Arctic Fire (29 page)

Jack winced. Charlie’s death kept coming up. “Still, I think Troy would have—”

“Have you ever been engaged, Jack?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t understand.”

Jack glanced over at her and nodded slowly. “I guess.”

“It’s just different.”

He didn’t want to push this. He was tired of making her sad. “OK.” He could see she knew what he was thinking.

“According to Charlie,” Karen said after a few moments, “Falcons aren’t supposed to tell each other about their personal lives. But Troy told Charlie about your dad and how he ran First Manhattan. Troy never said as much because he seemed like a modest guy, but it was obvious to Charlie and me that your
family’s really well off.” She paused and gave him a warning look. “I’m working class all the way, Jack, and I’m not trying to be rude, but I’ve never had much luck with rich people. I hate arrogance more than I hate anything else in life, and it seems to me like a lot of rich people are really arrogant.”

“Am I arrogant?” he asked directly.

He’d never asked out that blonde on the trading floor because he hadn’t wanted her finding out that he wasn’t really a Jensen and then dumping him for it. Not that he thought she was that kind of person, he just hadn’t wanted to take the chance. So he understood exactly where Karen was coming from.

Of course, now he knew he was a Jensen—halfway, at least. But he was still sensitive about that other half being an outsider.

“No,” she said quietly. “But I haven’t known you for very long.”

“I’m not like that.”

“We’ll see, I guess.”

“You just said Troy was a modest guy,” Jack pointed out.

“I said he seemed to be. I didn’t know him that well.”

“Look, I didn’t tell you about my father to impress you,” Jack said. “I told you about him to warn you.”

Her eyes raced to his. “Why?”

He could tell he’d gotten a hundred percent of her attention in that instant. “I think Bill’s involved with Red Cell Seven too.”

Her mouth fell slowly open. “Really?”

Jack nodded down at her purse. “Take a look at that picture of Charlie you showed me last night.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, will you?”

She pulled it from her purse and held it up. “So?”

“Look at the way Charlie’s holding his hands with his thumbs tucked into his belt.”

“So?”

“Count the number of fingers he has pointing at the ground.” He could hear her whispering to herself as she counted. “Seven, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, nodding at him excitedly as she turned to face him. “Seven. My God.”

He could see the recognition in her eyes. She understood exactly what he was saying, what seven fingers pointing at the ground meant. “I’ve seen pictures of Troy standing exactly the same way,” Jack explained. “Like the one my mother used for his memorial service.” He hesitated for a moment as he replayed the sound of himself saying “my mother.” He’d said it so many times over the years, but it meant so much more now. “He was standing in front of the
Arctic Fire
right before she sailed a few weeks ago, and in it he was standing just like Charlie’s standing in this one.”

“So you think that’s how you can tell someone’s a Falcon.” She glanced back down at Charlie’s image. “But why would they risk people finding out?”

“Secret groups always do things like that. I could show you plenty of examples in history of hush-hush groups giving clues to what’s really going on. The cold, hard truth is that almost no one in the world can really keep a secret.”

Karen nodded. “Isn’t that the damn truth?”

“Here’s the really interesting thing,” Jack continued. “While I was in my father’s office the other day down on Wall Street waiting for him, I was looking at a couple of pictures on his credenza. In one of them he was standing next to a guy and he had his thumbs hooked into his belt the same way with seven fingers pointing down.” He didn’t tell her that the guy beside Bill in the photo was the governor of New York because he didn’t want her jumping to any conclusions about the governor.

Karen’s eyes opened wide. “You think Bill Jensen is a Falcon?” A puzzled expression clouded her face. “But Falcons are all young and athletic because they go crazy places and do crazy things. At
least, that’s what Charlie told me. And they try to be as anonymous as they can be.” She shook her head. “Your dad’s the chief executive of one of the biggest banks in this country. He’s not a rock star or a star athlete, but he’s still pretty well known. It would be hard for him to move around without being identified. Not to mention the fact that he’s got to be in his sixties, right?”

“When I told him I was going to Alaska, he freaked out, and he never freaks out. He told me to stay away from there in no uncertain terms. He basically told me he’d do anything to keep me away from there. I’ve never seen him react like that before in my life. It was weird.”

Karen’s eyes opened even wider. “You think your father sent those men to kill us last night?” she asked incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Karen didn’t understand the dynamic. She couldn’t; she’d never even met him. Bill was a fanatic when it came to the United States. He would literally do anything to protect it. Maybe even not pursue what had really happened to Troy because pursuing the truth about Troy might compromise some bigger picture he was unfailingly loyal to—as incredibly coldhearted as that sounded for a father.

And maybe Bill had always hated having someone living in his house who was someone else’s son. Maybe Cheryl’s out-of-wedlock kid had always been a terrible right-in-the-face reminder to Bill all these years that Cheryl had been intimate with another man. And having those guys shoot him last night would have been an excellent way to erase that awful reminder without Cheryl knowing who was behind the killing. It sounded so cold, but Bill could be a cold man.

“A week after he’d lost his younger son?” she asked.

“Yeah, I know how it sounds,” Jack said dismissively, trying to act like what he’d implied was probably stupid, even though he didn’t really think it was. He just didn’t want to dwell on it right
now. “I’m just trying to come up with some kind of explanation for what happened. Hey, you asked.” He watched her slide the picture of Charlie back in her wallet. “So, why do you still carry a gun, Karen?”

“It’s my old revolver from the force. I never handed it in, and they never asked for it back.”

“But why do you still carry it on you? I mean, you’re a waitress.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Hey, that little bite of crab cake I got was awesome, and the place has a great reputation. But I’m sure you still get some complaints.” He chuckled. “Do you really need to pull a gun when customers bitch?”

“Very funny.”

“It certainly brings new meaning to the term ‘dealing with customer complaints.’”

“Whatever. Look, like I told you, awhile ago I got a visit from a couple of guys who wouldn’t tell me who they were or what they did. They asked me some really weird questions about Charlie.”

“Like what?”

She hesitated. “Like if he’d tried to contact me recently.”

“But he was…” Jack’s voice trailed off. There it was again—Charlie’s death.

“I told them he was dead, but they kept asking me. Finally, they left. A week later they showed up again at my door asking the same questions. But they were a lot more aggressive about it that time. After that, I started carrying my gun wherever I went.”

“So then maybe that’s why those guys showed up last—”

Karen sobbed out of nowhere, and it caught Jack by surprise. Tears were suddenly streaming down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?”

She tried to wipe the tears away, but they kept coming. “I was just thinking about Mick getting killed. He was just trying to help me.”

The bullet had smashed into the back of Mick’s head and out his eye. She’d been lucky not to have been hit by it herself, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about him last night at the hotel or so far this morning.

“It’s my fault he’s dead,” she whispered.

“It is
not
your fault,” Jack said quickly and firmly. “Not at all.”

“I feel so bad for him.”

She was sobbing hard, and he reached over and took her hand. It was still early in their relationship, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stand seeing a woman cry like that. Especially one he was starting to care about so much. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Thanks.”

He started to pull his hand away, but she squeezed his fingers tightly and wouldn’t let go.

C
ARLSON HAD
answered Stein’s anxious telephone call at exactly seven o’clock this morning, as he was making sure to savor every delicious bite of the breakfast Nancy had made for him.

To reach him so directly, Carlson knew, Stein had used a cell number that had been subtly slipped to him at his first national security briefing—the one that had occurred in Langley, Virginia, a few weeks after Dorn’s landslide victory.

On the call this morning, Stein had mentioned only that he wanted to place a bet on a horse named Big Blue. In response to the strange request, Carlson had given Stein odds of Big Blue winning, placing, and showing in the seventh race at Belmont Park that afternoon. Except they were the wrong odds, they weren’t even close. A horse named Big Blue was actually running in that race, but the numbers Carlson had reeled off had a vastly different purpose than handicapping a horse race.

Immediately after giving Stein the numbers, Carlson had hung up. There was no need to say anything more, and Carlson wanted to finish his breakfast while it was warm. He hated cold food because he’d been forced to eat it that way so many times during his career thanks to inopportune phone calls like Stein’s and being stuck in remote places where hot food wasn’t even available.

While finishing the last few bites of the three-egg bacon and cheddar omelet, Carlson thought about how Stein was probably already staring intently at a laminated sheet of paper he’d also received at that same security briefing in Langley. By matching the numbers Carlson had given him on the call to specific columns and rows on the sheet of paper, Stein would be able to determine the location and time of the meeting. Carlson just prayed that Stein took his time with the calculations. He put his dishes in the sink for Nancy to wash. He didn’t want to wait around. His time was too valuable—especially now that he’d seen the doctor again.

Fortunately, Stein had calculated everything correctly and arrived in Reston seven minutes ago, which was seven minutes early. Carlson was favorably impressed—so far. The only thing marring their first-ever face-to-face meeting was that Stein worked for David Dorn. Unfortunately, nothing could make up for that.

“Thanks for seeing me so quickly, Roger,” Stein began politely after they’d shaken hands and were sitting down facing each other.

To Carlson’s almost immeasurable satisfaction, Stein was acting low-key and deferential this afternoon, almost apologetic in his tone and manner.

“No problem, Rex,” Carlson answered. They were meeting in the same room in which he’d given Maddux permission to kill that child molester. Stein had entered a house down the street and then followed one of Carlson’s associates through a maze of
underground passages to this house. “What’s on your mind?” Carlson was confident he knew what was on Stein’s mind. It was how the chief of staff presented his agenda that would be the interesting part of this meeting. “How can I help you?”

Stein adjusted his bow tie before answering. “First of all, Roger, let me tell you how impressed I am and, as a citizen of this country, how much I appreciate all you’ve done during your career to protect the United States. I’d heard rumors about it for a long time, of course. But I really had no idea what the amazing scope of your contribution to national security was until that first CIA meeting at Langley after the election.”

It sounded so scripted, but that was all right with Carlson. Stein was starting off by kissing the ring—slurping on it, really—which meant that his assumption about Stein’s agenda was exactly right. “So how can I help you?” Carlson asked a second time after nodding politely.