Final Winter
Page 40
The President of the United States was at a resort hotel in Sun Valley, looking forward to a day of fly fishing on the Snake River, when armed Secret Service agents came into his hotel room and bundled him out to a waiting armored Chevrolet Suburban. Before he could ask what in hell was going on, agents had placed him in a biowarfare protective suit, complete with respirator, and he found that he could only make himself heard by yelling.
So he kept quiet until he was in Air Force One, which went airborne in twenty minutes and headed north to Canada. By the time it reached cruising altitude, it was joined by four F-16 fighters of the 119th Fighter Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard out of Fargo, ND, and the President was receiving the first of many briefings that were to be conducted over the next several hours.
~ * ~
The Vice President was at his official residence at the US Naval Observatory outside Washington DC when his Secret Service detail grabbed him and placed him in a specially modified Humvee with its own air-control and filtration system. Within a half-hour he was in a secure location that as yet had not been disclosed by those enterprising members of the Fourth Estate.
~ * ~
The Speaker of the House was taken by Blackhawk helicopter from his apartment at the Watergate in Washington DC and was flown north to a rural area in West Virginia. Approximately fifteen minutes away from landing at another government retreat facility, the pilot of the Blackhawk misjudged his altitude and the tail rotor of the helicopter struck a high-tension power line belonging to the Appalachian Power Company. The subsequent crash of the helicopter killed the crew, three members of the Secret Service, and the Speaker of the House, the second-in-line in the presidential succession.
~ * ~
All across the United States, as the wreckage of the Blackhawk helicopter in West Virginia continued to burn, members of the Cabinet, members of the US Senate and US House leadership and other government officials were brought - sometimes forcibly - to retreat areas that were designed to withstand not only nuclear attack but airborne biological and chemical attack too. As this retreat took place, US embassies across the globe went on Threat Condition Delta, as did the armed forces of the United States. Very soon the major news organizations in the United States became aware that something terrible was underway.
~ * ~
Two minutes after the President was awoken in Sun Valley, Idaho, a phone call was made to the Northern Command of the US Air Force stationed at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The on-duty commander who received the call — Lt General Mike McKenna — said one thing when the call came in and he was briefed on the situation: ‘This is real world, correct? Not a drill?’
‘That’s correct, general, not a drill,’ said the male voice. ‘This is real-world.’
‘Understood,’ General McKenna said as he hung up the phone. His office was a glass-enclosed cube overlooking the rows of terminals, desks and overhead display screens that observed the airborne space over Canada and the United Stations. His adjutant, Colonel Madeline Anson, looked on from a nearby chair.
‘Sir?’ she asked.
The general said, ‘We have nineteen aircraft airborne over CONUS,’ he said, referring to the continental United States. ‘It’s believed they may be carrying an airborne agent of some kind. Sarin, plague, anthrax - not sure at this time.’
‘Shit,’ said the colonel. ‘Where did they come from?’
The general grimaced. ‘Memphis. They’re aircraft from AirBox.’
‘General Bocks’s company?’
‘The same,’ he said. ‘Madeline, execute Strike Angel. Now. I want those nineteen to have company within the next thirty minutes and we’ll need to brief our FAA rep.’
‘Sir,’ she said, getting up from her chair.
‘And one more thing. I need to talk to Bocks. ASAP.’
‘Yes, sir.’
When his adjutant left McKenna waited, his hands folded. Thoughts were racing through his mind, were pressing against him, and he was pleased that so far he was keeping on top of things. He looked up at the clock. A few hours from now his shift would have ended and another general officer would be at this desk, with this responsibility.
McKenna looked at his empty coffee cup. He would need some caffeine, and soon, and he refused to feel sorry for him-self. Shift change or not, this was his job, his duty, and right now his duty meant that—
The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. Colonel Anson said, ‘Hold for a second, sir, for General Bocks.’
‘Thank you, Madeline.’
A very long second indeed, McKenna mused, and the concept of his duty came back to him as he finished the thought.
Duty meant a lot of things, and at this very moment it meant explaining to the head of a company why it was necessary to shoot down his nineteen aircraft and kill their crews.
~ * ~
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Brian Doyle was in an empty terminal, looking for somebody, anybody, when he saw a man approach him from around a ticket counter, whistling. The man had on a dark blue janitor’s uniform and a bundle of keys at his side and was pushing a wheeled bucket with the handle of a mop. Brian strode over to him and showed him his ID.
The older man whistled. ‘NYPD. You’re far from home, pal.’
‘That I am.’
The man asked eagerly, ‘You ever been on NYPD Blue? That’s my favorite show. Even though it’s off the air, I do love it so. I see all the repeats.’
Brian looked at the man’s eyes, and sensed the intelligence back there was that of a teenage boy. He hated to lie but he had no time. ‘Sure. A couple of times. As an extra. You know, just part of the crowd.’
The man laughed, showing bad teeth. ‘That’s wonderful. That’s truly wonderful. What can I do you for?’
‘AirBox.’
The janitor nodded. ‘Know it well.’
‘That’s good. Because I need to see the people who run it. Not the office types, the guys who keep track of the air-craft.’
The janitor said, ‘Lots of police and troopers out there tonight. There’s some sort of emergency. They’re not letting people through from one terminal to another.’
‘That so?’
The janitor grinned again. ‘But for a real true NYPD Blue, I can get you there real quick. Skip the places where the blockades are. That sound good?’
Brian said, ‘Best news I’ve heard all night.’
~ * ~
Alexander Bocks heard a click on the other end of the phone. He said, ‘Bocks here.’
‘Sir, this is Lt General Mike McKenna, Northern Command.’
‘Yes.’
‘I understand you have nineteen aircraft outbound from
Memphis, carrying canisters that may contain airborne pathogens. Correct?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Are the crews aware of this situation?’
Bocks said, ‘Not yet.’
‘Do you intend to notify them?’
‘Of course. The crews...they have a right to know what’s going on.’
General McKenna said, ‘Are they still heading to their destinations?’
‘No,’ Bocks said. ‘They’re holding at altitude along their routes at maximum fuel conservation. They’ve all declared an in-flight emergency for a positive threat against their aircraft.’
‘Good. General Bocks...I’ve also been notified that those canisters are designed to release their contents if the aircraft descend below three thousand feet.’
Bocks’s eyes felt as though they were burning. He rubbed at them. ‘That’s right.’
‘Sir, you need to ensure your pilots understand that they are to maintain altitude and stand by to divert. Understood? In a matter of minutes each of your aircraft is going to have an Air Force or Air National Guard escort. They have orders to respond if any of your aircraft begin an unauthorized descent. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Bocks said, ‘That I do. You intend to shoot down any
of my aircraft that start descending without authorization.’
‘Correct. Sorry to have to tell you this, sir.’
Bocks said, ‘Not as fucking sorry as I am to hear it.’
~ * ~
The airport was a cluster-fuck early this morning, and Randy Tuthill had to use guile, arguments, and his old Air Force ID to gain entry to his maintenance hangars. After parking his Jeep Cherokee, he was about to trot down to the Operations Center when one of his senior machinists, a guy named Clarke, grabbed his arm.
‘Randy, you’ve got to see what’s going on over here.’
‘Shit, Gary, I’m overdue to see the General.’
‘Trust me, the General’s gonna want to know what’s going on up here.’
He followed Clarke to one of the open bay doors and stopped. Yellow tape had been strung across the entrance to the bay, and men in black jumpsuits, Kevlar helmets and automatic weapons strapped to their chest kept a quiet vigil from inside the hangar.
‘Holy Christ,’ Randy said. But it wasn’t the men with guns that had caused the outburst. Before him, about twenty yards away, was one of his MD-11s, parked quietly, but looking like some giant science experiment. A huge translucent plastic bag of some sort had been draped over the fuselage, and small air generators were keeping it inflated. Two dark green trailers had been backed up to the covered airplane, and Randy could make out shapes working just below the aircraft.
Randy rubbed at his chest. It felt like it was about to tear itself open. He knew what was going on, but he had to ask.
‘What do you know, Gary?’
‘All the fuck I know is that these guys took over both maintenance hangars, kicked us out, and they’ve started working on this first piece of equipment. I think they’re going into the air-conditioning packs.’
‘All right.’
‘Oh. And one more thing. Just before you got here, I saw one of the guys - wearing an EPA suit or something - go into the trailer, carrying something. And a while after that, one of those guys started yelling something.’
‘What was he yelling?’
‘Positive,’ Gary said. ‘He was yelling that whatever it was, it had tested positive.’
Randy nodded, his chest even more tight. ‘I’ll make sure to tell the General.’
~ * ~
Carrie Floyd was thinking of what to say when she and Sean had their little conversation in Boston when a blinking light caught her eye. She looked down at the control pedestal between her seat and Sean’s, and saw a flashing yellow light in the corner of a small square box that was starting to spit out a piece of printed paper.
‘Sean, message coming in from ACARS.’
Sean reached down, tore off the slip of paper as it came out of the top of the ACARS unit. ACARS was a data link system to their Operations Center and allowed them to send text messages back and forth. Most airlines in the world used a type of ACARS and AirBox was no different.
Sean said, ‘What kind of bullshit is this?’
He passed the message slip over to her. She read:
AB 107
POSITIVE THREAT TO YOUR AIRCRAFT
THREAT ALTITUDE SENSITIVE
DO NOT DESCEND BELOW 3000 MSL
DECLARE EMERGENCY WITH ATC.
HOLD PRESENT POSITION AT MAX FUEL ENDURANCE
ACKNOWLEDGE WITH DISPATCH
MORE TO FOLLOW
It felt like a jet of cold air was playing against the back of her neck. ACARS was usually used to inform aircraft about changes in weather or advise about conditions at destination airports. Nothing as...nothing as terrifying as this one. Had to be a bomb of some sort. Something that would be triggered in a change in altitude ... a barometric device of some sort.
Carrie said, ‘You’ve got to be shitting me...Sean?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Contact ATC. Declare an emergency and ask them where we can hold. Tell them we want to stay at altitude.’
She started to throttle back the engines and said, ‘All right, I’m slowing to max conserve speed...and in fact, I’ve changed my mind. You take the aircraft. I’m going to contact ATC.’
‘Roger, I’ve got it.’
She toggled the microphone switch on the yoke handle as the aircraft slowed down, allowing the minimum amount of fuel flow to the engines to keep them airborne for the longest period of time.
Big question, of course, was how much time?
Carrie said, ‘Memphis Center, AirBox one-oh-seven.’
‘AirBox one-oh-seven, go ahead.’
‘Ah, we’ve been advised by our dispatch that there is a positive threat against our aircraft. We’re declaring an emergency and need to hold at altitude for the present time.’
The woman’s voice from Memphis Center said, ‘Roger, one-oh-seven, we just got advised same over the landline as well. Hold present position, leg length your discretion, maintain flight level three three zero.’
‘Roger, present position, three three zero and we’ll use twenty-minute legs,’ Carrie said, indicating the length of time they would fly while maintaining their current position at 33,000 feet.
‘One-oh-seven, approved and we need souls on board and fuel remaining when you get a chance.’
Carrie said, ‘Two souls and let’s call it four hours of fuel.’
‘Roger, one-oh-seven. Do you need any further assistance?’
‘Not at this time, but we’ll get back to you if necessary. One-oh-seven out.’
She looked to her co-pilot, who was not happy. ‘They knew,’ he said. ‘They were advised before you called in. They know what’s happening to us and why we were declaring an emergency.’
‘That they do,’ she said. ‘And I intend to find out, too.’
Sean nodded. ‘Glad to hear that.’
‘All right,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ve got the aircraft back, Sean. Let’s see if you can get a phone patch set up. I want to talk to Dispatch, and soonest. Something screwy is happening here and I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to let the Ops Center and ATC know what’s happening before we do.’
~ * ~
Eddie Mitchell liked to get in early for work, which meant emptying the trash bins, cleaning the bathrooms, and vacuuming the carpeted offices before most of the workers got there. Sometimes people were working in the building and its offices when he got there, even at such an ungodly hour, but usually they treated him nice, and he knew not to bother them if they seemed to be working hard and having meetings. Then he wouldn’t vacuum but would work around them.
Eddie was retired US Navy, with a clear security-clearance record, and he did this work because he liked to get out of the house, and also liked to think that he was doing his part - tiny as it was — with the war on terror.
So when, last month, his duties had been expanded to do an inventory check he didn’t mind. He liked to think that what he did here made a clean and cheerful work environment, and might give these people a bit of an edge to do important work.
He was now in the kitchen and thinking about getting his second cup of coffee of the morning, but only after checking the inventory list. There was a clipboard hanging on the wall, near the light switches, and he pulled it off. He walked to the walk-in freezer, and started checking off the number of boxes of frozen French Fries, fish sticks, juice drinks, and—
Something smelled odd. Odd indeed.
Eddie pushed a box out of the way, to get a better look, and—
Shit.
His very first thought was that he hoped he hadn’t screwed up a crime scene, for he had no doubt that this was a crime scene. The dead man - Darren, that had been in his name - had been murdered and stuffed in here. Now Eddie felt angry that someone here with a security clearance and working for the Feds had committed murder, for no one else could have gotten access here.
He stepped back out of the freezer, gently closed the door, and made a phone call.
More than eight hours would pass before he got that second cup of coffee.
~ * ~
‘Sir, you don’t belong here. You need to have a—’
Monty held out his ID card. He said, ‘Pal, some heavy kind of shit is going down around here, and it’s all coming this way. I certainly need to belong here, and I need to see your boss. Your boss of bosses, that is. General Bocks.’