“Oh, my darling, oh,” she sighed as he exhaled his hot breath on the little mound just above the parting of her thighs. She reached down and took his hands and placed them under her skirt. She felt his open hands slide smoothly over her silk panties, carefully following the tight contour of her body. As his fingers slid beneath the material to caress the cool dark skin of her buttocks she sighed and slowly began to sway against his probing hands. She gasped as one finger parted her moistened lips. Quickly she crossed her hands in front of her taking hold of the hem of her blouse and in one swift motion raised it over her head and tossed it aside. An instant later her breasts were totally free. As James pulled her panties to her ankles she stepped out of them, kicking them aside as well. Slowly she bent down toward him, her dark nipples erect, inviting him to kiss them, to fill his mouth with them while his hands circled her thighs and buttocks. In the circular caresses she would gasp over and over as his fingers dipped inside her, explored her, drawing her moisture up and out—and then moved on—slowly, round and round, as her body swayed, feeling it fill her with desire, her breasts on fire from his kisses.
She threw her head back. Her legs growing unsteady, she stood up, pulling herself away, pulling him up to a standing position with her. Quickly, she undressed him as he stood quietly, feeling her hands removing his clothing, while his own hands wandered over her swollen breasts, rubbing his palms against and around her dark, hard nipples. Without taking her eyes from his, she held his swollen penis in her hand, caressing it. He groaned softly and closed his eyes. Lowering her eyes she sighed, “Oh, James, it’s so white. God, it’s so hard.” Dropping to her knees, she continued to stroke it, then kiss it, then devour it with her mouth. Holding it again before her, she licked the little drop of fluid leaking from the tip. She rose and kissed him hard on the mouth with a long, deep, searching kiss. Her tongue explored his mouth, his tongue, his eyes, his ears, his neck as his hands crushed her body against him.
Unable any longer to stand, she pushed him back onto the bed as he watched her with half-shut eyes. Kneeling above him, reaching down in front of her, between her thighs, using her hand to position him to the moist opening, with a shallow grunt she lowered herself slowly onto his rigid shaft, feeling him slowly enter her. “Oh god,” she cried as he slid slowly into her, as she absorbed the full length of him into her. She grabbed his shoulders and slowly lifted herself off him then dropped down onto his shaft again with a moist, sucking sound. “Oh my god, oh fuck,” she repeated over and over. Quickly, he caught her rhythm, driving upward into her, matching her—her breath coming in faster and faster gulps—again and again and again. With a cry, she arched her back, threw her head back, her mouth gaping mutely in a scream, silent at first and then loud and unrestrainedher body locked to his rhythm, feeling his warm fluid finally filling her as he let out a muffled gaspuntil she collapsed onto his chest whispering “Oh, darling. My sweet darling.”
64
By the evening of the fourth day after the attack on President Drummond, the state police and national guard of eleven states had been placed under direct military authority. A third twenty-four-hour curfew was in effect throughout the country. Except for police and military vehicles and the inevitable individuals who failed to get the word, the roads were empty. War games from the sixties, when the cities of the United States were going up in flames, had been hastily retrieved and implemented. The military apparatus for regaining control of the cities had been dispatched along with the governing infrastructure. Authorized by the president’s declaration of a state of national emergency, regional military commands were instructed to supersede local police authority. Within another twenty-four hours a new normalcy would begin to establish itself.
The vice president, however, had not been found. He was not in his office on the second day when the military guard arrived that had been sent to escort him to the president. The telescreen technicians who had been setting up equipment for his hastily called news conference could only tell the MPs that the vice president had left the office after receiving a phone call. From what they could tell while they were setting up, the call had been from Frank Morrison. While they were awaiting the vice president’s return, they had received instructions from their networks that the news conference had been canceled and that the president would be making an address to the nation instead, to be followed by a temporary suspension of broadcasting. They were still packing up their equipment when the president had gone on the air.
That night, Paul Latimer slipped through the net that was tightening around Washington. During the early evening, he had two Secret Service agents commandeer a military vehicle for possible evacuation purposes, he told them, in the event the situation in Washington got out of hand. He also retrieved his old uniform from his home. He called his wife to get it ready for the agent who went to pick it up. He told her nothing of his fears.
He knew he could wait no longer. From his outer office, he took his attaché case with his papers, uniform, and a semiautomatic pistol and signaled for his two agents to follow him. Using the military vehicle and wearing military uniforms, they drove to Manassas Municipal Airport.
Before leaving Manassas, Latimer called General Warren Stoner, Air Force chief of staff. Stoner was an old and personal friend of Latimer’s. After the phone call, Latimer had one agent arrange to commandeer a plane. Agent Meadows, the more senior of the two, would remain with Latimer and fly the aircraft. A small Cessna was chosen from the planes parked in the field.
“Where are we going, sir?” Agent Meadows asked Latimer as they taxied to the runway.
“Just fly southwest, I’ll tell you later. And no lights and no ’ident.’”
Once they were airborne Latimer looked out the window and watched as the flashing strobe lights and colorful marker lights went out. All he could hear was the steady drone of the engine and all he could see was the coming and going of the patches of lights quickly sliding below him. Latimer noticed Agent Meadows’s Uzi lying beside his seat. Latimer pulled his own weapon from his case and began absentmindedly to check its mechanisms.
After receiving an update from Meadows on the plane’s position, Latimer informed him that their destination was Hickory Municipal Airport in North Carolina. When they were ten minutes outside of the airport, Latimer instructed Meadows to switch on his lights, identify himself and arrange for landing. Once on the ground he was to request taxi clearance to approach the Air Force aircraft that would be meeting him there.
The landing was smooth and the plane taxied to the remote northwest corner of the small field. Waiting there, Latimer could see the ferocious silhouette of an F-27B fighter plane. The jet was from the Twenty-third Tactical Air Wing stationed in Moody Air Force base in Georgia. General Stoner had arranged for Latimer to be ferried to him at the North American Aerospace Defense Command headquarters in Peterson Air Force Base. The facility had not been locked down. Latimer’s plane would refuel twice in air.
Latimer instructed Agent Meadows to taxi the plane to the tower and ensure that for at least three hours no information about his subsequent flight be given out. Within minutes, Latimer was suited up, strapped in, and on his way, as the powerful plane rose steeply after what seemed to Latimer an impossibly short roll down the runway. Agent Meadows entered the control tower as the fighter roared into the air.
After identifying himself to the two control tower personnel and the airport manager, Agent Meadows explained that there was a sensitive government operation in progress requiring, for security reasons, complete silence regarding his flight into the airport as well as the military flight out. Their mission for the next few hours, he explained, would be just to sit and watch and ensure that secrecy was maintained.
“You all just go about your business and pretend that I’m not here. If you have any questions, though, about whether you should do or say anything tonight that might put this mission in jeopardy, I’d really appreciate you asking me first before you do or say anything
.” He smiled broadly to the people standing and watching him. Pausing just a moment for the impact of his words to settle in, adjusting the strap on his Uzi machine pistol, he asked, “Any questions?”
No one said anything.
“Great. Thank you gentlemen. You all go right on about your business now.” And he sat in a corner on a folding chair. The airport manager sat beside him.
The time passed slowly.
Occasionally, Agent Meadows would get up and apparently, out of simple curiosity, would walk to a control station to observe the operator’s activities. Or he would simply walk back and forth to break the physical monotony. After the first hour, the tower personnel no longer took notice of them. The airport manager asked for permission to return to his office and his work. This was denied.
Two hours after the departure of the F-27B the tower doors opened and three military police entered. The first, a captain, carried only a sidearm. The other two MPs each carried M20 assault rifles.
At the first sound of the door opening, Agent Meadows rose and drew his Uzi machine pistol from beneath his jacket. The armed MPs in quick reaction dropped to their knees, training their weapons on Meadows. For the airport staff, time had simply ceased to function.
Meadows slowly lowered his weapon and affecting a more relaxed posture, addressed the captain.
“Okay, Captain, I think we all are on the same side here. I’m Agent Cameron Meadows, Secret Service. If you will allow me, I will just pull my jacket aside here so you can see my ID.”
“All right, sir. Just move your left hand very slowly while you do that. And I will have to ask you, sir, to lower your weapon.” Agent Meadows did so. He slowly opened his jacket revealing a plastic identification card clipped to his shirt.
“Please remove the ID and toss it to me.” The plastic card landed several feet in front of the captain. He instructed one of the MPs to retrieve it and give it to him. He examined it carefully.
He raised his eyes and addressed the agents. “Where is the vice president?”
“Captain, you know that I can’t discuss that with you.”
The captain turned to the tower personnel. “Where is the vice president?”
Agent Meadows interrupted. “Captain, you have no authority to ask this question. I have instructed these people that they are to answer no questions regarding the proceedings of the last several hours without my prior approval.”
Speaking to everyone in the room, the captain continued, “Gentlemen, the state of Virginia is now under martial law. As duly authorized representatives of the presiding police power, I will ask you one more time—where is the vice president?” No one said a word.
The airport manager looked from soldier to agent and back again. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, let’s not get anyone hurt over a jurisdictional dispute here. And please, gentlemen, it isn’t fair to put us all in the middle of this fracas. We’ll do whatever is right. But you two gentlemen will have to agree first on what is right. This is way over our heads to decide.”
“Agent Meadows, you understand the law here. This state is now under martial law and we are engaged in a lawful police action. You must cooperate with our lawful orders.”
“Well, captain. You know the law yourself, I’m sure. And the law says you cooperate with me to ensure the life and safety of those we are charged to protect. It doesn’t go the other way. We don’t help you protect them. You help us.”
“Not anymore, sir. We are acting under a direct presidential order to secure the vice president and escort him to the president’s relocation headquarters. You may come with him if you wish.”
“May I see your orders, captain? Mine, I think the Congress has made clear over two hundred years ago.”
“Agent Meadows, I’m not going to engage in a fucking debate with you, sir. I have no more time for this.” Turning to the MP who retrieved the ID card, he said, “Sergeant, collect the weapon from this gentleman and place him under arrest.”
Agent Meadows looked straight into the captain’s eyes. Slowly, very slowly he brought his weapon up again to a ready position. The captain turned to his man. “Proceed, Sergeant.”
“Gentlemen, please. We’re all Americans here, for Christ’s sake,” the airport manager interjected.
The sergeant now took one step forward. The other MP was still at his ready position on one knee, his weapon trained unwaveringly on Agent Meadows. Facing Meadows directly, the sergeant said, “I will only tell you once to place your weapon slowly on the floor. Turn it butt-end facing me and place it on the floor now.”
Agent Meadows, who had never taken his eyes off the captain, said, “You understand that I cannot do that.”
“You have your orders and we have ours. Right now, Agent Meadows, the vice president of the United States is a fugitive and possible conspirator against the president of the United States. You will cooperate with us in the execution of our lawful orders or your interference will be neutralized. Proceed, Sergeant.”
As the seconds ticked by, each man drew a smaller and smaller sphere around his universe until it was no larger than the moist, unwavering eyes of the men opposing each other in this godforsaken airport control tower. Each man became one with his counterpart. They read each other’s thoughts in the shape and flicker of each other’s eyes. And at some moment the signal would be given by a microscopic tightening and it would be too late to examine other options. The message would be beyond recall.
Four men were frozen in a plane of reality that was known only to those who had faced deadly combat and learned to survive not by luck but by penetrating every pore, every blood cell of his enemy, until there was no time separating his enemy’s intentions and his awareness of that intent. In a fractured world, it was a moment of awesome unity. The captain stood still, observing.
A fly rested undetected on the kneeling MP’s shoulder.
Somewhere in space and time, in the world of death, a message was sent and received and four shots rang out together, followed by automatic firing and repeated shots and the sound of the universe expanding and of flesh being torn and of screams and of last breaths. And in the measureless time it took to change the universe, Agent Meadows was on the ground, as was the kneeling MP and his captain. Only the sergeant was still untouched, saved by a swift roll to the side as he fired his weapon on full automatic.
The sergeant checked his men. Then he checked Meadows. “We’re going to need an ambulance, sir,” he said to the airport manager. “Now, where is the vice president,” he asked.
65
The vice president looked out the window of the cockpit. At the plane’s altitude, he could see nothing in the pitch-blackness except occasional faint patches of light marking the area of some city of more or less significant size. His long body was ill-used to the cramped quarters of the jet. And his stomach was still adjusting to the sensations of acceleration whenever the plane maneuvered for some reason. Unlike commercial airliners, jet fighter pilots do not attempt to minimize the effects of acceleration. Every bank and turn and change in altitude sent his internal organs into new and unwelcome locations.
Paul Latimer did not regret the ride, however. It helped reinforce for him that this was a ride like no other he would take in his life. He must convince the Air Force chief of staff that the chairman of the joint chiefs had run amok. That he had orchestrated the events of the last two agonizing days. That he was systematically sequestering every government official of significance. That he had the president in his power or had already killed him. That he was attempting a military takeover of the government of the United States.
He patted the attaché case strapped to his seat. He had not let the pilot place it in the storage locker. He did not want it out of his sight and feel. Whatever case he could make with General Stoner would come from the documents and pictures he was carrying with him.
Latimer heard the characteristic electronic squeak just before he was to receive a message from the pilot. “We’ll be slowing down, sir,
for the refueling. Our ETA is 23:17.”
“Will there be any difficulty with refueling at night?” Latimer asked, speaking into the communications microphone in his helmet.
“No, sir. Nothing to worry about. Piece o’ cake.”
Latimer settled back in his seat, his muscles relaxing once again. One hour and twenty-five minutes more, he thought.
Twenty minutes later the pilot interrupted Latimer’s thoughts, startling him with his urgent but businesslike tone of voice.
“Sir, we’re being scanned by radar. I’ve informed Peterson. We may have to initiate pretty sudden evasive maneuvers should we come under fire. I am just mentioning this as an outside possibility, so that you can go with the flow if we have to do some fast shuffling.”
A few minutes later the pilot once more addressed himself to Latimer, this time more urgently. “I have a lock, sir. We are receiving ordinance.” Before Latimer could react, the plane rolled quickly and dove steeply. A second later, Latimer heard the sound of the releasing of the phosphorus flares. Heat seeking missiles would home on them rather than the fighter. Bright luminescence filled the cockpit until the jet screamed away with another roll and a steep, gut compressing dive.
“Sweet Jesus,” was all that Latimer could think or say.
The pilot’s voice crackled in his ear, “I think we’re okay now, but we’ll stay near the deck for a while just to make sure.
At forty-five thousand feet, the plane seemed safe and isolated, suspended in a world circumscribed by the whine of its engines and the hiss of its skin as it parted the rarefied air at twice the speed of sound. At two thousand feet, the plane became a screaming nightmare as the world flashed by in a blinding blur of motion.
On Deception Watch Page 26