Cross Roads Read online

“Word for word. The words are seared into my brain. Why the hell would anyone want to hijack Bert and Jack? That whole damn episode with Global was nothing more than…I don’t know what it was, but it sure as hell wasn’t legitimate. So we quit, so what? So Jack and Bert quit. So what? People take jobs and quit all the time. Why them?”

  “Do any of you care to hear my opinion?” Yoko asked quietly.

  “Well, good God, yes, Yoko,” Alexis said. “I think I know what you’re going to say before you say it, but go ahead.”

  “They didn’t hijack Bert and Jack. Well, they did, but they were really hijacking Nikki and Kathryn. There, I said it. Go ahead and laugh at me if you want to.”

  “You don’t see any of us laughing, do you, Yoko? That’s exactly what I was going to say, which just goes to prove my point. When Jellicoe offered up all those fabulous jobs to the boys, then split them all up, it was to get rid of the vigilantes. I don’t know the why of it, but I think all of us pretty much think the same thing.”

  “Then we have to figure out the why of it,” Maggie said. “If you give me a few minutes to call the paper and make some arrangements, we can all head out to Myra’s. I think this is one of those times when we all need to be present when we discuss it. Besides, I want to observe Charles when we break the news. Everyone in agreement?” They all raised their hands.

  “Why do I feel like I’m in the seventh grade again?” Ted grumbled.

  “Because you’re stupid, that’s why,” Harry said. Ted didn’t bother to stand up for himself. He was just glad Harry was back to being the old Harry.

  Maggie finished making her calls and looked around. “Transportation?”

  “You and Ted go with me and Alexis. Harry and Yoko on the Ducati. Problem solved,” Espinosa said.

  Mother-hen Maggie said, “Anyone have to go to the bathroom? It’s a fifty-minute ride out to the farm.” Five pairs of disgusted eyes clearly stated that bathroom necessities were not paramount and urged Maggie to hurry along, which she did.

  Harry locked up, picked up his and Yoko’s helmets, and they were on the way.

  Seventy miles away as the crow flies, Annie was carrying a bag of trash out to the huge can near the electronic gate. She heard the roar of Harry’s Ducati before she saw him blaze down the driveway. Directly behind him, she saw a flashy red car hot on his trail. Company. She did love company.

  Yoko slid off the rear end of the cycle and ran to Annie. She was breathless when she said, “Nikki, Kathryn, Bert, and Jack have been hijacked! In a plane! At thirty thousand feet! Jack got a call off to Harry. That’s why we’re all here. We have to do something!”

  Annie’s eyes sparked. A hostage situation! God in heaven! Her adrenaline kicked in as she gathered her little group and shooed them all indoors.

  Isabelle leaped up from the table and ran to the group to hug and kiss everyone. While they all billed and cooed, Annie shared Yoko’s news with Myra and Charles.

  “That can’t be!” Myra wailed. “Why would someone hijack our people?”

  “You need to get with the program, Myra. Whatever this is all about, I am certain that it has something to do with that Jellicoe person who did his best to make all our lives so miserable for the past year and a half.” Her tone turned sour when she said, “And remember, he obviously thought that you and I were no threat to him and whatever he was doing. You do remember that, don’t you, Myra dear?”

  “What do you think, Charles?” Annie asked as she looked at Charles, her gaze filled with shooting daggers.

  Charles held Annie’s gaze, but he didn’t fail to notice how the others moved back a step. “To be honest, Annie, I don’t know what to think. I’d like to get on this immediately if you are all in agreement. If not, say so. Has it occurred to any of you that we should be calling the authorities?”

  “Well, yeah, Charles,” Maggie drawled. “My question to you is, has it occurred to you that Jack called Harry? I have to assume if Jack got a call off, Bert could just as easily have called the FBI. Or you. Jack called Harry for a reason. That’s why we’re all here. I think I speak for the others when I say we’d like you to find out all you can about Hank Jellicoe, where he is, how that plane came to be at the right place at just the right moment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Then I will get right on it.”

  “Whose side are you on, Charles? Hank Jellicoe’s or the vigilantes?” Isabelle suddenly demanded.

  “I’m going to ignore that question and believe that you are tired and cranky due to your long trip. I would also like to say if you have to ask me that question, one of us doesn’t belong here.”

  “I just wanted to be sure. There’s something I haven’t told all of you,” Isabelle said as she massaged her temples, trying to ward off the headache she knew would surface in just moments.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” Myra said, reaching out to Isabelle. “Tell us so we can help you. You’re so pale. Annie, get some brandy.”

  “The headaches, the visions, are back. Remember how they started after I had that horrible accident and how I had them when we all first met? They started back up several days ago. They scared me. That was why I packed up and left as soon as Stu went off to do whatever it is he does. I knew something was going to happen. I saw Nikki and Jack on the plane. I saw other things, too. Oh, God, I’m getting another one!”

  The others watched, their startled faces full of questions as Isabelle pressed at her temples, moaning softly as she slumped in the kitchen chair.

  Chapter 12

  Charles Martin skirted the dining room and made his way to the formal living room and the one-of-a-kind ageless bookshelves that a master craftsman had built long before Charles was even a twinkle in his mother’s eye. He stood still for a few seconds to admire the carved roses that ran down the side of the cases. He counted down and pressed the center of the correct rose. He waited patiently for the humongous shelf to silently glide inward. He still marveled, even to this day, that the authorities had never found the catacombs and his and the vigilantes’ war room, from which they had conducted business for so long.

  Charles descended the long flight of stone steps, whose risers were covered with moss. In the beginning, they had made concerted efforts to get rid of the moss, all to no avail. Myra finally said to leave it; it belonged to this place and the long-ago time when her ancestors had participated in the Underground Railroad.

  Eons ago, his and Myra’s daughter Barbara and Nikki Quinn, their adopted daughter, had played down here. He and Myra had strung bells every few feet to make sure the girls never got lost. Somehow or other, they never did. He smiled at the memory. He touched one of the clusters now and was rewarded with a sound so pure, so melodious, it was hard to fathom how that could still be after all these years. Another one of those little mysteries in life that would probably go unanswered until the end of time.

  Charles opened the door to the huge climate-controlled room and switched on every light. There were so many memories here. He swallowed hard as he looked at the round oak table and the chairs so neatly placed. He blinked as he recalled the seating arrangement. Julia was gone now, their only casualty. He closed his eyes and offered up a prayer for the repose of her soul. He knew for a fact that the girls did the same thing whenever they entered the room. He knew this because Myra had told him.

  What had started out as a small group—the Sisterhood or the vigilantes, depending on who was describing them—had been small. Now their numbers, out of necessity, had increased, all to the better, in their fight to right injustice and save those they could. They’d operated in this fortress for longer than he cared to remember. There were good days, bad days, good times, and some not so good times, but the Sisterhood had prevailed.

  Charles pulled out Myra’s chair and sat down. His legs were wobbly, his eyes burning. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. The girls were expecting him to perform a miracle. He knew his limitations, and t
he problem now facing him and the Sisters was so far above his pay grade that he wanted to bellow to the gods to help him. After all, he was just a mortal. Yes, he was skilled in covert espionage, yes, he had people at his disposal, and yes, he had unlimited financial reserves to draw on, but what he didn’t have was the ability to stop a midair hijacking.

  Charles’s thoughts were scattered, but he always came back to the same spot, which was that the hijacking was a hoax. Why had Jack Emery called Harry Wong instead of him? In his dark thoughts, it didn’t compute. Unless…Harry was number one on Jack’s speed dial. Or he’d misdialed. Then again, maybe it was a clue of some sort, and he wasn’t getting it. Obviously, Harry hadn’t gotten it, either.

  Who would want to hijack Bert, Jack, Nikki, and Kathryn? Who? And why would they be hijacked in the first place? Who and why? Well, he was never going to figure it out if he kept sitting here with his dark thoughts. When he felt certain that his legs would hold him upright, Charles got to his feet, settled Myra’s chair back in place, then climbed the three steps that would take him to the wall covered with computers. He flipped a switch, and bells and whistles sounded. It was comforting. This he understood. This he could deal with. Because it was his world, a world he understood. He closed his eyes, shifted mental gears, and went to work, his fingers tapping coded messages at what seemed like the speed of light.

  Almost instantly, encrypted messages were returned. There were more bells and whistles, more buzzing and papers flying out of the fax machine. When his sat phone chirped, Charles reached for it like a lifeline. “Snowden here, Sir Malcolm.”

  “Let’s dispense with the formalities, Avery. I’m Charles Martin. Sir Malcolm belongs to that long-ago world we all left behind us. Now, tell me your thoughts.”

  “It’s only been minutes, Charles. I have the lads on it. I’m going to need at least an hour before I can report anything concrete or nebulous, as the case may be. The only thing I can tell you with any certainty is that the plane does belong to HLJ Enterprises and it is headed to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. I have the best air-trackers in the world on it. They still have two hours of flight time to go. That’s not to say they can’t change course and land somewhere else, pleading mechanical problems. It takes time, Charles. The lads won’t let us down, you know that.”

  “It’s not making any sense, Avery.”

  “Of course it makes sense, Charles, you just don’t want to accept the fact that your old buddy could suddenly be on the wrong end of things. That whole retirement thing and Jellicoe turning his global business over to people he barely knew never made sense to either one of us. I don’t want to hear that old ditty that money is the most powerful motivator in the world, either. Hank Jellicoe isn’t interested in money. He probably has almost as much money as Anna de Silva. No, I think it’s safe to say it is something else entirely.”

  “Hank went dark over a year and a half ago,” Charles said, using a covert term to indicate that Hank Jellicoe had disappeared. “When you go off the grid like that, it has to be something BIG. Especially for someone like Jellicoe.”

  Snowden’s voice turned testy when he said, “Well, Charles, nothing earth-shattering has happened in the last year and a half, so what you’re saying isn’t quite holding up in my eyes. If Jellicoe suddenly became an active player and went to ground, why hasn’t there been any chatter that we’ve picked up on? I grant you the guy is good, but he isn’t that good. We have people placed all over; someone would have kicked something to us by now. Have you given any thought to maybe this is all personal on his part? Maybe the man is sick. Have you given that a thought?”

  “I know the man. In my opinion, it’s not personal. He’s not sick, either. Actually, he’s probably in better health than both of us put together. He did admit to high cholesterol that’s under control, along with fifty percent of the world’s population, but that’s it. He also told me he bought a million shares of Pfizer when Lipitor first came out, and he still owns every single share. Hank is all about God, country, and the American way. He’d give up his life if he thought it would help the country.”

  “Okayyy,” Snowden drawled. “How do you explain his very public engagement to the president of the United States on the night she handed out the pardons to your ladies? He gets engaged to the most visible, important person in the world, gives her a diamond ring big enough to be a headlight, then he goes off the grid? Not another word. Is he still engaged? Is he in contact with his fiancée? No one knows. Maybe the guy finally cracked. It happens, Charles. We’ve both seen it.”

  “I can’t explain it, but I have someone on it. What about the passenger list—how soon before you can get the names of the people on board?”

  “Momentarily. A fiver will get you a ten spot that they’re all John Smiths or Bill Joneses or something similar.”

  “That’s a sucker bet. No, thanks.” There was no point in saying it, but he said it anyway. “Get back to me the minute you know something.”

  Charles looked across the room at the bank of clocks that gave the time all over the world. He tapped a few times on the computer and saw that the Gulfstream owned by HLJ Enterprises still had an hour and forty minutes of airtime until it landed at Dulles. If it landed there.

  Charles let his mind wander as he contemplated how Jack and Bert would handle a hijacking. He knew Nikki and Kathryn were more than capable of taking on their hijackers given the chance. If he was a betting man, he’d put his money on the girls, but then Bert and Jack had gone to what Hank called his boot camp, where such things were taught around the clock, and either you washed out or you passed the course with flying colors, because Hank Jellicoe would accept nothing less. Which brought still another thought to mind. He tapped quickly and asked the question, Where do private Gulfstream owners get their hostesses? Are they private employees, or do they hire them from a central booking agency? He had his two-word answer within minutes: private employees. That had to mean they were on Jellicoe’s payroll. A package deal of some kind. Men and women who were on call whenever the Gulfstream took to the air. They were probably well compensated to sit idly by waiting for the owner to decide that the plane needed to fly somewhere.

  Now who would have a list of Jellicoe’s employees? In a heartbeat, he had Ted Robinson on the line. “Do you have Jellicoe’s roster of employees, Ted?”

  “I do. Why do you ask?” Ted’s voice sharpened as he waited for Charles’s response.

  “Under Global Securities, did you happen to come across the names of the airline hostesses he uses? Also the pilots. How many Gulfstreams does the mother company own? Can you get back to me as soon as possible on this?”

  “How about right now? There are ten hostesses on the payroll. He has ten pilots and ten copilots. They have five Gulfstreams, three Blackhawk helicopters, and four regulation whirlybirds. They rotate on a weekly basis. I did a whole section on that for the news magazine Jellicoe wanted done. Twenty-four pages of glossy, good-looking men and women all duded up in spiffy uniforms. There was even a section devoted to the five-star gourmet meals served to clients.”

  “I need names, Ted.”

  “‘Thank you, Ted,’” Ted sniped. “They’re on the way to you. Look at your computer. Anything else you want to pick my brain about?”

  “Sorry, Ted,” Charles said contritely. “It’s just that—”

  “I know, I know. Good luck. Hey, I have the addresses and phone numbers of all those guys if you want them. I can download them, and you’ll have them in minutes,” Ted volunteered.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Ted said.

  Ted was as good as his word. Like magic, the names, addresses, and cell phone numbers appeared on Charles’s computer screen. In the blink of an eye, they were on their way to Avery Snowden. Like any of Jellicoe’s employees would willingly give up information on their savior. Still, Avery Snowden and his people had a way with reluctant people who clammed up.

  C
harles spent the next forty minutes perusing the incoming faxes and printed e-mails, his gaze going to the bank of clocks every few seconds. He was hyperaware of the fact Avery Snowden had not returned his call.

  The thick bundle of papers in hand, Charles headed for the exit into the catacombs just as his sat phone rang. He listened carefully to what Snowden was telling him.

  “Aside from your four people, there are six passengers aboard the Gulfstream, not five. The sixth passenger has no name. Pierre Laroux, Ambrose Fallon, Mitchell Blakely, Fergus Duffy, and Ari Gold.”

  Charles sucked in his breath and let it out with a loud swoosh. He had to struggle to make his tongue work. “The Sûreté, MI5, Interpol, Scotland Yard, and Mossad. It’s not a hijacking, Avery, it’s an intervention. They don’t want Jack and Bert, they want Nikki and Kathryn. That plane will land on time at Dulles, those men will disappear, and I’ll wager that our sixth man is Henry Lawrence Jellicoe himself. I want…”

  “I have people on the way. You want to know where the five go, how they get spirited out, then you want your people taken to the farm. How am I doing so far, Charles?”

  “Splendidly.”

  “Guess that’s why you pay me the big bucks, eh?”

  When Charles closed his sat phone, he was back to being wobbly in the legs, and he was definitely having trouble breathing. He sat down on the stone steps as relief flooded through his body. So much to think about. Now that he knew the who, all he had to do was figure out the why of it all. He reached out and gave the string of bells at the foot of the stone steps a gentle tap. He closed his eyes at the clear purity of the sound before he got up and made his way to the main part of the old farmhouse. At least now he wouldn’t be reporting dire things to the people waiting to hear what he’d come up with.

  Chapter 13

  “Who were you calling, Mr. Emery?” a squat fire hydrant of a balding man asked cheerfully. “Never mind, I can figure it out myself.”