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At five minutes before seven, the captain of the Nakamura aircraft requested a change in their flight plan to accommodate an 8 p.m. takeoff time. Tower personnel at John Wayne Airport forwarded the request to both the civilian Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale and the temporary Los Angeles Military Region Air Traffic Control located at the former Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, which was currently being operated as regional control center by the California Air National Guard for the duration of the military emergency. Both centers agreed to the one-hour delay. Along with that permission came the notice that military air traffic over the combat area currently centered on Lake Elsinore some fifty miles east of John Wayne Airport was so intense—and the evening military traffic out of LAX so busy—that all westbound commercial traffic from John Wayne was required to fly west out over the Pacific, northwest along the coast to a designated turning point near Morro Bay, and only then turn east by northeast, resuming their usual flight lanes to Denver at a point north and east of Las Vegas. All pilots were notified to refigure their fuel requirements accordingly.

The crew of the Nakamura aircraft was also notified that there would be no further delays granted this Friday night since, under local wartime regulations, John Wayne Airport would be shutting down for the night at 8:15 p.m. PDST.

At three minutes before 8 p.m., the Nakamura A310/360 started its engines and began taxiing to its takeoff position on Runway 19R. It had tested both engines and had requested final permission for takeoff when suddenly a California Highway Patrol cruiser pulled out onto the runway ahead of it, all of the police cruiser’s bubble lights flashing.

The A310/360 received permission to taxi onto the apron, although it was informed that it would have to be airborne in less than fifteen minutes or spend the night at John Wayne. It did not shut down its engines. Ground crews arrived in an old Ford electric pickup with Wollard Truck Model TLPH252 passenger stairs mounted on it and the aircraft opened its left front door. The CHP cruiser approached and stopped, its lights quit flashing, and Nick Bottom got out and came around to the driver’s side to talk to the newly appointed chief Ambrose at the wheel.

“Thanks, Chief,” said Nick, shaking the heavyset trooper’s hand.

“I’ll always be Dale to you, Nick,” said Ambrose. “I hope you find your boy.” The CHP vehicle drove off the tarmac as Nick climbed the steps to the aircraft. He favored his right side because of the injured ribs there.

Three hours earlier, advisor Daichi Omura had said to him, “If you go back to Denver, Bottom-san, you will die.”

“I have to go back, Omura-sama.”

“Hideki Sato will be waiting for you on the aircraft at John Wayne Airport, Bottom-san. You will never be out of his custody again for the short remnant of your life… if you try to go back.”

Nick had shaken his head and sipped the very fine single-malt Scotch Omura had provided. “I don’t think so, Omura-sama. Sato’s in Washington with Mr. Nakamura. They weren’t scheduled to get back to Denver until Saturday… tomorrow sometime. Plus, this flight’s coming from Tokyo via Hawaii. Mr. Nakamura himself told me that they didn’t have any flights going west from Denver to Los Angeles–area airports.”

“Sato will have to be there,” grunted the old man.

“Why is that, Omura-sama?”

“Because if you do not show up at John Wayne Airport tonight, Security Chief Sato’s job—Colonel Sato’s job—will be to enter the firestorm that is Los Angeles—my domain, Bottom-san—and find you, dead or alive. I understand Hiroshi Nakamura well enough to know this for a certainty. He will not let you escape if he can help it. Not now.”

Nick had shaken his head at that, but the words chilled him.

A crew member buttoned up the hatch behind him as Nick stepped into a luxuriously appointed cabin just aft of the flight deck. The swiveling leather seats at the windows, deep-cushioned couches, and 3DHD flatscreens on the bulkheads would have been at home in a billionaire’s executive jet, but this space was larger.

Sato was seated and buckled in at one of the starboard leather seats that had a low table in front of it. He did not rise as Nick entered but gestured to the chair opposite him.

Nick settled gingerly into the full-grain leather seat and buckled his seat belt. Cabin lights dimmed as the A310/360 returned to the head of the runway and tested its engines again at full throttle. The pilot said something over the intercom in Japanese and the big aircraft hurtled down the runway, lifted off into the night, and banked steeply to the left, coming around to a west-by-northwest course out over the ocean.

Nick looked at his watch. It was 8:14 p.m. PDST.

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