“You two between the hangars!” the SP shouted on the car’s loudspeaker. “Security police! Kneel down with your hands on your head, now! ” The two men ran off, together at first and then in diverging directions.
As they bolted from their hiding spot, another security police cruiser passing by saw them running and heard the other officer’s alert on the radio, hit his brakes, and stepped out of the car. He shouted a perfunctory “Halt! Security police canine unit! Stop!” but he was already opening up the right rear passenger door of his cruiser. He shouted a few instructions to his German shepherd partner, pointing out one of the fleeing suspects until the dog barked that he had the suspect in sight, and then commanded the dog to pursue.
Spurred on by the wail of sirens all around him, the first terrorist ran north on Arnold Avenue as fast as he ever recalled running in his life. The fire trucks from the base fire station at Arnold Avenue and D Street were rolling, heading for the flight line, and for a moment the terrorist thought he could lose himself in the confusion of vehicles if he could just make it to D Street. Beyond the fire station was the base exchange, commissary, and theater, with plenty of places to hide, cars to steal, hostages to capture.
But the chase did not last long. Trained to be perfectly silent throughout the chase, the terrorist didn’t hear the animal, not even a growl, until he felt the dog’s teeth sink into his upper-left calf muscle. The terrorist screamed and went down, rolling across the ground with the dog’s incisors still buried in his leg. As he tried to rise, the dog released the man’s leg and went for the right wrist, the main appendage a K-9 patrol dog is trained to clamp down on, and began pulling in any direction possible, trying to keep the suspect off-balance until his human partner arrived. Teeth struck bone several times, and dog and man went down together. The dog was a dynamo, never staying still, but twisting in several directions, shaking his head as if trying to rip the- suspect’s arm free from his torso.
But the terrorist was left-handed. He drew a 9-millimeter Browning automatic, and, before the dog spotted the gun and went for the other wrist, put it up to the big furry body and pulled the trigger. The one-hundred-pound bundle of teeth and muscle blew apart in a cloud of blood and hair, still trying to keep hold of his suspect until life drained out of his body — even so, the terrorist had to use the muzzle of his Browning to pry the animal’s teeth out of his mangled right arm so he could…
Headlights, squealing tires, a furious, high-pitched voice shouting, “Freeze! Don’t move or you’re dead!” It was too late. He was already dizzy from the exertion and the loss of blood — there was no resistance possible. Capture was not an option. If the cops didn’t kill him, Cazaux would. Failure was inexcusable; capture automatically meant betrayal, punishable by death. He would rather have the cops do it quick than watch Henri Cazaux rip his beating heart out from his chest.
The terrorist sat up so as to present as large a target as possible, aimed his Browning at the headlights, and fired. The security police returned fire with an M-16 assault rifle.
He was not disappointed.
Army Colonel Wes Slotter, commander of 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, Fort Polk, Louisiana, was the overall commander of ground air defense forces for the nation’s capital. From the Patriot Integrated Command Center van at Andrews Air Force Base, he was in constant contact with all of the Patriot, Hawk, Avenger, and Stinger units in the Washington area, as well as the E-3C AW ACS radar plane and the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, where the Joint Air Defense Commander was headquartered. Although his headquarters was at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, like his mentor, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, he hated being stuck in his office with his units deployed in the field — even if “in the field” only meant The Mall or a golf course on East Potomac Island Park — so he was on his way to the integrated central command for all of the ground air defense units when the air defense alert came down.
And as he trotted over to the control van, he also had a perfect view of the crash of the two F-16 fighter jets, less than a mile from where he was standing.
Slotter ran back to the control center van, wedging his six-foot-two frame past the maintenance technicians and over to the Patriot battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Buckwall, who was seated at the communications officer’s station behind the battalion fire control officer and battalion radar technician. “Jesus, we just had two fighters crash on the runway,” Slotter said. “What do we got, Jim?”
“AWACS radioed an air defense emergency about two minutes ago, sir,” Buckwall reported. “We’re tracking a single heavy airliner inbound toward D.C. from the north. Apparently it made its way from New Hampshire calling itself Executive-One-Foxtrot.”
“A VIP flight? No shit,” Slotter exclaimed. How that bastard made it all the way like that was almost unbelievable. “First that, then they crash a couple F-16s — the Air Force is dicking up by the numbers.” He wasn’t one to dig on another branch of the service, especially during an emergency when anything could happen to anyone at any time, but the prima donnas in the Air Force really deserved it sometimes. “Let’s try not to make any mistakes ourselves. Everybody reporting in okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Buckwall said. “All Avenger ground units deploying as per the ops order. This ICC is in contact with all the Hawk batteries except for Baltimore, but the AW ACS had full connectivity with them. We’re checking our comm relays to find out what the problem is.”
“That AWACS has full control of all ground units, eh?” “Yes, sir,” Buckwall said. “We launch our missiles, but Leather-90 tells us who and when and how we attack. If we lose connectivity with them we have full authority to launch, but as long as the hookup is solid, Leather-90 has the red button.” Slotter didn’t like that idea, either. An Air Force guy with authority over a dozen Hawk missile batteries and two dozen Avenger units, and with full launch control over the Patriots if they were still on-line — well, the idea was unnatural.
Slotter could tell that the maintenance techs wanted to get inside to start checking over the systems to regain contact with the Hawk units at Baltimore-Washington International. There was no room in the control van for an extra person, especially a high-ranking extra person. “I’ll be en route to the NMCC at the Pentagon, Colonel,” he said. “Notify me as soon as possible on the secure line on the engagement status.”
“Yes, sir,” Buckwall responded.
Slotter squeezed past the maintenance techs and exited the hatch, nearly colliding with a soldier coming up the steps toward the ICC. The soldier, wearing an ALICE harness and web belt, had his Kevlar helmet strapped down tight and pulled over his eyes, so Slotter couldn’t recognize him. It was unusual to see a soldier in full combat gear up in the ICC — the security guys usually stayed on the perimeter. “Excuse me, sir,” the soldier said. “I’ve got a message for the commander.”
“Battalion CO’s tied up right now,” Slotter said. “I’m Colonel Slotter, the brigade CO. Let’s have it.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. His right hand came up — but I there was no message, only a small submachine gun with a long silencer on it. Before Slotter could cry out a warning, he felt the sharp, sledgehammer-like blows on his chest, then nothing.
Tomas Ysidro shoved the body off the rear deck of the Patriot ICC, pushed open the entry hatch, threw a tear gas grenade and two hand grenades into the ICC, slammed the door tight, and jumped off the truck. Seconds later, the hatch opened and the tear gas grenade sailed out, but it was too late. The other two high-explosive grenades were never picked up, and the explosions inside the steel box of the Patriot ICC destroyed everything inside instantly.