“Holy crap. Jeanie, go ahead with your aircraft routing. I’m putting you on speaker,” Mark told her excitedly. He forgot to check if they were in the green on the Peanut app. “Hooey, are we green light, Jeanie?”
“Less than one minute. Yes, in green. Hurry.”
Robert, Emily, and Pinky walked in, looking at Mark in his frenzy.
“Shut up. No one say anything,” Mark told them.
“Come on, come on. Here’s their route to the west…” She said the coordinates out loud.
Mark drew with a marker with a line, looking like a kid’s connect-the-dots puzzle. The black grease pencil made lines across the map easily, and it was clear where the Black Scorpion intended to go.
“Nineteen seconds! Hurry!”
“Come on, Jeanie, if you eject them now, can you fly it until Ford is closer?” Mark asked. “Did Ford even take off yet?”
Emily scanned the map and listened in on the conversation as best she could. She looked at the map and immediately saw what was happening.
In a near panic, Emily turned to Robert and started talking fast. “What do you think, Robert? Chen will know something is amiss if they get ejected here over the water, and then we turn them way over here toward Kunming for the Ford intercept.”
Pink and Emily nodded their heads rapidly in agreement.
“Thirteen seconds,” Jeanie announced. “You want Ford in the air early?”
Robert had to weigh in. “Mark, Mark, let them fly. Jeanie, Robert here. Let them go. If they are flying on that route, eject them over toward Kunming. We won’t be able to interview them anymore, so it’s a deviation from the plan. So be it. Dump their oxygen soon, let the crew be in and out of hypoxia. Make the turn for Ford over Burma and the Bay of Bengal. We need to confirm Ford is ready and taking off.”
“Jeanie, have Ford take off early!” Mark yelled.
“OK on Ford. Six seconds, Mark. Need a decision right now… four… three…”
Runway 13 at Diego Garcia was twelve thousand feet in length, made of concrete, and could handle any jet in the US military or commercial inventory. It was complete with standard approach lighting checked by the FAA and maintained by the US Navy. The pilots enjoyed the challenge of flying there, especially at night.
What was deceiving on takeoff and landing was the darkness. Most airports had some type of city lights, which provided plenty of illumination to aid pilots and help with building their situational awareness. From the air at Diego Garcia, there was blackness, with a tiny strip of lit runway hidden in the vast ocean. To compensate, the pilots relied on instruments in the cockpit to get them to the touchdown zone on the runway. At only thirteen feet above sea level, and next to the sea, errors were normally unforgiveable.
Receiving the early takeoff message from Jeanie, Zeke, Smitty, and Ford were airborne in their B-2, Spirit of South Carolina, and heading zero-one-zero northbound. Zeke came up on the headset to talk with Steve and Ford.
“Fellas, looks like here we are a few hundred miles to a general area of intercept. Less if out of the bay. Assuming our average speed of 435 knots or so, and depending on winds, not too much further,” Zeke told them, sipping on some Bulletproof Coffee previously sent to the island. “We’ll tank in a few minutes over da Bay of Bengal and get some fuel so we can press on to Bangalore. And if you guys don’t mind, I’m going to sit up here and have a smoke.”
Smitty turned to see Ford from his copilot right seat, checking to see if Ford was in on the smoking joke. “Yeah, Ford. You have a comfy cot back there, a blanket, a toilet, so make yourself comfortable. We’ll wake you as we get closer.”
Ford thanked them, but was nowhere near close to going to bed. All excited and ready for what he was about to do, he whipped out his laptop and fired it up. The normal Microsoft start screen came on, then something Ford had not seen before… a login with his common access card, his CAC, and a password. Ford closed his eyes in complete frustration, and shook his head from side to side slowly.
“This is horseshit,” he announced over the intercom.
“What is it? You need coffee?” asked Zeke.
Silence.
“You OK back there?” asked Smitty from the right seat, turning around to see Ford sitting his cot.
Ford looked up from the laptop screen, then closed his eyes in frustration. “I don’t have a password for this thing.”
“Let them fly,” Mark announced. “It’s OK, Jeanie. Let them go.”
Jeanie looked at her screen and moving map, and the Black Scorpion just flew over the mainland.
“Goddamn… thank you. Jet is flying its planned route. So far, an ops-normal flight. They are climbing up to altitude on autopilot, heading three-three-zero, looking for twenty thousand feet,” Jeanie announced.
Sighs were heard in the room.
“Well, that was interesting. Bollocks,” Emily announced.
Ravi kept quiet the entire time and did not share his opinion around out of respect. He smiled warmly and observed as his friends from the United States worked out their details.
“All good now, sir?” Ravi asked Mark.
Mark nodded yes. “Yes, Ravi, all good now. That was a close one. This mission was well planned, but sometimes over time zones and distances things come up. You know how that goes,” Mark shared with him. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure, sir. Hangar is ready, as is my security detail and fuel truck. Please, come. Let us eat. Traditional Bangalore vegetarian.”
“Sir, Hannah Davis, Air Force — White House liaison on the phone,” Michelle Boyd said from the doorway of his office.
“No, no, can’t take it. The operation I told you about earlier, BEACH… whatever the name is, is ready to happen.” Why can’t I remember the name? he quietly thought. “Well, it’s happening. SANDY BEACH. That’s the name.”
Michelle looked at the deputy. “Sir, this is White House liaison calling. Are you sure?”
“Michelle, she can wait. White House liaison is just that, a liaison. If the president calls, put him through. But Hannah can get a scheduled appointment,” Calvin told her.
Calvin was getting nervous, which he normally didn’t do.
“Are you bustin’ argh balls, Stevens?” Zeke said over the intercom.
Ford was able to get into the computer easily with his CAC and PIN but had no idea how to open the secure software program for the Black Scorpion. In fact, he never remembered receiving it. Is that the alcohol?
“I wish I was. Would be a pretty good prank, but I’m for real. Give me a minute,” Ford answered. Jeanie said at the meeting that Mark told her it was something from Wu. That only means one thing.
He typed it out with both hands, as his high school keyboard instructor taught him. J-O-J-O_R-I-S-I-N-G.
“Access denied” was displayed on the screen.
“What, access denied? What the hell?” Ford said over the headset, then yelled as loud as he could without transmitting over the intercom. He looked up at the B-2 moving map over the Pacific, and saw they were in the middle of nowhere. Ford felt like that, too.
He tapped on his keyboard with his index finger, then started typing. J-o-j-o-R-i-s-i-n-g, a combination of both lower- and uppercase letters.
“Access granted” was displayed on the screen.
Ford felt relieved, and a smile came across his face. “Yes!” Ford said, “Hey, I’m in. I’m in. All good now.”
Both pilots looked at each other up front.