‘That I will, sir.’
He had been dreaming, no doubt about it, and my God, how that dream had slipped into this horrible nightmare. Men were there, men with lights and uniforms and loud voices, and this was one hell of a dream and—
Victor Palmer sat up in bed, chest heaving, looking at his suddenly crowded bedroom. There were three men in there, two of them wearing black uniforms and carrying stubby automatic weapons. The third man, the one with the large flashlight, said, ‘Sir, you’re Doctor Palmer, correct?’
Victor held a hand up to his eyes, to block the light. ‘Yes…yes… who are you? What the hell is going on here?’
The man said, ‘Sir, I’m afraid you’re in our custody, under direction of the National Command Authority. You need to join your Tiger Team members in Memphis, right away. What do you need?’
‘Um… ah, well, my laptop, of course, in my office, and—’
One of the men with automatic rifles quickly left the bedroom, and Victor said, ‘And… uh, what’s going on? Why do they need me so quickly?’
‘Sir,’ the man said, pulling away the bed coverings, ‘all I know is that there is an emergency, and your presence is required, now.’
Victor wiped at his face. ‘I… I need to shower. And get dressed… and—’
The man with the flashlight stepped forward. ‘Sir. There’s no time.’
And so Victor started protesting. But, quickly enough, other men came forward and literally picked him up, and he was taken out of his condo and down the central stairs, and now there was a loud noise coming from outside, and he was trying to say something, ask what in hell was going on, and the men were behind him, one of them carrying his laptop, another carrying a bundle of his clothes, shoving the clothes into a small leather bag.
Outside it was chaos. They propelled Victor along a paved walkway, to the common area of the condominium. The noise beat at his ears. Before him were the tennis courts for the condo units and other men were there as well, cutting and pulling down the chain-link fences, tearing up the netting. Overhead was a helicopter, a military helicopter with a belly-mounted searchlight that illuminated the whole area. Other residents of the condo units were now coming out their own homes, staring up in awe at what was going on around them.
The helicopter began to land and again Victor was picked up. His knees suddenly felt like the tendons and muscles had turned to mush, for he realized that this — all this! — was being done for him!
A mouth close to his right ear. ‘Keep your head down, doctor!’
Dirt and pebbles were being flung into his face as he went forward, hunched over. Men in the helicopter grabbed him and strapped him down, and he looked and saw that his clothes and laptop had joined him. He shouted out questions but the crewmen just tapped the side of their helmets and shook their heads.
Victor thought that he would throw up as the helicopter swooped and dove, and it was a short hop indeed, for now they were flying into an airbase, it looked like, military aircraft. The helicopter landed. Other uniformed men nearly dragged him off it and he tried to ask more questions, but no one would talk to him, nobody at all, as two or three of them dressed him in a flight suit of some sort and a helmet was jammed over his head, and then in front of him was a jet, a fighter aircraft of some sort, and his bags were placed into a small storage bin on the side of the fuselage and good Christ, he was actually hauled up into the open cockpit, put into the seat, straps and hoses were connected and he blinked his eyes very hard as the jet started moving down the runway, and the cockpit canopy started lowering over his head.
‘You okay back there, sir?’ came a crackling voice through the headphones in his helmet.
‘I… I guess so. What in hell is going on?’
‘The name’s Major Hanratty. Sir, my job is to get you to Memphis as soon as possible.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is to hold on back there. Once we’re wheels up, we’re going supersonic for a bit.’
Victor tried to swallow. Tried to swallow three times before he could produce saliva.
‘But… but I thought supersonic wasn’t allowed over civilian areas.’
The major said, ‘Usually you’re right, sir. But not this morning. Word I got is to break as many windows as I wanted, just as long as I got you to Memphis quick, like. You must be some big-ass VIP.’
Victor heard the tremor in his voice. ‘I’m… I’m just a doctor. That’s all.’
The major said quietly, ‘Must be a hell of a medical emergency out there in Memphis, then.’
Victor said nothing, tears springing to his eyes, nausea swelling in his guts, as he knew right then and there that it had all gone wrong.
Final Winter.
May God have mercy on me, he thought.
And as the jet took off, he had a sudden wish that something mechanical would happen, something bad so that this would all end now, in a clean and quick fireball, rather than ending up in Memphis.
But God wasn’t listening to him.
The aircraft took off safely.
Just his luck.
Brian looked to Monty who had just hung up the phone, arranging for Victor to come southwest. It had been a hell of a performance, and Brian wished that some of his commanders back at the NYPD had Monty’s presence and authority. But there was one more thing. Brian said, ‘You better be good, the next few hours.’
‘Only way I can be, son. Why did you say that?’
‘Because the higher-ups are going to want to have their say, have their input, have their command. You and me and Victor and the General, we know what’s happened, what can happen. We don’t have time to bring half the government up to speed on this fuck-up, much as they’re eager to know.’
Monty said, ‘You’ve been reading my mind, pal. Time for another phone call.’
Air Force General Mike McKenna had just received a status report from his adjutant on the deployment of F-16s and F-15s to track the AirBox aircraft when his phone rang. He picked it up, heard from the senior airman who served as his admin aide, and said, ‘All right, put him through.’
There was a click and he said, ‘General McKenna, Northern Command.’
‘Sir, this is Montgomery Zane. Department of Defense representative with Foreign Operations and Liaison Team Seven. Sir, I’m at the Memphis Airport, at the Operations Center for AirBox.’
‘So?’
‘General, please check your standing orders. Especially the Presidential Directive 61-10, issued on September 12, 2001. Sir, I’m the command lead for this incident. You’re not to take any hostile action against those nineteen AirBox aircraft without my authorization. And for purposes of identification my ID code for today is Bravo Bravo Zulu Twelve. I’m lead.’
‘The hell you are.’
‘The hell I’m not, general. Check your standing orders. This baby is mine. You’ll be informed at all times about what’s going on, and I may need you to take action against those aircraft, but right now it’s in my lap.’
General McKenna said, ‘I don’t have time to argue with you, Zane.’
‘Good. Neither do I. Look, we’ve got a situation here: I don’t want to be a hard ass, but check your standing orders.’
McKenna shifted the phone to another ear, scribbled a note, writing down BBZ12. ‘I intend to do just that. And to get those orders changed.’
Zane said, ‘Your prerogative, sir. But I think you’ll find that to change that means going through the White House, and I think the President is kinda busy right now.’