The Lazarus Moment

by J. Robert Kennedy

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Lower Deck Server Compartment, Air Force One

  Over Mozambique

  500 feet and dropping

  Dawson stared up the stairs to the cockpit, then turned to the others. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

  Niner shrugged. “Always wanted to try that.”

  “Bullshit,” rumbled Atlas. “Nobody in their right mind wants to try that.”

  “No one ever accused me of being in my right mind.”

  “That’s true.”

  McNeely rushed down the aisle toward them. “What’s going on?”

  Dawson turned to the man. “We’re landing on a river.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Jesus Christ!” McNeely turned toward the techs and security staff in the server compartment. “We’re landing on the water. Is there anything else you can do here?”

  Cornel shook his head. “No, there’s no more time.”

  “Okay, then everyone out, it’s a goddamned coffin down here.”

  Dawson pushed the others by him then ceded the right to take up the rear to McNeely, rushing up the stairs after the others. A flight attendant jumped from her seat, shouting directions at them as everyone strapped in. She pushed Dawson into a seat. He glanced out the window and cursed.

  The trees were so close it was if he could reach out and touch them.

  “Assume crash positions!” shouted the flight attendant as she rushed back to her own seat. Dawson looked for his men, spotting Niner and Atlas across from him, Spock two rows back. They exchanged looks, looks they had exchanged before when they thought they were going to die. But they had always made it out.

  Not this time.

  Something hit the underside of the plane.

  Someone screamed.

  Setting off a panic.

  Dawson bent over, hooking his hands over his head.

  And thought of Maggie and the visit she’d receive from the Colonel in the next few hours, with the letter he had left for her, just in case.

  You made me a better man.

  Operations Center 2

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  “Oh my God!” cried Sonya Tong, Leroux collapsing in his chair as they all watched the footage in one of the CIA’s state of the art Operations Centers. The images, transmitted by one of the Super Hornets escorting Air Force One, were choppy, but the audio was clear.

  “Castlekeep, this is Eagle One, Air Force One is down, I repeat, Air Force One is down!”

  The edge of a fireball, the roiling flames and smoke in black and white no less final, appeared in the frame as they continued to listen.

  “Eagle One, Castlekeep, is she intact, over?”

  “This is Eagle One, I don’t know, repeat, I don’t know. I don’t have a visual on the fuselage, but I do have a fireball. I repeat, I do have a fireball, over.”

  “Any sign of survivors, over?”

  “Negative, I’ve got zero visual on the aircraft, only flames. Be advised, I’m bingo fuel, I repeat, I’m bingo fuel, over.”

  “Roger that, Eagle One. Proceed to rendezvous control point for refueling, rescue teams are on their way, over.”

  Morrison motioned to cut the audio, turning to Leroux. “Do we have any eyes in the area?”

  Leroux looked at Child who shook his head. “A bird will be overhead in three minutes.” Child hesitated then continued, his voice cracking. “Is there really any point?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Morrison.

  “I mean, there’s no way anyone could survive that, right? They’re all dead, right?” Child’s voice rose as he spoke, panic taking over as the young man dealt with death for probably the first time. Leroux stepped over to him, doing what Morrison had done for him the first time.

  He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Just focus on your job and you’ll get through this.” Child nodded and Leroux looked at the rest of his team. “And that goes for all of you. We have a job to do and what just happened doesn’t change that. Air Force One is down, the President may be dead, but the people responsible for it are still out there and it’s our job to find them, catch them, and bring them to justice.”

  Child slammed a fist onto his desk, rattling the keyboard.

  “Or kill them where they stand.”

  RENAMO Camp, Mozambique

  North of the crash site

  “Did you hear that?”

  Commander Afonso Domingos looked up from his ragged copy of the July 2003 issue of Car & Driver, the supercars featured in it not even under warranty anymore, not that you could actually get warranty service in this part of the world. That didn’t bother him with most cars, some of his men excellent mechanics, but his dream car, a Jaguar XKR Cabriolet in Polaris white would be foolish to own without a tow truck as a second vehicle and a Jag dealership nearby.

  Yet in the jungles of Mozambique, neither was to be had, and the state of the roads, when there were any, meant four-by-fours ruled the day, not sleek sports cars no matter how well they handled on German autobahns. He couldn’t imagine travelling over 200kph in a vehicle. He was pretty sure the fastest he had ever gone was sixty, and that hadn’t lasted long before they had to piss on the engine to cool it off.

  He was fighting for a better life for his people, for his family, for himself. Though that better life simply meant food, fuel and freedom, not luxury cars and flat televisions. He considered himself a noble man, though as a leader in the Mozambican National Resistance, RENAMO, he had done horrible things. They had all been necessary, either to protect his people or to deliver a message to those who would bring harm to them.

  He was hailed as a hero by some, vilified as a beast by others.

  Both made him proud.

  Both made him feared.

  He was at one of the more remote bases, visiting an area that saw little action, though being located on the Lugenda River, it was of strategic importance, the river a primary mode of travel for the area. The government had stopped trying to use it to raid them, but it paid to keep an eye on things, just in case someone in Maputo was foolhardy enough to try again.

  The troops here were inexperienced but eager, and any type of action had them itching with zeal.

  And a plume of smoke on the horizon was more than enough to have them all on their feet.

  Domingos strode down to the shore to get a better look, the trees thick around the village. The wind was making quick work of the smoke, blowing it west, yet it was clear something was burning, and in a damp jungle with no lightning in days if not weeks, it had to be manmade.

  And it was too big for a cooking fire.

  A young boy named Filipe rushed up to him, his arm trailing behind him, pointing at the fire. “It was a plane!” he shouted, running into Domingos’ leg, bringing them both to a halt. “I saw it, it was a plane!”

  “Big?”

  The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. Aren’t they all?”

  Domingos smiled, patting him on the head. “Yes, Filipe, aren’t they all.” He stared at the smoke, turning to Paris Nyusi, the commander for the town. “How far do you think?”

  “About six kilometers maybe? We could be there by sundown.”

  Domingos nodded. Planes flew over the area all the time, though usually so high all you could see was a speck in the sky, long thin white streams trailing behind them on some days. He had never actually seen a plane up close let alone actually been in one. His exposure to the world was almost exclusively through magazines, his collection at home impressive. He considered himself well read, well informed, and he knew enough to know that what had crashed was probably a large passenger jet with lots of people far richer than him on board. And if any had survived, and if they were American or European, they would fetch a hefty ransom.

  And if none had survived, among their belongings could be some very valuable salvage.

  I’d kill for a laptop with satellite Internet access.

  Then maybe his
magazines wouldn’t be so out of date.

  He turned to Nyusi. “Take a team, get there as fast as you can. If there’re survivors, bring them back here under guard. Grab as much salvage as you can. I’m going to call for reinforcements. Even the metal from this thing could be valuable to our people.”

  “Yes, Commander. And if they resist?”

  “Pick one and remove their head. The others will fall in line.”

  A smile spread across Nyusi’s face.

  “With pleasure.”

  Approaching Mozambican Airspace

  Red pressed the earpiece tight, the roar of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III almost overwhelming as he listened to the latest update from his Commanding Officer, Colonel Thomas Clancy. Jimmy, Jagger and Wings were listening in as well, everyone on the plane on pins and needles waiting for news.

  “Satellite imagery shows a fire but nothing else. There’s no sign of debris or survivors, though with a fireball the size that we saw, I’d doubt anyone survived.”

  “No comms?”

  “Just the emergency beacon. There’s no coverage in that area except satellite. We know the plane’s comms were down, but there’s emergency gear on board.”

  “What about that fighter escort? Did they spot anything?”

  “Not yet, they had to leave to refuel. They’ll be back on target shortly, hopefully they’ll see something.”

  The fighter escort hadn’t been scheduled, but when the President had heard the USS George H. W. Bush was off the South African coast on maneuvers, he had requested a flyby to impress the dignitaries on board, it important to show how America could project its power anywhere in the world, even the far reaches of southern Africa.

  No one had ever guessed they’d arrive only minutes before the emergency.

  “What about the families?” asked Red, his chest tightening. “Have you notified them yet?”

  “Negative.” Clancy’s voice was subdued. Clancy was the type of CO that every service member wanted. He was fiercely loyal to his men and extremely competent. He took every loss personally, as if he had lost his own son.

  And today he had lost four including Dawson, whom Red knew the Colonel was extremely close to, even more so now that his personal assistant, Maggie Harris, was dating Dawson.

  “None of the families know they were on board. I’m waiting for confirmation of no survivors before I break the news. We should know soon.”

  “What about the President? What’s being done?”

  “We’re operating under the assumption the President is dead. The Vice President will be sworn in any time now.”

  Red exchanged looks with his men, all in shock. Their country had lost yet another President, and they had lost four friends, four comrades in arms.

  Four brothers.

  “I never thought BD would die that way.”

  “Neither did any of us,” agreed Clancy.

  Red ran a hand over his freshly shaved scalp. “I always thought he’d go out in a blaze of glory, guns belching lead, bad guys dropping all around him, yelling something clever. Not mechanical failure.”

  Clancy’s reply had them all in shock.

  “Zero-Two, this was no mechanical failure. This was an act of terror.”

  Operations Center 2

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  “Start tracing everything. Tap all our data sources, I don’t care about warrants, we’ll worry about that later. The President is dead and we need to know who is responsible. At this point it looks like the Russians are involved, and if that’s the case, we could be going to war in the next twenty-four hours. If we’re going to start a shooting match with the second most powerful army in the world, I want to make sure we’re doing it for the right reasons.”

  Leroux was content to let Morrison bark the orders at his team, he still in shock over what they had all just witnessed. Part of him wanted to scream out in rage, another to curl up in a corner and sob. His country had been attacked, and few outside this room knew it. Almost everyone in America and the world thought Air Force One had crashed because of mechanical failure, but the moment the truth started to leak—for it would leak—they’d be scrambling for blood.

  And he’d be among them.

  He just wanted to make sure, like Morrison, that they drew the right blood.

  It just didn’t make sense for Russia to be behind this. Yes, the FSB agent had called to warn them, but the warning was conveniently delivered too late. It was exactly how he would do it if the roles were reversed. Get out ahead of the story, ahead of the intelligence gathering, and admit involvement of one of your resources, acting alone, out of control.

  Sow just enough doubt so as to avoid the retaliation.

  A warning beeped, one of the monitors showing Pentagon alerts, flashing a warning. “What’s that?” he asked, turning to Cornel.

  Cornel hit a few keys. “We’re going to DEFCON Four. Russian forces just went on alert. They’re recalling all troops from leave and calling up the reserves.”

  “They’re preparing for war!” cried Therrien. “They must have done it! That crazy bastard’s wanted war for years!”

  Leroux held up a hand, trying to calm the man. Putin was a nutbar as far as Leroux was concerned, though a strategic one. He only took on enemies he knew stood no chance. He was the schoolyard bully who only picked on the smallest kid on the playground, not the burly kickboxer.

  It still didn’t make sense.

  He cleared his throat as Morrison didn’t respond, instead giving him a slight look. It was his turn to be a leader. “Listen people, this is exactly why we need to do our jobs, do it well, and do it quickly. Right now there’re people outside this room jumping to the exact same conclusions we are. We need to get proof of what happened, of who did this, so our leaders can make the right decisions. If we’re going to war, then let’s go to war with the people actually responsible, not the people we think are responsible.”

  He looked around at his team, all eyes on him, some younger, most older, though all having learned to respect him over the years. He was growing into this role thrust upon him by Morrison, and at this very moment, he wished Sherrie were here to see him. He actually felt like a man, a pride swelling within him as he finally realized that he actually did have the respect of these people and that they were looking to him for strength in this time of crisis.

  A wave of confidence flowed through him for the first time that he could remember, the sensation intoxicating. He glanced at Morrison who seemed to have a look his father might have in a similar situation.

  He was proud.

  He lowered his voice slightly, relaxing his tone. “Listen, I know you’re emotional right now. You’re angry, you’re scared, hell, so am I. I’m terrified of what might happen, but I’m more terrified that it might happen because we got it wrong. Let’s focus on our jobs. We in this room are going to use every tool at our disposal to discover the truth, then provide that information to the new President so he can deal with those responsible. And if it turns out be the Russians, then so be it. We’ll kick their asses so hard, they’ll never dare mess with us again!”

  Roars of approval accompanied by clapping erupted as his team burst to their feet, Morrison coming up beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “Good speech.”

  Leroux glanced at his boss. “A little too much?”

  Morrison smiled slightly. “Maybe just a little.”

  “Got caught up in the moment.”

  “It was exactly what they needed.” Morrison stepped back, raising his voice. “I’m going to my office. I think we’re in good hands here.”

  Leroux flushed with the implied compliment when Child waved a hand. “Got something, boss!”

  Leroux stepped over to the young man’s terminal. “What is it?”

  “You’re not going to believe who arrived in Pretoria yesterday.”

  Leroux read the display and smiled.

  “Find the bastard.”

>   Ecomotel, Pretoria, South Africa

  Igor Khomenko downed his shot of vodka, everyone in the cramped motel room on the edge of their seat as they watched the news coverage unfold. There was no footage of the crash site yet, though the fact that every news station in the world had turned to ongoing coverage of the reports of contact being lost with Air Force One told him everything he needed to know.

  It had worked.

  One of his men leaned over and they exchanged a high five, the others smacking each other in manly displays of joy before a patriotic rendition of the Russian national anthem broke out. He sat quietly, closing his eyes as he remembered his beloved wife and their precious daughter.

  You have been avenged.

  The President was dead, the blood debt repaid. He had lost his family, and America had lost its.

  They were even.

  Now let America grieve as I did.

  The anthem finished, the men poured another drink before sitting down, the image changing to the White House Press Briefing Room, a woman walking to the podium.

  “I’m going to read a brief statement, there will be no questions. Earlier today, we lost contact with Air Force One. Reports confirmed by United States Navy jets providing escort confirm that Air Force One has crashed in Mozambique with the President and the First Family on board. At this time, there is no reason to believe anyone survived. Due to the remoteness of the region, rescue teams have yet to arrive, however an explosion at the time of the crash leaves little hope. In order to maintain order and stability in this time of crisis, Vice President Roberts was sworn in by the Chief Justice only minutes ago. President Roberts will be addressing the nation later tonight with an update on the situation. Thank you.”

  The woman walked off stage as a barrage of shouted questions and camera flashes erupted. She broke down in tears before she cleared the curtains.

  Screw you.

  One of his men turned to him. “Did you know his family was on board?”