April 2: Down to Earth (45 page)

Anything that supported April, including Ma Tindal's favorite son, could be a target and he better stop relaxing and go into a cynical threat analysis mode, long before he actually joined up with his charge. If somebody removed him long before he could even reach her, it opened up all sorts of possibilities. Someone might even have a bodyguard waiting to suggest as an alternative, who was compromised.

The more he thought about it the more he worried just how deep the man Harrison's political organization penetrated the military and how deeply they influenced service members, if there was a conflict between their loyalty to the Commander in Chief and their private politics. He found himself contemplating things he really didn't want to consider. OK he resolved, eyes narrowing and lips curling back. I thought I was on vacation for a couple hours and this would be easy duty. No more of that crap!

The steward came back aboard and sealed the cabin door up. When he turned to say something to Gunny, the change on Gunny's face made him take a step back. Gunny smiled at him and it didn't help at all.

Chapter 39

The reports Gunny read all seemed very concise, yet covered the people well. He had more than a set of facts about them; he thought he had a good feel for each one's personality. Whoever assembled the data into the final reports, he was pretty sure were all edited by the same person. It had a casual writing style, that was not your usual government document and as far as Gunny was concerned that was a plus. The report on Harrison however was a piece of fluff. It was obviously written by a civil servant type and read like a press release to hostile media. If he believed it, Harrison had been nominated to his party's candidacy almost as an accident and he had no special power or agenda, other than a long and spotless record as a public servant. His family and educational background was ignored and his service record outlined in the sparest detail. Someone went to great deal of trouble, to make sure he knew less about the man than a simple net search would have found. It stank.

Near landing the crew called him forward and invited him to share their superior view. He had asked them to call ahead and get them cleared to over fly Kalaeloa Airport, before going across the bay to land at the civilian field. They extended the low speed wing ends and then he saw the canards swing into place on each side, easily visible from the cockpit. When they got really close, they were talking with each other and controllers.

He heard a command to the copilot about deploying spoilers and when the man pulled a couple levers back, Gunny actually had to hold himself off the seat backs from the braking action. The nose picked up just slightly and there was a new roughness to the ride, felt instead of heard. Almost like going from one sort of pavement to another in a ground car. The view of the coast they had been approaching swiftly, suddenly slowed to a relative crawl. They dropped faster too, until when they crossed the surf, the detail of the waves was easy to see.

Suddenly they banked as the pilot responded to some command from a controller Gunny could not hear and the runways were right before them. The crossed double runways were punctuated, right at the center of the X with a huge crater. Even if the ends that remained, or a taxiway had enough length to take off, the overlaying dirt excavated from the crater would have prevented it. There was now a very large bulldozer and several front loaders, busy putting all the dirt back in the hole. The soil had been thrown so far some of it was piled against the face of hangers. But they already had a ramp down one side of the hole.

"How can they be working in the crater without moon suits?" the copilot asked aloud, first of the pilot and then with a glance over his shoulder, let Gunny know the question was meant to include him. "I thought it would be too hot for at least a couple weeks."

Gunny grabbed his own ear between index and thumb and wiggled it. The copilot got a sudden look of understanding and flipped a toggle switch overhead, but left his hand on it. He reached up with the other hand and actually tapped the boom mic in front of his face to double check it. "OK, our mics are muted, sorry."

"It wasn't a mini-nuke. They have some other sort of weapon we don't really know much about. There are probably some prompt soft X-rays, but no residual radiation. Forget you heard that from me though. Somebody probably thinks it should be a secret, even with this out in front of God and every spy satellite in the sky."

"Thanks," the crewman said and flipped the switch back, obviously uncomfortable to keep it muted any longer than necessary." The pilot spoke softly in his mic, rolled the plane around in a surprisingly tight turn and descended even lower.

"Look off the end of the North West leg of the X, over towards the hangers. That was Harrison's plane, the fellows in the tower tell me. I described you as a VIP involved in the shake out of this, who wanted a look-see, so he told me what to point out.  The ones beyond it were some Coast Guard helicopters and a couple transports. The civilian planes off to the East got a pass, but the blast flipped some of them over, even if they were tied down.

The plane in question had probably been about the size of what he was in, but all that was left of it were the tail and one wing, sitting back from a blackened crater busted through the concrete. The line of Coastie aircraft parked behind it was a line of similar craters.

When they pulled up and turned to go back over the ocean, Gunny noted a cluster of similar craters on the perimeter of the field. "Have any idea what that was?" Gunny asked.

"That would have been an anti-ballistic site," the pilot informed him. "There is a system centered on Hickman to the East and its radar got hit when it illuminated the incoming stuff and changed mode when it tracked them. I'm pretty familiar with these systems," he confided.

"The separate site here would have automatically switched to independent operation and tried a terminal defense using lidar and very short range missiles and then electronic canon. Obviously it didn't do much good. There are a few of the small craters out in the field, where there was no target, so I'd assume they had some success deflecting a few incoming weapons. But then the spacers overwhelmed the point defenses and went back to single shot mode, after removing the defense. They held back the big cratering round until they clearly had suppressed any defense. The whole action lasted about three minutes."

"Is it bad over at Hickman too?" Gunny wondered.

"Nope – one scratched radar and no casualties. Rather restrained really, but don't quote me. We're on approach for Honolulu. I'd feel better if you'd strap in Chief." he requested.

They taxied down to the business aviation end of the field on landing. The engines were running burning fuel, instead of shutting them down and using the electric drive in the landing gear. That indicated they intended to take right back off. When gunny went down the stairs, the view off the rear of the plane was a shimmer of heat distortion from the idling engines. The Honda engines were remarkably quiet at idle though.

There was a full size Audi sedan waiting for him. He was glad they did not make a spectacle with a limo. The steward was already helping the driver of the car stow Gunny's gear in the trunk. He resisted the urge to make sure they were treating his stuff right. He opened his own door since the fellow was occupied and was greeted by Carol Jordan from the State Department. She offered her hand quickly and if there was any resentment at his being involved he couldn't detect it. He took her card.

"Ms Jordan, I saw you on the video of Miss Lewis entering. Thank you for meeting me."

"Yes, I've seen those vids too. It didn't go very well. I'm afraid I misjudged and took the wrong tone with Miss Lewis and once I made a miss-step with her she was put off by me and I never recovered. I put myself in her position at that age and thought she would be uncomfortable and perhaps even a bit afraid in a strange place far from home. She turned out to be a completely different person than I was at that age."

"I certainly wouldn't second guess you, when I wasn't there," Gunny allowed. "If it could have gone better, it certainly could have gone worse. At least Honolulu is still here," he pointed out. "Harrison seemed to put her off more than you ever did. Tell me. Did you get any sense that she was looking for trouble? Did she have a chip on her shoulder?"

"No, but she has no patience for bureaucracy I can tell you. What did Harrison do to her anyway? Everyone I've asked has declined to fill me in."

"You haven't seen the video of what went down in the studio?" he asked surprised.

"Only up until there was a bang and the lights went out."

Gunny pulled the disk out of his papers and played in for her on her own laptop.

"Jeez, she took out all of them and survived. I wondered if she was bluffing, when she got in our face in the airport…" She left unsaid she had no such thoughts now. "Where did you get this recording? I mean not you, but what was the original source? The viewpoint…" she started to say and then decided not to.

"Miss Lewis gave a copy to President Wiggen when they had occasion to chat. It's a copy off a public eye she was wearing. I don't see any need to play that interview for you, but she made no effort to hide this, no apology at all, just an attitude of "Threaten me and my people and you die sucker." It's a really interesting diplomatic stance for your department to deal with, so they certainly should have shown it to you. Save the file you just made running it." He suggested, taking back the disk.

"Won't you get in trouble for sharing?" Carol wondered.

"The President gave me Carte Blanc to protect Miss Lewis. If anybody asks, I'll inform them giving you this information served that purpose. I didn't ask for this job and I could be retired right now if I wanted. If they can convince Wiggen to fire me, some other poor slob in the protective services can have the joy of guarding her."

"You are protecting her?" Carol asked. "If anybody starts shooting at her, I suggest you make like a rug and stay the hell out of her line of fire. I'm no expert but that video looked like they didn't stand a chance."

"She's fast and she doesn't shoot too badly, but did you see on the video she took a round in the side? She should never have allowed that. I have to have a fatherly little talk with her about risk taking, if I'm going to be responsible for her safety."

Carol shut up, afraid she would say something stupid. She couldn't see how anybody could critique what she had seen, but she wanted to stay on good terms with this man.

"Oh and I want to give this to you, so I don't have to lug it around," he pulled out the security folder with the stripped edging.

"Crap - one of those. Do you affirm under penalty of law, you have not copied or altered any of this document?"

"Sure Carol. We were sort of short on copiers in the biz jet and I didn't doodle in the margins or anything." He said, amused.

"Then I relieve you of it and will write you a receipt." She said, totally unamused and formal.

"Where are we headed anyway?" Gunny asked.

"I assumed you'd want transport to the Satos home, where April is in residence. I was told her host specifically welcomed your presence."

"Indeed I do, but were you just going to drop me off? I'm used to having my own transport. I certainly don't want to be in the position of asking my host for a ride."

"If you give the Department a call, we'll send a car and driver anytime you wish."

"Carol, if I'm on a leash, it is President Wiggen's leash. Nobody else is going to manage me like that. I'll buy my own transport, before I sit around twiddling my thumbs every time I want a car, waiting for you to get fresh bugs installed, so you can snoop on me."

"I can order you given a clean vehicle," Carol assured him.

"You
could
, but see? You didn't say you
would
. Sorry, but you just automatically go for the weasel word. I have no inclination to struggle playing word games with lawyers, when I have a serious assignment that requires my concentration."

"Very well, I'm under orders to supply anything you need. Tell me what you require."

"Does this vehicle have any ballistic protection?"

"Moderately. It can stop small arms and it protects against small explosives underneath."

"Call for another vehicle to meet us somewhere. You and your driver transfer and I'll keep this vehicle. If it is bugged, tell me how many and where, or take them with you."

"Very well," She called her office and arranged a rendezvous. They drove in unfriendly silence to the edge of a parking lot, belonging to very nice restaurant. A large dark green SUV was waiting and the transfer was made quickly with little conversation."

"There is a bug in the dome light, but it will be remotely deactivated," Carol said.

Gunny noticed she didn't say
when
it would be deactivated.

Once the State Department vehicle left, Gunny pulled his phone and dialed a number. He put an ear bud in and studied the map in the dash.

"He's a very difficult fellow," Carol's voice said in his ear. Gunny activated one of the two bugs he's left clipped to her skirt, to drop off and seek a crack or corner to conceal itself. "The man has dangerous delusions of independence."

"How far back should I tail him?" her driver asked.

"We know where he is going. Just hang back well out of sight and we will only catch up if he gets in trouble and we have to save his bacon."

Gunny got his flush cutters and snipped off the stubby little antenna by the rear window, that was both satellite and cellular connection. Most of the satellites were destroyed a year ago and few replaced, so the cellular link was likely the only active one. As he expected, the State Department driver announced he lost his tracking, almost the instant he felt the wires sever.

He got back in the car, eased over the curb and ran down a small tree and a couple bushes, but made it across the landscaping into the parking lot behind the restaurant, with only a few minor scrapes of the undercarriage. He was in the rear of some sort of medical building and pulled around it into the next street. He drove the direction away from the Satos' home. When he saw a large condominium development, he pulled in to park out of sight and consult the map on his phone.