by AJ Tata
He played along with the idea of a second Ronnie Wood who was in contact with Ballantine. For the time being, he was letting the situation develop. It was Frank Lantini who was walking the edge of the razor at the moment. While he conceptually agreed with his alter-ego counterpart, were they like two serial killers, twinning in their drive to satiate utopian desires?
The Philippine action had been all about keeping focused on transnational Islamic extremism. The present course of action offered a gambit of a different flavor. He was inside the Central Committee, perhaps not a fully trusted member, but close. Could he pull off his plan?
Hero or goat?
He sensed a presence hiding in the dark shadow of the cinderblock command center. He tightened his finger around the trigger of the unfamiliar weapon. Hell, if it wasn’t an F-15, it was unfamiliar to him. Still, he had, like a kid, gone to an open field on the Pacific side of the isthmus and “popped caps,” as he called it. While not the most accurate rifleman to ever use an AK-47, Lantini had learned the functionality of the weapon and was confident in his ability to use it as necessary.
“Mister Wood?” Her voice was a whisper, no louder than the lapping waves he had just left behind.
Lantini saw Sue Kim step from the shadows of the cinderblock building, her black hair framing her alluring face. He saw the crinkle of her eyes and her thick lips form a smile.
“Sue Kim,” Lantini said responding to her use of the Stones’ moniker.
“This way,” she said and then vanished.
Lantini followed her along a minor trail that led south through a tight section of jungle. At its end the trail gave way to a small opening framed by two large banyan trees. Lantini could see a large hammock strung between the nearly touching branches of the two trees. Her destination.
“The guards will not see us here if we are quick,” she said, fumbling with his belt buckle.
Looking beyond her bowing head, Lantini scanned the horizon and said, “But I am one of the guards.”
His pants around his ankles now, she was pushing him onto the hammock, ready to slake her desires. She lowered herself onto him, steadying them in the shifting netting by grasping with her hands either side of the hammock above Lantini’s head.
“You are much more than guard, and you know it,” Sue Kim gasped as her rhythm increased.
“And you are much more than mild-mannered assistant to Sung,” Lantini said, joining her motion.
The two lovers remained silent as they intently focused on their personal pleasures, a rare, delicious moment amongst this double-layered job he was doing.
First, he was a most wanted man in the United States.
Second, he was still a patriot. He knew how to get his country back on the right path.
Sue Kim gasped, as quietly as possible, as a frisson of ecstasy shuddered through her. Lantini was not too far behind and they collapsed together into the netting, breathing hard as they had first begun doing in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
“Never forget,” Sue Kim said. “I am the reason you are here.” She paused enough to lift her head from his slick neck. “And that you are safe.”
Lantini lay back in the hammock, their sweat binding them together, and looked at the stars through the thin canopy of trees.
“And never forget, Sue Kim, without my contacts, none of these people would be here.”
Chapter 38
Garrett Farm, Stanardsville, Virginia
Matt stood silently by the upstairs foyer window that provided him a panoramic view of what he and Zachary, as kids, had named the Razorback, a north-south running spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The morning drive from Washington, D.C., had been less hassle than he had anticipated. He was thrilled to have spent less than twenty-four hours at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“Hey stranger.” His sister Karen gave him a firm hug. “It’s all kind of hard to believe. With Zachary’s death and your injuries last year, this is just kind of mind blowing. Something inside me is having a hard time believing it, as much as I desperately want to be happy about this.”
“It’s still settling over me, too, Karen. Meredith contacted me two days ago and told me she thought Zachary might still be alive. Luckily, things were moving so fast I didn’t have much time to think about it.”
“The things you told me last night on the phone. I’m so proud of you, Matt. I know you’ll get him back,” she said, hugging him tightly.
“I have a lot to make up for,” Matt whispered into Karen’s hair.
“Maybe in your mind, but I always knew you did your best. And you’ll do it again. You’ll get him. We’ll get him. It will be good to have both of you back,” she said, crying into his shirt.
He knew that his sister truly did mean both of them. He had been gone and might as well have been buried in the ground next to Zachary’s grave. In the last eight months, he had been home exactly once and had spoken on the phone with his family less than five times. He had slipped deeper into his darkness when Meredith started her new position at the White House and began drifting away from him.
“I hope you will give yourself a break now,” she said.
“Well, I can’t rest until we’ve got Zachary back. Plus, I think there is something bigger going on here. No way Ballantine could do all of this on his own.”
The nation was under attack in the most unconventional way, but out here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it all seemed so far away to Matt. And so unrealistic, as if the television transmitted a series of fictional episodes.
“Why don’t we go get some coffee,” Karen recommended.
He was hit with a blast of nostalgia as they sat down at the same pine table at which the entire family had eaten for the past thirty years. He saw the notches he had made with his knife to mark the boundaries for the late-night paper football games he and Zachary had played.
Karen put on a pot of coffee, then turned toward Matt. “What makes you think there’s something bigger going on? The president came on TV and said he thought things were going to be under control soon. On the news they said there were no attacks in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe that’s a good sign.”
“I haven’t had a whole lot of time to piece it together, Karen, but look at the range of this campaign. It’s too big, too well-planned, too well-executed, to be just one guy pulling all of this together.”
“What else could there be?”
“I’ve got a few things rattling around in the back of my head. I mean, listen to this: Meredith called me when I was in Vermont.”
“You mean when you were with this new girl, Peyton?”
“How did you know about that?” Matt asked.
“I have my ways,” she said.
“Meredith called you, didn’t she? She’s the only one who knew about Peyton.”
“So tell me about her,” Karen said.
“There’s nothing to tell. We were on assignment together. That’s it.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s in D.C.”
“Really?” Karen fought back the smirk growing on her lips as she looked through the kitchen window at a blue SUV moving slowly along the gravel drive that cut between the house and the barn.
Matt followed her gaze. “What’s that all about?”
“At least she’s prompt,” Karen said looking at her watch.
“Who’s prompt? What are you talking about?” Matt asked.
The footsteps on the front porch provided the final clue that Peyton was actually here and not in Washington, D.C. He walked to the door, opening it as Peyton’s hand was about to knock. He smiled at the awkward pose in which he had captured her, small fist stretched outward, as if shaking it in rage.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“That’s a hell of a welcome for an Irish lass who’s traveled so far.”
“Right. Sorry. Please come in.”
“Thank you.”
He watched Peyton slide through the door
way, cat-like, and step into the foyer. She was wearing a tight pink angora sweater and light blue denim jeans. Her hair fell loosely on her shoulders, providing a backdrop to simple diamond earrings that seemed, oddly, to fit the ensemble. Country elegant, he thought.
“You look nice,” he said without thinking.
“Well that’s more like it.” Peyton smiled, leaning up to give him a quick peck on the cheek.
Where did that come from? he wondered.
“Glad you’re okay,” she whispered.
“Back at you. Ducati in the shop?”
“Weatherman predicted rain.” She smiled.
“Hi, Peyton. I’m Karen.”
“Hey, Karen,” Peyton said, giving Matt’s sister a quick hug. “Great directions, by the way. Drove here like I’ve lived here all my life.”
They walked into the den and sat on the sofa.
“You did great the other night. We all have hope that we’re going to find Zachary soon and that he’s going to be okay,” Peyton said, looking at Matt.
“I hope so,” Karen said, standing. “Listen, can I get you anything? Water, coffee, Coke?”
“Whiskey?” Matt said.
“Actually, it’s been a tough week, and a Bailey’s and coffee would be nice. Help me unwind from the drive.”
“Coming right up,” Karen said.
Matt’s dutiful sister went about the business of playing hostess, a task she had honed over the past year since their mother’s death. Karen delivered the coffee, then excused herself.
“I’ll let you two talk. Matt, I’m going into town. Do either of you need anything?”
“No, thanks, sis. See you when you get back.”
Karen pulled a set of keys from a hook on the hall stand and the screen door slapped the wood frame of the house as she crunched across the gravel.
“Nice sister you have there,” Peyton said.
“Thanks. How’s your arm healing?”
Peyton looked down at her left shoulder. “No biggie.”
“Your sister okay?”
“She’s fine. Thanks. Had decided to take the Saturday train, thank God. She’s still at my place.”
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Matt asked. “Or is this truly a social visit?”
“Mostly social.”
“Figures. Who sent you?” he asked.
“I sent myself but told Hellerman. When he found out I was coming, he wanted an ‘official’ report on you and for me to tell you that we are going to find Zachary very quickly,” she said.
She used her hands to form quotation marks when she said “official”—a move he normally disliked, but one that somehow made her appear sexy. It might have been the sweater.
“I see. He doesn’t expect me to be back for a while, does he?”
“No one knows what he’s looking for right now. I think we’re all waiting to see if Ballantine has anything else up his sleeve. The media’s obviously all over this thing, but it has been quiet for the past twenty-four hours. So it’s either the calm before the storm or Ballantine’s done.”
“I don’t think he’s done,” Matt said.
“Why don’t we take a walk? You can show me around this farm of yours.”
“Sure thing.”
They walked onto the porch and down the wooden steps. To their left, two hundred yards away, was a red barn, and to their right was an open field where cattle were grazing. The sky was pale blue, etching a beautiful line along the soft ridges of the mountains to the west. Matt grabbed Peyton’s hand and led her around a rough spot in the gravel drive as they walked toward the barn.
“You okay, really?” she asked, slipping her arm through his.
“Not really. I had him in my hands, Peyton,” he said, lifting his free hand to emphasize the point. “In my arms. I had him.”
“What was it like in there? Did you see or hear anything that would give you a clue as to what happened or where Zachary is now?”
“Nothing that I can think of. It’s all running together. Just lots of gunfire, lots of adrenaline, and a black woman.”
“A black woman,” she said, surprised. “Where was this?”
“In the cottage. She must have been guarding Zachary while Ballantine went out to fight.”
“In the cottage?”
“Roger. Why do you find that so interesting?” Matt asked.
“No reason. Did she say anything?”
“Nothing important.”
They continued walking past the horse stable on the left, angling toward a small creek on the right. The land dropped precipitously behind the stable toward the South River. The trees that hugged the river were still leafless, a few just beginning to bud. An infrequent evergreen spotted the forest as it gave way to the open hills. Matt was putting on a good face, but inside his mind he was wrestling with the possibility that he had lost his brother again. Unlike the Philippines, this time he was right there and had been unable to protect him. Naturally, his happiness at seeing Zachary alive was offset by the fact that he had seen him shot and then taken away.
“Wait a minute,” Matt said, stopping.
“What?”
“I did overhear something about a backpack and a tape.”
“Go on.”
“I’m not sure what she said exactly, but the woman asked Zachary if he had the backpack and had found the tape.” Matt was talking in measured cadence, staring at the barn. “Then she said something about a colonel.”
“A colonel? You mean a military colonel?”
“Yes, like a colonel in the Army. You know, the rank directly before general.”
“I know what a colonel is,” Peyton said.
“What about the backpack and the tape? What’s that all about?” Matt spoke more to himself than to her. Then he looked at her with an obvious flash in his mind. He remembered something.
“What?” she said.
“Zachary, back in the Persian Gulf War, the first one, had captured Ballantine. Remember, I told you this. General Ballantine, the same Ballantine who was in Canada,” he said rapidly, the words rushing into one another. “He mentioned something about a war trophy. In all the madness of Desert Storm, he never turned it in and rushed back to the front lines. As they were redeploying he just stuffed it in his duffel bag. So he just kept it. He just kept the backpack.”
Peyton had a terrified look on her face as she processed the information.
“So where is this bag?” she asked.
“The Army packed all of Zachary’s household goods and shipped them back from Hawaii when he was killed . . . when they thought he was killed. We put it all in the barn.”
They looked at the barn and began moving quickly in that direction.
Inside the barn, Matt climbed a wooden ladder. He remembered watching Karen and Blake stack all of Zachary’s personal effects in the loft.
Peyton was directly behind him as he started sifting through the boxes.
“Start over there. Look through that stack,” he said, directing her to the back corner.
After fifteen minutes of ripping open boxes, he found a dusty old green backpack in the bottom of a box containing other military equipment.
“Got it!” he said.
Peyton moved toward Matt where he was holding up a grimy, oil-stained backpack with barely noticeable Arabic writing on the side.
“Well, open it,” she said impatiently.
Matt slowly unzipped the bag, opening the mouth of the zipper, and whiffed the musty aroma of old, unkempt things. He pawed lightly through its contents, extracting a small copy of the Koran and held it up to the light.
“This is a Koran. It has got to be Ballantine’s backpack.”
He continued to dig and found a small, single-bladed knife in a leather sheath. It had an Arabic inscription on the blade. Further on, he found a pair of socks and a brown undershirt.
“Do you find anything scary about going through Ballantine’s bags, like he might actually be looking for this thing
and be pissed knowing that we’re going through his stuff?” Peyton asked.
“I think that’s a possibility . . . that he might be pissed and that he might be looking for this, if indeed it does hold something relevant.”
“Why would he take something so important into battle?” she wondered aloud. The warming spring sun caused some expansion in the wooden slats of the barn’s roof, which emitted an audible squeak. Matt looked up, remembering the incident in Sheldon Springs and then returned to the grimy backpack.
“Maybe he thought there was no one else he could trust to watch it.”
“Or maybe it had value, like currency, and he thought it could help him after the war,” she said.
Matt looked at her. “If he was captured.”
“It’s a possibility.”
His hand found a small, tin lock box secured by a tiny padlock.
“Okay, this has got to be it.” Matt held the lock box up to her.
“Be careful,” she said, taking a step back.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before with the IRA. It could be booby-trapped.”
He held the small box in both hands, studying the padlock.
“Hand me that hammer,” he said, pointing across the loft at a sawhorse where they had been doing some minor repairs.
“No, don’t do it. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced we should turn this over to docex,” she protested. Docex was the acronym for the document and media exploitation teams that interpreted capture tomes, most meaningless, and computers, which held infinitely more value.
This was a small tape that could point to a conspiracy 12 years ago and possibly to one today. Further, Matt thought, he did not know who he could trust, including the alluring woman standing directly before him in her form-fitting sweater, flattering jeans, and wafting Givenchy. Just like Meredith, he thought.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Matt argued, as he moved toward the sawhorse. He laid the box down and, grabbing the hammer, lifted it high above his head. Then he brought it down hard on the lock, sending it spinning across the floor next to Peyton’s feet.