Red Cell Seven (22 page)

“Daniel,” he spoke up, trying desperately to block them out of his mind, “I can’t be involved in that situation anymore.”

“You can and you will,” Daniel retorted gently but firmly as one of the girls dutifully lifted a small mirror to Jacob’s face and handed him a short straw while the other slid her hand far up Jacob’s thigh. “You must. I trust you to carry out my work.”

Jacob took the straw, placed one end in his nose, leaned down, pointed the other at one end of a thick, caterpillar-like formation of white powder, and inhaled deeply as he snorted all of the powder into one nostril. The effect was instantaneous. Adrenaline began coursing powerfully through his system, and there was a pleasant, numbing drip at the back of his throat, which helped drive the buzzing in his body to an intensely pleasurable level.

“Have you met with Kaashif directly?” Jacob asked, handing the straw back to the beauty kneeling at his feet.

“Yes. It was necessary for planning purposes.”

“That puts me in so much danger, brother. How could you do that to me? You told me I would always be the go-between. You told me you would never meet with him.”

“Things changed. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, Jacob.”

“My business must be completely legitimate. No more money laundering for these people. Please, Daniel.”

“I’m sorry, Jacob, but you must continue your commitment to me. This is the most important time.”

“I’ve paid you back for staking me. You gave me a million dollars to found Gadanz and Company, and I’ve given you ten million in return. Let me go. My debt is more than repaid, brother.”

“I told you I’d need a favor someday that didn’t involve money. This is it. I need your loyalty now more than ever.”

The same girl handed Jacob the mirror and the straw again. She’d prepared another huge line for him from out of a small clear package. Once again he did the entire length of it in a single snort, though with the other nostril. He closed his eyes in quiet ecstasy as the powder worked its magic. This was the good stuff. Not the shit the street snorted.

“Kaashif wants me to set the squad up in another location,” Jacob explained. He was aware that he was suddenly talking louder and faster, but he couldn’t rein himself in.

“They cannot be apprehended. Not yet, Jacob. They haven’t created enough chaos yet. I want many more people dead. They need a safe place to hole up. You must take care of them.”

“Why has this responsibility to take care of the squad in northern Virginia fallen on me?”

“Because Imelda was taken, and she has not resurfaced. Kaashif told you that.” Daniel cleared his throat loudly. “You may need to help me in other areas of the country as well. Kaashif cannot do everything himself. The squads must be supplied.”

Jacob licked his lips and clenched his teeth. The girls were kissing his thighs and running their fingers all over him. His embarrassment had grown to epic proportions. Flaccid, he was small. Fully inflated, he was immense. The men in the outbuilding had laughed. They wouldn’t laugh now.

“Please, Daniel, don’t make me do this. My daughters could be in danger.”

“They’ll be fine. They’re in no danger. I would never let anything happen to Elaina and Sophie. They are my nieces.” Daniel laughed softly as he rose from the large chair and moved carefully back down the steps. “You’ll do my bidding, brother,” he called over his shoulder as he neared the door, “as you always do.”

As Daniel exited the room, one of the girls stood up, then leaned over and began kissing Jacob deeply while the other spread his robe and his legs far apart before running her tongue up the length of him. He gasped with pleasure and then allowed himself to be led from the small wooden chair to the large comfortable chair Daniel had just vacated.

When he had relaxed into it, the girls began to please him again. While one straddled him and slowly moved up and down, the other fed his nose the purest cocaine he’d ever experienced. Then the girls switched positions. Over and over they did this, whispering to him that he could do anything he wanted to them—which he did. He’d never experienced anything like this in his life.

For the next five hours Jacob Gadanz took full advantage of what Daniel had unexpectedly made available. Jacob had made his deal with the devil. He knew that absolutely, but he couldn’t help himself. He was weak. He knew that, too. This was the carrot—but there was a stick, too. A very big and very bad stick, which would do immense damage.

He would have to run when he got home, he realized as his pleasure reached the tipping point for the first time. It was the only alternative now. His brother had politely but absolutely conveyed to him that if he did not comply, he would be murdered—as would his daughters. Daniel had not said so in so many words, but Jacob knew his brother. The code was clear.

CHAPTER 25

“W
HO IS
your contact?”

“What are you talking about, Mr. President?”

“Don’t give me that, Stewart,” Dorn growled as he glanced out the Oval Office window at a cold, clear late-December dawn that was just breaking over Washington, DC. “Don’t play your goddamn mind games with me.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I really wasn’t trying to—”

“Enough.”

He and Baxter were the only two people in there, since Connie had gone to get a Coke and a cigarette. He was feeling much better this morning despite the Holiday Mall Attacks and the attack on the elementary school in Missouri. He’d actually gotten some decent sleep, the pain in his chest wasn’t as sharp anymore, and he was starting to feel like his old self again—headstrong and convinced he was right about everything. He still had a ways to go to full recovery, but the end of his rehabilitation was finally in sight.

“I’m tired of you doing that to me, Stewart,” Dorn kept going. He was thinking about giving Connie the day off, actually
ordering
her to take it off. He felt that good; he couldn’t have her listening to a lot of what was said in here today; and he didn’t feel like telling her to get lost every time he needed privacy. “Who told you Bill Jensen was the one who gave the ultimate order to have me assassinated?”

“Sir, I don’t think that’s something you want to—”

“
Damn it, Stewart,
no more. I want to know, and I want to know now.”

Baxter drew himself up in the chair. “A man I’ve known for twenty-three years. He’s a friend of my son’s. They trained together. They’re close.” Baxter paused. “His name is Shane Maddux.”

Dorn caught his breath.

“Maddux is a member of Red—”

“I know who Shane Maddux is.” Baxter seemed shocked by the revelation, which Dorn enjoyed tremendously.

“You do, sir?”

“He was a member of Red Cell Seven,” Dorn said. “But he defected after he was told by Roger Carlson that I intended to obliterate the cell. He’s a man on the run.”

“Well, that’s true, but there’s more to the story than—”

“Maddux was behind the attempt to assassinate me,” Dorn continued. “He didn’t actually pull the trigger. He had one of his subordinates do that. The kid’s a sniper specialist named—”

“Ryan O’Hara.” It was Baxter’s turn to interrupt, to show what he knew and confirm his credibility. “Maddux told me that, too.”

The president stared at his chief of staff for several moments, wondering who to trust, how much to trust, and when to open up. As he gazed at Baxter, he made his decision. He had to trust
someone
. It was one of the worst parts about being president. Having to work with Congress was a bitch, too.

“Stewart, I want to destroy Red Cell Seven. Even in the face of what’s going on in this country right now with these terrible death squad attacks, I want to burn RCS to the ground and scatter its ashes to the wind. I don’t care what they’ve done to save this country in the past, and I don’t care how valuable they could be in the future. We cannot call ourselves a great society or a true democracy when we allow a small group of men to live among us who can operate outside our laws and follow their own creed. When we do, they take advantage of it. And I don’t care about some goddamn Executive Order that Richard Nixon signed forty years ago as he was going clinically insane thanks to Watergate. Do you understand me?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Baxter could barely control his smile. Much wider and it would seem unprofessional.

“I’ve been playing Bill Jensen for the last few weeks.”

Baxter exhaled a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank God.” His smile inched even closer to unprofessional. It was teetering on the edge now. “You should get an Oscar for your performance, sir, and I’ll be happy to contact the Academy on your behalf. Let me tell you, I was worried there for a while that you’d actually switched colors and gone to the other—”

“And you were exactly right, up on the third floor of the residence the other day,” Dorn broke in. “They did miss this one. They didn’t short-circuit the mall attacks. They didn’t ID the death squads ahead of time. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do, and they didn’t.”

“No, they did not.”

The president’s expression turned steely. “Or worse, they intentionally missed it. They ignored it.”

“Sir?”

“They wanted it to happen, they let it happen. They knew about it ahead of time, and they did nothing to stop it because they want more-invasive and aggressive investigative powers over the civilian population. They want Congress to roll over and play dead when U.S. intel inevitably demands greater surveillance flexibility as a result of the Holiday Mall Attacks. At the heart of it, they want unlimited powers to spy on anyone, civilian or otherwise. I wouldn’t be surprised if some very senior people at CIA and NSA were involved in this thing.”

“Jesus,” Baxter whispered.

“Either way, whether they knew ahead of time or not, Red Cell Seven is directly to blame for the bloodshed this country has suffered over the past few days. It’s just another in a long line of reasons to take them down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dorn gritted his teeth hard. “On top of all that, it’s personal for me, Stewart.”

“How could it not be?” Baxter agreed.

“I will destroy the people who tried to kill me. And I will bring them to justice.”

“As you should, sir.”

“Which presents us with a problem.”

“Maybe not as much of one as you think, Mr. President.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shane Maddux is a friend,” Baxter spoke up, anticipating what his president was about to say. “But first and foremost he is a confidant.”

The president’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand why he’d indict himself to you, why he’d admit his guilt, even if he is a friend and a confidant and believed you would keep his secrets.”

“He claimed killing you was simply an order that came from above. He was only doing what he was told to do in his capacity as the leader of a Red Cell Seven division. He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as being guilty of anything. He was only being loyal to the chain of command, as he took an oath to always be, long ago.”

Dorn shook his head. “He’s one of them. He can’t be trusted.”

Baxter nodded. “Maybe not, but he can be used.”

“Spin that out for me.”

“Shane Maddux is in no-man’s-land right now, Mr. President, and that’s a horrible place to be. He’s vulnerable, and he’s not accustomed to being in this position. We can take advantage of his weakness.”

“How?”

“Maddux’s defection from Red Cell Seven was cover. Roger Carlson and Bill Jensen believed that Red Cell Seven could not be seen in any way as endorsing the assassination of a United States president. They were worried, and rightfully so, that rank-and-file RCS agents would not accept a course of action that was so drastic and blatantly unpatriotic. They were worried that it could lead to massive defections. So they gave Maddux the go-ahead to create his defection story, whisper it out to some people, as they did from the top as well. And they gave him authority to recruit a limited number of agents to help him.

“Then Carlson died, and Jensen saw his opportunity when Maddux lost his mentor and protector. Jensen turned on Maddux. He ordered Maddux’s execution so he could absolutely distance Red Cell Seven from anything Maddux had done, especially after the assassination attempt failed. In the last few weeks he has subtly convinced the rank and file that Maddux is truly a defector of his own doing. And that the man must be taken out if RCS is to maintain its sterling reputation among the few senior intel people in this country who know about it.”

“That’s why he begged me for more time to find Maddux,” Dorn whispered.

“What, sir?”

“Bill told me that Maddux was responsible for the assassination. He’d blamed it totally on the guy, of course. Said he was rogue, operating completely on his own. I told Bill I couldn’t allow the FBI to continue searching blindly for my assassin. It was too much wasted time and money, and besides, the country needed to know who’d shot their president and that the assassin would be punished. I told Bill that very soon I’d have to put the FBI onto Maddux, anonymously, of course.”

“Of course.”

“That’s when he begged me for time. We had that discussion when we were up in the residence.”

“Interesting.”

“Bill did not want me putting the FBI onto Maddux. He was very firm on that. He told me he wanted to find Maddux and deal with the man himself. He claimed he was afraid Maddux might try to cut a deal with the authorities if he was apprehended. He claimed Maddux would spill everything he knew about Red Cell Seven to try and get leniency.”

“Sir, I believe that was simply an expertly crafted cover story. A story Bill put forward to mask a hidden agenda, Mr. President.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bill Jensen had a more personal reason for finding and dealing with Shane Maddux himself, another reason that was literally much closer to home for him.”

“Which was?”

Baxter grinned smugly. “Do you remember when I asked Bill about Rita Hayes the other day?”

“Of course. He was sitting right where you are now.”

“He got animated, very upset.”

The president nodded. “Yes, he did. I remember that.”

“Rita Hayes was his longtime executive assistant at First Manhattan. She’s an attractive woman.”

Dorn’s eyes widened. The code was clear. He understood immediately why Baxter had used the word
attractive.
“Bill was having an affair with her.”

“That’s right,” Baxter confirmed. “And Maddux knew about it. He had a video she’d secretly recorded of Bill and her having sex. You see, Rita Hayes was working for Shane Maddux. Maddux was afraid all along that Bill wasn’t loyal to him, so he did something about it. He recruited Rita to be his eyes and ears at First Manhattan. Now Maddux is convinced Bill knows he has the video. Maddux believes Rita might have told him about it if he’d threatened her, and Bill is desperate to eliminate any possibility of the affair coming to light.”

“For obvious reasons, Bill wants to make certain that tape is never played, especially because of all that happened with his wife and him so long ago.”

“Cheryl has never truly trusted him since,” Baxter said. “That’s my information, anyway.”

“Would you trust him if you were she?”

“Of course not. So,” Baxter continued, “the only way to eliminate the tape coming to light is to eliminate Shane Maddux.”

“What about Rita Hayes?” the president asked. “She could talk.”

“I don’t think so. I think that’s why Bill got upset when I mentioned her.”

“Why?”

“She’s disappeared. No one can find her. He was worried about me digging deeper into all that.”

“Do you think…” Dorn’s voice trailed off.

“Do I think Bill had her murdered because he found out she was being disloyal?” Baxter nodded. “Absolutely. And he has plenty of people who’d do his bidding.”

Dorn stared steadily over the desk at Baxter for several moments. “We must destroy Red Cell Seven, Stewart, and this is our chance. They are weak.”

“I agree, Mr. President. But we have to wipe them out completely.”

Had Maddux told Baxter everything?
Dorn wondered. “Where is it that you believe we start?”

“You mentioned it earlier.”

“What? What did I mention?”

“The Executive Order Richard Nixon signed back in 1973,” Baxter replied. “I know you said you don’t care about it, but if we’re really going to wipe these guys out we have to care.”

“I know,” Dorn agreed, frustrated by the obvious.

“Maddux told me that Nixon signed two originals in 1973, giving Red Cell Seven the power and authority to exist and to carry out the laws of the land as an agent of the executive branch of the United States government. Apparently, Roger Carlson took both of them after a meeting he had in the Oval Office with Nixon and his two top aides, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. We must get possession of at least one of those original documents, sir.”

“We need to get both originals, Stewart. If we do, then RCS has no credibility, no authority to exist.”