"Who?" the president asked.
"My executive assistant," Hall said.
"That good-looking young guy who speaks Hungarian?" Cohen asked.
Hall nodded.
"You know him, Natalie?" the president asked.
"I don't know him, but I saw him translating for Matt at a reception at the Hungarian embassy," she said.
"Why do you need a Hungarian translator, Matt?" the president asked with a smile.
"The Hungarian came with the package," Hall said. "He speaks seven, maybe more, languages, among them Hungarian."
"He's a linguist?" the president asked.
Hall understood the meaning of the question: How is a linguist going to do what we need here?
"Well, that, too, sir. But he's also a Green Beret."
"A Green Beret?" the president asked, his tone suggesting that the term had struck a sympathetic chord.
"Yes, sir," Hall replied. "He's a Special Forces major. I went to General Naylor and asked him if he could come up with somebody who had more than language skills. He sent Charley to me. He's a good man, Mr. President. He can do this."
"Makes sense to me," Cohen said. "Matt thinks he's smart, which is good enough for me. And no one is going to suspect that a Special Forces major would be given a job like this."
"I'd like to meet this guy," the president said. "Okay, what else do we need to get this started?"
"We'll need all the intelligence filings," Hall said. "I suppose Natalie will have most of them-or synopses of them, anyway."
"Mostly, all I get is the synopses," Cohen said. "I have to ask for the original filing, and raw data if I want to look at that."
The president thought that over a moment.
"We don't know that somebody is not going to try to fly this airplane into the White House or the Golden Gate Bridge:"
Hall opened his mouth to say something, but the president held up his hand in a gesture meaning he didn't want to be interrupted.
": so I think it could be reasonably argued that the missing 727 is something in which Homeland Security would have a natural interest."
Hall and Cohen nodded.
"So, Natalie, why don't you send a memo telling everybody to send the intelligence filings to Matt?"
"And the raw data, Mr. President?" Hall asked.
The president nodded.
"All filings and all raw data, from everybody," the president ordered. "Yes, sir, Mr. President," Dr. Cohen said. "Okay. We're on our way," the president said.
[TWO]
Hunter Army Airfield
Savannah, Georgia
1315 27 May 2005
The Cessna Citation X attracted little attention as it touched down smoothly just past the threshold of the runway, possibly because one of the world's most famous airplanes was moving majestically down the parallel taxiway.
The copilot of the Citation looked at the enormous airplane as they rolled past it, and turned to the pilot, as the pilot reported, "Six-Oh-One on the ground."
"Twenty-nine," the copilot said.
The pilot nodded.
"Six-Oh-One, take Four Right to the parallel," Hunter ground control ordered the smaller jet. "Be advised there is a 747 on the parallel. Turn left on the parallel. Hold at the threshold."
"Understand Four Right," the pilot replied, "then turn left to hold at the threshold. Thank you for advising about taxiway traffic. I might have not seen that airplane."
"You're welcome, Six-Oh-One," the ground traffic controller replied with a chuckle in his voice.
"And by the way, Hunter," the pilot said. "I think that's a VC-25A, not a 747."
"Thank you so much, Six-Oh-One," the controller replied. "Duly noted."
"Hunter, Air Force Two-Niner-Triple-Zero, I have that cute little airplane in sight and will endeavor not to run over it."
"Two-Niner-Triple-Zero," the pilot of the Citation said. "It's not nice to make fun of little airplanes, especially ones flown by birdmen in their dotage."
"Who is that?" the copilot of the Citation asked. "Jerry?"
"It sounds like him," the pilot said.
Both the pilot and the copilot of the Citation knew Air Force VC-25A tail number 29000 well. Both had more than a thousand hours at the controls of it, or its identical twin, tail number 28000. Flying the specially configured Boeings-whose call sign changed to Air Force One whenever the president of the United States was on board-had been their last assignment before their retirement.
Twenty-nine, both believed, was now being flown-or, actually, both strongly suspected, just taxied to the end of the runway for a precautionary engine run-up-by Colonel Jerome T. McCandlish, USAF, whom they had, after exhaustive tests and examinations, signed off on two years before as qualified to fly the commander in chief.
The proof-in addition to the sound of his voice-seemed to be that he had recognized the tail number on the Citation and felt sure he knew who was flying it.
Citation tail number NC-3055 was the aircraft provided for the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, although there was nothing to suggest this in its appearance. It was intended to look like-and did look like-most other Citations. And with the exception of some very special avionics not available on the civilian market it was essentially just like every other Citation X in the air.
"Miss it, Jack?" the pilot inquired as 29000 fell behind them.
"Sure," the copilot said. "Don't you?"
"The question is, 'Would I go back tomorrow?,' " the pilot said, "and the answer is, 'No, I don't think so.' This is just about as much fun, and it's a hell of a lot less:"
"Responsibility?"
"I was going to say that, but: work. It's a lot less work."
"I agree."
When the time had come for them to be replaced as pilots-in-command of the presidential aircraft-six months apart-they had been offered, within reason, any assignment appropriate to full colonels and command pilots. There were problems with the word "appropriate." They were led to understand that although colonels command groups, it would not really be appropriate for them to be given command of, for example, one of the groups in the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.
That would be a great flying job, but the cold facts were that they had spent very little time at the controls of various C-130 aircraft, such as the Spectre and Spooky gunships best known for their fierce cannons, and actually knew very little about what Special Operations really did.
The same was true of taking command of a fighter wing or a bomber wing.
Although both had once been fighter pilots and bomber pilots, that had been early on in their careers, decades ago, and now they were almost in their fifties.
What was appropriate, it seemed, was command of one of the Flying Training Wings in the Nineteenth Air Force. They had training experience, and knowing that they were being taught how to fly by pilots who had flown the commander in chief in Air Force One would certainly inspire fledgling birdmen.
So would becoming a professor at the Air Force Academy be appropriate and for the same reasons. It would also be appropriate for them to become air attaches at a major American embassy somewhere; they certainly had plenty of experience being around senior officials, foreign and domestic. But that would not be a flying assignment and they both wanted to continue flying.
Their other option was to retire and get a civilian flying job. The problem there was the strong airline pilots' unions, which made absolutely sure every newly hired airline pilot started at the bottom of the seniority list. No matter how much time one had at the controls of a 747/VC-25A, those airline pilot positions went only to pilots who had worked their way up the seniority ladder.
In favor of retirement, however, was that the Air Force retirement pay wasn't bad, and they would get it in addition to what they would make sitting in the copilot's seat of a twin-engine turboprop of Itsy-Bitsy Airlines, and both had just about decided that's what it would be when the rag-heads flew skyjacked 767s into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania ground.