“Shut up!” snapped the pilot, turning his gun on Sam.
“Maybe I should have stayed in Russia,” moaned Yuri.
“I told you all to shut up!” hollered the pilot, turning his gun towards Yuri.
“It’s all right, stay calm, everyone,” said Cardinal, trying to defuse the razor-sharp tension in the cabin.
“Reach inside my flight bag,” the pilot said to Kim. “In there you’ll find four sets of handcuffs. Place them on our guests. Try anything foolish and I will blow your brains out.”
Kim reached inside the bag and pulled out the handcuffs. Her hands were shaking like a leaf in the wind. She moved from person to person, clicking the cuffs on everyone’s wrists. When she was done, she turned and looked at the pilot, tears filling her eyes.
Without taking his eyes off Kim, the major reached into a pocket on the outside of his bag and pulled out a small plastic box. Inside were four syringes filled with a sedative that would knock a person out within seconds. He handed her the needles.
“One syringe per person,” said the pilot to Kim.
“What the hell is going on here?” asked Jen. Confusion and anger filled her mind.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” replied the pilot.
“Sir, I don’t want to do this,” protested Kim, looking down at the needles.
“Don’t worry, it’s only a sedative,” said the major. “Now, do as you’re told.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Sam, seeing the fear in Kim’s eyes. Holding out her right arm for Kim, Sam glared at the pilot.
Walking from person to person, Kim injected the sedative.
It took less than five seconds for each person to fall asleep.
“Well done,” said the pilot to Kim as he quickly checked that the passengers were all asleep.
“Sir, I don’t understand. Why did you do that?” asked Kim, feeling as if she was going to be sick at any second.
“You wouldn’t understand,” replied the major, coldly, as he fired off one round into the staff sergeant’s heart.
With a look of sadness and disbelief on her face, Kim dropped to her knees. Less than a second later, she fell facefirst onto the carpeted floor of the plane. Blood began to trickle out from under her dead body.
The pilot tossed his pistol into his bag and glanced down at his hand. It was trembling. He had never killed another person before in his life. It had been harder than he’d expected. Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves, the pilot opened the door to the cockpit, stepped inside and sat down in his seat. He buckled himself in, reached down to a box on the floor, and switched off the plane’s transponder. Before taking the plane off autopilot, he inputted a new flight plan into the jet’s GPS and banked the plane hard over. As soon as he was on his new course heading, the pilot brought the nose of the aircraft down, forcing it to descend rapidly from the sky until he was barely one hundred meters from the ground. On radar screens across Russia and Poland tracking the jet, VIP Flight 743 suddenly and mysteriously vanished from their screens.
30
“Sir, I have a call for you from Mister Leonard,” said an immaculately dressed army colonel to President Kempt.
With a nod, the president took the secure phone from the colonel and answered the call.
The colonel came to attention, turned around, and left the room.
Leonard got straight to the point. “Sir, the flight carrying O’Reilly’s people has vanished.”
The news didn’t come as a complete surprise to the president. He was sure that it was all part of a bigger game being played out, one that he, unfortunately, knew precious little about. The one thing Kempt hated more than anything else was not knowing what was going on. He had the most powerful and sophisticated intelligence-gathering agencies in the world, yet more often than not, they failed to see things coming until it was too late to do anything about it.
“How large is the search radius?” Kempt asked Leonard.
“Just over three thousand kilometers, sir,” replied Leonard.
“That’s a hell of a lot of territory to cover.”
“Yes, sir. The Russians are cooperating fully. We do, however, have one clue: there was a course deviation before the plane disappeared,” explained Leonard.
“How much of a deviation?”
“The plane appeared to turn due south. That’s where the Russians are focusing their search and rescue efforts.”
“Dan, what do you think happened?”
“Sir, it’s far too early to draw any conclusions; however, I don’t like it. The very people we wish to debrief about the Luna 15 probe suddenly vanish. If I were to place a wager on this, I’d say Houston’s involved somehow.”
Kempt felt his jaw tighten in anger. “Speaking of Mister Houston, where is he right now?”
“Sir, he’s on his way to Rome,” replied Leonard. “He left several hours ago on board one of his private jets.”
“Has there been any email or telephone traffic from Houston or his people tying him to the Russian space probe or our missing plane?” asked the president. He knew
that Leonard would have told the NSA the instant he left Camp David to monitor anything coming to and from David Houston and his people.
“Not a peep, sir.”
“We’re going to have to tell O’Reilly that his people have gone missing on board one of our planes,” said the president, wearily.
“We served together, sir. I’ll call him and tell him what has happened.”
Kempt looked down at his watch; it was getting late. “Where is the vice president right now?”
“He’s at home on his ranch in Texas, sir,”
“Do you have any news about Mitchell?”
“Yes, sir, we intercepted a telephone call between him and O’Reilly in the afternoon. He’s on his way to Bogota. He should be on a flight for New York in the morning.”
“Very good, please continue to track Mitchell’s movements and monitor the search and rescue mission for me. Don’t hesitate to call me in the middle of the night if anything develops.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Leonard.
Kempt ended the call and looked over at the picture on the wall of his inauguration. Standing just off to one side was David Grant, his handpicked vice president. Taking a deep breath, Kempt called in his military aide and asked him to get Grant on the line.
“Jesus, Dave, you don’t want to be messed up in this or there’ll be hell to pay,” remarked Kempt to himself.
A couple of seconds later, the colonel walked back into the room and handed Kempt a phone. “Sorry for calling so late. I hope I didn’t get you out of bed,” said Kempt to Grant.
“Nah, I was just watching a Disney movie I’ve seen a dozen times before with the grandkids,” replied Grant. “What’s up, sir?”
“I’d like you come to Camp David.”
“With the family?”
“No, just you.”
The line went silent for a moment. “Sir, is there something going on that I should be aware of?”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Okay, sir, I can be there for breakfast,” replied Grant, trying to sound chipper.
“I look forward to seeing you in the morning.” With that, Kempt hung up. A whole generation of Americans had grown up cynical about politics. It didn’t seem that a single administration in the past forty years had gone without some kind of crisis. The last thing he needed was to give his opponents a scandal they could use against him. Kempt sat down and for the thousandth time in the past couple of years began to wonder why he got into politics in the first place.
31