David checked the mileage from Laramie on one of the instruments. They were twenty-two nautical miles from the field and approaching the mountain ridge crossed by U.S. 287. He checked the altitude again. Ten thousand three hundred, climbing very slowly. His heart was pounding but he kept a poker face as he scanned the instruments and began wondering whether they should turn back.
No, I can’t turn back on instruments. I’m cleared to Denver. If I can’t talk to the controllers, there’s no way I can get cleared for an approach back to Laramie. I’d better go on. Besides, Denver International has a lot more facilities than Laramie.
Having to peel his hand away from the edge of his seat to grab the cell phone had been a small agony for Jay Reinhart, but the moment Sherry’s voice came on the line, his entire concentration shifted to what she was saying.
“Yes, Sherry. I’m… in flight… heading for Denver. It’s pretty rough. What’s happening there?”
She quickly brought him up to date on the approval of the charter, Campbell’s visit, and her suspicions that he was regrouping for another try.
“Shouldn’t we get out of here now?” she asked. “The captain says he can leave at any time.”
“Not yet, Sherry. I don’t know where to send you.”
“I thought you said Britain.”
“I did, and that’s probably right, but I’ve got some research to do, and I can’t do it in this small plane. Is there any reason to think the Italians are changing their minds about not invading that ramp?”
There was a burst of static on the line and a muffled voice where Sherry had been.
“Sherry? Hello?”
More static, then a click, and a series of squeaks and squawks before the line went dead.
“Damn cell phones.”
David’s eyes remained welded to the forward panel, but Jay could see him nod. “They’re not supposed to be used in the air, and we’re probably in a marginal area anyway.”
“Still no contact with Denver?” Jay asked.
David shook his head, gesturing to the panel. “I tried switching to my second radio, but I totally forgot it’s been intermittent. I meant to have a radio shop look at it last month. But they know we’re here. See that little blinking light on the transponder?”
“The what?”
David pointed to it. “That little panel. When the air traffic control radar beams sweep past us, they trigger that little transmitter, and it sends the controller our altitude and position. The blinking light means they’re tracking us, even though I can’t talk to them.”
“That’s a relief,” Jay said. “I think.”
David checked the mileage from the Laramie VOR, the radio navigation beacon he was using to navigate down the center of the invisible air lane called V-575.
Forty-three miles. We’re past the highest terrain.
He felt himself relax slightly for the first time.
The Chief of Staff was back in his favorite perch on the forward edge of his desk while his secretary and three other staff members stood, leaned, or sat in various positions in the cramped office.
“So they know already?” Jack Rollins asked.
Richard Hailey, the Deputy Communications Director, glanced at Press Secretary Diane Beecher before replying. She diverted her eyes, leaving Hailey to speak.
“The Italian Foreign Ministry was informed about ten minutes ago by Peru’s lawyer that President Harris was still aboard.”
“That’s Stuart Campbell who did the informing, you can be sure,” another staff member added, checking the name on a notebook.
“Right,” Hailey agreed. “And we expect he’ll be informing the media almost immediately to try to portray Harris, and us, as purposefully deceptive.”
“So,” Rollins said, “Diane? We’d better talk to them.”
She nodded. “I’ve got a tentative briefing scheduled in fifteen minutes.”
He nodded. “Same script we all agreed on?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “We’re really concerned that some members of the media may have misunderstood our previous briefing that the reception at Andrews was for President Harris, when in fact we’re simply saying thank you to the flight crew for their rapid response. The President was not on board because President Cavanaugh determined that it would be inappropriate, yada, yada, yada.”
“Will it wash?” Rollins asked, already shaking his head.
“That’s a rhetorical question, right?” Beecher replied. “At least it’ll be on the record.”
National Security Advisor Michael Goldboro had come in quietly.
“Jack,” he said, getting Rollins’s nodded acknowledgment. “Campbell apparently had a plan B on the shelf. His people have snagged an Italian justice from the Court of Cassation, their equivalent of a supreme court for criminal matters. The judge is at home, and they’re trying to convince him to issue an order which would essentially require the police to forcibly enter the flight-line ramp at Sigonella and arrest Harris.”
“How?” Rollins asked. “I mean, that affects a treaty right.”
Goldboro shook his head. “The Foreign Ministry’s been fudging that interpretation for us. They know, and the judges know, that the lease on that base – more accurately called the Status of Forces Agreement – does not preclude Italian jurisdiction. The flight-line thing is a red herring. If that order is issued, the police, or the army in Sicily, can blow past the Navy guards in an instant, and we can’t, and shouldn’t, try to stop them.”
“In other words, the judiciary may take over the issue.”
“That’s right. The second an order is issued, the Foreign Ministry is out of it.”
“Does Harris know?”
Goldboro glanced at Diane Beecher, who was already on her feet. “Well, that’s all for me, fellows,” she said, exiting Rollins’s office before any more could be said that she would not officially want to know.
“Michael?” Rollins prompted when she was gone.
“That’s what we need to talk about, Jack. Is it our responsibility to tell President Harris he needs to get the hell out of there if he can? Or does that constitute the very interference that President Cavanaugh agreed we have to avoid?”
“And your recommendation, of course, would be silence?”
“You know how I feel, Jack,” Goldboro said quietly.
TWENTY-FOUR
The electronic data block for Cessna 225JN was steady on the scope, but the numbers were disturbing. The air traffic controller working the low altitude Fort Collins sector glanced at the data strip again, double-checking that the altitude clearance was eleven thousand.
It was.
Yet the Cessna’s transponder was reporting ten thousand one hundred and descending.
The controller triggered his transmitter again, trying once more to raise the pilot.
“Still having problems with that guy?” a voice said over his shoulder. The controller glanced around at his supervisor and nodded. “He can’t hear a thing from me, but I’ve heard every call he’s made.”
“Partial radio failure, then,” the supervisor grumbled.
“He’s on the proper course, and he’s past the highest mountains, but he’s started descending without clearance.”
“Transponder’s not on seventy-seven hundred, either,” the supervisor said, referring to the emergency transponder code. “He should squawk the radio failure code, at least.”
“Yeah, but he hasn’t yet,” the controller said
“You tried calling him over the VOR frequency?”
“Yep. No luck.”
The controller checked the clearance again on the handwritten paper strip to his side. If he couldn’t regain contact, he could expect the pilot to bore on in toward Denver’s International Airport using the very specific published procedure known as the Rammes 3 arrival, and probably try to fly an ILS to one of the runways. He would have to notify a Denver approach controller in a minute or so, and a sky full of commercial traffic would have to be routed around the little Cessna to keep everyone safe.