“All that led us straight to the Kohler farm. That’s why my father sent me down here. It was a guess, but it was a damn good one.” Troy hesitated. What he was about to say was tricky. “You know why I came after you so fast, don’t you, Major Travers?”
Travers stared at Troy grim-faced for several moments. Finally, he broke into a wry smile. “Well, since we’ve never met, I know it wasn’t because you liked me so much.”
“It was because my father says you have something—”
“Or because I’m so damn good-looking.”
Troy chuckled. “No, not that either.” Travers seemed to be taking this the right way. “My father says you have something very valuable.”
“I figured it had something to do with that,” Travers mumbled as their waiter approached the table, carrying a large tray stacked with food.
“So what is it?”
“Can’t tell you. Not without your father’s permission. Sorry.”
Troy wanted to know badly. But he knew Travers wouldn’t say anything if that violated a direct order. So pushing for an answer would prove futile. “Okay, well, I’m glad we got you out of there. My father has a lot of respect for you, Major. He says you’re the real deal.”
It took the waiter thirty seconds to serve all the food. They were both famished. They’d ordered heaping portions of eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage gravy, biscuits, pancakes, and fruit.
“Where is everybody?” Troy asked the waiter as he refilled their coffee mugs.
“Those death squads have people spooked,” the kid answered in a heavy southern drawl as he glanced quickly over his shoulder at the entrance. “Everybody’s staying home.”
“Is everybody worried because of the mall shooting in Charlotte?” Travers asked. One of the squads had hit a major mall in Charlotte, 170 miles west of Raleigh. “That’s pretty far from here, isn’t it? And that was the closest one.”
“I think it was more them hitting that school in Missouri that’s got to everybody,” the kid answered. “Ain’t nobody safe when they go out now, you know? And they killed little children. That’s what really has everyone going. You guys need anything else?” he asked when he’d finished refilling Travers’s mug.
“This is fine for now,” said Troy as he looked at all the food hungrily. “Thanks.”
He watched the waiter walk away, and glanced at the entrance. How horrible would it be to look over there and see several men come in wielding submachine guns? Mostly it would be the desperation of knowing you were helpless, especially if you had children with you. For a moment he pictured Little Jack sitting beside him. It was just like the waiter said. The baby would be so vulnerable. But the bastards wouldn’t give a damn.
As he picked up a piece of bacon, Troy thought back to that comment Maddux had made about Jack. It seemed as if Maddux was saying he hadn’t been the one who’d shot Jack on the back porch of their parents’ home in Greenwich. But he was probably just trying to fool them, worried about Bill coming after him, and using the opportunity to raise doubts about being guilty of the shooting. Maybe that was actually why he hadn’t intended to kill Troy in the basement. He wanted the lie about not killing Jack to get back to Bill fast.
“Why do you think Maddux shot Kohler back there?” Travers asked through a mouthful of biscuits and sausage gravy.
“Maddux didn’t shoot Kohler,” Troy answered as he glanced warily at the restaurant’s entrance once more.
“What do you mean? He was the only one who could have.”
Troy shook his head. “Somebody else was down there. I heard a pistol go off, and Maddux didn’t have a pistol. He had one of the submachine guns.”
He’d been thinking about that bullet tearing through Kohler’s throat ever since he and Travers had raced from the house. Who the hell had shot Nathan Kohler?
THE MUSLIM family of six climbed out of their minivan and began walking leisurely toward the mosque to attend morning prayer service. It was early, but the temperature had already reached sixty degrees, which, for December in this area of the country, was quite warm. Tomorrow it was supposed to turn cold and possibly snow. But today they would enjoy the beautiful weather.
The mosque was located in a quiet suburb of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was a beautiful building with an imposing minaret rising from the center surrounded by several smaller spires. The mosque was only a few miles from the Mother Mosque of America, which had been built in 1934 and was the second oldest mosque constructed in the United States as well as the oldest still standing. But this one was much larger than the Mother Mosque, and the family admired the towering spires in the morning sunshine as they strolled leisurely toward them.
The couple had four children. The girls were fourteen and twelve, and the boys were eight and seven. They laughed with each other and waved to friends as they threaded their way through the large parking lot, which was filled with cars even at this early hour. At the door the boys would go with their father and the girls with their mother. Muslim men and women prayed in separate areas.
The two boys were tussling with each other in front of the rest of the family when a pickup truck pulled slowly out of a parking space fifty feet ahead and then stopped in front of them. As the boys ceased their pushing and shoving, a man wearing a soiled John Deere cap, a checkered flannel shirt, and dirty jeans climbed out of the vehicle. He smiled and waved, then pulled an over-and-under twelve-gauge shotgun from inside the truck and began firing.
By the time he climbed back into the pickup he’d killed the mother and father and mortally wounded the two girls.
“That’s for those kids in Missouri!” the man shouted at the two little boys, who were cowering between cars as he roared past them. “I hope you’re next, you little bastards.”
CHAPTER 20
Jacob Gadanz leaned forward and pressed a button on his desk that triggered the office door’s magnetic lock. It did so with an audible thump, and now he was comfortable that they had complete privacy. He didn’t want anyone barging in and interrupting this meeting. That could prove problematic for both of them. Of course, he had more to lose if that happened — much more. Perhaps that was how Kaashif was able to rationalize what he was doing and stay so calm. He had nothing to lose.
“Sit down,” Gadanz ordered gruffly, motioning toward the wooden chair beside the desk.
“I am always so impressed by the physical beauty of your operation,” Kaashif said sarcastically as he eased into the uncomfortable chair and gestured around the starkly furnished room.
“And I’m always so impressed with your gratitude,” Gadanz replied tersely.
“Why should I be grateful?”
Gadanz scowled at the younger man. “How can you even ask me that?”
“You are not doing this for me, Jacob. That fact cannot be more certain.”
“But I’m doing it.”
Kaashif pointed at Gadanz. “You only do what you do for blood, Jacob. We both know that. And you are doing this specific thing because you owe a large debt to that blood.”
Gadanz glanced at the photograph of Elaina and Sophie. So Kaashif knew more than he was supposed to. At least, more than Gadanz was told he would know, which surprised him and wasn’t a good sign. Not everyone was as loyal to the family as he, apparently. But he couldn’t raise the issue. It would not be well received if it got back — and that was an understatement.