“You will leave as soon as you can get the Shorts loaded. I’ll see to the loading and preflight here.”
“You’ll take care of the flight plan, Henri?” Townsend asked. “Remember the FAA order 7210.3—we need sixteen hours.”
“I remember, Townie, I remember,” Cazaux said, his mind racing several hours ahead.
Since Air Force One was a SAM, or Special Air Mission, military aircraft, a flight plan for their flight to Washington could be filed only through a special teletype system. Fortunately, they had access to such a terminal at Pease International Tradeport. The 157th Air Refueling Group, a small New Hampshire Air National Guard aerial refueling tanker unit, used the system for the Atlantic Tanker Task Force, which coordinated all aerial refuelings for flights from Europe to North America, including for Air Force One. Also, Pease Tradeport, when it used to be Pease Air Force Base, was a favorite vacation stop for President George Bush and his family, so a terminal was installed and kept at the airport. Cazaux’s organization had bribed several of the Guardsmen at the airport to do a variety of things, such as alert them when any state or federal inspectors were inbound, monitor the status of the state police patrols, and procure fuel and other aircraft parts and supplies.
For the flight of their fake Air Force One, they would have one of the Air National Guard controllers input a military flight plan into the system, originating not from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but from Manchester, New Hampshire, the site of an upcoming and widely publicized debate between the expected 1996 presidential candidates, organized by the League of Women Voters. The flight plan, using the call sign SAM-2800 (SAM stood for Special Air Mission, the standard call sign for military flights such as this; 2800 was the tail number of one of the two VC-25A Air Force Ones in the inventory), had to be filed not earlier than sixteen hours from the proposed takeoff time, although the exact takeoff time could not be recorded.
Immediately after the counterfeit Air Force One was airborne, the Air National Guard controller would issue an ALNOT, or Alert Notification message, to a special office in the FAA Air Traffic Control Command Center known as ATM-200, requesting special priority handling and revising SAM-2800’s call sign to Executive One Foxtrot, signifying that a member of the President’s family or White House staff (but not the President himself — that would be too easy to verify) was on board the aircraft. The ALNOT would be retransmitted by ATM-200 to the various Air Route Traffic Control Centers along the route of flight as well as the. Air Force Air Defense Sector Operations Command Centers, letting everyone know that a member of the President’s entourage was airborne. The plan after that was that the controller would be knocked unconscious so he could claim that he was overpowered and his equipment used without his knowledge — of course, Cazaux would see to it that he was executed to keep him quiet.
“I’ll take care of all those details,” Cazaux was saying. “Now get moving.” Townsend and Ysidro turned to leave, but Cazaux stopped them by adding, “And I want no more slipups. Security will be tight and everyone will follow the plan to the letter, or I will spend the rest of my days on earth hunting down and executing each and every one of you. Now get going.”
PART 5
Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, Maryland
Early the Next Morning
Tomas Ysidro had made his own green active-duty U.S. military ID card long ago — his was Army, showing his home base as the Defense Language School, the Presidio of Monterey, California; he carried a set of orders showing him as a visiting instructor in Farsi and Mandarin to the 89th Air Wing to teach some of the aircrew members some basic foreign language skills for an upcoming presidential trip. But getting onto Andrews Air Force Base, the place where the President of the United States’ planes were kept, was child’s play, and he didn’t need to show any of his carefully prepared credentials. The guards at the Virginia Avenue gate were still doing hundred-percent ID checks, but there were no dogs, no searches, no questions asked. The smiling Air Force bitch in her toy-soldier blue fatigues, silly black beret, white dickey, and pretty spit- shined boots waved the car right on through after a quick flash of the card, and four international terrorists were on a major military air base with ease.
“No vehicle checks or searches,” one of the terrorists remarked after they were well past the guard gate. “Not even a thorough check of your card.”
Ysidro had been careful to scuff up his ID card and not make it look too new or too perfect, but the apparent lack of diligence did puzzle him. Weren’t they concerned about Cazaux any longer? “We can still be monitored electronically,” Ysidro warned, “so everyone stay sharp.” That did not need repeating — driving right into the jaws of the enemy, the ones that were out looking for them — was not a comforting or casual activity at all. But the apparent lax security made them breathe a bit easier and helped them concentrate on the tasks ahead.
They drove north on Virginia Avenue and followed the signs about a half-mile to the base golf course — and found, to their amazement, that it was open. It had been closed for days because the Army had placed an entire Patriot missile battery there, assigned to protect the Capitol, Andrews, Washington National, Dulles, and other high-value targets in the D.C. area from air attack. Ysidro turned right onto South Wheeling Road and there it was, right in front of them — an entire Patriot missile battery, less than a thousand feet away on Wyoming Road. The Army Patriot missile encampment, within sight of the end of runway 36 Left, was well in the process of being dismantled — the back nine holes of the course were still not usable, but the front nine were open, and golfers were out there just a good five- wood shot or two away from some of the Patriot launchers.
“Well, what the fuck…” Ysidro said, surprised and pleased by what he saw. “Maybe we should’ve hidden our gear in fuckin’ golf bags.” They could see all eight Patriot missile launchers lowered and configured for road march, and the large flat “drive-in-theater” antenna array still raised but with soldiers working on and in front of it — obviously it wasn’t radiating, because that man in front of the array would be fried to a crisp by the amount of electromagnetic energy that thing put out when it was radiating. The electrical power plant vehicle was still running and the command vehicle was apparently still manned, but the Patriot site itself was apparently decommissioned. Ysidro’s assignment had been to destroy it.
“What do we do now?” one of the commandos asked.
“We do what we’ve been assigned to do — it’ll just be a hell of a lot easier,” Ysidro said. “The electrical truck is still running, so this could just be a maintenance period— the Patriot site at Fort Belvoir or Dulles might be taking up the slack.” Two other commando squads had been assigned to take out the Patriot sites at Davison Army Air Field at Fort Belvoir and at Washington-Dulles International Airport, but if those Patriot sites were closed down as well, they would have a much easier time of it. At last check, the Hawk missile sites at East Potomac Island Park Golf Course near George Washington University, Rock Creek Golf Course near Walter Reed Hospital, and the East Capitol Country Club golf course were still operational; other teams were assigned to take out those sites as well. But this Patriot site at Andrews was the Integrated Command Center, or ICC, which controlled all of the Hawk and Avenger air defense units in the region.
The terrorist group took a right turn on Wisconsin Road, a left onto South Perimeter Road, and headed for the housing area and east runway side. Andrews Air Force Base had two, two-mile-long parallel runways, with the main part of the base on the west and the enlisted and junior officer housing area to the east. The fighter alert area was on the south side of the east runway, with two fighters on alert with ladders attached, ready to go; two more fighters were parked nearby, but neither appeared to have weapons loaded. Surprisingly, the guards at the entrance to the housing area had been removed. They doubled back onto South Perimeter Road, heading for the main base side. A small lake south of the west runway had numerous creeks and ditches flowing into it, all leading toward the airfield — that was the best way to approach the runways.