Rogue Threat (46 page)

Chesapeake Bay

With one hand grasping the rusty iron bar of the hull ladder and one foot still on the rail of the Boston Whaler, Matt Garrett was looking over his shoulder at Blake when his cell phone began to vibrate.

“Garrett,” he whispered into the phone.

After a pause, he heard Meredith’s voice. “Matt, turn on your television. Something’s going down. It’s big time. Ballantine cut into all the news channels and broadcast a message.”

“No TV. Hang on. . . . Blake, find a news channel on the radio.” Matt’s voice was a low whisper that blended with the tide lapping against the hull of the small boat.

Blake bent over and turned on the boat radio, selected AM, and turned the dial until he could hear a man’s voice talking clearly.

“What’s going on?” Peyton cocked her head forward.

“Okay, got it, Meredith. Something about a public statement.”

“Right. Ballantine essentially said he was attacking us tonight. I think he truly enjoyed just scaring the hell out of two hundred million Americans.”

“Look, I have to go.” Matt didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the phone. Plus, he didn’t need the distraction of Meredith and all that came with visualizing her.

“Matt, look, Hellerman is in on this thing. I know it. I saw his command center, and he’s somehow calling some of the shots,” Meredith said.

“We’ll deal with that later,” Matt said. “I want to get Zachary back first.”

“Ballantine also mentioned he was working with Ronnie Wood. You may be onto Lantini.”

Memories rushed through Matt’s mind like bats from a black cave. Meredith had cracked the code on the Rolling Stones last year and Lantini, the one they speculated to be Ronnie Wood, had fled. That was also a time of great sadness as the loss of Zachary offset the budding love they each had begun to feel for one another. Now, all of the variables were in play again, only they were skewed. Zachary was alive, but in peril. Meredith had drifted away, perhaps pulled by some impossibly strong force. Ronnie Wood was reappearing.

And Matt was at the center of it all.
Lantini, that bastard.

“Thanks, Meredith,” was all he could manage.

“Call me when you have a chance. I’m staying at a friend’s house, but I’m on my cell,” she said.

“Okay.”

Matt flipped the phone shut, stepped back into the Boston Whaler, and stared at the mammoth ship. After a moment, he opened the phone again, pulled a card from his wallet, and punched in a number.

“Hey, it’s Matt Garrett. You should probably call Meredith Morris, get a copy of what she sent me, and head this way. I’m going in now.”

He flipped the phone shut again.

“Who was that?” Peyton and Blake asked with raised eyebrows.

“Don’t worry about it. We are ad-libbing from this point forward. Blake, according to what we just heard on the radio, Ballantine and his Chinese fire drill are going to launch those UAVs tonight as a precursor to some follow-on action. Ronnie Wood is in play—Lantini. His ass is mine. Their method of operation has been to sustain the terror over a prolonged period of time, making us believe he can operate with impunity.”

“He pretty much has, hasn’t he?” Blake said.

“Not really. What he did was execute a plan, developed over the last ten years, on autopilot. Now he seems to be in a phase where he has to give cues and signals, hence going on television. I think his next move is to launch those UAVs with some kind of payload, either biological or chemical. Maybe a nuke. Though, that would be tough. But with China in play, anything is possible.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“I’m going up there to kill Ballantine and Lantini and get Zachary back.”

“That is not a plan.”

“I’ll make it up as I go,” Matt said, “just like Lake Moncrief. Only this time I come back with my brother.”

“You mean
we’ll
come back with your brother . . .” Blake could see he was serious.

“Blake, you need to stay in the boat here with Peyton.”

“Wait a minute,” Peyton interrupted. “I missed out on Moncrief and flew back in that stupid helicopter. I’m going with you.”

“I don’t think that’s any place for a chick,” Blake said. “Why don’t you stay with the boat while I head up with my bro?”

“You know that’s not going to happen,” she said.

“What is it with you guys? You argue like an old married couple. Now look, I’m doing this alone. It’s my responsibility,” Matt said.

“Since when was the fate of the free world your responsibility?” Blake said.

“Just doing my part, man,” Matt said, grabbing one of the AR-15s and a Luger pistol. He stuffed the pistol into his belt and then slung the rifle over his shoulder and across his chest. Grabbing four magazines of ammunition, he slapped one into each weapon and stuffed the remaining two into his pocket. He took the night-vision goggles and slipped them on his head. He pulled on some gloves, reaching out with his hand as the boat drifted closer to the ship’s metal hull.

“I’m going up. I’ll let you two sort out who stays, but someone needs to stay with the boat and watch for me when I come hauling ass back down this ladder with Zachary. We may have to jump off the side, and people will probably be shooting at us, so I need someone with this puppy ready to go. Understand?”

Blake and Peyton nodded at him.

Matt gave Blake a quick hug. “See you in you in a bit, bro.”

Then he stared at Peyton, her arms crossed, her face a dark mask against the ocean behind her. Now that Meredith seemed to have definitive proof that Hellerman was involved in this conspiracy, he was convinced that Peyton was a plant. Her mission might be to keep him close.

Operating under that notion, he gave her a long, sustained hug, sliding his hand into her back pants pocket. “You might want to hang onto this,” he said.

She didn’t reply for a moment and then said, “I understand.”

He gave her a quick kiss and said, “Be back shortly.” He turned, walked to the gunwale of the Boston Whaler, and said, “Later.”

Matt reached up and grabbed the metal rung, the first of many that were spaced about three feet apart all the way to the top of the hull. Matt felt his weight pull against his arms as he stepped off the boat and was fully suspended by the ladder rung. Because of the curvature of the hull, Matt found himself being pulled directly off the ladder by the gravity. He was climbing, suspended from the rungs.

He could hear the muffled sounds of Blake and Peyton talking softly as he progressed higher on the ladder. He realized that the hull of the ship was much higher than he could have imagined when he was looking at it from a distance. He was in good shape, though, even if he could feel the scar tissue tearing away at his abdomen and forearm with every pull. The more recent flesh wounds barked at him as well. He felt scabs ripping open where the bullets had grazed him.

Still, he focused, thinking about his weapons and the small amount of ammunition that he had on hand. He had two twenty-round magazines for the AR-15 and two eight-round magazines for the pistol. He had the distinct impression that his ammunition load might not be enough to complete the job.

As Matt approached the top of the ship, he saw he would have to negotiate a small ledge that stuck out about three feet from the surface of the hull. He could see the outline of a hatch that, under normal circumstances, would be open for anyone traversing the ladder. He pressed against it and determined that it was locked. He looked down and could not see Blake’s Boston Whaler, meaning they had repositioned or that he was simply too high. Clearly he would have to be very nimble to reach out, secure the ledge, and then essentially do a pull up while swinging a leg atop the outcropping.

Holding onto the ladder with one hand, Matt reached out with the other and grasped the gunwale. He could barely reach it and had to swing one foot out over the water to give him the leverage to fully grip the leading edge of the gunwale. He realized another problem in that the metal was about four inches thick, preventing him from getting a good handhold. He would have to simply use the strength of his fingers to support his weight, like a rock climber. He inched his hand forward to the point where he felt like he had a good grip and then mustered the courage to smoothly let go of the ladder with the other hand.

He now had one hand on the protruding gunwale and one foot on the ladder, forming a triangle with the hull of the ship and the outermost portion of the ship’s gunwale. The tension against his fingers was enormous, only lessened a bit when he slowly moved his other hand to the ledge and grasped tightly next to his supporting hand. As he was moving his hand, Matt reached a point where his foot on the ladder had to come free. He was hanging by two hands, a rifle slung across his back, feet pointed straight down at the water, and certain danger awaiting him as he crested the rail.

He lifted himself as if he were doing a pull-up, scar tissue really becoming a factor. He hadn’t realized until this point how severely wounded he had been. A bullet had pierced his stomach and all associated muscles and organs less than a year ago. The bayonet cut across his forearm had healed, but the tendon and ligaments were stiff and unwieldy. He was thankful at this very moment, however, that he had been doing batting practice, working his wrists and forearms hard, rebuilding them.

Matt lifted his leg slowly. It was harder this way because he couldn’t get any momentum going. He had to rely on pure strength and adrenaline, of which he had plenty. Hooking his left foot onto the ledge, he continued pulling with his arms until he could reach out with his left arm and slide it along the riveted metal. All of this was going well until he felt something loosen in his belt and had the sickening realization that his pistol was sliding loose.

There was absolutely nothing he could do about it except accelerate his climb onto the ledge. He did, but it was too late. He felt the pistol pop out of his waist and visualized it falling. About the time he would have expected to hear a small splash, he heard a dull thud. Either splashes registered as thuds this high up or the pistol landed in the boat. He hoped he hadn’t just killed Blake or Peyton.

He was on the gunwale and quickly slipped over onto the deck of the ship. He found himself staring at a large container, but could see a pathway toward the superstructure of the ship. Stopping to catch his breath and ensure he at least had some ammunition left, Matt heard a high buzzing sound, like the sound of a weed eater.

The sound also reminded him of remotely piloted airplanes, the kind you see on the weekends in the open fields, with a father and son laughing and playing with the joystick as the small aircraft does barrel rolls in the sky. Funny he should be having that image pop into his mind as it occurred to him that Ballantine was launching the first unmanned aerial vehicle.

Destination unknown.

Chapter 53

Aboard the Fong Hou

Ballantine looked at the television screen and saw the darkened cave of the
Fong Hou
runway. Though he sat in a comfortable chair in the ship’s command center, his visual perspective was that of a pilot looking out of the cockpit window of the Predator.

He and Admiral Chen had completed inspection of the crude nuclear bombs the technicians had affixed to four of the Predators. The remaining aircraft were carrying VX nerve gas as their payload. Chen and Ballantine kept their distance.

The technicians had then entered the grid coordinates into the global positioning system aboard each aircraft, allowing them to fly on autopilot once launched, much like cruise missiles shot from U.S. Navy ships. Because they could only launch one Predator at a time with the single monitor, Ballantine had elected to fly each aircraft for thirty minutes, get it on cruise path, and then release it to the Queen Bee’s satellite control for digital guidance.

Flight time at 70 mph to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, would be three hours. The flight to the Pentagon would be about two hours, and then Ballantine would launch the chemical attacks on population centers, saving the nearby naval station in Norfolk for last. This would give him the opportunity to get in his Sherpa and fly it directly into the White House with a nuclear bomb aboard.

Sitting in the command center at the controls of the Predator terminal, he waited for the green light to flash, which would give him the signal to release the brakes on the Predator. The red light flickered to yellow.

Ballantine marveled at the genius of their campaign so far. It had been innovative and lethal. While in his view the Americans had come into Afghanistan with a muted and limp response to the September 11 attacks, this campaign could serve as a primer on how to attack a country in the twenty-first century. Start with terrifying attacks on the civilian population, follow with debilitating attacks on military infrastructure, and conclude with destruction of command and control capability.

Through the television screen, Ballantine saw Admiral Chen walk to the front of the Predator and stand at attention, saluting in strict military fashion. The admiral disappeared from sight as the small light at the bottom of his control terminal turned green.

Although Ballantine could not hear it, he could sense that the whining engine of the Predator had become deafening. He released the brake and the catapult shot the aircraft forward along the centerline of the runway. He gingerly handled the joystick as he watched the Predator bore through the cavern. Quickly, though, the Predator was free of the runway, dipping a bit off the bow’s elevated ramp. He gained rudder control and pulled the joystick to the rear, gathering altitude as he left the throttle full.
Like playing a video game
, he thought,
though much more deadly
.