Hidden Threat

by Anthony Tata

  Soon they were speeding along at seventy-five miles an hour, though, and the image was lost. Perhaps she was right about what, and who, she had seen. If so, what did it mean? Probably nothing, she determined, as red mustangs were free to move about Charlotte’s highways just like any other cars.

  The thought prompted her to check her cell phone. No new messages. Interesting. Then she had an idea. “Hey, Mom, so what’s the status of the house? You got everything covered?”

  “Well, I just got the paperwork back from the agent today, so we should be all set. I’ve got an appointment Monday morning at State Farm, and then when you get home from school Monday, we’ll head out to our new home. I didn’t really think we could move this fast on either house, but the market is crazy right now, and this is the norm.”

  Amanda chewed on her fingernail, thinking. Ideas were circling through her mind like race cars around a track.

  “Monday sounds good. You’ve got your thing in the morning, and I have missed some classes, though Rugsdale said I’ve already technically graduated.”

  “It’s a deal then.”

  They trudged through the rush-hour traffic in silence, the palpable tension easing a bit. Amanda guessed the questioning would resume at some point, if not by her mother then from Nina. As they drove she went through everything that Matt had told her yesterday and that which she had covered with Harlan and Mary Ann only recently.

  Their plan was decent, she figured, but hers was better, especially now. A Cheshire grin crept out of the right side of her mouth, unnoticed by her mother. It must be true; the acorn really doesn’t drop far from the tree. Her Machiavellian scheme had hatched in her mind when she least expected something so elaborate or wicked to reveal itself.

  I-26 ticked by as they sped along I-85, approached the Spartanburg exit, and soon found their home. To her surprise, Nina’s car was not there, though she knew it would not be long before she arrived. Her grandmother would want the scoop as well, no question.

  “Thanks for picking me up, Mom.”

  She popped the trunk, grabbed her duffel bag, and maneuvered it upstairs quickly, locking her door behind her. She charged her cell phone, unpacked, and booted up her computer. She filed all of the e-mails she had forwarded herself from Dagus’s computer, conjured a password for that file and hid it in a systems folder to further conceal its location. Then she mailed the entire folder to Harlan. Lastly, she copied all of the e-mails and attachments onto the thumb drive Jake had given her and debated whether to take the next step. Staring at her computer screen, she decided that only one other person could know about her plan, and even then, she wasn’t sure. Her finger hovered over the mouse with the cursor arrow blinking above the send button.

  She heard a car pull into the driveway and continued to debate what to do. With no further thought, she did what she felt was the right thing, closed the program, and then walked to the window.

  Nina. She had been right about many things lately, and Amanda wondered about how to further refine her plan to make it all the more encapsulating. She wanted not just her freedom, but total victory. The competitive gene sparked like the pilot light of a furnace whose thermostat had reached ignition temperature. She had been ignited, no question.

  She checked her computer once more, activated the right program, and made sure all the passwords were still in effect. She checked the microphone to see that it was on. She watched the volume bar exhibit several green bars as she repeated the word “testing” several times. She adjusted the volume so that it was more sensitive and then backed away into the center of the room and tried it again. She locked her computer but left the program running beneath the screensaver.

  Once satisfied, Amanda quickly changed into a pair of stone-washed jeans and a dark blue hoodie with short sleeves and a kangaroo pocket. She slowly opened her door, peeked around the corner, and could hear her mother and grandmother in the kitchen talking in hushed voices. She needed to move now.

  She gingerly walked across the landing into her mother’s bedroom. Moving with purpose, she navigated to the far nightstand and opened the top drawer. In plain view was a Colt Peacemaker pistol. She retrieved it, checked the cylinder to ensure bullets were loaded, and stuffed it into her hoodie pocket. She turned and quickly moved back to her room. Though she didn’t hear their voices, she was relieved as she closed her door behind her and locked it.

  She stuffed the pistol into her backpack. Slinging the pack over her shoulder, she noticed the weight difference. No problem, though, she determined. Then she grabbed her cell phone and keys, and bounded cheerily down the stairs.

  “Hey, Nina!” she said with enthusiasm as she leapt down the steps.

  “Well, aren’t you enthused for having just gotten back from your father’s funeral?”

  Amanda stopped her momentum briefly, but made it clear she was leaving by resting her hand on the front doorknob. Her other hand held her backpack strap across her shoulder. “I’m just glad it’s over, you know? Well, almost. But it’s going to be peaceful around here soon, you know? Anyway, you look nice. Gotta run.”

  “You just got here.”

  “I know. I’ve missed lots of school. Going to the library to catch up.”

  “You can’t go anywhere dressed like that!”

  Amanda paused a moment, taking notice of something that was out of synch. Her grandmother was standing there wearing a charcoal pantsuit with a brilliant pearl necklace. It wasn’t her attire, though. Always skeptical and cynical, Nina now seemed more so, if that was even possible. Amanda’s warning radar began to alert with a fine buzzing in her ears.

  “Gotta run, Nina. Love you.”

  As she drove along the highway, Harlan’s warning resonated in her mind like the lone flashing stoplight of a small country town.

  Stay out of the way.

  The Database

  CHAPTER 67

  Afghanistan

  Sunday Evening

  Major General Griffin, the commander of the 101 Airborne Division, sat in his command and control UH-60 Blackhawk, staring at the barely lit screen of a map-board to his front. He was in the rear center seat with his fire support officer and operations officer huddled tightly on either side. The intelligence officer and Matt Garrett were conferring over their headsets on the rearward facing seats across from Griffin.

  “The landing zones look good so far,” Matt said. “I was on these two the other day and we can get in there.”

  “That’s in Pakistan,” Lieutenant Colonel Becky Jabonski said through the mouthpiece of her headset.

  “No shit,” Matt said. Matt was strung out and short tempered, having immediately departed from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on a C-17 after the funeral and conducted two in-flight refuelings before landing at Bagram and almost immediately transitioning to Griffin’s command and control helicopter. All the while he was thinking, The Database is Always There.

  “Team, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re inserting two battalions, about fifteen hundred troopers on the ground in the Northwest Frontier Province,” Griffin said. The interior cabin of the Blackhawk was dark as they flew from Bagram Air Base toward Jalalabad where they would refuel and then continue east into Pakistan.

  “Mr. Garrett here is the agency representative on the ground that is going to ensure we have the right intelligence, get on the ground in the right areas, and attack the correct compounds. The mission is to disrupt Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries sufficiently for them to either fight back or relocate. Either way, we’ve got them.”

  “Would have been nice to know about this sooner,” Jabonski said, her voice tight with anxiety.

  “Your CG has known and a few others. Now you know. You can either help or get out of the way,” Matt said.

  “Mr. Garrett, she works for me. I’ll deal with her,” Griffin said. “She’s on board.”

  “As we reach Jalalabad, we’ll have 20 Chinook helicopters moving one battalion north through the Kunar Valley and then they wil
l cut over the ridge into the Chitral area, releasing 600 troops with supplies. From there they’ll have multiple objectives to rapidly seize to secure the operating base. Likewise, we’ve got another 30 Blackhawks flying with seats out putting 600 troops into the Miram Shah area. These are simultaneous hits and we will stay for the duration until we kill enough bad guys,” Matt said through the headset mouthpiece.

  The operations officer, Colonel Dave Simmons said, “We’re all set, though I think we’ve telegraphed this thing a bit.”

  “That’s true, we have,” Matt said. “But there was no avoiding that. You can’t move all these helicopters and not have the enemy wonder what’s going on.”

  “What about the Pak military, Matt?” Griffin asked.

  “They don’t know. They’re going to be in a dilemma. Either they shoot at us and we crush them or they let us pass and bitch about it. I’m thinking they’re going for option two.”

  “Pretty risky,” Griffin said.

  “Well, we’ll be the biggest target, because we’re going to be circling in their airspace,” Matt said.

  “Thought we were going to stay behind the ridge in Afghanistan?”

  “Initially yes, but once the troops are on the ground, we’ve got to get over top of them and make sure they have what they need. Then we head back to J-Bad, refuel, cross over Tora Bora and head into Miram Shah.”

  “You with us the whole time?” Jabonski asked, clearly displeased.

  “I might get off in Chitral, depending on what we find out,” Matt said flatly. “Dave has the entire execution checklist.”

  “All 34 pages of it,” Simmons said.

  “Well, it’s detailed. Our guys worked it and your aviation team has been rehearsing, though they didn’t know what for. It was the only way to pull this off.”

  The command and control helicopter sliced its way through narrow, snowcapped defiles as it passed through the Lagman Province area en route to Nangahar Province. In truth, Matt knew that the entire 101 Airborne had been rehearsing these attacks back at Fort Campbell. When Matt had convinced the National Command Authority that the only way to succeed in Afghanistan was to get boots on the ground in Pakistan, then the 101 Airborne began receiving cryptic orders to deploy their units not to Fort Polk in Louisiana or Fort Irwin in California for training, but to Camp Hale, Colorado, the original home of the 10 Mountain Division. There the unit established its own forward operating base in the freezing cold February temperatures and conducted raids into sanitized objectives. While Matt and a few others knew that the objectives were intended to be in Pakistan, the troops on the ground were simply rehearsing the fundamentals. Get on the helicopter, get off the helicopter, follow the squad leader, kill the bad guys, find intelligence, protect your buddies, get back on the helicopter, eat chow when you can and sleep when you can.

  They popped out of the defile seeing the lights of Jalalabad to their southeast. Through his night-vision goggles Matt could also see the hulking forms of CH-47 helicopters flying in formations of four, the configuration chosen to match the number of formations to the number of refuel points at Jalalabad Airfield.

  As they flew, the Chinooks dipped into the airfield, sucked as much fuel as they could, and took off rapidly. As the last formation departed, the command and control helicopter refueled along with two flights of three Apache gunships, also along for the insertion. The first three immediately sped like angry wasps up to the lead of the Chinook formation, covering its flanks and prepared to conduct preparatory fires. Matt knew that overhead were two AC-130s on the northern series of landing zones along with two F-15s. The southern insertion package had the same air cover, to include two Predator unmanned aerial vehicles.

  As they juked north up through the Kunar valley, Matt thought of Zachary and his fate in this forbidden land. At least he had been there for him, as Zach had for Matt in the Philippines.

  As the first of the Apaches and Chinooks turned east out of Kunar, the headsets lit up with chatter.

  “This is Monster 16, Approaching LZ Thunder, negative contact.”

  “This is Monster 26, Approaching LZ Lightning, negative contact.”

  Matt registered the good news with caution, knowing that in an instant it could change.

  Looking at the mountain peaks—like church spires he thought—he again thought of Zachary and said to himself, “This is where I need to be.”

  The excited chatter of Monster 36 came across the net, “We are in a huge ambush in LZ Squall. 360 machinegun and RPG fire! Troops almost off the birds!”

  Matt turned and looked at MG Griffin.

  “Put me and my commo guys down in LZ Squall, General. That’s where we’re going.”

  For a moment no one spoke, but he could feel Jabonski’s eyes on him and knew that her distaste had given way to respect, tinged with perhaps a bit of fear for herself as she realized what he was taking them into.

  “Roger,” Griffin said.

  The UH-60 lifted across the mountains that separated Pakistan and Afghanistan and suddenly the United States was fully invading the sovereign territory of another nation in the post 9-11 world.

  And to Matt Garrett, it felt good, because he finally figured it out.

  Al Qaeda. Literally, The Base or the Database.

  The Database is Always There.

  CHAPTER 68

  Charlotte, North Carolina

  Sunday Afternoon

  Amanda had spent Saturday night at Brianna’s house and had long discussions with both Brianna and her mother. Brianna’s mother was key to the plan and was quickly a convert after watching with outrage the CD of Len Dagus having sex with her daughter.

  She made a few key phone calls with her Droid, turned on the GPS tracking device inherent in the phone, and then grabbed a disposable cell phone she had purchased.

  She then bid Brianna and her mother farewell and drove to see Ms. Dwyer.

  “Hey,” Amanda said in a low, sweet voice to Dwyer.

  “Hey, yourself.” Much of the swelling on Riley’s face had gone down. Stitches etched their way across her left cheek like a fossilized caterpillar. Her left arm was broken just below the elbow, a defensive injury. She reported that there were a few cracked ribs also. The decisive blow was a twenty-seven-stitch wound on the back of her head that had come from the baseball bat.

  “I don’t remember what happened, really. I remember you being here and then waking up in the hospital.”

  “You have to know, Miss Dwyer—”

  “Riley, please.”

  “—that I, okay, Riley. That I did not do this.”

  “I know you didn’t do this, Amanda. You’re not capable of such a thing. You may have had some things deleted from your hard drive, but they’re still there. They’re coming back.” Riley pointed at her own head when she spoke.

  Amanda paused as she absorbed the image that was lying before her on the sofa. Little did Riley know, Amanda thought. She flicked at a fingernail, looking down.

  “Can I trust you with something, Riley?”

  “Of course you can. I might have been your stepmother one day, you know, so just look at me like that.” They both paused and then giggled, Riley as best she could through the swollen lips and jaw. “Well, maybe not such a good idea,” Riley added. She placed a hand on Amanda’s knee. “Tell me.”

  “I’m getting ready to go do something that might be a bit risky, you know, and I’m sort of scared.”

  “Plenty scary stuff’s been happening already, girlfriend. Can’t you just let it alone?”

  “You’re just like Harlan; he’s been telling me to stay out of the way.”

  “Why do you think I told you about him?”

  Amanda sighed. She stuffed her hands into her hoodie pocket and looked around the living room, noticing for the first time there were some pictures of her father on the mantle above the fireplace. She could see that in one of the pictures he and Riley were standing atop what looked like Stone Mountain. She was hugging him with her h
ead on his chest, her reddish hair spilling across her face. He was holding her against his side with an indistinguishable look on his face—not overly enthusiastic, not unhappy. Amanda casually walked over to the picture and lifted it off the mantle, studying her father’s face.

  “Looks like when I was about thirteen or fourteen?”

  “Bout that.”

  “I hated him then, you know.”

  “Not really. You just thought you did. Remember, computer hard drive?”

  “Right.” Amanda stared at the picture. It came to her that there was a deep-set sadness in his eyes. She was neither psychologist nor mind reader, but it occurred to her that she was looking at a wounded man, struggling, she figured, with the encompassing rejection promulgated by her. Not so much the way a wine connoisseur embraces the aroma of the settled tannins in a fine Chardonnay, but more the manner in which an apprentice marvels at the work of the tradesman, she understood what she saw in her father’s face. Never before had she really cared or wanted to know what he’d felt, but now it was so obvious.

  “Then why did I do all those horrible things?”

  She really did want to know. Not that there was much she could do about it now. Amanda sat next to Riley on the sofa, sliding her hips backward until she was touching Riley’s legs, which were beneath a lightweight blanket. She looked at the photo in her hand and then at Riley. She noticed some color coming back into Riley’s face. She was very pretty, as well as loving and compassionate. She could see why her father would have loved her. She would have made a great stepmother.

  “What is it that you’re getting ready to do that is so scary?”

  “I have to fix things.”

  Riley sat up and was awkwardly placing the unbroken arm around her. “You’ve already gone a long way toward that, but some things aren’t fixable.”