Chapter 8 - The Airstrip Interception
"Not on my watch," I muttered, crumpling the paper in my fist as I spun around toward the doorway.
I pulled out my phone, dialing a direct command frequency that I hadn't used since my stateside logistics rotation at Fort Meade.
"Captain Vance speaking," a familiar, sharp voice answered on the third ring.
"Commander Vance, this is Captain Samuel Reynolds," I said, my words coming out in a rapid, breathless cadence. "I need an immediate FAA tracking priority on a private twin-engine charter, tail number November-Seven-Zero-Delta, departing from the county municipal airfield within the last twenty minutes."
There was a brief pause on the line, the sound of keyboard clacking echoing through the receiver.
"Samuel? What's going on?" Captain Vance asked, his tone shifting instantly from casual to operational. "That tail number is registered to a private shell corporation tied to downtown real estate developers. They’re currently filing an international flight plan out of restricted airspace."
"They're fleeing with half a million dollars embezzled from an active-duty service member's family estate," I said, striding out of the ransacked office and heading back toward the elevators at a dead run. "If they cross the maritime border, civilian jurisdiction will take months to extradite. I need air traffic control to issue an immediate ground-and-air hold order under emergency national security transport protocols."
"Understood," Vance replied crisply. "Hold the line, Samuel. I'm patching you directly into the regional tower supervisor right now."
The line clicked, a series of static bursts echoing through my phone speaker before a tense, professional voice cut through.
"This is Federal Air Traffic Control Supervisor Miller. Captain Reynolds, we have your target on radar. Twin-engine charter, currently climbing through three thousand feet, heading south-southeast toward the coastline. They haven't cleared international airspace yet, but they're thirty seconds away from the boundary."
"Can you force them down?" I demanded, bursting through the lobby doors and into the parking lot where my car was waiting.
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"We can scramble two intercept units from the state police aviation wing currently on routine patrol five miles north," Supervisor Miller responded rapidly. "They can intercept and force the charter to touch down at the private military auxiliary strip twenty miles down the highway. But you need to be there when they land."
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