by Robert Gandt
“Is your phone secure?”
“I think so.”
At least she hoped so. Sam and her sometime boyfriend Jake, who was an IT officer in the wing and a certifiable ubergeek, had made a game of seeing if they could break the trackability mode on the phone. The one time they had tested it, the thing appeared to be secure. And untrackable.
The trouble was, there was no way of knowing whether the bad guys—whoever the hell they were—had locked on to Cassidy’s phone. Sam could only hope that they hadn’t yet figured out that he was in the loop with Air Force One.
Sam told the general about the goons invading her office and her near miss in the woods.
“That’s bad,” said Cassidy. “It means they’ve infiltrated the security apparatus at Andrews. It also means they’re probably here in the Pentagon and Christ knows where else.”
“Who are these people, General? Why are they doing this?”
“You’ll find out, Captain. I’m not going to tell you over the phone. Where are you now?”
She gave it a beat. This was too good to resist. “You’ll find out, General. I’m not going to tell you over the phone.”
She thought she heard a chuckle. “Good answer,” said Cassidy. “Are you able to text-message our client from where you are?”
Shit, thought Sam. All she wanted was to get the hell out of here. Away from this mess. Hide until it was over. She should tell him no. “I think so,” she said.
From her table in the back of the Starbucks shop Sam could watch the front door. Her laptop was in front of her. She was logged in to Chowhound, the connection she had set up to replicate the official server called Gourmand.
“Okay,” said Cassidy. “Here comes a message for the client. Ready to copy?”
“Go ahead,” Sam said, then added, “Sir.” She still hadn’t gotten over the bizarreness of the whole scenario. A snot-nosed captain having this conversation with a three-star.
Cradling the phone to her ear, Sam listened to Cassidy’s message. Unbelievable, she thought as she pecked the words on the keyboard. This is getting crazier by the minute.
<>
Brand gave the message a quick read, then handed it to Morganti.
To: A/C commander SAM 28000
Alert from Cassidy: Flight of two F-15s en route with orders to intercept and escort you to Dover Air Force Base. Imperative that you comply with intercept orders and take no actions that may be interpreted as hostile. Working on a suitable reception at Dover.
Updates as available. Stay tuned.
/s/ SF
“He’d better be right,” said Morganti. He pointed to the RWR—radar warning receiver—light on the overhead panel. It was flashing amber. “We’re already lit up. Somebody’s got us on their radar.”
Brand saw it too. He wasn’t surprised. There had been no chance they could approach the east coast of the U. S. without being intercepted. It was just a matter of when. And by whom.
“Arm the ATADS, boss?” asked Switzer. His hand was reaching for the console.
Brand considered. They’d already destroyed one F-15, whose intentions were definitely hostile. What about these new arrivals? Defending Air Force One against the Air Force’s Eastern Air Defense Sector assets was impossible. The big lumbering 747 was an easy target.
“No. Our only chance is to do as Cassidy says. We won’t give them any excuse to take a shot.”
Switzer looked skeptical as he withdrew his hand from the ATADS console. Morganti wore a scowl, keeping his silence.
Brand didn’t like it either. What happened next would be out of their control. He peered outside, scanning the pink sky for the specks of incoming fighters. He saw nothing except a puffy layer of rose-tinted cumulus. Where were the fighters?
<>
They were high and behind the 747.
Peering down at the transport, Buzz Apte remembered what they’d been told about Air Force One’s air defense assets. Who would have believed that a fat people-hauler like this converted airliner would have the firepower to shoot down fighters? Apte didn’t know it until an hour ago in the briefing. The rules of engagement were clear. If they received any indication that they were about to be fired on, they would blow the 747 out of the sky.
Apte didn’t like it. There were people on board that jet. If the intelligence report was correct, some were terrorists. The others were his fellow Americans. One was the commander-in-chief, either dead or alive.
This mission sucks.
So far Waugh, the flight leader, was complying with the rules of engagement. The two fighters were easing down alongside the 747’s left side. There was no longer any doubt about the identity of the airplane. The sun was glinting off the familiar blue-and-white paint scheme. Apte watched Waugh’s fighter approaching the left side of the airliner.
And then dropping back.
“Bulldog One,” called Apte, “did you get a signal exchange with the bogey?”
“Stay off the air,” Waugh replied. His fighter was sliding back behind the 747.
Apte fumed in his cockpit. Asshole. The rules of engagement required Waugh to exchange hand signals with the cockpit of the Boeing. Why the hell was he ordering Apte to stay off the air?
Only one reason. Because Waugh didn’t want any of what was about to happen to be recorded. Apte eased his throttles back to stay abreast of Waugh’s fighter. He saw Waugh dropping back to a trail position behind the Boeing 747.
Into missile firing position.
Apte was still steeling himself for the inevitable when he heard a high-pitched deedle deedle over the earphones in his helmet. The aural alert for an incoming datalink message. Apte shifted his gaze to the multi-function screen in front of his right knee.
The text flashed across the monochrome screen of the display:
GEN CASSIDY TO BULLDOG ELEMENT: WEAPONS STATUS RED AND TIGHT. DO NOT FIRE ON AIR FORCE ONE. HIJACKING REPORT IS BOGUS. PRESIDENT IS ALIVE AND ABOARD. PROVIDE ARMED ESCORT TO DOVER AIR FORCE BASE.
Thank God. Apte keyed his microphone. “Bulldog One, check your datalink. Weapons tight. Don’t fire.”
“Get off the air,” Waugh snapped over the radio. His F-15C was a quarter mile behind the 747, slightly high and offset to the left. Optimum Sidewinder range.
A flood of questions surged through Buzz Apte’s brain. Who the hell was General Cassidy? Why was Air Force One not able to communicate? Who wanted it shot down? Why was Waugh so willing to pull the trigger on the President’s plane?
Would he really do it?
Apte was still processing this last question when the answer appeared before him.
Chapter 18
Apte saw the Sidewinder leap from its station beneath Waugh’s left wing. Trailing a plume of fire, the missile zigzagged like a bat, then settled on a steady course, racing toward the big swept-wing jet a quarter mile ahead. The thin gray smoke trail told Apte everything he needed to know.
The flight of the Sidewinder took two-and-a-half seconds. The missile made a final zigzag then bored in a straight line for the tailpipe of the outboard engine beneath the 747’s left wing. Even in the pale light of dawn, the orange flash was bright enough that it forced Apte to close his eyes for an instant.
When Apte opened his eyes, he expected to see a massive fireball. Instead, he saw a cloud of smoke and debris spewing from the left wing. Pieces were streaming like confetti from a shattered piñata. The 747 was descending, rolling to the left. Through the trail of smoke Apte could see that the outboard engine was gone. So was the outer panel of the left wing. Fuel was gushing in a solid stream from the damaged wing.
Apte glanced again at Waugh’s fighter. The F-15C was maneuvering back into position behind the stricken 747. In an instant of clarity, Apte understood what was happening. He’s going to take another shot.
Waugh’s first Sidewinder had homed in on an outboard engine. If the missile had exploded inside either of the two inboard engines, the 747 would be in a death spiral to the ocean.
Waugh was go
ing to finish the kill.
A storm of emotions whirled through Buzz Apte’s brain. He was an honor bound military man. A faithful soldier who followed orders. But his instincts as a man and a loyal American were raging at him. He knew what he had to do.
Apte yanked the nose of his F-15C to the right. Peering through the HUD—Head Up Display—in the windscreen, he slewed the targeting box to the aircraft just to the right of his nose. Almost instantly he received the aural acquisition tone in his earphones.
Apte hesitated—but only a millisecond—and then squeezed the trigger on the control stick. He felt the faint rumble of the Sidewinder leaving its station beneath his right wing. He forced himself to watch the bat-like flight of the self-directed missile streaking toward its target.
The tail of Darrell Waugh’s F-15C erupted in a bright flash. As in slow motion the big twin-engine fighter broke in half. The flaming tail section tumbled back, downward and out of Apte’s sight. The forward half of the F-15C tilted back and settled toward the ocean. Apte rolled into a bank so that he could keep it in sight.
It took three more seconds. There. Apte saw what he hoped to see. The canopy separated from the cockpit section followed by the pilot’s ejection seat. Apte watched the drogue chute stream out, trailing the tiny speck of the pilot downward. He knew that at 15,000 feet the main chute would deploy, and Darrell Waugh would spend the next part of this spring morning bobbing on a life raft in the Atlantic.
For a moment Buzz Apte let himself think about what just occurred. Kiss your ass goodbye, Apte. He could not yet imagine the ramifications of this episode. He only knew that he, Lt. Col. Buzz Apte, formerly a respected officer and fighter pilot, was in very deep shit. Shooting down your wing commander, even in the Air National Guard, was never a good career move.
<>
Brand was fighting to keep the wings level. Something was causing the 747’s left wing to drop. He had the yoke rotated full right and the right rudder pedal shoved in to keep the 747 from rolling into a dive to the left.
“What the hell happened?” said Switzer.
The question didn’t require an answer. They all knew. From the time the F-15s dropped out of view behind them, Brand’s inner warning system had been clanging in full alert. Cassidy’s message said that the fighters were there to escort them. When the impact rattled through the airframe, Brand knew the truth. They’d taken a missile. The F-15s weren’t there to escort them. They had come to kill them.
“Number one’s shut down,” announced Switzer. He pointed to the panel. “No RPM, no temperatures, no indications at all.”
Brand turned to peer out his window. From the captain’s seat of the B-747 the pilot had a view of the two engines on the left wing. Brand could see the number two engine, the inboard power plant, protruding ahead of the wing. There was nothing protruding where number one should be.
“It’s gone,” Brand said.
“What do you mean?” said Morganti. “Is it burning, or what?”
“It’s gone. Missing. And it looks like the outboard wing is gone too. There’s no fire that I can see. Lou, go back to the cabin and take a better look.”
Batchelder nodded and exited the cockpit.
It was taking all Brand’s attention to keep the 747’s wings level. Flying on only three engines, they were forced to descend. Brand had reduced power on number four—the right outboard—to compensate for the lost thrust of number one. He had the wings level again, but it still required nearly full throw of the yoke.
“I knew it,” said Morganti. “The F-15s took a shot and hit number one engine. We should have taken them out when we picked up their targeting radar. Now they’re going to blow us away.”
Brand didn’t bother answering. Morganti could be right. Maybe the text message from Cassidy—TWO F-15s WILL ESCORT YOU TO DOVER—was a set up. Now what? Use the ATADS? Take a shot at the fighters? It would be futile. Before he could get a missile off, they’d be blown out of the sky. The F-15s were in charge now.
Batchelder was back in the cockpit. “You’re right. Number one engine is gone. All of it, off the airplane. And so is most of the outer wing panel. An F-15 is perched back there, like the guy’s inspecting the damage he did.”
Switzer’s hands were already moving on the fuel control panel, adjusting valves. “Fuel’s no problem. Not yet anyway. The outboard tanks were almost empty.”
Brand looked out again. Then he saw it. Off the left side, moving into position alongside them, coming abeam the 747’s cockpit. A single F-15C.
For several seconds Brand and the fighter pilot gazed at each other. Brand could see the sleek shape of the Mach 2 fighter. He saw the external rails with missiles waiting to be fired. One of the rails was empty. A missile had been expended.
Brand felt a flash of anger. This was the sonofabitch who fired a missile into the airplane carrying the President of the United States. Where was the other one? Still back there, waiting to finish the kill?
The F-15C was rocking its wings.
Brand was momentarily puzzled. The wing rock was a signal used when air defense fighters intercepted straying general aviation aircraft. It meant You have been intercepted. Follow me. And it required acknowledgement.
Very carefully, Brand rolled the 747 slightly to the left. Then back right. I understand. It took almost full throw of the yoke to bring the wings level.
The fighter pilot gave him a nod. Brand saw the landing gear of the F-15C appear beneath the jet’s belly, then retract again. Another signal. A command. They were going to land.
Again Brand acknowledged with a gentle wing rock.
“He wants us to land?” said Morganti. “Where?”
“His call,” said Brand. “Dover maybe. It’s straight ahead about two hundred miles.”
“It had better be soon,” said Switzer. “We’ve lost two hydraulic systems, and all the fuel in the left outboard tank is gone. This bird won’t keep flying much longer.”
Brand didn’t need reminding. Without hydraulic pressure, the 747’s flight controls wouldn’t move. They would become an inert flying object.
Still descending. The F-15C was leading them at a slow airspeed, which was good. Brand couldn’t shove the throttles up on the damaged 747 any more than he already had and still maintain directional control. Again he wondered what the F-15C pilot was thinking. Why would he put a missile into them and then lead them to a landing field? It didn’t make sense. Nothing was making sense.
<>
Fifteen minutes passed. The F-15 was still there, still leading them toward the East Coast.
Sergeant Manning came back to the cockpit. “Another text message, Colonel.”
Brand was busy. He was flying a loose formation on the F-15C. “Read it to us, Sergeant.”
Maintaining her standard blank expression, Manning read from the print-out in her hand.
CASSIDY SENDS: COMPLY WITH LANDING INSTRUCTIONS. ON ARRIVAL AT DOVER AIR FORCE BASE YOU WILL BE MET BY SECURITY TEAM. BASE CMDR IS COL. STOCKTON, WHO CAN BE TRUSTED.
“Is this guy nuts?” said Morganti. “Isn’t he the one who told us to trust the F-15 pilots?”
“I know Stockton,” said Brand. “If he’s in charge at Dover, we’ll be okay.”
“What do you want me to tell our passengers?” said Sergeant Manning. “Everyone saw the explosion on the wing and they’re scared shitless— uh, you know what I mean. Those folks are plenty upset.”
The passengers. In the minutes after the missile strike, Brand had nearly forgotten about them. Now he was too busy to go talk to them. “Sergeant, you’ll have to brief the passengers. You can tell them that we expect to be landing in half an hour.”
Manning nodded and headed for the door of the cockpit.
Brand said over his shoulder, “One more thing, Sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“Tell the President that I’m coming back to confer with her for a couple of minutes. It will have to be quick because we’re going to get busy up here.”
The sergeant gave him another wide-eyed stare. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell her.”
<>
“Cassidy?” said Vance McDivott. “Are they certain?”
“Certain enough,” said Ripley. He slipped the phone back into its sheath on his belt. “That was Keppler, the guy who runs the signals intelligence section. He says they traced the intercept countermand order from 1st Air Force back to the Pentagon. Then they zeroed in on the Manpower and Personnel branch. The trail led straight to Cassidy’s office. Keppler just ran a file check, and it seems that Cassidy and Brand go way back. If you remember, we thought it was Cassidy who backdoored the appointment of Brand as Presidential Pilot.”
McDivott nodded. He remembered. Cassidy. That sonofabitch. He’d been looking for an opportunity to get rid of Cassidy. Cassidy had never been a team player. Always an outsider in the Pentagon clique. Cassidy was a loose cannon who would never have been a good fit for Capella.
“What happened with the intercept? Do they know what went wrong?”
Ripley shook his head. “Only that the fighters got a datalink, apparently from 1st Air Force, not to fire. Probably initiated by Cassidy. Then one of the F-15s went down. We don’t know if he was morted by Angel’s ATADS or by the other fighter.”
“What’s the other F-15 jockey reporting?”
“Nothing. He went dark, no transmissions, not even datalink. Either he’s gone rogue or something’s happened to his jet.”
Goddamnit. McDivott interlocked his fingers and flexed his knuckles, his standard gesture when he was trying to suppress his anger. Just getting the order to the fighters to make the intercept had required some delicate weaving through the order of command. Three general officers in the air defense chain had to be bypassed in order to get Waugh, the F-15 wing commander, in the lead fighter. It should have been a clean kill. Over and done with. Now this.
McDivott and Ripley were huddled in the far corner of the command post in the Briar Club. McDivott could see Casper Reckson and Senator Kent Stroud watching them. McDivott hadn’t yet told them that Air Force One was damaged but still flying and would be on the ground in the U. S. within the hour. It would only invite more of Reckson’s interminable questions. He’d wait until Air Force One was on the ground and the job was finished.
