Experience

by Brandt Legg

  “They’re going to need to bring you back to the White House,” Melissa said.

  Schueller could tell she’d been crying, and recognized the strain in her overly calm voice. “What’s happened?”

  “Please, Schueller, I’ll tell you everything when you get here.”

  “Is Dad okay? Tell me now.”

  “It’s bad, honey. He was shot boarding Air Force One. We’re only getting sketchy reports, but it’s really bad, and the plane is still under attack.”

  Schueller closed his eyes for a second. He’d been dreading this news since his dad decided to run for president. “Florence is with him, is she . . . ?”

  “She’s okay.”

  Schueller let out a breath. The Secret Service agents were moving him toward the exit as he talked. “Wait, Uncle Ace and Aunt Jenna were with him on this trip, right?”

  “So far they’re okay. Schueller, I have to go. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  After the call, Schueller pulled up the news on his phone and watched the disturbing video of his father getting shot, then switched to a live news feed.

  If Dad really is dead, Schueller thought, I’m going to . . .

  He realized he had no idea what he would do.

  “I’ve got Tarka on speaker,” Rex said to Vonner.

  The gray-haired billionaire quickly ended another call with Fitz. “What the hell is going on? Where are you?” he asked Tarka.

  “I’m here,” Tarka said breathlessly. “I’m in it.” Her assignment to stop any assassination attempts against the president had kept her constantly busy since the inauguration. She’d killed four would-be assassins, and blocked seven other plans that might, or might not, have been successful. It wasn’t that Vonner didn’t believe the Secret Service couldn’t do their job, it was that he simply didn’t trust the Secret Service.

  “You’re at the Portland airport, and you couldn’t stop it?” Vonner slapped his desk.

  “There’re too many of them,” the operative answered, annoyed. No one could have anticipated an attack this incredibly sophisticated on American soil.

  “Who? How many?” Rex asked. “How did they get that close to Air Force One?”

  “They neutralized CAT,” she said with a mix of awe and suspicion.

  “How?” Vonner repeated, knowing he could believe and trust anything she said.

  “Ghosts!” Tarka said. “Damn impossible to see. It’s like fighting ghosts!”

  “Sounds like NorthBridge,” Vonner said.

  “If it’s NorthBridge, then we’re at war. A war we’ve already lost.”

  Even before the first bullet struck President Pound, and up to that very moment, as Ace was trying to get Air Force One off the ground, Linh sat alone in a dense grove of fern and Douglas fir trees located in the most secluded section of Portland’s five-thousand-acre Forest Park, the largest forested natural area located within city limits in the United States. Even without cell coverage, Linh knew what was happening, yet she remained calm and still, sitting in the lotus position, meditating.

  Colonel Dranick, frustrated to be trapped in Washington when his friend needed him most, had been working the phones from the instant word broke of the attack. As fate would have it, his home military installation, joint base Lewis-McChord, outside Tacoma, Washington, was just a hundred and thirty miles from the president’s location. A Green Beret team from Lewis-McChord and fighter jets had been deployed. Specifically, Dranick’s former group, part of the Second Special Forces Battalion, was en route to Portland International Airport.

  “Tactical counter-strike team still thirty minutes out,” the commander told Dranick. “A Chinook and a couple Apaches are blazing sky to PDX as we speak.”

  “What about ODAs?” Dranick asked, referring to Operational Detachments, the troopers who parachuted into any kind of raging hostile place and made it theirs.

  “We’ve got a go-team on a C-17, ETA eleven minutes. They’ll parachute in. Drop zone Air Force One.”

  “Won’t it be gone by then?”

  “By gone do you mean airborne, or ended?” the commander asked, iron-hard-serious. “They report both pilot and co-pilot down, and shelling incoming. Runway damage could already be a problem, if they can even get her moving.”

  “Damn it!” Dranick snapped. “Who are these guys?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In between barking orders into his radio, the Secret Service SAIC shouted to Ace, “I don’t care how you do it, but get this thing airborne!”

  With only seconds to familiarize himself with the customized controls of Air Force One, Ace turned to his sister. “Can you do this, Jenna?”

  “The question is, can you?” she asked calmly.

  Ace flipped some switches, set the flaps, turned on the landing and strobe lights, enabled the autothrottle, then steered the plane back onto the taxiway. Smoke filled the runway ahead, with several vehicles burning on the tarmac, and somewhere behind him, his brother, the president of the United States, lay dead or dying.

  “Commencing takeoff,” Ace said, not bothering to communicate with the tower, since he didn't know who was listening. Air traffic was always prohibited for three to five miles around Air Force One anyway. “Tell Florence and the doctor to hold on. We’re going for a steep ascent right through hellfire.”

  The SAIC relayed Ace's warning to Agent Bond and to three agents who let the other passengers know.

  Ace looked over at his sister and said, “Be sure the F/D is on.” He checked the runway heading, made certain the LNAV and VNAV were armed, slid the throttles forward, then clicked the TO/GA button. “Hold on, folks!”

  Ace applied forward pressure to the stick and said a prayer. The plane picked up speed, but it was difficult keeping the nose gear firmly against the runway. He used the rudders to keep the airliner centered on the damaged and pitted tarmac. Just when he thought they might make it, a missile flew right across the front of the windshield, just missing them.

  “Get us the hell outta here!” his sister shouted.

  “Countermeasures deployed!” the flight engineer reported. Infrared flares bursts from the aircraft, shielding them temporarily in a shower of mega “fireworks” designed to confuse honing or “heat-seeking ordnances.”

  Ace accelerated well beyond normal taxi speed. The faster they went, the more he could feel trailing friction and the weight differential of Air Force One. He pushed the throttles past TRT (Thrust Rated Takeoff), hoping to avoid more missiles.

  “Aren’t you risking a flame out?” the flight engineer asked. “You’re exceeding max TRT!”

  “I’d rather risk that than a direct hit!” Ace replied tensely.

  More shots rattled across the fuselage.

  “Damn it!” Ace said, feeling several tires go. “They hit the wheels!” The jumbo jet listed to one side. He fought the controls as one of the tires completely shredded.

  “Two bogies sustained damage,” Jenna said, referring to the five sets of wheel bogies making up the 747’s undercarriage arrangement.

  Ace tensed further, knowing it would be hard to hit the tires and miss the critical hydraulics. “Get us up, come on, come on,” he muttered to himself.

  “Vee-one,” the navigator announced. This mark, normally cleared by the co-pilot, meant they’d reached the point of no-return. They had to take off no matter what. Ace pulled back on the controls, hard.

  “We’ve got hydraulics warnings lighting up all over,” Jenna said. “Electrical, too. Uplocks, struts, trunnion link, all compromised.”

  More bullets bounced off the nose.

  “Come on, baby, get us up,” Ace repeated.

  “Another bay is lighting up,” Jenna said. “Downlock articulator, reaction link . . . out.”

  Ace, sweating and straining against the controls, twisted and pulled until, suddenly, they got lift.

  “Wheels up!” the navigator sang.

  Another missile buzzed by, lost in the countermeasures. “Two more inco
ming!” the flight engineer yelled.

  “Damn it! This is more like flying out of Baghdad than Portland!” Ace barked.

  “You’ve got to bring the gear in!” Jenna shouted. “We need the speed!”

  “If I do, we might not be able to get it down when we need to land!”

  “We may never get the chance to land if you don’t pull it in now!”

  Ace knew Jenna was right. He reluctantly retracted the landing gear, moving the switch to off. It was putting off a crisis for later in order to avert this one, but it was a tough bargain. Ace worried they’d taken enough damage that the controllers and hydraulics wouldn’t be able to extend the gear whenever they decided to land. He’d never attempted a belly landing, but that nightmare would have to wait. He raised the flaps.

  “What the . . . ?” Ace exclaimed. As they climbed steeply, several parachuting soldiers flew past, within mere feet of the plane. “Who the hell are these guys?”

  Straining to get a better look, Jenna said, “I believe they’re Green Berets.”

  “Hell yeah!” Ace said. “I damn sure hope we don't hit any of them.” The jumbo jet was too big for him to maneuver around them. All he could do was continue their steep climb and try to get out of the reach of ground fire.

  Everyone in the cockpit was held in tense silence, watching monitors, screens, gauges, and indicator lights. We might make it, Ace thought. He’d never taken off at such an angle. To the passengers, it felt near vertical. Suddenly, the airliner punctured the clouds, and a few minutes later he was able to begin to level out.

  “You did it!” Jenna whooped.

  “You and God,” the navigator said.

  “I hope you have an arrangement with Him,” the engineer added, “and He’ll also work with us on the landing.”

  The SAIC burst into the cockpit. “Damn decent flying, Ace,” he said. “How bad’s the damage?”

  “It could’ve been worse.” Ace wiped the sweat from his face. “Now, where we going?”

  “Get us to DC,” the SAIC said.

  “What about Hudson?” Jenna asked. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

  “We can be in Seattle in about twenty-five minutes or so,” Ace said.

  “We’ve got company,” the navigator interrupted. Two F-22 fighter jets appeared on either side of Air Force One.

  “Air Force One, this is Rollins-eight-twenty-niner. We've got your back.”

  “Good to have you,” Ace said. “Can you take a look underneath and give us a damage assessment?”

  “Roger that,” the fighter pilot replied.

  “What about getting Hudson to a hospital?” Jenna pressed.

  “Washington says keep heading east,” the SAIC said. “There are plenty of hospitals along the way. We'll reassess as the situation warrants.”

  During the takeoff, Hudson, after being clinically dead for more than nine minutes, suddenly began breathing on his own.

  “Thank God!” Florence said.

  The physician gasped. “No one else could have saved him.” He looked up for a moment. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. Look at his pressure. We've got to operate.”

  “Can't we get into a hospital where an experienced team can do it?” Florence asked.

  “I wish,” the physician said. “But there just isn't time. We’ve got to do it now!”

  Agent Bond put his face in his hand and shook his head.

  “Find out from the cockpit how soon we’re going to be at cruising altitude, and how long were going to stay there,” the physician instructed Bond. “Let them know that we’re about to operate on the president.”

  Florence, with tears in her eyes, added, “And you tell them that the president is alive!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Green Berets landed as Air Force One was safely away. However, in a development described by the commander as “eerie,” all the shooting had stopped. The Army Special Forces took up positions and prepared for engagement with hostiles. Yet, when the smoke cleared, there was no one to shoot at, as if the attackers had never been there—no bodies, no blood belonging to the enemy, no trace.

  State and local police joined the Green Berets, but it would be hours before they found out how the terrorist had pulled off the first ever attack on Air Force One. By the time the FBI got there, the dead and injured had been catalogued; sixteen Secret Service agents killed, another seventeen injured—four of those critically—eight dead police officers and eleven wounded. The US Air Force lost five Phoenix Ravens. In total, there were fifty-seven casualties; they’d all taken bullets to protect the president.

  Civilian victims were surprisingly light; twenty-six injured, and of those, only seven had been shot, likely caught in the crossfire. The earlier stampede of spectators had ended up in the airport, the parking lot, and even spilled out onto the highway. Dignitaries and average voters had sought cover and comfort with each other.

  “Where on earth did the shooters go?” Dranick asked the Green Beret commander. “I know they call NorthBridge phantom terrorists, but they were in there heavy. People don’t just vanish.”

  “We'll find them, Colonel,” the commander said to Dranick. “Any word on the president?”

  Reports were already swirling around that President Pound was in a coma, or brain-dead. High level sources had issued denials, cited classified information, and speculated about the speculation, but factual information was seemingly nonexistent.

  “He's alive, that's all I know.”

  Amidst the smoke and explosions, Tarka had seen the last of the attackers slip away, and, just prior to the Green Berets’ arrival, she followed the gunmen. In the process, she discovered what would take the government hours to figure out.

  The terrorists had a tunnel network under the airport. Some of it appeared to have been for electrical conduit, storm drains, and some kind of maintenance systems. However, there were clear indications that improvements and modifications had recently been made.

  “They aren't ghosts or magicians,” Tarka said to herself, “but they might be psychics, somehow able to see into the future.” She continued running through the tight spaces as she muttered to herself. “It must've taken them weeks to put all this together, maybe longer. How could they have known the president would be coming to Portland?”

  By the time she reached the end of the tunnel, all she found was tire tracks where three of four trucks had been parked. Although Tarka probably missed them by only a few minutes, she had no way to follow. Instead, she called in her location and waited for a pick up. There was too much heat to go back the way she came. The feds would surely find the tunnels soon. Normally, a helicopter would retrieve her, but air traffic was still restricted in the area.

  She walked to a nearby hotel. It would be a good place to stay out of sight. After a quick conversation with Vonner and Rex, Tarka found out her next destination wouldn’t be Washington. Instead, she was heading to Los Angeles, to investigate their best NorthBridge lead ever.

  After the F-22 pilots reported significant visual damage to the undercarriage of Air Force One, the SAIC and Ace had a conference in the cockpit.

  “There is an imminent risk that even if the landing gear comes down, it will collapse when the wheels and what’s left of the tires touch down,” Ace said.

  “What will happen?”

  “With shredded, incomplete tires, hydraulics shot, bad gear, and other unknown impairments . . . ” Ace rubbed his forehead with his palm. “Best case, we slide and come down on our belly. But even with preparations, it could easily spark a fire.”

  “And worse case?” the SAIC asked.

  “Engines and wingtips hit the ground, dragging, digging in . . . the aircraft cartwheels. Bigger fire, possible explosion.”

  “That can’t happen.”

  “Agreed,” Ace said.

  “Options?”

  “Not many, but we should go in empty.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Dump all our fuel. Let
them calculate just how much we need to make it on one landing. I’m told that the weather at Andrews is picture perfect . . . ”

  “You’ve never landed Air Force One,” the SAIC began, “and you want to do it on one try, with no margin for error?”

  “I want to get us all home safely. Dumping the fuel gives us the best chance.”

  The president’s physician and Florence successfully completed the surgery on Hudson during the three-thousand-mile cross-country flight. About an hour before Air Force One reached Joint Base Andrews Airport, located on the outskirts of Washington, DC, agent Bond updated his superiors. “The president has yet to regain consciousness. His condition is still grave, but he is alive.”

  When the physician stepped out of the room for a few minutes, a weary Florence grilled Bond. “Was this part of the critical move?” She motioned to her father’s barely alive body, filled with tubes and hooked up to monitors. “You tell me the truth, Bond!” She hadn’t called him “007” since he told her that a group of Secret Service agents, including him, had been trained in how to stand down in order to make their actions undetectable when they get the order so that someone can assassinate the president. “Was the Secret Service in on this?”

  “I don’t know, Florence, but I do know that a couple dozen agents were injured or killed today trying to protect the president. I know some of them were my friends, good men.”

  “Excuse me for not mourning them, because I don’t know who’s good and who’s bad anymore, but I know they took an oath to protect my father, a man I do know is good. How did you ever accept that training, Bond? How could you think that it was okay to let someone kill the president of the United States?”

  “I’m not going to try and justify or explain it, but the preservation of the country has always been more important than the life of just one man. That’s the premise of sending our young people off to die in war.”