Dead on Arrival. Mike Lawson

Cessna 3459. This is the Air National Guard. Respond. Respond. You are approaching the no-fly zone. Respond.’

      Nothing came back from the Cessna. Shit.

      ‘Cessna 3459. Cessna 3459. Respond or you will be fired upon. You are entering the no-fly zone.’

      Nothing. It was possible, of course, that the Cessna’s radio wasn’t working or that the pilot was unconscious and the plane was flying itself. That had happened before, though not this close to the capital.

      ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna 3459 is not responding. Going alongside for visual.’

      ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Copy that and proceed.’

      While his wingman stayed behind the Cessna, Dalton pulled up next to it, the tip of his starboard wing less than fifty feet from the other plane. He waved his right hand at the pilot, signaling for him to get the hell out of the air and down on the ground, but the Cessna pilot, the damn guy, was staring straight ahead, not even looking over at Dalton’s jet. He looked like he was in a trance.

      Jesus, Dalton thought. The pilot looks like an Arab.

      The Cessna was seventeen miles and ten minutes from D.C.

      ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna not responding. Pilot ignoring visual contact.’

      ‘Huntress. Hawk Flight. Fire flares.’

      ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that. Firing flares.’

      Dalton and his wingman shot ahead of the Cessna and made tight turns in the sky to come back at it. This was the sort of maneuver they practiced a dozen times a month. Each pilot fired two flares. The flares missed the Cessna, but not by much, the closest one coming within thirty feet of the Cessna’s cockpit. There was no way the Cessna pilot didn’t see those flares – or the F-16s coming directly at him once again.

      But the guy just kept going, never deviating from his original course.

      The Cessna was now ten miles – six minutes – from Washington.

      Dalton shot past the Cessna again, turned, and pulled up alongside it a second time. He waggled his wings and waved an arm at the pilot. No response. The bastard just sat there like he was made of stone. Dalton reached out to – aw, shit! The Cessna had assumed a downward angle. It was going to cut right across one of the approaches to Reagan National. Beyond the airport, across the Potomac, Dalton could see the White House.

      This son of a bitch was headed directly at the White House – and the Cessna was now less than three minutes away from it.

      Dalton wasn’t concerned about his F-16 or the Cessna colliding with commercial airplanes going in and out of Reagan National. He knew that by now every plane within a hundred miles either was on the ground or had been diverted away from D.C. Dalton also knew that at this point the White House was being evacuated: guards screaming, people running and tripping and falling, images of 9/11 burned into their brains. Dalton didn’t know if the president was in town, but if he was, two big Secret Service guys had him by the arms and were running him to the bunker, the president’s feet not even hitting the ground.

      The Cessna was now four miles – less than two and a half minutes – from the White House.

      Dalton spoke into his radio. ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Cessna not responding. I repeat. Cessna ignoring all attempts at contact.’ Dalton knew that he sounded calm – he’d been trained to sound calm – but his heart was hammering in his chest like it was going to blow through his breastbone. He also knew he didn’t have to tell anybody where the guy in the Cessna was headed.

      There was no immediate response from Huntress. Oh, shit! Dalton thought. Please, God, don’t let somebody’s goddamn radio go out now. Then his radio squawked.

      ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Bogey declared hostile. Arm hot. You are cleared to fire. Repeat. Arm hot. Cleared to fire.’

      Now Dalton understood the pause. The word had gone up and back down the chain of command. One of those four men who had the authority to give that order had just given it.

      Dalton knew this was his mission. This was the reason they’d spent all those years and all that money training him. This was the reason he was flying an F-16 Falcon. But he had never really expected to have to execute the command he’d just been given.

      Dalton hesitated, he hesitated too long – he hesitated long enough to end his career.

      ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Did you copy that order?’

      ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that. Arm hot. Cleared to fire.’

      And then Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dalton did what he’d been trained to do. He reached down and toggled the master arm switch in the cockpit to ON, slowed down to increase the distance between him and the smaller plane, and just as the Cessna was crossing over the Potomac River – less than two miles from the White House – he fired.

      NORAD and the Air National Guard refused to tell the media what sort of weapon had been used to destroy the Cessna. Ordnance and armament used to protect the capital from aerial assault are classified. But whatever Dalton fired, it struck the Cessna and a ball of flame fifty yards in diameter bloomed in the sky over the Potomac. Pieces seemed to rain down onto the river for a solid minute after the Cessna had been obliterated.

       2

      Danny let Vince take the lead going up the stairs.

      Charlie Logan lived on the fifth floor of an ancient apartment building in Flushing, not too far from Shea Stadium. It was a crummy, stinky place, the elevator broken, the stairway barely lit, the rug on the steps so dirty and worn that it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been. They found Charlie’s apartment, and Vince took a snub-nosed .38 out of his jacket pocket. Oh, shit, Danny thought.

      Vince used the butt of the .38 to rap on Logan’s door. He waited a minute and then slammed the gun butt three times against the wooden door, the sound echoing down the hallway. Danny figured whoever was in the apartment across the hall from Charlie had to have heard the noise. But fuckin’ Vince, he didn’t think about things like that. He didn’t care about things like that.

      Vince Merlino didn’t look like a tough guy. He was five-eight, wiry, not heavily muscled. At forty-five his hair was getting thin right on the top, like he was going to have a little skin circle up there in a couple of years. Yeah, if you saw Vince from the back you wouldn’t be scared at all, a half-pint guy in a cheap leather coat and jeans and high-top Nike knockoffs. But from the front, he’d give you pause. His face looked like it didn’t know what a smile was, lips so thin they practically weren’t there at all, but it was his eyes that got you. He had these flat don’t-give-a-fuck eyes, eyes that said he’d go off on you no matter how big you were.

      Vince hit the door again, practically splintering the wood. ‘Jesus,’ Danny said. ‘You’re gonna wake up everybody in the fuckin’ building. Maybe he’s not home.’

      ‘He’s home,’ Vince said. He raised the .38 to hit the door again, but before he did they heard a bellow from inside the apartment and the door flung open. ‘What the hell do … oh, hey, it’s you,’ Charlie said when he saw Vince, and he stepped back so Vince and Danny could enter the apartment.

      Charlie Logan was a fat guy, six-foot-four, two hundred and eighty pounds. Maybe it was because of Charlie’s size that Mr B had told Danny to go with Vince. Danny didn’t normally do this sort of stuff, but he’d been hanging around Mr B’s office when Vince said he was going to see Charlie, and that’s when Mr B had told him to go too. Danny had said he didn’t think Vince needed any help – it wasn’t like Charlie was gonna wrestle with him or something – but Mr B had said to shut up and do what he was told.

      Charlie was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and white boxer shorts with blue stripes. The T-shirt was the ribbed kind, clinging to Charlie’s love handles ballooning