And if Rawlings dared to silence the wife of a Navy SEAL, then he would soon wish that he was dead.
*
“You have a personal call on line three, sir.” The voice of Jay Rawlings secretary and lunchtime playmate purred over the intercom on Jay’s office phone in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Personal call? Working his way through proposed legislative revisions, Jay tore himself from the tome before him. His heart gave a funny flip as he considered whether the call might have anything to do with Ophelia Price’s disappearance—of course not. No one would have connected him to her abduction, and Collum would have called his cell phone, as he’d done earlier to report that only Miss Price had been abducted. She and her intern had split up, forcing their hit man to pursue just Miss Price. He would have to go back for the intern later.
“This is Jay Rawlings,” he said, shaking off his prickle of concern and answering the call.
“Jay, this is a blast from the past. Joe Montgomery here. We worked together in Iraq when I was with SEAL Team Three. You knew me as Monty, remember?”
However friendly-sounding, the baritone voice of the golden haired lieutenant who’d followed his orders in Operation Lights Out doused Jay in an icy shock. “Monty,” he stammered, finding with difficulty his usual glib tongue. “How the hell are you?”
“Well, I’ve been better, Jay. Don’t know if you heard about it, but one of the guys in our old squad was murdered just down the road from you, in Philly—John Staskiewicz. Remember him?”
“Sure, I remember John. I hadn’t heard that news. How awful. What happened?”
“Some thugs broke into his house and caught him off guard.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I’m on my way to his funeral. It’s up in your neck of the woods. Now that you know, maybe I’ll run into you there.”
“Oh, well, I’ll have to think about it. Awfully nice of you to pay your respects, though. I take it you and John have stayed in touch?” Christ, had all the SEALs collaborated against him and not just John? Was that how Ophelia Price had come to hear the rumors she’d mentioned? The phone went slippery in his sweating hand.
“No, not really,” Monty said, leaving Jay weak with relief. “But, you know, we’re a tight-knit community, which is probably why John left me this book that he’d written. I’m not sure what to do with it.”
The blood in Jay’s veins turned to ice as his greatest fears took fearsome form. That exposé that John Staskiewicz had threatened to write if Jay became the lieutenant governor must have made it farther than his computer, stolen and destroyed the night he’d been killed. Jay hadn’t taken precautions soon enough. “Oh?” he said, his voice cracking.
“It’s all about that op that went bad, Operation Lights Out,” Joe added, confirming Jay’s guess. “He described you as a cold-blooded killer, Jay. You know we SEALs take the code of silence fairly seriously, but John didn’t care much for your politics. It’s pretty clear he intended for his book to halt your ascent up the political ladder.”
Jay swallowed against his dry throat. “What are you going to do with it?” he croaked.
“Well, that depends.” Monty’s answer made his heart thud uncertainly. “As it turns out, you’ve got something I need. Maybe we can come to an agreement.”
“What have I got?” Jay swam in a cold sweat. The smooth talking SOB dared to blackmail him?
“The journalist, Ophelia Price. I’ll give you the manuscript in exchange for her safe return.”
“I’ve never heard of her.” Jay pretended bafflement, even as the walls of his office seemed to shimmer like sand in the desert. How the hell had Monty put two and two together so quickly? Obviously the four-man firing squad he’d directed in Iraq had kept in touch all these years. What’s more, they’d planned to expose him all along, involving the journalist to help them publicize their allegations.
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Monty insisted. “Unfortunately, what you didn’t know when you arranged to make her disappear, is that Ophelia Price is my sister-in-law.”
“What?” Jay clapped a hand to his damp forehead.
“And as much as I’d like to honor John’s memory by seeing his book published and your career go up in smoke, my wife would throw me out if I didn’t get her sister back safe and sound. So here’s the deal, Jay…”
With the phone clasped to his ear, Jay stared dazedly out the window praying for an acceptable ultimatum.