Skyhook (51 page)

“Miss O’Brien?” Judge Williamson said.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“We remain in recess, but we’re extending that recess to a matter of hours. These gentlemen will explain. We will resume when you return.”

“I’m sorry, Judge … return?”

But Judge Williamson had already turned and left through a side door as Jim Riggs began speaking.

“Miss O’Brien, we need you to come with us to a little meeting a few blocks away.”

Gracie leaned against the back of a chair and stared at Riggs, squinting as if trying to see through a ruse.

“Go where?”

“I can’t tell you until we get there. Dr. Cole comes, too.”

“What are you trying to pull, Mr. Riggs?”

Jim Riggs chuckled tiredly. “I assure you you’re not in any danger. We’re not going to shanghai you or molest you or rough you up or anything.”

“So, where are we going?”

“Miss O’Brien,” one of the men said. “I’m Special Agent Breck of the Secret Service. Your presence and Dr. Cole’s are requested across town in a matter of great urgency. Miss Rosen, too.”

“Gracie,” Riggs continued, “the court will stay in recess on this matter until we get back.”

Gracie noted the shift to her first name.

“Do we have a choice?” she asked after studying their eyes.

“Ma’am,” Agent Breck said, “we were sent here to bring you to a meeting. We were not instructed to accept no for an answer.”

“Gracie,” Riggs continued, his voice conciliatory, “Judge Williamson knows and approves of this. Please.”

Gracie knew she looked grim as she and Ben joined April in the backseat of a black government town car, with Agent Breck in the right front seat and another agent at the wheel. She knew enough about the physiology of Washington, DC., to recognize the names of the streets, but her concentration was on April and Ben as they talked quietly. The car pulled up to a heavy gate, which was quickly pulled open, and they motored into an underground alcove and were ushered out of the car. An interminable series of corridors followed, the decor becoming gradu”Ey more plush before one final door was opened and Gracie found herself motioned to a seat in the Cabinet Room. Jami son Hendee, the President’s chief of staff, walked in, his face instantly recognizable. He introduced himself and sat across the table.

“Well, we have a problem, folks, but fortunately, we also have a potential solution. We brought you here, by the way, at the specific request of the President.”

“I don’t understand,” Gracie began, glancing at the equally stunned expressions on the faces of April and Ben Cole.

“I have before me three very determined people,” Hendee said.

“But your determination has all but compromised a very important government project.”

Another man had quietly entered the room. An Air Force general, Gracie noted. He sat down on Hendee’s side of the table, several chairs to one side, and merely nodded at them.

“Miss O’Brien, first I want to congratulate you on wrestling the federal judiciary to the mat in only three days.”

“Excuse me?” Gracie said.

The chief of staff chuckled. “May I call you all by your first names?”

There was a murmur of agreement from Gracie and April, quickly followed by Ben.

“Good. Gracie, I never went to law school, but I know enough about the courts—and I’ve got a few real lawyers around here who’ve confirmed this to me in the last half hour—you just turned the tables on us in that courtroom.”

“Sir, I … really don’t understand.”

“You were supposed to lose, Gracie. Oh, there was no fix. Not even the White House can get away with monkeying with the courts, thank God. But Riggs and everyone else assured us that even though you’d found the one maverick judge in the federal court system who would agree to hear your appeal in an off-the-wall way, you’d never win. But you skunked them, and lawyer Riggs over there had to go to plan B.”

“I skunked them?” Gracie repeated.

“Damn right. I don’t know word for word what you said in there, but Riggs had the authority to call a halt to it if for some strange reason he felt you might win, and that’s why we’re here.

I know you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about, so let me explain. Any details I give you are top secret. This is about a major military research and development project called Skyhook. Dr. Cole knows the details very well, since he’s the chief software engineer. And you three were about to blow the whole project wide open.”

April was nodding. “Were we right? Did my dad hit a government aircraft?”

“We believe he did. And if you kept pressing for information on that military aircraft, you’d eventually get the press interested and destroy a billion dollars of effort to maintain secrecy.”

“Then, my father has been falsely accused,” April said.

“Perhaps. But my first concern, and the President’s concern, is the

fate of Operation Skyhook, and that fate now rests in your hands.

All three of you. In fact, poor General MacAdams over here has been sweating bullets trying to find a way to help your father and you, April, without compromising the project, but when you two turned out to be such excellent sleuths hot on the trail of the truth, Mac was forced to bring this back to where it all began, in the Oval Office.”

“Mr. Hendee,” Gracie began, “with all due respect, there was no justification for the FAA revoking Captain Rosen’s license.”

The chief of staff smiled thinly. “Well, that’s not entirely true, Gracie. As I understand it, the FAA has substantial reason and hard evidence to suspect that he was drinking and flying, as well as a substantial case against him for potential violation of the air regulations governing visual flight. And there’s another charge I can’t recall. But I do believe that the FAA’s shameful rush to revoke Captain Rosen’s pilot’s license was uncalled for, and that’s the mistake that’s brought us together.”

“So,” Gracie replied, leaning forward, her hands open in a questioning gesture, her words careful and calm, “why are we here, sir? What do you want us to do, and what is the government willing to do in return to correct this injustice? Because regardless of what the FAA’s out-of-control inspector says, Captain Rosen was not drinking and did not violate the rules.”

Hendee looked at April and nodded. “Maybe. Okay, Gracie. Let’s deal. We have a project of great national interest to protect, and if that takes reinstating a single pilot’s license before we’re sure of the facts, thus overruling and embarrassing the FAA for the greater good, then we’re prepared to do it.”

“You mean,” Gracie said, leaning back slightly and trying to restrain herself from smiling, “if we drop our lawsuits, you’ll reinstate Captain Rosen’s full license?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“And … with no record of any of this?”

“As if it never happened.”

“And, what else do we have to do?”

“Just return to the court and withdraw all your actions with prejudice and give me your solemn word as American citizens that you will take the classified details I’m about to give you to your graves. Not even Captain Rosen can know.”

Gracie looked at April, who glanced at Ben Cole, who looked at Gracie, and all three began nodding simultaneously.

Jamison Hendee nodded in response. “What I’m going to tell you now is top secret. Dr. Cole knows all of it, but you two ladies have signed no secrecy agreements and are not subject to military law, so if you want to walk out of here and call Sam Donaldson or Ted Koppel, we can’t stop you. But, your country is relying on you to understand this very delicate situation. May I have your solemn agreement to maintain secrecy?”

Gracie raised her hand before April could reply. “Sir, what about the wreckage of the Albatross? We need it returned intact. That wreckage has the proof—”

“We don’t have it, Ms. O’Brien.”

Gracie shook her head. “That’s not true, sir. It was removed from the ocean bottom.”

“Indeed. But we didn’t take it. No arm of the U.S. government or military took it.”

“With all due respect, sir, someone isn’t telling you the truth.”

Hendee was shaking his head. “Yes, they are. Take this to the bank, Gracie. We don’t have the wreckage, and if you make the return of what we don’t have a condition, Captain Rosen will remain unlicensed until he can disprove the charges.”

Gracie and Jamison Hendee locked eyes for what seemed an interminable period before she looked down and nodded. “Okay.”

“Absolutely, okay,” April echoed. “But, there’s something else that needs resolution.” She described Arlie Rosen’s panicked escape from Sequim and the report that someone had rifled their house. “I’m terribly worried about him.”

Jamison Hendee’s expression grew dark. “I can assure you, April, that no one has been authorized to break into your house, or even surveil your father.”

“My dad’s scared to death and running.”

“We categorically did nothing to cause that, but we’re sure as hell going to look into it.” He scribbled a note and looked at the three of them in turn. “Do we have a deal? I have to know before I tell you what Skyhook is all about.”

“We have a deal,” Gracie said, echoed by April and Ben Cole.

“Very well. Several years ago, after the attack on America, the World Trade Center destruction and the hit on the Pentagon, a defensive idea to protect military aircraft was hatched, which started very badly. At first, there were those who thought that we could install automatic systems that would allow air traffic controllers to land hijacked Air Force and Navy craft remotely.

We quickly realized that air traffic controllers are not pilots and have a very different skill set. If we tried to use them for such recoveries, we’d end up killing just about everyone involved and probably take out a few cities in the process. The plan grew more sophisticated very quickly, and by the start of the next year, we launched a deep black project, which, April, your dad unfortunately stumbled across when his airplane apparently struck, or was struck by, a converted business jet being used in the tests.”

“The Gulfstream.”

“Yes. The system we were testing will allow a special command post somewhere in the U.S. to take over control from any U.S.

military aircraft and have qualified pilots fly it back safely to any airport on earth, whether the pilots are incapacitated, hijacked, or whatever.”

“So, the Gulfstream my dad hit, that was in the wrong place?”

“Yes. The damage that proves both aircraft touched was illicitly repaired on the Gulfstream and this fact was hidden from General MacAdams at Elmendorf Air Base until just a few days ago.” He briefly explained the sudden loss of control of the Gulfstream and the fact that it had left the restricted area, which had been improp

erly reserved in the first place, so Arlie Rosen would not have had any way of knowing about it.

“I knew he wasn’t being reckless.”

“You know the FAA administrator is somewhat independent of presidential control, but she’s not an idiot, and when I got her in a hammerlock a few minutes ago by phone, I got her to agree to reinstate your dad’s license.”

“Thank you, sir!” April said, but Hendee held up his hand.

“Grade, here, was about to accomplish the same thing through the judicial route. She wins, the court orders the files opened on Skyhook, and the project is massively compromised. We don’t want the bad guys to know our Air Force jets can be taken over by remote control.”

“But this way there’s no record?” Gracie said.

“Right. The court’s still in recess, Gracie. You can go back there and push ahead and win, and your country will lose. But if you go back in there and move for a dismissal, we can ask them to seal what little record there is and the program stays secure.

That’s the choice you’ve got to make.”

Gracie nodded slowly, her eyes huge. “Mr. Hendee, as I said, it’s a deal.”

“Then I’ll make the call,” he said, standing, “as well as find out whether someone under our control threatened your father. Dr.

Cole? I’m going to send these two folks back to court. Would you stay with us a few more minutes?”

Gracie got to her feet and raised her hand for Hendee’s attention. “Part of the agreement, sir, is that Dr. Cole’s career will not be damaged.”

Jamison Hendee laughed. “Don’t worry. You have my word that no software engineers will be harmed in the making of this deal.”

Mr hen April and Gracie had been escorted out of the Cabinet Room, Jamison Hendee motioned Ben to follow him through a series of doors ending in a startlingly familiar office.

“Have a seat,” Hendee offered, gesturing to a pair of facing couches. Ben gingerly lowered himself into one of them, popping back to his feet as the President of the United States came into the room, shook his hand, and sat in a chair by the fireplace, regarding Ben skeptically. “Sit, please, Dr. Cole,” the President said, motioning him back down. “You’ve been both a bad-boy thorn in our side and a hero, Ben. But now you’re going to tackle a higher duty.”

“Sir?”

“The true aim of Skyhook, Ben, is so secret that even the Secretary of Defense doesn’t know its full scope. Everyone else but General MacAdams and a few staffers have been told that Skyhook concerns only military aircraft. Well, I launched it to cover more than that. I launched this project as the last line of defense to forever prevent a repeat of September Eleventh. Fact is, the Boomerang Box you’ve helped to design is scheduled to be installed on every civilian airliner as well.”

Ben Cole came forward on the couch, his eyes wide. “Really?”

“All of them,” the President replied. “My goal was simple. With every U.S.-registered airliner secretly equipped, if one ever gets hijacked by two-legged animals wanting a cruise missile, we literally take control from the ground and fly it someplace safe.

We may lose people aboard in some sort of bloodbath, but the plane won’t have to be shot down over American cities, and we may end up saving everyone on board. The plan includes pilots standing by twenty four-seven in a newly designed facility at Offit Air Force Base in the old Strategic Air Command headquarters bunker.”

“This … wasn’t an Air Force project, then?”