Dead on Arrival

by Mike Lawson

  Dalton and Fields made tight loops in the sky and came in behind the plane, slowing down to match its speed.

  The bogey was now twenty miles and twelve minutes from Washington.

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Bogey is a Cessna One-fifty, tail number N3459J. Repeat N3459J.’

  ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Copy that. Attempt contact.’

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that.’ Dalton switched frequencies on his radio. ‘Cessna 3459, Cessna 3459. This is the Air National Guard. Respond. Respond. You are approaching the no-fly zone. Respond.’

  Nothing came back from the Cessna. Shit.

  ‘Cessna 3459. Cessna 3459. Respond or you will be fired upon. You are entering the no-fly zone.’

  Nothing. It was possible, of course, that the Cessna’s radio wasn’t working or that the pilot was unconscious and the plane was flying itself. That had happened before, though not this close to the capital.

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna 3459 is not responding. Going alongside for visual.’

  ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Copy that and proceed.’

  While his wingman stayed behind the Cessna, Dalton pulled up next to it, the tip of his starboard wing less than fifty feet from the other plane. He waved his right hand at the pilot, signaling for him to get the hell out of the air and down on the ground, but the Cessna pilot, the damn guy, was staring straight ahead, not even looking over at Dalton’s jet. He looked like he was in a trance.

  Jesus, Dalton thought. The pilot looks like an Arab.

  The Cessna was seventeen miles and ten minutes from D.C.

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna not responding. Pilot ignoring visual contact.’

  ‘Huntress. Hawk Flight. Fire flares.’

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that. Firing flares.’

  Dalton and his wingman shot ahead of the Cessna and made tight turns in the sky to come back at it. This was the sort of maneuver they practiced a dozen times a month. Each pilot fired two flares. The flares missed the Cessna, but not by much, the closest one coming within thirty feet of the Cessna’s cockpit. There was no way the Cessna pilot didn’t see those flares – or the F-16s coming directly at him once again.

  But the guy just kept going, never deviating from his original course.

  The Cessna was now ten miles – six minutes – from Washington.

  Dalton shot past the Cessna again, turned, and pulled up alongside it a second time. He waggled his wings and waved an arm at the pilot. No response. The bastard just sat there like he was made of stone. Dalton reached out to – aw, shit! The Cessna had assumed a downward angle. It was going to cut right across one of the approaches to Reagan National. Beyond the airport, across the Potomac, Dalton could see the White House.

  This son of a bitch was headed directly at the White House – and the Cessna was now less than three minutes away from it.

  Dalton wasn’t concerned about his F-16 or the Cessna colliding with commercial airplanes going in and out of Reagan National. He knew that by now every plane within a hundred miles either was on the ground or had been diverted away from D.C. Dalton also knew that at this point the White House was being evacuated: guards screaming, people running and tripping and falling, images of 9/11 burned into their brains. Dalton didn’t know if the president was in town, but if he was, two big Secret Service guys had him by the arms and were running him to the bunker, the president’s feet not even hitting the ground.

  The Cessna was now four miles – less than two and a half minutes – from the White House.

  Dalton spoke into his radio. ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna not responding. I repeat. Cessna ignoring all attempts at contact.’ Dalton knew that he sounded calm – he’d been trained to sound calm – but his heart was hammering in his chest like it was going to blow through his breastbone. He also knew he didn’t have to tell anybody where the guy in the Cessna was headed.

  There was no immediate response from Huntress. Oh, shit! Dalton thought. Please, God, don’t let somebody’s goddamn radio go out now. Then his radio squawked.

  ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Bogey declared hostile. Arm hot. You are cleared to fire. Repeat. Arm hot. Cleared to fire.’

  Now Dalton understood the pause. The word had gone up and back down the chain of command. One of those four men who had the authority to give that order had just given it.

  Dalton knew this was his mission. This was the reason they’d spent all those years and all that money training him. This was the reason he was flying an F-16 Falcon. But he had never really expected to have to execute the command he’d just been given.

  Dalton hesitated, he hesitated too long – he hesitated long enough to end his career.

  ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Did you copy that order?’

  ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that. Arm hot. Cleared to fire.’

  And then Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dalton did what he’d been trained to do. He reached down and toggled the master arm switch in the cockpit to ON, slowed down to increase the distance between him and the smaller plane, and just as the Cessna was crossing over the Potomac River – less than two miles from the White House – he fired.

  NORAD and the Air National Guard refused to tell the media what sort of weapon had been used to destroy the Cessna. Ordnance and armament used to protect the capital from aerial assault are classified. But whatever Dalton fired, it struck the Cessna and a ball of flame fifty yards in diameter bloomed in the sky over the Potomac. Pieces seemed to rain down onto the river for a solid minute after the Cessna had been obliterated.

  2

  Danny let Vince take the lead going up the stairs.

  Charlie Logan lived on the fifth floor of an ancient apartment building in Flushing, not too far from Shea Stadium. It was a crummy, stinky place, the elevator broken, the stairway barely lit, the rug on the steps so dirty and worn that it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been. They found Charlie’s apartment, and Vince took a snub-nosed .38 out of his jacket pocket. Oh, shit, Danny thought.

  Vince used the butt of the .38 to rap on Logan’s door. He waited a minute and then slammed the gun butt three times against the wooden door, the sound echoing down the hallway. Danny figured whoever was in the apartment across the hall from Charlie had to have heard the noise. But fuckin’ Vince, he didn’t think about things like that. He didn’t care about things like that.

  Vince Merlino didn’t look like a tough guy. He was five-eight, wiry, not heavily muscled. At forty-five his hair was getting thin right on the top, like he was going to have a little skin circle up there in a couple of years. Yeah, if you saw Vince from the back you wouldn’t be scared at all, a half-pint guy in a cheap leather coat and jeans and high-top Nike knockoffs. But from the front, he’d give you pause. His face looked like it didn’t know what a smile was, lips so thin they practically weren’t there at all, but it was his eyes that got you. He had these flat don’t-give-a-fuck eyes, eyes that said he’d go off on you no matter how big you were.

  Vince hit the door again, practically splintering the wood. ‘Jesus,’ Danny said. ‘You’re gonna wake up everybody in the fuckin’ building. Maybe he’s not home.’

  ‘He’s home,’ Vince said. He raised the .38 to hit the door again, but before he did they heard a bellow from inside the apartment and the door flung open. ‘What the hell do … oh, hey, it’s you,’ Charlie said when he saw Vince, and he stepped back so Vince and Danny could enter the apartment.

  Charlie Logan was a fat guy, six-foot-four, two hundred and eighty pounds. Maybe it was because of Charlie’s size that Mr B had told Danny to go with Vince. Danny didn’t normally do this sort of stuff, but he’d been hanging around Mr B’s office when Vince said he was going to see Charlie, and that’s when Mr B had told him to go too. Danny had said he didn’t think Vince needed any help – it wasn’t like Charlie was gonna wrestle with him or something – but Mr B had said to shut up and do what he was told.

  Charlie was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and white boxer shorts with blue st
ripes. The T-shirt was the ribbed kind, clinging to Charlie’s love handles ballooning out around his waist. His shoulders were hairy and his arms were heavy and flabby looking. His legs were surprisingly thin compared to his frame and his feet … Christ, he had ugly feet, the toenails yellow and cracked, big corns on some of the toes, nasty blue veins running all over the place. Danny wished he’d never looked down at the guy’s feet.

  ‘Hey,’ Charlie said again. ‘Can I get you some coffee? It’s not made, but I can make some. Or a beer maybe.’

  Then Charlie saw the gun in Vince’s hand.

  ‘Hey,’ Charlie said a third time, and pointed at the gun. ‘Come on, guys, what’s with that?’

  Vince looked at Charlie for a moment, his eyes as warm as a snake’s. ‘You owe twelve grand. I told you two weeks ago to pay it. I told you last week to pay it. Now you’re gonna either pay it today, right now, or you’re gonna give me the keys to your Lincoln.’

  ‘I can’t give you the Lincoln,’ Charlie said. ‘How would I get to work?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit how you get to work,’ Vince said. ‘Gimme the money or gimme the keys.’

  ‘Let me have until Saturday night,’ Charlie said. ‘Oklahoma’s playin’ Nebraska. I got it nailed.’

  Danny would have laughed if he hadn’t been trying to look tough. Fuckin’ gamblers. Charlie had borrowed money from some other shark, hoping he’d win enough to pay back the first shark. These guys should just kill themselves.

  ‘Go get the keys,’ Vince said.

  ‘Come on, just till Saturday,’ Charlie said. When Vince just stared at him, Charlie looked over at Danny, his eyes begging.

  Then Vince hit Charlie with the gun, whacked him right across the side of the face, high up near his left eye. Danny thought Charlie would collapse to the floor or hold his hands up to his head and start moaning – but he didn’t. Instead he let out a yell and grabbed Vince’s throat.

  The crazy bastard. He ignored the gun like it wasn’t even there, put two big hands around Vince’s throat, and began to strangle him. Danny thought later that that was why Mr B had made him go with Vince. Mr B had known Charlie was the kind of nutcase who would do something dumb like this.

  As Charlie was choking Vince, Vince banged his gun ineffectually on the top of Charlie’s head, but Charlie, the maniac, was oblivious to the blows. Danny tried to pull Charlie away from Vince, and when he couldn’t, he jumped on Charlie’s back, put his right forearm under the fat man’s chin, and began to press his arm against Charlie’s windpipe. The faces of both Vince and Charlie were now turning purple as a result of being simultaneously strangled.

  And then Danny heard the gun go off.

  The first thing that went through Danny’s brain was that it was lucky Vince’s bullet hadn’t passed through Charlie and hit him. The second thing he thought was that Vince hadn’t really wanted to shoot the guy. You never kill someone who owes you money. No, Vince hadn’t meant to shoot him. He’d just panicked, thinking Charlie was going to kill him. Or maybe he didn’t panic; maybe he was so goddamn mad at what Charlie had done, so humiliated that Charlie had made him squawk, that he stuck his gun into the guy’s gut and pulled the trigger.

  ‘What the hell did you do?’ Danny said, looking down at Charlie lying on the floor, the front of his white T-shirt turning red.

  Vince didn’t say anything. He just stood there rubbing his throat, staring at the gun in his hand as if he was surprised at what it had done.

  And then Danny saw Charlie give a little shudder and die.

  Vince hadn’t shot him in the gut, he’d shot him in the heart.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Vince said.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Danny said, still looking down at Charlie.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go!’ Vince said. He turned toward the door and started running.

  By the time Danny got to the door, Vince had almost reached the fourth floor landing, one flight down. Danny started to follow him, then for some reason, for some fuckin’ reason, he pulled out a handkerchief so he wouldn’t leave prints and started to close the door to Charlie’s apartment. That was his big mistake.

  Just as he was shutting Charlie’s door, the door across the hall opened. He and the woman stared at each other for about two seconds. She was a short, heavy old broad with a fat nose and gray hair tied up in a bun. Polish or German, Danny thought, and she looked tougher than elephant hide.

  ‘Danny!’ Vince cried out from the stairwell. ‘Come on!’

  Great, just call out my fuckin’ name, Danny thought, as he tore his eyes away from the old Polish woman and started to run. But Vince wasn’t through. Just as Danny reached the stairs – the woman now standing in the hall looking at his back as he ran – Vince yelled again.

  ‘DeMarco!’ Vince screamed. ‘Move your ass!’

  3

  Joe DeMarco’s hand was on the doorknob when the phone rang again.

  Mahoney’s secretary had called twenty minutes ago, waking DeMarco and telling him to get to Mahoney’s office right away. He took a quick shower, skipped shaving, and dressed in a white shirt and a dark suit. He’d put on his tie and shave in the cab on the way to the Capitol.

  When the phone rang the second time he thought about not answering it, but maybe it was Mahoney’s secretary calling back, telling him the meeting with Mahoney had been canceled. Half the meetings he had with Mahoney were canceled. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Joe, it’s me.’

  DeMarco couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. It was his ex-wife. He hadn’t spoken to her in almost two years. He hadn’t even thought about her in … shit, maybe a week.

  ‘What do you want, Marie?’ he finally said. He tried to keep his voice flat, to let her know how much he hated her, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought that she was calling because she wanted him to take her back. It was pathetic that he should think such a thing, pathetic that he’d even consider such a thing.

  ‘I need your help, Joe,’ Marie said.

  ‘My help?’ DeMarco said. ‘My help with what?’

  ‘It’s Danny, Joe. He’s in trouble, big trouble. I didn’t know who else to call.’

  DeMarco couldn’t believe this. His ex-wife was one of the vainest, most self-centered people he had ever known. And not all that bright, if he was honest about it. But he couldn’t believe she’d ask for his help when it came to Danny.

  Danny DeMarco was Joe DeMarco’s cousin. Marie had had an affair with him, and then she divorced Joe and married him. She didn’t even have to change her last name when she married the asshole.

  ‘You gotta be shittin’ me!’ he said, and started to slam down the phone.

  But he didn’t.

  DeMarco sat impatiently in Mahoney’s office, staring at the photographs on the walls. In them Mahoney was posing with various famous people, mostly politicians, and in the photos all the politicians were smiling – as if they actually liked Mahoney.

  The man that DeMarco and Mahoney were waiting to meet was fifteen minutes late, which was almost unheard of. Mahoney kept people waiting all the time because he was rude and inconsiderate – and, yes, busy – but no one kept Mahoney waiting.

  DeMarco was five-eleven and Mahoney was the same height, but he always seemed taller than that to DeMarco. Maybe that was because of Mahoney’s bulk – or maybe it was because of his personality. The speaker had a big hard gut, a broad back, and a wide butt. His hair was thick and white, his features large and well formed, and his blue eyes were red-veined and watery. Mahoney had the eyes of an alcoholic, which he was. And like DeMarco’s ex-wife, Mahoney was vain and self-centered and selfish; he was conniving and manipulative. But, unlike her, he was very, very bright.

  As DeMarco sat there, his mind kept drifting back to the call from Marie. He had no idea what he should do. No, that wasn’t right; that wasn’t right at all. He knew exactly what he should do: absolutely nothing.

  While DeMarco stewed ab
out his ex, Mahoney sat in the big chair behind his big desk and made phone calls. He was currently talking to someone named Bob. At least that’s what he had called the man at the beginning of the conversation, but in the last five minutes, as the phone call had progressed, Bob became Congressman and finally you greedy little asshole, as in: ‘Listen to me, you greedy little asshole! You’ve got four projects in that bill worth more than sixty million, including a fuckin’ bridge to nowhere that’s gonna have your name on it. Now that’s enough!’

  DeMarco realized that Mahoney was talking about a so-called transportation bill, a bill intended to resurface potholed highways and prop up crumbling bridges that was, in reality, a five-thousand-page pork package. Every member of the House was squeezing into the bill as many pet projects as he or she could, and any link to transportation, no matter how remote, was considered a fair addition. The most outrageous example that DeMarco had heard of was the proposed construction of a velodrome, a stadium for racing bicycles. This was included in the bill under the guise that erecting such a structure would give birth to legions of bicycle-peddling commuters and thus save the country’s highways from future wear and tear. At least that was the most outrageous thing he’d heard until Mahoney began his dialogue with Congressman Bob.

  ‘I’ve been trying for six weeks,’ Mahoney was saying, ‘to get this thing finished. It’s already twenty billion bigger than what we agreed on, and every fuckin’ time – my language? I don’t give a shit about my language, you sanctimonious twit! Now I’m tired of this. It’s bad enough I can’t get the other side to line up, but when the people in my own party start pullin’ this crap. … Yes, Bob, crap! Why should the taxpayers have to pay for a freeway exit that goes right to your brother-in-law’s goddamn furniture store? Tell me that.’

  The speaker sat silent for a moment, his large face the color of a boiled beet, as he listened to Bob explain how easy access to a retail store in his home state would improve the flow of goods and services throughout America.