Final Winter

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Alexander Bocks was in his office at 2:30 a.m. when the phone call came in.

‘Mr Bocks?’

‘You got him.’

‘Sir, this is Carl Goodson, on-duty airport manager.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Sir, we’ve got a threat report from Homeland Security. We’re shutting down operations, sealing the grounds and aircraft.’

Bocks leaned forward in his chair, something nasty beginning to chum in his stomach. ‘What’s the basis of the threat?’

‘Not known at this time, sir. We’ve been advised to close down. More information to follow.’

‘Who’s your contact with Homeland Security?’

Goodson said, ‘Deputy Director Janwick. From the Northwest Office.’

‘Give me his number.’

Goodson did just that. Bocks said, ‘All right. I’m out of my office now. I’m going to my Operations Center. I’ll be there in five minutes.’

He could hear Goodson sigh. ‘Might be a while, sir. I’ve got other calls to make.’

Bocks stood, ready to hang up. ‘I’m sure you have.’

By the time he reached his office door, he was running.

Something flickering and blue caught Brian’s eye. He turned and saw a patrol car coming up the access road, blue lights flashing, headlights flickering left-right-left-right. About goddamn time.

A side spotlight nailed Brian as he stood there, still listening to the jets taking off. He raised his arms as the car stopped and two airport cops stepped out.

As they approached he held his palms flat out, showing that he wasn’t carrying a thing.

One cop said, ‘Freeze — don’t even think of moving.’

‘You got it.’

The other cop said, ‘Kneel down.’

‘Nope.’

The first cop said, ‘Kneel down, or we’ll—’

Another jet roared overhead.

Brian said, ‘I’m Brian Doyle. Detective from the New York Police Department. Detached to the Federal Operational and Intelligence Liaison Agency. This is an emergency. I need to see Alexander Bocks, head of AirBox, right now.’

The second cop said, ‘What the hell were you doing, shooting off your pistol like that?’

‘Trying to get somebody’s attention.’

‘You sure the fuck achieved that,’ the first cop said.

‘You got ID?’ the second cop asked.

‘Wallet. Left rear pocket.’

The first cop said, ‘Pull it out, using two fingers, toss it over here.’

Another jet went overhead. Brian did as he was told and said, ‘Guys, no offense, but we’re wasting time. This is a Homeland Security emergency. We’ve got to—’

‘Hold it. And stand right there.’

The two cops huddled, looking at his wallet, and he was mg to say something, something sharp, when he realized how quiet it was.

Quiet.

The aircraft had stopped taking off.

Brian looked over at the runway. Aircraft were there, sitting still. More flashing blue lights from other vehicles were racing along the runway, heading to the parked aircraft.

The cops came to him. ‘Where do you need to go?’

‘AirBox. I need to see General Bocks.’

The first cop said, ‘We can get you there, but it’s not up to us whether you get to see the General.’

‘Got it.’

Monty Zane stifled a yawn, looked down at the lights of the runways and the city beneath him. It had been a long, long day, and an even longer night. The trick in flying so much was to catch as much sleep as you could, no matter which way you were traveling across the globe, no matter which time zone you ended up in. Earlier Monty had read stories about those ‘business-class warriors’ who traveled on behalf of their corporate masters and who tried to cope with jet lag. Everything from special diets to special exercises to special music CDs to listen to as you ‘reorganized your inner energy’ or some such shit. Hah. Just get as much sleep as you needed and try to store up some zees, ‘cause in some of the places Monty had traveled to jet lag was for wimps.

He yawned again. Though, he thought, this particular wimp sure could use another few hours of sleep, in a real bed, not a red-webbed seat or some other airline chair.

The aircraft came down to the runway in the darkness. Monty folded his arms, idly thought of how many times he had been in aircraft before, and lost track just as the wheels touched down and there was a shudder as the plane settled in on the runway. There was the usual whine as the engines reverse-thrusted, and Monty looked around the interior of the well-lit cabin.

A woman’s voice came over the intercom: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to report that we must be the luckiest flight in the world tonight. We’ve been informed that due to some unknown circumstance at this time, the airport has closed, and no other aircraft will be allowed to land. Or take off.’

Some of the passengers started talking. Monty sat still, listened. Lucky choice, he thought, to disobey his pager orders and come back here to find out what the hell was going on.

‘In any event,’ the flight attendant continued, ‘thank you for choosing United, and welcome to Memphis.’

Soon enough, the aircraft reached the gate. There were plenty of blue lights flashing from vehicles on the runway, and then the flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom again, a bit shakier than before.

‘I’m sorry to say, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been informed that all passengers are to remain seated. There…there appears to be a security concern. Thank you for your patience and understanding.’

Monty looked at the faces of the other passengers, didn’t like at all what he was hearing. He unbuckled his seat belt and got up — always take an aisle seat, you don’t have to wait for some grandma or grandpa to let you go — and went to the overhead bin. He retrieved one of his black duffel bags — a bigger one was in the luggage hold, and he doubted he would see it before tonight was over — and he strolled up the aisleway. Some of the passengers started talking and pointing him out, and he ignored them.

A flight attendant came toward him, saying, ‘Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to sit back down. We’re not allowed—’

He showed her his identification, waited a moment, and said, ‘Ma’am, I’ve got to get off this aircraft. Now.’

She looked at the identification, looked at him, and back to the identification. ‘We’ll go see the captain.’

Monty followed her perky butt as they went forward, and a passenger in first class eyed him closely as he went by. The guy had close-cropped hair and had on a coat and tie, and Monty nailed him right away: sky marshal, just making sure things were copacetic.

At the forward area, the attendant went into the open cockpit, where the captain and first officer were still in their seats. She passed over Monty’s identification, there was a quick confab, and the captain stood up and came to him as he stood by the closed cabin door.

‘Hell of an identification card you’re carrying there, Mister Zane,’ he said.

‘That it is.’

‘Says here… well, you could probably requisition me and this aircraft to fly you to Peking if you wanted to.’

‘Probably, but right now I just need to get off this aircraft.’

The captain handed Monty back his ID. He said, ‘Nothing’s moving out there. I can open the cabin door but you’ll be on your own.’

Monty shrugged. ‘I’ve been on my own in worse places.’

The captain said, ‘I’m sure as shit you’re right.’ Then he said to the flight attendant, ‘Louise, go ahead. Pop her open.’

Louise went to the red-colored door handle, swung it forward and there was a gentle whoosh as the door opened. The fresh air felt good. Monty went to the edge of the door, sat down, let his feet dangle over the side. He dropped the duffel bag to the runway below him, and then scooted out, grabbed onto the edge of the open door. He stretched out as far as he could, hanging there by his fingertips, and then he dropped. He let his body curl in a parachute fall, rolled onto his left side and shoulder, and then got up.

A spotlight got him before he reached his duffel bag. He raised his hands.

Two guys in black jumpsuits, body armor, helmets, and carrying automatic weapons with lit flashlight attachments under the stubby barrels approached at a fast trot. One guy shouted out, ‘You got someplace fucking important to go to, pal?’

Monty said, ‘That I do.’

‘Unless you’re the fucking president of the United States, I don’t think you’re going anywhere but a lock-up.’

Monty said, ‘All right if I slide my ID over?’

The second guy said, ‘Sure. Make it snappy.’

He dropped his identification wallet on the ground, gently tapped it with his foot so it slid over to the two guys. One of them picked it up and examined it with a small flashlight, while his partner kept his weapon trained on Monty. Good tradecraft.

‘Sorry, Henry,’ the guy examining the ID said.

‘Huh?’

He tossed the ID back to Monty, who snatched it in midair. The guy said to his partner, ‘Guess we had a presidential election and missed it. Mister Zane, where do you need to go?’

‘AirBox,’ he said.

‘You got it.’

A half-mile and thirty feet underground from his corner office, Alexander Bocks exited an elevator into his company’s Operations Center. Protected by steel-reinforced concrete and with its own independent power, water and air supply, the Operations Center kept track of every single AirBox aircraft in the air, from takeoff in Memphis to any of the scores of destinations in this part of the hemisphere.

Bocks walked into the dimly lit room, lined with desks and monitors. On the far wall was a large plasma screen depicting the continental United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada and, in smaller subsets off to the left, Alaska and Hawaii. With a practiced eye, he looked up at the screen, saw the triangular icons marking those aircraft that were now airborne prior to the airport’s shutdown.

The overnight manager — an ex-Air Force air traffic controller named Pam Kasnet — stood up from her desk, headset on, as he approached.

‘What do we have up?’

‘Nineteen aircraft, all on their paths, all on schedule.’

‘Any word on a reopening?’

‘None.’

In the room there was the soft murmur of the operations staff who were keeping an eye on the aircraft and also keeping an eye on the package-sorting and distribution center. Smaller screens on some of the terminals displayed the interior of the buildings where packages and envelopes were continuously sorted, bagged and tagged. Bocks spared them a quick glance and went back to his overnight manager. What a fuck-up. Besides hammering his company’s schedule for the night, there was the more important Final Winter project, and he knew that very shortly he would need to let Adrianna Scott know what was going on.

‘The word I got is that there’s a threat against the airport, leading to the shutdown. You got anything more than that?’

Kasnet went to her desk. ‘Got an info fax from Homeland Security about two minutes before you arrived, sir. Seems two men on the terrorist watch list crossed over into the United States through Washington State last week.’

Bocks said, ‘Washington State? Hell of a thing to get us all spun up about.’

She said, ‘True, sir, but the county sheriff’s department found the body of one of those terror suspects about ten miles from here last night. They had information that he and his partner might have been in the area of the airport.’

‘Let me see the fax.’

Kasnet picked up a sheet of paper from her desk, passed it over.

Bocks looked at the paper, and felt his left arm fly out to grab the back of a chair so that he could sit down without collapsing in front of his manager. He managed to get in the chair, managed to sit still, all the while staring at two faces, the faces of the two men who had been here just a few days ago.

Mother of God and all the Saints preserve us, he thought. He had never passed out in his life, but he was sure that he was damn close to collapsing right now. Oh God, he thought, oh God.

‘Pam,’ he said, hating how hoarse his voice sounded.

‘Sir?’

‘Get Homeland Security on the line. A Deputy Director Janwick, from their Northwest Regional Office, in Spokane. Now. And— Hold on, wait.’

‘Sir?’

Stared at the paper, stared at the paper, all Bocks wanted to do was stare at the paper, and he felt things slipping away, felt it all slip away, and he forced himself to take a long, deep breath, put the paper down, and then look at his concerned manager.

Took another deep breath.

‘All right. Before you contact Homeland Security, listen to what I’ve got to say, and then do it. No questions. Understood?’

‘Sir.’ Kasnet had a small notebook and pen in her strong hands.

‘Send this ACARS message to all airborne aircraft. “Positive threat to your aircraft. Threat altitude sensitive. Do not descend below three thousand MSL. Declare emergency with air traffic control. Hold present positions at maximum endurance. Contact dispatch upon receipt of message.” Got that? Under no circumstances are they to descend. Make sure all nineteen aircraft acknowledge, and I want their confirmations passed on to me. All right?’

‘Sir.’

‘Good. Get going.’

Kasnet went back to her desk, started raising her voice, and there was a quick huddle of her staff. Bocks let her be. She knew what she was doing. In a matter of seconds that message would be going out on ACARS — Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System — to those nineteen aircraft. He could count on her. She had a job to do and, right now, so did he.

He found an empty desk, unlatched his Blackberry PDA from his belt, checked something, and then started dialing a cellphone number. It rang and rang and rang, but there was no answer.

Adrianna Scott was gone.

He knew it was odd, but Randy Tuthill had never been woken up by a telephone in his life. He was always half-awake, laying in bed or a bunk over the years, whenever a phone rang. He claimed to Marla that he was psychic, and she would say, ‘Psycho, maybe,’ and that was that. So when the phone rang at 2:40 a.m. this morning, he got it before the second ring.

‘Tuthill.’

‘Randy?’

‘Yes, who is it?’

‘It’s the General.’

Randy sat up in bed, as wide awake as if he had drunk a gallon of coffee. He had never heard such despair in the General’s voice before. Aircraft down, that was what it had to be, aircraft down and it was time to go rooting through maintenance records, to see if it had been one of his guys or girls who was responsible for sending a multimillion dollar piece of fine machinery and two human beings slamming into the ground…

‘Sir, what is it?’

The General said, ‘I need you at the Operations Center ASAP. I can’t say over the phone, but… the project you completed so successfully — it’s about to bite us in the ass, big time. Get over here. Now.’

‘You’ve got it, General,’ Randy replied. But by then he was speaking into a dead telephone.

In Washington State, Homeland Security Deputy Director Jason Janwick answered the phone in his conference room, with his people there. The advance word was that the guy on the other end of the line had information about the Russian and Arab who had slipped across the border last week.

His people looked at him with concern as he said, ‘Is this General Bocks, from AirBox?’

The strained voice on the other end said, ‘Yes, it is. Director Janwick?’

‘That’s right. What do you have for me?’

The caller said, ‘Vladimir Zhukov and the Arab boy that was with him. Imad. What can you tell me about them?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because the two of them were at my airfreight company a few days ago, that’s why.’

Shit, Janwick thought. ‘Hold on. I want my staff to hear this.’

He set the phone up to speakerphone, put the receiver down, and said, his voice louder, ‘Go ahead, General Bocks. Tell me again what you just said.’

The general said, ‘Those two men on your watch list. They were at my airfreight company less than four days ago.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Making a delivery. And it’s my time for answers. What can you tell me about those two?’

Janwick said, ‘The Arab kid is a truck driver, spent time in Canada, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon. Has family contacts to groups associated with al-Qaeda. Zhukov… a tricky, slippery bastard. One of the brightest biowarfare scientists the Soviet Union ever produced. Disappeared and was thought to have gone rogue after the breakup of the USSR. Might have spent some time in Iraq, Iran, any place that didn’t like us and that would pay good money for his talents. And from what I’ve been told, his biggest talent is weaponized airborne anthrax.’

The only sound from the speakerphone was the hiss of static. Janwick looked at the attentive faces of his staff and said, ‘General, you said they made a delivery. We need to know. What kind of delivery? Packages? And if so, where did they go?’

Bocks sounded even more strained. ‘Canisters…they were delivering canisters that supposedly contained anthrax vaccine…but now…’

Murmurs from Janwick’s staff. ‘General, where are those canisters now? Are they being delivered? Or are they still at your facility?’

Bocks cleared his throat. ‘Director Janwick, those canisters are on nineteen of my aircraft. That’s where they are. And they’re set to disperse their contents if the planes descend below three thousand feet.’

Janwick had to sit down. Then he looked at the speakerphone in fury as a clicking sound indicated that the man on the other end had hung up. He was going to have one of his staffers get hold of Bocks, but thought better of it.

There were other things that had to be done.

‘Tess?’

‘Sir?’

‘Memphis. Whatever biowarfare resources we have near the airport, get them the hell over to AirBox.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Bocks watched his people at work in the Operations Center, knowing that they would do almost anything and everything he would ask of them. He wondered just how far they would go tonight, because…well, because they were going into uncharted territory. Terra very fucking incognita.

He looked at the telephone on the desk before him, flanked by framed pictures of some family. Three little girls and mom and dad. He wondered if it was mom or dad who worked for him, who sat at this desk, and whose lives he was quite sure he had put in jeopardy tonight.

The telephone. He was sure that Homeland Security guy was severely pissed at being hung up on, but time was slip-ping away. Other calls had to be made, he dreaded every single one of them, but there was no choice. He looked at the Blackberry and started dialing.

The phone rang once.

‘Night desk, FOIL,’ came the young man’s voice.

‘This is General Alexander Bocks, of AirBox. I need to speak to the Director, right away. Authorization is Bennington. I repeat, authorization is Bennington.’

‘Hold on.’

No clicks, no hum, no buzzes. Top-of-the-line comm gear.

The colonel came on the line. ‘General. What’s going on?’

Bocks squeezed the phone receiver quite hard. ‘I know this isn’t a secure line. But this is an emergency. I need information, and I need it fast.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Adrianna Scott. The project I was performing for her. Does it… did it… did it involve a vaccination protocol at all?’

He waited only seconds, he knew they were seconds, but God, in those seconds hope lived, it lived bravely and forthrightly, and at the end of those seconds hope died.

‘General… what the hell are you saying? There’s nothing involving vaccination connected with Final Winter. Nothing! Final Winter is supposed to be a test release of non-toxic bacteria, to measure wind patterns and dispersal records. Talk to me, General Bocks. Talk to me.’

Bocks knew the Operations Center was kept climate-controlled, but his shirt was soaked. ‘Colonel… we’ve got a hell of a situation over here. We’ve got nineteen aircraft airborne, containing canisters that we believed to be an emergency airborne anthrax vaccine. These canisters were installed under the direction of your Adrianna Scott. In the past half-hour, I’ve been unable to contact Adrianna Scott. . And there’s one more thing…’

‘Go on.’

Another deep breath. ‘Homeland Security has closed down Memphis Airport. They received information that two individuals on the terrorist watch list were in the area this past week. One was an Arab youth, with connections to a Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda. The other was a virologist from the former Soviet Union. A Vladimir Zhukov. Colonel, four days ago these two individuals delivered the canisters that we believed contained an airborne anthrax vaccine. Adrianna Scott supervised the installation of those canisters aboard my aircraft. Whatever’s in them, I’m sure as hell convinced it’s not vaccine.’

The colonel swore once, very loudly. ‘Are you sure they made the delivery?’

‘I’m positive. Colonel, I was there. I saw the bastards myself.’

The colonel swore once more, and then hung up.

Bocks followed suit and then picked up the phone and started dialing some more.

Within ninety seconds of the colonel hanging up on Bocks, a message was transmitted worldwide on a secure Department of Defense information network called DEFNET. The message said:

Within sixty seconds of the Flash Priority message being sent across DEFNET, certain pre-planned events began to occur.

The President of the United States was at a resort hotel in Sun Valley, looking forward to a day of fly fishing on the Snake River, when armed Secret Service agents came into his hotel room and bundled him out to a waiting armored Chevrolet Suburban. Before he could ask what in hell was going on, agents had placed him in a biowarfare protective suit, complete with respirator, and he found that he could only make himself heard by yelling.

So he kept quiet until he was in Air Force One, which went airborne in twenty minutes and headed north to Canada. By the time it reached cruising altitude, it was joined by four F-16 fighters of the 119th Fighter Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard out of Fargo, ND, and the President was receiving the first of many briefings that were to be conducted over the next several hours.

The Vice President was at his official residence at the US Naval Observatory outside Washington DC when his Secret Service detail grabbed him and placed him in a specially modified Humvee with its own air-control and filtration system. Within a half-hour he was in a secure location that as yet had not been disclosed by those enterprising members of the Fourth Estate.

The Speaker of the House was taken by Blackhawk helicopter from his apartment at the Watergate in Washington DC and was flown north to a rural area in West Virginia. Approximately fifteen minutes away from landing at another government retreat facility, the pilot of the Blackhawk misjudged his altitude and the tail rotor of the helicopter struck a high-tension power line belonging to the Appalachian Power Company. The subsequent crash of the helicopter killed the crew, three members of the Secret Service, and the Speaker of the House, the second-in-line in the presidential succession.

All across the United States, as the wreckage of the Blackhawk helicopter in West Virginia continued to burn, members of the Cabinet, members of the US Senate and US House leadership and other government officials were brought — sometimes forcibly — to retreat areas that were designed to withstand not only nuclear attack but airborne biological and chemical attack too. As this retreat took place, US embassies across the globe went on Threat Condition Delta, as did the armed forces of the United States. Very soon the major news organizations in the United States became aware that something terrible was underway.

Two minutes after the President was awoken in Sun Valley, Idaho, a phone call was made to the Northern Command of the US Air Force stationed at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The on-duty commander who received the call — Lt General Mike McKenna — said one thing when the call came in and he was briefed on the situation: ‘This is real world, correct? Not a drill?’

‘That’s correct, general, not a drill,’ said the male voice. ‘This is real-world.’

‘Understood,’ General McKenna said as he hung up the phone. His office was a glass-enclosed cube overlooking the rows of terminals, desks and overhead display screens that observed the airborne space over Canada and the United Stations. His adjutant, Colonel Madeline Anson, looked on from a nearby chair.

‘Sir?’ she asked.

The general said, ‘We have nineteen aircraft airborne over CONUS,’ he said, referring to the continental United States. ‘It’s believed they may be carrying an airborne agent of some kind. Sarin, plague, anthrax — not sure at this time.’

‘Shit,’ said the colonel. ‘Where did they come from?’

The general grimaced. ‘Memphis. They’re aircraft from AirBox.’

‘General Bocks’s company?’

‘The same,’ he said. ‘Madeline, execute Strike Angel. Now. I want those nineteen to have company within the next thirty minutes and we’ll need to brief our FAA rep.’

‘Sir,’ she said, getting up from her chair.

‘And one more thing. I need to talk to Bocks. ASAP.’

‘Yes, sir.’

When his adjutant left McKenna waited, his hands folded. Thoughts were racing through his mind, were pressing against him, and he was pleased that so far he was keeping on top of things. He looked up at the clock. A few hours from now his shift would have ended and another general officer would be at this desk, with this responsibility.

McKenna looked at his empty coffee cup. He would need some caffeine, and soon, and he refused to feel sorry for him-self. Shift change or not, this was his job, his duty, and right now his duty meant that—

The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. Colonel Anson said, ‘Hold for a second, sir, for General Bocks.’

‘Thank you, Madeline.’

A very long second indeed, McKenna mused, and the concept of his duty came back to him as he finished the thought.

Duty meant a lot of things, and at this very moment it meant explaining to the head of a company why it was necessary to shoot down his nineteen aircraft and kill their crews.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Brian Doyle was in an empty terminal, looking for somebody, anybody, when he saw a man approach him from around a ticket counter, whistling. The man had on a dark blue janitor’s uniform and a bundle of keys at his side and was pushing a wheeled bucket with the handle of a mop. Brian strode over to him and showed him his ID.

The older man whistled. ‘NYPD. You’re far from home, pal.’

‘That I am.’

The man asked eagerly, ‘You ever been on NYPD Blue? That’s my favorite show. Even though it’s off the air, I do love it so. I see all the repeats.’

Brian looked at the man’s eyes, and sensed the intelligence back there was that of a teenage boy. He hated to lie but he had no time. ‘Sure. A couple of times. As an extra. You know, just part of the crowd.’

The man laughed, showing bad teeth. ‘That’s wonderful. That’s truly wonderful. What can I do you for?’

‘AirBox.’

The janitor nodded. ‘Know it well.’

‘That’s good. Because I need to see the people who run it. Not the office types, the guys who keep track of the air-craft.’

The janitor said, ‘Lots of police and troopers out there tonight. There’s some sort of emergency. They’re not letting people through from one terminal to another.’

‘That so?’

The janitor grinned again. ‘But for a real true NYPD Blue, I can get you there real quick. Skip the places where the blockades are. That sound good?’

Brian said, ‘Best news I’ve heard all night.’

Alexander Bocks heard a click on the other end of the phone. He said, ‘Bocks here.’

‘Sir, this is Lt General Mike McKenna, Northern Command.’

‘Yes.’

‘I understand you have nineteen aircraft outbound from

Memphis, carrying canisters that may contain airborne pathogens. Correct?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Are the crews aware of this situation?’

Bocks said, ‘Not yet.’

‘Do you intend to notify them?’

‘Of course. The crews… they have a right to know what’s going on.’

General McKenna said, ‘Are they still heading to their destinations?’

‘No,’ Bocks said. ‘They’re holding at altitude along their routes at maximum fuel conservation. They’ve all declared an in-flight emergency for a positive threat against their aircraft.’

‘Good. General Bocks… I’ve also been notified that those canisters are designed to release their contents if the aircraft descend below three thousand feet.’

Bocks’s eyes felt as though they were burning. He rubbed at them. ‘That’s right.’

‘Sir, you need to ensure your pilots understand that they are to maintain altitude and stand by to divert. Understood? In a matter of minutes each of your aircraft is going to have an Air Force or Air National Guard escort. They have orders to respond if any of your aircraft begin an unauthorized descent. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Bocks said, ‘That I do. You intend to shoot down any of my aircraft that start descending without authorization.’

‘Correct. Sorry to have to tell you this, sir.’

Bocks said, ‘Not as fucking sorry as I am to hear it.’

The airport was a cluster-fuck early this morning, and Randy Tuthill had to use guile, arguments, and his old Air Force ID to gain entry to his maintenance hangars. After parking his Jeep Cherokee, he was about to trot down to the Operations Center when one of his senior machinists, a guy named Clarke, grabbed his arm.

‘Randy, you’ve got to see what’s going on over here.’

‘Shit, Gary, I’m overdue to see the General.’

‘Trust me, the General’s gonna want to know what’s going on up here.’

He followed Clarke to one of the open bay doors and stopped. Yellow tape had been strung across the entrance to the bay, and men in black jumpsuits, Kevlar helmets and automatic weapons strapped to their chest kept a quiet vigil from inside the hangar.

‘Holy Christ,’ Randy said. But it wasn’t the men with guns that had caused the outburst. Before him, about twenty yards away, was one of his MD-11s, parked quietly, but looking like some giant science experiment. A huge translucent plastic bag of some sort had been draped over the fuselage, and small air generators were keeping it inflated. Two dark green trailers had been backed up to the covered airplane, and Randy could make out shapes working just below the aircraft.

Randy rubbed at his chest. It felt like it was about to tear itself open. He knew what was going on, but he had to ask.

‘What do you know, Gary?’

‘All the fuck I know is that these guys took over both maintenance hangars, kicked us out, and they’ve started working on this first piece of equipment. I think they’re going into the air-conditioning packs.’

‘All right.’

‘Oh. And one more thing. Just before you got here, I saw one of the guys — wearing an EPA suit or something — go into the trailer, carrying something. And a while after that, one of those guys started yelling something.’

‘What was he yelling?’

‘Positive,’ Gary said. ‘He was yelling that whatever it was, it had tested positive.’

Randy nodded, his chest even more tight. ‘I’ll make sure to tell the General.’

Carrie Floyd was thinking of what to say when she and Sean had their little conversation in Boston when a blinking light caught her eye. She looked down at the control pedestal between her seat and Sean’s, and saw a flashing yellow light in the corner of a small square box that was starting to spit out a piece of printed paper.

‘Sean, message coming in from ACARS.’

Sean reached down, tore off the slip of paper as it came out of the top of the ACARS unit. ACARS was a data link system to their Operations Center and allowed them to send text messages back and forth. Most airlines in the world used a type of ACARS and AirBox was no different.

Sean said, ‘What kind of bullshit is this?’

He passed the message slip over to her. She read:

It felt like a jet of cold air was playing against the back of her neck. ACARS was usually used to inform aircraft about changes in weather or advise about conditions at destination airports. Nothing as… nothing as terrifying as this one. Had to be a bomb of some sort. Something that would be triggered in a change in altitude… a barometric device of some sort.

Carrie said, ‘You’ve got to be shitting me… Sean?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Contact ATC. Declare an emergency and ask them where we can hold. Tell them we want to stay at altitude.’

She started to throttle back the engines and said, ‘All right, I’m slowing to max conserve speed… and in fact, I’ve changed my mind. You take the aircraft. I’m going to contact ATC.’

‘Roger, I’ve got it.’

She toggled the microphone switch on the yoke handle as the aircraft slowed down, allowing the minimum amount of fuel flow to the engines to keep them airborne for the longest period of time.

Big question, of course, was how much time?

Carrie said, ‘Memphis Center, AirBox one-oh-seven.’

‘AirBox one-oh-seven, go ahead.’

‘Ah, we’ve been advised by our dispatch that there is a positive threat against our aircraft. We’re declaring an emergency and need to hold at altitude for the present time.’

The woman’s voice from Memphis Center said, ‘Roger, one-oh-seven, we just got advised same over the landline as well. Hold present position, leg length your discretion, maintain flight level three three zero.’

‘Roger, present position, three three zero and we’ll use twenty-minute legs,’ Carrie said, indicating the length of time they would fly while maintaining their current position at 33,000 feet.

‘One-oh-seven, approved and we need souls on board and fuel remaining when you get a chance.’

Carrie said, ‘Two souls and let’s call it four hours of fuel.’

‘Roger, one-oh-seven. Do you need any further assistance?’

‘Not at this time, but we’ll get back to you if necessary. One-oh-seven out.’

She looked to her co-pilot, who was not happy. ‘They knew,’ he said. ‘They were advised before you called in. They know what’s happening to us and why we were declaring an emergency.’

‘That they do,’ she said. ‘And I intend to find out, too.’

Sean nodded. ‘Glad to hear that.’

‘All right,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ve got the aircraft back, Sean. Let’s see if you can get a phone patch set up. I want to talk to Dispatch, and soonest. Something screwy is happening here and I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to let the Ops Center and ATC know what’s happening before we do.’

Eddie Mitchell liked to get in early for work, which meant emptying the trash bins, cleaning the bathrooms, and vacuuming the carpeted offices before most of the workers got there. Sometimes people were working in the building and its offices when he got there, even at such an ungodly hour, but usually they treated him nice, and he knew not to bother them if they seemed to be working hard and having meetings. Then he wouldn’t vacuum but would work around them.

Eddie was retired US Navy, with a clear security-clearance record, and he did this work because he liked to get out of the house, and also liked to think that he was doing his part — tiny as it was — with the war on terror.

So when, last month, his duties had been expanded to do an inventory check he didn’t mind. He liked to think that what he did here made a clean and cheerful work environment, and might give these people a bit of an edge to do important work.

He was now in the kitchen and thinking about getting his second cup of coffee of the morning, but only after checking the inventory list. There was a clipboard hanging on the wall, near the light switches, and he pulled it off. He walked to the walk-in freezer, and started checking off the number of boxes of frozen French Fries, fish sticks, juice drinks, and—

Something smelled odd. Odd indeed.

Eddie pushed a box out of the way, to get a better look, and—

Shit.

His very first thought was that he hoped he hadn’t screwed up a crime scene, for he had no doubt that this was a crime scene. The dead man — Darren, that had been in his name — had been murdered and stuffed in here. Now Eddie felt angry that someone here with a security clearance and working for the Feds had committed murder, for no one else could have gotten access here.

He stepped back out of the freezer, gently closed the door, and made a phone call.

More than eight hours would pass before he got that second cup of coffee.

Monty Zane stepped out into the Operations Center of AirBox as a uniformed security officer came up to him, looking serious and holding a clipboard, though the poor fellow couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen.

‘Sir, you don’t belong here. You need to have a—’

Monty held out his ID card. He said, ‘Pal, some heavy kind of shit is going down around here, and it’s all coming this way. I certainly need to belong here, and I need to see your boss. Your boss of bosses, that is. General Bocks.’

The young man handed back the card, seemed to swallow hard. ‘Yeah, there is some heavy shit going on around here. Come on, I’ll see what I can do.’

Bocks was in a small conference room off the main floor of the Operations Center as Randy Tuthill came in. Randy said, ‘We’re seriously fucked, aren’t we?’

‘That we are.’

Randy said, ‘There’s a hazmat crew up top, at maintenance hangar two. They’re working on one of our MD-11s. They took out the canisters that we installed and—’

Bocks said, ‘I know. They don’t contain anthrax vaccine. They contain anthrax itself. A vicious airborne strain. Supplied by that CIA woman, Adrianna Scott. Like you said, we’ve been seriously fucked over.’

Randy stumbled a bit as he spoke. ‘What… what… how are we going to…’

‘That’s why I need you here, Randy. We’ve got to figure out a way of disarming those canisters, or immobilizing them, or doing something so our aircraft can land. We’ve got to… Randy, why in hell are you shaking your head?’

Randy’s face was the color of snow. ‘General, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I left the maintenance hangar. We can’t get to those canisters. We simply can’t. And the moment those jets go below three thousand feet… sir, what are we going to do?’

Bocks couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Adrianna Scott checked her watch, saw that it was now four a.m. She clicked on the car’s radio, found an FM station that carried a CNN radio news feed at the top of the hour, and caught the latest newscast. The woman announcer’s voice was shaky and listening to the news made Adrianna smile.

From the car’s speakers, she heard, ‘CNN has learned that the Department of Homeland Security will shortly increase the threat level color to red — meaning that a terrorist attack is either underway or imminent. CNN has also learned that… that evacuation procedures for the President, Vice-President and Congressional leaders are also taking place at this moment. Military threat levels have also been raised at American military installations here and overseas. CNN has not received any official notification of these events. Stay tuned to CNN radio news for the latest—’

Adrianna shut the radio off with just a tinge of regret. Somehow word had gotten out, and it was too late to care about it. All she was sure of was that a number of AirBox jets were in the air. One would have been a success — tens of thousands of deaths from one just aircraft. Everything else was just, as was said, gravy.

She continued driving, a smile sometimes playing across her face.

Randy Tuthill hated the look on the General’s face, knew his boss was looking to him for some sort of answer, some sort of miracle. But he couldn’t provide one. There was a knock at the door, and then a large black man with a scarred face was there.

‘General Bocks?’

‘Yes?’ he said, looking up from the conference-room table.

‘The name is Montgomery Zane. I’m the military representative for the FOIL team that’s been working with you, the one that—’

Tuthill watched in amazement as his boss lost it. Bocks stood up, the tendons in his neck standing out in whiplike fury as he said, ‘I guess the fuck you are! I guess the fuck you are the ones working with us, the ones who’ve used us and fucked us over! Tiger fucking Team Seven! Where in hell is your boss, Adrianna Scott?’

The black guy seemed to be a cool customer, for he didn’t flinch one bit as that acid stream poured out in his direction. Zane said to the General, ‘I don’t know where Adrianna is. I’ve been trying to contact her for nearly a day. No answer.’

Papers in the General’s hands were being shredded. ‘Sure. Why not? Do you have any fucking idea what in hell you people have done? Do you? Do you?’

Zane, his voice low and even, said, ‘No, I don’t.’

Bocks tossed the papers at him. ‘And I don’t have time to tell you shit, pal. I don’t. So why don’t you get the fuck out of my building before I have your ass in jail and—’

Another voice from another man, entering the office. ‘General, if you’d like, I’ll tell him. If you’d let me.’

Randy didn’t know who the tired-looking guy with a torn and dirty shirt and jacket was, but Bocks seemed to recognize him. But even the flash of recognition didn’t seem to turn down the anger.

‘And why the fuck should I do that?’ Bocks demanded.

‘Because,’ the other guy said, ‘I know more than anybody else here does, and we don’t have much time.’

Brian Doyle looked at Zane, the General, and the other guy, who seemed to be working with the General. His chest still hurt like hell and he was bleeding some from where he had torn out the IV from his arm. The General said, ‘Yeah? And what the hell do you know that’s so important?’

Brian said, ‘Those canisters in your jets, they don’t contain a vaccine.’

‘Already knew that, pal. They contain anthrax.’

Zane swore once, very loud. Brian said, ‘Far as I know, it was Adrianna’s play, start to finish, though she certainly had help. Somebody to create the vaccine, somebody to deliver it and—’

Bocks raised his hand, dismissing him. ‘Sorry, pal, you’re batting oh-for-two and I don’t got time to fuck around. Homeland Security’s on it. Your bitch boss was working with a virologist from the Soviet Union, and some al-Qaeda punk who knows how to drive trucks. They made the delivery a few days ago. Truck and license plate matched what was sent to us, their identification was all in order, and—’

‘Iraqi,’ Brian said.

‘What?’ Zane said. The General stayed quiet.

‘Her real name isn’t Adrianna Scott. It’s Aliyah Fulenz, or something like that. She’s an Iraqi Christian woman. She made sure to tell me that. And everything tonight…it’s revenge for what was done to her parents. I’d guess they died during the first Iraq war.’

Zane started asking him questions but Bocks was louder, saying, ‘And why should we believe that story, detective? Why’s that?’

Brian thought, well, dad, you’re going to do more now for me than any time ever in your whole drunken life, and he said, ‘You’ve met me before, General. You know why I joined the Tiger Team, why I did what I did. Because of my dad and 9/11. That’s why. And that’s why you’re going to trust me. You know that.’

Silence. Lots of raised voices and phone calls from outside the office, from the floor of the Operations Center. Then Brian’s pager and Monty’s started going off, but the two of them ignored the noise.

Monty said, ‘All this about Adrianna… Aliyah. How did you find that out?’

‘She told me.’

Bocks was incredulous. ‘She told you? When? How? And why in God’s name would she tell you?’

Brian said, ‘She told me a couple of hours ago. And I think she told me because she wanted to brag, wanted to tell somebody before it was too late. And she told me in her hotel room, just before she shot me.’

The fourth guy in the room said, ‘She shot you? The hell you say.’

Brian opened up his shirt, displayed the bruise marks that were going to be an ugly green and yellow in a few days. ‘I was wearing a Kevlar vest. She tapped me twice in the chest and I fell off a balcony — landed like some freak circus performer on an awning. And now I’m here to tell you what happened… Monty?’

‘Yeah?’ Monty was looking at his Blackberry pager with a grim look, toggling through whatever text message had been sent to him.

‘We’ve got to get the rest of the team here. Victor and Darren.’

‘Going to be hard to do that, Brian,’ he said.

‘Why?’

Monty shook his head. ‘Check your pager. Darren’s been found dead, back in Maryland: broken neck and stuffed in our food freezer.’

Brian said, ‘Jesus Christ.’

Monty looked at the three men in the office, knew it was starting to slide away, knew he had to step in before things got lost and more time vanished.

Keeping his voice cool and level, he said, ‘All right. We got hosed. Adrianna did a spectacular job. When the Congressional hearings and special commissions are done with this one, we’ll all probably be doing jail time, especially me.’

And it came to him in a flash. Those missions over the past months — hell, years — meeting those characters in London, Bali, Jenin, and Lahore. A setup. A goddamn setup. All that chatter that had been discussed earlier — shit, he had helped get that chatter going! The type of planning and pure malevolence that had gone into what she had done…Amazing.

Monty sighed. ‘Yeah. Especially me. To quote a famous mayor, “the bitch set me up.” I’ve gone places and killed people, all apparently on her behalf, all to help her sell the idea of an anthrax attack to us and the higher-ups. Goddamn.’

And he slapped a hand on the table. ‘All right. That’s my mea fucking culpa, and I’m done with it. We’ve got to move on. First,’ he said, looking to the stranger sitting with Bocks and Brian, ‘sir, I’m afraid I don’t know who you are. Would you…?’

The man stuck his hand out. ‘Randy Tuthill. Head of the machinists’ union local. And probably an unindicted co-conspirator when this hits the papers.’

The man’s grip was strong. Monty liked that, showed he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around. ‘General, before we proceed, I’m going to need another member of our team to be here.’

Bocks said, ‘The doctor who came here with Aliyah — Adrianna — and the detective?’

‘Yep. He knows this stuff, and I don’t want to be dealing with somebody that doesn’t have the background. It’ll take too long to get up to speed. Brian, any idea where he is?’

Brian said, ‘Probably at home, in Maryland. Might take a while to get him out here. Can you do it?’

Monty said, ‘Man, get me to a phone, you’ll be surprised at how fast things can happen.’

Carrie didn’t like the expression on Sean’s face. He turned to her and said, ‘Carrie, you’re not going to believe this but the line is busy — I can’t get through to Dispatch.’

‘Busy? You sure you got the right number?’

‘Christ, of course I’m sure. Dispatch’s number is busy — shit, I’ve never heard that happening before. Either things are seriously fucked-up on the ground or there’s a whole bunch of AirBox flights trying to talk to the ground.’

She wiped her moist hands across her uniform pants leg, checked the autopilot again to make sure it was still keeping them on their holding pattern. ‘See if you can’t get a text message to the ground using ACARS. Tell them to get off the damn phone. Then try setting up that phone patch again.’

‘You got it.’

Sean leaned to the left, started working the ACARS terminal, laboriously typing in a message using a single finger, one letter at a time. Carrie went back to the instrumentation, back to the windscreen, and—

Something caught her eye.

A flash of light.

She looked off to the left, tried to swallow.

‘Sean.’

‘Yeah?’

‘We got company.’

‘Huh? Where do you— Oh, shit.’

Off to port, flying about two hundred feet out and a bit below and forward, was an F-16 single-seat fighter jet. Its flashing red anti-collision strobe lights were on and the cockpit was illuminated, so Carrie could make out the shape of its pilot.

Sean said, ‘Got another one, to starboard.’

‘Yeah.’

They flew on for long moments, neither one saying anything, until Sean said, ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

‘That I do,’ she said. ‘They’re not here for their health. They’re here because of what we’ve got in the cargo hold, I’m sure.’

‘What do you think? Chemical? Bio? A dirty bomb?’

Carrie said, ‘Whatever it is, the powers that be certainly don’t want us to land, and they certainly want to keep close eye on us.’

‘Fuck. Those lousy ground-pounding sons of bitches, not telling us a goddamn thing about what we’re carrying—’

Carrie said, ‘Sean.’

He stopped talking.

‘Try to raise those fine boys on the Guard radio channel, find out what their orders are. And then let’s try Dispatch again. Jesus.’

Sean went to work and Carrie briefly regretted her sharpness towards him. But there was work to be done, answers to be sought, and the thought of her daughter Susan, slumbering safely at home while her mommy was just seconds away from being blasted out of the sky… Christ.

She returned to her flying.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Monty had no idea how the phone call would go. In the event, he was stunned at how quickly matters developed.

‘Colonel,’ he said to the Tiger Team Director, ‘this is Montgomery Zane, Tiger Team Seven.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’m at the AirBox Operations Center. Have you been advised of what’s going on?’

The colonel’s voice was flat, unemotional. ‘That I have. Nineteen aircraft, airborne and carrying anthrax, and in a situation to release that anthrax unless something can be done in the next few hours.’

‘Sir, it appears that Adrianna Scott was an Iraqi citizen. We’ve been played, and played bad. I’m now the senior officer for Tiger Team Seven.’

‘All right,’ the colonel said. ‘And I have a team working on Adrianna Scott and what she’s done, but right now, that’s only going to be of interest down the road. What matters now are those nineteen aircraft… and Zane?’

‘Sir?’

‘As of now, it’s yours. I’m not in a position to second-guess you. But you’ve got lots of resources at your fingertips. Use them, and use them well, and keep me informed.’

‘That I will, sir.’

He had been dreaming, no doubt about it, and my God, how that dream had slipped into this horrible nightmare. Men were there, men with lights and uniforms and loud voices, and this was one hell of a dream and—

Victor Palmer sat up in bed, chest heaving, looking at his suddenly crowded bedroom. There were three men in there, two of them wearing black uniforms and carrying stubby automatic weapons. The third man, the one with the large flashlight, said, ‘Sir, you’re Doctor Palmer, correct?’

Victor held a hand up to his eyes, to block the light. ‘Yes…yes… who are you? What the hell is going on here?’

The man said, ‘Sir, I’m afraid you’re in our custody, under direction of the National Command Authority. You need to join your Tiger Team members in Memphis, right away. What do you need?’

‘Um… ah, well, my laptop, of course, in my office, and—’

One of the men with automatic rifles quickly left the bedroom, and Victor said, ‘And… uh, what’s going on? Why do they need me so quickly?’

‘Sir,’ the man said, pulling away the bed coverings, ‘all I know is that there is an emergency, and your presence is required, now.’

Victor wiped at his face. ‘I… I need to shower. And get dressed… and—’

The man with the flashlight stepped forward. ‘Sir. There’s no time.’

And so Victor started protesting. But, quickly enough, other men came forward and literally picked him up, and he was taken out of his condo and down the central stairs, and now there was a loud noise coming from outside, and he was trying to say something, ask what in hell was going on, and the men were behind him, one of them carrying his laptop, another carrying a bundle of his clothes, shoving the clothes into a small leather bag.

Outside it was chaos. They propelled Victor along a paved walkway, to the common area of the condominium. The noise beat at his ears. Before him were the tennis courts for the condo units and other men were there as well, cutting and pulling down the chain-link fences, tearing up the netting. Overhead was a helicopter, a military helicopter with a belly-mounted searchlight that illuminated the whole area. Other residents of the condo units were now coming out their own homes, staring up in awe at what was going on around them.

The helicopter began to land and again Victor was picked up. His knees suddenly felt like the tendons and muscles had turned to mush, for he realized that this — all this! — was being done for him!

A mouth close to his right ear. ‘Keep your head down, doctor!’

Dirt and pebbles were being flung into his face as he went forward, hunched over. Men in the helicopter grabbed him and strapped him down, and he looked and saw that his clothes and laptop had joined him. He shouted out questions but the crewmen just tapped the side of their helmets and shook their heads.

Victor thought that he would throw up as the helicopter swooped and dove, and it was a short hop indeed, for now they were flying into an airbase, it looked like, military aircraft. The helicopter landed. Other uniformed men nearly dragged him off it and he tried to ask more questions, but no one would talk to him, nobody at all, as two or three of them dressed him in a flight suit of some sort and a helmet was jammed over his head, and then in front of him was a jet, a fighter aircraft of some sort, and his bags were placed into a small storage bin on the side of the fuselage and good Christ, he was actually hauled up into the open cockpit, put into the seat, straps and hoses were connected and he blinked his eyes very hard as the jet started moving down the runway, and the cockpit canopy started lowering over his head.

‘You okay back there, sir?’ came a crackling voice through the headphones in his helmet.

‘I… I guess so. What in hell is going on?’

‘The name’s Major Hanratty. Sir, my job is to get you to Memphis as soon as possible.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is to hold on back there. Once we’re wheels up, we’re going supersonic for a bit.’

Victor tried to swallow. Tried to swallow three times before he could produce saliva.

‘But… but I thought supersonic wasn’t allowed over civilian areas.’

The major said, ‘Usually you’re right, sir. But not this morning. Word I got is to break as many windows as I wanted, just as long as I got you to Memphis quick, like. You must be some big-ass VIP.’

Victor heard the tremor in his voice. ‘I’m… I’m just a doctor. That’s all.’

The major said quietly, ‘Must be a hell of a medical emergency out there in Memphis, then.’

Victor said nothing, tears springing to his eyes, nausea swelling in his guts, as he knew right then and there that it had all gone wrong.

Final Winter.

May God have mercy on me, he thought.

And as the jet took off, he had a sudden wish that something mechanical would happen, something bad so that this would all end now, in a clean and quick fireball, rather than ending up in Memphis.

But God wasn’t listening to him.

The aircraft took off safely.

Just his luck.

Brian looked to Monty who had just hung up the phone, arranging for Victor to come southwest. It had been a hell of a performance, and Brian wished that some of his commanders back at the NYPD had Monty’s presence and authority. But there was one more thing. Brian said, ‘You better be good, the next few hours.’

‘Only way I can be, son. Why did you say that?’

‘Because the higher-ups are going to want to have their say, have their input, have their command. You and me and Victor and the General, we know what’s happened, what can happen. We don’t have time to bring half the government up to speed on this fuck-up, much as they’re eager to know.’

Monty said, ‘You’ve been reading my mind, pal. Time for another phone call.’

Air Force General Mike McKenna had just received a status report from his adjutant on the deployment of F-16s and F-15s to track the AirBox aircraft when his phone rang. He picked it up, heard from the senior airman who served as his admin aide, and said, ‘All right, put him through.’

There was a click and he said, ‘General McKenna, Northern Command.’

‘Sir, this is Montgomery Zane. Department of Defense representative with Foreign Operations and Liaison Team Seven. Sir, I’m at the Memphis Airport, at the Operations Center for AirBox.’

‘So?’

‘General, please check your standing orders. Especially the Presidential Directive 61-10, issued on September 12, 2001. Sir, I’m the command lead for this incident. You’re not to take any hostile action against those nineteen AirBox aircraft without my authorization. And for purposes of identification my ID code for today is Bravo Bravo Zulu Twelve. I’m lead.’

‘The hell you are.’

‘The hell I’m not, general. Check your standing orders. This baby is mine. You’ll be informed at all times about what’s going on, and I may need you to take action against those aircraft, but right now it’s in my lap.’

General McKenna said, ‘I don’t have time to argue with you, Zane.’

‘Good. Neither do I. Look, we’ve got a situation here: I don’t want to be a hard ass, but check your standing orders.’

McKenna shifted the phone to another ear, scribbled a note, writing down BBZ12. ‘I intend to do just that. And to get those orders changed.’

Zane said, ‘Your prerogative, sir. But I think you’ll find that to change that means going through the White House, and I think the President is kinda busy right now.’

Alexander Bocks felt the iron band of tension around the base of his skull start to ease, just a bit. He looked to Zane and said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Sure.’

‘What branch of the service did you serve in?’

Monty smiled, started making notes on a legal pad in front of him. ‘All of them.’

The police detective interrupted. ‘All of them?’

‘Sure. Special program, set up after 9/11. Besides intelligence communities not talking to one another, there were also problems with branches of the military not talking to each other. Each branch had its own bit of turf, guarded quite jealously. Bunch of us were recruited to spend time with each branch, make contacts, know deep down how each side ticks. Help break down barriers. So I’ve trained and deployed with Army Special Ops, Air Force Special Ops, Navy SEALs… so forth and so on.’

‘And what branch did you start with?’

Zane said, ‘Coast Guard.’

The detective looked incredulous. ‘No shit?’

‘No shit. But as my mama used to say, let’s look to the future. General Bocks, how much time do we have with your aircraft before they have to land?’

Bocks said, ‘Depending on how far they got before we told them to hold and orbit — four, maybe five hours.’

‘Know this is a wild question, but I’ve got to ask it. Any airborne-refueling capability for your aircraft?’

Bocks shook his head. ‘No. They’re MD-11s, converted to cargo carriers. Pilot and co-pilot for a crew. That’s it. When they get low. on fuel, they’re going to have to come down. No choice about it.’

Monty turned to Randy and said, ‘These canisters — is there any way for the crew to get to them? Any access hatch, inspection plate — any way they can get their hands on them?’

‘No,’ Randy said.

‘Can they be disabled? Power shut off to them — circuit-breaker popped — anything like that?’

A violent shake of the head. ‘No, damn it… these canisters — they were designed to operate automatically. The radio-altimeter switch arms the canisters when they go above a certain altitude — and when the aircraft descends to the critical altitude they open up and start spraying. There’s no way to stop it. No fucking way. Guys, let’s face up to it. In a few hours, no matter what we do, those canisters are going to start spraying airborne anthrax over the United States, and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do to stop it.*

Carrie heard Sean work the communications through her earphones. ‘Ah, this is AirBox 107, broadcasting to our F-16 neighbors to port and starboard. How’s it going, guys?’

A male voice, coming through, loud and clear. ‘This is Lance One, lead aircraft here, good morning.’

‘And good morning to you. Where you from, guys?’

‘Ohio ANG, out of Toledo.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Sorry, repeat.’

Sean said, ‘Lance One, what’s up? What’s going on?’ His voice rose some. ‘Come on, Lance One. What’s your mission?’

A pause, another hiss of static. ‘AirBox one-oh-seven, we’ve been told to escort. That’s all.’

‘Escort us where?’ Sean demanded.

‘Don’t know yet, AirBox.’

Sean said, ‘Are your weapons hot? Are you? What’s going on with us? Is there a bomb on board? A nuke? A chem weapon?’

‘Ahh… AirBox one-oh-seven, be advised, we’ve been ordered to escort. And that’s all I can say. Lance One, out.’

Sean swore and Carrie looked at him, raised an eyebrow. ‘Goddamn Air Force, eh?’

He said, ‘Days like this, I cheer for the fucking Navy.’

Brian saw the General glare at his machinist guy and heard him say, ‘We’ve got a few hours. And in those few hours, we’ll come up with something.’

Monty said, ‘You got any ideas?’

‘Not a one,’ the General said, suddenly scribbling on his notepad. ‘But there is one thing I’ve got to do.’

‘What’s that?’ Brian asked.

The General stood up, and Brian saw that he was holding a sheet of paper, and that his hand was shaking. ‘Time to be straight with my crews. Time to tell them what’s going on.’

Brian said, ‘Sir, are you sure that—’

Bocks looked pissed. ‘They don’t know because me and you and your goddamn Adrianna thought they didn’t have a right to know. But they sure as hell do have a right to know now. And I’m going to take care of it, right now.’

He went out of the room, striking a chair with his hip as he went out to the main Operations Center. Monty said to Randy, ‘Your boss is one hard charger.’

Randy toyed with a pencil on the conference-room table. ‘The general’s doing just fine. Over a week ago, his biggest worry was whether my union was going to strike his ass over dental care. Now he’s worried about nineteen aircraft and thirty-eight people that work for him, plus the fact that his equipment is getting ready to kill hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens. So cut the General some fucking slack, all right?’

‘Sure,’ Monty said.

‘Sure,’ Brian said.

The flashing light from the control pedestal caught her eye again, and Sean said, ‘Incoming message, Carrie.’

‘All right, then.’

The ACARS communication coming out was one long goddamn message. The strip of paper came out and came out and came out, and Carrie sighed as Sean reached down and tore it off. She held it up to the light and read:

Sean read the message and said, ‘Well, the General is there.’

‘Hurray for the General,’ Carrie said, crumpling up the message sheet and letting it fall to the cockpit floor. ‘Notice what he left out?’

‘Huh?’

She pointed out the windscreen, to their quiet escorts. Lance One and Lance Two.

‘He didn’t tell us what we already know. That those fine pilots out there, if they start seeing us descend, are going to blow us out of the sky. That’s what he left out. That if they don’t figure out something, something quick, we and the eighteen others are going to be shot down.’

Ahead of them dawn was breaking.

Brian listened to Monty and Randy debate options, plans, possibilities, and Brian yawned and rubbed at his sore chest and hoped that in the next few hours the Memphis police wouldn’t figure out where he was and come arrest his ass for assaulting that cop and the EMT. And for stealing the cop’s service weapon, one of the worst crimes to commit against a cop.

Monty said, ‘Look, isn’t there any way to get fuel in those wing tanks? Get a guy lowered down from a helicopter or something… get the cap off… get some fuel in. Anything to buy us some time.’

Randy said, ‘No. Shit, man, this isn’t like one of those Airport movies, where you’re going to get somebody dangling from a cable, ten thousand feet up, and ask him to unscrew a fuel cap about seven inches in diameter while the outside air temp is twenty below. Not going to happen. And even if you were able to get those fuel caps off, where is the fuel coming from? Air Force and Air National Guard are the only outfits that have airborne-refueling capability, and only with aircraft that have the refueling ports designed to receive a refueling hose. Otherwise you’d be trying to dangle something like a garden hose into a small hole while traveling at two hundred knots in mid-air. Can’t happen. Trust me, 1 know. I was in the Air Force long enough and my own son is a pilot for a refueling jet, the KC-135.’

Brian said, ‘Okay. Let’s agree that airborne refueling is off the table. We already know that the crew can’t reach the canisters from where they are. Is there any way to block those air-conditioning exhaust vents from the outside?’

‘Oh, sure,’ Randy said, his voice sharp. ‘We’ll just ask for volunteers from my machinists. We’ll go up in an open-cockpit aircraft, like a Sopwith Camel, a two-seater, maybe, and my guy will reach up and plug the vents with chewing gum. Is that what you want?’

Monty leaned forward. ‘No. What I fucking want are some goddamn ideas, that’s what, some suggestions on how to fix this goddamn problem.’

Randy shouted back, ‘It wasn’t our goddamn problem to begin with! We listened to you, we trusted you, and look what the fuck happened! We’re hours away from killing hundreds of thousands of people, and I’m telling you, we can’t get to those canisters! We can’t! And it’s your fucking fault!’

And in the silence following this outburst, a new voice was heard in the room:

‘Excuse me, could somebody tell me what all the screaming is about?’

Somehow, somewhere, the word got out to the news media, and as usual the first stories were a mix of truth and supposition, seasoned with ill-informed speculation. With the story breaking of the color change to red in the Homeland Security threat level — coupled with the story of the evacuation of the President, his Cabinet and Congressional leaders off to secure areas — there was a media frenzy as reporters, assignment editors and network and newspaper executives, some of them awake for less than a hour, worked the phones.

MSNBC was first, followed by Fox and then CNN, reporting that the government was responding to a threat involving AirBox aircraft and airborne anthrax. In addition to this bit of truthful news, the story was also broadcast that the aircraft had been hijacked and were now heading for major metropolitan centers.

And in these same major metropolitan centers, within less than an hour, outbound highways were clogged with American citizens desperate to get away from what they thought was going to be a new Ground Zero. As a result of this unofficial evacuation the very first civilian deaths associated with Final Winter began to occur as traffic accidents happened, the elderly and the ill succumbed to the fear and, in a few cases, police shot looters taking advantage of the chaos.

The unplanned and unanticipated evacuation also meant that instead of being concentrated in target cities the exposed population was now spreading out to the suburbs and countryside, increasing the possible target areas for the still-airborne AirBox aircraft.

Victor Palmer came into the conference room, groggy and confused about what was going on, still feeling weak from the rigors of the flight that had picked him up in Maryland and brought him to Memphis. He went into the room, laptop under his arm, and took a seat. He looked at the faces, recognized them all, and turned to Brian, the only one he felt truly comfortable with. He knew bad news was just seconds away from hitting him, and for some reason he wanted it to come from the police detective. They were experts at passing on bad news.

‘Brian?’ he asked. ‘What went wrong?’

‘Lots, doc. I’m not sure where to begin.’

Victor said, ‘I don’t understand. Adrianna told me two days ago that Final Winter was canceled. That the vaccine wasn’t going to be distributed. What happened?’

Monty sat up at that. ‘Tell us, doc. Tell us what she said.’

Victor looked again at the other men, thinking of his residency, thinking of all the times that groups of men and women had asked and poked and prodded. He hated all those questions, all those demands. He just wanted to be left alone.

God, did he want to be left alone.

‘She… she called me at home. She said Final Winter had been canceled, the Syrian cells had been rolled up, that I should take some time off. Which is what I was doing when…Brian, what’s going on?’

And damn that man if his voice didn’t change, like he was doing his old job, telling a husband or mother or grand-mother that someone they loved and cherished dearly had been killed by a bullet, a knife, or a drug overdose.

‘Doc, what happened is this… it’s something that makes Pearl Harbor and 9/11 look like overwhelming victories… Adrianna Scott.’

Brian paused, and Victor said, ‘Yes? What about her? How come she isn’t here?’

Monty made to speak but Brian raised a hand. ‘Doc, she’s on the run. Her real name isn’t Adrianna Scott. It’s Aliyah Fulenz. She’s an Iraqi. She’s been here since she was a teenager… I think her parents were killed in the first Gulf War. And she’s been plotting for years.’

A feeling returned to him, only an hour or so old, of what it had been like, going up in the air in that Air Force fighter jet, his guts squishy, his limbs tingly, like he was on the edge of something magnificent and terrifying.

‘Final Winter…’

Brian said, ‘It’s a reality. It’s happening now. Adrianna lied to all of us. There are canisters aboard nineteen AirBox aircraft, nineteen aircraft that are airborne. And those canisters are carrying airborne anthrax. All of them.’

Somehow Victor got the words out. ‘But… but the canisters… they have the automatic radio altimeters. If those jets descend, they’re going to release the anthrax…’

Monty said, ‘That’s right.’

Victor tried to speak. Tried to gather the words. He… It…

Everything slid into darkness.

Emptiness.

And a voice:

‘I think the poor son-of-a-bitch has fainted.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Randy Tuthill saw the cop and the military guy gather around the doctor, sprawled out on the floor. Randy looked out through the window. He had been in the Operations Center off and on over the years, usually trying to solve some last-minute mechanical problem that was bedeviling an aircraft, either in the air or on the ground. At those times the Center had been a low-key place, murmurs of conversation, men and women at the terminals, the low ring of telephones. But now…men and women were racing from desk to terminal, the ringing phones were now a roar, and the chatter of the people out there in the Operations Center almost drowned out the conversations of the Tiger Team guys.

‘General,’ he said.

‘Yeah, Randy,’ the General replied, joining him by the window.

‘You’ve… you’ve got to keep tight control here, sir.’

No reply.

‘Every politician, every nut, every reporter, is going to be calling here and pressuring you and trying to grab a chunk, trying to solve the problem, trying to assign blame, trying to do a lot of shit.’

Randy gestured to the three men in the corner. The doctor was now sitting up. Randy said, ‘Like it or not, if we’re going to take care of this shit-mess it’s going to happen in this room.’

The General turned to him, and Randy felt a little something in him die away. The General looked like he had aged a decade in the last ten minutes.

‘All my years, all the years of my life…I’ve dedicated to protecting this nation and its people. I’ve sacrificed my health, my happiness…I’ve been stationed in places with no running water, with heat so hot it could melt your brain at noon on the flight line, and I’ve been in places so cold that lubricants turned into jelly. I…’

He couldn’t go on. Randy reached over, grabbed his shoulder. ‘General, please.’

The General shook off Randy’s hand. ‘And now I’m about to kill millions of my countrymen…’

There was motion at the other end of the room. It looked like the doctor was now back on his feet. Randy again squeezed the shoulder of the man who’d been his superior officer for all these years.

‘Don’t give up now, General. Don’t give up now.’

The General nodded briskly. ‘I’ll do my best. You can count on that.’

‘Of course.’

At the Peterson Air Force Base Lt General McKenna was on a conference call with his boss of bosses, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Chairman’s boss, a former governor who was now orbiting a patch of Albertan prairie land, hundreds of miles away.

‘McKenna,’ the Chairman said. ‘Are your flights in place?’

‘Affirmative,’ he said.

‘All right. What then?’

‘Awaiting developments, sir, from AirBox and the Tiger Team that’s running the show.’

The Chairman said, ‘Are you comfortable with what they’re doing?’

A hell of a question. McKenna glanced out his office window to the terminals and display screens that were designed to protect this nation and its borders, from the time of the Soviet empire to now, when the threat had been changed to hijacked aircraft being flown into office and government buildings. Now? Nineteen aircraft, airborne biological bombs, and so far, the only defense he and his staff could devise was to blow them out of the sky.

‘No, sir,’ he said finally. ‘No, I’m not. But I’m afraid I don’t have any better ideas.’

The Chairman grunted. ‘Yeah. Who does? All right. We’re trying to work the problem on our end as well. But remember one thing. Those aircraft are not going to fly low enough to release their payloads. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘Very good.’ Then, the Chairman’s voice changed, and he was talking to the other man on the line. ‘Sir? Any questions for General McKenna?’

‘No, not right now,’ the third voice said. ‘Appreciate all you’re doing. Both of you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ the Chairman said.

‘Thank you, sir,’ General McKenna said, though he couldn’t imagine that he would be in this job at the same time tomorrow.

When news was released about the supposed hijacked aircraft in the United States that were carrying anthrax, Mexico, quickly followed by Canada, closed its airspace to United States-flagged aircraft. Japan followed, then the Caribbean nations, France, and lastly, reluctantly, Great Britain.

Victor was helped to his seat. He rubbed his hands together and then rubbed at his face. He was tired and he felt humiliated by what he had done, and he despised the look of pity from the other men in the conference room.

‘I’ll be fine. Honest. Jesus.’

Again, the face, staring at him, waiting for information, waiting for a miracle. It brought back bad memories of his residency, working in the ER during the night shifts, looking at the same expressions from moms who wanted to know if their young boys were going to live, even with the tops of their heads blown off by nine-millimeter bullets. He said, ‘Nineteen aircraft. Where are they?’

The General said, ‘Orbiting at various locations in the southeast, over areas with the least amount of population.’

‘How long can they stay up there?’

‘Another three, four hours. Tops,’ the General said.

Victor said, ‘Can’t they get refueled up there? The Air Force or something?’

Monty shook his head. ‘No. Civilian aircraft. They don’t have aerial-refueling capability.’

Three or four hours…Christ on a crutch…

‘And what happens at the end of the three or four hours?’

Bocks said, ‘They start to descend. And before they get to three thousand feet… the Air Force will shoot them down. They can’t be allowed to let those canisters release the anthrax.’

‘No,’ Victor said.

‘No, what?’ Bocks said.

‘The aircraft. They can’t be shot down.’

The machinist guy, Tuthill, said, ‘Well, yeah, we don’t want them to be shot down. I mean, they’re our guys and—’

Victor said, ‘Excuse me, am I speaking in fucking Latin or something?’

Tuthill’s face reddened. Everyone else kept their stare on him. Monty said, ‘I’m afraid we don’t understand, Victor. Tell us what you mean.’

‘The aircraft. They can’t be shot down.’

‘Tell us more,’ Monty said.

Victor couldn’t believe that they didn’t realize what was going on. He said, ‘Monty. You’re our military whiz, Right?’

Monty said calmly, ‘Yes, I’m the military rep for this Tiger Team. Go ahead.’

‘When the jet tries to shoot down a cargo aircraft like this, how does it happen? Do they have laser beams? Anti-matter disintegrators? When they shoot it down, does everything turn to dust?’

‘No,’ Monty said. ‘You know that.’

‘Maybe I do, but I think you’ve all forgotten. Tell me how the aircraft would be shot down.’

Monty said, ‘There are F-15 Eagles or F-16 Falcons up there, with air-to-air missiles. Probably AIM-9 Sidewinders. If they get the order, they drop back, fire one, maybe two missiles. Heat-seekers. Go right into the engines, explode… aircraft spirals down, breaks up.’

Victor slapped the table for emphasis. ‘Exactly! You damn fools, don’t you see what this means? The fuselage remains intact. It spirals in. Even if the fuselage does start to break up, the canister is in there, self-contained, with its own radio-altimeter-triggered switch, and as it’s spiraling into the ground, sure as shit, gentlemen, that anthrax will be released, no matter how many missiles get fired at those aircraft.’

AirBox personnel might wear the same uniforms and have the same pension plan, and most had the same military background. But in the air that early morning were thirty-eight scared and angry men and women whose company loyalty was under a severe strain.

Among them was Helen Torrinson, the co-pilot aboard AirBox 10, which was currently orbiting a patch of Mississippi sky about twenty thousand feet above Biloxi. With her, in the captain’s seat, was Hank Harmon, also known as ‘Hammerin’ Hank’, not only for his checkered flying past with the Marines but also because of his habit of heading straight to one of Memphis’s nightspots whenever he got back from a flight. Helen — who had flown CM 30 transport aircraft in the Air Force Reserve — knew that in most other carrier companies Hank might have been grounded months ago for his drinking.

But AirBox, as the advertisements liked to point out, wasn’t like any other carrier.

And ever since that ACARS message had come through, Hank had remained pretty quiet for Hank, though Helen had noticed that his face had been turning grayer, with trick-les of perspiration dripping down his cheeks and neck. Her own attempts at conversation had been met with an occasional ‘yeah’ or a grunt as they continued to fly on autopilot.

But it had been the arrival of the F-15s — calling themselves Sword One and Sword Two — that finally triggered something.

Hank had whipped his head back and forth, leaning forward in his seat to get a better view of the escorting fighter jets, and he had started murmuring something, about plots, about death, and Helen had sat there, almost frozen with indecision.

What to do?

And then Hank made the decision for her.

He turned and said, ‘You know we’re dead, don’t you?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Christ, yes,’ he said. ‘We both know this fucking aircraft. You can’t get to those air-conditioning packs, you can’t unplug ’em, you can’t block ’em. If there’s anthrax down there, the only solution is to give those guys flanking us the shoot-down orders.’

‘Hank, we should just give them the time to—’

‘Fuck that. We need to act before they realize that a shoot-down is the only solution. Put on your oxygen mask.’

Helen put on her mask and switched on her microphone, and there was a click-click sound as Hank disconnected the aircraft’s autopilot and associated autothrottles.

Hank turned to her and said, ‘We’re going to get this piece of shit on the deck now!’

His right hand pulled the throttles to idle and extended the aircraft’s speed brakes. As Hank pushed the control yoke forward and lowered the nose, the aircraft’s rate of descent quickly increased.

Over the cockpit’s speaker, Helen heard the voice of one of their escorts: ‘Ah, AirBox Ten, this is Sword One, level off and halt your descent, please.’

Hank keyed the microphone. ‘Houston Center, AirBox Ten, we’re an emergency aircraft and we are now descending for immediate landing at Keesler Air Force Base.’

Helen felt herself being pressed back in the seat as the jet quickly descended. Declaring an in-flight emergency meant that for most intents and purposes Hank was the closest thing to an air god. He and she and this aircraft now had priority for everything, including an immediate clearance to land at any airfield in the vicinity. Hank could pretty much do anything he wanted to get the aircraft on the ground, and it was a hell of a gamble, because once they had landed there would be some serious hell to pay, from the FAA to the military to the General himself.

But they would be on the ground. That was what counted. Yeah, most times it would work.

But this wasn’t most times.

An urgent voice in the earphones: AirBox 10, AirBox 10, this is Sword One, Sword One, immediately resume your previous altitude. Immediately. Please acknowledge.’

Hank said nothing. The ground was approaching. Helen swallowed.

‘Hank?’

Not a word.

The earphones. ‘AirBox 10, AirBox 10, acknowledge. This is Sword One.’

‘Hank…’

‘Fuck them all…’ he said.

Suddenly bright lights flared in front of them…flanking them, reaching out ahead of them.

Tracer fire, from the F-15s’ cannon.

‘AirBox 10, this is Sword One. You will level off immediately. You will climb back to altitude. You will continue to hold.’

‘Or what!’ Hank shouted.

‘Sir, we are authorized to engage. Don’t force us to shoot you down!’

‘Fuck you! You don’t have the balls to shoot down a civilian aircraft! Go ahead, Air Force!’

Helen watched in horror as the altimeter unwound as the jet descended. Twelve thousand feet and lowering…She thought of the anthrax in the belly of her jet. She thought of her husband Tony, her two kids, thought about the Air Force pilots back there, knowing what they had to do… knowing that after 9/11 so many of the rules had been rewritten or tossed out.

‘Hank, pull up! C’mon, they’re going to shoot us down!’

Hank yelled back. ‘Shut up! They don’t have the balls. They’re not gonna do it!’

‘How do you know that? Hank! Pull up.’

‘Shut up!’

Ten thousand feet.

‘AirBox 10, Sword One. Your last warning. We are weapons hot, repeat, we are weapons hot.’

Eight thousand.

What to do, what to do — a fight in the cockpit? Helen remembered that Egypt Air flight years back, when the copilot flew the jet right into the ocean, even with the pilot struggling with him and the controls… Hank was taller than her, stronger, and thirty pounds heavier… it wouldn’t work.

Seven thousand.

‘AirBox 10! Last warning!’

Six thousand feet.

‘AirBox 10!’

Five thousand, five hundred.

Helen rotated in her seat, reached up back against her seat restraints…reached out, fingertips barely touching, Hank busy with flying…

There. Grabbed it.

‘Sweet Jesus, forgive me,’ she breathed. Then she bashed in the back of Hank’s head with the emergency crash ax.

And bashed him again.

And again.

She dropped the ax, grabbed the controls so she was now in command of the aircraft, started pulling back on the control yoke and adding power.

Helen keyed the microphone switch, saying, breathing heavily, ‘This is AirBox 10… AirBox 10… we’re climbing… we’re climbing back to altitude…’

There seemed to be relief in the F-15 pilot’s voice. ‘Roger, AirBox 10. Good job. We’ll get through this together. This is Sword One.’

She looked over, at the slumped figure of Hank, at the blood on his shirt, blood on the panel, blood on the windscreen.

‘Sword One — to hell with you. I’ve just killed my pilot — and you’re going to land and be alive today… which is more than I can be sure of for myself.’

Sword One didn’t answer.

Monty looked at the flushed face of Victor, at the other faces of Brian and the General and Randy, the machinist. He said, ‘General, what will those pilots do when they get low on fuel?’

Bocks said, ‘What do you think they’ll do? What any one of us would do in the same spot. They’re going to try to land. They’re going to try to dodge their fighter escorts, fruitless as that’ll be.’

Land… of course they’ll try to land, Monty thought. What else would they do?

Land.

At an airbase.

Lots of airbases he’d been at over the years, busy ones like Offut and Eglin and Wright-Patterson. And, of course, lots of empty and quiet ones like—

Shit.

Empty ones.

Lots of empty ones.

‘Doc!’

‘Yes, Monty?’

‘The anthrax — how long does it stay in the atmosphere?’

‘A few hours — maybe four or five.’

‘And where does it go after that?’

Victor said, ‘Then it comes to rest on the ground.’

‘Still dangerous on the ground?’

‘Sure,’ the doctor said. ‘But in the air is where it’s most dangerous. When it’s on the ground you can protect yourself through normal decontamination efforts.’

‘How far can the anthrax spores travel when it’s airborne?’

‘All depends on the wind. Several miles…less, if there’s no breeze.’

Monty felt a little flicker of excitement kindle inside him. Maybe. Just fucking maybe.

‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘We’re going for a quick walk.’

He stood up and opened the conference-room door, stepped outside to the Operations Center. There was a low roar made up of phones ringing, people talking, keyboards being tapped, men and women, delivering and picking up messages as they moved back and forth. Monty gestured to the large display screen, depicting North America and parts of the Caribbean. Up on the screen, the triangular icons marking the orbiting AirBox flights were highlighted.

‘Look, I see at least two AirBox flights out in northern Texas. Am I right.’

The General said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. So what?’

‘General, the so-what is where those two aircraft can go. They fly an hour west, they can hit a base I’ve trained at when I was detached to Air Force Special Ops. Tyler, used to be an Army Air Corps base back in the 1940s. Nothing there now except tumbleweed, coyotes, and a runway.’

In the span of those few seconds, Victor’s color improved and it looked like he was standing taller.

‘Good Christ — they could land there, let the anthrax get released…’

Monty slapped the sweating doctor on the back. ‘Sure as hell, and there’s nobody out there. Nobody.’

Victor turned to him, eyes bright. ‘There must be other bases. Am I right?’

‘Shit yes, if there’s something this country is full of it’s military bases. Get me a phone and I’ll starting making calls to that Northern Command general. If we’re lucky, doc, we’ll start getting these aircraft on the ground, no fuss, no muss, and no civilian casualties.’

Randy and Brian and the General looked like they were family members at an ER ward, suddenly being told that the body in the morgue wasn’t their dad but somebody else.

Monty looked back up at the screen, looked at the icons, and then saw one little triangular light that was orbiting over a part of Georgia.

His hands seemed frozen. In front of him a serious-looking young man was tapping at a terminal that had a miniature display of the wall screen. Monty bent down to him and said, ‘Son?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You know where those jets are, the ones shown up on the screen?’

‘Sure.’

‘The one in Georgia. Can you tell me — is it anywhere near a town called Miller’s Crossing?’ Where his aunt lived. Where Charlene and the two girls were staying.

The guy worked the keyboard, shook his head. ‘Nope, it’s not near it.’

‘Oh.’ The relief going through him made Monty feel giddy.

And the feeling lasted only a moment.

The guy said, ‘The damn jet’s nearly orbiting on top of it.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

General McKenna of Northern Command hung up the phone and looked across to his adjutant, Colonel Madeline Anson. ‘We might have a solution.’

‘Sir?’

‘Cross-check with the information we’re getting from Air Traffic Control and AirBox. Get the locations of those aircraft, their fuel states, and see what airbases we have within flight range of the aircraft. I want a listing of airbases in abandoned areas, old airstrips, anything and everything that can handle those aircraft types. Hell, even if it’s a stretch of highway in a remote part of Texas or Oklahoma or South Dakota…’

Colonel Anson got up. ‘I see. If we can land those aircraft in unpopulated areas…’

‘Then we’re good to go. The anthrax gets sprayed out and nobody gets hurt.’

‘Some of these places, our personnel might have to get into MOP suits. And the decontamination process afterwards…’

McKenna said, ‘A hell of a challenge, I know. But a better challenge than trying to explain to NBC or CBS or ABC how we came to shoot down civilian aircraft when we had a better option. Get to it, colonel.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Victor Palmer pulled General Bocks aside and said, ‘Your crews. To protect themselves, they need to wear their oxygen masks as they land.’

‘Got it.’

‘Oh. One more thing. How good are your pilots?’

‘Most of them are ex-military. Lot of hours flying fighters or transport aircraft. Why?’

‘I’m not familiar with the language of the flying… but it’s important that they land in a way that minimizes the release of the anthrax.’

‘In what way?’

Victor said, ‘I’m not the flying expert, General. All I know is that if you can get them to land… well, in a way that they wouldn’t normally do. I mean, they usually land straight on, right? That means the anthrax is spread out in a wide stream. But if they can land… well, tight, like a corkscrew… it means the footprint of the anthrax contamination will be that much smaller.’

Bocks said, ‘It’s tough flying. Most of them haven’t maneuvered a jet like that in years. And never in a transport aircraft.’

Victor said, ‘I know, General. But it could mean a better chance of reducing the area of contamination. Can it be done?’

The General rubbed at his face, and Victor felt a sudden burst of sympathy for the poor man, whose aircraft and entire company had been hijacked by a cruel fate.

‘Yes, it can be done,’ he said.

Aboard AirBox 101, which had been orbiting south of Imperial, Texas, Pete Renzi, a former Navy pilot, saw that his co-pilot, Jack Shaefer, already had his oxygen mask on. Pete said, ‘Ready to land?’

Jack was sweating. ‘Shit, yes, let’s put this damn piece of metal on the ground.’

Pete donned his own oxygen mask and glanced once more at the ACARS message that had come across a half-hour ago. Proceed along such and such a course, arrive near abandoned Army Air Corps base, and land this lumbering cargo jet like a stunt pilot flying an acrobatic machine. He hadn’t flown like that for more than ten years… it was going to be a hell of a thing.

‘All right,’ Pete said. All right, we’re over the field. Let’s get ready to start this abortion.’

‘You got it.’

‘Very good.’

Pete pulled the engine throttles to idle and rolled into a banking maneuver, letting the nose of the aircraft fall below the horizon in one smooth move. Breathing the cold and rubbery-tasting air, he saw the airspeed increase to 250 knots and he extended the plane’s speed brakes. The trick, he thought, was to keep the spiral tight but not to exceed the two-and-a-half-G limit for aircraft like theirs. Anything under two and a half times the force of gravity was fine… anything more than that, well, he thought, they’d see just how damn good the maintenance crews were in keeping routine repairs updated.

But there were no G-meters in this aircraft; Pete would have to bring her in on experience and instinct alone, keeping the banking motion of the turn at a constant sixty-degree angle; anything too much higher than that and he and Jack and several tons of debris would be scattered over this desert floor…

Pete watched the airspeed and attitude gyro indicator as he dove the aircraft to the left. The desert landscape below them appeared to tilt up as they moved in a corkscrew, descending to the ground. The G-forces pushed both of them back into their seats. Thank God it was just him and Jack on this baby. A passenger flight would have had the passengers gripping their armrests and screaming in terror. Jack kept up the chatter as Pete kept the downward spiral as tight as possible, Jack’s voice sounding muffled through the oxygen mask as he read out their altitude and rate of descent.

‘Ten thousand feet,’ Jack called out. ‘Six thousand feet per minute down.’

The land continued to spin around. Pete forced himself to scan outside and then back inside to the instruments. Ignore everything else.

At four thousand feet it was time… time to descend as rapidly as possible and, then pull out at the last minute to attempt a type of landing that was so crazy they didn’t even bother to train for it in the simulators.

His co-pilot said, ‘Gear’s down, flaps thirty, landing checklist complete.’

Pete said, ‘Let’s do it.’

He pulled the throttles to idle, lowered the nose and extended the speed brakes. The aircraft, as one of his old instructors would have said, started to come down like a ton of shit.

Jack called out, ‘Three thousand feet!’

‘Roger,’ Pete said, as he retracted the speed brakes and started the turn to the final approach.

There you go, he thought. Below three thousand feet and somewhere in the belly of his aircraft — his responsibility! -anthrax was now spraying out. A few hours ago their original destination had been Los Angeles; he refused to think of how many would have ended up dead because of him if they hadn’t been stopped in time.

The aircraft seemed to vibrate more as they quickly lost altitude. Ahead of them was the narrow runway, and at five hundred feet they were now on final approach. Pete lined up the aircraft with the fast-approaching runway and increased throttle speed, to reduce their descent speed.

Jack was murmuring something, over and over, and Pete realized that the poor guy was praying…

A hard shudder, a screech.

Touchdown.

Things moved very quickly then. As the spoilers were deployed, Pete engaged full reverse on the engines, and pushed his feet down on the brake pedals for maximum braking. These old military fields were so damn short.

The plane vibrated some more as it started to roll to a halt. It was a bright, sunny day in the desert, and as they slowed and finally stopped Pete started breathing in the oxygen harder, thinking that he had never tasted anything so fine. The airstrip was deserted. Not even a single building. Well, so what? They were alive

As the engines whined down there was a thud-roar and another thud-roar, and he looked up. Two F-15s were rolling up and out above them, after giving them a close flyby.

‘What the hell was that?’ Jack asked.

‘Victory roll,’ Pete said.

‘Victory? Victory for what?’

Pete picked up a checklist, let it fall. For later.

‘Victory for not having to shoot us down,’ he said.

As they descended into their approach, Karen Hollister of AirBox 88 said to her co-pilot Mark LaMontagne, ‘We get through this, want to go to unemployment together tomorrow?’

His voice sounded odd through the oxygen mask: ‘What do you mean?’

She couldn’t believe that she laughed, but what else was there to do? ‘You think AirBox is going to be in business this time next week?’

‘Huh?’

‘Mark, old boy, a bunch of AirBox aircraft have been carrying anthrax for the past few hours. Do you think that’s a keen strategy for keeping our market share?’

Mark coughed. ‘Shit. Hadn’t thought about that.’

‘Plenty of time to do that later. Let’s go.’

And though this was going to be a landing for the record books and news magazines, it ended up being pretty routine. The touchdown was just a tad rough but when they were done, the plane at a halt, the landscape flat and pretty much abandoned, Karen sat back, breathing hard.

‘Not bad, eh?’ she asked.

Mark looked out the side windscreen. ‘Got to hand it to you, Karen. You put us down like you’ve done this before.’

‘Not hardly. Look. Company coming.’

Flashing blue lights ahead of them. Getting closer. Vehicles, of course.

In a couple of minutes, the lights were close enough to make them out.

South Dakota Highway Patrol.

Which made sense, for right now AirBox 88 was smack dab in the middle of a stretch of Interstate 90.

‘Hope you got your license with you,’ she said to her co-pilot as the state troopers came up to them. ‘Hate to be arrested for landing without a license.’

Mark didn’t laugh — which made some sense, for the troopers below them looked odd.

All of them were wearing gas masks.

Air Force Major Terrence Walker was standing out on the flight line, moving clumsily in full MOP gear, gas mask and gas suit, as he and his small staff — all of them wearing the same gear — waited near a Humvee. There was one small building next to the long runway, with satellite dishes and radio antennas on its roof.

Captain Cooper leaned toward him, his voice muffled through the gas mask. ‘Still can’t believe they’re ending up here,’

‘Good a place as any. Look. Here they come.’

Walker looked up as the aircraft — AirBox 12 — started its descent, coming down like a goddamn brick. He hoped they could pull this off because there was nothing here to help them — this small base in Colorado tested weather-monitoring equipment for the Air Force, and didn’t even have a control tower or crash equipment — but it was going to have to work.

Somebody said, ‘C’mon, hoss, ease her on down,’ and so they waited.

Eugene Williams was the co-pilot of AirBox 12, and earlier he had said to his pilot, ‘Alex, I really think I should take her in. I’ve had the experience. You haven’t.’

And AirBox 12’s pilot Alex Hinz had replied in his clipped, accented voice: ‘No more talk, please. Prepare for landing.’

Stupid moron, Eugene thought, as he started reading out the altitude, rate of descent and airspeed of AirBox 12. He had flown F-16s before being RIFed out from the Air Force three years ago, and knew how to put an aircraft thought its paces. But Alex had flown some in the German Air Force and for Lufthansa, before ending up in the States and AirBox. He was a typical European pilot: follow all the rules and procedures, even if it meant killing you. Like the SwissAir flight that had gone down near Nova Scotia some years ago. Bastards had indication of fire somewhere in the plane, and they wasted time getting the passengers ready for landing, picking up meal trays, trying to troubleshoot the problem, following everything nice and procedure-like instead of landing the damn thing, until they—

‘Alex, we’re at five hundred, sinking 1500 and 10 knots slow.’

No reply. Just a grunt.

‘Alex, we’re at four hundred, sinking 1500 and 15 slow!’

No reply

‘We need power!’ Eugene shouted.

From the Humvee, an alarm started going Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!, causing Major Cooper to jump. He shouted out, ‘What the hell is that alarm?’

‘Bio alarm,’ came the voice. ‘It’s detecting anthrax.’

‘Shit, of course it is. We knew that. Shut the damn thing down.’

And he turned back to the approaching aircraft and saw the disaster unfold.

Eugene shouted, ‘Alex, we need power, we need power now!’

He reached over and pushed the throttles full forward to the stops and—

— And the last thing that was heard on the cockpit recording system — the infamous black box — reconstructed months later by the National Transportation Safety Board: ‘Oh, you stupid cocksucker, I told you—’

Major Cooper thought to himself, if I live another hundred years, please don’t let me see anything like this, ever again, as AirBox 12 started to pull out late from its descent at the end of the runway. For a moment it looked like it was going to make it, and then the aircraft’s right wing dropped suddenly, smacked the ground, crumpled, and in a flash, the jet and its crew and its cargo disappeared in a billowing black greasy cloud of smoke and orange flames.

Cooper and his crew ducked behind the Humvee as the roar of the explosion reached them, the ground shaking from the impact. It took long minutes afterwards before anyone was calm enough to use their communications gear and contact Northern Command about what had happened.

Adrianna Scott looked in the mirror of the restroom at the highway rest stop somewhere in Michigan, liked what she saw. She had spent some long minutes in a stall, listening to the nervous chatter of other traveling women and girls. She’d worked quietly and efficiently, doing everything that she had planned to do, all those years ago, all those long years that started in Baghdad when she had gathered up some belongings and valuables and had gone to Jordan. A journey of walking, hitching rides, and fending off the advances of the noble Arab men who had wanted to fuck her as she made her way west.

And from Jordan into Israel, where she had portrayed herself — rightfully! — as a Christian refugee. A small Christian community in Bethlehem had helped her fly to the United States, to Cincinnati, and in those hours and days and weeks of travel she had planned her revenge so carefully that she had somehow known, even back then, that it would end like this.

Before her in the mirror, through her own talents and the help of the nice people at the CIA’s Technical Services Division, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned woman gazed out confidently. The hair she had trimmed and colored herself. The eye color was from contacts. The skin color was a dye job, and even her fingerprints were no longer hers, through a temporary skin graft job with artificial skin that made her into somebody else.

That somebody else, according to a Michigan driver’s license, was one Dolores Benjamin. Adrianna Scott no longer existed.

And as she walked out of the restroom she knew that somehow, in the next few months, in her new home, Aliyah Fulenz would finally be allowed to live again.

Randy Tuthill was standing next to the General when there seemed to be a sudden intake of breath and a sigh, as one of the AirBox icons, set over Colorado, began flashing red. The ringing of phones reached a crescendo and the General was passed one. He took the message. Randy couldn’t make out the General’s words, but what he saw was enough: Bocks closed his eyes and nodded and seemed to shrink four or five inches in size, right before Randy’s eyes.

The General let the phone fall back into the cradle as Randy went to him and said, ‘Colorado?’

‘Yeah. AirBox 12. Augered right into the end of the runway at an Air Force installation.’

Randy gripped his friend’s shoulder. Bocks shook it off. Randy said, ‘If you want, sir, I can start making the calls and—’

‘Not your place, Randy, not at all,’ Bocks said, straightening himself up. ‘It’s my call. My company. My fault they’re dead.’

‘General, if it’s anybody fault, it’s—’

‘Randy, I’ll make the calls. But later.’ The General turned his head to the display board and said, his voice bleak, ‘I’m afraid there’re going to be more calls later. Look up there, Randy. Look at the board. Those planes aren’t getting to the ground quick enough.’

Brian Doyle sat next to Monty Zane as Monty worked the phones and keyboards with a vengeance, cursing, plotting and planning. Brian’s chest ached and he’d just realized his underwear was damp — he’d probably pissed himself falling off that balcony and wasn’t embarrassed by it, for who wouldn’t have pissed themselves in such a situation? — but he didn’t want to move. He had hardly anything to do now but he liked being in Monty’s company. He thought if the NYPD had a half-dozen guys like Monty working for them the crime level would go so low that it would even impress old Giuliani and his crew.

‘Fuck,’ Monty said, slamming down the phone. Then he leaned back in his chair, stretching out his arms.

‘What you got?’ Brian asked.

‘What I got, my friend, is the problem of fuel versus geography, and fucking geography is winning.’

‘Go on.’

Monty raised a hand toward the display screen. ‘We’ve been putting these aircraft down where we can, at deserted airfields, remote strips without many people around, and even a couple of stretches of Interstate. But we still have a fair amount in the southeast and middle Atlantic seaboard. It’s pretty crowded out there, Brian. Not many places to put down, and man, we are running out of time and fuel.’

Brian looked at the board, looked at the triangles that represented the airborne cargo planes. There were fewer up there than before, but Monty was right. There were still too many. He recalled seeing other display boards in the past, during the COMSTAT precinct meetings, another bit of Giuliani history. Precincts could no longer make do simply with shuffling paper and ignoring statistics. COMSTAT put up your history against everybody else’s and there was no hiding, no excuses. Brian remembered one of the first times his precinct chief came back, cursing, saying it wasn’t fair that he was up against another precinct, because that other precinct had a shitload of vacant lots, and of course they’d have a better burglary rate, because what the hell was there to burgle in an empty lot?

He looked again at the map, at the southern and eastern states, at the icons marking the AirBox aircraft. A little flashing light, carrying all that death, all over the crowded United States, no place to run to, no place to go, no place…

Empty.

Not a place.

Monty was on the phone again and Brian reached over, pressed the receiver button down, disconnecting Monty. The big man’s eyes flashed with anger and he said, ‘Brian, what the fuck was that?’

‘The ocean,’ Brian said.

‘The fuck you mean, the ocean?’

‘The jets…why can’t they go over the ocean and let the anthrax dump out there?’

‘Case you haven’t learned, there’s not many landing strips out in the middle of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.’

‘But they wouldn’t have to land, would they? Shit, Monty, all they’d have to do is fly in circles over a patch of water, let the anthrax spray out, and then head to land when the canisters were empty. Right?’

Monty stared at Brian for what seemed like a long time. Then he yelled out, ‘Doc Palmer! Get your ass over here! Now!’

Carrie Floyd looked at the ground below her, several thousand feet and a lifetime away. Pennsylvania. Definitely not Boston and definitely not home. She raised her head, saw the patient escorts out there, the proud F-16s that were ready to blow her and Sean out of the sky.

She said, ‘Find anything out?’

Sean said, ‘Dispatch is quiet. I’ve been trying to pick up some of the local radio stations. Getting a CNN feed every now and then.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Well, we and the eighteen others are the lead story. Funny about that. Foreign airspace’s been closed to all American flights. Stock market will be closed today, people are bailing out of cities, it’s being called the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11.’

‘Should have kept my mouth shut.’

Sean said, ‘Well, there is a bit of good news. Some of the AirBox flights, the ones headed to Seattle or LA or Salt Lake City, they’ve been able to divert them to empty airstrips out in the desert. Landing with no problem.’

‘Lucky bastards.’

‘You got that,’ he said.

Carrie tilted the aircraft, just a bit. Farmland and towns and highways, as far as the eye could see. ‘Not much desert down there. Or emptiness.’

‘Alaska,’ Sean said.

‘What?’

Sean said, lips tight. ‘Lots of empty places in Alaska. Lots.’

She reached over, grabbed a hand, squeezed. ‘Let’s say we quit this gig later today and go to Alaska tomorrow. The three of us. You and me and Susan.’

Sean just nodded. Carrie thought she saw that his eyes were filling up. She released his hand and went back to the day’s flying, boring holes in the sky, waiting for instructions, waiting for rescue, waiting for those F-16s to drop back and do their jobs.

Victor Palmer listened to Monty and said, ‘Yes… I think it’d work.’

‘How much time before the canisters empty out?’

‘Twenty minutes, to be on the safe side. But you need to make sure that stretch of ocean is empty. Ah, the Coast Guard or Navy will have to be contacted. Get shipping out of the area.’

Monty went back to the desk he had taken over, picked up some handwritten notes. ‘Tight. Christ, it’ll be tight.’

Victor said, ‘Do it. Just do it.’

Monty started making a call. ‘It’ll be done.’

At Northern Command, Lt General McKenna was on the phone with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He said, ‘Sir, we’re making progress. We’ve got just over half the planes on the ground. And I’ve been advised that the Tiger Team is working on a way to handle the other aircraft by vectoring them out to the ocean. Apparently the anthrax will be dumped over the water. Hell of a better place than down-town DC or Philadelphia.’

The Chairman said, ‘All right, Mike. I’ve got a briefing with the Man in five minutes. I’ll tell him about the progress…but Mike, those aircraft have got to be out of the air within two hours. Or you’ll be taking them out for us before those pilots try to land them someplace populated. Understood?’

‘Absolutely, sir.’

Aboard AirBox 10, Helen Torrinson flew south, lowering the aircraft towards the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Off to starboard she could make out oil-drilling rigs, but she didn’t care about them, not at all. She had gotten the instructions from ACARS and from Houston Air Traffic Control on where to go and how to do it, and she knew that back there were two F-15s, making sure that she went where she was told.

Part of her — a part no doubt corrupted by her captain — thought that this was probably all just a ruse. The DoD probably wanted her and the other AirBox planes to head out over the ocean so they could be shot down without any problems, without any witnesses.

Beside her, the body of Hammerin’ Hank lay still, slumped back in his shoulder straps. She was grateful that at least his bloodied head was turned to the left so she didn’t have to look at his face.

Helen checked the altimeter. She was dropping below one thousand, was now at nine hundred, and when she got to five hundred feet, she leveled off the aircraft. Twenty minutes. She was to fly for twenty minutes.

Which was what she did. She checked the time, watched as each minute slipped by, wondering if this was going to be the minute when an air-to-air missile ripped through her aircraft’s engines.

But the minutes still slipped away, and when the twenty-minute mark had been reached her earphones crackled with a message.

‘AirBox Ten, this is Houston Center. You’re cleared directly to Hutchinson Field, Louisiana. Initial heading zero-one-zero, climb to one-five thousand.’

‘Roger, direct Hutchinson Field, and fifteen thousand,’ Helen said, keeping her voice curt and proper. She’d be goddamned if she was going to be grateful to somebody who was ready to help the Air Force drop her plane and kill her without warning.

She went to her kit bag and pulled out the approach charts that would help guide her into Hutchinson Field, wherever the hell that was. Then she turned her head to the left.

‘Oh, you stupid bastard,’ Helen said to the body of her pilot. ‘Why did you have to be so goddamn impatient?’

Aboard the shrimp boat Flanagan, out of Metairie, Louisiana, Georges Bouchard stepped out of the pilot house as the jet aircraft roared nearby, almost passing right over their heads. His two boys, Henri and Louis, were at the stern, and they looked up as well as the jet circled around, and kept on circ-ling around, at a low altitude.

‘What’s up with that plane, eh, papa?’ Henri called up to him. Henri and his younger brother were shirtless, tanned, and Georges felt such pride, seeing those boys who would carry on the family name and business for years to come.

‘Not sure,’ he said, shading his eyes with his hand. ‘It doesn’t seem to be in trouble…look…it’s going away now.’

The jet flew off to the north, and Georges noticed two things: the first was that it looked like two fighter jets were flying with the larger jet as well, something he hadn’t noticed earlier.

The second was that something was tickling his throat. He swallowed, and then went into the pilot house to drink from a plastic jug of water and clear his throat. The water was kept on a wooden shelf underneath the radio, which had been acting up since they had left port nearly a week ago. The water went down well enough, but something still tickled back there.

By that night, Georges and his boys were ill, very ill, breathing hard, coughing. And by the next morning the Flanagan, named after his wife’s family, was wallowing in the Gulf Stream, crewed only by corpses.

The shrimper was boarded some time later by the Coast Guard. It was burned down to the waterline and sunk, along with its dead crew, as soon as night fell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Homeland Security Deputy Director Jason Janwick hung the phone up, saw the expectant faces of his crew, sitting there, looking at him for answers. He said, ‘That was the Secretary. Due to time constraints, this emergency is still ours to manage.’

‘Sir?’ one of his people asked.

‘It’s like this,’ he explained. ‘Like the Secretary said, there isn’t time for him or for anybody else to catch up on what’s happening. One way or another, this sick puppy is going to be done with in an hour or so. So it’s ours to solve, or it’s ours to fuck up. Let’s make the right choice. Sam? Status.’

Sam Pope, his IT guy, said, ‘It looks like the AirBox guys and that Tiger Team have taken care of the majority of the AirBox flights. Either they’ve been able to land at airstrips with minimal population density, or some have flown out over the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. But there’s still a handful up in the air.’

‘Where?’

‘Pennsylvania. Missouri. Kentucky. They’re conserving fuel and holding in orbits but… soon enough, they’re going to be running out of fuel. That means they’re going to come back to earth, and there’s not much unpopulated land where they are. The choice is… the choice is not a good one.’

‘Explain.’

‘Sir, when the fuel is at a certain limit those pilots are going to descend and pick the nearest airfield. There aren’t that many airfields in those areas that don’t have some populated areas around them. The choice, then, is to direct them to those airfields or… or direct them someplace else, where the population density is low, thereby reducing anthrax exposure. Like a federal park or wilderness area. A mountain range, for example.’

Janwick said, ‘And what then, after they’re over a minimally populated area?’

Pope’s voice was just a touched strained. ‘Then, sir, they would have to be shot down. I doubt the pilots will crash into the side of a mountain on anyone’s say-so.’

Janwick nodded. ‘Yeah. I figured that out a while ago. Just wanted to see if anybody else had any better answers. Well, the shoot-down order is out of our hands. But we’ll still be making a recommendation. In the meantime…Gail?’

‘Sir?’ answered Gail Crayson, his Public Health adviser.

‘Two things,’ he said. ‘First, we need to get Public Health resources into those states as of yesterday. Hazmat teams, medical assistance to area hospitals, Cipro stocks moving in… everything and anything that’s needed to nip this anthrax exposure in the bud once it gets sprayed. If we can keep the exposure areas to those three states, we’ll be lucky indeed.’

‘You got it, sir,’ she said. ‘And your second request?’

‘Time is running out,’ he added. ‘Determine the locations of those remaining airborne aircraft, see what areas they’re orbiting, and for those areas I want a seal-and-remain advisory going out, as soon as possible.’

She said, ‘We’ll lose some people, you know. They’ll seal up their rooms too tight with plastic wrap and duct tape. They will suffocate.’

‘Yeah. But if that anthrax gets sprayed out in the next hour or so, we could save thousands. Which is what we’re going to do. Get those advisories out now, Gail.’

‘Yes, sir.’

In her vehicle, still heading north and thankfully away from the chaos unfolding in some parts of this cursed country, Adrianna Scott made it a point to listen to the news at the top of the hour, usually getting a CNN or AP news feed. She knew that she was tired and still had hours of driving ahead of her, but oh, was she pleased at what she was hearing.

She looked at the dashboard clock. It was seven a.m. Pretty soon those AirBox aircraft out there would be falling from the sky, no matter what, and there was no way that this day wouldn’t end with thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, exposed and later dying.

Time for the news. On went the radio, on went the woman announcer from CNN, who seemed like she wanted to cry: . . Homeland Security has issued an advisory to a number of counties in the states of Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania. Residents in these counties are advised to remain indoors and close all doors and windows. Close dampers and flues to fireplaces. If possible, go into a room or basement with no windows. If you do not have a room or basement without windows, remain in a room and tape the windows closed. In any event, the advisory states that people in these counties need to be in a place with no openings to the outside. The counties affected are—’

Adrianna turned off the radio, sighed with satisfaction, and continued driving.

Monty put the pen down, raised his head and rubbed at his eyes. It was done, as much as could be done. He looked to the display board and all that was written up there was failure.

‘Doc,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, Monty.’

‘Worst-case scenario, how many deaths we got flying up there?’

And for once in his life, Monty thought, the good doctor didn’t dance around or try to rewrite the question. ‘Each canister has enough to infect about fifteen to twenty thou-sand people, if properly dispersed. Let’s say about a hundred thousand, in total.’

Monty heard the machinist guy whisper in awe, ‘A hundred fucking thousand…’

Yet the doctor wasn’t finished.

‘But that’s not the problem. The problem is what happens afterwards. You can’t expect people, once they get sick, to sit still at home. They’ll be heading out to hospitals, clinics, their mama’s house. Even with roads cut off by the National Guard and police forces, people will still get through, unless there’s a shoot-on-sight order, which I doubt this or any other President will issue. Which means more and more infections, more spread of the disease. By the end of a week,- we could have a half-million infected, with more to come.’

Monty kept his eye on the display screen. Just three aircraft. And he had a brief bout of nausea, thinking what might have happened if all the AirBox aircraft had taken off, and if this damn thing hadn’t been uncovered. Scores of aircraft would be descending over major cities right now, infecting millions upon millions…

‘Mister Zane.’

He turned as General Bocks rolled his own chair over to him. ‘Our crews have less than an hour’s flight time. Pretty soon, unless we tell them otherwise, those aircraft are coming down. What is to be done?’

Monty felt that nausea return. He swallowed, nodded, knew the harsh advice he had gotten from Homeland Security was the only thing left to do. ‘Sir…there is no choice… we have to vector those aircraft away from populated areas, to send them to mountain ranges or state or federal parks…and then I’m going to order those three aircraft shot down.’

‘You are, are you?’ Bocks said. ‘You’re going to kill six of my people, just like that?’

‘No, sir, not just like that,’ Monty said. ‘I’m going to kill those six people after a lot of agonizing thoughts, and I’m going to kill those six people so that six thousand or six hundred thousand aren’t dead this time next week. That’s what I’m going to do.’

‘The hell you will,’ Bocks said.

‘The hell I won’t,’ Monty said.

Bocks picked up a phone. ‘You’re not listening to me, Mister Zane. Those are my people, my aircraft up there. I’m the one who’s going to give the order. Not you.’

Steve Jayson of AirBox 15 couldn’t believe who he was hearing in his earphones so he said, ‘Ah, Dispatch, this is AirBox 15, repeat last, over.’

His pilot, Trent Mueller, glanced over at him with a questioning look, and then the voice came again. ‘Guys, this is General Bocks calling in. Can the both of you hear me?’

Steve toggled the microphone switch on the control yoke. ‘Sir, you’ve got us both. Go ahead.’

The General cleared his throat. ‘Guys, I’m not going to sugarcoat a damn thing. You’re in a hell of a spot. A hell of a spot due to decisions I made, bad decisions based on…well, that sounds like an excuse, and this isn’t the time for excuses.’

Fucking understatement of the year, Steve thought to himself. The General said, ‘We’ve gotten most of you safely on the ground. But there’s you and two other flights. Guys, we’re running out of time, and you’re running out of fuel. Those are hard facts. I’m sorry. But we’ve got to send you… we’ve got to send you over the remotest area that’s nearby. We’re going to have you head out to the Ozarks… we’re still trying to come to an answer, we haven’t given up yet, but if we don’t have that answer… we’re going to need you to be over the mountains. Do you understand?’

It was Trent’s turn to reply. ‘Sir, we understand. And I need to know something… sir.’

‘Go ahead, son.’

‘Our families. We need to know that our families will be taken care of. Get everything they need. No bullshit or stalling.’

Bocks said, ‘You got it. No bullshit or stalling. My personal guarantee.’

Trent said, ‘Then you’ll see us over the Ozarks, General. AirBox 15, out.’

Hugh Glynn was the captain of AirBox 22, and when the general signed off the air, his co-pilot, Stacy Moore, said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand that. What the hell was that all about?’

Hugh said, ‘We’re heading for the Smoky Mountains, Stacy. What else do you need to know?’

‘And what are we going to do when we get there?’

Hugh liked Stacy, had flown with her for several months, admired her skill as a co-pilot and her eye for details, but when it came to the big picture… Jesus. Sometimes she was as thick as a plank. He rubbed at his chest. Damned indigestion was coming back again… he was going to visit his doctor later this week but his schedule looked pretty damn full over the next seventy or so minutes.

‘What do you think?’

‘Our fuel is… oh… oh, no… please…’

‘Stacy, we’re heading to the Smokies. Get the charts out, all right?’

No answer.

Hugh looked over. Tears were in her eyes. ‘Stacy, we need those charts.’

He waited. Wondered what she was going to do. Wondered how this was going to end.

And then Stacy went to her chart pack, and for some reason Hugh felt good, even with the discomfort in his chest. They would go out as professionals. Not in a panicked frenzy.

Something to be happy about, at least.

Carrie Floyd of AirBox 107 sat in silence as they continued to go around in circles. For once Sean was silent as well. They had just gotten off the horn with General Bocks himself, and the brief conversation had just laid it out there. Nowhere to go, nowhere to land. But in a while it would be done. No doubt about that.

She looked at the fuel gauges. Less than an hour to go. Some decisions could be put off, some decisions could be put off forever. But the gauges didn’t lie. They were now outbound to the Poconos, and there was a sort of grim sense of humor there, about her and Sean ending up in that honeymoon paradise, no doubt to be spread over a few mountain peaks in a tumble of wreckage and scorched protein.

And all because of fuel. Ah, the gift of fuel. If there had been some way of getting more fuel into their aircraft, they could stay up another six, eight, twelve hours, with no problem. Oh, shit, they’d be cramped and hungry, but at least they’d be alive. Give the folks on the ground more time to figure out what in hell to do with the little canisters of death they were carrying back there. She recalled all the times back in the Navy, flying the S-3 Viking, and the comfort of knowing that there were usually airborne fueling stations out there, other Vikings modified to carry fuel, Air Force KC-135s and KC-10s, all ready to lower a boom and give you all the fuel you needed.

Fuel. A lifesaver.

God, such a lifesaver.

Carrie rubbed at her tired eyes, stopped. Looked out the windscreen. Thought for a moment. Thought again.

Well, she said to herself.

‘Hey,’ she said to her co-pilot.

‘Hey yourself,’ he said.

‘Sean, did I ever tell you about my grandfather, my dad’s dad?’

‘No, Carrie,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘I don’t think you ever did.’

‘Let me tell you about him,’ she said.

Sean shook his head. ‘Sure. Why the hell not? I could use a good story about now.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Name was Frank Floyd. Double-F, they called him, when he flew in the Navy. He was in World War Two. Flew Grumman TBMs. Know what TBMs were?’

‘Nope.’

‘Torpedo aircraft. Flew off aircraft carriers, went against Japanese ships. Especially Japanese aircraft carriers. They carried a single torpedo and their job was to fly low, slow and level, heading towards a target. All the while, they’re being shot at by anti-aircraft fire from Japanese ships. Machine-gun fire, anti-aircraft artillery, exploding shells, shrapnel, all being tossed up in front of them. And if that wasn’t enough, Japanese fighter aircraft — Zeroes — were strafing them as they flew in. They made nice fat targets, because they had to be low and slow to drop their torpedoes, and they couldn’t fly evasively. It was the nearest damn thing to a planned suicide mission that the US Navy ever created.’

‘Carrie, this is all just fascinating stuff, but—’

‘One time,’ she pressed on, ‘right after I joined the Navy, I had a nice long talk with him, just before he died. I had done some reading about the torpedo squadrons and found that on an average mission the pilot and gunner had about a twenty percent chance of coming back alive. Can you believe that? Twenty fucking percent. And they still went out, mission after mission. So I asked him. I said, “Grandpa, how in God’s name did you get in that torpedo bomber each time, knowing what was out there for you?” Know what he said?’

‘No, but I guess you’re going to tell me.’

‘He said a twenty percent chance was better than no chance at all, and that a good pilot would do everything and anything to survive. That’s what he said.’

By now Sean was staring at her, his eyes moist with tears. ‘Carrie, what’s the point? What’s going on?’

She said sharply, ‘The point is, my dear heart, is that we still have time, I’m still a good pilot, and we’re not calling it quits at all. Get Dispatch back up. I want to talk to General Bocks. Right away.’

He said, ‘You think he’ll talk to you?’

‘Sure he will,’ Carrie said.

‘Why?’

‘Because the poor bastard is feeling guilty, and that’s half the battle, right there.’

He said, ‘You’re not going to start—’

‘Sean, hurry up. Please. Trust me on this. I’ve got to talk to him. Now.’

He kept on staring at her, and she knew that he wanted answers, but she didn’t want to start discussing, arguing, or debating. She just wanted the damn general on the line.

Sean pressed the radio switch. ‘Ah, Dispatch, this is AirBox one-oh-seven. I have an unusual request for you…’

Now the four of them were in a conference room, away from the low roar of the Operations Center. Brian sat on one side of the table, looking at the three other men. It was coming to an end, and he was exhausted by it all. He knew what was ahead for him, at least. Possible arrest, probably Congressional investigations, blah blah blah. Maybe he’d get back on the job. Maybe not. But at least he wouldn’t be in a small room, waiting for tens of thousands of Americans to die over the next few days. So much for being a guard for the guardians.

Monty was slumped in a chair, looking out the windows to the display board, and Doctor Palmer sat next to him, staring at his laptop, not moving. General Bocks seemed to be talking to himself, as he said, ‘Bankruptcy. As soon as we can, we’ll declare bankruptcy… sell the assets, try to get some settlement with the lawsuits… set up a trust fund for the families of the crews… Pay for the medical care of those who get sick…’

The doctor shifted slightly in his seat. ‘Monty.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Homeland Security is going to have to be advised where those planes go down. If we’re lucky, we can get a perimeter set up around the crash areas and the anthrax dispersal footprint. We can keep the outbreak to within reasonable limits.’

‘How reasonable?’

‘A thousand, maybe less. If we’re lucky.’

Monty said, ‘Fuck, doc, with luck like that—’

The phone on the conference-room table rang. Bocks picked it up and said, ‘Who? Are you sure?’

He put a hand to his face. ‘Sure. Put her on.’

Brian saw some agony in the General’s eyes, and with something cold starting to spread in his gut he realized that the man was talking to one of his flight crews, one of the doomed flight crews who would be dead within an hour.

‘Yes… Carrie… I’m sure I’ve met you before… thank you for all you’ve done… I understand… but there’s… hold on…’

Then something changed in the General’s expression. Brian leaned forward. The General sat up and said, his voice now entirely changed, ‘Hold on, Carrie. I’m in a conference room with some other people, including a DoD representative and a doctor from the CDC. Hold on.’

The General looked down at the phone and said, ‘Shit, there’s a speakerphone here somewhere… but I sure as hell don’t want to disconnect her… Christ, here we go.’

A button or two were pressed, the handset was replaced, and a hiss of static burst from the speaker. Bocks said, ‘Carrie, can you hear us?’

‘AirBox one-oh-seven is here, General.’

‘Carrie — repeat what you said to me. Please.’

‘All right. Look — we know the score up here. We know there’s not much time. But we’re not ready to roll over and play dead for you or anybody else. Got it?’

‘Yes, Carrie,’ the General said. ‘We got it.’

‘Good. The way I see it, everything comes back to making sure that the anthrax doesn’t reach the ground. Right?’ ‘That’s right,’ Bocks said.

‘I know that sounds simple to you guys, but I’ve been thinking. We can’t get to those damn canisters, we can’t turn them off, we can’t plug them up. So that anthrax is coming out, one way or another. Thing I see is, how do you stop the anthrax from getting to the ground? I think I’ve come up with something… shit, I know I’ve come up with something, and sorry, Mr FAA, for that little slip back there…’

Now Monty and Victor were staring at the speakerphone, and Brian thought they looked like religious pilgrims, staring at a holy relic that was going to save them and their family.

His voice louder, Bocks said, ‘Carrie… please… tell us what you’ve got.’

A burst of static, and her voice came back, ‘…kill the little bastards. Right? We’ve got to kill the anthrax before it reaches the ground. Why not use jet fuel?’

Monty turned to Victor and said, ‘Is she right? Can jet fuel kill anthrax?’

Victor said, ‘I… I don’t see why not — jet fuel is petroleum-based, quite harsh to anthrax. But how do you get the fuel from their fuel tanks to the canisters?’

Carrie’s voice seemed to carry through the entire room. ‘Not fuel from our jet. Fuel from another jet. A refueling jet, like the Air Force KC-10 or KC-135. They have booms they lower to refuel aircraft. But instead of trying to fuel us up, they’d fly ahead of us while we’re descending to below three thousand feet. And when we cross that mark, they start dumping fuel. I’ve seen it before. The fuel makes a big cloud of vapor, and we and the anthrax will fly right through it. Very precise flying, but if it works… we can dump that anthrax into a big cloud of JP-4 aviation fuel. Kill it before it reaches the ground.’

Brian could not believe what he was hearing. Could it? Would it?

Monty said, ‘Victor — tell me it’ll work.’

Victor swallowed. ‘It’s… it’s possible… I mean, you won’t have a hundred percent… but hell, it’s a lot better than a shoot-down and having the anthrax spray out as the fuselage descends. Question is, can you get those refueling aircraft to those three AirBox planes in time?’

Monty got up and started running out to the Operations Center.

Lt Gen. Mike McKenna said, ‘Mister Zane, we’re working, working it right now… hold on, all right.’

‘All right,’ came the voice on the other end of the line. McKenna put the phone down. He waited in his office. Waited. Looked at the phone, knew that one of these days he’d have to meet this guy, face to face, and find out how in hell he did what he was doing without cracking. Right now, he could use some tips. Outside on the floor his adjutant, Colonel Anson, was huddled with other officers, talking, gesturing with her hand, and then she looked around at the other officers, nodded, and ran back up to his office.

She was out of breath. ‘General… with so many overseas on deployment… it’s… it’s…’

‘Go on.’

‘Two, We have just two KC-135s that can reach them, once we configure the refueling booms so they can dump the necessary fuel.’

‘Which ones?’

‘The flights in Missouri and Kentucky. We don’t have anything in the area that can reach the one in Pennsylvania in time.’

‘I see. All right, get on it, get those jets to the AirBoxes in Missouri and Kentucky.’

McKenna picked up the phone and said, ‘Mister Zane, got a mix of news for you

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Monty said, ‘Could you repeat that, general?’

McKenna said, ‘We will have two KC-135s airborne shortly that can reach the AirBox aircraft in Missouri and Kentucky. The KC-135 heading to Missouri just came back from a refueling mission over Nebraska. They’ll have enough fuel to do the job. The Kentucky KC-135 is fully topped off and is on its way. But your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania, one-oh-seven…it’s going to be tricky.’

‘Define tricky.’

‘If we can get the KC-135 in Kentucky to your AirBox flight in time — and if they can disperse the fuel in record time — and if your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania flies on an intercept mission to them… they might have enough time and fuel to pull off a rendezvous.’

‘That’s a lot of ifs,’ Monty said.

‘Like I said, tricky. But your one-oh-seven flight — if it doesn’t get pulled off…’

‘I know. A one-way trip.’

‘Hell of a thing,’ McKenna said.

‘On that we agree, general.’

Aboard AirBox 15 over the Ozark Mountains, Steve Jayson said to his captain, Trent Mueller, ‘Tell me again you’ve had experiences with KC-135s.’

‘That I surely have, son,’ Trent said. ‘Back in my days, humping C-141s, I refueled from them a number of times. But today it’s going to be some tough flying. We’re breaking all the rules, you know.’

‘No, I don’t know,’ Steve said. ‘Enlighten me.’

‘KC-135s are converted Boeing 707s, flying fuel tanks. Carries about 120,000 pounds of JP-4 aviation fuel. You’ve got your pilot, co-pilot, navigator and an NCO in the rear who operates the refueling boom. The boom is an extendable piece of equipment, deploys from the rear. Job of the other aircraft is to fly tight formation directly behind and below the KC-135. The guy at the rear, the “boomer”, maneuvers the boom into the second aircraft’s refueling port. Airborne refueling at its best.’

‘And what rules are we breaking?’

Steve heard his captain laugh. ‘Thing is, the receiving aircraft — us — is supposed to be below and behind the KC-135. Flying constant altitude and speed. But according to the ACARS message, we’re going to be flying just above the KC-135 as it’s dumping its fuel, and we’re both going to descend at the same rate. So that fucking anthrax flies into the fuel cloud. And, by the by, we’ll be flying into the fuel as well. Might screw up our instrumentation. Might cloud up our windscreens. Might cause the engines to choke up and cause a crash. Nice stuff like that.’

‘Holy shit,’ Steve said.

‘Nothing holy about it, pal.’

A message crackled in Steve’s earphones from the regional ATC: ‘Ah, AirBox one-five, your tanker, Cheyenne Six, is 270 for fifteen miles, heading three-six-zero at flight level two-two-zero.’

Steve toggled the radio microphone, ‘This is AirBox one-five, flying heading three-five-zero for rendezvous.’

‘Maintain flight level two-one-zero and two hundred and fifty knots. Contact Cheyenne Six on second radio on frequency one thirty-two point five.’

Trent said, ‘Steve, I’ll talk to the tanker. You keep talking to ATC.’

Steve saw Trent dial in the radio frequency and key his own radio microphone. ‘Ah, Cheyenne Six, this is AirBox one-five.’

‘AirBox one-five, this is Cheyenne Six. Air National Guard, at your service.’

Trent replied. ‘Glad to see you, guys. You got the brief, right?’

The pilot said, ‘Got it. Let’s do it.’

Trent swallowed. Just beyond a range of mountains, the gray form of the KC-135 came into view.

‘All right,’ Steve said. ‘We’re visual. We’ll be coming up behind vou shortly.’

‘Roger, AirBox one-five. You’re cleared in.’

Steve said to his pilot, ‘Air National Guard. Christ.’

Trent said, ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Weekend warriors.’

Trent was silent and Steve thought his captain hadn’t heard him. Then Trent corrected him.

‘Steve, most of these weekend warriors have ten or twenty years’ flying under their belt. They have a hell of a lot more experience then some active-duty guys. And these weekend warriors are putting their asses on the line to make sure that you and I don’t end the day as smoking pieces of charcoal — try not to forget that, all right?’

His face burning, Steve said, ‘I won’t.’

In an Air Force KC-135 designated as Pegasus Four — the aircraft was almost ten years older than the oldest member of its four-person crew — the navigator, Lt Jeannette Smith, tapped the pilot on his shoulder and said, ‘Sir, incoming flash message.’

The co-pilot and pilot both read the message, then looked up at each other. The co-pilot, Lt Travis Wood, said, ‘Can you believe this ?’

‘These times, I can believe almost anything. Travis, get the rendezvous going with ATC. Looks like we don’t got much time.’

‘Roger, sir.’

‘All right, let’s do it,’ the pilot said. He toggled the intercom and said, ‘Pilot to boomer.’

‘Sergeant Hiller, sir.’

‘Come forward, will you? We’ve just been assigned a mission. Two missions if we can handle the first one well — and it’s screwy as all hell.’

‘Bless the Air Force, sir. I’ll be right up.’

The navigator looked at the message again. ‘AirBox…your dad works for AirBox, doesn’t he?’

Captain Thomas Tuthill said, ‘Yes. He’s head of the machinists’ union.’

‘What a coincidence,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ Captain Tuthill said, seeing the Kentucky landscape unfold beneath them. ‘Hell of a coincidence.’

Aboard AirBox 107, Carrie Floyd maneuvered the jet to the intercept heading that had been sent to them by Air Traffic Control, and said, ‘Sean, Alaska is sounding better and better.’

Sean said, ‘So now you tell me…Carrie, check the fuel gauge, all right?’

She gave it a glance. ‘I see it.’

‘We’ll be right at the edge. If it doesn’t go right we’ll be sucking fumes…’

‘Then it has to go right, doesn’t it?’

‘Love your attitude.’

Carrie said, ‘Glad it was that and not my tits that attracted you.’

‘Among other things.’

‘Co-pilot, do me a favor, start looking for the Air Force, ail right?’

‘Sure.’

Aboard AirBox 22, Captain Hugh Glynn rubbed at his chest again as the indigestion burned and burned at him. But the pain was forgotten when his co-pilot, Stacy Moore, said, ‘There. I’ve got it at eleven o’clock!’

He saw the familiar shape of the KC-135 out there on the horizon, felt his chest tighten with excitement — a welcome change from indigestion. Stacy was excited and who could blame her? Less than a half-hour ago, they were looking forward to becoming one of the first civilian aircraft to be blown out of the sky since 9/11 — a hell of an achievement that he could cheerfully have skipped.

Now, now there was a chance. A chance to make it through this day alive.

In his earphones, he heard Stacy say, ‘Pegasus Four, AirBox 22, we’re visual…’

The strong voice came back. ‘Roger, AirBox 22, you’re cleared in. Time is short, ma’am, so let’s get going.’

‘A pleasure, Pegasus Four,’ Hugh sent back. ‘A real pleasure.’

Steve Jayson of AirBox 15 had flown on some serious ass-puckering missions, including one in a sandstorm over Kuwait, and another time, coming into Gander when he was flying FedEx, with one engine and then two quitting on him just before landing. But nothing had prepared him for this particular mission, with his asshole crawling up to his mouth.

Ahead of them was the steel-gray KC-135, flying slightly below them, and behind the jet, trailing out, was the refueling boom, with a tiny wing on each side, spraying out fuel, a pinkish cloud that spread out wide. Trent was flying so tough and hard, chatting it up with Cheyenne Six, and Steve’s job was to monitor the instruments, especially the altitude, engine performance and time.

‘AirBox one-five, maintain two thousand feet.’

‘Roger that, Cheyenne Six. Maintaining two thousand feet.’

The KC-135 was so close that it seemed to fill the sky in front of them. In a bubble just above the refueling boom, a man was visible, maneuvering the boom. The boomer, he was called, and Steve was praying that the older man knew what in hell he was doing.

‘Looking good, AirBox 15.’

‘Thank you, Cheyenne Six.’

Another look at the gauges. Everything looked normal and level at two thousand feet. That was for sure. And down there, in the belly — the belly of the beast — that damnable anthrax was being sprayed. If the guys on the ground knew what they were doing, the vile stuff was being killed before it could reach the ground.

Steve kept his mouth shut, knowing that Trent was so fucking busy, keeping everything in place. Just a few minutes more and—

Jesus!

A bump of turbulence or something and the damn refueling boom was closer and closer and—

THUD!

The top of the boom struck the hull, right near the wind-screen, and Jayson didn’t know what to say, when—

Trent tweaked the yoke, just tweaked it, and the KC-135 was where it should be, back in position. Steve swallowed and the radio crackled. ‘Nice job, AirBox one-five.’

‘Thanks,’ Trent replied

Steve tried to swallow again. He couldn’t. His throat was too dry.

Hugh Glynn on AirBox 22 got to where he had to be, his chest burning again, and saw the fuel boom extend from the rear of the Air Force jet. His co-pilot said, ‘All right, just twenty minutes of flying, Hugh. That’s all. We can get on the ground nice and safe. Twenty minutes of flying and we’re done.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

The jet seemed to grow larger in the windscreen as they approached.

In his earphones, Captain Thomas Tuthill heard his boomer Master Sergeant Bobby Hiller say, ‘AirBox flight is in place, captain.’

‘All right. Start the dump. When you reach fifty thousand pounds, shut her down. We’ve got another AirBox flight depending on us.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He switched from intercom to radio, called out, ‘AirBox 22, Pegasus Four.’

‘Pegasus Four, good day.’

‘Good day, sir. We’re dumping fuel now. Maintain altitude and speed.’

‘Roger, Pegasus Four.’

Thomas Tuthill looked over to his co-pilot, Lt Travis Wood. ‘Hey, Trav.’

‘Sir?’

‘What a job, huh?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, at least you’re getting what you want.’

‘What the hell is that… sir?’

He punched his co-pilot lightly on the arm. ‘You said you wanted to do more in the war on terror — so here’s your chance.’

‘Shit. Lucky me.’

‘Nope,’ Tuthill said. ‘Lucky us.’

The pink cloud in front of AirBox 15 suddenly slowed and disappeared. Steve Jayson said, ‘Trent, what the fuck is going—’

And then the interruption: ‘AirBox 15, this is Cheyenne Six. Gas station is empty, we’re heading home — suggest you do the same.’

Trent Mueller said, ‘Cheyenne Six, nearest piece of flat concrete you got, that’s where you’ll find us. Thank you and good day.’

‘Good day to you, AirBox 15.’

Steve checked the fuel gauge. Less than twenty minutes’ worth of flying. He was going to say something but what was the point?

‘Trent?’

‘Yeah?’

The jet was now descending and turning, and off there in the distance was a beautiful, beautiful county airfield that was probably too small but was going have to do.

‘Trent, whatever happens, a brilliant piece of flying. Beautiful.’

‘Hey, that’s very nice of you. Want to do something for me?’

‘Sure.’

‘Shut the fuck up so we can get this piece of metal on the ground.’

‘You got it, Trent.’

Back in the Operations Center the low roar of phone calls, keyboards being tapped and people talking was starting to subside. Monty sat back, feet up on a desk, looking at the display board and the three icons marking the last of the AirBox flights. Brian Doyle sat next to him, hands folded across his lap. Tuthill and the General were confabbing about something, and Victor being Victor, the doc was keeping to himself.

Monty said, ‘Ever hear the expression “hoist on your own petard”?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Know what it means?’

‘Not sure. I think it means something about getting fucked-up because of something you yourself did. Am I right?’

Monty kept his gaze on the display screen. ‘Yep. Came from a line in Shakespeare, from Hamlet. A petard was a crude explosive device, used to breach gates. But they were tricky to use. Sometimes the fuse burned too quick and blew up the guy setting the bomb, as well as the gate. Hence, to be hoist on one’s own petard.’

Brian said, ‘When this is all done with, I guess the Tiger Teams will be one huge petard.’

‘Yeah. Lots of books and TV scripts will be written about this fuck-up when we’re through — but they’ll miss the essential story.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Which is that we had to do something after 9/11. The Tiger Teams were a great idea. It was the staffing of them that caused this disaster. Always goes back to the people factor. Not the technical factor. It’s the people that make it work, and in this case, it was the people — Adrianna and those CIA people, years ago, who did a shit-ass job of checking out her background — who failed us.’

‘Nice essential story, but I don’t feel too essential. I feel like we came within minutes of killing several million people. Not the kind of way I’d like to spend my days.’

Monty reached over and slapped Brian on the leg. ‘True enough, my friend. And I’ll make you two predictions. By the end of this week, the Tiger Teams will be done. And a week after that, they’ll be planning something else to replace them. For something like the teams are always needed. No matter what we and others did, the main essential truth still remains: there are many, many people who want to do us harm, and the old ways of protection don’t work.’

Brian looked like he was going to say something when a nearby phone rang, and the guy picking it up gave a little whoop of joy.

‘AirBox 15 is on the ground, safe and sound!’

Monty looked up at the display screen. Two icons remained.

He turned to Brian. ‘See? Day’s getting better already.’

Captain Tuthill said, ‘How much longer, boomer?’

‘Another five, six minutes, sir.’

‘Very good.’

He turned in his seat, said to his co-pilot, ‘Travis, minute we’re done dumping fuel, tell ATC we’ll want a rendezvous heading to that last AirBox flight immediately. Got it?’

‘Roger that, sir.’

‘All right.’

The navigator said, ‘Bet your dad will have a story to tell you when this is through.’

Tuthill said, ‘More than one story, I’m sure.’

Good point, he thought. Dad loved to tell stories about all the places he had been, all the aircraft he had repaired, all the pilots whose butts he had saved. God, the hours he had spent in the backyard, those damn tiki torches burning, Dad talking about—

His boomer’s voice, shouting, ‘Captain! Pull up, pull up, pull up!’

So close, Hugh thought, so close, just a few more minutes, and Stacy Moore confirmed it, saying, ‘Hugh, we’re going to make it, just a few minutes more, and we’ve got enough fuel to—’

The KC-135 was there, right in front of him, a huge construct of steel and fabrication and the fuel was dumping out and—

Oh, damn, oh damn—

Hugh’s chest felt like it was exploding, like it was swelling up and he fell forward, choking, and the last thing he heard was his co-pilot, screaming…

An amateur filmmaker from Hobson, Kentucky, caught it on tape, the moment when the AirBox flight sped up and descended, its nose colliding with the tail of the KC-135, the AirBox shuddering and breaking up in flight, the KC-135 catching fire, turning over, and then exploding in mid-air, fuel burning, debris raining down, falling to earth, yet—

Yet not that day, nor ever, did a single spore of anthrax from that aircraft make it to the ground.

General Bocks saw the display screen, heard the reports, sat down. For a moment it seemed as though the phones had stopped ringing, the voices had stopped talking, the keyboards had stopped clacking. All that he saw in his world was the blinking icon of that one single aircraft up there that belonged to him, yet which had been stolen such a very long time ago.

‘One-oh-seven, am I right?’ he asked no one in particular.

‘Yes, sir. One-oh-seven, airborne over southeastern Pennsylvania.’

‘Fuel status?’

‘About twenty minutes.’

He looked at the faces, saw that the night manager, Pam Kasnet, was still there. ‘Pam?’

‘Yes?’

‘Get a phone patch set up. I need to talk to one-oh-seven.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Carrie Floyd’s eyes hurt from the strain, looking and looking out there for that damn KC-135, but the sky was blank. She checked the fuel gauge and the time on her watch. About twenty minutes of flying left, if they were lucky, and luck would mean having that damn Stratotanker pop over the horizon and shag ass to their position. Because if that particular Air Force aircraft didn’t show up, she was sure that the two Air Force fighters still shadowing them would take care of business.

Sean whispered something and said aloud, ‘Carrie, the General’s on comm two.’

She felt everything just fade away. Sean’s face looked ashen. ‘Not good news, is it?’

‘Seeing a Stratotanker out there would be good news,’ she said. ‘Hearing from the General is not good news. All right, let’s hear what he has to say.’

And in the space of those few seconds when she made the comm switch so that she could hear the General’s voice, she also hoped against hope that her worst fears weren’t about to come true. She said a quick prayer, too quick to reach God, she thought, for the General came on and said what had to be said.

‘Carrie… Sean… I’m sorry to say we’re unable to get a KC-135 to your position.’

A feeling came to Carrie, that horrible empty feeling she had felt once before, back on the Enterprise, when the Viking S-3 that she had been piloting had fallen off the end of the flight deck, knowing that she was seconds away from her and her co-pilot’s death.

‘What happened?’ she finally asked. ‘I thought we had one in-bound from Kentucky, after it had met up with AirBox 22.’

Bocks said, ‘Mid-air collision. I’m sorry, we lost both aircraft. There are no other refueling aircraft available in the area.’

Sean whispered something again. For the briefest of moments, she closed her eyes. So close. Her own idea… and so close.

She triggered the microphone, and the voice that came out wasn’t her own, it wasn’t someone panicking over what was about to happen, no, it was her old Navy voice, old Smash, come to life. The voice said, ‘We understand. Thanks for trying. General, you need to make it right for our families. Understood?’

Bocks said, ‘Of course. Is there… is there anybody you’d like to talk to… Carrie? Sean?’

She looked to Sean. He shook his head. Carrie thought about her Susan… Susan, safe and secure in school. To talk to her, at this last moment? To have her hauled out of class and taken to the principal’s office, to have a phone shoved at her and be told that… well, mommy wants to say goodbye?

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. There’s nobody we want to talk to. But I have a request, General. And you better make it happen.’

‘All right,’ Bocks said. ‘I’ll make it happen.’

She made her request, and when Bocks signed off she said to Sean, remembering her service aboard the Enterprise, ‘Sorry, my dear. I have a rotten record of taking care of my co-pilots.’

‘Maybe I’ll complain to the union, when I get a chance.’

‘Yeah,’ Carrie said, looking out to the empty sky, no last-minute reprieve out there. ‘When you get the chance.’

Grayson Carter worked in one of the maintenance shops for AirBox, and he was trying to catch up on some paperwork when the door to the offices blasted open and General Bocks and Randy Tuthill were there, staring at him.

‘Sir… what can I—’

Bocks said, ‘Grayson. You’re a minister, aren’t you? At a church in the city?’

‘Yes — yes, I am. Fourth Street Baptist. I minister there on weekends and—’

His upper left arm was grabbed hard by the General. ‘Grayson, we need you to come with us, right now. We need you, and we need you bad.’

‘What… what for?’

Randy said, opening the door and waving the two of them on through, ‘We’ll explain on the way, and by God, Grayson, please tell us you’ll do it. Please.’

Carrie no longer wanted to look at her watch or the fuel gauges. She just wanted to look at her Sean and at the Pennsylvania landscape beneath them, small cities and towns, tens of thousands of innocents alive down there, and here she was, with the unintended and unwanted power to sicken and kill them all. Sean was doing all right, though his hands trembled some and it looked like his eyes were filling up. She took a deep breath as her earphones came alive.

‘Carrie — I think we’re all set,’ Bocks said.

‘Thank you, General… and one more thing.’

‘What’s that?’

Carrie said, ‘Thanks for hiring me, when I got out of the Navy. I had… had some troubles, before I left. Some thought I wasn’t tough enough or hard enough to be a pilot. But you took a chance on me. Thank you.’

Bocks said, ‘No, thank you, Carrie. Thanks for everything… and I need to ask you something, if you will.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I… I…’ It seemed like the poor guy’s voice was breaking up, and then he went on. ‘I was responsible for putting those canisters in your air-conditioning system. I thought I was taking part in a confidential emergency immunization program — those canisters were supposed to be carrying anthrax vaccine, not anthrax spores. It was my call, my decision to install those canisters — and for that… I ask you for your forgiveness…’

Sean said ‘Fuck. Fuck me, so that’s how it happened… shit…’

Carrie said, ‘General, consider yourself forgiven. It’s all a moot point now… all right? Were you able… were you able to—’

‘Yes, Carrie. Hold on…’

She reached over, took Sean’s hand, squeezed it hard. A man’s voice came over the headphones, a strong, deep voice, and she squeezed Sean’s hand as he started. ‘Carrie…Sean… my name is Grayson Carter. I’m a minister with the Fourth Avenue Baptist Church — are you ready?’

‘Yes, reverend, we’re ready,’ Carrie said, as Sean squeezed her hand back.

‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in troubled times, under the eyes of God, to perform sacred matrimony upon your servants, Carrie Ann Floyd and Sean Barnes Callaghan…’

By now the broadcasts between AirBox 107 and the company’s Operations Center had been monitored by the news media. So it was that millions of Americans, most of them frightened, others angry, some stuck in cars and SUVs attempting to flee major cities, others in basements or sealed rooms in their homes, listened as a pilot and a co-pilot shared their wedding vows.

‘I, Carrie Ann Floyd, do take thee, Sean Barnes Callaghan…’

‘I, Sean Barnes Callaghan, do take thee, Carrie Ann Floyd…’

‘…for better or worse…’

‘…in sickness and in health…’

‘…til death do us part…’

And most were amazed that the last phrase was proclaimed with such strength, conviction, and obvious love.

Bocks stood there, hands folded in front of him, in the nearly silent Operations Center. Several times he wiped at his eyes as the familiar refrains were uttered, and he looked to his people, his AirBox staff, and realized that there was not a dry eye to be seen. Save for Grayson Carter, his maintenance worker and minister, who was keeping it under control as he performed God’s work this late morning.

Grayson’s voice rose at the end, saying, ‘And by the power vested in me, through God and the State of Tennessee, I now pronounce you man and wife. Praise the Lord.’

And faintly, through the speakers, both Carrie and Sean repeated the phrase.

‘Praise the Lord.’

Carrie tried to keep a smile on her face as she looked to her husband. ‘What? You’re not going to kiss the bride?’

Tears were streaming down the cheeks of her strong man and he bent over, kissed her softly and quickly on her lips, and she kissed him back, still holding his hand. ‘Carrie…God, I wanted so much for us… I wanted…’

She kissed him again. ‘Shhh… my love, it’s almost over. We’re…we’re going together. You and me. I love you so.’

‘And I love you, too

She turned to the windscreen, saw something out there on the horizon, and a sort of peace came over her. There. That would work.

‘My love… that’s a lake over there, isn’t it?’

Sean glanced at a chart. ‘Yeah — Lake Douglas.’

‘Okay. That’s where we’re going…’

‘Carrie — it’s not wide enough.’

She said, ‘Width isn’t what counts,’ and she explained to him what was going to happen, and all he could do was nod in agreement.

Bock’s Operations Manager said, ‘General?’

‘Yes, Pam.’

‘AirBox one-oh-seven wants you again.’

‘All right.’

He picked up a headset, placed it over his head, no longer seeing anything around him. It was a blur now, just a gray blur. ‘Carrie, this is Bocks, go ahead.’

‘General… I don’t know if you can do this for us…but we know we have company up here. Two F-16s. Have them pull away. All right? We’re… we’re going to do this right… you don’t have to worry about a thing…’

‘Carrie, I don’t know if I—’

‘Sir, we don’t have time to argue. Pull them away. We figure if we go down because of those F-16s lots of innocents can still die. We’ve got a better way.’

‘Carrie, I’ll—’

‘AirBox one-oh-seven, out.’

Monty was now at Bocks’s side. The General said, ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘Call off those planes. Now.’

‘General, I can’t see how—’

‘Just try, all right? Just try, damn it.’

Monty said, ‘You got that.’

Lieutenant General McKenna of Northern Command listened to the man in Memphis, said very little, and hung up the phone. He waited just a few seconds, long seconds during which he knew that he was being asked the impossible. Procedures and plans and operations took precedence over everything, and he was being asked to toss it all aside.

Over the promise of a woman he had never met.

A woman who… God, what she had ahead of her…

‘Sir?’

His adjutant, Colonel Anson, stood in front of him. She looked at him expectantly.

He clenched his fists, released them. ‘Colonel, contact the two F-16s escorting AirBox 107.’

‘Sir.’

‘Tell them… tell them…’

A pause, and then, ‘Sir?’

He looked away. ‘Tell them to break off. Tell them to break off and not do a damn thing.’

Anson was a good adjutant. She just nodded. ‘At once, sir.’

So now this lake was beneath her, a beautiful lake it looked like, and she said to Sean, ‘Guess it’s too late to suggest to AirBox that they put parachutes for their aircrews in these things.’

‘Guess so.’

‘Funny thing, this…’

‘What’s that?’

‘You and I swore when we joined the service to defend the Constitution and our countrymen, our civilians. Never thought I’d be doing that today.’

‘Me neither,’ he said.

She grabbed his hand again. ‘Be of good cheer, my love. It’ll be quick.’

‘Carrie…’

‘Yes, Sean.’

‘The Navy was fucked-up. You’re the best and toughest woman I’ve ever known. And I’m so happy you’re my wife.’

‘And I’m so happy you’re my husband.’

The low fuel warning light had been on now for what seemed like a month. Fuel status was way past critical. Only minutes were left to them…just a grouping of seconds, that was all.

‘Here we go, my love.’

No answer. Just another squeeze of the hand.

Carrie took a breath, thought, forgive me, Susan, and she pushed the yoke forward with a slight roll. The nose of the aircraft dropped like an elevator, and now they were both weightless in their seats as the jet fell from the sky, bits of metal and crumbs and paper scraps flying past her, Sean still holding tight to her hand on the control yoke, the only thing now visible in the windscreen the rapidly approaching waters of the lake.

While the F-16s were ordered to break off, they still kept view of the AirBox aircraft as it approached the lake. In a matter of seconds the lead pilot could not believe what he was seeing as the plane suddenly pitched over and headed down to the lake.

‘Chris…’ said Lance One’s wingman. Lance One said, ‘Yeah, I see it…’

The jet moved quickly, so quickly, and the wingman choked a bit as he realized what the flight crew had done. Whatever anthrax was in that aircraft was designed to be released when the jet went below three thousand feet but at the speed they were traveling it would be just a second or two and—

Something was said over his earphones. Not Chris. Had to be AirBox and—

‘Jesus God,’ he whispered as the plane disintegrated and crashed in a huge geyser of water and metal debris and flying papers and packages –

Oh, Christ.

‘Ah… Center, this is Lance One,’

‘Go ahead, Lance One.’

‘Ah… AirBox one-oh-seven has crashed into a lake at this location… advise you send Public Health officials to the area…’

‘Lance One, we acknowledge…’

Another voice, his wingman again. ‘Chris, did you ever see anything like that…’

‘No, and I never want to, ever again. Hold on, Ed.’

He looked to the lake, at the widening circle of water, debris, wreckage… obliterated. Absolutely and totally obliterated.

‘Center, Lance One.’

‘Lance One, go ahead.’

‘Also advise that we monitored last transmission from AirBox one-oh-seven as it descended.’

Nothing. No answer.

‘You copy, Center?’

An embarrassed voice. ‘Ah, go ahead, Lance One. What was AirBox message, over?’

‘Message follows: “This is Smash, signing off.’”

‘Understood. Smash, signing off.’

The pilot known as Lance One didn’t acknowledge. He just kept on circling the waters of the lake that had become a grave.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Bocks looked at the display board. It was empty. No more AirBox flights were airborne. It was over — at least, this part was over. Ahead there would be hearings and charges and TV documentaries and court battles, and no doubt bankruptcy and some jail time.

But it was over. The country would survive. His duty was done. And so was Carrie’s.

Smash had completed her last mission, successfully.

He sat down, exhausted, put his head in his hands, and wept.

Victor Palmer knew that he should be following up with the crash of the AirBox in Pennsylvania, knew that he should be making recommendations to minimize whatever possible exposure was out there, but he was just too damn tired. He was sure that Doc Savage could put up with almost anything, but he doubted that even the Man of Bronze could have handled this.

Did this make him better than Doc Savage?

A treasonous thought. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, and for the second time that night passed out.

But this time, he was left alone.

Grayson Carter closed his eyes in repose, praying for the souls of Carrie Floyd and Sean Callaghan. There was a touch at his elbow. ‘Yes?’

‘Grayson…’ the woman said. ‘I’m Pam Kasnet, night Operations Manager… I’m sorry, but… well, we have a situation.’

He saw the troubled look on her face, and said, ‘Well, what is it?’

She told him. He nodded. God was putting him to work tonight, and that was fine. It was his calling. He would bear the burden as best he could.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you.’

Brian Doyle saw Randy Tuthill being taken to the conference room, Bocks and the minister joining him and the woman Operations Manager. There was a loud, bellowing, ‘No!’ from Randy before the door closed.

Monty came up to him, held out his hand, which Brian shook.

‘What was that about?’ Brian asked.

‘Randy Tuthill. The machinist guy.’

‘Yeah?’

‘His son was the pilot of the KC-135 that collided with the Kentucky AirBox flight.’

Brian nodded. ‘That sucks.’

‘Yeah.’

Brian took in the ordered chaos of the Operations Center, the terminal displays, the phones and the host of people who worked for AirBox, who had done their best to manage a disaster that would have made 9/11 look like a parking-lot fender-bender if it had succeeded, and he just closed his eyes. Couldn’t take it anymore.

‘Good job, Brian. A real good job.’

‘No, not really. It was a fuck-up. A while ago I knew something was hinky with Adrianna. I should have done more, done better, done it sooner. That’s all.’

Monty slapped him on the back of his neck. ‘Brian, you fret too much. You did all right. For a cop.’

Brian said, ‘I’m supposed to take that as a compliment?’

‘Take it any way you like it.’

He rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘Somehow, I don’t think I’m gonna be a cop this time next week.’

Monty said, ‘Don’t worry. Anything happens, I’ll set you up somehow. You’ve got balls and brains — and a couple of gunshot bruises to the chest. A hell of a combination.’

‘Thanks.’

Monty yawned and said, ‘Speaking of Adrianna, I wonder where that little minx is right now.’

‘Out there, I’m sure.’

‘Yeah…man, if she ever gets caught, I just want ten minutes with her. Ten minutes.’

‘What do you mean, if?’

Monty laughed. ‘Man, that was one smart bitch. You telling me she didn’t have a bag of plans, ready to get her ass out of here?’

Brian said, ‘Maybe so. But she’s still going to get caught.’

‘Hell of a large country. Hell of a large world, Brian.’

Brian shook his head. ‘She’s going to get caught. Guaranteed. But one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You don’t get first crack at her. I do.’

Monty shrugged. ‘Considering the bitch shot you and all, yeah, I’ll give you that.’

‘Good,’ Brian said. ‘Glad to win one once in a while.’

With less than an hour to go to the Canadian border, Adrianna Scott felt a burning sense of frustration at the news coming from her radio, for it seemed like things weren’t going her way, not at all. As she tried to find a different channel to listen to, there was a roaring noise that made her head snap back and—

A black Kiowa helicopter, landing in the road in front of her, men coming out and—

BANG!

Somehow, they had something that shattered the windshield and side windows and—

The engine died. She scrambled around, trying to get out, trying to move and—

Black-jumpsuited men were on her, spraying something in her face, something that confused her and made her eyes bum, and now she was on the side of the road, coughing and hacking.

One of the men removed his face mask, knelt down beside her.

‘Adrianna Scott, in the name of the United States of America, I place you under arrest.’

‘But…but…this is a mistake. Look at my driver’s license. My name is Dolores Benjamin. There’s been a mistake!’

Another man came into view, dropped one of her bags on the ground. He poked around in the bag, took out a little pin with a thick metal head on one end.

She instantly recognized it. A Mark 10 tracking device. She looked back at her bag, and—

Now she remembered.

Back at the hotel room, with Brian. When she went into the bathroom the bag had been on the bed.

When she had come out of the bathroom the bag had been on the floor.

Brian had bugged her. The bastard.

The man said, ‘Adrianna Scott, you have the right to—’

‘The name isn’t Adrianna Scott!’ she spat at him. ‘My name is Aliyah Fulenz.’

The man grinned at her as she was helped up and shackles were placed about her ankles and handcuffs on her wrists.

‘Adrianna, Dolores, Aliyah, I don’t give a shit — all I know is that your ass now belongs to us.’

And as she was brought to her feet, the man leaned in and said, ‘You’re ours, princess.’

CHAPTER FORTY

The room had no air-conditioning, and it was stifling hot. Brian Doyle walked in and there she was, sitting in front of him, her hands cuffed to a metal ring centered in the middle of a table. She had on an orange jumpsuit, her hair had been cut short, and her skin was rough. No make-up or beauty products allowed, he thought, as he pulled up a chair and sat across from her.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Was I that lousy in bed that you had to shoot me afterwards?’

She looked tired, sullen. ‘How long have you been thinking of that little joke?’

‘A while,’ Brian admitted. ‘Thought you’d smile, at least.’

‘You thought wrong.’

‘I guess I did. About a lot of things.’

She moved her hands, the chain clanking some. ‘Why are you here?’

‘To see you, face to face. To ask you why. The usual.’

‘Hah. The usual.’ She leaned forward and said, ‘They showed us a movie the other night. A rare treat, I am told. So what kind of movie did they show us? Ben-Hur. Can you imagine that, with the population they have here, that they would show such a movie?’

‘I can imagine almost anything. But to get back to my original—’

‘No, don’t you see? I am answering your question, Brian. There is a scene in that movie, early on, when Judah Ben-Hur meets an old Roman friend. They talk politics. Ben-Hur talks about his hatred of Rome, and he says, “The day Rome falls, there will be such a shout of freedom across the world…” That’s why I did what I did, Brian. The day America falls, there will be such a shout across this globe, from Pakistan to Russia to France to Vietnam, so on and so on. You have no idea of the hate, the deep and unabiding hatred that so many have for you. Your trade policies destroy small farmers in Kenya and Malaysia. Your chemical companies pollute in countries like India and Zimbabwe. Your media companies turn women around the world into whores. Brian, your America is a large elephant, blundering its way through history, caring not whom you trample, whom you kill, as you pillage and rampage. The world hates you, Brian. The entire world. Don’t you see that?’

Brian looked at that sharp face, wondered how he had ever been attracted to her. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I don’t come from the world. I come from New York City. And if it wasn’t for us, the world would—’

She tried to raise a hand but the chain stopped her. ‘Yes, I know. You are so generous. You are a beacon for the world, the shining example, the shining light of freedom. You defeated fascism, communism, and you fool yourself that you are on your way to defeating radical Islam. But you are so alone… your so-called friends laugh at you, your so-called allies work to make deals with your enemies, all to isolate you, to keep you confused… you are in the throes of destruction, Brian. Like a wounded elephant that is too stupid to know that it’s about to die.’

Brian said, ‘Pretty bold talk for a woman in your position, whatever your name is. We’re an odd country, with even odder people, but we’re resilient. Most of the time we’re underestimated. Ask the Germans. Ask the Japanese. Ask the Russians.’

‘Ah, but look what I did.’

‘And what was that? You gave Wall Street a jolt, bankrupted one company, destroyed four aircraft, directly or indirectly caused the deaths of scores of people…not much return on such a long investment, from when you were a Baghdad teenager. ‘

She smiled. ‘Ah, but enough.’

‘Really?’

‘Truly. Here’s a secret, my friend. You and yours have to be lucky, all the time. All the time. Those who follow me, wherever they are, they just have to be lucky once. And, trust me, they will keep trying. And, trust me, they will be lucky.’

Brian said, ‘Someone once said that God looks out for fools, drunks, and the United States of America. I like that saying better. And that’s what I’m going to leave you with, Adrianna. Or Aliyah, whichever you prefer.’

He got up, made to leave, and then he turned and said, ‘For what it’s worth, that night we had…’

She shook her head. ‘Spare me, Brian. It was nothing to me. Nothing.’

He said, ‘You know, I almost pity you, Adrianna. You let all that hate eat you up, year after year, crippling you, changing you…You could have done so much with all that strength, all those smarts, if it wasn’t for the hate. Yeah, I almost pity you, Adrianna.’

Brian Doyle leaned forward, over the desk, looking down at her. ‘Almost.’

Then he left.

She waited for the Marine guards to come in and take her back to her cell, and she felt her legs and arms quivering with emotion. The talk with Brian had disturbed her more than she had let on, for she had felt something when she had seen him.

Utter and total defeat.

And as she was finally led back to her cell by the large and unsmiling Marine guards, she tried to apologize again to mama and papa, for letting them down. But strange music distracted her, strange music caused her to stop everything and look up at the small hill above the prison.

It had been a favor, but once the news had been sent around to the right people Brian could have done pretty much anything he wanted to do, which was why he was here at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, playing his bagpipes. The tune this time seemed to make his hair rise straight up as he stood there, playing for Adrianna, playing for the other prisoners down there, playing for the Marine guards, some of whom stood in a respectful half-circle, watching him.

The sound of the pipes seemed to carry out in the tropical air, the keening and whining cutting right through him, and he played the tune twice, conscious only at the end that he was weeping, which upset him, for he had never cried, not once, while playing the pipes at all those funerals that had haunted that fateful September.

Then he was done. The pipes fell silent. He stood there, sweating, looking at the camp buildings and the cell blocks where the enemies of America awaited their fate.

‘Sir?’ came a voice.

Brian turned. A young Marine stood there, ramrod-straight, and he said, ‘Sir… if you don’t mind, what was that tune you were playing? I’ve never heard it before.’

Brian tucked the silent bagpipes under his arm and said, ‘In the original Gaelic, it’s called “Cogadh no Sith.” It was made famous by a piper named Kenneth MacKay, who served with the 79th Cameron Highlanders during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.’

‘No shit. Really?’

‘Really. The Highlanders were set up in a square, waiting for the French forces to counterattack. It was a desperate time. Nerves were on edge. Men were gripping their muskets, waiting for the charge. And Piper MacKay, he stepped out beyond the square of soldiers, beyond his comrades, and stood out there on the battlefield. Alone. And he marched around the square, playing “Cogadh no Sith”. Taunting the enemy to come out and fight. Which was what they did. And when the day was over, the French were defeated.’

The Marine nodded. ‘Some story. The tune…what’s it called again?’

“‘Cogadh no Sith.’”

‘What does that mean?’

Brian said, ‘It means “War or Peace.”’

“‘War or Peace.” Hell of a choice.’

Brian looked at the confident face of the Marine, at his comrades lined up behind him, at the base here and everywhere else, out there in the big wide world that was more than New York City, much more.

War or peace.

‘Yeah,’ he said to the young Marine. ‘Hell of a choice. Only one we got.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Days later and miles away, a man was admitted to a waiting area at an embassy in Ottawa. As he sat down he crossed his legs, relaxed. He examined the magazines on the counter before him, tossed a couple aside. There was just one thing he wanted to read.

He reached into his coat pocket, took out the tiny clipping, something taken from a USA Today last week. With all the news these past few days, he was surprised that the story had gotten any play. But he was glad to see it. Always nice to see a loose end tied up.

The door to the office opened up. A man with a closely-trimmed beard, white shirt buttoned at the collar with no necktie, and a black suitcoat came out.

‘I am ready for you,’ the man said.

‘Very well,’ he said, standing up and putting the clipping away, the story of a mysterious accident outside Memphis the night the AirBox flights had taken off, an accident involving a Ford Explorer that had blown up, the body of its driver burned beyond recognition.

Ah yes, the driver, whoever he had been, had no doubt thought he had been so lucky to find a brand-new Ford SUV with the keys in it and a full tank of gas.

Luck. It was where you found it, it was where you made it. He had gotten this far and survived for so long not by trusting in others, especially unseen others, no matter how generous their pay had been.

Inside the office he noted the flag behind the man’s desk, the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

‘My name is Vladimir Zhukov,’ he announced, ‘and I have a business proposition for you.’

‘Very good,’ the man said. ‘We are eager to hear it.’