“He’s lined up on our tail, flat on our tail, Peyton. Do something!” Matt yelled, leaning out of the door and looking back. He could see the F-15 slowing almost to a stall, appearing to hover like an angry hornet. Then he saw a violent burst of machine-gun fire again.
The Sherpa rocked and swayed hard to the left and then came back to the right, its wings groaning beneath the stress of evasive maneuvers. Then the plane bucked and pitched hard to the right, pieces of sheet metal and hardware ripping off the light frame.
“We’re hit, we’re hit!” Matt shouted.
“I think I’m hit,” Peyton said, looking down at her hip. Blood was seeping onto her pants. “Damn it, I’m hit.”
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay, just land this thing,” Matt said. “He’s going back around for another turn. We’ve got a window.”
“I’m hit, Matt. I’m hit bad, I think,” Peyton gasped, holding onto the controls, pushing the nose of the airplane lower. Her eyes were getting heavy.
“Hang in there, Peyton. We’re going to be okay.”
The plane banged hard into the ground, lurched upward, and then banged hard again, thrusting Matt’s head into the ceiling. The wheels found purchase, though, and leveled the ride out.
She had found the runway and was guiding the plane as far north as she could toward the mansion. About one hundred yards away, the engine quit, and the plane coasted a few more feet before whipping into a tight ground loop and coming to a stop.
“Come on. Hurry, Peyton. Let’s get Zachary and get out of here,” Matt said.
He opened the sliding door to the Sherpa and pulled Zachary forward.
“I’m okay, Matt. Let’s grab Peyton. Nerves of steel she’s got, man.”
Zachary wobbled, leaning on Matt, but able to control himself as he walked. They moved as quickly as possible to the other side of the fuselage and opened Peyton’s door.
Peyton slumped into Matt’s arms, unconscious. He pulled her from the cockpit, feeling her blood on his hands as he reached around her waist. He needed to get her to a doctor quickly and remembered that Meredith had mentioned that Hellerman always kept a medical team at the alternate command post. It only made sense.
Matt and Zachary carried Peyton away from the Sherpa about the same time they heard the F-15 thunder overhead with a deafening roar, a proud hawk circling its wounded prey. As they rounded the corner behind the mansion toward the three cottages that housed the alternate command post, Alvin Jessup stood in the dim light, holding a pistol.
“Halt or I will shoot you dead. And you know that to be true.”
Matt and Zachary held Peyton, her gasps for air becoming weaker and fainter by the second.
“Alvin, it’s me, Matt Garrett. This is Peyton O’Hara, and she needs a doctor, now.”
“Step a little closer. Carefully,” Jessup said.
They walked about ten steps, carrying Peyton.
“Who’s that other guy?”
“That’s my brother, Zachary,” Matt said. “He was supposed to be dead, but he’s not, clearly.”
“What happened?” Jessup said, lowering his pistol.
“It’s a long story. We need a doctor.”
They were about fifty feet from the front door of the alternate command post. Jessup waved them forward toward the front door.
“Come on, let me help you,” Jessup said, holstering his pistol and taking Zachary’s place in helping to carry Peyton.
As they stepped onto the threshold of the alternate command post, Hellerman turned from his position near the large screen. He watched them as if it was the first time he realized the Sherpa had landed in his back yard. The camera images had been so fleeting, and with the pilot having to loop around so frequently, he had lost track of the Sherpa’s actual location.
It was an awkward pause, but one that was very telling to Matt.
“I need a doctor for Peyton. Zeke, can you help me out?” he said. Jeremiah looked at Hellerman and then back at Matt.
“Absolutely.” Zeke motioned to Jock Evans. “Jock, take Peyton to Doc Bell in the clinic right away. He’s on call, resting in cottage two. Make it quick.” Matt stared at Hellerman as he felt Jock gently remove Peyton from his grasp.
“Good to see you, man,” Jock whispered. “Good job up there.”
Matt kept his eyes on Hellerman and said, “Thanks, man. Take care of Peyton. She’s hurt bad. Don’t let me down.”
“We got her, man. She’s with us.”
The alternate command center had gone strangely quiet, like a standoff in Dodge City, Kansas. Matt and Zachary Garrett squared off against the vice president.
Who would draw first?
Matt heard more commotion over his shoulder. Then he heard Dave Palmer, the national security adviser.
Matt stared at Hellerman and felt Palmer’s hand rest on his shoulder.
“Matt, Meredith told me to get right down here, but she wasn’t able to tell me why,” Palmer said.
“Why couldn’t she tell you everything? You in on this, too? Who are you, Brian Jones?” Matt accused, stepping back from Palmer. Brian Jones was a founding member of the actual rock group, the Rolling Stones.
“No, Matt. She didn’t have time to tell me everything she wanted to. But she did manage to say, ‘Tell Matt I really do love him.’”
No one in the room said a word, Palmer’s message serving to silence the entire staff. The muted sounds of radio squawk boxes and fluttering images of rapidly changing television screens created a surreal atmosphere. There were volumes of activity but no movement. Sound everywhere, but silence. The blinking eyes of the televisions fluttered and faltered as if to faint at the information.
Meredith was dead.
CHAPTER 67
Frank Lantini surveyed his stockpile of weapons. The AK-47 was merely a stage prop. What he had been able to smuggle into the Central Committee’s hideout was impressive.
He had a .300 Whisper sniper rifle, an M4 carbine with noise suppressor, two Beretta pistols, and enough ammunition to go down fighting. By his math there were nine primaries, each with a security detail of one guard and one interpreter. That was 27 people he needed to kill, but he thought that the interpreters might run, so 18, best case.
If he had any connections left, he would have simply called in a JDAM strike onto his location, annihilating this terrorist base camp as well as ending his own misery.
Lantini had served honorably in the Air Force in military intelligence and then had worked his way through the labyrinth of the CIA until he was nominated and confirmed as the director. Not an overly political man, he did maintain a deep and unwavering belief that Islamic extremism was the equivalent threat to democracy that Nazism had posed in the middle of the 20th century.
His witting participation in the Rolling Stones endeavor last year had been a huge mistake, but one he had been compelled to make. Literally, he’d had a gun held to his head when Matt Garrett’s calls to receive kill chain approval on al Qaeda senior leadership came into his office. Despite the threat, he almost gave the approval.
Except that gun was there, held by the hand of the real Ronnie Wood.
But now he could do something about it. Redemption. This was all about redemption. He could square himself with his demons and then move on. Sure, he would continue to be on the run, but he would have evened the score.
Lantini had sent the communications team to Hellerman’s alternate command post in Middleburg when the vice president had originally asked for the command suite in his basement. Hellerman was such a moron, Lantini thought, that he had no idea that Lantini would emplace the technology so that he could eavesdrop or intercept Hellerman’s clandestine communications.
So he had nurtured this plan, never exposing it, so that he could ensnare as many of the nation’s enemies as possible. Using a North Korean double agent, Sue Kim, whom he had known for many years, he had watched as the Central Committee began planning, monitoring Hellerman’s conspiratorial tomes and messages all the way.