Chapter 6 - THE AIRBORNE INTERCEPTIONFour hundred miles south of Charlotte, over the sun-drenched turquoise waters of the Atlantic shelf off the Georgia coast, a pair of U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets dropped out of the scattered cumulus clouds like predatory birds.
Inside the cockpit of the lead jet, Commander Sarah "Viper" Jenkins—a former student of mine from my days as an instructor at the Command and General Staff College—flashed her navigational lights, sliding her fighter jet smoothly off the starboard wing of a luxury Gulfstream G650 private jet.
Through the reinforced cockpit glass of the private jet, Marcus Prescott could be seen pressing his pale, panicked face against the window, screaming silently at the sight of two multi-million-dollar grey death machines riding his flanks with weapons bays closed but radar lock glowing amber on his cockpit instrumentation panel.
"Gulfstream November-Seven-Zero-Zero-Delta-Charlie," Commander Jenkins’ voice crackled crisp and unyielding across the emergency civilian aeronautical frequency. "This is United States Naval Aviation Command. You are currently flying inside an active restricted federal security corridor under emergency national defense protocols. Alter your heading immediately to zero-four-zero and intercept vector toward Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport, or we will deploy non-lethal electronic EMP countermeasures to disable your flight computer."
Inside the cabin of the Gulfstream, Marcus grabbed the satellite phone, his hands shaking so violently he dropped it twice before pressing it to his ear.
"Get me my father!" Marcus screamed at his terrified copilot. "Tell him to call the White House chief of staff! Tell him we’re being hijacked by the military!"
"Mr. Prescott," the copilot stammered, staring at the flashing red diagnostic lights on the dashboard. "The flight computer... the entire avionics suite just went dark. We’re locked on autopilot. We’re... we’re turning south."
"You can't do this!" Marcus roared into the dead phone. "My family owns half of North Carolina!"
"Your family," a calm, synthesized voice replied over the cabin intercom—rerouted directly from a secure relay at Fort Liberty, "owns nothing anymore, Marcus."
I stood in the tactical operations center at Fort Liberty, watching the live telemetry feed from the Super Hornet’s targeting pod as the Gulfstream banked in a wide, sweeping arc, its nose forced relentlessly toward the military tarmac of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah.
Beside me, Master Sergeant Vance handed me a printed operational summary. "The Coast Guard is waiting on the runway, Colonel. Federal marshals have already seized Marcus’s offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas. The entire Prescott family empire—every shell company, every real estate holding, every political bribe fund—has been frozen under the Patriot Act and military asset forfeiture laws."
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I looked down at the screen. The private jet touched down with a sharp squeal of tires against the concrete, immediately surrounded by four armored humvees with flashing blue lights and heavily armed military police units blocking every exit route.
"Good," I said softly. "Now let’s bring the rest of them home."
