He quickly matched the number on the tag of one of the keys with the last three digits of the license plate on one of the trucks, and gingerly picked the keys off their hook. He climbed into the big truck’s cabin, gave the surroundings another quick once-over, then stroked the engine to life. The big cab rumbled under him. He pressed down on the heavy clutch, selected first using the thin, long gear shifter, and teased the accelerator. The hydraulic brakes hissed loudly and the truck nudged forward. The same mechanic looked over again, an uncertain expression creasing his face. Matt stopped the truck long enough to give him another friendly nod, then thought better of it and leaned out the window.
“You almost done there? Steve said he was having trouble getting this one into third,” he bluffed matter-of-factly, using a name he’d noticed on the shift list.
The guy looked at him a bit perplexed, but before he could say anything, Matt added, “Clutch might need some work. I’ll be back in ten,” and gave him a short wave before pulling away.
He checked in the side mirror as he turned out of the garage. The man looked his way for a second before shrugging and getting back to what he was doing.
A moment later, Matt was turning onto the main road and guiding the lumbering orange behemoth toward the exclusive enclave that surrounded Sargent Pond.
FEELING NUMB as he sat in the book-lined study of his mansion, Larry Rydell stared into his tumbler of Scotch and fumed in silence.
Those bastards, he seethed, flinching at the thought of any harm coming to his daughter. If she so much as gets a scratch, he flared, a surge of blood flooding his temples . . . but it was pointless. He knew he couldn’t do anything about it.
He sagged in his chair and glared at his glass. He’d never felt as helpless in his life.
With his fortune and his power, he could and did take on the most aggressive hedge fund or shareholder revolt without blinking. He’d had heated debates in Senate chambers that didn’t ruffle him in the least. He’d reached a point of his life where he felt he was untouchable. But he was powerless to deal with these . . . thugs. That’s what they were, pure and simple. Thugs. Out to pervert his vision, to take his idea and twist it around and use it for . . . what, exactly?
It didn’t make sense.
Much as he ground and turned over what Drucker had said, it didn’t make sense. They were alike—all of them—when it came to what they believed in. They viewed the world the same way. They saw the risks facing the world—and those facing America—in the same light. They shared the same frustrations with some deeply entrenched aspects of the world’s, and the country’s, mind-set.
And yet they were doing this? They’d created a fake messiah? An envoy from God? One whose presence would reinforce and vindicate the mass delusion most of the world was suffering from?
It doesn’t make sense, he thought again. And yet they were doing it.
He’d seen it.
Drucker had confirmed it.
They were actually doing it.
The backstabbing bastards.
His mind latched onto Rebecca’s face, on the last time he’d seen her, shortly before her ill-fated trip to Costa Careyes. He’d wanted to join her there for the holidays—they really hadn’t spent much time together, ever, not with everything he wanted to achieve in life, and it was something he now deeply regretted. But he hadn’t been able to join her. Not with all this going on. Not with the biggest undertaking of his life in full swing. And, bless her, she hadn’t voiced her disappointment. She never did. She’d gotten used to having a mythical dad, in the good and bad sense. Which was something he’d fix, he now thought—if he ever got the chance.
He had to find her.
He had to get her out, put her out of their reach, tuck her away somewhere safe. Nothing else mattered. Even saving the planet now paled into insignificance. He had to get her out of their hands. Then—and only then—he had to try and stop this. He had to find a way to kill it off, to shut it down before it got too big.
But how? He didn’t have anyone else to call. He didn’t exactly have an “A-Team” tab in his Rolodex. For years, he’d entrusted all his security requirements—personal and professional—to that rattlesnake Maddox. The security guards “watching over him” right now, at his house. His driver-slash-bodyguard. The vetting of his pilot, of the staff on his yacht. The corporate security at his companies. E-mail, phones. Everything was covered by one firm. Maddox’s. On Drucker’s recommendation. “Keep it all under one roof ” had been his advice. “Use someone you can trust. One of us,” he’d said.
Clearly, Maddox was one of “us.” Rydell himself, he’d now found out, wasn’t.
He felt like a fool.
They had him covered.
He’d been played. From the beginning.
He stared angrily at the heavy tumbler, then flung it at the wall, by the huge, stone fireplace. It exploded and rained shards of glass on the carpet. Just then, he heard a rising whine at the edge of his hearing, the sound of a large engine straining. Curious, he edged over to the window and looked out, down the drive that sloped and curved gently to the mansion’s entrance gate.
MATT SPOTTED JABBA as he approached the turnoff into Sargent Lane. Jabba gave him the all-clear, a small thumbs-up, before darting back into the trees. Matt nodded, turned into the lane, and floored the gas pedal.
The Mack’s muscular, three-hundred-bull-horsepower engine growled as it raced ahead, straining with each additional mile-per-hour of speed that it managed to add. Before long, the mansion’s entrance gate appeared up ahead. Matt stayed in gear, red-lining the engine, not wanting to shift into a higher gear. He wasn’t exactly flying, but that didn’t matter. Speed wasn’t what Matt was after here.
It was bulk.
He reached the gate and wrenched the oversized, horizontal steering wheel left with both arms, fighting the lateral pull from the truck’s tires. He didn’t lift his foot off the pedal. The truck screeched and leaned a few degrees sideways before its fifteen tons of solid steel plowed into the gate and obliterated it into toothpicks.
The truck charged up the driveway, its heavy footprint scattering gravel and leaving twin ruts in its wake. Matt could see the house through a scattering of stately trees, looming at the top of a manicured, landscaped rise. It was a Georgian revival mansion with separate wings jutting out of the main house and a multi-car garage tucked off to one side. It had a circular gravel drive outside the main entrance. There was no sign of the Lexus or the muscle. Yet.
He aimed the truck right at the entrance and kept his foot down. Just as he reached it, one of the heavies—he thought he recognized him as the guy who’d been riding shotgun in Rydell’s Lexus—rushed out of the house. His eyes went wide as he spotted the charging garbage truck, and he was already pulling his gun out from an under-shoulder holster
Matt didn’t bother going around the drive. He just beelined for the house’s entrance. The truck bounced over the central floral bed and slammed into the bodyguard before he had a chance to fire off a single round. The man splattered against the panoramic windshield, staining it with blood before the truck squashed him against the front door as it bulldozed its way into the house.