Storm Front

But he did. Of course he did. Clara Strike had been performing blanket, round-the-clock surveillance on Cracker for two months. She would have told Jones what she saw and heard. Maybe Strike hadn’t put together the bigger picture of what was going on — she wouldn’t have had the context to know the significance of much of it — but Jones had all the information about what was happening.

And he didn’t care. Sure, he wanted to know more about what Cracker was up to. That’s why he hired Storm in the first place. Maybe he wanted to use it as leverage against Cracker. Maybe he wanted to have dirt on Donny Whitmer, the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee chairman. Maybe he had some other agenda that Storm couldn’t even fathom yet, because there were other pieces at play.

But punishing the guilty? Righting the wrong? The morality of it all? That was never Jones’s concern. Not then. Not ever — unless it served some other purpose of his. That people were killed, lives were ruined, and hearts were broken? That was all collateral damage to Jones, an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of a larger war.

“So you’re saying Whitely Cracker will not face any criminal charges for ordering the deaths of six men and the slaughter of their families,” Storm said.

“I’m not saying that,” Jones said. “I’m saying we’re going to deal with him my way. Not yours.”

“Do you have him in custody?”

“No.” Jones still fumed. “He’s in the wind. But right now that is the least of your worries. The only thing that matters right now is that you have been compromised and therefore this is over for you. Drop it. Now.”

“Fine,” Storm said, calmly. “There’s a little dive shop in the Caymans that I’ve been hoping to visit.”

“Storm,” Jones said, ominously. “I’m serious. You are off this case. You are finished. I’m not protecting you anymore. I’m not covering for you. You get yourself in trouble, you’re completely on your own, you understand? As of this moment, you are a private citizen acting on his own. I’ll pay you for your work through nine A.M. this morning and reimburse you for your expenses. But that’s it. You’re done. Do you hear me? Storm? Storm, answer me.”

But Jones was talking to himself. Storm had already ended the call. He had work to do. A maniac needed to be stopped. Justice needed to be served.

Besides, he had made a promise to a dying friend that he did not plan on breaking.

CHAPTER 27

SLOATSBURG, New York

Whitely Cracker had never really been cut in his entire life. Shaving nicks, yes. Paper cuts, sure. And he had once gouged himself with a cheese knife while cutting some particularly stubborn Manchego.

But a full-on laceration? One that was deep and painful and real? One that required stitches? It had never happened.

Now he had a face full of them. The bullet from Volkov’s gun had shattered the window they were sitting in front of. Then the force of the propane truck explosion had sent them hurtling into him at high velocity, like hundreds of tiny knives. He counted himself blessed that none had hit his eyes.

The only reason he had not immediately gone to the hospital to seek treatment was that he was running for his life.

The moment he was sure it was safe to come out from the table he had been hiding under, he had scrambled to the garage where he kept his car. The valet had stared at him hard, even asking him in Spanish whether he needed el doctor. But Whitely had scrambled into his Jaguar as if nothing were unusual, tipping the man double as if to say, Don’t ask any more questions, okay? He was just another hedge fund manager with a face full of blood.

Once he got into his car, he drove without thinking. He didn’t know where he was driving or why, just that the more miles he put between himself and that nutcase Gregor Volkov the better.

He couldn’t go to his office for obvious reasons: Volkov would be looking there. Home was… Oh, Jesus, home. He pulled out his phone, called his wife, told her not to panic, then basically instructed her to get herself and the kids as far away from Chappaqua as possible.

Then he drove. He went north, merging on the Deegan Expressway and following it until it became the New York State Thruway and took him into the rolling countryside that Manhattanites merged into one monolithic landscape that they referred to as “upstate.”

He made sure — very sure — he wasn’t being followed, invoking all the countermeasures he had seen in every spy flick he had ever watched: speeding up, then slowing down; pulling to the side of the road just after blind curves; taking exits, passing through gas stations, then immediately getting back on the Interstate.