Air Marshals

by Wynne, Marcus

  "We'll get it done, Jed," John said.

  Jed nodded and left the room in search of more coffee.

  John sighed and looked at his two back ups. "See what you got to look forward to when you grow up?"

  ***

  VECTOR AIRLINES FLIGHT #128, ISTANBUL TO FRANKFURT:

  Dyer Shaw sat furious and fuming next to the lavatories in the smoking section of coach. The team didn't carry spare weapons, and while the CIA station chief might have leant them one, he thought it was too much of a problem to get the necessary paperwork. So Dyer sat in the very back of the plane in one of the worst seats while his three team mates sat in first class as a reinforced cell.

  "Look, Dyer," Harold had said. "I can't have just one gun back there...I'm going to bring Ray and Shirleen forward. This isn't about losing your gun, it's tactics."

  "Yeah? Fuck you, HD, you backstabbing prick." Dyer sulked off to the back of the bus. He snarled at the flight attendants who tried to cheer him up with free booze, but the pain medication he was on ruled even that out. Typical, he thought, rubbing his cracked rib and the huge bruise over his kidney.

  Harold was sweating in First Class. There'd never been an incident of this sort in the history of the program: shots fired, a weapon taken from a marshal, and off the aircraft to boot. Dinkey had ripped him a new asshole over the phone, but what scared Harold was how calm Dinkey'd been when he called back to the embassy and told him that there'd been attacks on the other split teams. He was so distracted he couldn't even read the lunch menu.

  Ray and Shirleen were working hard. The flight was full and there were three profiled passengers they had to keep an eye on. When they patrolled the coach section Dyer studiously ignored them, refusing to look up from his book when they passed. Shirleen gave Ray a pep talk in the front galley before they started walking their patrol again.

  "Don't worry, Ray, we've got everything covered."

  "I can't believe what a mess this is," the dispirited Ray said. "I've never heard of anything so screwed up in my life. They should have just stayed at the hotel."

  "Honey, some people you can't tell a damn thing to, and right there are two of them. Don't worry about it. Get focused on the job, you hear me? I need me a partner that can hang today."

  Ray smiled gratefully at her. "You got that, Shirleen."

  "I know I do, baby. Go on now, do your patrol." Shirleen watched the 24 year old boy work his way down the aisle, casually sidling past the passengers. 'Nice ass on that boy,' she thought. It really was worse than he thought --Shirleen and Ray were the only working marshals on this flight. HD was so caught up in his own troubles he was useless and Dyer always had been useless. This is what comes from breaking up teams, she thought. But we got to deal with what's in front of us. She got herself another cup of coffee, and leaned against the galley bulkhead, and watched the passengers watch her.

  ***

  ATHENS, GREECE:

  The early morning light was breaking over Athens, and it filtered through the curtains into Charley's room. He looked at his crew and said, "This is bigger than we thought. I talked to DC last night about our friend Hafiz. The RSO and Al Garber had just spoken. Hafiz had a printout on him with the flight schedules of our whole crew: seat assignments, split assignments, the whole nine yards. But that isn't all." Charley looked down and then up. His team mates were frightened by the look in his eyes. "There was an attack in Istanbul on HD and Dyer. Both of them got beat up pretty bad. The men who attacked them got Dyer's gun and got away."

  "They took his fucking gun?" Steve said.

  "HD got two shots off, but didn't hit anything or anybody. It's caused a major diplomatic ruckus in Istanbul -- Ambassador and White House level."

  "Holy shit," Stacy said.

  "There's more," Charley said. "Three guys tried to take out Donald Gene in Rome."

  "Is he okay!" Stacy said.

  "Yeah. He took all three by himself. Just caught a kick in the leg, messed the other three up and got a gun from one of them. The gun was loaded with Silvertips."

  "In Rome?" Stevey said.

  "What does that mean?" Karen asked.

  "You can't get those bullets in Italy. They're illegal. There was a big deal about Mafioso hitmen and the Red Brigades using them. The only people who can get them are either terrorists, gangsters or government," Steve said.

  "Oh mama, look out for baby Stacy," Stacy muttered.

  "We have to be more serious now," Charley said. "We roll out of here hot. From now on till we touch base in the US, we're on a war footing. No more excursions. Full counter-surveillance and trade craft measures. Armed at all times. Nobody, and I mean nobody, out by themselves. Buddy teams at all times."

  "What's DC say about all this?" Karen said.

  "Press on, continue the mission, increase threat level. For once, I agree with them. We can't be put off now...there's some sophisticated targeting going on. It looks like it's directed against us on the ground. They know what flights we're on and which ones we're not. We've got almost 100% coverage now. One of the reserve teams is coming over to cover what we can't. We're going to be completely maxed out here." Charley had his war face on, set and grim. "Let's go do our job."

  ***

  DELTA FLIGHT #103, ATHENS TO FRANKFURT:

  Charley worked the passenger loading door. He looked out over the Mediterranean, the brilliant blue in the early morning sun more beautiful than any postcard could capture. The runway and remote parking area for the US carriers was set off a good distance from the terminal, only a few hundred yards from a breakwater and the clear blue sea. He'd insisted that the marshals be on board the aircraft early. Despite grumbling from the airline station manager, they'd boarded an hour before the passengers and forty minutes before the rest of the flight and cabin crew. The marshals searched the entire aircraft thoroughly. There was nothing. The seals they'd left on the doors were intact when they showed up, way before the crews brought fresh meals out to the plane. The flight attendants and cabin crew were surprised to see them out on the plane first.

  "You guys trying to rake in the overtime, or what?" the captain cracked as he came on-board.

  Charley nodded and said, "Hey, we have to take what we can get. Not everybody can be rich airplane pilots."

  The captain laughed and followed his co-pilot into the cockpit.

  The passengers arrived not long after that, and Charley took up his station at the door. He had a manifest inn his pocket, and he noted the profiled passengers on the list. He set his senses to working as passengers came up the stairs. No one ever seemed to notice that there were a handful of passengers on board already; everyone was focused on getting to their seats and finding an empty overhead compartment for their carry-on baggage. The flight was light, the aircraft only half full, and Charley was pleased that he had made all three of the profiled passengers. He sensed no threat off of them; they were profiles because of their passports and nothing more. He felt the fine unconscious hum he felt when he was working to his peak; his senses were working hard, and everything seemed much clearer and focused to him. It was a kind of extra sensory perception. He remembered discussing it with members of his recon team in Viet Nam -- they called it the point man's sense. It was a physical sensation for Charley, a tightness in his belly and a feeling of fullness right between his eyes. He always checked for that feeling, and sometimes noticed it in surprising places. He had felt that before he had met Simon Dinkey -- and that intuition had turned out to be a sound one.

  Karen was working out well. She was backing him up on the door, nodding easily to passengers, easy in her cover as a wealthy college girl on spring break, seeing Greece on her parent's dollar. Stacy and Steve were like two radar scanners -- nobody was getting past them.

  Charley had a good feeling about this flight. There weren't going to be any problems. Not until they got into Frankfurt and the whole team convened again. DC was probably going to relieve Harold and ask Charley to take over; without knowing more abou
t what happened in Istanbul, Charley thought that a bad idea. Harold was taking enough hits on this trip as it stood, but still...firing his weapon and having nothing to show for it but a partner beaten up and his weapon stolen...that was pretty sorry. Harold needed to grow up some, but he was getting rushed on this trip. They'd see soon enough how things would go. He had a mission to focus on now.

  ***

  FRANKFURT, GERMANY:

  The twelve men sitting in a briefing room beneath an Agency safehouse in Frankfurt looked like an off-duty construction crew: they had rough haircuts, muscular builds and tans, and were dressed in Levi's, t-shirts and sweat shirts. Their leather jackets hid a variety of handguns. The shooters of DOMINANCE RAIN wouldn't attract attention by themselves in a crowd, but all of them together displayed certain similarities. They had the relaxed confidence of men who had been tested many times and never found wanting. The elite of the elite, they came from the top military counter-terrorist units: DELTA, Special Forces, Navy SEALS. They had extraordinary technical skills in shooting and all the black arts of weaponry, hand to hand combat, explosives, driving, lock picking and other esoteric skills; a working knowledge of at least two or three languages; extensive undercover operational experience, and a psychological profile that closely approximated that of a successful career criminal: emphasizing innovation, unconventional thinking, ruthlessness, and the ability to thrive under stress. Their unit, code named DOMINANCE RAIN, was the most secretly compartmented special operations unit in the US government. Their primary mission was to seek out terrorist infrastructure wherever it existed and take it apart by any means possible. That included "selective interdiction," the currently approved acronym for assassination. Assassination had been outlawed by Executive Order for many years, but clever lawyers and a succession of aggressive action officers in the NSC had found the necessary loopholes. Furious with the seeming helplessness of the US, the President gave the orders that started DOMINANCE RAIN. Several of the men were veterans of the CIA's Special Training Program, a previous DOD/CIA collaborative effort which had gained notoriety in both the terrorist and counter-terrorist worlds by leaving the STP oil logo plastered on the foreheads of several of their terrorist targets.

  They were the best the US could bring to bear, but they showed the signs of hard use. This team had been working around the clock in support of the hunt for Bucknell Leigh for almost a year, and most recently, in support of the counter-hijacking operation in Europe.

  "Welcome to the war zone, pilgrims," John Bolen said to his men.

  "When did we leave?" one of them replied.

  John grinned and nodded ruefully. "We be in the deep kimchee, boys. We're going to be swarming the Frankfurt airport like opening day of hunting season. I think you're all up to speed on what's been going down. The latest take we have is in the briefing folders: three incidents took place almost simultaneously, targeting the air marshal team covering flights in this AO."

  "Why can't these air marshals take care of themselves?" "Rhino" McGee said.

  "They can," John said. "But we have a chance to bag us some serious tangos, Rhino. This guy Ahmad Ajai is Hizbollah's best hijacking honcho. We want to get him and sweat him, like they sweated Bucky Leigh. Remember Bucky, Rhino? He got you this dick job."

  Rhino rubbed furiously at the mass of broken cartilage he called a nose. "That's all you got to say, John Boy. You got the talking part done."

  "Not yet, fellas. This is how we're going to cover the airport..."

  ***

  WASHINGTON, D.C.:

  Simon Dinkey sat still and seemingly calm in the eye of the storm that whirled around him in the FAA Command Center. CIA Liaison Officer Megan O'Reilly worked two phones at once. The secure fax machine ticked out page after page of print-out. Beside it the laser printer was zipping out more pages, each page headed and footed with the SECRET stamp. General Stone sat near the head of the round conference table, in the right hand seat next to the chair reserved for the absent Administrator. It was clear who was in charge. Sally filled the General's coffee cup whenever it dropped an inch or two. Mike Crock hovered off the General's shoulder. Dinkey sat not far from the center, but not as close as everyone else. Megan O'Reilly set a stack of intelligence field reports down in front of him.

  "Look this over, Simon," she said. Her eyes were glazed with the effect of too much coffee and adrenaline. She was enjoying herself. The take she was getting was strange and contradictory; she pored over the minutia of the reports, looking for the pieces that had to be there. Megan was a born analyst: she loved to tinker with the small pieces that made up the larger puzzle, poring over each and asking questions from different angles. The data was unequivocal on one thing: something was happening on the ground. Two attacks on the marshals, on the ground, near simultaneously. But that man in Athens...no known terrorist connections, but strange behavior on board, then found dead behind the marshal's hotel, one not frequented by working class Greeks or Syrian immigrants for that matter, with a hand written list of marshal flights and seat assignments? Was it possible that some action cells were looking to knock marshal coverage off a particular flight? Or just kill the marshals? Discourage the flight crews? What? Megan grinned and chewed her pen viciously, and began to type furiously into her computer.

  Simon watched her impassively. He was working through how to make this whole thing work properly. It turned out that Charley Dey wasn't imagining things; something was going down, and because of that misjudgment, Simon was no longer the flavor of the month. He had to be careful he wasn't left out of this. He'd personally supervised the outloading of the reserve team, and had the briefing. There was only one team left in reserve, with ten other marshals currently in schools, on leave or on medical profile. A very slim reserve.

  He had to be careful.

  ***

  "The incident in Istanbul is unfortunate, but I don't think it provides justification for relieving Harold," Dinkey said to General Stone.

  "The Ambassador thinks otherwise. So does the Administrator. I'm beginning to think so," General Stone said.

  "They were authorized to carry. They were attacked. He fired his weapon. No one was hurt, no property damaged. They survived the incident. You want to relieve them for that?"

  "They weren't paying attention. They didn't check in with the RSO. They got taken by surprise. They lost a goddamn weapon. That's what they should be relieved for."

  Dinkey blinked and sat back. "I think it's sending the wrong message to a team in play to pull their quarterback."

  "You already pulled their quarterback when you sat Dey on the bench, Simon," General Stone pointed out. "Things might have been different if Dey was running the whole show."

  "Things might have been worse. It's the best thing in my judgment to leave the leadership positions as they are right now, sir," Simon said.

  "Very well," General Stone said. "That's your call. I hold you accountable for that decision, Simon. And so will everyone else. Sally?" he called. "Do you have anymore of that delicious coffee for me?"

  ***

  FRANKFURT, GERMANY:

  DOMINANCE RAIN was everywhere in Terminal C of the Frankfurt airport. John Bolen leaned on a railing overlooking the main terminal floor. Jed Loveless stood next to him and sipped from another of his endless cups of espresso.

  "How can you drink so much of that shit?" John asked.

  "Fuck you," Jed said equably. He watched the crowd below. A face rose out of the crowd from time to time, a DOMINANCE RAIN shooter glancing in his direction as he worked the crowd, a German Polizei officer with his MP-5 submachine gun, a worried looking operative for the Iraqi government, glancing around outside the Iraq Air station manager's office.

  "Nothing's going to happen here," Jed said.

  John looked at him in disbelief. All of DOMINANCE RAIN was tasked in this airport, along with every spare asset CIA and DOD could scrape up. There were people working the roads in, the communications, the terminal floor, even the runways.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Jed?"

  "Nobody is going to make a move with this much action going on in here. If they even get here, which I doubt, they'll back off."

  "I gotta get a secretary to keep me up with you, for crissake, Jed. So now you think nothing is going to happen?"

  "I didn't say that. I said it ain't going to happen here, in the terminal. It might go down in one of the end cities for the marshals, or it might start here, but it ain't going to go down in here. No way."

  "So what are we doing here?"

  "Being sure it don't go down here. What have you got for retaskings after they do their turnaround here?"

  "I was going to deploy a buddy team to each end city. with augmentation, we can cover seven cities."

  "That sounds good." Jed turned and looked over his shoulder. George Baumgarner came to them, an airport portable radio in his hand.

  "Boys," George said. "I think we got a nibble."

  ***

  VECTOR AIRLINES FLIGHT #128, ISTANBUL TO FRANKFURT:

  Shirleen breathed a sigh of relief as the plane descended into Frankfurt. She was worn to a frazzle trying to be everywhere at once and watch everybody. Ray was doing the best he could, but he was young and inexperienced; he didn't know how to read people yet, and he didn't realize that his efforts to be inconspicuous drew attention to him more often than not. But at least he was working, unlike Harold who was in a self-centered stupor in First Class, or Dyer, withdrawn into a sullen silence at the back of the bus. There had been a couple of suspicious looks from passengers as she and Ray patrolled the plane, but nothing had come of it. The profiled passengers, one from Iran and two others from Syria, had eyeballed her thoroughly, but passengers from those countries were used to security presence's on their aircraft. For a while, the Iranian air marshals were the busiest flying -- next to El Al.