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:
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.
If it was decided that Delta Force, Gray Fox—or any other special operations organization, such as the Air Commandos, the Navy SEALs, the Marines’ Force Recon—were to be deployed in connection with the missing airplane, the orders would come from Central Command.
While his satburst message had reached Washington in literally a matter of seconds, it might not reach either Fort Bragg or MacDill for hours—or days—until the message had been evaluated at Langley, passed to the national security counselor, and evaluated again and a decision reached.
Major Miller’s conscience did not bother him a bit for sending a heads-up that violated a long list of security restrictions. He’d done a tour with Delta and knew the sooner they got a heads-up, the better.
He unplugged the laptop and locked it in his desk drawer. Then he changed into his work clothes and caught a taxicab out to the Quatro de Fevereiro Aeroporto to see what else he could find out about what had happened to his airplane.
II
[ONE]
The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 1133 23 May 2005
When, at 1530 Luanda time, Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., sent his first satellite burst message announcing the apparent theft from the Luanda airport of Lease-Aire’s 727, it took about three minutes in real time to reach the desk of his boss, the CIA’s regional director for Southwest Africa, in Langley. There is a four-hour difference in time between Angola and Virginia. When it is half past three in Luanda, it is half past eleven in Langley.
The message was actually received by the regional director ’s executive administrative assistant as the regional director had not yet returned from a working lunch at the Department of State in the District.
The operative word in the job title was “executive.” It meant that Mrs. Margaret Lee-Williamson was authorized to execute, in the regional director for Southwest Africa’s name, certain administrative actions, among them to receive material classified top secret addressed to the regional director and to take any appropriate action the material called for.
What this meant was that when the computer terminal on Mrs. Lee-Williamson’s desk pinged and the message SATBURST CONFIDENTIAL FROM LUANDA FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA ENTER ACCESS CODE appeared on the screen, Mrs. Lee-Williamson typed in a ten-digit access code, whereupon the simple message from Miller appeared on the screen:
CONFIDENTIAL
SATBURST 01 LUANDA 23 MAY 1530
FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA
A BOEING 727 TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT LA-9021 REGISTERED TO LEASE-AIRE, INC., PHILA., PENN., TOOK OFF WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM QUATRO DE FEVEREIRO AEROPORTO INTERNACIONAL AT 1425 LOCAL TIME 23 MAY 2005 AND DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR SHORTLY THEREAFTER. ANGOLAN AUTHORITIES KNOWN TO BELIEVE AIRCRAFT WAS STOLEN. MORE TO FOLLOW. STACHIEF LUANDA
Mrs. Lee-Williamson read it and pressed the PRINT key.
She read the printout carefully, then decided that while the message should be forwarded it wasn’t really all that important. Very few things classified confidential are ever important. Certainly not important enough for her to try to get the regional director on the phone during lunch.