by Tom Haase
He saw the round enter the back of Dmitri Alexandrovitch. The man lunged forward, trying to push his daughter and himself to safety. Around Matt, weapons fire raged as the others of Dmitri’s assault team fell one by one in their attempts to get back inside the hangar.
“Cease fire,” Matt ordered. The ringing in his ears caused by the explosion of the fired rounds lingered for a few seconds.
At last, silence settled on the field.
51
Confrontation with Dmitri
Matt regained his footing, as he disregarded the excruciating pain from his wound, and then ran toward the fallen figure in the hangar doorway. He reached Dmitri, where his daughter caressed his body and cradled his head in her arms when she collapsed to a sitting position. He heard Dmitri say, “That’s enough. No more fighting.” The men inside the hangar lowered their weapons as Matt knelt beside the prone man.
“You bastard, you killed Bridget. I’m glad I shot you.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Dmitri struggled with his words.
“What do you mean? Who initiated the contract to kill Bridget, Scott and me?”
Dmitri coughed. A little blood appeared on his lips.
“Leave him alone,” shouted Tasha, but her father waved her concern away.
“There is only one person who could have made all these things happen to you over the last few weeks,” Dmitri said, his voice growing quieter. “There is only one individual who had the best opportunity to clone your phone, and only one who promised to release the sniper if he told you the order came from the Vatican. He bribed the man to tell you that lie when he gave the signal, which was to give him a cup of water.” Dmitri took a deep breath. He seemed to enjoy the transformation he witnessed on Matt’s face as he continued.
“I had the torturers tortured to find that out. Who could have warned me before you arrived in Russia, so that I got away and planned an attack on you? Who knew you were coming to Russia?”
“Please, leave him alone,” Tasha begged. “You can see he is dying.”
Dmitri slumped lower in his daughter’s arms. He looked up at Matt with eyes that began to lose focus. “You know who that is. I only ask that you take care of Schultz for me. He is the one who paid for the contract.”
Matt heard the man breathe his last. Tasha wailed a mournful cry.
No other sound filled the air.
* * *
Gerti and Scott arrived at the building’s door seconds after Matt reached Dmitri. They had checked the downed men out front on the tarmac and had taken their weapons before proceeding to the entrance. Gerti arrived first and stooped down behind Matt to hear what the man said.
Gerti and Scott both heard Dmitri’s revelation.
Gerti jumped up as the man expired. She shouted, “No way. He’s lying.”
Scott grabbed her and tried to hold her. She broke free and jerked Matt up from his kneeling position by the collar. He turned to face her, and in a momentary glance to his left, he observed Schultz returning from the rear of the building, where he had been a blocking force to prevent anyone from escaping through that exit. He approached enough to hear his daughter’s outburst.
“That’s a goddamn lie. My father didn’t do that,” she shouted at Matt. Gerti wanted to convey her indignation at the accusations made by Dmitri against her father. They couldn’t be true. He would never try to kill her husband. Her father had arranged for their marriage. It didn’t make any sense. Why Bridget and Matt? She felt her whole world crumbling. Her father could settle all this. Where could he be?
In her mind, the facts the dead man had revealed cut through her veil of absolute deniability. In reality, she could not come to grips with the idea that the man would lie as he died. For what purpose? The answer was obvious—there existed no reason. How could this be happening to her? Her whole world now collapsed around her.
“No, it’s not true,” But each word came out softer, and tears filled her face. “It’s not true.”
Gerti saw Matt pull his weapon when Schultz approached.
52
Confession
Schultz had heard the ferocious gun battle that erupted on the other side of the hangar from where he guarded the rear entrance. He waited, but nothing appeared at the rear of the hangar. So he decided to move to reinforce the men in the front, and to be able to carry out his own new plan.
Dmitri hadn’t fulfilled his contract. The time had arrived for Schultz to take matters into his own hands. He needed to act while mayhem abounded. The firefight provided that cover. He would kill the objects of his hatred himself. If his luck held, he could also eliminate Dmitri. The moment for him to exact his secret vendetta on Matt and Scott had arrived.
He believed his daughter would understand once he showed her that he had done all this for her. Gerti shared the same genes as he did and had developed a similar sense of duty to that which he professed. The family came first, and any action taken to secure that would be justified in the long run. He often saw her act with the same ruthlessness as himself when she needed to, and he counted on that now. She must see that he had to do this for the good of the family, and out of his need to punish his targets for what they had done.
While he went around the hangar, he quickly reviewed the compelling reasons for why he had finally targeted them for elimination. He’d learned that Bridget had purposely left his son die on the battlefield because she’d treated another soldier first. After Bridget had left the Army, he’d lost her for some time, but a friend from his college days had told him about the archaeological dig their university had sponsored and that Bridget held a place on the team. He’d used contract killers to eliminate her on the archaeology site, but the men had failed. After thinking both assassins dead for months, he’d received a call from one man and had again sent him to get the Donavan girl. He’d botched it and lost his life.
Matt Higgins had to go because of his association with the Donavans. If he were left alive, he would eventually work everything out and come after him for Bridget’s sake. While Schultz had requested Matt to interrogate the man who’d shot at his daughter and almost killed her, he’d told the shooter that, when he gave him a cup of water, he was to tell Higgins that the email came from the Vatican. If the man would do this, he would release him afterwards. The deception would allow Dmitri to get his targets into a known position where he could act. He’d provided the hit man in Rome with the details of their trip. The man had failed to kill Scott and Matt while they searched for the source of the emails.
Bridget and Scott had once saved him after a crazed newspaperman had tried to blackmail him. That wasn’t enough to make him forgive her, though, because he also held them accountable for ripping him off for five million dollars. During that same period, while hunting for the Bible of Constantine, Scott had participated in an event in which his daughter had received a severe knife wound that could have killed her. He couldn’t forgive Scott for that. Next time around him, she could not be so lucky as to survive.
He’d felt sure his problems would be eliminated when he gave Dmitri their schedule for going to Russia, and yet again he’d experienced failure. The romance with Scott presented a potential disaster for his girl, but he knew she would get over him, especially if she produced a baby. That would take her mind off the loss of her husband.
On arriving at the front of the hangar, he felt joy in seeing Dmitri lying on the ground, apparently dead. His daughter’s reaction to the events immediately preceding his arrival caused him to stop. The bastard must have confessed in his dying breath. Gerti had heard about everything from the Russian instead of the way he’d wanted to present it to her.
He moved forward to where Dmitri lay and reached to draw his weapon. His breath came in short gulps, and his hand started to tremble when it reached for his gun. Before he grabbed it, and before he could take another step, Matt jumped up and jammed his weapon up under his chin so quickly that he couldn’t move or counter the attack.
Sc
hultz cried out, “What are you doing? I came around to support you.”
53
Matt Confronts Schultz
Matt’s mind swirled as he pushed the gun up under Schultz’s chin. He tried to confront the disbelief, the confusion, and the shock he felt from the revelations made by Dmitri. The events enumerated by the Russian now made perfect sense and exactly fit the experiences of the last weeks. The man knew all the facts and the dealings that had shaped his pursuit of the man behind Bridget’s murder.
There appeared to be only one inevitable conclusion. Deep within himself, he realized the man had spoken the truth. Now the man who had ordered the love of his life murdered stood directly in front of him, his hands in clear view. No weapon was in sight, and he did not appear to pose an imminent threat. Matt relaxed his position and slowly lowered his gun hand from the man’s face. He had sworn to kill the bastard who’d contracted their deaths, but cold-blooded murder didn’t reside in his being.
“How could you do this? You arranged to have Bridget killed and planned to murder Scott and me. You are going to jail for a long time.” Matt moved to put handcuffs on him. No instant justice to be administered here, especially not from the barrel of his weapon.
Then with speed he did not believe Schultz possessed, the man’s hands became a blur. With one hand he shoved Matt backwards, and the other pulled a Glock. He started firing as the gun came out. The pistol not aimed yet at any specific target, bullets flew around the hangar. Matt recovered, but he saw Schultz continue to pull the trigger as he swung it directly at him. Bullets continued to spew from the weapon as Schultz maintained a steady volume of fire.
With both eyes open, Matt, with absolute confidence in his ability to stop this, raised his weapon to a firing position. Schultz appeared in his sight, and without pausing, he fired. Then, he pulled the trigger again and saw the bullets enter Schultz in the center of his torso.
A glass-shattering scream filled the hangar.
* * *
Gerti couldn’t control herself. She emitted the soul-piercing scream as she saw her father’s body tumble forward after Matt’s shots. The reverberation of the pistol’s explosive firing still lingered. She couldn’t comprehend that her father had been shot dead. She raced at Matt and started to pummel him with her fists while continuing the unrelenting screaming and profanity directed at him.
“You bastard,” were the kindest words to emanate from her mouth. The fury spewing from her knew no bounds. Her father was dead, and Matt had killed him.
“You didn’t have to murder him,” she shouted.
She drew in a long deep breath. Her hatred of this man would never end. She would see to it that he paid for this. In her mind, she felt the presence of her father. He would have said the same thing and thought the same thoughts. After all these years, he had been right. She embodied a mirror image of him, no matter what she tried to change.
Someone shouted her name. She didn’t want to turn away from the object of her hate.
“Gerti.” Then louder: “Gerti!”
She let her name enter her awareness, by the force of the voice calling. Who yelled her name? It sounded like it came up from the ground.
“What?” she screamed. She looked down to the figure of Tasha, still clutching her dead father’s head. The girl’s face resembled a fountain of tears. She had been crying uncontrollably since her father had died in her arms. She pointed, with her raised hand, to behind Gerti.
“Look,” she commanded.
With a great effort, Gerti looked in the direction that the girl indicated. She couldn’t believe it. Her mind unable to comprehend what she saw.
“Oh my God, no. No!”
She rushed over to where Scott lay on the floor. Blood poured from his mouth, and his eyes were growing dim. She crouched to a position beside him. She quickly sat on the floor and took his head in her hands.
“Don’t leave me. I love you.” She tried to say each word clearly so he would comprehend.
He moved his lips. She bent down close to his mouth to hear.
“I love you,” came out in a prolonged utterance, and then his eyes glazed over and his head dropped.
Gerti hugged him in a longing embrace. Her whole body trembled, and her mind felt shattered at the loss of her father and now her husband in a matter of minutes. To her, Scott’s death had resulted because Matt had shot at her father and that had caused him to spray rounds all over. Two of the bullets had stricken her husband, the father of her unborn child.
She gritted her teeth so hard her whole jaw felt like exploding. This reaction provided her a modicum of clarity. She didn’t want to take the time to think of the future in her present state of mind. There would be time for that, and for the actions she knew in her soul that she would be capable of. Father’s instructions on how to do business were no longer lost on her. She knew what she had to do, and without remorse, she consciously acknowledged that she embodied the essence of her father at her very core.
Now the time for grief and sorrow had arrived. She must deal with that and get through to the other side before doing anything else. She fell over her husband’s body and let her tears flow.
54
Funeral
Matt stood bareheaded in the rain by the gravesite. The burial ceremony for Scott Donavan had finished a few minutes before. People were still milling around and saying their goodbyes. Matt looked at the casket, and his mind went to all the adventures he shared with this man. Scott had exhibited great courage in Tel Aviv in the rescue of Bridget from the rapist.
He stood steadfast in supporting his sister’s efforts to acquire the Bible of Constantine. In Matt’s effort to bring a jihadist down in Savannah to stop an arms-importing ring, Scott had played an instrumental role in achieving the destruction of that cell. Scott had also helped him solve the mystery of who’d ordered Bridget’s murder.
Scott Donavan was a brave man, and one Matt would sorely miss. He looked around and saw Gerti approaching him. She had not spoken to him once since they’d departed that hangar, not even at her father’s funeral. He profoundly regretted what had happened, but he realized that his actions had been completely justified.
“Gerti, please accept my condolences,” Matt said as she neared.
“I’m going to New York. We will never have any future personal connections. Do not call me.” She turned her hate-filled eyes away and walked off.
Matt stood shocked. They had been through so much, and now she treated him like a dog who had pooped on the living room rug. He tried to understand her position, but his logic told him that his actions in the hangar were completely warranted. He’d only wanted to save lives by stopping the man from firing a weapon at people. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out that way. She now seemed to blame him for all that had happened. He acknowledged that some responsibility fell on his shoulders, but not all of it, as she’d intimated.
He walked away and headed over to Bridget Donavan’s grave. He didn’t watch the time, so he had no idea of how long he stood there going over their lives together, from the early days in the Army up to her brutal murder, engineered by Schultz. The loss of his love still pained him deeply. He decided that he needed a drink. From this day forward, things were going to change in his life.
The next morning, Matt visited Liz in the hospital. She still experienced pain when she moved.
“It’s getting better. At least it doesn’t hurt every time I breathe.” She smiled as she said this. She still looked pale and weak. Matt enjoyed the short visit. He felt extremely glad that Liz would fully recover. She would be back on her feet in a few weeks.
The FBI director arrived to visit his special assistant. Matt said his farewells and departed.
“How are you?” asked the director.
“Getting better every day. I’ll be back to work in a few days.”
“Did you tell him yet?”
“No,” she said.
“When?”
“It’s not time y
et. In a few weeks, after he processes the events that just transpired. He’ll take it pretty hard, and I want to make sure I do it at the best time.”
“Okay. I’ll leave it to you to arrange everything.”
* * *
Matt left the hospital, and the next day, with set determination, he drove to the FBI building. Over the last few days, he had run this whole FBI thing around in his head and concluded that all their rules were too restrictive. If they wanted him to do certain jobs, there were always too many rules, too much oversight. The Bureau usually tried to put strings on all his activity. Earlier that morning, he’d phoned the director and asked if he could stop by. The director had given him a time, and Matt arrived a few minutes early. He took a seat in the outer office and waited.
The silver-haired man with the familiar face of the director appeared at the appointment time. He gave Matt a firm handshake and an accompanying smile.
“Come on in,” he said as he led Matt into his office.
The place seemed bigger than Matt remembered. Then again, on earlier occasions, he’d generally entered this place to argue or plead for something. He hadn’t taken notice of the pictures of the director and the president, the university diplomas and the large picture of J. Edgar Hoover.
“Matt, you have done everything I asked of you, and in a superb fashion. After the gun battle at the airport and Agent Garcia’s wounds, I think you must take some time off.”
“I appreciate that, sir. I have another plan.” He took out his credentials and his weapon and placed them on the director’s desk. “I need a vacation from the FBI. It’s time for me to go my own way. I lost too much lately, and I plan to start over.”
