“This is very important,” Townsend said. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
“You the one that got towed out there with the tarps on your wings, — 125B?” the guy asked. ‘The homeowners’ association listens in on UNICOM. They’ll probably call the sheriff and complain. I’d pack it in for the night if I was you. Don’t dump any gas out of your sumps onto the dirt, either — county gets pissed off about that too.”
“Kiss my bloody ass,” Townsend said. He unplugged the microphone, then shoved in the throttle again, locked it tightly, closed the pilot’s side door, and motioned for his helper to remove the tarp on the right wing…
…- and, sure enough, by the time Townsend had removed the tarp on the left wing and gone back to the pickup truck, blinking red-and-blue lights could be seen back by the main part of the airport — a sheriffs patrol car. Also, by that time, the twin-engine Seneca was on downwind, just a few minutes from landing. As the soldiers got their suppressed MP5 submachine guns ready, Townsend released the pelican clamp on the tail of the Cessna, and the plane shot down the runway.
The Cessna didn’t look like it was going to make it. It pitched onto its left wheel as it accelerated, it skittered over to the left side of the runway precariously close to the VASI lights, and the left wingtip dipped so low that Townsend thought it was going to flip over and spin out. But just as he thought it was going to hit the dirt edge of the runway, it lifted off into the night sky, its wings leveling off as it gracefully climbed and proceeded on course. The GPS flight plan coordinates must’ve been off slightly, and the plane had immediately tried to correct itself. Luckily it had not run out of runway first.
The sheriff s patrol car looked as if it were going to drive down a taxiway and perhaps block the runway. It shined its floodlight at the plane, as if trying to read the registration number. “He’s going to see those FAEs under the wings, Mr. Townsend,” one of the soldiers reminded him.
“Well, let’s give the constable something else to think about, shall we?” Townsend suggested. He pointed to the Seneca, which was just turning final for landing. As the patrol car backed up to get back onto the main taxiway, the second soldier took cover behind the pickup truck, out of sight. As the Seneca came in over the approach end of the runway, flaps extended and engines at near-idle power, the soldier opened fire. He emptied one thirty-two-round magazine on it, reloaded, and fired again.
Nine-millimeter bullets raked across the left side of the plane, one bullet grazing the pilot’s head and knocking him unconscious. Most of the bullets chewed into the left propeller, breaking off huge pieces and throwing them in all directions. Unbalanced, the engine began to violently shake out of control. The Seneca skidded to the left, pirouetted around almost in a complete circle, and crashed. It skidded over across the parallel taxiway just a few feet from the patrol car, then flipped over and tumbled end-over-end into the south park of the parking ramp, destroying a half-dozen planes along the way before bursting into flame with a spectacular explosion.
The only clear way around the wreckage was down the runway, and that’s where Townsend and his soldiers sped away. The patrol car tried to pursue, but had to turn back to help the survivors in any way he could. There was no pursuit — it took the sheriffs patrol and fire department fifteen minutes to respond, and the call to find the men in the pickup was drowned out by the call for ambulances and doctors. Townsend and his men went north across the Cambridge Bridge to the town of Easton, picked up their Cessna-210 escape plane at Newnam Airport, and were already flying outside the state to safety less than thirty minutes after the crash.
Over Chesapeake Bay Near Annapolis, Maryland
That Same Time
Vincenti was flying west into the beautiful yellow, then orange, then red sunset, still killing time until his scheduled landing time. Northern and central Maryland and Chesapeake Bay were dark except for the occasional farms and rural subdivisions and the white dots of vessels’ running lights on the Bay, but soon the lights of Baltimore and Washington could be seen, and they were spectacular. The city of Aberdeen was to the right, with the famous Aberdeen Army Weapons Proving Grounds nearby. The big splash of light to the right was Baltimore, and off the nose was Washington and the Virginia suburbs. He was headed right for the Annapolis-Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Vincenti started a descent to fifteen hundred feet, only a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain and a thousand feet under the Class B airspace around Washington. It was a bit dangerous flying into such congested airspace at night, but flying was always a bit dangerous, and any chance he got to enjoy it, he took. He was still legal, taking advantage of all available assets to keep separated from other planes, and he was talking to air traffic control. The airspace structure around DC and Baltimore forced VFR (Visual Flight Rules) pilots either very high, above ten thousand feet, or very low. But he was still hoping for a friendly controller and a lot of luck to get a really good look at the capital area.
Of course, the reason he was allowed to be up here at all was because the Justice and Transportation Departments had recommended they do away with the air defense emergency, a move that puzzled and infuriated Vincenti. They had dismantled all the flight restrictions, fighter coverage, and Patriot missile protection in record time. The President wanted things back to normal so he could begin campaigning and tell everyone he had a handle on the situation, and the so-called Executive Committee on Terrorism okayed it.
Vincenti overflew the three-and-a-half-mile-long Annapolis-Chesapeake Bay Bridge, skirted south around the U.S. Naval Academy and the city of Annapolis, then turned westbound toward Rockville. Vincenti could see the Goddard Space Flight Center, Walter Reed Hospital, the Mormon Temple, ablaze in lights, and Bethesda Naval Hospital. After passing about five miles north of Bethesda, he heard, “Devil-03, are you familiar with Special Routes 1 and 4, sir?”
“Affirmative, Devil-03.”
“Devil-03, clear to Atlantic City International Airport via present position direct Cabin John intersection, Special Route 1, Hains Point, Special Route 4, Nottingham VOR, direct, at two thousand feet, do not overfly the observatory, the Capitol, or Arlington National Cemetery, keep your speed above two hundred knots, report passing the Wilson Bridge.”
“-03, copy all, thank you.” Vincenti pulled back power and used override to lower two notches of flaps, then thanked his lucky stars. Special Routes 1 and 4 are helicopter routes that generally follow the Potomac. It was going to be a quick but very spectacular tour.
And it was spectacular. Starting at the Taylor Naval Research Laboratory, he cruised over the Potomac south, with the entire expanse of Washington and the Virginia suburbs spread out before him in blazing glory. Vincenti saw the U.S. Naval Observatory, Georgetown University, Teddy Roosevelt Island, and then the Capitol came into view on the left. The memorials, monuments, and historic buildings were all brilliantly lit — he could not see the White House, but almost every building and monument along The Mall was clearly and beautifully visible, all the way to the Capitol itself. It felt as if he could reach out and touch the Washington Monument. He saw everything — the lights surrounding the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Reflecting Pools, the Jefferson Memorial… it was simply spectacular.
He cruised east of Arlington National Cemetery, and he could make out the Iwo Jima Memorial and could even see the lone dot of light that marked Kennedy’s gravesite — just follow the Memorial Bridge west and the bright-yellow glow of the Eternal Flame could be seen through the trees. The Pentagon was plainly visible, a definite five-sided out-line against the lights of Pentagon City. There was a helicopter landing on the Pentagon helipad, Vincenti noticed, and he wondered who was on board that helicopter and hoped everything was quiet down there at the Puzzle Palace.