Hidden Threat (58 page)

“
Come on, Grandma, it’s not that bad. Just let it go. You’ve got so much held up inside you. For all these years you’ve just bottled it up. Remember that time we were at Six Flags, and we did the wet and wild ride? That was so much fun. That was the real Grandma that I grew up loving. Where did that person go?”

Nina sniffed. Perhaps it was possible to derive water from a rock, Amanda thought. She reached up and rubbed her grandmother’s shoulder with her right hand. “It’s going to be okay, Grandma. Just let yourself feel something. You’ve got to start trusting someone. Can you trust me?”

The aging woman began to show her years as if a computer imaging program had redrawn her. Amanda could see the demons that she carried waking and creating havoc. The tortured look on Nina’s face told Amanda that somewhere in the basement of her soul a stagnant conscience must have emitted an electrical pulse. If only briefly, Amanda saw the look of absolute guilt cross her grandmother’s face.

“
Can you trust me, Grandma? It’s important to me that you do.”

Her grandmother lifted her hand slowly, tentatively, and reached toward Amanda, placing the leathery paw on her arm and then sliding it down and clasping her hand.

“
I can try, Amanda. I guess it’s time to start trying. We’ve been through a lot together, and I think if I were to pick one person in this world that I could trust it would be you.”

“
We make a great team, you and me, Grandma.”

Amanda held her grandmother’s hand and pulled her close so that they could hug. She noticed a picture of Mary Ann Singlaub appear on the television screen next to a Web site excerpt. The anchor was obviously referring to what Mary Ann had written. She knew it was time.

“
Grandma, I’m really tired. I didn’t sleep all night. Can I just go upstairs and take a nap?”

“
Well, I’m up and I imagine your mother’s going to need some help.” She sighed heavily, blowing out a fraction of the stress she had been carrying for decades.

“
Well, can you tuck me in like you used to do?” Amanda paused for effect and then pleaded. “Please, Grandma?”

Nina smiled at the thought. “You really are my little girl, you know. When you were born I stood right there and said, ‘God gave me exactly what I wanted.’”

“
I know.” Amanda smiled tightly.

Amanda grabbed Nina’s hand and walked with her through the hallway and toward the foyer where she would turn and take the staircase up to her room. As she passed the front door, she paused and said, “What’s this?”

“
What?” Nina seemed lost in another time, perhaps a place she always wanted to be, ensconced in the love of a child.

Amanda opened the door, still holding her grandmother’s hand with her opposite hand. Standing on the porch were two police officers from Spartanburg. They wore pressed gray shirts with creasing along the pockets.

“
Hi officers, this is my grandmother. I believe she’s the one you’re looking for in relation to the prostitution of Brianna Simpson.”

The rage came back into her grandmother’s face instantly. The scared little girl suddenly became the fierce, hardscrabble Southerner. Snatching her hand from Amanda’s, leaving a long fingernail scratch down her wrist, Nina reached for her granddaughter’s throat.

“
You little bitch!”

Blocking her thrust with a strong hand, Amanda grabbed her grandmother’s wrist. “No,
Grandma,
I just wanted you to feel for one minute what it was like to trust somebody and have them screw you over. Take how you feel right now and multiply it by seventeen years. That’s what you and your daughter did to me.”

Amanda stared at her for a moment, wanting to snap the tender wrist in her hand. “How’s it feel,
Gabrielle?
”

The look on her grandmother’s face shifted from utter contempt to a blank stare. Without much fanfare the police officers had Gabrielle Hastings handcuffed and seated in the back of the police cruiser.

Amanda Garrett walked up the stairs and began surveying everything that she wanted to take with her.

After all, it wasn’t her house anymore.

CHAPTER
82

Yemen

Tuesday Morning (Hours of Darkness)

Matt could feel his face tighten with the pains of scarring and healing. He had a major cut across his forehead that had required stitches and two on his left cheek, his exposed side, where the doctor had gone in and removed the metal. One piece of shrapnel had penetrated his cheek and actually chipped one of his rear molars.

Considering everything, the doctor told him he was going to be just fine. Everyone who came to see him called him A-Rod, the nickname of Alex Rodriguex, star infielder for the New York Yankees.

“
Okay, A-Rod, you’re free to leave and do whatever you are going to do. I don’t guess it’s any use telling you not to jump out of airplanes, fight bad guys, or try to save the world, right?”

“
Right,” Matt grimaced, sitting up. The wounds on his legs were minor, like the scrape from a bad slide into second base.

He walked with some pain through the hospital corridor into the waiting SUV. The sun was bright and high in the sky to the west. Late afternoon. The fabled 100 days of wind had seemed to start as the hawking gales blew out of the mountains and swept across the plains, making air travel even more treacherous than normal.

The SUV pulled around a series of byzantine turns and then through a small gate, which opened onto the runway, finally stopping at the open ramp of a C-17 aircraft. Matt thanked the driver, walked up the ramp with a slight limp and was greeted by the Air Force loadmaster.

“
Sir, A-Rod.”

Matt stopped and looked at him, shaking his head. Apparently he was legendary for his toss. After all of the baseballs he had thrown in his career, perhaps he would be best known for tossing a four second grenade on its third second into an adjacent room, saving the database and his team.

“
It’s just A-Rod to you, Sergeant. Drop the ‘sir,’” Matt said, smiling, which hurt.

Walking into the cavity of the C-17 he saw the command and control pod in the center and three sets of jump equipment. Hobart and Van Dreeves were sitting at the terminals looking at Global Hawk photographs and Predator feed.

“
The Yemeni government wants to know what we’re doing,” Hobart said.

“
We’re not telling them jack,” Matt said.

Hobart and Van Dreeves turned their heads, both saying, “A-Rod.”

To which Matt said, “Bite me.”

“
Welcome back,” Hobart laughed.

“
Let’s get this pig rolling,” Matt said over his shoulder to the loadmaster.

Slipping on a headset he began to stare at the screen. On it were two pictures. One was a close up of a house in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It appeared to be Spanish architecture, complete with tiled roof. There was an empty driveway that led to what appeared to be an asphalt road. High shrubs of some type hugged the walls of the house and lined either side of the driveway as well as the entire yard. The yard was walled and gated, with swinging wrought-iron gates at the end of the driveway.

“
This is Yemen?” Matt asked.

“
Roger. We think this house is connected by underground tunnels to the houses on either side of it. When we do a thermal look, we get some shaded areas underneath that lead us to believe there are multiple escape routes through at least these two houses.”

“
The medics always come to the middle house though, right?” Matt asked.

“
Right. But we can’t follow them too well once inside.”

“
How did Dubai go?” Matt asked.

“
About as expected. The pilot dropped a bomb from 40,000 feet. It hit the target, drilled about fifty feet into the substructure, and exploded. Multiple secondary explosions and many dead. Team jumped in and verified the identity of number five on the list, the chief financier. And the pilot gets a medal.”

“
This is starting to sound like the deck of cards from Iraq,” Matt said.

“
It’s better though. The bad guys supplied the deck. We know it’s right.”

The aircraft buttoned up and began to roll, lifting into the sky and circling higher and higher until it had the altitude to soar above the Hindu Kush Mountains. The three men studied the target and wondered how they might neutralize the objective while capturing the individual.

“
No sign of armed guards?” Matt asked.

“
None. This is a small neighborhood in Little Aden, west of the port city of Aden,” Hobart said.

“
Kids, women?”

“
Nothing.”

“
When do the medics arrive?”

“
Usually at nightfall. They are there about an hour and then leave.”

“
Looks like a decent landing zone right there,” Matt said pointing at the flat roof. “Or there.” The second area was simply the backyard. They would have to land, forcibly breach their way in, and then fight whatever was on the inside. Not a good option, Matt thought.

“
This is a tough nut. VD just wants to drop bombs on all three houses and call it a day,” Hobart said.

Matt looked at Van Dreeves who had removed his headset and was eating a power bar. Van Dreeves just shrugged.

“
Hey, a bad plan beats no plan,” Van Dreeves said.

Matt, though, had an idea.

“
Why don’t we time this so that we’re there when the medics go in? Kill/capture them before they get in, keep one alive, and then let him take us in?”

“
We’ll be over the target in three hours, which is about thirty minutes before the medics would arrive. You’re suggesting landing off the objective and then moving toward the house,” Hobart said as he played with the screen, rotating the view to wide. There was an empty lot, which gave way to miles of desert about a quarter mile away.

“
There,” Matt said. “Let’s land there and move into position along the back,” Matt said.

“
As good an idea as any.”

The three men spent the next two hours mapping out their plan of action, rehearsing, and checking their equipment. At the thirty-minute mark, they rigged their parachutes, pulled on their oxygen masks, secured their weapons and ordnance, and moved toward the aft of the C-17.

The ramp lowered, and Matt could see the Sea of Aden mixing with the setting sun. He imagined that it was a beautiful sight from the ground, but from 20,000 feet above sea level with fully loaded combat gear, he had other things on his mind.

The green light flashed and the three men were tumbling through the sky. The air was warm even at these altitudes in this part of the world. Van Dreeves was first to deploy at about 800 feet, then Hobart, and finally Matt. They were quickly on the ground and the darkness had settled over them during their descent. The landing zone had proven sandy and forgiving, which for Matt was a blessing. His injuries still smarted a bit and he would take all the freebies he could get.

They stowed their gear in kit bags, hid it beneath some palm fronds, and then Matt led them to a wall guarding the compound four houses from the target. They had exactly one hour on the ground before an MH-47 from the base in Djibouti would come screaming across the 150 miles of water where the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden met. They would be picked up and raced back across the Gulf of Aden to a secure U.S. base.

They moved quickly along the shadows cast by the walls of the compounds until they reached their target. By Matt’s calculations they had four minutes before the medics arrived. They had thus far been like clockwork, always showing up within a few minutes of darkness every night, indicative of a routine medical schedule where they were trying to mask their identity.

Van Dreeves moved across the driveway, hiding behind the high shrubs. Within seconds the sound of the gate opening was rattling through their ears. Matt watched as the ambulance dimmed its lights and turned into the driveway. The three men were immediately padding behind it as the gate screeched to a close.

The driver exited the vehicle and walked to the rear to be greeted by a stun gun from Hobart. He wrestled and writhed but there was nothing he could do against the high voltage being applied to his system. He would be lucky to live. Hobart flex cuffed the man. Matt watched and at first blush the man did not impress him as a medic. Matt moved up to the passenger door at about the time the passenger was exiting and used his Glock to knock him unconscious. The man fell into his arms, and again his instinct was that these men were not medics.

Van Dreeves opened the back door of the ambulance and he and Hobart dragged the flex-cuffed driver into the back. The ambulance contained a variety of gear, mostly toolboxes.

Matt gave the passenger a smelling salt, which woke him and the three men quickly went to work on him. Hobart flex-cuffed him. Van Dreeves held a pistol to his head, and Matt asked him questions in Arabic.

“
Do you have the key?”

The man’s frightened face gave away the fact that he did. Matt pulled a series of swipe cards and keys from the passenger’s pocket.