by Robert Smith
“I’m sure you do. Can you patch me through to Operation Carrot, to… Jenny in Operation Carrot?” said Planner. He had struggled to remember her name. He wanted to say “Stick” since that was the operation she ran. He had used a memory mnemonic: Stick, with a Carrot-Red Hair, in the ground like a carrot, rising up like a genie, rhymes with Jenny. Visual imagery: it seemed to work.
“Hang on.”
The young Captain poked his head through the door, “Everything ok? I heard the word patch.”
Planner said to Ochre, “Yeah. All good. No problem.”
A female voice over the headphones said, “Hello, Planner?”
“Hi, Jenny. I just wondered whether you were working on any counterintelligence plans for Stages A and B,” mused Planner.
“Yes, we’ve got that sorted,” said Jenny smugly.
“Do you have any details?” asked Planner expansively.
“It’s outside my chain of command,” she said briskly. “There’s shadow teams making sure that each operation isn’t accidently or deliberately leaking information.”
“And there’s coordination amongst the teams? Making sure that no-one trips up, right?” said Planner pleasantly.
“Right,” she said over the headphones and then went silent.
“I was wondering whether every team member isn’t already under the Carrot treatment plan in your computer CRM system?” asked Planner.
After a minor pause, she said. “This is not a good topic of conversation, Planner. It’s best we wrapped this up now. Bye.” She cut the call.
Planner sat nodding to himself knowing he had found something.
* * * *
The air stewards that served food for the crew were not available after the first flight. Catering onboard the Kneecap had become self-service. Planner was eating an airline style meal in the Rest Area. Bates came to sit besides him. He had a similar meal.
“The menu quality has gone down hill,” he said cheerfully.
“Imagine eating this for a week?” said Planner.
“I’d die of scurvy,” said Bates. But he started on the macaroni cheese meal anyway.
As Planner finished his meal, he said. “So have you’ve figured out what to do after the Big Event yet?”
“Hang out on a nice tropical island. Not too big, not too small; Some scuba diving; wild beach parties…” said Bates, tilting his head and smiling.
“Sounds nice.”
“And you?” enquired Bates.
“Find a clever lady and have an ordinary life.”
“That sounds er… rather… surprising,” said Bates wide eyed.
“You mean dull, smiled Planner. “It’s ok. I don’t expect you to understand. But I had it all once. And I miss it now.”
Bates finished his meal and said, “Well, you, hell-raiser, you; Let’s get back to the shock and awe!”
Bates walked away, leaving on his seat a crushed Rainbow Document, recognisable by the seven-sided Rainbow logo. Planner casually picked it up and examined the logo. He noticed that the logo had a faint but noticeable shading around its edge: a shadow.
* * * *
Planner stood in the center of the Command Room with the majority of the Rainbow Team in the room. “Ok Guys. I want to go through the whole thing again using the simulators but going at twice actual speed. So not real time. The thing to watch for is the extent of ground radar cover, keep that as an overlay on your computer screen. Make sure that the drone switch occurs outside of the ground radar zone.”
He checked his watch, “Ok. 0-8-hundred hours. Flight 11 takes off from Boston and Flight 93 takes off, at the same time, from Newark. Keep everything normal until all four jets are in the air. At 0-8-10, Flight 77 takes off from Washington. 0-8-15, Flight 175 takes off from Boston. Now, remember, Flight 175, the flight with three digits, has 200 passengers for the Witness Protection Programme. They’ll be flown to Cleveland and the reception center there126. 175’s transponder signal and call sign will change before it lands. All the radar tracks, remember, will only be visible to us, using the AWACS radar.”
Looking over at Indigo, Planner forced eye contact and said, “0-8-20, we’ll phone through the bomb threat.”
Bates said, “Indigo, best if you go to the Communications room to do that. It’s sound insulated there.”
“Ok,” said Indigo.
Planner continued, “At 0-8-25, Flights 11 and 175 will enter the no-radar Zone, switch off both transponders and Flight 11 will land at Stewart Air Force Base while 175 will continue on. In the meantime, Magenta…”
Young Captain Magenta waved his hand.
“…will align its drone to shadow Flight 11, then we will remotely switch on its transponder and it will continue on as Flight 11. We have a couple of minutes to do this in the no-radar zone. But,” Planner emphasised, “If we have to do it within the radar zone, heaven forbid, we have one turn of a radar sweep, two seconds, to make the change seamless.” Planner looked around the room to make sure everyone was following the instructions. “Old-Flight 175 follows Flight 93 up to Cleveland to disguise itself on radar. So similar switches for Flights 77 and 93. The difference being after the switch, those airliners will be close to us in the E4-B and they’ll fly behind us and follow us back to base. Only Flight 77 drone will have a chase aircraft to make sure it doesn’t go astray. We’ll be looking after the others. Everyone got that?”
Everyone nods.
“Ok, once the switch has taken place. We are on the stage. The world stage. It is up to the Contact Team to act out the scripts or play the audio tapes we have in place.” Planner pointed to the contact team: Tangerine, Mint and Mahogany. Tangerine and Mint were two forty year old talented voice actors while Mahogany was a thirty year old Black woman. “So, Tangy, Minty and Moggy, we have to make it look good.”
Mahogany laughed, Tangerine smiled while Mint sneered his best thespian sneer.
“Ok. Let’s Roll.”
* * * *
Katherine was working on her home computer in her spare bedroom converted into an office. There are piles of folders around her, many marked “ENRON”. She had a mouthful of sandwich when her cell phone rang.
She made a sandwich-muffled grunt into the phone.
“It’s Robert,” said the voice on the phone.
She swallowed, “Hi, Robert. Just thinking about you. How’s it going?”
“In one sense very well. In another… more paranoia,” he said.
“D-Squad or Four Horseman levels of paranoia?” she joked.
“Both.”
She puts her sandwich down. “What can you tell me?”
“Without my powerpoint slides, not very much,” he said.
Exasperated, she said, “So a clue maybe?”
“Well, it happened this morning,” said Planner carefully. “We’re all using aliases here…”
“You are?” interrupted Katherine.
“Er… yes, standard practise,” said Planner blandly.
“So are you really called Robert?” she said tartly.
“Yes,” he said.
“And Smith?” she said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Maybe not,” he said apologetically.
Katherine picked up Planner’s TASC business card that he had given her. It was attached to the edge of her computer monitor. “But I have your business card!” she said in shock.
“Not technically accurate,” said Planner.
“I can’t believe that you lied. Worse still you took a name like Smith?” said Katherine wide-eyed.
“I know it dishonours all Smiths,” said Planner trying to make a joke, “Sorry, I’m trying to tell it the way it is.”
“An honest liar?” she mused with venom. “I’ll have to take some time to process that…”
“Let me tell you my story,” said Planner.
After a pause, she said curtly, “Go on.”
“On the course today, I think, because of the aliases we use, I believe I was mistaken for someone
else,” said Planner carefully.
“I think I know the feeling,” she said with an edge.
“…Someone who is involved in an even darker plot,” said Planner and then he realised his voice was starting to crack up. “…to my own dark plot.”
Katherine was silent.
“Ok. I know this is all indefensible,” said Planner.
“And you’re still not going to tell me,” said Katherine steely.
“I’m… sorry,” Planner was just about able to utter.
“What the hell is going on?” Katherine said loudly. “What have you got yourself into? Hey, what have I got myself into?”
“You were already in it…” Planner said. “From the Enron angle. You just didn’t know it.”
“This is all too much! Too much for me!” Katherine cried.
“I understand,” Planner said trying to interrupt.
“I have enough to deal with already,” she shouted and threw the phone on the floor. Tears streamed down her face. After a minute, she picked up the phone and wiped the tears from her eyes. She pressed a call-back button.
“Are you in danger?” she said meekly.
“Yes, I think I am,” said Planner meekly.
“Can I do anything?” she whispered.
“Just remember what I said about the CEO.”
“Ok,” she said with a sob.
Planner ends the call. Katherine dropped the phone and hid her head in her hands.
* * * *
September 10th, 2001, the lead news item on TV was given by a TV news reader, “After the DoD have admitted that they cannot trace 2.3 trillion dollars in their computer systems, Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld has announced a War on Bureaucracy, setting up a taskforce in the Pentagon to track down the missing money and improve the collection of financial information within his department…”127
Chapter Fifteen: Stage B
It was late evening. At the end of a lit runway, immediately behind the E4-B, Planner and the rest of the Rainbow Team got off a bus. He texted Katherine as he walked towards the back of the plane, “Don’t go into the office tomorrow!”
The KneeCap was flying on a supposedly night time exercise. It would fly out to the coast, get refuelled and fly back inland with a spoofed IFF identifier. Timed to capitalise upon radar operator’s shift changes, no-one would pay much notice of the flight especially since its flight logs, and much other data for the hijackings, would be purposely destroyed in the morning.128
* * * *
A short while later, at the Comfort Inn, Portland, Maine,129 two well-dressed, burly security men, knocked at a Motel Room door and left a case at the door.
“Yes? Who is it?” came a foreign accented voice from the room.
One of the men said, “Rainbow.”
Inside the room, Atta picked up a handgun and tucked it into the back of his pyjamas. He tentatively looked outside and saw a briefcase and a letter on top. Like most motels, the bedroom doors opened out directly to the car park. Fifty yards away moving towards a black sedan, the two security men were walking backwards, showing the palm of his hands to indicate they had no weapons. Atta took the briefcase quickly inside and shut the door.
He ripped open the letter. It contained airline tickets and a key to unlock the briefcase. He opened the briefcase and it was full of dollar bills. He smiled broadly, then checked the tickets and the smile dropped. He looked at his watch. It was quarter to midnight.
“Bastards!” he exclaimed as he realised he was not going to sleep that night.
He picked up the phone and dialled furiously. “Kalid. They’ve paid up. Pack up now. It’s tomorrow. We must go. Inform the others.”130
* * * *
Katherine was in her pyjamas in her hotel room. She looked at Planner’s text message and agonised about what she ought to do. Finally she texted a colleague at work “Sorry, can’t make it today.” She sat on the bed and held her head in her hands.
Her phone rang almost immediately.
“Hello,” she said hesitantly.
“Katherine, you can’t make it?” said her colleague on the phone.
“No. Sorry.”
“Are you sick?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Oh crap. We need you there! If we don’t get funding, the whole team will be split up and the case against Enron goes kaput. Can I get you anything to pep-you-up so we can cover the meeting? It’s only half an hour. I can come over,” pleaded the man.
“Is the CEO going to be there?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah. You know that. That’s the whole point of the meeting, right?” he said.
“Ok. I’ll get some cold cures and come in,” she said.
“Phew. Thanks. You nearly gave me a heart attack,” said the man in relief.
* * * *
The Rainbow Actor’s long journey to Logan Airport was not arbitrary; there was a particular reason for choosing that location. Boston’s Logan Airport security was recorded as “dismal”; it had the worst record for security at any airport in the North East USA. Tests by FAA agents were able to get 234 guns and inert hand grenades and bombs past its passenger screening checkpoints despite being fully manned and with X-ray machines. Other reports noted that perimeter doors were often left open, making it possible for anyone to gain access to planes on the ground. In summer 1999, a teenager was able to climb over the airport’s security fence, walk two miles across the tarmac, board a 747, and fly on to London. Security cameras belatedly ordered in that year had still not been installed by September 2001.131
At 6.50am, Logan International Airport, Boston, September 11th, Alshehri and Fayez nervously approach the check-in desk. Fayez looked barely awake.
“Would you like to check-in?” asked the check-in assistant politely.
Alshehri, as-if reciting, and with heavy accent, said. “We would like to buy two tickets for Flight 175.” He slapped down a wad of documents and cash.
The check-in assistant was less than impressed. “This is check-in, not ticket sales. You need to go the booth over there. They open in ten minutes.”
Alshehri looked at Fayez very confused. The check-in assistant picked up the money and papers to hand them back. Then she noticed airline tickets. “Oh wait. You have tickets.” She smiled and waved the tickets and Alshehri and Fayez look relieved.132
* * * *
In a corridor at Logan Airport’s terminal building, was a short, almond-eyed woman wearing an ill-fitting, generic turquoise airport uniform. Holding the Flight 11 passenger manifest, Turq counted the number of empty seats on a plan of Flight 175. She took a “cloned” cell phone133 from a bag marked “Atta” and made a call. It would be recorded the cell phone network operator as coming from Atta’s own phone.
“Make sure there are no Muggles in the area, we’re coming over,” she said to a fellow Rainbow Team colleague.
She then exited the terminal building and made her way to a bus, holding the Flight 11 passengers and drove it over to Flight 175.
As the passengers ascended the aircraft, she wrote on their boarding card a new seat number in felt-tip ink. One of the male passengers stopped and asked uncertainly, “Is this right?”
“We’re consolidating onto one aircraft,” she said unsmiling. “We’ll be taking off in twenty minutes.”
With the last passenger boarded, she then drove back to the original gate, parked the bus and walked out to the empty aircraft, which was ready to leave. Sealing up the aircraft, Turquoise then entered the co-pilot seat. A member of ground crew moved the steps from the aircraft and Flight 11 taxied to the runway.
* * * *
On board the E4-B, the Rainbow Team had snatched a few hours sleep and were now assembled at their respective stations within the Command Room. There was an air of expectation; all was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning and engines. Just before 8am, Colonel Nicholas relayed a message, received from his headset, “I can confirm change of command. Myers has taken ove
r.134”
Captain Ochre, turned and said, “Turquoise has confirmed consolidation of passengers onto 175.”
Captain Magenta, said “First two drones in position.”
Planner sat in the center, in his command seat, and nodded. Bates, seating opposite to him, ticked off an item from his checklist.
Captain Orange announced, “Flight 11 is away.”
* * * *
Flight 175 was crowded. Inside, some passengers look nervous, one woman was openly crying. Then it too, was aloft.
* * * *
Captain Orange noticed the change in his radar display and stated, “Flight 175 has taken off.”
Planner looked at his watch, “What’s happened to Flight 93?”
“It’s still on the tarmac,” said Orange.
“Any particular problem?” asked Planner.
“Yes, two of the Rainbow Actors got off the plane just before take off135,” said Orange wide-eyed.
Bates turned quickly, “I’ll get someone onto that. In the meantime, can you ask someone in ATC to up 93’s priority?”
“I’ll do that,” said Ochre.
Bates looked up from his check list, “Indigo, time to make your call.”
Indigo nodded and exited the Command Room to make his futile warning call.
Planner looked at Bates with a grim smile.
Magenta stated “Drone to synchronise with Flight 11 in 10 minutes.”
Planner said to Purple, “Colonel, can you ask our pilot to confirm his rendezvous at waypoint A?”
“Yes, Sir,” replied Purple.
“There’s been a minor delay on Flight 77 at Washington too. But it’s just lining up for take off now,” said Orange.
* * * *
Flight 77 took off from Dulles Airport in Washington at 8.20pm, ten minutes late. Meanwhile at Newark Airport, Flight 93, was already 20 minutes late. The plane was sitting on the runway with 38 passengers on board.
“Sorry for the delay, Flight 93,” said the air traffic controller to the Flight 93 pilot.
“Do you have an ETD, Control?” asked the pilot.
“Another ten minutes,” said the controller.
* * * *
Indigo re-entered the command room. He said, grimly. “I made the call.”