“Roger. Continue to track. Let me know if you lose it.” Rampert switched to intercom and looked at Hobart. “How long until the F-15s are available?”
“They’ll have two F-15s airborne in twenty-five minutes, loaded with Mavericks and chain guns,” Hobart said.
“Good. We’ll send Tomcat one six after the Predator and launch the F-15s after Ballantine’s Sherpa with instructions to destroy on contact. Radar control should be able to vector them in quickly.”
“Sir, you sure you want to do that?”
“No option. If Tomcat one six doesn’t go now, he’ll be too late. There’s about thirty minutes of flight time left before the Predator hits the command center. It’s an hour flight for the Sherpa up to D.C. We have to take the chance. It’s been on-again and off-again on the radar. We have to get it now.”
“Roger. I agree,” Hobart said.
Rampert looked at the burning hulk of the Fong Hou. Two missiles had destroyed it, but there was still one rogue nuke heading toward Fort Bragg and one Sherpa loaded with bad intentions heading to the nation’s Capitol.
Still, he wasn’t convinced that this was everything the bad guys had to offer.
CHAPTER 62
“Good job back there, Peyton,” Matt said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Keep trying to make contact. I’m going to check on Zachary. Stay low. Don’t get over 500 feet above ground level.”
“You know they probably think we’re Ballantine, going to attack the Capitol,” Peyton said.
“I know, but if we don’t stop Hellerman, he’ll get away with this. And that is totally unacceptable.”
“I agree, but if we get shot down in the process, then he’ll definitely get away with it,” Peyton said.
“You have the tape, right?” Matt asked.
“I thought you had it,” she said, forcing a smile. She reached into her bra and pulled out the small cassette tape.
“Double Top Secret hiding place?”
She managed a weak smile.
“Yeah, he would have never thought to look there.” Matt grinned, stepping over Ballantine.
He bent down on one knee and placed his hand against Zachary’s neck. He felt a steady, strong pulse. “He’s okay,” Matt said.
“I’m glad,” Peyton said, softly.
“Zachary, can you hear me?” Matt asked.
“What…?” He struggled to open his eyes. “Matt…? Where you been?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Zachary said. “I’m okay, Matt.”
Matt held back a wave of emotions. It had been nearly a year since he thought he had lost his brother. In between kicking himself and mourning his brother’s death, he had rendered himself dysfunctional. Now Zachary was safe. They were safe.
Well, almost, Matt figured. Even if something were to happen to them in the next few hours, he would cherish those words, I’m okay, Matt.
Matt ran his hand along his brother’s face.
“Thanks, man. You did great.” Zachary’s voice was weak but clear.
Matt pulled the knife from Ballantine’s chest and cut the ropes on Zachary’s wrists, then unscrewed the shackles on his legs, rubbing each area to get the circulation back.
“But it’s not over.” Zachary turned his head to the rear of the airplane.
Matt stopped what he was doing and followed Zachary’s gaze.
“It’s a nuke.” Zachary’s voice was clear.
Matt’s heart froze. He could see a small timer with flashing red letters counting down from thirty-five minutes. Now thirty-four minutes and fifty-nine seconds.
“Peyton?” Matt said.
“Yes?”
“Where are we, and how long until we get to Hellerman’s Middleburg mansion?”
“We’re over Tappahannock right now and about thirty minutes out,” she said. “Why?”
“How long would it take us to get out to the Atlantic Ocean?”
“About the same amount of time,” she said. “What’s up?”
He looked at Zachary, who met his gaze. “We need to de-rig that thing, man, or drop it over the ocean.”
Matt inspected the black box. Whoever had installed the bomb did so by drilling screws into the floorboard of the airplane and countersinking them through the housing of the bomb. Three-and-a-half-inch screws locked down each side of the box.
“If we dump it, we dump with it. This thing ain’t going anywhere this plane doesn’t go,” Matt said.
Zachary looked at him with a clear countenance. “If that’s what we have to do, that’s what we do, Matt.”
“It’s not what we have to do. I’ll de-rig it. We can have somebody talk us through this.”
“If you don’t make comms in a couple of minutes, I want you to take us out to sea, Matt. And I mean it,” Zachary said.
Matt momentarily wished his brother were a bit more drugged.
“I’ve got him, I’ve got him!” Peyton waved her hand.
“Who, who do you have?”
“It’s some radar control guy at Oceana.”
Matt scrambled to the front seat and grabbed the headset from Peyton.
“What’s going on back there?” she asked.
“Oh, that. There’s a live nuke on board, that’s all.”
She stared at him for a moment in disbelief and then said, “Well, it finally got interesting.”
“Radar control, this is Matt Garrett.”
“Matt Garrett, this is radar control. State type of aircraft and intentions.”
“This is Matt Garrett flying in Ballantine’s Sherpa aircraft. We just launched from the deck of the Fong Hou about forty minutes ago. We are headed to a small dirt airfield in northwestern Virginia for a landing.”
“I am tracking your aircraft. Stand by.”
“Two other things you need to know about this aircraft are that we have Ballantine on board. He is dead. And there is a live nuke on board.”
“A live nuke?”
“Yes. I need you to contact Colonel Jack Rampert and get a bomb specialist to talk me through neutralizing this thing. We have thirty minutes.”
“I have communications with Colonel Rampert. Stand by.”
Matt felt a surge of hope.
“Matt,” Zachary said, sitting up. “If we can’t shut it down, I’m telling you we need to turn east and get over the water.”
Peyton looked over her shoulder at the man that had been Matt’s obsession for the past year. She understood what Matt had been going through, having lost her parents when she was younger. And now, hearing Zachary tell his younger brother that they both might need to die to serve the greater good was about all she could handle. She was a tough woman, but she was a sap for nobility. She didn’t know Zachary well, but she did know Matt, and she would set the plane on a course for a remote portion of the Blue Ridge.
Matt felt the plane bank just a bit. “What are you doing?” he said to Peyton.
She looked at him. “You know exactly what I’m doing.”
They locked eyes for a long moment, each reflecting on the dynamics occurring on many different levels. Matt and Zachary. Peyton and Matt. The nuke. The right thing to do. Hellerman.
How would it all end, Matt wondered, waiting for radar control to contact him again.
As they waited, the hum of the plane’s engine droned along, Peyton steering the Sherpa on a new azimuth that would give her the option of getting them over the Chesapeake.
Just in case.
CHAPTER 63
“Sir, we’ve got Ballantine’s Sherpa flying north right here,” Zeke Jeremiah said, pointing at a large map of Virginia, his finger touching an area just northwest of Fredericksburg, Virginia. “And there’s a Predator armed with a nuclear device, we believe, about fifteen minutes out from Fort Bragg, just south of Raleigh, North Carolina, down here.” Zeke’s long, black finger circled an area on a North Carolina map about fifty miles north of Fort Bragg. “They both have primitive stealth technology, but we are getting intermittent signals. This is why we never tracked Ballantine coming out of Canada.”