“This thing will be over in two hours. Who gave him the authorization to do a stand-down with our quick-response force?”
“I asked him that, and he said he thought another wing was covering the quick-response mission.”
“Keep working it,” Hellerman said, frustrated.
“Sir,” Jock Evans said, holding his hand over the phone, “it’s Agent Jessup.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking the phone.
“Mr. Vice President, if you could meet me in the big house, I’d appreciate it,” Jessup said.
“Be there in a minute,” Hellerman said.
He handed the phone to Evans and walked out the door. He called over his shoulder, “Be back in a minute. Keep tracking the situation, team. Zeke, join me in a few minutes.”
Walking across the driveway, Hellerman felt a renewed sense of purpose with the plan actually underway. The attacks on the civilian population had a large impact. Now that the Predators were on the way, the country was fighting back. Even if it was just one F-14, at least it was a start. He had never imagined that any of the Predators would reach their targets, anyway.
He walked up the steps and into the foyer of his mansion to find Jessup waiting for him in the living room.
“Sir, I don’t know what’s going on, but we tracked a cell phone call from Colonel Jack Rampert to Meredith Morris. We’ve got her location, and I sent one of my men out to get her and bring her here, just like you ordered.”
“Great,” Hellerman said. “When do you think she’ll be here?”
Jessup raised his eyebrows as only he could do. “Hopefully within the hour, but I have to ask you, sir, do you have anyone else looking for her?” He was a big man and very respectful of the friend he protected every day, but he would not let himself drift beyond a certain line, no matter how strong the tide.
“Alvin, why would I do that?” Hellerman said, acting curious.
“Sir, the nature of the phone conversation indicates to me that you might be concerned about something she might say. And you’re talking to me, not some green Secret Service agent. Sir.”
“Meredith may be involved in some bad stuff. She’s had some money problems and boyfriend problems that are pretty well known. We just need to get her and bring her here, that’s all.”
Jessup stared at his boss for a long moment. “Sir, I will do what you say, but I will not cross the line. I want to know if my agent is going into harm’s way when he gets to Meredith.”
“I would never expect you to cross any line,” Hellerman said. “And I would never have you send an agent into harm’s way unnecessarily.”
On that note, he turned and left Jessup standing in the foyer as he descended into the basement.
Jeremiah appeared a few minutes later.
“What have you found out? We’ve got Rampert up in a helicopter over this ship. Is he friend or foe?”
“Sir, then-Lieutenant Colonel Rampert was a Delta Force operator in the first Gulf War. Ballantine was interrogated by several different soldiers, but it appears that Lantini and Rampert were involved somehow.” Jeremiah looked away for a moment and then back at the vice president. “And you talked to Ballantine also.”
“Of course I did. I was in charge of that whole mess. Tens of thousands of enemy prisoners of war, and this hotshot lieutenant brings in a no-shit Republican Guard enemy commander. What else was I going to do?”
“The interrogation reports you gave me show that Ballantine proved of no significant intelligence value and with his French connections, he was released rather quickly. The reports show that Lantini interviewed him twice and that Rampert was responsible for releasing him into the wild, as they say.”
“So, you think Rampert and Lantini are triangulating with Ballantine now?”
“Seems plausible.”
“Pick up that phone over there and dial me in to Dave Palmer,” Hellerman directed. When Jeremiah picked up one phone, Hellerman said, “No, not that one, the other phone.” Jeremiah replaced the one in his hand in its cradle and picked up an identical looking cordless phone. Jeremiah punched in the numbers. “On second thought,” Hellerman said, “never mind.”
“Sir?”
“Let’s get back to the command center,” Hellerman said as he walked briskly out of the office and up the steps. He called over his shoulder, “Lock up when you come up. And shut down that laptop, will you.”
He watched as Jeremiah punched a few buttons on the laptop, closed the lid with his long fingers, then grabbed the keys, moved the plastic chair into place, pulled the door closed, fumbled with it, and pulled it shut again, moved the hasp into place, touching the metal, grasped the lock, inserted the key, snapped it shut, tugged on it, leaving fingerprints over every conceivable surface.
Exactly as Hellerman wished.
Hellerman looked over his shoulder as he ascended the stairway and watched as Jeremiah pocketed the keys to the makeshift bunker.
Hellerman. Moving the pawn when he has to. Freeing up the queen to slide across the board for checkmate.
CHAPTER 57
Meredith Morris sat cross-legged on Jacob Olney’s guest bed with her cell phone clutched in one hand. The phone call from Colonel Rampert was welcome, and now she was wondering how this scenario would develop.
She looked down at the pictures she had taken of Hellerman’s lair and knew instinctively that some very bad people were probably going to be coming after her. Having grown up in southwestern Virginia, she was no stranger to hard times or even dangerous times. But the thought of a nameless, faceless human being with a specific mission to find her, and possibly kill her, was extraordinarily unsettling.
Rampert had been all business and not the least bit concerned about finding out where she was located, which was a good sign. He wanted the information that Matt had told him about, and that was all. He had kept the conversation short and to the point, avoiding unnecessary air time. She knew that the longer the call, the easier she would be to track using the government’s CallScan cell phone monitoring system.
She unfolded her legs and stood from the bed, walking into the guest bathroom off of her room. She closed the door to the bedroom and the door that led to the hallway, placed the manila envelope with the pictures on the back of the toilet lid, and leaned against the counter top, staring at the mirror. She could see lines of worry etched across her once-smooth and beautiful face, a face that Matt Garrett used to softly stroke as they lay in bed, solving the world’s problems and building their dreams for the future. She had abandoned all of that because of her lack of discipline and inability to resist the power and seduction of the vice president of the United States.
Hellerman was attractive, successful, powerful, and magnetic… but so was Matt. Why, she wondered, had she been unable to resist the pull, despite so many evident reasons to avoid the man she now considered to be the devil?
She splashed some water on her face and decided a hot shower would do her some good. She stripped naked and cranked the shower to full blast, edging the selector knob toward the fat portion of the red line. She let the hot water build and stepped gingerly into the shower, recoiling at first at the searing heat but gradually accepting its cleansing effects.
As the hot rain bore down on her, she began to weep. It was impossible to feel any worse about herself than she already did. She had destroyed her relationship with a great guy, possibly the best guy she would ever meet, and had unknowingly helped to put him and the country in harm’s way. She was a good woman, and perhaps only she would ever fully understand what had happened.
These last few hours, her bravery in pulling away from the magnetic reach of Hellerman’s black hole, taking the pictures that helped break the case, and then vectoring Rampert to the right location, were personal salvation for her. But she knew that there were not many people who would see the big picture of what she had been trying to do versus what had actually happened.