Nina looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. They had about ten minutes. She wanted to provide him some positive motivation — a dog biscuit in advance.
“Want to really risk it?”
Of course he did. And so they repeated the process.
As they were finishing, Nina heard a car door shut outside.
“Guess who’s home.” She grinned as she slipped out of bed and into the bathroom. Smoothing her clam diggers with her hands, she arrived at the top of the landing in time to hear Melanie greeting the man who called himself Del Dangurs.
“Hey there. What are you doing here?” Melanie said, smiling as she climbed the porch steps.
He leaned into her to steal a kiss. Not expecting the move, she received him stiffly. He noticed and pulled away. Not wanting her to smell Nina on him, he moved quickly down the steps. He spoke to her over his shoulder and then stopped on the sidewalk.
“I’m off to North Carolina to do some research for the story. Was just nailing everything down, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re leaving this late?”
“Listen, I am late, but I’ll call you to let you know how, you know, everything’s going.”
“Do that.” She smiled.
He looked around quickly, then blew her a kiss. He walked briskly across the yard toward his automobile — the one he called his “sweet ride.”
Del Dangurs was on the move.
CHAPTER 22
Matt Garrett, Major General Jack Rampert, Sergeant Eversoll, Hobart, and Van Dreeves, sufficiently bandaged around the shoulder, huddled around the wooden table inside the headquarters at the air base.
“Sir, I saw your brother kiss this picture of Amanda and the Saint Michael medal a hundred times before missions. And he did it directly before he got on that helicopter.”
“We’ve reviewed the tapes now fifty times, and it doesn’t look like anyone was left behind, but there is the whiteout,” Hobart said.
“Maybe the picture fell out of his pocket when he rescued Jergens. AQ snatched it up, thinking it might be intel?” Van Dreeves said what everyone was thinking. They all wanted to believe that Zachary Garrett was alive, but it seemed so unlikely that no one wanted to get their hopes up too soon.
“No.” Eversoll was getting excited. He believed all along that Colonel Garrett had not been killed. “He secured that photo and medallion in the Velcro of his army combat uniform. He was captured and questioned right there in that circle. That was probably AQ taking him away when we popped out of the hole at the end of the tunnel.”
Matt Garrett looked at him. He saw an eager, fresh-faced young man who had a bit of a country look to him. He could see Eversoll’s bottom lip bulge, no doubt full of “worm dirt,” what he and Zachary had called smokeless tobacco. Eversoll wore the newer version of the army combat uniform, a tan-and-olive computerized checkerboard outfit. Velcro pockets and zippers seemed to be in all the right places. He saw the three-chevron rank of sergeant squarely in the center of Eversoll’s chest on a small piece of square cloth about an inch across.
“Zach mentioned that you were pretty squared away,” Matt said. “Think you’re up for another mission?”
“If it involves getting Colonel Garrett back, yes sir.”
Matt looked at Rampert, the consummate warrior king. Rapidly promoted to two-star general after the Ballantine mission a couple of years ago, Rampert was recognized throughout the defense and foreign policy communities as the Special Operations guru. Some were already calling for his accelerated promotion to four-star general so that he could be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rampert would have none of that, Matt was sure. He looked at his rugged friend, crew cut somehow making him look younger than his fifty years.
“What do you think, General?”
“Going into Pakistan once without telling anyone was a huge risk. Going in twice, is what we call a gamble.”
“Know the difference, Eversoll?” Hobart had turned to Sergeant Eversoll. Clearly the three special operators saw something in the young sergeant they liked. Matt’s impression was that they had already made the decision to groom him for qualification school and ultimate acceptance into their elite band of warriors.
“Only gambling I know about is in Memphis on the riverboats.”
Hobart smiled a thin, wicked grin. His face was stern with a ruddy complexion. A full head of dark hair fell over his ears with no distinguishable part on either side.
“Can’t recover from a gamble if you lose. Lose all your chips. A risk, that’s something you can bounce back from if it doesn’t work out.”
“And the shirt off your back,” Rampert added. “Point being, we’ve blazed that trail once. No doubt AQ has already leaked to Pakistani intel that we invaded their space. So, provided we didn’t get shot down going in again, well, we’d all be put in the brig, most likely. State Department weenies wouldn’t have any of that.”
“I might be able to work something there,” Matt countered. Matt felt at ease with these men. He had been a CIA combat field operative. Although he had fully recovered from his wounds in the Philippines and Canada, at thirty-five he had begun to feel the pull of scar tissue. The damage he’d incurred to his body had cut his career short well before he was ready to switch to the policy side of business.
Two years ago, after the Ballantine incident, Matt had been confirmed by the Senate as the assistant director of the CIA. The job wasn’t really his cup of tea, but it kept him in the loop.
“How so?” Rampert asked.
“Know a few people,” Matt said, moving over to the large map. Van Dreeves had drawn a circle around the location of the raid which they had just conducted. Matt stared at the tight contour interval lines that indicated rugged terrain in the lawless northwest province of Pakistan.
“The Paks would never allow it,” Rampert said.
“They don’t have to know,” Matt countered. “Until it’s too late.”
Matt watched Rampert study him for a minute.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You can’t possibly know, General, what I’m thinking,” Matt countered.
“I sent your brother into Canada two years ago without anyone, to include the Canadians, knowing about it. Now you want to know if I’ve lost my cojones.”
“Assuming that promotion to general doesn’t involve any surgery, then I’m going to put my money on the table that you’ve still got ’em. Sir,” Matt replied.
The five men stood in the operations center, radios occasionally chirping spot reports, large flat-panel monitors scrolling significant activities, and the giant map on the wall with Van Dreeves’s circles on them screaming at them.
Matt’s voice was firm and decisive.
“I’m ready to gamble, but you’ve got to tell me one thing first.”
“What’s that?” Rampert asked.
“Did the enemy find the flash drive?”
Moment of Truth
CHAPTER 23
Riley Dwyer walked slowly back and forth in her office. The Hawaiian ladies peering down from the Peggy Hoppers dotting the wall watched her pace the floor with uncharacteristic tension. Large, leafy plants waved at her as she passed, her vapor trail causing just the slightest turbulence.
In her right hand she held a piece of paper. She had memorized the document. Heck, she had written it and had it published in several magazines. Her fifteen minutes of fame had been derived from the words contained on this document. She had neither sought the fame nor the attention that followed. She had to admit, though, that it had been good for her business.