Part 15 (1/2)
”What's your name?” Troy demanded fiercely as Jack came around the front of the pickup and jumped to the bottom of the gully.
”Charlie,” the kid answered, already sobbing. ”Charlie Griffin.”
”Is your father Wayne Griffin?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Where is he?”
”They left a few hours ago to do some things.”
”They?” Troy asked.
”Him and a friend.”
”Are you all right?” Jack asked after getting to where Troy and Charlie were. ”Are you hit?”
”I'm fine,” Troy snapped as he held the kid down with one hand and pulled the kid's belt off with the other. ”Get his gun. It's in the truck somewhere.”
By the time Jack found it, Troy had lashed Charlie's wrists tightly together behind his back with the belt.
”What the h.e.l.l?” Troy demanded, rising to his feet when he was finished and coming right to where Jack was standing, so he was right in Jack's face. ”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, what did I tell you?”
”Shoot first,” Jack answered solemnly. Troy was so right. He'd frozen at the critical moment. ”But he's just a kid.”
”So what? He was gonna kill you.”
”I know,” Jack admitted. He'd never make that mistake again. He'd be a trigger-happy fool from now on. His whole body was starting to shake hard as the reality of what could have just happened sank in. ”You saved my life.”
”We're even for Alaska,” Troy muttered. ”Let's check out the house out. We've got to make sure no else is around. Then we'll interrogate this little s.h.i.+t.”
”What do you mean, 'interrogate'?”
Troy's eyes flashed back to Jack's, and they stared at each other intently for several moments as the kid began to bawl loudly. ”I mean,” Troy said deliberately and loudly so Charlie could hear, ”that I will use any and every method I have to in order to get any and every piece of information I can out of this young man as fast as possible.”
”He's not a man, he's a boy.”
”Don't start,” Troy warned. ”My son's been kidnapped, and this kid may know where he is. I intend to find out immediately if he does, and whether or not you agree with my methods is of no consequence to me whatsoever.”
”Don't do it,” Jack whispered.
”I will do it,” Troy replied calmly. ”I have no problem doing it. If you're going to try and stop me, try now. Let's get it over with, because I will put you down.”
He couldn't beat Troy in a fight. And he wouldn't point a gun at his brother. ”You can't torture him.”
”If he doesn't answer me right away, or he doesn't answer truthfully, I will absolutely torture him. To death if I need to.”
Charlie's sobs grew loud.
”You can't know if he's telling the truth or not.”
”Oh, I'll know. Believe me, I will.”
Jack's phone went off, indicating that he'd received a text message. He dug the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. As he read the words there, the breath rushed from his lungs. Suddenly he was in the same boat as Troy.
”We have Karen, too,” the message read.
”What is it?” Troy demanded.
Wide-eyed, Jack held the phone out. But it shook so wildly in his hand Troy had to grab it from him to read the words.
CHAPTER 26.
HARPERS FERRY, West Virginia, was a quaint town of less than three hundred residents located seventy-five miles northwest of Was.h.i.+ngton, DC. It was nestled into the eastern side of a steep hill overlooking the wide, deep confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. Immediately across the Shenandoah to the east were more of West Virginia's heavily wooded sh.o.r.eline and tall hills. A short distance downstream from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia turned into Virginia. And to the north, immediately across the Potomac, were Maryland's tall, steep cliffs. It was a unique area in that it formed the confluence of two great rivers and three historic states.
Harpers Ferry had been vitally strategic to both sides during the American Civil War. Guarding the border between North and South, important river crossings, and multiple railroad lines that used the riverbanks as pa.s.ses through the Appalachian Mountains, the town had changed hands several times during the war after fierce fighting.
A century and a half later, the isolated enclave was serving as a strategic location again-this time for Liam Sterling. He'd quietly brought in twenty-four of the world's deadliest sharpshooters-like importing fine red wines, he'd told them last night-and the a.s.sa.s.sins were all staying at a bed-and-breakfast called The Fisherman's Inn. The inn was constructed on the crest of the hill overlooking the confluence and had a magnificent view of the two great rivers joining forces in the valley below.
Harpers Ferry was a perfect place to prepare for Operation Anarchy, which he had named this historic attack. The town was well off the beaten track and intimate enough to easily detect unfriendly trackers. Sterling was still congratulating himself on his choice of location as he walked along through the late-afternoon suns.h.i.+ne.
Twelve of the a.s.sa.s.sins were men, and twelve were women, and they were all sharing rooms as if they were couples. The inn's proprietor believed theirs was a church group using his facility as a base for a retreat. Sterling had told him they had come here to get away from life's everyday rigors, to mellow out a bit, and to enjoy several days of biking, hiking, prayer, and general appreciation of the beautiful fall weather.
The proprietor had asked no questions. He was only too happy to hang a ”no vacancy” sign out front for a few days.
Why would he question anything, Sterling thought to himself as he led the group across the westerly of two CSX Railroad trestles that spanned the Potomac only a stone's throw upriver from its confluence with the Shenandoah. They looked like twelve average American couples out for a relaxing time. It wasn't as if they were brandis.h.i.+ng hunting rifles with dangerous-looking telescopic sights atop the barrels, or they had signs hanging from their necks advertising what could potentially be the deadliest day in history for America's most senior officials.
All the deadly hardware was safely locked away in a climate-controlled public storage facility near Tysons Corner, which was fifteen miles west of the White House. It had taken some coaxing to convince the men and women to temporarily part again with the weapons, which they'd sent on ahead of themselves in cloaked packages. But when they'd heard about the size of the payoff they'd quickly agreed. While he hadn't been specific with them yet, he planned to pay each of them three million dollars.
Sterling would keep the rest of the money, which, after expenses, could still net him nearly three hundred million dollars, and maybe more if he worked things right.
It was an amount he definitely had to keep very quiet. He was getting fifty million alone to kill the president, and the same for all three Jensens combined. So his a.s.sembled a.s.sa.s.sin team could not logically lay claim to any of that money, because they would have no part in those four kills. And he was betting that three million dollars was more than most of them had ever earned for a single job, far more, despite how good they all were.
Still, should they find out that their take was less than twenty-five percent of the total payout, there could be problems. Percentages were percentages irrespective of totals. Other than himself, the only person in the world who could accurately and legitimately relay the total bounty the team would receive was Daniel Gadanz. And Gadanz had no incentive to whisper that amount to anyone-until Operation Anarchy was over.
But when OA was over, the drug lord would have an incentive to send that figure out into the spook ether so he could save himself from having to pay the lion's share of the three hundred million, because the other a.s.sa.s.sins would turn on Sterling. Fortunately, he'd antic.i.p.ated that possibility and taken measures to protect himself.
He always tried to think like everyone around him was thinking. That ultimately made antic.i.p.ation much easier.
Sterling smiled as a locomotive's horn wailed at him sadly from the east. The CSX main line out of Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, split in two on the north sh.o.r.e of the Potomac, which lay just ahead of them at the other end of this bridge. One track-the line they were walking beside now-followed the south sh.o.r.e of the Potomac to points west, while the other line-which traversed a bridge over the Potomac a little to the east of this one-hugged the Shenandoah's western sh.o.r.e for points south.
It didn't matter which bridge the train took over the Potomac when it got here. They'd get an impressive, close-up look at it going past, because the two bridges were very close. And as it pa.s.sed, he would deliver sensitive information concerning the attack. Even hidden, high-tech microphones listening from up on the Maryland cliffs wouldn't pick up anything as a hundred empty coal hoppers thundered past. It was terribly paranoid to think those mikes could be there, he knew, but he wasn't taking any chances with this mission.
And he was very aware of how thoroughly the NSA had blanketed the globe with listening devices.