He ran to the back of the assembly hall and looked around the corner. A Mercedes station wagon with two people inside headed across to security. A service vehicle, its bed on scissor jacks, came around the corner and
backed into a service bay at the rear of the prototype hangar. The driver got out and went inside.
McGarvey walked to the far end of the assembly hall and held up long enough to make certain that no one was coming. Then he sprinted across the twenty or thirty yards between buildings, concealing himself behind the truck.
The VIPs would not be boarding the airplane until it was moved to Portland in a few hours. With any luck the FBI would be concentrating its security there. But the advantage was theirs. Under the proper circumstances they would not hesitate to shoot him, whereas no matter what happened he could not return fire.
But he had to be aboard that airplane.
He went around to the back of the truck and flattened himself against the wall next to the service door. He could hear the sounds of machinery and power tools, and somebody's voice raised in anger or frustration.
McGarvey eased around the corner and looked inside. The rear of the hangar was in darkness. Out in the open bay
America
was bathed in strong lights and was still crawling with technicians and engineers getting her ready for her flight. The truck driver stood about thirty feet away, talking with a man dressed in white coveralls. Their backs were to the door.
McGarvey slipped inside the building and, keeping to the shadows, reached the back stairs to the engineering galley above and hurried up. At the head of the stairs he turned the corner just as George Socrates and Saul Edwards came out of the drafting offices.
“Good Lord Almighty,” Socrates said.
McGarvey forced himself not to overreact. To remain calm. Both men looked worn out, to the point of collapse. In their state there was no telling what they would do. “David is expecting me.”
“How did you get in here?” Edwards asked, keeping his voice low. “The place is crawling with cops.”
“That doesn't matter. I've got to get aboard, and the crew has to be alerted to what's going on.”
Socrates glanced over the rail to the big hypersonic
jetliner on the floor. “We can get you aboard, but I can't guarantee Portland. They might turn the airplane inside out before they let any of the VIPs board.”
“I'll have to hide somewhere, and the crew will have to keep them away from me.”
“Have you found something?”
“Maybe. The Japanese company that's been targeting you controls one of your subcontractors.”
“That's it,” Socrates said. “Which company?”
“I don't know yet.”
“There're hundreds of them,” Socrates said. “Impossible to check.”
“I have someone in Washington trying to find out for us. Can you cancel the flight? A last-minute technical problem?”
“No,” Socrates said, tiredly. “It's still all just speculation.”
“Where's David?”
“Portland. He'll meet us there,” Edwards said.
“That's it then?” Socrates asked. “It's come down to the wire, and despite what the authorities say, you still believe that we're in danger?”
“I hope I'm wrong, George.”
Socrates shook his head and glanced again at
America
rising like a
Star Wars
model from the hangar floor. “Why are they doing it? They want us to build them an airplane, we'll be happy to. Then they can take it apart and improve on our technology. That's how it's done.”
“There may be more at stake than Guerin.”
Socrates looked at McGarvey. “Get him a security pass and a set of coveralls,” he told Edwards. “We'll wait in engineering.”
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Nancy Nebel took the call. At first she had trouble understanding what the obviously troubled woman was trying to say. But then she realized it was Chance Kennedy, and for a moment she froze.
Security had installed the Caller-ID system on their phones. She switched it on. “Mrs. Kennedy, do you wish to speak with your husband?”
“Yes, yes, please,” Chance mumbled.
Kennedy came to the office door.
“It's your wife,” Nancy said.
Kennedy came out of his office and snatched the phone from her. “Chance? Chance, where are you?”
“David, it's Yamagata. They're planning something, but they're worried that someone else is ⦔
The phone line went dead.
“I'll call the FBI,” Nancy said. “I got the number.”
“No,” Kennedy told her. “I'll make the call.”
Â
America
's pilot, Pete Reiner, wasn't happy about McGarvey's presence aboard, but when everything was explained to him he accepted it. “Cancel the flight.”
“Can't,” Socrates said.
McGarvey had ridden with the crew up from Gales Creek, and now he watched from a cockpit window as the ceremonies began in front of a terminal at Portland International Airport. Security would not be as strict because the Vice President had canceled at the last minute, sending instead the assistant director of the Federal Aviation Administration. There were media everywhere, their remote satellite up-link trucks parked along the apron to the west, their cameras trained on
America
and on the grandstand where the VIPs and a substantial crowd of onlookers had gathered to hear remarks by the governor and others, including Al Vasilanti. McGarvey was unable to pick Kennedy out of the crowd, however.
Making sure the flight-deck door was latched, he plugged into the aircraft's public correspondence communications system and called Yemlin's Washington number. It was answered on the tenth ring.
“InterTech,” Yemlin said, and the connection was immediately broken.
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A few minutes after 2:30, Vice President Cross, his wife Sally, his advisers, his secretary, his Secret Service contingent, a White House photographer, and a dozen White House correspondents arrived at Andrews Air
Force Base and boarded Air Force Two. The plane would return to Washington within twenty-four hours so it could be redesignated Air Force One and be made ready for the President's Wednesday flight to Tokyo. The weather was overcast, but the winds were light.
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“Ground control, this is Delta seven-five-six, we're ready with Baker to push away from the gate at this time,” Delta Senior Pilot Bob Rodwell radioed.
“Roger, Delta seven-five-six. Hold up at eight-left for an incoming American Airlines. You'll be ⦠ah, number four behind a Northwest seven-four-seven. Report to the tower on one-two-one-point-niner when you're in position.”
“Roger, ground control,” Rodwell said, and he gave the ground crew below the thumbs up. Immediately the big jetliner trundled away from the gate, pushed by a tractor on her nose gear.
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In Baltimore Special Agent Clifford Wiener walked back to his car and telephoned John Whitman at FBI headquarters. The manager of the self-storage facility where the bodies of the two CIA spooks had been found had positively identified Bruno Mueller from the photographs. Wiener had sent his partner, Stan Tarnowski, over to the airport to interview the chief of security about the photos they'd distributed several hours ago. He'd not heard back yet, but it was clear that Colonel Mueller had killed the spooks less than forty-eight hours ago.
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Aboard Air Force Two they were late starting up because a courier came with a last-minute dispatch for the Vice President from the White House. Edward Reid, who was to have flown with them, had a car accident on the way out of the city. He would not be able to make this flight. He'd fly on Wednesday with the President.
It was nearly three by the time Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler ordered the starboard engine to be motored to speed. When the RPMS came up into the green, the fuel
and ignition were switched on. Immediately the exhaust gas temperature came up, indicating that the engine had lit. Fuel and hydraulic pressures were in the green as well, and the start-up procedure was initiated on the port engine.
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Delta 756 moved up to the intersection as a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 rolled out onto the main runway and majestically turned into take-off position. Captain Rodwell noted the time on the panel clock as 2:58. He keyed the aircraft's intercom phone so that he could talk to the passengers. They were carrying a full load, only one seat in first class a no-show.
“This is the captain. We're next for take-off in just a minute or two, which will put us in the air at exactly three o'clock. Thanks again for flying the on-time airline. If there's anything I or my crew can do for you during this flight, don't hesitate to ask. Now just sit back and relax.”
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Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler picked up the intercom phone. “Are you all set back there, Mr. Vice President?” he asked.
“We're ready any time you are, Colonel,” Larry Cross answered.
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McGarvey had to hide in the electronics bay beneath the flight deck while the FBI and Guerin security checked the hypersonic jetliner's main cabin, galleys, and heads before allowing the VIPs to board. Socrates came for him as they taxied away from the grandstands, out toward the active runway.
“InterTech,” McGarvey said scrambling up from bay.
“Are you sure about this?” Socrates asked.
“It comes from the Russian spy network in Japan. They've got too much to lose to lie.”
Socrates was working it out in his engineer's mind. “It makes sense. But we never caught it.”
“Do you know which units they manufacture? Can we get to them from here?”
“You were standing right in front of them,” Socrates said, blinking.
“What the hell is going on?” Captain Reiner demanded. “Do we fly or don't we, George?”
“If McGarvey is right, I think I know what the problem is.” Socrates yanked open the hatch to the electronics bay. “I'm going to pull the heat monitor /alarm panels. You'll have to go to the override if the temperatures get critical.”
“We might get a shutdown,” Reiner said. “Christ, we'll be out over the water without engines.”
“Just the port engine,” McGarvey said. “But stop the flight now, George.”
“What if you're wrong?”
“Then I'm wrong, and you'll fly later.”
“We'd be right back where we started from,” Socrates said, and he climbed down into the equipment bay.
“Keep everybody out of here,” McGarvey told the pilots. “No matter what happens.”
B
runo Mueller got back to Lafayette Square across from the White House a minute before three, and he placed a long-distance call to Tokyo Bank from a phone booth.
It took fifty seconds for the call to go through, and a computerized voice, speaking Japanese, answered, giving the options for the system.
Mueller entered three-four-eight, and in three seconds he was connected with the bank's electronic international funds transfer system. A warbling tone indicated the program Louis had secretly installed was ready to accept an input.
A tour bus rumbled past, and he waited for it before
whistling a single-pitched note. The warbling was replaced by a high-pitched screech, and he hung up, his job finished.
Everything else that happened took only two seconds.
First the bank's computer prepared a funds-available query from a special foreign account in the amount ¥ 2,707,750,000. The account verified that such an amount was indeed available, and Louis's program made the electronic funds-transfer order, payable to InterTech Corporation of San Francisco, California, U.S.A. At the current exchange rate of ¥ 108.31 to the U.S. dollar, the order was automatically converted to $25,000,000 and sent via satellite to InterTech's account at Wells Fargo.
InterTech's bank automatically relayed the information to the company's mainframe computer in Alameda, and the second stage of Louis's precisely crafted program kicked in.
At 3:00:00 P.M. Washington time the encoded signal was simultaneously sent, via InterTech's own communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit 22,500 miles over the equator to nine airports around the country.
Portland, where Guerin's
America
had just taken off.
Oakland, where United Flight 425 was taking off.
Los Angeles, where Delta's 558 was just rotating.
Chicago's O'Hare, where American 228 was on the ground next for take-off.
Minneapolis, where Northwest 142 was landing, Northwest 342 was eight miles out on final, and Northwest 1020 was on the ground waiting for a clear runway.
La Guardia, where United's 310 was on the ground waiting for Northwest 165, which had just taken off, and Lufthansa's Flight 009 from Frankfurt was eleven miles out.
JFK, where United's 280 was on the ground, American 138 had just taken off, and British Airways 111 was nine miles out.
Dulles, where Delta 756 had just taken off, and U.S. Air's 1211 was stacked twenty-one miles southwest.
Andrews, where Air Force Two, which had been late getting away from the apron, was just starting its takeoff roll.
All the airplanes were Guerin 522s, equipped with the InterTech heat monitor/alarm subassembly and special wiring harness on the port engines.