by Robert Gandt
“Let Schlater take care of it. He knows how to handle it. Have you located Paulsen?”
“She has to be in the Presidential suite,” said Ricketts. “The airplane’s locked down, and we’ve covered every other compartment. We’re sure some of the staff and maybe the cockpit crew’s in the suite too. We’ve got it sealed off and waiting for your order.”
Berg nodded. That was the plan. Isolate Paulsen from the other occupants of the airplane before taking final action. Do it with as few witnesses as possible. Eliminate the witnesses. Set up the Iranian terrorists as the perpetrators. Then hose the Iranians. Not elegant, but they could tidy up the details later.
When Capella had reached the decision to remove Paulsen, Rolf Berg had been one of the first to give his commitment. Now it was crunch time. Berg had the sure sense that what he did in the next minutes would change history.
Berg headed down the passageway. He kept the P-229 suspended at his right hip. He had never been in this section of Air Force One, but he knew the floor plan by heart. The Presidential suite occupied almost the entire nose section on the main deck. As he strode down the corridor, Berg could feel the deck tilted downward because of the collapsed nose gear.
He had almost reached the far end of the darkened passageway when the door to the Presidential suite opened. A man emerged, and he immediately clunked the door behind him. In the dim light Berg could make out the blue jacket, the Air Force insignia. The man didn’t appear to be armed.
“Colonel Brand?” said Berg.
“Colonel Morganti. I’m the Deputy Presidential Pilot.”
Berg gave him a quick appraisal. He knew Morganti from the briefing sheets. And he knew the type. That pompous manner was something chickenshit colonels seemed to acquire along with their orders to Washington. Morganti had been sent out here for no other purpose than to impede Berg’s mission.
“Where’s Brand?” said Berg.
“With the President.”
Berg gestured toward the door. “Open it.”
Morganti shook his head. “Not until I get the order from inside.”
“When did it become the Deputy Presidential Pilot’s responsibility to guard doors?”
“That’s not something you need to know.”
Berg sighed. Where did they get these assholes? “Have it your way,” he said and fired a round into Morganti’s forehead just above the right eyebrow.
The Air Force officer’s eyes bulged, then rolled back in their sockets. Morganti tilted sideways against the passageway wall and dropped like a bundle of laundry. Berg motioned to Ricketts and his squad. He pointed at the door to the suite. They had to move fast. Berg’s P-229 was fitted with a silencer, but the muffled shot was still loud enough to have been heard inside the suite. If anyone in there was armed, they’d be alerted.
This part they’d rehearsed. The door to the Presidential suite was heavy duty, not the kind that could be kicked in. Berg stepped back while Ricketts attached the plastic charge to the door handle. A few seconds later the mini-charge detonated with a muffled whump. A ragged hole appeared where the handle had been, and the door flopped open.
Led by Ricketts, the contractors poured through the doorway. Holding the P-229 at the ready, Berg followed them inside the Presidential suite. Berg had run this scenario a hundred times in his mind. No discussion, no hesitation, no explanations. The decision had already been made. Fast and neat. Identify the target, isolate her, get it done. It was God’s will.
The President’s office looked smaller and less grand than he expected. The L-shaped desk faced outward. The seat behind it was empty. The room was semi-dark, illuminated only by the morning sunshine slanting through the window on the right. Peering at Berg from the settee facing the desk was a youngish-looking man, maybe thirty, looking thoroughly terrified. Okay, that would be Fortenoy, the deputy White House chief of staff. Next to him sat a man with large metal-rimmed glasses and a serious frown. Berg recognized him from the brief sheet. It had to be Lester Vosges, another of Paulsen’s stable of numbnut advisors. Standing in the corner was a heavy-set black woman wearing Air Force blues and chief master sergeant’s stripes. Probably Manning, the chief flight attendant.
None of the three spoke. They stared at Berg as if he had just landed from Saturn.
Vosges, the one who looked like an owl, had a cell phone in his hand. If he was trying to make a call, he would have discovered that his cell phone was useless, like every other cell phone on Air Force One. At least they were supposed to be, but it seemed that everything Berg hadn’t personally controlled today had gotten fucked up. Without a word Berg snatched the cell phone from Vosge’s hand. Berg’s contractors already had orders to confiscate every cell phone along with every weapon aboard the aircraft.
Ricketts appeared from the doorway to the left, the President’s private suite. He looked at Berg and shook his head. The private suite was empty. That left only the medical office, which adjoined the President’s office from aft. Berg dispatched two contractors to search the office. Half a minute later they were back, again shaking their heads.
Berg felt a mounting sense of frustration. This was turning into a cluster fuck. Not in any of the scenarios they had rehearsed was this a contingency. Missing were the Presidential Pilot and the other copilot, Batchelder. And Paulsen’s chief of staff, the skinny bitch—what was her name? Maitlin, that was it. All missing.
And Paulsen. Where the hell is Paulsen?
As if reading his thoughts, the round-faced female sergeant broke the silence. “She’s not here.”
<>
“I told you, we’re not taking calls.” Jeb Kincaid didn’t bother concealing the annoyance in his voice. The White House Press Secretary had been fielding calls all night from the news-hungry media hounds. The silky-toned manner that reporters loved about Kincaid was gone. No, he wasn’t releasing any information at this time. No, he wouldn’t affirm or deny that Air Force One had suffered a calamity. No, for the last time, he wasn’t making any comments. Please show a little respect for the President and stay the hell off the phone. Wait for the press conference that was coming later in the morning.
“It’s not the press,” said Rosalind Diggs, the matronly secretary who ran the front desk in Kincaid’s office. Diggs’s eyes were red from the emotional stress of the past several hours. “It’s General Gritti.”
It took a second to register. Kincaid stared at her. Gritti was the burr-headed marine who served as the President’s National Security Advisor. He was an insider, one of the President’s favorites. Gritti had been aboard Air Force One with the President.
Kincaid snatched up the phone, then hesitated. He gave Diggs a two-fingered swiping gesture across his throat. It was their private signal. It meant, Switch off recording.
Kincaid waited until Diggs had left and closed the door. “General Gritti, thank God you’re okay. What’s the President’s status?”
“Is this a secure line?”
“Yes, sir. Just you and me.”
“The President’s okay,” said Gritti. “At least for the moment. She needs your help.”
“I’m listening,” said Kincaid. He lowered himself into his desk chair and squeezed the phone between his neck and shoulder so that he could jot notes.
“Every one of the cell phones on Air Force One has been locked out. We don’t know how the bastards did that. I’m calling you from the desk phone in the airport terminal in a place called Summit. That’s where Air Force One has landed. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to talk before someone shuts this one down.”
“Okay, keep talking.”
“The President is airborne again. In a Gulfstream exec jet. They commandeered it here at Summit.”
“They?”
“She and the Presidential Pilot and some staff.”
“Airborne to where? I don’t understand. I thought that—”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. It’s critical that you be discreet with this. The President wants you t
o contact people you trust in the media, have them on the ramp to meet her when the Gulfstream lands. Tell them to bring local law enforcement with them. Got that? Local police, not the feds. The President will be safe as soon as she’s in the media spotlight and protected by real cops.”
Kincaid knew Gritti from the previous administration, back when Kincaid was a Defense Department spokesman and Gritti was on the Joint Chiefs staff. He and the general had never been close. Gritti was like a lot of the senior officers Kincaid had met at DOD. Dismissive with lower-ranking civilians, especially thirty-something appointees like Kincaid who had no military credentials of their own.
“General, shouldn’t we get the Secret Service in the loop? And Homeland Security?”
“Absolutely not. This is a conspiracy we’re dealing with. A big, complex, well-organized coup attempt, and the military is deeply involved. Beyond that we don’t know who’s in it or who we can trust. The President’s only move is to get outside the federal net, at least for now, and go public. Are you clear on this?”
It was Gritti being Gritti again. Talking down to civilians. “I’m clear,” said Kincaid. “Where and when will she be landing?”
Gritti told him. Then he repeated his warning to exercise the most extreme discretion. The President was counting on him. Get it done.
After the line went dead, Kincaid finished jotting down what the general had told him. For another minute Kincaid remained in his office seat, thinking about what Gritti had said. This was explosive stuff. In normal times White House Press Secretaries were spokespersons, not conduits of power. But this was different. What Jeb Kincaid was being asked to do would be pivotal in the future history of the country.
He picked up the phone again and punched in a number he knew by heart. On the second ring, a familiar voice came on the line.
“Ripley.”
<>
“I see it,” said Ingram. He lowered his binoculars and pointed to the speck of the incoming aircraft. “Lined up on runway zero-four.”
As the jet neared the runway threshold at the Easton airport, the Gulfstream’s graceful features were becoming visible. Long pointy nose, tall slanting tail, thin swept back wings. Ingram couldn’t help reflecting on the strangeness of the situation. No flight plan, no landing clearance, no official party to meet it here on the ground.
None except Ingram’s group of thirty-some reporters and cameramen and the two dozen uniformed police officers. They’d gotten here only minutes before the tower controllers reported the Gulfstream on final approach. Behind them was the row of vans with the markings of networks and local affiliates. According to the controllers, the Gulfstream had flown a slow, meandering flight path down the Delaware peninsula, giving the team time to make it across the bay to the Maryland east shore. In the distance, high and beyond the shoreline, Ingram could make out the shapes of the four fighters trailing the Gulfstream.
The Gulfstream’s tires squawked down on the 5,500-foot-long runway. The two turbofan engines rumbled in reverse thrust, slowing the jet enough that it easily made the turn off two-thirds of the way down the runway. Ingram could feel the tension heightening in the group around him. This was an arrival and reception unlike anything a President had ever received.
Ingram’s cameraman eased up beside him. “Where do you want me?”
“Right behind me. We’ll go in together.”
Ingram had been designated the lead media representative. For the past quarter hour he had been rehearsing in his mind the role he was assigned to play. He and the cameraman would be the first to board the aircraft. First to meet its occupants. First to greet the President of the United States on her arrival back in the United States.
The Gulfstream exited the narrow taxiway and turned on to the sprawling ramp. The pilot spotted the media group assembled in front of the one-story airport terminal building and turned in their direction. The high-pitched whine of the engines swelled in volume as the jet approached. No one in the group spoke as the jet wheeled across the ramp. Instinctively, Ingram put his fingers in his ears to block the noise.
The Gulfstream slowed, did a neat ninety-degree turn, and came to a stop with its sleek nose pointed toward the terminal and the waiting group of reporters. Ingram could see the faces of the pilots through the slanted glass windscreen. He had to hand it to these guys. Flying a 747 all night across an ocean, crash landing in a pea patch airport, then taking off in a commandeered executive jet.
First one, then the second engine whined down. Ingram removed the fingers from his ears. For a minute nothing happened. The jet sat motionless and silent. The pilots’ faces were no longer visible in the windscreen.
Ingram motioned to the cameramen, then walked to the left side of the aircraft. The other reporters followed, forming an arc from the front to the rear of the Gulfstream.
Ingram rapped on the aluminum skin of the main door. As if in response, he heard a metallic click, then the door unlatched. The door swung fully open. A boarding ladder dropped out from the base of the door and tilted outwards until it reached the pavement.
Ingram didn’t wait. He clambered up the ladder, two steps at a time. He felt the ladder give slightly as the weight of the cameraman hit the bottom step behind him. By the time Ingram had taken his first step into the cabin he had the Glock out of its holster. It had already occurred to him that he’d be the first to take a bullet if there were agents aboard. The Capella briefer had said they believed that the President hadn’t brought Secret Service agents along on the Gulfstream.
The briefer was right. There were no agents. There were no White House staffers. There was no President. The only visible occupants of the cabin were two men in Air Force uniforms. The cockpit was empty, which meant that these two must have flown the Gulfstream into Easton. One wore the leaves of a lieutenant colonel. The other had sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve.
“Check the lavatory,” Ingram told the cameraman, who was no longer carrying a camera. The reporter-cameraman facade had ended. He had his own Glock out of its holster and at the ready.
A few seconds later the cameraman was back, shaking his head. “Nothing.”
By now two more reporters, also carrying semi-automatics, were in the forward cabin. The narrow space between the cockpit and the main cabin was filled with hunched-over, weapon-carrying Galeforce contractors.
Ingram turned his attention to the two Air Force men. So far neither had spoken. They were seated in the second row on each side of the aisle. They were eyeing Ingram like spaniels watching a Doberman.
Ingram felt the anger well up inside him. He had come to perform the patriotic service of removing a treasonous President. Instead he was standing here looking at an empty cabin. Empty except for these two smug blue-suited assholes.
Ingram pointed the muzzle of the Glock at the forehead of the officer. His nametag read Batchelder. “Where is she?” Ingram demanded.
The officer didn’t blink. He kept giving Ingram the spaniel look. “Where is who?”
Chapter 23
“Tell me again,” said Libby. “What is this thing called?”
“A Piper Apache,” said Brand from the left seat. “Currently known as Air Force One.”
Libby nodded. She knew the protocol. Any fixed-wing airplane carrying the President received the call sign “Air Force One.” Never before had the label been applied to a clattering old twin-engine crate like this one.
Brand had stolen it, of course. The Apache was parked at the Summit airport, having just been fueled. The hulk of the previous Air Force One lay crumpled in the meadow on the opposite side of the field. In the distance they’d heard the wailing of sirens. The stupefied line attendant had just given them a blank stare when Brand informed him that the Apache was being requisitioned for a national security mission.
Libby peered through the crazed Plexiglas window of the Apache’s cabin. Forested green hills were slipping beneath them. Brand was keeping them at low altitude, only a few hundred feet above the
terrain. They were somewhere over southern Pennsylvania. Taking off from Summit, banking away from the field, they’d spotted the dark silhouettes of helicopters approaching from the south. They’d gotten away just in time. Or so she hoped. At any moment she expected to see the dark shapes converging on them again.
Libby glanced around again at the tattered interior of the Apache. This was not the Air Force One she was used to. The brown vinyl upholstery was faded. Rips in the fabric were covered with duct tape. The black-painted instrument panel was chipped and dented, bright metal showing through, like something from an old war movie. The two piston engines growled in a synchronous baritone.
Brand’s face, as usual, revealed nothing. He was focused on flying the airplane. His hands moved over the controls like those of a surgeon, tweaking the power setting, fine-tuning the propeller controls, making tiny adjustments to the airplane’s heading.
In the back sat Jill Maitlin and Vic Kreier, the only Secret Service agent they had room for in the Apache. For armament they had Kreier’s compact submachine gun and semi-automatic as well as Brand’s 9mm Beretta.
Kreier had been assigned over Mike Grossman’s objections. Grossman insisted that it was his job to accompany the President, but Jill Maitlin overruled him. She declared that Grossman should be the first one to confront the conspirator forces when they arrived at Air Force One. Grossman could buy them time.
Jill was wearing a sour expression while she scribbled notes into a composition book. Libby knew that Jill hated airplanes, and she especially hated cramped little flivvers like this one. It had taken a direct order—something Libby loathed doing—to get Jill to climb into the Apache with her and Brand.
“How much longer?” Libby asked Brand. It occurred to her that it was the same question she used to ask her father when they took road trips.
“Not long,” said Brand. Same answer she’d gotten from her father.