“Listen to me very carefully, Laurel. The Chinese system will eventually fail. It is far too complicated for a damaged ship to make the trip and land safely. They have a three-day journey and they won’t make it. The ESA platform is heavily damaged, so they’re also ill-fated. Now stop what it is you are doing because this action will not prevent the United States from following a presidential directive. You are making us all look like amateurs.”
“Nonetheless, James, I will do what you are destined to fail at, and I have the man who signs your mercenary checks backing me on this.”
McCabe had to think fast. His plans were unraveling and he was bound to be implicated in the actions thus far if Laurel continued to be a rogue element. But if he sent out a warning she would be caught and that would lead directly to her father. McCabe had no illusions that the trail would then lead right to his front door. If so, the plan for framing the Mechanic and his movement would just be a waste of time. McCabe thought of a possible way out.
“I tried,” he said as simply as he could. “Do you have a proper escape plan?”
“I’m heading to the street now. I’m taking public transportation to the airport.”
“That’s good. Then you should tell your shooters to commence lock-on of the target now. I see on television that Marine One is just lifting off.”
“James, I was informed that locking on to the target too soon would alert the defensive equipment of not only the presidential helicopter, but the orbiting fighters as well. Just what are you trying to do?”
McCabe now knew who was involved in planning the attack on the president. It could only be the Mechanic, because no one knew the Stinger system as he did. Now he had a confirmation that the Saudi was finally reverting to his old, terrorist ways-or was it something more like avarice?
“Normally that would be true, but you’re misinformed, my beauty. You are using the Stinger FIM-101, the newer system that allows lock-on with no tracking flashback from the seeker head. You can lock on early and get the hell out of there, and save your men at the same time. Whoever you’re in this with should have explained that to you.”
Laurel bit her lower lip.
“Look, you cannot get caught. It would lead directly to your father.”
Laurel’s vanity overpowered her mistrust of her father’s mercenary. She lowered the cell phone and then her hand went to her collar. She raised the microphone to her mouth.
“All stations lock on, now!” she said into the microphone.
Flying at 39,000 feet off the coast of Mexico, James McCabe smiled as he heard the voice in his ear.
“But, miss, we are trained to-”
“Lock on the target, now!” she screamed, sounding like a spoiled child balking at a parental order.
All stations turned on their IR and radar-equipped seeker heads located in the missile itself. The signal was sent through to the microchip inside the handle of the Stinger and the blip appeared as a target that had been acquired. The three Stinger stations placed on the rooftop all called in stating they had acquired the target.
“Now get out of there,” McCabe ordered. “Flag a cab about three blocks from the building you’re in and don’t look back. Meet me in Atlanta. D.C. is going to shut down minutes after the attack.”
Laurel listened to McCabe and for the first time she started to get frightened at what she had just ordered. It was like a twelve-year-old getting caught hitting a schoolmate with a sharpened pencil-while the exhilaration was still there, it was nonetheless scary to be caught red-handed.
“But-”
“Get the hell out, now!”
Laurel snapped the phone shut and ran for the stairs.
The two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors were flying at fifteen thousand feet through a cleared corridor dictated by Marine One’s flight plan to Annapolis. Their job was to cover the path of the presidential helicopter the entire time it was in the air. This was a new protocol since the attacks on air and space assets in the previous week. The pilots were on a rotating roster and were stationed at Andrews. Their duty was usually one of boredom and routine as they circled well above the commander in chief.
The flight lead was Lieutenant Colonel William “Wild Bill” Lederman, a career officer who was filling in for a pilot who had just received his orders to Afghanistan. He was doing it as a favor so the other man could spend a few more days with his wife and two children. His wingman was Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, a young first lieutenant who was performing the protection run for only the second time.
The world for both pilots was about to change in dramatic fashion.
The large Sikorsky gained altitude quickly and its occupants were unaware of what was happening a mile away at an old and decrepit brownstone. Inside the helicopter a communications line buzzed.
“Mr. President, you have a call on the secure line,” a Marine corporal said as he leaned into the cabin.
The president of the United States looked over at his national security advisor, who was the only one of his staff accompanying him that evening. He then closed his eyes as the phone rang in the armrest of his seat. He sighed and then snatched up the receiver. He knew it was going to be a long night of nervous tension watching the double launch tonight from Vandenberg. He placed the phone to his ear and heard the scrambling sounds as the Marine communications officer made the connection.
“Yes,” he said as he finally received the soft tone telling him the scramble was complete.
“We have a breakthrough from Colonel Collins, and you won’t believe it.”
The president sat up in his seat when heard the voice of his friend Niles Compton.
“What?” he asked, waving the Marine steward away from his seat.
“Samuel Rawlins, the reverend, the evangelist.”
“What about that pain in the ass?”
“We think he may behind all of this,” Niles answered.
“I think you’ve lost your mind. He’s an idiot and has been chastised by every religion on the books-they all know he’s a fundamentalist fool.”
“Jack’s reporting that Rawlins’s father was a minister at Spandau Prison in 1947, and had access not only to the man they were looking for, this Nazi clerk named Zinsser, but also to Albert Speer. They may have divulged their knowledge of Operation Columbus to Rawlins’s father, a lieutenant colonel in the Army at the time. It’s all just circumstantial, but given recent events and the Reverend’s not so hidden disdain of yourself and the attempt to get to the Moon. I’m sure we have enough to get the FBI out in California to pay him a visit.”
The president was thinking. He had never known Niles Compton to run off half-cocked about anything. His guesses were as good as Einstein’s theories.
“Okay, I’ll order-”
Alarms started sounding inside of Marine One and the communications system was shut down without warning. The president looked up as the giant Sikorsky banked hard to the right and started a nose-down plunge just past the White House grounds. The president dropped the phone and held on as the helicopter’s hard maneuver threw him deep into his seat. He heard shouting from up front, but it was controlled as the pilot and copilot started an emergency procedure the president had always heard about but never experienced.
The Marine corporal leaned outward from his seat and looked at the president. The commander in chief saw the worry in the boy’s face.
“We’ve been locked on to with an infrared and radar system. The pilots are attempting to set us down.”
The president nodded as Marine One banked in the opposite direction. He was thrown to the right and painfully so, as his ribs dug into the armrest. He managed to look at his national security advisor and saw him cross himself. His lips were moving in prayer.