“SWAT?” the sergeant asked.
Bless your strategic brain, Lynch thought.
“Best people,” she said. “SWAT or not, that’s up to you. I’m looking for tactical but not talkative. They have to be able to keep a secret.”
She handed him a color-coded lapel pin. About the size of a quarter, it was white ceramic with a gold five-pointed star like the one on her badge. “Every gun-toter involved in this movement will have on one of these. Including your guys. If someone who does not have one approaches, then challenge them and get me on the radio. We’re handling outer perimeter. You can tell the rest of the shift there’s special duty, but that’s all. Only the officers involved should even know it’s happening.” She looked at the chief. “I’ll ride with your sergeant, if that works.”
“Okay,” the chief said, processing what little information she’d given him.
She nodded at the pin in his open palm. “They’re numbered. I need them back at the end.”
“And when do you anticipate that will be?”
“The end?” Lynch looked at her watch.
“I’m wondering when I can tell the rest of the guys what happened.”
Lynch gave him the friendliest Texas Panhandle grin she could muster.
“Chief,” she said. “I’m not trying to be a jerk. These orders come from the highest possible level. This is not something you should talk about. Ever.”
50
As director of national intelligence, Mary Pat Foley rated a spot in the senior staff alcove on Air Force One. Foley found herself on edge, unwilling to be cooped up in the small office, so she sat on the couch outside the medical clinic with Admiral Jason Bailey, the President’s physician. The 747—designated a VC-25A in military parlance — was large, but it was still an airplane, with limited space. The President’s office, sometimes called the mini-Oval, was just forward of the clinic. The Secret Service kept two agents posted outside the door, at a small desk forward of the couch where Doc Bailey worked on a sudoku and Foley waited impatiently for a phone call.
Admiral Jason Bailey traveled on Air Force One with the President, but he was customarily quickly hustled away when they landed, to the backup plane, the Doomsday plane — an airborne version of the NORAD command center — or any number of aircraft or Secret Service vehicles. The doc’s job was to be near enough to provide emergency medical care, but far enough away that he would not be injured in an attack. The stress of his responsibilities had to be fierce, but Admiral Bailey bore it up well. His eyes always seemed to sparkle above rosy cheeks, and the deep laugh lines around his eyes said he smiled even in his sleep. Foley liked the guy. His personality brightened up the room — or airplane — whenever he came around.
He tapped his pen on the sudoku puzzle, still smiling when he was stumped.
“You take some kind of chipper pills today, Doc?” Foley asked.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just happy. I attribute it to CrossFit.”
Foley was genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know you did CrossFit.”
Bailey kept reading his magazine. “I don’t,” he said without looking up. “That’s why I’m happy.”
“Har, har,” she said.
She looked at the secure STE telephone on the small teak table beside her seat, willing it to ring with news. She hated this. Not Air Force One, it was beyond comfortable. Even the press got nice seats. What she hated was being out of control. The not knowing. The feeling that things were unfolding on the ground and she was too far away to move the pieces around fast enough. Her first report said that the tech known as Calliope was in hand. Good news. Then the flight of F-15s that had taken off from Kadena had reported a problem on the ground in Manado — some kind of shootout. Bad news. Ding Chavez and Adara Sherman had disappeared along with the tech. Worse news. Then the F-15s had located the small plane carrying Chavez, Sherman, and the tech. Better news.
Then crickets — which felt a hell of a lot like bad news.
Foley’s phone chirped as if she had willed it to. She picked up the handset, waiting to be patched through directly to the F-15 Eagle’s pilot through the communications center behind the cockpit of Air Force One.
She listened intently as Air Force Captain George Ramirez gave her a professional, no-nonsense brief — as if he enlightened the director of national intelligence on a daily basis.
The news was a gut punch. Worse than bad.
They’ve gone down on an island off the Bird’s Head Peninsula in northwestern Papua,” Deputy National Security Adviser and Navy Commander Robby Forestall said five minutes later when he, Foley, van Damm, and a Marine two-star named Exner, who was an expert on Indonesia, gathered around the President’s desk.
Commander Forestall used a laser to point at a National Reconnaissance Office map on the flat-screen television. The red dot rested steadily on a small volcanic bump in the Pacific, west of Waigeo, in the Raja Ampat Islands. It was roughly six miles across at its widest point and encircled by a shallow lagoon and fringing reef.
“Keyhole images show a substantial airstrip here, a half-mile inland on the west side of the island.”
Ryan pushed back from his desk and walked across the office to get a closer look. Small stars decorated the soft beige carpet. He’d seen photographs of Ronald Reagan wearing sweatpants on Air Force One, but for the time being, Ryan made do with rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt and taking off his shoes. “What do you make of this?” he asked, pointing to an array of metal buildings at the end of the remote airstrip.
General Exner leaned forward in his chair. He was a lean, muscular man with a shining bald head, and his father had been ambassador to Indonesia when he was a teenager, leaving him with a love for the people and a better-than-average understanding of the culture. His wife’s parents were from Bali.
“My best guess is narcotics, Mr. President,” the general said. “Industry in this area is mainly tourism and pearl farming. The need for an airstrip with no substantial roads leading into it indicates something more sinister.”
“Seems crazy,” van Damm said. “Smuggling drugs through that area.” He looked away from Ryan, seeming to think better of mentioning the fact that Indonesia executed drug dealers, since Father West stood accused of just that.
“And yet here we are,” Foley said. “Our people say the plane leaving Manado was definitely carrying heroin. Probably bound for Australia out of Malaysia. This remote airstrip in the Raja Ampat is likely a stopover point. That means smugglers, which puts our people in danger while they’re on the ground. They went down with a load of hijacked narcotics. Our people on the ground believe the pilot of the Cheyenne flew to this location on purpose. We have to assume local smugglers have been notified and are coming to take back the drugs — and punish the people who took them.”
Ryan studied the map, thinking. “What do we have in the area?” He needed the thumb drive that contained Calliope, but he was more concerned about his people. He didn’t know Adara Sherman well, but along with John Clark, Ding Chavez had run his protection detail when he was with CIA. Now it was time to return the favor. Humans over hardware — every time.