by Dan Fox
Steve’s teams had not seen any form of security patrol, and hopefully the mobile phone signal being jammed would just make their phones unusable and allay any suspicions for a while longer. At this two Taliban type fighters came out of the front door, separated and walked left and right around the house and re-met at the front door a minute or so later. One then stayed at the door as the other moved towards the tractor. He was not alert, not expecting any trouble. He didn’t look where he should have and ignored the barn completely. They then returned inside. All they knew from their earlier news feeds was that it was believed that the president and Air Force One had crashed into the sea, all presumed lost. They didn’t know that the video of the president in chains was already the main news topic on every station in the world. They were not expecting an attack. As far as they were concerned no-one knew they were there. They were complacent, and tired. All the cell were tired. That would be their undoing.
Steve had a choice, wait until they both went back inside their ‘patrol’ completed, or take them both out and hope that they could get inside the house without an alarm being raised. If there was someone else inside downstairs it would be a catastrophe.
Steve took a deep breath and opted for the full frontal assault using surprise and flash bang grenades in numbers through all windows.
He checked Charlie Bates’ and Billy Dobson’s teams for readiness, spoke briefly to the two men out on the road, and satisfied with the result gave the order to encroach by belly crawl to within thirty yards. Although there were curtains at the windows, they were thin and full of holes and even the dim lights from within the farmhouse lit up certain parts of the outside of the house. That also meant that anyone looking out through a window would have their vision impaired and probably wouldn’t be able to see a man in a white suit from more than ten yards away but that was something you wouldn’t gamble your life on. Steve gave the command to advance again and then to check and double check the grenade launchers, which were now positioned at a slight angle to the left and right of all windows. Hopefully everyone would be invisible as far as the farmhouse was concerned. Ready to go in fifteen seconds.
Steve’s earphone buzzed. A truck was approaching. Estimated arrival time three minutes. Steve swore to himself and ordered a slow retreat back to the rear of the barn. As the small and battered truck swung into the forecourt there were only two non-military men in it. There was a young driver and an older man, possibly his father, probably local subsistence farmers. With the truck parked the two men unloaded a couple of heavy baskets covered with the Iranian equivalent of tea towels and took them into the house without knocking. They were expected. Five minutes later they came out with much lighter empty baskets, got back in the truck and drove away, with dad counting a nice wedge of small denomination banknotes.
Not guns or ammunition, thought Steve, more than likely food which would mean a mass exodus from upstairs to the kitchen area on the east side of the house. Whilst rank would be respected, it would be first come, first served. They would be hungry, thirsty and tired. Their weapons would probably be laid down for a minute or two, probably the best time to strike in the world.
As soon as the truck was out of earshot, Steve gave the order to re-group in the same positions as before, but the east side team were to be extra careful of anyone glancing out of the kitchen window whilst stuffing their face with Samosa or Naan bread. Steve then crept up to the walls of the house and moved gradually towards the first downstairs window. He could hear relaxed voices and the sound of plates and cutlery. He angled a small mirror so that he could peer inside the kitchen area, five men eating and talking. No rifles or SMGs. He rapidly moved around to the other window and did the same mirror trick. Two men were sitting on an old settee eating. So there were seven downstairs and a maximum of three elsewhere probably upstairs. The president was upstairs then. Steve gave the countdown.
Three, two, one, GO. In a split second four flash bang grenades had gone through the windows, with a slight bias on the kitchen area. As soon as the first flashes had gone off three men hit the front door together the first spraying a double magazine towards the west, the second doing the same for the east, and Marcel, the third, heading straight upstairs being a little more careful with his bullets. The second group did exactly the same and within seven seconds the house had been sprayed with bullets from top to bottom. As soon as the grenades had hit all the lights had gone out. So it was extremely well armed and trained troops with night vision against a bunch of amateurs suffering from confusion, deafness and concussion. Not a very fair contest but Steve always preferred those odds. The Flash Bangs had done their job. No-one would have been able to see or hear anything. Their senses would have been reeling. They would not be able to think or do anything to defend themselves. Their recovery would have started after a few seconds but by then they would have been shot dead by six heavily armed and highly trained soldiers.
There was only one problem. There was one other guy they’d not accounted for. The guy in the toilet. He heard the assault begin and rose from the seat grabbing his rifle with one hand and his trousers with the other. As he kicked the door open he saw movement in the dark to his left and opened fire with a sustained burst. He was struggling to stand properly and the shots went upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees from waist high to ceiling.
Four of the bullets hit a crouching Charlie Bates starting at kidney level on his right hand side and finishing with a bad gash on the left hand side of his neck. Only that one hit flesh the rest being parried by his body armour. Trevor Mole was not as lucky, as the arc of bullets continued upwards and to the right, he was standing to Charlie’s left and caught one below his right ear and the other through his forehead above his left eye.
The third man in Charlie’s group had already positioned himself and carved patterns in the gunman’s bare chest with his full on assault. Trevor was very dead but Charlie was lucky enough to be bleeding heavily but in no immediate danger. Field dressings were applied but he needed to checked out by a medic as soon as possible.
The president was found strapped to a small and very smelly single bed or cot in the small box room. He was alone. Well there was no one else there alive. The president was not seriously injured but there were a few cuts and bruises that would need attention. He was totally disoriented and still under the influence of whatever drug he’d been given.
Just before the assault began, Steve had radioed Jim Tandy and had him prepare a truck from the airbase to collect the president if all ended well. Steve now called Jim to say bring it on and don’t spare the gas and expected Jim to arrive in no more than five or six minutes.
Only two of the extremist cell survived the surprise attack. One unconscious and bleeding heavily from a deep bullet gash above the right ear and three other wounds in the upper and lower abdomen. He only had two or three minutes left as he died from loss of blood. The other had lost an ear, picked up a shattered hip and lost most of a forearm. He was in shock but might survive for a few questions. The two medic trained guys tended to him but this guy too had lost most of his blood and lapsed into a coma. They also patched up a few glass and plaster cuts and grazes that the teams had collected in the cacophony that was hell.
Jim arrived with the truck as three guys helped the president down the stairs. They made a makeshift bed on the flat-bed of the truck and lay the president down with an improvised drip to rehydrate him. He hadn’t spoken yet. Steve told the guys that Air Force One was fit to use which caused relief all around. In another ten minutes they were parked by the hangar in the pitch dark. Air Force One was still inside the hangar with the auxiliary engine running for lights and power.
Jim and the two pilots managed to get all the hostages on the plane with more than a little difficulty. Some were naturally reluctant to board but the guys hadn’t the spare time to play nursemaid and were pretty rough with a few nervous people. The main thing was it got them back on board. Well, all the living ones anyway. The pr
esident’s Press Secretary, Jane Morris, had more than likely succumbed to her head injuries received from tumbling luggage during Air Force One’s manic descent, and Geoff Rawson, one of the older CIA detachment had gone with apparent heart failure. Three others had also died, two Security men and an older guy from the Press team. Nevertheless their bodies were taken on board and stored in the chilled hold area.
The team carried Trevor Mole’s body on to the plane and laid it down with the rest of the dead. Charlie Bates was just about walking wounded and was immediately seen by the on-board medics. He needed blood which they didn’t have but they were able to put him on a drip which would suffice for a short while. He blamed himself for Trevor’s death. He should have made sure that all the terrorists were accounted for but whilst he couldn’t help thinking that way, the teams had no way of knowing exactly how many bad guys there were.
Steve and Marcel had half carried the president on board and strapped him into his seat securely. He was still not too well from the effects of whatever drug he’d been given, but he became a little more alert as he started to pick out friendly voices. It was then that he recognised Steve as he tightened the seat belt for him. The president smiled at Steve for a moment and said ‘Have you come to play golf?’ From that moment on Steve knew he would be okay, then tapped him on the shoulder and left the plane with Marcel.
The final parts of the Pre-flight checks were well under way when Air Force One’s door was firmly shut and latched. The rear hangar doors had been opened with some difficulty as they had been welded shut. Amazing what you could accomplish with a few strips of C4.
On the plane those well enough cleared away the debris and generally made the others comfortable. Air Force One’s superbly trained pilots were now well enough to take charge, but the Special Forces pilots also helped them out fearing that they may black out from fatigue. Another three of the Special Forces rescue team stayed on board also. Steve and the others cleared the hangar exit, removed the double set of steps and stood aside as Air Force One gently eased its way outside the hangar.
All security devices and cloaking were on but they needed to get out of Dodge fast. So, at much more power than usual Air Force One turned right and headed for the northern end of the runway to head south. They should be taking off to the north as the wind was towards the sea but the less noise and attention the better. That would mean hitting an extra twenty knots before lift-off. On a well over a mile runway, no problem.
The plan was to fly at two hundred feet and max out at approaching six hundred mph. This was basically as fast as the plane would go at that altitude. They would maintain that speed and height until they were at least a hundred miles away from Iran to the south and well over the Gulf of Oman heading for the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea. In just over ten minutes the plane would ascend to its normal flying height of about forty thousand feet. By that time they would be well over International waters and had a mid-air refuelling appointment to make somewhere over the Indian Ocean.
As soon as Air Force One turned its nose south onto the runway, and without as much as a second’s delay, the throttles were opened to maximum and Air Force One without any lights, navigation or otherwise, accelerated hard as it approached the slightly increased rotate speed. A few seconds later they were up and away and keeping a low altitude made for the sea. Fifteen minutes later the plane climbed steeply as it flew over the open ocean miles away from any land and prying eyes. The pilots didn’t know why but they couldn’t re-set the autopilot so they just turned it off. They were just glad to be off the ground and on their way to freedom.
A few minutes later a secure message arrived at Central Control and was patched through to the Situation Room where the Vice President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the CIA waited nervously for news. The message said ‘package despatched undamaged.’
Whoops of joy, backslapping and a few hugs gave relief to their pent up frustration over the last thirty hours. Steve and the rest of the extended team made their way back to the sea and found the black inflatables that they’d pulled onto the beach. Two minutes later all three boats were heading out to sea at forty knots. They needed to be well into international waters before being picked up by the frigate USS Nicholas which had recently been on patrol in the Straits of Hormuz. An hour later the inflatables had pulled alongside the steadily moving frigate and within a few minutes they had all been lifted on board and taken to the medical centre for a quick examination.
Plans were already in place for them to be transferred to the Air Craft Carrier USS Nimitz which was steaming at pace towards them, ETA four hours. From there it would take a couple of days to get back to their bases. Nimitz couldn’t exactly dock anywhere in the area and drop them off, so a helicopter run under cover of darkness to somewhere friendly seemed the best option.
Meanwhile the president had been thoroughly examined by the medics on Air Force One and received a reasonably clean bill of health. He was still a little disoriented and dehydrated and his nerves were frayed, but otherwise he was in good spirits. Within a couple of hours he would be in full communication with Central Control even from his bed in Air Force One’s sick bay. Having got the president sorted the medics turned their attention to the rest of the rescued hostages.
Steve and his extended team needed to be on the move. His own group back to Spain and the remainder of the extended Special Forces team back to bandit country in the far west of Pakistan.
They would all wait for the world news to break and for the Iranians to catch on to what had happened at the Al Gharam Airbase. Meanwhile the repaired Air Force Two had long since taken off from Andrews en route to Mumbai (Bombay), India to rendezvous with Air Force One. The State Department and the CIA were still discussing what they should say to the Indian Prime Minister and his Government about the president’s abduction and would be negotiating to make that rendezvous.
Chapter 34
The Aftermath
The CIA had been warmly congratulated on their handling of the crisis, but some of the other agencies and the maintenance force for the 747s were under heavy and deep investigation about what went wrong with security or maintenance or whatever. At this point no-one had a clue what had happened on board. The rescue teams had reported that there had been absolutely no evidence of hostile activity on the plane. All those rescued who were awake at the time said all they vaguely remembered was losing motor activity and then they must have passed out.
A couple of interesting pieces of intelligence had appeared when the Analysts started sifting through the reams of data the investigations were generating. One of the guys who had worked on secondment at Andrews Air Force Base for Grange Engineering had not turned up for work in the last few days and had not called in sick. His appearances at the base had stopped immediately after Air Force One had taken off for California on the first leg of the president’s trip.
On further investigation he was found to have worked on the air flow and air conditioning system on Air Force Two which of course had to be substituted for Air Force One due to the accident with the Supplies truck. It had also been noted that the truck driver had also not appeared for work since the accident. In normal circumstances one might have put this down to embarrassment but Analysts look for coincidences and this was an important one. It was also noted that the normal truck driver for that shift had not turned up for work that day and had not been seen since. It further transpired that a Police investigation was under way after his wife reported him missing after he didn’t return home after his shift which they now knew he hadn’t turned up for.
Whilst it might have seemed obvious, the Analysts didn’t immediately click onto the fact that of the three missing people, two had the same surname. It took but a few seconds longer to make the link that the brothers Desai had both disappeared.
The FBI were despatched to their apartment and found it empty. It had been vacated. All essential personal belongings had been taken but clothes and toiletries wer
e still there as were all the normal entertainment items like TVs and CD Players. They had disappeared in suspicious circumstances and could only be regarded as suspects for whatever crime had been committed.
The enormity of the situation surrounding the president’s kidnap had forged a better and more cooperative relationship between all the agencies involved. This held true for the FBI and the CIA especially. No sooner than the information on the Desai’s been circulated, the CIA undertook a review of their background in India. What they would eventually find would send shivers down the spines of those in positions of responsibility.
Shortly after Air Force One and Air Force Two had landed back at Andrews Air Force Base a secure team of technicians boarded the original Air Force Two to check on the areas that Dado Desai had worked on alone at times. What they found sent more shock waves through the upper echelons of power whether political or agency. Pipework at a crucial junction had been modified at a point where the main air flow systems fed into the compressor and refrigeration unit.
This had been officially sanctioned as an experiment for Air Force Two only and Dado Desai was the engineer who suggested it. When the team’s work sheets were examined it was noted that Dado had been working alone in this area for several hours over a number of shifts. Again heads would roll for this security lapse.
When the pipe junction was dismantled and examined, a small device no bigger than a large cigarette pack was found attached the wall of the junction tubing, the tubing having been altered to accommodate it. The device contained a very powerful battery, now depleted, and a reservoir containing a brown sticky residue. Upon chemical analysis of the residue it was discovered that the device contained Curaramine, a laboratory enhanced version of the native South American poison Curare, a killer drug used by ethnic peoples of the area to hunt with. That quickly explained the motor muscle paralysis that the conscious people on the plane had experienced. After further testing it was proved that this would also explain why the entire complement were unconscious for so long. This news spread like wildfire. When Dado’s work was linked to Rani’s job, it did not need a brain surgeon to work out why Air Force One had been damaged. It was a deliberate act to force the president to use Air Force Two instead.
