by AJ Tata
Strangely, she was at peace. Somehow she had gained some momentum in at least absolving herself of her sins. She figured that nailing Hellerman to the wall with those pictures would at least pull her out of hell and put her somewhere in between there and heaven.
Yes, taking those pictures to her boss, Palmer, or even the president, would be some form of sweet justice, bringing Hellerman to his knees. She had already hoped that Rampert had the good sense to preserve as much of the Fong Hou as possible so that things such as radio frequencies could be retrieved and matched with those in Hellerman’s basement.
She stood and twisted off the faucet, letting the steam boil around her. Her skin felt rejuvenated. She reached a long, slender arm from the shower into the foggy steam and felt around for the towels that Jacob had pointed out earlier. Grabbing one, she patted down her skin and dried off.
She stepped from the shower into the steam, unable to see the mirror. She used the towel to wipe off a few streaks. She could barely make out her face in the haze, the worry lines soothed a bit, a fatalistic form of recognition coloring her countenance.
She pulled her jeans and sweatshirt back on and stepped into her shoes, the steam still swirling around the bathroom. And then something didn’t seem right.
She heard a noise from the hallway or the bedroom, she wasn’t sure which. It was a thud of sorts, perhaps Jacob closing his door, but more like the sound of something large dropping on something hard.
She opened the bedroom door, moving quickly, but then she stopped suddenly and moved back to the bathroom, remembering the pictures.
She reached into the dissipating steam, eyeing the toilet lid, and saw that there was nothing there. The manila envelope was gone.
A shiver crawled up her spine like a rattlesnake slithering toward its prey.
This is it, she thought. I’m going to die right here, right now, and get blamed for being involved in Hellerman’s conspiracy. She steeled her resolve so she could step from her frozen state of fear.
She walked slowly into the bedroom and could see the door was slightly ajar. She looked around the room for some sort of weapon and remembered her mace, but even her purse was missing.
She opened a few drawers until she found a pair of scissors, which she clutched in her hand as if it was a Ginsu sword. More boldly, she moved toward the door, hearing another small thud coming from Jacob’s room. Her quick mind raced with possibilities, the most logical being that Hellerman’s hit man had found her using CallScan, searched a few houses, and found her car in Jacob’s garage. Because the scan system would only give a grid coordinate and could not provide a precise address, it had taken some time.
Poor Jacob.
She peered from the bedroom door down the long, dark hallway and saw that Jacob’s door was open and his room was dark. She tip-toed towards his room when she heard a noise behind her.
Blasting from the steam-filled bathroom was a man dressed in black with a ski mask covering his face and a glint of steel in his hand.
She bolted down the hallway and into Jacob’s room, slamming the door behind her. The attacker’s knife came piercing through the six-paneled, fiberglass door, inches from her face as she held the knob in place.
She locked the door and walked backward, holding the scissors with one hand, feeling her way in the darkness with the other. She found a wall and followed it away from the door until she found the back wall and a window. She frantically clawed at the window latch as a shot blew off the door handle. She hadn’t seen the gun.
She was raising the window as the light came on in the room. Stepping through the window and looking over her shoulder, she saw Jacob lying on the floor next to her, a bullet hole in his forehead.
What else can I do wrong?
A bullet smacked into her shoulder, knocking her through the open window, her head smashing into the window frame. She fell into the bushes below, barely conscious. She mustered the resolve to move away from the window and stand alongside the brick exterior of the house. She had lost her scissors in the fall but saw a jagged piece of glass about ten inches long. She retrieved it, careful not to cut herself.
She watched as a dark head protruded from the window no more than two feet from her position. She gripped the glass and brought it up hard toward the neck but found instead the shoulder of her assailant. The glass cut deep into the bone of her hands, causing her to scream a long, anguished wail, more from the pain of so many bad decisions over the past year than from the present moment.
Her attacker instinctively recoiled and fled back into the bedroom.
Meredith slid down the brick wall, bleeding heavily from the glass shards embedded in her hands.
“Come get me, you bastard. I don’t care,” she muttered.
Then she passed out in Jacob’s back yard.
Chapter 58
Aboard the Fong Hou
“Why were you expecting me, Ballantine?” Peyton O’Hara said, leveling her rifle at the men in the darkness. She could see the two of them, but they were too close together for her to have a clear shot.
“My sources tell me that you and Mr. Garrett here have become quite an item, and my research on you tells me that you’re quite the aggressive one. So it only makes sense.”
Ballantine continued backing toward the door until he found the latch for the galley stair that would lead them down to the Sherpa, where Zachary Garrett was waiting for them. As he turned the handle, the light from the stairwell silhouetted him and Matt Garrett.
The light gave her an instant where she thought she could pierce Ballantine’s eyes with one shot, but they were moving too fast for her to be safe, so she deliberately shot wide, but close, squeezing off multiple shots, suppressing Ballantine as he dragged Matt down the steps. The door closed, but not before she could get a knife wedged in between the door and the frame. She pried the knife back, opening a small slit in the door. She heard a door below her open, shut, and then lock. She waited and then backed away from the stairwell, moving to the top of the containers and stopping to think.
What is he doing? She needed to move fast. She scampered over the top of the containers, feeling the wind and salt water spray across her face before she entered the stairwell on the opposite side from where Ballantine had taken Matt. She went up the stairs and found the door to the communications center. As she rounded the corner, she was confronted by two Chinese sailors with AK-47s.
Clean, well placed shots from Blake’s silenced AR-15 cleared them out of her way. She stopped for a brief moment before she turned the knob to the control center and saw an elderly Chinese man wearing a white naval uniform standing in the center of a communications node with televisions and radios all around him.
He lifted a pistol and fired a round, but she dove out of the way and slid along the floor, raising her rifle in time to squeeze off two shots and then feel the disheartening lock of the bolt.
She quickly ejected the magazine and replaced it with her last twenty rounds, pressing the detent button and slamming the bolt forward. As she was changing magazines, the admiral escaped from the room. She stood and ran after him, hoping he would lead her to Matt.
The old man leapt through a small metal door and into a stairwell, turning to fire at her, two rounds pinging off the wall next to her head.
She fired back, aiming intentionally high so that he would continue. He went down another flight of steps, Peyton close on his heels. He burst through the door to the flight deck, Peyton popping another couple of rounds at the gap in the closing door. This time it worked. She found the door open and leapt through it, doing a combat roll on hard metal as she sought cover quickly.
She saw two Chinese sailors running for their weapons. She fired two rounds, dropping them in succession. She saw another sailor to her right as she moved to hide behind a Predator.
She fired another two shots at the sailor to her right, wounding him at worst, killing him at best. The admiral was running away down the long axis of the runway. He w
as harmless, she figured, but leveled the weapon at him and blew off one of his calf muscles from nearly seventy yards away.Not bad, she thought to herself. He might be able to provide some useful information after this is all over if he doesn’t bleed to death.
“Peyton O’Hara!” a voice called out. “Peyton O’Hara!”
It was Ballantine. She knew it had to be. Then she saw Ballantine walking to the center of the runway, near the Sherpa. He was holding Matt close to him, knife to his throat. Behind them, she could see the Sherpa’s open cabin door. There was a body in the back, facing the opening. That had to be Zachary Garrett, she determined. Her mind was racing. What to do?
“I see you, Miss O’Hara. So step forward, or I will slit your boyfriend’s throat.”
Peyton paused, then stepped forward holding the rifle to her cheek, sighting the best she could in the dim light. Ballantine had his right arm over Matt’s chest with the knife to the left portion of Matt’s neck. His head was almost directly behind Matt’s head, and the only exposed portion of his body available for a shot was his right arm.
“See, if you kill me, you don’t get your tape back,” Matt said. He was looking at Peyton, who was walking slowly in their direction, rifle leveled at them both.
“Yeah, I’ve got the tape,” Peyton said, picking up on Matt’s lead.
“That’s where you’re wrong, O’Hara. I have the tape. Your brilliant boyfriend had it in his pocket.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ballantine. He gave it to me before coming up the ship, and I’ve got it right here in my pocket. What you’ve got is a fake,” she said, moving slowly.
“And we both know that you’re not the martyr type. Never were, never will be. You want to live in peace in some country with beautiful pastels to inspire your paintings,” Matt said.
Ballantine’s silence was telling, Peyton thought. She added, “You want to make sure about that tape, don’t you? Think about it. Why the hell would he come up here with that tape?”
“I’ll just have to take my chances,” Ballantine said. “Drop your rifle or I will kill him. Now.”
Peyton figured their time had expired. She had moved slightly to an oblique angle where she could take more of a shoulder shot.
“Okay, you win Ballantine, but what do I get in exchange?” she said.
“I’ll kill you first,” he said, “so you don’t have to watch.”
She squeezed her trigger finger, feeling the hammer of the weapon fall and her mind willing the bullet to a specific spot. She saw the round impact a bit lower than she had intended but squarely into Ballantine’s upper bicep. She immediately knew she had probably shot Matt as well, but if he got medical attention, he could survive. Maybe.
Matt spun away and she saw blood on his shirt, confirming her fear. Ballantine reeled back, the knife never leaving his hand, slicing into Matt’s clavicle. Matt quickly grabbed at Ballantine’s arm and, despite tremendous pain, thrust it downward while bringing his knee up, snapping Ballantine’s forearm.
The knife fell to the ground. Matt quickly retrieved the knife, only to see Ballantine bolt for the airplane. Peyton had a shot, but Matt’s movement blocked her line of fire, causing her to lift and shoot high her last bullet.
“Damn it, Matt. I had him,” she shouted, tossing the weapon to the ground and running toward them.
Matt sprinted to the airplane and pulled at Ballantine, who was climbing into the pilot’s seat and cranking the engine. Ballantine swatted at Matt, who was coming at him over the passenger seat. Peyton suddenly appeared on the other side of the airplane as the engine sputtered to life.
Matt lifted the knife and drove it into Ballantine’s chest as the airplane began to roll forward. But Ballantine refused to give up, the blood pouring over his shirt and spraying from his right lung into Matt’s face.
The plane was now moving along the centerline of the runway, gaining speed. Somehow Ballantine was still maneuvering the Sherpa.
Peyton was outside the pilot’s door, hanging onto the lower wing stanchion with her feet barely inside the cockpit. She pushed Ballantine with her left leg. Matt retrieved the knife and drove it deep into Ballantine’s heart, ending any doubt about his future status.
Matt pushed the dying Iraqi in between the pilot and copilot’s seats toward the back, where Zachary was. Reaching across Ballantine’s legs, he grabbed Peyton’s hand and helped her into the airplane, now doing donuts on the deck.
Peyton slid into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the controls, turning the Sherpa back toward the catapult.
“There are more sailors over there,” Matt said, pointing. “And we’re out of ammo.”
“They still think Ballantine might be piloting this thing. We’ve probably got about two minutes until they figure it out.”
They looked at each other and then down at Ballantine, who was rapidly dying, and Zachary, whose status was unknown.
“We’ve got one choice. When was the last time you flew one of these things?” Matt asked.
“Let me think,” she said. “Never? Yeah, never.”
“Never.”
“I did helicopters, remember?”
“Okay, same thing, right? Rev it up real high and go into the air?”
“Let’s hope so,” she said, studying the instruments and controls.
Peyton reached full throttle and then released the brakes and shot along the centerline. Two Chinese sailors watched, raised their AK-47s, and began firing.
Chapter 59
Chesapeake Bay
“Delta six, this is radar control, over.”
Rampert’s steady voice crackled over the radio net. “This is Delta six, over.”
“This is radar control. We’ve been sorting through a lot of clutter down here over the last hour, but think we might have something. There’s a small, steady mark on the radar heading southwest from your location at about seventy miles an hour. Those Predators can do that speed, which would be slow enough to take it off our normal radar procedures. The interesting thing is that it’s flying at eight hundred feet above ground level.”
“Have you mapped out where it’s heading?”
“All we can do is follow the UAV’s azimuth. If you look at the range of these things and the 207-degree azimuth it is on, well, it’s going toward your command center at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.”
Rampert thought for a second. That would make sense. Destroy the temporary headquarters of the homeland defense command system and then take on other targets. That would be the perfect first target. It had to be a Predator.
“Thanks.”
Turning to Hobart, Rampert said, “What has Pope got that they can scramble?”
“Nothing. Everything’s over in Afghanistan or Iraq. Langley’s still on its butt. Be another thirty minutes before they can scramble a jet. Tomcat two six is still broke at Oceana. Tomcat one six is all we’ve got left.”
“Are we broke or what?” Rampert said in disgust.
“We do have one option, boss,” Hobart said, looking at him.
Rampert paused, knowing exactly what Hobart was talking about.
“Kill the Queen Bee . . . destroy Dr. Insect’s software . . . keep the Predators from communicating,” Rampert said, more to himself than Hobart. He had replayed the scenario in his mind once he had been able to believe it.
The two warriors stared at each other for what seemed an eternity, then Rampert pressed the talk button on his radio.
Jack Rampert said a brief prayer for the Garrett family and any other innocent souls on board the Fong Hou, then spoke into his headset.
“Tomcat one six, this is Delta six,” Rampert said.
“This is Tomcat one six. Go ahead.”
“This is Delta six. We have permission to destroy the Fong Hou container ship. I want you to first destroy the command and control cell in the bridge of the ship. Then I want you to put a Maverick through the bow of the ship where they have been launching those Predators. We don’t neces
sarily want to sink it, but if that happens, we’ll deal with it.”
“Roger. Understand. Anything further?”
“Negative. Execute.”
Rampert had Mike position them again for front row seats. This time it was to watch the destruction of the Fong Hou. He watched the F-14 circle once and rise into the air. He could see the missile release from its rack and leave a streaming vapor trail as it made its way to the bridge of the ship. Rampert was a soldier and he knew that he had just ordered the sacrifice of good men in the name of the greater cause. But the idea of which cause and for whom left him with the slightest flutter of doubt, an emotion utterly unfamiliar to him.
Despite Rampert’s misgivings, the missile exploded with a brilliant impact, destroying the entire superstructure of the ship. The F-14 screamed overhead as it arched skyward from its first bombing run.
“Roger that,” Hobart said into the headset, applauding the direct hit.
“Roger that,” Rampert repeated in a hushed voice, knowing he had probably just killed some people that didn’t need to die. “Zachary and Matt Garrett are heroes.” He looked at Hobart.
“Heroes often die, sir.”
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them, but we’ve got to destroy this ship and get Tomcat one six on afterburners down to Fort Bragg.”
“Tomcat one six, this is Delta six. Prepare for run number two,” Rampert said.
“Roger. Out.”
Rampert said another small prayer.
Chapter 60
Aboard the Fong Hou