Gadanz shook his head. “What happened to the man who told me he could execute any mission? Where is that man right now? Because I can assure you, he’s not standing in front of me.”
“Is that all?” Sterling asked gruffly, standing up. “Are we through here?”
“No, there’s one more thing.”
Of course, Sterling thought to himself ruefully. There was always one more thing with Daniel Gadanz. “What is it?”
Gadanz picked up a small glass vial from the table beside his chair. It was filled with an amber liquid. “Take this,” Gadanz ordered. “You’re going to need it to earn that billion dollars.”
“Don’t go in to work today,” Baxter muttered into the phone. “In fact, don’t go in the rest of the week.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t. Stay in your house. Don’t go out at all. Have your wife go out if you need something.”
“We have important business this week, several extremely high-profile cases.”
“I don’t care. Figure something out. Come down with a convenient case of the flu. Do you hear me?”
“How’s it going to look if the chief justice nominee doesn’t go in to work his first week after being nominated?”
“A lot better than he would dead,” Baxter answered candidly. He could almost hear Espinosa’s heart racing at the other end of the line. “I can’t tell you any more than that, Henry. Now, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Espinosa murmured.
“Good.”
Baxter ended the call and eased back into the chair. He’d received the message to warn Espinosa late last night that there was a plot in the works to assassinate the nominee. Apparently, there were some very powerful people who were not happy about David Dorn’s choice to lead the high court. So unhappy they were willing to kill Espinosa.
Baxter wasn’t sure who’d sent the message, but he had a pretty good idea. Maybe Maddux was still working with him after all.
Bottom line: Baxter and Dorn could not lose Henry Espinosa at this point. They’d worked much too hard to get a chief justice in place who could be easily manipulated.
Espinosa stared at the phone lying on the desk of his home study. He’d just wanted to lead the most important court in the land, as he’d dodged the drug pushers on his way to school in East New York. That was all. He’d wanted to do good, and now all that was compromised.
What the hell was that phone call from Baxter about? he wondered as he gazed at the same phone that held the video that was slowly but surely driving him crazy. Was Baxter really trying to protect him? Or was he making certain a target stayed in one place and was therefore easier to hit? But that made no sense if, as Espinosa assumed, Baxter had something to do with Bolger’s death.
He stood motionless in the study for a few moments longer, trying to decide.
Finally, he headed for the door. He needed to tell the waiting driver he wouldn’t need a ride into Washington today.
Sterling sat in the driver’s seat as the twenty-four assassins climbed onto the bus he’d rented in Charles Town thirty minutes ago, after his meeting with Gadanz. They nodded to him in turn as they scaled the steps, just before they turned left to take their seats in the back.
Gadanz would have made a tremendous psychiatrist, Sterling realized as he closed the bus door when the last assassin was on board. How could anyone turn down a billion dollars? It wasn’t really what you could do with it, he’d finally decided. It was simply being able to say you were a billionaire that mattered.
As important, how could he ignore the challenge Gadanz had thrown down in that motel room at the end of their conversation? Where was that man who could execute any mission? he’d asked smugly. The combination of the carrot and the stick had worked perfectly.
Sterling clenched his jaw. He wasn’t about to let that challenge go by unanswered, especially with a billion dollars in the balance — even if his mind was screaming to run away from all this as fast as he could.
But it was too late now. Once again he was fully committed to Operation Anarchy.
CHAPTER 36
Jack knelt behind a boulder on the steep, densely forested West Virginia hillside, a quarter-mile west of the Virginia border, and peered down through the leaves and underbrush at Route 340, which was only twenty yards away. At this point 340 hugged the Potomac’s south shore as the river passed the White Horse Rapids, which were less than a mile downstream from Harpers Ferry.
The winding road was by far the most direct route from Harpers Ferry to Washington, DC. That had been of paramount importance to Troy as they’d studied maps of the area on the trip down, though he wouldn’t explain why.
They’d driven here from New Jersey through the dawn hours, stopping only to refuel and drop off Little Jack with a friend of Cheryl’s who’d met them at an exit on the north side of the Capital Beltway. The woman had asked no questions. She’d just taken the boy and taken off, and that was that. Jack wished so much they could have dropped Karen off, too.
He shut his eyes and exhaled heavily, hoping he’d awaken from this nightmare. Troy was convinced they’d find Karen. At least, that’s what he’d said several times on the way here. He’d sounded sincere, too, and he knew his brother well enough to know when he was overselling.
Still, Jack wasn’t anywhere near as sure. He had an awful, haunting suspicion he’d never see Karen again.
Troy was a hundred yards east of this position, making certain the roadblock was set up on 340. It was to be manned by a combined task force of West Virginia and Virginia state troopers who’d been told some, though not all, of what was going on, according to Troy, who was playing everything very close to the vest. Troy said he wasn’t going to show himself to law enforcement on his recon hike. He was going to stay up in the woods while he made sure the cops were in place. But again, he wouldn’t explain why.
Jack had no idea how the roadblock had happened, who Troy had contacted, or what had been conveyed to make it happen, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to get back to finding Karen.
Finding her by himself was a long shot at best. He had a much better chance of finding her and finding her fast if Troy was with him, because Troy was trained and skilled in these kinds of operations. But Troy had made it clear on the drive from New Jersey that stopping the Aussie in Harpers Ferry was more important than anything else — even finding Karen — which had angered Jack so much he’d almost gone at his brother physically.
What could possibly be more important than finding Karen, he’d demanded. What was the Aussie doing that had them ignoring Karen? Troy wouldn’t say — another thing that had infuriated Jack.
But Troy’s mind was made up. They were going to Harpers Ferry, and there would be no changing his mind.
Jack just wanted to hold Karen again. To whisper in her ear that everything was all right as he cradled her in his arms.
He clenched his jaw and shook his head. He’d failed her in New Jersey. He’d been so close to catching that Explorer on the dirt road. But the bastard who was driving had escaped.
As he crouched behind the boulder and stared down at the road, a strange feeling began to creep up Jack’s spine. Perhaps it was the raw, misty rain that had begun to fall on the Appalachian Mountains that was causing the eerie sensation to seep through him — the temperature had plummeted fifteen degrees overnight — but he didn’t think so.
As he rose up and whipped around, he reached for the pistol in his belt. But that seemed pointless as he quickly counted from left to right. He was face-to-face with ten individuals — all clad in black sweatshirts and camouflage pants — who’d snuck down the hillside soundlessly and were spread out before him in a tight line. Out in front of the formation was an attractive young woman with her dark hair pulled back behind her head.