“I would say that this is a high probability Boris,” looking to his assembled group who stood awaiting their new assignments before turning back to Boris. “Do you have a new request you would like to make at this time?
The sun beat down upon Boris’s exposed head as he stood facing Forsythe, the sweat once again beading on his brow, the cut above his eye feeling the sting of its salt content. He hoped to avoid Washington DC and its unbearable humidity on this trip, but other forces of nature had taken that possibility out of his hands.
“I want to enter your witness protection program,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow, careful to avoid his open wounds.
The request seemed reasonable from his end, but Forsythe allowed Boris to sweat some more, wondering if he had anything else of value to provide before answering. The longer he waited, the more Boris would sense rejection and drop some more bait for him to bite. Standing in front of Boris, staring down at his pathetic figure hunched over to one side in pain, Forsythe realized there was more. His honed instincts of being in the FBI for 25 years told him there was additional information to be gleaned.
“Speak and I’ll listen. You have 2 minutes to tell me what is going on here and then where the rest are.”
This was an unseen blow, one that caused him more pain than the shot to his ribs. Boris was getting too old for this type of work, knowing his life expectancy was now considerably shorter if he returned to Switzerland.
“They are heading to Philadelphia, or just on its perimeter,” Boris said. “The Muslim gentleman is going to detonate one of our devices at a historical Fort up there. Fort Mifflin.”
Forsythe nodded. “Okay that piece of information has bought you access to your bank account in Switzerland.” He knew more was forthcoming. “Keep talking.”
Boris managed a smile. “He will detonate it at 8:35 PM,” he said, his breathing shallow from the broken ribs. “If you call your Secret Service you will have confirmation that your President will have just landed in Air Force One at the adjacent International Airport. It was planned that way in case he was missed in Washington.”
Forsythe spoke rapidly into his cell phone, able to confirm that the President would indeed be flying from Maryland in Philadelphia at the time mentioned. His next call was to his superiors, telling them to get on the horn and move the president. He also needed another helicopter.
Turning back to face Boris, he said. “We’ll talk about the other weapons when I get back.” He then motioned Jim Thomson over.
“Our new found friend here is about to enter the witness protection program. See that he is taken care of.”
“Until we meet again Boris,” said Forsyth.
“Until we meet again Michael,” the pain in his ribs causing him to take shallow breaths, “and thank-you.”
“Okay,” Peter said, pushing the weapon into the base of Jimmy’s scull. “I want you to land in a park coming up on your right hand side,” forcibly pushing Jimmy’s head to one side in order to look in the direction he was pointing.
“All-right I see it, you don’t have to be nasty about it,” Jimmy replied. He could see a business parking lot and a patch of green alongside the Delaware River, still some 4 miles short of the airport itself.
“Land this piece of junk now!” Peter said with his weapon still in place, ready to use it if the need arose.
Jimmy slowed his helicopters forward speed to achieve a landing on a small patch of land, one that was surrounded by trees and power wires that could only make his landing even more hazardous.
No problem thought Jimmy as he purposely overshot the first landing attempt, causing Peter to pistol-whip him about the head in response.
“I’ll give you one more chance,” Peter said, once again placing the gun at the base of his skull.
Jimmy was stalling for time. During the ride up he had told Peter the maximum speed he could achieve in the aging helicopter was 85 knots or the engines would blow. Of course, this was a lie; the helicopter could achieve 130 knots on any given day. It was just one of Jimmy’s tactics; fortunately for him it worked. Saving the best for last he still had the landing to look forward too. Realizing that only the pilot and co-pilot seats were built to be shock absorbent to accommodate a hard landing, he could steer the craft into a semi-controlled crash. This presented the possibility of disabling Peter as soon as they were on the deck. That was his last and only hope.
Peter realized Jimmy was trying to stall for time. “If you don’t land this helicopter in less than 30 seconds, your brain is going to be splattered across the windshield.”
Jimmy half turned in his seat, facing down the gun barrel that was now was in his face, smiling at Peter in the back seat. “No problem,my friend,”—pushing the helicopter into a steep dive before leveling off quickly at 250 feet to make sure he could steer clear around the tree’s that were abundant in the park.
“Now,” Peter demanded, firing once more through the co-pilots windshield.
“You asked for it,” Jimmy said, bringing the helicopter down at a rate of descent four times higher than recommended by the manufacturer. At this rate of speed, the helicopter was hard to control even for a veteran pilot such as Jimmy,as the helicopters tail rotor swung around and hit an overhead power line — slicing the line in two and cutting the power for the 500 people in the immediate area. With his tail rotor disabled, the helicopter swung wildly in a tight circle before crashing into a 75-foot oak tree. Luckily for its occupants they survived the initial crash with the tree’s canopy assisting the helicopter by stopping the top main rotor from its dangerous spin, causing it to come to an abrupt stop and imbed itself in a 10 inch overhead branch. From there the helicopter basically slid down branch by branch the remaining 30 feet to the ground. The grounds impact on the cockpits aluminum structure was immediate, pushing the structure inward and crushing the front pilot and copilot seats, killing Jimmy instantly.
With Peter positioned behind Jimmy, he was able to use Jimmy’s body as a shield and rode the remaining distance down essentially on his back of his seat.
It didn’t take long for a small crowd to gather around the mangled wreckage, curiosity keeping them at bay due to the downed power lines wiping around like a 4th of July fireworks display. It was only a matter of a few minutes before Police and Fire services would arrive on the scene.
Peter awoke to find himself lying on top of the pilot. He could feel something heavy lying across his back but he was basically unharmed. Reaching behind him, he was able to forcefully grab and push a jagged piece of the aluminum craft off his back and extract himself.
Peter had only one objective at this point, to reach his rental car he had pre-positioned only 200 meters away. His detailed planning had him position a second rental vehicle on one of the side streets in the small town of Essington, which happened to be 6 kilometers south of the airport. He knew he would pass through here coming from Washington and would want to dump whatever vehicle he had at the moment and switch to a “clean” untraceable one for his next phase of the operation. Little did he expect that his mode of transportation would be a helicopter.
Staggering out from the mangled aluminum mess, Peter took a few weary steps, trying to regain his balance, blood flowing from ahead wound. Taking one look back at the wreckage before starting to walk away — Peter realized he was lucky to have survived at all.
Several courageous members of the crowd were now attempting to extract Jimmy from the wreckage, not knowing the FBI agent was already dead. This rest of the crowd was pointing towards Peter and gasping as he regained his composure and was now jogging away towards his pre-positioned car.