Rogue Threat (34 page)

“So where do we go from here?”

“I need to ask you, Matt, for your own safety, of course, if during the time that you believed Zachary to be dead, you went through any of his things and perhaps found anything you believed to be unusual?”

“Well, yes,” Matt replied.

Peyton’s eyes darted to his, squinting as if to say,
What are you doing?

“Yes?” Rampert said, curious.

“I found out that my brother had two girlfriends, one in Hawaii and one in North Carolina. That dog. I found love letters from Kaoru, a Japanese chick who works as a consultant in Honolulu, and Stephanie, who I believe is a stripper in Fayetteville. Maybe you know her?” Of course, Matt knew that Zach had loved Riley Dwyer and his daughter, Amanda. But he was not giving Rampert any useful personal information.

“You don’t realize who you’re messing with, son.” Rampert’s eyes were hot coals.

“Maybe you don’t realize you’ve got a shotgun trained on your head right now. I believe it’s called tactical advantage, Colonel.”

“Do you want Zachary back or not?”

“Absolutely,” Matt said. “I’m ready now.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“But you’re supposed to be good, Rampert. I’ve heard about you. Seen you in action. And if you help me find my brother, we might just find what you’re looking for.” If Rampert wanted the tape badly enough, Matt thought, then he could bring to bear the full weight of Fort Bragg’s intelligence-gathering assets behind the effort to find Zachary. It would be a major victory.

His instincts were telling him that Zachary was supposed to be dead and that the military would not be knocking itself out to find him. The government would be even less eager to find him and perhaps determined that he not return. The ploy of plausible deniability would be blown.

Zachary was hugely expendable, and if the tape might increase his survivability, then Matt would pursue that option.

It was all he had.

Chapter 40

Atlantic Ocean

Ballantine’s body was numb with painkillers. Because he needed both hands to fly the Sherpa, he had taken Percocet, one step down from morphine, and he was fighting the drowsiness.

He reached down and cut the trim, attempting to smooth out the bumpy, low-level flight as much as possible. He snatched a bottle of water from the console. Swallowing against a swollen tongue, he let the water trickle down his throat.

He had been airborne for several hours. He knew that the Air National Guard was patrolling and that AWACS airplanes were searching for him. Ballantine had also launched two of the Predators, one to fly up the St. Lawrence River. The other was flying toward Detroit, Michigan. Both were diversions.

Because his ground control stations had been destroyed in Swanton, all he could do is set the computer to launch them from his barn in Vermont. Two hours after he departed in the float plane, the first should have taken off. Another hour later, the second. It was a classic scatter strategy. Limited U.S. resources would get multiple spot reports of low flying aircraft and have to set priorities. With one focused on shipping lanes and another on Detroit, Ballantine figured it would place his aircraft, if detected, as the third priority.

Also, convincing the Central Committee to not attack airplanes or airports was proving as key to his ability to fly as the stealth technology and tactics he employed with his Sherpa. He believed the Americans focus on avoiding economic ruin, as almost happened after 9/11, and would want to continue to fly their airplanes. His calculation had led him to persuade Tae Il Sung to hold off on threatening the airline industry. So far, their plan had been devoid of attacking anything dealing with air travel.

Ballantine flew across the glimmering water of the Atlantic Ocean, low enough and slowly enough that if he was detected by radar, it would probably read him as a boat. He was surprised to make it this far, but not overconfident of his chances at making it all the way. To avoid the intense air defense coverage and scrutiny of the capital region, he had slipped off the Atlantic coast through the less populated areas of southern Massachusetts and then paralleled the coast over twelve miles offshore, just outside the United States’ territorial limits.

His global positioning system told him he was due east of Chincoteague, Virginia. He had heard about the wild ponies that swam the channel at low tide, and he actually registered that it was something he might like to see one day. The possibilities for a painting were limitless. Soft pastel colors of a setting sun against the earth tones of the sand and swaying reeds as spotted horses galloped through a knee-deep strait to reach the island. Fascinating.

Banking to the west, Ballantine would soon be entering an area heavily monitored and patrolled by military aircraft. He would arrive at his destination in about twenty-five minutes, if everything went according to plan.

He spotted a small light in the distance, his sight of it enhanced by his night-vision goggles. His adrenaline began to surge for no apparent reason. So far the Percocet had done an excellent job of both numbing his pain and suppressing any emotion. He had lost many friends and the only woman that he might have ever loved in Canada. He knew that, as an international terrorist, emotions were needless burdens; but in his mind, at this moment, he was just an artist.

And he was a man whose brother had been murdered in cold blood by the American in the back of his airplane. He glanced over his shoulder at the bound and gagged Zachary Garrett. Frankly, he was surprised the man was still alive.

Ballantine determined the flashing light to be a buoy. He was about to enter the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, which was surprisingly quiet and vacant this evening. The quiet din of the modified turbine engine droned along, causing him to experience a form of highway hypnosis. He was tired, but he knew it would be tragic for the mastermind of the greatest terror attack in history to fall asleep at the controls and bore an insignificant hole into the ocean with his little Sherpa.

He noticed through his goggles that the peninsula to his right was beginning to narrow, an indication that he was nearing the south shore, where the twenty-five-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel would begin. His instructions were to key off the third and fourth islands that connected the second tunnel with the bridges. He looked at his fuel gauge, the red needle resting slightly above the E. Flying low, where the air was thickest, his having to fight the swirling winds had eaten into his fuel supplies. He figured he had about fifteen minutes of fuel before he would need to land.

He picked up the string of lights that dotted the bridge for several miles. The lights stopped for about two miles, began again, and then, in the distance, stopped for a brief span. His contact had told him to look specifically for the lights. Just east of the north tunnel would be his landing strip.

He was flying so low that he could see the white caps on the bay surface, and he received an occasional spindrift against his windscreen.

“Lily Pad one, this is Dragonfly one, over.”

Ballantine waited for the expected response, and, when it did not come, he repeated his message.

“Lily Pad one, this is Dragonfly one. Over.”

“Dragonfly one, this is Lily Pad. Over.”

“This is Dragonfly. Inbound. Over.”

“This is Lily Pad. Acknowledge visual. Stay low and hit the runway early. Over.”

“Wilco. Stand by.”

Ballantine searched the horizon, his weary eyes straining against the metal night-vision goggle rims. They saw nothing. Hearing a noise that was both unfamiliar and unsettling, he looked at the fuel gauge, the red needle falling below the empty line. He had used all 770 miles worth of his gas.

The propeller sputtering and straining, Ballantine ripped off his goggles and searched for the reserve tank switch. Frantically, his scrambling fingers found the toggle and flipped it downward. He pressed hard again, ensuring the switch was set. After a moment, the turbine picked up the steady hum, indicating it was receiving adequate fuel. He quickly set his goggles back to his face.

He still could not see his landing strip.

He determined he might be too low, so he gained altitude to increase his visibility.

“Dragonfly, this is Lily Pad. Acknowledge visual. Over.”

“Lily Pad, this is Dragonfly. No visual. Low fuel. Over.”

“Stand by.”

Ballantine suddenly noticed a string of dim lights to his right front. He could see the bridge-tunnel about five miles ahead.

“Lily Pad, this is Dragonfly. I acknowledge visual. Over.”

“Roger. Winds twelve knots from the southeast. Heading two-seven-zero degrees. Standing by. You must make touchdown within first fifty meters.”

Ballantine flew past the landing area and then banked hard to the north, making a hairpin turn in the air, his starboard wingtip almost touching the water. He gained altitude, leveled his approach, and picked up the two rows of runway lights. These lights were different. They seemed to be moving some, swaying back and forth, and they seemed to end abruptly, well before he knew he would be able to stop his airplane.

As he neared the landing strip he knew he would have to perform one last tricky maneuver, much like landing in the creek bed near Moncrief.

He came in just above the first lights and then pushed down on his controls, nosing over just a bit before pulling up to a level position. The Sherpa’s wheels grabbed the landing strip, lurching him forward but maintaining a steady roll toward the end of the short runway. He throttled back and pressed on the brakes, skidding hard and diving into darkness. He could not see beyond the windscreen. It was completely black.

Ballantine’s heart was beating powerfully against his chest. Then he realized, Lilypad had built a concealed runway with containers stacked three high on either side and wide enough for his airplane.
Ingenious.

He had made it. Miraculously, he had made it.

The deck of a merchant ship had been converted nicely into an aircraft carrier.

Chapter 41

Chesapeake Bay, Virginia

Native Virginia Beach resident Gary Austin knew that cobia was best caught near the rocks that supported the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. But there was a current this cool evening as the tide was flowing out to sea, and he didn’t want to run the risk of drifting into a concrete pylon while he focused on pulling in a twenty-pound cobia. Cobia tended to hang around structure, so Gary chose a floating buoy just outside the mouth of the bay to target.

Gary’s father had been the chief pilot, running the pilot boats out of Lynnhaven Inlet, where small crews of navigational experts would come about the merchant ships dotting the mouth of the bay like an armada awaiting the signal to attack. The pilots would board the ships and steer them through the obstacle course that included the bridge-tunnels and the tight channels. The navigational challenges were too many to risk a marginally trained ship captain from, say, Thailand, to negotiate. One wrong turn and a bridge or tunnel would be destroyed, stopping road and sea traffic for weeks.

“Red right returning,” Gary muttered aloud to himself, repeating the seafarer’s reminder of where to keep his boat in relation to the red light when returning to port. He stalled the engine and dropped anchor as a small sliver of the moon looked down at him with a haunting smile. In theory, he wasn’t supposed to be out tonight, as the recent attacks had caused the Hampton Roads Port Authority to issue a warning against all small craft from entering the bay. At 25 years old, Gary had two things in his favor. First, he was a certified merchant-ship pilot, and it was his night off. So if he ran into anyone, it would most likely be someone with whom he worked. Second, he thought the order to keep small craft out of the bay was stupid. With many friends in the military he knew that the more eyes and ears you had out and about, the more likely you were to deter bad things from happening.

“Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke,” he said.

He opened the Igloo cooler and pulled a frozen mullet from the chest. Taking his filet knife, he cut the fish in half, leaving two six-inch pieces of fish. He took the one with the head and ran a large hook through the lips of the fish. He then shut off all of his lights, to keep from spooking the cobia, and pulled on a pair of night-vision goggles he had purchased at the Army-Navy surplus store. The goggles were first generation and relied on starlight, but they were a vast improvement over the naked eye.

With the night-vision harness on his head, he picked up his rod and lobbed the baited hook over the side, watching the current pull the bait toward the buoy. He let the bait drift for about a minute, then reeled it in and repeated the process. It had good action fluttering in the current. He let the bait drift again, then locked the spool on his reel once it was directly aside the buoy. Putting the rod in a trolling rig, he set the line so that if a fish took the bait, it would set the hook.