aborted.
‘Rotate. Vee-two… ’ The alpha had rotated for the first time.
Ahmad Rahman glanced nervously to his right. The soldiers were now barely 100 metres from his position. One or two of them, in contravention of their orders, turned to watch the President’s aircraft take off.
‘Hold your fire until I tell you,’ Ahman said as loudly as he dared. They’d practised many times for this moment but Ahmad felt his heart pounding as he watched Air Force One approach. It was the most vulnerable time for any aircraft; it seemed that it was moving so slowly it would fall out of the sky. Ahmad had to resist the urge to fire immediately. He waited until the big aircraft lumbered past.
‘ Allahu Akbar! One, two, three fire!’ he counted.
The three sophisticated heat-seeking missiles shot out of their launchers and a short distance later their rocket motors fired.
The loud tone in the crew of Air Force One’s headphones sent a chill through the cockpit as the missile warning light flashed on the instrument panel. Unlike ordinary 747s, Air Force One was equipped with the most advanced missile defences of any aircraft and the crew had trained for just such an attack. Air Force Colonel Mike Munro reacted in an instant and he flicked the switch to activate a modulated beam of infra-red energy designed to lock on to the incoming missile and defuse it.
‘Flares,’ he ordered calmly.
‘Flares gone.’
‘Chaff.’
‘Chaff gone.’
The sophisticated defences of Air Force One might have been sufficient if the aircraft had not been so low and if there had only been one or perhaps even two missiles. One missile had been confused by the aircraft’s infra- red defences and a second one by the sudden explosion of flares. Both missiles missed the target, exploding a kilometre or so away on a military training ground just to the north of the airfield, but the first missile was already too close to the port inner engine and it exploded in a blinding flash.
Mike Munro struggled at the controls of the stricken aircraft but, with half the port wing gone, the big 747 flipped on its back and went into a steep, spiralling dive.
Air Force One, laden with fuel, hit the ground at an angle of nearly 45 degrees, exploding in a huge fireball.
Back on the ground the faces of those in the official party who’d watched the take-off were ashen. A pillar of thick smoke rose from the hills just to the north of the airfield as fire engines roared towards the access gates. The fire-fighters were grim-faced in the knowledge of what they would find. More than a billion people around the world would watch the television footage of the black plume of smoke among the gum trees being broadcast over and over.
CHAPTER 77
T he day after the images that shocked America had been shown around the world, they were followed by another image of a different kind, one that sent a shiver through Arab and Muslim communities. As Vice President Lyndon Johnson had done when President Kennedy had been assassinated, Vice President Charles Bolton repeated the words of the Chief Justice of the United States as he was sworn in as President. ‘I, Charles William Bolton, do solemnly swear… that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States… And will, to the best of my ability… preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States… So help me, God.’
‘Good luck,’ the Chief Justice concluded. Unlike a normal inauguration on the steps of the Capitol, there was no band music and the applause from the small group of solemn onlookers in the Oval Office was muted. As soon as the group had dispersed, President Bolton tested the chair behind the desk. ‘Now we’ll show the Muslims and the Chinese who’s boss,’ he muttered, gaining no satisfaction that it had taken the death of a President for him to gain office. It wasn’t that he mourned the passing of his former boss. He’d always thought President Harrison was weak and indecisive; it was more that he would have liked to win an election in his own right.
‘Let’s see these lily-livered bastards on the Hill criticise the war in Iraq now,’ he said to himself.
‘I want some advice on where we stand on appointing a Vice President,’ President Bolton said, after he’d summoned the White House Legal Counsel and Dan Esposito to the Oval Office. President Bolton’s first order of business was to get the right person into the Vice President’s position; someone who would not show him up in terms of style and charisma but someone who would support him in taking advantage of the renewed outrage in the American community at the downing of Air Force One. His second priority was to kick start a campaign to gain the Republican nomination for the Presidency; not necessarily in that order. Halliwell, he knew, was ambitious and would likely run and that challenge had to be negated, and quickly. Incumbency of office was an advantage he fully intended to capitalise on, although he knew only too well that it didn’t always mean election, as Ford had found out when Carter beat him in 1976.
‘The 25th Amendment allows you to appoint whoever you wish, Mr President.’
Bolton nodded. He had already thought about appointing Halliwell, not because he wanted him in the job but because it would likely stymie any presidential ambitions. It would be near impossible for a Vice President to challenge a sitting President.
‘Of course whoever you nominate will have to be approved by both the House and the Senate,’ the legal counsel said. ‘If I may, Mr President, at this unsettling time in the country’s history, it might be wise to select someone who is not going to run into a lot of flack on the Hill,’ the legal counsel concluded, reading the new President’s thoughts.
Bolton grunted. Halliwell might not be such a wise choice. The Democrats would have a field day over his own relationship with Halliwell and his share portfolio would re-surface. In any case, the Chinese weren’t going away any time soon and that was something that as President he had the power to do considerably more about than his predecessor. Halliwell was probably more useful where he was and, for the moment, he would leave the position vacant. After all, it had taken over five months before Rockefeller was confirmed after the downfall of Nixon. ‘That’ll be all,’ he said, dismissing his legal counsel.
‘I intend to run for the Republican nomination, Esposito,’ President Bolton stated flatly after the White House Counsel had left, ‘and I intend to win. If you value your job around here, you’ll see that it happens.’
‘I have a plan, Mr President, which I’ll be happy to brief you on once you’ve attended to the funeral of President Harrison and other more immediate issues.’
Ever since President Harrison’s untimely death, Esposito had been in no doubt as to the precariousness of his position. On the surface he would appear to support the incumbent but very soon he would get Halliwell to declare his hand.
CHAPTER 78
T om McNamara, the CIA’s Director of Operations, and Curtis O’Connor looked thoughtful as they sat down to watch al-Jazeera’s video of Dr Khalid Kadeer’s third and final warning. They were not the only ones watching. Undetected by the system, al-Falid had flown back into the United States on his American passport.
President Bolton had assembled his war cabinet, although this time the numbers in the Situation Room beneath the Oval Office were smaller. Bolton was not going to tolerate the sort of discussion that had taken place under President Harrison’s stewardship. For a start, the new President had declared that only one intelligence representative would be present – the newly appointed Director of National Intelligence. Bolton had a very clear idea of where he was going without the waters being muddied by analysis of intelligence by the CIA, especially
