tables. The mission he had volunteered for had been in the planning stages for ten years and he was well prepared. As a former German soldier and then later an intelligence officer, he was beyond reproach as far as his security clearance was concerned; thus, his advantageous position had been attained with no problem at all.
As he moved through the throng of people, he unbuttoned his coat, and that motion drew the attention of the chancellor's security detail on the stage. One officer saw the well-dressed man and knew him by name, and he knew that his hotel position required him not to be where he was.
The chancellor had finally persuaded the guests to settle in for one of her fiery speeches on the economy, the European Union, and the war on terror, when she saw the man approaching the stage. She watched as he stopped, and then a shot rang out from the left wing of the stage. The bullet caught the security man in the shoulder, but it wasn't enough to stop him from carrying out his mission for the honor of his Coalition-sponsored family.
The explosion from the eight pounds of C-4 plastic explosive disintegrated the first seven feet of stage, along with the new German chancellor. The security man along with ten tables in the front of the room vanished. The ceiling came crashing down into the guest tables in the center, killing a 110 more people.
The bomb squad would sift through the debris of the ballroom for the next week, and the only thing they would recover of the new chancellor was one gloved hand with a diamond bracelet still clinging to the silk.
With the major chess pieces in conflict across the board, and the occupied just surviving, the assassination had taken out the white queen, without any of the players really being aware of how their side of the board had been compromised. The chessboard was now in check because a large part of the western defense apparatus had now been removed from the board, and all it had cost the Coalition was one little black pawn.
The Boeing 777 was starting its takeoff roll. The livery colors were white on red and on the tail boom was the national flag of Japan. Prime Minister Minoro Osagawa was rushing home just after hearing the news from the Pacific. It had been a hectic day since the earthquake had taken a devastating toll on the northern tip of his nation. The prime minister had been trying to take off for four hours, but the Los Angeles area had been blanketed in fog for the better part of the day. Finally, his pilot had received clearance and was heading down the runway at 140 miles per hour.
The white, blue, and red Federal Express van had been parked in the long-term parking area of British Airways for the past five hours. The men inside had been patient and even joked about the L.A. weather, but they became serious as they received word that the prime minister's plane had been cleared for takeoff. Three men stepped from the large van, each carrying a large case. They heard the loud whine of a large aircraft as her engines spooled up. They were exactly 1.8 miles from runway five. A Coalition source had informed the fire team of the prime minister's imminent takeoff.
As the three men placed the cases on the ground and opened them, they could almost feel the power of the items inside. Each of the three cases held a weapon that once upon a time had terrified the bravest of Russian combat pilots. Because the Stinger missile employs a passive homing seeker, it is a 'fire and forget' weapon, which needs no guidance from the operator after firing. Other missiles--ones that track the reflection of a designator beam--require the operator to maintain a lock on the target. This allows a Stinger operator to take cover, relocate, or engage other targets immediately after firing the missile. This is just what the men trained for in the months and years leading up to this day.
A fourth man had placed himself strategically in front of the van and was watching the sky through a pair of binoculars. He turned and looked at his three companions.
'Get a move on; here she comes.'
The men had already placed the Stingers on their shoulders and were just waiting. An old woman walked by, pulling a suitcase on rollers. One of the men looked at her and winked. The woman didn't even know what the men held; she just hurried along a little faster than before, and she didn't look back.
Soon they saw the large Boeing plane take to the sky, and soon after that, the seeker tone sounded in their ears, meaning that the seeker head had locked on to engine one of the 777. First one, then the second, and then finally the third missile streaked out of the launch tubes.
The men lowered the empty tubes and watched in amazement as the small missiles climbed into the now- blue sky of Los Angeles. The white contrails were as clear as a stroke of paint as the missiles gained on their target. The scene was surreal and the men stood in awe.
Whoever the pilot of the prime minister's aircraft was, he was very, very good. The sensitive radar and threat detectors on the Boeing plane had to have alerted the pilot, and he swung the big plane over hard left and dived. In the tail boom, flares started to pop free of their launcher and chaff started bursting behind it. Tin foil would not fool the seeker heads of the Stingers, but the flares just might.
The leader of the fire team bit his lower lip as he kept the binoculars trained on the weaving and diving aircraft. The first Stinger went for the flares and went off harmlessly a hundred feet from the tail. The second Stinger flew true to the target and struck the large General Electric engine. The third hit the left wing and ripped off a thirty-five-foot section at the end. The 777 dipped hard left and that was when the aircraft disappeared from view.
'Goddammit!' the leader said as he scanned the sky with his glasses.
Then they heard the whine of the aircraft as it fought its way back into the sky. The whole left wing was on fire and the aircraft was without a large portion of that wing. The large turbojet engine was still there but was a ball of fire as the aircraft tried to turn back into LAX.
The men watched in rapt silence as the plane, as if in slow motion, started to tilt over to the right, as the left wing could not hold up its end of the battle. The leader smiled as the 777 finally lost its battle with gravity and slid into a small strip mall and exploded. The leader closed his eyes as the ground trembled slightly from the distant impact.
The men hastily left the area as sirens finally started sounding. They did not bother to pick up the cases that had contained the Stingers because the equipment was untraceable, having been bought as surplus from several sources inside Afghanistan, where the Coalition had unlimited contacts.
With the deaths of two of the West's most influential leaders, the Juliai was now only four moves away from checkmate.
The lighting was dim and the room deathly quiet as the president sat with his security council. Somewhere in the silent room, a pencil snapped in two. On the large high-definition monitor, a scene unlike anything seen since World War II was being played out in real time in the northern Pacific. The images were delivered from an overhead satellite and from a live feed from one of the ships of the task force. The directors of the CIA, FBI, and NSA, General Kenneth Caulfield of the U.S. Army, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs were silent. The suddenness of the attack by the Korean air force had taken the gamers at the Pentagon by complete surprise and left everyone with a deep sense of failure.
As all eyes in the conference room focused on the scenes of destruction, the door opened and allowed in a flood of light from the offices outside. A small man dressed simply in a black suit and tie and white shirt quickly found a seat against the wall. Only the president looked his way, then quickly back at the horrendous scene.
'Casualties?' he asked.
'Preliminary reports from the
'Okay. What are we looking at for the
'Thirty-three officers, twenty-seven chief petty officers, and three hundred and twenty-four enlisted men. She went down with all hands.'
Niles Compton placed his arms on his knees and lowered his head. He had just arrived by helicopter on the White House lawn from Andrews Air Force Base, and walking in and seeing this brought what was happening into very real and deadly prospective.
The president gestured for the lights as the large screen dimmed and the horrific scenes vanished.
