Under Siege (6 page)

“Then you come out here with your own forty-five caliber pistol and start kicking ass, Lieutenant. We can’t put up with this kind of attack on our nation and the president’s wife. You know she’s on board?”

“Yes sir, we know. There is little I can do.”

Major Funister slammed the handset down and stared out the window. He could see the men crawling slowly forward.

He switched to the public address speakers that reached every section of the huge aircraft.

“This is Major Funister. We’re in a worsening situation. There are no ground forces here to repel these attackers. Do not, I repeat,
do not
open any of the three outer doors. If we can keep them outside, we are relatively safe. Do not open any of the outside access doors.”

On the second deck, just below the cockpit and communications center, Mrs. Hardesty stayed in the center of the office section and as far away from the windows as possible. Two Secret Service men had arrived moments after the plane stopped and now stood with their Ingram submachine guns drawn and facing the stairs that led to the third level.

“Mrs. Hardesty,” one of the agents said. “This looks like some minor local rebel group staging a dangerous power play to get some publicity. I’m sure we’ll have everything resolved quickly.”

“But we can’t move the aircraft, can we?” Mrs. Hardesty asked.

“No, but we have our embassy people working on that.”

A burst of machine gun fire slammed into the windows, and the rounds glanced off the inch-thick safety glass. Tracy huddled low in one of the cushioned chairs. She shivered and the First Lady put her hand on the girl’s shoulders.

“It will be all right, Tracy. Everything will work out. No one in his right mind attacks one of the planes of the president of the United States. You’ll see.”

In an armored personnel carrier parked on the taxi strip a hundred yards from the stalled presidential aircraft, Colonel Ahmed Badri watched his men move closer and closer to the big aircraft. He had no idea if the plane had external firing weapons or not. He had told his men to take no chances. He had heard the appeal from the major on the hailing frequency, and he held a radio in his hands but made
no move to answer the call. Let them sweat it out a few more minutes. They might do something stupid.

Five minutes later he gave a curt hand signal and two of his own men lifted off the tarmac and ran a zig-zag course to the wing of the big craft and paused underneath it. One took a lightweight ladder from his back and snapped open the two-foot sections until the ladder stretched out twenty feet. Quickly the man moved the ladder to the space in front of the wing and up to the main entrance door. One man held the ladder, the other walked up the rungs until he was beside the latch on the large doorway. He took a crowbar from his back and tried to force the door open. After half a dozen tries, he smashed the rounded part of the bar into the mechanism, but it didn’t bulge. The man held up one open hand and waved it back and forth.

On the army truck, Colonel Badri saw the signal. He stood, held up both hands, and waved them back and forth.

The man on the ladder nodded, took two packages from his back pack, and pressed them hard, sticking them against the center and bottom of the door. Then he inserted timer/detonators in the two 1/8
^th
pounds of plastic explosives. He set the timers for four minutes, punched them into the “on” position, then scrambled down the ladder and pulled it back out of the way under the wing.

Three minutes later, twin explosions took the people inside the plane by surprise.

“Main entrance,” Major Funister shouted into his personal radio. The eight Secret Service men ran to their assigned positions. Four men covered the main door with their Ingrams. Two stayed with the First Lady, and the last two covered the rear entrance on the lower third level.

Major Funister stepped out from the First Lady’s private suite and past the medical center so he could see the main entrance door. The big door had rolled back into its normal open position. Evidently, the explosions had triggered the safety devices on the door that opened it in case of any
collision. He crept up to the very edge of the door and looked out at the ground fifteen feet below. A moment later he saw a ladder pushed against the plane. The major leaned out and sent a six-round burst of 9mm Parabellum into the head and shoulders of a man climbing the ladder. The climber jolted off the ladder and hit the pavement hard and didn’t move.

Another figure surged out from under the wing, and before the major could track him, he threw something at the open door. The major hosed down the area with rounds, killing the attacker, but he saw the flight of the hand bomb as it sailed toward the big doorway. He jumped in front of the opening and slashed at the grenade with his stubby Ingram like he would a slow curve, but he missed. A moment later the grenade hit just inside the door and exploded.

Smoke, whining shrapnel, and fire filled the entranceway to the plane before the wind whipped in and sucked out most of it. Major Funister lay on his side on the beige carpet where the bomb had smashed him. For a minute he thought he was dead. Then he knew he wasn’t. He hurt too bad. Must be the armored vest. But he couldn’t move his legs. Strong hands caught his arms and pulled him back from the doorway and aft down the aisle that led past the galley. Then they left him and rushed back to the main entrance.

Already two attackers had scaled the ladder and stepped inside the plane. They shot and killed both surprised Secret Service men who confronted them in the main entrance. They waved their submachine guns. The sounds of the gunfire in the closed space echoed and slammed through the plane, making it twice as loud as it really was. One of the attackers, dressed in a green-and-black jungle fatigue uniform, rushed up the steps to the communications room. He seemed to know exactly here he was going.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Agent Lon Henry said on the satellite radio. “The main entrance door has been blown off and …”

Two shots from the raider’s .45 caliber pistol jolted Henry off his chair and dumped him to the floor. The first round hit him in the shoulder, the second just below his nose slanting upward into his brain.

The only Secret Service man in the First Lady’s suite had bolted the door leading into the office section that faced the hallway near the main entrance. He had his Ingram trained on the metal door. The First Lady and Tracy were in the bedroom section at the nose of the plane just past the bathroom.

The door exploded inward when someone outside jumped and kicked it with both booted feet. The kicker went to the floor and was gunned down by the Secret Service man. He didn’t see the second attacker, though, who drilled six rounds into Mrs. Smith’s son from Waterloo, Iowa, killing him in an instant.

Three more attackers charged into the presidential office, then one went through the bathroom and nodded at the First Lady, who sat on one of the beds and held her arms around Tracy.

“Mrs. Hardesty, you are to come with us,” Colonel Badri said in precise, perfectly pronounced English.

Natabi, New Namibia Airport

Mrs. Hardesty stood and stared at the man in military clothing who carried a submachine gun. Her back stiffened and her chin came up.

“Surely, young man, you’re not speaking to me. I’m the wife of the president of the United States here on a diplomatic mission. What’s your name?”

“I’m Ahmed Badri, not that it matters. Come, out of the plane, or I’ll be forced to bring in some men to carry you.”

“You’re serious?”

“There are several dead men in the plane and on the ground who will assure you that I’m extremely serious. Now come, we have far to go before nightfall.”

Mrs. Hardesty nodded once, patted Tracy on the shoulder. The young woman was still shivering and had kept her eyes tightly closed. “Don’t worry, Tracy, I’ll be fine. This man can’t risk the might of the United States coming down on his head. I’ll see you again soon.”

She stepped forward, past the bathroom and into the presidential office. There Badri stopped her. He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a radio about four inches square and sixteen inches tall.

“Yes, the SATCOM radio,” Badri said. “Right where it’s supposed to be. The backup of the backup. With this I can talk to your husband.” He looped the carrying strap over his shoulder and led the First Lady out to the main entrance.
They had to step over three bodies sprawled in death on the pristine carpet. The emergency slide had been triggered, stretching out to the ground. Badri pointed to one of his men and said something in a foreign tongue.

“Do what this man does,” Badri said to Mrs. Hardesty. “’Simply sit down and slide down to the bottom.”

“I’m not an idiot, Mr. Badri.” She watched the man slide down, then stepped forward, dropped on the soft plastic on her bottom, and slid to the ground where two men helped her stand. Badri came right behind her. He caught her forearm and walked her forward.

“We have ground transportation. Not the presidential stretch limo, but it will serve.” He signaled and the armored personnel carrier drove up beside them and stopped. The rear of the rig opened and Badri walked the First Lady into the machine. Benchlike storage compartments lined both sides.

“Sit down and hold on. This won’t be a pleasure ride.”

Inside the wounded jet liner, the third in command of the Secret Service took stock. As soon as the last of the attackers had left the plane, John Ludbezian checked the SATCOM in the communications room. It was working and still tuned to the White House office and turned on. He took it from the dead man’s hands and pushed the handset.

“This is John, do you copy?”

“Yes. This is Martin in Washington. What’s the status of the First Lady?”

“She’s been kidnapped, sir. Taken away under guns. We’ve lost four of our agents including the major. It was a clean, swift, precision, military attack. They knew exactly where to go and what to get. They were in the plane no more than three minutes.”

“Any other casualties?”

“Not that I know of. The First Lady was last seen getting into an armored personnel carrier and heading off the airport. An airport Jeep tried to follow them, but was turned
back after taking several rounds from the machine gun mounted on top of the military vehicle.”

“They deploy the plane’s emergency exit chute?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put someone on the radio to the tower and get stairs out there as soon as possible. Then get everyone to the embassy or into hotels. I want you to follow that personnel carrier. Get a car or a truck and tail them.
Don’t let them get away.
We’ve got to know where they’re taking the First Lady. She’s your responsibility now. How much of a head start do they have?

“About four minutes, sir.”

“Get moving. Call the tower for transport. Take the long guns out of the locker and your short guns. Move it, John, now!”

An airport Jeep with a large checkered flag on it stormed across the taxi strip and stopped near the emergency chute. John Ludbezian ran up to it and looked down at the airport security policeman.

“English?” he asked.

“Some.”

“I need to take your Jeep to follow the First Lady’s kidnappers. You drive. They went out the south gate. We’ve got to rush.”

“My superior told me—”

“Never mind that, we need to move now. Your superior is in deep shit right now. Don’t make it any worse.” With that, he slid down the emergency chute.

John stepped into the Jeep and the airport policeman spun the rig around and slanted toward the south gate. Before they went through the gate, John saw a small tractor pulling a rolling stairway toward the wounded airliner, followed by three buses.

Just outside the gate, the driver turned the rig south. “Not much north, he would go south to hide.”

The battle-green armored rig was nowhere in sight. A
pair of small stores and a petrol station showed on the left. Three men lounged near the pumps. The driver pulled in and chattered with them in Afrikaans a moment, then waved and pulled out.

“They say the army machine drove down this way, going fast, with three pickups and a sedan in a convoy.”

“You speak good English.”

“English is our first official language. More British than American.”

“What’s your name?”

“Botsua, Willy Botsua.”

“Okay, Willy. Let’s find out where these bastards went. They have more firepower than we do, so we play it slow and safe. Right?”

“Right.”

They stopped three more times and asked about the convoy before they went into the countryside well south of the capital city. Roads and trails and one highway sprouted off in six different directions. John checked the hard surface of three of the dirt roads and ruled them out. It still left three directions.

“What’s down this way?” John asked.

“Some farms, some lumber mills. One small diamond mine, but most of the good digging is to the north of the capital.”

“Diamonds?”

“Yes, alluvial. We strip-mine the dirt and rocks and process tons and tons of it to find a few diamonds.”

A few miles down the road they saw a group of men waving them to stop. Willy started to slow the vehicle.

“Do you think that was your army that captured the First Lady?

“Not
the
army, but I think those men were
part
of the army. We have only two of those personnel carriers.”

“Great. If I don’t rescue the First Lady, I’ll probably be an airport cop myself back in Washington.” He checked the
pickup at the side of the road, then told Willy to pull over and talk to the men.

Badri sat beside the driver and urged him to go faster. He knew someone would follow. He had planned on it. They plowed through the edge of Natabi, then took the road south. At the first intersection he dropped off one of the pickups to watch for anyone chasing them. They had radios good for nearly ten miles. His first report came ten minutes later. One airport Jeep with two men in it was tracking them. Badri told the pickup to return to town. His next pickup stopped off five miles farther along. The driver gathered some local men around him and flagged down the airport Jeep when it raced up.