“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.
The 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.
PART 2
CHAPTER 12
Troy 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.