Zachary watched through bloodshot eyes as the doctor rolled up his black shirt sleeve and slipped the needle beneath his skin without the slightest pinch.
Only seconds passed before his vision narrowed and his head grew too heavy to hold up. He felt his mind swoon a bit and began hearing dislocated voices saying the words, “Predator One,” “Predator Two,” “Hellerman,” “Signal to go,” “Radio,” and so on.
“In the Sherpa,” Ballantine ordered.
The voices floated around as two people maneuvered him into the cargo compartment of the Sherpa and placed a large, black box next to him. He watched as best he could as the sailors drilled and filed for several minutes, using power drills to screw long bolts into the floor, countersinking the device. Then he watched as they connected wires from the box to what appeared to be a timer.
Though drugged, he instinctively knew he was staring at a nuclear bomb.
CHAPTER 52
With one hand grasping the rusty iron bar of the hull ladder and one foot still on the rail of the Boston Whaler, Matt Garrett was looking over his shoulder at Blake when his cell phone began to vibrate.
“Garrett,” he whispered into the phone.
After a pause, he heard Meredith’s voice. “Matt, turn on your television. Something’s going down. It’s big time. Ballantine cut into all the news channels and broadcast a message.”
“No TV. Hang on… Blake, find a news channel on the radio.” Matt’s voice was a low whisper that blended with the tide lapping against the hull of the small boat.
Blake bent over and turned on the boat radio, selected AM, and turned the dial until he could hear a man’s voice talking clearly.
“What’s going on?” Peyton cocked her head forward.
“Okay, got it, Meredith. Something about a public statement.”
“Right. Ballantine essentially said he was attacking us tonight. I think he truly enjoyed just scaring the hell out of two hundred million Americans.”
“Look, I have to go.” Matt didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the phone. Plus, he didn’t need the distraction of Meredith and all that came with visualizing her.
“Matt, look, Hellerman is in on this thing. I know it. I saw his command center, and he’s somehow calling some of the shots,” Meredith said.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Matt said. “I want to get Zachary back first.”
“Ballantine also mentioned he was working with Ronnie Wood. You may be onto Lantini.”
Memories rushed through Matt’s mind like bats from a black cave. Meredith had cracked the code on the Rolling Stones last year and Lantini, the one they speculated to be Ronnie Wood, had fled. That was also a time of great sadness as the loss of Zachary offset the budding love they each had begun to feel for one another. Now, all of the variables were in play again, only they were skewed. Zachary was alive, but in peril. Meredith had drifted away, perhaps pulled by some impossibly strong force. Ronnie Wood was reappearing.
And Matt was at the center of it all. Lantini, that bastard.
“Thanks, Meredith,” was all he could manage.
“Call me when you have a chance. I’m staying at a friend’s house, but I’m on my cell,” she said.
“Okay.”
Matt flipped the phone shut, stepped back into the Boston Whaler, and stared at the mammoth ship. After a moment, he opened the phone again, pulled a card from his wallet, and punched in a number.
“Hey, it’s Matt Garrett. You should probably call Meredith Morris, get a copy of what she sent me, and head this way. I’m going in now.”
He flipped the phone shut again.
“Who was that?” Peyton and Blake asked with raised eyebrows.
“Don’t worry about it. We are ad-libbing from this point forward. Blake, according to what we just heard on the radio, Ballantine and his Chinese fire drill are going to launch those UAVs tonight as a precursor to some follow-on action. Ronnie Wood is in play — Lantini. His ass is mine. Their method of operation has been to sustain the terror over a prolonged period of time, making us believe he can operate with impunity.”
“He pretty much has, hasn’t he?” Blake said.
“Not really. What he did was execute a plan, developed over the last ten years, on autopilot. Now he seems to be in a phase where he has to give cues and signals, hence going on television. I think his next move is to launch those UAVs with some kind of payload, either biological or chemical. Maybe a nuke. Though, that would be tough. But with China in play, anything is possible.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’m going up there to kill Ballantine and Lantini and get Zachary back.”
“That is not a plan.”
“I’ll make it up as I go,” Matt said, “just like Lake Moncrief. Only this time I come back with my brother.”
“You mean we’ll come back with your brother…” Blake could see he was serious.
“Blake, you need to stay in the boat here with Peyton.”
“Wait a minute,” Peyton interrupted. “I missed out on Moncrief and flew back in that stupid helicopter. I’m going with you.”
“I don’t think that’s any place for a chick,” Blake said. “Why don’t you stay with the boat while I head up with my bro?”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” she said.
“What is it with you guys? You argue like an old married couple. Now look, I’m doing this alone. It’s my responsibility,” Matt said.
“Since when was the fate of the free world your responsibility?” Blake said.
“Just doing my part, man,” Matt said, grabbing one of the AR-15s and a Luger pistol. He stuffed the pistol into his belt and then slung the rifle over his shoulder and across his chest. Grabbing four magazines of ammunition, he slapped one into each weapon and stuffed the remaining two into his pocket. He took the night-vision goggles and slipped them on his head. He pulled on some gloves, reaching out with his hand as the boat drifted closer to the ship’s metal hull.
“I’m going up. I’ll let you two sort out who stays, but someone needs to stay with the boat and watch for me when I come hauling ass back down this ladder with Zachary. We may have to jump off the side, and people will probably be shooting at us, so I need someone with this puppy ready to go. Understand?”
Blake and Peyton nodded at him.
Matt gave Blake a quick hug. “See you in you in a bit, bro.”
Then he stared at Peyton, her arms crossed, her face a dark mask against the ocean behind her. Now that Meredith seemed to have definitive proof that Hellerman was involved in this conspiracy, he was convinced that Peyton was a plant. Her mission might be to keep him close.
Operating under that notion, he gave her a long, sustained hug, sliding his hand into her back pants pocket. “You might want to hang onto this,” he said.
She didn’t reply for a moment and then said, “I understand.”
He gave her a quick kiss and said, “Be back shortly.” He turned, walked to the gunwale of the Boston Whaler, and said, “Later.”
Matt reached up and grabbed the metal rung, the first of many that were spaced about three feet apart all the way to the top of the hull. Matt felt his weight pull against his arms as he stepped off the boat and was fully suspended by the ladder rung. Because of the curvature of the hull, Matt found himself being pulled directly off the ladder by the gravity. He was climbing, suspended from the rungs.
He could hear the muffled sounds of Blake and Peyton talking softly as he progressed higher on the ladder. He realized that the hull of the ship was much higher than he could have imagined when he was looking at it from a distance. He was in good shape, though, even if he could feel the scar tissue tearing away at his abdomen and forearm with every pull. The more recent flesh wounds barked at him as well. He felt scabs ripping open where the bullets had grazed him.