Saturday, 2:42pm
Saleh bin Tariq bin Khalid Al-Fulan, known to his neighbors as Sal, carefully scanned the air above the tidal marsh south of the Lieutenants Island causeway, looking for anything unusual. He had been watching patiently for nearly ten minutes, but had seen nothing. His sons were busy in the garage, packing their equipment into his oversized SUV, but they were expecting Saleh to summon them at any moment.
Saleh sat on the deck behind his home, sweeping the horizon with his binoculars, lemonade at the ready. His camcorder lay waiting on the table. The red-winged blackbirds would come, if he was patient. He would be ready to film them when they did.
If Saleh had been looking in the wrong direction, he wouldn’t have seen the incoming strike eagle until it was past him. Although the F-15E had slowed considerably since crossing the lost island of Billingsgate, it was still covering more than a mile every four seconds, traveling at nearly twice the speed of sound. Between the moment Saleh noticed a disturbance in the haze over the harbor until the time he was able to identify the distinctive twin-tail design, the plane was almost upon him.
“Holy shit!” he muttered.
The plane was coming at less than 1000 feet, and was rolled on its side as it passed. The plane arrived before the sound, a tremendous explosive boom, and Saleh barely had time to cover his ears. He watched as the plane banked to the left, turning sharply north toward Indians Neck and the town pier. Saleh watched as the plane completed its turn, and knew that he wasn’t the only one watching. The entire population of the town was probably watching the skies.
“What the fuck was that?” asked Hassim, Saleh’s younger son, in a very unusual use of obscenity.
Saleh turned to answer, and therefore didn’t see the second eagle, which passed over his head just a few seconds later and then banked to the right in a long, sweeping curve encompassing South Wellfleet and much of Eastham.
When the thunderous sounds of its engines had diminished enough to make conversation possible, Saleh answered his son.
“Those are F-15’s, probably F-15E’s, from what I can see. Strike aircraft. What they’re doing here, I have no idea. But it must be something important. Something is happening. They would never fly so low, so fast over the Cape without good reason. They’re looking for something.”
The boys watched, interested. The two eagles rendezvoused over Great Island and climbed to a slightly higher altitude and began flying, at much slower speed, in patterns over the area. After a few moments, the boys lost interest and returned the garage.
After another minute, Saleh was certain that their patterns were centered on his home. He was not surprised several minutes later when a Wellfleet police car came racing down the road and made a quick stop in front of his house. The causeway was flooded, and Saleh was used to having company when the causeway was impassible.
Officer Dick Doherty, who knew most of the year-round residents in the area, emerged from his car, cradling his shotgun, and shouted up Saleh. “Hey, Sal–have you seen anything unusual today?”
Saleh was tempted to answer that he’d never seen anything more unusual around Wellfleet than Dick carrying his shotgun, but knew that it was not a time for joking. The sight of a Wellfleet police officer with an unholstered weapon, much less a 12-gauge full-choke shotgun, was chilling.
“You mean the planes?” Saleh asked.
“No, before the planes. Something around ten or fifteen minutes ago, maybe twenty. A bunch of people setting something up, and then leaving quickly. Maybe with a truck.”
“Nobody has come across the causeway for more than an hour. Flooded, you know.”
Doherty shook his head. “Anything unusual at all?”
“Does this have something to do with the planes?” Saleh asked.
Doherty puffed out his cheeks. “Look, there’s something serious happening, and it might have something to do with something here.”
Saleh had rarely heard such a vague statement of the obvious, but he let the point go.
“Does it have something to do with the helicopter?”
“What helicopter?”
“Come up. I’ll tell you about it.”
Doherty quickly walked up the short path through Saleh’s yard, and then up the stairs to the deck. Saleh noticed that he was still carrying the shotgun.
“I hope you have the safety on,” Saleh remarked. “Firearms make me uncomfortable.”
“It’s safe,” answered Doherty. “Now, tell me about the helicopter. When did you see it?”
“About ten or fifteen minutes ago. I can check the exact time, if you like,” Saleh began, gesturing to the notebook of observations he kept at hand. “I was watching the marsh, looking for a new pair of red-winged blackbirds, when I heard a helicopter come in from the north, following the beach of Indians Neck, and then over Loagy Bay. I heard it coming before I could see it.”
Saleh paused, gathering his thoughts.
“It got my attention because it was going very quickly–unusually quickly, and low.”
“What kind of helicopter was it?”
“It looked like a Coast Guard helicopter, painted orange and white, but larger. Bigger than an H-60, I mean. It looked more like an H-53–you know, maybe a Pave Low bird.”
Doherty shook his head. Saleh could tell that these designations had no meaning for him.
“An H-60 is the largest helicopter that the Coast Guard uses, around here. The largest one I know about, anyway. It’s a large helicopter by most standards, but it’s not as large as a Pave Low–which you might have heard of by its nickname, the “super jolly green giant”, and I don’t think it’s large enough to do what this helicopter did. I don’t know whether it was a Pave Low, because it had a different configuration than any Pave Low I’ve seen. But those details may not be important. What is important is that this very large helicopter came barreling over the bay, no more than twenty feet above the marsh, then turned and hovered for a second at the base of the causeway, facing directly east.”
Saleh paused again, gathering his thoughts.
“You know, until you showed up, I thought maybe somebody was making a movie or something. I thought maybe the helicopter and the planes were part of an action sequence or something. Because what happened next seems like something out of a movie–and not a very realistic movie.”
“Keep going. This sounds interesting,” urged Doherty.
“The helicopter hovered there for a second or two–and I really mean just a second or two–and then this big car came shooting through the gap in the trees at the top of the dunes, really moving. Recklessly fast. Even though the helicopter was right in the middle of the road, the car kept coming. At the same time, the helicopter dipped down so that it was almost on the road, and then I couldn’t see the car because it was behind the helicopter. Then the helicopter suddenly wheeled away, heading southwest at full power, and the car was gone.”
“What happened to the car?”
“It must have driven up into the bay of the helicopter.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t know. Pave Low’s do have a tail ramp. Something could drive up into them, but I have no idea if a car would fit. In any case, it would be an incredibly dangerous and stupid thing to do, to drive a car up a loading ramp that fast, and even more dangerous for the pilot to fly away before it was completely secured.”
“But you’re sure that’s what happened?”
“Well, I don’t know. It was pretty hard to see from this distance. All I know is that the car was there, and then the helicopter obscured it, and then it was gone, and the helicopter hauled ass out of here.”
“You wouldn’t be kidding me, would you? This is serious.”
“I understand your skepticism.” Saleh smiled, and gestured toward his camcorder. “Fortunately for my credibility, I happen to have recorded it.”
“I’m going to need that tape.”
“I understand. I’d like it back when you’re finished. In the meanwhile, can you tell me what’s going on?”
Doherty looked away for a moment.
“Sal, I can’t tell you what I don’t know. We got a call to come look for anything out of the ordinary in this area. I figured I’d check with you, because you’re always out on your deck in the afternoon. If something unusual was happening, you’d probably see it. And maybe even film it.”
“Out of the ordinary?” Saleh looked doubtful.
“OK, there’s a little more to it than that. The air force thinks they detected missiles being launched from somewhere nearby. In fact, they put the launch site somewhere on the causeway. Did you see anything like that?”
“Nothing.” Saleh shook his head. “Yes, that is is serious. But what would they be shooting at, here?”
“They think maybe the President. He’s on Martha’s Vineyard this week.”
Saleh whistled. “Shooting missiles from here? That’s crazy. You would think they’d try from somewhere closer. Less warning and all that. And there’s no escape from the Cape. They’re trapped here, if they close the bridges and the airports. Trying to escape by boat would be ridiculous.”
“Well, that’s what makes terrorists terrifying. They don’t do what you think they’re going to do.” Doherty rubbed his brow for a moment.
“Well, I best get going. I’m going to check around, to see if anyone has seen anything. You tell me if you hear anything.”
Saleh unloaded his camcorder and gave Doherty the cartridge. “Things are going to be a little busy around here for a little while, aren’t they?”
“I wouldn’t want to be in any hurry trying to get off the Cape today, that’s for sure.”
“Good luck, Dick.”
“Oh, and I should tell you. You’ll probably have more visitors later. People who will ask more questions. It’s nothing personal. It’s just because you’re here, not because…”
Saleh knew what he meant. “Of course.”
When Doherty was gone, Saleh called to his sons. “We won’t be going to the beach today. We’ll be staying home. I’ll be in the family room, watching the TV. There may be important news today.”
His sons exchanged a puzzled look. Saleh rarely watched TV, and usually seemed to revel in his intentional ignorance of television news, preferring to read the paper every few days. Saleh’s opinion was that if the news was really important, it would still be important in a few days, and it was better to read a well-written summary written after the fact than watch interviews with people who were still trying to figure out what was happening.
