“He’s trying to bridge that gap. He hired a bunch of smart people to talk this through and develop a plan to ‘rebuild America.’” Peyton used her hands to form quote marks when she said the last two words of her sentence.
“And Meredith is one of those smart people, along with you?”
“Meredith, yes; me, no. I’m on loan for a year through the White House Fellows program. I’m really a lawyer.”
“Great,” Matt groaned
“Oh, be original,” Peyton said cheerily. “Anyway, it’s your turn.”
Matt brushed off his cargo pants and rubbed his neck against the soft collar of his T-shirt.
“I was in the Philippines once. That’s all.”
“That’s all? I know a little bit, what Hellerman told me, but not much.”
“What did Hellerman tell you?”
“Like I said, not much.”
“Don’t really want to talk about it,” he said, taking a sip of his drink and looking through the dark oval window.
“You promised.” She smiled.
After a long pull on his second drink, he set the plastic cup on the table. He turned and stared out of the window. He could see the roads and buildings of some anonymous city spread 30,000 feet beneath him in a bizarre pattern of yellow and white dots. He knew that once he began talking about Bart Rathburn, alias Keith Richards, he wouldn’t be able to stop. But he forged ahead anyway.
He hadn’t really talked to anybody about his Philippine experience except Meredith, and not that much with her. He had talked to absolutely no one about Meredith. Usually he would talk to Blake Sessoms or his sister, Karen. He had become a recluse and found it too burdensome to even begin to discuss the deep emotions with which he was wrestling. Maybe one short conversation with a stranger wouldn’t hurt. But he knew that it would be difficult keeping it to just one. Everything was so complex, connected: The Rolling Stones, Zachary, Meredith, Fox and Diamond, and his past life as a paramilitary operator, his new career, whatever that might be. And Lantini, that bastard…
Focusing on the city below him, Matt began. “It’s complicated. Last spring in the Philippines I find Chuck Ramsey’s A-team, all shot up, and a Japanese weapons factory. Then I hop on a floatplane to Palau, where I meet Meredith and Rathburn. From there I get sucked back to Manila, where Rathburn and his cronies try to get me killed while they start their insurgency in the Philippines.
“Anyway, I was unaware until the end that Rathburn was dirty. So when we get captured, he blows my cover directly before he gets killed and we escape. Then I go back in for Rathburn and we bury him while a CNN correspondent films it.”
Matt could feel Peyton’s gaze. He focused on nothing in particular. His thoughts were spinning wildly back to a time that he had left hidden in the recesses of his mind.
Peyton snapped her fingers. “His satellite hookup was working.” She spoke with a sense of wonderment. In her mind’s eye she replayed the CNN broadcast of Matt’s eulogy for Rathburn. Barefoot’s camera panned away and zoomed in on the brutal execution of an unarmed Filipino civilian by a Japanese soldier. That video had been the trigger for the president to authorize the use of American conventional combat forces in the Philippines.
“We were on the run for days.” Matt’s voice was monotonous, recalling the events as mere facts, devoid of any emotion. It had to be that way. “They finally caught up with us — Barefoot, Sturgeon, and me. Jack got shot in the femur. Barefoot took a few hits in his right arm. I killed a rebel soldier with my knife and took his gun. We held for four hours before I got hit in the stomach. Hence the ‘appendectomy.’ We were surrounded.”
“How’d you survive?” Peyton asked.
“Zachary, my brother, was an infantry company commander stationed in Hawaii. His unit was on a mission in the Philippines and got caught in the rebellion. I had no idea he was there. Zach’s guys were attacking the enemy we were fending off when they found us, when Zach found me. The last thing I remember is my brother holding me and someone on the radio calling in a medical evacuation for me.”
“He saved your life.”
“That’s true. But then he goes and gets killed two days later in the final battle. I should have been there.” Matt’s voice was nearly a whisper. The sky outside of the airplane was dark. Small groups of white and yellow dots slid beneath the fuselage. Matt’s heart churned inside his chest. Zach would never be back. And why did he just expose his primary vulnerability to this stranger?
She watched him and thought about reaching across and touching his arm, but resisted.
“Zach’s body was so mangled they wouldn’t even let us view it before the funeral,” he said.
Peyton let a few minutes pass in silence, the heavy roar of the jet engine droning.
“You blame yourself for Zachary’s death. But he died doing what he loved to do.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier, Peyton.”
“Think of all the lives he saved.”
“Think of the one I didn’t.”
Matt left it at that.
CHAPTER 4
Peyton had excused herself to the lavatory, and Matt had just closed his eyes when he awoke to an unusual sound in the cockpit. It was a thud of sorts — not a normal airplane sound. He knew that much.
He heard something else come from the forward VIP cabin, where Peyton had originally been sitting. It was a rustling sound followed by some gurgling.
Never a nervous flyer, Matt rubbed his face and craned his neck to look toward the cockpit.
“What the—!” he said, getting to his feet.
The flight steward was crawling slowly toward him, her throat slit and blood gushing onto the floor. He heard a noise behind him and instinctively turned to defend himself.
“What’s going on?” Peyton said with a curious smile. And then she saw the woman on the floor and froze.
“We’ve got a problem in the cockpit,” Matt said, running to the steward. She reached out to him.
Matt bent down and grabbed her hand as he felt the airplane bank sharply to the right. Holding onto the armrest of a leather chair, he knelt down.
“What happened?” he whispered to her.
“Pilot…” Her voice was weak, and blood aspirated in a fine spray onto him as she attempted to speak.
That was all she could say before her head fell to the floor. Matt felt for her pulse and knew she was dead as he eyed the long trail of blood she had left in the aisle.
Peyton watched Matt, covering her mouth with her hand.
Matt pulled the steward to the side, placed a blanket over her, and said, “She’s dead. Nothing we can do for her. My guess is that the young pilot in there is dead also. I think we’ve got a terrorist operative flying this plane.”
“How is that possible?”
Matt looked at her. “Wake up, Peyton. Hellerman set us upWe were set up by Hellerman.”
Matt pulled his Baby Glock from his hip holster and flipped off the safety.
“That’s bullshit,” Peyton said. “I know Hellerman.”
“Pull your head out of your fourth point of contact, lady.”
Peyton ignored Matt’s paratrooper reference to her rear end. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill the pilot, and then you’re going to fly this thing.” Matt’s voice was calm as he turned toward the cockpit. Then he stopped and turned around.
In his pistol were full-metal-jacket bullets. He ejected the magazine and the chambered round and dug out a magazine of hollow points from his kit bag. He didn’t know their altitude, but considered that hollow-point rounds might serve them better in an airplane because they would flatten on impact, penetrating less than FMJs. Sliding the magazine into the weapon, he turned back toward the cockpit, walking carefully through the cabin door and into the VIP suite. He paused to look at the blood trail the steward had left, starting at the cockpit door. He noticed splatter marks along the communications panel to the right and thought she must have been standing there when she was attacked.