“Okay.”
Troy skipped to a picture he had of the sales receipt for the phone. One of Travers’s contacts had found it and e-mailed it over. Troy pointed to a number on the screen after he expanded the receipt. “That’s the salesman’s number on the receipt. Who is it?”
The kid’s expression brightened. “That’s Chad’s ID number. He’s right there.”
Chad was on the other side of the store and looked over when he heard his name. “How can I help you, sir?”
Troy moved quickly to where Chad was standing. “You helped this woman just before the attack here.” Troy showed him the picture of Jennie lying in the hospital bed. “Do you remember her?”
Chad rolled his eyes. “How could I forget her? She’s beautiful. I asked her out while she was buying the phone. I thought I was golden, but then all of a sudden she had to go.” He shook his head as he glanced at her photo again. “Is she all right? My God, did she get shot in the attack?” he asked as his voice rose quickly.
“She’ll be fine,” Troy answered, stowing the phone in his pocket and quickly pulling out and flashing the badge again. “According to the records I have in my possession, your company is also her service provider.”
“Yeah, I remember. That’s right.”
“I want to see the record of her calls for the last thirty days.”
Chad spread his hands wide. “Hey, man, I can’t let you—”
“You can, and you will,” Travers interrupted, leaning past Troy and over the counter so Chad had to lean back. “Otherwise you’ll be in direct conflict with the federal government’s ongoing investigation of the Holiday Mall Attacks. Is that what you want, son? I don’t think so,” he said firmly, answering his own question. “With what’s going on in the world right now, that could land you in Leavenworth doing hard time for ten-to-twenty. Now show us those phone records of hers.”
“We have to leave,” Gadanz said into Sasha’s ear when he’d made it inside their Manassas townhouse and turned the stereo up loud.
For all he knew Daniel had planted listening devices in the home. Hopefully, the stereo would give them cover if there were bugs in here.
“I need time to get my affairs in order at the company, and then we have to leave.”
Forty minutes ago, he’d hurried off the plane from Miami and raced home from Dulles in the Accord, terrified that something had happened to Sasha when he couldn’t reach her after calling her number three times on the way. He’d prepared himself to find them all dead, murdered by Kaashif or one of Daniel’s men as a clear message not to fuck up and to toe the line.
“Do you understand?”
Jacob had almost been overcome by relief when she met him just inside the door a moment ago. Maybe he’d let his paranoia go too far; maybe the cocaine was still playing tricks on him — he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours now, and it had been so pure he was still feeling it. Whatever it was, he was completely convinced they had to get out fast even though everything appeared to be fine. This afternoon Jacob was going to arrange a move to new quarters for the death squad here in northern Virginia, to make it seem like he was cooperating and doing what he’d been told. But once that was checked off the list, he wasn’t doing anything else for Daniel or Kaashif. Once the squad had been moved, he was going to transfer two million dollars out of Gadanz & Company — the most he possibly could — to where it would never be found. He and the girls would have to live on that money for the rest of their lives, because he could never lift his head above ground again and expect to survive.
“We’ll pack whatever we can, put it in the minivan tonight, and take off first thing tomorrow morning.” Tears were already spilling down Sasha’s cheeks. “We’ll be all right, sweetheart, I promise we will.”
“Jacob,” she said as he gently wiped moisture from her face, “does this have anything to do with the Holiday Mall Attacks?”
He gazed down at her for several moments, and then nodded once.
She turned and raced for the stairs to pack.
“Jesus Christ,” Travers muttered as they pulled to a stop in a parking spot at the Fairfax County Hospital.
“What is it, Major?”
Travers glanced up from his phone and over at Troy with a shell-shocked expression. “Don’t get too fond of Jennie.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Remember I told you and your father about following Kaashif from Philadelphia down here to northern Virginia?”
“Sure.”
“How Kaashif went to see a woman in Manassas named Imelda Smith?”
“Yeah, so?”
Travers held his phone up. “I just got a report back from one of my guys. You’re not going to believe this.”
“Try me.”
“One of the numbers on Jennie’s list of calls for the last thirty days is for Imelda Smith.”
Troy’s heart skipped a beat, and the world suddenly seemed to be closing in around him. And then his phone went off with a text. “Holy shit,” he whispered as the words on the tiny screen blurred in front of him. He’d run a detailed background check on Jennie Perez, and the results were in.
Jennie was Lisa Martinez’s first cousin. No damn wonder they reminded him so much of each other.
Sophie and Elaina shrieked with joy as they jumped from the school bus and ran for their father.
Jacob scooped up Sophie in one big arm and hugged Elaina with the other. He kissed Sophie several times, then put her down and hugged and kissed Elaina.
He didn’t care about money anymore, he realized as he gazed at Sasha over Elaina’s slender shoulder. She was doing her best to hold back her emotions, but he knew what she was going through. She wanted to get out of here right away, but he had to move the squad and the money.
He’d been a bastard last night in Florida, he’d given in to terrible temptation and all that Daniel held dear. Well, that would never happen again, he promised himself as he hugged his girls. Tomorrow morning they would drive somewhere, anywhere that was far, far from here, and settle down quickly into an anonymous life. From this day forward he would cherish and do anything he could for the three people he cared most about in the world — his three girls.
And he would kill anyone who tried to harm them.
CHAPTER 29
Troy kissed Little Jack’s forehead and then handed him carefully back to Cheryl. He loved the way the boy smelled; he couldn’t get enough of that new-baby aroma. It was so fresh and beautiful — except when the little guy had an accident, like now.
“I’ll take care of everything,” Cheryl said, laughing and rolling her eyes as she took the bundle from Troy.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Bill and Troy were sitting at the card table in the Jensen basement. His father hadn’t seemed himself tonight at all, Troy realized. It wasn’t that he seemed preoccupied; he seemed depressed, which worried Troy. Bill was always the rock. He wasn’t always pleasant, but he was always calm and collected at crunch time when people around him were panicking.
Right now was one of those times the country needed Bill to be calm and focused. Ten more attacks today, and once again, none of the guilty had been apprehended. Local law enforcement had arrested two men in Boise, Idaho, where an attack believed to have been perpetrated by one of the death squads had been carried out at a shopping center in the suburbs, killing five and wounding seven. But the arrests had turned out to be false. Just a couple of guys in a pickup truck heading into the mountains to hunt elk and loaded down with weapons and ammunition, pulled over on their way out of town by ten cop cars and a SWAT team.