John Nance - Lockout

He punched the phone off only to have it ring again, this time with Rick Hastings on the other end.

“Paul, read me that disconnect code and the entry sequence again.” Clearly it was not a request, and there was no point in asking.

“Standby… I have it here,” Wriggle said, opening his notebook and relaying it once more.”

“It didn’t work, Paul! My crew punched it in precisely as stated, and it didn’t work.”

“Oh, shit,” was the only phrase that seemed to fit.

“Oh, shit, indeed! Now what do we do? You seem to know what the hell is going on. My guys punched it in four times, so if it was the wrong code, by your statement, we’re locked out now and screwed.”

“It was the only code we had. My people were pretty sure…”

“ Pretty sure? Jesus Christ, man, why didn’t you tell me it was uncertain?”

“I didn’t know it was! The woman who wrote the code was missing. She’s just been found in a car wreck near Estes Park, Colorado, barely alive after five days in a gully, and we can’t question her yet.”

“You want to start telling me what is going on, Paul? Or should I ask the president, if he’s still with you? We have less than an hour and a half of fuel on that bird and something your ass is involved with is about to kill everyone aboard.”

“Rick, I can’t give you answers to that basic question yet. Not on an open line, at least. If this is your direct line, I’ll call you back as quickly as I can, if there’s anything more we can pass to your crew. I can tell you this… we have Israeli fighters heading to intercept them, and one of them is prepared to relay the unlock code on a channel they can’t lock out.”

“But if it’s the wrong damned code, Paul…”

“I know, I know. One of my guys is at the bedside with our lady in Denver. They’re trying to get her conscious long enough… I really can’t tell you the rest of it.”

“We’ve got a fuse burning down toward an explosive, Paul.”

“I know it. Believe me, I know it. I’m standing in the freaking Oval Office! Back as quick as I’ve got something to pass.”

Paul Wriggle punched off the cell phone and sat in horrified thought for a few seconds, hoping Dana Baumgartner called again quickly. Finding Gail Hunt hovering near death in her wrecked car had answered one riddle and left others, chief among them how to deactivate a unit they never activated to begin with, and if the codes they had found in her safe were wrong, could she recall the real one? The chances of a Moishe Lavi-led conspiracy was less than one notch below certain in his mind now, but thank God Gail hadn’t been the cause of it.

Impatience won out, and he triggered the speed dial number for Colonel Baumgartner, not even bothering with hellos.

“Any news, Dana?”

“Coming around. She’ll make it. Hypothermia and dehydration, but the main injuries are just fractures.”

“No way to question her, I suppose?”

“Steve Reagan’s there at bedside now. He’s the one who found her, and he’s going to try.”

“The unlock code didn’t work, Dana,” Paul, said, filling in the details.

“Oh, lord,”

“That means the broadcast unlock code is probably crap as well.”

“Agreed.”

“We have just over an hour I’m told until flameout. Even at the risk of Gail’s life, adrenalize her or do something to get the information. He filled in Dana on the newly launched mission to relay the unlock code through an Israeli fighter’s UHF radio. “We were going to use the same code, but now that’s apparently futile.”

“Could the crew have gotten it wrong?”

“Highly unlikely. It was apparently passed with great care on a clear channel with confirmed readbacks. If we can’t get the right code, we’re done… and they’re done. And, there’s always the chance the thing has been monkeyed with and not even Gail has the right numbers.”

“Got it.”

“Hurry! Please.”

“Paul, shouldn’t we get our engineers together and see if they know how to physically pull the plug?”

The words felt like a ballpeen hammer to the head. “Oh, Jesus! I should have seen that! It was right in front of us, and I’ve been hung up on the damned codes.”

“We designed it to be tamper-proof, and the cabinet is booby-trapped, but…”

“Anything is worth trying. How long will it take?”

“I have to roust them out of their homes.”

“Go! I’m standing by.”

Paul Wriggle punched off his cell phone and looked up, embarrassed that the president had been standing there and he was singularly unaware of it.

“What do you have, Paul?”

“Nothing good. We got through to the crew with the code, and the code’s incorrect. The Israelis are preparing to intercept, also with the wrong numbers, but we did find our lady who wrote the code. She’s been in a bad accident and may not be able to talk to our guys, but we’re trying.”

“An accident?”

Paul filled in the details in brief.

“Good God!” The president sat down on the couch opposite Paul Wriggle.

“I spoke to the acting Israeli PM. He’s in a tough spot, Paul. He may have to order his fighters to shoot them down.”

For a moment it didn’t register.

“Shoot who down? The Iranians?”

“No, Paul. Pangia 10. Our commercial jet with God knows how many people aboard.”

“Why?”

“It will be split-second decision-making, but if Flight 10 approaches the Iranian border, and if any of the Iranian missiles are erected on the launch pad, the only sure-fire way they’ll have to stop an action-reaction cascade that would end in an attempted nuclear exchange would be to remove the basic trigger—the intruding airplane. The Iranians might do that themselves instead of launching on Tel Aviv, but the Israelis are not about to take a chance.”

“Lord!”

“And the Iranians, according to what I just received from NSA, are fueling missiles as we speak. I just spoke with Moscow, but they won’t be able to stop a paranoid response. One more thing,” the president said. “If Lavi is behind this, he will have planned for damn near every contingency, including an attempted shootdown by his own forces, which is why he’d have confederates laced through the Israeli command structure to make sure it didn’t happen.”

“You mean, the PM could give the order, but…”

“Right. It wouldn’t be carried out, because Lavi needs that airplane in Iranian airspace to force the mullahs to launch, which will license Israel to wipe out their nuclear abilities and several cities.”

“And… we’re powerless?”

“No, not if we get the right code or pull the right plug or those pilots figure out something before crossing the line.”

Paul looked at his watch. “Less than ninety minutes from the Iranian border, if I calculated it correctly.”

Washington, DC (Midnight EST / 0400 Zulu)

The staccato bursts of red and blue strobe lights atop a police cruiser lit up the street behind them suddenly as Will barely recovered control from his latest tire-squealing turn, the accelerator still to the floor.

“Will, what the hell are you doing?”

“We can’t stop.”

“That’s a police cruiser!”

“Maybe.”

Only twice in her life had Jenny Reynolds felt the presence of a deep and sudden fear so overwhelming that it was all but paralytic, but that feeling returned now like a breaking wave as she replayed Seth’s emergency text in her mind. Will Bronson, or whoever the hell the man next to her really was, continued to jerk and weave through traffic like a madman, the squad car now solidly on their tail, siren blaring. Whether they were still being tailed in turn by whomever Bronson had been trying to shake was an unknown, but Bronson was flinging the SUV around like their lives depended on shaking the cop. Policemen, she knew, loved nothing better than an adrenaline-pumping chase, but such chases seldom ended well for the quarry.