Джейсон Росс: The Last Air Force One

Dutch acted as though he was turning away, and then he’d loaded every pound of force he could into his hips, and let loose the biggest haymaker of his life, directly into the center of the bigger boy’s face.

The high school boy had gone down hard on the sidewalk.

The boy had looked up at Dutch and his girlfriend, swiped away the blood gushing from his nose and said, “Now, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”

Dutch had been too astonished at the success of his gambit to realize that he should’ve set to kicking the boy as soon as he’d hit the ground. Instead, he’d let him get up.

Just then a police car had rolled up to the curb and a sheriff’s deputy jumped out to break up the fight. Noticing the obvious size difference between the boys, and looking back and forth at the gushing blood coming from the high school boy’s face, the officer had fist-bumped Dutch on the shoulder.

“Nice job. Now get the hell out of here and quit fighting.”

To this day, Dutch didn’t know for sure if he had it in him to stomp a man on the ground. He yearned to know what he would do to win back his son, or to fulfill his duty to his country.

Dutch slide-checked the breach on his Beretta, already knowing there was a round in the chamber. He looked at the video screen one last time.

“Let’s get this done.”

Agent Brooks gagged the secretary of defense. The secret service agent had a death grip on the SecDef’s belt in his left hand, his Glock in his right. Behind him, another secret service agent held the two taped and bulging flashbangs, one in each hand. Behind him, the other two agents had their Glocks at the high ready. Looking rather small by comparison, the president’s aide de camp held a revolver, standing last in line. Everyone, including Sam Greaney, wore body armor.

The president stood a couple paces back, pretending to hold in reserve. Not for a moment did Dutch contemplate staying there, but if it made Agent Brooks feel better, he would happily act as though he’d be avoiding the fight.

Agent Brooks didn’t wait for permission.

“Go, go, go,” he hissed.

The stack of men, the president at the rear, flowed into the hallway, charging toward the security section of Air Force One. Only later would Dutch piece together the cobra-fast sequence of events.

He never saw the grenades being thrown, but Dutch heard the enemy operators shout, “ Grenade!”

Agent Brooks pushed into the entryway and crouched behind the secretary of defense. The thunder and flash overwhelmed Dutch’s senses, even at the back of the line. How could men be standing up to the gut-twisting overpressure of the explosion?

But the enemy operators were fazed for only a split-second. They poured gunfire down the hallway, shooting expertly around Greaney.

Agent Brooks returned fire and the second agent in line drew his handgun and joined the fight. The four men pushed into the room, firing at the operators, shooting in and around the airline seats.

Dutch’s aide de camp fell back onto him and looked up, a gout of blood pulsing from his throat. Something clicked in Dutch, like a door slamming on a section of his mind. He recognized the mortal wound and dropped the man to the floor, pushing forward, hunting to bring his own gun to bear.

One of the secret servicemen dropped, clutching his chest, and Dutch filled the gap, dumping round after round into the men behind the seats, doing his best to pull his rounds away from where his son would be hiding.

Dutch’s weapon sights were the furthest thing from his mind. He mashed the trigger over and over, seeing the bloody faces of the enemy operators bobbing above and around the airplane seats, chunks of flesh apparently blown off by the grenade, but doing nothing to slow their commitment to combat.

Sam Greaney mule-kicked Agent Brooks and launched himself onto the floor toward the security section, landing face-first and clearing the hallway for his men to shoot unrestricted.

Agent Brooks took several rounds to the chest and Dutch saw one splash off the man’s shoulder, splattering Dutch’s face with blood.

“Back, back, back!!” Brooks screamed as he dropped the magazine out of his Glock, rammed another one home and resumed firing.

Dutch was the first to duck around the corner back into the office section, bullets whizzing into the plastic and aluminum surfaces of the plane. Miraculously, all four secret service agents followed. Three were bleeding from extremity wounds, one had been grazed across the head and all of them had been shot in the body armor. Dutch was the only man to escape unscathed.

“Mother fucker, those bastards are tough,” one of the secret service agents wheezed, likely suffering from broken ribs. The five men gulped air and coughed, alive but defeated. The truth of their failure soon eclipsed the rush of adrenaline.

Dutch’s son remained in the hands of ruthless killers.

The firefight had further damaged the airframe, and the whistling from the hull could be heard coming from several locations. Dutch didn’t need to ask the pilot; he knew they would be landing or losing consciousness soon. During the fight, the oxygen masks had popped out of the ceilings.

“Dutch,” the secretary of defense called out, now together with his commandos in the security section. Greaney didn’t even sound injured. “I respect the effort, but now I’ve got to do some things I would’ve rather avoided.”

“Is Teddy okay?” Dutch ignored the threats.

“Oh, he’s fine, but he won’t be.”

Teddy began to scream, then the pitch of his scream climbed to an animal shriek. Dutch launched forward into the corridor, a blind lunge toward his son. One of the secret service agents hooked Dutch’s arm and wrestled him back from the shooting lane. He pinned Dutch in an iron wrestler’s hold while the young man passed through his chorus of agony. Teddy’s shrieking abated, and Dutch let out a choked sobbed, impossibly relieved to hear him weeping rather than silenced.

Something sailed into the office section and thunked to the ground in front of Dutch. His brain struggled to place the bloody mass until his mind reluctantly recognized a trim fingernail and he surrendered his denial. His son’s severed finger leaked blood on the beige carpet of the airplane. Dutch’s eyes lost focus and the bile burned in his stomach.

A finger. His son’s finger. Maimed forever. But alive. Still alive.

“I’m sorry, Dutch, but pieces of your son will keep coming if you don’t put this plane on the ground and give me the launch codes and your authorization to act as Commander and Chief. We’re done playing.”

In five minutes time, Dutch had learned two things about himself.

One; that he was no coward in a fight.

Two; that all it took to evaporate his will was his son’s severed finger.

As Teddy cried in the background, and as the airframe of Air Force One warbled its death wail, Dutch McAdams surrendered the presidency to a man nobody would’ve ever elected.

“Okay, Sam. You win. I’m getting you the codes.”

Please take your seats and buckle your seat belts. We’re on final approach, the pilot warned over the intercom.

Considering the five dead bodies, uncountable flesh wounds and Dutch’s tortured son in the security section, the safety warnings sounded like a cruel joke. Procedure will be procedure , Dutch supposed, his mind drifting on the come-down tide of adrenaline.

Even so, Dutch sat in his office chair and buckled his seat belt.

He wondered if Sam Greaney would try to seize the airplane before they could offload. Dutch still had his secret service detail, so the two teams of fighting men would still probably cancel one another out. His men were all severely wounded, and he had no doubt the commandos were injured as well. Dutch doubted that anyone wanted another gunfight.