The third pilot said, “I’m going to plug into the maintenance BUS and see if I can work out what’s going on with those engines.”
“Understood. Let me know what you find.” The captain then said to his copilot, “Get me the coordinates for Oslo Airport.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain was about to voice a mayday when he noticed their airspeed was decreasing and their altitude was plummeting.
He said, “We’re losing altitude.”
“How?” the copilot said, “Engines 3, and 4 are at maximum power.”
The Dreamlifter should have been able to maintain its altitude with just two engines running.
The captain’s eyes darted across a series of instruments, trying to determine the cause of the problem.
“Could we still be having the same problem with the primary flight display?”
The copilot checked off the numbers from the secondary flight displays. The readings seemed to be matching up.
The captain was about to instruct his off-duty officer to switch over to the secondary flight displays when the warning light for engine number 4 lit up.
“We’ve got another engine fire!”
The copilot pressed his eyes to the starboard window. “I can’t see anything!”
“Yeah, well I don’t want a fire on board. I’m shutting her down.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
The captain shrugged. “What choice have we got?”
“It might be another glitch.”
“And it might not be. If we’re wrong, we have nearly 50,000 gallons of aviation fuel ready to ignite.”
“All right, all right. Let’s shut down.”
The captain checked that he had the shutdown switch for engine number 4, confirmed it, and then shut it down.
He then depressed the microphone and calmly voiced his mayday, including their rough position, and that they were going to head toward the Oslo Airport in Norway for an emergency landing, but at this stage, he believed they had a fault with their instruments, not their engines or aircraft controls.
There was no response on the radio.
He tried again without any success and then gave up.
The captain set up for a gradual descent. “Have you found the coordinates for Oslo?”
“Yeah, but at our current descent rate, we’ll be lucky to make it halfway.”
“All right, we’re probably going to end up ditching in the ocean. I want you and Roger back there to get in your survival suits. It’s a long shot, but if we do have to put down into the water, I want to make sure we give ourselves the best possible chance of survival.”
“Okay, I’m on it.”
Four minutes later, both copilots returned.
The captain looked at Roger. “What did the maintenance system say was going on with our primary flight display?”
“It didn’t. According to its self-diagnostics, the system’s running smoothly.”
“What about the engines?”
“It’s recording high oil pressure in all four engines, and extreme heat in engines 1,2, and 4.”
The captain turned to face him. “There’s high oil pressure in all four engines?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what this means?”
“Yes, sir. We’re living on borrowed time before engine 3 gives out.”
“That’s right.”
The fourth engine alarm buzzed.
The captain’s head snapped to the right. His heart raced, and he felt fear rise in his throat. His eyes remained fixed on the warning light. The two copilots stared out the starboard window. It was a pointless exercise. The cloud cover was too dense to allow them to see anything.
“We have an engine fire warning for engine 3, sir.”
“Understood.”
And still, the captain remained silent.
“Sir?” the copilot asked.
“Shut it down.”
“Copy that, sir. Shutting down engine 3.”
The constant drone of the engines ceased, and the cockpit became silent.
The captain said, “All right. We’re committed to a water landing, gentlemen. You’d better strap yourselves in tight.”
“What about your survival suit, captain?” the copilot asked.
The captain smiled. It was sardonic but confident. “We’re out of time. That’s all right. If we survive the landing, I’m happy to take my chances.”
Even as Sam watched the events unfold, he shared the same sense of disbelief as the two pilots – how could a modern Boeing 747 lose all four engines?
The captain dipped the nose until their airspeed picked up. The last thing he wanted to do was stall now. He made firm and decided movements with the control, happy to see the aircraft was still responding to his inputs.
The altimeter started to race counter-clockwise.
“Can you control our descent?” the copilot asked.
“Not a chance in hell.” The captain eased the wheel forward, dipping the nose farther. “Besides, I don’t think the altimeter’s giving us the correct readings.”
“I’ll get out the manual instruments and see what we’ve got.”
“All right, but I think we’ll know for sure any second now, just as we drop below the cloud cover.”
“Is that wise?”
“Not really. But it’s not like we really have a choice, do we?”
The copilot shrugged. “We might slam into some sort of ground terrain.”
The pilot shook his head emphatically. “Unlikely. There’s nothing higher than a cruise ship for more than a hundred miles. We’re good.”
“What if the altimeter’s right?” the copilot asked. “All you’re going to do is send us straight into the sea.”
“It’s wrong. I can feel it.”
“Many pilots have made that mistake before.”
The captain nodded. “All right. There’s a mug in my backpack over there. Can you please pass it to me?”
The copilot unclipped his harness and reached around to retrieve the mug. “What do you want to do with it?”
“Fill it up with some coffee from the thermos.”
“Really?” the copilot cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “You feel like a coffee break right now?”
“Fill it up and sit it in the middle here.”
The copilot looked dumbfounded but did as the captain had asked.
The captain grinned. “The damned thing’s nearly level.”
The Dreamlifter’s nose punched through the cloud cover at a thousand feet, revealing an almost perfectly still sea below.
“Well, I’ll be… that’s really something isn’t it?” the captain said.
“I’ve never seen it so flat!”
In fact, neither had ever seen it so calm.
It was like a millpond. Like the calm before a storm – or within the eye of a storm…
They contemplated the necessity of a water landing. In a few minutes, they wouldn’t have a choice. The pilot set up for a landing and then spotted, there in the middle of the sea, a small island, with a single runway.
The captain set the flaps to their maximum setting and lowered their landing gear.
His eyes swept the primary flight display for their glide ratio. They couldn’t have set up for a better landing had they known about this mysterious island an hour in advance.
“Here we go, gentlemen! Good luck!”
The Dreamlifter raced across the top of the runway, and the captain pulled back on the wheel, until the massive cargo aircraft flared, and settled onto the runway.
The windshield was covered instantly with water.
It was a perfect water landing. The tiny island and runway disappeared like a mirage.
And the FDR video feed ceased.
Sam turned to Tom. “Well. What the hell do you make of that?”
Chapter Twenty
Spratly Islands, South Chinese Sea
Admiral Shang Jiang stepped out onto t
he bridge of the recently launched Feng Jian, a Chinese type 003 aircraft carrier of 85,000-tons. She was the crowning jewel in his exemplary career, and his ship had been dispatched to protect the territorial waters of the South Chinese Seas.
The South China Sea Islands consist of over 250 islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars. None of which has indigenous people, few of which have any natural water supply, many of which are naturally under water at high tide, while others are permanently submerged.
The Spratly Islands were originally a series of coral islets mostly inhabited by seabirds. There were a series of banks, more than a hundred submerged reefs and twenty-one underwater shoals.
The Feng Jian was specifically assigned to the Fiery Cross Reef, the largest of China’s military bases built upon the heavily disputed seven islands of the Spratly Islands, made permanent by land reclamation. The base on the Fiery Cross Reef was now complete and perfectly capable of looking after itself.
The artificial island was now defended by nearly five thousand permanent defense personnel. The fortifications included twelve hardened shelters with retractable roofs, missile silos, forty combat aircraft, and four long range, Xian H-6 bombers capable of performing bombing raids up to 3,500 miles away. The island itself was one of the most strategically advanced military bases in the world, with an array of manned and autonomous defense systems. An autonomous artificial intelligence system gathered information from the island’s radar and sonar towers, providing the most advanced early warning system and recommended evasive actions.
It was the purpose of this AI military system, more than the artificial island themselves, which had concerned the United Nations, of which China was a permanent founding member.
Admiral Shang Jiang’s hardened face was unreadable. The Fiery Cross Reef was surrounded by shallow waters, which appeared a striking turquoise in the sun. He looked at the disputed islands that he’d been sent to protect with no great pleasure. Despite their paradise-like appearance, he believed the islands had been cursed with disharmony for his people - a scar of pain for the human race.
It was only after the commencement of the reclamation of land project in 2013 that the world had really taken any notice. But their disputes weren’t new. Shang Jiang would have been just as happy to have detonated the entire set of islands, obliterating them, and sending them to the seabed a thousand feet below.
For his people, they represented a line in the sand - a decision to take charge and control of the safety of their sovereign waters and shipping lanes. In a perfect world, there would have been freedom of safe passage within international waters, but with everything at stake, it’s hard to maintain an altruistic view on the human race.
Shan Jiang sighed.
He believed in the good of mankind. But sometimes, that good only came after the iron might of one’s military.
Mentally, he prayed that China’s strong military influence within the region might be that altruistic force.
The history of people in the South China Sea went back centuries, and the conflict had been building since the 19th century. In the early days before World War II, France, Britain, and Japan had tried to claim sovereignty. In modern times, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and China all claimed all or part of the area. Commercial fishing, and considerable oil and gas reserves started the more recent rush, but in the big picture, the country that controlled the Spratly Islands controlled the South China Sea and the region’s ship-borne trade, worth $5 trillion annually. The dredging and land reclamation done by China dwarfed previous efforts to claim the region. In all, China had reclaimed and militarized 3,000 acres of land, all part of a show of strength that Shan Jiang was confident would bring peace to the region.
It was a report from the AI observation system within the Fiery Cross Reef which interrupted his reflections on the past.
Admiral Shang Jiang immediately read the report. Afterward, he handed it to his commander. There were deep creases of concern embedded in his otherwise relaxed demeanor.
The note reported what appeared to be an unidentified American nuclear attack submarine in the process of surfacing to the east of their position. It had originated well within the bounds of the known international shipping lanes but was now heading much too close to the recently completed military installation on the chain of Spratly Islands.
It was most likely a show of force and a toothless appearance of disgruntlement over the island’s military development. The admiral guessed that the submarine would surface, then skirt the outline of the shipping lanes, before disappearing into the deeper waters of the South Chinese Sea, avoiding any formal confrontation.
It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed such a brazen risk to peace in the region, and it undoubtedly wouldn’t be the last. He sighed as he took a pair of binoculars and watched the submarine surface roughly half a mile away to his east. But it was the first time an American nuclear attack submarine had come this close.
The submarine surfaced and ran in a north-east direction, on a direct course to a section known as the Dangerous Grounds. The area to the north of the Spratly Islands was known as the Dangerous Grounds because it was characterized by many low islands, sunken reefs, and degraded sunken atolls with coral often rising abruptly from ocean depths greater than 3,000 feet – all of which makes the area hazardous for navigation.
The admiral’s dark black, bushy eyebrows narrowed, as he wondered what the submarine commander’s intentions could possibly be. It was an obvious display of power. If it were there merely on a reconnaissance mission, it would have remained submerged and probably undetected, but its commander had chosen to surface.
It was a brazen threat, akin to a declaration of war.
Admiral Shang Jiang ordered the Feng Jian to pursue the renegade American nuclear attack submarine.
The sub headed north, toward a series of shallow channels, into an area known as the labyrinth, because it represented more than a hundred uncharted submerged reefs. What was a lesser known fact, was that when the People’s Republic of China commenced its land reclamation project in the region, it used underground dredging, and boring machines to deepen a series of shallow channels through the labyrinth, as well as produce shallow water traps, that would impede, if not make navigation impossible by their enemies.
And now, their enemy was sailing at full speed into a trap.
More surprising still, the purpose of attack submarines was to remain hidden. Stealth was paramount to its success, and for that, they needed the ability to dive. So then, why would its commander willingly take the submarine into a region known for its shallow reefs and almost impossible navigation, with no room to dive?
The thought rested heavily on Shang Jiang’s mind, as he ordered his crew to their attack stations and warned that the Americans were doing something they shouldn’t be, so to be on high alert.
He then took out his binoculars and examined the submarine again. There was no one on its deck. The conning tower was empty, which meant, presumably, its watertight hatches were closed, and despite the commander’s brazen display of confidence, the submarine was ready to dive at any moment.
It was a battle of wits and waiting.
Shang Jiang breathed. He hadn’t reached the age of 72 by being jittery. Nor had he done so by being complacent. He would pursue the offending submarine, careful not to start an international incident, while being prepared to fight if need be.
The submarine turned to the east…
Into the labyrinth. Into a trap.
Shang Jiang put his binoculars down.
Where do you possibly think you’re going?
The helmsman glanced at Shang Jiang. “Do you want me to wait out here, sir?”
Shang Jiang hesitated. Not because he was concerned his helmsman couldn’t pilot the bulky aircraft carrier inside, but because he knew once he’d entered the labyrinth, a confrontation with the American submarine was unavoidable. Both men knew the labyrinth well. In fact,
they had taken the Feng Jian into her narrow shipping lanes previously during her sea trials.
“Sir?” the helmsman asked.
Shang Jiang’s lips thinned to a hardened line. “Take us in.”
The Feng Jian reduced speed to just two knots and turned due east on a bearing of 90 degrees, entering the narrow lanes and abundant submerged coral reefs that formed the labyrinth. The ECDIS – electronic chart display and information system – depicted the bathymetric information and a graphical representation of the mapped seabed and various channels that formed the labyrinth. As far as Shang Jiang was aware, only China possessed such navigation information. Even with the map, it would be dangerous to maneuver the Feng Jian, and almost impossible for the American submarine to do so without running aground.
The ECDIS showed that there was only one entrance that any large vessel, be it an aircraft carrier or a submarine could enter the labyrinth. That meant both vessels would need to return the way they came, but to do so, they would need to navigate all the way to the end of the main channel, before making a series of sharp, hairpin turns, until finally turning back onto the original route.
Shang Jiang looked through his binoculars again. The submarine was moving much faster than they were. Faster than he would have been willing to attempt to maneuver his aircraft carrier through the narrow channel. Although the submarine was also smaller, it was still longer than a football field and navigation in these confined waters would be a challenge.
His first officer greeted him. “Sir, the observation tower at Fiery Cross Reef says it lost all signs of the American attack submarine on its radar and sonar.”
“Lost?” Shang Jiang asked, incredulously. “When?”
“Four minutes ago, just after it surfaced.”
“That’s impossible.” Shang Jiang raised his binoculars and examined the submarine. Less than half a mile away, and on the surface, he could make out the full shape of its dark conning tower and bow, where the white ripples of a bow wave broke into a nearby coral reef. “I can see the submarine with my own damned eyes.”
“Our own radar crew report still seeing something out there… but whatever it is, it’s much smaller than an attack submarine.”
Omega Deep (Sam Reilly Book 12) Page 12
