“One of my men may be missing.”
Normal 89th Airlift Wing security procedures require the crew and passengers to be fully boarded prior to the arrival of the president and his party. The agent was miffed that he was hearing this problem now.
“One second.” The secret service officer notified Colonel Lewis that Lt. Ross wanted in. He then called the supervising agent on duty. Rossy didn’t dissuade him.
“Colonel,” Rossy said before making it all the way into the cockpit, “Get Kandahar on the horn. I need to know if my man Brady’s there. Try the infirmary.”
“Why wouldn’t he be onboard?”
“That’s what I want to find out. I’ll be on the radio,” he said while backing out. “Let me know as soon as you hear.” Lewis nodded affirmatively.
Rossy’s men were now assembled, with one exception — Mark Brady.
“Does anyone know if Brady opted off?”
“No, sir,” came the replies.
“He’s always here,” offered a corporal.
“Well not this time.” Peter Lewis cut through on his radio. “Rossy, negative. Repeat. Negative. No report of Brady at the infirmary.”
“Ask them to check with their security. Did he leave the base?” By now two of the Secret Service agents flanked Rossy. “Do we have a situation we need to know about, Lieutenant?”
“We’ve gotta match, Roarke,” Shannon Davis phoned excitedly. The Secret Service agent had to think for a moment. “A match?”
“Yes, put your pants on loverboy and get over here right away.” Davis had heard that Katie Kessler was in town. “Depp?” he asked choosing to use his own nomenclature. “Just step on it. We’ll talk about it when you’re here.” Roarke raced across town in a cab. He was in Davis’s office in under twenty minutes. “Let’s have it.”
“Miami. Here take a look. Surveillance cameras at Customs ferreted him out.” It was a nod to the FRT technology. Davis clicked on the photo that Customs e-mailed. Roarke leaned in. Despite the poor resolution and low lighting, it looked enough like Richard Cooper to take it seriously.
“Jesus, what the hell are they trying to do? Save a few bucks on electricity,” Roarke complained.
“Yeah, you’d think.”
“Tell me we have him in custody?”
“Sorry buddy.”
“Shit! Where’d he come in from?”
“Miami, via Madrid.”
Roarke stamped his foot. “Damn it!”
“They did get another picture of him.”
Davis called up a less fuzzy head-and-shoulder shot. “There.”
Roarke studied every detail of the picture, looking beyond the casual clothing, the blonde ponytail, and what could have been a fake scar across his chin. His eyes were narrow. His jaw line was square. The ears were set as he remembered. On personal observation, it appeared to be Cooper, but he wanted Parsons to run a closer scan. “Who’s he now?”
Davis read off a sheet he’d already printed out. “A Kelvin Ruffin. New Zealand passport. Other than that, I don’t know. Nothing that triggered any alarms. The system is a little sluggish and they cleared him along.”
“Have you talked to the Customs agent?”
“Way ahead of you. He remembered him. Said he was polite. A visiting journalist.” Journalist? “Why journalist?” He racked his brain. Davis smiled blankly. Roarke came up with the answer without him. “Jesus, to cover the march! He’s going on another kill!”
“Run his name against all foreign press. New Zealand. Everywhere. You’ll need to connect with Interpol. Send them the picture, too. And e-mail this over to Touch Parsons.” Roarke was already dialing the FBI computer analyst. “I want his unequivocal assurance that this is Richard Cooper.”
“It’s him!”
“Are you sure?” D’Angelo asked.
“Yes,” Dixon insisted. “Two people in the store ID’d him from the picture.”
“Almost six months later? How could they possibly remember him?”
“His attitude. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality. He tried to bargain. Pretty stupid. They said he was belligerent when they told him no. The clerk was ready to call the police. Then he calmed down, bought what he wanted off the rack, and left two suits for tailoring.”
“But no name and address?”
“Just his last name. Alley.”
“Spell it,” D’Angelo said.
“A-l-l-e-y. Like in back alley.”
D’Angelo thought for a second. “Last name, not first?”
“Right. But it’s close.”
D’Angelo realized the same thing. Alley for Ali. Ali Razak. “Very close,” he admitted. “What do you bet he’s our man?”
“Redskin tickets.” Dixon asked.
“You’re on. And if he is in Chicago, then Haddad is too,” the CIA agent concluded. “Let’s start talking with hotels and realtors. Try running Razak with it. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Consider it done.”
“And keep it close to the vest. This one’s ours.”
They were taking Brady’s disappearance very seriously. Lewis radioed the air base in Afghanistan and the Air Force F-15 Eagle commander on his left wing, while the Secret Service alerted Presley Freedman’s office at the White House.
Lewis asked Milkis to plot a course to the nearest airport.
Milkis scanned his charts. “Jakarta.” He calculated the time. “Fifty minutes.”
“That’s where we’re going. Get us straight into…” Milkis was interrupted by a newly installed alarm in the cockpit: a series of fast, high-pitched bursts. It was triggered when an engine was failing or was within known limits of failing.
“Talk to me,” Lewis ordered. He automatically held the yoke steady.
“Number one’s showing failure,” Agins called out as calmly as possible. He scanned the panel. “Fuel looks good.” There are numerous reasons for sudden engine failure. Fuel flow and quantity usually are not a cause.
The ear-shattering alarm continued, suddenly compounded by another piercing tone. “Shit! Number three’s shutting down,” Lewis called out.
The plane began to rumble and dip. More alarms sounded.
“Rossy!” Lewis shouted out over the Com.
“I’m on it!” he radioed back.
Lt. Ross rushed from the mid-section, now concluding why Brady wasn’t aboard.
The plane’s unusual movement woke the president. The Secret Service agent guarding his door called out.
“Sir!” the agent shouted, not really knowing what to do. The president, still dressed, bolted out of bed, grabbed a leather flight jacket from a hook, and opened the door.
“We’ve lost an engine,” his experience told him.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe more,” the president said. “We’ve got to get to the cockpit.” A third alarm was sounding now. “Three!” He started for the stairs. The agent took the lead. At that moment, a massive blast knocked him back in his compartment and onto the floor. A door flew passed him. Then smoke. Shattered glass floated in air for a second, then reversed direction, sucked out by sudden decompression. Air Force One yawed to the left. Oxygen masks dropped. The sound was deafening.
All of this was in the first three seconds.
Taylor had been here before. The plane was going down. He put the oxygen to his mouth, took in a deep breath, and counted to ten to get his heart rate down. The president surveyed the rubble. The Secret Service agent who had come to get him was dead. The door which had blown across the compartment broke his neck.
Air Force One nosed down. Morgan Taylor dropped his mask and struggled up the stairway against the building G-force. He strained to reach the cockpit…