Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  Armed guards were taking three men away in handcuffs as Tomas Ysidro and Gregory Townsend came up to Cazaux. Cazaux tossed the dead professor off his knife against the wall—the man had died so quickly that almost no blood seeped from the knife wound. “Sorry about that, Henri,” Ysidro said casually, kicking the corpse so the small trickle of blood from the wound dripped on the man’s clothes and not onto the hangar floor. “If I would’ve gotten here earlier I could have supervised these bozos better, but I can’t be at two places at once.”

  “Can you be in position by tomorrow night?” Cazaux asked.

  Townsend thought for a moment; then: “I think so, Henri. We’ll need the Shorts to move the guys and their equipment, but I think we—”

  “Don’t think, Townsend,” Cazaux said menacingly. “Can you be in position by tomorrow night or not?”

  “I’d prefer two nights to get everyone into proper position, Henri,” Townsend said, “but the answer is yes. I can be ready to go tomorrow night.”

  “This man will be missed in two nights’ time, perhaps sooner—we must go tomorrow night,” Cazaux said, wiping his blade clean and putting it back into its hidden sheath.

  “You will leave as soon as you can get the Shorts loaded. I’ll see to the loading and preflight here.”

  “You’ll take care of the flight plan, Henri?” Townsend asked. “Remember the FAA order 7210.3—we need sixteen hours.”

  “I remember, Townie, I remember,” Cazaux said, his mind racing several hours ahead.

  Since Air Force One was a SAM, or Special Air Mission, military aircraft, a flight plan for their flight to Washington could be filed only through a special teletype system. Fortunately, they had access to such a terminal at Pease International Tradeport. The 157th Air Refueling Group, a small New Hampshire Air National Guard aerial refueling tanker unit, used the system for the Atlantic Tanker Task Force, which coordinated all aerial refuelings for flights from Europe to North America, including for Air Force One. Also, Pease Tradeport, when it used to be Pease Air Force Base, was a favorite vacation stop for President George Bush and his family, so a terminal was installed and kept at the airport. Cazaux’s organization had bribed several of the Guardsmen at the airport to do a variety of things, such as alert them when any state or federal inspectors were inbound, monitor the status of the state police patrols, and procure fuel and other aircraft parts and supplies.

  For the flight of their fake Air Force One, they would have one of the Air National Guard controllers input a military flight plan into the system, originating not from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but from Manchester, New Hampshire, the site of an upcoming and widely publicized debate between the expected 1996 presidential candidates, organized by the League of Women Voters. The flight plan, using the call sign SAM-2800 (SAM stood for Special Air Mission, the standard call sign for military flights such as this; 2800 was the tail number of one of the two VC-25A Air Force Ones in the inventory), had to be filed not earlier than sixteen hours from the proposed takeoff time, although the exact takeoff time could not be recorded.

  Immediately after the counterfeit Air Force One was airborne, the Air National Guard controller would issue an ALNOT, or Alert Notification message, to a special office in the FAA Air Traffic Control Command Center known as ATM-200, requesting special priority handling and revising SAM-2800’s call sign to Executive One Foxtrot, signifying that a member of the President’s family or White House staff (but not the President himself—that would be too easy to verify) was on board the aircraft. The ALNOT would be retransmitted by ATM-200 to the various Air Route Traffic Control Centers along the route of flight as well as the. Air Force Air Defense Sector Operations Command Centers, letting everyone know that a member of the President’s entourage was airborne. The plan after that was that the controller would be knocked unconscious so he could claim that he was overpowered and his equipment used without his knowledge—of course, Cazaux would see to it that he was executed to keep him quiet.

  “I’ll take care of all those details,” Cazaux was saying. “Now get moving.” Townsend and Ysidro turned to leave, but Cazaux stopped them by adding, “And I want no more slipups. Security will be tight and everyone will follow the plan to the letter, or I will spend the rest of my days on earth hunting down and executing each and every one of you. Now get going.”

  PART 5

  Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, Maryland Early the Next Morning

  Tomas Ysidro had made his own green active-duty U.S. military ID card long ago—his was Army, showing his home base as the Defense Language School,, the Presidio of Monterey, California; he carried a set of orders showing him as a visiting instructor in Farsi and Mandarin to the 89th Air Wing to teach some of the aircrew members some basic foreign language skills for an upcoming presidential trip. But getting onto Andrews Air Force Base, the place where the President of the United States’ planes were kept, was child’s play, and he didn’t need to show any of his carefully prepared credentials. The guards at the Virginia Avenue gate were still doing hundred-percent ID checks, but there were no dogs, no searches, no questions asked. The smiling Air Force bitch in her toy-soldier blue fatigues, silly black beret, white dickey, and pretty spit- shined boots waved the car right on through after a quick flash of the card, and four international terrorists were on a major military air base with ease.

  “No vehicle checks or searches,” one of the terrorists remarked after they were well past the guard gate. “Not even a thorough check of your card.”

  Ysidro had been careful to scuff up his ID card and not make it look too new or too perfect, but the apparent lack of diligence did puzzle him. Weren’t they concerned about Cazaux any longer? “We can still be monitored electronically,” Ysidro warned, “so everyone stay sharp.” That did not need repeating—driving right into the jaws of the enemy, the ones that were out looking for them—was not a comforting or casual activity at all. But the apparent lax security made them breathe a bit easier and helped them concentrate on the tasks ahead.

  They drove north on Virginia Avenue and followed the signs about a half-mile to the base golf course—and found, to their amazement, that it was open. It had been closed for days because the Army had placed an entire Patriot missile battery there, assigned to protect the Capitol, Andrews, Washington National, Dulles, and other high-value targets in the D.C. area from air attack. Ysidro turned right onto South Wheeling Road and there it was, right in front of them—an entire Patriot missile battery, less than a thousand feet away on Wyoming Road. The Army Patriot missile encampment, within sight of the end of runway 36 Left, was well in the process of being dismantled—the back nine holes of the course were still not usable, but the front nine were open, and golfers were out there just a good five- wood shot or two away from some of the Patriot launchers.

  “Well, what the fuck . . .” Ysidro said, surprised and pleased by what he saw. “Maybe we should’ve hidden our gear in fuckin’ golf bags.” They could see all eight Patriot missile launchers lowered and configured for road march, and the large flat “drive-in-theater” antenna array still raised but with soldiers working on and in front of it—obviously it wasn’t radiating, because that man in front of the array would be fried to a crisp by the amount of electromagnetic energy that thing put out when it was radiating. The electrical power plant vehicle was still running and the command vehicle was apparently still manned, but the Patriot site itself was apparently decommissioned. Ysidro’s assignment had been to destroy it.

  “What do we do now?” one of the commandos asked.

  “We do what we’ve been assigned to do—it’ll just be a hell of a lot easier,” Ysidro said. “The electrical truck is still running, so this could just be a maintenance period— the Patriot site at Fort Belvoir or Dulles might be taking up the slack.” Two other commando squads had been assigned to take out the Patriot sites at Davison Army Air Field at Fort Belvoir and at Washington-Dulles International Airport, but if those Patriot sites were clos
ed down as well, they would have a much easier time of it. At last check, the Hawk missile sites at East Potomac Island Park Golf Course near George Washington University, Rock Creek Golf Course near Walter Reed Hospital, and the East Capitol Country Club golf course were still operational; other teams were assigned to take out those sites as well. But this Patriot site at Andrews was the Integrated Command Center, or ICC, which controlled all of the Hawk and Avenger air defense units in the region.

  The terrorist group took a right turn on Wisconsin Road, a left onto South Perimeter Road, and headed for the housing area and east runway side. Andrews Air Force Base had two, two-mile-long parallel runways, with the main part of the base on the west and the enlisted and junior officer housing area to the east. The fighter alert area was on the south side of the east runway, with two fighters on alert with ladders attached, ready to go; two more fighters were parked nearby, but neither appeared to have weapons loaded. Surprisingly, the guards at the entrance to the housing area had been removed. They doubled back onto South Perimeter Road, heading for the main base side. A small lake south of the west runway had numerous creeks and ditches flowing into it, all leading toward the airfield—that was the best way to approach the runways.

  They drove north on Arnold Avenue along the rows of hangars on the main base side. Every Air Force VIP plane in the inventory was visible—small jets to big helicopters to a huge white E-4 Airborne Command Post, a modified 747 resembling Air Force One but specially designed for the President and military leaders to run World War III from the air. They did not see an Air Force One itself. But then again, they didn’t need to—they were bringing their own.

  They turned right on C Street and tried to go north on Eagle Road, the street right in front of the newer hangars, but roadblocks ahead steered them back onto Arnold Avenue—that told them that the hangars behind that section of Eagle Road had the really valuable hardware. Still, there were no patrols, only barricades. The two hangars that were accessible from the one block of Eagle Road they were allowed to drive on had a clear view of the alert fighter area across the airfield, and by using binoculars they could even see the upraised Patriot antenna array to the southwest, pointing westward toward the capital.

  “Let’s remote-control everything from here—no use in risking exposure if it ain’t necessary,” Ysidro said. “We’ll use the short-range radio detonators for maximum efficiency, and we’ll station ourselves within missile range of the runways in case we’re needed.”

  “May not be able to remote the Patriot stuff,” one of the other terrorists said. He pointed to a red-and-white block building at the end of the runway. “ILS transmitter. Could interfere with the radio signal, or it could activate the detonator as soon as the mine is armed.”

  “Fine—we’ll do it face-to-face. I like it that way,” Ysidro said. “Security is a joke anyway—this looks like a walk in the park. If this isn’t some kind of setup, this will be the easiest job we’ve ever had to do.”

  Atlantic City International Airport Later That Evening

  At precisely sunset, the formation leader radioed, “Ready, ready ... now. Three, clear to depart.”

  “Three,” Lieutenant Colonel A1 Vincenti acknowledged, gently pulled on the control stick and put in a notch of power. He was flying the third F-16 ADF Fighting Falcon in a V-formation of five, passing over the base headquarters building near the Air National Guard ramp at Atlantic City Airport. From the ground,- the V-formation stayed intact but with a large gap between the leader and the number-five aircraft to the right of the leader—the “Missing Man” formation, signifying that one of their comrades had died in the line of duty. Vincenti, as the main fighter representative to the Executive Committee on Terrorism in charge of the Cazaux emergency, had requested and was given the honor, of flying as the “missing man” in the 177th Fighter Group’s memorial-service flyover for Tom Humphrey, who had died in the crash of his F-16.

  Vincenti climbed to two thousand feet, turned on his transponder so air traffic control could pick him up on radar, then checked in with Atlantic City Approach Control: “Atlantic City Approach, Devil Zero-Three, overhead Atlantic City International, passing two for five thousand.”

  “Devil-03, radar contact, climb and maintain five thousand, expect twenty minutes holding at NAADA intersection for arriving and departing traffic.”

  The delay made sense—in fact, he was hoping for it. Air Traffic Control had shut down all traffic in and out of Atlantic City International for thirty minutes so the New Jersey Air National Guard could do this memorial, so it was only fair that all the civilian traffic be allowed to depart. “Roger, A-City,” Vincenti radioed back. “Devil-03 cancel IFR, requesting radar flight following, destination Atlantic City International via the Beltway tour, overfly if able.”

  “Roger, -03, remain this squawk and frequency, maintain VFR routes and altitudes on the Beltway tour, I’ve got your request for an overfly clearance.”

  “-03, roger.”

  It was far more restrictive now than when Vincenti flew F-4Es out of Atlantic City Airport a million years ago, but it’s still a pretty good ride, even at dusk, he thought—that is, if the lights are on. He knew that exterior illumination of most of the historic buildings and monuments of Washington, D.C., had been turned off during the Cazaux terrorist emergency; no announcement had been made, but rumor had it that the President was going to order the National Park Service to lift this restriction. It was pretty lucky for him to be flying at all, let alone as part of the Air National Guard unit’s memorial flight. Few guys want to fly Missing Man formations—they believe it tempts Fate to fly close formation in a high-performance bird in tribute to a fellow pilot that. . . well, erred. Crashing and burning in combat is one thing—getting excited and accidentally blowing away an identified civilian plane, and then committing suicide, was not cool. Everyone was sorry for Humphrey and his family, but no one wanted to get too close to his bad jujus. That’s the way fighter jocks are.

  Of course, the Learjet shoot-down and Humphrey’s subsequent crash was not being called a suicide or a screwup, at least not by the Air Force or the White House. Along with the usual “the investigation is under way, I can’t comment on that,” Hardcastle and Vincenti had explained to the press all about the TV crew’s errors, about how they broke the law, stopping short of saying they deserved to get shot. A few veiled hints about mechanical or electrical failure on the F-16 because of the constant flying during the emergency, some more hints about incorrect “switchology,” mixed with more comments like “if it had been Cazaux, Atlantic City International would have been a smoking hole otherwise.” The press needed massaging. More than most military men, Hardcastle—once the leader of one of the most controversial paramilitary organizations in American history, the Hammerheads—understood that it was important not to tell the press the facts, but to meter information bit by bit, letting them form their own conclusions that, not too coincidentally, were the ones you wanted them to have. It didn’t always work, but it was an efficient way to go.

  Humphrey was a victim of circumstance. Yes, he screwed up. Military jets did not have cockpit voice recorders or flight data recorders, so everything was speculative until the final accident board’s report. Hardcastle often used familiar “goofs” to explain failures in multimil- lion-dollar military hardware: like causing an accident while using a cellular phone in busy rush-hour traffic. Humphrey had wanted to film the Learjet with his gun camera during the intercept; he saw the floodlight hit his leader’s cockpit canopy, saw him go out of control temporarily, assumed that it was an attack, and launched a missile. Under the emergency situation, such a response was understandable. Of course, Hardcastle explained, the deaths of the “Whispers” TV crew were unfortunate, but it was probably avoidable—it wouldn’t have happened if the TV. and Learjet crews had been following the law and not out for a scoop. For once it looked like blame was going to be placed on the right party.

  By being up in Atlantic City inste
ad of in Washington, Vincenti was really just postponing the inevitable: the intensive debriefing that Judge Lani Wilkes was giving Hardcastle and Harley right now in Washington. Vincenti’s turn was next. These all-day, half-the-night sessions were nine- !tenths retribution and punishment and one-tenth information. Wilkes was claiming that there were tons of evidence to make everyone, including the President of the United States, believe the body of the motorcycle rider shot by the V-22 crew was Henri Cazaux. The gun camera videotape from the third V-22 of one of the two riders that escaped was inconclusive. It was a thermal image, almost useless for trying to identify someone. But in Vincenti’s opinion, any one of the two that got away could have been Henri Cazaux. Wilkes and the rest of the Justice Department disagreed. To A1 Vincenti, it was all just educated guesses and assumptions—and politics, of course. The more this air defense emergency went on, the more uneasy it made the public. The President needed this emergency over with soonest.

  Vincenti admired Harley for standing up to Wilkes and most of the rest of the FBI. She was definitely someone he wanted to get to know better. He still wasn’t exactly clear what her relationship to former Vice President Kevin Mar- tindale really was, but Vincenti never liked to take a backseat when it came to the pursuit of women. He could take on Martindale any day of the week. That aside, he wished Harley would at least take some pride in knowing that Cazaux’s organization was busted up, his sources of funds cut off and confiscated, his butt being chased closer and closer every hour. Vincenti hoped Cazaux would dive back under whatever rock he crawled out from—Harley didn’t believe he would. But the U.S. Marshals and the FBI were hot on Cazaux’s organization’s heels, so if Cazaux’s wasn’t one of the bullet-riddled bodies she pulled from the mansion in New Jersey, he was as good as captured anyway.