Return to Honor (12 page)

“So you think there’s a possibility the plane might not have crashed.”

“It’s possible, but not probable, sir.” Colonel Welch put down the pointer. “Mr. Vice President, every electromagnetic signal emanating from Air Force One stopped at the same instant in time. If that occurs, then either the plane has lost all of its electrical power and the aircraft has crashed, or the units on the plane were deliberately shut off. Now, I can’t imagine that anyone would shut off
everything
on the plane. Even in combat our planes keep their IFF transponders working.”

Woodstone settled back in his chair. People spoke of the immense weight they shouldered while President, but he could only feel elation. It was hard to keep it to himself. He had an overwhelming desire to inquire about how Johnson took over after Kennedy’s assassination. Only how could he approach the subject without appearing callous—or eager, as he was?

His thoughts were broken by chief of staff Baca’s voice. “Mr. Woodstone, may I offer a few words of advice, with my background as an attorney?”

The words did not come as a request, but as a statement. Woodstone nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Mr. Vice President, since we are out of contact with the President, you legally hold the power of the presidency. However, I think it would be wise to keep this information from public dissemination until the whereabouts of Air Force One may be ascertained. There are two reasons for this: first, you must be sworn in as President if the plane has indeed crashed. This must occur without any warning to the public, for although
we
are aware of the hierarchy of authority, the public’s faith in our system must not be shaken. We must ensure the logical transfer of legal power in an expedient manner.”

“Second, if the President’s plane is not found, we must assume that the plane has been hijacked. You would still be legally in charge, assuming authority as if the President was found to be incompetent. But whatever happens, I cannot reiterate strongly enough that the public’s faith must not be shaken.”

Colonel Welch interrupted before Woodstone could answer. “What do you mean, Air Force One could have been hijacked?”

“You said yourself, Colonel, that you couldn’t imagine why anyone would turn off all the plane’s communication systems. Well, I just threw out a possible scenario for you. If the plan was indeed hijacked, that could happen.”

“But that’s impossible! Everyone on that plane had at least a Top Secret clearance and was personally investigated by the FBI.”

Baca answered dryly, “And we still have insider-threats and spies in our government, too, Colonel. I don’t think we can rule anything out until the President’s plane is located.” He turned to Woodstone. “Mr. Vice President”—the word
vice
was faintly stressed—“again I recommend that this matter be kept quiet until the situation is cleared up. Until then, I suggest that you keep to the White House and run business as usual.”

Woodstone’s spirits soared, but he hid it well, keeping it to himself. “You’re right. Colonel, excellent job—and keep me posted on any news. I want to hear as soon as you find out anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Colonel stood as Woodstone and Baca left the room. Woodstone allowed Baca to hold the vault door for him but vowed that Baca would be the first to go when the President’s dead body was found. Hijacked indeed!

Air Force One—Over Iranian airspace

Hujr sat watching the President. The door to the rest of the plane was still barred by the couch, and the only light in the chamber was from a small lamp by Hujr’s side.

Hujr had it easy. All he had to do was to watch Montoya and make sure he followed directions. At the other end of the plane Du’Ali was doing the real work. He’d be watching two directions at once: inside the cockpit at the crew, and out, toward the back of the plane.

The last time Hujr had spoken to Du’Ali—not two minutes before—everything was going as planned. Du’Ali reported over the intercom and let Hujr know every two minutes that everything was well. Their communication code was simple: Du’Ali spoke in Do’brainese and each time said a new number to Hujr. The last time Du’Ali had spoken, the number had been eighteen. If the number nineteen was not repeated next, Hujr would know that something had happened. Du’Ali might have been forced to make his two-minute report, but no one would know their little code. Not in Do’brainese, anyway.

All communications gear had been destroyed, smashed by Du’Ali with a heavy iron pan. The plane’s running lights were turned off as well. Armed with only a kitchen knife, Du’Ali had been able to take over the cockpit. And once the crew had gained knowledge of Montoya’s capture, they offered no resistance. Now Du’Ali watched both the cockpit and the rest of the plane armed with a Secret Service man’s Uzi. He was in absolute control. For even if there was someone on the plane who still had a weapon, all would die from Hujr’s bomb if they attempted to thwart the plan.

The knowledge put Hujr at ease. He allowed himself a slight smile with the anticipation of greeting his ALH brothers with the ultimate hostage.

Taurus Mountains

“Blue one, this is blue three—I’ve got a negatory visual on that IR spot.”

“What was it, three?”

“Looks like some goats … or some other type of wildlife. It’s not a plane, though.”

“Roger that, three. Stand by.” Captain Jimmy McCluney pulled his F-15C out of the banking turn and allowed the fighter to cruise level for a while. Playing mother hen to the rest of his flight at twenty thousand feet did not appeal to him. He was a wild weasel, a member of the new generation of fighter pilots who’d never seen combat, even in the Mexican Intervention, but who still loved to fly low and fast.

Knocking out enemy SAM and radar sites was his specialty. He was given grief by the air-to-air pilots who thought that the only thing that mattered was being an ace in combat. But Jimmy didn’t care for that. It was zooming along the deck at one hundred feet with his official altitude reported as three hundred, and “Bitchin’ Betsy”—the voice-actuated warning system—screaming for him to
pull up!
The excitement of rising over a ridge and just dodging a tower put his life squarely in the fast lane. There was nothing else like it. Let the air-to-air weenies play up in the clouds. It was down on the ground that he loved.

But here he was overseeing his flight for this make shift reconnaissance mission. If his flight hadn’t of been in the area, heading back from Bahrain to Torreon, there would have been no one else around to help out. And now that he was a senior captain, he had to direct the whole operation on the fly instead of flying close to the ground with the rest of the boys. That’s what he didn’t like about the air force. As soon as he became the best in his field, they booted him upstairs as a manager to oversee the rookies.

He flipped the toggle so he could speak to his squadron. “This is Blue flight leader.…we’ve pulled another negative check on area forty-two Delta. What are your orders?”

The reply crackled back almost instantly. “Move to forty-three, Blue flight. And are you recording the sweeps?”

“Roger that. We’ve got all our film rolling.”

“Keep it up, Blue flight.”

The mike clicked off. Roger-dodger, over and out. Great, they didn’t even trust them with their own visuals. They wanted some non-rated intel officer with Coke-bottle glasses to go over the recon photos to try to catch anything his flight might have missed. As if his flight wasn’t the best.

Jimmy pulled his ’15 into another bank to get over area forty-three. “Blue flight, this is Blue one. Copy my vector to area forty-three, Delta region, and use the same pattern for IR and visual checkout. Confirm by the numbers.”

“Roger that, one—two here.”

“Three copies.”

“Say no more, I’m four.”

“Five’s got it. And by the way, one, who the hell’s plane are we looking for?”

“You’ve got me, five. ‘Ours is not to reason why’.…”

“‘Ours is just to do and fly’ Gotcha.”

“All right, you clowns, cut the chatter and get to it.”

“Roger, one. And have fun up there.”

Forget you! I just hope you’re a flight commander when I come back to take over the wing
, thought Jimmy.
Then you’ll see how much I like it up here, instead of being down there with you
. He approached area forty-three and eased himself out of the bank.

U.S.S.S.
Bifrost

Frier’s eyes were glued to the 3-D monitors. One screen showed a view of the Taurus Mountains. At the edge of the screen lay the Med. A separate window on the computer screen showed the same view in infrared. A ghostly wavering filled the void where land and water stood out, demarcated by their differing temperatures. On the other screen a direct link to the CRAY-Omega flashed bits of seemingly unrelated information.

Major Stephen Wordel floated into the observation chamber, scratching an itch and yawning. The second, and temporary, member of the BIGEYE crew swapped shifts with Frier every twelve hours. It kept Wordel sane and allowed Frier to run things the way he wanted.

Wordel squinted at the monitors Frier observed and looked puzzled. “What’s up?”

“There’s a search going on for a plane missing in the southern Turkish mountains.”

“So?”

“So the plane is Air Force One.”

Wordel’s eyes widened. “Holy … the President’s plane crashed?”

“Not sure. I’ve had the CRAY project alternative flight paths.” He pointed to the visual tank. “The national guys are pointing all our satellite sensors to the crash area and haven’t located anything yet. So on a lark, I requested they scan along some of the routes the CRAY projected. And I’ve just detected an object about the size of Air Force One.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“You tell me. About an hour ago Air Force One dropped out of sight. Since then I got a request to find it—and instead I’ve picked up something large that hasn’t filed a flight plan over Iran.”

“Probably one of theirs.”

“With an IR signature of a 777? Unlikely. Especially when a 777 is missing a couple hundred miles to the west. Anyway, there are no electromagnetic emissions coming from the plane. The satellites were barely able to pick out its outlines on IR, but we’ve got a lock on it now; the thing just keeps heading southeast.”

Wordel blinked at the screens. “So what does CSOC say?”

“We’re bypassing CSOC and are scrambled directly into the White House National Emergency Command Center.” Wordel let out a long, low whistle as the fact set in. Frier nodded. “You’ve got it. And to top it off, we’ve got everybody’s favorite Vice President calling the shots down there.”

“You don’t really think they’d actually let
him
be in charge?”

Frier shrugged. “Look. We’ve survived this long with Montoya, and he hasn’t screwed things up too much. And we
are
sworn to uphold the commander-in-chief, no matter how much of a fruitcake the guy is. We do what they say.”

“Yeah, I hear ya, but I still think it stinks, no matter what oath I took.” He followed the trace on the screen. “Suppose that really is Air Force One. Where do you think it’s headed? It’s sure as hell not making a beeline for Israel.”

Frier was quiet for a moment as he studied new data coming in. “I’m not sure, but look at this. It will blow your socks off.” Frier enlarged a classified window on the monitor. “The NSA just picked up a message from the ALH. It’s a call for all the ALH bigwigs to congregate at Do’brai for some kind of powwow. Their last plane just got in the air, heading for Do’brai, and should arrive within six hours.” He pointed at the message. “The bottom list is all the possible airfields that Air Force One could reach without refueling.…and look which one is at the very limits of its range.”

Wordel scanned the message. “Do’brai?” He frowned. “What the hell is going on?”

Frier shrugged. “I’m not sure, but maybe the White House knows. Anyway, I’m tracking that last ALH plane and will wring any transmissions from it that I can.” He turned back to the screen and opened a video conferencing app. Although they were out of direct contact with the White House, the signal bounced off two geosynchronous satellites to connect them with the NECC half a world away. Once the secure video link was established, Frier spoke.

“Colonel Frier here. We’ve got a negative report on that plane crash in the Taurus Mountains, but we’ve picked up a bogey that could be Air Force One a few hundred miles southeast of where you’re looking.”

Silence. Then, “This is Colonel Welch. Air Force One’s flight plan did not entail going that far east, BIGEYE. If that’s our plane, it would be heading for Israel. Continue your sweep for the crash.”

“We realize that, Washington—but I think you ought to take a look at the data we’ve got. And a projection we’ve made with our computers on possible landing sites. We’ve come up with something interesting.”

“Can you send it down?”

“We’re transmitting now, Washington.” Frier barely touched the screen. The data on the bogey and Do’brai transferred at a blinding rate.

Wordel spoke half to himself. “I hope the politicians are ready for it.”

“They will be. They
have
to be.”

White House, Washington, D.C.

“Mr. Vice President, if we can rely on BIGEYE’s intelligence, Air Force One is heading for Do’brai. We have to assume the President has been taken hostage, and if our analysis is right, something big is going to happen very soon.”

Woodstone tapped a pencil nervously on the desk. “So what do we do?”

Baca lifted an eyebrow. “That’s your decision, Mr. Woodstone. All we can do is give you advice. The Secretary of Defense is on his way here, but in his absence General Peters can give you some options.”

“Right.” Woodstone tapped furiously.
Crap
—this wasn’t any fun at all. Where did the excitement go that he had first felt … hours? … no, only
minutes
ago, when this thing first popped open. Here he was, sweating like a convict in a lineup. “So what are the options? What can we do?”

Woodstone loosened his collar and eyed the people gathered around him. He’d decided against having the full contingent of NECC staff present, instead surrounding himself with about half the personnel; he hoped they’d come to a decision more quickly that way. But it still didn’t help. What the hell should I do? he wondered.