“Why’d you do this?” Troy asked. Time was of the essence, but he wanted to know. “Why’d you turn on the cell?”
“Fuck you and your father. The nigger stays where he is.”
Troy shook his head in disbelief. Bill and Douglas Kohler must have been very good friends. “We have full license from COC tonight, Nathan.”
“You mean from your father.”
“Do you understand what that means?”
“It means you can screw me—”
“It means I have the authority to use any and all force necessary to get Major Travers out of here. It means I can kill you if I want to.”
“Yeah, well, fuck yourself. Go ahead and shoot me.”
Troy moved to where Kohler was standing and held his hand out. “Give me the keys. I don’t have time for this.”
“I’m not giving you—”
Troy hammered Kohler’s gut with the butt of his gun and sent the kid groaning and sprawling to the cement floor. Kohler coiled into a fetal position as Troy leaned down, rolled the kid to one side, and grabbed the set of keys beneath him.
As Troy rose back up, he was aware of Agent Idaho falling limply to the floor, followed immediately by Agent Wyoming. They’d both been shot through the head. Blood was already pouring onto the floor from gaping wounds just above their ears. They weren’t even twitching, the shots had been so perfect.
Then there was a blade at Troy’s throat.
“Hello, Mr. Jensen,” came a calm voice from behind him.
Shane Maddux. Troy recognized the voice immediately. The man had been his superior for six years. Now he knew who had turned Nathan Kohler against Red Cell Seven.
“Hello, Shane.”
How did Maddux do it? Travers and Kohler had been the only other people down here — Troy had believed. He and Agent Wyoming had checked the entire basement thoroughly — while Idaho had watched Kohler — and there were no stairs other than the ones the three of them had descended from the first floor. Now Troy understood why Kohler hadn’t resisted or tried to run. Maddux wanted them all down here.
“No formal address?” Maddux asked. “No more Major Maddux?”
“You don’t deserve a formal—”
“Drop the gun, Troy.”
Troy allowed the submachine gun to slip from his right hand where it had been hanging next to his leg. It clattered to the floor.
There was no point resisting. Maddux was far too good a killer. If he sensed the slightest defiance, that blade beneath Troy’s chin would slice his throat, and nothing much else would matter after that.
“Pick up the gun, Nathan,” Maddux ordered sharply. “Get up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Kohler crawled to where Troy’s MP5 lay, grabbed it, and groaned again as he struggled to pull himself to his feet.
“Open the cell, Nathan.”
Kohler looked at Maddux like he was crazy. “What?”
“We’re taking Major Travers with us.” Maddux nodded at Travers. “Get him out of there. Make sure he’s still cuffed before you let him out of the ring.”
“Why are we taking him with us?” Kohler demanded as he grabbed the keys back from Troy and slid one of them into the lock.
“Major Travers has something very special I want. We need him to lead us to it.”
Kohler swung the cell door open and moved to where Travers sat on a narrow bench. When he was satisfied the cuffs securing Travers’s hands together behind his back were tight on both wrists, Kohler unlocked the metal collar around Travers’s neck. The chain that connected the collar to the ring anchored into the wall snaked to the floor.
“Toss me that gun,” Maddux ordered as Nathan followed Travers out of the cell.
Kohler bent down and grabbed the gun lying beside Agent Idaho’s body, then lobbed it to Maddux. Maddux released Troy, caught the submachine gun, and quickly slid the knife back into a sheath on his belt.
Maddux motioned toward the cell with the gun. “Get in there, Troy.”
“Not going to kill me?”
“I would,” Maddux answered, “but I don’t want to piss your father off now that he’s calling the shots.”
The explanation sounded hollow. Why would Maddux be worried about that? He’d killed Jack. He must know Bill was already out for revenge. “You killed Jack. You really think you could hurt my father more than you have?” And how would Maddux know that Bill was calling the shots at Red Cell Seven? He might assume, but he shouldn’t know.
Maddux stared at Troy for several seconds like a statue, without breathing. Then he nodded subtly as his eyes narrowed. “So that’s what you think. You think I killed Jack.”
“I know you did, Shane.”
“Of course,” Maddux whispered to himself.
“You killed Lisa Martinez, too, along with my brother’s friend.”
“They saw my face. I had to kill them. It was a matter of national security.”
It was insane, but for a moment Troy actually understood the explanation. For Shane Maddux that would have been a matter of national security because in Maddux’s demented mind he probably considered himself the primary protector of the nation’s security. “But you didn’t kill my son. You didn’t kill Little Jack. I wonder why.”
“You know why.”
Troy swallowed hard as he stared at Maddux.
“You didn’t kill my son because you’re loyal to me, Shane. We’ve been through hell and back together, and that’s why you spared L.J. And that’s why you aren’t going to kill me now.”
A sad grin crept to Maddux’s lips. “I didn’t kill your son because it wasn’t necessary, Troy. How I feel about you had nothing to do with that decision. And it has nothing to do with why I’m letting you live tonight. Letting you live is strategic. I don’t want to piss your father off.” His eyes narrowed. “In fact, Troy, I don’t care at all about you. You are simply an individual who served under my command, and that’s as far as it goes. That’s as far as it’s ever gone. You should understand that. For your own good,” he added somberly.
Troy started to speak, but Kohler slammed the butt of the MP5 he was clutching into Troy’s gut and sent him tumbling to the floor in agony.
Kohler smiled down at Troy smugly. “How’s it feel, you prick?”
Troy grabbed his stomach and tried desperately to breathe. He should have anticipated that one.
As Kohler bent down to drag Troy into the tiny cell, a bullet smashed into his chin, burst through his throat, and blew out the back of his neck.
As Kohler collapsed onto him, Troy saw Maddux pull a small silver ball from his belt and hurl it to the floor. The ball exploded on impact, and the room was instantly clogged with thick, pungent smoke. Troy grabbed the MP5 Kohler had just taken from him, hurled the kid’s body aside, struggled to his feet, somehow found Travers in the haze, and then emptied the second magazine of the MP5 into the basement all around them. His stomach was still killing him, but adrenaline and the will to live overpowered the pain.
“I’m Troy Jensen,” he yelled into Travers’s ear from close range as he reached into his pack, grabbed another double set of magazines, and reloaded. “I was sent by COC to get you out of here.” If he hadn’t been a foot away from Travers when the bomb went off, he wouldn’t have been able to identify him. The smoke had gotten that thick that fast. “We gotta get out of here. Stay close. Don’t lose me.”
As soon as the device Maddux hurled to the floor exploded, Agent Bridger raced back up the steps to the first floor, bolted for the front door, and then sprinted away past the tall maple trees. Bridger didn’t stop running until after recrossing the pasture and making it back into the forest that bordered this side of the farm.