Zach dead?
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Matt muttered. He dismissed the officer and walked through his small brick rambler sitting on three acres of rolling hills. He picked up the phone, thought about calling his sister Karen and his father, but then put the receiver down and decided to wait. They were probably at church anyway. Instead he grabbed a Budweiser from its dominant and nearly solitary place in the refrigerator, and walked through the back door onto his wood deck. From the deck he could see his land slope away to the south and west, toward the Blue Ridge and toward Stanardsville, his family home 90 miles away.
He could also see his makeshift batting cage about 100 feet away. It was Sunday morning and he figured he did his best thinking down in that mesh netting so he bounced down the steps, pulled the gate closed behind him as he stepped into the cage, and grabbed his Pete Rose 34. He dialed the pitch speed to 95 miles per hour and said, “Screw the helmet.”
Standing in the batter’s box, the first pitch blew crazily past him as if it were a knuckle ball. The tires kept spinning and the cantilevered chain driven arm dropped another ball into the jugs machine and he saw this one coming high and inside, took a slight step into the bucket, and ripped a solid line drive to what would be left field, maybe even over the green monster at Fenway Park in Boston.
He was juiced. Zach dead? No way. He didn’t care what some puke stateside officer told him. His brother had proven his own indestructibility in the Philippines and then had damn near saved the world during the Ballantine incident a few years ago. He continued to groove what he called “frozen ropes” into the back of the net. As he did so, he developed his plan.
First he would call Karen and tell her what the uniform had told him, but he would ensure she didn’t say anything unless the media got hold of the information. Then she could tell their father. Next he would get on the first plane smoking to Afghanistan, link up with Major General Jack Rampert, who owed him a mountain of favors after what he had done to Zach post-Philippines. And who knows what kind of tight spot Rampert just put Zach into in Afghanistan that supposedly got him killed.
Lastly, if indeed Zach were dead, he would exact revenge. He would do it coolly and professionally. He would find the offending bastards and kill them. It was his blood promise with Zach, who had dragged him dying off the Philippine battlefield.
He took one last cut, got that weightless moment between bat and ball, felt the rawhide launch into the netting and watched it punch a hole through the taut material and keep going. He doubted three acres would contain that anger management swing.
He punched the red button, watched the tires slow, and flipped his bat against the back of the cage. He walked back to his deck, halfway expecting to see Peyton O’Hara reappear, but knowing she was forever gone into the terrorist underground. He drained his Bud, walked into his bedroom, grabbed his go-bag full of weapons, knives, and night-vision goggles, locked his house, and tossed his equipment into the passenger side of the Porsche. He cranked the engine, slammed the stick into first gear, and floored the gas pedal so that his 15 year old sports car spat gravel from his driveway like the rooster tail of a cigarette boat as he rocketed toward Dulles Airport
Retrieving his Blackberry, he punched the Agency director’s number and said, “I’m going to Afghanistan.”
“I heard. I’m sorry, Matt.” Roger Houghton, the director of the CIA, spoke over their secure line in somber tones.
“He’s not dead. Save your sympathy.”
“I’ve got the Afghan team running the reports. It sounds… conclusive, Matt.”
“You don’t know Zach like I do.”
“I know Zach, but I understand. We’ll send you on tonight’s milk run.”
“Thanks. It’s Sunday. Usual time?”
“I told them to get ready. They’ll be waiting for you when you get to IAD.”
“Thanks, Roger.”
“Least we can do.”
“I’ll be back when I’m back. No sooner.”
“No sooner. And Matt?”
“What?”
“You know Rampert gave your brother the Operation Searing Gorge mission right?”
Matt hesitated. Searing Gorge was his idea, but he certainly didn’t anticipate that Zach would be the mule.
“No idea.” After a pause, he added. “Though it makes sense. He’s the best.”
“That he was,” Houghton added.
“Is,” Matt corrected and hung up.
Matt pulled into the private parking lot that the agency leased at Dulles International Airport. He found the crew chief to the Boeing 757, shook his hand, and said, “Let’s get on with it.”
As he boarded the nondescript Boeing 757, he noticed four rows of seats and then pallets stacked to the ceiling. The Agency ran an airplane weekly to Afghanistan to resupply the operatives on the ground. It was affectionately known as “The Milk Run.”
There were a couple of logisticians with Ipod earbuds hanging from their ears sitting in the small passenger section. Matt nodded at them as they immediately offered to move.
He fixed a killer’s grimace onto his face and sat in one of the comfortable seats in the front row, strapping his go-bag in the seat next to him. Anyone looking at the expression on his face would have figured him for a deranged psychotic. He went through a checklist in his mind: recover Zach, kill whoever did this, and complete the Searing Gorge mission himself.
Matt Garrett was on the move.
CHAPTER 7
Jake Devereaux pulled into Amanda’s driveway, slamming the door as he rushed from his truck and sprung up the steps of the brick Georgian home two at a time. He knocked furiously on the door and rang the doorbell twice, then again.
The door swung open, and he was face to face with Nina Hastings.
“She’s not accepting visitors.”
“She called me and told me what happened. Let me in.” Jake stood tall in the doorway. He’d had enough of Nina Hastings for a lifetime. He wasn’t going to be deterred when Amanda needed him. “Ma’am, we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”
“Nina, let him in. I called him,” Amanda said, pushing her way past her grandmother.
Always one to pick her fights, Nina relented, but added, “See what happens when you go to The Citadel, Jake?”
Jake, hugging Amanda in the hardwood foyer, looked over his shoulder and said, “Have some respect, please.”
He took Amanda’s hand and walked her outside, curving around the two-car garage with finished bonus room above. He led her into the backyard and beyond the fence into an isolated spot in the woods. Amanda was wearing her Clemson sweatshirt and had put on a pair of jeans. Jake was wearing a T-shirt that said “Fandango” on a movie ticket stub. His biceps were pushing at the material as he rested a hand on a small dogwood branch. Two hummingbirds hovered around an open knot in a tree that was filled with water.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, what’s not to be okay with?”
“Don’t give me that tough girl act, Amanda. This is your father we’re talking about.” Jake pulled her close.
“Like I said last night, he’s just been a thorn in my side. So maybe this is for the best.”
Jake looked at her, shaking his head. “Don’t ever say that again. Your father loved you.”
“How would you know?”
“I saw him come to your swim meets and cheer you on.”
“Yeah, well, where’s he been since then?”
“How about trying to keep us safe over here?”
“You don’t really believe that, do you? That fighting solves anything? That going — going over there to wherever helps?” She was nearly screaming at him.