Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (40 page)

PD smiled, “Then tomorrow will be a brand new day, we will have accomplished the largest coup in the history of mankind. And you have the military and NSA on your side?”

“The Hart-Langley Act requires all the leadership to be inside that building. I will be the highest ranking Presidential appointee still alive. We have our people on the inside of each critical agency. Everything has been taken care of.”

“So tomorrow you will be the next President of the United States.”

The Director chuckled, “Let’s not get hung up on titles.”

The Director’s intercom rang, and Janice came over the speaker. “Sir, the White House is on the line. They want to know why you won’t be attending the State of the Union Address tonight.”

“Thank you, Janice. I’ll pick up.”

Jonathan left CIA headquarters and drove to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. He sent a letter from the Director Bill Reed with a forged authorization from the President of the United States to the leader of the F-18 squadron, requesting a pilot by the name of Todd Hamilton to be removed from the flight schedule and be replaced with another, Tony Dimarco. He included an attachment that contained all of Tony’s flight experience, which was actually Jonathan’s, and a picture of Alex Moore. Jonathan knew that substitutions were not unusual in special missions, because pilots were often targets of information, so few knew anything about their mission until the briefing a few hours before. Jonathan had forged all the identification that he needed to enter the facility.

Once inside Jonathan had no problem finding his way around. He had flown many missions from the Air Force Base and was familiar with the layout of the facility. He walked confidently carrying his pilot’s bag into the locker room, where 12 blue pilot jumpsuits were hanging next to empty lockers. He found the suit with Tony Dimarco’s name above the left pocket and put it on. Once in the briefing room, the other pilots introduced themselves, some knowing each other, most not, but used to this type of atmosphere and almost instantly creating a team. The briefing room was a huge interior room with no windows and four rows of contiguous tables all in a huge semi-circle. At the front of the room were three layers of white boards that could be manually moved up and down on rollers and a massive motorized white screen to capture the projections from the video and Microsoft projectors. The squadron leader, Charles Sowell, a small man about 5 feet 7 inches tall, gave the briefing. Also sitting in the front were the three other sub-squadron leaders, each in charge of groups of three airplanes.

The briefing was a typical special operations Navy briefing with all of the flying positions superimposed on a large sectional map, which moved based upon the projection of time. The specially equipped F-18 SP’s could protect the capital city from 100 miles in every direction. Commercial flights were suspended from Reagan-National and Dulles International for two hours before the State of the Union address and two hours after, and a temporary flight restriction (TFR) was in place for a 250 mile circle, so any private aircraft flying within Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, Southeast Pennsylvania and Maryland air space would be intercepted and escorted to a proper landing place or shot down. Jonathan’s aircraft was code named Oscar Papa 4 (OP4) and was one of a squadron of 12 identical aircraft. The planes were armed with 10 laser guided air to air missiles, one maverick and one tomahawk missile, and a 30 mm cannon. The smaller missiles and cannon gave him good air to air combat capability; the maverick missiles could destroy a city block, the tomahawk could sink a destroyer. It also had two auxiliary fuel tanks, one on each wing tip that gave him 4 1/2 hours of endurance, enough to stay airborne for the entire mission. He studied the flight manual of the F-18SP aircraft and familiarized himself with all the new avionics in the glass cockpit. The aircraft had become more sophisticated from an electronics point of view, but it was still the same old F-18 that he had been flying for the past 20 years.

It took the squadron only 12 minutes to fly from Patterson to their North, South, East and West positions on 25 mile circumference points from the Capitol Building. Radar from Reagan–National Airport, Dulles and the Pentagon would accompany their on-board Long Bow radar and Cineflex High Definition camera systems and alert them of any air traffic immediately providing a “laser lock” which could be handed off to any or all of the 12 targeting systems. A Hummingbird couldn’t get within 10 miles of the Capitol without being shot down.

The planes departed at 6:02 p.m., two hours and 13 minutes before the President and his staff entered the building. They circled their respective perimeters in squadrons of 4 aircraft. Jonathan’s plane was outboard left. The holding pattern was quite boring, so Jonathan entered the battlefield of his own mind, where there was no longer delineation between good and evil. His entire life, value system and ideals were now in shatters and every waking moment brought pain. He missed Matthew terribly, thought about him daily and now knew that he had given his life to a political system that had taken his life. Mary was right. The administration is the terrorist and the people he met with and cried with the night before are the victims. For every American who had died through real terror, at least a thousand innocent people were victimized for revenge. Now, innocent people were dying from artificial terror.

The Director had confirmed a mission in Lexington even though there was no mention of Lexington during the briefing, which meant that there was no plan for an intercept.

However, the Director said some very disturbing things that he didn’t have to. Why were they so concerned about Mary? How could she possibly be involved with anything? She’s hurting more than me! She lost her baby!

“We’ll see,” he thought.

He cued the Pentagon tower, “This is Oscar Papa 4; is there a TFR over the Lexington Liquified Natural Gas Plant?”

“This is Pentagon Tower; that’s an affirmative.”

“This is Oscar Papa 4; can you put out an alert, I have picked up radio communication on Unicom 122.8 that we may have some trespassers there today.”

“Roger, I’ll notify Lexington tower.”

Jonathan’s leader was named Jimmy Wilder. At 8:12 p.m. Jimmy announced “red alert status” because the President of the United States had entered the Capital building. Jonathan looked down at his arming mechanism, knowing that as soon as he armed his missiles the aircraft would send a signal back to the Pentagon. He would have to arm and then immediately fire, to avoid being intercepted. He hit the chronometer button on his Breitling watch, flipped up the red cover and put his right thumb on the switch. It would take only five seconds to arm, fire and end it all.

“Oscar 4 this is the Pentagon tower, Lexington has reported a VFR aircraft heading Northwest at an altitude of 1500 AGL, transponder off, probably a helicopter that will encroach on the TFR in 7 minutes.”

“Request permission to intercept,” said Jonathan.

“Permission granted.”

“Please give me an intercept course.”

Jonathan communicated to his squadron leader that he was departing and then hit his afterburners. He would be in Lexington airspace in 18 minutes.

“Lexington Tower, this is Military F-18 Oscar Papa 4, has the aircraft entered restricted airspace?”

“Oscar Papa 4, that is an affirmative.”

“What is its distance from the Liquified Gas Plant?”

“30 miles.”

“And its airspeed?”

“140 knots.”

Jonathan calculated that if it was in fact on a collision course with the gas facility, it would be there in less than 15 minutes. “Mary was right, they’re going to do this during the State of the Union Address. They’re going to kill thousands of innocent people to create the illusion of terror. And then the President will have his way with the nation, maybe even usher in Martial Law.”

“Oscar Papa 4, this is Lexington tower, aircraft is at 10 o’clock. Please report aircraft in sight.”

“Oscar Papa 4, that’s an affirmative. I have the aircraft in sight.”

Jonathan could see the high visibility blades making a perfect target. The helicopter was six minutes from the gas plant and was descending.

He radioed to the helicopter. “Unidentified Helicopter, I have your position over the liquefied natural gas plant in Lexington, Kentucky, this is a Military F-18, please increase your altitude from 500 AGL to 1000 AGL and adjust to a heading of 090. I will escort you to Lexington International Airport. Please heed or you will be shot down. Repeat, you will be shot down.”

The Helicopter began to dive.

“Pentagon Tower, Helicopter is not responding and is diving toward the gas plant; request permission to take out target.”

“Oscar Papa 4 permission granted.”

Jonathan armed a laser guided air to air missile, locked on the helicopter and in a matter of seconds watched an explosion like he had never seen before. The helicopter burst into a thousand balls of fire that fell harmlessly to earth, extinguishing themselves before they hit the ground.

“Pentagon Tower; the target is no longer a threat. Request permission to return to squadron.”

“Oscar Papa 4, good job! Have you captured this with the Cineflex high def camera?”

“Affirmative.”

“The President has requested that the film be downlinked directly to the Capital, so that he can show it “real time” to the American people. We are retrieving the recording now! Seems that it fits in quite well with his State of the Union message. Dimarco, looks like you are about to become a national hero.”

“Those fucking sons of bitches!” thought Jonathan. “They were going to let it happen. If I hadn’t intervened, all those people would have been horribly mutilated. Mary was right! The White House is behind it all. This stinks of the CIA. Everything they plan is so that even if not successful, the contingency gives them a win. With no intervention, the plant explodes and the President takes absolute power. With intervention it shows the American people that the President’s programs are working, preventing terror and they need to be supported. Absolute evil!”

“This has got to end, the blind and inhumane waste of human lives for the sake of power. It’s time for a contingency that they hadn’t planned.”

He flipped up the red guard, armed the tomahawk missile, and looked through the laser finder searching for the Capitol Building. As he stared through the cross-hairs, he realized that he was still over 100 miles away and was out of range. Without the laser lock he would have to enter the GPS coordinates that he had written down the night before and had stuffed into his backpack. “Oscar Papa 4, this is Pentagon tower, we have a signal that you have armed your missiles.”

“Pentagon tower, this is Oscar Papa 4, I have an instrument malfunction after firing on the helicopter. The system won’t switch off.”

“Oscar Papa 4, return to Andrews base immediately, repeat return to Andrews base immediately.”

“Roger.”

Feverishly, he dug his hand into his small pilot’s bag for his notebook that had the GPS coordinates of the Capitol Building. All he had to do was type in the coordinates, launch a tomahawk missile and wait five seconds and then there would be no more United States Government. All of it would be gone, all the inhumanity, greed, corruption and abuses of power. The House, The Senate, The Supreme Court, The President, Vice President and The Cabinet and now that he was in position, no one could stop him. He hadn’t really thought of what he would do afterwards. There were really no evasive maneuvers to escape from 11 equally equipped aircraft, with equal or superior pilots and certainly he would die. Would he go down in history as the world’s greatest traitor or hero? Would anyone ever understand why he had done it, what he was feeling, the rage! It’s the only way! When he reached his hand into the bag, on top of the notebook he felt something furry and pulled his hand back. He thought for a moment and then stuck his hand back into the bag and grabbed a handful of fur and pulled out Bruiser. Bruiser looked at him with only dangling thread for eyes, half a mouth and a mutilated nose, and immediately Carly was there in the cockpit with him. He froze, stunned, not able to continue his thinking. All of his thoughts were interrupted.

“What if it’s not real?” he heard Carly saying. “Mommy is not real, she lies and she hurts people.” The words were more than he could stand. The slap in the face was cold and hard. As he flew closer to the target, everything became more confused, like silt stirred from the bottom of a lake. The thought erupted in his mind, “Mary is involved, somehow, some way she’s involved!”

His rational mind argued, “But she discovered Lexington, if it wasn’t for her, all those people would have died.”

His instincts screamed, “There was a deeper purpose. It’s too clear, nothing is ever this clear. A new thought exploded in his mind that made him shudder with fear. “Maybe I’m doing exactly what they want me to do. Why should I listen to her? She’s changed! She savagely murdered two agents and wanted to kill the pilots.”

Rationally he thought, “Pull yourself together, finish your mission. Mary’s actions are consistent with a mother protecting her husband and daughter and gaining vengeance for her son.”

His conscience argued, “Something is not right! It’s too clear. What if Reed and Mary are in on this together?”

Carly’s soft voice entered his head, “People who kill other people are not real.”

“Oscar Papa 4 this is Pentagon tower, please report position.”

Jonathan disarmed the missile. “Malfunction corrected, heading in.”

He informed his squadron leader that he was leaving and headed for Andrews, his mind becoming clearer by the second.

When he landed, he felt a vibration on his chest. He reached under his shirt and pulled out the locket. It shook violently. There was a single thought in his mind, ”They have Carly!”

Once in the locker room he plugged the locket into his laptop and it gave him the GPS coordinates for where she was. She was on the move, heading South on interstate 95. He ran out to the tarmac to see his options. A S-76 C++ sat idly in front of a large hangar.