Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (33 page)

“I don’t know who you are, or what you are doing, but you’re not going to get away with this,” said Jenkins.

Jonathan took one last piece of tape and covered Jenkin’s mouth.

“Please don’t do anything to them,” said Jonathan to Mary.

“What do you mean by that?” snapped Mary. “Do you think I’d kill them?”

Jenkins became real attentive.

“I’ve got to go fly this plane. So, please don’t hurt them. We’ll deal with them when we land, agreed?”

“I can’t believe that you’d think I would hurt them. The other was a completely different situation.”

Mary was still talking as Jonathan moved away from her and climbed into the cockpit. He interrupted her to say; “Mary, make sure Carly’s seatbelt is pulled as tight as possible, then you do the same.” He scanned the instrument panel to see the avionic equipment and installed accessories of the aircraft and was pleased to see that it was an international version with the Parker auxiliary fuel system and had the latest anti-missile defense system. The anti-missile defense system was designed to attract heat seeking stinger missiles away from the airplane by replacing the heat signature of the engines with fireballs launched from the back of the aircraft called chaff. He then spread out the DFW and Atlanta sectional maps, and checked the maps to determine the path he wanted to take. He fumbled under the seat until he found the ELT (the black box) and removed its battery. “Mary are you and Carly ready!”

“We’re ready,” screamed Mary.

“Hold on!”

He pushed the yoke forward into a 2500 feet per minute dive directly toward a densely wooded area in the Ozark Mountain Range. The airframe moaned from the negative G-forces. Carly screamed as Bruiser flew from her hands and hit the ceiling of the cabin. Jonathan dialed in the Little Rock International Airport tower and broadcast,

“This is Lear 245 Bravo Hotel and we have a Mayday! Mayday! Repeat, we have lost both engines and we are going down!”

He reached over and turned off the transponder and when he reached 500 feet above the ground, yanked back on the yoke, putting the Lear into nearly a 4000 foot a minute ascent. The plane nearly touched the tops of trees as it struggled to reverse the forces of momentum and gravity. Both Mary and Carly screamed as the plane sank, then sat suspended in mid-air and then shot nearly vertically up into the sky. Simultaneously he armed and fired the anti-missile defense system and pulled the emergency fuel dump lever, dumping 5000 lbs. of fuel. . The chaff shot out of the back of the aircraft with yellow fiery streaks that looked like the grand finale of a 4th of July fireworks when it ignited the fuel in a huge flame ball that plummeted to the ground. The dry Arkansas firs erupted instantly into a sea of flames. Mary looked down and saw only conflagration and a huge billow of smoke.

Jonathan leveled the plane at 12000 feet and then slowly descended to 1750 feet above ground level and set the flight director on a course of 095. He was familiar with this route and knew that once past the Ozarks there were no higher obstacles on this Southern path. They would rocket across Arkansas, and North Mississippi and Alabama before turning Northeast across the Northern portion of Atlanta and land at a small uncontrolled airport in Greeneville, Tennessee. He radioed the Fixed Base Operation (FBO) at Greeneville and reserved a Chevrolet Suburban under a fictitious aircraft identification number and a new alias. They would leave the Lear at the FBO, knowing that without a control tower it would take several days, even a week, before the CIA found it. From Greeneville they would drive an hour and a half to Elizabethton, TN, an obscure town with a nice but seldom used airport. At the Elizabethton Airport he knew there were 2 training schools where he could rent a Cessna 182 and fly it directly to Langley.

But for the moment all he had to worry about was making it to Greeneville undetected. He knew he would have to adjust his altitude once he turned North across the Smoky and Appalachian mountains. He also had to make sure that he didn’t cross any restricted airspace even though with his transponder switched off, no one would see him, which could be deadly with other traffic. He pushed the Honeywell engines to the red line, screaming over the ground at nearly the speed of sound. The earth flew past and the Ground Proximity Warning System yelled at him as he raced past cell towers and hills. He trusted the autopilot and let it fly the plane while he double checked on the sectional maps that there was nothing new constructed in their path that would bring them down.

Carly came up to the cockpit and tapped him on the shoulder. He motioned for her to climb into the co-pilot’s seat. She smiled as she pulled Bruiser into the seat, as if she was as excited for the fuzzy bear as she was for herself. Even though she was too small to see above the instrument panel, she was intrigued by all the dials that appeared through the flat glass displays in front of her. Jonathan put a set of the Bose headphones on her head and showed her how to talk into the voice activated microphone. At first it startled her, but then she relaxed.

“Daddy, where’s the President?” she asked.

“He stays at the White House in Washington, D.C.”

“Is that where we are going?”

“No, honey we’re going to Virginia.”

“That’s where it’s going to happen,” she said.

“Where what’s going to happen, sweetie?”

“The explosion.”

“What explosion?’

“The one that’s going to happen.”

“Here we go again,” thought Jonathan.

“Let her go, let her find her own balance,” he thought, remembering the advice of the therapist.

“Why do you think it’s going to happen again, sweetie?”

“Because of my dream, and that’s where it happened. Are there horses and elephants in the White House?”

“No, elephants are in Africa and India.”

“Well there were horses and elephants in my dream and they were in this great big building with the President.”

. Jonathan asked, “Did you see real live animals?”

“Yep.”

“What were they doing?”

“They were running and the elephants were on fire and were stomping everyone.”

Jonathan shuddered at the graphic, wondering if maybe he was letting her go too far.

“Uncle Bob and Mama were there.”

Jonathan was afraid to ask if they too were injured or dead.

After a moment of silence, Carly added, “They were laughing.”

Surprised, Jonathan asked, “Why would they be laughing?”

“Because they were happy.”

The EGPWS screamed and they narrowly missed a new tower that Jonathan wasn’t familiar with. “Sweetie you need to take Bruiser and go back with mommy, Daddy’s got to concentrate up here. We’re going to land in about 5 minutes.

Harry Davidson’s cell phone rang. It was William Reed. Harry was with the forensic experts combing through every inch of the Worthington’s lobby and the area surrounding Burton’s murder. James Burton’s body had been taken to the Fort Worth medical examiner’s office where an autopsy was scheduled. The Director sounded like he was in a panic. “Davidson, Jesus Christ I’m glad to be talking to you. Holy Christ……. I thought that you might be dead.”

“No sir, I’m fine. What’s happened?”

“We just received a call from Flight Service that our Lear made a distress call at 21:40 hours and then disappeared from radar at 21:41 hours. The pilot reported that both engines had failed. What in the hell is going on?”

“Sir, I have no idea.”

“Who the hell was on that plane?”

“I don’t know sir.”

“You didn’t authorize a flight?”

“No, sir, we set up headquarters here in Fort Worth and have been working with forensics and the FBI and local authorities trying to locate the Andersons.”

The Director was breathing hard. “Flight Service informed me that the pilots filed a flight plan to Langley at 21:30 hours. Only you or Burton were authorized to initiate a flight plan.”

“Sir, I haven’t talked to the pilots and Burton….you know about Jim.”

The Director continued, “When we heard the plane might be down, we called Executive Air at Meacham and they said that the Lear left at 0933 hours. Jenkins and Horton were in command of the aircraft and a man and a pregnant woman boarded the plane at 21:31.”

“Sir, that doesn’t make any sense. Jenkins wouldn’t violate company procedure. He was waiting for us.”

The Director hesitated before saying the words. The words hurt his brain as they came out of his mouth. “Do you think the Andersons could have hijacked our plane?”

There was a long moment of silence as Davidson’s thoughts caught up with the Director’s.

“Was there any sign of struggle on the tarmac?” asked Davidson.

“No.”

“Any communication from Jenkins, a mayday, a broadcast from the emergency network?”

“We’re checking that now, but it doesn’t appear so.”

“How about the tape of the Mayday, have you had our profilers verify that it was Jenkins making the call?”

“That’s being done now,” answered the Director.

Davidson processed all the information. “I don’t know how they could have taken our aircraft, sir. There’s no way Jenkins would ever compromise his orders. What doesn’t make any sense is that the folks at Executive Service didn’t witness any kind of a struggle?”

“No, the plane was running and left as soon as the two boarded.”

Davidson asked, “Are we sure it was our plane and are we sure it’s down?”

“Flight service says yes, but we’re still investigating. I’ve called for satellite imagery over the site, we should pick up the infrared,” said the Director.

“Do you want me to dispatch helicopters to their last radar position? We can be there in 30 minutes.”

“Wait a minute Davidson, I have another call, hang-on, it could be the folks from imagery.”

There was a lengthy pause.

The Director returned, “That was the folks in audio forensics. We have the broadcast…..listen.” The Director played the Mayday call.

“That’s not Jenkins,” said Davidson.

“Forensics concurs. It’s Anderson…..he’s taken our plane!”

“Hang on again, I’m going to see if imagery has anything yet.”

There was another long moment of silence before the Director returned. “Davidson, get a helicopter and have the pilot fly you to N34-50.0/W092-15.2 there’s a forest fire at that location and it matches the coordinates that Flight Services specified as their last call. I want you at the scene of the wreckage to preserve the evidence and to see if there are any survivors. Harry, if the Andersons were on that plane, it may be a blessing in disguise. There may have been a struggle on board that caused it to go down. At least one set of our problems will be over. If the plane is linked back to us, let’s just let the media think it was a mechanical failure and not related to anything in Fort Worth, just a string of bad luck for the CIA. I’ll inform the President.”

“Yes sir.”

The Director hung up the phone and called PD. “PD…They both may be dead.”

There was a long silence. “What then?”

“We just clean everything up and move on.”

“We were so close.”

“We’ve been close before.”

“When will we know for sure?”

“A couple of days.”

Jonathan walked into the Greenville FBO and filled out the paperwork for the rental car using the alias Brian Hoffman. It was a typical small airport FBO with a lobby, a couple of restrooms, a snack room with a coffee pot and vending machines and a weather station where pilots could access the latest weather reports (METARS) and check radar weather. In the lobby was a large “L” shaped counter that separated the customers’ section from the manager’s section. From behind the counter all accounts were tallied and in front of the counter, all accounts were paid. Behind the counter on the wall there was a weather station that displayed wind direction and speed and there were several speakers located throughout the facility to broad cast all inbound and outbound radio calls from pilots, so that the attendant could be prepared to give wind direction, runway in use or provide assistance with fuel. The FBO had a single hangar that was filled with small Cessnas and Pipers, some partially disassembled for annual inspections, others just waiting to be pulled out and flown.

Jonathan had parked the Lear at an angle so that the single attendant at the counter couldn’t read the registration numbers under the aircraft’s tail. But once inside, he realized that the attendant paid little attention to details such as aircraft registration numbers. The FBO was run by a young man in his mid-twenties who was a jack of many trades. He was the local aircraft mechanic, the hotel and car reservationist and fuel truck operator and dispenser. He hadn’t shaved in at least two days and wore a pair of faded baggy jeans with an oversize ACDC T-shirt that covered most of his beer belly.

“You gonna need fuel?” he asked.

“No, not just yet.”

“I’m John Kucel,” said the attendant reaching over the counter with a hand that contained the residue of aircraft grease and smelled of 100 octane AVGAS.

“Brian Hoffman,” returned Jonathan grabbing his hand. “Do you have my reservation for the SUV?”

“Yeah, it’s that Suburban out in the lot.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s a beautiful plane. We don’t see many of those around here.”

“Thanks,” Jonathan replied. “I need to leave it for a while, do you have any hangar space?”

The kid looked at him incredulously, nodded over at the small hangar that sat adjacent to the lobby and said, “For that?”

“Yeah, for that,” returned Jonathan.

“We don’t have anything that will fit something that big, but I can check with Mr. Green. He has that hangar across the way and he just sold his Challenger and his Gulfstream is late from the factory. How long do you need it for?”

“A couple of weeks.”

The attendant made the call and put Jonathan on the phone with Jim Green’s chief pilot and head of flight operations, Charlie Higgins. Jim Green was a local businessman who owned most of Greeneville, making his money in the distribution business. After about fifteen minutes Jonathan and Charlie had a deal.