He then quickly stuffed a variety of clothing and toiletries in the small duffel. A few minutes later, he jumped in the fifteen-year-old Porsche 944 he had purchased from the same junk yard in which he had found the pitching machine. He ran the “black bullet” wide open, quickly covering the short distance to the airport.
Pressing speed dial on his cell phone, he listened as Blake Sessoms, his childhood best friend, answered.
“This is Blake.”
“Blake, Matt here.”
“Hey, wildman. Long time.”
“Got a few things to talk about, but don’t have much time right now.” He paused, then continued. “It has been tough without Zach around.”
“I miss him, too,” Blake said. “It’s been a year… a tough year, brother.”
The two friends let a moment pass over the crackling cell phone air-waves.
“Roger that,” Matt whispered.
“Going anywhere you can tell me?” Blake asked.
“I’m not sure what’s happening, but wanted to let you know I am heading out of town. We’ll catch up later.”
“Sure thing, bro.”
“Are you going to be around in the next few days?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call you.”
The two friends hung up. Matt reflected briefly that it had been months since he had spoken to Blake, with whom he used to chat a few times a week. They had grown up together in the Blue Ridge, playing baseball and fishing, and they had both started college at the University of Virginia. Matt opted for a career in the Agency; Blake chose a path that eventually led him to Virginia Beach and a small fortune.
Downshifting into the arrivals/departures fork in the road leading to the airport terminals, Matt saw the sign for the VIP gate and followed the arrows until he was stopped at a closed chain-link gate in a remote area about a half mile from the main terminal. The gate opened as he slowed.
Pulling through the opening, he saw the shiny, black scalp of Alvin Jessup, the vice president’s lead Secret Service agent.
“Hey, Alvin,” he said, rolling down his window. Jessup, a hulking man dressed in a black overcoat, looked every bit the former collegiate fullback. He walked up to Matt’s window with a dour face.
“Finally coming out of your hole, Garrett?” Jessup asked.
“Just following orders, Alvin.”
“Well, you just keep on following orders and move along before all my money falls out of my pockets and into yours.”
“Was that the last time I saw you?” Matt said.
“Uh huh.” Alvin nodded. “Ain’t playing poker with you anymore, that’s for damn sure. Whoever heard of giving all the money to a homeless shelter, anyway?”
“Didn’t feel right keeping your life’s savings,” Matt said. “What’s going on?”
“Not sure, but the man’s been on the phone with Fort Bragg a lot.”
“Okay, Alvin, let me get in here and see what’s happening.”
“All right, my friend. There’s another land mine over there, so watch out.” Jessup motioned with a turn of his head to the airplane.
Matt drove through the open gate and steered toward a U.S. Air Force Gulfstream parked about a hundred meters away. He stopped next to a car that was parked against the chain-link fence. He could see the vice president’s armored Suburban next to the airplane.
Matt stepped from his Porsche and walked to the steps of the Gulf-stream, wondering what Jessup could have meant. A land mine? He saw the vice president walking down the small step ladder from the jet.
Then he saw the land mine: Meredith Morris, her blond hair bouncing off her shoulders as she followed the vice president down the jet stairway.
My Virginian, Matt wanted to say, but he didn’t dare utter those words. Still, he waited for Meredith to lift her eyes and notice him. Though he knew he should look away, it was impossible. He could not deny the flutter in his chest. As recently as four months ago she had been his fiancée.
“Matt,” Vice President Hellerman said, “join me for a few seconds, son.”
Hellerman was motioning Matt into the back seat of his Suburban for a private chat.
“Yes, sir,” Matt said without moving his eyes from Meredith’s face. She looked up at him as she reached the tarmac, lifted her face slowly, and smiled. His heart leapt, but his mind locked tighter than a vault door.
“Hi, Matt,” she said. “Good to see you.”
“Meredith,” he said.
The vice president’s hand pulled at his shoulder, breaking the spell. He slid into the Suburban, watching as Meredith climbed into the back seat on the opposite side. Interesting that she would be with the vice president, Matt thought. She worked for the national security adviser, Yves Gerald.
Matt had taken the time to grab a sport coat and pulled it over the black Underarmor shirt that looked painted onto his muscular frame. He wore khaki cargo pants and lightweight, brown Belleview boots. Not a typically snappy dresser, Matt figured the blazer concealed his weapon relatively well.
“Matt, glad you could make it,” Hellerman said, closing the door of his vehicle. “We’ve got some leads on a terrorist named Ballantine, a former Iraqi general.”
Matt paused, thinking.
“I know the name.” There was no escaping Zach’s death, Matt thought. He remembered talking to him after he had returned from Desert Storm back in 1991. The detail with which Zach had described the fight that led to the capture of Ballantine was incredible. Zach, the best storyteller Matt knew, had painted such a clear picture that Matt had long savored the pride he felt for his older brother in securing what might have been the most prized capture of Operation Desert Storm.
“Yes, Ballantine,” Hellerman continued. “I thought you might recognize the name. We think he’s established a fishing guide service up in Quebec and that he uses a lightweight float plane to ferry supplies — deadly attack materials — into the United States. He may even be part of a supply chain that funneled the WMD’s out of Iraq.”
Matt considered what the vice president was saying. He remembered that Hellerman, while serving as an assistant secretary of state, had answered the call to duty during the First Gulf War by way of volunteering to be activated from his reserve status as a military intelligence officer. Given Hellerman's experience Matt placed some credence in his analysis.
“My team in Middleburg is running our own operation with limited support,” Hellerman said. “We had a CIA agent have a small world moment with this guy when he was on leave doing some muskie fishing in Canada. Seems Ballantine opened this small enterprise a few years back and called it Moncrief Fishing Company. Flies a Sherpa into a small airport outside Burlington, Vermont, where he picks up his customers and, we suspect, a few other things.”
“We got anybody working this?” Matt asked. His mind continued to drift back to the day Zach had returned from Desert Storm. Their small hometown just north of Charlottesville, Virginia, had thrown Zachary a huge welcome home party. After the festivities, Matt and Zachary, both in their early twenties then, had sat by the river that framed their property. They drank a six pack of Budweiser while Zachary discussed the details of capturing Ballantine and then delivering him to military intelligence for interrogation. As the laundry bag full of beer, anchored to a rock next to Matt, shifted with the subtle currents of the river, Zach conveyed his belief that Ballantine had been released in a prisoner exchange. And when the Americans didn’t find him in Iraq after the seizure of Baghdad in Gulf War II, the intelligence community dismissed his absence in favor of rounding up their vaunted deck of playing cards.
Matt was intrigued by Hellerman’s assessment. Ballantine was more dangerous than either Hussein or bin Laden, because he not only had means, motive, and the courage of his convictions, but he was on nobody’s screen.