That situation, of course, was beyond their control.
The agents were poised as the interceptors of incoming data that was to remain covert — and act as the disciplinarians if such information should ever find its way into civilian hands, where they would act accordingly in the interest of national security by meting out certain courses of action mandated by President Burroughs.
Sometimes situations had to disappear and be explained away, even in a democracy. And sometimes particular methods had to be employed to justify the means.
Around them the console panels inside the Tower blinked intermittently as voices piped through the intercom systems in aviation terms the agents did not understand. The phones rang constantly, the room always in an unremitting drone. In the center of the area where the Com Center was located, faxed documents poured out in chronological order. The delay, depending upon the number of pages sent, was more than an hour behind.
However, a page not belonging with a certain group of diagnostic reports surfaced and was caught by a Tower employee, who proffered the sheet to an agent. It was an intercepted email from Alitalia Airliner 4161, Shepherd One.
“Are you sure?” the agent asked the Tower employee.
The employee nodded. “Thoroughly,” he said. “All airline transmissions go through the Avionics dock to the airline com centers. Usually they’re up-to-the-date diagnostics of the flight in progress — you know, mechanical, electrical; something to let the airline engineers know if something’s wrong during the flight. Emails are never personal — not like this. Everything coming from the Avionics panel is strictly diagnostics charts. Whoever was in the Avionics Room tapped into one of the ports and redirected the channel by typing in an address, which appears to belong to the Vatican.”
The agent held the intercepted letter up and gave it a mild wave in emphasis. “So this was sent by the pilot?”
The employee shrugged. “I have no idea who sent it,” he said. “All I know is this: the Avionics Room is a secured zone below the cockpit. To access the area one would need a key from an airline diagnostics specialist and not from the pilot since the area is restricted to all personnel with the exception of the plane’s engineers. If somebody was in that room while the plane was in flight, then they forced their way in. Whether or not it was the pilot — I don’t know. But the message has the name Kimball on it.”
“But there’s no doubt that this email was generated from the Avionics Room of Shepherd One?”
“None,” he stated. “The transmission of the diagnostic recordings from Shepherd One was interrupted by this message, which can be confirmed by the time stamp and ISP address on the upper right-hand corner of the page.”
The agent reread the email and noted the stamp and address.
“Can I ask you something?” asked the employee.
The agent looked into the man’s brown eyes. “Sure.”
“Are there really nuclear weapons on board that plane? Is that the reason why the Feds are crawling all over this place?”
From that point on all incoming and outgoing calls were suspended to employee staff with the phones now manned by federal agents. Though the Tower staff was not tagged as hostages, their privileges to leave the facility were suspended for the sake of national security. No one was allowed to communicate by any means with anyone beyond the airport perimeter. For those who strongly voiced their disagreements of current conditions were summarily sequestered.
A lockdown was now in effect.
After reading the email several times, the agent knew the president would be pleased to know they had a man on board. So along with the copy of the passenger list, the federal agent faxed all documents to the principals at Raven Rock.
President Burroughs was an emotional pressure cooker by the time Hakam logged on for a second go around. But he maintained himself after learning from the first exchange.
“Are you ready to act accordingly, Mr. President?”
Burroughs looked at the large viewing screen. There was no doubt the question was meant to be a source of embarrassment to him as Hakam’s words resonated throughout the hollow chamber. “You’ve wasted time,” the president said mildly. “We could have been working toward a solution over the past couple of hours.”
“There’s plenty of time,” said Hakam. “No doubt you already know what this plane is capable of — how long we can stay airborne.”
“What do you want?” The question was plain, simple, and proffered far more gently.
“My demand will be a simple one,” he said. “It’s simply addition by subtraction.”
The terminology was clear: addition by subtraction meant the requestor would benefit by the assassination of living obstacles for further gain.
“You want the American Government to assassinate individuals for the benefit of your organization?”
“Your policy, Mr. President, is to ‘keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.’ And by that your government has been the watchdog maintaining close surveillance by illegally tapping the lines of the Arabic constituency here in the United States, which makes it easier for your government to access information concerning possible insurgencies regarding American interests — here and abroad. Therefore, your government has made it significantly difficult to wage war in your territory.”
“You mean commit acts of terrorism. Say it as it is, Hakam! It’s terrorism!”
“It’s war, Mr. President.”
The chamber went completely silent. Then: “We do what we do to preserve the American way of life,” said Burroughs, “and push for the commitment of peace within our borders. And I will use whatever methods are available to me to make this happen.”
“I’m not condemning you,” said Hakam. “You’re simply employing a defensive tactic of war. I can understand that. But now you must understand that I have to counter your initiative in order to level the playing field.”
“Seems to me you have the upper hand at the moment,” said the president.
“A slight, but temporary advantage,” he returned. “But what I’m looking for is something long term.”
“And what would that be?”
Hakam appeared to be scanning the faces of those sitting at the presidential table. “Most of your intelligence comes from Mossad; we know that — especially from the Political Action and Liaison Department and the Lohamah Psichlogit.”
The Political Action and Liaison Department, commonly referred by Mossad as the PALD, is responsible for conducting political activities and sustain liaisons with friendly foreign services — such as the CIA — by transmitting data from one agency to another regarding insurgent movement, or to pass on information to update the terrorist database. The Lohamah Psichlogit Department was different in the regard that they were responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations. These two departments within Mossad were the umbilical ties that fed America and kept it safe.
President Burroughs did not like where this was going.
“There are five people between both departments,” said Hakam, “who possess enough knowledge within their file and rank to start World War Three. These people must be eliminated. However, your government and the Israeli government have made it impossible for us to come close to them to do the job ourselves. Therefore, we intend to blindside them by using their strongest ally against them.”
“You really expect us to go after top-ranking officials within Mossad?”
“If you don’t, then consider the alternative of not complying with my wish, which is the annihilation of the Los Angeles area.”