Rogue Threat (9 page)

Meredith shook her head.
All the warnings and inspections and new government offices to prevent this, but somehow we failed.

“We’re still getting information in,” a voice said behind her. “We’ll have a meeting in thirty minutes in the operations center.”

She turned and saw Hellerman poking his head in her door. He had a handsome, tanned face framed by two shocks of gray hair that gave way to natural brown on the top. Perfect, bone-white teeth flashed, even when he wasn’t smiling.

She placed the pictures back in the desk and stood.

“I was just reading some of the cables. Have you seen this?” She held up a small manila folder.

“What is it?” Hellerman said, entering the office.

“This Predator thing,” she said, “I’m thinking this might be linked somehow. Was Peyton able to get anything else out of Matt?”

For weeks she had been studying the Predator case. Highly classified technology had been given to the Chinese, and now it seemed the military was missing eighteen Predators.
Those things don’t just get up and fly away
, Meredith thought. Each of them was concerned that China could migrate the technology to the Iraqis, who could then put them to use in the current conflict. She knew she was treading on thin ice; most of the transfers were suspected to be political paybacks from several years ago.

“I don’t know. Let’s just hope we can put the genie back in the bottle, as they say,” Hellerman said after a moment of thought.

“I think the saying is, ‘You
can’t
put the genie back in the bottle,’” she quipped.

“Have you seen
this
?” he said with raised eyebrows, changing the topic.

She stepped forward and took the folder from his hand. Someone had placed a Top Secret cover on it. Opening the file, she saw the standard cover disclaimer telling the reader that he or she would be shot at high noon on the White House lawn if he or she ever disclosed the material within to unauthorized personnel, or words to that effect.

Turning the next page, she read the cover, “Operation Maple Thunder.”

“Of course, but do I need to read it again?” Meredith asked.

Hellerman sat in a burgundy, high-backed leather chair facing her desk. Meredith sat in its twin across the small table with a bowl of candy in the middle.

“I think Ballantine is behind the bombings today. We have an operative ready to go in alone and snatch him in his hideout in Canada. The Canadians are refusing to cooperate and assure us there’s no terrorist operating from their country. So the trick is doing something, but making it look like we did nothing. Our operative is perfect. He has the perfect cover. He can go in and do this thing and if he fails, we have deniability; if he succeeds, we have deniability. Read it,” he said pointing down at the folder. “We need to talk to the president shortly.”

Meredith opened the file and scanned its contents then placed it in her lap. Her first thoughts were sparked by instinct, but she fought them back in order to formulate an objective report.
Huh
, she thought.

“Sounds like a good idea if we really believe this guy can get close to Ballantine. So, really, what’s our deniability?” she asked.

“Complete. In the administration only the president, you, and I know about this. On the back page are the names of two people at Fort Bragg who know: the special operations commander and the doctor who brought him back to life, so to speak. And they are the only ones who know this individual’s name.”

“When I was looking at this the other day, I wondered whether you were okay with this from a moral point of view,” she said.

“What’s not to be okay?”

Meredith watched him carefully. He was baiting her. He wanted her to fight him on this one, she could tell.

“For one, the government is taking an individual and giving him a new identity without him knowing who he really is. As you say,
we
don’t even know who he is. The legal, moral, and ethical implications reach far beyond what any of us can imagine.” She spoke without emotion, no hint of criticism in her voice. She was just playing the role she knew he needed.

“Sure, but if we get close to Ballantine and can stop him before he kills another five thousand people, then we justify it,” Hellerman countered.

“First, we don’t know that Ballantine did this,” she said, pointing at the television. “Second, even if that’s true, what happens to our secret killer? We’ve now programmed him to be someone else. Does he continue in this vein, or do we then try to fix him back the way he was?”

“Too hypothetical, Meredith—”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s too hard, but it’s not hypothetical. We have to think about the end state with this guy, assuming he can do this.”

Hellerman tapped a finger against his pursed lips. “Your contention is that we are only doing what is expedient now, the future of this one individual be damned.”

“It’s a position,” she said neutrally. She wasn’t quite sure what she believed, but everything she had said sounded logical to her. They were both making it up as they went.

“Well, we’re told that he has recovered completely from his coma. Colonel Rampert, the special ops commander, and the doctor worked out a rehabilitation regimen for him and they say he’s ready.”

“What are the possible courses of action?” she asked quietly.

“Simple,” he said. “We either execute Operation Maple Thunder, to kill or capture Ballantine, or we don’t.”

“Yes, sir, but how do we do it?

“Look, in fifteen minutes we need to advise the president about what he should do.”

Fifteen minutes, my ass
.

“I mean, do we send him up there to fish, or do we parachute him in and let him wander up to the fishing camp—”

“Both options have been considered along with a few others. But ultimately, it’s Rampert’s call.”

“We should know. The president should know, sir.” She wrinkled her brow in determination.

“I agree. We can do a video teleconference and save time.”

“Let’s do it,” she said.

Ezekial Jeremiah, a tall, black Naval Academy graduate stuck his head in the door, eyes wide with concern. “Uh, sir, we’ve . . . we’ve lost contact with Matt Garrett’s airplane.”

“What do you mean, ‘lost contact’?” snapped Hellerman.

“Exactly that, sir. Transponder went off about thirty minutes ago, and now we have no idea where the plane is. We’ve lost contact with the pilot and radar is not tracking it. I’ve contacted the AWACS; they may be able to collect on it from the air,” Jeremiah said.

“Where was the airplane’s last position?” Hellerman asked.

“Crossing from Pennsylvania, near Williamsport, into New York, heading north.”

“New York? Why so far north? Weren’t they going to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina?” Meredith asked.

“That’s correct.”

“Okay, work the AWACS and notify special ops. Meanwhile, I’ll call the president so we can get this briefing spun up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hellerman walked toward the door then turned.

“I know how you feel about Matt. I hope this isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

Meredith watched him depart, turned toward the window and swallowed the palpable fear in her throat.
Be strong
, she thought to herself. The tear seeking a lonely path down her cheek was the only outward manifestation of the dread growing inside.

Meredith wiped her face, composed herself, and walked into the buzzing operations center.

CHAPTER 11

Vermont

Despite his mind-numbing headache, Matt recalled the crash quite vividly. They had dropped like a stone from about a hundred feet. There had been fire and smoke, but he recalled seeing the plane still in one piece. Something must have gone right for him to survive. The landing gear
had
been down, apparently.

Then he remembered the words the man had said, “Ahmad and the woman are
dead.”

Was Peyton really gone? He looked at his arms and felt his face, as if to determine the severity of the accident via the nature of his injuries. Below his rolled-up sleeves, he saw multiple cuts and abrasions from what he figured was the instinctive reaction of putting his hands in front of his face as the aircraft struck the ground. On his face, he could feel one deep laceration that had etched a diagonal across his forehead. This, he thought, was most likely the source of his concussion. His body ached, but all things considered, he was doing pretty well for just having emerged from an airplane crash.

A rat came sniffing in his direction, and Matt nudged it away with his foot as he was reminded of the cell he shared with Rathburn, Barefoot, and Sturgeon in the Philippines. He stood slowly, pain leaving his body in the form of a low growl. He was hurt.

Knees popping and back aching, he leaned against the wall and breathed heavily, pulling in as much oxygen as he could in the dirty cavern. The room was dark, though his eyes had adjusted sufficiently to discern shapes. He noticed the faintest hint of artificial light skidding beneath the door and limped the thirty feet or so separating him from it.

Extending his hands before him, he found the edges of the door and worked his way to the door knob, which was a loose piece of brass that felt as though it might come off in his hand if he turned too hard. He twisted the knob slowly and then pulled the door ajar a fraction of an inch. He felt a chain rattle and scrape along a hasp that he could now see affixed between the door and the jamb. A master lock about the size of a gym lock held the chain in place. The chain itself was a heavy gauge.

The faint light originated not directly beyond the door but well down a narrow hallway. Matt could see what appeared to be a lone figure to his right, about a hundred feet away. To his left the hallway appeared to end, with no other doors or windows.

The man at the end of the hallway turned aimlessly in his direction, giving Matt a good look at him. He was about six feet tall and modestly built and was smoking a cigarette.

Matt began to close the door and then stopped.

Walking down the hallway, approaching the guard, were two more people. One was a female and the other a male. His immediate sense was that they were together, but then he realized that it wasn’t possible when he noticed that the female was Peyton O’Hara.

She had a small limp and her left arm was in a sling. Must have been a medical checkup, Matt thought, but then why the hell wasn’t he receiving any specialized care?

As they approached, the man walking with Peyton stopped and opened a door for her about thirty feet from where Matt stood peering through a paper-thin crack in his door. As Peyton turned into the room, the open door cast a light across her face that let Matt see she had been badly cut across one cheek. Her shirt was blood-soaked and her face, though absent any apparent signs of fear, was weary with pain. Turning, Peyton lifted her head toward Matt’s door, and for a brief moment, Matt believed their eyes met. She stumbled as she entered the room, and Matt quietly closed his door.

Peyton was alive, which meant that the disembodied voice he had heard earlier must have been talking about the poor Air Force attendant.

Matt knew from his training that the length of time spent in captivity is inversely proportional to one’s likelihood of escaping. The more time his captors had to plan his demise, the more successful they were likely to be. As for the prisoner, all the planning in the world would not make up for a lack of resources to execute an escape plan. The one resource upon which Matt had drawn in the past was the element of surprise. Although a year-long layoff had dimmed his instincts a bit, he already knew what he was going to do.

The door opened and one man led another into the room, each carrying a Browning pump shotgun. Interesting choice. That told him something about his situation. He guessed they were in an area that was not entirely secluded—not public, but not altogether isolated. The shotguns could double as hunting weapons to local onlookers.

“I see you have returned from the dead, Matt Garrett,” said the second man, who was clearly in charge. He had a soft, musical voice.

“Either that, or we’re all in hell,” Matt scowled, his throat raspy. Hearing his own voice after hours of silence confirmed, in a strange way, that he was indeed alive.

“Yes, well, hell for you it may be,” the man retorted, drawing near, his shotgun crooked into one arm as if bird hunting.

Matt could see that the other captor, however, was training his Browning directly on his midsection, another indication that these were not amateurs. Shoot for the largest body mass to wound and then kill if necessary. The shooter’s principle was to ensure a first-time hit.

Matt watched as the man with the musical voice approached him assuming that Matt was too weak or wounded to be a threat. Truthfully, Matt was acting the part just a bit, like a prizefighter limping along, doing the rope-a-dope, to cajole his opponent into letting down his guard. In his lower periphery, Matt could see that the approaching captor’s weapon was hanging loosely along his forearm. The butt of the weapon was pressing upward against his triceps.

“I have someone who is very interested in meeting you, Mister Garrett, but our actions of the last twenty-four hours have jeopardized our ability to travel. We have instructions that now the meeting will not take place,” the man said in lilting tones that, when he spoke, made his sentences seem almost poetic.