by AJ Tata
“I think I’m hit,” Peyton said, looking down at her hip. Blood was seeping onto her pants. “Damn it, I’m hit.”
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay, just land this thing,” Matt said. “He’s going back around for another turn. We’ve got a window.”
“I’m hit, Matt. I’m hit bad, I think,” Peyton gasped, holding onto the controls, pushing the nose of the airplane lower. Her eyes were getting heavy.
“Hang in there, Peyton. We’re going to be okay.”
The plane banged hard into the ground, lurched upward, and then banged hard again, thrusting Matt’s head into the ceiling. The wheels found purchase, though, and leveled the ride out.
She had found the runway and was guiding the plane as far north as she could toward the mansion. About one hundred yards away, the engine quit, and the plane coasted a few more feet before whipping into a tight ground loop and coming to a stop.
“Come on. Hurry, Peyton. Let’s get Zachary and get out of here,” Matt said.
He opened the sliding door to the Sherpa and pulled Zachary forward.
“I’m okay, Matt. Let’s grab Peyton. Nerves of steel she’s got, man.”
Zachary wobbled, leaning on Matt, but able to control himself as he walked. They moved as quickly as possible to the other side of the fuselage and opened Peyton’s door.
Peyton slumped into Matt’s arms, unconscious. He pulled her from the cockpit, feeling her blood on his hands as he reached around her waist. He needed to get her to a doctor quickly and remembered that Meredith had mentioned that Hellerman always kept a medical team at the alternate command post. It only made sense.
Matt and Zachary carried Peyton away from the Sherpa about the same time they heard the F-15 thunder overhead with a deafening roar, a proud hawk circling its wounded prey. As they rounded the corner behind the mansion toward the three cottages that housed the alternate command post, Alvin Jessup stood in the dim light, holding a pistol.
“Halt or I will shoot you dead. And you know that to be true.”
Matt and Zachary held Peyton, her gasps for air becoming weaker and fainter by the second.
“Alvin, it’s me, Matt Garrett. This is Peyton O’Hara, and she needs a doctor, now.”
“Step a little closer. Carefully,” Jessup said.
They walked about ten steps, carrying Peyton.
“Who’s that other guy?”
“That’s my brother, Zachary,” Matt said. “He was supposed to be dead, but he’s not, clearly.”
“What happened?” Jessup said, lowering his pistol.
“It’s a long story. We need a doctor.”
They were about fifty feet from the front door of the alternate command post. Jessup waved them forward toward the front door.
“Come on, let me help you,” Jessup said, holstering his pistol and taking Zachary’s place in helping to carry Peyton.
As they stepped onto the threshold of the alternate command post, Hellerman turned from his position near the large screen. He watched them as if it was the first time he realized the Sherpa had landed in his back yard. The camera images had been so fleeting, and with the pilot having to loop around so frequently, he had lost track of the Sherpa’s actual location.
It was an awkward pause, but one that was very telling to Matt.
“I need a doctor for Peyton. Zeke, can you help me out?” he said. Jeremiah looked at Hellerman and then back at Matt.
“Absolutely.” Zeke motioned to Jock Evans. “Jock, take Peyton to Doc Bell in the clinic right away. He’s on call, resting in cottage two. Make it quick.” Matt stared at Hellerman as he felt Jock gently remove Peyton from his grasp.
“Good to see you, man,” Jock whispered. “Good job up there.”
Matt kept his eyes on Hellerman and said, “Thanks, man. Take care of Peyton. She’s hurt bad. Don’t let me down.”
“We got her, man. She’s with us.”
The alternate command center had gone strangely quiet, like a standoff in Dodge City, Kansas. Matt and Zachary Garrett squared off against the vice president.
Who would draw first?
Matt heard more commotion over his shoulder. Then he heard Dave Palmer, the national security adviser.
Matt stared at Hellerman and felt Palmer’s hand rest on his shoulder.
“Matt, Meredith told me to get right down here, but she wasn’t able to tell me why,” Palmer said.
“Why couldn’t she tell you everything? You in on this, too? Who are you, Brian Jones?” Matt accused, stepping back from Palmer. Brian Jones was a founding member of the actual rock group, the Rolling Stones.
“No, Matt. She didn’t have time to tell me everything she wanted to. But she did manage to say, ‘Tell Matt I really do love him.’”
No one in the room said a word, Palmer’s message serving to silence the entire staff. The muted sounds of radio squawk boxes and fluttering images of rapidly changing television screens created a surreal atmosphere. There were volumes of activity but no movement. Sound everywhere, but silence. The blinking eyes of the televisions fluttered and faltered as if to faint at the information.
Meredith was dead.
Chapter 67
Fort Sherman, Panama
Frank Lantini surveyed his stockpile of weapons. The AK-47 was merely a stage prop. What he had been able to smuggle into the Central Committee’s hideout was impressive.
He had a .300 Whisper sniper rifle, an M4 carbine with noise suppressor, two Beretta pistols, and enough ammunition to go down fighting. By his math there were nine primaries, each with a security detail of one guard and one interpreter. That was 27 people he needed to kill, but he thought that the interpreters might run, so 18, best case.
If he had any connections left, he would have simply called in a JDAM strike onto his location, annihilating this terrorist base camp as well as ending his own misery.
Lantini had served honorably in the Air Force in military intelligence and then had worked his way through the labyrinth of the CIA until he was nominated and confirmed as the director. Not an overly political man, he did maintain a deep and unwavering belief that Islamic extremism was the equivalent threat to democracy that Nazism had posed in the middle of the 20th century.
His witting participation in the Rolling Stones endeavor last year had been a huge mistake, but one he had been compelled to make. Literally, he’d had a gun held to his head when Matt Garrett’s calls to receive kill chain approval on al Qaeda senior leadership came into his office. Despite the threat, he almost gave the approval.
Except that gun was there, held by the hand of the real Ronnie Wood.
But now he could do something about it. Redemption. This was all about redemption. He could square himself with his demons and then move on. Sure, he would continue to be on the run, but he would have evened the score.
Lantini had sent the communications team to Hellerman’s alternate command post in Middleburg when the vice president had originally asked for the command suite in his basement. Hellerman was such a moron, Lantini thought, that he had no idea that Lantini would emplace the technology so that he could eavesdrop or intercept Hellerman’s clandestine communications.
So he had nurtured this plan, never exposing it, so that he could ensnare as many of the nation’s enemies as possible. Using a North Korean double agent, Sue Kim, whom he had known for many years, he had watched as the Central Committee began planning, monitoring Hellerman’s conspiratorial tomes and messages all the way.
Lantini looked down at his Whisper and pulled it from the duffle bag that he had hidden in a spider hole covered with palm fronds.
No. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Zachary Garrett or even Matt Garrett. But he did believe in God and that redemption was possible. It was his soul he was most concerned about. Frankly, he didn’t care so much about what the country was enduring. In a way, he agreed with the man with the pistol to his head who was orchestrating most of this with Ballantine.
Lantini hand
led the rifle and laughed. “First it was Ollie North, then the Rolling Stones, and now . . .”
He heard a noise about 50 meters away.
Lantini was kneeling in a tight stand of sugarcane growing inside the fort. His field of vision was a 270-degree arc that included the sleeping quarters, five of the six guard posts, and the cinderblock hut in which the Central Committee had been planning.
The first of the attendees for the meeting were beginning to appear. Something was happening, and it was decision time, both for Sung and for Lantini.
Lantini’s only question was, how much did he allow to happen? Put differently, how much more should he allow to happen?
As he slowly sighted the weapon, he determined that what happened in the United States was no longer his concern.
This was about survival.
The Russian walked into view and Lantini pulled the trigger. A silent subsonic bullet hit his skull, flattened and tumbled through his brain. Next was the Russian’s interpreter.
Like a traffic accident, the others slowed and gawked in the open field, unsure of what was happening, providing superb targets for Lantini’s self-taught marksmanship.
Doing the math, Lantini determined that he had killed the bulk, if not all, of the foreigners, save Sue Kim and Tae Il Sung, who were in the planning hut. He kept his weapon trained on the pile of bodies as he used his peripheral vision to slowly stalk the command center.
Lowering his weapon, he opened the door and saw Sung and Kim sitting at the table.
Lantini nodded as Sung stared at the different weapon hanging by a sling across Lantini’s chest.
As Sung began to push back from the table, Lantini shot the North Korean in the heart.
He spared Sue Kim, looked at her, and said, “We’re done.”
As they began to exit, Sung’s cell phone rang, and they stopped in the doorway of the cinderblock bunker.
“I’ll get that,” Lantini said.
Chapter 68
Middleburg, Virginia
“Dead?” Matt said the words as if he couldn’t believe them, and saying them made them seem all the more unbelievable. No, there must be some mistake.
“Yes, Matt. I’m sorry.”
“If Meredith is dead, I know only one person who would have motive to kill her,” Matt said.
“It looks like a murder-suicide kind of thing. Maybe a spurned lover.” Palmer didn’t sound convinced.
“That might be what it looks like,” Matt said, staring again at Hellerman, “but the vice president here can tell us exactly what happened, can’t you, sir?”
“Matt, I’m glad you’re okay, and Zachary, too. How wonderful it is to have Zachary back,” Hellerman said.
“Don’t patronize me, you murdering son of a bitch.” Matt took a bold step toward Hellerman.
Alvin Jessup kept his eyes squarely on Matt and moved a bit closer to Hellerman. “Don’t do it, man. I don’t know what your beef is, but I will have to kill you if you threaten the vice president.”
“Alvin, what would you do if I told you I had proof that he had full knowledge and helped plan all the events of the last few days?”
“I’d say you were smoking some serious shit, brother,” Jessup said. The staff began to whisper the low rumble of disbelief.
“What about you, Hellerman? Isn’t this part of your Rebuild America Program? Blow up a few buildings, destroy a mall or two, and then launch a few nukes to get us really concerned?”
“You’re crazy, Garrett. You’ve gone completely mad. Alvin, arrest this man,” Hellerman ordered.
“I’m afraid I have to agree, Matt. You’re a bit stressed right now,” Palmer said. Matt watched as Alvin Jessup pulled handcuffs from his belt and unshackled them.
“Wait!” Zachary broke his silence.
The entire room focused on Matt’s brother, standing by his side.
“Wait. Matt’s right. And I remember you,” Zachary said, pointing at Hellerman. “You were a Reserve military intelligence officer during the Gulf War, weren’t you?”
Hellerman looked amused. “Of course I was. I believe we even met there, but enough of this foolishness. We’ve got a war to fight.”
“That’s right,” Matt interrupted, “this is your war.”
“Arrest him,” Hellerman said, flipping his hand at Matt.
“No, wait,” Zachary said. “Matt’s right. This is Hellerman’s war. I captured Ballantine during the war and brought him back to the military intelligence center in Saudi. I was being debriefed in the next room and saw them together. I overheard Ballantine and Hellerman discussing this. Something about a tape that Ballantine had of Hellerman talking to Ambassador Sandford.”
“This is crazy. Arrest them both, Alvin!” Hellerman spat.
Jessup took a step back, looked at his boss, and then back at Zachary, as if to say, You’ve got thirty seconds to convince me.
“Keep going,” Palmer said, surprising everyone.
“Then, after Ballantine captured me at Lake Moncrief, I heard him say that Hellerman was to give the backup launch code if things went badly tonight.”
“Launch code? What else could there be to launch?” Palmer asked. “We got all the UAVs and destroyed the Queen Bee. We confirmed that an hour ago.”
“Something about a ground invasion,” Zachary said. “I remember hearing at Moncrief that there is a ground invasion to follow the Predator attacks.”
“Give me a break,” Hellerman said. “Are you going to listen to these nut cases? For all we know, they’re the ones who are in on this thing.”
Hellerman dramatically paused a second, holding his hand up as if he were remembering something.
“Wait a minute. I caught Jeremiah nosing around in my basement earlier today.”
Jeremiah’s eyes popped wide, “Say what?”
“Alvin, check Jeremiah’s pockets.”
Jessup stepped toward Jeremiah and said, “Empty your pockets carefully.”
Jeremiah glared at him, pulling a set of keys from his right hip pocket.
“Haven’t seen those in days,” Hellerman said. “Just what the hell have you been up to, commander?”
Jeremiah, an African American in a white man’s mansion being framed for something he didn’t do. At least he could have been original, Jeremiah thought.
“Easy target, huh, veep?” Jeremiah said. “Black dude and all.”
Jeremiah paused, and pulled a small cell phone from his pocket.
“Watch it,” Jessup said.
“I’m not as stupid as I look,” Jeremiah replied.
“Hands out,” Jessup said as he began placing the handcuffs on Jeremiah. Jessup escorted Jeremiah to the side.
Jeremiah? Matt’s mind spun. Jeremiah was a mid-level action officer and a good guy at that. There was no way he could be the plant. Didn’t make sense. A diversion.
“Sir, I’ve got a tape right here,” Matt said to Palmer. “This proves what Zachary just said. This tape is a conversation between Hellerman and Sandford where he tells her to inform Hussein that it’s okay to invade Kuwait.”
“I got a tape, too,” Jeremiah shouted, his head a foot taller than all the others in the room. “Right here.” He shook his Blackberry.
Jessup’s head was cycling between Jeremiah and Matt now. Hellerman looked at Matt’s hand and thought there was a fifty-fifty chance that the tape was actually the conversation he had with Sandford. Then he looked at Jeremiah and figured the Navy man wasn’t such a dumb ass after all. To counter Jeremiah, he decided to call Garrett’s bluff.
Chess moves.
“I happen to have a tape player right over there,” Hellerman said to Matt. Hellerman walked over to a desk and pulled the small Sony from the drawer. “Alvin, lock up Jeremiah in the third cabin. Dave, you can be the honest broker here.”
Palmer looked at Hellerman and then back at Matt and Zachary. He walked over, grabbed the tape from Matt, then took the tape player from the vice president. He placed the tape in the
cassette window and pressed play.
“Sir, we’ve got something coming in on the airwaves from Panama,” Ralph Smithers said. “This sounds pretty important.”
Palmer pressed stop and then turned to Smithers.
“We’ve got a call going out to about fifteen different places around the country to stand by for commencement of immediate offensive operations.”
Smithers removed his headset and stood from his chair in the middle of the circled gathering, feeling important for having contributed that significant piece of information. “The speaker said they were waiting on the authorization to go.”
Palmer looked at Zachary and then back at Matt.
Matt said, “Why don’t you go check the basement of the mansion? I think you might be able to speak directly to his friend in Panama. And Zeke has nothing to do with that.”
Palmer started the tape, and Hellerman’s voice was clear.
As everyone was focused on the tape and Jessup was guarding Jeremiah, Hellerman shot through the side door toward the mansion.
Matt dashed away from the operations group, chasing Hellerman. He was fueled by his anger at Hellerman’s manipulation. Only Lantini’s artful charade last year compared to Hellerman’s nefarious orchestrations. As that thought cycled through his mind, something caught, like a gear, then slipped away. Lantini. Hellerman. Lantini. Hellerman.
What was it?
“It’s over, Hellerman. You’ve got to give the order to stand down!” Matt shouted. He sprinted across the flagstone path, followed Hellerman up the steps of the mansion, and they crashed through the front door nearly simultaneously. Hellerman escaped Matt’s grasp and shot down the stairs into the basement, closing the door behind him.
Matt used his momentum, size, and strength to break through the weak hasp and enter Hellerman’s small command and control cell.
“So this is it?” Matt said, breathing heavily. He stared at Hellerman, who was holding a cell phone. The gear released. Matt had figured it out.
“This country has gone to hell, Garrett, and no one cares anymore! But I care! I’m bringing us back from the brink of decline!”