Ted Bell - Phantom

“Yes. I think perhaps I was the very first victim in this race.”

“Thank you, Captain Lyachin. You’ve been very helpful. I believe you. And I shall do what I can to help you.”

“One more thing before you go, sir. I will tell you that I have spent most of my adult life as a submariner and a scientist. And I will tell you that in those desperate moments when we were losing control of Nevskiy, I brought my thirty years of experience and knowledge to bear in order to stop those two torpedoes from launching. But there was simply nothing I could do. I knew that my career, my promised elevation to admiral, and probably my life was over. And that I would never see my wonderful wife and family again. Can you imagine a man in that position deliberately destroying his career and his life by sinking the ship of our nation’s ally?”

“No, Captain, I certainly cannot.”

“Commander Hawke, you may not save my life, but you have brought the first ray of hope into my life since those two torpedoes left my boat. For that I thank you, sir.”

It was time to go.

Hawke looked at Svetlana and said, “I think we’re finished here.”

“Ah. Do you have what you need?”

“I do. Do you?”

All alone in Putin’s luxurious private quarters, shortly after takeoff on the return flight to Nice, Hawke’s first instincts were to pick up the sat phone and call the Russian prime minister. At the last second, he’d seen the videoconferencing monitor on the bulkhead and put in a call to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, instead.

He asked to be put straight through to the director. Tracy Stillwell, Brick Kelly’s longtime personal assistant and a friend of Hawke’s for many years, picked up the phone.

“Tracy, hello, it’s Alex Hawke calling for the boss. I don’t care how busy he is. Tell him it’s a matter of utmost urgency.”

“No can do, Alex. He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s aboard Air Force One with the president, the first lady, and the secretary of defense. They’re en route to California to attend a memorial service for that famous Stanford scientist who committed suicide. Dr. Waldo Cohen.”

“My God, he’s dead? I had no idea.”

“Just happened yesterday. A real loss for our side, I’ll tell you that much. The director told me that man was the bona fide genius behind our race to achieve global supremacy in the field of AI.”

“A race the West cannot afford to lose.”

“You got that right.”

“Tracy, can you put me through to Air Force One? Set up a videoconference with the president, the secretary, and Director Kelly? What I have to say is something all three of them need to hear. It’s vitally important.”

“Yes, I can probably do that. Let me try to set it up with the president’s onboard staff and call you back. Where can I reach you?”

“I’m, uh, well, I’m aboard Vladimir Putin’s private airplane, en route to Nice.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a long story, Tracy; I’ll buy you a drink next time I’m in Washington.”

“Umm, sounds good.”

Aboard Air Force One

Angel, as her crew calls Air Force One, has four engines slung under her massive wings. They are General Electric F103-GE-180 turbofan engines. Each one of them is rated at 56,750 pounds of thrust. That equates to an 800,000-pound machine capable of near-supersonic speeds. Although it is not an advisable maneuver, the four engines are powerful enough to stand Angel on her tail and make her climb straight up. So far, that maneuver had never been necessary.

But we live in dangerous times.

Today, for example, Air Force One was making a transcontinental flight from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco. Normally, the presidential aircraft would make the flight alone. But today, due to America’s defense readiness having gone to DEFCON 3 over the Russian submarine incident, things were different. Angel had four USAF fighter escorts, designated “Red Team,” in attendance. Two McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles up front, and two aft, all in tight formation, maintaining a one-mile separation from the beautiful blue-and-white 747.

Whenever the president or secretary of defense travel, a highly modified C-2 °C Gulfstream IV always shadows their aircraft. Should the president land at, say, London’s Heathrow Airport, the C-2 °C will land at nearby Royal Air Force Northolt and remain on runway alert. Its function is to provide backup transportation in an emergency as well as communications support.

President Tom McCloskey stretched out his long legs, admiring his new Tony Lama custom cowboy boots with the presidential seal. He wore navy blue suits, white shirts, and red ties now, but he still looked like the Montana rancher he’d been before coming to Washington. He gazed out the large porthole window of the presidential suite’s private conference room. He was checking out the F-15 Eagle flying the Red Two position, streaking through the sky off the plane’s starboard side, a thin white contrail in its wake.

Damn! Four government folks traveling out to California for a funeral and it takes six airplanes to get them there!

McCloskey turned to his wife, Bonnie, who was seated on a leather sofa to his left, quietly doing needlepoint, and said, “You know, Bon, it’s a good thing old Al Gore ain’t keeping track of my movements today. Hell, I’m stomping carbon footprints a mile wide across the whole damn country on all burners. I’m a one-man ecological disaster, creating my own damn personal hole in the ozone.”

“Yes, dear,” Bonnie said without missing a stitch. “That would be funny if it weren’t true.”

“Drives a Chevy Suburban, y’know,” the president muttered under his breath.

“Al Gore does not drive a Chevy Suburban.”

“Not since they got that picture of him in it.”

“Don’t start, Tom, please.”

“When is this teleconference going to start up, anyway?” McCloskey asked Chief Master Sergeant Steve Lominack, currently placing pads and pencils around the conference table. “And who is this fella Hawke that wants to talk to us, Brick? You were in an Iraqi prison with him, that right?”

The CIA director smiled and said, “Yes, sir. And I’d be buried there today if it weren’t for him. After a few weeks, he decided I couldn’t survive another day of torture. So he woke up one morning, killed a bunch of guards, put me on his shoulders, and walked across the desert for a few days until he found some friendlies.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy. Now, he’s MI6 or MI5, right? In London?”

“Six, sir, under Sir David Trulove, or C, as they always call the director. I’d say Alex Hawke is the single best counterterrorist operative they’ve got, Mr. President. You remember when the Royal Family was held hostage at Balmoral Castle?”

“Who can forget? It was on the damn TV twenty-four hours a day.”

“Well, Alex Hawke single-handedly engineered and executed that rescue with virtually no loss of life, starting with the Queen of England herself.”

“Well, hell, I’m looking forward to meeting him on the TV. Fire it up, will you?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Chief Steward Tim Kerwin said. “Mr. Hawke is coming up on the screen now.”

“I see him. Hello, Mr. Hawke, this is President McCloskey. I can see you, can you see me?”

“Yes, sir, I can, quite clearly, thank you.”

“Well, I want to thank you for joining us. With me are Secretary of Defense Anson Beard; your old friend CIA director Patrick Brickhouse Kelly; and my lovely wife, Bonnie. Now, Brick here tells me you went to Moscow to interview that Russian sub driver, Lyachin, who sank our cruise ship, that right?”