“This is Deputy Director Robert Kinney of the FBI. Please let me speak to the president at once.”
“He’s asleep, Mr. Kinney. Do you know the hour?”
“He asked me to call. This is an emergency. Please wake him immediately.”
“Hold, please.”
Kinney waited, tapping his foot, while Smith and the others stared at him.
“This is Will Lee,” the voice said, sounding remarkably awake.
“This is Bob Kinney, Mr. President. Please listen carefully. Rawls was right about Fay having a Maine hideaway. My men and I are there now, and Fay has escaped the island in a light airplane, a Cessna 182RG.”
“I used to fly one of those,” the president said.
“We now have only one means of catching him, and if we don’t get him tonight, I don’t think we ever will.”
“What means do we have, Bob?”
“You need to call the Pentagon and scramble a couple of jets out of the Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station. Maybe they can force him down, but more likely, they’ll have to shoot him down.”
The president was silent for a moment. “Hold on for a minute.”
Smith looked at Kinney. “Are you on hold?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
“Is he going to do it?”
“How do I know? I’m on hold.”
After perhaps two minutes, the president came back on the line. “Bob, I’m going to conference you with the duty officer in the office of the chief of naval operations.”
“All right, sir.”
“Just a minute.” There was a click, then the president said, “Captain, are you there?”
“Yes, Mr. President”
“I have Deputy Director Robert Kinney of the FBI on the line.”
“Good evening, Mr. Kinney.”
“Kinney is going to give you instructions on what and where this airplane is. I want you to scramble as many jets as you think it will take from the Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station with orders to force down this airplane, and if that is not possible, to shoot it down. Is that order clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Tell him what he needs to know, Mr. Kinney.”
“Captain, a Cessna 182 retractable took off from Islesboro Airport, in Penobscot Bay, Maine, about ten minutes ago. I’m told the airplane can do a hundred and fifty knots.”
The president interrupted. “A hundred and sixty, if it’s lightly loaded.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kinney said. “We believe the aircraft is headed southwest, down the Maine coast. If so, it will pass nearly directly over Brunswick. It’s not wearing any lights, and I doubt if it has its transponder turned on, but Brunswick ground radar may be able to pick it up as a primary target.”
“How many aboard?”
“I believe there to be one man aboard.”
“Fuel?”
“As far as I know, the airplane was last refueled at Manchester, New Hampshire, yesterday, before flying to Islesboro.”
The president broke in again. “It will carry eighty or ninety gallons of usable fuel, depending on what year it was built, and it uses about thirteen gallons an hour in cruise.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” the captain said. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Not I,” the president said. “Mr. Kinney?”
Kinney thought for a moment. “The pilot is desperate, I believe. He’ll do anything not to get caught. You might inform your pilots of that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kinney,” the captain said. “Mr. President, I should inform you that this is going to be a very difficult job for these pilots, because of the difference in airspeed between their jets and a light piston airplane, and I’m not sure offhand whether his engine generates enough heat for a heat-seeking missile to home in on. If they fire, I’ll have them fire toward the sea, since we don’t want any stray rounds impacting the coast.”
“I know they’ll do the best they can, Captain. Good night. Please report back to me directly when you have news.”
“Good night, Mr. President.” The captain hung up.
“Bob, you still there?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Am I doing the right thing, here?”
“I believe so, sir. There isn’t anything else left to do. He can land that airplane in any farmer’s field and be on his way.”
“You heard the speaker died?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want Fay to still be at large when his funeral is held.”
“Neither do I, sir.”
“Can I reach you on your cell phone, if I need to?”
“Yes, sir. The White House operator has the number.”
“Whoever hears first should call the other, then. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. President.” Kinney closed his cell phone and put it into his pocket.
“He’s going to do it?” Smith asked, incredulous.
“He’s already done it,” Kinney replied. “All we can do now is wait. You go back and secure the house until we can get a crime scene team up here. I guess that’ll be sometime tomorrow.”
“Right.”
The men melted away from Kinney, leaving him standing in the road. He looked to the southwest and was glad he wasn’t Teddy Fay.
TED HAD BEEN in the air an hour now, and he was approaching the Kennebunk VOR. He checked his fuel: He had been flying the day before at low altitudes and, thus, at a full rich-mixture setting, burning a lot of fuel. He was down to nineteen gallons now, and using thirteen an hour. He couldn’t land at any airport, because the airplane would be discovered when the sun came up, and the FBI would know where to start looking. He needed to ditch the Cessna where it wouldn’t be found. Where would that be?
He looked down at the Maine coast in the moonlight, and as he did, something roared past him on either side, rocking the little airplane in the resulting turbulence. What the hell was that?
He switched on a radio and tuned it to the emergency frequency.
“Cessna 182 retractable,” a young man’s voice said. “Do you read me?”
Ted thought for a moment, then he answered. “I read you loud and clear.”
“You are instructed to turn on your transponder, your navigation lights, and your strobes, if any, then to make a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and fly a heading of zero-six-zero degrees until you have the beacon at the Brunswick Naval Air Station in sight, then to land there on runway two. Do you read?”
“Negative, can’t do it. I don’t have the fuel.”
“Then you can land at Portland International on the same heading. You’ll be met there.”
“Negative, Navy. Can’t do it.”
“Listen, pal,” the young voice said. “I don’t give a fuck if you dump that thing in the Atlantic. My instructions are to force you to land or shoot you out of the sky, and those are my intentions. What’s it going to be?”
An excellent question, Ted thought.
60
LIEUTENANT J/G HARRIS CONOVER watched his radar screen as his jet approached the target. He had slowed to two hundred knots and, as a result, he was having to fly at a high angle of attack in the swept-wing aircraft, making visual contact with the light airplane difficult.
Then, suddenly in his peripheral vision, the lights of a small airplane appeared, navs and strobes. He saw it for only a moment as he swept past the target, flying at least fifty knots faster than the light airplane.
“Navy, do you read me?” a voice said in his headset.
“I read you, and I have a visual,” Conover said, though that was no longer true. “Wingman, left one-eighty.” He banked the jet sharply and started back.
“I’m afraid I can’t fly back with you, and it would be best if you stay well clear of me.”
Conover was flying a reciprocal course now, and he saw the airplane again. This time its landing and taxi lights were on, too. “Don’t worry, little guy, I’m not going to bump into you. Wingman, ninety right.” He started the turn. He had orders to make his run from the landward side of the light aircraft, so that any stray rounds would land at sea.
“That’s not what I mean,” Ted said. He started a turn to the right. “Just stay well clear.” He looked down at the coast as he crossed it. A tailwind was moving him rapidly out over the water. He reached into the duffel next to him and took out a package about the size of a hardcover book.
Conover still had the airplane on radar, and it had made a turn from its prescribed course. “Listen to me, pal. You’re off course, and you’d better make a left turn right now. I’m locked and loaded.”
“I’m sure you are,” Ted responded. “Good night and good luck.” He turned a timer switch on the object in his hand and set it at thirty seconds. There was nothing to think about now. He punched the autopilot on. He thought about his wife.
“Jesus!” Conover screamed as the fireball flared in front of him. “Break right!” He started the turn. “Billy, did you fire?”
“Not me, Harry,” his wingman said. “I think the guy did the firing himself.”
Conover held the turn until he had made a three-sixty, then he banked left for a view below him.
Small, burning pieces of the Cessna were striking the water. “Okay, Billy, let’s go home.” He swung on course for Brunswick and changed frequencies. “Brunswick, this is hardhat one.”
“Hardhat one, Brunswick.”
“Wingman and I are returning to base.”
“What was your result?”
“Tell the old man we didn’t have to fire. The guy pulled the plug himself. Big explosion.”
“Roger that, hardhat one. You’re cleared to land on two.”
“Wilco.”
* * *
THE BEDSIDE PHONE RANG, and he picked it up. “Will Lee.”
“Mr. President, this is Captain Mason, CNO’s office, the Pentagon.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Our aircraft made contact with the Cessna and instructed him to turn for Brunswick and land. The pilot declined to do so. Our pilot warned him to land or be shot down, and he declined again, but he turned on all his lights and his transponder. Our pilots were lining up for a shot when the Cessna exploded.”
“You mean the man committed suicide?”
“It would appear so, Mr. President. He headed his airplane out to sea, and our pilots saw the burning wreckage fall into the water.”
“I see.”
“Is this what you anticipated, sir?”
“No, but the man saved us a lot of trouble. Please phone Coast Guard command for me, give them the coordinates of the crash, and tell them I want a search for wreckage and a body to commence at dawn.”
“Yes, Mr. President. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you, Captain. Good night.” Will hung up and punched another line for an operator.
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“Please get me Deputy Director Kinney of the FBI on his cell phone.”
“Yes, sir. Please hold.”
KINNEY WAS STANDING in the living room of Teddy Fay’s house when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug it out and opened it. “This is Bob Kinney.”
“Hold for the president, please.”
“Hello, Bob?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“The CNO’s office just called. The Brunswick jets intercepted Fay’s airplane. After some conversation back and forth, he turned on the airplane’s lights and transponder, then blew himself up over the water.”
“Holy shit,” Kinney said involuntarily. “Excuse me, Mr. President.”
“I had pretty much the same reaction,” the president said. “Bob, you’ve done a fine job in impossible circumstances, and I won’t forget it.”
“Thank you, Mr. President, but it was Rawls’s tip that made a resolution possible.”
“Yes, I guess he’s earned his pardon. Well, I’ll leave it to you to wrap this thing up. Don’t make any announcements about this. I’m going to hold a press conference at the White House at noon tomorrow, and I’d like you to be there.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s snowing in Washington, Bob, the first of the season. Looks like we might have a white Christmas.”
“I like the snow, sir. I’ll look forward to seeing it.”
“Good night, Bob. I hope you can get some sleep on the way home.”
“Good night, Mr. President.” Kinney hung up the phone. “Kerry,” he said to the agent, who was across the room, “get the chopper into Islesboro Airport and have them get the jet ready at Rockland. You and I have a date in Washington in less than twelve hours.”
“With the director?” Smith asked.
“I don’t think he’ll be there,” Kinney said.
61
KINNEY AND SMITH stood at the president’s side in the White House press briefing room and waited for the clock to show 12:01 p.m., which was when control rooms all over the country would insert the live press conference into their noon news.
The press secretary stepped to the microphone fifteen seconds before that. “The president will have a statement, and he will not take questions at this time. A later briefing, to be announced, will be held to provide details.” The clock hands moved to 12:01. “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”
The president stepped to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Americans, I have an announcement regarding the series of murders of political figures that have taken place over the past weeks. Last night, the FBI raided a house on a Maine island where the fugitive suspect, Theodore Fay, had fled. Mr. Fay escaped through a tunnel which led out of the house’s basement and managed to get to an airfield on the island, where he took off in a light airplane.
“On my orders, two jet fighters were scrambled from the Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station, and these aircraft intercepted the smaller airplane, with orders to force it to land or to shoot it down. Mr. Fay refused to follow their instructions, but before the Navy aircraft could position themselves to fire, Mr. Fay caused his own airplane to explode. The wreckage landed in the sea, between Kennebunkport and Portland, and the Coast Guard began a search at dawn for the wreckage and Mr. Fay’s body.
“Less than an hour ago, the commandant of the Coast Guard informed me that wreckage of an aircraft bearing the registration number of Mr. Fay’s airplane had been found, and they hope to find remains soon.
“I want to express my personal gratitude to Deputy Director Robert Kinney of the FBI and his associate, Special Agent Kerry Smith, who have been on this case from the beginning and who have pursued it to its conclusion. I want to thank, as well, Lieutenants J/G Harris Conover and William Banks for their fine work in locating Mr. Fay’s aircraft in the skies over Maine. All concerned have done good work, and their country should be proud of them.