by Robert Gandt
McDivott turned to Ripley. “This guy—what’s his name?—is he considered reliable?”
Ripley looked at the two staffers with him in the room. They were bird colonels, Capella members, and both were shrugging. “DeWitt,” said Ripley. “The second flight engineer on Angel. He was considered reliable, very motivated. He’d been recruited to Capella over two years ago. Somehow he got off Angel in Greenland. He transmitted the report that Angel had refueled and taken off. He didn’t know the destination. Then he went off line.”
“Off line? Was he compromised?”
“We don’t know,” said Ripley. “According to the duty officer, Sergeant DeWitt sounded agitated. He just hung up.”
“Agitated? Why would that be?”
Ripley resisted the urge to laugh. Sometimes he couldn’t believe McDivott. “Well, it could have something to do with discovering that he was supposed to die with the President.”
It seemed not to register with McDivott. He glowered again at the screens. “Okay, assuming the report is reliable, where the hell is Angel headed?”
The colonels fidgeted, looking at Ripley. “Two possibilities,” said the one nearest McDivott. “Maybe to Europe, but not likely. Most of the British Isles and the western continent are in instrument weather conditions and we don’t think Angel has that capability. Most likely they’re headed west.”
“Sneaking back to home plate,” said McDivott. “That’s exactly what Brand would try to do. That means we have to bring NRO’s satellites into the game.”
Ripley nodded. That was going to be tricky. The National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that controlled the U.S.’s network of spy satellites, was directed by a civilian named Bernard Kruse. Kruse was not a Capella member. He reported directly to the Secretary of Defense, also non-Capella. Kruse was a problem.
One of NRO’s satellites, a fifteen-ton Lacrosse-class radar-imaging craft, was already deployed in the search for Air Force One’s wreckage. Like the other searchers, the satellite was scanning the wrong piece of the Atlantic. It was looking for wreckage where Air Force One had supposedly crashed.
Ripley knew what would happen next. McDivott would order him to request more satellite reconnaissance, this time to locate the aircraft headed for North America. Ripley wouldn’t tell Director Kruse the rest of the scenario. When they had located Air Force One, they were going to kill it.
<>
Through his cabin window Mahmoud Said peered into the darkness where Greenland had vanished from sight. Said felt a pang of regret.
He glanced over at his fellow Iranian, Kamil Al-Bashir. Al-Bashir’s face was a reflection of Said’s own thoughts. “We should have stayed,” said Al-Bashir.
Said nodded glumly. Al-Bashir was right. The two Iranian diplomats had been offered the opportunity to deplane in Greenland. Against his innermost instincts, Said had agreed to continue the journey.
Said was sure that something was badly wrong with the airplane. Over the darkened Atlantic their lights had failed. Then, for what seemed an eternity, the engines had gone silent. After they’d landed in Greenland, one of the pilots, the one named Batchelder, had come to the cabin to give them a sketchy explanation. Something about an electrical anomaly. An interruption of power to the ship’s electronic nerve center, which had caused systems to fail. The pilot insisted that the problem had been repaired, that Air Force One was perfectly safe to resume flying.
Said didn’t believe him, and he suspected that many of the other passengers didn’t either. But if the President of the United States—the most-protected figure in the world—felt secure aboard Air Force One, then it must be safe enough for the rest of them.
Now Said regretted the decision. He turned to look again at the figure sitting on the opposite side of the cabin. He was a young man with a short haircut and a blank expression. He was one of the President’s Secret Service detail, and he didn’t bother concealing why he was there. The agent hadn’t let the two Iranians out of his sight since departing Tehran.
Typical American paranoia, thought Said. While they were hosting the Iranians aboard Air Force One, they were also guarding them. As if they were potential terrorists. It was insulting.
Said made a show of looking at his watch. He said to the agent, “It is time for me to communicate with my office in Tehran. They are expecting my report.” It was the fifth, perhaps the sixth time he’d made the request.
The agent gave him the same answer. “Sorry, not possible. The aircraft’s long-range communications equipment is still not working.”
Said knew it was a lie. The Americans had promised that he would be able to communicate with Tehran all the time they were airborne. It was one of the conditions President Hosseini had demanded before dispatching Said and Al-Bashir to Washington.
Was it all some part of some intricate plot? Was the story about the Vice President being assassinated a ploy to lure the Iranians aboard this flying sarcophagus?
It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Mahmoud Said wished he had never left Tehran.
“I must speak with the President,” said Said. “That is why we came on this flight.”
Again the agent shook his head. “Sorry. The President is still tied up. Her senior advisor says that they’ll let you know as soon as you can have a meeting.”
Said fumed silently. Such disrespect was inexcusable. He and Al-Bashir, the personal emissaries of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, were being treated like goat herders.
Mahmoud Said made a vow to himself. If the peace negotiations between the two countries ever resumed, this woman President would be surprised. The concessions she demanded from Iran would not come as easily as she thought.
<>
“This is insane,” said Morganti.
Brand glanced at the copilot. Morganti was being Morganti again. Disagreeable and acerbic. Brand said, “What’s bothering you?”
“This flight. It’s crazy. Flying a severely disabled aircraft, the President aboard, no clearance, no radios, no knowledge of what we’re flying into. You’re going to get us all killed.”
“If you believe that, why didn’t you get off in Narsarsuaq?”
Morganti gave him a withering look. “I’m a professional officer. Something you wouldn’t understand. I follow orders, not necessarily from you but from the commander-in-chief, even if I think they’re stupid. But you can be sure that I’ll be taking this to the general as soon as we get back to Andrews.”
Brand didn’t bother replying. It was as much as he could hope for that Morganti was still doing his job. Morganti had been quarrelsome since the trip began, even more so after the landing in Greenland. He had sat through the pre-departure procedure in a surly silence.
But Brand was worried about more than Morganti’s attitude. The conspiracy that had tried to bring Air Force One down included at least one crew member, DeWitt. Could Morganti be part of it?
It defied logic. Why would a planted crewmember sacrifice himself to bring down the President’s airplane? DeWitt had blurted that “they” hadn’t told him about contaminating the fuel and causing the engines to flame out. His role had been to sabotage the communications modules, not to go down with the airplane.
If Morganti was a plant, was he willing to die?
Brand didn’t think so. To be safe, he could relieve Morganti of his duties. Batchelder was fully capable of taking over the copiloting job. But Brand couldn’t rule out the possibility that Batchelder or even Switzer wasn’t part of the conspiracy.
You’re getting paranoid, Brand. And for good reason. Never had he felt so alone in a cockpit.
Switzer had gone to the avionics bay to try to restore more radios. So far he’d gotten one of the three autopilots operating. One inertial navigation system was aligned. Though they had no map display, the inertial unit was giving them geographical coordinates. With those they could plot their course on a navigation chart. The good news was that the inertial unit emitted zero electronic signals. Nothin
g to betray their presence.
Switzer returned. His uniform shirt was sweat-splotched. He looked frustrated. “The communications modules are trashed beyond repair, Boss. I might be able to get a VHF radio back. Or maybe not. You want me to keep trying?”
“No.” Brand wanted Switzer in the cockpit in case something else stopped working. They’d proceed in radio silence.
Brand had to shake his head at the irony. Air Force One had eighty-five telephone terminals, a third of them capable of scrambling, as well as multiple faxes, internet connections, and nineteen active television screens. None of it was working.
For the moment that was okay. With their first electronic emission, the fact of the President’s survival and her precise location would be known. Even without transmitting, it was only a matter of time before they were picked up by long range radar. Or by a surveillance satellite. Fighters would intercept them long before they reached the U. S. shore. What would happen then? Brand didn’t know.
He peered again at the night sky. At this latitude the aurora borealis—the northern lights—shimmered like a curtain in the northern sky. In normal times Brand liked gazing into the star-filled heavens. The feeling of being a tiny speck in the universe gave him perspective. But tonight he felt exposed. The glow of the aurora was making them visible.
Maybe Morganti was right. Maybe flying back to the U. S. was crazy. Maybe they should have stayed on the ground in Greenland and waited for whatever happened next. It would have been the logical thing to do.
Brand’s inner voice was telling him otherwise. Getting back in the air was the right decision. He knew in his gut that it was their best chance.
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the cockpit door. The Secret Service agent posted outside entered the cockpit. With him was Sergeant Lowanda Manning, Air Force One’s chief flight attendant. She was a tall, solidly built African-American woman in her early forties. Manning was wearing her blue jacket with the presidential airlift squadron patch over the left breast. Her dark-skinned face was nearly invisible in the dimly-lighted cockpit.
“Colonel Brand, this just came over the text messaging machine in the ship’s galley.” She handed Brand a printed sheet.
Brand held the sheet beneath the single standby light on the instrument glare shield and read it.
05190218Z
Att: Chief Flight Attendant, SAM 28000
From: Duty Officer, Catering office, 89 AW, Andrews AFB.
SAM 28000 order for reprovisioning and specific quantities of onboard stocks not yet received. Request updated inventory of onboard stocks and special requests prior arrival Andrews. Please reply ASAP.
/s/ Sam Fornier, Capt. USAF
The message looked legitimate. SAM 28000 was the identification for this aircraft. It was one of the two nearly-identical B-747s that alternated duty as Air Force One.
But it didn’t make sense.
Brand turned to Switzer. “How can the text messaging machine in the galley be working when all the comm modules shut down?”
“It can’t,” said Switzer. “No way.” The sergeant was peering at the overhead communications panel. Nothing was powered. “No way unless somehow in one of the retrofits, the galley texting machine circuitry got isolated from the communications modules. If so, maybe it just got powered up when I restored some of the galley power.”
“Look at the time this message went out,” said Brand. “It was sent over three hours ago.”
Switzer was nodding his head. “That was before this catering officer would have known that we were missing. It means the message has been sitting somewhere for three hours waiting for our machine to come back to life.”
“What do you want me to do, Colonel?” said Sergeant Manning. “Reply to this guy?”
“Do you know him?” Brand glanced at the message again. “Capt. Sam Fornier?”
“No. Must be one of the new ones. They rotate real quick through that job at Andrews.”
Brand gazed outside again, thinking. It could be a set up. They could be expecting the Air Force One crew to reveal their intentions by texting a reply. The text messaging machine could have been spared for a reason.
Were they that clever?
Yes. More clever than he would have imagined. But Brand’s gut feeling was telling him something else. The message didn’t have the feel of a set up. The note looked like a hundred other bureaucratic communications he’d seen from bored supply officers.
A plan was emerging in Brand’s mind. A long shot. Maybe the only shot they had. It all depended on an Air Force captain named Sam Fornier.
Brand pulled the steno pad from his flight kit. When he was finished scribbling, he showed the note to Morganti, Switzer, then Batchelder. Brand tore the page out of the pad and handed it to Manning. “Show this to the President. If she approves, send it exactly this way. Let me know as soon as there’s a reply.”
Manning’s large eyes grew larger as she scanned the note:
05190603Z
From: A/C commander, SAM 28000
To: Capt. Sam Fornier, Duty Officer, Catering office, 89th AW, Andrews AFB.
Despite info you may have to the contrary, the President is alive and en route to home plate. There are
ongoing attempts by unknown parties within the military to destroy SAM 28000 and eliminate the President. Due to the extreme sensitivity of this message, I ask that you immediately contact Lt. Gen. J. H. Cassidy at (703) 756 6505 and establish comm link via this channel. Absolutely critical that you share this with NO ONE except Cassidy.
Acknowledge.
/s/ Col. P. T. Brand, Commander, Presidential Airlift Squadron
The sergeant headed for the door. “I’ll let you know, Colonel.”
Chapter 11
The uniformed attendant peered inside the unmarked black Lincoln. He took the time to study the ID cards of each occupant. Then he stepped back and gave the limo a swipe with his scanner. All clear. The attendant stood at attention and rendered a salute while the grated iron gate raised. The Lincoln rolled through the club entrance, rounded the horseshoe-shaped driveway in the courtyard, then entered the enclosed passage that contained the massive front door of the Briar Club.
Another attendant, also in uniform and armed with the same concealed automatic weapon, opened the passenger door. He stood at attention while Gen. Vance McDivott stepped out. Behind McDivott appeared Major Gen. Jim Ripley. Ripley followed McDivott up the long stairs and through the front door.
The Briar Club on Massachusetts Avenue was notable not so much for its gilded age opulence as for its air of mystery. The magnificent building had been bequeathed to Capella by a wealthy shipping magnate named Lewis Magnuson, one of Curtis LeMay’s early disciples. Access to the club was restricted to members. No roster had ever been made available to curious reporters or investigators. The arrivals and departures of Briar Club members occurred behind the iron gate and within the enclosed entrance. Unlike the other exclusive clubs of the District’s ruling class, the Briar Club held no Christmas ball, no charity events, no open house. Each Briar Club member was also a member of the secret society known as Capella.
With Ripley in trail, McDivott marched through the carpet-lined entrance hall. Brocaded chairs and settees lined the paneled walls. Persian carpets lay before each of the three matching fireplaces. A crystal chandelier hung from the gilded ceiling.
The furnishings of the club were an eclectic mix of 1920s glitz and twenty-first century technology. The lower level contained a ten thousand-volume library. There was a linear series of chambers including a dining room, a conference hall with neoclassical columns at each corner, a massive stone mantelpiece, and a fifteen-feet-in diameter plasma screen that slid from the ceiling.
McDivott nodded to the two uniformed staffers behind the desk as he continued straight to the elevator entrance. First McDivott, then Ripley paused at the console while a retina scanner identified them. The ID check took less than two seconds for each man. The elevator
door slid open with a hiss.
Vance McDivott enjoyed the perks that attended being Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—the limo, the Pentagon office with instant access to the latest intelligence, the deference accorded him by the highest military and civilian officials. The post had gained him and his wife, Roseanne, admission to glittery District social events and salons that were closed to ordinary government toilers. Most of all, what McDivott liked about his Pentagon job was the exercise of raw power. There was nothing like it. Almost.
The Pentagon was nothing compared to the Briar Club. The military was an inefficient bureaucracy of drones and ass-kissers that deferred to the even more inefficient Congress and executive branch. Capella deferred to no one. As the head of Capella, Vance McDivott wielded more raw power than anyone on the planet.
McDivott and Ripley exited the elevator on the third floor. McDivott’s office in the Briar Club was not as spacious as in the Pentagon, but from his headquarters in the club he was linked to the Capella network around the world. The antenna array that festooned the exterior of the Briar Club lacked some of the Pentagon’s assets, but it could access almost all of the Defense Department’s satellite-provided surveillance imagery.
McDivott stopped at the desk console in his office just long enough to check the message screen. There was nothing of importance. Just another plaintive message from Atwater. McDivott glanced at it, then deleted it.
Ripley was standing behind him. “Is the Speaker on his way?”
“I sent him to the White House,” said McDivott. “He has to deal with the cabinet, at least as many as they can round up at this hour. The cabinet has to designate Atwater as acting President. It’s his job to get them to sign off.”
McDivott paused for a moment to stare at the brass bust standing on a pedestal beside his console. The bronze image of Old Iron Pants glowered back at him. Now, more than ever, McDivott could feel the spirit of Curtis LeMay here in the sanctum of the Briar Club. This was the moment in history that LeMay had always warned would come. It was the reason he founded Capella.