“Copy that,” the pilot said. “Over.”
Marshall stared at the only three officers still standing in the compartment — Banks, Wilson and Harney. Only Banks had broken a sweat.
“A bit early, sir?” she asked.
“Sachs is on to us,” he said and removed the two keys around his neck.
38
Koz was still processing his bizarre and disturbing exchange with Marshall when he walked up to Captain Li on the communications deck. “Marshall blew me off,” he told her. “Something’s wrong.”
“Way wrong, sir,” Li said. “I have something the president needs to see.”
Koz had them meet in Sachs’ suite, where Li showed the president satellite surveillance video over Washington, D.C., before the nuke attack. She zoomed in on a railyard not far from Union Station.
“According to the last communications between the Pentagon and White House, it seems the nuclear device was delivered by rail on a Metro subway train right beneath the Pentagon,” Li explained. “So I crosschecked D.C. police dispatch records, what’s left of their remote backups, and learned that a Metro security guard was found slain this morning at this railyard.”
Sachs remembered seeing the story that morning in the Post. “That’s where the Chinese must have hitched the nuke to the train.”
“Now watch this,” Li said and zoomed in until two Chevy Suburbans popped out of the pixels. “Those are military plates, ma’am. And they belong to this man.”
The picture on the screen changed and an ugly, familiar face filled the screen.
Sachs said, “That’s Colonel Kyle, the Green Beret.”
“And you’ll recognize this other man, too, as the one after your daughter,” Li said, and sure enough the next picture that came up matched the one Jennifer had sent.
Sachs leaned closer to the image, fear and rage swirling inside her. “You’re telling me that these men — our men — may actually have betrayed America and helped the Chinese perpetrate this attack on our capital?”
Li said, “We think it’s more likely they and the ones they report to are in fact behind these attacks and not the Chinese.”
“Proof, Captain,” Sachs demanded. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
Captain Li nodded. “You can thank your daughter Jennifer.”
“What?”
“I found this on her USB flash drive from school.” Li pulled Jennifer’s PowerPoint slide presentation for school. The top slide was Brad Marshall waving to reporters aboard an aircraft carrier. As the slides flashed, Sachs was embarrassed at Jennifer’s obvious hero worship — or more — for Marshall.
Li said, “This is a Time magazine photo of Marshall after he escaped Iraqi capture during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Kyle led the team that rescued Marshall when his plane was shot down.”
It was Colonel Kyle, an arm around a beaming Marshall.
Koz said, “So Marshall and Kyle have a history. I’ve been through this with the president. It’s not enough.”
Li said, “How about this?”
Next up came a recent picture of Marshall inspecting the Tier-One Defender ABM complex in Alaska, and then a haunting longshot of him crossing the tarmac at Offutt AFB. Both came from a Time Magazine “Man of the Year” cover story titled “An American Hero: Forgotten But Not Gone.”
Sachs said, “I still don’t get it. You’d expect Marshall to be at these places. They’re all he has left.”
“Had left,” Li said. “Both have been blown to bits. Before they were, each was visited by Colonel Kyle and other men from Marshall’s past for base parties. Swipe card records place them all in highly sensitive areas at both bases.”
Koz said it out loud. “One stolen SS-20 nuke. Three warheads. Each planted at a strategic location to make it look like a Chinese attack and force us to respond.”
Sachs sat back in her chair, everything sinking in. “Maybe Marshall feels his country doesn’t recognize his contributions, but could he really hate America so much kill innocent lives?”
Li said, “The rest of your daughter’s report argues the opposite, Madame President. That Marshall loves America and feels his warnings about an ascendant China and declining America have been ignored. His very public statements underscore his belief that if we — the United States — don’t act aggressively now, we will lack the weapons and will to do so later. According to that logic, he’s saving American lives.”
“And clearly will stop at nothing,” Koz said. “Madame President, we have to warn General Block at Northern Command to strip Marshall of launch authority immediately, before Marshall does anything crazy.”
“Stop,” said Sachs suddenly, thinking out loud. “Would Marshall have access to this plane?”
Koz turned pale. “We share the same maintenance crews as Looking Glass.”
Sachs said, “I want you to sweep for explosives right now.”
39
Four minutes later they all stood in the cargo hold, looking at an open box of toner cartridges wired together with enough explosive to bring down Air Force One in seconds. The red blinking light on the small BlackBerry phone showed it was armed.
Koz swore. “God in heaven.”
Sachs and Li stood behind Koz as he studied it. The red light bathed his face.
“Look like Marshall tore a page from the Yemen terrorist playbook,” Koz said. “Pack high explosives into printer cartridges to avoid detection by scanners. Poetic, too, since toners are used for all our EAM printouts.”
Sachs said, “Still think I made up the attack on my chopper?”
Koz shook his head and studied the bomb. “This is bad,” he said. “The phone still has its battery. That means it’s not a timer. It’s a remote detonator. Probably synced to the VLF receiver. That’s what our submarines use to receive launch orders.”
Sachs said, “Meaning?”
Koz said, “Meaning Marshall can basically blow us up from any point on the planet as soon as we try anything. Hell, he might have been listening to all our internal communications all along too.”
Sachs paused. “Just how easy is it for Marshall to launch our missiles?”
“Once the eight-digit enabling code is dialed into the launch system, the procedure is simple. It’s not like a sub where you need several other officers involved in the launch. The Looking Glass plane is essentially a remote-control unit.”
Sachs said, “But don’t you still need two officers turning their keys at once to launch?”
“Trust me,” Koz said grimly. “Marshall’s already taken care of that.”
“Then we have to somehow override the Looking Glass controls so he can’t launch,” she said.
“Same problem,” Koz said. “Assuming we can pull it off, as soon as he figures it out he’ll vaporize us.”
Sachs looked him straight in the eye. “I have an idea.”
40
Sachs entered the cockpit, a finger to her lips and whiteboard in front of her. The two pilots and navigator looked up in surprise, then gaped as they read the words she had written:
Turn off your headsets.
Don’t say a word.
Enemy listening.
The men exchanged glances, then slowly removed their headsets and turned them off.
Sachs said, “There’s a bomb on board and we need to get off this plane. Preferably after we’ve landed safely on the ground.”
The navigator scrambled to check his charts. “We’re over the North Dakota badlands, ma’am. No airstrips or predesignated alternative bases in the vicinity, and Minot and Grand Forks are too far away.”