In Sheep's Clothing: An Action-Packed Political Thriller (Matthew Richter Thriller Series Book 1) (16 page)

The first thing President Kendall noticed was the violent force of the wind.  This was followed by sensations of extreme cold.  Then, strangely, the cold gave way to a burning sensation.  A million pins and needles were being stuck in his body all at once.  His legs, hands, and face began to sting as the wind stripped away his body heat.  He struggled to see where he was, but there was nothing but pockets of white and gray floating around him. 
I must be in the clouds
, he thought. 
Oh, God, I forgot to count!
  How much time had passed?   He pushed the pilot chute up past his face and let it go. 

A second later, he felt a violent jolt as the main chute deployed.  Without knowing why, he reached up and grabbed the steering toggles dangling above his head.  He struggled to hear the plane, but his ears were filled with nothing but the sound of the rushing wind. 

“Hey, Jack!  You’ve got to see this!”  From their perch on the plateau, Derek pointed out over a valley, towards a peak a half a mile away.

Jack peered through the swirling snow, struggling to see.

“Man!  They’re crazier than you are!”

“What do you suppose they’re doing in this weather?

“Could it be a military training exercise?”

Derek squinted.  “I don’t know.  Even those guys aren’t that crazy.”

They watched as the two parachutes drifted down. 

Suddenly there was a bright orange flash from beyond the peak, followed by a muffled boom. 

“Jesus,” Derek swore.  “What the hell was that?”

They watched as the parachutists, one after another, landed on the side of the mountain.  A second explosion rang out, followed by a rumble that continued for twenty seconds.  As the snow picked up, Derek shielded his eyes, trying to mark the location where the parachutes had landed.

“Oh God!  Was that a plane crash?” Jack asked.

“Oh man!  I think so!  Those guys must have jumped out right before.  We need to call 911.  Where’s your phone?”

Jack turned awkwardly in the deep snow.  “It’s in the lower right-hand pocket in my pack.” 

Derek fumbled with the zipper then pulled the phone out.  He turned it on and cursed as he waited for it to power up.

The president landed on the side of the mountain.  Over two feet of fresh snow, coupled with the slope of the hill, saved him from serious injury.  He slid down the hill for almost thirty yards before the deep snow brought him to a stop.  Buried up to his waist, he lay back for a moment as the enormity of what had happened began to settle in.  He couldn’t see and struggled with the tangle of risers and control lines that had fallen on him.  He pulled off the mask and goggles and wiped his eyes.  He noticed that his hands were red, covered with scrapes and cuts.  Strangely, they weren’t bleeding. 

His parachute had crumpled and fallen twenty feet below him. 
What do I do now?
he wondered.  He strained to see through heavy snow, trying to get his bearings.  He was on the side of a mountain.  But where?  He suddenly felt very alone.  What happened to Air Force One?  He remembered an explosion.  Then Richter was pulling him through the wreckage.  What happened to him?  Did he jump too? 

The wind shifted, blowing a swirl of snow and the parachute up the side of the hill.  He struggled for a minute with the tangled lines and the canopy, finally pushing them off.  The wind carried the canopy up the hill.

Through the swirling snow, he heard something.  The sound was muffled, faint. 

“Pull your chute in!  Mr. President, pull your chute in!” 

He wondered if he was hallucinating. The sound came again and Kendall recognized Richter’s voice.  Straining to turn his body, the snow and the parachute cords blocking his view, he finally spotted something moving farther up the slope.  He raised his hand, tried to wave, before he was violently yanked out of his perch as the wind began pulling his chute, and him, across the side of the hill.

In the operations center of Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, the lieutenant sipped his soda, his third can since his shift had begun four hours earlier.  He glanced at the time and wondered what was on the menu in the cafeteria.  He was scheduled to take a break in the next thirty minutes.  He eyes shifted back to the bank of flat panel screens.  Maybe he would have the soup. 

His head shot back to the center display.  There was something there.  He studied the screen for another two seconds and then checked the screen to the right where his priority flights were listed. 

“Holy shit!”  He grabbed the phone and called the watch officer.  “Sir!  We just lost all contact with Air Force One!”

The captain hurried over.  “What?  Damn!  Okay.  Okay.  Give me the details, the last known coordinates, the list of aircraft in that sector!  You know the drill!  Let’s go!”

Simultaneously, an AWACS officer on the E-3 Sentry flying over central Oregon shouted, “God damn!  Colonel, we just lost radar contact with Air Force One!”

“Sir, I lost radio contact as well!” a second officer yelled out.

“They just dropped off the screen!” The first added.

“We’re not tracking any threats in the area!” another officer called.

“Holy fuck!  I’m getting big-time heat blooms.  What the hell is that?”

“That’s an explosion.  Look at the size of that bloom.  That’s got to be a crash.”

“Vampires?” the commanding officer asked.

“No, sir!  No missiles detected!”

“Call it in!  Now!”

Derek cursed as he stared at the phone.  No signal.  Either they were out of range or weather conditions were affecting reception.  Regardless, the phone was useless right now. 

“What’s our exact position?” he asked.

Jack pulled out his GPS unit.  He waited for the system to calibrate.  When the waypoint appeared on the screen, Jack locked the position in the system’s memory and then handed the unit to Derek.  Derek stared at the receiver for a moment. 

“I don’t know how to use this thing.  How far is the trailhead?  How far is the car?”

Jack punched some buttons.  “A little over thirteen miles.”

Derek studied the adjacent mountain.  “How far do you think it is to where those guys landed?  Half a mile?”

Jack looked across the valley and then at the GPS, noting the contour lines plotted on the screen.  “I’m guessing a quarter mile.  They landed due east of us.”

Derek squinted through the snow.  A quarter mile as the crow flies, he reasoned, but they had to descend first and then climb back up that hill.  And they didn’t have the right gear. 

“We can’t leave those guys there, Derek,” Jack said, as if reading his mind.  “They’re probably hurt.  By the time we hike back to our car and go find help, they’ll die.”

Derek knew Jack was right.  The car was too far away and, in these conditions, it would take two days to reach it.  Then what?  Elk City was still several miles away over unplowed roads.  He turned to Jack and nodded. 

Jack studied the GPS, calculating the waypoint where the parachutes had landed.

“We should be able to reach them in an hour, maybe less if we hurry.” 

“Okay,” Derek responded.  “Let’s do it.”

The scramble order was relayed from NORAD, headquartered in Cheyenne Mountain, through the Western Air Defense Sector at McCord Air Force Base in Seattle, Washington, to the 142nd Oregon Air National Guard Wing, stationed in Portland, Oregon.

Within seven minutes of receiving the scramble order, a pair of heavily armed F-15 Eagles leapt off the runway, banked hard to the right, and began to climb steeply.  Both planes switched on their afterburners and quickly reached supersonic speeds; the sonic booms echoed over Portland.  Seventeen minutes later, they were over north central Idaho.  Guided by the E-3 Sentry, they searched for potential threats.

Minutes later, a KC-135 Stratotanker turned onto the runway and accelerated into the blinding snow.  Once airborne, it slowly banked and began climbing.  The Stratotanker was essentially a flying gas station designed to provide mid-air refueling, effectively extending the operational range and time of fighter and attack aircraft.

“Mother Goose.  This is King Four.  Estimate one hour and forty-nine minutes to target.”

A communications officer on the AWACS keyed his mic.  “Copy, King Four.  ETA one forty-nine.”

In the Secret Service Command Center, Tim Jacobs lunged forward, punching the keys on his computer.  He stared at his screen for a moment then tapped the keyboard again.  He glanced to his right at Joe Montarro, manning the satellite link.  Montarro, eyes wide, shook his head. 

“Horsepower to Angel.  Over.”

“Horsepower to Angel!  Do you read?”

Damn!
  Jacobs cursed to himself.  He jumped up, knocking his chair over in the process.  He punched several more keys and glanced over his shoulder at Keith O’Rourke across the room. 

“Keith!” he yelled, before turning back to the screen.  “We’ve lost contact with Angel!”  Angel was the code name for Air Force One.  Jacobs pointed to the computer screen as O’Rourke grabbed the second headset.

“We’ve lost both audio and data links!”

“Try the alternate frequencies!” O’Rourke barked at Montarro. 

“I’ve already tried them!”

“Goddamn it!  Try again!”

As Montarro pounded the keys, speaking into his microphone again, O’Rourke turned back to Jacobs. 

“Have you checked with Microwave?”  Microwave was the code name for the Air Force Command Center at Andrews Air Force Base.

“I’m in the process!”

O’Rourke lunged for the phone, knocking over a cup of coffee.  The mug shattered on the floor, coffee splashing all over his and the other agents’ pants.  The three men didn’t notice.

Richter came down the west slope of the mountain, his descent more of a controlled slide.  His two-hundred-dollar dress shoes provided no traction at all, and his suit was no match for the wind.

The bitter cold began to sap his energy.  His suit jacket and pants were ripped, and his hands were raw and bleeding.  He knew there was an Airman’s survival kit on the front of his harness and that it contained a blanket and other gear to protect his body from the elements.  He also knew that he had to find the president first before he worried about himself. 

He stopped for a second to get his bearings.  For a moment, he felt disoriented, unsure which direction he had come from and which direction the president had been dragged away.  He felt a sudden wave of panic then took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.  Fear and panic could be as deadly as the elements. 

As the slope leveled off, he began traversing the face, heading, he hoped, in the direction he had seen the president sliding.  Dropping to a small ledge, he stared into the distance.  Through the swirling snow, he glimpsed a flash of color.  President Kendall seemed to be twisting and swinging back and forth in his parachute harness.  The chute, Richter realized, had saved him from continuing to fall when it became entangled in the branches of the tree that had somehow managed to sprout up through the rocks.  It took Richter almost five minutes to slip and slide down the mountain to a point where he finally saw the president again.  He watched in horror as the wind repeatedly bashed the president’s limp body against the rock face.

Christ almighty
, the lead F-15 pilot thought as he looked down at the screen.

“Mother Goose, this is Basher Two-One.  We are over target now.  We’re not picking up any threats.  Repeat, negative on threats.”

“Copy, Basher Two-One.  Have you located point of impact?”

“I’m picking up heat blooms consistent with a crash, but no visual.  Visibility is poor.  Estimate debris field two, repeat two, square miles.”

“Copy, Two-One.  Can CSAR get in?”

“It’s going to be tough, Mother Goose.  Radar and GPS indicate a mountainous terrain, elevations from four thousand feet to eighty-five hundred feet.  Limited to no access roads.  Weather is a bitch.”

“Copy, Two-One.  Maintain CAP.”

“Copy, Mother Goose.  Maintain combat air patrol.”

“Two-One.  CSAR is scrambling now.  Will notify when en route.”

“Copy.”

As the F-15 pilot signed off, he swore under his breath, wondering what the hell had happened on Air Force One.

Richter grabbed onto the tree, wrapping his arms around the trunk to stop himself from sliding over the edge.  He sat up, and as the president’s spinning body swung by, he grabbed a leg.  Bracing his back against the tree, he stood and grabbed the president in a bear hug.  With his left arm around the man’s waist, he felt the president’s neck for a pulse.  Feeling nothing, he realized that his fingers, numb and bleeding, were useless.  He slid his hand up, under the parachute harness, placing his palm over Kendall’s sternum, searching for a heartbeat.  After a long, frustrating minute, Richter gave up.  Reaching below his own harness, he pulled out his gun and held it up to the president’s face.