There was a long, uncomfortable silence from the other end before the NTSB board member responded. “Mr. President, only one thing. The flight path of the SeaAir MD-eleven resembles an aircraft devoid of pilot control. If the Hong Kong flight was, in fact, purposefully attacked, the objective was most likely the removal of both pilots’ ability to control the aircraft, so it would crash. Somehow, one pilot managed to stay in control, but if they were attacked, the objective would be to take both of them out. If SeaAir was attacked with the same objective, then the answer is yes, I see a similarity. But in Sea Air, we haven’t a clue yet as to what could have incapacitated the pilots, and a light burst, as I said earlier, just doesn’t explain it.”
“Thanks, Stella.”
The President’s secretary had quietly entered the Oval Office and slipped a note to the President. Those in the group who were watching him saw his face fall and his eyes grow dark as he read the message. The President looked up then and sighed, a sad and grim expression on his face.
“Folks, we’ve been keeping an open line to Hong Kong in the Sit Room. I’m… devastated to tell you that the Chinese air traffic people have just lost Meridian Five from radar, and believe he’s crashed. The location”—the President referred to the note again—“is at sea, approximately thirty miles south of Hong Kong.” He passed the communiqué to Jason Pullman, who shook his head.
“Okay,” the President said with a loud sigh. “We have mysteries and no solutions. If this flight was attacked, we’re at war with someone, and I need that target defined, whether it’s Fidel, Saddam, Milosevic, or some other upstart group. I want a deep assessment of the possibility that we’re looking at a new pattern using phosphorous-based warheads designed to flash-blind pilots. That, to me, is the most promising, and chilling, possibility. And, Jake, from the Bureau I want the earliest possible confirmation of terrorist activity in either of these two accidents.”
“Yes, Sir,” Jake replied. “We have two hundred and ten agents assigned to the SeaAir accident and I happen to have one of my best agents in Hong Kong right now.”
The President got to his feet. “Good. We need to turn these questions into answers very rapidly. If the idea gets out that American airliners are being systematically targeted by some mysterious new group using some noxious new warhead on a laser-guided missile, we’re going to see the airline industry paralyzed, and all of us held hostage by the panic. And with our luck, the damn missiles will probably have been made in the U.S.”
In the FBI headquarters building, a short distance from the White House, Jake Rhoades clicked off the connection and got up from his desk. Two of his senior agents were waiting in his outer office and stood when he entered.
“How’d it go, Jake?” one of them asked.
Jake snorted and shook his head. “The Air Force used missile-speak to mesmerize the big guy. He likes a missile with a phosphorous warhead that magically knows just where to explode in front of a cockpit.”
“And we don’t?”
Jake shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know what to think, except that the NTSB lady had it right. At this point, we’re clueless.”
Kat Bronsky thanked the shift supervisor and pushed through the door of the radar facility, where the consulate car was waiting. She felt stunned, empty, and ill, and the supervisor’s words rang in her ears in bits and pieces: “Terrible explosion… nuclear mentioned, but not possible… copilot blinded, captain killed… another aircraft missing in the same area… possible midair…”
The last radar return, the supervisor told her, had come during a rapid descent through 2,000 feet in the middle of a thunderstorm cell.
Kat closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to get the image out of her mind. Without question, the big Boeing was in pieces in the South China Sea. She thought of Robert MacCabe and the seat next to him, which she would have occupied if fate had not intervened.
“Where would you like to go, please?” the Chinese driver asked.
“What? Oh,” Kat replied, fatigue weighing her down. “Give me a minute.” She sighed and pulled the satellite phone out of her purse, intending to check in with Jake Rhoades back in Washington, but the words of the Hong Kong Approach Control supervisor crystallized at the same moment: possible midair with another aircraft now missing. Which aircraft? She had been too shocked to ask.
She yanked open the car door and headed back into the radar facility.
CHAPTER 14
The urgent call from Central Intelligence for satellite support in the Meridian 5 matter had triggered a flurry of activity in the NRO’s surveillance center near Washington. As the newly targeted orbiting sensors peered intently at the Hong Kong area from space, three men and one woman gathered around a large, sophisticated video screen in a small room within the high-tech warrens of the cutting-edge installation. One of the men had been holding open a phone line to a CIA team in Langley, but he put them on hold to peer at the display screen, following the small pointer being used by the chief NRO analyst.
“This is Hong Kong over to the far right,” Janice Washburn said. “The satellite we’re using is approaching at almost ninety degrees overhead. There’s a solid cloud cover both above and below the jet’s altitude, so we’re using a primary infrared depiction with an optics backup.”
“We have this real-time, correct?”
“Yes, Sir,” the woman answered. “But remember, this is a processed shot. Real-time information for a composite depiction. We’ve got the other stuff on tape.”
“Bottom line, Janice, have you found anything?”
She nodded. “I’ve filtered out all other known air traffic being worked by Hong Kong, Vietnam, or any of the other air traffic authorities in the vicinity.”
“And?”
“Take a look,” she said, pointing to a tiny white dot southwest of Hong Kong. She repeatedly toggled a switch on the display to zoom the picture. “This is twenty-mile range from one side of the screen to the other. Ten miles. Five. Two. One.” The target became progressively larger, streaming white plumes behind it as it moved to the southwest. “Okay, I’m zooming in to a matter of yards.”
Suddenly the screen was filled with a white, ghostly shape that could only be a 747. The inboard power plant on the left wing was obviously not producing heat, since there were plumes from only three engines. There was another, smaller plume from the tail-mounted auxiliary power unit.
“Are we sure that’s Meridian?” George Barkley whispered.
She nodded. “We’ve dovetailed the track of the aircraft from before the landing attempt back to when we could pick up the radar transponder. That’s him, okay, and as you can see, he’s still very much airborne and alive — though his course has been erratic. By the way, George, I’m told the Chinese have launched a search-and-rescue force. Are we going to be able to tell them the aircraft hasn’t crashed?”
George Barkley shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not our decision, but you know the concerns. Too much information about what we’ve seen and how we did it compromises our capabilities.”
“In other words, probably not.”
He nodded as he pulled the phone receiver to his ear and smiled. “At least I can tell our side, and it’s going to feel good to relay positive news for a change.”