And so she needed her poker face. She checked it, and checked it again, finding no flaw, no visible chink in the armour.
She rose from the table, adjusted her tailored navy-blue suit, and passed through the bedroom into the sitting room beyond.
Her personal bodyguard was waiting just inside the door, alert and attentive as always.
‘Hey Stevie,’ Abrams said as he straightened up to attention.
‘Ma’am,’ Mancini said, nodding in greeting. ‘How are you feeling?’ Mancini had been the head of Abrams’ personal Presidential security detail for the entire two years of her presidency, but time had merely made his hatred of her grow stronger; it pained him to be nice to her, but he was buoyed by the meeting the previous night, and knew he had to keep in character, at least for now.
On the surface, they had built up a good working relationship, and he knew her better than most. Despite her poker face, he could see she was ill at ease. Good, Mancini thought. Fucking bitch.
‘Does it show?’ Abrams asked.
‘Only to me, ma’am,’ he said, smiling now. ‘But I think you look perfect anyway.’
She blushed, despite herself. ‘Oh, you have a way with the ladies, don’t you Stevie?’
Mancini laughed. ‘Try telling that to my ex-wife,’ he said, and Abrams laughed too, the laughter relaxing her.
‘There you go,’ Mancini said, ‘laugh a little, it’ll do you good.’ He smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Now you’re ready.’
Abrams smiled back. ‘You’re right. Now I’m ready. Thank you, Agent Mancini.’ She turned for the door to the central hallway. ‘Let’s go.’
Mancini nodded his head. ‘Yes, Madam President.’
19
The pilot died instantly, just as the plane reached Washington’s inner coastline, as the 5.56mm bullets ripped through the cockpit, shattering the rest of the windows and showering the flight deck with the lightly armoured glass.
Cole had dived below the enormous bank of controls that took up most of the space at the front of the cockpit, only at the last moment hearing the tell-tale hum of the helicopter’s rotors over the din of the four prop engines and the roar of the wind.
The rotor noise had soon been drowned out by the metallic clang of bullets ripping their way down the side of the aircraft’s fuselage. Without a pilot, the aircraft suddenly dipped, and Cole pulled himself reluctantly across into the pilot’s seat, pulling the strafed, bullet-riddled body of the pilot out onto the floor. He kept his body low, hunched over the instrument panel as he took control of the aircraft.
Through the shattered windscreen, Cole could see nothing except the dark expanse of sky and a fearsome white cloud sailing towards him as the snow and frozen hailstones smashed into his unprotected face and eyes. He held up an arm to shield himself, and under its protection could just make out the glittering lights of Washington in the distance up ahead.
He heard the high-pitched whine of the rotors coming in from the side again, and pulled the big aircraft over into a sharp bank to the right, the supersonic rounds peppering the fuselage instead of the flight deck.
It was then he saw the second chopper, circling in from the other side.
20
For his part, Matthew Raines had never flown a helicopter in such appalling conditions. It was an effort just to keep the Bell from crashing, never mind in a perfect attack position.
Hansard had made contact with him just minutes before, ordering him into the snow-filled skies above Washington.
Raines had first met Hansard when he was still in the Army, flying helicopters in Afghanistan. Hansard had taken him with him first to the DIA, and then into the SRG, and now Hansard had him permanently stationed in DC, from where he often still flew missions. He had never led an actual attack in American airspace however, and was justifiably nervous, although Hansard had assured him it had all been cleared with United States authorities.
The two men attached to straps in the passenger compartment, leaning out of each door with their weapons firing at the nearby cargo plane on full auto, Raines had worked with before. They too were SRG operatives, and Raines knew they were good, and despite the weather the men had already managed to destroy most of the front end of the plane.
They each used a 5.56mm Steyr AUG, which was a reliable modular design from Austria that came in a range of different variants. This one had the twenty-four inch heavy barrel, and was used as a light support weapon, where its performance could be devastating.
As Raines homed back in towards the plane, he saw the rounds from the other helicopter — piloted by a close friend and fellow SRG pilot — trace up the body of the Hercules, until the rear section started spewing a thin black cloud out across the driving mid-air snow.
21
Cole’s mind raced as he sat at the controls, trying his best to shake the attack. The trouble was that the big Herc just wasn’t built for manoeuvrability, whereas a helicopter was, and the two little birds were all over him.
He felt the aircraft pull to the right, and then his eyes were drawn to the fuel readout. There wasn’t much left to start with, but Cole watched with rising apprehension as the needle started to drop lower and lower.
Raines battled with the controls to keep the helicopter steady as he pulled up alongside the Hercules cockpit once more; he knew there was no chance the pilot would be able to bank away in time.
Meanwhile, his opposite number had boxed the Hercules in from behind.
As he turned his chopper broadside on to the big plane, he glanced towards the rear. There he saw Marcus Davies, the ex-Marine Force Recon operator, as he leaned out of the Bell’s side door, leaning heavily against the strap, trying to steady his rifle against the barrage of wind, ice and snow.
If there was anyone left alive in the cockpit, there wouldn’t be for much longer.
22
Cole grimaced as the first helicopter reappeared in front of him, and he strained to see through the snow as the aircraft banked across him, a man leaning out, rifle up and aimed.
The distance was close, and he knew that any second the entire flight deck would once more be hosed down with the hundreds of deadly high-velocity rounds that were draped around the man’s shoulders, feeding from a bandoleer straight into the big rifle.
Cole felt the rear of the craft judder as the second helicopter attacked from the rear.
It was now or never, Cole decided, reaching for the cockpit fire extinguisher.
Raines couldn’t help but laugh as his eyes focussed on the Hercules cockpit and he saw the lone man behind the controls, raising a small pistol up towards the helicopter. What the hell did he expect to accomplish with that?, Raines wondered incredulously.
He saw the muzzle flash, and then as he waited for Davies to respond with his own gunfire, he only had time to catch a glint of metal as what looked like a missile fired straight towards him from the Hercules cockpit.
Cole watched as the fire extinguisher shot across the narrow gap between the two aircraft, its highly pressurized gas contents powering it away from the cockpit at over a hundred miles per hour.
Instead of wasting his ammunition by firing directly at the helicopter, Cole had instead shot a single, small-diameter hole in the bottom of the fire extinguisher and had then watched as the gas escaped at extreme velocity from the hole, resulting in what amounted to a small aluminium missile shooting across the night sky.