by Robert Gandt
What would Old Iron Pants say now? McDivott knew. He knew because he considered himself to be the living embodiment of Gen. Curtis LeMay. He and LeMay were cast from the same mold. Do it, LeMay would tell him. Do your duty. Save your country.
McDivott shed his uniform coat and draped it over a chair. With Ripley behind him he headed down the corridor to the conference room that served as Capella’s command post. Half a dozen men, all in shirtsleeves and loosened neckties, were huddled around the conference table. A plasma screen on the wall showed a satellite image of the northeast coast of the U. S.
McDivott spotted a tall, muscular man standing at the fringe of the group. McDivott gave him a wave. Rolf Berg, head of the security contracting company called Galeforce, was a key member of the Capella high command. Berg was a tough ex-special ops officer. His security force was prepared to enforce Capella’s seizure of power in Washington.
“There you are,” said a ruddy-faced man with white muttonchops. “You had us worried.”
“You can stop worrying, Casper,” said McDivott. “The situation is under control.”
Casper Reckson, chairman of the Sterling International Media Group, was frowning. “We can’t keep the lid on the story much longer. The President is either dead or she’s not.”
“Or she’s in the hands of terrorists. In which case it doesn’t matter whether she’s dead or alive. To avert a tragedy like 9/11, we’re forced to take them all out.”
“Has that been accomplished yet?”
McDivott didn’t like Reckson’s pushy attitude, but he forced himself to be respectful. Like it or not, McDivott—and Capella—needed Reckson. The old titan had an iron-fisted control of the nation’s largest broadcast and newspaper syndicate. Reckson’s empire was crucial to Capella’s success. “Something happened,” said McDivott. “Air Force One somehow made it to Greenland. They’ve refueled and they’re airborne again, without communications.”
“How could that happen without your people stopping them?”
“We think they had help on the ground in Greenland. But we’re tracking them now. They’re apparently en route to the U. S.”
“Apparently?” Reckson’s face darkened. “This is preposterous. You’re in charge of the Air Force, General. Can’t you order fighters to shoot them down?”
“Of course,” said McDivott, straining to keep his tone courteous. “But we need to be very specific about who receives the order. It has to go through one of our Capella officers. Whoever carries out the order must be convinced of its authenticity.”
What McDivott wasn’t telling this pompous civilian was that every Air Force fighter squadron on the east coast fell under the command of the First Air Force, which was run by a four-star named Brent Younkin, a loyal Capella member. The problem was that only a few of Younkin’s wing and squadron commanders were Capella members. Any order to shoot down Air Force One had to be carefully routed through one of them.
“And that order, I presume, has already been given?”
Reckson’s tone was becoming more than annoying. Before McDivott could snap an answer, Ripley stepped in as he usually did when he sensed that McDivott had reached a boiling point. “Yes, sir. As we speak, our assets are en route to engage Air Force One.”
The hard lines in Reckson’s face softened. “How much longer then?”
“Twenty minutes. By then, I assure you, this situation will be resolved.”
<>
Capt. Sam Fornier ripped the paper off the machine. The officer stared at the incoming message. No way could this be happening. This was some misguided idiot’s idea of a prank. Or another boneheaded Air Force readiness exercise to simulate a make believe shit-crisis somewhere in the world.
Except that this shit-crisis wasn’t make believe. Since Fornier had transmitted the original reprovisioning request, the world had changed. According to the hotwire on the briefing board, Air Force One had gone missing. No other official information had come over the electronic briefing board, but every television channel was filled with speculation about what might have happened to the President’s airplane. Very heavy shit.
Now this.
Fornier knew exactly what to do with this message. Take it to the air wing command duty officer in the main hangar. Let him deal with it. That’s what colonels got paid for. Fornier rose from the desk.
And sat back down again.
The young officer read the message again. The same bothersome line kept jumping off the page.
. . .ongoing attempts by unknown parties within the military to destroy SAM 28000 and eliminate the President. . .
Fornier glanced around the catering office. No one else was on duty at this hour. Fornier was solely in charge of the texting equipment that connected the Andrews catering facility with every special air mission aircraft currently deployed. Only one aircraft—Air Force One—fit that category.
Sam Fornier had a low tolerance for military bullshit. Being a catering officer for pampered politicians hadn’t been Fornier’s first choice for an action-packed career in the U. S. Air Force. It was a dead end job. All Fornier wanted was to put in the obligated service time, stay in shape, run a few marathons, play with computers, get the hell back to civilian life.
Now this. The message—supposedly from SAM 28000, the aircraft assigned as Air Force One—had trouble written all over it. Unknown parties within the military. What was that supposed to mean? Some kind of coup attempt? Or a cover up for a terrorist action? Whatever, it was too hot to handle. Way above a captain’s pay grade. Let one of the mush-wit lifers in air wing staff earn his keep.
Fornier rose from the desk, message in hand, and paced behind the row of desks in the windowless duty office. After a solid minute of pacing, the officer returned to the desk.
Fornier picked up the duty phone, began punching in a number, then abruptly returned the phone to its cradle.
Shit. Another half minute passed. The young officer retrieved the cell phone from the backpack on the desk. Fornier pecked at the keyboard, then stared again at the message print out while the phone rang.
On the fourth ring a gravelly voice came on the line. “Cassidy.”
<>
Libby was in the jump seat behind Brand. She looked over Brand’s shoulder while he read the newly received message that Sergeant Manning had just delivered.
05190630Z
From: Capt. Sam Fornier, Duty Officer, Catering office, 89th AW, Andrews AFB.
To: A/C commander, SAM 28000
Your message relayed. Cassidy requires that you answer following: Who was Bitch Mistress? Who is Queenie? Who was the idiot who punched out Maddox?
Immediate reply expected.
/s/ SF
“What’s that all about?” said Libby. “Bitch mistress? Queenie?”
Brand was shaking his head. “Stuff that only Jack Cassidy would know to ask.”
And then Libby remembered. “General Cassidy was your boss when you were in Africa. I met him. The cranky general.”
“Same guy.” Brand held up the print out. “And there’s no doubt this comes from him.”
Libby didn’t know whether that was good or bad. Maybe they were exposing themselves to more danger by opening a communications link. Maybe the conspirators—she was still having trouble accepting the idea—would home in on the source of the message. Brand seemed to think it was worth the risk.
“How do you want to reply to this, Colonel?” asked Sergeant Manning.
Brand was already scribbling on his steno pad. He tore the sheet off the sheet. “Send this. After the President clears it.”
Libby squinted at the handwritten message. She looked at Brand. “Bitch Mistress was an airplane?”
“The name my crew painted on the nose of our C-130 in the Sudan airlift. Cassidy hated it, but he pretended he never saw it.”
Libby nodded, still looking at Brand’s handwriting. “And Queenie? Okay, that’s Cassidy’s dog. What’s this about an idiot punching out Maddox? Who’s M
addox?”
Libby thought she saw Brand wince. “A brigadier general. He and I, ah, had an . . . altercation one night in Okinawa.”
“Let me get this straight. You were the idiot who punched out a general?”
Brand nodded.
“I presume there was a reason for this.”
“There was. He needed punching out.”
“Colonel Brand, how is it that you’re still in the U. S. Air Force?”
“Good question. Maybe you should ask Cassidy.”
Chapter 12
Sam Fornier hated this shit. The young officer was pacing the narrow passage between the desks in the duty office, waiting for Cassidy to call. Sit tight, the general had said. Talk to no one. He’d get right back.
That was ten minutes ago. He hadn’t gotten back. It was just a matter of time before the combined wrath of the United States military descended on this place. Fornier snatched the cell phone off the desk, keyed the “recents” tab, and was about to punch the entry with Cassidy’s number.
And then stopped. Could they trace this cell phone? It was one of the phones issued by the air wing. It was designed to be trackable—but not with the hack that Fornier had recently applied. Now the damned thing was about to get Fornier into unbelievably deep shit. The best move was to trash the hacked phone. Get rid of it and run like hell.
The phone was buzzing.
“Captain Fornier,” blurted Sam, thinking too late that this might not be a good time to use real names.
The same gravelly voice came on the line. Fornier guessed that the general either had laryngitis or was a heavy smoker. As Fornier held the phone with one hand, scribbling Cassidy’s message with the other, a mounting wave of anxiety swept over the young officer. Well, Fornier, you’ve done it. You’ve gotten yourself in it this time.
When Cassidy had finished, the captain took a deep breath. “Yes, sir, I understand the urgency. I’m sending it right now.”
<>
Libby was in the cockpit, still in the jump seat behind Brand, when Manning burst through the door. Wordlessly the sergeant handed the print out to Libby.
Libby felt a cold chill come over her as she read the message. She passed the sheet around the back of the seat to Brand.
05190632Z
From: Catering officer, 89th AW, Andrews AFB
To: A/C commander SAM 28000
Cassidy sends urgent warning. You have been tagged as a hijacked aircraft and considered hostile. An F-15C has been scrambled with orders to engage over international airspace between Greenland and coast of Canada. Cassidy urges you exercise all available options.
/s/ SF
“How do they know where to intercept us?” said Libby. “How do they even know we’re alive?”
To her surprise, Morganti answered. Until now the copilot had been silent and sullen in the right seat. “Sergeant DeWitt,” said Morganti. “The security detail let him escape back in Narsarsuaq. Now he’s telling the whole world that we’re alive and headed for the U. S.”
Libby detected the hostility in his voice. Morganti still worried her. Where did all the hostility come from? “Are we headed for the U. S.?” Libby asked. “Or someplace else?”
Brand answered. “We’re headed for North America. Depending on what we learn from Cassidy, we either land in Canada or continue offshore to some point in the U. S.” Brand paused, then added, “With your concurrence, Madame President.”
With your concurrence. Libby couldn’t tell if Brand was saying that for the benefit of the others or not. It didn’t matter. She had no idea what they should do. The whole situation seemed incomprehensible.
She looked at the message again. “What does he mean by ‘all available options?’”
Brand exchanged a quick glance with Switzer. “We have the ATADS,” said Brand. “Air-to-air defense system. The trouble is, it isn’t working.”
“Maybe,” said Switzer. “The ATADS is tied to a different module from the comms. I can give it a try.”
“Go for it. Lou will cover the engineer seat.”
Libby watched the engineer leave the cockpit, canvas satchel in his hand. Batchelder settled himself into the seat facing the engineer panel. None of this was making any sense to Libby. Someone was going to intercept them. The engineer was going to fix something. “What does this ATADS do?” she asked.
She nodded, her eyes widening, as Brand told her.
<>
“No,” said McDivott. “You shouldn’t be sworn in. It’s too early.”
McDivott was taking a break from the claustrophobic command post at the Briar Club. He was standing in the corridor outside his office, listening to Fred Atwater’s whiny voice over the scrambled phone.
“It will reassure the nation,” Atwater was saying. “The American people need to know someone is in charge.”
“Someone is in charge,” snapped McDivott. He felt like reminding the dumb shit that the someone in charge definitely wasn’t Fred Atwater. Nor would it ever be. But this wasn’t the time. McDivott forced himself to wait a second, then he said in a conciliatory voice, “It’s too soon, Fred. We have to be meticulous about the rules of succession. You have to get a majority of the cabinet to sign off on designating you the acting President. That’s as far as we want to go at this time.”
Atwater still wasn’t buying it. “I know the rules of succession, and I’ve read the 25th Amendment a hundred times. My lawyers tell me that it’s clear enough. I can be sworn in now. The Supreme Court can make it official later.”
“Tell your lawyers to take a hike. We need to have evidence that the President is dead. So far she’s only missing. We need a body or clear proof of death.”
“And when will that be?”
McDivott didn’t answer immediately. There was no point in telling Atwater that not only was the President not dead, the traitor was in the air, headed westward. The removal of Libby Paulsen had still not been accomplished.
But it would very soon. Vance McDivott still commanded the most powerful air force in the world. No way was Air Force One going to reach the United States.
“Very soon,” said McDivott. “It’s being taken care of.”
<>
Contact.
The blip appeared just outside the hundred mile ring on Slade’s APG-70 radar. He swung the nose of the F-15C thirty degrees to the left to establish an intercept course.
Colonel Tom Slade—call sign “Blazer”—sucked a lungful of oxygen through his mask. On the Plexiglas of his canopy Slade could see the dancing reflections of the northern lights over the Labrador Sea. He shifted his position on the hard pad of the ejection seat. Slade’s butt was already numb and it would be more numb by the time he’d executed the mission and returned to his base at Westfield, Massachusetts.
Slade had been surprised—and pleased—when he received the scramble order back at fighter wing headquarters. His mission was to intercept Angel—the name assigned to Air Force One—which had somehow not crashed in the Atlantic and had been reported airborne after a stop in Narsarsuaq.
Airborne to where? The U. S.? Which base? The Capella command post reported that Angel was headed westward across the Labrador Sea. Looking at the APG-70 display, Slade saw that they had reported correctly.
The F-15C was a big fighter. It was sixty-four feet long, weighing over 60,000 pounds fully loaded. It was armed with heat seeking missiles and two varieties of radar-guided missiles—the AIM-7 Sparrow and long range AIM-120. More than enough firepower for a mission like this one. The conformal tanks and three externally-mounted ferry tanks provided enough fuel to execute the mission and return to base without inflight refueling.
Slade knew that most fighter pilots would find this mission abhorrent. Killing a fat and unsuspecting target like Air Force One violated their code of honor. Tom Slade had sworn allegiance to a higher code. His loyalty was to God and country, not to a left-wing traitor like Paulsen. A traitor who wanted to destroy everything that Slade and patriots before him h
ad fought for.
Early in his Air Force career, when Slade was still a captain and Vance McDivott was his squadron commander, Slade had been recruited into Capella. It was a natural fit. To a man like Slade, patriotism was a warrior’s highest calling. Slade had often prayed that if Capella were someday forced to save the United States, the task would fall to him.
Tonight his prayers had been answered.
Slade would not get maudlin about the innocent passengers and crew aboard Air Force One. Some of them—White House staffers and bleeding heart liberal congressmen and the Middle East ragheads Paulsen collected—weren’t so innocent. The others, well, God had placed them there for a reason. Slade would not question the will of the Almighty.
The UHF tactical channel was quiet. Unless Slade received an abort order from headquarters, there would be no radio communications. No target report, no kill verification. After he’d acquired and identified the target, he would execute the mission in radio silence. He’d fly a pursuit curve, swooping around to a close trail position, slowing to the target’s speed. He’d descend to the transport’s altitude, which the APG-70 was showing to be 29,000 feet.
At this closure speed, nearly 1,200 nautical miles per hour, he’d engage the target—Slade did a quick calculation—in five minutes. He reached down to the multi-function display on his panel and toggled the screen to the weapons page. He selected the box labeled “AIM-7.” A semi-active radar-guided Sparrow missile.
<>
Morganti saw it first. “There it is. We’re lit up.”
It was the first time the copilot had spoken since they’d gotten the warning from Cassidy. Brand snapped his attention to the overhead panel. Morganti was right. The amber warning light on the RWR—radar warning receiver—was blinking. An air-to-air radar was tracking them.