Turbulence

by Nance, John J. ;

  David pushed back from the table, shaking his head in consternation. “Wait a damn minute here. My sex life and my private life are mine. You’d think I was interviewing for a job at CIA as a covert operative or something.”

  “Nope. More important than that.”

  David sat momentarily speechless for a few seconds trying to absorb the response. “What?”

  “You want to get your star? You want to make general?”

  “Of course, but what does that have to do with your invading my bedroom?”

  John Blaylock leaned forward and drilled his eyes into David’s. “George Overmeyer’s a young buck for a three-star, David, but he’s smart, and he thinks you’re top material. You didn’t know?”

  “No. I mean, I suspected he was satisfied with me, but he’s not long on compliments and positive reinforcement …”

  “No, man, he’s grooming you to make general and compete for chief of staff. They think you’re general-officer material. I’m supposed to be the mentor. You should think of me as your personal trainer. Kind of like Yoda of the Jedi, but with smaller ears.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not just a dumb old sybaritic, semiretired fool, David. I get some of the chosen guys like you ready for the big time. I show you the intelligence ropes, give you a good dose of reality in statecraft, and fade away like a strange nightmare to let you take all the glory and get promoted.”

  “You … make it sound like a program.”

  “It is, sort of. If you happen to get under the wing of a really good general, like Jim Overreactor.”

  “Is this current assignment not real, then?” David asked.

  “You mean the current alert? Oh, it’s very real. The intelligence community’s been razor alert, ever since the war started in New York and here in D.C., but now they’re on paranoid hair-trigger alert, and that’s one of the things we’ve got to discuss, because we’re in what I call the ‘Mistake Zone,’ when the gun’s so cocked, a single mistaken response can start an unnecessary war. History’s full of such moments, some of which exploded, some of which didn’t. Sarajevo. The Cuban missile crisis. Berlin. The ninety-nine Kazakhstan nuclear missile launch.”

  “The what?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Not many people know. Meanwhile, don’t be pissed off at my doing basic homework.”

  “Yeah, well … I guess my feelings are somewhat assaulted by all that personal revelation.”

  “I understand. And back a few years ago that would be my cue for snorting, pushing away from the table, and calling you a wimp for even realizing you had feelings. Times have changed, though. Now I’m supposed to ask questions like, ‘How do you feel about my knowing all that stuff?’”

  “Somewhere between violated and manipulated.”

  John Blaylock feigned a look of deep shock. “Wait a minute. You did voluntarily join the Air Force a few years back?”

  “I thought so. They seem to have made me a colonel.”

  “Then I rest my case. The term Air Force is conceptually synonymous with being violated and manipulated. You should know this. That’s what the folks at our personnel center at Randolph live to do.”

  David laughed, though he didn’t want to. “So, where do we go from here, John?”

  “Downtown D.C. to the Willard for dinner at seven. There’s too much cigarette smoke in here again.”

  David was shaking his head. “No, I mean professionally.”

  “So do I. I’ve taken the liberty of inviting someone to join us for dinner whom I think you need to meet.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s … on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.”

  “Okay. She?”

  “And a real knockout, when she takes off those glasses.”

  “One of your … girls, so to speak?”

  John Blaylock shook his head and grinned. “Nope. Mysteriously unimpressed by the Blaylock prowess, I’m sorry to say. She’s fair game and unsullied.”

  David came forward in his chair, his index finger leveled at John Blaylock. “Wait a minute! You’re not trying to play matchmaker, are you?”

  John got to his feet, still grinning. “Mentors move in strange ways,” he said.

  “That’s God, John. God moves in strange ways.”

  “Him, too? Interesting.”

  “You said we needed to talk shop,” David said, still sitting.

  “We do,” John replied. “There’s a lot more you don’t know yet regarding our worries about the vulnerability of the airline system. But that can wait.”

  David stood and followed the older man toward the front of the bar, standing beside him as he paid the check.

  “John, look … I’m impressed with what you’ve found out about my life, but some of it is pretty raw.”

  “I’m sure,” Blaylock said.

  “I mean, it’s no picnic to find out your wife is giving it to another guy. It’s taken me a few years to get on an even keel about that.”

  An exceptionally serious look crossed John Blaylock’s face as he reached out a large hand to David’s shoulder. “Dave, this may come as a shock, but the Air Force doesn’t use Navy terms like even keel.”

  David chuckled. “Sorry.”

  “You more or less threw yourself into your work after the divorce, right?”

  David nodded.

  “I could see the earmarks. You’ve caught everyone’s attention with superlative performance based on dedication that’s seldom possible with a family at home. But that’s not permanently sustainable, David. Life is more than the uniform.”

  “I know.” He pushed open the door to the street and turned back. “So what’s her name, John? This pretty woman you accidentally on purpose invited to dinner.”

  John moved through the open door and glanced back. “Her name is Annette. Like Annette Funicello.”

  “Who’s Annette Funicello?” David asked with feigned innocence, coming up beside him as they headed for the parking lot.

  John Blaylock turned with a scowl, not spotting the ruse. “What? Are you pulling my leg?”

  “Me?” David replied, maintaining a blank expression.

  “Yes, you. What kind of question is that? ‘Who’s Annette Funicello,’ indeed!”

  “I … guess I haven’t heard of her, John,” David fibbed. “Must be a generational thing. Is she an opera star or something?”

  John Blaylock stopped cold and turned to put a hand on David’s shoulder.

  “Opera star? Where were you in the mid-fifties?”

  “Ask my folks.” David grinned. “I wasn’t born until fifty-nine.”

  “Lord,” John Blaylock said, dropping his hand and shaking his head sadly. “Now I have to deal with children!” He rolled his eyes as he opened the door of his car and disappeared into the driver’s seat, wondering how the Air Force could possibly trust anyone too young to have even heard of the cutest original Mouseketeer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  IN FLIGHT,

  ABOARD MERIDIAN FLIGHT SIX

  7:44 P.M. Local

  Garth Abbott closed the door of the small rest room aft of the cockpit, slid the “occupied” lock into place, and let himself luxuriate in the relative silence of the enclosure for a few minutes. The ubiquitous background hiss of the stratospheric slipstream on the other side of the 747’s metallic skin was still audible, but much softer.

  They’d been airborne for more than six hours, and Garth had decided to take a break in the rest room because there seemed to be no peace or place to relax anywhere else. The tension generated by sitting next to Phil Knight was exhausting, and the main cabin had become a war zone for crew members. Judy Jackson had fallen asleep in the jump seat, and the majority of the other flight attendants were hiding in their crew rest loft above the rear galley and keeping out of sight, counting the hours until the ordeal would be over with their landing in Cape Town.

  Garth checked to make sure the top of the toilet lid was clean and sat down for a
few moments, closing his eyes to imagine what it would be like to have a private bedroom in a private jet. Much like this, Garth concluded, at least in terms of noise. The background hiss was soft enough to permit sleep without the earplugs he always had to use in the cramped crew rest closet. Whatever Boeing had done to sound-insulate the little two-bed facility behind the cockpit, it wasn’t enough.

  He thought of Carol again, wincing at the pain. The satellite call he’d made ten minutes before had confirmed his fears that she wanted out. A separation, maybe a divorce, she’d said in anger, snapping at him for ignoring her request to wait until he got home to discuss it. If he was going to burn up satellite time on the company phone to force the issue, she said, then she’d just tell him. No, she wasn’t seeing anyone or sleeping with anyone, and that, she said, was part of the problem. And yes, she wanted to know what life would be like without an always-absent airline pilot.

  Phil Knight had pretended to ignore the call as he sat in thinly disguised disgust and looked out the window, and Garth had tried to make it less public than it felt.

  “You asked, Garth. You insisted!” she’d snapped. “You couldn’t just leave it alone. So there it is.”

  He looked around at the walls of the tiny enclosure now and wondered if there was still a fighting chance to keep the marriage intact, or if he even wanted to. How did he feel, other than numb? It was frightening to realize that he couldn’t answer the question.

  Garth sighed and got to his feet. He went ahead and took care of the routine physiological need that was supposed to have been the reason he’d left the cockpit in the first place. He had just finished washing his hands and was reaching for a paper towel when a muffled roar erupted some place to the right of the aircraft. The roar was followed by a distinct yaw and a pronounced shudder.

  A second bang, and another shudder.

  Compressor stalls! Garth thought. His mind raced through the fact that the captain had a propensity to snap off engines at the slightest provocation. He needed to get back to the cockpit. Less than three seconds had elapsed, but his mind was running at warp speed. Knight had tried to kill the engine without coordination before. Surely he wouldn’t make the same mistake … they were over the middle of Africa with nightfall approaching.

  Garth yanked open the rest-room door and grabbed the interphone as he worked the cipher lock.

  “Phil! Let me in!”

  The door locks began opening and he turned the knob and pushed open the door, his eyes scanning everything at once.

  Phil Knight glanced around at the noise of the cockpit door opening, his face registering shock and concern. Garth could see that he’d disconnected the autopilot and was hand-flying the 747. All four groups of engine gauges were giving steady readings, except …

  Garth’s eyes tracked the throttle positions, realizing that number four was pulled back to idle. He’d felt the yaw to the right, and the readings on the forward panel for number-four engine were now dropping as number four—the outboard on the right wing that had already given them so much trouble—unwound.

  Garth’s eyes went to the T-handles that controlled emergency in-flight shutdown. An incongruous red light was burning, indicating a fire in number-four engine, even though the T-handle—the fire handle—had been pulled.

  “What’s going on?” Garth asked as he slid quickly back into the right seat and toggled it forward.

  “I told you we shouldn’t be flying with that engine,” Knight growled out of the side of his mouth. Garth glanced at him quickly, spotting clenched teeth and a set jaw as the captain worked the control yoke back and forth, nervousness and panic apparently inducing more flight control instability than he was solving.

  “You killed number four?” Garth said, his tone incredulous.

  Phil Knight looked over at the copilot with a chilling combination of fright and uncontrolled glee. “Didn’t you feel it trying to fall off the damn wing?”

  “What?”

  “Compressor-stalling.”

  “It started doing that just … all of a sudden?”

  “No. First I got a fire warning, and then it started compressor-stalling.”

  Garth’s eyes were ping-ponging back and forth among the various indicators and switches and panels. “So … then you pulled it back?”

  “No. The fire warning corked off and then I pulled the throttle back and it started booming around out there like it was going to explode. So I pulled the fire handle.”

  “Jeez, Phil.”

  “Don’t even think about telling me there’s nothing wrong.”

  “You pulled the throttle back suddenly at high altitude, right?”

  “Damn right! It shouldn’t compressor-stall.”

  “Agreed, but pulling it back like that can induce a compressor stall if the bleed valve’s sticky, and …”

  The sound of a cabin call chime coursed through the cockpit, and Garth swept up the handset.

  “Yes? Cockpit.”

  “This is the aft galley. We’ve … got passengers back here who want you to know that one of the engines looks like it’s on fire.”

  “What do you mean? They see flames?”

  “Yes. That’s what they saw. On the right wing.”

  With the captain’s interphone switch selected to the on position, Phil Knight was monitoring. He began nodding his head aggressively now as he reached out and punched a couple of deliberate keystrokes into the flight computer keyboard.

  The screen instantly changed to a display of the nearest airports.

  Garth Abbott was partially hunched over the control yoke, his mind racing as he tried to get a clear picture from the back. “I mean, are they seeing flames out there right now?” Garth looked up at the fire light for number four. Just as it had over the Mediterranean, it was glowing red. But now there was confirmation of a sort from the back.

  “They … say it was on fire,” the flight attendant reported, her voice tense. Garth could feel Phil banking the jumbo jet to the left and descending. He glanced at the captain’s flight computer, his stomach contracting to see the list of emergency diversion airports displayed.

  Oh God, he’s going to try it again.

  “Hold … hold on,” Garth said to the flight attendant before turning to Phil. “Don’t descend yet, Phil. We’re over the middle of the damned continent, for crying out loud.”

  There was no response from the left seat, and Garth could see the same determined look on Phil Knight’s face he’d seen before.

  He turned his attention back to the interphone. The picture from the rear cabin was anything but clear. “Look, I need you to go look at number-four engine yourself,” Garth said.

  “Number … what? Which one is that?” she asked.

  God, why don’t we teach these flight attendants some of the basics? he thought. “It’s the outboard engine on the right side. Not the right side as you stand and look back, but the right side of the airplane. Understand?”

  “Yes. What am I looking for?”

  “Look for fire, or flames, or anything wrong. Hurry.”

  There was silence as the woman let the handset clatter to the floor.

  Garth turned to the left seat. “Phil? I’ve got her checking for …”

  “I heard,” he snapped. “But I’ve already fired the bottle.”

  Garth felt a numbness move through his body as he glanced back at the forward glare-screen panel, spotting the yellow lights he’d missed before. Knight had jumped the gun and fired off both fire suppression bottles on the right wing to number four engine. The yellow lights confirmed they were empty. The moment they landed anywhere, they were now legally grounded.

  “It’s still burning,” Phil said suddenly, nodding toward the fire light.

  “I’m checking, Phil. It may not be.”

  “We’ve got to get this thing on the ground.”

  “No, look …”

  “We’re landing, dammit. There’s a commercial airport ahead about eighty miles, in Nigeria.�
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  “Phil, not again. Let’s please determine first whether there’s really a fire out there.”

  Phil’s head snapped to the right. “What about the compressor stalls? You trying to tell me that’s normal?”

  “No, but … but that doesn’t mean it’s burning. A sticky bleed valve and a sudden yanking of the throttle back at altitude can induce a compressor stall, and people in the back will see flames momentarily. If that’s all it is, we can fly to a better airport on three engines.”

  “It started with another fire warning.” Phil replied, “It tried to boom off the wing, and you’re still wanting to ignore the fact that it’s dangerous? We’re not having this debate again, Abbott.”

  “Yes, dammit, Phil, we are!” Garth reached for the satellite phone and pressed the auto-dialer for Denver Dispatch, unprepared to have the handset yanked out of his hands.

  “I told you to keep your hands off that phone,” Phil said.

  The flight attendant’s voice came back on the interphone line. “Okay, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Garth managed.

  “Okay, I don’t see any flames out there, but some of the passengers insist they do.”

  “What do your eyes tell you?”

  “I … I don’t know. It looks like it could be glowing.”

  Garth mumbled a thank-you and considered racing downstairs to see for himself, but it was the moment of decision. The captain was determined to set down at an unknown airport in the middle of Africa just before nightfall with God knew what hazards around the field. Even if he ran downstairs and came back ready to swear in a court of law that number four was not on fire, the chances of Phil Knight listening to him were zero. In fact, somewhere inside he knew that Knight would automatically oppose anything he suggested.

  He had to stay, but should he seize command of the airplane? After all, the captain had a point. The engine-fire warning was on again, and the compressor stalls were real, and this was something entirely new.

  What if he’s right? Garth thought, the jolt of uncertainly crackling through his mind like an electric shock. I know he’s a flaming asshole, but what if he’s right this time? I’ll end up canned and lose everything. Meridian always has to find a head to lop off, and it’ll be mine. No, Garth concluded. Better to stay up here and keep Knight from killing us with a botched emergency landing.