He admired her for that — just as he admired her for allowing her child to die in front of her rather than yield information. Too bad she was on the wrong side of this fight. She would have been a valuable addition to his team.
In the end he’d strangled Imelda and stared deeply into her eyes as her life’s light faded while she’d strained pitifully against the ropes binding her to the chair. He always stared deeply into his victim’s eyes at the end. He thought maybe he’d see the answer to it all as the last breath left the body. He hadn’t so far, but he wouldn’t stop looking.
This house was two hundred miles from Manassas, Virginia, where Maddux had kidnapped the family. And it was completely isolated in a dense pine forest. So he was confident that the odds of anyone showing up here as part of an investigation into the disappearance of Imelda and her child were zero.
Despite Maddux’s confidence that tonight’s murders would remain forever unsolved, he’d taken extra precautions to ensure it. He’d cleaned everything twice and buried the bodies in a pre-dug grave forty miles to the west on a lonely ridge before returning to the house to make absolutely certain everything was perfect. He wanted it to shine when the associate arrived next time with his wife. The man was showing amazing loyalty by continuing to support him even though Bill Jensen had put out the word to stop. And the man’s wife was obsessive about neatness. He definitely didn’t want her finding anything down here.
Three of the twenty associates were still supporting him, despite Bill’s warning. It was the pinnacle of loyalty as far as Maddux was concerned. Of course, he’d done those personal favors for two of them, so their loyalty couldn’t be held in the highest regard. There had been quid pro quos in those instances. But he hadn’t actually done anything for the third associate who was remaining loyal. That man just believed everything Maddux told him — probably because he was too scared not to.
The great thing was that the three associates who were still secretly supporting him had homes in enough places around the world to keep him operating efficiently and effectively. More important, they were supplying him with cash as well. There’d been a suitcase waiting for Maddux in an upstairs bedroom with ten thousand dollars in it. That would tide him and his followers over for a while. And there would be more money to follow, he’d been assured.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made certain the incoming number was familiar before answering.
“Are you serious?” Maddux clenched his jaw. “All right,” he muttered angrily. “I’ll call you back in a little while.”
He slid the phone back into his pocket, grabbed the suitcase full of cash off the dining room table, and hustled for the door. Ryan O’Hara was dead. The bodies of O’Hara and the young man who had accompanied him had been found in a clearing in the Delaware woods outside Wilmington. The clearing was a mile from where Harry Boyd’s body was found alongside a white van.
Suddenly Maddux needed to get to North Carolina quickly. A leisurely drive south from Pennsylvania had turned into a sprint. If he pushed, he might make the farm by midnight.
CHAPTER 15
Night had fallen on central North Carolina some time ago. Even though Troy and the two men who were with him had been here for a while, they continued to watch and wait. They wanted to be as sure as possible of the enemy’s numbers before they attacked. Being outnumbered wouldn’t stop them — unless they determined that the defending force was overwhelming. They simply wanted to be as prepared as possible.
The location they’d chosen for their reconnaissance was a large, flat rock atop a slight ridge just inside a tree line several hundred yards west of the sprawling horse farm’s main house. Cover and visibility were good. Unfortunately, so far, their recon wasn’t paying dividends. They were ninety percent certain the mission’s target was on the property. But that was the extent of what they knew, and there were several buildings to consider as objectives. Two vehicles had come and gone since they’d taken up this position beneath a grove of tall oak trees several hours ago, but they’d gleaned little from the activity. People had gotten out of the vehicles and gone into the main house. The same people had come back out a few minutes later and driven off.
After reboarding the Jensen G450 at Dulles Airport outside Washington, Troy had made the short flight south to Raleigh, where he’d met the two men who were with him tonight. They were also RCS agents — from the Counterterrorism Division. Bill had arranged everything after assuring Troy that both men were loyal to Red Cell Seven and nothing else — that there was no risk whatsoever of their being somehow secretly allied with Shane Maddux.
Troy had never met them before, didn’t know their names and didn’t want to — just as it was clear they didn’t want to know his. These men were members of a different RCS division; it was safer to partition sensitive information such as real names as much as possible, and all three of them understood that. It was how they’d been trained from day one.
Tonight Troy’s code name was Agent Montana, and the other two men were Agents Idaho and Wyoming.
The main house was a large, three-story brick structure ringed by a halo of tall maple trees. A hundred yards to the other side of the house from where they were hiding were two barns and a guest cabin. Between the tree line and the house were open pastures with blanket-wrapped horses grazing beneath what was a star-laden but, as yet, moonless sky. Once they left the cover of the trees and started crossing that pasture, they would be vulnerable to anyone watching the open ground with night-vision capability. And it wasn’t a stretch to suspect that people in the houses or the barns would have that capability. In fact, it was almost a given.
Another vehicle — the third of the evening — moved quickly up the long, paved driveway from the left and skidded to a stop in the circular driveway before the house. The headlights remained on and the engine continued to run while Troy watched through his night-vision glasses. Two men climbed out of the older SUV and hurried inside. A few moments later what looked to be the same two emerged from the house, climbed back into the SUV, and drove back down the driveway.
When the taillights disappeared, Troy scanned the shadowy horizon before him from left to right. The nearest house that was not part of the farm was a mile away, and behind him were fifty thousand acres of national forest. The sounds of gunfire wouldn’t be audible to neighbors if a battle broke out, which was good. Red Cell Seven did not want interference from local law enforcement.
He glanced up at the sky. A full moon would be rising within the hour. Yesterday’s storm had cleared out of the East Coast and been replaced by a high-pressure system that had fallen out of western Canada. Temperatures had dropped along with it — drastically. Gusts accompanying the system had nighttime windchills in the low twenties as far south as Georgia. They were a day late, Troy figured. The gusts and the cold didn’t bother him, but clouds and rain would have made much better cover for tonight.
“All we really know is there’s been no net increase in manpower,” Troy said quietly. “Of course, we still have no idea how many people were on the property when we got here.” He gestured at the sky. The horizon off to the left was already starting to brighten. “We’re gonna have a lot more light on the matter very soon.”
“I say we go,” Agent Idaho suggested.
“Absolutely,” Agent Wyoming agreed.
Troy hopped down from the rock and grabbed the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun leaning against a tree. It was the same type of weapon the other two men would be carrying. He’d brought all three guns and plenty of extra clips with him on the G450 into Raleigh. That was another advantage of flying private, along with coming and going whenever you wanted. You could carry guns on board and not have to worry about it.