John Nance - Headwind

“I don’t know. Can you stand by through tomorrow?”

Craig looked around at Alastair, who was approaching with his bags, then back at Jay. “Look, we’re probably about to be fired, and… the reason I need to know, is that if the charter is continuing, I can probably get EuroAir to let us keep on going. I know the only reason they agreed to this charter is the pressure the White House put on them, but once it’s over, the money’s stopped, and the political pressure is off, we’ll be ordered to deadhead the bird to Frankfurt.”

“Tell them the charter continues and the money won’t stop,” Jay said immediately.

Craig nodded. “Good. I… may need some help from Washington again if the stunt we pulled over the English Channel has too many people calling for our heads. They thought we’d gone down, and there was a rescue effort.”

“Let me know. I’ll make the calls to D.C. and do my best.”

“One other thing. We may need more pressure from D.C. anyway to go back Stateside with the airplane.”

“You can make it Stateside? Without a fuel stop in Iceland or Canada?” Jay asked, his eyebrows up a notch. “I thought…”

Craig nodded as he glanced at Alastair once more. “Let me put it this way. Dublin to Presque Isle, Maine, is about twenty-eight hundred nautical miles, but the maximum range of this airplane is just a tiny bit over three thousand nautical miles. That means that if the headwinds aren’t too bad, and if we fly at what’s called maximum endurance airspeeds, and if the airports in Iceland and Greenland and Canada aren’t socked in as alternate fields, we might be able to make it safely, although there’s one big legal hitch.”

“I should say!” Alastair chimed in.

“What?” Jay asked.

“This isn’t an ETOPS bird.”

“That’s… alphabet soup to me,” Jay replied, leaning against the van and willing himself to believe he wasn’t tired.

“We love esoteric acronyms in aviation,” Craig was saying. “ETOPS means extended twin-engine overwater operation, and to reach the U.S. mainland from here we’d be way, way out over the Atlantic, instead of staying within three hundred miles of a suitable airfield, which is the normal limit.”

“So… you’d be doing something illegal?”

“More… against regulations than illegal… in a criminal sense,” Craig added.

“Mr. Reinhart,” Alastair interjected, “what my partner here is trying to say with practiced understatement is that technically we’re not allowed to fly passengers straight out over the Atlantic, even though we are equipped with all the required overwater gear: life rafts, life jackets, survival gear, and such. You see, there’s a certain procedure for officially blessing twin-engine jets for such operations, and this one hasn’t yet qualified. We’re already in terrible trouble with our company, but even if we weren’t, I guarantee you EuroAir would never approve such an illicit route.”

“They wouldn’t have to,” Craig said. “We’ll file by way of Keflavík, Iceland, and Gander, Newfoundland, then to Presque Isle, Maine. Only we’ll change the routing in flight and go direct, or as close to direct as they’ll let us. There is a specific system of tracks across the North Atlantic.”

“I think I understand,” Jay said.

“I’m assuming you still don’t want to touch down in any country other than the U.S., including Canada.”

“That’s right… you can navigate over water?” Jay asked.

“Piece of cake,” Craig answered, noticing the pained expression on Alastair’s face.

“I hate that phrase,” Alastair muttered.

“He hates that phrase,” Craig repeated, arching a thumb at the copilot. “We’ve got two GPS’s, global positioning satellite systems. We know our position within three feet at every moment.”

“Yes, indeed,” Alastair said. “For instance, at this moment we know our careers are precisely within three feet of the intersection of Unloved and Unemployed. So why not enjoy the trip and push on some more?”

“In other words…” Jay started to say, completely confused.

“In other words,” Craig replied, “we can do it if the President needs us. Provided the winds aren’t ridiculous.”

“Try to arrange it, fellows,” Jay said. “If I can’t get him out any other way, we’ll do it your way.”

The drive to the midlevel airport hotel was brief, and the restaurant Garrity had lined up to feed them turned out to be a smokey pub with too much noise to permit serious conversation. It was nearly eleven when they returned to the hotel, said goodnight to the two pilots and three flight attendants, and gathered in John Harris’s room, with the President, Sherry Lincoln, and Jay sitting on two chairs and an ottoman while Matt Ward and Michael Garrity stood.

“I do hope the accommodations are satisfactory, Mr. President,” Garrity said. “Mr. Reinhart wanted to keep you as close to the airport as possible.”

“They’re fine, Michael,” the President said. “I don’t always need to be in a six-room suite.”

Michael Garrity began laying out the basics of extradition in the Republic of Ireland.

“It’s the Garda, our police force, that will have to formally present the Interpol warrant, but they’ll probably accept Campbell’s help in finding a judge. Now, if he can’t find a district judge, Campbell’s team will have one choice left, and that’s the High Court justice who’s on standby. There’s always one of them every holiday, either hanging on his cell phone or actually fooling around at home. The fact that he’s accessible is the good news for Campbell, although it’s possible a High Court justice would decide he didn’t have jurisdiction. What’s good for us is the fact that a High Court judge is far more likely to listen to our protests that the evidence is insufficient to support the basic charge.”

John Harris could see Jay’s expression darken, and their eyes met momentarily as Jay looked at the President, his mind consumed by a new wave of worry.

“Jay and I need to talk, Mr. Garrity, before we continue,” the President said.

“Indeed,” Garrity replied, puzzled at the sudden chill in the room. Sherry, too, looked off-balance.

“John,” Jay said. “I think we may need to include everyone in this.” He met John Harris’s eyes again as the President stared at him. “Michael, here, has to defend you, and Sherry and Matt are integral parts of the team. I think everyone has a need to know.”

“What are you talking about, Jay?” Sherry asked.

The President had begun to get to his feet, but he sank back onto the edge of the chair with a long sigh and nodded. “Very well, Jay. You’re probably right.”

“Jay, what’s going on?” Sherry pressed, looking from the President to Jay and back.

“What’s going on, Sherry,” the President began, “is an allegation that Stuart Campbell dropped like a small bomb in the London Magistrate Court. Go on, Jay.”

Jay described in detail Campbell’s assertion that CIA covert operations chief Barry Reynolds had briefed the President in the Oval Office and warned him that the people they were about to hire to carry out the planned Peruvian drug raid would most likely maim and torture anyone they found before killing them.

“And you approved this as an official act?” Michael Garrity asked evenly.

“Absolutely not!” John Harris said. “I mean… all right, look here. What happened was entirely different. Reynolds had been working the case personally and reporting directly to the DCI, who was reporting to me.”