by Tom Clancy
“I’m very sorry to do this,” Sato told him in a gentle voice. With that he strapped into the left seat and commenced the engine-start sequence. The ground crew was too far away to see into the cockpit, and couldn’t know that only one man was alive on the flight deck.
“Vancouver tower, this is JAL ferry flight five-zero-zero, requesting clearance to taxi.”
“Five-Zero-Zero Heavy, roger, you are cleared to taxi runway Two-Seven-Left. Winds are two-eight-zero at fifteen.”
“Thank you, Vancouver, Five-Zero-Zero Heavy cleared for Two-Seven Left.” With that the aircraft started rolling. It took ten minutes to reach the end of the departure runway. Sato had to wait an extra minute because the aircraft ahead of his was another 747, and they generated dangerous wake turbulence. He was about to violate the first rule of flight, the one about keeping your number of takeoffs equal to that for landings, but it was something his countrymen had done before. On clearance from the tower, Sato advanced the throttles to the takeoff power, and the Boeing, empty of everything but fuel, accelerated rapidly down the runway, rotating off before reaching six thousand feet, and immediately turning north to clear the controlled air space around the airport. The lightly loaded airliner positively rocketed to its cruising altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet, at which point fuel efficiency was optimum. His flight plan would take him along the Canadian-U.S. border, departing land just north of the fishing town of Hopedale. Soon after that, he’d be beyond ground-based radar coverage. Four hours, Sato thought, sipping tea while the autopilot flew the aircraft. He said a prayer for the man in the right seat, hoping that the copilot’s soul would be at peace, as his now was.
The Delta flight landed at Dulles only a minute late. Clark and Chavez found that there was a car waiting for them. They took the official Ford and headed down to Interstate- 64, while the driver who’d brought it caught a cab.
“What do you suppose will happen to him?”
“Yamata? Prison, maybe worse. Did you get a paper?” Clark asked.
“Yeah.” Chavez unfolded it and scanned the front page. “Holy shit!”
“Huh?”
“Looks like Dr. Ryan’s getting kicked upstairs.” But Chavez had other things to think about for the drive down toward the Virginia Tidewater, like how he was going to ask Patsy the Big Question. What if she said no?
A joint session of Congress is always held in the House chamber due to its larger size, and also, members of the “lower” house noted, because in the Senate seats were reserved, and those bastards didn’t let anyone else sit in their place. Security was usually good here. The Capitol building had its own police force, which was used to working with the Secret Service. Corridors were closed off with velvet ropes, and the uniformed officers were rather more alert than usual, but it wasn’t that big a deal.
The President would travel to the Hill in his official car, which was heavily armored, accompanied by several Chevy Suburbans that were even more heavily protected, and loaded with Secret Service agents carrying enough weapons to fight off a company of Marines. It was rather like a traveling circus, really, and like people in the circus, they were always setting up and taking down. Four agents, for example, humped their Stinger missile containers to the roof, going to the customary spots, scanning the area to see if the trees had grown a little too much-they were trimmed periodically for better visibility. The Secret Service’s Counter-Sniper Team took similar perches atop the Capitol and other nearby buildings. The best marksmen in the country, they lifted their custom-crafted 7mm Magnum rifles from foam-lined containers and used binoculars to scan the rooftops they didn’t occupy. There were few enough of those, as other members of “the detail” took elevators and stairs to the top of every building close to the one JUMPER would be visiting tonight. When darkness fell, light-amplification equipment came out, and the agents drank hot liquids in order to keep alert.
Sato thanked Providence for the timing of the event, and for the TCAS System. Though the transatlantic air routes were never empty, travel between Europe and America was timed to coincide with human sleep patterns, and this time of day was slack for westbound flights. The TCAS sent out interrogation signals, and would alert him to the presence of nearby aircraft. At the moment there was nothing close—his display said CLEAR OF CONFLICT, meaning that there was no traffic within eighty miles. That enabled him to slip into a westbound routing quite easily, tracking down the coast, three hundred miles out. The pilot checked his time against his memorized flight plan. Again he’d figured the winds exactly right in both directions. His timing had to be exact, because the Americans could be very punctual. At 2030 hours, he turned west. He was tired now, having spent most of the last twenty-four hours in the air. There was rain on the American East Coast, and while that would make for a bumpy ride lower down, he was a pilot and hardly noticed such things. The only real annoyance was all the tea he’d drunk. He really needed to go to the head, but he couldn’t leave the flight deck unattended, and there was less than an hour to endure the discomfort.
“Daddy, what does this mean? Do we still go to the same school?” Sally asked from the rear-facing seat in the limousine. Cathy handled the answer. It was a mommy-question.
“Yes, and you’ll even have your own driver.”
“Neat!” little Jack thought.
Their father was having second thoughts, as he usually did after making an important decision, even though he knew it was too late for that. Cathy looked at his face, read his mind, and smiled at him.
“Jack, it’s only a few months, and then ...”
“Yeah.” Her husband nodded. “1 can always work on my golf game.”
“And you can finally teach. That’s what I want you to do. That’s what you need to do.”
“Not back to the banking business?”
“I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did in that.”
“You’re an eye-cutter, not a shrink.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Professor Ryan said, adjusting Katie Ryan’s dress. It was the eleven-months part that appealed to her. After this post, he’d never come back to government service again. What a fine gift President Durling had given them both.
The official car stopped outside the Longworth House Office Building. There were no crowds there, though some congressional staffers were heading out of the building. Ten Secret Service agents kept an eye on them and everything else, while four more escorted the Ryans into the building. Al Trent was at the corner entrance.
“You want to come with me?”
“Why—”
“After you’re confirmed, we walk you in to be sworn, and then you take your seat behind the President, next to the Speaker,” Sam Fellows explained. “It was Tish Brown’s idea. It’ll look good.”
“Election-year theatrics,” Jack observed coolly.
“What about us?” Cathy asked.
“It’s a nice family picture,” Al thought.
“I don’t know why I’m so darned excited about this,” Fellows grumbled in his most good-natured way. “This is going to make November hard for us. I suppose that never occurred to you?”
“Sorry, Sam, no, it didn’t,” Jack replied with a sheepish grin.
“This hovel was my first office,” Trent said, opening the door on the bottom floor to the suite of offices he’d used for ten terms. “I keep it for luck. Please—sit down and relax a little.” One of his staffers came in with soft drinks and ice, under the watchful eyes of Ryan’s protective detail. Andrea Price started playing with the Ryan kids again. It looked unprofessional but was not. The kids had to be comfortable around her, and she’d already made a good start at that.
President Durling’s car arrived without incident. Escorts conveyed him to the Speaker’s official office adjacent to the chamber, where he went over his speech again. JASMINE, Mrs. Durling, with her own escorts, took an elevator to the official gallery. By this time the chamber was half-filled. It wasn’t accepted for people to be fashionably late, perha
ps the only such occasion for members of the Congress. They assembled in little knots of friends for the most part, and walked in by party, the seats divided by a very real if invisible line. The rest of the government would come in later. All nine justices of the Supreme Court, all members of the Cabinet who happened to be in town (two were not), and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their beribboned uniforms were led to the front row. Then the heads of independent agencies. Bill Shaw of the FBI. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Finally, under the nervous eyes of security people and the usual gaggle of advance personnel, it was ready, on time, as it always seemed to happen.
The seven networks interrupted their various programming. Anchorpersons appeared to announce that the Presidential Address was about to begin, giving the viewers enough information that they could head off to the kitchen and make their sandwiches without really missing anything.
The Doorkeeper of the House, holder of one of the choicest patronage jobs in the country—a fine salary and no real duties--walked halfway down the aisle and performed his one public function with his customary booming voice:
“Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States.”
Roger Durling entered the chamber, striding down the aisle with brief stops to shake hands, his red-leather folder tucked under his arm. It held a paper copy of his speech in the event that the TelePrompTers broke. The applause was deafening and sincere. Even those in the opposition party recognized that Durling had kept his promise to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as powerful a force as politics was, there was also still honor and patriotism in the room, especially at times like this. Durling reached the well, then climbed up to his place on the podium, and it was time for the Speaker of the House to do his ceremonial duty:
“Members of the Congress, I have the distinct privilege, and high honor, to introduce the President of the United States.” And the applause began afresh. This time there was the usual contest between the parties to see who could clap and cheer the loudest and the longest.
“Okay, remember what happens—”
“Okay, Al! I go in, the Chief Justice swears me in, and I take my seat. All I have to do is repeat it all back.” Ryan sipped a glass of Coke and wiped sweaty hands on his trousers. A Secret Service agent fetched him a towel.
“Washington Center, this is KLM-Six-Five-Niner. We have an onboard emergency, sir.” The voice was in clipped aviatorese, the sort of speech that people used when everything was going to hell.
The air-traffic controller outside Washington noted the alpha-numeric icon had just tripled in size on his scope and keyed his own microphone. The display gave course, speed, and altitude. His first impression was that the aircraft was making a rapid descent.
“Six-Five-Niner, this is Washington Center. State your intentions, sir.”
“Center, Six-Five-Niner, number-one engine has exploded, engines one and two lost. Structural integrity in doubt. So is controllability. Request radar vector direct Baltimore.”
The controller waved sharply to his supervisor, who came over at once.
“Wait a minute. Who is this?” He interrogated the computer and found no “strip” information for KLM-659.
The controller keyed his radio. “Six-Five-Niner, please identify, over.” This reply was more urgent.
“Washington Center, this is KLM-Six-Five-Niner, we are 747 charter inbound Orlando, three hundred pax,” the voice replied. “Repeating: we have two engines out and structural damage to port wing and fuselage. I am descending one-zero thousand now. Request immediate radar vector direct Baltimore, over!”
“We can’t dick around with this,” the supervisor thought. “Take him. Get him down.”
“Very well, sir. Six-Five-Niner Heavy. Radar contact. I read you one-four thousand descending and three hundred knots. Recommend left turn two-niner-zero and continue descent and maintain one-zero-thousand.”
“Six-Five-Niner, descending one-zero thousand, turning left two-niner-zero,” Sato said in reply. English was the language on international air travel, and his was excellent. So far so good. He had more than half of his fuel still aboard, and was barely a hundred miles out, according to his satellite-navigation system.
At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the fire station located near the main terminal was immediately alerted. Airport employees who ordinarily had other jobs ran or drove to the building, while controllers decided quickly which aircraft they could continue to land before the wounded 747 got close and which they would have to stack. The emergency plan was already written here, as for every major airport. Police and other services were alerted, and literally hundreds of people were snatched away from TV sets.
“I want to tell you the story of an American citizen, the son of a police officer, a former Marine officer crippled in a training accident, a teacher of history, a member of America’s financial community, a husband and father, a patriot and public servant, and a genuine American hero,” the President said on the TV. Ryan cringed to hear it all, especially when followed by applause. The cameras panned over Secretary of the Treasury Fiedler, who had leaked Jack’s role in the Wall Street recovery to a group of financial reporters. Even Brett Hanson was clapping, and rather graciously.
“It’s always embarrassing, Jack,” Trent said with a laugh.
“Many of you know him, many of you have worked with him. I have spoken today with the members of the Senate.” Durling motioned to the Majority and Minority leaders, both of whom smiled and nodded for the C-SPAN cameras. “And with your approval, I wish now to submit the name of John Patrick Ryan to fill the post of Vice President of the United States. I further request the members of the Senate to approve this nomination tonight by voice vote.”
“That’s pretty irregular,” a commentator observed while the two senators stood to walk down to the well.
“President Durling has done his homework well on this,” the political expert replied. “Jack Ryan is about as noncontroversial as people can be in this town, and the bipartisan—”
“Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate, and our friends and colleagues of the House,” the Majority Leader began. “It is with great satisfaction that the Minority Leader and I ...”
“Are we sure this is legal?” Jack wondered aloud.
“The Constitution says that the Senate has to approve you. It doesn’t say how,” Sam Fellows said.
“Baltimore Approach, this is Six-Five-Niner. I have a problem here.”
“Six-Five-Niner Heavy, what is the problem, sir?” the tower controller asked. He could already see part of it on his scope. The inbound 747 hadn’t turned to his most recent command as sharply as he had ordered a minute earlier. The controller wiped his hands together and wondered if they’d be able to get this one down.
“My controls are not responding well ... not sure I can ... Baltimore, I see runway lights at my one o’clock ... I don’t know this area well ... busy here ... losing power ...”
The controller checked the direction vector on his scope, extending it to—
“Six-Five-Niner Heavy, that is Andrews Air Force Base. They have two nice runways. Can you make the turn for Andrews?”
“Six-Five-Niner, I think so, I think so.”
“Stand by.” The controller had a hot line to the Air Force base. “Andrews, do you—”
“We’ve been following it,” the senior officer in that tower said. “Washington Center clued us in. Do you need help?”
“Can you take him?”
“Affirmative.”
“Six-Five-Niner Heavy, Baltimore. I am going to hand you off to Andrews Approach. Recommend turn right three-five-zero ... can you do that, sir?” the controller asked.
“I think I can, I think I can. The fire’s out, I think, but hydraulics are bottoming out on me, I think the engine must have ...”
“KLM-Six-Five-Niner Heavy, this is Andrews Approach Control. Radar Contact. Two-five miles out, heading three-four-zero at four
thousand feet descending. Runway Zero-One-Left is clear, and our fire trucks are already moving,” the Air Force captain said. He’d already punched the base panic button, and his trained people were moving out smartly. “Recommend turn right zero-one-zero and continue descent.”
“Six-Five-Niner,” was the only acknowledgment.
The irony of the situation was something Sato would never learn. Though there were numerous fighter aircraft based at Andrews, at Langley Air Force Base, at Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center, and at Oceana NAS, all within a hundred miles of Washington, it had never occurred to anyone to have fighter aircraft aloft over the capital on any other night like this one. His elaborate lies and maneuvers were hardly necessary at all. Sato brought his aircraft around at a painfully slow rate to simulate a crippled jumbo, coached every degree of the way by a very concerned and professional American controller. And that, he thought, was too bad.
“Aye!”
“Opposed?” There was silence after that, followed a moment later by applause. Then the Speaker stood.
“The Doorkeeper of the House will escort the Vice President into the chamber so that he can be properly sworn.”
“That’s your cue. Break a leg,” Trent said, standing and heading for the door. The Secret Service agents fanned out along the corridor, leading the procession to the tunnel connecting this building with the Capitol. Entering it, Ryan looked along the curving structure, painted an awful off-yellow and lined, oddly enough, mostly with pictures done by schoolchildren.
“I don’t see any obvious problem, no smoke or fire.” The tower controller had his binoculars on the incoming aircraft. It was only a mile out now. “No gear, no gear!”