by Don Brown
“Well, yes, but…”
“And you realize how important it is to our cause that Magadia not become a political opponent?”
“Yes, but…”
“The Americans could prop him up like a puppet and finance an opposition to us.”
“But…”
“What do you have to say for yourself, Croon?” Perkasa was yelling again.
“Perhaps it is all a mistake…”
“A mistake?” Perkasa’s face reddened. “Tell me, Colonel. Did you have antiaircraft guns atop Istana Bogor?”
“Our guards had rifles.”
“Rifles? Against the Americans’ missiles and machine guns?”
“We have armed guards in the palace. We were relying on the secrecy of the vice president’s location to keep him secure from this sort of thing.”
“Secrecy?” Perkasa slapped his fist on his desk. “Let me tell you about secrecy, Colonel!” He whipped his pistol out of its holder and pointed it straight at Croon’s head. “Tell me a little secret, Colonel. How many more rounds does my pistol have?”
“Please…General…Please!”
The White House
4:35 p.m.
He had done what he had to do. Still, the thought of the minivan was already haunting him. The child. Perhaps his mother. Perhaps a brother or sister.
Why did they have to be next to the U-Haul? Why? Where was God’s sense of justice?
The president needed a break. He had walked from the Situation Room to the Oval Office just to get some air, if nothing else. If they needed him, they knew where to find him.
Though the United States was in the midst of the most serious international crisis in its history, the president had to be alone. If only for a moment. But to an American president, alone was never really alone. Alone, even in the Oval Office, meant alone plus two Secret Service agents.
Mack turned his back on his security detail and stood behind his desk. He looked over the receding shadows of the South Lawn, toward the traffic jams along Constitution Avenue. The National Guard was overseeing the evacuation of Washington. Soldiers could be seen on the street directing traffic. By evacuating Washington and shutting down the roadway entrances, he was inviting them to attack by air. That would likely be by small, low-flying aircraft, difficult to detect by radar.
On September 12, 1994, a drunken pilot crashed a Cessna 150 onto the South Lawn of the White House. That plane had been picked up by radar technicians at Reagan National Airport, but it was too late. The plane could have easily struck the Executive Mansion, but crashed on the South Lawn instead.
Seven years before that, in 1987, a German pilot had flown his Cessna over four hundred miles through Soviet airspace, again undetected by radar, and landed it at Red Square!
Yet Mack had more confidence in the air force to find a small aircraft than the local police to find a U-Haul truck, assuming that the U-Haul had not already entered the city.
Mack’s mind wandered from the defense of Washington to the boy.
“Jesus, let that boy be alive. His family too. Please. Somehow. Don’t make me live with this.” He exhaled. I’ve got to shake this off. There’s a nuclear bomb out there. Somewhere.
The intercom buzzer sounded. “Mr. President,” Gayle Staff said. “Admiral Jones and Secretary Mauney.”
“Send them in.” He turned around. A Secret Service agent opened the door. The admiral and the secretary rushed in with excited looks on their faces.
“Another break, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said.
“We found the other U-Haul?”
“Afraid not,” Jones said. “Not yet anyway. But this is significant.”
“Talk to me.”
“We have a triangulation on Perkasa’s last broadcast. Two EC-2 Hawkeyes off the Reagan have been working this. We think we may have located where it came from,” Lopez said.
“We know where Perkasa is?”
“We think we know where he was as of that last broadcast,” Lopez said.
“In Jakarta?”
“Yes, sir,” Admiral Jones said.
“And you want me to authorize hitting that location with a missile.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Jones said. “And sooner rather than later.”
“And if he isn’t there, we risk killing innocent Indonesia citizens. Just like when Bush went after bin Laden. The guy kept moving from location to location.”
“We might get lucky, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said. “As of now, we have no choice.” As Mack let that thought set in, the admiral spoke again. “Sir, remember that President Clinton had a chance to take out bin Laden and passed on it. A lot of American lives could have been spared if the president had acted in that situation.”
Mack turned around again, his gaze fixed on the Washington Monument towering into the late afternoon sky. “Order the navy to make the strike,” he said. “By means of your discretion, Admiral Jones.”
“Aye, Mr. President.”
Residence of General Perkasa
Jakarta, Indonesia
3:38 a.m.
Croon was on his knees beside Perkasa’s desk. His voice shook, and his crossed eyes stared into the gun barrel that was no more than two inches from his head.
Even Hassan felt a bit sorry for the bumbling fool. But the general was red hot, and Croon’s elimination from power was necessary for the good of Indonesia, and hand-in-hand with that, for Hassan’s own advancement.
“You haven’t guessed, you fool!” Perkasa shouted, extending his arm straight out with the gun aimed at the middle of Croon’s forehead. “Does my pistol have any more bullets in the chamber? Or did I shoot them all into the ceiling? Hmm?”
“General…General…”
“Answer, fool!”
“General, I don’t know…”
“Don’t know, do you? Well, then, let’s find out!”
“General, please…I have a wife and two boys!”
“Perhaps you should have thought of them before you implemented your yellow-bellied plan for protecting Istana Bogor!”
Blam! Blam!
Croon’s head exploded like a cracked watermelon. He slumped to the floor in an oozing puddle of blood.
“Get him out!” Perkasa ordered. “And clean up this mess! Throw his body to the sharks!”
“Yes, General.” A couple of enlisted men quickly dragged the body out feet first, while a third began scrubbing blood with a white towel.
“Now then, what were we discussing, Colonel Taplus?”
“General, unfortunately, it is obvious to me that the Americans have somehow cracked into our code. We have to change course.”
“And how did our plan get compromised? Who was in charge of security over our plans?”
Careful, Hassan. “Colonel Croon was ultimately in charge of security over our operational plans.” Better to lie than risking a bullet himself. “At least that part of the problem has been taken care of.” Perhaps he could find a way to kill the general and go ahead and take charge of this entire revolution.
“Yes, of course,” Perkasa said. “But what do we do now that they are looking for the U-Hauls? I suppose we could transfer the nuclear device to another vehicle, but they have shut down Washington.”
“Not to worry, General. Croon was in charge of protecting the integrity of the program, but I masterminded it, and there is a backup contingency for this sort of thing. I did not write it into the plan so that if the plan were compromised, there would be no record of the backup plan.”
“Good thinking.” Perkasa reholstered his pistol, to Hassan’s delight, and sat in his chair. “Tell me about this contingency plan.”
“Nine-Eleven was long ago. But we still have pilots in America trained and waiting to be called upon for jihad.
“There is a special e-mail that I have set up. All we must do is log into the e-mail and type the code word. Once that is done, our driver will be alerted and will immediately divert to the town of Winchester, Virginia,
which is seventy-seven miles from Washington.
“We have a Muslim brother there. A pilot. He has been waiting to be called upon for years. He too will receive the e-mail message. At that point, he will meet our driver. They will load the bomb on the plane and fly it into Washington at treetop level, careful to avoid radar. The bomb will be detonated over the US Capitol building.”
The general grinned. “Brilliant, Hassan. Brilliant.”
US Navy F/A-18 (“Viper 1”)
Over Bandung, Indonesia
3:42 a.m.
Viper 1, Reagan control…Turn to course three-one-five degrees. Stand by for targeting coordinates.”
“Reagan, Viper. Roger that,” the pilot responded, pulling the plane’s yoke to the left. “Turning to three-one-five degrees. Standing by targeting instructions.”
The Hornet swung through the dark skies around to the northwest, in the direction of the national capital at Jakarta, which was seventynine miles to the northwest.
“Viper. Reagan. Target is at 6 degrees, 16 minutes, 22 seconds south latitude; 106 degrees, 48 minutes, 18 seconds east longitude.”
“Reagan. Viper 1. Copy that. Target at 6 degrees, 16 minutes, 22 seconds south latitude; 106 degrees, 48 minutes, 18 seconds east longitude.” The pilot punched the firing information into the plane’s fire control computer. “Reagan. Viper 1. Be advised that missile is armed and ready for launch.”
“Viper 1, Reagan control. Move into position and fire at will.”
“Roger that. Fire at will.”
The pilot’s thumb depressed the button that said Fire Missile.
The pilot felt a slight bump upward just as two AGM-88 HARM missiles dropped from the plane’s underbelly. They rocketed away from the jet like giant burning cigars vanishing into the dark distance. The missiles left twin streaks of smoke trailing behind them to mark their paths.
“Reagan. Viper. Missiles away.”
“Viper. Reagan. Copy that. Now we wait.”
Residence of General Perkasa
Jakarta, Indonesia
3:44 a.m.
Are you sure this will work, Hassan?” The general, who had suddenly become Hassan’s best buddy, was leaning over Hassan’s shoulder peering at the computer screen. This was a good thing. After the annihilation of Washington, Hassan would press the general for promotion from colonel to one star. Things were working perfectly, according to the plan of Allah.
“Yes, of course this will work, General.” He was logging into the e-mail account especially set up for the contingency. “All I have to do is type one word”-he typed the word airborne on the e-mail as he was saying it-“and hit the send button, which will go to both the driver and the pilot. Immediately, the contingency plan will go into effect.”
“Do it quickly, Hassan,” Perkasa said.
“Here we go.” Hassan clicked SEND, instantly sending the cryptic message into the galaxies of cyberspace. “Done,” Hassan said, exhaling. “Now, we wait.”
BOOM! Two great thunderbolts shook the building. Dust and plaster immediately rained in torrents from the ceiling, and then the ceiling began to fall. Hassan tried scrambling for the doorway, but a steel beam dropped from above and crushed his head. It would be his last memory of life on earth.
And then, fire.
US Navy F/A-18 (“Viper 1”)
Over Jakarta, Indonesia
3:46 a.m.
Reagan. Viper 1. Looks like we’ve got a double hit. Both missiles detonated on target.”
“Viper 1. Reagan control. Good shooting. Climb back to eighteen thousand feet. Resume patrol and await new orders.”
“Reagan control. Viper 1. Roger that.”
Chapter 21
Martinsburg Pike, near I-81
Winchester, Virginia
5:00 p.m.
Salaam sipped the hot coffee and pressed his foot on the accelerator. He pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot and swung right onto the Martinsburg Pike, only a hundred yards or so from Interstate 81. Long dark shadows stretched across the road, as the sun set early in northern Virginia in the wintertime. He glanced at the digital dash clock.
As he drove under the Interstate 81 overpass, he put down the coffee and instinctively flipped on his headlights.
A second later, the truck passed on the other side of the interstate, just northeast of town, headed toward Washington.
His cell phone beeped. Someone had sent him a text message. He flipped open the phone. New e-mail waiting!
He hit the send button. Connecting to e-mail…a few seconds passed. Connected to e-mail!
He opened the newest message. AIRBORNE!
He hit the brakes and pulled off the side of the road. He looked at the message again. AIRBORNE!
His heart was beating out of his chest. “Praise be to Allah!” He needed to get to the airport. Now.
Perhaps the timing of all this was perfect. The airport terminal had just closed at five. There was no tower at Winchester Regional and no one to monitor nighttime takeoffs and landings. With a bit of luck…or divine providence…if the driver responded and received the text message…
He quickly did a U-turn and headed back toward I-81, taking the ramp to the southbound lanes toward Roanoke. Four minutes later, he exited onto US-17 south, and then quickly turned another right onto the Front Royal Pike. The dark of dusk was blanketing the Virginia countryside now, and the lights of only a few cars were passing in the opposite direction down the pike.
Two minutes later, he turned left onto Airport Road. A minute after that, he pulled into the asphalt parking lot in front of the small terminal building. No cars were in the lot. Where was the U-Haul?
He got out. The air at dusk was cold, chilling his lungs as he inhaled. He checked his watch. Five-ten. Surely the driver had gotten the message. Of course he had.
He leaned against his truck and pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes from his front pockets. The Bic lighter came from the pockets of his blue jeans. A single flick of the igniter, and a blue and white flame leapt from the top of it. He cupped the flame with his hand and sucked through the filter of the cigarette, lighting the other end of it.
Headlights.
Thrusting the cigarettes and lighter into his pockets, he drew smoke into his lungs and watched the headlights approaching down the airport road. The vehicle drove into the parking lot, shining its lights toward Salaam.
As it came closer, he made out the image of a box panel truck. Under the red running lights, he made out the black lettering against the orange and white panel.
U-HAUL.
US Naval Air Station
Patuxent River, Maryland
5:15 p.m.
Cold sweat beading on his forehead wasn’t supposed to happen to a navy fighter pilot.
At Top Gun school in Fallon, Nevada, navy pilots were trained to be steel-nerved in the face of death. Sweating was not an option.
But this, somehow, was different. Dueling with the finest Russian, Korean, and Chinese pilots was one thing. Protecting the nation’s capital against nuclear obliteration was quite another.
Lieutenant Commander Billy Belk, sitting in the cockpit of his F/A-18 Super Hornet at the end of Runway 14, was well aware of the consequences of this mission. The beading sweat was driven by the haunting images he had witnessed over Philadelphia just hours earlier. The burning image of the rising mushroom cloud over an American city was enough to make his hands shake, to cause his knees to knock, to make him wonder if he was of the mettle to carry out the mission that his country was now asking of him.
Two Navy F/A 18s from Pax River Naval Air Station, along with two Air Force F-15s from Langley AFB, would provide the air vanguard over Washington tonight. Because of his combat experience, he was considered one of the navy’s best aces. And so he had been selected as one of the four jet pilots to fly coverage for the evening, to make sure that in the morning, Washington would still be Washington.
The quartet of fighters, two navy and two air force, could provi
de more than sufficient power to shoot down anything the enemy could throw at the capital city. The problem, however, wasn’t the ability to shoot down an invader. The problem was finding the target in time to shoot it down. Small craft flying inbound at treetop more often than not cannot be picked up by ground radar. The only defensive tactic was to find the target from above with “look down, shoot down” radar, the type of which was installed on the F/A-18. This was somewhat akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
Frankly, that meant getting lucky. The attacker had to fly in an area almost directly over the invading aircraft, to shoot down the radar beam in an expanding electronic cone, and hope that the plane passed under it. It was sort of like flashing a high-powered flashlight beam into a pitch-dark barn, and hoping that a rat happened to be somewhere inside the round, bright circle of the beam. Then you had to get off a shot before the rat got away. This was tricky business.
No, on second thought, it would not be a matter of luck. Finding a low-flying aircraft bound and determined to fly a suicide mission into the capital would be a matter of divine intervention.
“Hornet 1. Patuxent Control. Stand by to be cleared for takeoff.”
“Pax River. Hornet 1. Roger that.”
The jet taxied into takeoff position at the end of the runway, sixty-five miles to the southeast of Washington.
“Lord, if they’re out there, help us find them. Give us victory in battle. Protect our capital.”
“Hornet. Pax Control. Please be advised. You are clear for takeoff. Good luck and Godspeed.”
“Pax Control. Hornet 1. Roger that. Clear for takeoff. See you soon.”
Belk pushed down on the power stick, all the way to the floor. The Hornet rolled forward, then rocketed down the runway and lifted into the star-filled twilight.
Airport Road
Winchester, Virginia
5:20 p.m.
All units are reminded to be on the lookout for a U-Haul truck, believed to be in the vicinity of the northern Virginia, southern Maryland, DC metropolitan area. Truck is believed to have a Florida tag, license number MQR 1428.
“Any unit spotting this vehicle must notify dispatch immediately on all overriding emergency frequencies. The vehicle is believed to be carrying explosives, possibly nuclear explosives to be used in an attack in the Washington area.