Headwind

TWENTY

For the past hour, Edwin Glueck had been quietly moving among the milling passengers in the Air Mobility Command passenger lounge, talking quietly one by one to the male members of his tour group.

Twenty years had gone by since he’d retired as a U.S. Army brigadier general, but his mind and his instincts were still sharp – even at the age of seventy-nine.

His wife of twenty-six years, Joanie, was in a far corner of the terminal talking to the tour director to keep her distracted. Ed glanced in her direction, pleased at her image. She was still attractive and even shapely at sixty-nine, and the sight of her now momentarily ignited other desires, threatening to divert him from the mission.

Joanie saw him looking and smiled back, nodding just enough to let him know she had things under control. She was exceptionally aware of what was going on around her, he thought. Before they’d left the aircraft, no one else had noticed as he strolled the aisle and momentarily glanced through the curtains separating coach and first class. No one but Joanie, that is. She’d known instantly that something was up.

“I shouldn’t ask what you’re up to, should I?” she’d said in a whisper after the captain announced the delay was over and they’d be leaving the 737.

“No,” he’d replied. “But I’ll tell you anyway. President Harris didn’t leave. He’s still on this aircraft.”

She knew that tone of certainty and respected it. He wasn’t always right, of course, but when he focused on a problem, the General – as his grandchildren called him – could be trusted to be on target the majority of the time.

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

“Then how can you be sure?” she countered.

“Trust me.”

“Always.”

When they were filing out, the General had pretended to stumble as he passed the forward galley, his foot deftly flipping up the bottom of the galley curtain as he bent over and braced himself against the forward bulkhead for a second before straightening up. The fleeting view beneath the curtain had revealed what he expected: two pair of men’s shoes in a crew section of an aircraft carrying three female flight attendants.

Two men hiding in the galley. If it’s not the pilots…

He stepped onto the top platform of the airstairs and reached down to adjust his pant leg in order to glance back toward the cockpit.

Both pilots were inside, clearly identifiable by their uniform shirts.

None of those who walked to the C-17 looked like him, so he’s still here, and he’s hiding, which means he’s still in serious danger.

The general said nothing as he descended the airstairs and walked toward the terminal, a plan already forming in his mind.

Captain Swanson had just arrived at the passenger terminal when the information came that Peru’s lawyer wasn’t leaving immediately after all.

The reappearance of Stuart Campbell on the ramp and the call from the security officer driving the staff car that had immediately collected him startled the commander of Sigonella NAS.

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’ll be there in five minutes to deal with this personally,” he told the driver, chiding himself for failing to check with the control tower earlier to make sure Campbell’s Learjet had departed with Campbell in it.

Obviously it hadn’t.

Swanson jumped in his staff car and hesitated, thinking the situation through. He lifted the GSM phone connected only to his base’s cellular network and dialed the driver’s number, making sure his ear was pressed tightly to the receiver before issuing a specific set of orders.

“I’d like to go get aboard that EuroAir jet, Captain,” Campbell told him when Swanson had emerged from the staff car.

“Why, Mr. Campbell?” Captain Swanson asked. “I thought your business with us here was concluded. I let you in before because you were with the Italian delegation, and the right of entry they were asserting was based on a treaty. Do you have some official claim to enter my base now?”

“None, whatsoever,” Campbell replied pleasantly. “If President Harris left on that Air Force craft, officially, I have no reason to be here.”

“What do you mean, ‘If’?”

“This is merely a request for your courtesy and cooperation, Captain.”

“I understand it’s a request. But why are you making it?”

“You’re a smart man, Captain, or you wouldn’t be wearing those small eagles on your shoulders. You know we’re dealing with very high-level international legal matters here, and you must know that I have to be certain of every step, and every occurrence.”

“What are you talking about, sir? I’m also a very busy man right now.”

“I need to make certain, Captain, by personal inspection, that Harris is no longer aboard that 737. Plain and simple.”

Swanson worked hard to keep his expression virtually unchanged, but a small muscle was twitching in his cheek. He could feel it, but he couldn’t stop it. “I see,” he said, as evenly as possible.

“Is there a problem with that request, Captain?” Campbell asked in an overly solicitous tone of voice.

“Yes, sir. There is a problem. My superiors are not happy about my granting you and the Italians immediate access to this base to begin with, and I’m going to have to relay your request through channels.”

“I know your theater commander personally, Captain. Would you like me to call him?”

“I’m quite capable of working through my own chain of command, Mr. Campbell,” Swanson snapped, regretting the sharp response instantly. “Look, get in and we’ll go back to my office and you can remain there while I make a call. Provided the aircraft is still here by the time I get approval, I’ll be happy to take you out there personally.”

Stuart Campbell smiled and cocked his head. “Captain, delay tactics raise suspicion. Especially my suspicion. If the President is truly gone, just let me get aboard and see for myself. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Sir, I told you…”

“Captain Swanson,” Campbell interrupted, “you and I both know you have full authority to make that decision by yourself, which means you could say ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ just like that. You’ve parked my aircraft and that chartered airliner as far down the ramp as you could to keep us under tight control, and that’s fine. But now, the fact that you’re willing to play an ‘I’ve-got-to-get-approval’ game means that you don’t want to make the decision yourself, which, in turn, means that there’s much more at stake here than just being criticized for making the wrong call. So what could be so serious that you need to stall? The fact that you and Washington have been pretending that President Harris is gone, when, in fact, he’s still here. Otherwise, you’d just take me out there.”

“That’s absurd, Mr. Campbell. That kind of convoluted pseudo-reasoning leads to ridiculous conclusions.”

“Captain, there is no legitimate need to get official approval from anyone, and that tells me that I probably need to call the Italian Foreign Ministry back out here.”

“Very well, let’s stop talking about this and go, Mr. Campbell,” Swanson said suddenly, turning toward his car.

Campbell looked surprised, letting a broad smile slowly dominate his face. “Excellent! To the aircraft, then?”

“NO, sir!” Swanson replied in exasperation, turning back to him. “As I said, we’re going to my office at NAS-One.”

Stuart Campbell maneuvered himself around to look the naval officer in the eye. “Captain, on your honor as an American field grade officer, is President Harris on that C-17 or not?”

“I can’t…”

“NO!” Campbell barked, causing Swanson to flinch. “You’re making a representation by your actions. I’m asking for a straightforward statement from you, on your honor, on behalf of the Department of the Navy, on behalf of the American Government, and on the record. Is he on that C-17, or is he still somewhere on this base? If you tell me he’s gone, I’ll leave, based on the honor of your word alone.”

“Sir…” Swanson began, hesitating just long enough to register the fleeting internal conflict Campbell was waiting for, “President Harris’s status is classified military information. I am not at liberty to divulge that to you or anyone else.”

Stuart Campbell nodded slowly, his eyes carefully noting Swanson’s slightly accelerated breathing.

“Very well, Captain. I understand thoroughly. John Harris is still here.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Oh, but you did. Very clearly.”

Swanson shook his head as he leveled an index finger at the lawyer, his eyes angry slits. “Get in the car, Mr. Campbell. Now! Against my better judgment I’m going to violate my orders and take you down to the aircraft. And then, sir, you’re going to get your sanctimonious ass off my base. Understood?”

“As you wish, Captain,” Campbell said, noting that Swanson’s radio was in plain view on the dashboard, cancelling any hopes the commander might have of making an emergency warning call to the EuroAir pilots.

There was a young Navy policeman guarding the door to the ramp and the Boeing 737 beyond. He was just a boy in a sharp sailor suit, and little more than nineteen or twenty years old, General Ed Glueck thought. He’d watched the boy carefully for several minutes, trying to discern his level of sophistication, watching as he occasionally looked up to smile at the music on the PA system when it switched to something upbeat.

The general approached him quietly.

“Son?”

“Yes, sir?” the young sailor said, somewhat taken aback to be approached by one of the passengers.

“I want you to take a look at the rank on this ID card,” the general said, handing over his gray U.S. Department of Defense credential card that identified him as a retired brigadier general.

The young man’s eyes grew a bit wider. “Yes, sir, General. What… can I do for you?”

The general gently reclaimed the ID card and slipped it back in his wallet as he turned and looked at the milling passengers, speaking conspiratorially out of the side of his mouth.

“I need to get back out to that aircraft.”

The Navy guard inhaled sharply and stiffened as conflicting duties swirled in his mind against the background of orders and limited experience.

This was a general officer! But this was a retired general officer.

“Sir, I… I can’t do that…”

The general turned and leaned close to the boy’s ear. “This is a matter of national security, son, and neither of us has time to seek formal authority. If your captain was here, I’d talk to him. But I need to slip out there right this minute. This is one of those times you were trained to expect where you have to be brave enough to do what you know is right even without formal authority.”

“But, sir…”

“I’m unarmed, and my wife, Joanie, is standing right over there. Obviously I’m not going anywhere without her, and I can’t be up to no good.”

“Yes, sir, but my orders…”

“Are superseded by mine. I’m giving you the authority. You do realize that a general officer is never off active duty, by the way?” he fibbed, knowing full well that only five-star generals were never retired, and with the death of General Omar Bradley decades before, there were no more living five-stars.

“Really, sir?”

“Just open the door. I’ll be back in ten minutes. All I need to do is confer with the captain of that airliner. If your captain gets upset, I’ll explain everything. I outrank him anyway, don’t I?”

“I suppose.”

“Didn’t they teach you that? A star beats an eagle?”

The young man nodded and swallowed as he surveyed the room and quietly turned the knob on the door behind him, letting Edwin Glueck slip into the cool and humid night air.

The distance to the aircraft was minimal, and he was in sufficiently good shape to jog to the airstairs. The forward door to the Boeing was closed but not sealed, and he knocked gently.

The man he’d suspected was a Secret Service agent peeked around the edge of the door and he slipped his ID card through. There were voices in the entryway before the door swung open and the man handed the card back.

“What do you need, General Glueck?” the man asked.

“Access to the captain.”

“Why?”

“Because I know the President is still here and I’ve got a terminal full of U.S. military veterans ready to help protect him.”