Robert Smith - The Planner

Planner changed the subject, “How did it go in Florida with the package delivery?”

“Good. We’re on record; Atta went to hospital. He’s fine though… suspects nothing. And Hiijii has now left the country. He dropped everything; didn’t even pack. 122”

“Great. Excellent. Anything else going on?”

“Yes, I’ve liaised with some of the ground teams. We’re all on track at the airports and airlines,” she said hinting that something might not be on track elsewhere.

“Go on,” said Planner paternally.

“I found out about bomb sniffing dog patrols at the WTC. I didn’t know whether it was important or not but I sent a message to Kroll to stop the police dog patrols 123,” said Turq diplomatically.

“Good,” said Planner. “You’ve done the right thing.”

“I found out about them from the Elevator upgrade people,” she said euphemistically. “Who also said that they want complete power downs of the electricity in the towers for a few nights 124.”

“Well that’s ok, isn’t it?” asked Planner.

“Well, no. The place has computers that run 24-7,” said Turq.

“Well perhaps some warnings over the public address system and some private words. The less written evidence the better,” said Planner.

“Right.”

“I have another thing for you, Turq. I need a couple more for WITSEC.”

“Ok. I’ll pass through. I just need gender, age and ethnicity. If you have a photo all the better. You need to say what plane they’ll be on. I can arrange tickets.” Said Turq.

“No tickets required. They’ll be, er… lost in the towers.”

“Ok. There’s quite a few of them. That’s fine. So who will it be?”

“Female, 36, Caucasian, Blonde hair, blue eyes…” said Planner.

“Ok. Don’t worry about eye color. That can be fixed later. The other?” asked Turq.

“Female, 10, Caucasian, baseball player.”

Turq almost laughed, “Baseball. Ha. Ok, got it. I’ll FedEx details out to you by the weekend.”

“Thanks,” said Planner and was about to cut the call.

“Are you bailing out too?” asked Turq.

Planner was confused, “No. Why?”

“I heard that Bates was going,” she said.

“No… might he be part of the… er… Shadow Team?” ventured Planner awkwardly.

“Shadow Team!? Counterintelligence 125? News to me. Though I suspect there would be some of that sort going on. There usually is for operations as large as this,” remarked Turq.

“Ok. Thanks,” said Planner. As he processed the information, to fill the silence in the conversation, he showed his level of distraction by asking, “Are you coming out to Oklahoma?”

“I think I have enough to do here,” she said flatly.

“I’m sure you do. Can you patch me through to Operation Carrot, to… Jenny in Operation Carrot?” said Planner. He had struggled to remember her name. He wanted to say “Stick” since that was the operation she ran. He had used a memory mnemonic: Stick, with a Carrot-Red Hair, in the ground like a carrot, rising up like a genie, rhymes with Jenny. Visual imagery: it seemed to work.

“Hang on.”

The young Captain poked his head through the door, “Everything ok? I heard the word patch.”

Planner said to Ochre, “Yeah. All good. No problem.”

A female voice over the headphones said, “Hello, Planner?”

“Hi, Jenny. I just wondered whether you were working on any counterintelligence plans for Stages A and B,” mused Planner.

“Yes, we’ve got that sorted,” said Jenny smugly.

“Do you have any details?” asked Planner expansively.

“It’s outside my chain of command,” she said briskly. “There’s shadow teams making sure that each operation isn’t accidently or deliberately leaking information.”

“And there’s coordination amongst the teams? Making sure that no-one trips up, right?” said Planner pleasantly.

“Right,” she said over the headphones and then went silent.

“I was wondering whether every team member isn’t already under the Carrot treatment plan in your computer CRM system?” asked Planner.

After a minor pause, she said. “This is not a good topic of conversation, Planner. It’s best we wrapped this up now. Bye.” She cut the call.

Planner sat nodding to himself knowing he had found something.

* * * *

The air stewards that served food for the crew were not available after the first flight. Catering onboard the Kneecap had become self-service. Planner was eating an airline style meal in the Rest Area. Bates came to sit besides him. He had a similar meal.

“The menu quality has gone down hill,” he said cheerfully.

“Imagine eating this for a week?” said Planner.

“I’d die of scurvy,” said Bates. But he started on the macaroni cheese meal anyway.

As Planner finished his meal, he said. “So have you’ve figured out what to do after the Big Event yet?”

“Hang out on a nice tropical island. Not too big, not too small; Some scuba diving; wild beach parties…” said Bates, tilting his head and smiling.

“Sounds nice.”

“And you?” enquired Bates.

“Find a clever lady and have an ordinary life.”

“That sounds er… rather… surprising,” said Bates wide eyed.

“You mean dull, smiled Planner. “It’s ok. I don’t expect you to understand. But I had it all once. And I miss it now.”

Bates finished his meal and said, “Well, you, hell-raiser, you; Let’s get back to the shock and awe!”

Bates walked away, leaving on his seat a crushed Rainbow Document, recognisable by the seven-sided Rainbow logo. Planner casually picked it up and examined the logo. He noticed that the logo had a faint but noticeable shading around its edge: a shadow.

* * * *

Planner stood in the center of the Command Room with the majority of the Rainbow Team in the room. “Ok Guys. I want to go through the whole thing again using the simulators but going at twice actual speed. So not real time. The thing to watch for is the extent of ground radar cover, keep that as an overlay on your computer screen. Make sure that the drone switch occurs outside of the ground radar zone.”

He checked his watch, “Ok. 0-8-hundred hours. Flight 11 takes off from Boston and Flight 93 takes off, at the same time, from Newark. Keep everything normal until all four jets are in the air. At 0-8-10, Flight 77 takes off from Washington. 0-8-15, Flight 175 takes off from Boston. Now, remember, Flight 175, the flight with three digits, has 200 passengers for the Witness Protection Programme. They’ll be flown to Cleveland and the reception center there 126. 175’s transponder signal and call sign will change before it lands. All the radar tracks, remember, will only be visible to us, using the AWACS radar.”

Looking over at Indigo, Planner forced eye contact and said, “0-8-20, we’ll phone through the bomb threat.”

Bates said, “Indigo, best if you go to the Communications room to do that. It’s sound insulated there.”

“Ok,” said Indigo.

Planner continued, “At 0-8-25, Flights 11 and 175 will enter the no-radar Zone, switch off both transponders and Flight 11 will land at Stewart Air Force Base while 175 will continue on. In the meantime, Magenta…”

Young Captain Magenta waved his hand.

“…will align its drone to shadow Flight 11, then we will remotely switch on its transponder and it will continue on as Flight 11. We have a couple of minutes to do this in the no-radar zone. But,” Planner emphasised, “If we have to do it within the radar zone, heaven forbid, we have one turn of a radar sweep, two seconds, to make the change seamless.” Planner looked around the room to make sure everyone was following the instructions. “Old-Flight 175 follows Flight 93 up to Cleveland to disguise itself on radar. So similar switches for Flights 77 and 93. The difference being after the switch, those airliners will be close to us in the E4-B and they’ll fly behind us and follow us back to base. Only Flight 77 drone will have a chase aircraft to make sure it doesn’t go astray. We’ll be looking after the others. Everyone got that?”