“My jaw!” he said, although it sounded like, “Muh daw!”
I turned to Floyd and shook my head, even though part of me thought it might not hurt Rick to know there was someone in the room who really wanted to make him suffer.
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Rick replied.
I repositioned the pliers and squeezed.
“Ahhhhh!” he cried. “I swear I don’t know! They wouldn’t give me that kind of information. It’s not something I need to know.”
His words were distorted and pained, but I could still make them out.
“What do they want the pilot for?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he cried.
I squeezed. Torture went against my personal beliefs, and breaking his finger was a line I wasn’t prepared to cross, but I could get close.
“Ahhhhh! Please! I don’t know what they want. I heard them talking about a bull. That’s all I know.”
Floyd stepped forward again and swung a one-two jab and cross that knocked Rick unconscious.
“What just happened?” I asked.
He removed his mask, and I did likewise.
“I think I know,” he said. “I think I know what they want.”
Chapter 77
Floyd and I dragged Rick outside to the Airbus H125 helicopter that stood in a clearing just behind the bar. Justine was waiting beside the aircraft. She didn’t like wet work, but knew it was a necessary part of the job. In this particular case, when a mother and children’s lives were at stake, I could tell she was prepared to overlook some excesses. There was no sympathy in her eyes as we dragged Rick into the aircraft.
“Where to now?” Justine asked.
“I need to go to the Catskills,” Floyd said, and Justine and I exchanged surprised glances. “I think I might know what they’re after. It has something to do with a mission I carried out in Belarus.”
“What?” I asked.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I can’t talk about it.”
I sighed. I respected his commitment to the oath of secrecy he’d taken, but his family’s lives were at stake. There was little I could do, though, short of taking him into the bar for interrogation.
“We need to make a stop first,” I said. “Drop off the trash.” I nodded at Rick.
I produced my phone and made a call that was answered within three rings.
“Hello?” a voice said.
“Secretary Carver, please,” I replied.
“And you are?”
“Jack Morgan.”
“Hold, please,” the voice said, and the line fell silent.
“Jack Morgan,” Eli Carver said a few moments later. “What earns me the privilege of two calls in a week?”
“I found your mole, Mr. Secretary,” I said.
I couldn’t see him, but I knew I now had the Secretary of State’s full attention.
“A DARPA program manager called Rick Ferguson,” I revealed.
“I know that guy,” Carver replied with a touch of irritation in his voice. “You got proof?”
“A taped confession. It won’t hold up in court, but it will give him nowhere to go when your people get to work,” I said. We’d had a Dictaphone recording the whole time.
“You going to bring him in?”
“No, Mr. Secretary,” I replied. “Where there is one mole, there might be others.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“We’re heading for Denville. Call the local police department and tell them we’ll be dropping off a high-value suspect. We’ll deliver Ferguson and the recording of his confession. They can hold him until your people are able to collect him.”
“And you?”
“It’s better you don’t know, Mr. Secretary,” I replied. “I can tell you we recovered Joshua Floyd. When the time comes, he’ll have some interesting testimony.”
“Are you planning trouble, Jack?” Carver asked.
I hesitated. “Like I say, it’s better you don’t know, Mr. Secretary.”
“Is this going to be one of those conversations I need to deny ever having had?”
I stayed silent.
“Well, thank you anyway, Jack,” he said.
“We’ll speak soon, Mr. Secretary,” I responded before hanging up.
“Denville?” Justine asked.
“It’s a small police department. I don’t think Carver will ask them to try to hold us, but just in case he does, I picked somewhere the odds would be in our favor.”
“And I thought I was paranoid,” Floyd observed.
“The word you’re looking for is careful,” I replied with a smile.
We climbed into the chopper and within minutes the ground was falling away as I took us skyward.
Chapter 78
Beth had managed to calm the children and get them to sleep. There were three cots arranged against the back wall of the barn, away from the space where she’d been tortured. She dragged two of the army surplus beds close together and positioned them so the children could sleep beside each other. While they lay there, whimpering and crying, she’d ignored her burning arms and stroked their hair, soothing them to sleep. The children gave her focus and purpose and stopped her from dwelling on the trauma she’d experienced.
When the children were deep asleep, Beth used a bucket of water and a small towel to clean herself up, and changed into some old jeans and a gray sweater that just about fit her. The sweater was moth-eaten and ragged, but it kept the chill at bay.
She explored the barn, which was about the size of two tennis courts. Above her head, struts ran between the walls and supported the A-frame steel roof. She checked the walls: corrugated steel that ran beneath the concrete floor line. The only door was a huge solid steel double gate that was designed for vehicle access. She tried the catch and found it was locked.
“Don’t waste your time,” a voice yelled from the other side.
She and the children were being guarded, which meant an escape through the front door would be unlikely to succeed. Beth looked around and her eyes settled on the pipe she’d been suspended from. About three inches in diameter, it came down from the roof about ten feet away from the door and ran the length of the barn, before disappearing through the back wall. Smaller pipes ran off it at regular intervals and were capped by sprinklers. A fire system perhaps? Or a way of feeding animals? Either way, the central pipe was sufficiently thick to make a good weapon.
Beth hurried to the other end of the barn. Ignoring the pain in her arms, she lifted her cot as quietly as possible. The children stirred, but didn’t wake.
She carried the cot to a point where the pipe connected to one of the sprinklers, and set it down directly beneath the roughly welded joint. She fought her aching body, stepped onto the cot, reached up for the pipe and got to work.
Chapter 79
We hadn’t needed to worry about the cops in Denville. I set the chopper down on the baseball field next to the police department and three officers emerged from the building. I powered down the engine and Justine, Floyd and I climbed out to meet the officers. The leader of the trio, a gruff middle-aged sergeant, said they’d been waiting for us after receiving a call from the Pentagon. They’d been instructed to hold a man who was about to be delivered to them.
“We’ve been trying to guess what kind of perp gets the royal treatment,” the sergeant asked. “You got bin Laden’s brother in there or something?”
“We’ve got a traitor,” I replied. “A man who sold out this country. Make sure you lock him up tight.”
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed and his mood soured. “Ain’t nothing lower than treason.”
The officers dragged Rick Ferguson from the chopper and watched as we took to the sky.