The President's Pilot

by Robert Gandt

  “So?” said Ripley.

  “Do I have clearance to use them if I see an opportunity?”

  “Stand by.” Berg knew what that meant. Ripley had to check with McDivott.

  Half a minute later Ripley was back. “Affirmative. If you see an opportunity, take it.”

  <>

  “Madame President, it’s wonderful to see you. I can’t tell you what an honor this is.”

  They were in the outer reception room of the KGYB studio. Libby took Dom Cirilli’s hands as he kissed her cheek. “I wish it were under different circumstances, Dom.”

  “I got here just a few minutes ahead of you.” Cirilli peered for a moment at Brand, Jill Maitlin, and Kreier, who had stormed into his studio behind Libby. Kreier was crouched next to the window, his hand clutching the grip of an assault weapon. ‘What’s going on?” said Cirilli. “The sheriff’s cars, helicopters, those soldiers out there . . .”

  “Something bad, Dom. We’ll tell you what’s happened, but first we have to get a live television feed. Just as quickly as you can do it. It’s critical that I go on national television.”

  Cirilli shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  Libby stared at him. Beneath the mane of slicked-back hair, Cirilli’s dark Mediterranean eyes looked somber. And frightened. Libby said, “You don’t understand. We have to go on live television. Immediately.” She almost added, Before those people storm this place and kill all of us.

  “We’re shut off,” said Cirilli. “I don’t know how they did it. The transmission tower is inert. Dead as a stone, no signal to or from. Likewise all the phone lines. Nothing works. Whoever’s doing this has enormous resources.”

  A feeling of despondency settled over Libby. Seconds before she had been sure they had a chance. They would prevail. Now the hope was sputtering from her like the last embers of a fire. Libby was aware of someone squeezing her arm. She turned to look into Brand’s face. His eyes had that distant gaze, as if he were peering into a distant landscape.

  “Where are the engineers?” said Brand.

  “Engineers?” said Cirilli. “Oh, you mean Hagen and Schneider. Hagen’s our engineer, sort of, and Schneider’s the camera operator and technician. We’re a small station. We shut down at ten and don’t go on the air until eight in the morning. During the night is when those two do the IT work and set up for the day crew. Hagen isn’t going to be much help.”

  “Let’s talk to him.”

  Cirilli looked doubtful. He shrugged and said, “Follow me.”

  <>

  Hagen smelled of cigarette smoke and perspiration. He was fiftyish, thirty pounds overweight, dark bags under his eyes. His technician, Schneider, was a skinny kid in his twenties with a spiked haircut. Hagen was perched on a battered roll around office chair which he scooted past an array of screens, mixers, and control panels for sound and video. A six-foot window provided a view of the adjoining studio, which was now empty. Above the window was a screen with a sign beneath it that read NETWORK LIVE. The screen was blank. So were all the monitors and displays on Hagen’s console.

  “Someone pulled the plug on us,” said Hagen. As he spoke, he kept his eyes fixed on the dead network screen. “Tower’s kaput. Phone lines down. No cell. No fiber optics. Not a single goddamn electron flowing in or out of this place.”

  Brand asked, “How long have you worked here?”

  “Fifteen or so years. Maybe sixteen.” Hagen spoke without making eye contact.

  “That was before the tower went up, right?”

  Hagen shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “What did you do before the tower?”

  “Fiber optics. And before that, copper. Same as the phone company used. Low bandwidth, not good for real time feed from the network. The tower changed all that. Until now. Now it’s toast.”

  “What would it take to establish another connection?”

  “A miracle,” said Hagen. “And my union says that miracles are not part of my job description. Now if you’ll excuse me, my shift is over. Since no one pays overtime any more—” he shot a glance at Cirilli, “—there’s nothing more I can do here.” Hagen heaved himself from the rollaround chair.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” said Brand, “this place is surrounded by armed troops. At any time they’re going to storm this building. Or destroy it. And I guarantee they’re not going to let you walk away from here.”

  Hagen gave Brand a wary look. “Hey, look pal, whatever kind of mess you people have gotten yourselves into, I want no part of it. I didn’t sign up to get dragged into—”

  Hagen’s eyes fixed on Libby, who had just entered the room. She strode up to Hagen and Schneider. “Gentlemen, I’m Libby Paulsen. May I ask your names?”

  Hagen was dumbstruck. Schneider looked as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod. After several seconds, Hagen blurted, “Uh, it’s Melvin.” Then he added, “Melvin Hagen, Ma’am.”

  “Jimmy Schneider,” said the technician. Schneider’s eyes looked like oversized marbles.

  “Gentlemen, I can tell that you’re good Americans. The kind who are willing to step forward and do the right thing.” Libby’s voice had an intimate sound, almost maternal. “Your fellow Americans are counting on you to help save their country. As your President, I’m counting on you.”

  Hagen stood transfixed. He was staring at the woman before him as if she’d arrived from another galaxy. Brand did his best to keep his expression neutral. For the second time this morning he was witnessing a phenomenon. The Libby Paulsen effect. It was magic. The transformation of Melvin Hagen was taking place before his eyes.

  The engineer ran a hand through the strands of oily hair plastered to his scalp. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, never taking his eyes off the woman in front of him. The sour expression on Hagen’s face morphed into a look of rapture. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll see what I can do.”

  <>

  “Three hundred yards,” said Jim Ripley.

  McDivott was pacing the carpet in the back of his Briar Club office. He stopped to peer at the satellite image on the screen. “Is that all? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, if the Jazzum hits precisely on its target coordinates. Rube Carpenter, the munitions officer at Langley, assures me that the missile has a one meter circle of error probability. With this warhead, three hundred yards would be the full radius of the blast envelope.” “Jazzum” was the working name for the JASSM—Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile. The Jazzum was an aircraft-launched cruise missile with a nearly undetectable radar signature and a customizable warhead that could vaporize a soft target the size of the Gettysburg television station.

  McDivott traced a circle with his finger around the building in the center of the satellite image. “That means Gettysburg is going to get some collateral damage.”

  “Carpenter doesn’t think so. Maybe some casualties from broken windows and debris. Acceptable, given the reason for using the Jazzum.”

  Ripley could guess the real reason for using the Jazzum. He knew that Vance McDivott, like Capella’s founder, Curtis LeMay, preferred blowing his enemies up from the air over simply shooting them on the ground. The rationale was that they had a verified report, backed by infra-red surveillance cameras, that the President and all her helpers were dead. The terrorists—the Iranians, who would be conveniently placed after the fact—had wired the station with explosives. Using the Jazzum cruise missile would save lives by removing the need to storm the place.

  The story was full of holes, but it would provide a window of time during which they controlled the evidence. McDivott didn’t seem worried. He was the same cool McDivott, firing questions, delivering orders as if he were running a trading desk. If he was feeling the pressure of time running out, it didn’t show.

  “What about Gavin?” said McDivott. “Is he okay with the order?”

  Ripley considered before answering. Maj. Gen. Buzz Gavin, who commanded the air wing tasked with deploying the
JASSM, was a Capella member. But Gavin had a reputation for disputing orders he didn’t like. Gavin had demanded to know the nature of the target. Ripley would tell him only that it was a high value target, critical to national security.

  “Gavin said he’d authorize the weapon load out, but he says that the missile launch order has to come directly from you.”

  “That’s Gavin,” said McDivott. “More worried about covering his ass than executing the mission. How soon can he have the weapon ready to deploy?”

  Ripley glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes, give or take a couple minutes. As soon as they’ve loaded the missile, the F-35 will be airborne and standing by for the launch order.”

  “Get General Gavin on the line.” While McDivott was waiting for Ripley to make the connection, he asked, “Has the Galeforce unit pulled back from the building?”

  “Pulled back and dug in,” Ripley said over his shoulder. “Berg reports that he has the terrorists and they will be positioned as soon as the building has been hit.”

  McDivott just nodded. Ripley knew what McDivott was doing. Asking questions, already knowing the answers, just to make sure nothing had been missed. That was McDivott’s style.

  Ripley was secretly pleased that it would be McDivott giving the order to launch the Jazzum. Never before had such a weapon been directed against a U. S. domestic target. Sooner or later, when the dust had settled and the inevitable inquiries began, they’d ask who issued the order to vaporize the building in which terrorists had allegedly murdered the President. Ripley was happy to leave that footnote in history to General Vance McDivott.

  When McDivott proposed using the Jazzum, no one in the room—Ripley, Atwater, Reckson, or any of the half dozen general grade and flag rank officers—had offered an objection. Even if they had, the sheer intensity of McDivott’s personality would have steamrolled them. They all knew that they had gone beyond a point of no return. McDivott was proposing a quick and audacious resolution.

  Ripley handed the encrypted phone handset to McDivott. “General Gavin on the line.”

  McDivott gazed at the device for a moment. He took a deep breath and accepted the phone. “Good morning, General. Vance McDivott here.”

  Ripley watched, fascinated as always by his boss’s magisterial tone. If God ever spoke on a telephone, Ripley believed, he would sound exactly like Vance McDivott.

  “Yes, I understand your concerns,” McDivott was saying. “We have considered all the ramifications of using the Jazzum in a domestic operation. Given the sensitivity of this mission, I won’t divulge the specific nature of the target.” McDivott listened for several seconds, then said, “Yes, General, I have discussed this with the acting President, and he concurs. We are giving you a direct order. You are to deploy the weapon immediately.”

  Chapter 26

  Brand went back out to the reception room. He left Libby and Jill in the control room, which Cirilli said was the safest shelter in the building. The studio and the control room were the only compartments in the station that had no windows. No sense in giving a shooter a target.

  Kreier was still kneeling beside the window. Through the window Brand could see the sheriff’s deputies deployed around the front of the building. They were crouched behind cars and the row of low trees that lined the entrance to the station.

  Kreier said, “The assault force has pulled back. They’re out there beyond that little rise, near the helos. They’ve spread out, probably got us encircled.”

  “Are they who we think they are?”

  “No question. Galeforce contractors. I can tell by the outfits. I know some of the guys who went to work for them. All hardball spec ops types.”

  “What chance does the sheriff’s little band of deputies have against them?”

  Kreier just shook his head. “What do you think?”

  “Where’s the sheriff?”

  “Outside. Just in front of the door. We worked out a signal to communicate. Want me to get him in here?”

  Brand nodded. “We need to talk.”

  Kreier rapped a rhythmic sequence on the door with his knuckles. He waited a quarter minute, then yanked the door slightly open. Sheriff Waller scuttled into the room on his hands and knees.

  The sheriff rose creakily to his feet. “Hell of a way for a man of my importance to arrive.” He looked at Brand. “How much longer is this going to last?”

  “Longer than we want,” said Brand. “The station’s network link has been shut down.”

  Waller’s eyes narrowed. “So how’s the President going to make her speech?”

  “She’s not. Not unless the technician comes up with something.”

  Waller’s eyes shifted to the outside, seeming to assess this new information. “What about those guys out there?”

  “You tell me.”

  “They could make an assault at any time, but they’re holding off,” said Waller. “Like they’re waiting for something.”

  Brand said nothing. His eyes swung back to the window, but his mind had already slipped into deductive mode. Yes, they were waiting for something. While they were waiting, they had pulled back. Far enough back to give them room. Room for what? Time was against them. They wouldn’t wait much longer.

  <>

  Berg wasn’t waiting. “It’s time. Bring the Iranians.”

  Dunleavy, the senior contractor in Berg’s HQ unit, nodded and trotted off toward the furthest helicopter.

  Berg was seated on a canvas camp chair at his mobile command post just behind the first helicopter. A hummock rose between the post and the television station, obscuring all but the roof of the building. Berg’s equipment was arrayed on a tarp—encrypted satellite phone, binoculars, laptop computer, MP5 submachine gun, and the MK11 Mod 0 sniper weapon. Beside the MK11 was a 20 round magazine of 7.62 ammunition.

  I have snipers, Berg had told Ripley. It was a true statement. What he hadn’t said was that the best and deadliest sniper in Berg’s force was its commander. Early in his SEAL career, when Rolf Berg was still a junior petty officer, he had earned a reputation as one of the elite unit’s most lethal marksmen. Forty-two kills in Iraq during three separate tours, the last of which he was an officer. Another dozen in Afghanistan as a platoon officer-in-charge. What Rolf Berg discovered was that he was not only extraordinarily suited for long range killing, he liked it.

  When he was at war with America’s enemies, Berg sometimes experienced an overwhelming feeling of exhilaration. There was nothing like it, not booze, not sex, not money. He had the sense that a divine hand was steadying the barrel of his sniper rifle. Berg’s relationship with God was private and personal, something he never discussed with anyone. In his secret heart he knew that he was the instrument of a higher power. God had dispatched him for the purpose of punishing the forces of evil.

  Dunleavy returned with the prisoners. He was pushing the two blindfolded men ahead of him, prodding them with the muzzle of his MP5. Berg looked them over. Even though they wore ragged jeans and work shirts in place of the business suits, the two didn’t look much like jihadists. It would have been better if they had unruly mops of hair and something in the way of beards. The pair still looked like the bland Iranian bureaucrats they actually were.

  No matter. By the time they had served their purpose, their appearances would make no difference. Berg wanted to get this phase of the operation over with. Any time now—the sooner the better—the standoff at the station building would be resolved. In the coming scenario the two jihadists, who in their former lives had been officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran, would play a critical role.

  Berg rose from his camp chair. “Remove the blindfolds.”

  Dunleavy took off the blindfolds. The Iranians blinked in the glare of the morning sun. Each was wearing a look of befuddlement. The older man, the diplomat named Mahmoud Said, peered at Berg. “I demand an explanation for this outrage,” he said. The querulous voice betrayed his fear. “You have no right to treat us in this manner.”
>
  “I must apologize,” said Berg. “Our security forces mistakenly detained you because of the national emergency. It has been cleared up. You are free to go.”

  The Iranian looked even more befuddled. “Go? Yes, of course. We want to go. Where?”

  “You should proceed to that building over there.” Berg pointed across the meadow, in the direction of the television station. “The President’s senior advisor is waiting for you.”

  The Iranians looked at each other. “Yes, yes,” said the second man, whose name was Kamil Al-Bashir. Al-Bashir glanced down at the shabby shirt. “What about our clothes? Our luggage?”

  “Not to worry,” said Berg. “All your belongings will be delivered to you.”

  The Iranians still looked doubtful. Hesitantly, Said turned and walked toward the meadow. After a few tentative steps he stopped, glancing back to make sure Al-Bashir was following him. He was. The two men headed toward the building in the distance. With each step toward the meadow, their pace quickened until they were nearly trotting. Neither looked back.

  Berg thought again about why they were using the Iranians. It was going to be a tough sell, passing these two bumbling ragheads off as terrorists, especially since some of the passengers on Air Force One had already seen them.

  McDivott had assured him that it didn’t matter. No one inside that station would be alive to explain how the Iranians got from Air Force One to the television station. As far as anyone on Air Force One knew, the Iranians were with Paulsen. They were jihadists. They killed the President, and we killed them. Good riddance.

  That was good enough for Berg. He already accepted the certainty that the deaths of Paulsen and her sympathizers would come under the most intense investigation. Berg wasn’t worried. This was war. In every war people got killed. Sometimes the wrong people. When this war was won and the dust had settled, Capella would occupy the executive branch of government. Pardons, if necessary, would be granted.

  Berg waited until the Iranians had gone twenty yards. He raised the muzzle of the MP5 and fired a three-round burst into the back of Kamil Al-Bashir. He watched Said stop and stare back at him in disbelief. The panicked Iranian whirled and ran, covering nearly ten yards before the next burst from Berg’s submachine gun stitched a pattern across the back of his shirt.