Chapter 4 - The General’s Hidden WarElena ran.
Dane and Evelyn Price followed as the rooftop door burst open behind them.
Wind tore at Elena’s clothes.
Rain blurred the lights below.
The northwest corner of the roof ended at a narrow maintenance platform overlooking a drop of several stories.
“There’s nowhere to go!” Price shouted.
Then Elena heard engines.
Not above them.
Beside the building.
A black helicopter rose from below roof level, appearing almost impossibly close through the storm.
The side door opened.
A crew member extended a hand.
“Move!”
Dane hesitated.
“Identification!”
The crew member shouted an authentication phrase Elena recognized.
Not standard command.
Something from a classified compartment she had not heard used in years.
Her eyes widened.
“Dane, they’re cleared.”
“How cleared?”
“No time.”
Another shot struck equipment behind them.
That answered the argument.
They boarded.
The helicopter descended immediately, vanishing between buildings before whoever pursued them could reach the edge.
Elena strapped in.
“Who are you?”
The crew member removed his helmet.
Colonel Marcus Dane went pale.
Elena looked between them.
“You know him.”
Dane nodded slowly.
“Samuel Pierce.”
Pierce appeared to be around sixty.
Silver hair.
Hard eyes.
A face Elena had seen only once before in an encrypted briefing.
Retired Air Force lieutenant general.
Former director of a joint classified aviation program.
Black Harbor.
Pierce looked at Elena.
“You still remember me.”
“You evaluated my flight group seven years ago.”
“I did more than that.”
Dane interrupted.
“You disappeared.”
Pierce’s expression darkened.
“I retired.”
“No. You vanished from official circulation.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Price leaned forward.
“Why did you contact Major Novak?”
“Because someone else was going to.”
Elena stared.
“You sent the message?”
SHE SAW EVERYTHING.
“No.”
Pierce shook his head.
“That message is why I moved.”
“Then who sent it?”
“If I knew, tonight would be much easier.”
The helicopter continued west.
Elena watched city lights pass below.
“Where are we going?”
“A place Abbott doesn’t know exists.”
Dane scoffed.
“Abbott knows almost everything.”
Pierce looked at him.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a secure facility hidden inside what appeared externally to be an abandoned logistics warehouse.
Inside, computer stations lined a windowless operations room.
Three analysts were already working.
On the central screen appeared a map of the Atlantic and the six unknown aircraft’s flight path.
Pierce pointed.
“This is where they entered the corridor.”
Elena studied it.
“They avoided primary surveillance coverage.”
“Yes.”
“Someone gave them the gaps.”
“Yes.”
“Abbott?”
Pierce folded his arms.
“I think Abbott helped.”
Elena noticed the wording.
“Helped.”
“I don’t think he designed it.”
“Why?”
“Because Conrad Abbott is many things. Arrogant. Vindictive. Politically ambitious. But he isn’t imaginative enough for this.”
Price looked irritated.
“Your personal judgment isn’t evidence.”
Pierce smiled without humor.
“Neither is pretending everyone in the room doesn’t already know he was involved.”
Elena stepped closer to the map.
“What was the objective?”
Pierce enlarged another section.
“Air Force One’s original route crossed this region approximately six minutes after you reported the contacts.”
A second line appeared.
“If the presidential aircraft followed emergency diversion procedure due to unidentified military aircraft, it likely would have shifted toward this corridor.”
Elena stared.
“And?”
Pierce displayed a satellite image.
A restricted communications relay zone.
Price understood first.
“They wanted the President moved into a communications vulnerability.”
Pierce nodded.
“Possibly.”
“For what purpose?”
“Isolation.”
Elena looked at him.
“From command?”
“From trusted command.”
The words hung in the room.
Dane shook his head.
“That sounds like a coup fantasy.”
Pierce turned.
“Does it still sound like a fantasy after someone erased military logs, moved six restricted aircraft, compromised a secure facility, and put a bullet through a door inches from Major Novak?”
No one answered.
Elena returned to the map.
“What happens in that corridor?”
Pierce zoomed in.
“Communication handoffs become more dependent on specific relay infrastructure. Nothing dangerous under normal circumstances.”
“But tonight wasn’t normal.”
“No.”
Elena thought about Abbott’s insistence that she turn around.
He had not merely wanted her out of the area.
He had wanted Air Force One unaware.
“What would happen once the President entered the corridor?”
Pierce’s expression tightened.
“That’s what we need Abbott to tell us.”
“Assuming he’s alive.”
A phone rang.
One analyst answered, listened, then turned.
“We have him.”
Everyone looked up.
“Abbott?” Dane asked.
The analyst nodded.
“Traffic camera picked up a vehicle believed to contain him near a rural property forty miles north.”
Pierce studied the location.
“I know that property.”
“How?”
“It belongs to Victor Hale.”
Elena looked at Price.
The missing contractor.
The connection was tightening.
Dane called for a federal tactical team.
Pierce stopped him.
“No.”
Dane glared.
“You don’t command me.”
“If you send a standard team, whoever is listening to command traffic will know before the vehicles leave.”
Price reluctantly nodded.
“He’s right.”
Dane looked furious.
“So what do you suggest?”
Pierce turned to Elena.
She immediately understood.
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re going to ask me to go.”
“You’re a pilot.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re also the only person Abbott tried desperately to remove from the situation.”
Elena folded her arms.
“That doesn’t make me an investigator.”
“No. It makes you someone he may talk to.”
“Why?”
“Because he failed.”
Elena considered it.
Abbott had wanted her gone.
Now the operation was collapsing.
If Abbott had been coerced, frightened or betrayed, perhaps Elena was the one person he needed to explain himself to.
Price spoke quietly.
“We don’t send Elena into that house.”
“Agreed,” Pierce said.
Elena almost relaxed.
“We bring Abbott out.”
“How?”
Pierce looked at the map.
“By making him believe Novak is leaving the country.”
Elena stared.
“You want to use me as bait.”
“I want whoever is controlling Abbott to believe their biggest witness is becoming unreachable.”
“And then?”
“We see who moves.”
Elena disliked the plan.
Which probably meant it might work.
Two hours later, a false movement order was inserted into a compromised system.
Major Elena Novak would supposedly depart at dawn aboard a military transport to a secure overseas facility.
It was deliberately visible to anyone watching.
They waited.
Twenty-three minutes passed.
Then a phone inside Hale’s property activated.
One outgoing message.
Three words.
MOVE BEFORE DAWN.
Pierce smiled grimly.
“They took it.”
Teams positioned outside the property without broadcasting over standard channels.
At 4:17 a.m., Abbott emerged.
Alone.
No weapon visible.
He walked toward a vehicle.
Then stopped.
Elena watched from a distant surveillance feed.
Abbott looked around.
He appeared exhausted.
Older than she remembered.
Suddenly, another man emerged from behind him.
Victor Hale.
Hale held a pistol low beside his leg.
Elena leaned toward the screen.
“He’s forcing him.”
Price nodded.
“Looks like it.”
Hale ordered Abbott into the vehicle.
Before they reached it, hidden personnel moved.
Hale raised his weapon.
Abbott turned.
A brief struggle followed.
Then everything ended.
Hale was disarmed and arrested.
Abbott collapsed onto the ground.
Alive.
Minutes later, Elena stood inside a secure interrogation room watching him through glass.
Abbott sat at a metal table.
His uniform was wrinkled.
His face was gray.
Dane entered first.
Abbott said nothing.
Price followed.
Still nothing.
Then Elena entered.
Abbott looked up.
Something broke in his expression.
Not anger.
Shame.
“You should have turned around,” he whispered.
Elena sat opposite him.
“If I had, what would have happened?”
Abbott stared at his hands.
“Conrad.”
It felt strange using his first name.
“You owe hundreds of people an answer.”
His jaw trembled.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then start talking.”
Abbott looked at the observation glass.
“Hale isn’t the one you’re looking for.”
“Who is?”
Silence.
Elena leaned closer.
“Six aircraft approached Air Force One. You ordered me to ignore them. Someone tried to kill me. If you still protect these people, whatever you were afraid of becomes meaningless.”
Abbott looked at her.
“They have my daughter.”
Elena froze.
Price, behind the glass, visibly reacted.
Abbott’s voice cracked.
“They took her three days ago.”
Elena’s anger shifted.
“What?”
“They sent me a video. She was alive.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“They told me what would happen if I did.”
“So you let them use you.”
Abbott shut his eyes.
“I thought nobody was going to die.”
Elena stared.
“What did they tell you the aircraft were doing?”
“A test.”
“What kind?”
“They said it was designed to expose weaknesses in presidential response protocols. They told me Air Force One would be redirected, communications would be interrupted for ninety seconds, and then everything would return to normal.”
“And you believed them?”
“I believed my daughter would die if I refused.”
Elena had no immediate response.
Abbott whispered, “Then you appeared.”
“And you ordered me away.”
“Yes.”
“Because I was disrupting the plan.”
“Yes.”
“Why threaten my career?”
Abbott looked ashamed.
“Because I thought it was the one thing that would work.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know.”
Elena leaned forward.
“Who has your daughter?”
Abbott stared at her.
“I don’t know his real name.”
“Give us something.”
Abbott swallowed.
“He called himself Shepherd.”
Elena looked toward the glass.
Price was already writing.
Abbott continued.
“He knew classified details. Presidential routes. Black Harbor access. Command authentication.”
“Military?”
“I assumed.”
“Current?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena stood.
Abbott suddenly grabbed her wrist.
Dane moved toward the door from behind the glass.
Elena did not pull away.
Abbott’s eyes filled with terror.
“There’s one thing you don’t understand.”
“What?”
“The six aircraft were never the real operation.”
Elena felt cold.
“Then what was?”
Abbott whispered.
“They wanted everyone looking at the sky.”
He released her wrist.
Elena stared.
“Why?”
Abbott’s final answer changed everything.
May you like
“Because something was already aboard Air Force One.”
To be continued…
