“No. You’ve got to get the Order. It’s the last one. It’s the one that was in the cave on Gannett Peak, and it’s in the cabin. Dad told me everything on the phone when I talked to him in Brooklyn. If that last Order falls into the wrong hands, Red Cell Seven is done. Dorn can destroy us if he has both of them. The Supreme Court can declare us outlaws and shut us down, throw our agents in jail. I can’t let that happen, Jack. I can’t.”
Jack stared down into Troy’s intense expression, which was twisted by the awful pain he was fighting. Jack was well aware of how crucial it was for Red Cell Seven to possess at least one original of Executive Order 1973 1-E. Bill had explained that last December before sending Karen and him to Gannett Peak.
“I’ll drive to the closest airport and take a—”
“No!” Troy shouted as loudly as he could. “Seconds could matter. If the news agencies pick up on Dad’s situation and where it happened, Baxter will send his people out there immediately. He’s smart. He’ll figure that’s where the Order is. Red Cell Seven’s too important to the security of this country to let that happen. What happens to it is way more important than what happens to me.”
“We could send someone ahead, someone from RC7.”
“No,” Troy gasped. “The only person I trust with this is you. You’ve got to get that document.”
It was a level of patriotism Jack couldn’t comprehend.
“Take Skylar with you,” Troy said.
“She might have—”
“No,” Troy cut in, clenching Jack harder as another spasm of pain tore through him. “I heard Mom say it was a knife wound to the neck. It had to be Maddux.”
“Why did it have to be Maddux?”
“Maddux always has a switchblade bound to his right wrist beneath his sleeve. It’s why he always wears long sleeves.” Troy coughed several times. “Go, Jack,” he whispered. “Now. Please, brother.”
“I can’t do it, Troy. I can’t leave you here like this.”
Troy shook his head. “You don’t have a choice.”
CHAPTER 37
At Troy’s insistence, Jack and Skylar had squeezed into the little helicopter and flown to the airport at Hagerstown — which was across the Potomac River and north of Harpers Ferry. There, Jack had convinced a young pilot to fly them in his four-seat Cessna Skyhawk through the storm lashing the Mid-Atlantic and northeast to Corning, New York — for twenty grand plus fuel.
After making it to Corning, they’d rented a car and driven north through Watkins Glen and up the western shore of Seneca Lake to the cabin where Bill and Maddux had holed up for the last nine months, parking the car a mile away and hustling through the rain-soaked forest.
“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Skylar asked. “That was pretty damn impressive back at Harpers Ferry.”
They were standing thirty yards from the cabin, inside the tree line so they could see the structure but no one could see them. They were waiting for the last members of New York law enforcement to finish their investigation and clear out so they could search the place for the Order.
“Troy,” Jack answered dejectedly.
Troy was in critical condition at a hospital outside Washington, while Bill was in critical condition at a hospital in New York City. And Karen was gone — probably forever. It was tough for Jack to focus. His world was shattered.
Cheryl was being raced to New York City by members of the Jensen family security detail, nearly inconsolable as she prepared to see Bill for the first time in nine months even though he was unconscious. And she didn’t even know about Karen being kidnapped and Jennie being dead. At least they’d gotten L.J. back, Jack thought to himself. His mother had sobbed in relief when he’d told her that. She’d felt terribly guilty for being the one who’d lost the little boy.
“Troy is my kid brother, but he was always showing me stuff like that,” Jack whispered, wondering where Karen had been taken and if she was still alive. He’d called the police as he and Skylar were lifting off from the riverbank in the chopper, as he gazed at Troy lying on the road surrounded by police officers, and there was now an ongoing nationwide search for his wife. “I wouldn’t let him for a long time. But I finally sucked up my pride and gave in when I got tired of him laughing at me… and of missing my targets. As soon as I let him show me, I started nailing the bull’s-eye. I swear he could hit anything by the time he was ten, even while he was moving. His hand-eye coordination is still the best I’ve ever seen.”
Jack pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck. The rain had let up, but it was getting cold as night approached. Landing in the small plane at Corning had been a harrowing few minutes as the gales tossed the little craft around in the air like a cork on a rough ocean. But the storm had eased during the drive to the cabin.
Skylar hadn’t seemed bothered by the chaos on the way to the ground, but it had been a white-knuckle landing for Jack. Mostly because it looked like the young pilot, who’d been brash and cocky back in Maryland, didn’t seem very confident about getting to the ground in one piece as they’d begun final approach.
“Your wallet’s pretty impressive, too,” Skylar spoke up. “Well, I guess technically it was your checkbook I saw in action back in Maryland.”
The young pilot had laughed when Jack offered him twenty grand to fly them to Corning. But when he transferred the large amount with his cell phone to an account the guy reeled off as the three of them were standing together in the hangar, and the money had shown up seconds later, the laughing stopped, and the three of them were climbing into the Cessna.
“I wish these people would get the hell out of here,” Jack muttered impatiently, gesturing toward the cabin. There were only two vehicles left in front of the place, but it had been a while since the other six had left. “What’s taking them so long?”
“Relax.”
“They’d better not find the Order.”
Jack had explained everything to Skylar on the drive from Corning even though she wasn’t a member of RC7. At this point he didn’t care about protocol. Besides, he wasn’t actually a member of the cell. So, technically, he wasn’t violating anything.
“They won’t,” she said reassuringly. “Hey.”
“Huh?”
“Look at me.”
Jack turned to face her. “What?”
“Thanks for covering me at Harpers Ferry.” She reached out and touched his arm. “I owe you.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “No one’s ever saved my life before. I’ve always had to do that myself.”
Jack stared back at Skylar for several moments. “Sure,” he murmured. She was a fascinating study, a walking conflict on so many levels, a pretty young woman who murdered at close range on orders from the highest levels of the U.S. military. Right now she seemed gentle and compassionate, but Jack knew that in reality she was a cold-blooded killer.
“I’m sorry about Troy.”
“Thanks.”
“Karen, too. I know you—”
“Every second we wait this thing gets riskier,” Jack interrupted, turning back to look at the cabin through the pine trees surrounding the place. He didn’t want to talk or think about any of that anymore. Somehow he had to focus, and talking about them wouldn’t help him. “Dorn and Baxter’s people could be here, too,” he said, searching the trees. “If they aren’t, they’re close.”
An hour ago the story had broken in the national news. Bill Jensen, ex-CEO of First Manhattan, who had been missing for nine months, had been found critically injured in a cabin in western New York with a dead man lying beside him. The news agencies hadn’t identified the exact location yet, but Jack figured it wouldn’t take the president of the United States long to find it, even if the reporters couldn’t. And he had no desire to run into the people Baxter would send — even with Skylar alongside.