Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [20]
“CNN is, sir, but they’re couching it. ‘Unconfirmed reports,’ ‘alleged sightings,’ that sort of thing.”
“What kind of planes were they?” the president asked. “All the same make and model?”
“No, sir,” McQuaid answered, again referring to notes. “Two Canadian-made Dash 8s, one Saab 34, Swedish-made. Three different airlines.”
“So whoever shot missiles at them wasn’t out to cripple a particular aircraft manufacturer or airline.”
“Evidently not, sir,” said McQuaid.
The president asked to be kept abreast of any news reports playing up the missile allegations, and dismissed Targa and McQuaid. Alone now with Cammanati, who’d been a boyhood friend, Ashmead sat back and twisted his mustache—he was the first man with facial hair to sit in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt. “It’s terrorists, isn’t it, Tony? There can’t be any other explanation.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, sir, and if it’s a foreign group, state sponsored, we’ve got a war on our hands.”
“Call a meeting.” Ashmead looked at his watch. “Six this evening. Appropriate Cabinet members, FBI, Justice, our counterterrorism people.”
“Poe from NTSB?” Cammanati asked.
“Sure, but it looks like a criminal act. FBI’s show now.”
“The Bureau and State’s counterterrorist people are meeting as we speak, sir.”
“Good. Coordinate this effort, Tony. Assemble a team. Use anybody you need, pull ’em off whatever they’re doing. That’s from me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The State Department
Max Pauling was running late. He entered the huge, square, nondescript, singularly unattractive government-issue gray box known as the State Department from C Street, passed through the Diplomatic Lobby, displayed his credentials to the security guard, and went directly to Walter Barton’s—Colonel Walter Barton’s—office in Room 2507.
“They’re meeting in Room 3524,” a Barton aide said immediately.
Pauling bounded up a back stairway and went into the small conference room where his jingoistic boss and a dozen others had gathered.
“Max,” Barton said as Pauling took a folding chair and pulled it up to one of two tables already occupied. “Now that we’re all here, let me brief everyone on what’s known to date. Three commercial aircraft down, the incidents occurring within hours of each other. Locations— Westchester County, New York; San Jose, California; and Boise, Idaho. Passenger fatalities, thirty-six in New York, thirty-one in California, and eleven in Idaho—seventy-eight in all. Plus a crew of three on each aircraft. Cause of accidents unknown. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen missiles hit the planes.”
“In all three incidents?” someone asked.
“No, in California and New York. No eyewitnesses in Idaho, at least that we know of.”
Pauling said, “If there’s any truth to these eyewitness sightings, we’ve got terrorists armed with missiles, an internal enemy nation or rogue group within a friendly nation. I understand all three aircraft were taking off when they came apart.”
Barton turned to an assistant who’d been monitoring preliminary reports from NTSB. “Correct,” she said.
“They knew something about flying,” Pauling said, “positioned themselves upwind, knew planes always take off into the wind.” He sat back and focused on his thoughts while others tossed about theories. These missile-toting terrorists weren’t amateurs, not with what the missiles must have cost. They went for premium prices on the black market, no holiday sales at Kmart.
The meeting was interrupted by a senior advisor to the secretary of state, who drew Barton aside. “Cammanati just called, Colonel. The president’s holding a meeting at six. Secretary Rock will be attending. She wants a briefing at five-thirty before she heads over there.”
“Okay,” Barton said.
Barton’s aide assigned to monitor NTSB returned to the room. “NTSB just got a report from its Denver office on the Boise incident,” she said. “Fragments found at the scene point to the use of a missile. Evidence is being flown in as we speak.”
“What do we know about the missiles?”