My King The President (31 page)

With the others, I felt a sudden jolt. A lurch to the left. The big jet started veering slightly to port, and I knew the left side brakes were gone. Then we passed the end of the runway. There was an enormous shudder as I noticed the yoke wrenched out of Nichol’s grip. We turned sharply left, but the snow helped. Groaning, we ground to a stop. We had done it. Down. Safe!

Nichols shut down the engines and collapsed in his harness. He sighed once heavily, closing his eyes. Jamison was crossing himself.

I looked at my watch.
Eight minutes till three
. “Captain,” I said, trying to keep my own nerves under control. “Every second counts now. How do we get out?”

Jamison’s voice answered, but he was talking to the crew. “Deploy slides now. Get the people off as quickly as possible.”

“What about up here?” I wanted to know. “The
President
. We don’t have time to go back—”

“Shut up and listen,” Nichols said, his voice as hard as the set of his jaw. Then he reached up and pushed a button practically right over his head. Jamison did the same on his side. Twin compartments opened, and from them coiled lengths of braided nylon rope fell out. Both officers punched out their side windows, hooked the ropes to a steel ring over them, and tossed the weighted ends out the windows. I hardly noticed the freezing northwest wind now whistling through the flight deck.

Nichol’s left his seat, clawed his way back to the jump seat where President Fordham was still strapped in. His hands worked fast to free her. “Ms. President, there’s no time to get you into the bubble. You have to get out this way, with the rope.”

Helene Fordham didn’t flinch. She stood, made her way to the portside window, looked Nichols in the eye and said, “I can do this, Colonel, and if I make it, and you do, I promise you by next week you’ll be a General. Give me a hand, please.”

Both Nichols and Jamison helped her out the window, feet first. “Don’t panic, ma’am,” Nichols said. “Wrap one leg around the rope and let yourself down a little at the time. Don’t try to slide. “You’re right. You
can
do this.”

When she was out, lowering herself down so that only her head was visible, she looked up one last time and smiled. “Good thing I’m not wearing a dress!” Then she dropped out of sight.

Jamison looked at me, his eyes steady. “You next, this side, and no arguments please.”

I didn’t offer any. I climbed through the window feet first, wrapped a leg around the rope, and started down hand over hand, unmindful that I had thirty feet to go! Half way down, from the corner of my eye, I could see that three long slides were protruding from the fuselage, and people were tumbling down them pell-mell; head first, feet first, whichever way, with a lot of screaming. I knew the same process was happening on the opposite side. As I hit the ground, or rather the eight inches of snow covering it, I looked frantically around for the President. She was on her hands and knees, having apparently dropped the last few feet. I plowed over to her. Helped her to her feet. “Run! This way, into the wind. I’ll be right behind you.”

I didn’t look back to see if Nichols and Jamison had followed us down, or if any of the others were running in our direction. Over the President’s bobbing head, I could make out dozens of flashing lights on the shapes of toy vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, and tiny people fanned out on both sides of the runway, coming toward us at top speed. We had covered maybe two hundred excruciating yards when the President stumbled. Fell head first into the snow. I jerked her up. “
Run
, goddammit, the plane could blow any—”

Whump—WHUMP…
The two blasts were practically simultaneous. The President was thrown forward to the ground by my own body, but it had not been by the force of the twin explosions. I had been knocked into her by Bert Franklin’s flying tackle. Both of us lay on top of her, pushing her further down into the snow as bits and pieces of flaming debris landed all around and ahead of us, for another hundred yards at least. We lay there praying for what seemed like hours, until we felt strong hands lifting us. Helping us struggle toward a vehicle. I remember that from virtual shock, I giggled like an idiot when I saw the bright orange lettering: ECNALUBMA. . .

Sioux Gateway is not a large airport. Only two boarding gates, but its terminal is spacious, including a fair sized restaurant, both of which were soon filled with dazed, jabbering people. Bert Franklin and I pushed our way through them, making a path for the President, who had calmly told the ambulance crew she was unhurt and refused to be taken to the hospital. “Close that door, Jeb,” she said once we were inside the politely vacated restaurant. Then she turned to her faithful Secret Service man. “Is your phone still working, Bert?”

Franklin quickly tested his cell phone. “Yes, Ms. President.”

“Good. Call the Attorney General’s office. I want to speak to Richard Cameron personally.”

When Bert turned away to comply, she looked back again at me. “I’m going to have Koontz arrested for murder. Go out there and see if you can find out who’s in charge here. Whoever it is, send him in here, then see if you can locate Captain Nichols. Tell him to gather his crew together. My orders are for none of them to make any comment. Not to anybody. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I found Nichols first. He was already rounding up his crew. I passed the President’s message along, then began shooting questions to everybody I bumped into. It only took me a couple more minutes to locate the Airport Director, a stout, worried little man who looked as though he might wet his pants at any minute. I checked his brass nametag. “Mr. Grissom? My name is Jeb Willard. With the President’s party. She wants to see you. Please come with me.”

I led him through the crowd into the restaurant and introduced him. President Fordham smiled, shook his hand and calmly told him what she wanted. “Mr. Grissom, I have two requests. There has to be a local television station here, right?”

Grissom found his voice. “Uh, yes, Ms. President. Three of them, and I’m sure they’ll all have crews here any minute.”

“No doubt. What I want you to do is call the station managers of each of them. Tell them I want them to patch into their national networks—right now! By any chance, is there a private or corporate jet here?”

“Yes. Two of them.”

“Good. Soon as you call those TV people, I want you to call whoever owns them and tell them I need to borrow one of them to get back to Washington right away. If a pilot is available, fine. If not, I have two of the best. Can you arrange that?”

“Certainly.”

She turned. “Bert, lend him your phone and wait for me here. Jeb, you come with me.”

I followed her through the door into the terminal, where she climbed onto the seat of one of the chairs and yelled, “Listen to me, all of you. I want you all to sit down. Please just sit down right where you are. Everything is all right. I have one request of each of you. Members of the press will be here soon. Say nothing to anybody. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Like so many sheep, the stunned crowd followed her orders. Satisfied, she hopped down and marched straight to the Northwest Airlines ticket counter, smiling sweetly once more, this time at the white-faced agent. “I’m Helene Fordham. What’s your name, dear?”

“T-Toni Ellis, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you, Toni. I need a favor. Go get your topcoat and your pocketbook and meet me in the ladies’ room in one minute, please. Okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel, pulled me aside and said, “Jeb, find Captain Nichols again. Tell him to count noses. Find out whether we have casualties, and tell him I may need him and Major Jamison for flight duty again. Hop to it, I’m sure those TV people will be here any minute.”

She was right. I was in the middle of telling Nichols what she’d said when a small army of them came rushing though the front door, lights and cameras at the ready, already fighting for position.

Nor were they disappointed. I shook my head in both disbelief and admiration when Helene Fordham came out of the women’s rest room wearing a red three quarter length coat, a white scarf, fresh makeup on, and every hair in place! She walked resolutely to a central spot, waited for the cameras and lights to be set, and with her chin up and with a rock steady voice, made her electrifying announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen of Sioux City, and my fellow Americans, let me first say that I am, as you can see, perfectly fine. I will also tell you that on our flight west, Air Force One developed a serious problem, which started an in-flight fire, but Captain Edgar Nichols and his heroic crew brought us in for an emergency landing here at Sioux City in plenty of time to avoid disaster. I’m sure the Federal Aeronautics Agency and the National Transportation and Safety Board will quickly confirm that was the cause of the terrible explosion which happened after we safely deplaned.

“Before I leave for Washington, I must commend the emergency personnel here, the Airport Authority, and the rest of you who have been so wonderful. I must also add that I am aware of the tragic news from Miami, and that my heart goes out to the parents, relatives, and teachers of those poor children. To them, I say that I, and the entire United States Government will do all in our power to immediately find and punish those responsible. To you splendid press people, I regret that I don’t have time just now to answer any questions, and have cautioned everyone aboard to do the same, until the officials of the FAA can interview them first. Having said that, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your cooperation and assistance. I should be back in the Capitol within hours. Thank you very, very much.”

With that, she smiled yet again into the cameras, and walked calmly back to the restaurant, which was now guarded by two State Highway patrolmen. I felt a tug on my sleeve, turned and was relieved the see the filthy face of my mentor. “Ernie!” I was about to say something about how glad I was he’d come through okay, but his eyes were following President Fordham.

“She’s something, isn’t she?” I said.

Ernie was shaking his head. “She’s a lot more than that, Jeb. She’s the President.”

Chapter 31

I crashed at Ernie’s apartment for 48 hours, eating ham sandwiches and watching the television news. Nearly all of it alternated between coverage of the Miami school tragedy and the aftermath of the “fire and explosion” of Air Force One at Sioux City. I don’t know which was worse; the gruesome pictures of blood-spattered bodies of eight and nine year-old kids, or the plumes of black smoke rising from the rubble of the President’s plane.

Early in the morning of the third day, I answered Ernie’s phone. “Hello?”

“Jeb, this is Jason Barnes. Thought you might like to know Thurmond Frye is recovering nicely. He’s even allowed to have visitors now. All except you, that is. He told me he hopes he never has to see your ugly face again.”

“Can’t blame him. What else is happening?”

“We’ve got teams making personal calls on every single man on your father’s list. Lots of very quiet, unpublicized resignations, from generals down to sergeants. They won’t be arrested or prosecuted unless they shoot their mouths off, which is highly unlikely. The FAA and the NTSB, haven’t, uh, found Air Force One’s black box yet. I don’t think they will, either, if you catch my meaning. The whole deal is getting lowest profile treatment. President’s orders.”

“What about Koontz?”

“Haven’t been able to find him. President Fordham’s national T.V. hook-up from Sioux City pre-empted him by twenty minutes. He never showed up at the White House press room. Like he vanished into thin air. We don’t have a clue as to where he is. Turnberry either. My boss is not real happy.”

When he hung up, his last words rang in my head like a church bell. Then it came to me what I should do about the money in the envelope Bert Franklin had delivered the night before. I grabbed the phone book and looked up the number of Lloyd Eason, a bright young lawyer I had been barhopping with a number of times back in the old days. Luckily, I caught him in. “Eason.”

“Lloyd, this is Jeb Willard. Are you free for lunch? My treat.”

By three in the afternoon, I had set up a sizable anonymous trust for Jody Erikson, and feeling a little better about everything, I took some of the thousand dollars I still had left and went shopping for some warm clothes, dropping a buck or two in several of the Salvation Army kettles in front of the shop doors. Then I stopped by Ernie’s office at the
Post
. “I’m taking you to dinner, old friend. Feel like Italian? I haven’t been to Carmen’s in years.”

We hadn’t quite finished eating when I looked up and saw the huge form of Sal Cancelossi’s Number One making his way to our table. I stood to make some kind of awkward introduction, but Bruno stopped me half way through. “Excuse me for interrupting your dinner, Mr. Willard. Can I have a word with you? In private?”

“Sure.”

I followed him to the rear of the restaurant into the men’s room. “What can I do for you, Bruno?”

The big man’s face was not a happy one. “Don Cancelossi sent me. He’s dying, and wants to see you. Can you be ready by eight tomorrow morning?”

Something told me he was understating the urgency. I took a gamble. “I can go right now if you like. Just let me tell my friend and get my coat and hat. Where are we going? Miami?”

“Farther. Key West.”

I asked no more questions. After making my quick excuses to a flabbergasted Ernie Latham, I followed Bruno to the street, where the limo was waiting…