Hidden Threat (33 page)

There was a tone of resignation in his voice. He did not relish doing two unauthorized missions across the border into Pakistan in less than a week, but he would. He had a soldier on the ground, and it was his responsibility to bring him home alive.

“
Grid’s actually about eight kilometers east of the border, right here.” Hobart handed a map to Rampert while Matt looked over his shoulder. Matt could see that the white heat signatures were on a ridge, about two kilometers away from where they had done their previous raid.

“
We know the flight route most of the way. We can use the same crew. We’re going to need Van Dreeves to stay here and talk us through the Predator feed.” Matt’s words came out rapid-fire, machinelike.

“
Roger. We’ll take Eversoll in Van Dreeves’s place,” Rampert added. “VD, why don’t you go find Eversoll? Tell him to be ready in fifteen. Hobart, give the pilots a call, let them know we need blades turning in ten.”

“
That’s fine. I’m broke dick anyway,” Van Dreeves responded. “As much as I hate to miss the action.”

“
Are you monitoring Rahman and our two friends in Yeman and Dubai?” Rampert asked.

“
Roger that, sir. Rahman’s not come up on the computer. I’m guessing he’s involved in this hunt, at least from a command and control perspective.”

“
Let me know if something breaks there,” Rampert directed.

“
We’re pissing away time, General, let’s go,” Matt barked. “Once VD gets a bead on Yemen and Dubai then we’ll focus on that, but until then my brother is the priority.”

The team began moving quickly around the joint operations center. Matt stood motionless, watching them. He looked over his shoulder as Eversoll came in, slinging his packed gear over his back. Matt nodded, thinking that it didn’t take Van Dreeves too long to find Eversoll, who he surmised was most likely waiting directly outside the JOC in anticipation of this exact mission.

“
We ready, sir?” Eversoll’s voice was firm.

“
Think so. Think we’ve got him pegged.”

“
Count me in.”

“
Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Soon Van Dreeves and Hobart reappeared. Rampert walked in the door with his M4 in his hand. Matt looked over at his weapon and rucksack.

“
Let’s go get my brother.”

CHAPTER 42

Spartanburg, South Carolina

Monday Morning (Eastern Time)

Melanie Garrett put down the phone and sat at the kitchen table nibbling at breakfast. Amanda would be down soon and off to school, but this was an interesting conversation, she thought to herself. She began to thoughtlessly twirl a Hermes silk scarf through her hand. Memorial Day was approaching, so she decided she’d go with a flashy pattern of red, white, and blue for her matching linen jumpsuit.

She pulled the material through one hand and then retraced the route through the other while staring absently through the sliding glass door and across the recently stained deck. A steaming cup of coffee sat next to her elbow. She was looking at nothing in particular, just lost in thought.

“
Who was that on the phone?” Nina asked.

“
Principal Rugsdale. He just got back from some Southeast principals’ convention in Raleigh. He was extending his condolences about Zach. Why are you here so early on a Monday morning?”

Nina stared at her a moment. “Needed an update. Lot’s going on. Dan Rugsdale? What’s he care?”

“
Not sure he does. Maybe he was just being nice.”

“
Is that all?”

“
What else could there be?” Melanie’s eyes remained fixed on the horizon.

“
Sounded like you were on longer with him, that’s all.”

“
You worry too much.”

Changing the topic, Nina said, “I checked out last night when you said Amanda probably wasn’t going to come by. No point in paying for an extra day.”

“
Bree picked her up.”

“
Bree? That slut?”

“
Don’t ask. She got in last night after spending the night with her Saturday. She’s acting strange.”

Nina considered the comment and asked, “How much time do we have left?” She was leaning against the center island of the kitchen holding a dish towel in her hand.

“
You know as well as I do when Amanda’s birthday is, Mama. We’ve got less than a week.”

“
That’s not going be a problem, is it?”

“
Depends on how everything plays out.”

Nina sat next to her daughter in an adjacent chair, resting her wrinkled arm on the reflective sheen of the recently polished kitchen table. She was wearing a sleeveless chartreuse top with bone-white Capri pants and matching straw sandals. She stared at her arm, then covered it quickly with her hand. If only there was plastic surgery for arms.

“
Well, this is what it’s all about. You know what they say. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ The question is, are you tough enough? Can you look her in the eyes and do what you need to do?”

“
I haven’t had any problems so far, Mama.”

“
That was child’s play, literally. You remember what they said to Herschel Walker when he finally joined a real football team? ‘Welcome to the NFL.’ You’ve got a half a million dollars from that worthless son of a bitch sitting out there. He made it hard on you in life, and now he’s making it hard on you when he’s dead.”

“
Amanda has gone to this shrink. Then she went up to the house. She was required to do those things, and she’s done them. I’ll talk to her before she goes to school this morning, and we’ll get the Army guys back over here to sign all the paperwork.”

“
Before her birthday?”

“
Before her birthday.”

Nina leaned back into her chair and nodded in approval. Over the years she had nudged and cajoled when necessary. Other times she had intervened and been more direct, more forthright, like she did at Riley Dwyer’s office. She was raised in the same swamps in which Francis Marion had earned his “Swamp Fox” moniker during a time when blacks weren’t slaves, but they might as well have been. Real men beat their wives, screwed the “help,” and sometimes slept with their daughters. The tough girls escaped, some with the scars, some without.

Nina Hastings could be someone’s best friend and an instant later be working a serrated edge into their back. A vacuous narcissism dominated her psyche, and some of her theatrics were Oscar-worthy. Over time she had developed the street fighter’s knack of recognizing a threat and either establishing an alliance or swiftly cutting its throat. Some of her instinct was primal, as if she’d been raised in a jungle of beasts that wanted to take what she had gathered. All that mattered to Nina Hastings was that she got hers, and she kept it.

Agile enough to socialize and win key acquaintances to her fold, her veneer would shed as quickly as snakeskin when a threat presented itself. Moreover, she could seize an opportunity better than any battlefield general, exploiting her daughter and granddaughter like infantrymen sent as fodder to enemy trenches, to achieve her victory.

“
Hey, Mom,” Amanda said, sitting down to the table with her book bag over her shoulder. Her hair was still wet from the shower.

This was Nina’s cue to melt away. Never be near the conflict, if it was to develop. Amanda glanced at her grandmother’s visage disappearing into the dining room. Amanda grabbed two pieces of toast from a plate on the table and took ample bites.

“
Good morning, Amanda.” Her mother hesitated. “Are we going to talk about this weekend?”

She swallowed hard and said with a partially full mouth, “Well, Jake’s in jail, and I’m kinda freaked out right now.”

“
Jail? Why would Jake be in jail?”

“
Something happened to Miss Dwyer and to Dad’s house—”

“
Who’s house?”

“
My dad’s house, Mom. You know, your ex-husband?”

Amanda had rarely used the term “Dad” in the presence of her mother or grandmother because of the reaction the utterance would create.
He may be your biological father, but he’s no Dad.

“
Don’t talk to me that way, Amanda. We’ve got something more important to talk about right now.”

“
Wait a second.” Amanda held her hands up as if warding off an attacker. “My boyfriend’s in jail and my father’s house burned down, maybe, and there’s something more important?”

“
What can you do about the house, if indeed it burned?”

“
I can find out what happened, first of all. There was a lot of important . . .”

“
What? There was a lot of important what? What was in that bastard’s house that you want?”

“
What is up with you? The man’s dead and you don’t have the decency to talk about him with any respect whatsoever?”

“
Where is this coming from? What about the poem you wrote? What about all the crap for the past ten years?”

“
You wrote that poem, Mom. I submitted it.”

“
That’s not true.”

Mother and daughter squared off across the kitchen table. Nina’s presence permeated the house. This was the classic showdown. The moment of truth had come. Whose side was Amanda on? Was she in the fold or straying from the flock? This may not have been the sordid backfield of a Moncks Corner farm, where nefarious deeds occurred out of sight and out of memory, but it was the same essence—primary greed being advanced at all costs.

Amanda slumped in her chair. “Okay, whatever. Can you just help me with Jake?”

“
You need to get to school. Your little excursion last week isn’t helping matters, but we’ll talk about that later.”

“
What matters?”

“
Principal Rugsdale called me this morning. He’s wondering what’s up with you.”

“
I’m cool with him, Mom.”

Melanie paused a moment, considering the comment. She decided to leave it alone. “I’ll call Jake’s mother and see what’s going on.”

“
Thank you.”

“
That’s more like it. Now we need to get those papers signed that the Army men brought by.”

“
What’s the rush?” Amanda asked, shifting from one line of thought suddenly to another. A distant alarm rang in her mind, perhaps indicating the acorn indeed does not drop too far from the tree.

“
They just want it signed. You’ve done everything you need to do. You’ve met the requirements.”

“
I’m supposed to see Miss Dwyer a couple more times.”

“
You are trying my patience, Amanda. You’ve gone to her three times, and you’ve been to your father’s house. Now, when you get back from school today, I’m going to have the Army people here, and you will sign those papers.”

Amanda opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. She processed a myriad of thoughts faster than any computer chip might and decided to bite her tongue.

“
I’ll see you after school then,” she said, breaking into a slight smile.

“
That’s more like it.”

Amanda stood, twirled on her feet, and walked into the foyer.

“
Amanda?”

“
Yes, Mother?” She looked over her shoulder, noticing Nina’s shadow reaching from the dining room into the kitchen, cast by the rising sun blaring through the eight-foot east-facing glass in the bay window.

“
Are you going to be okay?” The question was totally devoid of emotion, concern. It was more the stuff of a back alley pimp wearing a purple velvet fedora making nice with one of his girls.

Amanda cocked her head, pursed her lips and said, “Yeah, Mom. I’m good to go.”

CHAPTER 43

SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA

The morning sun glared through his window as he swirled his coffee cup. He leaned back in the faux leather chair of his makeshift home office and thought about the nom de plume, Del Dangurs. What did it mean to him? Who was he in relation to this name? Why was he at odds with himself over it? Was he his own Javert to the Valjean that resided within? So many questions wrestled in the mind of a writer, he mused.

He scrolled through the article destroying Colonel Zach Garrett’s reputation. He had to admit it was brilliant, if he did say so himself. If they wanted to seal the public image of this man in a nefarious light, he had to agree that the mission was accomplished.

How far should he take this, he wondered? To what end? And what would be the next move? That was his primary question.

As he thought about next moves, Amanda Garrett came to his mind. An image of her hovered in his daydream, looking just how he had last seen her.

Pitching forward, he suddenly stood, then abruptly sat down again. He was anxious, and he knew why. He ran his slender fingers along the worn seam of the chair’s armrest.

“
I’ve tried so hard to resist,” he whispered. He traced the outline of his face with his hand, feeling its smooth contours. Was he becoming obsessed with Amanda? It seemed as though she was being offered to him.