by Jason Letts
“Folks, this is your captain speaking,” he said breathlessly. “We seem to have had some kind of mechanical issue and will be making an emergency landing in Columbus.”
People around Oliver began looking at each other with worried faces. None of them knew what Oliver did. It wasn’t a mechanical issue. The explosive device in the boom mic had gone off, either from being tossed around or a mistake on his part.
For a second he hoped the plane would crash and they would all get snuffed out, but when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen he began thinking back and trying to figure out if he’d really covered his tracks as well as he’d thought he did. The gloves he wore when he was assembling the device. He’d thrown away the instruction book once he’d absorbed the material. Perhaps he’d remembered something incorrectly and deviated in some way on his third attempt.
He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but he had to assume that sooner or later even the incompetent agents the government had would find him out. One thing was for sure, the day was going to play out very differently than he had planned. While others around him were panicking, Oliver pulled out his phone and used his wireless network, not the Air Force One Wi-Fi that they could track, to delete the video upload he’d had scheduled.
He took a deep breath. It couldn’t have been his fault. Stupid Heath had to have done it by throwing the case around so much. All that was left was to find out how much of a mess he’d made.
8
33,000 Feet Above Ohio
The sound of the explosion was still ringing in Jane’s ears, making it hard for her to hear the panicked cries and questions coming from the press corp as she moved through the center cabin.
Air Force One didn’t have mechanical issues, the claim being a guess from the pilot with no certainty behind it. That and she knew the sound of a bomb going off when she heard it. Even though the plane was still soaring and she no longer felt like they might fall out of the sky, the questions were piling up.
What was happening? What was going to happen? How did this happen? And the most important question of all. Was the president OK?
As terrifying as it was to feel the plane shake and momentarily lose power, it was nothing compared to the visceral fear Jane felt at the prospect of being the one in charge of ensuring the president’s safety at the moment he was killed. That kind of shame and failure would leave a lasting mark that echoed through the ages. It was no exaggeration that she’d rather die than watch the one cause she worked for collapse.
As they passed through into the staff’s cabin, Arundhati Singh and the other member of the traveling executive team, aides and assistants, all looked to them for answers about what they were going through. Jane and the other agents she was with had nothing to give them but their presence, and even that wouldn’t last for long.
Without a word, they continued forward to the next section of the plane, one that usually contained members of the president’s security detail who guarded the steps up to the second-floor office. It was now vacant as the other on-duty Secret Service members had no doubt moved into close proximity with the president.
Taking a deep breath, Jane surveyed the narrow steps and began to climb up through a hole in the floor to reach the president’s private office. Her head was still spinning and every second was at once a relief that calm was returning and something to gird against in the belief that the worst was yet to come.
When her head poked through into the office, the first thing she saw was Evans standing firmly in the corner of the room. Once she ascended a little higher she could see President Morrin seated at his desk, visibly shaken but intact.
“What the devil is going on?” Morrin called, raising his voice before she could even get both feet on the floor and straighten up. She pursed her lips, afraid to put it into words for how horrible it was.
“I’ll speak to the pilot,” Dedan whispered into her ear, coming up behind her and moving through the room toward the nose of the plane. Jane just locked eyes with Alex, who seemed both volatile and trusting of her in a way she didn’t expect. He didn’t want to hear from anyone but her.
“Sir, there has been a detonation of some sort on the plane,” she said, realizing that she should provide some kind of assurance to the president about his safety despite it being more in question than she had ever experienced during her tenure. “We’re here for you.”
The door to the cockpit opened again, but it wasn’t Dedan reentering. A flight attendant peeked through.
“We’ll be starting our descent to John Glenn Columbus International Airport in just a few minutes. Please take whatever seats you can and fasten your safety belts,” she said before ducking back out.
Morrin still looked like his life was flashing before his eyes. The weight of being the certain target had to be on his shoulders.
“I won’t let this intimidate me,” he said with a note of defiance that Jane found magnetic. But talking more about him and his resolve wasn’t in the cards right now. She had work to do.
“Mr. President, I’ll need to use your phone,” she said. Giving her a serious nod, the president picked up the simple black receiver on the desk and held it out to her.
The communications capabilities of Air Force One were a marvel that could withstand the electromagnetic interference caused by a nuclear explosion. It had two hundred and forty miles of wiring, and every inch of it seemed worth it to make a simple phone call to the ground. When she took the phone’s receiver and put it to her ear, there was an operator on the other end awaiting the president’s instructions.
“This is Jane Roe of the Secret Service. There has been an incident on the flight. Please connect me to the Secret Service field office in Columbus,” she said. The call couldn’t have gone through faster than if it had been done by magic. Within seconds she had the field office’s director on the line. “POTUS incoming to John Glenn. Prepare secure transport and implement emergency procedures.”
Once she’d received an affirmation, Jane hung up the phone. Sensing the plane dip, she went to one of the seats fixed to the wall and buckled herself in. Evans had already done the same. The door to the cockpit opened again, and Dedan came back through with a deathly serious look on his face. He took the seat next to Jane and strapped the belt over his waist.
“There’s been some damage to the lower portion of the plane, but the hull is unaffected. Plane’s systems are running normally. We won’t be able to tell the extent or the nature of the combustion until we reach the ground. All passengers are accounted for and under supervision,” he said.
Dedan had hit all the right points, but it didn’t quell the feeling of discomfort deep in Jane’s center. This wasn’t how this trip was supposed to go. Something was wrong and they still didn’t know what it was.
“Is there any chance that something just caught fire in a freak accident?” Alex asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his desk. For Jane it was strange being here in this place she didn’t expect to be with the man she shouldn’t have any reason to talk to.
“For our purposes, no.”
The implication was that this was a deliberate attack until proven otherwise, but the possibilities were too numerous to figure out and beyond her capability for doing so. Regardless of what actually caused the disruption, the repercussions were already radiating out far beyond the plane. The journalists would be telling everyone that a blast had occurred while the president was in flight, and it would be hitting the airwaves even before the plane landed.
And that was only the beginning of where this would lead.
Despite the commotion, the descent couldn’t have been smoother, and the president appeared relieved when they touched down on the runway. Once they’d come to a stop, emergency vehicles and law enforcement vans swarmed the plane, causing flashing lights to flicker through all of the windows in the presidential office.
Evans gave Jane a nod with a hand on the radio in his ear.
“Mr. President, we�
��re ready for you to depart,” she said.
They descended to the lower floor, where they met the Columbus Secret Service field office director, a man with a dour look and large jowls in a typical black suit.
“Sir, we’ve got transportation ready to take you the rest of the way to Dayton. There won’t be any adverse effects on your itinerary,” he said.
President Morrin kept moving swiftly for the open doorway and the stairs that would take him down to the tarmac.
“Good. I don’t think I can get off this plane fast enough.”
Jane could understand the sentiment. As far as any of them knew a larger explosion could be waiting to happen. They filed out of the plane and down to where cars were waiting for the president and his detail. Before she ducked into a black sedan parked behind the armored car that would carry the president, Jane glanced back at the plane, where the staff and journalists were starting to depart from the door closer to the rear.
They’d all be scrambling for rental cars, but she didn’t spare much thought over it, her mind on what had happened in the bottom of the plane. No damage was evident from the exterior, and perhaps the wreckage was entirely contained within their minds and hearts. This was something they’d never forget and that they’d need to get to the bottom of, or else maybe next time they wouldn’t be able to escape with the president’s life and her reputation intact.
She joined Dedan in the back of the vehicle, with another agent on the president’s detail named Royer in front with a driver from the Columbus office. Her eyes remained fixed on the vehicle in front of her carrying the president, who had to be in a strange frame of mind after what he’d just been through. Alex Morrin. Jane knew she was in charge of planning his Secret Service detail, but somehow she’d taken on the responsibility of protecting his life.
Dedan, shifting uncomfortably in his seat with his hands clasped between his knees, looked completely out of sorts.
“Are you alright?” Jane asked him, and he glanced over like he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.
“Oh, I don’t like flying to begin with. But listen, this is probably a terrible time to bring this up, but I don’t think I should be bothering to accompany the president on his rides, assuming he still wants to take them after this. It’s just pointless,” he said.
Jane glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. That ride seemed like a distant memory, but the thought crept back like an old friend about what might’ve happened if she’d had more time to talk to Alex alone without him lurking behind them. If Dedan was distraught, Jane found herself wondering if she should do more to pursue what she wanted. Where was the line between her unimpeachable professionalism and an ulterior motive?
Swallowing, she forced the words out before she could think of how the president should really have two riders.
“It’ll be fine to position you around the loop with the others. If I’m not able to keep up we’ll look at getting a professional rider to stay with him,” she said.
A tinge of guilt hit her heart at planning for lax protection for the president’s rides shortly after what seemed like an attempt on his life, but in her mind she was moving quickly in the direction of believing that she had to take a more active role in keeping him safe anyway. Dedan looked like he barely heard her.
“Sure,” he said, and having a big guy murmuring distantly like that again drew her attention.
“When we get out we’re going to have you take the rest of the day off, if not more. Someone from Columbus or Dayton can step in. Hold on. I’m getting a call,” she said.
As they cruised along I-70 W to Dayton, Jane pulled out her phone and saw that Nathan Carr was calling her. A new flood of emotions hit her as she tapped to accept; hearing from someone on the investigations side was perfect. She wanted answers.
“Hey Nathan, I presume you heard about the little surprise we went through,” she said.
“Are you OK? Is everyone in one piece?” he asked, his deep voice in her ear providing more comfort than she would’ve thought.
“More or less,” she said, not wanting to bring up the mild trauma with Dedan right next to her. “But what do you know so far?”
Some breathing came over the line that wasn’t making her optimistic about receiving a concrete answer.
“Remember that unlike with death threats and counterfeit issues, anything like an assassination, an assassination attempt, or a physical conflict is the purview of the FBI. We’re able to get bits and pieces, but they are already there performing their investigation now that the plane has been evacuated,” he said.
“Yes, has anything turned up?”
“I did listen in after they’d conducted a search and concluded that no more explosives were present, but without a doubt an Improvised Explosive Device went off on the plane. The luggage compartment is a mess with severe blast and fire damage to a number of items.”
Jane shut her eyes, suddenly feeling thankful that she was still alive when from the sounds if it other possibilities were present.
“But that being said,” Nathan went on, “the force of the blast, even when accounting for the significant fortifications of Air Force One, suggest that there was never any risk of the explosion successfully taking the plane down. We just don’t yet know what the plan was or why it happened this way.”
“I see,” Jane said, blinking. “I’m sure the president will be relieved to hear that.”
Her biting sarcasm wasn’t lost on Nathan.
“The FBI will figure it out given some time, but we do know enough to be deeply disturbed. Someone brought this item onto the plane and took it through security without anyone noticing.”
“Some kind of new explosive device?” Jane wondered. A sinking feeling hit her as the disturbing aspects of this began to pile up.
“Could be, but I’m just as worried about someone that we trust enough to get onto Air Force One betraying the president in an attempt to kill him.”
Jane pursed her lips and ran her hand through her brown hair. It was so bad that she didn’t want to think it, but the truth was already right there in front of her.
“Someone abused their security clearance to get close enough to the president to try to kill him. Every passenger on the plane is a suspect.”
“Right.”
“Unbelievable,” Jane gasped, flopping back against her seat. The Secret Service knew to be watchful of everyone, but how were they supposed to protect the president when the very people they trusted and scrutinized the most were the ones attacking him? What if the vice president plotted to kill the president, or a member of his staff? How were they supposed to stop that?
She sighed and put her hand on her forehead.
“Anyway,” Nathan said. “I wanted to make sure you heard the news directly. I’m sure there’ll be more. I know you take the mission to heart.”
“We all do. That’s why we’re here,” she said.
As they cruised down the road and the imminency of the threat seemed to fade, Jane was left with amending some of the more routine aspects of her job on the fly. It was great that the president didn’t want his schedule to be disrupted because of this, and the possibility of a coordinated threat following him appeared nonexistent, they didn’t want to take any chances.
So when they arrived at the county courthouse in Dayton, the place was covered in agents and everyone else had been searched or evacuated. It made what they did at the nightclub look like a free-for-all.
Jane found herself sitting on a bench under a tree across the street from the scene, wondering how taking advantage of a happenstance opportunity to travel along with the president had nearly gotten her killed. She spotted Bethany Morrin and her lawyer approaching her direction as they prepared to cross over to the courthouse. Jane tried not to pay her any mind, but she could tell she’d drawn the woman’s attention.
“I’m not surprised you’re here,” she said as she approached the nearby crosswalk and waited for traffic to stop. Jane felt blindsided
by the comment.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Jane asked out of sheer bewilderment.
“Just had to see for yourself that the deed was done,” she said, stepping into the cleared street.
It was a good thing Bethany was leaving, because Jane didn’t know what she would’ve said next. She couldn’t fathom what would be going through a woman’s mind on the day a judge terminated her eighteen-year relationship, but the idea that Jane was here to pick up the scraps and take her place was ludicrous. Or at least Jane told herself it was.
Things only got worse as Bethany brushed off the agents trying to search her. Odds of her concealing a weapon under that sundress were low, but the way she swatted at an agent’s hand as he tried to use a metal-detecting wand made Jane cringe.
For Alex’s sake, she hoped Bethany wouldn’t be so combative once the hearing had begun.
Alone and unsettled after that caustic exchange, Jane was forced to turn her attention to other repercussions of the day’s startling events. While Marine One was already en route to pick up the president, she had to arrange getting the rest of them back on commercial flights. Using these vouchers was always such a pain, and the next flight wasn’t leaving until nearly 6 PM.
As much as an afternoon exploring the sights of beautiful Dayton with the guys might’ve been nice, she knew that it was a surety they’d be hunkered down somewhere keeping tabs on the investigation reports and any updates from the president’s active detail.
The hearing took about two hours, though Jane had no clue whether that was good or not, but she heard that all issues were resolved and they would be receiving their Judgment of Divorce. No one made comments to the press as originally planned, and Jane cleared out of the area to ensure she didn’t draw the ire of the new divorcée with her presence again if she happened to leave the way she came. Evidently Alex had given away everything to ensure that the fighting didn’t spill over into public view or last another day, and Bethany was now in possession of a prized baseball card collection worth over a million dollars.