While Margo was boarding a private jet to Washington, DC, Jack was landing at Shaw Air Force Base near Sumter, South Carolina, in an F-16CJ. The pilot, a member of the 20th Fighter Wing, owed him a favour, and was looking forward to his company on the trip.
Jack, however, said barely a word during the hour and a half flight. He was on his phone, negotiating with the men who held Marcus. For his safe return, Jack had agreed to transfer money from the offshore accounts he had found on Whit’s iPad into the account the kidnappers specified. He had already made the first payment.
When the ship Marcus was being held on docked at the Port of Charleston, and Jack personally saw Marcus on deck, the second payment would be sent. Once Marcus was safe and in Jack’s hands, the final payment would be transferred.
It could work like a charm if the men holding Marcus could be trusted.
Jack knew they could not.
Whit’s study was torn apart. Books were on the floor, desk drawers emptied out, the curtains were torn from the window. The television lay on the floor, its screen cracked. But the iPad containing all his information, his sacred ‘back door’ in case of trouble, was nowhere to be found.
This man who never showed emotion even in a crisis was in a full-blown rage. It was an anger fuelled by fear and bourbon. He had long since dispensed with the Tiffany glass which now lay shattered in a corner. He was drinking the Pappy’s straight from the half-empty bottle.
Jack McCarthy. It had to be Jack. No one but he and Marcus knew this house well enough to get in and out without a trace. And Marcus was dead.
If Jack got into those bank accounts, and Whit had no doubt he could do it in less than five minutes, it wouldn’t take him long to figure out where the money had come from. Whit had to get to him, stop him from blowing the whistle. He would explain, tell him what a paltry pension would be coming his way. After all he had sacrificed for the agency, Whit would retire as just another civil servant, living barely above the poverty line.
He would offer him anything. Half the money.
But even as these thoughts came to him, Whit knew it was a lost cause. Jack McCarthy was incorruptible. He would never stop until Whit was personally and publicly humiliated and locked in the special place the CIA kept for traitors.
Whit pitched the precious bottle of bourbon against the wall. It was over. Everything he had built, planned for. There was simply no leverage to be had over someone like Jack.
Jack sat on a bench outside the US post office on Bay Street within walking distance of the Port of Charleston. People decked out in their Christmas finery were walking to church or heading to celebrate the holiday with friends and family.
Jack took out the letter he had prepared so many weeks ago in Joliet and placed it inside a prepaid express mail pouch. It was the envelope that read TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. He’d called in one last favour with an old contact from Chicago he knew he could trust to retrieve it and send it to him with no questions asked. He addressed the mailer to Margo and added the key to the storage locker.
His letter would explain where Margo’s assets could be found. It would also let her know that he would love her always, in this life and the next.
He knew the chances of him and Marcus surviving the next hour were slim to none. But if it came to that at least he would know that by cutting all ties with Margo he’d kept her safe.
Jack had already transferred three million dollars into the account of Marcus’ wife. If things went south, she wouldn’t have money worries.
And while Whit knew of Margo and had sent a crew to erase Jack from her life, he would not be bothering anyone any time soon. The letter Jack had couriered to the Director of the Agency, containing the evidence of Whit’s treachery, would be in his hands before long, and Whit would be undergoing questioning by some very angry co-workers in the CIA before lunchtime tomorrow.
Jack deposited his mail into the express slot in the lobby of the post office and set off for the port. Maybe they’d get lucky and he would have Christmas dinner with his best friend Marcus.
Whit was looking behind the table that had held his iPad once again, as though the device might miraculously reappear. The ringing of the doorbell startled him. He looked at the clock. It was ten in the morning. Who the hell could be at his door on Christmas morning? Probably some pack of carollers, hoping for a handout. He wasn’t answering. Maybe they’d go away.
But it wasn’t carollers. And Margo wasn’t going away. She had seen the lights. She had heard noises coming from the house. She started banging on the door.
‘Mr Whitbred! Hello, Mr Whitbred! Please open the door! It’s Margo McCarthy, Jack’s wife. I need to talk to you!’
Upstairs in his wrecked study, Whit could hardly believe his own ears. When she called again, a small smile began to form on his face. Maybe there were Christmas miracles after all.
Leverage over Jack McCarthy might be right outside his front door.