Rogue Threat

by AJ Tata

“First, we don’t know that Ballantine did this,” she said, pointing at the television. “Second, even if that’s true, what happens to our secret killer? We’ve now programmed him to be someone else. Does he continue in this vein, or do we then try to fix him back the way he was?”

  “Too hypothetical, Meredith—”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe it’s too hard, but it’s not hypothetical. We have to think about the end state with this guy, assuming he can do this.”

  Hellerman tapped a finger against his pursed lips. “Your contention is that we are only doing what is expedient now, the future of this one individual be damned.”

  “It’s a position,” she said neutrally. She wasn’t quite sure what she believed, but everything she had said sounded logical to her. They were both making it up as they went.

  “Well, we’re told that he has recovered completely from his coma. Colonel Rampert, the special ops commander, and the doctor worked out a rehabilitation regimen for him and they say he’s ready.”

  “What are the possible courses of action?” she asked quietly.

  “Simple,” he said. “We either execute Operation Maple Thunder, to kill or capture Ballantine, or we don’t.”

  “Yes, sir, but how do we do it?

  “Look, in fifteen minutes we need to advise the president about what he should do.”

  Fifteen minutes, my ass.

  “I mean, do we send him up there to fish, or do we parachute him in and let him wander up to the fishing camp—”

  “Both options have been considered along with a few others. But ultimately, it’s Rampert’s call.”

  “We should know. The president should know, sir.” She wrinkled her brow in determination.

  “I agree. We can do a video teleconference and save time.”

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  Ezekial Jeremiah, a tall, black Naval Academy graduate stuck his head in the door, eyes wide with concern. “Uh, sir, we’ve . . . we’ve lost contact with Matt Garrett’s airplane.”

  “What do you mean, ‘lost contact’?” snapped Hellerman.

  “Exactly that, sir. Transponder went off about thirty minutes ago, and now we have no idea where the plane is. We’ve lost contact with the pilot and radar is not tracking it. I’ve contacted the AWACS; they may be able to collect on it from the air,” Jeremiah said.

  “Where was the airplane’s last position?” Hellerman asked.

  “Crossing from Pennsylvania, near Williamsport, into New York, heading north.”

  “New York? Why so far north? Weren’t they going to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina?” Meredith asked.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Okay, work the AWACS and notify special ops. Meanwhile, I’ll call the president so we can get this briefing spun up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hellerman walked toward the door then turned.

  “I know how you feel about Matt. I hope this isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

  Meredith watched him depart, turned toward the window and swallowed the palpable fear in her throat. Be strong, she thought to herself. The tear seeking a lonely path down her cheek was the only outward manifestation of the dread growing inside.

  Meredith wiped her face, composed herself, and walked into the buzzing operations center.

  CHAPTER 11

  Vermont

  Despite his mind-numbing headache, Matt recalled the crash quite vividly. They had dropped like a stone from about a hundred feet. There had been fire and smoke, but he recalled seeing the plane still in one piece. Something must have gone right for him to survive. The landing gear had been down, apparently.

  Then he remembered the words the man had said, “Ahmad and the woman are dead.”

  Was Peyton really gone? He looked at his arms and felt his face, as if to determine the severity of the accident via the nature of his injuries. Below his rolled-up sleeves, he saw multiple cuts and abrasions from what he figured was the instinctive reaction of putting his hands in front of his face as the aircraft struck the ground. On his face, he could feel one deep laceration that had etched a diagonal across his forehead. This, he thought, was most likely the source of his concussion. His body ached, but all things considered, he was doing pretty well for just having emerged from an airplane crash.

  A rat came sniffing in his direction, and Matt nudged it away with his foot as he was reminded of the cell he shared with Rathburn, Barefoot, and Sturgeon in the Philippines. He stood slowly, pain leaving his body in the form of a low growl. He was hurt.

  Knees popping and back aching, he leaned against the wall and breathed heavily, pulling in as much oxygen as he could in the dirty cavern. The room was dark, though his eyes had adjusted sufficiently to discern shapes. He noticed the faintest hint of artificial light skidding beneath the door and limped the thirty feet or so separating him from it.

  Extending his hands before him, he found the edges of the door and worked his way to the door knob, which was a loose piece of brass that felt as though it might come off in his hand if he turned too hard. He twisted the knob slowly and then pulled the door ajar a fraction of an inch. He felt a chain rattle and scrape along a hasp that he could now see affixed between the door and the jamb. A master lock about the size of a gym lock held the chain in place. The chain itself was a heavy gauge.

  The faint light originated not directly beyond the door but well down a narrow hallway. Matt could see what appeared to be a lone figure to his right, about a hundred feet away. To his left the hallway appeared to end, with no other doors or windows.

  The man at the end of the hallway turned aimlessly in his direction, giving Matt a good look at him. He was about six feet tall and modestly built and was smoking a cigarette.

  Matt began to close the door and then stopped.

  Walking down the hallway, approaching the guard, were two more people. One was a female and the other a male. His immediate sense was that they were together, but then he realized that it wasn’t possible when he noticed that the female was Peyton O’Hara.

  She had a small limp and her left arm was in a sling. Must have been a medical checkup, Matt thought, but then why the hell wasn’t he receiving any specialized care?

  As they approached, the man walking with Peyton stopped and opened a door for her about thirty feet from where Matt stood peering through a paper-thin crack in his door. As Peyton turned into the room, the open door cast a light across her face that let Matt see she had been badly cut across one cheek. Her shirt was blood-soaked and her face, though absent any apparent signs of fear, was weary with pain. Turning, Peyton lifted her head toward Matt’s door, and for a brief moment, Matt believed their eyes met. She stumbled as she entered the room, and Matt quietly closed his door.

  Peyton was alive, which meant that the disembodied voice he had heard earlier must have been talking about the poor Air Force attendant.

  Matt knew from his training that the length of time spent in captivity is inversely proportional to one’s likelihood of escaping. The more time his captors had to plan his demise, the more successful they were likely to be. As for the prisoner, all the planning in the world would not make up for a lack of resources to execute an escape plan. The one resource upon which Matt had drawn in the past was the element of surprise. Although a year-long layoff had dimmed his instincts a bit, he already knew what he was going to do.

  The door opened and one man led another into the room, each carrying a Browning pump shotgun. Interesting choice. That told him something about his situation. He guessed they were in an area that was not entirely secluded—not public, but not altogether isolated. The shotguns could double as hunting weapons to local onlookers.

  “I see you have returned from the dead, Matt Garrett,” said the second man, who was clearly in charge. He had a soft, musical voice.

  “Either that, or we’re all in hell,” Matt scowled, his throat raspy. Hearing his own voice after hours of silence confirmed, in a strange way, that he was indeed alive
.

  “Yes, well, hell for you it may be,” the man retorted, drawing near, his shotgun crooked into one arm as if bird hunting.

  Matt could see that the other captor, however, was training his Browning directly on his midsection, another indication that these were not amateurs. Shoot for the largest body mass to wound and then kill if necessary. The shooter’s principle was to ensure a first-time hit.

  Matt watched as the man with the musical voice approached him assuming that Matt was too weak or wounded to be a threat. Truthfully, Matt was acting the part just a bit, like a prizefighter limping along, doing the rope-a-dope, to cajole his opponent into letting down his guard. In his lower periphery, Matt could see that the approaching captor’s weapon was hanging loosely along his forearm. The butt of the weapon was pressing upward against his triceps.

  “I have someone who is very interested in meeting you, Mister Garrett, but our actions of the last twenty-four hours have jeopardized our ability to travel. We have instructions that now the meeting will not take place,” the man said in lilting tones that, when he spoke, made his sentences seem almost poetic.

  Matt knew immediately what “Now the meeting will not take place” meant. His captors’ instructions were to kill him, plain and simple.

  “Someone wants to meet me?” Matt asked, not particularly listening to his own words. His mind was reeling, threading several different scenarios through his own unique process of visualizing the course of action and war-gaming the potential results. Which one was most likely to succeed, most dangerous to him, most dangerous to his opponent, and least obvious?

  “Wanted to meet you. My instructions are to inform you that his name is General Jacques Ballantine and that he lost his only brother during the invasion of Iraq in 1991. In fact, General Ballantine tells me that your brother, Zachary, murdered him that day.”

  During that war, Matt was on his first assignment in Northern Iraq, working with the Kurd resistance movement. He had been redeployed shortly before his brother. It was hand-to-hand combat, Zachary had told him. There were no options. Zachary had said he would do it again in the same situation. No regrets. Resulted in a major intelligence find. But the general, for reasons not explained to lowly Lieutenant Zachary Garrett at the time, had been promptly released back to Iraq.

  And now, Matt figured, Ballantine was out for revenge on two different levels. First, on a personal level, he wanted to seek justice for his brother’s death. Since Ballantine probably knew that Zachary was dead, Matt would likely be the next-best target. Or perhaps the first-best target. Brother for brother. Second, Ballantine could also, through his prism, blame the United States for the loss of his brother and many of the other ills that had befallen Iraq over the last decade. So Hellerman was right, it was Ballantine who might be planning to distribute attacks throughout the United States with a purpose of wreaking havoc, reopening the still too-fresh wounds of 9/11. Like jujitsu, Matt thought, catch us leaning one way and follow up with a well-placed kick to disable us.

  “I see,” Matt said. “So he has delegated the dirty task of killing me to you? He wants you to avenge his grudge?”

  Once again, Matt’s mind was not truly monitoring the words his well-trained brain was formulating and causing his mouth to speak. Every ounce of his analytical power was operating faster, more powerfully than any Intel microchip could ever push a computer hard drive. Scores of chess moves played out, then the board reset, then another option played out, then the board reset, and so on.

  There is one last chance, and only one, he surmised.

  “A task that I do not mind at all. In fact, it gives me great pleasure to do this,” his lead captor said.

  Matt noticed as the man began to transfer the shotgun from a carrying position to a firing position that the butt stock was passing beneath the assassin’s armpit and would begin to rise toward his chest. Matt had run this possibility through five or six different permutations.

  As the butt stock passed the man’s armpit, Matt lunged with the quickness and ferocity of a mountain lion, catching both of his captors unawares. As part of his mental algorithm he had calculated the length of the long barrel and how much time it would take for the man with the musical voice to swing it into action. Having hunted fowl with a Browning before, Matt knew that the barrel was maddeningly long and that only skilled and experienced hunters could maneuver it with precision. Most fumbled clumsily with the awkward length. Matt had also noticed that both weapons seemed practically brand new. They were shiny, with a light sheen of oil, and clean, with no marring on the butt stocks.

  Without warning, Matt grabbed the long barrel and thrust it sharply upward, catching the man squarely under the jaw, snapping his head back and causing momentary shock. He kicked the stunned captor in the stomach as he ripped the shotgun from his grip, launching him off balance, then instinctively thumbed the safety off and fired into the belly of the man with the musical voice. The shotgun created a thunderous boom. But another boom, not created by Matt’s weapon, quickly followed and he felt a searing hot pellet rip through his biceps. Then he quickly fired another round into the skull of the backup man as if he were knocking down two quail that had taken flight at the point of his dog, Ranger.

  Matt confirmed what he already knew, that both of his captors were dead, as he moved briskly to the door. He realized that he would be in a race with the guard at the end of the hallway to Peyton’s room. Leading with the shotgun barrel, he quickly turned into the long hallway. He picked up the movement of the guard racing toward him, fumbling with his pistol, and Matt squeezed the trigger. The shot stood the guard straight up, splaying his hands into the air as if he had suddenly decided to surrender. The pistol came tumbling toward Matt, involuntarily tossed to him by the forward motion of the guard’s arm. Matt secured the pistol and stuffed it in his waistband. Then he snatched another pistol magazine from the guard’s belt, shoved it in his pocket, and moved toward Peyton’s door, still leading with the shotgun.

  He kicked the door open, turning into the room and visually clearing each corner. In the adjacent corner, he saw Peyton cuffed and gagged, eyes wide with fear and pointing behind him and to his right, the only unclear corner. Swiftly, he dropped the shotgun, and with the skill of a ballerina-turned-gymnast, he drew the pistol from his belt and fired three shots as he turned. As Matt’s eyes caught up with his shots, he heard the first two slap against the stone wall, but the third made a wet thud. He watched as his would-be attacker slumped to the ground with a widening crimson hole seeping blood from his chest.

  Unsure of how many or how soon reinforcements would arrive, he moved quickly toward Peyton, removed her gag, and freed her wrists.

  “You okay?” he asked as he worked on a troublesome knot around her ankles.

  “Fine, fine,” Peyton said. “Where did you learn how to shoot like that? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her by the arm.

  “Wait!” Peyton insisted as she followed him out of the room. “There’s a man in another room. I saw him.”

  “No time,” Matt hissed, handing her the pistol and hustling along the hallway. He stopped at the corner, and leading with the shotgun, spun into the adjacent hall.

  “How the hell do you get out of here?” Matt asked.

  “Stop here! Stop!” she yelled as they approached a door on the right. Peyton pushed into the door, but it didn’t budge. “Stand back!”

  “What are you . . . ?” Matt began to ask but stalled out, observing Peyton draw the pistol, level it just above the door knob, and fire with an unexpectedly fluid and natural motion to disable the lock. She pushed the door open with her foot and rushed into the room, unconcerned with what lay behind the door.

  “Where is he?” she shouted.

  “Who the hell are you looking for?” Matt said, following her in. Then he saw a man sitting in the corner of the room staring at a small glass, mesmerized and oblivious to their presence.

  “Come
on! Let’s go!” Peyton yelled running toward the man.

  He was wearing the kind of white smock used in laboratories. His gray hair was balding and wire-rimmed spectacles framed his eyes. The man wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, making him look a bit like a mad scientist, frizzy hair and all.

  Turning his head slowly, the mad scientist looked at Matt, or rather, looked through him. Matt turned to see what he was staring at and took a step back.

  Peyton had already stopped and reached her hand out to the man.

  “Peyton, let’s go!” Matt yelled.

  Peyton released the arm of the catatonic scientist, spun on her heels, and ran toward Matt.

  “What the hell are all those bees doing in here?” she shouted, darting past him.

  In the back of the room, Matt saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of bees, all swarming in basically the same spot, about fifteen feet away. As his adrenaline ebbed, the high-pitched whine of thousands of wings snapping hundreds of times per second created a vibrant hum in the room, like the feeling of a jet engine thrusting just before takeoff.

  “I’m not sure I want to find out,” he said, moving out of the door, only to be greeted by automatic gunfire. He spun quickly back into the room and waited two counts before he swung the barrel back into the passageway and laid down two suppressive shots. Out of shells, he turned to Peyton. “Trade me,” Matt said, motioning to the Glock in Peyton’s hand. She handed it to him and accepted the unwieldy shotgun without taking her eyes off the swarm of bees. Matt checked the magazine and shoved it back home. He took a deep breath and asked Peyton, “Where to?”

  “To the right and across the hall, that’s the way they took me to the doctor,” she said.

  “Okay, follow me. We’re running,” Matt said, focused.

  He fired three more shots from the pistol to his left and then darted in the direction Peyton had suggested. He found the door open, pushed through it, and burst into the dark night.

  CHAPTER 12