Rogue Threat (54 page)

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 handled 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!”

“You’re a sick bastard.”

Hellerman produced a crazed, wicked smile, like a jack-o-lantern, as if to acknowledge Matt’s discovery. He held a small satellite phone in his hand as Matt walked closer and closer.

“Give them the order to stand down, Hellerman, or I’ll kill you myself.”

“You don’t scare me, Garrett. What’s another twenty or thirty thousand? That’s what it will take to make us serious about this, don’t you see? Our soldiers are dying, and until civilians start dying, no one will care. You and I both agree that this country is going down the drain. Rap music, drugs, money, credit cards, SUVs, and instant gratification. It’s all about people getting more and more stuff without ever having to work for it. You have to sacrifice every so often or you lose sight of what’s important.”

“You see the negative. I see the positive,” Matt argued, now standing a few inches from Hellerman. “You worry about this generation? News flash: worry about something else. We’re going to be okay.”

“You’re blind, Garrett. You don’t understand my genius. Madison’s genius. The roots of liberty must be nourished with the blood of the free!” Hellerman spat.

“Madison, I agree, was a genius, but don’t place yourself in his category. Madison fought tyranny and oppression. You’re fighting a phantom theory. It’s over, Hellerman. Now tell me the code word to call it off.”

Matt watched Hellerman, who began to shake, his eyes lifting to the white board on the wall. Matt looked at the white board and saw two words.

Cape Canaveral
had a small check mark next to it and
Octagon
had a small
X
next to it. Matt turned back to look at Hellerman, but instead found the unwelcome sight of a Ruger pistol staring him in the face.

“It’s your turn to die, Garrett, and my turn to save this country.”

A shot bellowed loudly in the small cavern of the basement. Matt flinched, but as the smoke cleared, he saw Hellerman stumbling back against the wall. He looked over his shoulder at the angry face of Alvin Jessup, his right hand holding a Smith and Wesson Magnum, smoke wafting from its bore.