Stuart Woods - Capital Crimes

“I know they’ll do the best they can, Captain. Good night. Please report back to me directly when you have news.”

“Good night, Mr. President.” The captain hung up.

“Bob, you still there?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Am I doing the right thing, here?”

“I believe so, sir. There isn’t anything else left to do. He can land that airplane in any farmer’s field and be on his way.”

“You heard the speaker died?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want Fay to still be at large when his funeral is held.”

“Neither do I, sir.”

“Can I reach you on your cell phone, if I need to?”

“Yes, sir. The White House operator has the number.”

“Whoever hears first should call the other, then. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. President.” Kinney closed his cell phone and put it into his pocket.

“He’s going to do it?” Smith asked, incredulous.

“He’s already done it,” Kinney replied. “All we can do now is wait. You go back and secure the house until we can get a crime scene team up here. I guess that’ll be sometime tomorrow.”

“Right.”

The men melted away from Kinney, leaving him standing in the road. He looked to the southwest and was glad he wasn’t Teddy Fay.

TED HAD BEEN in the air an hour now, and he was approaching the Kennebunk VOR. He checked his fuel: He had been flying the day before at low altitudes and, thus, at a full rich-mixture setting, burning a lot of fuel. He was down to nineteen gallons now, and using thirteen an hour. He couldn’t land at any airport, because the airplane would be discovered when the sun came up, and the FBI would know where to start looking. He needed to ditch the Cessna where it wouldn’t be found. Where would that be?

He looked down at the Maine coast in the moonlight, and as he did, something roared past him on either side, rocking the little airplane in the resulting turbulence. What the hell was that?

He switched on a radio and tuned it to the emergency frequency.

“Cessna 182 retractable,” a young man’s voice said. “Do you read me?”

Ted thought for a moment, then he answered. “I read you loud and clear.”

“You are instructed to turn on your transponder, your navigation lights, and your strobes, if any, then to make a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and fly a heading of zero-six-zero degrees until you have the beacon at the Brunswick Naval Air Station in sight, then to land there on runway two. Do you read?”

“Negative, can’t do it. I don’t have the fuel.”

“Then you can land at Portland International on the same heading. You’ll be met there.”

“Negative, Navy. Can’t do it.”

“Listen, pal,” the young voice said. “I don’t give a fuck if you dump that thing in the Atlantic. My instructions are to force you to land or shoot you out of the sky, and those are my intentions. What’s it going to be?”

An excellent question, Ted thought.

LIEUTENANT J/G HARRIS CONOVER watched his radar screen as his jet approached the target. He had slowed to two hundred knots and, as a result, he was having to fly at a high angle of attack in the swept-wing aircraft, making visual contact with the light airplane difficult.

Then, suddenly in his peripheral vision, the lights of a small airplane appeared, navs and strobes. He saw it for only a moment as he swept past the target, flying at least fifty knots faster than the light airplane.

“Navy, do you read me?” a voice said in his headset.

“I read you, and I have a visual,” Conover said, though that was no longer true. “Wingman, left one-eighty.” He banked the jet sharply and started back.

“I’m afraid I can’t fly back with you, and it would be best if you stay well clear of me.”

Conover was flying a reciprocal course now, and he saw the airplane again. This time its landing and taxi lights were on, too. “Don’t worry, little guy, I’m not going to bump into you. Wingman, ninety right.” He started the turn. He had orders to make his run from the landward side of the light aircraft, so that any stray rounds would land at sea.

“That’s not what I mean,” Ted said. He started a turn to the right. “Just stay well clear.” He looked down at the coast as he crossed it. A tailwind was moving him rapidly out over the water. He reached into the duffel next to him and took out a package about the size of a hardcover book.

Conover still had the airplane on radar, and it had made a turn from its prescribed course. “Listen to me, pal. You’re off course, and you’d better make a left turn right now. I’m locked and loaded.”

“I’m sure you are,” Ted responded. “Good night and good luck.” He turned a timer switch on the object in his hand and set it at thirty seconds. There was nothing to think about now. He punched the autopilot on. He thought about his wife.

“Jesus!” Conover screamed as the fireball flared in front of him. “Break right!” He started the turn. “Billy, did you fire?”

“Not me, Harry,” his wingman said. “I think the guy did the firing himself.”

Conover held the turn until he had made a three-sixty, then he banked left for a view below him.

Small, burning pieces of the Cessna were striking the water. “Okay, Billy, let’s go home.” He swung on course for Brunswick and changed frequencies. “ Brunswick, this is hardhat one.”

“Hardhat one, Brunswick.”

“Wingman and I are returning to base.”

“What was your result?”

“Tell the old man we didn’t have to fire. The guy pulled the plug himself. Big explosion.”

“Roger that, hardhat one. You’re cleared to land on two.”

“Wilco.”

THE BEDSIDE PHONE RANG, and he picked it up. “Will Lee.”

“Mr. President, this is Captain Mason, CNO’s office, the Pentagon.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Our aircraft made contact with the Cessna and instructed him to turn for Brunswick and land. The pilot declined to do so. Our pilot warned him to land or be shot down, and he declined again, but he turned on all his lights and his transponder. Our pilots were lining up for a shot when the Cessna exploded.”

“You mean the man committed suicide?”

“It would appear so, Mr. President. He headed his airplane out to sea, and our pilots saw the burning wreckage fall into the water.”

“I see.”

“Is this what you anticipated, sir?”

“No, but the man saved us a lot of trouble. Please phone Coast Guard command for me, give them the coordinates of the crash, and tell them I want a search for wreckage and a body to commence at dawn.”

“Yes, Mr. President. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, thank you, Captain. Good night.” Will hung up and punched another line for an operator.

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Please get me Deputy Director Kinney of the FBI on his cell phone.”

“Yes, sir. Please hold.”

KINNEY WAS STANDING in the living room of Teddy Fay’s house when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug it out and opened it. “This is Bob Kinney.”

“Hold for the president, please.”

“Hello, Bob?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“The CNO’s office just called. The Brunswick jets intercepted Fay’s airplane. After some conversation back and forth, he turned on the airplane’s lights and transponder, then blew himself up over the water.”

“Holy shit,” Kinney said involuntarily. “Excuse me, Mr. President.”

“I had pretty much the same reaction,” the president said. “Bob, you’ve done a fine job in impossible circumstances, and I won’t forget it.”

“Thank you, Mr. President, but it was Rawls’s tip that made a resolution possible.”