over again, an uncertain expression creasing his face. Matt stopped the truck long enough to give him another friendly nod, then thought better of it and leaned out the window.
“You almost done there? Steve said he was having trouble getting this one into third,” he bluffed matter-of-factly, using a name he’d noticed on the shift list.
The guy looked at him a bit perplexed, but before he could say anything, Matt added, “Clutch might need some work. I’ll be back in ten,” and gave him a short wave before pulling away.
He checked in the side mirror as he turned out of the garage. The man looked his way for a second before shrugging and getting back to what he was doing.
A moment later, Matt was turning onto the main road and guiding the lumbering orange behemoth toward the exclusive enclave that surrounded Sargent Pond.
FEELING NUMB as he sat in the book-lined study of his mansion, Larry Rydell stared into his tumbler of Scotch and fumed in silence.
Those bastards, he seethed, flinching at the thought of any harm coming to his daughter. If she so much as gets a scratch, he flared, a surge of blood flooding his temples . . . but it was pointless. He knew he couldn’t do anything about it.
He sagged in his chair and glared at his glass. He’d never felt as helpless in his life.
With his fortune and his power, he could and did take on the most aggressive hedge fund or shareholder revolt without blinking. He’d had heated debates in Senate chambers that didn’t ruffle him in the least. He’d reached a point of his life where he felt he was untouchable. But he was powerless to deal with these . . . thugs. That’s what they were, pure and simple. Thugs. Out to pervert his vision, to take his idea and twist it around and use it for . . . what, exactly?
It didn’t make sense.
Much as he ground and turned over what Drucker had said, it didn’t make sense. They were alike—all of them—when it came to what they believed in. They viewed the world the same way. They saw the risks facing the world—and those facing America—in the same light. They shared the same frustrations with some deeply entrenched aspects of the world’s, and the country’s, mind-set.
And yet they were doing this? They’d created a fake messiah? An envoy from God? One whose presence would reinforce and vindicate the mass delusion most of the world was suffering from?
It doesn’t make sense, he thought again. And yet they were doing it.
He’d seen it.
Drucker had confirmed it.
They were actually doing it.
The backstabbing bastards.
His mind latched onto Rebecca’s face, on the last time he’d seen her, shortly before her ill-fated trip to Costa Careyes. He’d wanted to join her there for the holidays—they really hadn’t spent much time together, ever, not with everything he wanted to achieve in life, and it was something he now deeply regretted. But he hadn’t been able to join her. Not with all this going on. Not with the biggest undertaking of his life in full swing. And, bless her, she hadn’t voiced her disappointment. She never did. She’d gotten used to having a mythical dad, in the good and bad sense. Which was something he’d fix, he now thought—if he ever got the chance.
He had to find her.
He had to get her out, put her out of their reach, tuck her away somewhere safe. Nothing else mattered. Even saving the planet now paled into insignificance. He had to get her out of their hands. Then—and only then—he had to try and stop this. He had to find a way to kill it off, to shut it down before it got too big.
But how? He didn’t have anyone else to call. He didn’t exactly have an “A-Team” tab in his Rolodex. For years, he’d entrusted all his security requirements—personal and professional—to that rattlesnake Maddox. The security guards “watching over him” right now, at his house. His driver-slash-bodyguard. The vetting of his pilot, of the staff on his yacht. The corporate security at his companies. E-mail, phones. Everything was covered by one firm. Maddox’s. On Drucker’s recommendation. “Keep it all under one roof ” had been his advice. “Use someone you can trust. One of us,” he’d said.
Clearly, Maddox was one of “us.” Rydell himself, he’d now found out, wasn’t.
He felt like a fool.
They had him covered.
He’d been played. From the beginning.
He stared angrily at the heavy tumbler, then flung it