I need to know how much time I have and if there's anything I can do to help avert disaster. Over." "listen, sir, if you are at The Mall, stay away from any military units you might encounter.
The authorities will be arresting or shooting any looters. I advise you to get away from the area as quickly as possible. If you are injured or your home has been damaged, you should contact the proper authorities imme--" The controller's voice suddenly cut off, then another voice came on the channel: "Is this Admiral Hardcastle, the White House air defense adviser?" "Affirmative. I'm--" Suddenly Hardcastle remembered back from his unit and situation briefings who "Leather" was: "Is this the senior director of the AWACS orbiting over eastern Pennsylvania?" "This is Major Milford, the force mission commander," Milford replied from Leather-90.
"Admiral, we're tracking an unidentified aircraft about nine miles south of you, about three hundred feet aboveground, groundspeed about eighty-seven knots, heading right toward the capital.
What's your situation there? Over." "A 747 crashed just west of the Constitution Gardens section of the capital, and it destroyed or damaged everything from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capital Yacht Club," Hardcastle said.
"We found an Avenger unit that was hit by an antitank weapon just west of the Washington Monument. The crew is dead, and the front of the vehicle and the turret and gunner's cockpit are badly damaged. That plane you're tracking belongs to Henri Cazaux. He says he's got a fuel-air explosive weapon on it and that he's going to bomb the White House. Is there any way to reactivate this unit, maybe by remote control?
Over." "Affirmative," Milford said, stunned by what he had just heard.
"There should be a remote-control computer unit up with the driver.
You should find a spool of fiber-optic cable about fifty yards long.
You should be able to operate the unit with that." The computer was in a strong plastic case on the right side of the HMMWV, plugged into a mounting unit under the dashboard, with a round reel beside it. The case unclipped easily from its mounting; the fiber-optic cable was thin but strong. "I found it," Hardcastle said.
"Stand by." The remote control unit was a laptop computer with a flip-up two-color LCD screen, a sealed plastic-covered keyboard, and a finger-sizedjoystick built into the base below the keyboard.
To Hardcastle's surprise, it was working. A simple menu selection displayed on the screen, and by touching a few buttons he got a radar depiction of the skies around the city. After a few moments, Hardcastle could understand the symbols on the scope--the unknown aircraft, labeled was A on the screen, was only ten miles to the south.
"The remote control is working, and I've got a depiction of the area here." "Good," Milford said. "That means the telemetry between the AWACS and the unit there is functioning. Do you see the up-caret symbol at the bottom of the screen? Zoom the picture in or out to see it." "I see it." "Just move the cursor with the joystick onto the caret symbol at the bottom of the screen and press the button below the trackball."" Hardcastle did, and a diamond symbol surrounded the symbol.
"What happened?" "I got a diamond around the caret." "Good. You should see a menu on the bottom of the screen, with a button or function key that says something like ENCJAGE or ATTACK. Do you see it?
Yes. It's a covered switch that says ENGAGE.
"Good. Get out of the unit, clear yourself and everyone else away by at least fifty feet, and press the button. The turret should turn and the missile launchers should start tracking the target.
You can plug your headset into the side of the remote-control device.
The missiles will launch when it gets within range. Go ahead." Hardcastle plugged the driver's Kevlar helmet communications cord into the computer, got out of the vehicle, unreeled the fiberoptic data cable at least fifty feet, and knelt.
Harley was well behind him, tending to Wilkes. He made sure the diamond designate symbol was still on the hostile was A symbol, then hit the ENGAGE button.
It turned yellow, then began to blink. The turret, which was pointed west, did not move. "The turret didn't move, and the ENGAGE button is blinking yellow," Hardcastle radioed back.
"I'm not sure what that means," Milford said.
"Deselect the ENGAGE button, then go to the unit and see if the turret is jammed and that it can turn freely." Hardcastle did it, then ran to the Avenger unit.
Sure enough, the entire circular track that the turret rode on was twisted and almost completely sheared off the base. There was no way it was going to move.
"I don't think it's going to move," Hardcastle radioed. "The antitank missile twisted the turret track all to hell. There's hydraulic fluid all over the place." "Can it slew in the other direction?". "Negative. The whole turret is off the track. It would take a crane to lift it back on." "Then you better get out of the area as fast as you can, Admiral," Milford responded. "You've done all you can. The plane will be overhead in about five to six minutes." Hardcastle wasn't ready to give up, but he didn't want anyone else nearby. Their car didn't look like it was going anywhere, either.
"Deborah, start heading toward the Capitol Building--we've got about five minutes to make it." "What about the Director?" "Just get going--I'll bring Wilkes.
Cazaux's going to bomb the White House, and the explosive he's using could fry us all. The Capitol will be the safest place for us. Can you drag Wilkes over there?" "I don't think so," Harley said. "I'm staying here with you, Ian.
There's no other choice." "I'll take Wilkes in a minute. You head for the Capitol. Get going." Harley reluctantly got to her feet and began trotting east toward the Capitol Building.
Hardcastle found a four-cell flashlight and examined the interior of the Avenger--and immediately struck paydirt.
He dragged two green steel-and-plastic cases out from storage racks behind the passenger seat and opened them to find a large shoulderstpistol grip assembly and two cylindrical cans.
"What are they?" Harley asked behind him.
"I said get moving toward the Capitol." "I can't make it--I can hardly see where I'm going," Harley said.
"I'll help you. Do you know what they are?" Hardcastle cursed and pulled a yellow-and-black tab on one side of the pistol grip. A metal grilled device resembling an open animal cage popped out of the right side of the unit. "It's a Stinger missile shoulder grip assembly," Hardcastle said. "I think we can fire the missiles from this unit from the shoulder. All we have to do is figure out how to get the missiles out of the launchers." "Looks like the Army already thought of that," Harley said.
She shined the flashlight into the lid of the carrying case, where they saw color-cartoon-like pictures detailing how to do it. Two latches on the bottom side of the right Stinger launcher opened an access panel, where they could see inside the launcher itself; two more latches on the side of one of the green aluminum tubes allowed it to slide free out the rear end of the launcher. She helped slide the aluminum tube onto the pistol grip assembly and lock it into place.
Hardcastle took one of the cylindrical cans, inserted it into a hole just forward of the trigger, and twisted it to lock it in place.
A green light on the side of the grip told him the unit was on.
"Get that computer over there," Hardcastle said.
"It has a map telling where Cazaux's plane is." Harley retrieved the computer, opened it, and studied the screen. Meanwhile, Hardcastle keyed the mike switch on his helmet headset: "Leather, this is Hardcastle.
I've found the Stinger shoulder launchers. I'm going to try to shoot it with a Stinger." "You ever shoot a Stinger before, Admiral?" "How hard can it be?" Hardcastle asked. "The instructions are printed in cartoons." "Three miles," Harley said, "heading right for us." "Can you describe those instructions to me?" Hardcastle asked.
Harley studied the drawings for a moment. "Looks like a button on the left side of the grip is for the... the I.f.f?" was "Identification Friend or Foe," was Hardcastle said. "It'll tell us if the plane is transmitting proper codes. Doesn
't matter--if it flies near here, I'm shooting it.
Next." "Large lever behind the grip. Pull down with your thumb when the target is within range. Powers the missile gyro, cools the seeker head, and charges the eject gas cylinder." "What's the range?" Harley checked the computer screen: "Two miles." The time seemed to drag on forever. Hardcastle couldn't see a thing in the sky--the few lights and the remains of the fires to the south were destroying his night vision, and now the sirens wailing around the city prevented him from hearing anything. "Range!" he shouted.
"One-point-five miles..." "I see it... Jesus, it's low!" Hardcastle shouted. It was a small single-engine Cessna with a fixed landing gear, and it looked like it was less than a hundred feet in the air. It was just south of the Tidal Basin, skimming the treetops. An occasional gust of wind or thermal current from the fires pushed the plane sideways or caused it to lose altitude, but it always regained its heading--it was homing directly for the White House. Hardcastle moved the large lever behind the pistol grip down until it snapped to the stop, and he heard a sudden shot of high-compression air and a loud whirring sound. "I think it's on. What next?" "Large button on the very front of the grip-- squeeze it with your thumb and hold to open the seeker-head shutter. Look through the sight and center the target in the sight." Hardcastle looked over the sight, first to line up the Cessna, then looked through the sight. There was a sawtooth frame under a tiny round circle in the center of the sight. When Hardcastle placed the Cessna inside the center of the circle, he heard a loud beep beep beep beep beep.
"It's beeping. What next?" "Pull the trigger and kill that motherfucker," Harley said.
Hardcastle squeezed the trigger.
There was a very loud voosh! with very little kickback.
The missile popped out of the aluminum tube and sailed skyward.
and.
immediately fell to earth about fifty yards ahead of them. A second later the missile's motor fired, and it skittered across the ground for hundreds of yards until it was lost from sight. "Shit! It didn't track! It didn't go!" Hardcastle shouted.
"It should've gone, "Harley shouted. "We did everything right." But Hardcastle was already scrambling to remove another missile from the Avenger launcher. He removed the launch tube from the shoulder grip, twisted off the hot battery cylinder, loaded another missile on the shoulder grip, and twisted on another battery unit.
By the time Hardcastle hefted the Stinger onto his right shoulder again, the Cessna was over the Jefferson Memorial, swooping lower and lower. Its wings swung wildly as it caught in the hot lower air currents as it passed over the flaming ground path of the terrorist 747. Hardcastle lined up on the Cessna once again, flipped the BCU activation lever down, and.
... as soon as he did so, white acidic gas began streaming out both ends of the missile.
Hardcastle threw the missile and launcher on the ground. The gas was coming out at high pressure now, and the battery unit underneath the grip was smoking. "The missile must've been bad," Hardcastle said.
Harley was already moving toward the Avenger launcher to pull off another missile, so Hardcastle opened the second case to get another launcher--and he had a chance to study the instructions himself.
7'hat's it! he exclaimed to himself.
The missile was pushed out of the launch tube by compressed nitrogen gas, and there was a 1.5-second delay before the rocket motor fired.
The launch tube needed to be "super-elevated," or raised high enough so the missile would not hit the ground before the rocket motor would fire. The last drawing before squeezing the trigger described the final lineup of the target in the sight and how to superelevate: after the target was acquired and locked on with the beeping tone, the Stinger had to be raised until the target nestled into one of the sawtooth notches on the bottom of the sight, depending on the direction the target was flying, to lead the target. The missile's seeker head would still be tracking the target all the way, and when the rocket motor fired it would home in and kill.
By the time they loaded the third missile and screwed in a new battery unit, the Cessna was almost directly overhead, flying less than the length of a football field west of the Washington Monument.
Hardcastle could clearly see two objects under the wings of the Cessna--those had to be the fuel-air explosives. He let the Cessna fly north of his position, then, as it flew over Constitution Avenue, activated the battery unit, squeezed the seeker head uncage switch, heard the beeping sound, lined up on the Cessna for the last.
"Freeze!" someone shouted behind him. "FBI!
Drop that missile launcher now!" "No!" Harley shouted. "I'm Harley, Secret Service!" She held up her U.s.
Treasury Department ID wallet, hoping that the FBI agent would notice the standard federal agent "safe signal"--looping one finger over on the badge side and two fingers on the ID card side. "We're trying to stop that plane!" was I said drop it! was Obviously he was too keyed-up to notice Harley's safe signal.
To the FBI agent who had driven up to the group at the Washington Monument, it looked as if Hardcastle were trying to launch a bazooka round at the White House or the Commerce Department Building.
"No!" Harley shouted. "I'm Secret Service! He's authorized!
Don't! was Hardcastle felt the bullets crash into the middle of his back like two sharp rapid punches--but the bulletproof vest saved his life.
He superelevated the Stinger launcher, placing the target in the middle notch on the bottom of the sight so the muzzle of the launcher was raised well over the Cessna, and squeezed the trigger... just as two bullets hit the back of his Kevlar helmet. The FBI agent couldn't get the shooter in the back, so he tried for a head shot, and this time he got him.
The missile popped out of the launch tube and sailed high overhead, nearly out of sight--but nowhere near the Cessna.
Hardcastle thought it was flying out of control again.
It was our last chance, damn it, he thought as he fell forward on his face, dazed and immobilized by the shock.
Our last chance... God, no.
He looked up toward the White House when someone shouted, "Look!" Two quick puffs of fire could be seen on the wings of the Cessna as the fuel-air explosives canisters released, just as the Cessna passed over the Zero Milestone at the north end of the Ellipse and continued on toward the White House.
"Everyone get down! Get down!" Hardcastle murmured. "The bombs.
.. the bombs are going... going off..." But he couldn't seem to make his mouth move anymore.
Just as the Stinger missile started to nose over and head back to earth, the rocket motor ignited with a bright orange tongue of fire, and a split second later the missile arched gracefully and smoothly right into the front left side of the Cessna's engine compartment, near an exhaust stack. The one-and-a-half-pound warhead exploded on contact, and the Cessna nosed over, spiraled down, and crashed on the south lawn of the White House.
But as the canisters began to disperse the deadly high-explosive mixture, the Stinger missile exploded. The cloud of explosive vapors had no chance to properly disperse and mix with the air that would have given it its tremendous explosive power. The fireball that erupted just over the south lawn was still a thousand feet in diameter, large enough to blacken the entire south lawn and blow out windows at the Old Executive Office Building and the Treasury Department.
The polycarbonate antisniper windows of the White House rippled and shook from the explosion, but remained intact. Harley could feel the intense heat of the fireball a half-mile away. There were several loud explosions as the bomblets from the fuel-air explosives harmlessly hit the ground, tossed several hundred feet away by the force of the blast.
Harley and the FBI agent ran over to Hardcastle together. The agent had his gun out and aimed at Hardcastle's head, but Harley shoved her badge and ID in the guy's face. "Call an ambulance, you idiot," she ordered. "He just saved the White House. The Director is hurt too--she's over there." "The Director... of the FBI?" "No, the damne
d director of "I Love Lucy." his "Well, Jesus, Agent, how the hell am I supposed to--" "Just get an ambulance, damn it!" Harley yelled. She carefully unbuckled the helmet--it fell apart in pieces in her hands. "Ian!
Are you all right? Can you hear me?" There was no response. The back of his head was covered with blood, the glistening red blood contrasting well with his thin gray hair. "Ian? Stay with me, stay with me! his "All right, all right, Deborah," a subdued, strained voice murmured into the ground. "Just answer the damned phone, will you please? The ringing is driving me crazy." Epilogue The Next Morning The closest undamaged airport to Washington that could be to tally secured was Naval Air Station Patuxent River-Trapnell, about forty miles southeast. The airspace for fifty miles in all directions was closed from the surface to infinity, secured with rapidly reactivated Patriot and Hawk surface-to-air missile sites and constant fighter patrols. At precisely nine A.m Air Force One--the real Air Force One --touched down on Trapnell's two-and-a-half-mile long runway. A formation of three VH-53 V.i.p helicopters was waiting, and the Pr a group of Cabinet members boarded the middle one, ignoring the small knot of reporters and photographers that had been allowed to cover the President's arrival. It was obvious to all that the President didn't feel like talking to the press.
Dale Brown - Storming Heaven Page 48