Rogue Threat Read Online Free Page A

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