Chapter 24 - Blood on the Potomac
"He's running," I said.
We were back in the air, climbing hard into the gray cloud deck over the Capital Beltway. Abigail sat wrapped in a wool emergency blanket between two operators, an IV drip running fluids into her dehydrated vein, while a medic stitched the laceration on her forehead. She refused to close her eyes. She refused to lie down.
"Vance-Keller just boarded an unmarked corporate Gulfstream at Ronald Reagan National Airport," Vance reported, his eyes glued to the tracking satellite terminal. "Flight plan filed for Zurich, non-extradition routing. Wheels up in nine minutes. He used a diplomatic priority waiver signed under his own authority to bypass FAA ground holds."
"Can the tower stop him?" Abigail asked, her voice raw.
"The tower can't touch a diplomatic flight authorized by the Office of the Secretary of Defense," Vance replied grimly. "Not without a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief, and Vance-Keller took the President’s national security briefing thirty minutes ago. He controls the flow of information."
"He doesn't control me," I said.
I picked up the secure satellite handset connected to the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center. I punched in a seven-digit access code burned into my memory since the day I took command of AMC.
"NMCC, Brigadier General Hayes speaking. Identify."
"Hayes. This is Eleanor Gardner."
A brief pause on the line. "Eleanor? We’re seeing priority alerts flaring across your post. Rumors of an explosion at your headquarters—"
"Cancel the rumors. It was a targeted kinetic strike executed by foreign mercenaries operating on domestic soil under the treasonous direction of Deputy Secretary David Vance-Keller," I said, every word clipped, precise, and devoid of compromise.
"General Gardner, that is an extraordinary accusation—"
"I am invoking Title 10, Section 374 of the United States Code: Emergency interdiction of an escaping hostile operative threatening national security assets. Vance-Keller is currently on the tarmac at Reagan National on aircraft tail number November-Eight-Eight-Zero-Kilo. He murdered my husband in 2011 to conceal the systematic theft of military weapons, he ordered the assassination of Arthur Sterling this morning, and he sent a hit team to execute my daughter twenty minutes ago."
"Eleanor... my God. If you're wrong—"
"If I'm wrong, Hayes, you can court-martial me, strip me of my stars, and throw me into Leavenworth until I die. But if you let that Gulfstream take off, I swear on Richard's memory, I will hunt down every single person in that chain of command who failed to ground that plane, and I will dismantle your careers with the same precision I dismantle my enemies."
There was a three-second silence on the line. Three seconds that felt like thirty years.
"Air Traffic Control is ordering a ground stop on Runway One-Niner," Hayes said, his tone shifting from bureaucratic caution to iron-clad military resolve. "Two F-16s out of Andrews Air Force Base are being scrambled on alert pad status. But Eleanor... Reagan National is five minutes from Andrews. You’re already over the river. If that Gulfstream decides to ignore the tower and punch the throttles, the fighters won't intercept before he reaches international airspace corridors."
"They won't need to," I said.
I handed the receiver back to Vance and looked at the helicopter pilot.
"Captain," I said through the intercom. "Put this Blackhawk across the active runway. Box that jet."
The pilot didn't hesitate. "Brace for high-G descent, General."
May you like
The nose of the Blackhawk dropped forty degrees. The Potomac rushed up to meet us in a blur of gray water and steel bridges as we plunged toward the tarmac of Reagan National Airport.
***
