arms illegally. You had my sister killed in Alaska for revenge when you found out he’d reported you.”
“That’s absurd, Commander. It wouldn’t matter to me what your father had discovered about RC7. We’re immune from prosecution of any kind. We can do anything we want.” Technically, Bill shouldn’t have said that. But this situation called for desperate measures. “Or did President Dorn fail to mention that?”
“You’re immune from prosecution of any kind?”
“Yes.”
“That’s rich, Mr. Jensen.”
Desperate measures might also require showing her the last original Order, which was hidden back in his room. Of course, if she wasn’t convinced, and she took it with her, Red Cell Seven would be completely vulnerable to President Dorn.
“If you’ll give me a second, I can prove—”
“Sit down,” Skylar ordered loudly as Bill began to rise from the chair. “Are you denying that you’ve sold weapons to outlaw nations?”
As he eased back into the chair, Bill thought hard about his answer. The president might have given Commander McCoy irrefutable evidence of what they’d done in the early days to funnel cash into RC7’s numbered accounts. If Dorn had given her that proof, and Bill denied what she’d accused him of, he’d lose his credibility — and probably his life.
“I’m not denying it,” he said quietly. “But we stopped doing that a long time ago. Once I found well-heeled angels in the private sector, we didn’t need to do that anymore. In fact, Ollie North got the idea from me after we’d stopped doing it. I regret it, but it got us off the ground. And I doubt President Dorn told you this, but Red Cell Seven has saved this country’s ass many times since it was founded in the early seventies.”
“You missed on 9/11. And the Holiday Mall Attacks.”
Bill’s eyes narrowed. Skylar McCoy had a compelling existential irreverence, even as she pointed that revolver at him. An irreverence that came from ultimate confidence in herself, he knew. He’d seen that same thing before in just two people — Shane Maddux and Troy Jensen.
“We did miss on 9/11,” he admitted. “Everyone did. But the Holiday Mall Attacks would have gone on for quite some time without us. We figured out who was behind them, and we stopped them immediately.
“I could take a few hours of your time to describe all the other potential attacks we’ve intercepted,” Bill continued. “But I know how valuable your time is, so I’ll give you just the highlights, instead. First, we intercepted an assault on the Nyack nuclear power plant across from New York City, and we—”
“This won’t keep me from—”
“And we uncovered a plot to set off missiles of the old Soviet Union, which could have caused world war.”
The barrel of Skylar’s gun dropped down slightly. “You know about that, too?” she murmured.
“I knew about it before anyone else on our side did.” Bill hesitated. “Except, of course, John Ward, because he was the one who uncovered what was going on and which missiles were going to be set off by the terrorists.”
He’d just scored another direct hit, Bill saw. She’d killed the man who’d stopped an almost unimaginable threat to the United States. If she was any kind of patriot, she had to feel at least some sense of guilt at this point.
“How was your father supposed to have found out about the arms sales I arranged?” Bill asked.
“He was a crab boat captain on the Bering Sea. But he worked covertly for the ONI out there, too. One night he picked up the wrong man, and the guy—”
“Wait a minute. Your father was Kevin McCoy, captain of the Alaskan Star?”
“He is my father, Mr. Jensen. He’s still alive. He’s in hiding because of his patriotism, and your treason.”
Bill shook his head. “Your father’s been dead since the Alaskan Star went down in a storm on the Bering Sea almost ten years ago. He was lost along with his four crewmen. You know that. You must.”
Skylar gazed at Bill for several moments before raising her weapon again and aiming it directly at his heart. “That’s exactly what President Dorn said you’d say.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You’re lying.”
“I know this is difficult to hear, but your father’s dead, Skylar. And I can prove he died on the Alaskan Star in that storm.”
She shook her head slowly as she cocked the revolver. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to give you a chance to do that. I have my orders, Mr. Jensen, and I will carry them out.”
“So?” Jack asked.
“So she made contact,” Troy answered, glancing over his shoulder at Jennie. “I listened to her the whole time she was on the phone with the guy.” She’d moved the chair to a corner of the bare room and was sitting in it sobbing, face buried in her hands again. “There was no code going on between them. The conversation was too basic, and there wasn’t any cadence embedded in it. I would have recognized if something was up.”