MacPherson looked up at the radar track.
The jet was now less than one hundred miles from D.C.
The two F-16s took up flanking positions behind the jet. Each carried two AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, and two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. Each was also armed with a front-mounted, 20 mm cannon loaded with five hundred rounds of ammunition.
MacPherson knew the pilots had trained for this moment. But it had never happened. Not yet. U.S. fighter jets had never shot down an unarmed civilian jetliner over Washington or anywhere else. And certainly not a civilian jetliner owned by Russia.
White House Press Secretary Chuck Murray put down his cell phone and began turning on a bank of television sets on the far wall of the PEOC. Every cable news channel and all four broadcast networks now had the story.
MacPherson could feel his chest constricting and reached for a glass of water.
Defense Secretary Burt Trainor had arrived at the Pentagon and was now linked in by a secure video feed. Trainor had run two wars for this president. A highly decorated Vietnam vet, he had previously served as the CEO of General Motors and had been named Black Enterprise magazine’s “Leader of the Decade.” He’d been a close personal friend of James and Julie MacPherson for more than twenty years. He had earned MacPherson’s trust. Now Trainor needed the president’s decision.
“Mr. President—,” Trainor began, but MacPherson shook his head.
“What’s the fail-safe point?” the president asked.
“Thirty miles, sir. But—”
“No, not yet,” the president shot back.
MacPherson knew Trainor was fighting to keep his instincts in check. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t ready. “Marsha?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“You got that manifest for me?”
“We just got a partial copy, sir.”
“Partial? Why?”
“I don’t know, sir. We’re checking.”
MacPherson was furious, but he had to maintain focus. He was running out of time. “Whom would I be shooting down?” he asked the national security advisor.
Kirkpatrick seemed to hesitate, so MacPherson asked again. “Who is on this plane?”
Kirkpatrick swallowed hard. “Sir, we count 173 civilian passengers on board. Sixty-three families. Forty-one children.”
“God have mercy,” said the president.
“There’re more complications, sir. Three members of the Russian Duma are on board. They’re scheduled for meetings today and tomorrow at the U.N., then here in Washington later in the week.”
MacPherson looked to Bob Corsetti, his chief of staff and senior political advisor, who shook his head slowly, too stunned to say anything.
Kirkpatrick continued. “Also on board is Boris Stuchenko, president and CEO of Lukoil, as well as several members of his board of directors and top aides. They’re on their way to a series of meetings on Wall Street.”
“Anyone else I should know about?” MacPherson demanded.
“We believe several members of the Moscow Ballet may also be on the flight.”
“Get the secretary of state on the phone,” MacPherson said to his chief of staff.
Aeroflot 6617 was now just seventy-five miles from Washington.
Stuchenko knew this was it.
Carefully, quietly, he unbuckled his seat belt. The instant he gave the word, they would storm the cockpit. He gave them a one-in-three chance of successfully wresting control of the plane. How they’d land the enormous craft was another matter entirely. But he could only worry about so much at a time.
Stuchenko wiped his hands on the pants of his custom-tailored French suit. He shifted forward to the edge of his seat, then quickly turned his head for the look he’d been dreading.
But it was then that his heart stopped. He was staring into a silencer. Five shots later, his assistants were dead. He never heard the sixth shot.
MacPherson closed his eyes.
To blow a Russian passenger jet out of the sky would have unprecedented global ramifications. But so, too, would a decision not to defend the American capital.
What worried him most was the law of unintended consequences.
Relations with Moscow were already strained. The war in Iraq. Moscow’s ties to Tehran. Rising anti-American sentiment among the ultranationalists in the State Duma. A sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks throughout Russia. All exacerbated by falling oil and gas prices that were dragging down Russia’s economy and causing the worst Russian unemployment since the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
On a personal level, MacPherson and Russian president Grigoriy Vadim liked each other a great deal. The two had developed a professional bond of trust over the past few years. But a question kept churning in MacPherson’s gut: though U.S.-Russian rapprochement had taken years to build, how quickly could it be destroyed?
The president looked up and ordered General Briggs to have his fighters buzz the Russian jet to try to divert its course. Moments later, he watched the lead F-16 perform a “head butt”—flying directly at the front windshield of the Russian jumbo jet at Mach 1.2, then pulling up and away at the last possible moment.
It was a supersonic game of chicken. And the Russians didn’t blink.
His heart racing, MacPherson then ordered the F-16s to fire their machine guns near the cockpit of the Russian jumbo. It was a last-ditch effort to convince the hijackers he would not let them reach Washington. But again, whoever was inside did not flinch.
The plane banked westward, boosted its power, and began its descent.
Aeroflot 6617 was now just fifty miles from the White House.
MacPherson pressed his team harder.
“What about cell phones?” the president asked. “Can we establish contact with the hijacker — or anyone else on the plane — using a passenger’s cell phone?”
“I’m afraid not, sir,” Kirkpatrick said. “The FBI has been trying, without success. It’s too late for any further attempts.”
“The secretary of state is online, sir,” an aide announced.
MacPherson turned to Nick Warner on the video feed from Foggy Bottom. “Nick, have we been able to get President Vadim on the hotline?”
“Not yet, Mr. President,” Warner responded. The Russian leader was currently in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but thus far direct contact had not been possible, and the Russian Foreign Ministry was keeping quiet until it had specific instructions from Vadim.
MacPherson weighed his options. They were dwindling fast.
Now sixty-three, the president was no stranger to combat. A former navy pilot, MacPherson had flown F-4 Phantoms over Vietnam in the last years of the conflict. He’d downed three enemy planes during his tour and narrowly survived after his own plane had crashed in the Sea of Japan. As commander in chief, he believed his presidency was a quest to protect the American people and bring peace to a troubled world. But the price had been steep.
MacPherson had sent U.S. forces into harm’s way numerous times over the past several years to wage war against the radical Islamic jihadists who, if given the chance, would launch attacks of almost unimaginable proportions against the American people. Scores of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen had died thus far, and many more had been wounded. MacPherson himself had almost been killed during a kamikaze attack in Denver. He’d lost one of his top counterterrorism operatives in a gun battle with Islamic militants in Jerusalem, and his first secretary of state and thirty-four American diplomats and security personnel had died in a suicide bombing attack in Gaza.
Not a day went by when he didn’t count the cost. Was he doing the right thing? Was he honoring the memories of the dead by creating a safer, more secure world?