“I thought this place felt familiar,” Matt said.
“You’re telling me this is where we were held?”
“That’s right, and that’s got to be none other than Dr. Samuel Werthstein,” Matt said, pointing at the man two commandos were escorting to the back ramp of the MC-130. Werthstein was walking slowly in his white smock, his gray hair disheveled and his hands flex-cuffed behind his back.
“You know that hero?” Rampert asked Matt derisively. “Bunch of damn bees flying around in there where we found him.”
“I know who he is, and depending on what those bees have taught him and what he has given the bad guys, it could be bad news for us real soon.”
“Why don’t we go talk to him?” Rampert said. “Meanwhile, Peyton, I’ve got instructions to send you back to Middleburg to debrief the National Command Authority.”
“No way. I’m going with you guys,” she said.
“Not happening. See that Pave Low helicopter coming in? That’s your chariot,” Rampert said.
“See you when I get back,” Matt said to Peyton. She was standing defiantly, holding her AK-47 as if she were a freedom fighter being told her services were no longer needed.
“This is bullshit,” she said. Peyton turned and walked toward the hovering Pave Low, then stopped. Above the din of the aircraft she shouted, “Be careful, Matt Garrett! We need you back alive!”
Rampert and Matt walked to the MC-130 ramp, pushing through the competing prop washes of the Pave Low and the MC-130.
“Got some clothes for you in the aircraft. Gotta ask you a question, Garrett.”
“Okay, shoot.” Matt stopped at the top of the ramp and looked at Rampert as his radio began chirping. Matt recognized the voice. It was Meredith, evidently calling him from the command center in Middleburg.
“For you,” Rampert said, handing him a small Motorola radio.
“Matt?” Meredith asked.
“Yes?”
“Please forgive me for saying this. I know you’ve got a lot to think about right now, but I just need you to listen to me for a second. Get your mind to a point where you can analyze what I’m about to say without a knee-jerk reaction.”
“Don’t you think there’s a better time and place for this stuff?” Matt said. Through the open ramp of the MC-130, he watched the weakening spring sun begin to touch the New York mountains in the west. The sun was a flaming ball nestling atop the jagged ridge. He looked back at Peyton, who was boarding the helicopter with the assistance of two Air Force load-masters.
“I’m not talking about us, Matt. I’m talking about Zachary.”
“Well,” he protested immediately.
“Drop the attitude, and let me finish.”
“Okay, you have my undivided attention, Meredith.”
“This operator we have in Canada right now, the one we haven’t heard from…”
“Okay?”
“Well, you remember that Hellerman told you this in the Suburban yesterday before you left, right? Anyway, Rampert briefed us that his name is Winslow Boudreaux. Ever hear of him?”
“One of the operators, right? But I’m not certain.”
She paused, then said, “I pulled the file on one Winslow Boudreaux because something didn’t seem right when Colonel Rampert briefed us. There was too much mystery.”
“What’s that got to do with Zachary? Did he know him?” Matt looked at Rampert, who was standing about twenty feet away. Rampert tapped his watch to demonstrate his impatience.
“Matt, we never saw Zachary. We never identified him. I think Winslow Boudreaux or someone else is in a grave in Stanardsville.”
Matt let the comment hang in the air for a second, and then Meredith continued.
“And I think Zachary is still alive in Canada. Right now.”
Matt dropped his arm to his side, the radio handset almost slipping from his hand. No way. Then he considered the old Meredith, who would have only mentioned something of this magnitude for one of two reasons. One, he figured, she thought she was right. Second, she was trying to present him with the opportunity to do something about it. That’s the way the old Meredith, the one he loved and had wanted to wed, operated. She gave him the facts as she knew them, and then let him make the decisions.
“Matt, you there?” He could hear her faint voice near his hand.
“Yes, I’m here. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Thank you.”
It was not so much that he did not believe her. Rather, he was unable to accept that the information was true. His analysis of the information was removed from Meredith totally. He considered her speculation without emotion.
About the time he thought he might want to say something, he heard the unmistakable noise of four C-130 propellers racing. He looked at the aircraft and saw Rampert slicing his hand across his throat, indicating he needed Matt to cut off his conversation.
“I’ve got to go. Rampert’s giving me the high sign.”
“Matt?”
“Yes,” he said, becoming frustrated.
“I do love you. Good luck.”
“I… I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
He tossed the radio back to Rampert and then followed him into the bowels of the MC-130. The loadmaster handed him a pair of earplugs, which he needed, but did little good. As he walked along the nonskid, painted aisle, Matt was reminded of his first five jumps from the U.S. Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Since then, he had made hundreds of jumps, both static line and free fall. Toward the nose of the aircraft was a communications pod that he knew was Rampert’s command post.
Along the starboard side of the aircraft were two litters with the two wounded operators. A medic was attending to each. Their wounds appeared serious enough to require intravenous fluids, probably mixed with morphine. Along the port side of the aircraft, Matt saw five body bags stacked like cord wood. The special ops had even secured the two that he and Peyton had killed.
The two other operators were checking their gear and reloading their magazines. One was inspecting his parachute.
Matt sat next to Rampert inside the enclosed communications pod.
“Our operator in Canada has missed two reporting windows,” Rampert said. “Our standard operating procedure for that contingency is to do an emergency extraction. We lost the beacon on him about four hours ago, but we believe we know where he is. Because I’ve got two wounded operators and there is a sense of urgency to this mission, I am jumping in with the two men you see out there preparing. That gives me three. We need a fourth.”
Rampert let the invitation hang in the air.
“Who is the operator?” Matt asked, Meredith’s conversation fresh in his mind.
“Major Boudreaux,” Rampert said.
“You’re lying.”
His steel gray eyes locked onto Matt’s.
“You jumping or not? We don’t have much time. It will just be getting dark. We climb to twenty thousand feet over Canadian airspace along the Saint Lawrence River, jump into the breeze, and glide onto the Lake Moncrief landing zone. We find our operator, kill Ballantine, and get extracted by Pave Low helicopter. Afterward, we tell the Canucks what we did. Maybe.”
Matt thought for a moment. What did he have to lose? It had been a while since he had done an oxygen-assisted freefall, but it was like riding a bike. Worst that could happen was that he would burn a smoking hole in the Canadian countryside and never be heard from again. Better than dodging baseballs in my backyard, Matt thought.
Best that could happen would be that they rescue Boudreaux, or whoever he was, and get Ballantine. It seemed like a pretty good reward for the risk. Already he had been shot at twice, once by a farmer’s daughter and once by a terrorist. His fresh wound made the wounds from the Philippines a year ago seem like a century removed. There was still pain in his ribcage and a scar across his forearm, but somehow being able to do something, to go after someone, was helping, both psychologically and physically.