Turbulence

by Nance, John J. ;

  “A MECHANIC?” Garth sputtered. “Jesus Christ, Phil! Don’t you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve just landed us in a rebel war zone in the middle of a friggin’ firefight! We’ll be lucky to escape with our lives!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  KATSINA AIRPORT,

  NIGERIA, AFRICA

  8:30 P.M. Local

  Jean Onitsa stood beneath the nose of the Meridian 747, marveling at the incredible size of the machine. He had flown on such aircraft, of course, numerous times. But passengers seldom confronted the gigantic size of the airplane from the surface of a ramp, and it was awe inspiring.

  He glanced over his shoulder, impatient for the man he’d sent to the bullet-riddled terminal to return with the type of headset he needed to talk to the crew sitting some forty-five feet above. The man was back, now, screeching the jeep to a halt and running to his commander with the headset apparatus in hand.

  Jean thanked him politely and reached up to find the small box on the side of the nose gear where he’d seen crewmen plug in headsets before. His experienced eyes meanwhile were simultaneously tracking his men as they maintained a bead on the enemy from a dozen positions around the aircraft. There had been no more firing, and he intended to keep it that way until deciding how best to use this new, unexpected prize.

  “Captain, this is the ground,” Jean said, spacing his words carefully, both the depth of his education and the girth of his huge chest resonating in his broadly pronounced consonants. There was a pronounced African sound overlying his English, of course, but his mastery of the language was as complete as his formal education in Britain.

  There was no response from above, and once more Jean reached up, this time pressing the call button several times until a startled male voice coursed through his headset.

  “This is the cockpit.”

  “Very good. Is this the captain?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “My name is General Jean Onitsa. I’m the commander of the forces that now control this airport, and you, ladies and gentlemen, are my hostages. So you’ll forgive me if I ask how many people are aboard.”

  There was more silence on the headset, and Jean suppressed a grin. There would be wide-eyed confusion in the cockpit as the pilots tried to figure out what was happening.

  “Ah,” the voice came back, “we … we came in here, General, because we had a fire in one of our engines and had to shut it down. We were hoping to find a mechanic.”

  The officer Jean had commissioned a major arrived at his side, his face full of questions and his eyes huge as he approached the incomprehensible scene of his commander talking on a headset to the occupants of the 747 while the government troops undoubtedly had their rifles zeroed in on him. Jean Onitsa always wore bulletproof body armor, but his head and legs and arms were still vulnerable.

  Jean smiled and motioned for the major to be quiet. “Captain, you say you had an emergency. Did you declare that emergency?”

  There was another hesitation before the voice from the cockpit said yes.

  “Very well, then, I cannot hold you, can I? Nigeria is a party to the international conventions regarding distressed airmen, and I shall respect that once I control this country.”

  “We’re … not hostages, then?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  The major gestured to the belly of the 747 looming above them. “You’re going to let them go?” he asked in their native tongue.

  “For the moment, they are to believe so,” Jean replied.

  The major smiled and nodded. He knew Jean Onitsa’s clever ways. A promise was a promise until military advantage dictated something different.

  Jean was pressing the transmit button again. “Captain, what can my men and I do for you?”

  A new male voice broke in. “For starters, General, you can ask your men to stop aiming those high-powered automatic weapons at us.”

  “Is this still the captain?”

  “No, sir, this is the first officer.”

  “Very well,” Jean said, giving the command into a portable radio. In the distance, a dozen AK-47s were immediately lowered to parade rest.

  “And we need maintenance personnel, whatever type they may have here,” Garth added.

  “Well, Mr. First Officer,” Jean continued, “there are no maintenance men left here. I am so sorry to tell you we have apparently killed them all. Pity. We did not know, of course, that you would be needing them, or we would have let them live long enough to work on your engine.”

  In the cockpit of Meridian Six, Garth Abbott glanced at Phil Knight, wondering if he understood the gravity of the words the rebel commander had just spoken. Phil appeared unreasonably calm, as if the cavalry had arrived to save them, not destroy them, but Garth knew it was the short satellite call to Meridian Operations that had instilled the ridiculous air of normality. After the duty controller got over his shock, he’d promised to get a maintenance team on the way.

  “They don’t have a clue where Katsina is, Phil,” Garth had warned, but to no avail.

  “Damn!” Phil said. “We can’t leave without fixing number-four engine.”

  “Phil,” Garth said, “this is a very dangerous man we’re talking to.”

  “What, now you know him personally?” the captain sneered.

  “No, but I know of him, and General Onitsa is very clever and very brutal.”

  “Didn’t you hear that pleasant voice, Abbott? The man’s clearly educated and friendly and civil. He said we can’t be taken hostages. So calm down.”

  “Phil, for Christ’s sake, we can’t trust Onitsa! He told you he’d killed the mechanics. We were hostages there for a moment, and the man could change his mind again. He’s got a bloody reputation.”

  Phil Knight snorted contemptuously, but he was listening and Garth continued, talking rapidly, aware that the two huge, frightened eyes just behind the captain’s seat belonged to Judy Jackson, who was shocked into silence.

  “Okay, Phil,” Garth said at last. “Look, let me go down there through the electronics bay and look at the engine.”

  “So now you’re a qualified mechanic?” Phil said.

  “No, but if I can get the cowling open, I can probably tell if the engine was on fire.”

  “I’m listening. Then what?”

  The mellifluous voice of the rebel commander returned to their headsets.

  “Captain? Mr. First Officer? I await your request, gentlemen. What would you like us to do?”

  Garth punched the interphone button. “General, may we please ask you to wait one more minute? We’re discussing our options.”

  “Very well. I am waiting, but there are opposing forces with guns out there whom I cannot possibly control, so please be quick.”

  Garth took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Going outside could get him killed, but there was obviously no way Knight was going to leave without an inspection of number four.

  “Phil, I’ll go down to the ramp through the electronics bay, stand on his jeep, look under the cowling, and if there’s been no fire and no obvious damage to the bleed valve and I can guarantee that, and if Onitsa will let us go, will you agree to getting us the hell out of here?”

  Phil had been surveying the surrounding terrain, wondering where those other gunmen might be. He nodded far more quickly than Garth had expected.

  Garth punched the interphone button instantly. “Okay, General, the first officer here. May I come out of the airplane and get your men to help me look at one of the engines? I will need to stand on one of your vehicles.”

  “This is not a problem, Mr. First Officer. Do you need a ladder?”

  A cockpit call chime was ringing, but Garth ignored it as he explained that there was a small entrance into the belly located behind the nosewheel and accessed through the main cabin floor. The rebel general readily agreed, a fact that did little to reassure him.

  Garth pulled a small aviation band radio out of his flight bag and tuned one of
the aircraft radios to the same frequency, piping it to an overhead speaker. “I’ll keep you posted with the handheld,” he told Phil. “We may want to start number-four engine while I can watch it from out there.”

  Garth left the cockpit and ignored the stares of the passengers in the upper-deck section as he hurried by. One man tried to hail him, and he raised a hand in response.

  “Not now!” Garth descended the main stairs into the coach section. There were murmurings of urgent conversation everywhere, and clumps of passengers were peering through the windows trying to discern what was happening.

  “Hey! One of the pilots,” someone said, and heads began to turn as a half dozen people began asking questions.

  “Not right now! I’ll explain in a minute,” Garth replied, walking as quickly as he could and dodging people in the aisle as he headed forward to the rear of the first-class section. He dropped to his knees at the appropriate spot and began examining the carpet as a crowd gathered around him. Somewhere beneath a hidden seam, there was a break in the carpet that hid the hatch to the electronics bay. He could see several of the flight attendants approaching as he found the spot and pulled the rug back, but the intrusion of a now-familiar male voice caught him off guard.

  “Where are we and what the hell is going on?”

  Garth glanced up to see Brian Logan standing over him.

  “There’s no time to explain, Doctor. I’m going down through a lower compartment to the ramp to see if the engine’s okay so we can leave.” Garth looked at the array of faces around the doctor. “We’re in a place called Katsina in northern Nigeria, and unfortunately we’ve landed in a battle zone.”

  There was a gasp from one of the women, and Garth raised his hand. “No … they’re not firing at us. We’re talking to the rebel commander who’s holding the airport, and he’s helping us.”

  “We heard shooting out there,” one man said.

  “Are you aware, young man,” a cultured British voice cut in, “that a soldier was killed just off to the right in full view of all of us as we stopped a while ago?”

  “Yes, sir … I saw it, too,” Garth said. “That’s why I’m trying to verify that number-four engine is okay so I can convince this … this captain I’m flying with to get the hell out of here.” Garth caught sight of two of the flight attendants as they stood in the galley, their faces registering fright as they reacted to his words.

  “What’s he trying to do this time, Garth?” Brian Logan asked. “Did he know this was a war zone?”

  Garth had turned back to the task of working the seldom-used lock on the electronics bay hatch. He looked up again. “I don’t think Captain Skygod up there can even spell Africa, let alone know anything about it. I told the bastard not to land here!”

  The words hung in the air amid the silence they’d suddenly created, the reaction triggering more adrenaline in Garth’s bloodstream.

  Brian Logan knelt beside the copilot, a hand on his shoulder. “You know he’s sending you out there to get rid of you, don’t you? He’ll probably start up and leave you out there.”

  “What? No! It was my idea. Why would he do that?” Garth said. “No, really. He’s … probably right. I shouldn’t have said all that. We did get another fire indication on the same engine, and I’m sure you felt it compressor-stalling.”

  Brian turned to the growing crowd around him and repeated the same incendiary explanation. “This pilot’s the only ally we’ve got on this tub,” Brian was saying, “and the captain’s trying to get him killed.”

  Garth stood up and faced them, both hands out in a calming gesture that included Brian.

  “Now … look, Brian … folks. This is really just a terrible maintenance day. Please don’t get all riled up here. I misspoke, okay? This captain and I don’t see eye to eye on everything, but he’s still in charge.”

  “Maybe you should be in charge,” one of the men said.

  “Didn’t you tell me that SOB up there isn’t listening to you?” Brian asked.

  “Well, yes, but …”

  “And hasn’t he landed us in some sort of war zone?”

  “Maybe so, but those are just …”

  “Can’t you see what’s happening here?” Brian asked. “You challenged his command, and he has to get rid of you.”

  It was a measure of his fatigue, Garth thought, that the doctor’s completely mad explanation almost made sense. He tried to jerk himself back to reality.

  “Doctor … guys … all of you … please calm down! The captain is not out of control; he’s just headstrong. Now, please … I’m going outside and I’ll be back shortly, and hopefully, if the engine checks out, we’ll soon be out of here. I am having some trouble with this guy, I’ll admit, but it’s just pilot disagreement stuff. We’re still a team, and I promise you, Captain Knight isn’t interested in flying this ship alone.”

  “Garth?” one of the flight attendants asked, her tone urgent and scared. “What’s happening?”

  Garth gave her the same explanation before turning to the agitated group of men. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. You folks just relax. Please!”

  Janie Bretsen materialized at Garth’s side and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You’re the first officer.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’ve got to get moving.”

  “Where’s Jackson. Judy Jackson?”

  Garth shot her an inquisitive look.

  “I’m Janie Bretsen, the extra flight attendant who came along to make you legal.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Hiding in the cockpit. She thinks these folks were chasing her.”

  “Damn right we were,” another man said, “if that’s the bitch you’re talking about … the one who nearly killed that baby in the back.”

  Janie raised the palm of her hand to the man to ask for quiet.

  “I don’t have time for this. I’ll be back,” Garth said.

  Nearly ten passengers had gravitated around Brian Logan, all watching the copilot now as he disappeared down the hatch in the floor into the electronics bay. Brian got to his knees to peer in, as did two of the men, the flight attendants merely watching cautiously from the forward galley.

  Garth lowered his body through the hatch and toggled the electronics bay light on. The pressure hatch was in the floor of the compartment, and Garth worked the handle to open it and drop the small ladder. He swung his body over the hole and climbed onto the ladder, descending into the damp heat of an African summer evening.

  The general Garth had been talking to was nowhere to be seen. Instead, three armed rebels approached him with their weapons pointed at his head, and instinctively Garth raised his hands. There were vehicles, trucks and jeeps, ringing the back end of their 747, effectively blocking any gunfire or visibility from the forested area where the government forces had been.

  Urgent, wild-eyed orders were given in the local language, and Garth shrugged to indicate he didn’t understand. One of the three motioned for him to move to the right side of the aircraft out in front of the wing, and he complied, frantically scanning the surrounding tarmac for some sign of the general.

  Another angry shout caused him to stop and look around. The three soldiers were all gesturing now for him to kneel, and Garth complied, his hands at his side, glancing up as he did and wondering what the passengers on the right forward side would think if they were watching. He could see faces in the windows with more appearing every second, and knew they must be as terrified as he.

  In the first-class cabin Robert MacNaughton had been watching for the copilot through the windows. He leaned forward with a start and an exclamation. Brian Logan and several others moved immediately to his side, crowding around the adjacent windows to see what he was looking at.

  “Good heavens, they’re going to execute the poor bloke,” MacNaughton said quietly. “Whenever they’re without a plan, you see, they kill.”

  Several other passengers along wit
h two of the flight attendants were plastered to the windows and watching every move outside as one of the soldiers down on the ramp broke from the group and walked over to the copilot, cocking his AK-47 and pointing the muzzle at the back of Garth Abbott’s head. He held his weapon as far away from his body as possible, in the stance of someone preparing to shoot another human at close range.

  In the cockpit, Judy Jackson gasped at the sight of the impending execution as she sat almost sideways in Garth’s seat, unaware of Phil’s sudden presence at her side, his eyes on the same grim spectacle, his voice almost too low to be heard.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  On the ramp, with the barrel of the gun pressing against the back of his head, Garth realized he’d been tricked and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on his wife’s image, convinced he would be dead or dying in a few seconds. He wondered if he would hear the crack of the bullet before it took his consciousness. He remembered Jim Brady, the former White House press secretary, describing the explosion of a bullet ripping through his brain. He could feel the cold steel of the barrel against his head, and as seconds ticked past, he found himself almost clinically dissecting how it would feel, and what it would destroy.

  The single explosion of an AK-47 round cracked through his consciousness and Garth wondered why he was still able to think, yet feeling no pain. A familiar voice reached him from somewhere behind him, beneath the 747, speaking a foreign tongue with a familiar lilt, and he realized with a start that the gunshot he’d heard had propelled a bullet somewhere off to the side.

  Or perhaps, he thought, this was some celestial joke. Maybe the shot had blown through his head, after all. Maybe he was already dead and didn’t know it.

  But how could he be hearing measured footsteps now if that were true, footsteps that drowned out the very audible sound of his pounding heart? The footsteps were too real to be a delusion—that, plus the fact that his knees still hurt from the tarmac. The same mellow voice shifted to English, still coming from a distance, as if under the wing.

  “Please, Mr. First Officer, be so kind as to stay very still. My men are not going to hurt you, but we must make the satellites believe so.”