Humphrey had wanted to film the Learjet with his gun camera during the intercept; he saw the floodlight hit his leader's cockpit canopy, saw him go out of control temporarily, assumed that it was an attack, and launched a missile. Under the emergency situation, such a response was understandable. Of course, Hardcastle explained, the deaths of the "Whispers" TV crew were unfortunate, but it was probably avoidable--it wouldn't have happened if the TV and Learjet crews had been following the law and not out for a scoop. For once it looked like blame was going to be placed on the right party.
By being up in Atlantic City instead of in Washington, Vincenti was really just postponing the inevitable: the intensive debriefing that judge Lam Wilkes was giving Hardcastle and Harley right now in Washington. Vincenti's turn was next. These all-day, half-the-night sessions were nine-tenths retribution and punishment and one-tenth information.
Wilkes was claiming that there were tons of evidence to make everyone, including the President of the United States, believe the body of the motorcycle rider shot by the V-22 crew was Henri Cazaux. The gun camera videotape from the third V-22 of one of the two riders that escaped was inconclusive. It was a thermal image, almost useless for trying to identify someone.
But in Vincenti's opinion, any one of the two that got away could have been Henri Cazaux.
Wilkes and the rest of the justice Department disagreed. To Also Vincent i, it was all just educated guesses and assumptions--and politics, of course. The more this air defense emergency went on, the more uneasy it made the public. The President needed this emergency over with soonest.
Vincenti admired Harley for standing up to Wilkes and most of the rest of the FBI. She was definitely someone he wanted to get to know better.
He still wasn't exactly clear what her relationship to former Vice President Kevin Martindale really was, but Vincenti never liked to take a backseat when it came to the pursuit of women. He could take on Martindale any day of the week. That aside, he wished Harley would at least take some pride in knowing that Cazaux's organization was busted up, his sources of funds cut off and confiscated, his butt being chased closer and closer every hour. Vincenti hoped Cazaux would dive back under whatever rock he crawled out from-Harley didn't believe he would.
But the U.s. Marshals and the FBI were hot on Cazaux's organization's heels, so if Cazaux's wasn't one of the bullet-riddled bodies she pulled from the mansion in New Jersey, he was as good as captured anyway.
Cambridge-Dorchester Airport, Maryland That Same Time The little airport on Choptank Bay in south-central Maryland was a busy and favorite destination for fishermen from all over the northeast United States, but at dusk it was as dark and as quiet as the countryside around it. The Patuxent River Naval Air Station was just thirty miles southwest, where the U.s. Navy trains all of its test pilots and conducts tests of new and unusual aircraft--it was the Navy equivalent of the Air Force's Edwards Air Force Base--and the area just south of the little airport was often filled with Navy jets dog-fighting or practicing aerobatics or unusual flight maneuvers. But promptly at nine P.m at the very latest, the Navyjets went home. No one dared disturb the peaceful little Chesapeake Bay resort town in summertime unless you had a lot of political or financial pull.
.... or unless you were an international terrorist, and you didn't give a damn.
Inside a hangar rented for this mission, Gregory Townsend checked the attachment points of the devices under the wings of the single-engine Cessna 172. He had slung one B.l.u-93 fuel-air explosive canister under each wing, just outboard of the wing strut. It was a simple two-lug attachment, connected to a mechanical-pyrotechnic squib that used small explosive charges to pull the lugs out of the attachment points and let the bombs go. The charges were bigger than what was needed and would probably punch a hole in the Cessna's thin aluminum wing, but that didn't matter as long as the bombs were able to free-fall properly. As the bombs fell, a simple cable would pull an arming pin out of the canister. Three seconds later the canister would disperse the explosive vapor, and two seconds after that three baseball-sized bomblets in the tail cone of the canister would detonate in the center of the vapor cloud, creating an explosion equivalent to ten thousand pounds of TNT. The fuel-air explosive blast would destroy or damage almost any structure within a halfccmile.
Once the canisters were properly attached and checked, Townsend and two of his helpers threw tarps over the wings to hide the canisters and towed the aircraft south down the parking ramp and onto the parallel taxiway to a runup pad at the end of runway 34, using a rented pickup truck and a nylon tow strap.
Cambridge-Dorchester Airport had a lot of airplanes parked there, but there was no fixed-base operator to service planes, so it was not unusual to see private autos towing them. There were a few onlookers outside the Runway Restaurant at the entrance to the little airport, the usual assortment of people that hung around airports day or night, but when they saw the airplane with the tarps over it, they assumed it was being fixed, so few paid it any more attention--onlookers came to see takeoffs and landings, not engine runups or fuel tanks being drained or scrubbed out. By the time Townsend and his soldiers reached the runup pad, they were away from most of the lights and the spectators.
Townsend towed the Cessna onto runway 34, then stepped into the cockpit and started its engine. His soldiers meanwhile moved the truck behind the plane, attached the tow cable to the rear tie-down bracket and the other end to the truck's rear bumper, and pulled the nylon tow-strap tight so it held the plane in place.
Inside the cockpit, it took only fifteen seconds for the Global Positioning System satellite navigation unit to lock on to enough satellites for precision use. He checked the navigation data in the set.
There were only three waypoints in the flight plan--an initial takeoff point about two miles off the departure end of the runway, a level-off point over Chesapeake Bay, and a destination: 38-eccomiag North, West, elevation twelve feet mean sea level, the geographical coordinates of the Oval Office in the White House, Washington, D.c.
programmed to the nearest six feet. Townsend checked that the GPS set was exchanging information with the Cessna's autopilot, then activated the system. The GPS immediately inserted the first altitude into the system, which was one thousand feet, and its initial vertical velocity of three hundred feet per minute. The Cessna's horizontal stabilizers moved leading-edge down slightly, ready to execute the autopilot's commands.
Townsend then stepped out of the cockpit and motioned to his soldiers to get ready for launch. He began to push in the throttle control for takeoff power and.
The Cessna's one VHF radio suddenly crackled to life--Townsend didn't even realize he had it on: "Cambridge UNICOM, Cambridge UNICOM, Sene field at two thousand five hulldred, landing information please, go ahead." Before Townsend could respond, someone else on the airport radioed back, "Seneca-43 Poppa, Cambridge UNICOM, landillg runway three-four, winds three-one-zero at five, altimeter two-ninerniner-eight, no observed traffic. Airport is closed right now, parking available but no fuel or service available, over." "Shit, "Townsend swore, pulling the throttle on the Cessna back to idle until he decided what to do. "What in bloody hell is he doing here?" In the past few days, as his men monitored activity at the airport, there had not been one takeoff or landing after nine P.m not one.
Their whole mission was in jeopardy, and he hadn't even launched it yet!
As if to answer his question, Townsend heard, "Hey, d, this is Paul," the Seneca pilot replied. "Yeah, it's just me. I gassed up at Cape May this time--their gas is down thirteen cents from last week.
I had dinner out at Wildwood, too--that's why I'm late. Hope the condo association doesn't give me too much grief: I'll try to keep the noise down." Townsend grabbed the microphone and, trying to tone down his British accent as much as possible, radioed, "Cambridge traffic, this is Cessna-125-Bravo. I'm doing a little engine and brake maintenance at the end of runway 34.
I'll be done in about five minutes." "Hey, Ce
ssna-125But, are you running engines out there?" the guy on the ground asked. "You know you ain't allowed to run engines out here after eight P.m. County ordinance." "This is very important," Townsend said.
"I'll be done in a minute." "You the one that got towed out there with the tarps on your wings, com125But?" the guy asked. "The homeowners' association listens in on UNICOM.
They'll probably call the sheriff and complain.
I'd pack it in for the night if I was you.
Don't dump any gas out of your sumps onto the dirt, either--county gets pissed off about that too." "Kiss my bloody ass," Townsend said. He unplugged the microphone, then shoved in the throttle again, locked it tightly, closed the pilot's side door, and motioned for his helper to remove the tarp on the right wing.
... and, sure enough, by the time Townsend had removed the tarp on the left wing and gone back to the pickup truck, blinking red-and-blue lights could be seen back by the main part of the airport--a sheriff's patrol car. Also, by that time, the twin-engine Seneca was downwind, just a few minutes from landing. As the soldiers got their suppressed MP5 submachine guns ready, Townsend released the pelican clamp on the tail of the Cessna, and the plane shot down the runway.
The Cessna didn't look like it was going to make it. It pitched onto its left wheel as it accelerated, it skittered over to the left side of' the runway precariously close to the VASI lights, and the left wingtip dipped so low that Townsend thought it was going to flip over and spin out.
But just as he thought it was going to hit the dirt edge of the runway, it lifted off into the night sky, its wings leveling off as it gracefully climbed and proceeded on course. The GPS flight plan coordinates must've been off slightly, and the plane had immediately tried to correct itself. luckily it had not run out of runway first.
The sheriff's patrol car looked as if it were going to drive down a taxiway and perhaps block the runway. It shined its floodlight at the plane, as if trying to read the registration number. "He's going to see those FAES under the wings, Mr.
Townsend," one of the soldiers reminded him.
"Well, let's give the constable something else to think about, shall we?" Townsend suggested. He pointed to the Seneca, which was just turning final for landing.
As the patrol car backed up to get back onto the main taxiway, the second soldier took cover behind the pickup truck, out of sight. As the Seneca came in over the approach end of' the runway, flaps extended and engines at near-idle power, the soldier opened fire. He emptied one thirty-two-round magazine on it, reloaded, and fired again.
Nine-millimeter bullets raked across the left side of the plane, one bullet grazing the pilot's head and knocking him unconscious.
Most of the bullets chewed into the left propeller, breaking off huge pieces and throwing them in all directions. Unbalanced, the engine began to violently shake out of control. The Seneca skidded to the left, pirouetted around almost in a complete circle, and crashed.
It skidded over across the parallel taxiway just a comfew feet from the patrol car, then flipped over and tumbled end-over-end into the south park of the parking ramp, destroying a half-dozen planes along the way before bursting into flame with a spectacular explosion.
The only clear way around the wreckage was down the runway, and that's where Townsend and his soldiers sped away. The patrol car tried to pursue, but had to turn back to help the survivors in any way he could.
There was no pursuit--it took the sheriffs patrol and fire department fifteen minutes to respond, and the call to find the men in the pickup was drowned out by the call for ambulances and doctors.
Townsend and his men went north across the Cambridge Bridge to the town of Easton, picked up their Cessna-210 escape plane at Newnam Airport, and were already flying outside the state to safety less than thirty minutes after the crash.
Over Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, Maryland That Same Time vincenti was flying west into the beautiful yellow, then orange, then red sunset, still killing time until his scheduled landing time.
Northern and central Maryland and Chesapeake Bay were dark except for the occasional farms and rural subdivisions and the white dots of vessels' running lights on the Bay, but soon the lights of Baltimore and Washington could be seen, and they were spectacular. The city of Aberdeen was to the right, with the famous Aberdeen Army Weapons Proving Grounds nearby. The big splash of light to the right was Baltimore, and off the nose was Washington and the virginia suburbs.
He was headed right for the Annapolis-Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
vincenti started a descent to fifteen hundred feet, only a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain and a thousand feet under the Class B airspace around Washington. It was a bit dangerous flying into such congested airspace at night, but flying was always a bit dangerous, and any chance he got to enjoy it, he took. He was still legal, taking advantage of all available assets to keep separated from other planes, and he was talking to air traffic control. The airspace structure around DC and Baltimore forced VFRIEND (visual Flight Rules) pilots either very high, above ten thousand feet, or very low. But he was still hoping for a friendly controller and a lot of luck to get a really good look at the capital area.
Of course, the reason he was allowed to be up here at all was because the Justice and Transportation Departments had recommended they do away with the air defense emergency, a move that puzzled and infuriated Vincenti. They had dismantled all the flight restrictions, fighter coverage, and Patriot missile protection in record time.
The President wanted things back to normal so he could begin campaigning and tell everyone he had a handle on the situation, and the so-called Executive Committee on Terrorism okayed it.
Vincenti overflew the three-and-a-half mile-long Annapolis Chesapeake Bay Bridge, skirted south around the U.s. Naval Academy and the city of Annapolis, then turned westbound toward Rockville.
Vincenti Reed Hospital, the Mormon Temple, ablaze in lights, and Bethesda Naval Hospital. After passing about five miles north of Bethesda, he heard, "Devil-03, are you familiar with Special Routes 1 and 4, sir?" "Affirmative, Devil-03." "Devil-03, clear to Atlantic City International Airport via present position direct Cabin john intersection, Special Route 1, Hams Point, Special Route 4, Nottingham VOR, direct, at two thousand feet, do not overfly the observatory, the Capitol, or Arlington National Cemetery, keep your speed above two hundred knots, report passing the Wilson Bridge." "com03, copy all, thank you." Vincenti pulled back power and used override to lower two notches of flaps, then thanked his lucky stars.
Special Routes 1 and 4 are helicopter routes that generally follow the Potomac. It was going to be a quick but very spectacular tour.
And it was spectacular. Starting at the Taylor Naval Research laboratory, he cruised over the Potomac south, with the entire expanse of Washington and the Virginia suburbs spread out before him in blazing glory. Vincenti saw the U.s. Naval Observatory, Georgetown University, Teddy Roosevelt Island, and then the Capitol came into view on the left. The memorials, monuments, and historic building White House, but almost every building and monument along The Mall was clearly and beautifully visible, all the way to the Capitol itself. It felt as if he could reach out and touch the Washington Monument.
He saw everything--the lights surrounding the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Reflecting Pools, the Jefferson Memorial... it was simply spectacular.
He cruised east of Arlington National Cemetery, and he could make out the Iwojima Memorial and could even see the lone dot of light that marked Kennedy's grovesite--just follow the Memorial Bridge west ad the bright-yellow glow of the Eternal Flame could be seen through the trees.
The Pentagon was plainly visible, a definite five-sided outline against the lights of Pentagon City. There was a helicopter landing on the Pentagon helipad, Vincenti noticed, and he wondered who was on board that helicopter and hoped every-thing was quiet down there at the Puzzle Palace.
V E n 349 Aboard an Air Force E-3Can AWACS Radar Plane Over Eastern Pe
nnsylvania The mission crew commander aboard the Airborne Warning and Control System radar plane, Major Scott Milford, diligently continued to scan all five of the vital sectors assigned to him--Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.c.--but he always came back to check out Executive One Foxtrot.
The modified Boeing 747, Air Force designation VC-25A, commonly referred to as Air Force One (but actually only called that when the President of the United States was on board; its call sign tonight was Executive-One-Foxtrot, meaning that a member of the President's family or some other very high-ranking White House official was on board), had been assigned a standard FAA air traffic control transponder code, and everything appeared to be normal. It was flying Jet Route 77, an often-used high-altitude corridor used by flights from New England to transition routes into the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas. Usually the VC-25A was cleared direct airport-to-airport, even if it would bust through dense or restricted airspace, but since the President was not on board, the crew was apparently taking it easy and following published flight routes to avoid totally messing up the air traffic control situation all over the eastern seaboard. The White House had learned from the Los Angeles haircut incident, when the President tied up air traffic at Los Angeles International Airport for an hour by having Air Force One block a taxiway while he was getting a $200 haircut from a famous Hollywood stylist, how sensitive the public was to the Chief Executive stomping on common people while usirlg the privileges of the office.
Dale Brown - Storming Heaven Page 42
