“Damn it, I’m a good guy!” he said through clenched teeth. “Save the bullets for the bad guys.” He rolled to his left and lifted the shotgun, drew a bead on the movement in the loft and fired twice.
Peyton had run beneath the loft and was staring upward, pointing.
Matt shouted at Stephanie, “Get out of the barn and go to the house!” He fired two more shots at the loft and then swiftly dragged the father to safety. Matt flipped the man onto the ground outside of the barn, and Stephanie raced over to her father.
“Daddy!” she shouted. Then to Matt, “What have you done!”
“Here, put pressure right here,” he said, laying down the shotgun in order to hold a rag to the man’s shoulder. “He’s going to be okay. We just need to stop the bleeding.”
He could see she was crying, but she had followed his directions.
“I’m okay, honey. Just do as he says,” her father muttered through clenched teeth.
Matt scooped up the shotgun and peeked around the corner. He saw Peyton holding up the head of a dead man lying on the rafters of the barn.
“Any others?” Matt asked.
“Not that I can tell,” Peyton replied, looking down at him.
“Let me see that,” Matt said, pointing at a small satellite phone she had retrieved from the body.
Peyton was about to pocket the phone, but Matt took it and pressed redial.
“Check him for other stuff,” Matt directed.
“Already done. That’s it,” she said, pointing at the phone. “And this Russian pistol.”
“Is he dead?” came a voice in accented English through the satellite phone. “Vulture still has coverage with his flock, but not for long.”
Matt hung up the phone. Vulture? Have we been followed? A vulture circles looking for dead carcasses. What could it mean?
“We need to get to that airfield, quickly,” Matt said to the dairy man’s daughter.
“We’ve got an extra pickup, take that. The ambulance is on the way for Daddy,” she said. “The police will be coming, too. We’ll blame this whole thing on him,” she said, motioning toward the dead Middle Eastern-looking man. She added, “Sorry I shot you.”
“No biggie. You missed,” Matt said, then added, “Thanks for the truck.”
As they prepared to leave, the daughter tossed Matt her cell phone and handed him a box of shells, saying, “Take these and the shotgun, we’ve got another in the house.”
He checked her father one more time. He was lucid.
“Bin Laden?” the old man said.
“Worse,” Matt said.
“Protect us,” the Vermont man said, his proud voice raspy.
Matt and Peyton jumped into the 1975 Ford pickup truck and turned onto the road to the Franklin County State Airport.
Garrett was on the move. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, pushing him toward the airfield where he knew more chaos lurked.
“Wade into the middle of the chaos and sort it out,” the vice president had said.
He was back in the game.
And at the center of the storm.
CHAPTER 25
Meredith ran into Hellerman’s office, opening the door without knocking.
“Sir, I just spoke to Matt. He and Peyton are alive. I’ve directed a special ops team to Franklin County Airport in Vermont to pick them up.”
She could barely control her excitement. Hellerman spun in his chair and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head as if he were performing a full nelson on himself.
“Well, that’s great news, Meredith.”
“I can’t believe it, actually. He just called out of the blue. He didn’t have much time. I think they’re being chased.”
“Is Rampert involved?” Hellerman asked.
“Yes,” she muttered, still catching her breath.
“Let’s give it about thirty minutes and then check on their progress. They need to be on standby for the Boudreaux mission in case anything goes bad there. Meanwhile,” he said, stepping out from behind his desk, “I need you to look at something.”
“Sure. What?” Meredith asked.
“Well, you’re not going to like this, but I was looking at this.” Hellerman showed her the manila folder in his hand. “You remember the Philippine action?”
She turned and looked at him without speaking, as if to say, You’re kidding, right?
“Of course, you do,” he said with a smirk, realizing there might have been a brighter question to ask her. He motioned for her to sit down in a burgundy leather chair facing his desk.
“This is about the Ballantine mission. Something has me concerned about Rampert’s briefing.”
“What’s that?” Meredith asked, stepping away and truly not wanting to deal with anything but the rescue of Matt and Peyton.
He looked at Meredith and reminded her, “I think we were all over it yesterday asking about the guy’s identity. I’ve been involved in some deep black operations before, but never anything like this, where we’ve actually taken someone out of a coma and sent them on an operation.”
“So what are you thinking?” she asked.
“When Rampert was briefing the president, I just couldn’t help but think about the Special Forces operation we had going on down there while Zachary Garrett’s infantry company was fighting for their lives.”
“What’s your point?” she asked, not caring to rehash the painful turf.
“You said you went to Zachary Garrett’s funeral, right?” Hellerman asked.
“Yes, sir, I was there. That was back when Matt and I had just started dating.” And everything seemed possible. “I thought both Matt and Zachary were dead.” Meredith’s voice diminished to a whisper.
“Yes, I know.” Hellerman leveled his eyes at Meredith’s. “Did you ever see Zachary Garrett’s body? For that matter, did anyone see the body?”
“No, there was no viewing, I think, for obvious reasons.”
Where is he going with the question about Zachary? She remembered last year having several detailed discussions with Hellerman about the Garrett family. The vice president seemed oddly intrigued by Zachary’s bravery and Matt’s courage against what seemed insurmountable odds, both in Desert Storm and in other combat actions, such as the Philippines. Questions about Zachary eventually gave way to detailed questions about Matt.
Meredith’s political instincts told her that he was simply investigating Matt’s background prior to his nomination as an adviser to the CIA director. Those suspicions had been confirmed when, a few weeks later, the announcement had come.
“You might want to take a look at this,” Hellerman said, standing. He looked out of the window at the rolling hills of his property. “I’m going for a walk around the grounds. Be back in about twenty minutes, and I’d like an update on Matt and Peyton.”
“Sure,” she said, haltingly.
Hellerman gave her the folder as he walked past, his index finger grazing her wrist. Locking eyes with her, he said, “That is absolutely great news.” He held her gaze, a tight smile creasing his face.
She dropped her eyes when she saw something slide across Hellerman’s iris, like a circling raven effortlessly guarding its lair. She used the moment to look at the file, stand, and then return to her office. Once there, she sat at her desk and tugged on the brass chain to her green lawyer’s lamp.
She carefully read the executive summary, which was nicely written yet somehow lacked authenticity. It seemed a bit too… what was the word? Contrived?