Air Force One is Down

by John Denis

  Dunkels threw back his head and laughed. ‘We do, Colonel,’ he spluttered. ‘Oh, we do.’ Then he stopped, and his mouth set into a sneer. ‘And we think, too, that you may be, shall we say, overrating your importance? You say that Air Force One couldn’t leave without you.’ He shook his head, bent down and whispered, ‘To the contrary, Colonel, your absence will hardly be noticed.’

  Mac stared at him. ‘What the hell d’you mean?’ he exploded. ‘If I’m not on that aircraft—’

  ‘If you’re not on the plane,’ Dunkels interrupted smoothly, ‘no doubt there would be some speculation for a short while on the flight deck, yes. Colonel – Fairman, is it? – yes, Colonel Fairman, I think … he might well express concern to Major Latimer, the pilot is he not? Or Lieutenant Colonel Kowalski, the navigator, could pass some sort of comment to Master Sergeant Allen, the engineer. But I dare say that’s as far as it would go. What do you think, Colonel?’

  The cobwebs were still playing paper streamers in the American’s mind. He shook his head again, in disbelief. The world was going crazy; this suave European and the murderous Arabs were unbalanced. What they said just didn’t make sense. ‘You have to be joking,’ he grated, ‘Washington would hear of it, and when they do—’

  ‘Ah, you mean they’d monitor the flight deck conversation on the open line to Andrews Air Force Base. Of course—’

  ‘That can’t be done,’ Mac flung at him savagely, ‘as you must know. But it won’t take Tom Fairman two seconds to get them on the radio, and Pat Latimer would not, I repeat not, take off without me.’

  Dunkels stood up and roared with delight. ‘Jeeze, Mac,’ he said, ‘that’s some bull’s eye. That sure is a hole in one. Achmed – see that you-know-who gets the information: Latimer’s known as “Pat”, not Patrick or Paddy, and Andrews Base have no facility to eavesdrop on the Air Force One flight deck. They can only communicate through the radio. Got that?’

  The Arab rose to his feet, smiling broadly. Then he looked at his watch and said, ‘I’ll make the calls on the way back to Manama. I’m overdue already. My master will not be pleased.’

  ‘Screw him,’ Dunkels said shortly.

  ‘Now, now,’ Achmed chided, ‘not all we Arabs are pederasts, although they do say—’

  Dunkels gestured at him impatiently. ‘I don’t have the time for you to tell me what they say, Achmed. As you mentioned, you’re late. On your way.’

  Fayeed strode from the borrasti, but turned at Dunkels’ command. ‘The key,’ the German said.

  Achmed fished in his pocket and tossed Dunkels a small bunch of keys, incongruously suspended on a thin gold chain. ‘The small one fits the cocktail bar,’ he said, and waved from the door.

  The German turned once more to McCafferty, who was tentatively feeling his battered face and body, the point of Selim’s machine-gun following every movement, never more than six inches away. Dunkels chuckled and said, ‘You don’t know how helpful you’ve been to us, Colonel … or perhaps you do. Anyway,’ he added briskly, ‘we must get you looking decent. Selim—’ he snapped his fingers at the grinning Arab.

  They stripped the American, who was still as weak as a kitten, to his shirt and underclothing. Selim tugged baggy Oriental trousers over his shoes and up to his waist, fastening them with a leather belt. Then Dunkels pulled over Mac’s head a full-length, wide-sleeved cloak, and Selim drew up the hood to hide his face.

  Mac leaned heavily on Selim as the two men guided him out to another car concealed behind the mud hut, and pushed him into the rear seat. Dunkels got in beside him, and jammed the barrel of a Walther 9mm pistol roughly into McCafferty’s injured side. ‘Just to remind you, Colonel,’ the German said, ‘no tricks. That would be very foolish.’

  McCafferty regarded him through puffy eyelids. ‘I don’t know who you work for, or even what you are trying to do. But I’ll tell you once again – you can’t get away with it.

  ‘Air Force One is due to take off in less than half an hour. If I’m not on it, there’ll be the biggest man-hunt in the history of the Persian Gulf.’

  Dunkels replied with a high-pitched whinny, like a knowing hyena. ‘But don’t you see, Colonel, you will be on the plane.’

  Mac looked at him blankly. ‘You – you mean … you’re going to let me go?’

  The German snickered again. ‘Not precisely, but you’ll be there all right. There’s no harm in telling you now. As you say, we haven’t long to go, and in any case there would seem to be nothing you can do about it.

  ‘You see, it won’t be you on board Air Force One as Head of Security, Colonel. But someone will be there; somebody remarkably like you. So much so that he’ll fool Tom and Pat and Paul and Chuck and Bert, and anyone else who knows you or is likely to meet you in the near future, including Mr Malcolm Philpott and the President of the United States of America.’

  The realisation sunk slowly into Mac’s fuddled brain. He squinted at the jubilant Dunkels and breathed, ‘You have to be loco if you think you can bring that off. Bananas.’

  The German shook his blond head vigorously. ‘No, McCafferty, we’re not,’ he replied, ‘neither me nor the man behind me, the man who is going to bring down UNACO, and who doesn’t care if the American Administration falls with it. It’s someone not entirely unknown to you, I believe.’

  Mac’s eyes widened, and he muttered, half to himself, ‘Of course. Smith. It’s got to be …’

  Dunkels drove the Walther a second time into the American’s ribs. ‘Mister Smith to you, Colonel,’ he replied.

  Jagger took Achmed’s call in the hotel lobby just as he was leaving the hotel with Cooligan to pick up the EDP convoy. He excused himself and crossed to the reception desk. The clerk handed him the telephone. Jagger digested the information, and put the phone down.

  Smith received the news thousands of miles to the north of Bahrain in a darkening room set high up in a once impregnable fortress. Smith’s teeth gleamed and he purred to Achmed, ‘You have done well, my friend. I’ll wish you “bon voyage”, and please present my greetings to your esteemed father.’ He tut-tutted at Fayeed’s unfilial reply.

  Smith had forsaken his Brooks Brothers shirt and clerical grey suit for a light-weight, stone-coloured sweater and dark brown slacks. He picked up a tiny bronze bell and rang it. A girl came in, wearing a dirndl apron over a long green velveteen skirt, and a scarcely opaque blouse, unnecessarily open to the midriff. The blouse was of gossamer-thin, wispy material, and it lay off her shoulders and bisected the mounds of her breasts. In her native tongue, Smith ordered Krug champagne, and invited her to join him.

  ‘But I am your servant,’ she objected.

  ‘And you will serve me,’ Smith replied.

  Then he, too, made a telephone call and spoke swiftly in yet another language. The man to whom he gave his brief report thanked him courteously and made his farewells. He also accepted a drink – a fine, dry German wine – but not from the hand of the nubile serving girl.

  It was given to him by Axel Karilian, who lowered his bulk cautiously on to the sofa next to him and said, ‘May I take it that all is well?’

  Myshkin nodded. ‘You may.’

  SIX

  The VC-137C stratoliner called Air Force One trembled on the hardstand at Muharraq Airport.

  Klaxons baying, the motorcade sped into a ‘no entry’ road to the airport – the quickest and, therefore, safest route – and the leading outriders slithered to an unscheduled halt, under the watchful and alarmed eyes of perhaps two hundred Bahraini soldiers and policemen.

  Jagger-McCafferty leapt from the last limousine in the convoy while it was still slowing down. He had seen film of an airport arrival by the presidential entourage, and Mac had done the same thing on that occasion. It was now almost a trademark with him – and Jagger didn’t want to disappoint any of McCafferty’s fans.

  On board the Boeing, the crew went through their pre-flight procedure, Wynanski fussing like a mother hen over canapés, table linen and sparkling cr
ystal glasses. The Commander was tense and edgy, as he always was before a trip. Latimer was his customary debonair and nonchalant self. Kowalski allowed his eyes to flicker across the charted flight plan. Kowalski doubled for the navigation aids, but he was a human being instead of a machine relying on electronics to function. Apart from that, he was a resourceful and experienced navigator – and what the hell, Air Force One carried an inertial guidance system anyway.

  Outside the airport, a crowd had gathered to goggle at the flashy black cars and their VIP passengers. They were effectively blocking the route the motorcade was taking – not into the normal departure hall, but through a side road leading straight into the runway area. ‘Clear the road!’ Jagger screamed. ‘Get those people away!’

  Soliders pressed in upon the spectators and jostled them out of the convoy’s path. The access-gate barring the road swung open and the cars motored smoothly behind the motor-cyclists on to the hard-stand, coming to a halt directly opposite the steps leading up to the main hatch (or doorway) of Air Force One.

  As Chief Steward, it fell to Wynanski to welcome his eminent guests. He shimmied up to the leading limo and pulled open the door, fixing the Oil Minister for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Doctor Ibrahim Hamady, with a fierce, toothy grin. Dr Hamady nodded graciously enough, and climbed the steps to the plane. Hamady would be the only one of the OPEC tycoons to wear, at all times, full Arab dress, beautifully cut for him by a Riyadh tailor of exceptional skill.

  The second car flew the Libyan flag, and the routine for Wynanski was similar. Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Dorani, a handsome man in his early forties, with bouffant grey hair and a luxuriant moustache, shook the Master Sergeant’s hand and made for the Boeing, a porter, weighed down with hand-luggage, shuffling behind.

  The next arrival, the nondescript Sheikh Zayed bin Arbeid, of Iraq, was duly decanted, and another limousine left the hardstand. Then came Hemmingsway, who was politely applauded, and in the last car, flying the Bahraini national emblem and getting a special cheer from the home crowd, was a passenger who could have presented Wynanski with logistical problems, if the Chief Steward had not had the foresight to study his brief with special care.

  Sheikh Zayed Farouk Zeidan, wearing Western clothes with an Arab headdress, had a proud curving beak of a nose and magnetic black eyes. He was big, with immense shoulders and hands; he was also quite obviously crippled, his left leg hanging useless and wasted. Now sixty-five, Zeidan was accompanied by his twelve-year-old grandson, Feisal, who was on his way back to school in Switzerland. An Arab aide jumped from the other side of the car, jerked open the trunk, and fetched out a collapsible wheelchair. He assembled it swiftly, and wheeled it round to Zeidan.

  ‘Thank you, Achmed,’ Zeidan said, as the man and the boy helped him into the chair. Fayeed bowed, respectfully but not unctuously, and indicated the ramp which Wynanski’s ground staff had pushed over to replace the steps. Achmed scorned offers of help, and took the wheelchair backwards up the ramp and into the plane.

  Feisal followed his grandfather, and was succeeded by Bert Cooligan. Wynanski ticked off the list on his clip-board: one Energy Secretary, American; four ministers, all Ayrab; plus one snot-nosed kid, ditto. Iran and Venezuela, he reflected, would have made a full pack of six for OPEC, but they were unavoidably absent.

  Last of all to the aeroplane came Cody Jagger, looking to neither left nor right, his unholstered gun visible to anyone watching. The hatch closed behind him and the steps were removed.

  Basil Swann handed the receiver to Philpott. ‘The Pentagon, sir,’ he intoned gravely, like a restrained muezzin. ‘General Morwood.’

  ‘George,’ Philpott barked, ‘what reports are you getting from Bahrain?’

  ‘What reports should we be getting from Bahrain?’ Morwood grumbled. ‘Weather reports, perhaps?’

  ‘No, damn it,’ Philpott cursed, ‘you know what I mean. Is everything all right there? No hitches?’

  Morwood sighed and put on an excessively bored and regimental voice. ‘We’re in direct communication with the Commander and pilot of Air Force One, Malcolm. All systems are in order, and all of the personnel are who they’re supposed to be and where they’re supposed to be. The passengers are even now being conducted to their seats by your agent, Sabrina Carver, masquerading as a member of the United States Air Force, under the impeccable scrutiny of your other agent, Colonel Joe McCafferty. And if UNACO has any more agents aboard, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest – maybe the entire crew are UNACO staff, I don’t know, because nobody ever tells the Pentagon any damned thing, you least of all, Philpott – if, as I said, you have any residual operatives littered about the place disguised as armchairs or engine-cowlings, then I have no doubt that they are also fulfilling their necessary functions, which is what I’m trying to do, if only you’d get off the damned line and stop pestering me.’

  Philpott grinned sympathetically. ‘Far be it from me to come between a man and his necessary functions, George,’ he drawled. ‘Hey – you’ve got the radar-plot, haven’t you, as well?’ Morwood agreed; they did have the radar-plot; he explained the process with massive patience, as he would to a six-year-old boy young for his age. Philpott held the receiver away from his ear and let the discourse roll. ‘Satisfied?’ the eminent soldier inquired icily.

  ‘Sure,’ Philpott replied – then confessed, with a shade of genuine contrition, that UNACO, too, had secured an unauthorised trace on the Boeing’s course. ‘Just thought I’d let you know, George,’ he explained, waiting for the explosion.

  But there wasn’t one. Morwood chuckled throatily and sneered, ‘My dear Malcolm, did you really think you’d put one over on us with the tap into the inertial guidance system monitoring? We knew what you were up to, and our boys at Andrews AFB had instructions to look the other way. We weren’t born yesterday you know, Sherlock. You keep track, we keep track. That way, everybody’s happy.’

  Philpott gulped, duly chastened. ‘OK, George, strike one to the Pentagon. But seriously, you will let me know the instant anything goes wrong with the radar-plot, won’t you?’

  Morwood assured him that nothing could go wrong. The Boeing was scheduled to fly at a comfortable height, her range was more than sufficient for the first leg of the journey, she had ample fuel reserves, and she was in excellent working order.

  ‘All the same,’ Philpott pressed.

  Morwood sighed. ‘Malcolm,’ he said, ‘if it makes you happy, I’ll give you a progress report on how the toilets are flushing and what goes down them.’

  He hung up, and Philpott glanced at the Gulf zone clock. Take-off in two minutes …

  The principal stateroom on Air Force One provided for its guests capacious armchairs built on tracks, with levers for moving or reclining the chairs, like in the better class of car. The chairs were grouped in fours, the pairs facing each other across tables. Sabrina pasted on a brilliant smile and showed the oil moguls to their seats. She warmed to the young Feisal immediately, but drew off when he treated her with something approaching aloof disdain.

  On the flight deck the intercom buzzed and Fairman snapped, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Wynanski, sir,’ came the reply, ‘they’re all aboard and settled.’

  ‘Strapped in?’

  A pause, and Wynanski replied, ‘Affirmative, Colonel.’

  Fairman grunted, and spoke into a microphone. ‘Clear to start one and two?’ A member of the ground crew checked the area around the port engines. ‘Clear on both,’ he replied.

  ‘Start two,’ the Commander ordered. Latimer depressed a switch. ‘Starting two,’ he said. The mighty plane shuddered as the engine caught. ‘Two steady,’ Latimer added.

  ‘Start one.’

  ‘Starting one.’ Another rumble of elemental power went through the shivering airframe. ‘One steady. Rotation one and two.’

  ‘Move it,’ the Commander said.

  Latimer sent the Boeing forward, reported ‘Taxiing power,’ and left the hardstand for the
allocated runway at Muharraq Airport. The liner completed a half-turn and sat at the end of the runway. Fairman operated the throttle and the engine-note rose to a banshee whine. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. The speed of Air Force One increased.

  ‘Rolling,’ Latimer answered laconically.

  Fairman took over the controls at a hundred knots, and when the pilot said ‘V-one’ the Commander repeated the code – the fail-safe point for commitment to lifting the plane from the ground. If he accepted it – as he had – there could be no going back on his decision. The plane must take off.

  ‘V-two.’

  ‘Rotate.’

  ‘Rotating.’ Fairman eased the control yoke back, and the President’s aeroplane surged into the clear blue sky …

  Jagger had gone straight to the rear toilet when he boarded the Boeing, seeing no one but Chuck Allen, whose greeting he acknowledged with a curt nod. Locking the door, he took from the pocket of his flying jacket a smaller version of the aerosol spray can which had been used on McCafferty in the taxi. Jagger opened the door of one of the wall cabinets and placed the can unobtrusively at the back among a selection of toilet articles.

  He left the facilities area, and in the rear passenger compartment was confronted by not one, but two, stewardesses. His second test – crisis, perhaps – was unavoidable, staring him in the face. He had reckoned on coping with only one girl at a time, but now he had no choice. So which one was he supposed to have dated?

  Cody Jagger may have assumed McCafferty’s form and face, but he retained his own taste in women. Not even Stein’s genius could erase that. Jagger had rarely enjoyed success with truly beautiful and desirable women. His technique was to grab what he wanted and conquer it by sheer animal force. Of all the women Cody had known, his favourites were blondes built for comfort.

  Sabrina Carver was dark, spectacular and, even in her uniform, expensive. Jeanie Fenstermaker was blonde, and a big, sexy girl behind her tinted shades.