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  Miller, an Army major, was diplomatically accredited to the Republic of Angola as the assistant military attaché. He was, in fact, and of course covertly, the Luanda station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  But, with the exception that his diplomatic carnet gave him access to the airport’s duty-free shop, neither his official nor covert status had anything to do with his being present at the airport when the aircraft was stolen. He had gone out to the airport—on what he thought of as his self-granted weekly rest-and-recuperation leave—to buy a bottle of Boss cologne and have first a martini and then a late lunch in the airport’s quite good restaurant. Since this was in the nature of an information-gathering mission, he would pay for the meal from his discretionary operating funds.

  When he went into the restaurant, he chose a table next to one of the plate-glass windows. They offered a panoramic view of the runways and just about everything at the airport but the building he was in. He laid his digital camera on the table, so that it wouldn’t be either stolen or forgotten when he left, and where he could quickly pick it up and take a shot at anything of potential interest without drawing too much— hopefully, no—attention to him.

  A waiter quickly appeared and Miller ordered a gin martini.

  Then he took a long look at what he could see of the airport.

  Parked far across the field, on a parking pad not far from the threshold of the main north/south runway, he saw that what he thought of as “his airplane,” a Boeing 727, was still parked where it had been last week, and for the past fourteen months.

  He thought of it as his airplane because when he’d noticed it fourteen months ago, he’d taken snapshots of it and checked it out.

  Without even making an official inquiry, he went on the Internet and learned that it was registered to the Lease-Aire Corporation of Philadelphia. From a source at the airfield— an air traffic controller who was the monthly recipient of a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill from Miller’s discretionary operating funds—he had learned that the 727 had made a “discretionary landing” at Luanda while en route somewhere else.

  Miller was a pilot, an Army aviator—not currently on flight status because he’d busted a flight physical, which was why he had wound up “temporarily” assigned to the CIA and sent to Luanda—and he understood that a discretionary landing was one a wise pilot made when red lights lit up on the control panel, before it became necessary to make an emergency landing.

  Miller had begun to feel sorry for the airplane, as he sometimes felt sorry for himself. A grounded bird, and a grounded birdman, stuck in picturesque Luanda, Angola, by circumstances beyond their control, when they both would much rather have been in Philadelphia, where he had grown up, where his parents lived, and where one could be reasonably sure that 999 out of a thousand good-looking women did not have AIDS, which could not be said of Luanda, Angola.

  Still, unofficially—although after a month he had reported to Langley, in Paragraph 15, Unrelated Data, of his weekly report, that the plane seemed to be stuck in Luanda—he had learned that Lease-Aire was a small outfit that bought old airliners at distress prices (LA-9021 came from Continental); that it then leased them “wet” or “dry”; and that LA-9021 had been dry-leased to a Scottish company called Surf & Sun Holidays Ltd. Just to play it safe, he’d asked the assistant CIA station chief in London, whom he knew, to find out what he could about Surf & Sun. In two days, he learned that it was a rinky-dink outfit that had gone belly-up shortly after leaving 153 irate Irishmen stranded in Rabat, Morocco.

  That seemed to explain everything, and nothing was suspicious.

  And so every time during the fourteen months that Miller took his R&R and saw the once-proud old bird sitting across the field, he had grown more convinced that it would never fly again. He was, therefore, more than a little surprised when—peering over the rim of a second martini just as good as the first—he saw LA-9021 moving.

  He thought, in quick order, as he carefully set the martini glass on the table, first, that he had been mistaken, and, next, that if it was moving, it was being towed by a tug to where repair—or cannibalization—could begin.

  When he looked again, he saw the airplane was indeed moving and under its own power.

  How the hell did they start it up? You can’t let an airplane sit on a runway for fourteen months and then just get in it and push the ENGINE START buttons.

  Obviously, somebody’s been working on it.

  But when?

  When was the last time I was here? Last Wednesday?

  Well, that’s a week; that’s enough time.

  The 727 turned off the taxiway and moved toward the threshold of the runway.

  There was a Congo Air Ilyushin transport on final. Miller knew there were two daily flights between Brazzaville, Congo, and Luanda.

  Miller had two unkind thoughts.

  Prescription for aerial disaster: an ex-Russian Air Force fighter jockey, flying a worn-out Ilyushin maintained by Congo Air.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please remain seated on the floor and try to restrain all chickens, goats, and other livestock until the aircraft has come to a complete stop at the airway. And thank you for flying Congo Air. We hope that the next time you have to go from nowhere to nowhere, you’ll fly with us again.”

  And then he had another thought when he saw that the 727 was on the threshold, lined up with the runway:

  Hey, Charley, the way you’re supposed to do that is wait until the guy on final goes over you and then you move to the threshold. Otherwise, if he lands a little short he lands on you.

  The Ilyushin passed no more than fifty feet over the tail of the 727 and then touched down.

  Before the Ilyushin reached the first turnoff from the runway, the 727 began its takeoff roll.

  Hey, Charley, what are you going to do if he doesn’t get out of your way? What do we have here, two ex-Russian fighter jockeys?

  The rear stabilizer of the Ilyushin had not completely cleared the runway when the 727, approaching takeoff velocity, flashed past it and then lifted off.

  Well, I’m glad you’re back in the air, old girl.

  I wonder what kind of a nitwit was flying the 727?

  Miller picked up his martini, raised it to the now nearly out of sight 727, and then turned his attention to the menu.

  Thirty minutes later, after a very nicely broiled filet of what the menu called sea trout and two cups of really first-class Kenyan coffee, he paid the bill with an American Express card, collected the bags containing the newspapers, magazines, paperbacks, and the goodies he’d bought in the duty-free shop, and started walking across the terminal to get his car.

  What I should do is go home, get on the ski machine to get the gin out of my system, and then spend a half hour at least on the knee.

  But being an honest man, he knew that what he was probably going to do was go home, hang up the nice clothes, and take a little nap.

  On impulse, however, passing a pay telephone, he stepped into the booth, fed it coins, and punched in a number that was not available to the general public.

  “Torre,” someone said after answering on the first ring.

  Having the unlisted number of the control tower, and, if he was lucky, the right guy to answer its phone, was what the monthly dispersal of the crisp hundred-dollar bill bought.

  “Antonio, por favor. É seu irmão,” Miller said.

  A moment later, Antonio took the phone to speak to “his brother,” and, obviously excited, said, “I can’t talk right now. Something has come up.”

  “What’s come up?”

  “We think someone has stolen an airplane.”

  “A 727?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Antonio, you have to take a piss.”

  “Please, I cannot.”

  Yes you can, you sonofabitch. I hand you a hundred-dollar bill each and every month. And you know what I expect of you.

  “Trust me, Antonio. You have
diarrhea. I’ll be waiting in the men’s room.”

  [THREE]

  Office of the Ambassador Embassy of the United States of America Rua Houari Boumedienne 32 Luanda, Angola 1540 23 May 2005

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Ambassador, on such short notice,” Miller said to the United States ambassador and then turned to the defense attaché, an Air Force lieutenant colonel. “And you, sir, for meeting me here so quickly.”

  The ambassador was a fellow African American, from Washington, D.C. Miller didn’t dislike him, but he did not hold him in high regard. Miller thought the ambassador had worked his way up through the State Department to what would probably be the pinnacle of his diplomatic career by keeping his nose clean and closely following the two basic rules for success in the Foreign Service of the United States: Don’t make waves, and never make a decision today that can be put off until next week, or, better, next month.

  The defense attaché was Caucasian, which Miller attributed to a momentary shortage of what used to be called “black” or “Negro” officers of suitable rank when the defense attaché post came open.

  According to applicable regulations, Miller was subordinate to both. To the ambassador, because he was the senior U.S. government officer in Angola; and to the defense attach é, because he was a lieutenant colonel and Miller a major, and also because the defense attaché is supposed to control the military (Army) and Naval attachés.

  But in practice, it didn’t work quite that way. Miller’s assistant military attaché status was the cover for his being the Resident Spook and both knew it. And when he was, as he thought of it, on the job, he not only didn’t have to tell the defense attaché what he was doing, but was under orders not to, unless the defense attaché had a bona fide need to know.

  The ambassador was, Miller had quickly learned, more than a little afraid of him. For two reasons, one being that Miller had come out of Special Forces. Like most career diplomats, the ambassador believed that Special Forces people —especially highly decorated ones like Miller—were practitioners of the “Kill ’Em All and Let God Sort It Out” school of diplomacy, and consequently lived in fear that Miller was very likely to do something outrageous which would embarrass the embassy, the State Department, the United States government, and, of course, him.

  More important than that, probably, was a photograph Miller had hung, not ostentatiously but very visibly, in the corridor of his apartment leading to the bathroom. Once a month, Miller was expected to have a cocktail party for his fellow diplomats. Anyone who needed to visit the facilities could not miss seeing the photograph.

  It showed two smiling African American officers in Vietnam-era uniforms. One was a colonel, wearing a name tag identifying him as MILLER. He had his arm around a young major, from whose jacket hung an obviously just awarded Bronze Star. His name tag read POWELL.

  Both officers had gone on to higher rank. Miller’s father had retired as a major general. The major had retired with four stars and had been the secretary of state.

  It was not unreasonable, Miller thought, to suspect the ambassador feared that Miller had influence in the highest corridors of power, and might, in fact, be sending back-channel, out-of-school reports on his performance to Secretary Powell, who was still—according to Forbes magazine—one of the ten most influential men in the United States.

  That was nonsense, of course. Miller knew Powell well enough to know that a large ax would fall on his neck, wielded by Powell himself, if he made a habit of sending back-channels to Powell or anyone in his circle. But he did nothing to assuage the ambassador’s worries.

  “You said this was important, Major Miller?” the ambassador said.

  “No, sir. With respect, making a decision like that is not for someone of my pay grade. What I said was that I thought you and Colonel Porter might consider this important. That’s why I thought I should bring this to your attention as soon as possible, sir.”

  “What is it, Dick?” Colonel Porter asked.

  “It would seem, sir, that someone has stolen an airplane from Quatro de Fevereiro.”

  “Really?” the ambassador asked.

  “What kind of an airplane, Dick?” Colonel Porter asked.

  “A 727, sir. The one that’s been sitting out there for fourteen months.”

  “How the hell did they do that?” Colonel Porter asked. “You can’t just get in an airplane that hasn’t moved for fourteen months and fire it up.”

  “I don’t know how they did it, sir, only that they did. They just taxied from where it had been parked to the north/south, and took off without clearance, and disappeared. ”

  “You’re the expert, Colonel,” the ambassador said. “Would an aircraft like that have the range to fly to the United States?”

  Why am I not surprised that the World Trade towers have popped into the ambassador’s head? Miller thought.

  “No, sir, I don’t think that it would,” Colonel Porter replied, and then added: “Not without taking on fuel somewhere. And even if it did that, its tanks would be just about empty by the time it got to the U.S.” He turned to Miller: “You’re sure about this, Dick?”

  “Yes, sir. I have a source at the airport. He told me that the plane ignored both ‘Abort takeoff’ and then ‘Return to airfield immediately’ orders after it was in the air.”

  “Where was it headed?”

  “East, sir, when it fell off the radar.”

  “We don’t know if terrorists are involved in this, do we?” the ambassador asked.

  “No, sir,” Colonel Porter said. “We don’t know that for sure, certainly. But we certainly can’t discount that possibility. ”

  “It’s possible, sir, that it was just stolen,” Miller said.

  “What would anyone do with a stolen airliner?” the ambassador asked.

  “Perhaps cannibalize it for parts, sir,” Colonel Porter said.

  “Take parts from it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They call that ‘cannibalizing’?”

  Why do I think our African ambassador is uncomfortable with that word?

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Miller, you were absolutely right in bringing this up to me,” the ambassador said. “We’d better start notifying people.”

  “Yes, sir,” Colonel Porter and Major Miller said, almost in unison.

  “Miller, you’re obviously going to notify . . . your people? ”

  “I thought it would be best to check with you before I did so, Mr. Ambassador.”

  But not knowing where the hell you might be, or when you could find time for me in your busy schedule, and suspecting you might say, “Before we do anything, I think we should carefully consider the situation,” I filed it to Langley as a FLASH satellite burst before I came here.

  “I think we should immediately make this situation known to Washington,” the ambassador said.

  My God! An immediate decision! Will wonders never cease?

  “Yes, sir,” Porter and Miller said, in chorus.

  “And it might be a good idea if you were both to get copies of your messages to me as soon as you can,” the ambassador said. “They’ll be useful to me when I prepare my report to the State Department.”

  Translation: “I will say nothing in my report that you didn’t say in yours. That way, if there’s a fuckup, I can point my finger at you.” It’s not really an ambassador’s responsibility to develop information like this himself. He has to rely on those who have that kind of responsibility.

  “Yes, sir,” they said, in chorus.

  Ten minutes later another FLASH satellite burst from Miller went out from the antenna on the embassy roof.

  It was identical to Miller’s first message, except for the last sentence, which said, “Transmitted at direction of ambassador. ”

  When he walked out of the radio room, Miller thought that by now his message—it had been a FLASH, the highest priority—had reached the desk of his boss, the CIA’s regional director for Southwest
Africa, in Langley.

  Miller then went to his office, plugged the high-speed cable into his personal laptop computer, and, typing rapidly, sent an e-mail message to two friends:

  [email protected]

  [email protected]

  A BOEING 727, REGISTERED TO LEASE-AIRE, INC., PHILADELPHIA, PENN., WHICH MADE A DISCRETIONARY LANDING HERE FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO, AND HAD BEEN SITTING HERE SINCE, WAS APPARENTLY STOLEN BY PARTIES UNKNOWN AT 1425 TODAY. MORE WHEN I HAVE IT. DICK

  Sending such a message violated a long list of security restrictions, and Major Miller was fully aware that it did. On the other hand, whoever had grabbed the 727 knew they had grabbed it, so what was the secret?

  Furthermore, the back-channel message was a heads-up —unofficial, of course—to people who would possibly, even likely, become involved in whatever the government ultimately decided to do about the stolen airplane.

  This especially applied to HALO101—the screen name made reference to the number of High Altitude, Low Opening parachute jumps the addressee had made—who was a lieutenant colonel at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

  Ostensibly a member of the G-3 staff of the XVIII Airborne Corps, he was in fact the deputy commander of a unit few people had even heard about, and about which no one talked. It was officially known as the “Contingency Office” and colloquially as “Gray Fox,” or “Baby D.”

  “D” made reference to Delta Force, about which some people actually knew something and a great many people— very few of whom knew what they were talking about— talked a great deal.

  The Contingency Office—Gray Fox—was a five-officer, thirty-one-NCO unit within Delta Force that was prepared to act immediately—they trained to be wheels up in less than an hour—when ordered to do so.

  BeachAggie83—the screen name made reference to the Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College, the year the addressee had graduated (then known as Texas A&M University) , and to the fact that he was now stationed in Florida—was a lieutenant colonel assigned to the Special Activities Section, J-5 (Special Operations), United States Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.