Authors: Michael C. Grumley
President Lee leaned
back in his chair.
“Is that it?”
Benecke glanced again
at Flores.
“No, sir.
We’ve gotten information on a few diplomatic
missions that Zahn had made for the State Department.
It looks as though some of those meetings may
have never taken place.”
“What?”
Ward said.
“He never went there?”
“Not exactly,
ma’am,”
Benecke replied.
“He was certainly there, as we can tell from
the plane’s navigation and GPS history, but it looks like he may not have
actually been talking to the people we thought he was talking to.”
Ha leaned forward.
“You told me yesterday Zahn wanted a
drone.
And that you later gave him
access to an Apache and a Blackhawk.”
Benecke nodded.
“So what was that for and
who was aboard?”
Ha pressed.
Benecke frowned.
This was the part he was truly dreading.
The reluctant admission that he had
inadvertently helped Zahn.
“He said he was after
some individuals involved in an assassination attempt.”
“Dear god,” the President
moaned.
Ha continued.
“And who did you put onboard that Blackhawk
helicopter?”
Benecke lowered his
head.
“A Delta team.”
The President stood up and walked to the
window.
He stared straight out across
the lawn at the trees beyond.
“Do you
have any idea,” he said, “what everyone is going to think when they find out
we
killed the Pope?
That the United States
Government killed their Pope?”
He shook
his head.
“God almighty.
This is going to start a war.”
The room remained
silent as everyone contemplated what the President said.
Lee almost chuckled out of sheer exasperation
when he turned around.
“Well, I guess
we’re damn lucky we have the biggest military on the planet, because we are
sure as hell gonna need it now.”
Benecke looked around
the room and then at the President.
He
raised his hand gingerly.
The President
looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Sir,” Benecke
started.
“We have a little time to
figure out what our explanation is.
Not
much but a little.
Might I suggest,
whatever that is, it will look far worse if Zahn escapes as well?”
The President squinted
his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, whatever
our story is, I think it would be very bad if Zahn were still alive to dispute
it, let alone offer details we don’t want known.”
Silence filled the room
until Landeen broke it.
“I agree.”
“So do I,” added
Ha.
The President looked at the others
in the room who nodded their agreement.
“So, we take him out
while we still can.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to Will
Douglas, the Air Force Chief.
“Where’s
the nearest base, Will?”
Douglas, the tallest
and youngest of the chiefs, responded immediately.
“MacDill, sir.
Near Tampa Florida.
We have F-16s on the ground that should be
able to reach them before they leave US air space.”
The President absently
reached up and rubbed an eye.
Things
were moving damn fast.
But Benecke was
as sharp as they came.
He was still new
to the post, and while not much for playing politics, he hadn’t been wrong
yet.
Then again, was it possible he
wanted to put it all on Zahn because he’d helped the man?
Doubtful.
He was a straight shooter, and Lee was sure he was right.
Zahn did this, and now they had to clean up
the mess as quickly as possible.
How
he was going to explain this to the world, he had no idea.
The President gave
Douglas a solemn nod.
“Bring ‘em down.”
48
The early spring was
affecting Florida just as much as the rest of the East Coast, and the
temperature was almost 90 degrees when the two pilots sprinted across the hot
tarmac at MacDill in their flight suits.
Barely out of breath, each reached the ladder for their plane and walked
in a tight circle underneath, quickly checking the weapon racks and pneumatic
pressures.
Satisfied, they grabbed their
steel ladders and climbed into their cockpit.
They had very little time, but the preflight check was something every
pilot did religiously, even those with a crew.
Once inside, they
finished connecting their harnesses and zipped their G-suits up the rest of the
way.
Their crew chiefs quickly appeared
over them atop the ladder and forcefully strapped them in.
The chiefs then grabbed and attached the
G-suit hoses to their left console before slapping their pilot on the head and
climbing down to remove the ladders.
Inside, the pilots
finished adjusting their switches and trim adjustments before putting their
helmets on and attaching their oxygen hoses to the harnesses.
They brought their main power online only
seconds apart as every movement had long since become simple muscle memory.
Finally, after starting
their main engines and with clearance from the tower, both planes immediately
pulled forward and headed for the runway with the second pilot falling in
behind the first.
All told, both planes
were airborne in less than six minutes.
The Boeing 757 was the
preferred aircraft for heads of state, including the office of the State
Department.
With a twin jet design, the
plane carried two crew members and up to 280 passengers in the single aisle
fuselage.
The 757 was also capable of
almost 4,000 nautical miles, depending on variant, which gave it an impressive
range.
This 757 was traveling
due south at 530 miles per hour when the F-16 fighters appeared and fell in
directly behind it.
The lead pilot
verified the 757’s call letters near the tail and gradually faded back to
within a quarter mile.
The pilot spoke into
his microphone.
“MacDill, this is
Falcon’s Talon, do you copy?”
“Copy Talon,” came the
reply.
“Aircraft sighted,” he
said, “identification is November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet.”
“That is affirmative,
Talon.
Repeat, identification is
affirmative.”
The pilot nodded and
switched frequencies.
He shifted in his
seat then stretched out his hand and relaxed it again around the stick.
“Aircraft November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet,
this is Colonel Ainsworth of the United States Air Force.
You are instructed to change course and
return to MacDill Air Force Base immediately.
I repeat, you are instructed to change course.
Confirm.”
Ainsworth waited for a
response.
After thirty seconds he hailed
again.
“I repeat, Aircraft
November-Six-One-Seven-Alfa-Juliet, this is Colonel Ainsworth of the United
States Air Force.
You are instructed to
change course.
You are to confirm
immediately.”
Still in the conference
room, Will Douglas looked up at the President, the phone still pressed against
his ear.
“Mr. President, Zahn’s aircraft
is not responding.”
Lee shook his
head.
“Try it again.”
Douglas nodded and
relayed the command.
After two long
minutes of silence, he turned back to the President.
“Still no response, sir.”
Dammit.
Thought the President.
What the hell is he doing?
Did Zahn think this was some kind of
game?
Or does he think I won’t do
it?
The President paced back to the
window and stared out.
“Mr. President, we have
eight minutes before they reach international waters,” Landeen said.
“If we wait, we’ll have some questions to
answer.”
The President glanced
over his shoulder and then back through the window.
He was fully aware of the questions he would
receive from other countries when they saw an explosion in international
waters.
“How many people are on that
plane?”
Benecke spoke up.
“The ground crew estimated twenty to thirty
people when it departed Stewart, sir.”
“Are they all Zahn’s
team?” the President asked.
When no one
replied, he turned and looked back at them.
“I said, are they all
combatants
?”
“Yes, sir, we believe
so,” replied Benecke.
Lee shook his head
again.
Zahn didn’t know he was being
recorded in that room, which meant he wasn’t expecting to be identified, at least
not this early.
He probably directed his
pilots not to respond to any other aircraft to avoid accidental detection.
Was he even aware there were two Fighting
Falcons behind him?
Or did Zahn think he
could play him just like he played everyone else?
Ainsworth watched the
large aircraft in front of him carefully.
When the reply came back over his headset, he nodded and loosened his
grip slightly.
“Copy that, MacDill.”
He tried to relax as he
locked the computer onto the target and waited for the missile under his wings
to activate.
He then re-gripped the
stick and flipped the small cover off the top with his right thumb.
He waited two seconds before firmly pressing
the red button.
Below Ainsworth, the
AIM-9E heat-seeking Sidewinder launched from his F-16.
The ten-foot, 188-pound missile reached
nearly Mach 1.5 before it slammed into the tail of the 757 and exploded in a
giant ball of fire.
The entire tail and
part of the rear fuselage separated from the plane as the explosion ripped into
the left wing, lighting half of the aircraft’s fuel on fire and causing it to
instantly engulf most of the cabin.
The
giant plane began to twist as both parts separated in midair and spun away from
each other.
The intense fire spread
through the cabin and traveled through the fuel lines to the other side,
causing part of the right wing to explode seconds later.
Both Ainsworth and his
wingman watched the 757 disintegrate in the wind and fall away into thousands
of pieces of burning metal.
49
It was widely
controversial, and even considered a political and economic failure by
some.
The 1994 North American Free Trade
Agreement was signed by the United States, Mexico, and Canada in an effort to
improve economic free trade between the countries.
Hotly debated, both at the time of signing
and even years later, neither the economic benefits nor drawbacks of such an
agreement were ever proven.
In addition,
many diplomatic and political holes remained, which simply underscored the
agreement’s deep faults.
One such hole was a
secret relationship between Mexico and the United States providing a channel
for “special” and “regulated” trade across the border of the two countries, and
all with little or no oversight.
Special
cargo planes were flown almost on a daily basis and delivered goods to either
country based on the sole discretion of government officials.
The cargo planes were originally supposed to
be packed with products such as medicine, clothing, and food, but, not surprisingly,
all too often they were instead filled with drugs or guns.
It was another loophole in the corrupted
world of modern government.
What was different
about this loophole, however, was that the program, called the Cross Border
Assistance Program or CBAP, was pioneered by a man named William Zahn who at
the time worked at the Department of Defense.
While the CBAP was eventually considered by everyone to be a failure and
a waste of 840,000 gallons of fuel every year, it would prove to be Zahn’s best
laid plan.
The ATR-42 twin prop
regional airliner was old but extremely reliable, requiring much less
maintenance than jet engine aircraft.
It
was noticeably slower than more modern cargo planes, but on that day,
reliability and safety were paramount.
Furthermore, with the program considered a failure, very few people
noticed when the ATR-42 flew past its usual destination and quietly continued
on toward Argentina.
The blackness
disappeared as the hood was pulled off, and Christine was blinded by the room’s
small light.
Her head was still foggy,
and she tried to focus through blurry vision on the person in front of
her.
Her head felt heavy, and she rolled
it from side to side, trying to discern where she was.
“Where am I?” she
mumbled.
Her ears felt hypersensitive,
as if she could hear her own breathing.
The blurry figure in front of her didn’t answer, and she tried harder to
focus her vision.
“What happened?”
Zahn watched her look
around in a daze.
She had been kept
under the whole trip, which meant the readjustment would take a little longer
than usual.
The picture began to
clear, and Christine blinked hard to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
The person in front of her appeared to be
sitting in a large upholstered chair, and the room behind him looked like…a living
room.
Christine looked down
apprehensively when she realized her hands wouldn’t move.
It felt like she was on a hard chair, and her
arms were nowhere to be found.
She
wondered if she were tied.
“Where am I?”
she asked again.
“It doesn’t matter,”
Zahn said.
His voice sounded loud in her
head, like someone left a radio on too high.
She shook her head
sluggishly, feeling as though she was rolling it back and forth.
“What happened?”
“I kept you
asleep.
It’ll take several minutes to
wear off.”
For some reason, she
accepted that and wondered if her head was nodding without her permission.
Her mind was becoming clearer, but she had
trouble thinking beyond any single thought.
“Where’s…Sarah?” she
asked.
“She’s fine,” was all
Zahn offered.
Christine blinked
several times which seemed to help.
The
man in front of her started to become clearer.
He looked like he was in his fifties or sixties with salt and pepper
colored hair.
“What’s your name?”
Zahn asked, testing her coherence.
“Christine.
Christine Rose.”
“Where are you from?”
“Mmm…New York,” she
answered, struggling to remember what had happened.
She remembered Rand and Avery in a crowd,
pushing people away, and a store with large windows.
She seemed to remember Rand smashing
them.
And the hallway, a white hallway
with a door at the end.
And gun shots.
She could now see the
man in front of her.
She didn’t
recognize him.
“Who are you?”
She looked around the room again, this time
noticing a large couch along a wall covered in paneling.
On the other side of the room was a large
door.
“Where’s Sarah?” she asked again.
“I told you, she’s
fine.”
“Fine how?” Christine
pressed.
Her vision was now clear enough
to see his grin.
“You should be worried
about yourself,” he said with his arms folded across his chest.
What happened?
She wondered again to herself.
She could remember the doorway and the
gunfire, then hiding.
She remembered
Rand and Avery moving some large tanks around her.
She felt a sudden surge of panic as she
remembered being caught!
Zahn watched her expression.
“Ah, now you’re awake,” he grinned.
“Good.”
Christine squinted
through the last of the fog and stared at Zahn.
He looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t remember from where.
He was clean shaven and dressed comfortably.
She looked down and found that she was indeed
sitting on a small wooden chair with her hands bound behind her.
“Why am I tied up?”
Zahn shrugged.
“We won’t need that forever.”
Christine took a deep
breath.
Even through the rope, she could
feel the blood slowly returning to her muscles.
She leveled her gaze back at Zahn. “Who are you and
where
is
Sarah?”
“You’re
persistent.”
He leaned forward
slightly.
“I told you Sarah is
fine.
As for who I am, right now, I’m
the one in charge of how long you live.”
“You’re the one, aren’t
you?”
Zahn could see her lip
turn up into a snarl.
“You’re the one that’s
been chasing her.
Chasing us.
Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“I lost several good men trying to get
her.”
“What do you want Sarah
for?”
“You tell me.”
He leaned toward her a bit more and stood up.
Christine looked
confused.
“What?”
“Tell me.
Tell me what it is about your little
friend.
How did she do it?”
Christine looked
incredulous.
“You don’t know?”
“What I know,” said
Zahn, stepping toward her, “is that she saw me.”
Christine watched him
from the chair.
“She
saw
me!” he
said again.
“How did she do that?”
Christine shook her
head, still confused.
What on earth
was he talking about?
She saw him?
What did that even mean?
She started to mumble something when it finally
hit her.
Sarah had seen him
somewhere.
Somewhere before.
My god, was that why he’d been after
her?
Is that why he was trying to kill
her?
“She saw you?”
Christine asked.
“You know she did.
She must have told you.”
His eyes flared.
“Now tell me how!”
She’d seen him
.
Christine thought to herself.
She’d seen him and yet he didn’t know
how.
How much did he really know then?
“So, you’ve been
chasing us this whole time without even knowing why?”
Christine found herself almost wanting to
laugh.
All of this time, he didn’t know
what Sarah could do.
He didn’t know she
could not only see him, but she could see
everybody
.
Zahn stared at her with
a look of amusement.
The woman sitting
in front of him was tied up and had no idea where she was.
She was helpless and yet she was angry.
She did not match the profile he had on her.
Zahn looked at his
watch.
He still had time.
“You cannot possibly know what you are in the
middle of.
Christ, you weren’t even
alive yet,” he said with disdain.
“You’re all so blissfully unaware of what happens in your world, what
happens in the shadows.
A world so free
of real fear that all you can manage to do is fight with each other.”
He stared at Christine
with his crystal blue eyes.
“You could
never imagine where I came from, or why.
You’re just like them, so simple and ignorant, and yet,
I’m
the
one who had to pay.
I was the one who
had to suffer, abandoned and forgotten.”
She watched as Zahn
walked over to a nearby wall.
He looked
at an old black and white photograph hanging in front of him, but she couldn’t
quite make out the image.
“Have you ever killed
anyone?” he said, still looking at the picture.
“Of course you haven’t.
You’re
just another sheep.
I made my first kill
in 1914.
And you know what?
I did it for people like you.
I even spent forty years trying to redeem
myself, forty long years, for something I had failed to be worthy of.”
He raised his voice and scowled.
“I spent all those years helping people,
carrying the word forward, trying to rightfully earn it.
But the others hadn’t.
The others hadn’t, but I was somehow
unworthy. So I continued, I did everything I could possibly think of.
I gave, and I gave, and you know what I
got?
NOTHING!”
Christine jumped in her
chair.
“And what was most pathetic…was
I still thought it just wasn’t enough!”
Zahn turned back to Christine angrily.
“But I was wrong.
I
was
worthy and the truth, no matter how much I wanted to deny it, was that I was
simply abandoned!”
Zahn snapped out of his
trance, and a dark smile began to spread across his face.
“I look pretty good for a hundred and seventy
years old, wouldn’t you say?
Of course,
I was supposed to be made whole, but when that didn’t happen, I noticed
something else.
I continued getting
stronger
.”
His sick smile deepened.
“I don’t know why, but over time I healed
faster and faster.
In fact, it’s odd,”
he said running his hand through his hair, “I’ve begun to grow wrinkles and this
grey hair, yet I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.”
He realized he was
losing focus and turned back to Christine, raising an eyebrow.
There was something strange about her
expression.
“Only three people have I
ever revealed myself to,” Zahn said.
“Unfortunately for you, each time was just before they died.
And frankly,” he shrugged, “none of them ever
understood what I was telling them anyway.”
He studied her closer.
She was
watching him, but there was something unusual in her eyes.
Her face didn’t show the slightest hint of
confusion.
Fear, yes, even a little
desperation, but not confusion.
She
couldn’t possibly have understood what he had just confessed.
He reached for a small
remote control near the chair and turned on a monitor behind him.
Christine gasped when she saw Sarah appear on
the screen.
The monitor showed her in a
large, empty room, tied to an oversized chair, but there was nothing else in
the room, nothing at all.
She was
completely alone.
Christine’s eyes began
to well up when she Sarah crying, tears running down her tiny cheeks.
The fear she must have been feeling sent a
jolt of pain through Christine’s heart.
“No!” Christine
whimpered.
“She’s just a child.
For the love of god, leave her alone.”