Niles made a decision—Jack was telling him that this is what he was uncovering, and that meant that he had found a connection with Columbus to the man he was watching on television.
“Europa, cut the feed,” he said as he sat back down at his desk. He immediately hit the intercom. “Jimmy, get me the direct link to the president. No video, just audio.”
“Yes, sir,” came the answer.
Niles waited and then hit another switch. This time he connected with the Computer Center.
“Yes, sir,” came the voice of the man subbing for Pete Golding.
“I want everything you can dig up on Samuel Rawlins, and his corporation, Faith Ministries.”
“Sir?” the tech asked.
“I need it ASAP, and get me a link with Colonel Collins. He’s in the air on his way to Ecuador.”
“Yes, sir.”
Niles waited a moment and then his assistant stuck his head through the double oak doors.
“Sir, the president is on his way to Annapolis to watch the Ares mission launch from Vandenberg. He’s just now preparing to leave the White House on Marine One.”
“Thank you,” Compton said, leaning back in his large chair. For some reason that Niles couldn’t fathom at the moment, he had a dreadful feeling that he had been too late in heeding Jack’s cryptic message from Germany. “Europa, put CNN on the main viewer please.”
On the main screen at the center of the room he saw a reporter standing on the back lawn of the White House, just as his friend, the president of the United States, began waving at the onlookers lining the roped-off area. He saw him turn and salute the Marine guard and then bound up the short set of stairs into the helicopter designated Marine One. His wife and daughters weren’t traveling with him to Annapolis that day, and for that Niles felt relieved. He reached out and hit the intercom one last time.
“Jimmy, the president will be airborne in just a minute. Give him a moment and then contact him with a 5656 priority message. I have to speak with him.”
Niles clicked the intercom off before he received an answer from his outer office. He stood and walked toward the screen again, watching the giant rotors of Marine One start to turn.
HAPSBURG OFFICE BUILDING, 1 MILE SOUTH OF THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Laurel Rawlins watched through binoculars as Marine One started spooling its twin turbine-driven engines. From her vantage point, she could only see the extreme top of the rotor. She moved the glasses to the right and saw two identical helicopters with the exact same paint scheme as Marine One. One came from the direction of Andrews Air Force Base and the other from the east, following the Potomac River. She smiled. That old fool Darby had said in passing one day many years before that the president had not one but three Marine One Sikorsky helicopters that rose into the air at exactly the same moment when the president was utilizing the aircraft—one carrying the head of state, the other two flying as decoys in case someone attempted exactly what she was about to attempt.
Laurel lowered the glasses and reached for the small radio clipped to the inside of her jacket. She felt an adrenaline rush accompanying the action she was about to perform. From the day her high school counselor informed her father that his daughter had a severe problem with authority, she had thought her wealth precluded her from any form of normal social function. She smiled at the memory and lifted the small microphone attached to her coat collar.
“Site one, are you ready?” she asked, the smile lingering on her lips as she actually started shaking with excitement.
“Site one, prepared to lock on to target.”
“Site two, are you tracking?” she asked into the microphone.
“Site two is tracking.”
“Site three?”
“Three is prepared to do the will of God.”
Laurel wanted to laugh at the phrase coming from position three. She wanted to scream that it was her will, not God’s, that was controlling the fate of the nation today. Instead, she allowed the coat collar to fall back without commenting on the foolishness spouted by site three.
The men had been chosen by the Mechanic and had been taught extensively in the use of the FIM-92 Stinger missile system. The infrared targeting system would lock on to the exhaust of Marine One and send the 10.1 kilogram missile into the proximity of the engine compartment. The Raytheon theft was about to pay off once more.
Just as Laurel was about to start down the winding staircase to the ground floor so she could make a hasty retreat, her cell phone rang and she stopped halfway to the tenth-floor exit.
“What?” she said angrily into the phone.
“My dear, may I ask what it is you are doing?” McCabe said from three thousand miles away. He had just witnessed the culmination of a major portion of his plan and wasn’t happy about the failure of the missiles from Devil’s Island in not bringing down the first Ariane rocket.
“Doing something that you don’t have the balls to do, James. I’m betting heavily that the Americans won’t launch tonight, that’s what I’m doing. Your plan has failed completely. Now you not only have one but two missions on their way to the Moon.”
“Listen to me very carefully, Laurel. The Chinese system will eventually fail. It is far too complicated for a damaged ship to make the trip and land safely. They have a three-day journey and they won’t make it. The ESA platform is heavily damaged, so they’re also ill-fated. Now stop what it is you are doing because this action will not prevent the United States from following a presidential directive. You are making us all look like amateurs.”
“Nonetheless, James, I will do what you are destined to fail at, and I have the man who signs your mercenary checks backing me on this.”
McCabe had to think fast. His plans were unraveling and he was bound to be implicated in the actions thus far if Laurel continued to be a rogue element. But if he sent out a warning she would be caught and that would lead directly to her father. McCabe had no illusions that the trail would then lead right to his front door. If so, the plan for framing the Mechanic and his movement would just be a waste of time. McCabe thought of a possible way out.
“I tried,” he said as simply as he could. “Do you have a proper escape plan?”
“I’m heading to the street now. I’m taking public transportation to the airport.”
“That’s good. Then you should tell your shooters to commence lock-on of the target now. I see on television that Marine One is just lifting off.”
“James, I was informed that locking on to the target too soon would alert the defensive equipment of not only the presidential helicopter, but the orbiting fighters as well. Just what are you trying to do?”
McCabe now knew who was involved in planning the attack on the president. It could only be the Mechanic, because no one knew the Stinger system as he did. Now he had a confirmation that the Saudi was finally reverting to his old, terrorist ways—or was it something more like avarice?
“Normally that would be true, but you’re misinformed, my beauty. You are using the Stinger FIM-101, the newer system that allows lock-on with no tracking flashback from the seeker head. You can lock on early and get the hell out of there, and save your men at the same time. Whoever you’re in this with should have explained that to you.”
Laurel bit her lower lip.
“Look, you cannot get caught. It would lead directly to your father.”
Laurel’s vanity overpowered her mistrust of her father’s mercenary. She lowered the cell phone and then her hand went to her collar. She raised the microphone to her mouth.
“All stations lock on, now!” she said into the microphone.
Flying at 39,000 feet off the coast of Mexico, James McCabe smiled as he heard the voice in his ear.
“But, miss, we are trained to—”
“Lock on the target, now!” she screamed, sounding like a spoiled child balking at a parental order.
All stations turned on their IR and radar-equipped seeker heads located in the missile i
tself. The signal was sent through to the microchip inside the handle of the Stinger and the blip appeared as a target that had been acquired. The three Stinger stations placed on the rooftop all called in stating they had acquired the target.
“Now get out of there,” McCabe ordered. “Flag a cab about three blocks from the building you’re in and don’t look back. Meet me in Atlanta. D.C. is going to shut down minutes after the attack.”
Laurel listened to McCabe and for the first time she started to get frightened at what she had just ordered. It was like a twelve-year-old getting caught hitting a schoolmate with a sharpened pencil—while the exhilaration was still there, it was nonetheless scary to be caught red-handed.
“But—”
“Get the hell out, now!”
Laurel snapped the phone shut and ran for the stairs.
U.S. AIR FORCE COMBAT AIR PATROL OVER WASHINGTON, D.C., CALL SIGN—GUNSLINGER
The two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors were flying at fifteen thousand feet through a cleared corridor dictated by Marine One’s flight plan to Annapolis. Their job was to cover the path of the presidential helicopter the entire time it was in the air. This was a new protocol since the attacks on air and space assets in the previous week. The pilots were on a rotating roster and were stationed at Andrews. Their duty was usually one of boredom and routine as they circled well above the commander in chief.
The flight lead was Lieutenant Colonel William “Wild Bill” Lederman, a career officer who was filling in for a pilot who had just received his orders to Afghanistan. He was doing it as a favor so the other man could spend a few more days with his wife and two children. His wingman was Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, a young first lieutenant who was performing the protection run for only the second time.
The world for both pilots was about to change in dramatic fashion.
MARINE ONE, 300 FEET OVER WASHINGTON, D.C.
The large Sikorsky gained altitude quickly and its occupants were unaware of what was happening a mile away at an old and decrepit brownstone. Inside the helicopter a communications line buzzed.
“Mr. President, you have a call on the secure line,” a Marine corporal said as he leaned into the cabin.
The president of the United States looked over at his national security advisor, who was the only one of his staff accompanying him that evening. He then closed his eyes as the phone rang in the armrest of his seat. He sighed and then snatched up the receiver. He knew it was going to be a long night of nervous tension watching the double launch tonight from Vandenberg. He placed the phone to his ear and heard the scrambling sounds as the Marine communications officer made the connection.
“Yes,” he said as he finally received the soft tone telling him the scramble was complete.
“We have a breakthrough from Colonel Collins, and you won’t believe it.”
The president sat up in his seat when heard the voice of his friend Niles Compton.
“What?” he asked, waving the Marine steward away from his seat.
“Samuel Rawlins, the reverend, the evangelist.”
“What about that pain in the ass?”
“We think he may behind all of this,” Niles answered.
“I think you’ve lost your mind. He’s an idiot and has been chastised by every religion on the books—they all know he’s a fundamentalist fool.”
“Jack’s reporting that Rawlins’s father was a minister at Spandau Prison in 1947, and had access not only to the man they were looking for, this Nazi clerk named Zinsser, but also to Albert Speer. They may have divulged their knowledge of Operation Columbus to Rawlins’s father, a lieutenant colonel in the Army at the time. It’s all just circumstantial, but given recent events and the Reverend’s not so hidden disdain of yourself and the attempt to get to the Moon. I’m sure we have enough to get the FBI out in California to pay him a visit.”
The president was thinking. He had never known Niles Compton to run off half-cocked about anything. His guesses were as good as Einstein’s theories.
“Okay, I’ll order—”
Alarms started sounding inside of Marine One and the communications system was shut down without warning. The president looked up as the giant Sikorsky banked hard to the right and started a nose-down plunge just past the White House grounds. The president dropped the phone and held on as the helicopter’s hard maneuver threw him deep into his seat. He heard shouting from up front, but it was controlled as the pilot and copilot started an emergency procedure the president had always heard about but never experienced.
The Marine corporal leaned outward from his seat and looked at the president. The commander in chief saw the worry in the boy’s face.
“We’ve been locked on to with an infrared and radar system. The pilots are attempting to set us down.”
The president nodded as Marine One banked in the opposite direction. He was thrown to the right and painfully so, as his ribs dug into the armrest. He managed to look at his national security advisor and saw him cross himself. His lips were moving in prayer.
“Say one for me if you have the time, Tom.”
U.S. AIR FORCE COMBAT AIR PATROL (CAP) OVER WASHINGTON, D.C., CALL SIGN—GUNSLINGER
Lieutenant Colonel Wild Bill Lederman got the call just as his threat receiver told him that he was picking up a sweeping IR targeting of the area surrounding Marine One. His reactions were fast due to his training running the same kind of missions over Afghanistan while protecting attack and personnel helicopters as they flew into hostile territory. He quickly got a fix on the return of the radar and IR signatures and saw that they were emanating from the east at one mile. Without saying anything he rolled the F-22 over and dove for the deck. He just hoped the sky was as clear as his controllers said it was.
As the two F-22s rolled into the city, the lock on Marine One started a steady warbling in the colonel’s headphones. He glanced to his right as houses began to become large in his windscreen and vapor started to stream off his wingtips. He saw Marine One start firing off chaff and flares as the large Sikorsky lost altitude very quickly, giving Lederman hope that this attack would fail. As he thought this, he saw the first two fire trails of the missiles as they left their launchers. He knew immediately that the weapons were Stingers. He had seen enough of them in Afghanistan and Iraq. They had received a security report on the theft at Raytheon and he suspected that these may be from that theft. All of this flashed through his mind in the briefest of seconds.
“Gunslinger Two, this is Lead. Take out those launchers. Take them out now!” he said as calmly as he could, just as the third missile left its tube from the rooftop. “Have you acquired target?”
“Roger, Gunslinger Lead, Two is rolling in,” came the quick reply from Hollywood.
As Gunslinger One clicked the communication button on his stick, he rolled to the right, away from his wingman just as the first missile suddenly started falling from the sky. The exhaust trail stopped and the missile went down into the office buildings below. The second and third missiles still came on. The F-22 watched as they closed on Marine One. The chaff—little pieces of aluminum foil—and the flares being ejected from the tail boom of the Sikorsky were an attempt to get the Stingers to lock on to a false target, but the colonel knew that the advanced Stinger systems Raytheon produced were programmed to avoid the countermeasures and blast through to the real target.
He decided he had little choice. He turned as hard as he could while at the same time throwing the twin Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofans into afterburner. The Lockheed jet responded faster than any fighter in the world could have. It streaked toward the lead missile, trying desperately to head it off.
As the flight lead was in the process of intercepting the assault on Marine One, his wingman locked on to the rooftop of the building. He saw a team of six men attempting to run for cover as his F-22 shot through the sky toward them. Long before their missiles came into proximity of the Sikorsky, the CAP found the weapons personnel. The piper on the h
eads-up display turned red as the small circle sought the first and second man in line. At the same time as the fleeing men were targeted, Hollywood made the call to his controller saying he was locked, but locked in a civilian neighborhood. He was given the all clear to engage the targets.
The Raptor screamed toward the rooftop and before the men knew they had company there was the short “buruppp” of the twenty-millimeter Gatling gun. The tracers streaked toward the first two men in the line trying to reach the rooftop exit. The explosive rounds struck and tore the two men to pieces. Hollywood touched the trigger one last time for exactly a half a second. The short time span of pressure sent 306 rounds toward the remaining men. The twenty-millimeter shells ripped into the tarpaper roof and then tracked the four men and their suspected path. The men joined their first two comrades in a shower of misted blood and flying flesh.
The F-22 climbed at the last moment, sending debris and gravel from the old rooftops surrounding the attack area. The Raptor climbed back into the evening sky.
Gunslinger knew that one of the missiles was going to get through no matter what he did. There was no time for thought and no time for a quick prayer. He jigged at the last minute and caught the first warhead fifteen hundred feet from Marine One. The Stinger caught the Raptor in the right wing and blew ten feet of the composite material free of the fuselage. Just as the impact occurred, Colonel Lederman called a Mayday and reached for the ejection handle over his head. The Raptor rolled to the left at a severe angle and then the fuel lines running from the composite wing that was no longer there ignited the aircraft into a fireball. The Lockheed-built plane came apart in view of Marine One and directly in the path of the third and final Stinger missile.
The Stinger actually struck the disintegrating body and ejection seat of Lieutenant Colonel Lederman as it passed through the cloud of burning debris. It ignored the last of the Sikorsky’s chaff and flares and then detonated three feet from the helicopter’s engine compartment. The warhead was a 3 kilogram penetrating hit-to-kill warhead type that sent shrapnel out in a perfect arc that punched holes into not only the turbine-driven engines but the composite rotor blades of the helicopter as well. The fifth rotor wobbled for the briefest moment and then it too disintegrated as the helicopter fell from the sky.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 30