Little Richie came crashing into the back of Bill’s legs as he watched the professor board. “Hey, you! Trying to chop-block me?” Bill said as he reached around and threw Richie a few feet up and caught him, bringing him in close in his arms. “Let’s watch the helicopter go.”
They stood and watched as the door closed, the turbo fans spun up, and the green and white hulk rose at a slight angle, then started turning toward Washington.
Instinctively, Richie waved bye-bye and said, “Bye-bye! Bye-bye!” Bill just kissed his cheek.
Suddenly there was a hot flash that smashed into the side of Bill’s head. Richie’s face glowed orange as Bill’s central nervous system kicked in, turning him to shield his son just as the first shockwave hit with a deafening explosion. The force knocked them both to the ground. Bill was able to use his elbows to prevent crushing his son beneath his weight. From the corner of his eye, he saw the orange plume of fire and black smoke rising up as the hulk of the copter spun out of control and exploded on impact into a shattered mass of metal and parts. Flaming debris landed twenty feet from them. He put his head down and covered his son with his body and his mind. It took a few seconds for Bill’s hearing to return, and then he heard the sounds of Marines and Seabees trying to take control of a situation that was out of control. A voice said, “Dr. Hiccock, come with me, sir. Now.”
Bill got up, cradled his son’s head,and trotted back to the house with a Marine in front and one behind. A few feet from where they were blown down, a six-foot part of the chopper’s rotor blade impaled the ground and jutted out like a twisted knife. Once in the main structure, the doctor on call and the paramedics checked Bill and his son for wounds and concussions. The two Marines who had been helping on the helipad were rushed in. One was bleeding; the other was out cold.
“Is my son okay?” Bill demanded.
“He seems to be fine.”
“Then I’ll take care of him; help those men over there.”
Just then Janice came in and grabbed her son. “Are you okay; did you get cut?” She started immediately feeling his body and looking for wounds. All she found was singed hair on his head. Bill had taken the brunt of the heat, and one whole side of his hair was severely singed. The paramedic had applied a salve to the first-degree burn on his face.
The captain of the Marine detachment came in and ordered a report from the medical staff.
“Civilians are shaken but sustained no injuries. Lance Corporal Leeds has multiple lacerations and blunt trauma, but he’ll make it. Sergeant Rhodes was knocked out but coming around with no apparent physical trauma.”
“We are in lock-down, people. Evacuate the civilians to the safe room.” He approached the Hiccocks. “Sir, your family will be safe in an interior room. I’ll post a guard. Come with us now.”
“Captain, if that helicopter was attacked, it could have the most serious national security consequences. I am a member of the Nat Sec Comm. Does the safe room have commo capacity?”
“Yes sir, it is designed for the commander-in-chief to carry out military and national emergency command and control, sir. This way.”
Bill carried Richie and held Janice’s arm as they entered the secured conference room, which was blast proof and gas proof. Four Seabee techs entered with them and one Marine in full battle gear with loaded arms and his own radio gear. Then the giant blast door shut and the clunking mechanical sounds indicated it was sealed.
Bill knew the Navy insignias well enough to decipher that he had two ensigns, a lieutenant, and a captain with him. “Captain, do we know what brought the chopper down? Was it mechanical failure or an attack?”
“Playing back helipad surveillance camera video now, sir.” He shuttled the tape (they still used tape here) fast forward until Landau was on board, then slowly advanced until the chopper lifted out of the frame. “The camera is fixed and didn’t follow the chopper up, but no one got near the bird sir. No one placed anything on it.”
The video continued showing an empty helipad, but then Bill saw something. “What was that?”
“Going back.” The captain jogged the tape slowly in reverse. As the frame lines rolled, a brief streak appeared over two frames of the video.
“Do you make that out to be what I think it is, Captain?”
“Seems like a missile, sir, just over the tree line on a trajectory up. And here, a few frames later, the helipad is lit by the flash and now debris is falling. I’d say it looks like a surface to air missile, sir.”
“Are there any other camera angles, Captain?”
“Lieutenant?” He turned to an officer who was at a series of screens that held multiple video-camera feeds.
“Checking the roof security cam now sir. Yes. There in the upper right; it appears to be coming from the lake.”
“Scramble perimeter defense, stop and inspect all lake traffic immediately. Set up fifteen and twenty-five mile perimeter checkpoints, and I want those up immediately, ensign.”
“Aye-aye sir,” the third Navy man in the room said.
“Dr. Hiccock, who was the passenger?”
“It’s Bill, and he was a man who may have held a secret as great as the universe itself.” Bill turned to the ensign on the communication console. “I need the president, immediately.”
“White House Interconnect, this is Camp David, secure command and control. I have ultra-flash level comm for Phantom. Repeat this is an ultra-flash level comm for Phantom,” the ensign barked.
Bill noticed he used the president’s Secret Service call name, ‘Phantom.’ He was probably airborne right now on a seventeen-hour flight to Bangkok for the Asian Rim Summit, which was the reason Bill and Janice had gotten the invite to Camp David.
The loudspeaker in the room came on, “Air Force One operator, hold for POTUS… This is Mitchell.”
“Can he hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you; who is this? Bill, is that you? What’s got you calling me? Not enough towels in the guest bathroom?”
“Sorry, sir. Professor Landau is dead. Right now it looks like an attack; a missile attack on his helicopter as he was leaving the Camp just seven minutes ago now.”
“Dear God, are you and your family okay?”
“Yes sir, just a little shaken up, but thanks for asking.”
“Who’s in command where you are, Bill?”
“Captain Weld here sir, first Seabees, I am comm. Marine Captain Holliday is detachment OD, but he is outside the secure con, sir.”
“Any casualties, son?”
“Two wounded, expected to survive, on the ground. The chopper had a crew of three, sir. I am afraid they are all lost.”
“May God have mercy on their souls, Captain.” The president spoke to people on the plane, “Ray, get FBI and NSA patched in ASAP!” and then returned to the phone. “Have a nice relaxing time in the country, I said, Bill. Any thoughts on what happened?”
“Someone who doesn’t want the professor to continue his experiments found out he was here and had the wherewithal to stage an attack.”
“Who are we looking for, Bill?”
“Long list of activist groups who don’t like particle research and feel it is dangerous.”
“Black-holers, Bill?”
“Essentially, yes. They come in two forms. The scientifically motivated, who may or may not understand the inherent risks in fiddling with the glue that holds all creation together, and the deist, motivated by the belief that big science is meddling in God’s handiwork.”
“Any of those groups have missiles last time you checked?”
“That is the random element here, sir. Who would have had that kind of armament at the ready, waiting for this opportunity, which I myself didn’t know about until yesterday afternoon when you called me?” Bill heard someone speaking to the president and he mumbled something back.