THREE MINUTES

---

Chapter 13

09:02, 11 September, 2001

Andrews Air Force Base

Washington, D.C.

"Back! We're clear!"

The four enormous engines of the C-130 "Hercules" roared to life, and a half-dozen armed Marines scattered from the hangar. Broom 1 rolled out to the empty runway, not pausing as it turned the corner and throttled up to military, or full throttle.

Inside the cockpit sat four men. Two were at the controls, former Air Force pilots who were now, for security reasons, private employees of the Raytheon corporation. They had resigned their commissions to fly this aircraft. The other two men sat at computer viewscreens, operating the single piece of equipment that dominated the cargo space.

The co-pilot leaned back toward them and yelled. "Ever done one of these?"

The first man shook his head nervously. The second never took his eyes off his screen, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. This man was a key designer of the payload system, code-named THERMAL VICAR. The "Vic" was the end result of a decade of work in and around Building 909, a marriage of two outlandishly complicated machines. The first was easily the most powerful electrical discharge device ever built, and the second a steerable microwave antenna reflector system that covered a line of fire one hundred and eighty degrees to the rear of the aircraft.

"We're fine," he said.

The co-pilot shrugged. "Talk to you in a minute."

A casual observer on the ground might have missed the six cylindrical rocket motors welded to the rear of the Herc's fuselage. There would be no missing them now. The pilot reached down and flipped a single protected switch, and the ground beneath the plane burst into white flame.

The punch in the cockpit sent all four men into the backs of their seats. A rocket-assisted take-off (RATO) was like having a fifth engine, or better, mused the co-pilot. They were one-shot deals, in that once they were used, they were dead weight until replaced. They also would burn until their fuel was exhausted -- and they had only two states: off, or really on.

The co-pilot glanced over at his commander in the left seat, and watched him handle the bucking yoke with a classic military calm. This man had flown dozens of RATOs from ice airstrips in polar regions, where distance to take-off was critical.

Or, in this case, where getting in the air as quickly as possible was the mission. As far as he knew, they were the only C-130 in the world on active alert for interceptor duty.

"Huntress, this is Broom 1, KADW has cleared us."

NORAD's controller returned the call. "Roger, Broom, Huntress. Come up to level one-six-zero and switch freq."

The co-pilot flipped switches on his UHF/VHF radio, selecting a frequency where he had a private line with the Northeast Air Defense commander.

The thunder from the rockets stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The pilot leveled off at 16,000 feet, still at full military throttle.

"Broom, come to one-niner-one."

"Huntress, Broom, rog."

The Herc banked hard, shaking from the high-sped turn and selecting a new course. An intercept course.

"Broom, bogey is three miles on your nose."

"Broom, Roger."

Both men in the cockpit scanned the horizon. In the distance, closing quickly, was the airliner they had been ordered to intercept, a Boeing 757 flying under the callsign "American 77". This, of course, was her callsign before she had stopped communicating with Air Traffic Controller. Now she was simply a target.

"There she is," said the pilot.

"He's all over the place," said the tech.

The pilot leaned into his headset. "Huntress, Broom. Are we talking to him again?"

"Negative, Broom. You are well inside the safe line and cleared to engage."

The airliner grew slightly larger. The C-130 was head-to-head with the 757, closing at nearly 800 miles an hour.

"OK, Weapon," barked the pilot. "I'm going to line you up. We're going right under him, I'm counting off distance."

"Roger, con." The tech's hands became a blur, and the huge rear door of the C-130 began to open. He flipped his own radio selector. "Alamo, Alamo, this is Broom Spear. We are cleared to engage and discharge."

The voice replying came from hundreds of miles away, from an obscure transmitter at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. The speaker was thirteen stories beneath the surface.

"Broom Spear, Alamo. Roger a go for discharge."

The final confirmation given, the tech entered a last command into his computer. A corner of his monitor screen suddenly showed a patch of blue sky, the view directly aft. Overlaid on the image was an unmistakable crosshair.

"Weapon! Three hundred!" The pilot barked from the cockpit. The approaching airliner had become still larger. They were nose-to-nose and closing fast. Time was running out.

"Two fifty! Two hundred!" The pilot grit his teeth. "One hundred! GO!"

The silver 757 practically filled the windscreen, as the C-130 dove sharply under its nose, avoiding collision by just a few yards. Everyone inside Broom 1 felt themselves forced up into their harnesses as the giant cargo plane hurtled downward.

"We're on!" yelled the tech. The airliner appeared in his viewscreen, heading away now, and he flipped a toggle switch. A burst of high frequency sound filled the cabin, as "The Vic" radiated fifty gigawatts of power through its antenna. The discharge was invisible to the naked eye, and the tech watched his readouts as they described the massive microwave energy that had just enveloped the target. "Got him! Good hit!"

The pilot wrenched the Herc out of its dive, and banked around to follow the jet. Even at full throttle, the prop-driven cargo plane would have no chance to catch up.

"Watch it! What's his damage? Did we get a reading on the nuclear material?"

The second tech stared at his screen. The pilot's maneuver had been perfect; his own computer was analyzing samples of the very air the airliner had passed through, as well as the information it had taken from the fuselage as it had nearly scraped paint with the Hercules. "I didn't get anything, I can't tell if he's got the bomb!"

"Commander," said the co-pilot. "He's going in."

Ahead of them now, and descending, the 757's navigation lights blinked twice, then were off. Suddenly the jet dipped sharply to the left, and began a banking turn as first one engine flamed out, then the other. The Vic's microwave burst had completely fried the electrical system, and the fuel pumps had stopped, killing the engines. Below the jet's fuselage, they watched as the ram air turbine deployed, giving the pilots hydraulic pressure to move the control surfaces, but also slowing the 757 to near stall speeds.

"It doesn't look like he's going to keep it together," said the co-pilot.

"Jesus," breathed the pilot. He switched his UHF/VHF: "Huntress, Broom. Good hit, good hit, he's auguring in towards the mall. He's going down!"

"Roger Broom, good hit. Is the bogey carrying?"

The pilot looked again towards the first tech. "I don't know!" cried the man, slamming his hands on his armrests. "I didn't get anything, but I'm not sure!"

"Huntress, this is Broom," said the pilot. "We don't think so. We're following him in for a reading."

"Roger Broom, overfly the impact and get a reading."

The pilot realized, with a feeling of great dread, that if the 757 was carrying a nuclear weapon, it wouldn't matter what direction he pointed his own aircraft. He decided to stay close.

The C-130 pitched down to follow the descending 757, and with horror the co-pilot realized he wasn't going to clear the mall. "Raise the Pentagon...oh, no!" He switched his own UHF/VHF radio selector. "Huntress, Broom, he's going to hit right in front of the Pentagon!"

"Right in front, nothing," said the pilot.

The side of the Pentagon burst into orange flame, as the 757 nosed directly into the vertical face of the enormous building. The hit sent a ripple of shock waves visibly through all five sections, like a bomb exploding in a field.

"Take us right through the smoke!" shouted the first tech.

The pilot nosed his aircraft down, flying through the cloud of black smoke that poured out of the building. Collection devices in the Herc's nose began to analyze the particulate matter. For a moment, the tech's eyes flitted between a clipboard and his viewscreen. Then, he sat back in his chair.

"Nothing," he told the pilot. "He didn't have it."

The pilot touched his mike. "Huntress, this is Broom. The bogey is down, but was not carrying, say again bogey down, but no package."

There was a slight pause. "Roger Broom, come right three-one-one, we have a new target for you."

The pilot's communications screen gave a new heading and distance. The co-pilot did a few quick calculations. They were headed towards Ohio, to intercept another airliner they hadn't been able to raise on the radio. They would have to do all this again. "Huntress," he radioed, "Broom 1, that's roger on that intercept, but be advised. Our weapon will not be charged before we get to this guy. I'm not sure we can keep him outside of the safe line."

"Broom, Huntress. Roger that. Maintain course to intercept, and be advised Broom Two is en route to bogey."

--

19:20, 16 September 2002

Rachel, Nevada

The hamburgers at the "Little Ale'Inn" had been wonderfully greasy, just the kind of thing one would hope for from a restaurant in the middle of the desert. Jason and Marker enjoyed the ice cold beer even more, and wholeheartedly quenched their thirst while discussing the implications of the afternoon's events.

Marker thought the "evidence" of his theory as applied to Flight 93 was tenuous, but strangely compelling. A high power microwave, or HPM attack explained many of the anomalies. An electronics failure would stop the cockpit voice and data recorders prematurely; it would also effectively "switch off" the 757's transponder. Apparently, from what they had seen today (and according to the technical information Marker rattled off like baseball statistics), a powerful enough HPM could "kill" even an aircraft that didn't rely on electronics for its basic flight controls, simply by disabling its electric fuel pumps.

"The Herc is a perfect test bed for this stuff," said Marker. He produced a little squeeze bottle of moisturizer from his pants pocket, uncapped it, and proceeded to rub lotion onto his bald head. "It's got great on-board power generating capability, it can carry lots of heavy test equipment." He wiped his hands and dug into his folding file case, pulling out technical-looking diagrams of the massive four-engine plane. "Each engine has its own generator," he said, pointing. "That's just the standard equipment. All of that space, think of what you could put in there if you wanted to generate more. And the best part is, the whole thing is pure hydraulics, control-wise."

Jason looked up. "What does that mean?"

"It means you can still fly it with a complete power failure." Marker pushed a few stacks of paper towards Jason, and sat back, folding his long hands in his lap. "Even a commercial airliner needs hydraulic pressure in the lines to make the flaps obey the yoke, and that pressure is supplied in part by AC generators in the engines. Kill the engines, you kill the power. Kill the power, you kill the hydraulic control. A C-130 can maintain the pressure in its lines, but a Boeing jet needs those pumps going."

Jason flipped through the printouts. "Surely there's a backup system for that...?"

Marker nodded. "In a Boeing, for example, something called a RAT, a ram air turbine, drops out of the belly. It's basically a big propeller hooked up to generate emergency wind power. But it reduces the airspeed severely; if you don't know what you're doing, you'll end up part of the landscape real fast."

Jason nodded, poking through the stack of documents on the table. Most of the papers Marker had passed over were more than half a decade old, or more; there were Department of Defense position papers, private institution or War College "white papers", congressional briefings on the potential of airborne microwave weapons, and various private sector analyses of the prospects for HPM in the future. So much of it had come from the Department of Defense during the Reagan years, as sub-projects for the "Star Wars" missile defense shield research.

Surprisingly, many of the documents mentioned the C-130 by name, if in passing; the context was vague in a way that was no doubt intentional, but the implication seemed clear. The C-130, for whatever reasons, was central to the project known as DE/ATAC. This stood for "Directed Energy Applications in Tactical Airborne Combat", and it was, as Marker had implied, a promising avenue of research that was seemingly just abandoned between fiscal years.

"One year, there it is," said Marker, flopping a budget document down and pinning it in place with the salt and pepper shakers. "You've got X amount of dollars for a big-budget research project. You look at the budget justification sheet -- that's where the program manager explains what they did with last year's money, and what they'll do with next year's. It goes on for five, six years, and then piff! It's gone."

Jason nodded. "So they stopped working on the technology?"

"Not on your life," said Marker. "Observe the sleight-of-hand... nothing up my sleeve."

Marker grinned and smoothed out another budget sheet for the next fiscal year on the table. "Look at these new classified projects. 'Special Access Project', which means it's not only secret, it's compartmentalized, need-to-know stuff. Only dollar amounts and project names appear in the budget. No descriptions of what they're doing with it. Now," he said, leaning over the table, "look at the pattern of how much our microwave projects' costs increased each year until it dropped off the map."

Jason did a little quick math. "Maybe 5, 10 percent increase each year," he said.

"Exactly," said Marker. "So how much should it have been the year it disappeared?"

Again, Jason estimated. "About $17.5 million."

Marker pointed at the third Special Access Program from the top, with nothing to describe it but the enigmatic code name THERMAL VICAR. Its budget was $17,400,000. It was an amazing coincidence, and he said so.

"Yeah," said Marker, smiling again. "It's always a coincidence, isn't it?"

More beers came without their having to ask for them; it appeared Marker had a reputation. Jason realized he was dehydrated from their hike, and hadn't had enough water to drink before hitting the beer. He was going to be drunk very soon, which was fine, but he wanted to make it through more of Marker's documents before they went too blurry.

A few of the reports were so technical that Jason thought didn't need to be classified, since most of the population wouldn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about. One particularly confusing report had a paragraph concerning "thin film diamond-like carbon dielectrics", which Marker explained was simply a capacitor technology allowing for the enormous, sudden bursts of electrical energy a HPM weapon required.

"Here's the thing," said Marker, carefully setting down a new bottle of beer. "I can't figure out why this weapon would even be brought into play. Why this extremely sensitive technology," he began waving his hands around, "in this mundane application on 9/11?"

"Mundane?" asked Jason, disbelieving.

"Yeah," said Marker. "Nothing more straightforward in military aviation than shooting down an aircraft. Any alert fighter could've done it. An F-16's targeting pod could send an AMRAAM up Flight 93's tailpipe from thirty miles away."

"And we should have been that close," followed Jason, "even based on the timeline NORAD released. We easily could have had fighters within thirty miles."

"You're assuming, of course," said Marker as he leaned over the booth's table, pointing his beer at Jason, "that the Air Force knew something was amiss with this Boeing, that they knew it was hijacked. Which makes sense. They had two hours to figure it out." He took a long swallow from his beer. "And they wanted to bring it down. But I still can't wrap my head around using this technology. Why not just hit it with a missile? Fire and forget, no muss, no fuss."

Jason said nothing. He had no idea. In fact the question seemed like the biggest obstacle to the whole theory.

"Figure that out," continued Marker, "And you'll figure out this whole mess."

--

09:38, 11 September 2001

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The most dedicated aircraft enthusiast would have difficulty recognizing Broom Two.

If they had worked in aviation, perhaps in manufacturing, they might have recognized the white fuselage as belonging to a Learjet 60, but little else on the airframe gave away the plane's origins. Its unique requirements had morphed it into the shape its designers had lovingly christened the "Frankenjet".

The body itself had been modified with bulges and indentations, which gave the impression that Broom Two had contracted some kind of gruesome skin disease. But while unattractive, the contours were placed very deliberately, and had the effect of scattering radar energy in every direction but back to the source. Broom Two was completely invisible to radar.

Its twin rear-mounted engines had been replaced by Russian-built Soyuz VK-21 high bypass-ratio turbofans, which had themselves been modified to quietly produce more than 18,000 pounds of thrust each. They could bring Broom Two to speeds approaching Mach 2, all the while making less noise than a Mack truck at idle.

At these high speeds, Broom Two's extensively reshaped blunt nose produced some of the most extreme high temperatures in aviation; this was a design feature that served to raise the speed of sound around the airframe, sculpting the pressure wave it produced to virtually eliminate the sonic boom that plagued other high-speed jets.

Broom Two was indeed a new generation of stealth aircraft.

The single tail fin had been eliminated in favor of twin vertical fins supporting a horizontal stab, and every one of the dozens of control surface across the stab were constantly in motion. Thousands of tiny corrections were made by a flight control computer every second, to keep what was fundamentally an aerodynamically unsound jet stable and airborne.

Amazingly, the most unique feature on this exceptionally unique aircraft lay hidden beneath the flight deck.

An unremarkable dome mounted on the underbelly and just forward of the swept-back wing housed a highly advanced charged-plasma "antenna". By varying the current through the plasma, the device mimicked the effect of conventional antennae of varying physical lengths, allowing ultra-wideband transmissions from an uncharacteristically tiny, and fully directional, package. To the very few who knew of it, it was known as CENTER BALL, or simply "the Ball". This system was the latest secret child of Building 909.

The power of this microwave weapon was enormous, with the capability to completely cease all electronic activity in its target swath; it affected not only microelectronics, but the very transmission of electrons through simple copper wire. It was an even more deadly weapon than its bigger, heavier brother on board Broom One.

Broom Two and its four-person flight crew were slamming through the air over western Pennsylvania on an intercept course with a fourth airliner that had deviated from its flight plan and refused to answer radio hails. Its callsign before they had lost contact was United 93.

"Broom One, this is Broom Two," radioed the flight officer. "We have the bogey, eighty miles. Please stand down and clear the area."

"Roger, Broom Two. The target is yours, we're getting to a safe distance. Huntress, this is Broom One, we are passing the bogey to Broom Two, and diverting to Youngstown."

"Eagle Six, this is Huntress."

Sixty miles away, the lead F-16 pilot had been glancing at a photograph he carried strapped to his knee. It was a picture of his sixteen year-old son standing on a dock in front of his grandfather's Maine home. Colonel Richard Ivers had grown up in a fishing village near Stockholm, and while he hadn't set foot on a boat in decades, he took special joy in being near the ocean.

Ivers flew with the 119th Fighter Wing. 20 minutes ago he had been sitting on the flightline, his aircraft on routine ready alert status at the airstrip at Langley Air Force Base. 10 minutes ago he and his wingman, Eagle Seven, had been given launch orders, and the information that hijacked commercial airliners had slammed into the World Trade Center buildings in New York. Their country was under attack, and Ivers knew the alert fighters at Langley were the tip of the spear.

He was thinking about the lives that were lost in those airliners, and what would probably wind up being dozens killed in the buildings themselves.... It made him furious.

He was about to get angrier still.

"Huntress, Six."

"Eagle Six, reduce speed and orbit, flight level two-five-zero. Stand by for update."

Stay where he was? He and his wingman were armed to the teeth, anxious to get to D.C., set up a combat air patrol, protect the city. "Huntress, Six. Can you say again, we are on target for CAP in Washington, in -- " Ivers glanced at his gauges. " -- Eight minutes."

"Eagle Six, Roger. Say again, reduce speed and orbit, flight level two five zero. Be advised, do not continue towards Washington until we update."

Ivers was baffled. "Roger, Huntress. Eagle Six and Eagle Seven, turning circles."

Alamo control, New Mexico

"How far out are they?" Lionel and Woods had been following Broom Two since it took off from Kirtland. Deep below Building 909, he stood now staring down at the radar officer's screens, not sure what the scale represented.

"Sixty miles and closing, sir."

"Do we have any more suspect aircraft?"

"Negative, sir," answered the NSA agent manning the phone bank next to him. "We had one or two false alarms, a lot of confusion out there. But this is the last solid hijacking in the sky." He paused, listening. "FAA is initiating a full ground-stop of all non-military aircraft over the continental United States. Here in a bit everything in the air will be on the ground, or under command of Huntress."

He turned to the operations commander. "What about D.C. personnel?"

The commander spun to his communications officer, repeating the question.

"Sir," said the young woman, "The 1st Helicopter Squadron is evacuating Pentagon vitals, the President remains in the Airborne Operations Center on Air Force One."

"The Vice President?" asked the commander.

"1st Helo got him from the Secret Service, they practically had to kidnap him. He's on Mussel 4 heading for Cheyenne."

Lionel furrowed his brow. As hard as it was to consider, they had gotten lucky that the two jets that hit New York weren't carrying the nuclear weapon. They had gotten to the third, barely, and gotten "lucky" again. Now everything was pointing to this fourth airliner being the one with the bomb. Broom Two had to make an auspicious debut today.

"Make sure those pilots on Broom Two know they have until..." Lionel pulled his ring finger along the surface of the aeronautical map. "Johnston. That's their safe line. Anything closer than that airport and we risk fallout reaching D.C."

"Roger that, sir."

"Navigation, Flight. I want a count until the safe line." Broom Two's pilot watched as the tiny green square in his heads-up display began to enlarge to fit the growing shape of the Boeing 757-200.

"Roger, Flight. Counting down, you have 120 miles until safe line."

The weapons officer leaned over to his navigation counterpart. "I have target, 40 miles."

"Captain, target is 40 miles, safe line one hundred."

"Roger, Nav."

The pilot eased off the throttle, bringing Broom Two down to more modest speeds well below the sound barrier, and slipped his aircraft neatly behind United 93.

"Weapons, Alamo says this is probably the one with the nuke. Give me a reading on that fuselage."

The weapons officer's hands flew across his keyboard. "Roger, Captain, stand by."

He waited. Seconds later, numbers began to scroll up the screen. Jesus...

"Captain, this is it. No question. I'm reading a very strong positive for the nuclear material."

"Roger, Weapons."

The weapons officer had already established enough of a lock on the 757 that the HPM would undoubtedly bring it down from here. The massive microwave burst should also render useless the nuke's primary fusing system -- indeed, that was the whole idea. They could disarm the bomb and bring down the airliner with one stroke. But just in case, they had to force the 757 to earth far enough from the capital to protect the seat of government. Their job was to ensure Washington would remain standing, even if the scientists back at Building 909 had miscalculated, even if the thing went off.

Broom Two of course, as well as most of this part of Pennsylvania, would not be around to talk about it if that turned out to be the case.

"Captain, target 2 miles, safe line five zero."

As the pilot watched, the Boeing suddenly banked to the left, hard, and increased speed.

"Flight, Weapons. I've lost target!"

"Roger Weapons, stand by. He's doing something here. I'm following him."

The pilot heaved Broom Two hard to port, following the airliner into its turning dive. Had they been spotted? Was this an evasive maneuver?

"Weapons, have you got him again? I'm on his pipe."

The United jet practically filled his windscreen as the pilot set himself behind and slightly below the now wobbling airliner.

He studied the situation. What was that pilot doing? United 93 had stopped making any real turns as suddenly as it had started, and now was just slowly dipping its wings to one side, then the other. It was actually such a weird pattern, it became a real challenge to follow.

What on earth did he just witness?

Pruett Airport

Shauna Murphy sat staring at her radio, completely baffled by the message she had just heard.

In fact, she was marveling at the fact she had heard it at all. Whoever had radioed the "mayday" distress call obviously was on the wrong frequency, and had the ASOS not been in between transmissions, she would never have received the signal herself, sitting so close to the weather information system's transmitter. She waited for another signal.

"Pruett... Regional... Airport... Automated Weather Observation... One... Four... Zero... Three...."

The ASOS had started up again. She had to get back to the main station and tell someone. Maybe a new pilot was having trouble, and might not have known what frequency he was on. He might have no idea why no one was returning his call.

She climbed quickly down off the building and ran to her car. It took two tries to start, but finally it growled to life. She sped across the empty runway towards the main Flight Service Station building, pulling to a stop and quickly jumping out and running inside.

As soon as she entered the dimly-lit room, she knew something was wrong. Controllers were calling aircraft frantically, everyone seemed to be talking into headsets and cell phones at the same time. A sick feeling began to grow in Shauna's stomach.

Mounted high in the far corner of the room was a television screen, and she watched as the network ran yet another repeat of a Boeing 767 with United Airlines markings slamming into a skyscraper. She looked again, and realized with horror the building had to be the World Trade Center in New York City.

"Flight, this is Weapons. I've got him back. I've got target lock."

Broom Two's pilot had snaked left and right across the sky, trying to line up behind the airliner. He finally eased off the throttle and slipped neatly above and to the rear of his target. It had stopped maneuvering, resuming a straight level flight path; to all appearances, it had never seen them. What on earth had caused the movements he had just watched?

It was strange, but he had other things to consider. They were in textbook firing position, but the pilot knew there was more to bringing down a plane than just hitting it. Over land, he had to be worried about where the plane would strike the earth -- and whether there would be civilian casualties.

Looking down, the pilot saw scattered houses, a few roads, but mostly large open coal mining operations and empty fields. This was as good as it would ever get.

"Roger, Weapons," said the pilot. "Alamo, Broom Two. We are on the target, Weapons has a lock. Please advise."

The operations room went silent. All eyes were on the enhanced radar screens.

Lionel looked levelly at the communications officer. "They're practically on top of the safe line. We have to bring that jet down now."

The officer nodded. He leaned in to his microphone. "Broom Two, this is Alamo. You are go for the kill, say again, you are go."

"Mark!" yelled Shauna at the Pruett Air Traffic Supervisor. "I've just heard a mayday call on the ASOS frequency! What the hell's going on?"

The large man turned around, and Shauna noticed he was holding a cell phone to either ear. "Get on somewhere," he barked, "The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop, and everything is landing as soon as possible."

Shauna stared at him. At any given time there were more than 4,000 civil flights in the air over the continental United States. Air Traffic Controllers all over the country were going to have their hands full diverting and landing all of them.

This had never been done before in the history of aviation.

She slid over to a miraculously vacant radio station and keyed in a frequency.

"Mayday aircraft, this is Pruett Station," gasped Shauna, holding her transmitter in both hands. "Say your level and position."

There was a long silence. Who on earth was it up there, in trouble? She had no way of knowing.

"Mayday aircraft.... This is Pruett Station!"

"Weapons, this is Flight. You are 'go' for the Ball."

"Roger, Flight." The body of Broom Two rocked suddenly as it moved through a pocket of unstable air. "Firing the Ball."

The high-pitched whine of the HPM weapon filled the flight deck.

"Mayday aircraft, this is Pruett, over."

"Mayday aircraft, Pruett, over."

"Mayday aircraft, this is Pruett."

United 93 had been perfectly enveloped in the swath of high power microwaves.

It took about twenty seconds for the Boeing 757's engines to cut out, finally starved of fuel. The airliner began to list to port, rolling at first slowly then more quickly, as the list became an uncontrolled banked clockwise turn.

Broom Two observed and followed. Sensors in the strange aircraft's nose told the flight crew that nothing that used electricity on Flight 93 would ever work again. The Ball had worked flawlessly.

Amazingly, Flight 93's bank increased further. Over the next minute, as Broom Two's flight crew watched, the 757 began a final death spiral. In the last moments, it became completely inverted, spearing into the ground slightly upside-down.

It struck the earth at the edge of what appeared to be an unpopulated meadow.

The impact was spectacular, sending a wave of fire from the ignited fuel splashing into the tree line like a napalm air strike. As it hit, the rear of the aircraft seemed to fold like an accordion into the crater it had made, disappearing in a black cloud of smoke almost as if it had gone right through the surface of the earth.

Spectacular, thought Broom Two's pilot. But clearly not nuclear. He realized he hadn't been breathing, and started again with a gasp.

"Alamo, this is Broom Two. Target is down, there is no detonation. Repeat, no detonation. Huntress, please acknowledge same message."

They flew their aircraft low and fast, passing through the plume of black smoke. The sensors quickly analyzed the air, and determined that although the nuclear material had been on board the aircraft, there was little evidence that the bomb itself had broken up in the impact. Recovery was going to be a relatively simple task.

"Roger Broom Two, Alamo confirms message."

"Broom Two, Huntress also confirms."

Thank God, thought the pilot. He keyed his headset.

"Broom Two heading home."

There were no cheers at the command center below Building 909. The communications officer fell into his chair, cradling his head in his hands. Lionel walked over to a bank of telephones. He gathered up a pile of crushed cellophane wrapper balls, swept them into his hand, and dropped them into a wastebasket. He needed to call NEST, he needed to call the Justice Department. FBI personnel would be needed on the ground immediately to keep local rescue away from the crash site -- or at least they needed to look like FBI personnel. He needed to arrange a temporary liaison with NTSB. He needed to keep DMORT, the mortuary teams, away long enough to deal with the nuclear material.

It looked like it was going to be a simple clean-up job, and it was definitely on-track to be done quickly. NEST were in the air, and he would have his people on-site in minutes. Within the hour he expected the nuclear material would be in a white panel truck heading for Nevada, accompanied by an inconspicuous pair of unmarked Military Police cruisers as escort. Lionel imagined they'd have something in the air to watch the transport as well, but it would be a little less exotic than what had been operational so far today.

"Mayday aircraft, Pruett."

"Mayday aircraft, Pruett."

"Mayday aircraft, Pruett."

"Mayday aircraft, Pruett."

--

14:30, 15 May 2003

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jason had been unable to convince his editor that another story about Flight 93 should be published. And, as he thought about it, this time his editor had probably been right.

He had to admit, he had nothing new; in the time since his first article, the stream of emails had slowly but steadily petered out. Third or fourth-person stories just didn't have the journalistic "punch" he needed to print them, and his reputation wouldn't have handled it if he had.

After a few months he had decided on a trip to Shanksville, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Brody would not honor his request to be reimbursed for expenses. Jason had followed-up on each specific report of debris falling from the sky -- in a lake, near a church, or in someone's backyard. Each time he thought he had something interesting, he had been disappointed to find the reports had been exaggerated. There was, as he had feared, no evidence of a breakup in-flight.

He had interviewed, and reinterviewed, the dozen or so eyewitnesses to the crash; aside from a single woman reporting an oddball aircraft, none of his interviews produced new information. And his impression of that woman had been, to put it best, uncharitable.

Also concerning, Freeman's website seemed to be down. More accurately, it was redirecting visitors to some dubious-sounding financial institution. And Freeman himself seemed to have dropped off the map; he wasn't answering any of Jason's emails. Late in the year Jason had finally decided to move on. There was plenty of news, after all.

Weeks, then months passed.

Finally, one afternoon in May, Jason's phone rang. He had been preoccupied with an assigned story about yet another local basketball player's most recent indiscretions, and at first didn't recognize Freeman's deep voice on the other end.

"Jason," Freeman said. "How've you been?"

"Freeman!" Jason found himself genuinely pleased to hear from him. "I'm good, I'm good! Hey, what happened to the website?"

Freeman paused. "I decided to stop my investigation," he said hesitantly. "Frankly I'm feeling a little discouraged."

"I know the feeling," admitted Jason. "Where are you? We should meet, have a drink." Jason glanced down, but he hadn't set his telephone to display caller ID.

"Pay phone," said Freeman. "I'll have to pass on the drink. I try to stay out of bars." There was another pause. "Cigarette smoke."

"Uh huh," said Jason, waiting.

"So you have nothing new, either?" asked Freeman.

"No, nothing at all."

"Well," said Freeman, brightening slightly, "Maybe someday, someone will come forward. At this point that's really all we have."

"Maybe," agreed Jason. "Will I hear from you again?"

"Oh, sure, sure," said Freeman. "I'm in the middle of another move, so I'll be harder to find, if you can imagine such a thing." Both men laughed. "...But I'm sure I'll be giving you a call at some point."

There was another long pause.

"Some point," said Jason.

Freeman snorted. "Well, if there's anything new I can point you towards."

"I'll be looking forward to it," said Jason. "Take care of yourself."

"You bet," said Freeman.

And Jason hung up.

Gently setting the phone in its cradle, Freeman opened the door and stepped out of the phone booth. The light in the sky was beginning to fail, and a dry wind began to blow through his too-thin jacket. He headed for home, shivering just a bit.

He was starting to enjoy Denver. It had a casual familiarity about it, its people were unabashedly friendly. His first morning walking around town he had been said "hello" to at least a dozen times. Genuinely nice people, he thought.

In a few days he'd be moving into his new apartment; Freeman had found a remarkably inexpensive two-bedroom brick duplex near a lake. Around the lake was a fantastic jogging trail, and once he acclimated to the altitude, he thought he'd start exercising again. Too much time spent behind a computer screen lately, too much junk food. Maybe he'd start cooking again, maybe take a class.

About a minute later, he remembered he had left his phone card sitting in the booth; he decided it wasn't a problem, it was nearly out of minutes anyhow, and he didn't anticipate he would ever really call Jason again. Sitting next to the phone card, he also remembered, was a small pile of crumpled cellophane wrappers, pressed tightly into little balls.

He decided that wasn't a problem, either.

--

08:44, 4 October 2001

Ben-Gurion Airport

Tel Aviv, Israel

Korshin sat with his briefcase laid across his lap, quietly fretting.

Siberia, he thought to himself, is going to be bitter cold. But at least he'd be out of the Middle East.

He had spent a few weeks in Israel after the attacks on America, watching the news with growing horror as it became apparent the main thrust of his plan had failed. Certainly, no one could stop talking about the attacks in New York, those had gone better than could have been planned. And the plane that had hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. had also managed to cause damage, although not so spectacular.

But the bomb had not gone off.

Messages had reached him through obscure channels less than 24 hours later, messages from very disappointed people. His contacts in Turkmenistan were concerned that not enough evidence linked the attacks back to the Taliban in Afghanistan. His contacts in Afghanistan were concerned that perhaps he had failed to deliver the bomb at all. His contacts in Ukraine....

Well, that was the big problem. They were furious.

So far he had been unable to contact Storoz, President Kuchma's Staff General, although he didn't really try that hard. That would be a conversation that could never end well. The man had been the principle financier of the project, investing his own personal assets on this monstrous gamble, taking God knew what kind of losses in the liquidation process -- and until Korshin had some better answers, he wasn't that interested in talking to Storoz or any of his subordinates. Korshin was a little surprised he hadn't had an attempt on his life yet.

Storoz had gambled on Korshin's plan to goad the Americans into forcing an attack on Afghanistan. The Taliban couldn't control the country effectively; even their power didn't reach far enough, and sabotage by bandit tribes would make any construction there a fiscal nightmare. But once U.S. forces occupied the country, a pipeline built by regional companies the General controlled would stretch through the post-war region, connecting the massive Turkmeni natural gas fields to port cities and western markets in Pakistan.

The gas pipeline would run from the fields near Dauletabad, through the Afghanistan towns of Herat and Kandahar, then down to Quetta in Pakistan, and finally on to the grid (and the natural gas market) in Sui. Storoz' financial investment was less than a million U.S. dollars, and he would hold the reins to 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Staff General had stood to make a world-class fortune.

But the Americans hadn't retaliated yet. Korshin had some concerns that they might not, ever.

The airport paging system broke his train of thought.

"Sibir Airlines, Flight 1812, with service to Bugas, continuing to Novosibirsk, now boarding."

The message was repeated in three languages. Korshin raised himself to his feet and walked toward the gate. Given enough time, he would figure out why the bomb had not gone off. Given enough time, he could explain to Storoz that the Americans might still respond, given the severity of the attacks in New York.

As he walked down the ramp, he thought he saw a man watching him from the boarding area, a cellular phone to his ear. He dismissed it as paranoia; no one knew he was in Tel Aviv. And in several hours, he thought happily to himself, no one would know he was in Siberia.

--

12 OCTOBER 2001 LONDON WATCH NEWSPAPER

MOSCOW: New admissions about a Russian airliner which plunged into the Black Sea eight days ago, killing 78 people, have reinforced the theory that a Ukrainian missile was the cause of the disaster, a Russian newspaper reported yesterday.

Kommersant reports Vladimir Zhukov, deputy chief of Russia's North Caucasus air traffic control, has said the Pilot of the Tupolev-154 said "Where are we hit?" moments before the crash. Investigators are now convinced that Sibir Airlines Flight 1812 was struck by a Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missile, fired during a military exercise on the Crimean peninsula.

Earlier this week a Russian Investigator, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, said they had found what they believed were missile parts in the wreckage of the plane. At first the Ukrainian armed forces denied responsibility, saying the missiles did not have the range to reach the airliner, but have since backtracked.

Within a day, the prime minister, Anatoly Kinakh, admitted that the missile theory "had a right to exist", and on Tuesday President Leonid Kuchma said he would accept the crash investigator's conclusions. He also said that the Ukrainian defence minister had tendered his resignation, which had not been accepted.

He vowed that "someone would bear responsibility" if the missile theory proved correct.

# # #

The End

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