His only true instinct was to find Zachary. In the end, he presumed, Zachary was all that mattered. The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks had been so chillingly brilliant in their execution that the nation was stunned to the point of disbelief. And for many Americans, while tragic, it was a distant event.
Now it was coming home to everyone. It was not New York and Washington, D.C. It was the American heartland that was being terrorized, fear undermining a sense of security in every citizen. The economy was in a nosedive that was comparable to the enemy freezing American assets, Matt thought. The Coalition has seemingly sped to victory in the Iraq War yet was actually caught flatfooted with so many troops deployed around the world in combat. There was not much left to defend the home front. With that notion, the spark of an idea lit in his mind.
But it was chased away quickly by the idea of what might be next. Surely the end game was something even more spectacular than what they had seen so far.
What would Ballantine do? What would Hussein have planned, even as he may have expected his demise?
Matt crested the hill and stared at the house, stopping as he pondered the two questions he had just asked himself. How could an enemy of the U.S. make the most headway against her? Sure, psychological terror is one thing, but what is the physical manifestation, the ultimate goal?
Through the morning fog, he saw a motorcycle turn much too quickly onto the dirt and gravel road that served as a driveway up to their home. He smiled. He knew he wasn’t alone anymore.
Matt walked quickly to the house, greeting Blake Sessoms as he dismounted the motorcycle.
“Am I glad to see you,” Matt said.
“Well, my brother, it has been too long.”
Matt looked away, at the mountains. “I know. I’m sorry.”
The two men hugged and then walked into the kitchen, where Karen was making coffee. Blake looked every bit the surfer. He was taller than Matt by about two inches. His countenance was clear, his face handsomely tanned. He was smooth and polished, intelligent, and a gentleman.
“Hey, Blake. Long time no see,” Karen said.
“Karen, how are you pretty lady?”
“Not pretty enough for you. Never was, you know?”
“Not true. You were always too good for me. That’s for sure.”
Karen smiled and then handed them each a cup of coffee, excusing herself. “Time to do some chores.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Blake said to her as she departed.
“Doing my job,” she called over her shoulder. Karen had called Blake and told him Matt needed a friend.
Matt turned a chair around and sat down, leaning against the back. Blake followed suit.
“Need to get inside your head, bro. I know when you’re not okay. So tell me what you know, starting with Zach “the Z-man” Garrett. Karen told me he’s alive.”
Matt smiled at Blake’s nickname for his brother. He had not heard anyone call him that in a long time, and just hearing the name gave him a sense that his brother was nearby. He grabbed his coffee and kicked back.
“Okay, I’ll start, as they say, from the beginning.” He began talking, slowly and deliberately at first, leading off with the Rolling Stones fiasco and then Zach’s funeral a year ago, the conversations with Hellerman, his depression, meeting Peyton, the breakup with Meredith, the plane crash, escaping the terrorists, Dr. Insect, the firefight, and then the jump into Moncrief, Canada.
Blake nodded and gestured. On occasion he stared out to the deck, still listening, thinking, piecing together the mosaic that Matt was describing. Of course, he mentioned Lantini, almost obsessively so… that bastard. At a significant pause, Blake motioned for him to stop.
“You mentioned the vice president sent you on the no-notice mission to link up with some special ops guys at Fort Bragg, and then you have this Colonel Rampert guy coming to your house asking about Z-man, right? And you’re still worried about these rocker dudes, the Stones, right?”
“Right,” Matt said.
“Okay, first question is, Why have you talked more about Lantini, Hellerman and Rampert than you have the enemy?”
Matt stared at him a moment.
“Think about it. You’ve got Zachary in the hands of an international terrorist and the nation under attack. Your instincts are the best I’ve ever seen, and you’re talking about these three bubbas. What gives?”
“They’re central to everything,” Matt said slowly.
“How central?” Blake asked suspiciously.
“That, bro, is the question.”
“Sounds like we need to go to wide field of view.”
Matt smiled. It was just like when they would hang out every day as teenagers. Blake was always good at helping Matt see the forest through the trees.
“Let me read it back to you,” Blake said. “You’ve got Zachary in captivity somewhere, probably being held as a hostage in exchange for something. You’ve got a special ops commando colonel with intense interest in the Z-man. Then you’ve got a tape that sounds like it might be a conspiracy to start the first Gulf War.” Blake was ticking off the points as if he were responding to an oral comprehensive exam for a master’s degree. “You’ve got some missing Predator drones, and then you’ve got this Dr. Insect guy that you think has done something to make the Predators able to communicate.”
“Don’t forget about Lantini,” Matt said.
“We’ll get to him in a minute. So what you’re dealing with is the fact that your brother is both in captivity and expendable to the government. You may have uncovered a conspiracy, and you may have the information to prevent a major, perhaps cataclysmic, attack on the country.”
“About right.”
Blake added another layer of analysis. Matt listened and was reminded that Blake had a rare acumen for discerning the precise heart of the matter.
“You’re trapped. You’ve got two or three people that you think might be involved in a conspiracy not only twelve years ago, but maybe even today. I agree. There’s some connectivity between the tape and today; otherwise, they wouldn’t be looking for it. Bottom line is, you want Zachary back alive, but you also have a conscience with respect to your service to the nation. And you can help. You know some things that can help. It’s just a piece of information or two that you need.”
“Again, right on.”
“So tell me what you think the gouge is,” Blake said.
“Well, I’m trying to be objective about this, but I can’t help but think Lantini is driving this bitch from somewhere afar. Then I think about Colonel Rampert from special ops. Zachary said, ‘Get the colonel.’ And Rampert was in the first Gulf War. He mentioned to me that he had met Ballantine. ‘Face to face’ is how I think he put it. He also operates in circles that would have access to ambassadors and intelligence operatives. He would be able to reach across the spectrum of political and military heavyweights with a fair amount of gravitas and authority.”
“Face to face? Huh.” Blake scratched his chin, then offered a counterpoint. “Maybe Zachary was saying, ‘Get the colonel so he can help us’? Or maybe there’s an entirely different colonel? It would make sense to me that the colonel he is talking about is someone who he knew from Desert Storm or before. Weren’t all these bubbas ‘colonels’ in Desert Storm? But what I’m hearing is that we have to figure out whose voice is on that tape, and that should crack the code as to who might be allied with Ballantine, correct?”
Matt thought a moment. “Roger, they were. And, correct, it seems plausible that it could be Rampert to me,” Matt said. “Maybe I’m just too focused on Lantini.”