For some unexplained reason she began thinking about the day Jake and she had visited her father’s home.
As the NCBI agents began to depart for the second time, she had excused herself for one last restroom break before going to the airport. In the home alone, she walked directly to the downstairs half lavatory situated beneath the stairs, as if pulled by a magnet.
You know what you need to do, Amanda. The voice in her head was not hers, but she owned it now, she knew that much. Do it quickly, so no one will know. She stood in the small bathroom with a toilet and pedestal sink. There was a candle atop the toilet lid, one of those giant Yankee candles, cinnamon, or apple crisp, something she would want to eat rather than burn.
Burn it. Do it now. Destroy the memories.
The voice resonated so loudly she was certain that the others might hear from outside of the home. She stood in the bathroom, staring at the mirror, her face contorted — not beautiful, but wicked. She saw Nina and then her mother and then herself. The blended images seemed to be cinematic, but in fact were real. She could see her matriarchal lineage so clearly. These images guided her hand to her purse, where she removed a lighter.
With a simple flip of the wrist she turned and stared at the Yankee candle. It was probably some kind of spice, she determined. She looked above the deep red wax and blackened wick at the low-hanging set of towels. With her free hand she tugged the towel to within an inch of the wick, repositioning the candle only fractionally backward toward the wall.
She moved the lighter toward the candle.
Burn down this place, Amanda. Destroy your father.
The beeping horn brought her back to I-85 and the driver in the next lane gave her the finger as she swerved and nearly clipped his car.
“Sorry,” she said, unsure to whom she was responding.
Similar to awaking from a dream, she could not reconnect with the series of events that had been replaying in her mind. She was not entirely keen on doing so, but it was important to her, because she truly could not remember. How, or why, this memory suddenly flashed back to her, she was not certain.
She found herself pulling into Jake Devereaux’s driveway, where she removed her cell phone from her purse and pressed speed dial number one. While the phone was ringing, she put her head into her hands and began weeping.
Then the thought of what had happened at Riley Dwyer’s home last night came rushing to her.
The Plans
CHAPTER 47
Matt Garrett looked at Major General Rampert in the dim light of the MH-47 helicopter. He felt the lift and churn of the dual blades chopping their way through the thin night air. They were flying through a narrow corridor at about ten thousand feet above sea level, yet only about fifty feet above ground level. One fractional mistake and the aircraft would splinter apart and create a debris field about a mile long.
“Hey, Doug, we’re getting the word to turn around. It’s coming in from Van Dreeves,” Rampert said into his headset to the pilot.
“Wilco, sir,” Doug responded. No questions, just execute the assigned mission.
“What’s going on, General?” Matt asked through his headset.
“Central Command commander said to stand down the mission.”
“Didn’t know he knew about it.”
“Me neither. Must have a spy somewhere back at headquarters. Not unheard of.”
“What’s Van Dreeves saying about Zach?”
“Stand by.”
Rampert flipped a switch on the communications platform in the back of the aircraft so that the entire crew could hear Van Dreeves’s situation report.
“… thirty-three followed him to a river, a tributary to the Kunar along the border near Naray and that old mine. He was taking fire from a group of about twenty enemy personnel. He tried wading across the river and then was swept away. Being springtime, those rivers are over the banks and faster than hell with all the snow melt and rain.”
Van Dreeves paused.
“Then I lost him. He moved too fast or went under; I’m not sure. I’ve been scanning up and down the banks ever since. Sorry, Matt.”
“Not your fault, VD. Listen, Zach used to surf, so those rapids will be nothing for him. We’ll find him.”
Matt’s optimistic words did not match the burning hole in his gut. He felt the aircraft bank hard, back toward their starting point. Matt watched Eversoll drop his head in disgust, shaking it wildly.
“Can we fly the Kunar? We can’t be that far.”
Rampert looked at Matt, who had just asked him to disobey a four-star general’s order. “Why the hell not; we’re already in over our heads.” He flipped a switch so he could talk to the pilots. Matt watched him mouth some words into the microphone, felt the aircraft bank again.
“Actually, this is a good idea,” Rampert said. “It’s on the way back and maybe we can kill some of the enemy.”
“Roger that,” Eversoll barked into his headset.
The tail door gunner got up and walked toward the ramp of the aircraft. He was wearing a crewman’s helmet with a clear visor that made him look a bit futuristic. The ramp lowered so that it was even with the floor of the aircraft. The gaping hole opened to the Afghanistan night, always pitch black. They could determine an occasional jagged cliff they had just passed over as the pilots flew nap of the earth. The tail gunner hooked himself into a long strap called a ‘monkey harness’ that allowed him to move about the aircraft with the ramp down without fear of falling to his death. If he fell outside of the aircraft, he would at least be dangling by twenty feet of nylon cord. Of course, the pilots weren’t flying much higher than that above ground level.
The door gunners made some more room for an extra gunner each on either side of the aircraft so that they could each take up observation and firing positions.
Matt hooked into a monkey harness and laid down on the tail ramp. He figured this would give him more observation capability and better fields of fire, though he might miss something going on in the front of the aircraft.
Hobart and Eversoll each positioned themselves in opposite doors. Each man locked and loaded their M4 carbines then snapped their night-vision goggles onto their helmets. There were two M240G machine guns at each crew chief station as well as the tail gunner. The 240 was a superb weapon for providing heavy suppressive fire. The crew chief completely turned off the dim LCD light that was providing some glow in the rear of the aircraft.
In the headset Matt heard one of the pilots say, “Large group of personnel moving south along the eastern bank of the river.”
“Roger, I called the conventional forces, and they have confirmed they have no friendly forces operating in this area. Prepare to engage.” Rampert’s voice was crisp and sure.
“We’re taking fire. We’ve got tracers coming at us,” the pilot calmly announced. Matt felt the aircraft bank, do a quick zigzag in the air, and suddenly he saw a heavy volume of tracer fire screaming across the field of his night-vision goggles.
Everyone with a weapon in the helicopter returned fire at the enemy.
“General, don’t you think we’d be better off on the ground fighting these bastards?” Matt asked.
“Can’t risk it. I’m calling for air support right now.”