FROM FIVE MILES OUT, IT LOOKS AS IF SOMEBODY HAS TAKEN A giant chainsaw and lopped the top off the mountain. The plateau, 1,500 meters above sea level, is dotted with pines and boulders, and a long, arrow-straight runway that cuts through the middle of it. The treetops have been dusted by a recent snowfall.
The field was built during the war to test stuff they didn’t want anybody to see, and some of the infrastructure is still visible: two black hangars nestled amid a cluster of modern white buildings.
Two minutes after we land, we taxi up to one of the hangars and shut down. Our pilot steps into the cabin and opens the door.
Snake Ranch Mesa is a small general aviation field with a parachute club, and a couple of Gulfstreams registered to the billionaire businessmen who have wilderness lodges nearby.
The Citation Jet’s air stairs flop to the ground. Graham, in jeans and a fleece, is waiting for us; his aircraft is more modern and at least fifty knots faster than the Comet. It’s ten degrees colder here in Utah than it was in D.C. Hetta is in field-standard white and black. She shivers behind me.
‘Follow me,’ he says. ‘We got here thirty minutes ago. Weather’s turning. There’s snow showers inbound. Let’s push it.’
We jog across the apron and shimmy through a gap in the hangar doors, where I’m hit by a sound I haven’t heard in a long time: the clink and rustle of people getting ready with purpose.
Two dark gray Hueys sit under the strip lights, surrounded by the assault team Graham brought with him from Beltsville.
He walks us over to a big guy in black tactical gear with his back to us. He’s wearing a baseball cap, a T-shirt and a black nylon belt festooned with pouches. A helmet, a ballistic vest, a knife, a holster, a gas mask bag, half a dozen grenades and his weapons – an SR-16 and a SIG Sauer – lie on the ground behind him.
He turns. ‘Colonel Cain.’ His voice is a familiar baritone. ‘John Hayden. We—’
‘John Hayden.’ I shake his hand warmly. ‘Christ, you look a little different from the last time …’
‘You two know each other?’ Graham says.
Hayden smiles. ‘We do. Since a certain zit-faced captain gave me a triage lesson outside of Ramadi. I was on the receiving end of a shell splinter that damn near took my arm off.’ He holds it up to display a six-inch scar above the elbow.
He’s still gripping my hand. ‘Shit, it’s good to see you, sir.’
‘You too, John. You know Special Agent Hetta Hart?’
‘Don’t believe I do.’ He lets me go and turns to her. ‘Mighty glad to meet you.’ He smiles, Hetta brushes her hair out of her eyes, and I feel something I don’t expect somewhere in my gut.
Hayden gestures to the open door of the Huey behind him. On the floor is an Alice pack. ‘That’s our standard backpack, Colonel. You’ll need to check it through as I’m guessing there’s a shitload in there that’s different from the last one you played around with.’
Graham taps his watch. ‘Briefing in two, John. Let’s go.’
‘Ready our end,’ Hayden says. He picks up his ballistic vest and slips it over his head. I make my way over to the helicopter.
I count off the essentials: a surgical kit with every kind of blade, probe and needle; different types of scissors, battle dressings and tourniquets; an IV infuser kit, saline, blood bags …
‘OK, gentlemen, listen up. If I could have your attention, please.’ Hetta’s voice echoes beneath the hangar roof. She’s standing next to a whiteboard with a hastily sketched picture of the target. The arroyo, which angles north to south. The rectangular bunker a third of the way up it. A fence where the arroyo ends and the valley floor begins. A guard-post. An access road between. The checkpoint. The building itself. Pinned beneath the sketch is a blow-up of the image from the cabin, the gray roof of the facility stark against the salty white desert floor.
Hayden’s assault unit comprises two five-man-strong tactical teams. They’ve also brought in two pilots with Huey experience. PPD agents are tasked to take a bullet for the President. These guys are different. If the shit goes down, the CAT is there – a few vehicles behind the Beast – to take the fight to the enemy. They train for every contingency, but they won’t have trained for this: taking down a bunker guarded by ex-servicemen with much the same level of experience. This is the kind of op you’d normally give the SEALs, Delta or the Activity.
His men gather by the whiteboard.
Graham nods to Hetta.
‘Before I left the White House,’ she says, ‘President Thompson handed me an executive order. We will touch down weapons hot; you have permission to return fire if engaged. Data on what we can expect is patchy. The nearest public land is five miles from the perimeter, so we reckon there’s only a small security detail at the site itself. But the second we hit the ground, they’re going to call in reinforcements.’ She directs our attention to the paved road that runs from the bunker building to the main Bluffdale complex. ‘And they’re going to come right down this road. Your task is to hold the perimeter long enough to allow Colonel Cain and myself access to the building.’
Hayden stands behind his men, chewing on a match. He sticks his hand up. ‘What happens then, Agent Hart?’
‘I’ll be honest with you. We don’t know. We hope they’re going to see that the game’s up and do what we say.’
She looks surprised at the laughter from the floor.
She waits a moment. ‘If there are no further questions, we’re good to go. Weather is going to restrict our visibility on the way in and over the LZ, which isn’t good, but on the plus side, it’s going to fuck with them, too.’
Hayden’s agents push the Hueys out onto the apron. Hetta and I clamber on board the lead craft, which will set down on the LZ between the perimeter and the building; the other, with Graham on board, will deliver its men onto the roof of the facility.
I strap myself into a seat behind the pilot and grab a set of headphones. Hetta does the same.
Hayden pulls the door shut. Snowflakes swirl around us as the pilot fires up one turbine, then the next. I close my eyes as fifteen years slide by – the only difference was that we’d used Black Hawks then, not Hueys.
We make a course adjustment at a waypoint north of a clapped-out junction town, clipping the southwest corner of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.
The terrain switches from desert to forest and, as we flash over a large frozen lake, the CAT operator next to me waves at a guy fishing on the ice, then flips him the bird.
Hetta, eyes down, points to the map. We’re heading for a valley with 3,000-meter peaks either side of it – our frontier with civilization. Beyond it lie the suburbs of Salt Lake City, an eight-lane stretch of Interstate 15 and the perimeter of the closed-off military training area that houses the Bluffdale site, the arroyo and our LZ.
Fifteen minutes later, my guts lurch as we crest a ridge and start to descend rapidly. There’s a crackle in my headphones. ‘Unidentified aircraft entering Class A airspace south of Sandy, this is Salt Lake ARTCC, please identify yourselves. Over.’
‘Ah, Salt Lake ARTCC, this is Coyote Two-Three. We are a law enforcement flight out of Green River en route to Herriman requesting transit at flight level two-zero, estimated transit time—’
‘Coyote Two-Three, you are about to enter restricted airspace. Request you immediate right turn, heading three-two-zero.’
We are now thirty degrees nose-down, hugging the slope. I crane my neck and see a patchwork of buildings and streets over the pilot’s shoulder. To the left is Utah Lake. To the right, I can make out lines of ski-lifts on the slopes of the mountains to the east of Salt Lake City’s southern suburbs.
‘Coyote Two-Three, repeat: you are close to restricted airspace.’
We fly on.
‘Make an immediate right turn, heading three-two-zero, repeat, three-two-zero.’
We shoot over the interstate, bank hard left, and I get a snapshot of a semi-circular cluster of large white buildings. They’re so big, I could reach out and touch them.
The Utah Data Center.
We pull over a ridge and down the other side, using the terrain to mask our approach. High winds and snow buffet the Huey. Our pilot comes on the intercom: ‘Thirty seconds to the LZ.’
Hayden slides back the door. Cold air rips into the cabin.
We haul over another ridge, make a turn above the bunker and come in low, pulling up in the last seconds to bleed off our speed.
Our skids bump along the sand. Hayden jumps out. Everybody else follows.
At the head of the arroyo the second team has already deployed onto the roof of the bunker. Two agents abseil to the ground and blow the steel door.
By the time Hetta, Hayden and I reach them they’re already inside, probing with flashlights. The entrance is cold and dark.
Through the smoke, beyond a barrier fitted with biometric scanners, I spot a stairwell. The stairs go just one way: down.