Jack turned and pointed toward the door. Karen was standing there, leaning on her cane.
She waved at Bill. "Hi," she called as Jack moved to where she was standing and took her in his arms.
He"d never tell her about the struggle with Troy in that hospital room. How he"d wrestled the vial away from his brother before the nurses could get into the room. How he"d sprinted from the hospital before Troy could have him stopped. How it had made things bad between Troy and him, so bad that they were speaking again but not a lot. Karen didn"t need to know about all that. She was alive, thanks to the antidote, and that was all that mattered to Jack.
"I love you," he whispered in her ear as he held her.
"I love you, too, Jack. I always will."
CHAPTER 42.
JACK AND Skylar sat side by side on the narrow ledge overlooking the Shelikof Strait. It was the same ledge Skylar had been sitting on when she"d gotten the phone call from her superior officer ordering her to Washington.
"It"s beautiful," Jack said as he pulled the collar of the fur-lined parka up around his neck. Northern lights gleamed across the star-laden sky above as tall waves crashed on the boulders below. "Cold but beautiful." He leaned forward and glanced down hesitantly, glad he was secured to the cliff by a thick rope that was lashed to a metal spike Skylar had driven into the rock face after they"d climbed down here. "Thanks for bringing me."
"I wanted you to see it," she murmured, reaching into her coat pocket. "This is my favorite place in the world."
"I can understand why." He took a deep breath of the crystal-clear air. "Thanks for making dinner, too. It was excellent."
After leaving town this morning, they"d canoed and hiked around and across Kodiak Island to the grove of trees where Skylar had carved her initials long ago. She"d caught several rainbow trout in the creek at the bottom of the ravine with her bare hands and cooked them over an open fire, along with fresh vegetables and potatoes. She"d even brought along a good bottle of wine in her backpack.
After dinner and despite the wine, they"d rappelled down here to watch the aurora borealis. So they wouldn"t be bothered by bears, she"d told him.
Jack glanced up at the yellow and green lights shimmering among more stars than he"d ever seen in one sky. He hoped she was kidding about the bears. But he suspected she wasn"t.
Skylar lighted the joint she"d pulled from her pocket, took a hit, and held it out for him. "Here."
He chuckled self-consciously. Commander McCoy was always full of surprises. "No thanks."
She rolled her eyes and took another hit. "It"s one of the ways I deal with who I am and what I"ve done," she said, after exhaling a plume of pungent smoke straight at him with a laugh.
"What do you mean?"
"I kill people for a living, Jack. I"ve accepted the fact that I"m a little mentally warped, because I seem to handle the job pretty well." She shrugged. "Still, sometimes it gets to me."
"You protect this country."
"That"s what they tell me."
"That"s what you know, Sky."
She glanced over at him. "Hey, you know, that"s the first time you"ve ever called me Sky. I like it."
He nodded but said nothing.
"I"m glad Dorn"s dead," Skylar confided. "I"m glad the Ebola virus killed him. I hated him for lying to me, for making me think my father was still alive so I"d go after you guys."
"How did my father convince you Dorn was lying?" Jack had wanted to ask her that for a while. "What did he say that night at the cabin?"
"It wasn"t what he said. It was what he showed me."
"Which was?"
"Your father showed me a video of my father"s ship on the bottom of the Bering Sea." She hesitated. "His body was still in the wheelhouse. There was a close-up of his face so the bra.s.s would recognize him. He was suffering when he died. I guess drowning isn"t all it"s cracked up to be."
Jack grimaced. "Why did they need to make sure he was-"
"My father ran missions for the ONI. He picked up and dropped off our people from and to U.S. subs out in the Bering Sea. They had to make certain there wasn"t anything cla.s.sified onboard, so they sent divers down." She held the joint out for him. "You sure?"
Jack shook his head. "No."
"Okay, okay."
"You know, I thought I was dead that night at the cabin," he admitted. "You saved my life."
"Well then, we"re even," she said. "You covered me in Harpers Ferry. I covered you at that cabin. It worked out pretty well."
"Yeah, I guess it did."
Skylar let her head fall slowly back against the cliff. "What are you doing here, Jack?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you come to Kodiak Island?"
"Because you asked me to."
She shook her head. "You had another agenda."
He grinned. How could she know? "Okay, maybe you"re right. Look, I want to know if-"
"If I"ll join Red Cell Seven," she interrupted.
So along with all her other talents, she was a mind reader, too. "Well, will you?"
"Are you going to stay involved?"
Espinosa had given Jack both original Orders after the incident at his house with Baxter, and within twelve hours Jack had hidden them well. Only two other people knew where they were.
And despite his issues with the cell, Jack had taken time away from bond trading to help the unit reorganize and to dive deep below anyone"s radar again. It had helped that President Dorn had died and that Baxter was in jail awaiting prosecution for a long list of serious crimes.
"If Maddux was ultimately going after you guys," Skylar asked when Jack didn"t answer, "why didn"t he just kill your father at the cabin while they were there together?"
"He was trying to suck up as much knowledge about the cell"s money situation as he could. And Maddux knew my father would have told people who to come after if something happened to him."
"Your father is a smart man."
"You have no idea."
"Is that how Baxter knew to call Judge Espinosa? Is that how he knew to warn Espinosa about Operation Anarchy?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did Maddux really whisper something to Baxter about the plot? That"s what it said in his notebook."
Jack nodded. "He contacted Baxter so later he could connect him to Operation Anarchy, so it would look like Baxter knew about it. How else could Baxter have warned Espinosa to stay at home if he didn"t have knowledge?"
"How did he know Baxter would call Espinosa?"
"He and my father figured out that Dorn and Baxter had manipulated Espinosa to the top of the Supreme Court. My father found that wire transfer going from Baxter"s account to the brother of the guy that killed Chief Justice Bolger. Maddux knew that Baxter and Dorn had a great deal invested in Henry Espinosa."
"Which got Baxter indicted," Skylar said, "along with the record of the wire transfer."
"They manipulated Espinosa to the chief justice position so they could wipe out RC7. And they killed that poor woman Espinosa was having an affair with so Espinosa would be their puppet, so Baxter could force him to sign that directive ending RC7"s existence when he presented the forgery of the Order."
"But it wouldn"t have mattered. The forgery didn"t have the 3-D piece."
"If we hadn"t shown up when we did, Sky, Espinosa would have signed that directive. I"m sure of it. He got courage because you were there. He saw that you meant what you said. He saw fear in Baxter"s eyes. I certainly did."
They were quiet for a long time as they watched the northern lights.
"You okay?" Skylar finally asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"I know you miss Troy. I know how close you two were."
Jack exhaled heavily, shook his head, and put his hands to his face. "Yeah, we were." Troy had died from an infection brought on by the wound and the subsequent surgeries. The call that morning from the hospital had been an absolute shocker. "I still can"t believe he"s gone."
She patted him on the back. "You need closure, Jack, and I know exactly how I"m going to get it for you."
CHAPTER 43.
DANIEL GADANZ slumped down in the big chair, silver flask full of scotch in one hand, lighted Cuban cigar in the other. He"d gotten David Dorn, he"d killed the president of the United States, and put Troy Jensen through h.e.l.l in the process. He"d even gotten the added bonus of Troy dying. Gadanz had gotten his revenge, but he still wasn"t satisfied.
And this d.a.m.n thing in his head was going off constantly now.
He guzzled half the flask and then took a long drag on the cigar. At any moment that skull-splitting pain would explode again, and he was beginning to suspect that none of his two hundred billion dollars could do a d.a.m.n thing about it.
Last night he"d c.o.c.ked a pistol and put the barrel to his head. But in those moments with the cold steel pressed to his skull, he"d come to understand how much of a coward he was. Even drunk, he couldn"t pull the trigger.
Gadanz glanced up when the curtains that were drawn across the room"s lone doorway rustled.
A moment later a hooded figure slipped into the room. He a.s.sumed he was dreaming as the figure climbed the stairs up to his throne. How could this person have gotten past his security detail?
The figure stopped a few feet in front of him and pulled back the hood. He was surprised to see that she was a pretty young woman with dark hair, which was pulled off her shoulders to the back of her head.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"The Angel of Death," she answered.
He stared at her for several seconds, and then dropped the flask and the cigar, lifted himself from the chair, and knelt before her. "Thank G.o.d you"re here."
"Who ran Operation Anarchy for you?"
"What?" he asked, glancing up at her.
"Who executed Operation Anarchy? Who brought all those a.s.sa.s.sins together?"
What did it matter if he gave away the ident.i.ty of that man now? If he didn"t answer, perhaps she would go away without granting him his ultimate wish, something, it turned out, he was unable to do for himself.
"Liam Sterling," he answered.
WHEN GADANZ was dead, Skylar slipped his severed head into the bag she"d brought with her. Now she was going after Sterling.
When Sterling was dead, Jack would have closure. She"d promised that for him, and she kept her promises.
EPILOGUE.
"YOU OKAY?" Karen asked.
"Yeah, sure." A light snow had begun falling on the small graveyard. It was just starting to cover the tops of the seven tombstones. Jack stood before the gravestone on the far right. "I need a few minutes alone with him, okay?"
"Of course." Karen leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Take as much time as you need." She took a step and then turned back. "Never forget how much I love you."
"Never," Jack answered firmly.
He watched her walk away into the woods. She still needed a cane, but not nearly as much anymore. Her speech was getting better, too. And that smile was almost perfect again.
She was going to give him a son in four months. Why was he so d.a.m.n lucky?
He turned away so she wouldn"t see his emotion if she looked back. He still felt the need to be her strength even though, ultimately, she was probably stronger than him.