Red Cell Seven (11 page)

“I know. We had our challenges, but all brothers do.”

“He wanted to be your brother so badly.”

“He
was
my brother.”

“I think that’s why he went to Alaska when everyone else said you were dead, when everyone else told him he was crazy and to just leave it alone, even your father.” Karen shook her head. “He knew you were alive. Even I tried to convince him he was crazy, but he wouldn’t listen. And thank God, right? I think that’s why he figured you two were brothers even when your father had told everyone you weren’t. Jack figured only a brother could know that.” It was Karen’s turn to squeeze Troy’s fingers. “He was jealous of you.”

“No, that’s not…I mean, that was all overblown, Karen. He wasn’t really—”

“Oh, yeah, he was. You were the star of the family. You played every sport, and you were the go-to guy on every team. You were everyone’s All-American in high school and at Dartmouth, especially Bill’s. Jack lived in your very long shadow for a very long time.”

“Yeah, well, I—”

“How’s Little Jack?”

Troy shut his eyes tightly.

“Sorry,” Karen murmured. “I didn’t mean to—”

“L.J.’s doing great.”

“L.J.?”

“That’s my nickname for the baby.” Troy grinned. “Mom doesn’t like it much, but she’ll get over it. She’s been a big help. L.J.’s living at the house in Greenwich with her and my father.”

“I know. She told me today at the funeral. It’s meant a lot to her to have Little Jack around during this time. She loves taking care of him.”

During the last six years Troy had rarely made it home. But once in a while he had returned. Last year, on one of those infrequent trips, he’d met a woman from Brooklyn named Lisa Martinez while he was with friends at a club in Manhattan. A few months ago Lisa had given birth to Troy’s son and named him Jack because Jack had been the one who’d taken care of her during her pregnancy. Then she’d been murdered, and the Jensen family had taken in Little Jack.

“I should have taken care of Lisa while she was pregnant. It shouldn’t have been Jack.”

Karen shook her head. “How could you, Troy? You were always thousands of miles away keeping this country safe. You were an RCS Falcon. I get that. Everyone does.”

Troy glanced over at her when she uttered the word
Falcon.
“Charlie told you everything about RCS, didn’t he?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Did he?”

“He wasn’t supposed to tell you anything.”

“We were getting married, Troy. Come on.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, I’m not going to tell anyone anything Charlie told me about—”

“It’s not about you telling anyone voluntarily,” Troy interrupted. “It’s about you being forced to tell people. It’s about you knowing anything that makes you a target for other people who want to know. And that makes Red Cell Seven vulnerable.”

“Thanks so much for your concern.”

“I am concerned, Karen, believe me. You have no idea what certain elements would do to you if they thought they could get information out of you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said firmly, letting go of his hand. They were quiet for a while. “What’s going to happen?” she finally asked.

“With what?”

“The attacks.”

Troy shrugged. “I don’t know. No one does.”

“Oh, come on. I know where you and Bill went today.”

“Who told you?”

“Nobody. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

Of course, he realized.

“It’s crazy,” she murmured. “The newspeople are talking about how these death squads could start shooting people anywhere, anytime, maybe even invading homes. I don’t think anyone will ever go outside again. Everyone will stay barricaded in their houses and shoot anyone who even steps on their property.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be—” Troy interrupted himself when his phone rang. “Sorry, I need to take this,” he said, turning away and walking several paces off into the darkness. “Okay,” he muttered when he heard the bad news and the dangerous instructions. Tomorrow was going to be a
very
long day.

T
HE PRESIDENT
gazed steadily into the darkness outside. This had been the hardest day of his administration, the hardest day of his life. Even harder than the day he’d been shot. Once he’d gotten onto the operating table after taking the bullet, there was a definitive solution to the problem, and everyone was working to achieve it.

He let his face drop into his hands. No one seemed to know what the solution was here. No one even seemed able to tell him where to start.

CHAPTER 12

T
ROY FOLLOWED
the doctor into a private room of the Fairfax County Hospital in northern Virginia. He stopped just inside as the door to the busy corridor outside swung slowly shut behind him. He glanced at the young woman who was lying on the bed with her eyes closed and her arms at her sides as the sounds from the corridor faded away. Then he checked the room carefully, as though something sinister might be lurking.

He hated hospitals as much as he hated graveyards. But it was the prospect of death that got to him here, not the finality of skeletons in the ground beneath him. He’d dedicated himself to protecting lives, often risking his own in the process. Death winning was always extremely personal for him.

He understood that it was all an exercise in delaying the inevitable—that death eventually conquered everyone. But it was the length of that delay that was crucial. He was committed to keeping good people alive as long as possible, any way he could. It was what mattered to him most.

He’d tried explaining all that to Lisa once, but it hadn’t come out exactly right. Still, she’d cried and hugged him when he was finished.

That was the night she’d gotten pregnant with L.J. He was convinced of it.

The irony of his resolve was that he killed people in order to prolong life. And he’d do it again if the situation required it. He had no problem killing evil to preserve good. He didn’t see that as a conflict—which was how he could relate to Maddux in a distant way.

Troy took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. He hated the smell of hospitals. It wasn’t the odor of antiseptics that hung everywhere that so offended him. It was the occasional stench of sickness and death overpowering the antiseptics.

He’d only gotten three hours of sleep last night, but he felt fine. He’d decided on taking this detour to Washington last night right after Bill had ordered him to go to North Carolina.

He took one more careful look around the room before refocusing on the young woman. Bill had tried talking him out of coming here, but Troy was glad he’d come.

The woman’s body was connected to a web of tubes that led off in different directions to several machines, and it was eerily noisy in here with the beeping and whirring of the devices. Despite the noise and the seriousness of her wounds, she seemed to be resting peacefully.

She was very pretty, and as Troy gazed at her features, he noticed that she strongly resembled Lisa. She had the same sharp, sculpted facial lines; beautiful light-mahogany skin; and long, wavy jet-black hair. She probably had that same wonderful smile, too, he figured as he looked at her high cheekbones and full lips. Hopefully, she’d recover from this tragedy so she could smile that smile again.

He missed Lisa, he realized as he stared down at Jennie, more and more each day. The hole in his heart her murder had left wasn’t healing the way it was supposed to, but he couldn’t tell anyone. He was the tough brother. Jack was the son who had worn his heart on his sleeve.

Though Troy couldn’t prove it, he believed Maddux had killed Lisa execution-style in her Brooklyn apartment a month ago. Since Troy had heard the stories yesterday of how Red Cell Seven had saved the nation so many times, he better understood Maddux’s unwavering resolve to do away with anyone who got in the cell’s way—including the president.

But none of that could make up for Maddux ripping Lisa and Jack out of his life. He would avenge their deaths if he ever had the chance. He’d sworn that oath to himself on the way down here this morning on the plane. Bill was right. Those two murders were personal.

At least Maddux hadn’t been a total monster, Troy figured. He hadn’t murdered Little Jack after killing Lisa. There was at least that measure of loyalty.

“How many times was Ms. Perez shot?”

“Twice. Once in the shoulder,” the doctor explained, reaching over his shoulder to show Troy the spot, “and once in the middle of the back.” This time he reached beneath his armpit and around his torso to point out the location of the entry wound—which was just to the left of the upper spine.

Doctors and nurses did that a lot, Troy had noticed. They pointed to body parts as they spoke. It seemed like they were constantly reminding themselves of the human anatomy as much as they were showing others what was going on. It was probably something they picked up in medical school. He’d been stitched up enough times to recognize the habit, and maybe that was another reason he hated hospitals—because he’d been in them so often. Sometimes to heal his own wounds but more often to visit others who’d fallen victim to something he’d been able to avoid.

“She’s lucky,” the older man continued. “It’s a one-in-a-million wound.”

The doctor was tall and silver-haired. He reminded Troy a little of Bill, but his tone was more amiable. So was his manner. “What do you mean?” he asked as he moved close to where Jennie lay.

“She’ll live despite the bullet she took in her back. Somehow no vital organs were hit. She was very lucky.” The doctor grimaced. “The shooter didn’t know what he was doing.”

“I doubt the shooter was actually aiming,” Troy countered. “If I’ve read the preliminary reports on these attacks correctly, it was a spray-and-get-away deal. It was like that with all eleven attacks, from what I understand. I doubt any of the death squads were in the malls for more than fifteen to twenty seconds before they split.”

“I think they were on the scene for longer than that at Tysons.”

“Was there a witness who said that?” Troy asked. “I didn’t hear about one.”

“No.”

“And the cameras set up to watch the entrance were shot out early, so those tapes are worthless.”

The doctor held his hands up. “Believe me, I agree with the spray-and-get-away theory as far as her shoulder wound goes. But it doesn’t jibe with the one in her back.”

“Why not?”

“There was gunpowder on her jacket.”

Troy glanced at Jennie, then back at the doctor. “Are you saying the assassin put the gun right up against her body with that shot?”

“Yes. And she was lying thirty feet inside the entrance when the EMTs got to her. Whoever shot her in the back would have had to run into the mall where she was lying. You know,
after
she’d been hit in the shoulder from the initial burst. That alone probably would have taken longer than fifteen seconds.”

“Are you saying the shooter was making sure she was dead?”

“When the authorities get the ballistics report back from the lab concerning the bullets that were found at the scene, I think the evidence will show that at least several of the rounds were fired from a pistol. Probably a twenty-two, judging by the wound. I’ve seen enough of them to recognize it,” he added ruefully.

“A twenty-two? Are you saying these guys used pistols to carry out the attack, Doctor?”

The doctor shook his head. “No, I’m saying they used automatic weapons initially, probably small machine guns. Most of the wounds in the other victims are consistent with those kinds of bullets.” He nodded down at Jennie. “However, the one in her back isn’t. And two other victims at Tysons had wounds that I believe were inflicted by the same pistol.”

“So after they mowed people down, at least one of the guys went farther into the mall and executed people he thought were still alive.”

“Yes. He was making absolutely certain those people were dead.”

“Because they didn’t want to be identified.”

“I assume.”

“But there were others who were wounded and weren’t executed.”

“They were farther from the entrance, much farther. Maybe whoever it was got nervous. Maybe he knew there were other survivors, but he realized he needed to get away and figured the ones farther in couldn’t ID him anyway.”

“Right,” Troy agreed. “It just seems so crazy that the wound in her back didn’t kill her, that it didn’t hit
anything
vital.”

The doctor shrugged as if he couldn’t believe it, either. “Like I said, it’s a one-in-a-million wound. Now let’s get out of here before she—”

“Did the assassin shoot the others the same way from close range?” Troy reached around his back and pointed to the spot the doctor had. “Did he put the pistol barrel in the same spot on the other two?”

The doctor hesitated. “Um…yes, I believe that’s right.”

“And those victims died.”

“Uh, yes.”

Something didn’t sound right. “Is that strange? Does that—”

“She’s a real hero,” the doctor interrupted, smiling wanly.

“Why?”

“She saved a six-year-old girl’s life.”

“How do you know?”

“The little girl told us. She lost her father in the attack, and Jennie saved her after he was shot right in front of her. Fortunately her mother wasn’t at the mall at the time, and the little girl’s with her now.”

Troy glanced down at Jennie. The more he looked at her, the more she reminded him of Lisa. “How long do you think until I can talk to her?”

The doctor bit down softly on his lower lip as he thought about it. “I’d say a couple of days. Probably,” he cautioned after a few moments. “She’s coming around really well so far. But it might be more.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to have a team of bodyguards up here in fifteen minutes.” Troy was worried that if the word got out she’d lived, someone might try to finish her off. She’d been closer to the attackers than any other survivor, and if he could jog her memory effectively, he might get something vital out of her. “They’ll be with her around the clock,” he continued, “until I say so. If you need to move her to a quieter area of the hospital, Doctor, I fully understand. In fact, I recommend it.” Troy pulled his pistol from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and chambered the first round. “But let’s wait until the team gets here to do that,” he added, slipping the now-battle-ready gun back into its leather cave and then pulling out his cell phone and pressing the number of a contact on his list. “Until then, I’ll stay with her.”

The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, son?”

“I’m with the National Intel—”

“I know what they told me before you got here. I got the official story.” He paused. “But who are you
really
with?”