Headwind

TWENTY-TWO

Word that EuroAir was agreeing to charter the Boeing 737 to John Harris’s staff came by cell phone as Jay Reinhart left the men’s room at the Laramie airport, his mind and stomach still rebelling at the idea of flying in David Carmichael’s small plane. He made the requisite call to transfer forty thousand dollars from the President’s account to EuroAir as Sherry had directed, then called Sherry’s cell phone.

“They’ve also chartered another jet to take the other passengers back to Rome,” he reported when she answered, “and they’re charging fifteen thousand for that.”

“How soon?”

“The plane is already at Sigonella, they told me, so they can make the transfer almost immediately.”

“Good. And what’s your status, Jay?”

Several acerbic phrases about the inevitability of death by airplane flickered through Jay’s mind, but he didn’t feel humorous enough to use them.

“I’m just getting ready to take off for Denver, and I’ll connect with a direct United flight to London. Now listen, Sherry. I’ve been thinking as fast as I can. I think I want you to head for London, but wait until I get to Denver and on the international flight. I’ll decide by then and call you.”

“Why London?” she asked.

“The President will understand. We’ll surrender him there and fight it out in the British system.”

“Are you sure that’s the best method?” she asked.

“No,” Jay replied. “I’m not at all sure. That’s why I want to think hard about it for a couple of hours. I just don’t see much of an alternative, and it won’t be long before the world knows he’s still in Sicily.”

Jay glanced out the windows of the reception area at the Cessna, another thought interposing itself. “Sherry, if you don’t hear from me in three hours, try calling. If still no response, assume I’ve crashed or something and get on the way to London.”

“That’s not funny, Jay,” she said.

“That wasn’t meant to be funny,” he replied.

He ended the call and moved rapidly through the glass door to join David Carmichael in the small Cessna, climbing carefully through the right-hand door into the copilot’s seat.

“It’s a standard seat belt, Professor. Just get it snug around you,” Carmichael instructed from the left seat.

The panel in front of him was as mysterious as a treatise in Sanskrit. Dials and switches and gauges displaying arcane information not understandable to the uninitiated were spread before them, and Jay was momentarily puzzled when David handed him a second green headset.

“What’s this?”

“Put it on, please, and adjust the microphone in front of your mouth. I’ve got an intercom and we can talk over this thing.”

“Okay.”

David began reading down a plastic laminated list of things to do, flipping switches and adjusting dials before starting the engine.

The shock of the engine and propeller roaring to life and the sudden shaking of the little aircraft confirmed Jay’s worst fears: neither man nor Cessna was meant to fly. How could something that shook so violently at idle on the ground possibly last in the air? It was less a spoken question in his mind than a general feeling of inevitability, and he closed his eyes, remembering the last time he’d let himself be talked onto a high-tech roller coaster. From the moment it began, he’d felt completely out of control, the forces on his body so startling and strong that he found himself simply along for the ride, neither frightened nor convinced he would survive and completely stripped of control.

Karen had been the Pied Piper who’d lured him onto the thing. He was convinced now that her death wish was already showing by that time, but he hadn’t seen it that way at the time.

He thought of Karen now, the image triggering the same familiar flood of grief and guilt that quickly filled the space where raw fear had resided seconds before.

“Ready, sir?” David asked, jolting him from his daydream. The question was straightforward, but there was a hesitation in the pilot’s voice, and once again the prospect that any hesitation might lead Carmichael to cancel the flight forced the answer. Jay nodded as forcefully as he could, well aware he was fooling no one, least of all himself.

Captain Swanson had driven Campbell on a circuitous route through NAS-Two to the terminal. He brought his staff car to a halt in front of the passenger terminal at last and pointed Campbell’s attention to the door.

“We’ll go through there. I try not to drive on the operations ramp any more than necessary, for safety reasons.”

Campbell said nothing as he unfolded his six-foot-four frame and followed the uniformed commander into the terminal and through the mixture of curious and upset passengers to the ramp-side door. He caught himself casually scanning the crowd for the familiar form of the ex-President before concluding that Harris would never try to slip out in such a manner. He could hear buses pulling up behind the staff car as an announcement was made for the passengers to get ready to board.

“Are they headed to the charter aircraft?” Campbell asked, remembering a brief, open exchange Swanson had just had on the radio as they drove toward the flight line. Apparently EuroAir had chartered the same 727 he’d just released a half hour before.

Just as well, Campbell thought. If Harris is here, the fewer passengers in the way, the better.

The Captain spoke to one of his enlisted security men, who opened the door to the ramp and let them pass.

The Boeing sat a hundred feet away, still pointed west, as Campbell followed the Navy officer around its nose and up the airstairs. The forward entry door was partially closed, and Swanson spoke a few words to someone inside before the door opened, and first one, then several older men stepped onto the top of the platform, one of them having difficulty walking, the weight of his years forcing him to hold on tightly to the top of the railing.

“What do you want, Captain?” one of them asked.

“I need to get this man aboard to inspect the aircraft,” Captain Swanson said evenly, taking in the presence of the men without comment.

“And who is he?” the first man asked, pointing to the lawyer.

“Excuse me,” Stuart Campbell said firmly, “who are you?”

“Brigadier General Edwin Glueck, United States Army, retired, sir. And, again, who might you be?”

Stuart Campbell hesitated as he thought through the possibilities without finding a clear answer to what was going on. He held out his hand, but the self-identified general refused to take it.

Campbell identified himself anyway.

“We’ve chartered this airplane, Mr. Campbell,” General Glueck said. “We’re on a tour that’s been interrupted and we’d like to get on with it.”

“You’ve… chartered…”

“Yes, sir. We called EuroAir and chartered this aircraft, since no one else is using it now. The other passengers are going back to Rome on another aircraft. This one is ours.”

“I see. Well, I’d simply like to take a look aboard.”

“Why?”

Campbell smiled and looked at his shoes, the picture coalescing. “Why? Well, sir, if you’re truly a retired general, then you jolly well know why. I need to be assured that one John Harris, former President of the United States, is not aboard this airplane.”

“By what authority, Mr. Campbell?” General Glueck asked. “I’ll admit I’m not a lawyer…”

“I am,” a frail man at his side said in a surprisingly firm voice.

“And you would be another general, I suppose,” Campbell said with a slight sneer.

“No, sir. I would be, and am, a retired Air Force colonel from the Judge Advocate Corps, and unless you have some exotic jurisdictional claim I’ve never encountered, you have no official status here and no right to come aboard.”

Campbell laughed as derisively as he could manage. “Very well, gentlemen. The geriatric army, eh what? You’re all on some misguided quest to let your ex-President hide behind your skirts, so I’ll just go get the authorities and the proper arrest warrant and we’ll plow through whoever wants to stand in the way and arrest him anyway.”

“No you won’t, Campbell,” Captain Swanson snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“The situation hasn’t changed. This ramp is off-limits to the Italian authorities, and regardless of who is or isn’t aboard, without my authority no one is arresting anyone in this aircraft.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Captain!” Stuart Campbell said, real irritation melding with fatigue.

“Get away from our aircraft,” General Glueck added.

Stuart Campbell began to turn away, then faced Glueck again. “Very well, General. Your over-the-hill gang can keep your President for now, but…”

“That’s quite enough abuse from you, Stuart!” A firm voice reached the lawyer from behind the assembled veterans, and John Harris stepped onto the top of the airstairs and gently pushed through them to face Campbell. “These are brave, honorable men trying to protect the office, not the man. Don’t you dare sneer at them or abuse them!”

“Well, well, John. You’re looking exceptionally present for a man in a C- 17 a thousand miles from here.”

“Cute, Stuart. If you concluded I was gone, that was your mistake.”

“Oh, of course. Well, now that I know for certain you’re here, we’ll simply get this circus started again.”

“No, you won’t. You’re going to get your tail back in that jet of yours and go to London. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll hash out this inane warrant in the British courts.”

Stuart Campbell looked stunned for just a moment, then recovered.

“I see. Well…”

“You are still a British citizen, aren’t you, Stuart?”

“Of course.”

“An expatriate Scot, of course, and a loyal, obedient servant of the Queen.”

“Ancient insults, John?”

“This is a dirty quest you’re on, Stuart. You’re going to damage the very treaty you’re trying to uphold.”

Stuart Campbell looked at the ashen faces of the old men arrayed around them and decided to mute his reply.

“Well, Mr. President, we shall see. I do not accept your London offer. I will reassemble the Italian authorities and we’ll accept your surrender right here. We’re going to extradite you from Italy to Peru, and the sooner you accept that fact, the better for everyone… including the office.”

“Over our dead bodies,” General Glueck muttered, the other veterans echoing agreement.

“Mr. Campbell,” Swanson interjected, “this visit has ended. I’ll escort you off my ramp.” Swanson took his elbow, but Campbell yanked his arm free and turned back to John Harris, looking him in the eye for a few seconds before regaining control of himself and deciding to say nothing. He turned away and descended the airstairs, walking rapidly, his broad shoulders hunched forward in determination as Swanson hurried to keep up.

Campbell climbed back in his Learjet in a state of agitation, barely acknowledging his pilots as he plopped down in one of the plush captain’s chairs, consulted a small notebook, and yanked the satellite phone from its cradle. He punched a flurry of numbers into the instrument and waited, drumming his fingers on the fold-out desk.

“Giuseppe? Stuart Campbell. Please listen closely, old friend. Harris, it turns out, is still on the ground in Sigonella, and I have a proposition for you.”