Kemiss licked his lips. "A man named Kreft. Lukas Kreft. He planned and financed the entire thing. He came to me for help in getting Baktayev into the country undetected and getting the documents he needed to plan the assault."
Declan had thought about the possibility of Kemiss not being the only one involved. Was what he was saying true or just an attempt to shift blame by a corrupt old man trying desperately to separate himself from the evil he was involved in? At this point in time it didn't really matter. All of that could be ironed out once the plot was stopped and being officially investigated.
"I only have one more question for you, Senator, and your answer will determine the end of our time together. Is it going to end quietly or with the tortured screams of your young boys? It's up to you. Where is Ruslan Baktayev?"
Kemiss did his best to spit at Declan, but little in the way of moisture came out. "What makes you think I know that? Kreft's not an idiot. He kept that a secret, even from me. He knows who the weak links in the chain are. He blackmailed us. Castellano was gay. We were lovers, have been for years. If people knew, they'd think he got his position in the FBI by sleeping with me. Kreft used him to control the investigation and he used me to gain unrestricted access to the U.S. He set up illegal donations to my last campaign and threatened to reveal them. I'd have been ruined."
"You're lying, Senator. The stigma of being gay went out with the last century. And would you really choose your career over the lives of hundreds of innocent American children? I don't believe there is a chain, so how can there be any weak links? You're attempting to distance yourself from this whole thing and I'm getting very impatient."
Nazari made a loud exhibit of removing the now cherry-red fire poker from the grill of the propane heater as he stood, turning towards the seated boys.
"One last chance, Senator," Declan said. "Where is Ruslan Baktayev?"
Kemiss writhed in his seat and closed his eyes. "In a vacant warehouse in Dundalk, Maryland. The sign on the door says Broughman's Welding Service, but you're too late. He's already been activated. He and his men are on their way to a junior high school in Victoria, Virginia. Those people are going to die and if you try to stop him, you will too!"
Declan exploded. Unable to contain his hatred for the man seated in front of him he grabbed Kemiss by the shoulders of his shirt and jerked him out of the chair, shoving him hard across the garage. Kemiss stumbled uncontrollably over a trash bin full of garden tools. Declan advanced on him again, but was stopped suddenly.
"Enough!" Okan Osman shouted as he tried to hold Declan back, his feet sliding against the smooth concrete floor. "We still need him!"
The fire poker clattered to the floor as Altair Nazari joined Osman, taking hold of Declan around the neck and locking his arm in place with his hand. Declan's nostrils flared and his eyes bored into Kemiss as the politician looked up from the ground, his nose bleeding. Slowly Declan relaxed. "Get him out of here, now."
Nazari kept his hold as Osman let go and jerked Kemiss to his feet, pushing him quickly past Declan to the kitchen door, which he unlocked with a key before dragging the senator through and disappearing into the house.
"Alright," Nazari said. "Alright?"
Declan nodded and Nazari let go. They each took a deep breath and Nazari moved to the propane tank heater, turning a black knob on top of it until it popped loudly and the roaring stopped. Next he moved to one of the garage doors and pressed a button next to it, allowing the door to open about twelve inches before stopping it. Immediately a cold rush of air flooded in and it seemed like the temperature dropped dramatically.
Declan looked around as Nazari continued moving around the room turning off the makeshift spotlights that had been used on Kemiss. In seconds the room began to look again like the suburbanite three car garage they had found earlier in the evening when they had arrived at the Kemiss property. A muffled protest drew his attention as Nazari flipped on the halogen lights in the garage ceiling. Mary Ellen Kemiss struggled against her restraints, but stopped as Declan locked eyes with her.
"I would never hurt you or your children, Mrs. Kemiss," Declan said, as he walked around the two boys and pulled off their hoods. Her eyes went wide and became tearful as she saw the sweaty faces that blinked rapidly in the sudden light.
"Is that it?" one of them asked, as Declan removed a set of large headphones from his head that had been concealed under the hood. "Are we done filming?"
"Aye," Declan said, as he pulled the other boy's headphones off.
"Good thing, man. I was really getting tired of that music."
"Go out this door here and the men outside will make sure you get paid. Great work, lads." Declan cut the loose restraints that were barely holding them and they stood, pulling on two bathrobes that had been folded and stored near the door as they walked through it.
Declan closed the door. He didn't think he'd ever allow his own children, should he ever have any, to act in the kind of movie he'd said he was filming when he'd called the entertainment agency earlier in the day, but thankfully there were some parents who didn't seem bothered by it.
"Your two boys have been in the upstairs guest room watching a movie this entire time," he said, as he turned back to Mary Ellen Kemiss and walked over. He cut her restraints and slowly peeled back the tape on her mouth. "I'm sure they'd like to see their mother now."
"You son of a bitch!" the woman said, as she stood and slapped him across the face. "How could you do this, to anyone?"
He pushed her gently towards the door and Nazari guided her into the house, shutting the door behind them. When they were gone, Declan walked over to the spotlight that had been positioned in front of Kemiss and pushed the off button on a small digital camcorder that had been secured to the bottom of the light. Walking back towards the kitchen door, he stopped and slumped down into the chair Kemiss' wife had been sitting in and put his head in his hands, breathing heavily. Had Kemiss called his bluff, he would have lost, and America would have lost with him.
Chapter Seventy-One
"Alright, boyos," Declan said, as he entered the kitchen from the garage, having finally been able to calm himself down after the events of the last few hours. "What do we have?"
Osman and Nazari had spread a map across the granite countertop of the center island and had turned on a laptop computer, which Nazari was typing away at.
"Victoria, Virginia is here," Nazari said, as he reached over and circled a town with a red sharpie. "Dundalk, Maryland is here, and we are here." He circled two more towns and Declan looked at each of them in turn.
"That could give us some advantage," Osman said, looking at the location of Dundalk on the map, just southwest of Baltimore. The three circles formed an obtuse triangle with the location of Baktayev's base being the furthest away.
"Yeah," Nazari said, “but if it's as the senator said, than Baktayev's already gone from there. For all we know he's already set up in the school and waiting for tomorrow morning when everyone arrives."
"I can make a call," Osman said. "There's a few 'diplomats' from our Washington embassy that could go and have a look at this Broughman's Welding Service. That way we'll know whether there's anyone there and if there ever was. I don't trust this scumbag upstairs to have been telling us the truth."
"He was," Declan said. "The only thing he fears worse than losing his power, is losing his two boys."
"Then you think that bit about it not being his idea was the truth?"
Declan nodded. "He got extremely stressed at that point in our conversation so either he really believes it or else it was a poorly prepared attempt at shifting the blame. Hard to tell which, but it's irrelevant. What we have to focus on is stopping Baktayev."