The President's Pilot

by Robert Gandt

  “Looks like he’s arguing with the Iranian officer,” said Batchelder.

  “Figures. Pete Brand would argue with Mother Theresa.”

  “That guy doesn’t look like Mother Theresa. He looks like Godzilla in a uniform.”

  “Brand is making waves. We’ll be lucky if the Iranians don’t kick us out of here.”

  Batchelder kept his silence. In the U.S. Air Force, badmouthing your boss when he was out of the cockpit was a bad idea. It was an especially bad idea in the Presidential Airlift Squadron. It was a fast track to early retirement.

  But Morganti had a point. Brand was definitely making waves. The Iranian general was red-faced, railing at Brand, stomping the concrete with his black boots. Brand kept shaking his head.

  Batchelder turned to Morganti, sitting in the right seat of the Boeing. “What’s between you and Brand? Why are you so down on the guy?”

  “He’s trouble. Always has been. You tell me, how the hell did someone like Brand get to be the Presidential Pilot?”

  Batchelder didn’t have an answer to that one. But he had a good idea why Morganti didn’t have a warm feeling about Pete Brand. Everyone had assumed that Col. Joe Morganti would be the next Presidential Pilot when Al Fornier, the outgoing boss, got his general’s star and left for a Pentagon job. That was the way the system worked. A senior pilot in the Presidential Airlift Squadron moved up to the job of squadron commander, which carried with it the title of Presidential Pilot. Morganti had been in the unit nearly four years and was next in line. He had more time in Air Force One than any pilot in the squadron.

  It didn’t happen. To everyone’s astonishment, the job went to an outsider. Pete Brand came from the Special Ops branch of the Air Force. Spec Ops units flew to places like Mogadishu and Bagram and Baghdad. They were as removed from the sanitized opulence of Air Force One as Somalia was from Washington.

  How did a guy like that get to be the Presidential Pilot? Good question, thought Batchelder. Someday he’d ask Brand himself.

  He looked outside again. The Iranians were stalking away. Brand was no longer in sight.

  “What’s happening now?” said Morganti.

  “The Iranian is getting into his vehicle. He looks pissed.”

  “Good. He’ll complain to his boss, who will pass it on to the President. Maybe she’ll be smart enough to get rid of Brand.”

  Batchelder said nothing.

  A minute later, he saw Col. Pete Brand’s wiry frame entering the aft compartment of the cockpit. Brand removed his uniform coat and loosened his tie. He settled into the jump seat behind Batchelder.

  Morganti said, “Who was that guy you were arguing with?”

  “The base commander.”

  “What did you do to piss him off?”

  Batchelder watched Brand’s reaction. Morganti was pushing the limit of disrespect. Copilots didn’t use that tone with the aircraft commander, even if the two were the same rank.

  Brand didn’t seem to notice. He said, “He was ordering us to move the aircraft into the hangar.”

  “And why did you not agree?”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “A hunch?” Morganti made a show of rolling his eyeballs. “About what?”

  “A hunch that something might happen. I want to stay out here on the ramp, just in case.”

  “In case of what?

  “In case we have to leave in a hurry.”

  Morganti shook his head. “I can’t believe this. The President comes to make peace with Iran, and you try to start a war because of . . . a hunch.”

  Brand removed the sunglasses. For a long moment he locked gazes with Morganti. “The only thing you need to believe, Colonel Morganti, is that I’m the Presidential Pilot. You’re the second-in-command. It’s my call, not yours.”

  A silence fell over the cockpit. Here it comes, thought Batchelder. It had been building for two days. These guys were going to have it out right here in the cockpit.

  But they didn’t. In the next moment, a Secret Service agent appeared in the back of the cockpit. He was wearing a gray suit with a coiled wire from inside his jacket to his earbud.

  “Colonel Brand? We just got a Code Yellow from our command post. Something happened that you need to know about.”

  <>

  President Libby Paulsen took a sip of the thick Iranian coffee and winced. Ugghh. Ghastly stuff, strong enough to peel paint.

  They were seated at the long mahogany conference table, Libby and her team on one side, Hosseini flanked by his ministers on the other. He had just finished a rambling discourse in Farsi. Now the interpreter was speaking. The people of Iran were willing to forgive the United States’ long and shameful record of oppressing the Islamic Republic of Iran. A new page in history was about to be turned.

  Libby kept her expression neutral. A new page in history. Amazing. A new page in history could be turned with just a few billion oil dollars.

  Libby met Hosseini’s gaze across the table. He smiled. She smiled back. Like old friends. The right wingers back home already hated her. After today, they’d be burning her in effigy.

  She felt a nudge at her elbow. She looked up to see Gus Gritti, her National Security Advisor. Gritti was a Marine four-star and a Middle East specialist.

  “What is it, Gus? We’re in the middle of—"

  “A Code Yellow,” said Gritti. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The Vice President.”

  Libby stared at him. It took a moment, then she remembered. The popping wine corks on the telephone. The hissing silence, then the click.

  “Something has happened to Lyle.”

  Gritti nodded. “The Secret Service detail at the Naval Observatory is reporting that he’s been shot to death, along with one of his staff.”

  Libby felt her heart hammering in her chest. Her suspicion had been correct. She could hear Bethune’s voice on the phone. No, don’t. She had been an aural witness to an assassination.

  She looked across the table. The interpreter had finished speaking. Hosseini was watching her, a quizzical look on his face.

  She turned to Gritti. “Who did it?”

  “A man named Abruzzo. The Secret Service agents killed him just after the assassination. They think he’s the husband of the woman who was with the Vice President.”

  Libby closed her eyes. Oh, bloody hell. She didn’t want to think about how this was going to play in the press. Even worse, she didn’t want to think about doing this job without Lyle Bethune. Without her anchor.

  She looked around the table again. They were close to a deal. There were still details to work out, most having to do with the lifting of sanctions. It was going to be controversial. It would be worth it if it brought an end to state-sponsored terrorism. Other countries would follow Iran’s example.

  “I have to go on with the conference,” said Libby.

  “Madame President, I strongly advise you to forget the conference.”

  “We almost have an agreement.”

  “We don’t know the extent of the crisis. Another country could be involved. Maybe Iran. The Code Yellow indicates that we should execute Angel Swoop.”

  Libby stared at Gritti. Angel Swoop was the presidential emergency egress plan. In the event of a threat to the executive branch of government, the President was supposed to be whisked to safety aboard Air Force One. No President had been extracted in an Angel Swoop operation since 11 September, 2001.

  For several seconds she considered. Hosseini and his ministers were watching her. Libby wrestled with her feelings. What should I do? What would Lyle Bethune do? They were so close. Was the killing of the Vice President sufficient reason to walk away from an accord that would change history?

  Gritti thought so. Whoever sent the Code Yellow thought so. There was too much that they didn’t know. Damn, damn, damn.

  She glanced at Jill Maitlin, sitting at her right. She caught Jill’s nod.

  “Okay,” Libby said to Gritti. “We’re leaving.”

&nb
sp; <>

  General Vance McDivott was cool, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. The thermostat in the Joint Chiefs situation room was pegged at sixty-eight Fahrenheit. McDivott’s reputation for coolness dated back to his stints as a squadron commander in the first Gulf War, a wing commander in Iraq, and an Expeditionary Force Commander in Afghanistan. McDivott’s cool demeanor had carried him all the way to the second-highest slot in the U.S. military. He was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  McDivott was scanning the array of six-foot high plasma screens that covered one wall of the windowless room. With him was Jim Ripley, an Air Force two-star and a Deputy Vice Chief of Staff. Unlike McDivott, Ripley was perspiring. He kept mopping at his brow with a handkerchief.

  “Where’s Bouncer?” McDivott asked.

  Ripley pointed to a green dot on one of the screens. “There. His chopper is just cranking up to leave VMI. He wants to talk to you.”

  McDivott squinted at the screen. Bouncer was the call sign of Chuck Greeley, Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Greeley was an alumnus of the Virginia Military Institute. He’d flown to the campus at Lexington, Virginia to address a military weapons symposium.

  “Tell him I’ll get back to him,” said McDivott.

  “I’ve already told him. Twice. You know Greeley.”

  “I know Greeley.”

  “He’s asking why you executed Angel Swoop and DefCon Two without going through him. Or the Secretary of Defense. Or anyone else.”

  “He’ll find out.”

  DefCon Two—Defense Condition Two—was the second-highest readiness status of the U.S. military. Following the assassination of the Vice President, every unit and installation had been placed on a ready-for-war posture. The concentric rings of air defense missile batteries around Washington were on high alert.

  McDivott wasn’t ready to explain to the Chairman why he’d given the orders. Not yet. In McDivott’s opinion, Greeley belonged to a class of general officers who would embrace the politics of any administration—even one as loathsome and liberal as the Paulsen crowd—if it preserved their careers. Greeley was a poster boy for the President’s touchy-feely, panty-hosed new military.

  McDivott saw Ripley mopping at his brow again. He hoped Ripley wasn’t cracking. Jim Ripley had seemed to be the ideal candidate when McDivott had inducted him into Capella. Now McDivott wasn’t so sure. He’d have to keep an eye on Ripley.

  McDivott swung his gaze over to the opposite wall, to the framed portrait mounted over the console. What would old Irons Pants do? It was the question McDivott often asked himself at moments like this. The jowly visage of Gen. Curtis LeMay—Old Iron Pants—gazed back at him. LeMay was the cigar-chomping warrior who had presided over the aerial devastation of Japan. It was LeMay who built the Strategic Air Command into an overwhelming nuclear force. It was LeMay, then the Air Force chief of staff in the early 1960’s, who clashed with the inexperienced President, John F. Kennedy, over the Cuban missile crisis. LeMay wanted to launch the Strategic Air Command against the Soviet-built missile sites. Kennedy rejected LeMay’s counsel. He opted for a naval blockade of Cuba. The result was a compromise with the Soviet Union over the removal of the missiles. The communist regime of Cuba remained in place, ninety miles from the U. S.

  LeMay swore that such a treasonable act would never be repeated. He began recruiting like-minded patriots to a secret society he called Capella. By the time LeMay was shoved into retirement in 1965, Capella included not only senior officers in every branch of the service but over thirty members of Congress, dozens of highly placed officials in the CIA, FBI, and Defense Department, and a cadre of spokesmen in the news media.

  LeMay was Capella’s guiding spirit until his death in 1990. The mantle was silently passed to another senior military officer. Then another, and another. The succession continued. The responsibility for carrying out LeMay’s mission now rested with Gen. Vance McDivott.

  McDivott turned back to the large screen in the center of the array. It was a scrollable map, zoomed in to the Middle East. A pulsing red dot lay over the airport in Tehran, Iran.

  “Do they have the flight plan?”

  “Not yet,” said Ripley. “They’ll get it half an hour out of Tehran. We don’t want to be going back and forth over details of the order.”

  McDivott watched the pulsing red dot that represented the President’s jet. A thought kept nagging at his subconscious.

  “Are we sure about the aircraft commander? It’s Brand?”

  “It’s confirmed,” said Ripley. “His first trip in command. Do you know him?”

  McDivott nodded. He knew the sonofabitch, all right. “Brand worked for me during the U.N. relief operation in Sudan. He was the on-site airlift commander. On his own, without going through channels, he arrested a United Nations field commander.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “He accused him of selling relief supplies to the rebels.”

  “Was he right?”

  “It didn’t matter. The commander was a French general. The U.N. responded by kicking all the U.S. forces out of the theatre. The whole goddamn airlift was canceled, and our ambassador had to make a formal apology to the frogs.”

  Ripley shook his head. “A maverick. How did a guy like that get to be the Presidential Pilot?”

  “Good question,” said McDivott. “We’re going to find out.”

  Chapter 3

  Brand gazed out at the Mehrabad ramp. Heat waves were shimmering off the sections of concrete. Tufts of grass jutted through the relief cracks in the aging tarmac. In the backdrop Brand could see the white-capped Alborz mountain range, north of Tehran.

  Brand’s first hunch had been correct. Something did happen. A Code Yellow. The Vice President. But he knew there was more. Brand’s inner voice was still talking to him. As he sat peering out at the Mehrabad ramp, he glanced at the digital clock on the instrument panel. He knew what was going to happen next.

  It took four-and-a-half more minutes. The Secret Service agent was back in the cockpit. Same guy, same coiled wire to his earbud. He handed the printout to Brand.

  Brand scanned the message. “Angel Swoop? That means we’re out of here.”

  “Yes, sir. In a hurry.” The agent’s name was Evans. His usual station was at one of the communications consoles in the upper deck behind the cockpit. “Just in over the Purple net, and it’s been authenticated.”

  “Where’s Yankee?”

  “On her way.” Evans peered for a second at the tablet computer in his hand. “The motorcade will be here in five minutes.”

  Yankee was the call sign for the President. Brand looked at the printout again. He noticed the name at the bottom.

  “Why does this have General McDivott’s signature?”

  Evans shrugged. “Sunday morning in D.C. McDivott’s probably the senior service chief on duty. According to the playbook, the Angel Swoop order is supposed to come from the Vice President, but that’s obviously not an option. Looks like McDivott’s just cutting some red tape.”

  Brand nodded. The report about Bethune’s assassination had arrived several minutes ago. No surprise that they were leaving Tehran ahead of schedule.

  He handed the message to Morganti in the right seat. “They have us going to Mildenhall. Go ahead and load the flight plan.” Mildenhall was an RAF base in southern England.

  “Don’t believe it,” said Morganti. “Mildenhall’s a bogus destination.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been around long enough to know. They won’t transmit the real destination until we’re wheels up.”

  “Fine. Load the flight plan anyway. At least the FMS will have something on the screen.”

  Morganti scowled and turned his attention to the FMS—the flight management system console. He began inserting the waypoints of the new flight plan.

  For the next few minutes the cockpit was quiet. At the flight engineer station behind the copilot, Chief Master Sergeant
Roy Switzer was setting up his panel for engine start. Lt. Col. Lou Batchelder, the third pilot, was in the jump seat behind Brand. Switzer’s relief flight engineer, Chief Master Sergeant Bruce DeWitt, had gone down to the electronics bay in the lower nose compartment to check out a bad UHF radio.

  Brand gazed around the airport ramp. The two C-17 support aircraft were parked a hundred yards from Air Force One. The four-engine transports hauled the President’s limo, four Humvees, and a company of U.S. Army Rangers.

  Tehran had been a security nightmare. The Iranian military was responsible for clearing the streets along the route from the airport to the presidential palace. Secret Service agents and Army Rangers were deployed on rooftops along the route, but they depended on the Iranians to screen for hidden explosive devices. Or suicide bombers concealed in doorways. Or snipers peering through slatted windows.

  Brand could hear the clicking of Morganti’s fingers on the FMS keyboard. Morganti was right, he thought. They weren’t going to Mildenhall. But England was as far west as they could fly with the fuel on board. Taking on more fuel in Tehran was out of the question. Jet fuel was like food and water. Too easy to contaminate.

  But Air Force One’s range was not limited by its fuel load. Unlike all the civilian versions, this Boeing 747 could refuel in flight. Air Force One could rendezvous with tanker aircraft and stay airborne indefinitely.

  He wondered again about Morganti. The copilot was still hunched over the FMS console, inserting the flight plan. Morganti was like a hundred such officers Brand had known in the Air Force. Good airmen. They were competent, by-the-book, hardnosed, and risk-averse. Protective of their turf. The kind the Air Force selected for squadron and air wing command. The kind that resented outsiders like Pete Brand taking their jobs.

  Which was sufficient reason for a guy like Morganti to have hard feelings about Brand. But Morganti’s attitude went beyond hard feelings. The man had a monumental chip on his shoulder. It was a problem that Brand knew he would have to confront. A personality clash in the cockpit was a calamity waiting to happen.