Stuart Woods - Capital Crimes

The team leader shone his light past the splintered door. “We’ve got a tunnel.” Without another word, he knelt down and started crawling.

Kinney followed, and there were more men behind him. He had no night-vision goggles, but everybody was using flashlights.

“We’ve got another door,” the leader hollered. “Hold up!” He tried the door. “It’s like the other one. We’re going to have to blow it. Everybody out of the tunnel!”

There was barely enough room to turn around, but gradually, the tunnel emptied.

Kinney was half out of breath. “Blow it. I’m going to take some men and see if I can figure out where it comes out.” He motioned for Smith and three SWAT team members to follow him, then he ran up the stairs and out of the house. “All right, stop,” he said. “Look around. See where you’d have a tunnel come out if you built it.”

Everybody stood in the front yard and looked around.

“The beach,” Smith said. “That’s where I’d have it come out.”

“Everybody to the beach,” Kinney said, then started jogging. They were there in less than a minute. “Look for an opening. It’s probably behind something.”

“There’s a culvert,” Smith said, shining his light on it. “A good-sized one.”

“Everybody shut up,” Kinney said. He knelt at the culvert and listened. He was nearly blown off his feet by a rush of air and noise from the pipe.

“They blew the door,” Smith said. “The tunnel leads into the culvert.”

Kinney grabbed a team member. “You go down the culvert as far as you can. Watch out, you might meet Buddy coming the other way. Kerry, you take a man and go down the beach that way,” he said, pointing. “I’ll take a man and go the other way.”

TED CUT ACROSS the road past a farmhouse and ran toward the airstrip. Finally, he had to walk, for fear of having a heart attack; he was fit, but he had just run three-quarters of a mile, carrying a heavy bag. He made the airplane, unlocked it, and tossed his bag into the passenger seat, then released the tiedown ropes. No time for a preflight; he climbed in and started flipping switches. He primed the engine, then turned the key to the starter position. The prop began to swing, and a moment later, the engine caught and started. There was no wind to speak of, so Ted knew he could use either end of the runway.

He started taxiing, then put in twenty degrees of flaps. He stopped at the end of the runway, ran the engine up to full power, paused a moment to make sure it was going to keep running while cold, then released the brakes.

KINNEY RAN for a few hundred yards, then turned back. He met Kerry Smith back at the culvert.

“Hey!” a voice shouted from a distance. “Over here!”

It came from the other side of the house.

Kinney led the group back to the house, past it, and across the road, where the shouts were coming from. Finally, they came across a SWAT team member, standing knee deep in a pond.

“The culvert ended here,” he said.

“Where is the guy going to go?” Kinney asked. “He can’t get off the island without a boat.”

The team leader rushed up.

“Get some men down to Dark Harbor and make sure nobody leaves by boat,” Kinney said.

“Listen,” Kerry Smith said.

“We’ve got to get the chopper in here from Augusta with more men,” Kinney was saying.

“Shut up and listen!” Smith shouted.

Everybody got quiet.

“Do you hear that?”

“What is it?” Kinney asked.

“An airplane engine. Look!”

Just for a moment they caught a flash of moonlight on something climbing away from the island, something with no lights.

“Oh, shit,” Kinney said.

KERRY SMITH LOOKED UP in the direction of the parting airplane; it seemed to be making a turn.

“We’re fucked,” he said. “A Cessna i82RG will make a hundred and fifty knots. That’s faster than the helicopter.”

“What direction would you say he’s flying?” Kinney asked.

“I’d say he’s headed southwest, along the coast.”

Kinney thought about his options and realized there was only one. He got out his cell phone and dialed a Washington number.

“White House,” an operator said.

“This is Deputy Director Robert Kinney of the FBI. Please let me speak to the president at once.”

“He’s asleep, Mr. Kinney. Do you know the hour?”

“He asked me to call. This is an emergency. Please wake him immediately.”

“Hold, please.”

Kinney waited, tapping his foot, while Smith and the others stared at him.

“This is Will Lee,” the voice said, sounding remarkably awake.

“This is Bob Kinney, Mr. President. Please listen carefully. Rawls was right about Fay having a Maine hideaway. My men and I are there now, and Fay has escaped the island in a light airplane, a Cessna 182RG.”

“I used to fly one of those,” the president said.

“We now have only one means of catching him, and if we don’t get him tonight, I don’t think we ever will.”

“What means do we have, Bob?”

“You need to call the Pentagon and scramble a couple of jets out of the Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station. Maybe they can force him down, but more likely, they’ll have to shoot him down.”

The president was silent for a moment. “Hold on for a minute.”

Smith looked at Kinney. “Are you on hold?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much.”

“Is he going to do it?”

“How do I know? I’m on hold.”

After perhaps two minutes, the president came back on the line. “Bob, I’m going to conference you with the duty officer in the office of the chief of naval operations.”

“All right, sir.”

“Just a minute.” There was a click, then the president said, “Captain, are you there?”

“Yes, Mr. President”

“I have Deputy Director Robert Kinney of the FBI on the line.”

“Good evening, Mr. Kinney.”

“Kinney is going to give you instructions on what and where this airplane is. I want you to scramble as many jets as you think it will take from the Brunswick, Maine, Naval Air Station with orders to force down this airplane, and if that is not possible, to shoot it down. Is that order clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Tell him what he needs to know, Mr. Kinney.”

“Captain, a Cessna 182 retractable took off from Islesboro Airport, in Penobscot Bay, Maine, about ten minutes ago. I’m told the airplane can do a hundred and fifty knots.”

The president interrupted. “A hundred and sixty, if it’s lightly loaded.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kinney said. “We believe the aircraft is headed southwest, down the Maine coast. If so, it will pass nearly directly over Brunswick. It’s not wearing any lights, and I doubt if it has its transponder turned on, but Brunswick ground radar may be able to pick it up as a primary target.”

“How many aboard?”

“I believe there to be one man aboard.”

“Fuel?”

“As far as I know, the airplane was last refueled at Manchester, New Hampshire, yesterday, before flying to Islesboro.”

The president broke in again. “It will carry eighty or ninety gallons of usable fuel, depending on what year it was built, and it uses about thirteen gallons an hour in cruise.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the captain said. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not I,” the president said. “Mr. Kinney?”

Kinney thought for a moment. “The pilot is desperate, I believe. He’ll do anything not to get caught. You might inform your pilots of that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kinney,” the captain said. “Mr. President, I should inform you that this is going to be a very difficult job for these pilots, because of the difference in airspeed between their jets and a light piston airplane, and I’m not sure offhand whether his engine generates enough heat for a heat-seeking missile to home in on. If they fire, I’ll have them fire toward the sea, since we don’t want any stray rounds impacting the coast.”