By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“I don’t know how they did it, sir, only that they did. They just taxied from where it had been parked to the north/south, and took off without clearance, and disappeared. ”

“You’re the expert, Colonel,” the ambassador said. “Would an aircraft like that have the range to fly to the United States?”

Why am I not surprised that the World Trade towers have popped into the ambassador’s head? Miller thought.

“No, sir, I don’t think that it would,” Colonel Porter replied, and then added: “Not without taking on fuel somewhere. And even if it did that, its tanks would be just about empty by the time it got to the U.S.” He turned to Miller: “You’re sure about this, Dick?”

“Yes, sir. I have a source at the airport. He told me that the plane ignored both ‘Abort takeoff’ and then ‘Return to airfield immediately’ orders after it was in the air.”

“Where was it headed?”

“East, sir, when it fell off the radar.”

“We don’t know if terrorists are involved in this, do we?” the ambassador asked.

“No, sir,” Colonel Porter said. “We don’t know that for sure, certainly. But we certainly can’t discount that possibility. ”

“It’s possible, sir, that it was just stolen,” Miller said.

“What would anyone do with a stolen airliner?” the ambassador asked.

“Perhaps cannibalize it for parts, sir,” Colonel Porter said.

“Take parts from it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They call that ‘cannibalizing’?”

Why do I think our African ambassador is uncomfortable with that word?

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, Miller, you were absolutely right in bringing this up to me,” the ambassador said. “We’d better start notifying people.”

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Porter and Major Miller said, almost in unison.

“Miller, you’re obviously going to notify . . . your people? ”

“I thought it would be best to check with you before I did so, Mr. Ambassador.”

But not knowing where the hell you might be, or when you could find time for me in your busy schedule, and suspecting you might say, “Before we do anything, I think we should carefully consider the situation,” I filed it to Langley as a FLASH satellite burst before I came here.

“I think we should immediately make this situation known to Washington,” the ambassador said.

My God! An immediate decision! Will wonders never cease?

“Yes, sir,” Porter and Miller said, in chorus.

“And it might be a good idea if you were both to get copies of your messages to me as soon as you can,” the ambassador said. “They’ll be useful to me when I prepare my report to the State Department.”

Translation: “I will say nothing in my report that you didn’t say in yours. That way, if there’s a fuckup, I can point my finger at you.” It’s not really an ambassador’s responsibility to develop information like this himself. He has to rely on those who have that kind of responsibility.

“Yes, sir,” they said, in chorus.

Ten minutes later another FLASH satellite burst from Miller went out from the antenna on the embassy roof.

It was identical to Miller’s first message, except for the last sentence, which said, “Transmitted at direction of ambassador. ”