Phantom

Twenty-one

Aboard Air Force One

Angel, as her crew calls Air Force One, has four engines slung under her massive wings. They are General Electric F103-GE-180 turbofan engines. Each one of them is rated at 56,750 pounds of thrust. That equates to an 800,000-pound machine capable of near-supersonic speeds. Although it is not an advisable maneuver, the four engines are powerful enough to stand Angel on her tail and make her climb straight up. So far, that maneuver had never been necessary.

But we live in dangerous times.

Today, for example, Air Force One was making a transcontinental flight from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco. Normally, the presidential aircraft would make the flight alone. But today, due to America’s defense readiness having gone to DEFCON 3 over the Russian submarine incident, things were different. Angel had four USAF fighter escorts, designated “Red Team,” in attendance. Two McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles up front, and two aft, all in tight formation, maintaining a one-mile separation from the beautiful blue-and-white 747.

Whenever the president or secretary of defense travel, a highly modified C-2 °C Gulfstream IV always shadows their aircraft. Should the president land at, say, London’s Heathrow Airport, the C-2 °C will land at nearby Royal Air Force Northolt and remain on runway alert. Its function is to provide backup transportation in an emergency as well as communications support.

President Tom McCloskey stretched out his long legs, admiring his new Tony Lama custom cowboy boots with the presidential seal. He wore navy blue suits, white shirts, and red ties now, but he still looked like the Montana rancher he’d been before coming to Washington. He gazed out the large porthole window of the presidential suite’s private conference room. He was checking out the F-15 Eagle flying the Red Two position, streaking through the sky off the plane’s starboard side, a thin white contrail in its wake.

Damn! Four government folks traveling out to California for a funeral and it takes six airplanes to get them there!

McCloskey turned to his wife, Bonnie, who was seated on a leather sofa to his left, quietly doing needlepoint, and said, “You know, Bon, it’s a good thing old Al Gore ain’t keeping track of my movements today. Hell, I’m stomping carbon footprints a mile wide across the whole damn country on all burners. I’m a one-man ecological disaster, creating my own damn personal hole in the ozone.”

“Yes, dear,” Bonnie said without missing a stitch. “That would be funny if it weren’t true.”

“Drives a Chevy Suburban, y’know,” the president muttered under his breath.

“Al Gore does not drive a Chevy Suburban.”

“Not since they got that picture of him in it.”

“Don’t start, Tom, please.”

“When is this teleconference going to start up, anyway?” McCloskey asked Chief Master Sergeant Steve Lominack, currently placing pads and pencils around the conference table. “And who is this fella Hawke that wants to talk to us, Brick? You were in an Iraqi prison with him, that right?”

The CIA director smiled and said, “Yes, sir. And I’d be buried there today if it weren’t for him. After a few weeks, he decided I couldn’t survive another day of torture. So he woke up one morning, killed a bunch of guards, put me on his shoulders, and walked across the desert for a few days until he found some friendlies.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy. Now, he’s MI6 or MI5, right? In London?”

“Six, sir, under Sir David Trulove, or C, as they always call the director. I’d say Alex Hawke is the single best counterterrorist operative they’ve got, Mr. President. You remember when the Royal Family was held hostage at Balmoral Castle?”

“Who can forget? It was on the damn TV twenty-four hours a day.”

“Well, Alex Hawke single-handedly engineered and executed that rescue with virtually no loss of life, starting with the Queen of England herself.”

“Well, hell, I’m looking forward to meeting him on the TV. Fire it up, will you?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Chief Steward Tim Kerwin said. “Mr. Hawke is coming up on the screen now.”

“I see him. Hello, Mr. Hawke, this is President McCloskey. I can see you, can you see me?”

“Yes, sir, I can, quite clearly, thank you.”

“Well, I want to thank you for joining us. With me are Secretary of Defense Anson Beard; your old friend CIA director Patrick Brickhouse Kelly; and my lovely wife, Bonnie. Now, Brick here tells me you went to Moscow to interview that Russian sub driver, Lyachin, who sank our cruise ship, that right?”

“I just left him an hour ago, sir.”

“What’d you find out?”

“Mr. President, in my opinion, based on that interview, the Russians, the Kremlin, and Captain Lyachin had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking of the American cruise ship. I believe Prime Minister Putin has been telling you the truth, sir.”

“Well, with all due respect, Mr. Hawke, the navy divers found two torpedo propellers down there on the bottom. They’ve both been positively identified as coming from extremely high explosive Russian torpedoes. Isn’t that right, Mr. Secretary?”

“That’s correct, sir,” Beard replied.

“Well, Mr. Hawke, how do you explain that?”

“The torpedoes were definitely fired from the Nevskiy, sir. The fish loaded were live torpedoes, not deadheads. They were in the midst of conducting a dry fire practice launch as ordered. But Captain Lyachin and his crew had nothing to do with launching live torpedoes at an American vessel.”

“Say again?”

“The sub’s digital controllers, the computers that run her reactor, all her systems including weapons, were infected with an unidentifiable, untraceable cyberweapon that seized control of the entire submarine.”

“Now, Mr. Hawke, let’s be clear with each other. You believe this fella isn’t just trying to get his ass off the hook?”

“With all due respect, sir, I believe he’s telling the truth, sir. He’s a former physicist and an engineer, Mr. President. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s analyzed the sequence of events and identified the causes of that tragedy. A cyberweapon infected his submarine.”

“How the hell could this happen?”

“The best analogy is the Stuxnet worm that infected the Iranian centrifuges at Natanz, sir. His sub was targeted by a new generation cyberweapon, except the one that infected the Nevskiy is vastly more sophisticated than anything we’ve ever seen before. Certainly the U.K. possesses nothing remotely capable of taking over an entire naval vessel’s systems.”

“Mr. Secretary, what do you think?”

“Somebody has to have made a giant leap forward in technology, but, yes, I suppose it’s possible. Taking cybercontrol of enemy vessels is one of the highest objectives of our own program. We’re nowhere near close, sad to say.”

“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. So who’s behind the attack, Mr. Hawke?”

“I have no idea, sir.”

“Well, I know you don’t work for me, but from what I hear, I’d sure as hell be grateful if you could help me find out the answer to that question.”

“Those are precisely my intentions, Mr. President. The director of MI6, as you may know, has ordered my counterintelligence unit, Red Banner, to find out who sank that cruise ship and how. Since Red Banner is composed of both MI6 and CIA assets, I also report to Director Kelly as well as Sir David.”

The president turned to Kelly.

“What do you think, Brick?”

“I think that if Alex Hawke says the Russians had nothing to do with this, then the Russians had nothing to do with it. Alex, was your entire interview with Lyachin taped?”

“Yes. I will make a call immediately and get a copy of that tape electronically transmitted to Air Force One as quickly as possible. Sorry I didn’t think of that before.”

“You got nothing to be sorry for, son. No idea how you pulled off this interview, but I’ll tell you what. You just saved all of us a lot of useless hand-wringing over what the hell Putin was up to. Now we just need to learn who possesses cyberwarfare technology at this level. Anson, could you give us an update on who the major players are in this new cyber arms race?”

“Certainly. In no particular order, the countries using linked supercomputers to advance these kinds of AI programs the most rapidly would be Israel, China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and, possibly, North Korea. If I had to guess, based on the most recent intelligence I’ve seen, China has taken the lead in this field.”

“If I may, Mr. President,” Hawke said, “based on that list, I would say our primary suspects are China and North Korea.”

“It’s a place to start, Alex,” Brick Kelly said. “So let’s get started.”

At that moment, there appeared to be a power failure; his teleconference screen went black. Alex Hawke had just lost his connection with Air Force One.

“R ed One Leader, I got a little glitch here, over,” USAF Lieutenant Mick Millard said to his wing commander. Millard was flying the Red Three position off Air Force One: one mile aft and to starboard.

“This is Cheyenne, Sixshooter,” Captain Steve Powell, the wing commander flying the Red One slot to port said. “Talk to Papa.”

“Yessir. I… uh… had three unexplained turbine power surges. Squawk’s out… and…’’

“And what?”

“Shit!”

“Sixshooter, are you declaring an emergency?”

“My gear’s lowering and retracting! Shit! All by itself! What the hell?”

“Sixshooter, Cheyenne, break off! Break off! Out of formation, that is an order, now!”

“I… uh… wait a minute… I… uh… can’t… nothing is responding… ailerons… rudder… the damn plane is flying itself, sir… like automatic pilot… I have no control… None…”

There was a blast of static as USAF Captain Powell contacted the cockpit of the president’s airplane.

“Air Force One, we have a serious problem at Red Three. Systems malfunction. Pilot reports…”

“Red One Leader, break, this is Sixshooter, my radar just lit up… what the-”

“Air Force One, take immediate evasive action… deploy chaff… flares… I say again, immediate evasive action… F-15 on your aft starboard quarter is a bogie…”

“Red One Leader,” said the incredulous captain on the big 747, “are you saying one of our own damn-”

“Air Force One, dive! Dive! You have armed Sidewinders at your zero angle, sir!”

“Hostile situation alert,” the captain said calmly over the airplane’s intercom. “All crew and passengers. Seated and buckled up. Now.”

Suddenly the giant 747’s nose pitched down, the aircraft now in a nearly vertical dive, and the pilot deployed defensive countermeasures. At the tailcone section, just above the auxiliary power units, was the MATADOR IRCM (Infra-Red Countermeasures System). This device, activated in response to a direct missile threat, spews out signals of such intensity that an incoming missile, homing onto hot areas, the engine exhausts, is suddenly overwhelmed by so many false signal noises that it loses its lock and flies past the target. These same systems are also located above the four engine nacelles, all aimed aft.

The wing commander, call sign Cheyenne, peeled away and did a “bat-turn,” a tight, high G, turn that put him right on Sixshooter’s tail.

“Sixshooter, I order you to eject immediately. Affirmative?”

“Arming the seat, sir. Shit, that’s working at least… independent system…”

“Pull that goddamn red handle, son. Right goddamn now!”

“Sir, I’m trying, but…”

“But nothing. I’ve got you locked on. I’m giving you exactly five seconds to get out. Then I’m pulling the trigger… on my mark, five… four…”

A keening alarm could be heard from inside the cockpit of Sixshooter’s F-15. His missiles were armed and about to launch. His voice cracked and broke as he made his reply. “Pull that trigger now, sir. I got a rogue Sidewinder with the fuse lit. Launch right now, sir, before this damn-”

“God bless and keep you, son,” Cheyenne said, and launched his missile.

“God bless America, sir,” were the last words heard from Sixshooter before he and his aircraft were vaporized.

Red Team Leader’s AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air heat-seeking missile homed in on the exhaust of Sixshooter’s F-15 Eagle. A conical sensor in the missile’s nose cone registered optimum destructive range and triggered the warhead.

Lieutenant Mick Millard, Sixshooter, died instantly in a blinding ball of flame. Aboard Air Force One, Captain Dickenson leveled off at ten thousand feet and immediately notified the president and Angel’s entire crew that the threat had been nullified.

A few long minutes later, Colonel Danny Barr, Angel’s copilot, along with the airplane’s physician, Doctor and Rear Admiral Connie Mariano, peeked into the conference room. Once the rogue F-15 had been destroyed, the 747 leveled, completely unharmed save for the nervous systems of everyone aboard. Colonel Barr was deeply relieved to see the president and everyone else buckled in. Scared, dazed maybe, but unhurt.

“Everybody all right? Sorry, Mr. President, I know we didn’t give you much of a heads-up to strap in tight before we took evasive action.”

Starting with the president, Dr. Mariano went to each person in the conference room, checking pulses, pupil dilation, and asking a few questions to determine whether or not anyone wanted a mild sedative. No one did.

“What in God’s name happened, Danny?” the president asked.

“Yes, sir, well, we’re still trying to figure that out, both up in the cockpit and with tech support down on the ground. Apparently, the airplane flying Red Three today suffered a catastrophic systems failure.”

“There’s an understatement. Damn thing tried to shoot us down.”

“Yes, sir. The pilot lost all control of his aircraft, Mr. President. The way the skipper put it to the engineers on the ground, he said, ‘the airplane was completely co-opted.’ ”

“Co-opted?”

“Somebody else was flying that airplane, sir. One minute the pilot had control, the next minute, he was riding a drone. His radar went active, he painted us, and then his weapon system armed. That F-15 was seconds away from launching a Sidewinder at us when Red Team Leader took him out, sir.”

“Did that poor boy get out first?”

“No, sir. His ejection seat was inoperable.”

“Thank you, Admiral Mariano; thank you, Danny, appreciate your help. That will be all.”

Once the door had closed, the president said, “I’d say this crisis just escalated, if that isn’t too much of an understatement for you.”

“It’s insane, Mr. President,” Anson Beard, the secretary of defense, said, squeezing his temples with his forefingers. “Just insane.”

“Not an ‘it,’ Anson, but a ‘who.’ Who the hell has amassed this kind of power? Hell, you could bring the whole damn world crashing down with something like this. We’re going to spend the rest of this flight lighting up the secure phones; how many we have on board, twenty-eight or so? I want everyone notified immediately, Defense, NSA, CIA, FBI, the Joint Chiefs, everybody. We got a war on our hands. I’m not so sure we don’t have a world war on our hands.”