“This is nuts… ” someone muttered.
There were murmurs of concurrence around the room. “The main means of identification, control, and engagement must be by armed fighter interceptors, which are vectored into the intercept by AWACS radar planes. Then, intercept the suspect as far from the target as possible— preferably hundreds of miles away,” Vincenti went on. “All suspected terrorist aircraft must be kept away from major airports, and the best way to divert an airliner to another airport where it can be inspected is with an interceptor.” “This is insane!” Deputy Attorney General Lowe said. “Can you imagine an American Airlines flight with two hundred people on board looking out and seeing a fighter on its wing? Jesus, what if there’s an accident? An accidental shoot-down will cause mass hysteria.”
“General Lowe, I think we’ve already got mass confusion bordering on hysteria right now,” Hardcastle said. “My flight from California to Washington was delayed for hours because someone’s flight plan was lost and they wouldn’t allow the aircraft into their airspace. I heard air traffic controllers panicking on the radio every time a plane strayed a couple miles off course — it didn’t matter that the plane was a little corporate job a hundred miles away from any major airport. Sir, we’ve got to take control of this situation or the public will panic.”
“Mr. President, with all due respect to Colonel Vincenti, we should ask Admiral Hardcastle and his staff to pack up their Patriot missiles and F-16 fighter planes and go back to the TV talk shows,” Lowe said bitterly. “We don’t need his brand of frontier justice to keep control of this situation.”
“I agree, Mr. President,” FBI Director Lani Wilkes chimed in. “Sir, Cazaux is going to make a mistake. If that was his handiwork in Memphis, the net will only pull tighter.”
“Okay, Liz,” the President said, holding up his hands. “Tell me what you’ve got in mind for restoring confidence in air travelers?”
While Lowe spoke, Deborah Harley, Martindale’s special assistant assigned to Hardcastle for this meeting, leaned forward in her seat behind Hardcastle and slipped him a note. He turned to her. Harley was in her late forties, a pretty blonde with bright green eyes and a thin but persistent smile. “What’s this, Miss Harley?” he asked.
“An observation, Admiral,” she whispered. Her smile seemed pleasant enough, but her eyes were hard and insistent.
Hardcastle frowned. He did not know Harley, but had seen her on numerous occasions with Martindale in a variety of functions — sometimes she acted as a secretary, a chauffeur, a bodyguard, or even as a wife. Martindale, divorced after being voted out of office in the last election, had a variety of beautiful women drifting in and out of his life — the tabloids kept constant tabs on Martindale’s frequent flings — but only Deborah Harley returned. She was beautiful and mysterious and could even be considered alluring — perfect “tabloid bait”—but the tabloids never pursued her. Hardcastle had never spoken more than a few pleasantries to her. She was all business.
He had trouble reading her unfamiliar handwriting — the message looked like, “It’s a SITREP.” He was about to ask her what she meant when the President addressed him: “How does that sound to you, Admiral?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Hardcastle responded, folding the note and shoving it into a pocket, unread. “Say again?”
“Jesus, Admiral, we’re having a meeting over here, ” Lowe muttered irritably. “I suggested to the President that one way to monitor air traffic is to restrict all flights from and to towered fields on IFR flight plans only, where tower personnel can visually identify all departing aircraft and we can use the ATC computers to help monitor all traffic. In that way, we can keep a good portion of general aviation traffic moving, eliminate the pop-up radar targets, and we don’t endanger civil air traffic with missiles and guns.”
“If you’ll notice, that’s all part of my plan, General Lowe,” Hardcastle said. “I think it’s essential for authorities to know precisely what the origin of each and every flight is. As the system works now, a flight under visual flight rules can enter the air traffic control system anywhere. This is called a ‘pop-up’ flight plan, and we need to eliminate them. Cazaux can load up a cargo plane with explosives from some isolated desert base, take off, then simply call up ATC and get a flight plan to a major airport. He’ll get first-class ATC service — right to his bomb-release point. By restricting flights from only towered airports, federal authorities can directly determine who’s in the system. If a personal inspection is warranted, we have a chance to do it—”
“A visual inspection?” Lowe interjected. “You mean visually inspect every plane that looks suspicious? Hardcastle, do you have any idea how many planes that is?”
“On average, one plane over seventy-five thousand pounds gross weight takes off every five seconds from the thirty largest American airports,” Hardcastle replied. “That’s over seventeen thousand flights per day. But three- quarters of those are scheduled passenger flights, which leaves about four thousand flights per day that are cargo flights or flights of unknown purpose or cargo — business, private, small commercial, expedited freight, all that. That’s about one hundred and thirty flights per day from each of the nation’s thirty largest airports, or about five per hour. I believe those flights can be inspected. If we organize local, state, and federal authorities, including reserve law enforcement personnel and the military, we can inspect each and every flight.
“But I don’t have any illusions that this system will be airtight,” Hardcastle went on. “The Border Security Force had a tight, overlapping, redundant air surveillance network, and smugglers still found ways around it. Cazaux is clever as well as dangerous — I work under the assumption that he’ll figure out a way to beat the system. But we must have a way to stop Cazaux before he gets over the airport terminal, and that means an integrated air defense network. We must have the ability to monitor, precisely track, and, if necessary, attack any hostile aircraft anywhere in the airspace system, primarily around the thirty-three major airports under Class B airspace in the United States.”
“I’m strongly opposed to this idea, Mr. President,” Lowe insisted. “I think it’ll result in accidents and needless civilian deaths. It’s like letting Dirty Harry loose on the airports.”
“I’m afraid I’m opposed to the idea as well, Mr. President,” Transportation Secretary Mersky interjected. “There will be problems integrating civil air traffic control functions with military requirements.”
“But it can be done, Secretary Mersky,” Hardcastle said. “I proved that with the Hammerheads. I’ve had plenty of success with this type of emergency, Mr. President. We.can implement this program in just a few days. I think it’s vital, sir.”
The President fell silent, apparently thinking it over; then he turned to Hardcastle and said, “All right, Ian. I don’t like the idea, but we gotta move on this thing.” The President withdrew a card from his jacket pocket, glanced at it, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Attorney General Lowe, I’m going to announce to Congress that under 10 U.S.C. 332 and 333, I’m directing a military response to this crisis situation. Deputy Lowe, under the law I’m appointing a military representative as your deputy director of the Executive Committee on Terrorism. He’ll interface with Justice and various branches of the military and coordinate an effective response. I want to emphasize that the military’s involvement is limited to protection of major airports around the country, not in law enforcement matters.”