The captain of the 757 enroute from New York to Seattle looked at his copilot with a mixture of disbelief and shock, and asked, "What do you think?"
She replied, "Sounded real to me, but let’s play back the voice recording."
The end of the transmission was garbled though the overall message was clear enough. The captain made his decision and called Minneapolis Center on his assigned frequency, "Minneapolis Center, this is Northwest 1140. We have just received a Mayday signal. The caller was a Commander Williams. He reported a code red with a request to notify the Department of Homeland security of an imminent terrorist attack. Over."
Minneapolis Center responded, "Copy the code red report. Stand by this frequency."
The pilot continued to let the autopilot guide them westward. The copilot mused, "I wonder who this Commander Williams is and what is he doing in the wilderness on the Canadian border?"
The pilot replied, "It could all be a hoax."
Their conversation was interrupted when Minneapolis Center came back saying, "Northwest 1140, change to frequency 121.55."
"Northwest 1140 changing to 121.55"
"This is Northwest 1140. Over."
There was a slight pause before a new voice said, "This is Homeland Security. We need you to replay the voice recorder. Use your emergency radio to play back the recorded message and the microphone on this radio to transmit while being held inside the ear phone of the other headset."
"The message is garbled. Worse at the end, but we’ll try." The copilot took her headset off and accepted the pilot’s headset. She hit the replay feature of their second com radio which had been tuned to the emergency channel. The playback of Harry's message was picked up by the pilot’s microphone and rebroadcast. When she finished she handed the pilot back his headset and replaced her own.
The pilot again activated his mike asking, "Did you copy the transmission?"
"Standby."
A flurry of activity occurred as Harry's garbled message was relayed throughout the security infrastructure. Voice analysis was begun immediately to confirm Harry's identity. Activity had already been escalating because of Theodore's work and then the disappearance of Harry. The system was actually working, and within just a few minutes Harry’s message was authenticated. Wheels began to turn rapidly and multiple security agencies were immediately involved.
"Northwest 1140, do you have a time signature for the Mayday transmission?"
The captain looked at the copilot who shook her head in the negative. He replied, "This is Northwest 1140. That is a negative. Call was relayed almost immediately but no time signature available."
"Stand by this frequency."
"Northwest 1140 standing by on 121.55."
A decision was made to scramble the National Guard fighters based at Duluth, Minnesota, and a pattern of coverage was designed for the arc of travel of the Northwest flight. Fighters should reach the probable point of transmission within 45 minutes. Using the Northwest flight as a relay by having it circle back over their previous flight track was discussed but rejected because of their non-secure radio transmission. Flight 1140 was released and returned to standard communication.
The final decision for declaring the code red was up to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Minutes ticked away while the bureaucracy raced to complete an analysis of the situation for presentation to the Secretary.
Theodore and his associated intelligence people had been concentrating all their efforts on looking for Harry in the far northwest corner of Minnesota. That's where they had traced the helicopter they had been following from Lake Minnetonka. Theodore had argued that their radar coverage had been duped. An isolated and weak signal from Harry's rectal probe had been picked up by one of the military intelligence satellites and seemed to indicate that Harry was in fact in the northeast corner of the state. The radar coverage they had of the helicopter flight showed uninterrupted movement to the northwest. Theodore had argued with the data, saying a switch of helicopters must have occurred, but he had no proof. Now the pieces were beginning to fall together. Theodore's team pushed hard for the declaration of code red but there was resistance from other agencies who did not want to cause undue alarm because of the report from one renegade agent. Arguing for action, Theodore requested immediate notification of all casinos and lottery institutions of the potential attack. He also requested immediate arrest of all those who had received scholarships from Dr. Ahmad's organization.
The counter argument was a questioning of the legality of arresting those scholarship students who had no evidence of involvement. The case for unnecessary economic harm to the casinos was also argued, as was the agency’s potential legal liability for any losses. A compromise was finally reached: all casinos would be notified of the threat and surveillance would be intensified on all the scholarship students. Further action would have to await the declaration of the code red status.