Dead on Arrival Read Online Free Page A

control of Homeland Security lifted off from Reagan National; the Secret Service and the U.S. Capitol Police were alerted and told to be prepared to evacuate the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court; and men in secret locations throughout Washington who are qualified to fire surface-to-air missiles were notified and told to stand by.
    At the same time, four people were paged: the secretary of defense, his deputy, a navy admiral located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado who had overall command of NORAD, and an air force major general located at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida who was responsible for NORAD’S operations in the continental United States. These four people were paged because they had been delegated the authority by the president of the United States to shoot down a plane entering the no-fly zone.
    Dalton was fairly certain, however, that it wouldn’t come to that; it never had in the past. He expected that within the next two minutes the dummy from Stafford would be on his radio saying, ‘Oh, shit, sorry,’ about sixteen times and then get headed in the right direction, and Dalton would be ordered back to Andrews before he could have any fun.
    But these incidents, pilots breaching the ADIZ, occurred two or three times a week, and once Dalton had been on duty when it happened three times in one day. These muttonheads who couldn’t read a map or a compass, who had their radios turned off or set to the wrong frequency, would blunder into the ADIZ and then have the livin’ shit scared out of ’em when two F-16s went roaring past them at six hundred miles an hour.
    ‘Huntress. Hawk Flight. Bogey still not responding. Snap vector three-twenty for thirty. Intercept and ID. Noses cold.’
    Huntress was the call sign for the colonel com manding the Northeastern Air Defense Sector. He had tactical command of the F-16s. Hawk Flight was the two F-16s: Hawk One was Pete Dalton; Hawk Two was his wingman, Major Jeff Fields. Snap vector 320 for 30 meant the bogey was on a bearing of 320 degrees and 30 miles from the Hawk Flight’s po sition. Noses cold meant they were to approach with their weapons systems unarmed – which was a damn good thing for the bogey.
    Dalton responded. ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Copy that. Proceeding to intercept.’
    The unidentified aircraft was now twenty-four miles and fourteen minutes from Washington, D.C.
    Dalton could see the bogey on his radar, and a minute later he could make out a dot in the sky that had to be it. He and Fields headed directly at the dot, and when they were half a mile away, and the bogey was clearly visible – and they were visible to it – Dalton split to the right and Fields to the left, and they blasted past the plane, coming within a hundred yards of its wingtips. Dalton looked over his shoulder and saw the bogey wobble in the jet wash caused by the F-16s, and he figured that whoever was flying that baby was sitting there right now in a puddle of his own piss.
    Dalton and Fields made tight loops in the sky and came in behind the plane, slowing down to match its speed.
    The bogey was now twenty miles and twelve minutes from Washington.
    ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Bogey is a Cessna One-fifty, tail number N3459J. Repeat N3459J.’
    ‘Huntress. Hawk One. Copy that. Attempt contact.’
    ‘Hawk One. Huntress. Roger that.’ Dalton switched frequencies on his radio. ‘Cessna 3459, 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