Marc Cameron - Act of Terror

A low fall sun cast a pink blush on the snowy Chugach Mountains to the east, shining through the oval windows of the jet. Jericho knelt in the aisle, looking down at Mattie, who lay sideways in a soft leather seat, head resting in her mother’s lap.

Two seats back, Kim’s mother reclined with a damp washcloth over her eyes. Her head lolled from the effects of exhaustion and the Valium government medics had given her when they’d all been hustled away from an extremely curious Anchorage Police Department after the attack. Bo stood at the rear of the plane. Broad shoulder against the bulkhead, he chatted up the female Air Force staff sergeant who acted as safety officer and attendant. Brother Bo wasn’t about to let a little bloody ambush on the family cramp his ability to hit on cute women.

Quinn’s parents were out fishing for Pacific cod, the sheer danger of capricious Alaska waters protecting them from attackers.

Mattie looked up with a wan smile. Framed in a halo of her dark curls, the features of her perfectly oval face were drawn from fatigue. Her eyelids sagged. She blew him a kiss.

“You’re looking at me funny, Dad,” she said after a long, feline yawn. “I think I can trap you with my eyes.”

Jericho kissed her forehead. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “If you only knew… Now, you better get some rest.”

Kim ran trembling fingers through their daughter’s hair. She affected a smile for Mattie’s benefit, but the tightness of her breath and the set of her jaw made it clear to Quinn she held him accountable for the attack on their family.

He didn’t blame her.

She jumped at the sudden buzz of the secure phone on his belt. He groaned and stepped across the aisle to take the call.

“Listen, Quinn…” Winfield Palmer rarely waited for the person he was calling to say a word beyond hello before he moved straight to the business at hand. If you answered, it meant you should be ready to listen. “There’s something I need you to see. Are you on the plane?”

“Yes,” Quinn said, eyes locked on Mattie as he spoke. “We’re fine, by the way. Thanks for calling.”

“Yes, of course,” Palmer said. “I mean… good. I’m glad… Anyway, I need you to take a look at the news.”

Quinn shot a look at his drowsy daughter. The last thing he wanted was to have her wake up to whatever catastrophe Palmer wanted him to witness on the news. He made his way down the aisle to the back of the plane, beyond Bo and his new girlfriend, to a teak cabinet on the galley bulkhead. “Any channel in particular?” he asked, turning on the seventeen-inch flat-screen satellite television.

“Won’t matter,” Palmer grunted. “This dumb son of a bitch is all over the place…”

Quinn left it tuned to CNN. He used the remote to turn up the volume as he swiveled the nearest seat to face aft, sinking back into the cool leather.

The red Breaking News ticker at the bottom of the screen introduced the speaker as Congressman Hartman Drake of Wisconsin. He stood alone, a dark silhouette in front of the brightly lit Capitol dome. A veteran of the first Gulf War with a Purple Heart to prove it, he’d served in the House for over a decade, working his way up to the powerful but slightly boring Transportation Committee. Chiseled, Ivy League good looks and a propensity to wear a bow tie over a starched white shirt made him instantly recognizable. He was well known as a stridently outspoken isolationist, and his handlers made certain he hit the talk-show circuits at least once a month.

Quinn yawned, wondering what Drake could have done to infuriate Palmer since they were both from the same party. The Canadair’s engines began to spool up without so much as a word of safety briefing from the flight attendant, who was still busy with Bo across the aisle.

Quinn bumped up the volume on the television with the remote on his armrest.

“… among us. And so we find ourselves in the midst of what can only be called a national crisis.” Drake leaned into the camera, a master at connecting with his audience. The glowing dome of the Capitol gave him the perfect patriotic backdrop for a nighttime press conference. “… a crisis of epic proportions. There are those, even in these hallowed halls of government, who will, no doubt, seek to discredit me, to call me a crackpot or accuse me of being… a hater. Well, my fellow Americans, I am a hater-a hater of those who would destroy this great nation.” Drake paused for effect-gazing into the distance as if imagining a round of applause.

“I have in my possession,” he continued, “a heretofore secret list. The eighty-six names on this document represent men and women within our own government who, it pains me to say, support the cause of militant Islamist terrorism. Further, we have strong reason to believe that certain names on the list were complicit in this morning’s horrifying attack perpetrated on CIA headquarters…”

The sleepy crowd around the congressman suddenly erupted in a display of camera flashes and muffled shouts as reporters awoke to the smell of a real story.

Drake raised his hands to silence them.

“I am not prepared to go into detail at this time,” he said. “Suffice it to say we have a cancer growing within us. I pledge to you, my fellow Americans, to do everything in my power to root out this malady. To this end, I have asked that the speaker of the House convene immediate hearings.”

With that, he paused, put both hands on the lectern and mugged straight into the camera.

“My fellow Americans, I give you my word that I will not rest until I have rigorously examined each and every person on this list to ascertain their loyalty-or their disloyalty-to these United States. May God bless us in our cause, for it is just. Thank you for your time.”

The congressman paused for a beat, taking time to gather his notes as cameramen got a few more seconds of B roll, before turning to walk back up the hill toward the Capitol. His entourage of staff hung back so the cameras could catch his darkened silhouette, trudging up the hill, alone.

Quinn had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

A slender brunette, one of CNN’s pretty talking heads, took over, providing color commentary. Quinn used the remote to mute the sound.

“Did you get that?” Palmer said on the other end of the line. His voice dripped with unbridled disgust.

“I did,” Quinn said. He moved back up the aisle, unwilling to be away from Mattie any longer than he absolutely had to. “Any truth to what he says about the CIA shootings?”

“There is.” Palmer gave him a thumbnail sketch, including the CIA deputy director’s involvement. “We’ve got a real situation here, Jericho. I could use you back ASAP.”

“I need to get my family situated first,” Quinn said, shooting a quick glance at Kim.

“Oh, yeah, I get that,” Palmer answered, but it was clear in the clipped timbre of his voice he didn’t.

Kim shook her head, catching Jericho’s side of the conversation. “Go ahead,” she said in a dismissive whisper. “We’ll be just fine.” The “without you” was implied in the frigid blue of her eyes.

Quinn rubbed the stubble on his face with his free hand, sighing deeply. “I can be at Andrews by… oh-eight hundred your time.” Cell phone against his ear, he stared at his daughter, drinking in the sight. He wondered if Kim would ever even let him see her again.

“Very well,” Palmer said, his voice hanging on the edge of another word for a long moment. “Jericho,” he finally said, “I wouldn’t call you back unless it was urgent…”

“I understand, sir,” Quinn said, looking across the aisle at his ex-wife, who wouldn’t understand at all.

Quinn ended the call and returned the secure BlackBerry to his belt. He leaned back to stretch in the soft leather seat as the Canadair jet lumbered down the runway on its takeoff roll. It was the first opportunity he’d had to close his eyes since the attack, even for a moment.