30
Chris wasn’t hungry and skipped breakfast. He felt disconnected from his body — and the world. Ron Hickok had been his SEAL instructor during First Phase of BUD/S training, and he’d taken a special interest in Chris — as if Ron had seen something in him that he couldn’t see inside himself. In Second Phase, new SEAL instructors replaced the First Phase instructors, and in Third Phase, Chris found himself outshooting his SEAL pistol and rifle instructors. It was then that he’d realized he had a special gift. Years later, he’d had the opportunity to take shooting classes from Ron; in contrast to other SEAL shooting instructors, Ron challenged Chris. Ron didn’t subscribe to any one religion, but he was intensely spiritual and often he seemed to teach directly to Chris’s soul. Ron wasn’t married, and he treated Chris like a son; Chris loved him like a father.
Ron had always seemed invincible, but Mordet had killed him, and Chris’s own mortality struck him like a sledgehammer — Mordet might kill him, too. How could God allow this to happen? He didn’t ask in anger; he just didn’t understand why Ron had to die. Although Chris believed becoming angry at God was preferable to ignoring God, he valued his relationship with deity more than he valued anger.
Hannah tapped Chris on the shoulder with a chocolate-flavored energy bar, bringing him back to reality. “You should really eat something,” she said, “so you can maintain your energy level.”
She was right, and he nodded. He ate the bar, but his taste buds, too, were numb, and he couldn’t taste the chocolate. Even so, he forced it down.
They spent most of the rest of the morning poring over the intel and analyses, and just before noon, Sonny stepped out of the living room to answer a call. Young announced, “I might have something.” His hand flew over the keyboard. “Just a minute.”
Chris nodded and turned to the television, where CNN was on. He watched for a few minutes to see if they were reporting anything related to Mordet. Nada.
Sonny came into the room then, a broad smile on his face.
“What?” Hannah asked. “Who was on the phone?”
“JSOC,” Sonny said. “The Department of Homeland Security has cleared our names.”
Before Hannah could respond, Young spoke. “Finished restoring deleted files, and on Mordet’s laptop, I found this photo.” He grabbed a printout from his printer and showed it to them: a painting of an eye held between a monster’s teeth.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
Young studied the picture. “Looks like some sort of evil eye.”
“But what does it mean?” She crossed her arms, thinking. None of them knew.
For the rest of the day, they spread out across the living room, helping Young sift through more data and analyses to try and figure out the meaning of the painting and what Mordet was planning. They left the TV tuned to CNN, playing at low volume while they worked.
Just after five p.m., they had a few loose threads but nothing substantial yet. Chris happened to glance at the TV when a CNN BREAKING NEWS banner flashed across the scene.
“This just in,” a news anchor began, “the Baltimore-Washington International Airport has lost power, and there have been reports of explosions. CNN Center is working hard to find out more.” The network showed a live video of the airport. “Witnesses on the ground confirm that the entire airport is dark, inside and out.” Then she repeated the same information.
Everyone in the room shifted their gaze from Young’s computer to the TV.
Chris looked at the others. Their eyes were all glued to the TV.
“We now have an unconfirmed report that a passenger plane was shot down,” the reporter added. “On the phone with us is a witness, Jeremiah Whitmaier, talking to us from inside the airport. Jeremiah, what can you tell us about the situation?”
“All of a sudden, the lights went out in the building and outside on the runway, and then I heard explosions,” Whitmaier said. “A plane was making a landing, but then it seemed to pull out of the landing and crashed at the end of the runway.”
“Would you say it was shot down?” the reporter asked.
“No, I didn’t see anything, and the plane wasn’t on fire or anything like that.”
“Where do you think the explosions came from?” she asked.
“They seemed to come from outside,” Whitmaier said.
“Thank you, Mr. Whitmaier.” The reporter turned to the camera. “And we’ve just received a phone call from a witness inside the terminal at BWI,” she said. “What did you see, sir?”
“The whole airport is dark,” the witness said. “No runway lights or anything. People are saying a plane was shot down.”
“Did you see a plane shot down?” the reporter asked.
“No. We only heard that air traffic control is redirecting flights to Ronald Reagan Airport for safety.”
Another reporter interviewed an airport official who said that the emergency generators for each airfield had been blown up and that a plane carrying fifty-four passengers had crashed. Airport emergency personnel continued to fight to rescue possible survivors.
Washington Dulles International Airport was also experiencing a blackout and explosions, and there were rumors that a plane had been shot down there, too. All aircraft scheduled to arrive at Dulles were now being diverted to Ronald Reagan, as well.
Chris’s chest tightened. The mass hysteria — and destruction — was just beginning.
“We should go to BWI,” Sonny said excitedly.
“And do what?” Hannah asked.
“Stop Mordet.”
“I want to stop him, too, but we don’t know where he is.”
“We need more information,” Chris said. “And a plan.”
He looked back to the TV, where the reporter was continuing her coverage. “We just received word that a plane crashed at Ronald Reagan Airport — this is terrible. We’re going live to an eyewitness there. Nancy, can you hear me?”
“This is Nancy. The lights went out, and there’s no electricity, and then there was an explosion, and a plane came down — oh, no.”
“Can you hear me?” the reporter asked.
“Oh, no! Another plane is coming down in flames! And two planes just hit head-on on the runway! They fell from the sky! Those poor people. They fell out of the sky!” Screaming and shouting sounded in the background. Then came a loud crashing noise.
“Nancy, can you hear me?” the reporter asked. “Are you still there? Can you hear me?” The reporter paused, worry creasing her forehead. “I hope Nancy is okay. I hope everyone is okay, but we just lost contact with Nancy.”
The news report shifted to show live video from a helicopter. Cars below were jammed bumper to bumper and hardly seemed to move.
Hannah’s phone rang, and she answered it. She spoke in hushed tones into the receiver. After hanging up, she looked to the others. “Agent Garnet says that the terrorists hacked into air traffic control and are purposely directing planes to fly into each other in a narrow corridor of airspace above Ronald Reagan Airport.”
“The attack wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow,” Sonny said.
Young sat at his computer monitoring air traffic over Ronald Reagan Airport. “Why would Mordet need to gain access to the Switchblade Whisper’s black box just to wreak chaos on the airports?”
“What do you mean?” Hannah asked.
“I mean it doesn’t take a special algorithm to do what he just did. The pilots communicate with air traffic control on 1090 MHz — anyone can access that. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast isn’t encrypted or authenticated. Anyone with Internet access can monitor air traffic using planefinder.net or another website.”