Jury Town (37 page)

CHAPTER 48

NORTH WOODS OF MAINE

“Chopper up!” Mitch shouted from the passenger seat as the SUV raced down the long gravel driveway through the darkness. He pointed excitedly at the running lights rising above the trees. “Got to be what that is.”

“No doubt,” Dez confirmed as he punched the accelerator, then punched the steering wheel,
begging
the V-8 for more speed when house lights appeared as they flew around a curve.
“Come on, baby!”

They’d tracked the silver Charger to a secluded grove of trees just off the county road that cut a thin swath through the massive Maine forest. Finding no one in or around the car, they’d headed frantically down the nearest driveways they could locate, figuring the young man with the closely cropped blond hair had set out on foot—probably because whoever he was meeting was taking careful precautions in terms of approaching.

They’d already been down two other long driveways to dark, empty cabins—and dead ends. Suddenly, it seemed, they’d hit the jackpot. But were they in time?

“He’s coming back down!” Mitch shouted, pointing again at the chopper. This felt remarkably like Afghanistan. The terrain was dramatically different, but the tension and the adrenaline were
exactly
the same. It felt surprisingly good to be back in the chaos.

“Somebody must have heard us coming and called him back,” Dez replied. “We aren’t gonna have much time.
Careful out there, Mitch!
”

“I’ll be fine, my man!”
He and Dez had become very close very quickly. But combat always did that.

Dez pulled the SUV to a skidding stop in front of the cabin as four men spilled out through the front door—illuminated by the truck’s headlights—and scattered in different directions.

Mitch grabbed his pistol off the dash and jumped from the SUV, chasing the two men who’d headed in the helicopter’s direction. A full moon cast an eerie glow on the landscape, and, despite the prosthesis, he was able to keep up, catching quick flashes of them dashing through the trees ahead.

As the roar of rotors turned deafening and the winds rose to gale force, Mitch raced across the leaves on the forest floor—despite the sharp, stinging pain knifing through his right knee with every badly limping stride. Spurred on through the torture by his intense desire to try to set things right.

Mitch understood why his uncle had allowed this to happen—Judge Eldridge was willing to compromise himself and not have Mitch arrested for the bigger picture, for the chance of destroying the men who’d tried to destroy the judicial system—successfully for a time. Mitch wanted to make his uncle proud. Thankfully the wife, and more importantly, the children, would be safe in Witness Protection—even if he didn’t make it back to join them. Everything had been arranged.

One of the men tripped at the edge of the helipad. Mitch put a bullet in his back as he raced past and lunged for the chopper, which was lifting off with the second man he was chasing aboard. Out of reflex, he grabbed the landing skid, and within seconds was dangling a hundred feet above the earth.

With a Herculean effort, he lifted himself up and onto the skid, and pulled at the door handle desperately—but it was locked. After shooting it twice, he grabbed the handle again and yanked the door open—only to come face-to-face with the young blond man he and Dez had been tracking from Virginia.

Before Mitch could react, the man fired a single shot.

Mitch tumbled backward—dead before he hit the ground.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Racine glanced up as the door of his Excel Games office opened, and Frankie Federov entered.

“Hello, Frankie.”

“David.”

“Have a seat,” Racine said, gesturing at the two chairs before the desk.

Federov, aka the White Russian, was responsible for catching and killing the nasty bug that had haunted Excel Games’ software for so long—a bug no else could find, though many had tried. A bug, Racine was convinced, which would have kept Xilai from investing had Federov not exerted his legendary skills on the software and the company network.

“What do you have for me?”

Federov chuckled in his deep, rolling laugh. “It was the Dragon Lady from North Korea,” he answered in his heavy Russian accent. “She’s very sly, but I recognized her dainty footprints. It didn’t take long.”

“Explain.”

“As you asked me to, I hacked into the Gaynor Corporation network. I was able to determine that the Dragon Lady had planted the e-mails there.” Federov grinned. “Almost impossible to tell, but I’ve seen her masterpieces before. It is very beautiful, as she is supposed to be. I would like to meet her in person one day,” he said wistfully. “She made it look as if Ms. Gaynor had sent the e-mails. But it was her. It was the Dragon Lady.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I have the proof already.”

“I need you to get it to Angela Gaynor’s attorneys in Virginia Beach, immediately. Your time is valuable, so Excel Games will pay you five thousand dollars for your trip down there. I’ve already spoken to Bart about it.”

“Fine.”

“I don’t want anyone else delivering it but you. You will explain what you’ve found, but you will remain anonymous, and you will not testify. The attorney will have to find his own expert witness to explain it.”

“That won’t be hard with the road map I’ll give the attorney.”

“Good. Go.”

When Federov was gone, Racine picked up the landline and dialed the number on the paper. His hand shook so hard as the phone rang he had to press it tightly to his ear.

“Hello.”

“Claire?”

“Dad! Is it you?”

“Yes, Claire,” he answered, almost unable to get the words out his emotion was so strong. “It’s me. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Dad, so much.”

She was on the west coast with her mother and the tennis pro. So there was no way to see her in the little time he had outside from the walls. But at least he could hear her voice.

“Tell me everything, honey, everything about your life. I can’t wait to hear.”

As she began to talk, tears flooded his eyes and cascaded down his cheeks. He put the phone on mute as she kept going. He didn’t want her to hear him cry.

NORTH WOODS OF MAINE

When the e-mail hit his phone, Dez scanned it quickly and then glanced up at the two handcuffed men sitting side by side on the couch in front of him. He and one of his subordinates had captured and detained the two men less than a hundred yards from here.

One of the four who had scampered from the cabin in the SUV lights had escaped on the chopper—along with the young blond guy—and Mitch was dead, which was a terrible tragedy. But three of four wasn’t bad. And the fourth would probably hide for the rest of his days. The conspiracy had been shredded. Judge Eldridge—and Attorney General Delgado—were going to be very happy men tonight.

Dez shook his head. “CIA and DHS,” he said, after glancing at the phone again to be sure he’d gotten the agencies correct. He’d picked their wallets from their pockets a minute ago, then called a contact in Washington with the names on each driver’s licenses. The answers had come back within seconds. “Unbelievable.”

The two men on the couch stared back at him impassively for several moments. Then both looked away.

“All those juries,” Dez whispered, “all over the country. You bastards.”

He took a deep breath and looked around—then shot both men dead through the chests. He’d been given license to kill a few years ago, and this seemed an appropriate time to use the privilege. If he’d delivered these men to authorities, they would have made bail in hours—exactly like the men who’d attacked Victoria at her home outside Richmond.

Dez chuckled as he gazed at the bodies of the two men, which were now crumpled over against each other on the couch. They weren’t going to make bail now.

CHAPTER 49

JURY TOWN

“We’ve got to get everyone out of here!” Victoria shouted, bursting into Clint Wolf’s office.
“Immediately!”

Wolf’s eyes raced up from the file he’d been studying, and his expression went mystified. “It’s Sunday night. What are you doing here?”

“
The hell with what I’m doing here
, we’ve got to get everyone out.”

“Why?” Wolf demanded, rising from his desk. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve been targeted. A Delta Airlines flight bound for Atlanta was hijacked out of Dulles four minutes ago. We have credible information that they’re going to fly the plane straight into us. Fighters from Andrews and Langley are jumping, but they aren’t sure they can intercept in time.”

For several seconds Wolf stared at her without blinking, then his eyes narrowed. “Who’s the source?” he demanded. “How do you know this?”

“Michael Delgado, the United States attorney general.” She raced to Wolf’s desk, grabbed the landline receiver, and held it up. “You want to talk to him? I’ll get him on the phone right now.”

Wolf’s mouth fell open. “No, I . . . uh—”

“I just hope to God you have that EVAC plan in place. You told me you did. You told me you’d thought all this through.”

“I have,” Wolf answered calmly. “We’re fine.”

Six minutes later, four buses were roaring away from Jury Town, filled with jurors.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

Racine and Sofia jogged through the forest together, through the darkness and the mist of the evening, dodging low-hanging branches, sticker bushes, and rocks.

When Racine stopped to get his bearings, Sofia leaned over, put her hands on her knees, and gasped much-needed oxygen. “I don’t have much left, David.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said encouragingly as he spotted the target through the trees. He could hear the low murmur of hundreds of voices rumbling through the woods. “We’re almost there.” He took her hand. “Come on.”

She rose up and pulled him to her. “You gave me such a beautiful gift this weekend, David,” she murmured. “You gave me the gift of seeing my children, even if it was only for a few hours.”

She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and kissed him deeply.

When she pulled back, he raised both eyebrows and blinked several times. “Where am I?”

She smiled. “Taking me back to Jury Town.”

“Oh, right. Come on.”

Moments later they’d made it to the edge of a huge field in the middle of the forest four miles from Jury Town—where the jurors had filed off the buses to wait . . . for what, they hadn’t been told.

Racine kissed her once more, then led her out of the forest and into the mass of jurors milling about in the field. They’d never been missed.

“Delta flight bound for Atlanta, huh?” Wolf muttered as the jurors filed onto the buses to head back to Jury Town. “Good one, Victoria.”

She grinned as Racine and Sofia passed in front of them and climbed onto the bus they were closest to. “Just testing, Clint, just testing.”