Kodiak Sky (Red Cell Trilogy Book 3) (20 page)

“Why?” she murmured.

The image of Bianca’s boyfriend falling from the ledge in Denali was suddenly haunting her. He’d been staring back up at her in horror as he held on to the ledge by his fingertips, realizing his life could now be measured in seconds.

She shook her head. This couldn’t be right. She’d seen the police report. Bianca’s boyfriend had been drunk. He’d run off the road into a grove of trees, and she’d been killed on impact. No seat belt, and she’d flown through the windshield, shredding her beautiful face and her life forever.

“They were trying to smoke your father out,” Baxter continued. “They made it clear they were going to make him regret it if he didn’t come out of hiding and give himself up. When he didn’t, they murdered your sister.”

It was another haymaker, straight to her jaw. “My father was dead when my sister was killed,” she said breathlessly. “The
Alaskan Star
went down in a storm out on the Bering Sea. All hands were lost. The Coast Guard confirmed that.”

“No, Skylar,” President Dorn replied. “That was a cover story to protect your father. I’ve seen the classified reports. In fact, your father is still very much alive.”

CHAPTER 28

J
ACK PARKED
Troy’s SUV in the same spot on the same abandoned dirt road as they had the first time, and then sprinted for the farmhouse through the forest and the little daylight remaining.

Adrenaline coursed through him as he ran. He was still coming down off the terror of nearly being caught with Charlie Griffin bound and gagged in the back of the SUV. The razor-thin escape from the state trooper still had him spooked.

However, in a strange way, that terror had served a purpose. It had distracted him for a few brief moments from Karen’s fate. Even on the way back here from the Jensen compound, he’d called her cell phone a few times. He’d probably tried her at least five more times. But of course, there’d been no answer, just her sweet voice telling him to leave a message and then the
goddamn
beep.

For the last thirty minutes he’d gotten a short reprieve from imminent danger. But now he was heading right back into it. Just before turning onto the dirt road, he’d spoken to Troy, and it was still all quiet at the farmhouse. But at some point Wayne and his friend would return, and there’d be a showdown. It was inevitable, and he promised himself one thing as he dodged through the trees in the fading light: If guns were drawn, he’d be the first one to shoot this time.

It turned out Charlie was seventeen, and he’d been very willing to talk, without Troy actually doing anything. The threats he’d overheard as he’d been splayed on the ground beside the gully had been plenty of motivation for him to spill his guts.

Charlie admitted that they’d taken Little Jack from Cheryl that morning off the street in Greenwich. That “they” included his father and another man named Harold Jennings. He’d gone on to explain that his father and Jennings had taken the little boy to another location a few hours before Jack and Troy had shown up. But Charlie swore he didn’t know where that was or whom they were taking the boy to. He’d also sworn he knew nothing of a woman named Karen being kidnapped. Troy had said he was confident Charlie was telling the truth about all that, and that he hadn’t been forced to do anything terrible to be convinced—which was a relief for Jack.

Then Jack had taken Charlie to the Jensen compound.

Jack and Troy had spoken by phone a few minutes ago, and Troy’s plan was to keep looking for L.J. He didn’t intend to refocus their efforts on Karen. He reasoned that their best chance of finding Karen was finding L.J., because of the text Jack had received indicating that whoever sent it had both of them. They had significant leads on L.J., but they’d be back to square one if they went after Karen. She’d lived with Jack at his apartment in Greenwich for the last six months, and she’d obviously been taken in Manhattan or on her way to the city. So trying to pick up her trail at Jack’s apartment made no sense, and New York City was ninety minutes away through traffic. Time was of the essence right now. They couldn’t afford ninety minutes or going back to square one.

Jack hated to admit it, but Troy was right about staying on L.J.’s trail. His instinct was screaming at him to go after Karen. But he realized that it didn’t make sense—and that splitting up wasn’t a good idea, either. He’d suggested calling Jennie, but Troy was against that, because then they’d tip their hand that they thought she was involved—if she really was. Troy wanted to keep surprise on their side if that was the case, and he claimed he had a plan that could determine her involvement. And if she was innocent, she wouldn’t know anything, so there was no reason to call her—which Jack ultimately agreed was the right way to go.

The only thing Jack didn’t agree with Troy on was keeping the cops out of it. He still felt it would be better to get the experts involved ASAP.

But Troy wouldn’t hear of it. He absolutely believed that calling the cops would only diminish the chances of finding L.J. and Karen. Troy was convinced that this situation ultimately involved Red Cell Seven. And he believed that calling the cops would only make whoever had taken L.J and Karen dive deeper, maybe too deep to ever find, if the story went public and the kidnappers found out the police were working with the Jensens.

Jack stopped at the tree line in the now-long shadow of the barn to send Troy a text. The response came quickly. The coast was clear, according to the return message, and Jack knew Troy was the sender because the text had ended with **##, their agreed-upon all-clear code. The sender wasn’t someone other than Troy trying to fool Jack, because that person wouldn’t know the code. And Troy would never crack under any kind of torture or interrogation and give somebody that code. As far as Jack was concerned, Troy was the toughest son of a bitch on earth.

He was one of the luckiest, too. How the hell he’d managed to dodge Charlie’s gunshots from the pickup still mystified Jack. As Troy had predicted, Charlie had fired wildly in the chaos. But he’d shot from nearly point-blank range and fired at least three times. Surely, he should have hit Troy at least once.

Jack broke from the tree line but didn’t stop at the barn this time.

When he was past the barn, he saw Troy standing beside the F-150, which he’d driven out of the gully while Jack was gone. The vehicle was now back in front of the farmhouse, where it had been when they’d come out of the tree line together two hours ago.

“Everything go all right?” Troy asked as Jack approached him.

“Yeah, good.”

“Charlie’s locked in the cell?”

“Yup.”

“No problem with security?”

Troy had been very specific about not letting the security staff see what was going on. They were both still concerned that someone on the inside was involved in what had happened today.

“I went into the garage and shut the door before I took the kid out. They couldn’t have seen me.”

“Good.” Troy patted Jack on the shoulder. “Now you have to forget the combination to the lock on that cell door in the basement.” He grinned good-naturedly. “If you don’t, I’ll have to kill you. Technically, that prison cell is an RC7 asset.”

“I’ve known about that cell since we were—”

“You should have joined us the other night,” Troy said. “It was a mistake to walk out on that ceremony.”

“You live your life, and I’ll live mine. I’ve got to look in the mirror every morning.”

“Whatever.” Troy’s smile faded. “Next time you shoot first,” he said, tapping Jack hard on the chest. “You hear me?”

“Oh, I hear you.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

Troy might be the expert in these matters, but he was still the little brother.
“I hear you.”

“You’re a good man, Jack, the best. I’ve put my life in your hands, I’ll probably do it again, and I’ll have no hesitation doing it. And that’s the ultimate compliment coming from me.”

“Hey, don’t placate—”

“But what you don’t get,” Troy cut in, “is that some of the people we deal with aren’t good. Just the opposite, in fact. They’re evil, pure evil.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Of course. I get that, brother.”

Troy shook his head. “No, you don’t. You
think
you do, but you really don’t. Down deep you believe everyone has good inside them somewhere, even if it’s just a crumb. You truly believe everyone can be saved if enough of an effort is made.” He kicked at the ground. “But that’s not true. Some people can’t be saved. Even worse, they don’t want to be saved. They want to be evil. They like it. They were born that way. They won’t change. They
can’t
change.”

“Well, that’s not true. Everyone can see the light if you just—”

“See.” Troy smiled grimly. “You don’t get it.” He inhaled deeply. “I hope that doesn’t cost you the ultimate at some point. ”

“What happened?” Jack asked after a few moments of silence, pointing at the dark stain on Troy’s shirt. Troy had winced just then.

“Nothing.”

“Troy.”

Troy lifted his shirt, and it was Jack’s turn to grimace. Troy had a nasty wound on his side just above his belt. So Charlie
had
connected once.

“It’s still bleeding.”

“It’s fine,” Troy said firmly. “I’ve had a lot worse than—” He interrupted himself at the distant sound of a vehicle coming up the gravel driveway. “Come on,” he ordered, pointing at a fence line on a ridge overlooking the farmhouse and then at Jack’s gun as they started to sprint. “Make sure that gun’s ready.”

CHAPTER 29

“M
Y FATHER
is
alive
?” Skylar whispered. “That
can’t
be true.”

“It is absolutely true,” Baxter confirmed. “But he’s in hiding. He has been for years.”

For the second time in as many minutes the world blurred before Skylar. “Why is he in hiding?” And he hadn’t contacted her in all these years? That seemed impossible.
“Tell me.”

President Dorn and Baxter exchanged glances.

“Tell me,” she demanded again.

She had to have details, specific details along with irrefutable evidence. Now the questions were piling up in her brain like car accidents on a foggy interstate. Where was he, how long had he been there, how did Baxter and Dorn know all this, along with that big question of why he was hiding in the first place.

She had a healthy skepticism for any story, after living in the dark shadows of her special-forces branch the last three years. In a setting where it seemed disinformation was always more prevalent than the truth.

“Why is he in hiding?” she repeated.
“I need to know.”

“Of course you do,” Baxter agreed, “but—”

“I believe Stewart explained that your father has done work for the Office of Naval Intelligence,” Dorn cut in, gesturing at Baxter. “Isn’t that true, Stewart?”

“Yes, Mr. President. I told Commander McCoy about that.”

“He made his living on the Bering Sea,” Dorn went on. “But the
Alaskan Star
performed another very valuable task for this country while she was out there on those rough waters. The ship picked u
p and delivered U.S. spies to and from our submarines. Spies who were heading for or coming back from highly classified missions in Asia.”

“I know,” she said, nodding at Baxter. “Baxter told—”

“Your father is a patriot of the highest order,” Baxter interrupted. “He’s a great man.”

“I need proof of life,” she said bluntly.

Baxter reached for a large envelope that was leaning against the leg of his chair and handed it to Skylar.

With trembling fingers she opened it and carefully slid a large color photograph from inside. She gasped softly, and tears welled in her eyes as she stared at her father’s face. He looked older, much older than she remembered, but it was definitely Kevin McCoy.

As she gazed at the man she’d missed so much, an awful truth hit her squarely and inescapably between the eyes. If her father was alive, she might have to accept responsibility for killing an innocent man on that mountain in Denali. If her father was alive, then it was possible Red Cell Seven had caused that terrible accident in Alaska in which Bianca had died—but her boyfriend had survived. And if Red Cell Seven had caused the accident, then Bianca’s boyfriend hadn’t—which meant she had indeed killed an innocent young man on that steep slope high above the valley floor.

But the police report had claimed Bianca’s boyfriend was drunk at the time of the accident. And that he had been at fault for plowing his pickup into that grove of trees. Skylar had seen all that in the report with her own eyes. She’d even seen the gruesome picture of Bianca’s face after crashing through the windshield as she lay on a gurney in the morgue.

Of course, a group like RC7, with powerful men like Bill Jensen at the helm, could manipulate anything they wanted. Skylar and her superior had talked many times about how it seemed that a “black hand” was constantly at work behind the scenes, pulling strings. Perhaps they’d manipulated this.

She pointed at the photograph. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

She’d figured they would have had her father holding up a recent newspaper so the date was obvious in the photo. But they hadn’t. Of course, in this day and age that kind of thing could have been easily simulated, even by an amateur. Hell, these days the photograph could be a fake but look real as hell. Her father’s image in the picture might simply be some artist’s interpretation of what he would look like now if he were alive.

“No, it doesn’t,” President Dorn agreed. “You’ll have to take my word on that, Skylar. You’ll have to take my word for something else as well,” he continued.

“What?”

“Once you’ve completed the initial phase of your mission, you and your father will be reunited. It will be a short meeting at a secret location. But you will spend time with him. In fact, if you and the group you put together for this mission I’m asking you to execute for me are successful, your father might be able to come out of hiding for good.”

Skylar gazed into Dorn’s “floor model” eyes, wondering if she could trust the president of the United States. That seemed like a stupid question with a simple answer. “Why is my father in hiding?” she asked. “What did he find out about Red Cell Seven that forced him to go underground?”

Dorn gestured at Baxter. “Go ahead, Stewart. You can tell her.”

“I’ve already communicated to you, Commander McCoy, that RC7 doesn’t officially report to any branch of the United States government. It operates completely independently.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It doesn’t receive any money from the federal government, either. That makes it even harder for prying eyes to detect, nearly impossible, I would say.”

It was a creative way to keep things covert, she had to admit. Her superiors always complained about money trails potentially making their black ops transparent to scrutiny from overreaching congressional subcommittees—and others.

“As you can imagine, RC7 has a significant monthly nut they have to fund. They need money, but they have to be creative about how they get it if they’re going to stay invisible. Now,” Baxter continued after a short pause, “they also have the ability to procure weapons. We believe that comes primarily through contacts of Bill Jensen. First Manhattan does significant banking business with all the big defense contractors.” Baxter hesitated again, to let her know what he was about to say was extremely significant. “Bottom line, your father uncovered one of the major ways RC7 funded itself. The cell sold weapons to outlaw nations and then funneled the cash secretly back to hidden accounts. Bill Jensen arranged the arms deals without our defense contractors knowing exactly who the buyers were. And then, at his direction, First Manhattan laundered and redirected the cash transfers, erasing all records of the buyers.”

It sounded far-fetched—until Skylar remembered Iran-Contra and Oliver North.

“Because of Kevin McCoy’s quick thinking and bravery, federal authorities were able to stop the sale of those weapons to outlaw nations,” Baxter explained. “The money trails disappeared, so we couldn’t trace the cash back to RC7. But those outlaw countries stopped getting high-tech weapons.”

“How did my father uncover the conspiracy?”

President Dorn shook his head as though he couldn’t believe the answer. “It’s a crazy story with its punch line buried in a classic military-intel snafu. Go on, Stewart, tell her.”

“Red Cell Seven runs black ops in Asia, too. They use U.S. submarines for transport as well. And just like ONI, they use crab boats for pickup and delivery on the Bering Sea. One of them was called the
Arctic Fire
. So, one night—”

“Let me guess,” Skylar interrupted. “One night my father and the crew of the
Alaskan Star
—”

“
Kodiak Sky
for that mission,” Baxter reminded her.

“One night,” Skylar started again, “they pick up somebody off a U.S. submarine who was actually supposed to board the
Arctic Fire
. That was the snafu. During the course of taking that spy back to land, my father discovered something very sensitive.”

Dorn nodded. “Exactly.”

“And that RC7 agent found out that your father had discovered what was so sensitive,” Baxter continued.

“And then my father had to go underground.”

“The story of the
Kodiak Sky
being lost at sea during a storm was hatched, and your father went into hiding, with federal government protection,” Baxter explained. “But the story goes that Troy Jensen knew his way around Dutch Harbor, the port up in Alaska a lot of those crab boat captains sail out of during the season. Anyway, after he spoke to a couple of the captains, he didn’t believe the story of the
Alaskan Star
going down. The storm ONI used as the one that swamped the
Kodiak Sky
wasn’t that intense. And apparently, those captains in Dutch Harbor told Troy that your father was much too good a sailor to have been beaten by it. So Red Cell Seven put out word that he needed to ‘make himself available or we would take revenge.’
 
”

Skylar knew what that meant.

“So your sister was murdered when he didn’t. And it wasn’t because he was afraid. He couldn’t. He was not allowed to make himself available.”

Her chin dropped slowly to her chest. “Why didn’t they come after me?” she asked softly.

“You were already in the military,” Baxter answered. “And as further protection, you were fast-tracked into special forces, into a very dark sector of special forces.”

She glanced up. In fact, she hadn’t asked for the promotion. It had been thrust upon her. “To make me hard to find.”

“No,” Dorn said, “to make you
impossible
to find.”

“Then, of course, there is that matter of that young man falling off that cliff in Denali.”

Skylar’s gaze raced from the president back to Baxter.

“It would be unfortunate if you were implicated in the death of that—”

“I don’t think there’s any need to dredge up an unsolved mystery,” Dorn said. His eyes shifted smoothly from his chief of staff to Skylar. “Do you, Commander McCoy?”

She said nothing as she stared back at him.

“I didn’t think so.” Dorn gave her his most sincere smile. “Now, what should we call your unit, Commander McCoy?”

“I—I hadn’t given it much thought, sir.”

“Well, I have. You know, I’ve always believed in that old adage of imitation being the highest form of flattery.” Dorn chuckled. “So let’s call it Kodiak Four. I like the sound of that.” He hesitated. “Once word of your unit leaks, as it undoubtedly will, everyone will obsessively try to find Kodiak One, Two, and Three as well. But they won’t, because they won’t exist. What do you think, Commander?”

She was thinking two things. One, the president had been calling her “Commander” for the last few minutes, not Skylar. So, apparently, both Dorn and Baxter were acting the part of the bad cop now.

Second, she was thinking she’d just been hit with a classic one-two punch by two very experienced Washington insiders. The carrot had been dangled. She would see her father if she succeeded, possibly even get him his freedom. And the stick had been wielded though not applied. Somehow they knew what had happened on the Denali cliff. And they would release that information if she didn’t cooperate.

“Kodiak Four,” she murmured. “Okay.”

“I assume you’re ready to go now. I assume we’ve satisfied your concerns.”

Skylar took a few seconds to answer. “Yes, sir, I’m ready.”

“Excellent.”

“I’ll need a place to start,” she said.

Baxter held out a piece of paper. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s a list of all RC7 agents, Commander. I think it will provide you with an excellent place to start.”

Skylar’s eyes narrowed as she took it. Effectively, she was about to initiate what amounted to civil war. How had her life come to this so fast?

“Skylar,” Dorn said quietly as he rose from his chair and moved to where she sat, “I understand why this is a difficult mission for you to accept. You’ve been trained to kill this country’s enemies, not other members of its protective forces. I know it must be difficult for you to think about soldiers of this country as enemy combatants, particularly soldiers who are much like you.” He paused. “But they are enemies. The agents of Red Cell Seven are trying to kill me, and you must help me. I am your commander in chief, and you must protect me.”

She stood up as the president held out his hand. It was as if he could read her mind. “Well, I—”