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Before the helicopter in which Robert was flying had not yet reached New York, it turned around in the air and flew back to Washington. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

By the time he met Norris, the U.S. military-CIA search was in full swing. Because the U.S. military lost the transport plane, Norris handed over the command of the search operation to Turner, led by the CIA, and the U.S. military only provided support and cooperation.

Norris did not make exorbitant demands, but had to find a transport plane, as well as the crew on it.

As for life or death, Norris didn't mention it at all.

With American technology, even if only a few corpses are found, new clues can be obtained and the real culprit behind the scenes can be found.

This time, the CIA did exactly what the intelligence agencies were doing and did not take the military's advice. The specific person in charge is not Turner, but Lucas, who replaced Rickel.

When arranging the search operation, Lucas first spared the first three C-17s to break out of formation.

These three transport planes were the first to change course and the first to leave the surveillance range of the US reconnaissance plane, leaving the radar's detection range before the E-2D activated the radar. By the time Norris received the news that the CIA was involved, the three transport planes had enough time to fly more than two thousand kilometers. By the time Lucas arranged the search, the three transport planes had flown almost four thousand kilometers. That is, if the three transport aircraft did not change course, it is quite possible that they have already reached their destination.

The key is in the back six transport aircraft.

If the military had done it, it would have focused on the three transport planes that were turning back and flying west, but Lucas didn't do that.

In his opinion, the possibility of finding these three transport planes is also very slim.

The purpose of the three transport planes to return to the route was not to return to the United States, but to leave the control of the ground aviation command centers in the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands, enter the waters of the central Atlantic, and then look for an opportunity to change their routes and completely get rid of the tracking and surveillance of the US military.

Because they flew in the same direction, even if the three transport planes did not change course, it would take about two hours for the carrier-based reconnaissance planes taking off from the "Vincennes" to catch up. During this time, there is a high probability that the crew of the transport aircraft will parachute, or let the transport aircraft change course.

Comparatively speaking, it was easier to find and catch up with the three transporters heading south.

The reason is simple, as long as these three transport planes do not adjust their course in time, they will enter the control range of the ground aviation command center of the Canary Islands and be used to guide the ground radar detection of civil airliners. If you continue to fly south, you will also enter the control area of the ground aviation command center in the Cape Verde Islands.

Using the data provided by these civilian agencies, it is possible to determine the approximate flight path of the transport aircraft.

Unfortunately, when Lucas was deployed and Stenberg contacted the Spanish and Cape Verde diplomats to provide flight data on air targets, the three transport planes did not appear near the Canary Islands, but disappeared without a trace.

Instead of giving up, Lucas immediately expanded his search.

The focus is not on the African continent to the east, but on the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

If the three transport planes turn to the east and enter the skies over the African continent, they will certainly be detected by ground-based radars of the littoral states. Only by flying westward, deep into the Atlantic, can you avoid ground-based radars.

In line with this judgment, Lucas focused his search on the waters west of the Canary Islands to the Cape Verde Islands.

Combined with factors such as the flight speed of the C-17 and the time, Lucas formulated a very complete search plan, allowing the US military to dispatch reconnaissance planes to search each sea area one by one.

It's just that by this time, the hope of finding these three transport planes has also become very slim.

In his report to the president, Lucas made it clear that it is difficult for transport planes to reach certain countries hostile to the United States when they turn over the eastern Atlantic Ocean and in the western waters of Madeira and the Canary Islands, and that they can only make a forced landing over the Atlantic Ocean or crash except for a forced landing in the hinterland of the African continent. Because the transport plane was carrying the attacker, the possibility of a forced landing on the African continent is not very large, because only a forced landing on the ocean can eliminate the clues left by the attacker and make it impossible for US intelligence agencies to track down. There are two possible sites for forced landings, one is the Canary Basin and the other is the Cape Verdean Basin. The maximum water depth in both areas is more than 6,000 meters, and the average water depth is more than 5,000 meters, and with modern technology, it is difficult to recover the broken wreckage from such depths.

This judgment made Norris extremely disappointed.

Because it means that the United States will never know who orchestrated the attack that left Manhattan in ruins and inflicted the greatest loss on the United States since its founding.

It's just that Lucas didn't make Norris despair.

In the report, he also made it clear that if the transport plane was carrying the attacker, they would not sink with the transport plane into the sea, but would try to transfer to the ship, so that new clues could be found by closely monitoring passing ships in these areas.

Because there are several transcontinental routes in this area, there are many ships passing by.

It's just that this didn't bother the CIA, using military satellites and various intelligence and reconnaissance facilities, and the U.S. military and CIA were able to monitor all ships.

If necessary, the US military can even mobilize warships to intercept these ships at sea.

Norris had no other choice, and after Lucas made a report, he authorized Robert to use all American military forces to intercept all suspicious ships, and even to board and inspect them if necessary. As for the country of registration of these ships, Norris did not pay attention to it at all.

Something so serious has happened, and the whole world knows that the United States has been thoroughly enraged and needs to find a punching bag.

The problem is that intercepting passing ships does not ensure that the attackers who parachuted will be found.

The reason is very simple, this is obviously an attack planned by a certain country, and it is a country that has the ability to act against the United States, so when arranging a retreat, it will definitely be prepared in advance, and will not use civilian ships to pick up the attackers, but will send out warships. If you want to keep it secret and not be discovered by the United States, you have to use submarines, and they are large enough to accommodate hundreds of people.

There are not many countries in the world that have such submarines, only five in all, that is, five permanent members of the Security Council.

It is impossible for Britain and France, they are allies of the United States and will not do such stupid things.

The rest is only the mainland and Russia.

The mainland is more than 10,000 kilometers away in the western Pacific Ocean, and even if it has nuclear submarines, it has never sent submarines into the Atlantic, and it is not familiar with the sea conditions here. Besides, the mainland's nuclear submarines are not advanced and not large enough to accept hundreds of attackers at once. More importantly, the number of nuclear submarines on the mainland is very limited, most of them are under the surveillance of the US military, and if they left the western Pacific, they would have been discovered by the US military long ago.

Could it have been the Russians?

Until the truth comes to light, Norris won't veto any possibility.

It is obviously very difficult to find a Russian nuclear submarine in the ocean. Fortunately, Russia does not have an ideal outlet to the sea, and it only needs to closely monitor all of Russia's naval bases and deploy anti-submarine forces on several waterways through which submarines must pass to know whether Russia sent submarines to pick up the attackers.

Norris took Lucas's advice and ordered the Navy to immediately mobilize all anti-submarine forces and closely track and monitor all nuclear submarines on the mainland and Russia.

At this point, the search operation is fully arranged.

All that remains is to wait, and no one knows how much will be gained until the search operation is over.

After arranging this matter, Norris focused on the aftermath.

The priority is to properly settle the three million civilians evacuated from Manhattan, and the most difficult part of them is to identify them.

Some people may think that this is very simple, all Americans have a Social Security number after birth.

The problem is that the attackers were able to plan such a large-scale attack, and they were able to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence system and obtain a perfectly legitimate social security number.

By conventional means, it is certainly impossible to identify the attackers hiding among civilians.

Unconventional means can only be used: the use of intelligence agencies to detect and even do genetic testing of all evacuated civilians.

The problem is, the target group is three million people!

Following the recommendations of Sternberg and Cologne, Norris first asked the military to exclude women, children, and men over the age of 50. As a result, the screening target group has been narrowed down to 1.2 million, of which about 500,000 can be excluded from the screening group if they can provide sufficient and credible identity information and be confirmed by their immediate family members. The remaining 700,000 people had to be tested and then DNA tested for suspicious people.

As with search operations, screening is a hassle.

In order not to anger civilians, Norris had to ask the White House press secretary to release a message asking civilians to support and cooperate with the federal political axe's security efforts, citing national security reasons.

At the same time, the aftermath work is also being carried out to clean up the rubble and find survivors.

Of course, this also includes dealing with ships that have been diverted from New York Harbor and allowing some of those who have been ruled out of suspicion to leave the Chesapeake Bay and dock at nearby ports for loading and unloading.

Among them, there is the LNG freighter.

About 12 hours after the aftermath began, two LNG freighters laden with cargo, accompanied by U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats, entered the Port of Virginia Beach and docked at the LNG loading and unloading dock. Because it is one of the largest LNG loading and unloading ports on the East Coast of the United States, responsible for supplying natural gas to the District of Columbia, Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and many other cities in North Carolina, there are several LNG cargo ships in the port for a long time, and the LNG loading and unloading work has never stopped.

Accompanying this LNG freighter arrived, there were also gray-backed jackals and others.

(To be continued)