Air Force One Page #14

Over Vlad's shoulder...

MARSHALL, flattened behind the edge of the galley divider.

He creeps away from Vlad toward the Presidential Suite...

stepping gingerly over dead secret service agents.

INT. MISSION COMMUNICATIONS CENTER -

* Korshunov pulls a handkerchef from his breast pocket

and wipes the blood from a telephone headset.

KORSHUNOV:

Proceed.

Gibbs works the communications board, dialing in a series of

numbers. Telephone ringing...

INT. WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM - DAY

A map of Air Force One's flight trajectory is displayed on

the rear screen. Moscow to Berlin and back toward the Black

Sea.

The assembled brass listens as Korshunov's voice slithers

off the speaker phone.

KORSHUNOV (SPEAKER)

...the Chief of Staff, the First

Lady, and the First Daughter. Our

demands are simple. Arrange the

release of Ivan Stravanvitch. Once

our leader is returned to Turkuenistan

soil, Air Force One and it's occupants

will be allowed safe passage to

Switzerland. You have one hour before

we start killing hostages.

The phone clicks off. A silent beat in the room.

V.P. CHANDLER

Find that voice for me, I want to

know who we're dealing with. And get

President Petrov on the phone.

GENERAL CHARLES GREELY, head of the 87th Mechanized Air Wing,

the unit responsible for Air Force One, enters the room.

GENERAL GREELY:

Madame Vice-President, we just got

word from Ramstein... The nod was

UntiL Chandler stands.

V.P. CHANDLER

Empty?

GENERAL GREELY:

The President... he must still be

onboard.

V.P. CHANDLER

Play back that call.

TECHNICAL OFFICER

Yes, sir.

The Tech Officer indexes back on his computer.

KORSHUNOV (V.0. TAPE)

The plane is under our command, and

those we did not kill we hold as

hostages, including the Chief of

Staff, the First Lady, and the First

Daughter.

V.P. CHANDLER

but not the President. Not the

President.

A silent beat.

GENERAL NORTHWOOD

He's dead then. They must have killed

him.

DEAN:

We don't know that.

GENERAL NORTHWOOD

Holding the president hostage is not

something that slips your mind when

you're making demands.

V.P. CHANDLER

And if he's dead? Do you really think

they'd risk telling us?

DEAN:

There is a possibility we're

overlooking.

All eyes turn to Dean.

DEAN:

When I ran Specops in `Nam, I ordered

the destruction of a V.C. munitions

dump. During insertion, the plane

was shot down and the entire team

was killed, or so we thought. Two

days later the dump

BLEW AND A WEEK AFTER THAT, THIS 19-

year-old kid, the pilot... he walks out of the jungle in

pretty bad shape. He survived the crash and finished the

mission... alone.

GENERAL NORTHWOOD

Walter, if you have a point, make

it.

DEAN:

That kid's name was Jim Marshall.

Most of the President's service record makes for dull reading

because most of what he did iarLZ ULirn. History remembers

him for what he did aflar he got back to the states -- the

protests, the rallies -- But he was a soldier once, a damn

fine one.

V.P. CHANDLER

So what are you saying?

DEAN:

Maybe he's alive on that plane and

those bastards don't even know it.

V.P. CHANDLER

Mr. Dean, may I remind you that the

President is not 19 anymore.

INT. PRESIDENT'S STATEROOM - NIGHT

Marshall cautiously enters the room. Ready for action.

The room is empty, but it's been trashed by the firefight.

The sound of voices... coming from the Duke game which still

plays. Marshall hustles over to one of the secure phones.

It's dead. He tries the regular phone. Dead. Hangs it up in

disgust.

MARSHALL:

Goddamnit.

He steps on some glass. It's a broken frame holding a

PHOTOGRAPH of Alice and Rose. He picks up the photo and lays

it on a table.

He thinks for a beat... glances around the room, searching...

Then he crosses to the closet, opens it and begins rifling

through his wardrobe.

INT. MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM.

Caldwell stands on the conference table. The hostages have

removed one of the ceiling panels. Air supply ducts and

bundles of wiring run through the ten-inch space between the

ceiling and the shielding plates.

MAJOR CALDWELL:

This is a dead end.

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