by Dale Brown
OVER THE GULF OF FINLAND
A SHORT TIME LATER
Kalmar Airlines Flight 851 had just crossed the Karelian coast, heading west over the Gulf of Finland on its way to Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport. The wide-body 777 was now just 130 nautical miles from its destination.
“Kalmar Eight-Five-One, St. Petersburg Control,” came the radio transmission from the Russian air-traffic controller, “thirty miles from OKLOR intersection, descend and maintain flight level one-zero-zero, contact Helsinki Approach, one-two-nine-point-eight-five, have a nice evening.”
Captain Kaarle Markkula clicked his mike. “Thirty miles from OKLOR, descend and maintain flight level one-zero-zero and contact Helsinki Approach, Kalmar Eight-Five-One, good evening.” The first officer changed frequencies, and Markkula keyed his mic and spoke: “Helsinki Approach, Kalmar—”
Triggered by the frequency change, the malicious code planted in the 777’s computer systems went active. In the blink of an eye, it locked the flight controls and cut power to the radios. Every LCD display in the cockpit went black.
Markkula’s eyes widened. “What the devil . . . ?”
“Did we just lose power?” his first officer, Saarela, blurted out.
Markkula glanced up at his overhead instrument panel. “The left and right IDG generators show as on. The APU generator is not running. And the battery standby switch is set on auto.” He frowned. “We should have plenty of power. But something’s definitely haywire. I’ll switch to the backup generators.”
At that moment, the malicious code embedded in their computers took control over the 777’s pressurization system. It closed the engine bleed valves that supplied pressurized air to the flight deck and cabin while simultaneously opening all of its outflow valves. In seconds, air pressure inside the wide-body jet plunged, plummeting toward lethally low levels. At the same time, the aircraft’s interior temperature dropped fast, falling more than 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Gasping, straining to breathe, Markkula and his first officer grabbed their oxygen masks and fumbled to put them on. Back in the main cabin, startled passengers and flight attendants scrambled to don their own emergency masks. Unfortunately for them, the malicious code in command of the 777’s computers had already disabled the aircraft’s emergency oxygen systems. A few flight attendants thought to pull out and activate emergency walk-around oxygen bottles, but they took too long and were soon overcome by hypoxia. Within fifty seconds, all 174 people aboard the huge jetliner lost consciousness. The outflow valves closed again, sealing off the deck and cabin from the outside air.
Meanwhile, the Russian malware continued working, feeding a new preplotted course into the airliner’s automated pilot. Slowly, the huge Kalmar Airlines 777 banked, turning southwest toward Estonia.
Inside the Finavia Air Traffic Control Center at Helsinki, one of the controllers saw the blip representing Kalmar Flight 851 veering off its filed flight plan. He keyed his mic: “Kalmar Eight-Five-One, Helsinki Approach, I show you three miles south of course. Fly heading two-eight-five, vectors to OKLOR intersection. Over.”
There was only silence.
He repeated his order, more forcibly now. Again, there was no reply from the jetliner, which was now at least sixteen nautical miles off course. He heard nothing on the emergency radio frequency. Nor had its transponder codes been altered to indicate a possible hijacking, radio failure, or some other major problem.
The Finnish controller frowned. He punched the button to open the direct telephone line for his opposite number in Russia’s St. Petersburg Control Center. “This is Helsinki Approach. Do you have radio contact with Kalmar Eight-Five-One?”
“Negative, Helsinki. We handed that flight off to you three minutes ago.”
“I have no contact with Kalmar Eight-Five-One,” the Finn said tersely. He checked his radar screen again. On its present course, the 777 was now roughly fifty nautical miles from the Estonian coast. “I am declaring an emergency. Better advise air defense. We might have a disabled or hijacked crew situation.”
“Understood, Helsinki,” the Russian said. “I will pass the word to my higher authority.”
Two Su-27 fighters were on routine patrol over the Gulf of Finland, flying a lazy racetrack pattern at five thousand meters to conserve fuel and stay out of Finnish or Estonian airspace. Nominally, they were operating out this far in the highly unlikely event the Poles or their Baltic states allies launched a surprise, over-the-water air strike on St. Petersburg. In truth, this was just a show-the-flag exercise intended to flex Russian muscle over international waters near the Motherland’s borders.
The only thing about this assignment either of the two fighter pilots appreciated was that it gave them a chance to get in a few flying hours. Otherwise, it seemed a tedious waste of time, fuel, and engine life-span.
Aboard the lead Su-27, Major Alexei Rykov tweaked his stick slightly to the right, beginning yet another gentle, curving turn. One more hour, he thought gloomily. One more hour spent endlessly looping around and around above the frigid waters of the gulf. Not that they could even see much of anything up here. The moon wouldn’t rise for another two hours and a thick band of clouds stretched from horizon to horizon below them. Aside from a few tiny, blinking lights identifying commercial airliners crisscrossing the gulf and the Baltic region at high altitude, the two Russian fighters seemed to be all alone in a vast black sky.
“Zamok Lead, this is Petrozavodsk Control,” a voice crackled through his headphones.
“Control, this is Castle Lead. Go ahead,” Rykov said. Petrozavodsk was their home airfield.
“I have an emergency intercept mission for you, Castle,” the controller said.
Rykov came fully awake, listening carefully. “Ready to copy,” he responded.
“Fly heading three-zero-zero, climb to eight thousand meters,” the controller ordered. “Your target is a Boeing triple-seven, Kalmar Airlines, not talking with controllers, range five-zero kilometers. Intercept, attempt contact with the flight crew, and turn it toward home base.”
“Castle Lead copies. Castle?”
“Two,” his wingman replied immediately.
Rykov brought his Su-27 around in a tight, climbing turn—throttling up to increase speed as he soared toward eight thousand meters. The Kalmar wide-body appeared on his radar, about forty-five kilometers ahead. He locked on to it and peered ahead through his HUD. There, right where his steering cues pointed, he could see its red beacon flashing, tiny at this distance.
“Let’s close as quickly as possible, Anatoly,” he radioed his wingman. “That big mother out there is going to cross into Estonian airspace in a few minutes. And I don’t want to be tagging along behind when it does.”
“Two,” the other pilot replied. “You don’t think the Kurats will give us a warm welcome?” Kurats was the derogatory Russian slang for “Estonians.”
Rykov grinned under his oxygen mask. “The only warm welcome we’re likely to get from our Estonian friends would include a few heat-seeking missiles.” He leveled out and accelerated smoothly, turning onto a heading that would bring him up behind the 777 jetliner.
“Well, they’ve got dick-all to do it with,” his wingman scoffed. “What can they send up? A few Czech-made training jets?”
“Sure, but don’t forget the Poles and the Lithuanians are backing them up with shiny, upgraded F-16s,” Rykov pointed out. “So let’s stay polite, okay, Anatoly?”
“Da, Lead,” his wingman grumbled.
The two Su-27s streaked onward through the night sky. Rykov saw the flashing red beacon atop the Kalmar Airlines plane grow larger with astonishing rapidity. To avoid overshooting the big jet, he chopped back his throttles and started a flat scissors maneuver, banking back and forth across his line of flight, to shed excess airspeed.
Once that was done, he slid slowly up alongside the big airliner. His eyes narrowed, intently studying the 777 while flying just one hundred meters off its starboard wing. He m
oved ahead, now flying level with the airliner’s cockpit. For a moment, he thought about trying to get close enough to look in through its windows and then dismissed the idea as far too risky. Instead, he flashed his navigation lights several times, trying to attract the attention of the pilots.
There was no response. The Kalmar Airlines jet kept flying southwest, straight and level at more than nine hundred kilometers per hour.
Frowning, Rykov keyed his mike. “Petrozavodsk, this is Castle Lead. We have intercepted the target. The 777’s main passenger cabin interior lights are on. There are no signs of any obvious damage. Repeat. There are no signs of external damage. But I cannot see any movement aboard the aircraft and I have not been able to contact the flight crew.”
“Acknowledged, Castle,” the controller said. There was a brief pause. “Warning, Castle Lead. We show you only sixty seconds out from Estonian airspace at your present course and speed.” Rykov bit down on a startled curse. Fixated on maneuvering so close to the enormous wide-body airliner without colliding, he’d completely lost track of his current position. “Fly heading zero-six-zero, vectors for your refueling anchor.”
“Acknowledged,” Rykov said, rolling his Su-27 into a tight turn directly away from the lumbering 777. In less than a minute, the huge civilian aircraft was just a distant, flashing red speck—shrinking rapidly as the airliner flew steadily southwest toward Estonia.
“What was that all about?” his wingman radioed, sounding slightly shaken. “How the hell does anyone lose control over a mother-humping mammoth that big?”
Rykov shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea, Anatoly,” he said, frowning. “Fortunately, it’s no longer our problem.”
AFN NORTHERN AIR OPERATIONS CENTER, KABATY WOODS, WARSAW
A SHORT TIME LATER
The Kabaty Woods was a nature preserve on the southern outskirts of Warsaw, just a few kilometers southeast of the city’s Chopin International Airport. Stands of century-old oak, maple, hornbeam, and linden trees intermingled with younger fruit trees. Wild boar, deer, and foxes roamed the woods.
The Northern Air Operations Center lay near the western edge of the park, surrounded by a wall topped with razor wire. A plaque honoring the Polish code breakers who had first cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma ciphers had been erected at the outer entrance. There were a few separate buildings on the surface, but most of the center was buried deep underground. Multiple levels housed command, intelligence analysis, and communications facilities dedicated to controlling air-defense operations in Poland and the Baltic states. A subordinate unit, the 21st Command and Guidance Center, was responsible for the defense of Warsaw itself.
Far below the surface lay the center’s crowded combat operations room. Consoles fitted with radar displays, secure communications links, and computers were set on three stepped tiers facing a series of large screens. Officers and senior enlisted men from the Polish Air Force and its Baltic state allies manned these consoles around the clock.
Major General Czesław Madejski hurried into combat operations, still knotting his tie. His gray hair was tousled. As deputy commander of the center, he had been pulling long duty shifts while his superiors were tied up at the AFN summit. “What’s up, Reinis?”
Colonel Reinis Zarinš was a Latvian Air Force intelligence officer. He pointed to a map display showing the region from Finland to northern Poland. A long red line slanted southwest from a point just off Russia’s Karelian coast. It ended in a blinking dot marked KA851 about halfway across Estonia. More codes—FL250, 225, and 490kts—showed its tracked altitude, course, and speed. “Approximately twenty minutes ago, this Kalmar Airlines flight inexplicably departed its filed flight plan . . .”
Madejski listened closely to the Latvian’s summary of recent events. When the colonel finished, he scowled. “And no one’s been able to contact the flight crew or any of the passengers?”
“No, sir,” Zarinš said. “Radio calls go unanswered. The airline says it’s trying to call passengers using cell-phone numbers it has on record, but every call placed so far goes straight to voice mail.”
The general rubbed at his unshaven jaw, studying the map. “Are we looking at a possible oxygen-system or pressurization failure?”
The Latvian nodded. “That would match the available evidence, sir. Although any problem must be internal—since the Russian pilots reported no signs of external damage or fuselage breach.” He shrugged. “But even so, the pilots should have been able to use their own separate emergency oxygen bottles to stay conscious while diving toward a safe altitude.”
“Which would mean one hell of a lot of things went wrong all at once,” Madejski muttered.
“Yes, sir,” Zarinš agreed bleakly. “Assuming a total failure of all pressurization and emergency air-supply systems, everyone aboard that 777 would be unconscious by now.”
The general nodded. At twenty-five thousand feet, the time of useful consciousness without supplemental oxygen was somewhere around forty to sixty seconds. Death was not likely—climbers summited Mount Everest regularly above twenty-six thousand feet—but pilots certainly couldn’t control their planes. Which implied the Kalmar Airlines jetliner was effectively a “zombie” flight—one doomed to fly along its present course until it ran out of fuel and fell out of the sky. He said as much to Zarinš.
“That seems likely, General,” the Latvian concurred. He gestured at the display again. “That plane took off from Shanghai with a full load of fuel. Based on its track and speed, we estimate it will leave our airspace in minutes, cross the Baltic, traverse Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal . . . and then crash somewhere in the mid–South Atlantic in approximately eight hours.”
“Those poor people,” Madejski said heavily. He sighed. “We’d better pass the word to our opposite numbers in NATO. That 777 is going to hit German airspace in roughly fifty minutes.”
“Sir!” one of the duty officers said suddenly. “The aircraft is changing course! Look!” He pointed at the screen.
Madejski and Zarinš stood rooted in surprise as the Kalmar Airlines flight altered its heading from 225 degrees to 200 degrees, more south than southwest. The indicator showing its estimated altitude shifted from FL250 to FL245. On its new heading, the jetliner would fly across Latvia, Lithuania, and cross the Polish frontier in just twenty-six minutes.
“Somebody must still be alive aboard that aircraft,” the Polish Air Force general said grimly. “And in at least partial control.”
“So it seems,” Zarinš murmured. He turned to his superior. “We have two F-16s currently on combat air patrol over Warsaw, sir. Should I order them to make the intercept?”
Madejski frowned, running through his options. Then he shook his head. “No, Colonel. Not when there’s a chance this is some sort of feint to draw away our fighter cover from the capital.” He looked at the Latvian. “What do we have on alert status at Minsk Mazowiecki?”
“Two more F-16C Vipers,” Zarinš said crisply. “The pilots are Colonel Kasperek and Captain Jaglieski.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Madejski smiled. Trust Pawel Kasperek to set a good example for his pilots by taking one of the most widely despised alert slots in the whole rotation. He swung toward the junior officer manning the closest console. “Connect me with Colonel Kasperek, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir,” the younger man said. He punched in a number on his secure phone. “This is the AOC Combat Operations, Colonel,” he said tersely. “I have General Madejski on the line for you.”
The general took the phone. “Pawel, this is Czesław. Listen. I need you and your wingman in the air. We have a crazy situation developing—”
Up on the big map display, the blinking dot identified as Kalmar Airlines Flight 851 crossed into Latvia.
TWENTY-ONE
OVER POLAND
A SHORT TIME LATER
Colonel Pawel Kasperek banked into a hard left turn, rolling onto a course that would bring him up behind Kalmar Flight 851. He strained
against the g-forces he was pulling and shoved his throttles higher to avoid bleeding off too much airspeed in the turn.
The computer-generated navigation cue he was following slid fast toward the center of his HUD. He rolled back right, leveling out. There, about seven kilometers ahead, he could see the wide-body jet’s flashing red top beacon and the red and green navigation lights on its port and starboard wings. Numbers glowing on his HUD showed that the airliner was at 7,000 meters. But it was descending at a rate of around 400 meters per minute. The 777’s speed had also increased to more than five hundred knots.
“Air Operations Center, this is Tiger Lead,” Kasperek said into his mike. “I have a visual on Flight Eight-Five-One.”
“Center to Tiger Lead,” he heard Major General Madejski say. “You are cleared to approach with caution.”
“Acknowledged, Center,” Kasperek said. He radioed his wingman. “Hang back and cover me, Tomasz.”
Jaglieski sounded surprised. “Two.” Then: “You think that 777 is a bandit? An enemy?”
“I don’t know,” Kasperek admitted. His mouth tightened to a thin line. “All I know is that something must be very wrong aboard that aircraft. If the passengers and crew are all dead or incapacitated, it should not be maneuvering. And if someone is still alive on board, why haven’t they responded to anyone who’s tried to contact them?”
“Copy,” his wingman said. “Very well, Lead, Two’s in trail.”
Gently, Kasperek pushed his throttle forward, boosting power from the F-16’s GE-F110 turbofan engine. His airspeed climbed from five hundred to six hundred knots. He wanted to overtake the big passenger jet, not zip past it without being able to see anything.
When he got closer, he began shedding velocity, gradually matching speed with the enormous civilian airliner. Two hundred meters off the 777’s huge port wing and still moving a few knots faster, he began sliding in—drifting closer and closer to the other aircraft, but always ready to break away at the first sign of danger.
