“DiContino.”
“Sir,” the male voice began, sounding much like one of the many government subordinates, secretaries, and deputies who came on a line in advance of their superior. “This is the NSC watch officer. I have a priority-one message from the FAA.”
Bud pushed himself up to a sitting position on the bed’s edge and shook the last of the sleepiness from his head. “Go ahead.” It took only a minute for the situation to be explained. “Jesus. You better get the coffee going. I’ll be there shortly.”
He released the line and dialed the White House communications center. It rang only once.
“Com center.” The operator was female and all business.
“This is NSA DiContino. Secure this line and connect me with Secretary Meyerson.” There was a hollow hum as the connection was switched and then the ringing at the other end, sounding like an alarm bell in a tunnel. There hadn’t been time since his ascension in government to install one of the newer UltraCrypt telecommunications security systems on his phone, an older, still compatible system having been placed in a rush.
“Hello,” an abruptly roused Meyerson answered.
“Drew, this is Bud.”
“What time is it?”
Bud checked. “Almost three.” He switched the receiver to the other ear and flipped on the bedside lamp. “There’s a situation.”
The secretary noticed the sound of the secure line. “What?”
Bud took a little longer explaining to the secretary than the NSC watch officer had giving him the information. Meyerson was already half dressed when he hung up, and only his tie was left to put on by the time he made the call he had to make.
Captain Bart Hendrickson leveled the Clipper Atlantic Maiden off at three thousand feet above the shimmering Mediterranean Sea. Normally he would be flying at an altitude of thirty-one thousand on a heading of three-zero-zero degrees, but this was obviously no ordinary flight plan, and certainly not normal conditions. It had been nearly a year since he had commanded with a third man in the cockpit, thanks to the advances of the 747–400, and never had he flown with that third person wearing what he said was a bomb and pointing a submachine gun at the back of his head. He figured it was going to be a day for firsts.
“Any other instructions?” the captain asked.
The young man, looking like a Middle Eastern businessman traveling on the Athens-to-London leg of the flight, pressed the muzzle of the 9mm Mini-Uzi harder into the captain’s neck. “Two-five-zero…just fly,” he repeated the earlier orders.
The first officer had to grit his teeth in an effort to restrain himself. An old Marine, Buzz would always retain the habits instilled in him by the Corps — like keeping his crew cut. And there were other more valuable ones: like respect, and pride. To some they were clichés. To a Marine they were part of the soul. Which was why his stomach was turning at the sound of the pirate ordering his captain around. You fuckhead.
The hijacker stepped back and sat in the observer’s jump seat, a fold-down chair behind the captain’s seat, facing forward, which was often used by pilots hitching a ride between airports. He kept the compact black Uzi in his left hand, pointing at the console between the pilots, and the trigger switch in his right. Both pilots were stubborn, he noticed. They were probably soldiers. Arrogant American Marines. Killers! Yes, they would expect that the whole world should bow to them and their mighty numbers, caring nothing for those they crushed on their unholy crusades. Oh yes! They were a powerful force, but they answered to an infidel. The armies of Allah fought a just cause. They were blessed by their purity and devotion to the Great One, the Almighty Protector of the faithful legions that would march into battle with souls cleansed by His grace. The power of Allah gave strength to even the smallest of His armies, and that strength would now be used by the smallest of those many armies — a single man — to deal a crushing blow to the Great Satan.
Buzz turned his head to face the hijacker, disregarding his tendency toward a lack of self-control. His stare was met by dark, flared eyes, and a swivel of the gun, which now pointed directly at his face. The hijacker raised both eyebrows as if to ask, “Do you want to be shot?” The time would come, Buzz knew. He turned back to the instruments. Next to him Captain Hendrickson guided the Maiden on the ordered course. It was ‘his stick.’ He wanted his first officer well rested to back him up, remembering the prolonged ordeal the crews of other hijacked aircraft had gone through. That would be difficult, knowing Buzz. He was probably pissed as hell and ready to snap the hijacker’s neck, if it weren’t for that suicide vest and its deadman’s switch.
The captain was angry himself. Angry at the animal that would play God and threaten the lives of the 342 people aboard his aircraft, but angrier still at the unseen person or persons who made this act of barbarism possible. The hijacker could not have carried his weapons on board under any circumstances. No, someone had done the job for him…the tools of terror had been waiting for him when he boarded and took his first-class seat.
He was up, showered, and dressed in his olive drab BDUs twelve minutes after receiving the warning order. Showering included shaving. The creases were perfect and as straight as an arrow, as they always were, except when he was doing what he loved most: being a soldier. William ‘Bill’ Cadler had begun his military career as a private in 1959, a foot soldier who had slogged through his share of mud. He was a colonel now, the ground forces commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an entity encompassing the much touted and maligned Delta Force — his unit. They were a formidable group, the GFC believed, but rarely were they allowed to show their mettle, and never had they been ordered in to actually perform their prime assignment: the rescuing of hostages.
Now another ‘stand to’ order. They came regularly, usually followed by a ‘stand down’ order. Occasionally there was an assignment. Protecting high-risk dignitaries was common, though that simply relegated Delta to the role of a reactionary force. Someday, though, it would come. The right circumstances and place and time would all come together, and the green light would be given. They would be ready.
The phone in his private quarters buzzed. “Cadler… Right. Good, Major. Hit the buzzer.”
The claxon would have woken the dead. Eight pairs of legs swung over the bedsides in the barracks of the ‘hot squad.’ In a separate barracks the ‘slack squad’ was still sleeping, but they, too, would be called if additional manpower was needed. Other men besides the eight had also been roused. Two three-man crews were running to their Blackhawk helicopters less than two hundred yards from the barracks. Farther to the east, at the adjacent Pope Air Force Base, a C-141B lifter assigned to the somewhat secret Twenty-third Air Force and dedicated to Delta would soon be fully crewed, her engines ready to crank.
The men were dressed in their mottled green camouflage BDUs in three minutes and running with their gear bags in hand to the nearby briefing center a minute later. Delta’s headquarters, the Stockade, even after extensive modifications, from the air still resembled its former self. Getting from point A to point B was not the easiest of things in the Stockade’s periphery corridors and rooms which all snaked off the central building complex. The Delta troopers had long since learned that the quickest way from their barracks to the briefing center was outside: a jog out the side exit, then a half-oval course past the building’s main entrance and its somewhat out-of-place rose garden, and finally to the green door that led in.