Splinter Self

by S L Shelton

  “With all due respect, sir,” Casey said, grabbing the President by the arm and dragging him to the door. “This is a siege situation. I need to get you to the tail section and prepped for emergency.”

  The plane lurched sideways again, this time sending the occupants of the office sliding toward the window.

  Casey pushed Nick off of him and called into his sleeve mic. “What’s going on up there?!”

  “We’ve lost contact with one of our escorts, and we were painted with targeting radar,” the pilot replied in a crisp, though calm tone. “We’re still on auto evasion, but I’ve taken the stick.”

  “We need to get to Scott Air Force Base if it’s feasible.”

  There was a short pause before the pilot replied. “We might have to look for something closer. Our other escort just informed us he is about to intercept the rogue—”

  Like heavy hail on a tin roof, the side of Air Force One erupted in an explosion of percussion, followed by the high-pitched whine of turbines and a roll to the other side. Screams from the press section joined the rising mechanical noise with a crescendo of hissing air and decompression alarms. The structure had been breached—this was no longer just a conspiracy theory.

  Casey looked behind him and saw the remnants of what was once the Chief of Staff, his body effectively sliced in half by the gunfire that had opened holes in the fuselage. Were it not for the unique design of Air Force One, the twenty-millimeter cannons would have split the aircraft in half already.

  Not waiting to muse on the historic significance of a sitting US president coming under fire from his own military, Casey pulled the president out of the office, aided by Nick. “We have to go, now!”

  They worked their way backward toward the tail section, struggling to stay on their feet as the plane tossed from side to side. As they passed through the press area, men and women reached out in desperation, seeking some savior to pull them to safety.

  Steeled into action, and thinking only of his sworn duty, Casey pushed the chaotic scene from his mind as he, Nick, and half a dozen other suited individuals shielded the President, propelling him backward to the tail section where an armored capsule and tactical parachutes awaited them.

  Another sudden lurch to the side created a crush of bodies against the back door. Casey looked out the window, dizzy, unable to determine up or down, then laid eyes on an F-15, breaking wing vapor in a hard bank and turning toward Air Force One.

  For a moment, he was convinced that rockets would launch from the wings, but that notion quickly evaporated when a second, closer jet tilted into view between them. Its guns sent a stream of fire toward them.

  “Go!” Casey yelled pushing away at the pile of security to free the President.

  As the stream of twenty-millimeter projectiles closed in an arc toward Air Force One, the pilot broke hard to the other side, sending everyone rolling across the deck.

  Lines of fire ripped through the fuselage, decompressing the cabin further and sending a bloody explosion of gore across the press area.

  Casey heard but did not see the missile that raced past the plane, preceded only a split second earlier by the rapid cascade of pop, pop, pop, flares launched from both wings.

  “Help them!” the President yelled, his desperate, pleading voice mirrored in his pained expression.

  As the team carried him backward through the tail section door, his outstretched hand reached toward the wounded, dead, and dying among the press corp. The emotion drew an unwelcome surge of empathy from Casey.

  Cammy answered the call first and reached out to touch his hand. “I’ll put the survivors in their chutes, sir,” she said, though her expression showed she realized it was a hopeless gesture, dooming her.

  Casey turned to stop her, but she was already gone, racing, stumbling down the tilting hallway, back the way they had come.

  As the small party of SEALs, Secret Service, and Nick reached the armored door at the tail, an explosion sent the team crashing against the bulkhead again. The whine of the engines rose in volume and pitch as the plane nosed down, threatening to pull them all back the way they’d come.

  Casey punched in the code to open the hatch and pulled the President behind him through the opening. SEALs grasped the inner frame and used their bodies to push the President through.

  The plane nosed down further and Petty Officer Boller lost his grip as one of the Secret Service Agents latched on to him, trying desperately to reach the portal. Both men fell and rolled down the steeply inclined hallway.

  “Crow!” Cooper called back to him.

  The Secret Service agent crashed into the rear row of seats, then bounced out of the gaping hole in the side of the plane. Boller grasped the jump seat next to the rear door and looked up at Cooper. “Go! I’ll catch up!”

  Casey looked back as the President climbed over him. “We have to close the hatch. The pin is five, seven, three, three, one.”

  Boller nodded as Casey and Nick pulled the last of the SEALs and Agents through the opening. He hit the auto seal on the door and rolled clear just as the hydraulic cylinder pushed it closed.

  The plane leveled out but banked sharply to the right. Casey pulled the President’s arm through the cargo netting lining the walls helping to stabilize their backward movement. “I’ll be right back, sir.”

  The President nodded.

  Casey half ran, half climbed toward the rear compartment. He pulled a latch on the rear bulkhead and the panel tumbled sideways off the wall, revealing a metal sphere strapped to the floor in the center of the compartment.

  “Does that thing have GPS tracking?” Nick asked over the scream of engines and air hissing through the back.

  “Yes!” Casey yelled. “Everything on this plane has—”

  Shit, he thought. We can’t broadcast his location. We don’t know who’ll show up to get him.

  As if Nick had read his mind, he smiled and nodded. “You disable the capsule tracking.”

  Nick turned to Cooper, “Deadeye, take those chutes and cut the trackers off the harnesses.”

  Cooper nodded as he and Petty Officer Morgan slipped dive-knives from their ankles and began slicing the zip ties that held the electronic tracking. Casey climbed to the metal sphere and tried to pry open the outer panel containing the electronics, but it was screwed down tight.

  “I need a knife or something!” he yelled at Nick and came toward him.

  As he reached out to take the knife from Nick, the rear of the plane exploded in fire, throwing Casey backward toward a new hole in the plane. Nick grabbed Casey’s arm as the ramp, the left wall, and the sphere fell away from the plane.

  He stared into the open sky as the icy wind raced around them, and Nick pulled him back toward the secondary hatch. Casey looked back at the President, still holding on to the cargo netting, then to Nick.

  Nick shook his head. “We’ve got no choice.”

  Casey nodded and climbed across the cargo netting to where one of the Secret Service agents fitted an air mask to the President’s face. He looped his arm through the netting next to the President and took a mask from the rack above him, breathing a few times before gesturing to Cooper.

  Cooper handed him the chute he had just cut the tracker from. “Mr. President. This is the RA-1 ram air, steerable, tactical parachute. It’s the safest free-fall tactical parachute ever made. You’re getting yours before the rest of the military.”

  “I’ve never done this before,” the President said, calmly through his air mask. “You’ll have to give me detailed instructions.”

  “Yes, sir. There are two steering handles, here and here. Pull left and you go left, pull right and you go right. When you get to within ten seconds from the ground, if you are moving forward, pull both handles all the way down to slow you. If you are going backward, keep the handles at head height.”

  The President nodded. “What about opening?”

  Casey looked at Nick then the two remaining SEALs. “SEAL, SEAL, CIA Field
Ops,” he said, pointing at them one at a time. “If someone isn’t by your side to pull your cord, watch them and pull when they do.”

  He nodded.

  “This is your backup chute. If you’re still traveling seventy-eight miles per hour when you reach minimum safe deployment, it will automatically detach your main chute and deploy.”

  The President nodded again.

  Casey put the air mask over his face and took a few breaths before continuing. “This is your air mask and goggles. The air is thin up here, and you’ll become disoriented in a matter of minutes if you don’t keep this on. Breathe normally just like you are with the air mask you have on now.”

  “Okay. I think I’ve got it.”

  Just then, streams of fire from a twenty-millimeter cannon blasted through the fuselage.

  More of the tail section exploded away into the sky, and an explosion in the vicinity of the engines on that side sent the plane into a steep dive. More chaff and flares popped into the air, appearing in their line of sight through the gaping hole in the back of the plane.

  “We won’t make it to the ground if that F-15 is still engaged,” Nick yelled through his mask.

  Casey pointed at a sealed panel along the wall. “There are four stingers in that cabinet.”

  Nick opened it and grabbed one of the shoulder-fired missiles from its restraints as Cooper and Casey helped the president into his harness.

  The remaining two Secret Service Agents cinched the straps on their harnesses and joined the President, who was just donning his jump goggles.

  “When we go, I want you two to go first,” Casey said to the two agents. “Have either of you ever fired a Stinger?”

  One of the men nodded. “I have.”

  “Take that Stinger. Keep at least fifty yards of canopy separation,” Casey said, slipping into his own chute harness. “We don’t want any easy targets for that fighter if we can avoid it. If you get a shot, take it. Just keep everyone in sight before you launch it. We don’t want wreckage falling on us.…got it?”

  The two men nodded and moved to the opening, one of them taking the Stinger from Nick.

  “You ready?” Casey asked Nick as he pulled the straps tight across his chest.

  Nick nodded and handed Cooper one of the Stingers before pulling his goggles on.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They grabbed the President by the arms and helped him to the tail. Nick took one of the two remaining Stingers and slipped his arm through the strap while Morgan and Cooper put their hands on the President, gripping him tightly.

  “Low open,” Nick yelled. “Unless we can lose that F-15.”

  The two SEALs nodded before Casey gave his signal to the other two agents to jump. Cooper and Morgan pushed the president forward, gripping him tightly. They began to tumble immediately. Casey looked over the edge and watched as Cooper separated from the three-man cluster and tried to manhandle the Stinger into position on his shoulder.

  Nick looked at Casey and smiled. “We’re gonna die, you know.”

  “Well, you should be good at it by now. It’ll be your second time.”

  Nick laughed and jumped, followed closely by Casey. Far below them, Casey could just make out a handful of other parachutes. Cammy had apparently been successful in rescuing a few civilians. He hoped she would make it as well, but the thought fled his mind when fire again struck Air Force One. The plane banked hard to one side as two of its engines burst into fiery blooms.

  Casey focused his attention on the President and Morgan. He could see Morgan signaling to the President though with the distance it was hard to tell what. The President kept nodding his understanding, his arms rigid and legs flailing to maintain posture.

  Nick rolled over on his back and shouldered his Stinger, pointing it into the air. Casey kept his body rolling, scanning the sky for the attacker. He spotted it in the distance, diving toward the ground, possibly having seen the open chutes below them.

  The F-15 streaked by beneath them, firing into the open canopies. From far below, Casey watched a lick of fire then a stream of smoke from the Stinger belonging to his agent. The missile drew a curved line toward the fighter, but at the moment, before impact, the F-15 broke hard to the right and released a cloud of metallic chaff and flares. The missile exploded harmlessly.

  Shit, Casey thought. That would have made this a lot easier.

  Nick rolled over facing the ground, then using only his legs to control his pitch, he signaled to Cooper, who was facing up likewise using only his legs to control his position. Cooper nodded to whatever command Nick had given him.

  Nick rolled back over, pointing his missile toward the F-15 that had just completed a tight turn and circled back toward them. As it neared, Nick fired his Stinger, sending the F-15 banking to the right once more and popping flares. But as it broke away, Cooper fired his Stinger as well, pinching the fighter jet between the two launches.

  Casey’s exhilaration rose, as it seemed that Nick and Cooper had come up with a strategy to down the fighter. The pilot pulled the plane harder into its bank, sending vapor glancing off the wings while popping flares and chaff against the two-pronged attack. Below, the jet passed dangerously near Morgan and the President, peppering them with metallic projectiles and red decoy flares.

  They twisted and turned in distress as the F-15 continued its dive and turn. But from above, a third missile zipped past Casey and Nick. For a moment, Casey thought the other fighter had also turned against them in the fight, but a figure zipped past them in a free fall dive toward the ground.

  Boller had somehow managed to return to the rear section and take the last Stinger from the locker. He flattened out after releasing the empty Stinger tube, just as his missile struck home, dissolving the wing of the F-15 like cheap plastic.

  “Yes!” Casey screamed in excitement as the fighter spun to the ground like a blazing pinwheel.

  The pilot ejected below them. Tempted as he was to dive on the traitor, Casey kept his emotions in check. Nick, however, clearly had other ideas. He flattened himself out, dropping his arms to his sides and aiming himself at the ground like a human bullet.

  As Nick shrank away, Casey watched the pilot’s red and white parachute unfold. The ever shrinking dot that was Nick closed in on the spot, then his chute opened as well. There was no way to tell what happened after that. Obscured by the canopies bumping into each other briefly, Casey could only guess at what battle raged beneath—until the red and white chute crumpled in the air then flapped away in rapid free fall.

  Morgan took that as the signal to pull the President’s ripcord before pushing away and opening his own chute. Casey and Boller pulled their chutes next.

  In the distance, Casey could make out the orange and yellow ball of flame that had once been Air Force One, striking the ground. In the few calm moments before they reached the ground, somewhere in a boundless, unbroken forest, he felt they might actually survive this.

  But as he neared the tree line, two helicopters appeared on the horizon, their engines pushing hard if the thick black smoke trails were any indication.

  He suddenly wished there had been more missiles aboard the plane.

  “Lessons learned,” he muttered as he pulled down on his brake lines and passed through the tops of ancient pines. “Next time.”

  **

  7:25 p.m. — Casa Serpiente Bar, corner of Via Israel, near The Sheraton Grand, Panama City, Panama

  I walked over and sat next to Seifert under the tarp that passed for a covered patio at the corner bar. The location was perfect to get a clear view of the twenty-fifth-floor window belonging to our target.

  “They’re still doing whatever it is they started doing two hours ago,” he said.

  I nodded and lifted my hand to the waitress inside, indicating I wanted a bottle of whatever beer it was that Seifert had.

  We’d arrived hours earlier and checked in, getting two rooms side by side to avoid suspicion. Then, while Seifert cleaned up and c
hanged, I had made friends with the concierge and the valet—with the aid of a few folded bills. I’d been able to glean a good bit of information, including the identity of the two female guests now casting shadows around the edges of the room’s curtains.

  Even though I’d just showered and shaved, a thick, slick, coat of sweat covered my body, beading up at my hairline and tickling a path down the middle of my back. As hot as it was, I looked forward to the cold bottle. My mood sank when it arrived room temperature.

  I looked up at the room belonging to “Senior Goughin” and wondered how long those expensive looking hookers were going to stay there. Judging by the stiletto heeled, PVC boots extending from beneath their coats, there was some fringe kink going on in that room right now. And seriously, full-length coats in this heat?

  “Are you sure we don’t want to wait and snag him when he leaves the building?” Seifert asked as he carefully peeled the label from his beer.

  I shook my head. “The valet said a two-man team comes to pick him up in the mornings.” I sipped my warm beer and set it down again. “If we do that, we’re risking a shootout on the streets.”

  “And you don’t think we’ll be risking a shootout up there?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, but it would be hotel security, which is a known variable. I’d rather break into a hotel room and bag a guy with hotel security breathing down my neck than do it in broad daylight, on the street, with unknown armed assets in the equation.”

  He nodded. “Okay…so we wait for the prostitutes to leave, then go?”

  “That’s how I see it. If you have a better idea, I’m open to it.”

  He laughed. “You sure are diplomatic these days.”

  “Well, it’s just you and me now.” And I’m not totally clear about why the hell we’re here to begin with.

  Seifert chuckled into his beer bottle and waved at the cute waitress for another. “You want another one?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’d give anything for a glass of ice water.”

  “Not here you wouldn’t. You’d be shitting down your leg for a week.”