For improved visibility for the crew — important when flying low, a regular occupation for the venerable aircraft — the Hercules had a mass of glass, stretching all around the cockpit in smaller segments. Some of the sections were smaller than others, but the one Cole had selected — directly to the port side of the flight deck — was more than big enough for him to climb through.
From his position on top of the aircraft, Cole had clambered back down the side, not wanting to have to go through one of the frontal segments — he didn’t fancy flying with no windscreen, taking the full brunt of the Atlantic wind in the face all the way.
He clicked his right hand switch, and as his hand came free, he tried to keep his leg in close contact with the aircraft to help steady himself. His hand went down for his gun but, weighed down by the electromagnetic bracelet, was immediately whipped backwards, the force pulling his leg away too, until his whole body swung back towards the fuselage, pivoting around the fulcrum of his left arm and leg.
He cursed, forcing his body to come back round with all his strength, until he managed to pivot back, his right hand dropping to his belt, pulling the Glock semi-automatic free, struggling against the pull of the wind as he raised the barrel, placing it at an oblique angle firmly against the back end of the flight deck’s middle side window.
Gasping for breath, resisting the powerful pull of the wind, even as he saw the buildings of the air base below come into sharp focus, he pulled the trigger — one shot, two, three, four, five, six, until the window finally — finally! — began to star and crack.
It wouldn’t shatter, Cole knew, and so he pulled himself in closer, using the butt of the gun to smash the window — again once, twice, three times — until the whole thing collapsed inwards, and then Cole was there, both switches turned off, the magnets no longer securing him but hands placed in the window frame as he hauled himself in, gun up and raised at the terrified, bewildered flight crew.
16
The loadmaster wasn’t there, but that still left four crew members for Cole to deal with. The co-pilot was right in front of him as he pulled himself through the window, and Cole immediately smashed him in the face with the butt of his pistol, knocking him out cold.
Even as the co-pilot slumped unconscious in his seat, Cole leapt forwards through the enclosed flight deck, hammering a front thrust kick into the navigator’s chest before knocking the flight engineer down with a palm heel strike to the face.
Taking advantage of the two crew members’ disorientation, Cole followed up with marma strikes to the men’s necks, ensuring complete loss of consciousness.
From the moment Cole had entered the cockpit to the moment he had the Glock up and aimed at the pilot, the other three crew members strewn unconscious around the flight deck, less than five seconds had elapsed.
The pilot had started his mayday call to Andrews, but now fell silent, staring down the barrel of Cole’s gun.
‘Delta Six One, this is Control Tower Andrews, repeat your last, over,’ Cole heard from the radio, barely audible above the rush of wind through the flight deck.
‘Delta Six One, I say again, repeat your last, over.’
‘Change course to two-four-one degrees,’ Cole told the pilot. The man hesitated, and Cole pushed the gun nearer. ‘Do it,’ he demanded, and slowly, reluctantly, the pilot made the necessary adjustments.
‘Now tell them the plane’s rudders and ailerons have been damaged with the weather,’ Cole told him. ‘Tell them you can’t turn the plane. Tell them it’s locked on course.’
The pilot nodded. ‘Control Tower Andrews, this is Delta Six One,’ the pilot said, firm control over his voice. ‘We’ve had a technical malfunction, lost steerage, possible rudder fault. We cannot make the landing at Andrews, I repeat, we can no longer make the landing at Andrews. We are unable to alter direction, over.’
There was a pause. ‘Delta Six One, what is your present course, over?’
The pilot gave it, clearly and loudly.
‘Delta Six One, do you know the location of those coordinates, over?’
The man looked down at his navigational charts, paused as he checked the numbers, and then closed his eyes. ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered in disbelief.
Course two-four-one degrees aimed the huge transport aeroplane straight at the White House.
17
Hansard felt sick to his stomach.
The report from Andrews suggested that the Hercules had developed a steering problem that meant it could no longer bank or turn without threatening to rip itself apart, a problem the technical team thought might have to do with the rear parachute door being kept open for so long in such terrible weather conditions.
It meant that the plane would no longer land at Andrews, but would continue on its current course, which would take it straight past Fort Dupont, the eastern branch of the Potomac River, and right over Capitol Hill. Andrews had contacted the White House already, much to Hansard’s disgust, and there was already a team out trying to clear Constitution Avenue in order to give the pilot an impromptu landing site.
A technical issue was plausible, of course, and yet Hansard’s gut instinct told him it was Cole. Somehow the man had made it onto the flight deck and had taken control of the plane.
There wasn’t long — the Hercules was even now flying over Chesapeake Bay, and would be at the White House in less than thirty minutes.
Unfortunately, the White House had already been informed, it was an allied aircraft, and the pilot was still alive and talking to the Andrews Control Tower — all of which meaning that Hansard had no official justification for shooting it down.
But he knew his own assault team had arrived at Andrews earlier that day in two Bell helicopters, unconnected to the official security services.
One pilot and two gunmen in each. It wasn’t ideal, especially in this weather, but it would just have to do.
18
Ellen Abrams sat at the small French dressing table in the dressing room of her master bedroom suite, located in the southwest corner of the White House main residence.
The window beyond looked over the deeply snow-covered Rose Garden towards the West Wing, but for now the President was looking in the oval mirror that sat atop the table, examining herself.
As always, she looked immaculate; but it never hurt to check. Her personal team of make-up artists would go to work on her before the press conference, of course, but she had to appear in control of her own appearance even in front of them.
It wasn’t her skin tone, her hair, or her own make-up that she was checking now though; it was her poker face. Did any sign of the fear, the worry, the anxiety of the present global situation show itself anywhere on her face? Did it show in her body language? Her posture?
Because she was frightened. There had been an American attack on a fellow global superpower that was now threatening to throw the world back into the dark ages of the Soviet-era Cold War, and it had happened on her watch.
It appeared to be the work of one man, William Crozier, the ex-Director of the National Clandestine Service, but Russia and China obviously didn’t believe that. And with good reason, as it turned out — the latest reports from the secondary CIA investigation hinted that Crozier might have been involved with outside agents who were as yet unknown.
And this was what truly troubled her — the fact that she didn’t know, she didn’t truly know what was going on. And yet she was scheduled to appear before the American people in less than two hours to reassure them that all was well, despite all the rumours circulating about in the media, and in the conspiracy sites on the internet.