Guidance to Death

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 11996

January 10

Saturday, 3:00 a.m.

The weather was perfect: heavy clouds down to eight hundred feet, and a driving cold rain. Salvatore Sassavitte had been waiting for this day for over a month. An opportunity like this may not present itself for another month or more. The thing had to be done now. The longer it dragged on, the more likely he was to do something extremely careless.

The tie he was wearing bit into his throat. He loosened it slightly. A dark, ghostly image of himself reflected in the windshield of the van. He had never worn a suit to work before. This was the first time, and he promised himself it would be the last.

He double-checked his tools and stowed them in his black attaché case. He stepped quietly out of his van, slipped on his black wool overcoat, and walked briskly across the executive parking lot toward the secure area with his attaché case in hand.

The guard on the gate, sleepy from a long shift in his overheated guard house, nodded indifferently as Salvatore flashed a company identification card and airport ramp pass. The guard would not remember it. To him, Salvatore was probably just another Washington lawyer. They came and went through this gate at all hours of the day and night, and at three o’clock on a cold January morning, nobody cared.

He walked across the wet, icy ramp to the silent jet, opened the cabin door, lowered the entry stairs, and stepped into its snug, carpeted interior. He would have to work fast. The plane would be departing in a few hours, and the task ahead of him was not an easy one. “Mustn’t fumble the precision tools in the dark, cold cockpit,” he said to himself. Sal had researched it thoroughly and rehearsed the procedures until he was sure he had accounted for every eventuality. No room for mistakes or complications. He blew into his cupped hands for warmth, then opened the attaché case. He turned on his small flashlight and placed it in his mouth, pointing the shaft of light at the instrument panel, and started working.

After an hour and a half of work, he retightened the last fastener on the integrated guidance system. Then he hurriedly closed the plane up, careful to leave no trace. He then walked back, past another dozing guard and out of the gate. Once he was in his van, he drove to a small public park near the north end of the longest runway.

Sal kept the engine running with the defroster on full heat. He wanted to have a clear view of the runway when the time came. He sat with his feet up against the dash, sipping a blend of coffee and brandy from a thermos. He switched on his portable multi-band radio and tuned it to the airport’s ground control frequency. He tried to fight the urge to sleep, but at some point, his eyelids closed, and he was out.

He was startled awake by the sharp, clear sound of his radio. It was 7:30, and a pilot was calling for a departure clearance under instrument flight rules. It was a voice he recognized. He had listened to that voice a few times at company parties. It was a good voice, belonging to an average guy like himself, a guy who was just trying to make a living doing what he liked best. “That’s too bad,” Sal muttered to himself, “but there’s no other way. Sacrifices have to be made if you want to advance in this world.”

The clearance came through loud and clear. Sal picked up his binoculars and scanned the ramp until he saw the jet’s red and green navigation lights moving slowly toward him, rocking on its nose wheel, strobe lights flashing. He watched as the jet moved down the long taxiway to the end of the runway. He could hear the faint whine of the engines as the pilot ran his final cockpit checks. Sal switched to the tower frequency and heard the voice from the tower, “Cleared for takeoff.”

The jet moved into position on Runway 19 and accelerated down the centerline of the black runway, leaving two swirling trails of dark exhaust behind. He followed the plane as it climbed out of a cloud of hot steam created by the jet blast on the wet runway. He continued to watch as the jet was swallowed up, with surprising quickness, by the black-gray layer of stratus cloud hovering several hundred feet above Reagan National Airport and the city of Washington, DC. He hurriedly switched to the jet’s assigned departure control frequency.

“Citation 99 Alpha are you receiving me?” the controller’s voice demanded.

“Affirmative,” answered the pilot, betraying no alarm.

“Citation 99 Alpha, radar shows you at seven thousand feet.”

“Standby,” answered the pilot calmly.

“Citation 99 Alpha, can you climb and maintain flight level 180?”

“Standby,” answered the pilot, still professionally calm.

A few seconds passed.

“Citation 99 Alpha, we’ve lost you on radar. Are you receiving me? Can you read me?”

No answer. The controller tried again.

“Citation 99 Alpha, are you receiving me? Are you receiving me? If you are receiving me, squawk ident.”

Sal switched off the radio, put the van in gear, and drove out of the small park onto a nearly deserted George Washington Parkway. He smiled as he drove home. He and his wife were leaving for the Virgin Islands in a couple of hours, leaving a freezing capital and its crime-infested streets forever.

Kevin Oakes was driving the last leg of his paper route and running slightly later than usual. Several blocks away, he noticed a car parked in front of the Campbell house, his most difficult customer. If Mr. Campbell wasn’t complaining about the price of the paper, he complained about its contents, and he never forgot to remind Kevin of the days he had been late. Mr. Campbell even showed him a calendar where he had marked it all down and had even refused to pay for several copies, claiming that he did not have time to read them until late in the afternoon, after work, when the news was old and useless.

Kevin did not feel like a confrontation this morning. He’d sooner give up the route entirely and find another job where he did not have to deal with people. He saw Mr. Campbell leave his house, carrying what appeared to be hunting gear, and walk toward his pickup truck. He would wait until Mr. Campbell drove away before going on.

Kevin was reaching over his seat for another paper when he heard the sound: a tearing high-pitched scream racing toward ultrasonic. A moment of unnatural silence followed, then a short final explosion. Something huge crashed through the roof of the Campbell house, raining down a shower of jagged debris.

A car parked across the street from the Campbell house exploded and burst into flames. Then something hit the hood of his car, splattering a bloody fluid over the windshield, and slowly slid over his hood, like a ruptured jellyfish, onto the ground.

His first thought was that Washington had been attacked, possibly by Russians, in a sneak attack like Pearl Harbor. It meant that he wouldn’t have to deliver the rest of his papers. People were running out of their houses toward the burning car. Everyone seemed to be shouting. Someone said that it was an airplane crash. He quickly got out of his car thinking that he would make a run for it but then realized that he would be safer inside the car. He jumped back into the car and, grabbing his cell phone, and hurriedly dialed 911.