Traitor (40 page)

He closed his eyes for a moment and then they snapped open again. He had clearly understood the entire message. He didn’t speak English.

Walid had not settled since the flight took off and it wasn’t just that the seat was so worn it offered little support, everything about the flight from check-in, to the aircraft type, to the stewards - there were no stewardesses - to the seats, to the entertainment system, everything seemed off. Even the route they were taking was bizarre. After three hours in the air since leaving Frankfurt, the only thing below them should have been the ocean but all he could see was land. To still see land, they had to be flying a very northerly route. The North Atlantic Track, which Walid knew to be like a freeway in the sky, did not fly that far north. Each day, a number of flight paths were selected based on the current conditions that would minimize headwinds, maximize tailwinds and ultimately reduce fuel burn and flight time. All transatlantic flights would follow those same paths. East and west bound flights had separate paths. It ensured that the chances of mid air collisions in the radar and air traffic control-free mid-Atlantic were non-existent. Having spent his childhood in aircraft, he had learned a thing or two from the aircrew.

Also, from his own knowledge and with the help of the route map in the seat pocket, he knew that there was no logical explanation as to why, that far into the flight, he could see land below. Land which, as they were still flying in the correct general direction, according to the sun, he could only assume was Iceland. And Iceland was far beyond the North Atlantic Track and certainly not the most efficient route to Charlotte, North Carolina. He hit the call button. No steward responded. He hit it again and without waiting any further, he unclipped his seatbelt and went to find someone with answers.

Walking down and into the main cabin, the answer became abundantly clear, as the announcement that boomed out of the P.A. system confirmed his worst fears. Ignoring the instruction to fasten his seatbelt due to turbulence, he rushed back up to the business class upper cabin and made straight for the cockpit door.

The steward seat to the left of the cockpit was empty.

“Come and help me get through this door!” he ordered the men he had recognized as jihadists in the front row seats.

The rest of the passengers in the small upper cabin looked on, not knowing what to make of the actions of the men trying to break into the cockpit. After ten minutes of using a trolley as a battering ram, the armored door buckled slightly at one corner. However, without heavy equipment or explosives, the door wasn’t budging. Luckily the small corner offered Walid the gap he needed. He placed his camera phone’s lens in the gap and took a number of photos of the cockpit beyond.

“Mother fucker!” he screamed when he viewed the images.

As requested, Mohammed met Mustafa Ghazi at the restrooms located just in front of his block of seats.

“Have you not noticed?” he whispered urgently to Mustafa, careful not to be seen.

“Noticed what?” asked Mohammed.

“There are no women on this flight.”

“No I hadn’t,” he said, surprised. He hadn’t been looking. He had, as instructed, tried to keep a low profile.

“There are none, not one, nor any children,” continued Mustafa.

Mohammed looked around at the seats that he could see. Mustafa was right. Everyone he could see was a man, some were under blankets asleep.

“And tell me, Mohammed, what is everyone doing?”

“Sleeping, keeping to themselves and not talking,” he said, understanding dawning.

Mustafa nodded knowingly.

“But this is only one section of the plane,” said Mohammed.

“I’ve checked the others.”

“Do you think we’re all jihadists?”

Mustafa nodded.

“Oh my God, how many of us are there?” said Mohammed excitedly.

“I counted about five hundred and twenty.”

“I had no idea there’d be so many of us going to Salt Lake, he must have amassed a massive army,” said Mohammed proudly.

Mustafa shook his head in bewilderment but any words were drowned out by the announcement of severe turbulence and a requirement for all passengers to remain in their seats and fasten their safety belts.

Major General Howard Carter spotted the Boeing 747-400 first; it had just cleared Iceland. He signaled to his wingman, who had been scanning the sky to the south, that they would go up and over. With the Boeing flying like them at five hundred miles per hour, the closing speed as they hurtled towards each other was nearing one thousand miles per hour. Both pilots pulled back and lifted their jets higher into the sky going invisible, at least to the passengers below, over the United Airlines Boeing 747.

A quick turn and thrust of power and the two jets pulled in behind and just out of sight of the windows and, more importantly, the turbulence being created by the massive airliner.

Being one of the aircraft that might be carrying the man who had assassinated the Vice President and masterminded the attempt to spread a deadly virus across the United States, the United Airlines flight from Frankfurt bound for Dulles was a tempting target. However, amongst the jihadist passengers, one man stood out for Major General Howard Carter. He was one of the terrorists who had been instrumental in the 9/11 attacks and had been identified in the emails from his photo. He was the mastermind behind the plot to attack the Twin Towers. He was a man who had seldom seen daylight in the many years since the attack but had surfaced once again to threaten the United States. With a pick of the targets, Major General Howard Carter had, for once in his life, put his personal choice first and mission second.

He pressed the power button on the small TV screen that had been retrofitted especially for the mission. Within a thousand yards, the TV was able to receive, thanks to some wizardry beyond his technical knowledge, the video feed from the aircraft. He checked the map as the TV screen remained blank. They were still a hundred miles from the target location. He checked his speed and heading, ensuring they were staying just out of sight of even the most observant of the passengers on board the aircraft.

His screen burst into life, relaying what was being shown on the United flight ahead of him.

The grave image of the President of the United States of America, standing proudly behind the presidential podium, filled his screen. Unfortunately, the screen provided no sound. But he knew, from the President’s image, that it was a fifteen-minute countdown. He hit the timer and watched it click slowly and painfully down towards zero. He checked the map, looking to see where they’d be in fifteen minutes, another one hundred twenty-five miles out to sea and over some of the deepest and most unreachable areas of the world’s oceans.

When the timer hit zero, he signaled once to his wingman and they both powered forwards, slowly coming alongside the passenger jet and the helpless and defenseless passengers. Their slow progression ensured that every passenger had a clear view of the two powerful symbols of American might.

Howard Carter looked across and, as expected, panic had ensued. Windows were being hammered and soundless shouts of abuse were hurled at him. He checked his map as he drew level with the Boeing’s cockpit. The location was perfect. Everything had been timed to perfection. With a wave to the Boeing, he pulled up and over looped back behind the massive jet. He had spent a long time thinking how he would approach this moment. The kindest action was to fire four missiles straight into the body of the plane. Whoever the explosions didn’t kill instantly would be unconscious from a lack of oxygen and dead long before they hit the water forty thousand feet below.

That was precisely the reason the only weapon available to him was his M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun. He had specifically asked for no missiles to be loaded just in case, in a moment of compassion, he took mercy and opted for the quick and painless option.

The first burst of fire destroyed the majority of the right wing. The plane lurched to the right, bringing the left wing round and into his sights. Another burst destroyed that wing and the Boeing tipped forward and plunged towards the sea below. With not one bullet having touched the fuselage, the Boeing would remain intact and its passengers unharmed until it hit the water, some seven and a half miles below, or ten point five miles, adding the distance to the ocean floor.

Frankie increased the volume on her TV to hear President Mitchell speak. “My fellow Americans,” he began. She could hear the same message with a slight delay coming from her mom’s TV three thousand miles away.

“I’ll call you when he’s done,” she said, and hung up.

“As you are painfully aware, we have been living under the threat of an attack by militant jihadists that would threaten the very core of our nation. These men claim they act for Allah but no god would ever condone their actions, and nor do the 99.99% of law abiding and peaceful Muslims who practice a faith that, at its core, is peace loving.”

After a pause, he resumed speaking. “Nick Geller was man that I trusted. A man I believed was acting in the interests of our country when he visited the White House a few weeks ago. How wrong I was, how wrong
we
were. A man we trained turned on us and used that training to evade and destroy us.

“Today, Nick Geller launched an attack to devastate our country. An attack so heinous in its plan, it’s hard to believe that anyone could be consumed by that amount of hatred. The plan to bring the fight to our streets and a virus to our people is so grotesque it’s hard to comprehend the enormity of its impact on our nation. Today, the proud men and women who fight to keep us safe every second of the day, have once again
prevailed
.”

President Mitchell paused to let the enormity of his words sink in.

“The nightmare of the virus that had hung over us is over, the nightmare of men running through our streets strapped with bombs is over. Nick Geller, along with many hundreds of jihadists, is, as we speak, languishing with the deadly virus at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. A flight bound for America and loaded with virus-infected jihadists was intercepted and destroyed by our military.”

“Many of you, I know, will be concerned for loved ones who may have been on the flight. Please rest assured that all families affected by this action have already been informed and support measures put in place. If you do still want to check the status of a passenger, a phone number will be displayed at the end of this broadcast. It is automated and all that is required is for you to give the name of the individual. If they were on board, you will be transferred to a support center. If not, you will be informed that everything is fine. It is never easy being President and being entrusted with the security and welfare of hundreds of millions of American citizens. Some days, you have to make decisions for the greater good. Today is one of those days. We have struck a blow that will make the world a safer place. Tomorrow will be safer than it was today. As President, all I can promise you is that I will do whatever is needed to make sure that the day after that and the days that follow are safer still. God bless America.”

The screen faded to a telephone number. Frankie sat still, not knowing how to react. Nick Geller was dead.
Nick
was dead. Although she had to keep telling herself
her
Nick died a few weeks earlier. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t some bizarre and crazy mistake. The President had just confirmed that Nick was dead.

Her phone rang. “I’m okay, Mom,” she said.

“Hi, Frankie, it’s Paul.”

“Paul?”

“Paul Turner, Deputy Director FBI?”

“Oh yes, Paul. How can I help?” she asked absently.

“One plane?” he asked. “There were ten thousand of them heading here!”

“Well, there were ten thousand emails.”

“That’s not what the NSA guy hinted at,” said Turner.

“The President said one plane, that’s a few hundred.”

“So Nick Geller, the man who handed us our asses on a platter over and over again, injected forty-nine people with Ebola on one plane?”

“What are you saying, Paul?”

“He never said which plane. He said
a
plane and then didn’t give the flight number.”

“You think there’s more than one?”

“I think there are a lot more than one. Have you still got all the flight details?”

“Yeah, they’re here in front of me. I’ll check which ones land and which ones don’t.”

“Excellent. I need to board my flight to Miami, I’ll call you when I land.”

Frankie logged on to each of the airports and ticked off flight after flight throughout the day as each one landed safely. By 5:00 p.m. and with a only a few flights due to land which, in fact, had not even left Europe until after the President’s speech, she had yet to find a single flight on her list that had not landed safely.

Frankie checked the news websites and they all carried the story as their headline but listed the flight simply as a ‘United Airlines flight’. All five hundred and thirty seven passengers and crew were presumed lost. A list of the victims who were on board the flight had been published. Over two hundred and twenty innocent victims had perished, yet not one relative was being interviewed. There were no scenes of mass weeping or anguish at the arrivals gate at the airport. The news was focused almost entirely on how the virus threat had been lifted and almost three hundred jihadists, the most radical jihadists alive, had been stopped in their quest to destroy America. The loss of two hundred twenty Americans was being downplayed. It seemed the belief was that the victims had already been infected by the Ebola virus and that it was almost a blessing that they had perished in a plane crash rather than die an agonizing death. No further details about the innocent victims had been released, no ages or addresses, just a list of names that the President had pledged would be immortalized forever in a memorial.