Roughly thirty minutes after Air Force Two vanished over the Pacific Ocean, the ATC stared in disbelief at his radar. He pressed a button to refresh the screen, and then he did it again. Nothing changed. What he was seeing was real. This was no drill. The Gulfstream was below ten thousand feet now and it was still dropping toward the ocean.
"Air Force One! Return to twenty-five thousand!" Nothing. Not a word came back from the men piloting the president.
He screamed to his supervisor across the room, "I've lost contact with Air Force One! It was below ten thousand feet and descending fast, and now they're not answering."
Suddenly the plane’s transponder stopped working and the plane disappeared from the controller's screen. The man's supervisor reached his desk just in time to see the blip vanish.
The young controller screamed, "It's gone! Dear God! Commander, did you see it? Air Force One's off the screen!"
Except for the girls, everyone on board knew what was happening. Harry walked out of his office, glanced at the chief steward and said, "Implement Condor." Then he sat on a couch and motioned for his children to join him.
"We're going on a little adventure tonight," he told his girls calmly. He offered a simple explanation about what was going to happen but didn't tell them why. As he chatted quietly with his family, the crew members rushed to implement their parts of Operation Condor. Stewards locked down the food and beverage carts as the copilot was clicking switches, disabling the instruments that allowed tracking, just as his counterpart on Air Force Two had done a few minutes ago.
When the Gulfstream's altimeter read four hundred feet, the pilot turned on his landing lights. The powerful beams illuminated the churning sea so close below that it seemed he could touch it from here. He picked up a checklist, read the last item and said aloud, "Disable the flight recorder."
There was only this single item left. The flight recorder – the black box – was the component that allowed a missing aircraft to be located. It also held the recorder that captured every sound in the cockpit. The boxes on Air Force One and Two had been secretly modified last week at Andrews. The copilot flipped a toggle switch and disabled the black box.
The pilot thought about the next phase of Operation Condor. His part in this extraordinary mission was almost over, but the operation itself was really just beginning. Nothing in history had remotely approached what was unfolding tonight on both sides of the globe. He hadn't been told the purpose of this unprecedented, ultra-top-secret mission. Whatever was going on, it was important enough to forfeit the lives of the President and Vice President of the United States of America.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Present day
Belgrave Square is one of London's grandest and largest neighborhoods. In the 1800s it was home to dukes, earls and champions of industry. Today the homes of eastern European billionaires were nestled between embassies and ambassadorial residences of a dozen diverse countries, including Portugal, Ghana, Syria and Norway.
On the south side of a shady park in the middle, where Belgrave Place emptied into the square, stood a stately four-story building two doors down from the Embassy of Spain. A discreet brass plate below a doorbell identified its occupant as Hassan Group. This building had less traffic than most offices on the square, but the Hassans could rightfully claim a place here among their seriously wealthy neighbors.
Thirty-year-old Amina, known to her Western friends as Amy, managed her father's operations in London. Amin owned fifty companies stretching across the Middle East from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. A Syrian by birth, over the years her father had shrewdly become a friend and business partner to the ruling families of all the United Arab Emirates. From what the public could see, Hassan Group was one of the world's largest oil conglomerates. The more oil companies the company gobbled up, the more Amin Hassan seemed to want. He was in a unique position. His company was privately held, so it owed allegiance to no master except Amin and his partners. And his company had many, many more business interests than the ones the public could see. His conglomerate made billions more dollars in covert, illicit businesses than in oil. And they were a steady source of income. Good times or bad, people and governments wanted what Hassan Group offered behind closed doors.
His close friend and minority investor was Zayed al-Fulan, the wealthiest man in the United Arab Emirates, where Hassan Group was headquartered. Amin's Bentley limousine was often seen entering the gates of Zayed's palatial mansion, where Amin and his partner would have tea, dinner, cigars and profitable conversation. Zayed had no idea that Hassan Group dealt in such things as munitions, dirty bombs, plutonium and drugs. He knew only what Amin told him about – the vast oil, petrochemical, media and mining holdings that made Amin and his partner a half-billion US dollars each per year.
With the sharp decline in world oil prices in the last few years, Amin and his partner were in a unique position to acquire these companies. Zayed had cash and Amin had assets against which he could borrow billions. Together they could mount a takeover battle few companies in the stumbling petroleum industry could withstand.
ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, had seen its market capitalization drop sharply to under $350 billion. For less than eighty billion, Amin could gain effective control of the company, merge it into Hassan Group and create an even greater, more powerful petroleum conglomerate.
Amin's partner gave him a line of credit for fifty billion dollars, and he began to accumulate shares of Exxon, quickly reaching the level at which his company was required to disclose its holdings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It had been a bold and farsighted plan, but it met quick and decisive opposition both from the US Congress and the Federal Trade Commission. More alarming was the noise coming from the State Department, threatening an investigation of the secretive, private Arab company if Hassan continued his pursuit of Exxon. Abhorring publicity, his partner immediately insisted the takeover idea be dropped.
Amin capitulated. He sold the stock, but he was far from finished. He would bide his time and achieve his goal another way.
Armed with her MBA, Amin's only child had been handed the directorship of Hassan Group's London operation by her father upon her graduation. From the London office nearly three billion dollars of properties, companies and investments, five percent of the assets owned by Hassan worldwide, was managed by thirty professionals. Amina had nothing to do with any of that. People who answered to her father did the number crunching, and he made all the investment decisions personally. Although she never used the education she'd earned, Amy enjoyed what she did for her father's company. Her days were filled with lunches, dinners, charity events and socializing, all done to promote her family and its interests.
As an undergraduate at Penn, Amy majored in ancient history, and even in college she had begun to amass an enviable collection of artifacts. Today the two-thousand-square-foot office in which she sat, a room that encompassed most of the top floor of the Belgrave Square building, was itself a museum of priceless Greek, Roman and Arabian relics.
She waited for her American visitor behind a large desk, its top completely bare, sipping coffee from a small cup the Arab way. Brian Sadler, the famous owner of Bijan Rarities, had requested an appointment to discuss a subject he said he'd rather disclose in person. Although they hadn't met, she'd been more than once to Brian's gallery in the posh Mayfair area of London. Bijan always had fascinating artifacts, and she loved seeing them.
One thing about Brian's request to meet had made her agree immediately. Tickets to attend Bijan's twice-yearly televised auctions were harder to snag than an invitation to Buckingham Palace. As wealthy as her family was, she couldn't buy her way into a Bijan auction. No one could. There was one way, of course – she could have made a million-dollar purchase at his gallery. That might have gotten her an invitation. But that wasn't what this was about. She didn't want to buy a place at his exclusive table. She wanted him to offer her one.
She had seen the ad
vertising for Sadler's upcoming auction called The Wrath of Vesuvius, and she was ready for him. She moved things here and there in the office, making sure her wonderful pieces from Pompeii and Herculaneum were prominently displayed. When Brian Sadler left today, she'd have a seat at his next auction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A white-gloved attendant served coffee as Amy and Brian sat at the conference table in her office.
"I hope you like the coffee," she said in unaccented English as he took a sip. "We brew it the Saudi way, with a little cardamom and saffron. It's strong, but it's my favorite."
"It's absolutely delicious, Miss Hassan," he replied sincerely. "But you're not Saudi, correct?"
"I was born in Dubai. I'm not Saudi, but I'm fiercely proud to be an Arab. And call me Amy, please. Now I want to know more about you, Mr. Sadler."
"Brian," he responded with a smile. She couldn't have been more than five or six years younger than he was, and her father was one of the world's wealthiest men. Dark and sultry, she was a truly stunning woman. She'd be a handful, he mused before dismissing the thought.
"There's not a lot to know about me," he began, knowing she would have done her homework; there was nothing he could say that she didn't already know. "I've been fortunate in growing Bijan Rarities to the modest success we're enjoying today."
She laughed. "Modest isn't exactly the word I would have used to describe Bijan. Broadcasting your auctions on the cable networks was a work of genius. Collectors are indebted to you for making antiquities interesting to the masses. You've allowed ordinary people around the world to have a glimpse into a world I love."
"Which brings me to the reason for my visit," he said, turning to a display case nearby. "May I take a closer look at these pieces?"
She used a small key to open the tall glass door. "Be my guest."
"May I examine this bronze?" he asked, pulling a set of white cotton gloves from his inside jacket pocket. She nodded and he took a three-inch statue from its shelf.
"Hercules, isn't it?"
"Yes, the founder of Herculaneum. It was discovered there in 1740. In those days, as you know, most things ended up in private collections, not museums. I'm fortunate to have acquired it during my university days in America."
"Are you aware of my upcoming auction of art and objects called The Wrath of Vesuvius?"
"Who isn't?" she replied with a laugh so fetching it made him smile too. "You do a grand job of marketing, as I said earlier. But I'm afraid the things in my collection are so dear to me that I could never part with even one of them."
"I understand completely and I don't blame you. I'd feel exactly the same way. Your pieces from Pompeii and Herculaneum are among the finest in any private collection I know of. I'd like to show the world how beautiful they are. With your permission I'd like to display them at the gallery before the auction. The evening of the broadcast I'm thinking of starting with an hour-long segment on the history of Vesuvius and the destruction of the cities. I envision your pieces being the primary part of that introductory segment. I'm also hoping that you will attend the event. It would be wonderful if you would provide commentary about your pieces. Whatever you decide, I'd be honored if you would join us for the auction."
What he wanted wasn't what she had expected, but it made a great deal of sense. Several ideas entered her mind at once, the primary one being that she'd accomplished her goal. No matter what, she was attending the auction.
"I accept your offer to attend, but I need to think about displaying the pieces in my collection. May I give you an answer by the end of the week?"
Brian assured her that was fine, and she said she wanted him to see one more piece.
"It's in a safe down the hall. Give me five minutes. Please look around and feel free to open the cases. One more thing before I go. Can you keep a secret?"
He said yes; she tossed him the key and left the room, closing the door behind her.
He walked from case to case, opening some and touching the sides of others to lean in closely. When he had finished, he walked to her desk for a moment and then returned to the conference table.
The attendant opened the door and Amina returned, gingerly carrying a two-foot candlestick. She placed it on the table in front of Brian as he sat open-mouthed.
"It takes a lot to take my breath away," he muttered at last. "Is this Cupid?"
"Yes. It's from –"
"It's from the House of the Genius in Herculaneum," he interrupted in a whisper. "This is incredible. So there were two?"
"There were. You know that this one's twin – the one the art world knows about – is in the National Archaeology Museum of Naples. They were discovered in 1830 by an archaeologist who turned one over to the government and slipped this one into his backpack. I'd heard rumors about it for years, but only two years ago I discovered it was real. A family in Verona didn't realize what they had. They sold a twelve-piece silver service, including the candlestick, to a dealer. Thank God I have a network of people around the world who call me first when they see interesting things. He contacted me, and here it is! Frankly I think mine's safer here in London than the other one is in Naples. If Vesuvius decides to spout again, Naples is going to end up in the ashes exactly like Pompeii did!"
"May I . . . I'm reluctant to ask, but may I hold it?"
"Of course you may. Be my guest!"
He cradled the object reverently in his hands, turning it around and around, admiring the detail.
Carefully placing it back on the conference table, he said, "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. If you decide to allow your pieces to be part of our broadcast, would you consider allowing the Cupid to be included? It would be the most stunning object I've ever displayed."
"I'm sorry. This one must always be a secret. It's my secret – and yours too now. I showed it to you today to give you a treat, since your love for antiquities and relics is legendary."
They wrapped up the conversation, and she rode the elevator down to the main floor with him, giving him a light air-kiss goodbye. He tried to hand her a card and she shook her head.
"I know how to contact you, Mr. Sadler. You'll hear from me shortly."
As he walked to the tube station at Hyde Park Corner, he reflected on his good fortune. There was little these days that fazed Brian. In the years that he'd owned Bijan, he'd had the opportunity to see – and to own – some of the world's truly singular rarities. But today the candlestick of Cupid had literally taken his breath away. That hadn't happened in a long, long time, and Brian considered himself extremely fortunate.
Although his visit to Hassan Group's London offices had been for an entirely different purpose, there had been an unexpected bonus when he viewed her collection. He was committed to making Amina Hassan his client. The rarities she owned were respected worldwide. Few people had the means to accumulate pieces of this quality. Bijan should be Amina's gallery of choice, and he would make that happen.
He'd also noticed that Amy was also a stunningly attractive woman. It was a little hard to miss. He felt a tinge of embarrassment as he thought of Nicole back in Dallas. But he let that go. This was business. Strictly business.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Amin Hassan sat at his desk, watching the video feed on his computer and taking an occasional satisfying puff from his cigar. It was four p.m. in Dubai and the blazing sun had raised the afternoon temperature to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, but the heavy draperies and constant air-conditioning kept his office almost chilly. There were a couple of lamps in the corners; otherwise the room was dark and full of shadows, as Amin always kept it.
With a click of his mouse, the picture changed. Where there had been a meeting on his screen, now there was a single individual, an Arab like Amin, sitting in front of a bank of computers.
"Zarif."
"Yes, sir," the man answered without turning around. He knew his boss could see anything and everything whenever he wished.
"Wh
o is my daughter's visitor?"
Zarif Safwan, director of security for the Hassan Group, clicked the mouse on his own computer. He brought up the digital visitors' log from the first floor reception desk.
"His name is Brian Sadler. I believe he owns a gallery . . ."
"I know what he does," Hassan interrupted sharply. "Everyone knows." Without a word he switched back to the opulent office at Hassan Group's London base, where his daughter, Amina, and Sadler were having coffee. He turned up the volume; there was a slight echo because the camera was several feet away, but he could hear everything clearly.
He grew concerned as he watched the meeting unfold. In only a few minutes they'd dispensed with formalities and were on a first-name basis. That worried Amin, as did many other things about his daughter. To her way of thinking, her degree from Wharton guaranteed her a top position in the company. She wanted to help run the operation without earning her way in. She wanted to be entrusted with decisions, but her father didn't trust her judgment. She was a beautiful, young, impetuous Arab girl who often acted before she thought. Just look at today's meeting with Brian Sadler. Why was she meeting with the famous antiquities collector and television personality?
He took another long puff. Amin Hassan abhorred publicity. He thought he'd made that clear to his daughter. Perhaps there was a business purpose to this meeting. On the other hand, perhaps she was thinking with her heart again instead of her head.
Zarif would have to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She put the candlestick back in the safe and went to her office. It wasn't the one where she'd met Brian Sadler – they called that the "receiving room." It was used for greeting visitors, displaying her vast collection, and entertaining her father's friends who visited London. Her working office was two doors down the hall and it was much smaller, more crowded and less ostentatious than the formal one. The public never saw hers.
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