Critical Error

by Murray Mcdonald

  As Sam’s kick knocked the fourth and final guard unconscious, he turned and admired the sight of Lawson as he struggled to comprehend what was happening. Sam left Rebecca to watch the three as he returned to the hallway and dragged the other two guards into the suite. Curtain-tie backs made excellent ropes and before long, the four guards were trussed up so well it was going to take Houdini to undo the knots. Meanwhile, not one word had been uttered and a rather panic-stricken Lawson awaited his fate, still blissfully unaware of who had just dispatched his very capable and expensive security. Finally, as he pulled on the final knot and elicited a satisfactory “humph” from his captives, Sam turned to Lawson.

  “Mr Lawson, James Lawson?”

  Lawson nodded his head. There was no point denying the obvious.

  “I met an employee of yours recently,” said Sam menacingly. “He wasn’t very nice. In fact, he wanted to kill my brother!”

  Lawson looked in horror as he realized he was staring at Charles Baker’s brother.

  Lawson remained silent and Sam continued. “Obviously, I don’t take kindly to people trying to kill my family.”

  Lawson, still silent, now looked at the wall rather than Sam.

  “He’s dead. That’s how unkindly I take to people trying to kill my family.”

  “Fortunately for him, he had nothing to do with the death of my wife and son!”

  Lawson remained impassive.

  “So his death was quick, relatively painless.”

  Lawson twitched nervously. He knew exactly what Sam meant.

  “Now, before you think all is lost, I will give you a promise. I won’t kill you if you tell me everybody who’s involved in trying to kill my brother.”

  Lawson laughed as the futility of Sam’s quest hit him. He was still trying to save his brother.

  Sam looked at Rebecca. Rebecca suddenly realized why Lawson was laughing. She had, because of everything that happened, forgotten to tell Sam about the bombing.

  “You poor fuck, you’ve come all this way to save a brother who’s already dead!” laughed Lawson.

  The words hit Sam like a sledgehammer and he slumped onto the sofa. He looked at Rebecca who, avoiding his gaze, moved towards him and embraced him.

  “Sam it’s OK,” she offered and smiled at Lawson, picking up the phone on the nearby table and making a call. After a second, she handed the phone to Sam.

  “Hello?”

  Sam instantly recognized the voice, it was his sister-in-law.

  “Hi, how are you?” he asked solemnly.

  “Fine, is everything OK? You sound awful.”

  “God, I’m so sorry, I’ve just heard the news.”

  “What news?” she asked, suddenly realizing. “Oh yes, such a shame, massive heart attack they think.”

  Sam was stunned at how well she was taking it and the news that he had died naturally was just as shocking. Charles was a very healthy guy.

  Rebecca watched, worried as Sam’s mood failed to lift.

  “When did it happen?” he asked.

  “Hmm, not quite sure, hold on a sec…” she shouted “Charles!”

  Sam hardly heard the question about when the President had died. All he heard was that his brother was alive and well.

  Senator Charles Baker took the phone and spoke at length to his brother, assuring him he was fine. They had received a call on the cell phone his wife’s friend had given her when she was hiding in her friend’s lodge. The lodge she had been originally hiding in was highly secure and the call they had received was of course meant for Beth’s friend. Nonetheless the call from Alarm Company that there were intruders in the grounds of the other lodge had spooked them all the same.

  Sam talked for a few more minutes before replacing the handset and turning to a far more subdued Lawson, who having heard the whole conversation, knew Charles Baker was very much alive and well.

  Rebecca pulled Sam from the room and apologized. She had forgotten to tell him about the explosion. She had had to phone in their location but gave the house where they picked his wife up, not their new location. It seemed there were very few people they could trust. However, it seemed they thought the Senator was dead which was a bonus, she said with a smile. Sam was too elated to be angry. He walked back into the lounge and looked at his watch. It was 3.20 am, 9.20pm in the US.

  “OK, Lawson, you’ve got approximately ten seconds to start talking or I’m going to end your life in so much pain that you’ll be begging me to kill you for the next 12 hours.”

  Lawson was a man who told people what to do and he scoffed at Sam’s threat.

  Three second later, his little finger snapped like a dead twig and he began to talk. It was probably the first time in his life he had ever felt pain, thought Sam. Even he was surprised at how quickly he talked.

  Sam listened as Rebecca noted down a total of six names, four names they had never heard before, one name they both instantly recognized, one that she had been ordered to protect and one other that Sam had known from the very start had to be involved, Allan Johnson.

  Sam noticed a laptop lying nearby and opened it up. A videoconferencing page was the last one to be used and it gave Sam a wonderful idea. He booted up the system and selected the names that had been given from a drop down menu. Unfortunately, only four names were available. He clicked ‘conference call’ and waited as the system contacted the others.

  “What are you doing?” asked Rebecca, as she watched him play with the laptop.

  Sam disabled the camera and watched the screen as it offered a ‘waiting for attendees’ note in the middle of the screen. It took about five minutes before the four faces stared back at him, obviously waiting for Lawson’s face. After all, he had called them.

  Sam did not disappoint them and moved the laptop in front of Lawson and enabled the camera, revealing to the other four attendees his rather disheveled and pained expression.

  “James, are you OK?” asked Walter Koch.

  “James!” asked John Mellon.

  Lawrence Harkness moved closer to the camera, obviously having noted there was something wrong with James and taking a closer look.

  “James, what’s happened?” asked William Hathaway.

  Sam switched on the mike and let Lawson speak.

  “Sam Baker’s here, his brother isn’t dead!” he announced. Sam stepped into view and waved at his audience.

  The four men stared back in horror.

  “I just wanted to say hi and let you know that I’ll be paying each and every one of you a visit very soon.” Before they had a chance to respond, he raised the pistol and shot James Lawson in the stomach. A shot that he figured would not only ensure his death but would take at least a couple of hours of total and complete agony.

  Sam stepped out of the camera’s view and beckoned for Rebecca to follow him as he exited the suite.

  “Why did you do that? We just lost the element of surprise!” she said, as they closed the door on Lawson’s cries of pain.

  Sam shrugged. The look on their faces and the panic they would now be experiencing was well worth it.

  Chapter 59

  “Mr President, it’s Walter Koch again,” said Honey. “He’s not going to give up, Sir.”

  “OK, put him through.” Russell had avoided him all day but he had called incessantly for the last thirty minutes.

  “For God’s sake, Walter, it’s 10pm. Will you please call me in the morning?” demanded the President.

  “Before you say another word, look at the link I just mailed you,” insisted Walter breathlessly.

  Having never, in the twenty years he had known Walter, heard him in such a state, Russell obliged and clicked the link.

  The live feed of the dying James Lawson shocked Russell to the core.

  “Jesus?!” He hit the disconnect button on the computer.

  “Sam Baker,” offered Walter, by way of explanation.

  “But I thought we got him with his brother?”

  “We didn’t b
ecause we didn’t get his brother!” exclaimed Walter exasperated and panicking.

  “Sorry?”

  “You missed him, you idiot. And now he knows who we are and it seems pretty clear he’s coming for us next.”

  “Shit!” Russell thought back to Johnson’s warning and how if he wanted to kill the President, Sam was the man he’d get to do it.

  “Exactly, we’re obviously hoping you’ll offer us some assistance!”

  “Of course,” he said quickly. “I’ll get some men to you straight away, will you let Lawrence and William know?”

  Walter suddenly realized there was a problem. John Mellon was also on the hit list but not on the President’s radar. They’d have to cover John some other way. It was not time to admit to the plan about John Mellon becoming VP.

  “Fantastic, thank you, Mr President.”

  “They’ll be there within the hour,” promised the President.

  Walter realized he had not mentioned one thing. “Sorry, they’re in Paris, Mr President, so the next few hours will be OK.” He’d rather wait and get the best than the first few men that came to hand.

  “What, James is sitting dying in Paris as we speak?”

  “Yes!”

  “Have you not called an ambulance or a doctor?”

  “We don’t know where he is, we just know he’s in Paris!”

  “Dear God!” Although the more he thought about it, the more he thought it couldn’t happen to nicer guy. James Lawson was a particularly unpleasant man.

  As President, he could probably pass the videoconference link onto the NSA and they’d track him down but he also didn’t want to tie himself to Lawson’s death in any way. He closed his laptop and began to worry about himself, not some old cantankerous prick that was beyond saving in any event.

  He called Johnson. He had missed again and as a result, he would need to get the men to cover the remaining Horsemen. He then called the Secret Service and requested his own security be doubled. Thinking better of the request, he trebled it.

  Chapter 60

  Sam and Rebecca arrived at Charles de Gaulle in plenty of time to catch the first transatlantic flight of the day, the 8.20 Air France to New York. While Rebecca went to buy two tickets, Sam wondered what had happened. The airport had taken on the look of a refugee camp. Sleeping bodies were strewn everywhere and queues seemed to stretch off in every direction. He checked his watch. It was 5.30 am. Rebecca returned and Sam could see she was sporting a quizzical look similar to his own.

  “There’s not a plane available for a week!”

  “Sorry?” Sam was certain he had misheard her.

  “Every single transatlantic flight is full for the next forty eight hours.”

  “But you said a week?”

  “Yep and then there aren’t any!” she said bewildered.

  “What the hell do you mean there aren’t any?!”

  “Something about a solar flare. All planes are being grounded for the rest of the week.”

  “Jesus, we could take the train to London…”

  “No, all flights across the world are being stopped,” she interrupted, realizing she hadn’t explained fully.

  “I’ll call Ben,” she offered.

  “Would that be the same Ben that gave up the address of where my sister-in-law had been hiding?”

  “We don’t know that for sure. Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

  “Ben?”

  “Rebecca, I’m sorry I don’t have much time, I need to get to a meeting.”

  Rebecca quickly explained the predicament. Five minutes later, she received a call back. They had two first class seats on the American Airlines flight leaving at 11.05 am to JFK.

  “Excellent,” announced Sam, making his way to the executive lounge. There was just enough time for a shower and a good breakfast before they boarded.

  The US Secretary of Transportation had relayed Ben’s request directly to the CEO of American Airlines, despite the late hour. As ever, the request was granted. Two American Airline crew were going to be spending a little more time in Paris than they had thought and two Million Miles members weren’t going to get the free upgrade they had craved and was grudgingly awarded by the airline.

  The conversation, despite the unsocial hour, was business-like and as it came to an end, the Secretary expected at least some reference to the upcoming grounding of the aviation industry but it never came. The Secretary of Transportation sat back in his chair and stared at the phone. For days he had sat waiting for the onslaught from the airline chiefs but it had never happened. Four or five days’ grounding of all their flights had hardly elicited a squeak from them, despite the fact he knew they were being lambasted by the public at large. It just didn’t make sense. The volcanic ash debacle had cost him nights of sleep as every transatlantic carrier stormed his office by mail, phone and in person. His own scientists were telling him the chance of any issues occurring as a result of a solar storm were around one in a billion but the papers and all the media were convinced it was a cataclysmic event that would bring planes down. As such, they had no option but to go with the majority and like every other air traffic control network around the world, they had to close their skies.

  Was he missing something? Despite the hour, he called the CEO of American Airlines back. He had to know what was going on.

  “Chris, I’m sorry to call again.”

  “Not at all, Mr Secretary.”

  “I just wondered, when the ash thing happened, you were almost camped on my doorstep.”

  “Yep, cost us millions!”

  “But surely the solar storm is the same?”

  “You’re winding me up aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely not? Why would you say that?”

  The US Secretary listened in disbelief before thanking the CEO profusely and arranging his driver to take him to the White House first thing in the morning.

  At 7 am, the Secretary of Transportation waited in the anteroom for the Oval Office for his President. He had been there since 6.30 am and the President had been informed of his arrival.

  “Come on in,” he offered as he entered the office.

  “Thank you, Mr President.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you, I imagine it’s chaos over at transportation,” said the President offering the Secretary a seat on the sofa across from him.

  “That’s why I’m here, Mr President, I’m here because it’s not chaos.”

  “Sorry?” Russell had lived through the ash storm and as VP with the President’s ear, he had received almost as many calls as the Secretary of Transportation.

  “Exactly. However, I got a call from Ben Meir this morning. He needed a couple of seats on a plane. I called the CEO of American and managed to get a couple of seats for him but at no point did the CEO moan about the solar storm. Then it hit me full on, nobody’s moaning about the grounding. Well, a few from some small companies but none of the big boys, American, Delta, United, Continental, not a peep. Not one mention of lost revenue, disaster, bankruptcy, nothing. ”

  “None of them?” questioned Russell, having spoken to them all at least three times a day during the ash crisis. He was stunned and the ash crisis had hardly impacted America, mainly just Transatlantic flights.

  “Not one. So I called him back and asked the question and you’ll never guess what he said?”

  “You’re right I won’t, so tell me!” Russell wasn’t a guessing type of President.

  “What did they have to moan about? Their planes were all chartered, they were going to make a killing.”

  “Who to?” demanded Russell, sitting up straight in shock as the news.

  “Us.”

  “Us?”

  “As far as he was aware, it was some top secret government thing and we’ve hired all his planes and used this Solar flare nonsense as a cover.”

  “What?”

  “Yep and he’s over the moon, reckons the profits they’ll make in the next four days will sort out
a number of long term issues they’ve had.”

  “I’ll contact Defense and see if they know anything about it but I’m sure they would have told me!” said the President, still coming to terms with the news. Although the more he thought about it, the more one thing came to mind but there was no way that they were linked. Shutting down the world’s airline industry was not within their power, surely.

  The Secretary of Transportation got up and walked towards the door. His bit was done, it was the President’s problem now.

  “Oh, how was Ben?” The President asked as an after-thought.

  “Fine, you know Ben, always in a rush”

  “Where’s he off to that El Al couldn’t take him?”

  “Oh it wasn’t for him, it was two seats from Paris to New York.”

  Russell couldn’t believe his luck, instantly making the link. One of those seats would be Sam Baker’s. They had him trapped. He called Johnson. Surely even he would manage to capture an unarmed man on an aircraft.

  Chapter 61

  Ben rushed into the meeting. Of all the meetings he had in his diary, that was the one that he never failed to attend and the one he prayed would deliver more than any other. The Heads of pretty much every security, police and Defense service awaited his arrival.

  “Well?” he asked, repeating the same question he asked every morning and evening as these meetings took place.

  “No news,” was the subdued response.

  There were now only five days until Yom Kippur. Five days until four nuclear weapons would devastate the land of Israel. “Any news on the American one?” he asked again, as he had for every previous meeting.

  “Nothing,” offered David Hirsch, the Defense Minister, without hope.

  “We have every satellite the Americans have and every one of their military vessels are checking every ship they can see but nothing. Maybe it’s already there.”

  “What about Marseille?”

  “What about it?” asked Hirsch.

  “Any boats leaving there bound for America?”

  “We’ve checked them all. They were either going to Africa, staying in Europe, heading to the Far East or South America and we even checked them to make sure they were on course and they are. No boat that is on its way to America has the weapon. It must be a hoax.”