John Nance - Headwind

“My Lord,” Michael countered, “are you prepared to rule, as Mr. Campbell desires, that the authenticity of this tape may not be questioned in this forum?”

“No, Mr. Garrity, I am not,” Mr. Justice O’Connell replied. “I’m reserving that judgment for the moment.”

“Then, My Lord,” Michael continued, taking a breath, “I offer into evidence what may well be the real videotape taken clandestinely, and illegally, by Mr. Barry Reynolds on the date in question.”

The judge looked confused for a moment as Stuart Campbell turned with a blank expression.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Garrity, I don’t understand,” O’Connell said.

Jay pushed the videotape cassette across the table to Michael, who held it up.

“We have here a videotape of the same encounter, and I request My Lord’s leave to play it.”

“The same tape?” O’Connell replied with ill-disguised irritation. “Why?”

“My Lord, the reason for this will become very clear if you’ll grant leave to present it.”

“Have you any documentation supporting the authenticity of this tape?”

“Indeed, I do, My Lord,” Michael said, following the script they’d agreed to. “This tape was delivered to Mr. Reinhart last evening, and we have the affidavit of the hotel desk clerk bridging the possessory chain between Mr. Campbell’s people and Mr. Reinhart. Mr. Campbell represented that this tape was identical to one he just displayed in this court.”

“It is the same tape, then?” O’Connell said.

“Well, yes and no, My Lord.”

“Enough games, Mr. Garrity! Is the bloody thing the same or not?”

“My Lord, the videocassette is precisely the same one provided by Mr. Campbell and his team, and the images are the same, but there is another sound track of which Mr. Campbell is undoubtedly unaware, and by using a different format, we can play that sound track.”

“A different sound track? I see,” O’Connell said, his irritation suddenly subsiding into puzzlement. “I am aware, Mr. Garrity, that in some cases there are multiple sound tracks on videotapes.”

“My Lord!” Stuart Campbell said in a pained voice. “This is nonsense. I have played for you the original tape, and there is but one sound track on it.”

“Are you certain of that, Mr. Campbell?” O’Connell asked. “Are you an expert in the electronics of such instruments?”

“Well, no, My Lord, but…”

“Then I’m sufficiently curious to want to see and hear this. Proceed, Mr. Garrity.”

Michael handed the tape to Jay, who came forward and inserted it into the larger videocassette player hooked to the television. He pressed the “play” button and returned to the table as the screen came alive again with the same images.

“It’s getting better, Craig,” Alastair said after a flurry of new calculations at thirty-one thousand feet.

“Thank God!”

“We’re not out of the woods yet, but I’m estimating arrival at Galway with one thousand five hundred pounds of fuel remaining, and that’s in… an hour and ten minutes.”

“The winds are holding, then?”

Alastair nodded. “So far, so good. The problem is the weather at Galway. There’s an ILS, but right now the field is beset by fog and it’s right at minimums.”

“Galway’s on the coast, right?”

He nodded. “On Galway Bay. They get sea fog.”

“If we have to bust minimums to get in, we’ll bust minimums.”

“The decision height is two hundred feet above the surface.”

“Roger that. If necessary, we’ll take it all the way to the surface, provided we’re precisely on centerline,” Craig said. “We’ll use category three-A procedures as if the field was good to fifty feet. We’ll use both autopilots, brief a monitored approach, you’ll fly the approach, and I’ll take over to do the landing.”

“Instead of my doing a missed approach at fifty feet if we can’t see the runway?”

“At fifteen hundred pounds remaining, we won’t have the fuel for a safe go around. We’ll get one shot at it.”

Jay Reinhart pushed the “play” button, sending the voice of President John Harris over the TV’s speakers against a scratchy background of ambient noise, the words seeming to be the same at first, but then becoming markedly different, even though the pictures on the screen were identical.

“Okay, Barry, where are we? Are we set?”

“Well, sir,” a voice closer to the microphone and correspondingly louder began, “we’re ready to go, but it’s going to be costly.”

“How much… want?”

“They’re asking for a million dollars in U.S. funds.”

“… already agreed to that.”

“Yes, Mr. President. I remember the instructions.”

“Now, Barry… critical question to ask you. Are these people controllable?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you absolutely sure that they understand… orders here, that there be no excessive force… absolutely no violence beyond the minimum necessary to destroy the factory?”

“They do, sir.”

“I’m… concerned… harm no innocent civilians. I don’t care how many witnesses there are, I don’t want the workers harmed unless… shooting, that sort of thing.”

“Understood, sir.”

Stuart Campbell was shaking his head in amazement with his hands held out in frustration as he queried his team and came up with no explanations.

On the tape, the President sighed and crossed his arms with his head still not in view.

“… go ahead.”

“We expect there will be sixty or seventy people in that factory and in the compound, and some of them will be civilian.”

“The workers?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir. It’s heavily defended outside, and that’s where most of the combat will likely occur. If we commission this force we’re ready to hire – these mercenaries who are ex-Shining Path, ex-Peruvian Army – they should be able to neutralize resistance rapidly and then empty the facility before they blow it up.”

“My Lord,” Campbell protested, but O’Connell waved him down as he kept his eyes on the screen.

“Sit, please, Mr. Campbell.”

On the TV set, the same shot as before played out, the hidden camera riding Reynolds’s coat as he got to his feet and walked back toward the fireplace before turning, showing the President in full form at the other end of the office.

“Sir,” Reynolds’s voice intoned, “these guys are good. They’ll get the job done, without question, and they’ll follow orders.”

“… vital, Barry. I won’t authorize this unless… surgical as we can make it.”

“It will be, sir.”

“… recommendation?”

“Depends on what you want to accomplish, sir. If you want to shut down that factory once and for all, devastate the leadership, frighten away anyone else who would set up such a large drug-making facility, and massively impact the heroin flow all at once, then I’d say let’s pay them and get it done. Seems a small sacrifice to make.”

As before, the President pushed away from his desk and disappeared out of the frame. Reynolds apparently sat back down on the couch and swiveled toward the desk, raising the level of the frame and revealing the chief executive with his back to the camera standing at the window overlooking the Rose Garden.

The frame lowered once more as the President turned, his head just out of the shot at the top, his voice suddenly clearer as he faced Reynolds. “Okay, Barry. You’ve got the green light. Officially this meeting never occurred, of course.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Now. Bring… over here and show me the details.”