The President's Pilot

By Robert Gandt

First-of-her-kind President Libby Paulsen is in a world of trouble. Her controversial agenda has made her the target of a right wing military cabal led by an enigmatic Air Force general. The conspirators will stop at nothing—including assassination—to remove her from office. When the cabal targets Air Force One, Libby's Presidency—and her life—rest in the hands of a maverick officer named Pete Brand, a man with whom the President shares a smoldering secret. The President’s Pilot is award-winning author Robert Gandt’s new high-stakes thriller drawn from today’s—and tomorrow’s—explosive headlines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Gandt
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311820808

Robert Gandt

Robert Gandt is a former naval officer and aviator, an international airline captain, and a prolific military and aviation writer. He is the author of thirteen books, including the novels The Killing Sky and Black Star Rising and the definitive work on modern naval aviation, Bogeys and Bandits. His screen credits include the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. He and his wife, Anne, live with their airplanes in Spruce Creek, a flying community in Daytona Beach, Florida. You may visit his website at www.gandt.com

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lyle T. Bethune, Vice President of the United States, swore under his breath. His orders couldn’t have been more explicit. Under no circumstances—none whatsoever—was he to be disturbed here at the guest cottage.

It was Sunday morning. Bethune was tilted back in his padded leather recliner, halfway through a second Bloody Mary. A three-log fire crackled in the fireplace. The mellow sax of Sonny Rollins wafted from the wall speakers. Bethune was alone, with the exception of his executive administrative assistant, Ms. Sally Abruzzo, who was at his feet on the Tabriz carpet. Sally was in the process of unzipping Bethune’s Calvin Klein relax-fit jeans.

And the goddamn phone was ringing.

Bethune shook his head. He couldn’t believe this shit. It was the yellow phone on the corner of his desk, the secure, satellite-linked device which had no other function than to receive calls from the President of the United States.

Bethune listened to the phone ring. He would ignore it. He was indisposed. Taking a shower. Gone to church. Hell, it was Sunday.

Sally had his zipper undone. The phone continued to ring.

Bethune tried to think. It was almost ten o’clock in Washington, which made it—it took him a few seconds—five in the afternoon in Tehran. Damn. He knew why the phone was ringing.

He let it ring twice more. Abruptly he reached over Sally’s head and punched the speaker button. Good morning, Madame President. I was hoping you’d call.

He heard a muffled laugh from Sally.

The voice of President Libby Paulsen swelled from the speaker, crisp and clear, brimming with vitality. The same voice, Bethune remembered, that dazzled the delegates on the critical third night of the convention and clinched her nomination. Their nomination.

The President was calling to update Bethune on the summit meeting in Tehran. It was going well even though Iranian president Sadeq Hosseini, beady-eyed dissembler that he was, was playing games. He’d just called a recess to confer with his ministers.

What’s to confer about? said Bethune. All he’s got to do is sign the agreement and start cashing in.

Not this guy, said the President. It’s some kind of honor thing. He has to impress his ministers by haggling over every detail.

Bethune wasn’t surprised. The President had gone to Tehran with the most generous proposal ever offered to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The most generous part would be the lifting of the long-standing trade sanctions against Iran. All the Iranians had to do in exchange was formally renounce its support for Islamic Jihad and the Taliban and, while they were at it, acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a nation. That was all. No requirement to forswear nuclear weapons development. No agreement to turn over their stash of weapons-grade enriched uranium. Like the treaty recently negotiated with North Korea, the Iranian accord was based on little more than trust.

And as Bethune had predicted, the conservative media in the U.S. were going crazy. Selling Out to the Devil screamed the headline in yesterday’s New York Post. Libby Paulsen was being reviled on Fox and every conservative talk show. Her approval rating had dived five more points, deeper than G.W. Bush’s worst numbers.

The President asked if Bethune had caught Senator Stroud’s comments on Meet the Press.

Bethune didn’t have an immediate answer. Sally Abruzzo had gone fishing inside his Jockey shorts.

Stroud? Bethune’s voice was cracking. Oh, him. Don’t worry. When the Iranian accord is a done deal, Stroud will just look like another reactionary windbag.

Which sounded good, but Bethune didn’t believe it. Senator Kent Stroud was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The deal with Iran was guaranteed to send Stroud and the neo-nut coalition into a teeth-gnashing frenzy.

The President was saying something about getting the Iranian agreement ratified by the Senate. Bethune had to force himself to listen. He was looking at the top of Sally’s head. The breeze from the overhead fan was playing with her blonde hair. Bethune caught the scent of her perfume, a subtle, musky fragrance.

He met Sally three weeks after the inauguration. It was a staff party, and there was no mistaking that look in her eye. She was fun and sexy, not the brightest bulb on the tree, but smart enough to be discreet. Bethune knew that she lived in Georgetown, had a husband who did something over at Treasury, no kids. He didn’t want to know more.

Bethune made frequent use of the guest cottage. It was inside the perimeter of the Naval Observatory and was patrolled by uniformed Secret Service agents. A team of plainclothes agents stayed just outside the door. If they were curious about what Bethune and his executive administrative assistant did here on Sunday mornings, it never showed in their unchanging expressions.

Lyle? It was the President’s voice on the speakerphone. Are you still there?

He was, barely. Sally was applying herself with new energy. Oh, sure, I’m still here.

This was a game with Sally. She liked to do it while he was on the line with someone—cabinet secretary, ambassador, Congressman. Even the President. Especially the President. Bethune thought it was a little kinky, but what the hell. It got his mind off the problems this administration confronted.

Problems like Iran. Like North Korea. Or problems like Senator Stroud and the right wingers who were trying to bring the President down. One of them, a media mogul named Casper Reckson, was running daily op-eds calling for the removal of the President. Not impeachment or resignation. Removal. No one seemed to care that the reckless bastard was talking sedition.

Bethune tried to follow what the President was saying. Something about the Iranians coming back from the recess. Bethune wished they would hurry the hell up. Sally had him aroused to an explosive state.

Something caught his eye. A movement in his peripheral vision. Bethune peered over his left shoulder. Against the dark-paneled wall of the study, he glimpsed a blurry object that didn’t belong.

The object looked very much like a pistol. It was in the hand of someone he vaguely recognized. In his erotic stupor, Bethune struggled to understand what it meant. It took him exactly one-and-one-half seconds.

No, don’t! he said, but it was too late.

<>

Lyle?

No answer.

Lyle?

Nothing. A low hiss from the handset. Then a click.

Libby Paulsen stared at the silent telephone. The mobile secure phone—the communications specialists called it the SatMaster—was a new gadget they’d brought on this trip. It was a portable device that piggy-backed off the communications array aboard Air Force One.

Libby frowned. Something wasn’t right. She could still hear Bethune’s voice. No, don’t. He had sounded agitated. Not at all the laid back Lyle Bethune whose Kansas-twangy preacher’s voice could restore order to a bar brawl.

Then something else. A dull popping sound, and another, like wine bottles being uncorked. Or like . . .

Couldn’t be. She told herself not to jump to conclusions. There was an explanation. Lyle often sounded distracted during their phone conversations, and she had a good idea why. The same old Bethune distraction. How many times had she heard those guttural sounds while he was on the phone? She knew he was getting it on in the middle of a phone conversation.

But that was Lyle Bethune. She had known about Bethune’s proclivities before they were paired up on the national ticket. At the convention, Bethune had promised that if he and Libby were nominated he would forswear the temptations of the flesh, which Libby took to mean that he would be careful not to get caught.

Lyle Bethune had been the choice of the national committee for the number two spot. While the inexperienced Libby Paulsen had star power, the ticket needed balancing with an old Senate hand like Bethune. Bethune had the connections to get things done in Washington. He would be Libby’s advisor, mentor, and behind-the-scenes big brother. Bethune’s presence would reassure voters that the country wasn’t being run off the rails by an uncredentialed novice.

More important, it reassured Libby Paulsen. Lyle Bethune was her anchor.

Libby glanced around. She was in a thickly carpeted anteroom adjoining the main conference chamber in Hosseini’s presidential palace. At the far end of the room, the White House communications team had set up their consoles. A team of six Air Force technicians monitored links to the White House, the Pentagon, and to the glistening blue-and-white Boeing 747-200B parked six miles away at the old Mehrabad airport. Any security alert or national emergency would be flashed directly to the console here in the palace.

Standing by the door of the chamber was Jill Maitlin, senior White House advisor. Maitlin was talking to her Iranian counterpart, a glum-looking man named Al-Bashir, over whom she towered by nearly a foot.

Jill detached herself from the Iranian and walked over to Libby.

What did you say to that guy? said Libby. He looks like he swallowed a roach.

I asked him when his guys were going to stop dicking around and come back to the meeting.

And he said?

Very soon.

That’s what he said half an hour ago.

It’s his job to say that. What he means is that Hosseini is clueless about how to deal with the infidel American woman.

How much longer will he be clueless?

Five minutes. Ten at the most.

She was wrong. In the next moment the door to the conference chamber swung open. Standing in the doorway was President Hosseini, surrounded by his six ministers. They were all smiling.

Libby smiled back. Here we go. For better or worse, she was about to make a deal with the devil.

<>

Nothing was making sense.

They were dragging him along a path, steering him by his elbows. He could hear the crunching of their shoes on the loose gravel. He was blindfolded, mouth sealed with duct tape, wrists tie-wrapped behind him. His heart was beating wildly.

Why had they grabbed him?

Because somebody made a huge fucking mistake, that’s why. They’d grabbed him on the dirt path in Rock Creek park. He was four miles into his Sunday run, making a good eight minute mile pace, Black Eyed Peas rocking on his iPod. He barely noticed the runner coming the other way. As they passed, the guy slammed into him, knocking him into the bushes. Before he could yell or fight back or ask what the sonofabitch was doing, it was too late. There were two more. Within seconds they had him gagged and trussed like a chicken.

He’d gotten a glimpse of their faces. They could have been cops. Short hair, grim expressions, impenetrable shades. But no badges, no Miranda speech, no questions.

Now they were taking him somewhere.

They had the wrong guy, and he would tell them as soon as they took the tape off his mouth. There was no reason he’d be on anyone’s hit list. He had no enemies and few friends. Except for jogging against red lights, he was a law-abiding conformist. He was so boring his wife had begun calling him Mister Bland. And she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

They stuffed him into some kind of van. The ride took about twenty minutes. They made him sit on the floor, legs in a lotus position. He heard the faint crackle of voices on a radio. With the blindfold wrapped over his ears, he couldn’t make out what was being said.

They unloaded him from the van and herded him along the path. The toe of one of his Reeboks caught in the loose gravel and he stumbled. The two men at his elbows kept him upright, yanking him along like a tethered animal.

They stepped onto a hard surface, maybe a tiled porch or patio. They shoved him forward. He sensed that he was crossing a doorway, entering an enclosed room.

He possessed an acute sense of smell—one of the perks of being a clean-living runner. There was something familiar in the room, a fragrance he recognized. And something else. Something unpleasant. His mind was still processing these sensory inputs when they snatched away the blindfold.

Take a look around, Tom.

Oh, shit. They knew his name. They hadn’t grabbed the wrong guy.

His eyes were adjusting to the artificial light. For the first time he got a good look at the men who brought him here. Two wore dark slacks and white oxford shirts with loosened neckties. The other was in a running outfit with a stripe down the trousers. The guy who’d slammed into him in the park.

He was in a dark-paneled room. His eyes scanned one wall, saw shelves of books, a couple of pewter sculptures, a compact hi-fi. The adjoining wall had a curtained window and a framed painting that looked like the skeleton of a chicken. The familiar scent was still in his nostrils, faint but recognizable.

It was coming to him where he’d last smelled that fragrance. At home, this morning. It was lingering over his wife’s dresser after she’d left for her Sunday outing with the girls from the office. It was called L’Embrace. Sally’s favorite fragrance.

Take a look around, Tom.

He saw her. She lay face down, but he knew the shape of that derriere. He’d seen it a thousand times in his own bedroom. He knew the long legs, the blonde hair that was splayed like corn silk against the carpet. A dark pool of blood spread beneath her.

There was a man in the chair facing her. His face was familiar to everyone in America. His knees were apart. His trousers were undone, and he was exposed. He was dead, judging by the glazed-over eyes and the purplish hole in his forehead.

A wave of revulsion swept over Tom Abruzzo. He whirled to the men who had brought him here. He tried to yell but nothing came out. The tape was still over his mouth.

Sorry about that, Tom.

The men in oxford shirts were holding semiautomatic pistols. Each wore the same unpitying expression. Tom Abruzzo heard the ploom at the same instant the bullet struck his chest.

Chapter 2

What’s he doing now? said Morganti.

Lt. Col. Lou Batchelder peered down from the left side window of the Boeing cockpit. On the ramp below he could see a man in a blue U.S. Air Force uniform. He was talking to an Iranian military officer. Half a dozen more uniformed Iranians, all wearing battle dress utilities, were clustered behind the officer. The officer was waving his arms, pointing to the large metal hangar at the far end of the ramp. The American was shaking his head negatively.

Looks like he’s arguing with the Iranian officer, said Batchelder.

Figures. Pete Brand would argue with Mother Teresa.

That guy doesn’t look like Mother Teresa. He looks like Godzilla in a uniform.

Brand is making waves. We’ll be lucky if the Iranians don’t kick us out of here.

Batchelder kept his silence. In the U.S. Air Force, badmouthing your boss when he was out of the cockpit was a bad idea. It was an especially bad idea in the Presidential Airlift Squadron. It was a fast track to early retirement.

But Morganti had a point. Brand was definitely making waves. The Iranian general was red-faced, railing at Brand, stomping the concrete with his black boots. Brand kept shaking his head.

Batchelder turned to Morganti, sitting in the right seat of the Boeing. What’s between you and Brand? Why are you so down on the guy?

He’s trouble. Always has been. You tell me, how the hell did someone like Brand get to be the Presidential Pilot?

Batchelder didn’t have an answer to that one. But he had a good idea why Morganti didn’t have a warm feeling about Pete Brand. Everyone had assumed that Col. Joe Morganti would be the next Presidential Pilot when Al Crawford, the outgoing boss, got his general’s star and left for a Pentagon job. That was the way the system worked. A senior pilot in the Presidential Airlift Squadron moved up to the job of squadron commander, which carried with it the title of Presidential Pilot. Morganti had been in the unit nearly four years and was next in line. He had more time in Air Force One than any pilot in the squadron.

It didn’t happen. To everyone’s astonishment, the job went to an outsider. Pete Brand came from the Special Ops branch of the Air Force. Spec Ops units flew to places like Mogadishu and Bagram and Baghdad. They were as removed from the sanitized opulence of Air Force One as Somalia was from Washington.

How did a guy like that get to be the Presidential Pilot? Good question, thought Batchelder. Someday he’d ask Brand himself.

He looked outside again. The Iranians were stalking away. Brand was no longer in sight.

What’s happening now? said Morganti.

The Iranian is getting into his vehicle. He looks pissed.

Good. He’ll complain to his boss, who will pass it on to the President. Maybe she’ll be smart enough to get rid of Brand.

Batchelder said nothing.

A minute later, he saw Col. Pete Brand’s wiry frame entering the aft compartment of the cockpit. Brand removed his uniform coat and loosened his tie. He settled into the jump seat behind Batchelder.

Morganti said, Who was that guy you were arguing with?

The base commander.

What did you do to piss him off?

Batchelder watched Brand’s reaction. Morganti was pushing the limit of disrespect. Copilots didn’t use that tone with the aircraft commander, even if the two were the same rank.

Brand didn’t seem to notice. He said, He was ordering us to move the aircraft into the hangar.

And why did you not agree?

I had a hunch.

A hunch? Morganti made a show of rolling his eyeballs. About what?

A hunch that something might happen. I want to stay out here on the ramp, just in case.

"In case of what?

In case we have to leave in a hurry.

Morganti shook his head. I can’t believe this. The President comes to make peace with Iran, and you try to start a war because of . . . a hunch.

Brand removed the sunglasses. For a long moment he locked gazes with Morganti. The only thing you need to believe, Colonel Morganti, is that I’m the Presidential Pilot. You’re the second-in-command. It’s my call, not yours.

A silence fell over the cockpit. Here it comes, thought Batchelder. It had been building for two days. These guys were going to have it out right here in the cockpit.

But they didn’t. In the next moment, a Secret Service agent appeared in the back of the cockpit. He was wearing a gray suit with a coiled wire from inside his jacket to his earbud.

Colonel Brand? We just got a Code Yellow from our command post. Something happened that you need to know about.

<>

President Libby Paulsen took a sip of the thick Iranian coffee and winced. Ugghh. Ghastly stuff, strong enough to peel paint.

They were seated at the long mahogany conference table, Libby and her team on one side, Hosseini flanked by his ministers on the other. He had just finished a rambling discourse in Farsi. Now the interpreter was speaking. The people of Iran were willing to forgive the United States’ long and shameful record of oppressing the Islamic Republic of Iran. A new page in history was about to be turned.

Libby kept her expression neutral. A new page in history. Amazing. A new page in history could be turned with just a few billion oil dollars.

Libby met Hosseini’s gaze across the table. He smiled. She smiled back. Like old friends. The right wingers back home already hated her. After today, they’d be burning her in effigy.

She felt a nudge at her elbow. She looked up to see Gus Gritti, her National Security Advisor. Gritti was a Marine four-star and a Middle East specialist.

What is it, Gus? We’re in the middle of—

A Code Yellow, said Gritti. He leaned over and whispered in her ear. The Vice President.

Libby stared at him. It took a moment, then she remembered. The popping wine corks on the telephone. The hissing silence, then the click.

Something has happened to Lyle.

Gritti nodded. The Secret Service detail at the Naval Observatory is reporting that he’s been shot to death, along with one of his staff.

Libby felt her heart hammering in her chest. Her suspicion had been correct. She could hear Bethune’s voice on the phone. No, don’t. She had been an aural witness to an assassination.

She looked across the table. The interpreter had finished speaking. Hosseini was watching her, a quizzical look on his face.

She turned to Gritti. Who did it?

A man named Abruzzo. The Secret Service agents killed him just after the assassination. They think he’s the husband of the woman who was with the Vice President.

Libby closed her eyes. Oh, bloody hell. She didn’t want to think about how this was going to play in the press. Even worse, she didn’t want to think about doing this job without Lyle Bethune. Without her anchor.

She looked around the table again. They were close to a deal. There were still details to work out, most having to do with the lifting of sanctions. It was going to be controversial. It would be worth it if it brought an end to state-sponsored terrorism. Other countries would follow Iran’s example.

I have to go on with the conference, said Libby.

Madame President, I strongly advise you to forget the conference.

We almost have an agreement.

We don’t know the extent of the crisis. Another country could be involved. Maybe Iran. The Code Yellow indicates that we should execute Angel Swoop.

Libby stared at Gritti. Angel Swoop was the presidential emergency egress plan. In the event of a threat to the executive branch of government, the President was supposed to be whisked to safety aboard Air Force One. No President had been extracted in an Angel Swoop operation since 11 September, 2001.

For several seconds she considered. Hosseini and his ministers were watching her. Libby wrestled with her feelings. What should I do? What would Lyle Bethune do? They were so close. Was the killing of the Vice President sufficient reason to walk away from an accord that would change history?

Gritti thought so. Whoever sent the Code Yellow thought so. There was too much that they didn’t know. Damn, damn, damn.

She glanced at Jill Maitlin, sitting at her right. She caught Jill’s nod.

Okay, Libby said to Gritti. We’re leaving.

<>

General Vance McDivott was cool, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. The thermostat in the Joint Chiefs situation room was pegged at sixty-eight Fahrenheit. McDivott’s reputation for coolness dated back to his stints as a squadron commander in the first Gulf War, a wing commander in Iraq, and an Expeditionary Force Commander in Afghanistan. McDivott’s cool demeanor had carried him all the way to the second-highest slot in the U.S. military. He was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

McDivott was scanning the array of six-foot high plasma screens that covered one wall of the windowless room. With him was Jim Ripley, an Air Force two-star and a Deputy Vice Chief of Staff. Unlike McDivott, Ripley was perspiring. He kept mopping at his brow with a handkerchief.

Where’s Bouncer? McDivott asked.

Ripley pointed to a green dot on one of the screens. There. His chopper is just cranking up to leave VMI. He wants to talk to you.

McDivott squinted at the screen. Bouncer was the call sign of Chuck Greeley, Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Greeley was an alumnus of the Virginia Military Institute. He’d flown to the campus at Lexington, Virginia to address a military weapons symposium.

Tell him I’ll get back to him, said McDivott.

I’ve already told him. Twice. You know Greeley.

I know Greeley.

He’s asking why you executed Angel Swoop and DefCon Two without going through him. Or the Secretary of Defense. Or anyone else.

He’ll find out.

DefCon Two—Defense Condition Two—was the second-highest readiness status of the U.S. military. Following the assassination of the Vice President, every unit and