Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (65 page)

 
          
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.

 
          
Aboard an Air Force E-3C AWACS Radar Plane

           
Over
Eastern Pennsylvania

 
          
The
mission crew commander aboard the Airborne Warning and Control System radar
plane, Major Scott Milford, diligently continued to scan all five of the vital
sectors assigned to him—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and
Washington, D.C.—but he always came back to check out Executive One Foxtrot.

 
          
The
modified Boeing 747, Air Force designation VC- 25A, commonly referred to as Air
Force One (but actually only called that when the President of the United
States was on board; its call sign tonight was Executive-One-Foxtrot, meaning
that a member of the President’s family or some other very high-ranking White
House official was on board), had been assigned a standard FAA air traffic
control transponder code, and everything appeared to be normal. It was flying
Jet Route 77, an often-used high-altitude •corridor used by flights from
New England
to transition routes into the
Philadelphia
and
Baltimore
areas. Usually the VC-25 A was cleared
direct airport-to-airport, even if it would bust through dense or restricted
airspace, but since the President was not on board, the crew was apparently
taking it easy and following published flight routes to avoid totally messing
up the air traffic control situation all over the eastern seaboard. The White
House had learned from the Los Angeles haircut incident, when the President
tied up air traffic at Los Angeles International Airport for an hour by having
Air Force One block a taxiway while he was getting a $200 haircut from a famous
Hollywood stylist, how sensitive the public was to the Chief Executive stomping
on common people while using the privileges of the office.

 
          
The
senior director on
Milford
’s crew, Captain Maureen Tate, turned and saw her MC scowling into his
radarscope. “Still bugged about that VC-25 flight, sir?” she asked with a trace
of amusement in her eyes.

 
          
“It’s
not the VC, it’s the whole White House policy jerking us around,”
Milford
complained. “We set up this whole complex
air defense system, and we get blamed when it fails, but when the President
wants to go on the campaign trail, he dismantles the whole thing overnight. Now
the White House is taking one of its heavies right through our airspace, and we
didn’t hear word one from anybody until twenty minutes ago.”

 
          
“That’s
FAA’s fault, not the White House’s fault,” Tate said. “We checked—they got the
flight plan and the Alert Notification. The Northeast Air Defense Sector
scrambled those two F-16s from Otis, too, and they got a visual—it’s a VC-25
all right.” It was standard procedure for Air Force One to get a military
fighter escort anytime it was in or near hostile airspace, and these days, with
Cazaux on the loose, the airspace over the
United States
was definitely considered hostile. But the
fighters’ standard operating procedure was not to come closer than three
miles—close enough for a big plane like a 747—and there was to be no escort
after sundown unless requested, so the fighters from the little base on Cape
Cod had gone home shortly after the intercept. They probably got some dynamite
pictures.

 
          
“I
guess I’m bugged because usually we hear from Air Combat Command or the 89th
before they launch a VC- 25,”
Milford
said. It was not standard or required
procedure, but during most special operations and especially during an
emergency situation such as this, the Support Missions Operations Center (SMOC)
of the 89th Air Wing, the Air Force unit that flew the VIP jets from Andrews
Air Force Base, usually notifies Air Combat Command and the Airborne Warning
and Control Squadrons that they were going to fly a SAM (Special Air Mission)
through their area. It was a simple “heads-up” that was encouraged to expedite
VIP traffic.
Milford
saw Tate’s little amused grin, and added, “And I’m bugged I didn’t get
my invitation to the President’s barbecue, either.”

 
          
“Situation
normal, all fucked up,” Tate offered. “Want to call and raise some hell with
Andrews? I can contact the SMOC.”
Milford
hesitated for a moment, not wanting to bug
the VC-25’s crew unnecessarily, but Tate took his hesitation to mean yes.
“Comm, this is the SD, get the 89th SMOC on button four for me, okay?”