He pressed the power button on the small TV screen that had been retrofitted especially for the mission. Within a thousand yards, the TV was able to receive, thanks to some wizardry beyond his technical knowledge, the video feed from the aircraft. He checked the map as the TV screen remained blank. They were still a hundred miles from the target location. He checked his speed and heading, ensuring they were staying just out of sight of even the most observant of the passengers on board the aircraft.
His screen burst into life, relaying what was being shown on the United flight ahead of him.
The grave image of the President of the United States of America, standing proudly behind the presidential podium, filled his screen. Unfortunately, the screen provided no sound. But he knew, from the President’s image, that it was a fifteen-minute countdown. He hit the timer and watched it click slowly and painfully down towards zero. He checked the map, looking to see where they’d be in fifteen minutes, another one hundred twenty-five miles out to sea and over some of the deepest and most unreachable areas of the world’s oceans.
When the timer hit zero, he signaled once to his wingman and they both powered forwards, slowly coming alongside the passenger jet and the helpless and defenseless passengers. Their slow progression ensured that every passenger had a clear view of the two powerful symbols of American might.
Howard Carter looked across and, as expected, panic had ensued. Windows were being hammered and soundless shouts of abuse were hurled at him. He checked his map as he drew level with the Boeing’s cockpit. The location was perfect. Everything had been timed to perfection. With a wave to the Boeing, he pulled up and over looped back behind the massive jet. He had spent a long time thinking how he would approach this moment. The kindest action was to fire four missiles straight into the body of the plane. Whoever the explosions didn’t kill instantly would be unconscious from a lack of oxygen and dead long before they hit the water forty thousand feet below.
That was precisely the reason the only weapon available to him was his M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun. He had specifically asked for no missiles to be loaded just in case, in a moment of compassion, he took mercy and opted for the quick and painless option.
The first burst of fire destroyed the majority of the right wing. The plane lurched to the right, bringing the left wing round and into his sights. Another burst destroyed that wing and the Boeing tipped forward and plunged towards the sea below. With not one bullet having touched the fuselage, the Boeing would remain intact and its passengers unharmed until it hit the water, some seven and a half miles below, or ten point five miles, adding the distance to the ocean floor.
Chapter 89
Frankie increased the volume on her TV to hear President Mitchell speak. “My fellow Americans,” he began. She could hear the same message with a slight delay coming from her mom’s TV three thousand miles away.
“I’ll call you when he’s done,” she said, and hung up.
“As you are painfully aware, we have been living under the threat of an attack by militant jihadists that would threaten the very core of our nation. These men claim they act for Allah but no god would ever condone their actions, and nor do the 99.99% of law abiding and peaceful Muslims who practice a faith that, at its core, is peace loving.”
After a pause, he resumed speaking. “Nick Geller was man that I trusted. A man I believed was acting in the interests of our country when he visited the White House a few weeks ago. How wrong I was, how wrong we were. A man we trained turned on us and used that training to evade and destroy us.
“Today, Nick Geller launched an attack to devastate our country. An attack so heinous in its plan, it’s hard to believe that anyone could be consumed by that amount of hatred. The plan to bring the fight to our streets and a virus to our people is so grotesque it’s hard to comprehend the enormity of its impact on our nation. Today, the proud men and women who fight to keep us safe every second of the day, have once again prevailed.”
President Mitchell paused to let the enormity of his words sink in.
“The nightmare of the virus that had hung over us is over, the nightmare of men running through our streets strapped with bombs is over. Nick Geller, along with many hundreds of jihadists, is, as we speak, languishing with the deadly virus at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A flight bound for America and loaded with virus-infected jihadists was intercepted and destroyed by our military.”
“Many of you, I know, will be concerned for loved ones who may have been on the flight. Please rest assured that all families affected by this action have already been informed and support measures put in place. If you do still want to check the status of a passenger, a phone number will be displayed at the end of this broadcast. It is automated and all that is required is for you to give the name of the individual. If they were on board, you will be transferred to a support center. If not, you will be informed that everything is fine. It is never easy being President and being entrusted with the security and welfare of hundreds of millions of American citizens. Some days, you have to make decisions for the greater good. Today is one of those days. We have struck a blow that will make the world a safer place. Tomorrow will be safer than it was today. As President, all I can promise you is that I will do whatever is needed to make sure that the day after that and the days that follow are safer still. God bless America.”
The screen faded to a telephone number. Frankie sat still, not knowing how to react. Nick Geller was dead. Nick was dead. Although she had to keep telling herself her Nick died a few weeks earlier. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t some bizarre and crazy mistake. The President had just confirmed that Nick was dead.
Her phone rang. “I’m okay, Mom,” she said.
“Hi, Frankie, it’s Paul.”
“Paul?”
“Paul Turner, Deputy Director FBI?”
“Oh yes, Paul. How can I help?” she asked absently.
“One plane?” he asked. “There were ten thousand of them heading here!”
“Well, there were ten thousand emails.”
“That’s not what the NSA guy hinted at,” said Turner.
“The President said one plane, that’s a few hundred.”
“So Nick Geller, the man who handed us our asses on a platter over and over again, injected forty-nine people with Ebola on one plane?”
“What are you saying, Paul?”
“He never said which plane. He said a plane and then didn’t give the flight number.”
“You think there’s more than one?”
“I think there are a lot more than one. Have you still got all the flight details?”
“Yeah, they’re here in front of me. I’ll check which ones land and which ones don’t.”
“Excellent. I need to board my flight to Miami, I’ll call you when I land.”
Frankie logged on to each of the airports and ticked off flight after flight throughout the day as each one landed safely. By 5:00 p.m. and with a only a few flights due to land which, in fact, had not even left Europe until after the President’s speech, she had yet to find a single flight on her list that had not landed safely.
Frankie checked the news websites and they all carried the story as their headline but listed the flight simply as a ‘United Airlines flight’. All five hundred and thirty seven passengers and crew were presumed lost. A list of the victims who were on board the flight had been published. Over two hundred and twenty innocent victims had perished, yet not one relative was being interviewed. There were no scenes of mass weeping or anguish at the arrivals gate at the airport. The news was focused almost entirely on how the virus threat had been lifted and almost three hundred jihadists, the most radical jihadists alive, had been stopped in their quest to destroy America. The loss of two hundred twenty Americans was being downplayed. It seemed the belief was that the victims had already been infected by the Ebola virus and that it was almost a blessing that they had perished in a plane crash rather than die an agonizing death. No further details
about the innocent victims had been released, no ages or addresses, just a list of names that the President had pledged would be immortalized forever in a memorial.
By 6:00 p.m., Frankie began to wonder how long it could take to fly to Miami, having still not heard from Deputy Director Turner. At 6:30 p.m., she knew she would never hear from him again.
The breaking news that the man who had led the investigation and foiled Nick Geller’s plot was to be appointed Deputy Attorney General flashed on Frankie’s TV screen. A beaming, newly minted Deputy Attorney General Paul Turner stepped forward. Frankie spotted Secretary of Defense Harry Carson in the background of the shot.
She turned off her TV, packed a bag that would fit in her Porsche and drove out of Washington for the last time. Her destination: Colorado.
Chapter 90
EIGHTEEN MONTHS EARLIER
Harry Carson paced the corridor outside the White House Situation Room. His position was one that few knew and even fewer understood. He solved problems before they became issues. A new problem had arisen. One that was way beyond his normal remit and as a result, he had asked for a special meeting with President Mitchell and Secretary of Defense Bob Hammond. Finally, the meeting that was delaying his access began to break up. The attendees filed past him warily. Harry Carson was a man few ever wanted to see in their department. If he was there, something big was about to happen.
With the room finally empty of all but the two men he needed to see, Harry entered the room, closed the door behind him and ensured that any recording devices were switched off. President Mitchell and Bob Hammond watched the unshakeable Harry Carson fuss around the room checking the devices with some concern. Harry Carson was unflappable, emotionless, nerveless. But he was obviously worried, which could only mean one thing: They should be very worried.
“Jesus Christ, Harry! What the fuck is wrong?” asked Bob, unable to wait any longer.
“Gentlemen, these are chatter graphs,” he said, laying out a number of charts on the large conference table. “And when I say chatter, it’s the level of communication from areas of known terrorist organizations. It’s a gauge of how active the terrorists are.” Both members of his audience nodded. “This is the graph up two weeks ago.” He tracked a fairly uniform pattern with his index finger, no spikes or curves, just a fairly flat straight line. Both nodded again.
Carson put down a new chart. “This is from then until today, Monday.” He pointed to a massive spike in activity.
“Yes,” said the President. “The CIA has told us it’s to do with the Caliph Zahir al Zahrani announcing some new offensive. They expect the levels to drop back in the next few days. They don’t have the support or power they once had.”
“One part of that’s correct. Al Qaeda is not as powerful as it once was and alone it’s not the concern it once was.”
“And the other part that’s not correct?” asked Bob.
“That the levels will die down,” he said somberly. “Zahir al Zahrani has a plan, a dream it would seem, to join with all of the other jihadist organizations across the radicalized world and create one army fighting for Allah.”
“Never going to happen,” scoffed Bob. “Too many factions and differences between them.”
Harry pulled out another chart. “I asked some very clever guys to drill down into what they could of the chatter. There is one shit load of crosstalk between organizations that we would never have thought possible. This is real, gentlemen,” cautioned Harry sternly.
“Okay, Harry, you’ve got our attention,” said President Mitchell, sitting more rigidly in his chair.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Bob.
“The plan?” asked Harry.
“The plan, Harry, you know, the one you don’t enter a room without.”
“Oh, that plan,” he smiled, walking to the door and opening it. “You can come in,” he said to someone in the hall.
“President Mitchell, Secretary Hammond, let me present to you the most traitorous son of a bitch this country has ever produced, Nick Geller.”
Chapter 91
“Nick,” said Secretary Hammond.
“Mr. Secretary,” replied Nick.
“You know each other?” asked President Mitchell, still confused as to what Harry was proposing.
“Nick is one of our guys in Defense Clandestine Services, one of our very best.”
Nick proudly squared his shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”
“I thought you said he was a traitor?” asked the President.
“Not yet, but by the time I’ve finished with him, his own family, if they were still alive, would hate him,” said Harry confidently.
“Perhaps I’m missing something or just being particularly stupid today but what exactly the fuck is it you’re planning to do?”
“Hijack Zahrani’s plan.”
“Surely we want to stop it?” asked the President in frustration.
“And then we’d have to stop them again the next time, and again and again. And then what would happen the time we didn’t stop them?”
“So, no offense, Nick,” said the President before turning to Carson, “but that’s it? One guy? We’ve got over one and a half million service men and women and millions more in law enforcement to take these guys down. One guy? Seriously?”
“One guy who they think is theirs.”
“Geller…” President Mitchell mused, “that’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”
“We’ve worked that into his cover. The religions have more in common than you’d think.”
“Perhaps if you start from the beginning and just explain it to us,” said Bob.
“Last week, I visited Creech Air Force Base in Nevada on a trip to LA,” said Harry. “While I was there, I witnessed the amazing work they’re doing with drones. Anyway, I wondered if they could do something similar with our E3s and tankers. After a chat with the commander of the unit, he promised he’d do some evaluations. On the flight down to LA, we passed over a couple of airport storage facilities which, given the information we have on Zahrani’s plans, got me thinking.”
“What did?” asked the President impatiently.
“The drones and the storage yards. It came to me. What if we could get all the jihadists into one controlled area in which we were free— and without risk to any innocent life— to do anything that was necessary?”
“Yes?” Bob pressed.
“Aircraft. If we get them onto planes, they’d be weaponless, totally defenseless and at our mercy.”
“And how do we convince them to board these planes?”
‘We make them think they’re coming to destroy us. We make them think they’re part of the one true army fighting for Allah, a holy jihad to rid the world of American evil.”
“I’m not convinced,” said President Mitchell.
“We’re still at the planning stage. There’s a lot we need to work out. How do we get them to trust Nick? How do we get them to believe he can take Al Zahrani’s plan and make it happen? To be honest, we’re struggling to make it work with Al Zahrani around. We need to control the timescale, not him.”
“Sounds like an impossible dream,” said the President. “Perhaps we should just focus on stopping them.”
“We think it’s possible. We just need to think like the jihadists. Remember, they’ll sacrifice themselves for their cause. That’s where they have the drop on us but we can use that to our advantage.”
“You’re losing me again,” said the President.
“The key, we believe, requires four stages. Nick winning their trust, that’s number one and perhaps the hardest but we believe we can create a scenario that will make that possible. Stage two is Nick gaining the trust of Caliph Al Zahrani, again difficult but under the right circumstances, possible.”
“So far, all I see is Nick being executed very publicly to humiliate us,” said Bob.
“Stage three,” continued Harry, ignoring Bob, “is where it gets tricky. We remove Al Zahrani, or a
t least Nick does.”
“You kill him?’ asked the President.
“So he can receive a medal from you and in the process attempt to assassinate you,” said Harry quickly. “And this room could do with an update anyway. In fact, the whole West Wing could do with a refurb.”
“Attempt to assassinate me and blow up the West Wing? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?!”
“Nick would then escape and, armed with a tape of Al Zahrani to prove that he is carrying out Al Zahrani’s plan, the tape will show Al Zahrani sacrificing himself for the greater cause. Nick then steals a deadly virus and over a period of weeks causes utter and total panic in the US while gaining the trust, confidence and admiration of the jihadists across the Arab world. They will rise and fight with the man who very nearly killed the President and has in his possession a virus that will destroy the entire country.”
“In the meantime, we kit out a number of planes that we then sucker them onto thinking they’re coming to carry out their jihad and destroy America.”
“It’s absolutely fucking crazy!” said the President. “Nick will be dead in ten minutes and we’ll have done nothing to stop them! You know there’s no chance you’ll survive this?” said the President, looking at Nick.
“Yes, sir,” replied Nick without hesitation.
“Assassinate me? Actually shoot me?”
Harry nodded. “It needs to be real, everybody needs to believe it’s real. We need to throw everything we’ve got into hunting him down.
“And what if our guys catch him or kill him?” asked Bob.
ALL ACTION THRILLER BOXSET: THREE MURRAY MCDONALD STANDALONE THRILLERS Page 96