are you alright?” Colonel Crawford again.
I slowly turned to face the room. Everyone was on their feet staring at me. Rachel was next to me, hand on my arm, and when I looked at her I could tell she knew.
“My wife.” I said in a low voice.
“Your wife, son?” General Triplett asked, confusion creasing his features.
“My wife, sir.” I said in a stronger voice as the fury in my gut began churning its way up. “That was my wife that was taken by that son of a bitch!”
15
The room was silent as everyone looked from me back up to the screen at the frozen image of Roach lifting a disabled Katie into the Pave Hawk.
“Major, where did that helicopter go?” Colonel Crawford broke the silence.
“We don’t know, sir. This was an unauthorized flight, so in effect the aircraft was stolen. We’re trying to identify the pilot, but we don’t have an image that’s good enough for facial recognition software to give us a match. There are investigators tracking down every pilot on base at the moment.
“I’ve checked with Air and they didn’t track the helo on radar, so it apparently flew low to avoid detection and had the IFF beacon turned off. We’re in the process of trying to force activate the IFF remotely, but that’s a long shot at best.” IFF stands for Identify Friend or Foe and is how aircraft let radar operators know they are friendly. Every civilian and military aircraft has one, but they can be turned off if the pilot wants to hide.
“Captain,” Crawford turned to Blanchard. “See if we’ve got any sat imagery of the area from the time that aircraft took off.”
“Yes, sir.” Blanchard said, bending over his laptop.
I was in a daze. My heart ached and anger pulsed through me like a sonar ping, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to start looking for Katie. Waves of helplessness washed over me like a physical force, feeding the white-hot ball of anger boiling inside.
Rachel took my arm and guided me back to a chair as one of General Triplett’s aides entered the room. He stepped up to the General and whispered in his ear. A moment later Triplett stood and strode out of the room. Crawford watched him leave with hooded eyes, then excused himself to presumably go have a private conversation with Admiral Packard. I sat at the table, hands balled into fists, staring at Captain Blanchard.
“I’m downloading the image files now, sir. It will take a few minutes.” He said, feeling the weight of my stare.
I nodded as he stood and walked out of the room after letting me know he was just going to the latrine and would be back before the files finished downloading. Rachel wrapped her arms around me and kissed the side of my head, then followed Blanchard out into the hall.
There were a few Air Force staffers still in the room, and finding themselves alone with me they quickly started packing up and preparing to leave. I idly noticed them all stand at the same time and come to attention. No matter how angry you are, if you’re in the military and see a bunch of people snap to attention, you look around to see why.
General Triplett stood just inside the doorway, three large Security Forces Airmen to his left. I could see half a dozen more crowded in the hallway. I slowly stood, pushing my chair away with the backs of my legs and turned to face the General.
“I’m sorry, Major. By order of the President of the United States you are under arrest for the murder of Brent Cummings and Treason for conspiring to assassinate a foreign head of state.”
I stood staring at him, dumbfounded. Then I thought about what I knew. President Clark had betrayed our plans to Barinov. Perhaps Cummings had made the actual call that the Admiral had referred to, but he had done it on her orders. Now, she was going to shut down any resistance to her plan to lie down and spread her legs for the Russians.
The lead Security Forces Master Sergeant stepped forward, hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. He was a big guy, about my size, and looked like he’d been around the block a couple of times. The Tech Sergeant and Staff Sergeant backing him up were equally as large and when he stepped forward they took up positions a couple of feet on either side of him.
“Sir,