“How do you know he’s coming?” Zachary said.
“I just know,” Ballantine said, his eyes turning dark as coal. “I just know.” His voice trailed off as he turned toward the messenger.
“They’ll be coming from the landing strip area either down the ridge or along the lake. Place one team on each approach ready to ambush. But I want Matt Garrett alive at all costs. Do you understand?” Ballantine said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Virginia, you stay here with Garrett. I will return with his brother.”
“Gladly,” she said, fondling her pistol.
Ballantine secured his rifle and turned toward Garrett. “This is really better than I could have ever hoped. Finding you has given me new life, new purpose. Now I even care about the other things that are about to happen.”
Then he was gone into the Canadian evening.
“What does he mean about the other things?” Zachary said, turning toward the woman. She was wearing a dark khaki outfit that blended neatly with her chocolate skin. Attractive woman, he thought. What the hell is she doing with Ballantine?
“Why should I tell you anything?” she said with a laugh.
“Because we’re both Americans, and Ballantine is up to no good.”
“What makes you think I’m American?” she laughed again. “And even if that’s the case, why the hell would I support such a corrupt government?”
“You’ll get no argument from me on our government, but it’s the way of life, you know. Democracy and all that good stuff.”
“Your government chooses to murder innocent people all over the world and does so in the name of freedom or democracy or vital interests. Well, we’ve turned that to our advantage.”
Zachary raised his eyebrows. Anything to compel her to talk. He needed information.
“We could not stop what has been set in motion now even if we wanted to.”
Zachary let the thought sink in for a moment, connecting this new information from this current identity with his programmed information from his previous identity. He smiled inwardly, thinking that it was a challenge to have to sort through two personalities. He had to achieve consensus with himself to figure out what he was thinking. He smiled.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Have you ever met my brother Matt?”
The black woman smiled. “No, why? Is he a big bad ass or something?”
“There’s that, but he’s also the smartest man I know.”
“Can’t be too smart if he’s in Canada, right here in our base camp,” she said.
“No, no. I think you’re wrong there, Virginia. He’s got to know something neither of us knows.”
She paced along the wooden floor, her long legs reaching out slowly as she walked. Zachary couldn’t help but notice her perfectly honed body, like that of a jungle cat, with absolutely no fat.
“Tell me about the war. I’ve heard it all from Ballantine. I’d like to hear what you have to say.”
“I was doing a job for my country. I had no bone to pick with the Iraqis or anyone else over there. My company was attacking his division. We had been briefed to capture the commanders of any Republican Guards units. I saw a command post vehicle and went for it. Ballantine and I met in hand-to-hand combat. His brother came to his defense.” Zachary paused a second, then continued. “So I shot his brother dead. It was war.”
“Yes, I understand that, and it is very similar to the story that Ballantine tells.”
“The war is over.”
“Maybe you don’t know that now, twelve years after the first Persian Gulf invasions, your country has again attacked Iraq; this time without provocation. We, Ballantine and the rest of us, are the counterpunch.”
He didn’t respond to her statement. His mind spun, searching for a tangible piece of information that could either confirm or deny her statement. Had the U.S. attacked Iraq unprovoked? If so, Zach was certain that there had to be good cause. But then what the hell was he doing here in Canada? Confused, he watched her circle the room.
“How do you think it will feel?” Virginia asked him. Her face was less than a foot from his. He could see in detail the softness of her lips, her smooth skin, and her striking facial features.
“How what will feel?”
“To watch your brother die,” she whispered coldly, “and then live with that memory.”
Zachary went cold at the thought, his curiosity about Iraq vanishing into the black void of his mind and replaced with the unfocused image of his brother’s face.
Surely there was something he could do.
CHAPTER 30
Matt watched the ground rise toward him, his rusty parachutist skills kicking in. The irony was not lost on him. Twenty-four hours ago he was getting onto an Air Force jet to fly to a counter-terrorist summit. Now he had just jumped from an Air Force plane to help destroy a terrorist cell.
He looked over at Rampert’s man, Hobart, who signaled him with a thumbs-up that it was time to deploy their parachutes. Pulling the rip cord, Matt felt the familiar yank of his canopy inflating and his leg straps crushing his testicles. Images of Mindanao and Ron Peterson flashed through his mind as he briefly recalled jumping into the C-130 crash in the uncharted rain forest a year ago.
Remembering his lucky landing amidst the wreckage, he reached over and pulled down on the two toggles. Suddenly his parachute flared, slowing his descent. Keeping his feet and knees pressed firmly together, he kept his eyes focused on the horizon. His body instinctively prepared for impact every two or three seconds, creating an anxious feeling that made him want to reach toward the ground with his feet. But he had learned long ago to avoid doing that at all costs.
Suddenly, the ground grabbed him before he had a chance to think about it again. He tumbled lightly and rolled away from his fluttering parachute. He felt a sharp pain in his left ribcage near where he had stowed his weapon. Once the pain dulled, his first thought was the same as it was for every jump: That wasn’t so bad.
Matt pulled his parachute down quickly and stowed it in a kit bag. That chore completed, he carefully scanned above the high weeds and spotted Rampert. The colonel was a solitary dark figure silhouetted against the soft night hues. He grabbed his bag and weapon and raced to Rampert, who had already packed his gear and was speaking quietly to no one that Matt could see. Then Rampert turned toward Matt.
“We’ve got movement toward the lake and just to the east of the drop zone. Ballantine’s goons are setting up two ambushes. Our man is being held in the cabin nearest the lake. We can loop east, north, and then west to avoid the ambushes. Our two other men are already moving in the opposite direction. Stick with me.” Rampert whispered when he spoke and used subtle hand and arm signals.
Matt followed the quickly moving Rampert, leaving the two kit bags behind. Flipping down his night-vision goggles, Matt picked his way through the sparse wood line like a running back through a defense and listened as Rampert talked quietly to his two other men.
Two other men. As if he was one of Rampert’s men. The thought brought back memories of all the missions with the Agency and the wounds that had ended that career path.
He saw Rampert stop and lift his M4 with a silencer. Matt scanned ahead of his own weapon for possible targets. He saw two darkened figures moving slowly toward them in the light-green haze of his night-vision goggles.
“Confirm you are not near checkpoint two,” Rampert whispered, obviously talking to his other team over the radio net that special operations employed.
After a brief wait, Rampert said, “Roger. If you are, stop now.”