“In the national interest-yes.”
“I ask for a show of hands,” Turnbull said. “The question is, should we turn over Ripley Forte to the tender mercies of the Russians in return for their promise to put out the Siberian fires?”
His eyes went to the secretary of state, on his right, whose hand shot into the air. One by one every hand was raised. Smiling a wintry smile, Turnbull raised his, too. “Rare unanimity, gentleman. But of course, it’s the life of another man we’re talking about and, after all, he’s only a Texan, isn’t he?”
In the office outside the conference room, a light that he had been awaiting lit on the presidential staff secretary’s intercom. He picked up a folder with a top-secret red slash across its cover and entered the conference room. “This report just arrived, sir,” he said to the president, and left the way he had come.
President Turnbull opened the folder, glanced at its contents, and read aloud:
REPORT
From: Chief, Special Executive Operations Unit
To: The President
Subject: Ripley Forte
In accordance with Presidential Directive OS/311/26, subject-named civilian was put under surveillance at his El Cabellejo Ranch in Houston, Republic of Texas, at 1026 local 26 July 2008, with the view to accession and abscission.
The SEOU consisted of 31 operatives plus locally recruited informants of established reliability.
Subject-named civilian left his ranch for his downtown office at 1135 by helicopter. Due to Republic of Texas control of airspace, it was considered impracticable to take any action at that time.
Interception of optical cable transmissions permitted surveillance of telephone and telex traffic into and from SNC’s office. At 1307 a telex message arrived from SNC’s partner and financial adviser, Yussef Mansour, advising him in code-which SEOU was able to break without difficulty-that he had heard through his contacts in the USSR that the Soviets were willing to extinguish the fires in the 870 lignite mines in return for America’s handing over SNC.
A flurry of outgoing calls followed. At 1423 SNC left his office under heavy guard. He was escorted in a four-car convoy to Hobby Airport in Houston where he boarded a waiting Piper 311 executive jet. The pilot and steward were the only other persons observed to be aboard. Five minutes later, on a flight plan listing New York City as refueling stop and Lagos, Nigeria, as ultimate destination, the Piper 311 took off on a heading of 049° true.
SNC’s selection of Nigeria as ultimate destination is, it is believed, due to the fact that Nigeria has in force no treaty of extradition with either the United States or the Soviet Union.
The SEOU tactical aircraft standing by at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, immediately took off to intercept in the vicinity of Tupelo, Mississippi. However, ten minutes after takeoff SNC’s aircraft lost altitude and suddenly disappeared from air traffic control’s radarscopes. No more was heard of the Piper 311 until we received a report that at 1655 it had landed at Orlando, refueled, and taken off at 1714, again with destination Lagos.
ATC reported that apparently the pilot of the 311 suspected he was under surveillance, altered course, and descended to treetop level to evade detection.
Four fighter aircraft from the carrier U.S.S. Iwo Jima locked onto the Piper 311 just north of Cuba. The 311 was, at that time, on a Great Circle course for South Africa. [It is believed that, at some point in his flight, Forte suspected that his communications might have been compromised and therefore changed his destination.] Since the 311 tiltjet has carrier-landing capability, the aircraft’s pilot was instructed by both radio and signal lights to alter course, follow the Navy aircraft, and land aboard the Iwo Jima.
No notice was taken of the signals by the Piper 311, which proceeded on course at 7,000 meters.
The last attempt to make contact came at 2020, as darkness was falling. The plane altered .course slightly to the south, apparently seeking cover of cumulus clouds in that area.
Contact was made, in code, by the pursuing aircraft with the commanding officer of the Iwo Jima, for the purpose of receiving instructions. The CO radioed Forte aboard the Piper 311 on its assigned frequency. There was no response. The lead plane tried to contact the Piper 311 on the emergency frequency. The call was unanswered. The CO, Iwo Jima, thereupon radioed orders to shoot the plane down.
Meanwhile, the target plane had descended almost to mast level in a local squall, apparently hoping to evade surveillance. Nevertheless, we followed on radar. When the Piper 311 was in range, one missile was launched. It struck the Piper’s port wing, and the plane cartwheeled into the water. No fire was observed, and no survivors were seen.
Search-and-rescue helicopters from the Iwo Jima arrived on scene within half an hour, and a thorough search was made of the area. Numerous bits of flotsam and the shark-ravaged remains of two men were retrieved.
The remains were flown back to the Dade County Forensic Laboratory in Miami and subjected to examination. Positive I.D. was not possible from photographs of SNC due to the lack of identifiable remains. A thumb and forefinger of one of the bodies was, however, intact. Prints raised were faxed to the FBI in Washington, where they were compared with those on the Marine enlistment records of Ripley Forte. The FBI reported positive identification.
The remains of SNC, as well as those of the steward, also identified by fingerprints, are being held at the Dade County morgue until claimed by the next of kin.
/s/ J. D. Blanco,
Chief
Enclosures: Copy of surveillance log
Copy of flight record,
surveillance aircraft
Copy of USMC enlistment
fingerprints, Ripley Forte
Copy of fingerprints raised
from cadaver
“So much for our chances of handing over Ripley Forte to the Russians,” said the chief of staff as President Turnbull closed the file.
“Don’t you think they’d believe the report?” asked the secretary of state.
The president laughed grimly. “Would you, if you were Evgeniy Luchenko?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“No. I won’t give them the satisfaction of knowing that we’re so goddamned inept that the U.S. defense forces aren’t equal to the task of apprehending a single individual in international air space, let alone on its own soil….”
When the meeting finally broke up without result half an hour later, Vice-President David D. Castle dropped behind and casually mentioned that, while the president had been reading aloud, his attention had been engaged by the larger question of what they could do to quench those raging Siberian fires.
“You’re forgiven, David,” said the president. “After all, what does the life of one man matter when compared to the survival of the nation? You keep thinking. Involve your staff. If any of you has an idea, I want you to come to me with it immediately.”
“Still,” said Castle, “though I was only half listening, I had the curious feeling that something had been overlooked in the pursuit of Forte. If I had the chance to examine the file more closely, I might be able to put my finger on it.”
“Of course, David,” said the president. “My secretary will send you over a copy this afternoon. It’s interesting reading. It’s a textbook case of what a man will do to save his life.”
* * *
Ilse Freeman, who lingered behind after the vice-president’s press conference that afternoon, thought the file was interesting, too. “Our friends will want to see it. I’ll fax it to them tonight. But they probably won’t believe a word of it.”
“Indeed?” Castle said coldly. “And why not?”
“They’re all from Missouri. They’ll suspect the SEOU made it all up to cover their incompetence; or to make them look good while sticking a finger into the eyes of CIA and the FBI, or any of a dozen other good reasons.”
“Well, if they won’t believe it, why send it?”
“They want to see everything we can lay hands on. And I am anxious to oblige: it shows we’re doing our jobs. Besides, if Forte did die in that crash, if there was a crash, we’ll be able to provide corroboratory evidence to that effect.”
“How?”
“You don’t need to know how, David,” Miss Free-mann grinned, showing smoke-stained teeth. “But I can tell you this: though President Tom Traynor pretty well cleaned out our apparatus in Texas, we have plenty of willing hands to do our work in the other forty-nine states. We have access to the FBI’s fingerprint files, of course, and through our connections with Havana have penetrated the Cuban community in Miami, which will give us a line on whether what is left of Forte’s corpse bears the fingerprints we’ll get from his FBI file. As a matter of routine, we’ll question people who observed Forte’s departure from Houston and his refueling stop in Orlando. If we’re lucky, we can get a line on the helicopter crew that recovered the remains from the Piper 311 splash-down. When we’ve added it all up, we’ll have a file three times as thick as the one you gave me-and one a damned sight more credible. If the two files correspond in essential details, our employers will know that Forte is really dead.”