“Okay.”
“In addition, NATO has formally requested our military intervention in preventing this craft from entering European airspace, and the French have expressed their extreme concern. In other words, we have the right, and considering the American flag nature of this airline, probably the responsibility, to handle this ourselves.”
“I agree that it’s our ball game as long as it’s over the Mediterranean.”
“So, Mr. President, we’re out of time,” Sanderson said. “We have very good reason to fear this aircraft getting too close to the coast, and no solid evidence that it’s not a terrorist strike, and we can’t get a response from whoever’s flying it. In fact, as I told you, the one person seen in the cockpit has ducked out of sight.”
“What if we’re wrong, Bill? What if they’re what they say they are?”
“Sir, what if we’re right and don’t act? What if that was New York up there and not Marseille? This is your decision, but we’re balancing the possibility of a nuclear strike or a biological strike against France or the U.K. against the slim possibility that we have innocent Americans held hostage aboard that craft.”
“Hook me up to the lead fighter, Bill.”
“Mr. President, as we’ve been talking here, the aircraft has flown out of the so-called kill box. We’re literally out of time.”
“Hook me up, Bill. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” the Chief of Staff said, trying to restrain his own feelings as he turned to one of the technicians in the room and motioned for the connection to be established immediately.
“He’s listening, Mr. President. You’ll be talking to Lieutenant Commander Chris Burton. Call sign Critter. And you’re talking in the clear on a nonscrambled channel.”
“Commander? This is the President. How do you copy?”
“Loud and clear, Mr. President,” Chris Burton’s voice came back almost instantly.
“I’ve had a briefing on all you’ve done to check this out, but now I need your personal opinion. Have we done everything possible to make sure that aircraft is not a friendly?”
Static filled the channel momentarily.
“Ah, sir … if I can have another five minutes, I can answer that with more certainty.”
There was no hesitation from Air Force One. “You’ve got three minutes, Commander. No more than that. I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
IN FLIGHT,
ABOARD MERIDIAN FLIGHT SIX
12:31 A.M. Local
Phil Knight saw a red beacon in his peripheral vision as an unknown aircraft moved alongside his cockpit on the left. In the intermittent flashes of the 747’s strobe lights he could make out the shape of a twin-tailed fighter of some sort, with what looked like American markings. A small beam of light flashed across his face from the fighter’s cockpit, startling Phil, who raised his hand to ward of the beam. Whoever was in the fighter’s cockpit swung the light away from the 747 cockpit and shone it on himself.
A flashlight, Phil concluded. But what’s he trying to say?
Alarm accelerated his heartbeat. The possibility that he’d handled it wrong again and ended up with fighters sent to intercept him sent another jolt of adrenaline through his system. But he was squawking the hijack code, wasn’t he? And he’d told the company what he was doing. Maybe the fighter was just trying to escort him to safety.
That must be it. This is an escort.
Another large chill shuddered through him as he remembered the ACARS system. He hadn’t answered the company’s last query hours ago about clearances, and what was it Abbott had said about things not being the same out here?
He reached around to feel for an additional message, but there was nothing sticking out of the printer, and he had other, more immediate things to consider than the possibility the small machine was simply out of paper.
Phil stared hard at the cockpit of the fighter, realizing the pilot was motioning with his hand as if saying “Follow me,” and blinking his position lights.
What in the world does he want me to do?
Meridian had never provided training on what to do if you were intercepted on commercial air routes. At least, if they had, he’d missed it. He’d heard military pilot veterans talk over the years about certain hand signals used by fighter pilots during the cold war, specific gestures to tell an intercepted pilot what to do. But wasn’t that when someone had violated a communist nation’s airspace and they wanted him to land? Phil searched his memory, but there was nothing there about hand signals. Maybe in some of the manuals, but there was no time to search.
The fighter pilot was rocking his wings, flashing his lights, and pointing down repeatedly, but none of it made sense to the captain of Flight Six.
I guess he wants me to follow him. He probably wants me to land somewhere closer than London.
Once more the fighter pilot’s flashlight was trained on the 747 cockpit, and Phil gave him a thumbs-up response.
That was it, Phil thought. He’s returning the gesture.
His eyes shifted to the flight computer. The coast of France was a hundred or so miles ahead, and the flight path was aligned with Marseille.
Is that where he wants me to go? Phil wondered. How could he ask him without a radio? Phil reached to the overhead panel and switched on the cockpit dome light, flooding the cockpit area. He waved again at the fighter and pointed ahead, making a downward gesture, unsure if it was acknowledged. He started digging in his brain bag for the legal pad he always carried and the black marker zipped in a side pocket. He hurriedly wrote “Land Marseille?” on the pad and turned the face of it to the window, holding it back far enough for the cockpit lights to flood the message.
But the fighter was moving forward now, too far ahead to read the sign.
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE
“He’s finally acknowledged my gestures, and I think he understands to follow me,” Lieutenant Commander Burton reported to the President.
The flare of a new video window inserted on the liquid crystal teleconferencing wall snagged the President’s attention. Once more he was looking at a live nighttime infrared satellite shot of the Meridian 747 and the Tomcats. The lead F-14 was practically touching the nose of the 747 while the other three maintained formation behind and to the side. He watched the lead Tomcat pull out ahead and begin a gentle bank to the left and heard him instruct his wingmen to follow in loose trail. The F-14 continued the left turn, but the 747 bored straight ahead, as confirmed by one of the wingmen who punched the transmit button at the same moment.
“Lead, two. Target is not following. Repeat, not following. Course remains three-four-zero.”
IN FLIGHT,
ABOARD MERIDIAN FLIGHT SIX
“Okay, we’re starting down,” Phil said, mostly to himself, as he took the auto-flight system off altitude hold and dialed in a descent rate and an altitude of five thousand feet. He pulled a laminated checklist into his lap and went over the items before looking back up. Normally the copilot would read the checklist and he’d respond, and the empty right seat suddenly loomed large in his thinking, triggering guilt along with the chilling image of Garth Abbott lying on the Katsina runway in a pool of blood.
Phil shook the nightmarish image out of his mind and strained to see the fighter. But the other aircraft was gone, which must mean that he’d interpreted things correctly.
Marseille … I need approach plates for Marseille. He pulled out the leather-bound Jeppesen charts for Europe and flipped through the listings for France until he found the right ones and removed them from the binder, glancing up as he did so to check the altitude.
Descending through flight level three-six-zero. No way to call anyone on the radio. I’ll just have to fly to the runway and land.
Phil turned the approach plate over and studied the airport diagram, memorizing the heading of the longest runway. Hopefully it would be lighted.
Of course it’ll be lighted, he corrected himself. They’ll know I’m coming.<
br />
NRO
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA
George Zoffel turned around in his seat to look for John Blaylock, who still had a receiver pressed to his ear.
“John?”
“Yeah?” the older colonel said, looking up.
“He’s disregarded the fighter’s instructions and started descending, and it looks like he’s headed for Marseille.”
“What are they going to do?” David asked.
John glanced at David briefly as he held his hand over the receiver of the phone, a “Let me handle this” expression on his face. John looked back at Zoffel. “Status?”
“Langley is concluding this a planned feint. They’re pressing the President for immediate shootdown approval.”
“No,” David barked.
“Colonel Byrd, please!” John snapped.
“Screw the protocol, folks. And screw the pictures from Nigeria. That plane is not a flying terrorist attack. We can’t shoot them down.”
John Blaylock was on his feet, the palm of his right hand held out to David to quiet him down as he addressed Zoffel and Collings.
“I have solid reason to believe David’s right,” he said.
George Zoffel shook his head. “We’ve considered all that, John. Group X could have had a confederate aboard who already knew about Logan’s discontent and was ready to use Logan’s name. I’m sorry. We’re not interfering here.”
“Did you tell Langley?” John asked.
“Yes, but they don’t believe it’s significant, and neither do we.”
“Well, tell them again, dammit. They’re trying to get a shootdown authorization.”
“No, John,” Zoffel repeated quietly. “Now, stand down.”
“Goddammit, George, listen to us. This is a mistake. I didn’t think so before, but now I’m convinced David’s right, and I’m trying to get one more piece to the puzzle here, but I need a few more minutes.”
“We don’t have a few more minutes,” Sandra Collings said.
John Blaylock started to say something more, but Sandra had already come out of her seat and turned to face him. “SIT DOWN, Colonel! You’re out of line. You’re a guest only here. One more interference, and we’ll have to have you two removed.”
For a few tense seconds, David Byrd watched John Blaylock stand in silence, trying to decide what to do. Slowly he pulled the telephone receiver back to his ear as Collings disengaged and resumed her watch. In his headset, David could hear the relayed sounds of the pilots still trying to find a way to force the 747 pilot to comply. The lead F-14 had flown back in front of him and turned to the left again, but the 747 was still descending in a straight line for Marseille, undeterred, as the request for immediate shootdown authority was once again flashed to the President.
IN FLIGHT,
ABOARD MERIDIAN SIX
Jimmy Roberts had herded the young owner of the scanner radio to the forward section, where Janie was waiting. She quickly greeted the boy and thrust his radio at him with an urgent plea to get it working again. The boy fiddled with the knobs on top, and once more the numbers on the display began frequency-hopping, confirming the unit was working.
But there was no one talking.
“You’re sure it’s covering the same frequencies as before?” Janie asked.
The boy nodded.
Something caught her eye through the small circular window mounted in the 747’s door 2-Left on the right side, and she excused herself for a second and walked twenty feet to the other side to peer through.
“What are you seeing?” Brian Logan asked from just behind her as he came out of first class.
“Another aircraft,” Janie said, turning briefly to verify it was he. “Two, in fact, I think, flying alongside out there.”
Brian looked and just as quickly pulled away. “Fighters. I can’t tell whose, but I’m not surprised.”
The 747 jumped ever so slightly, and Janie felt the throttles coming back and the beginning of descent as she looked wide-eyed at Brian, who checked his watch.
“Could we be starting down for London so soon?” Janie asked, already suspecting the answer.
“No way. We just passed by Libya and we’re over the Mediterranean, but I don’t know how far out,” Brian replied. “I saw the map a few minutes ago. Something’s going on with us and those fighters.”
Janie returned to the other side of the galley where Jimmy Roberts and the teenager were working with the scanner, trying in vain to find the frequencies that they’d heard before.
“Any luck?”
Jimmy shook his head. “No, ma’am. We’re hearing nothing.”
“Please keep trying,” Janie said, turning then to Brian. “What are you thinking?”
“That we’re being forced down somewhere.”
“Forced down?”
“Forced to land, and if so, there will be an armed group waiting for us on the ramp. Who knows what the captain’s told them.”
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE
The President shook his head and sighed, the gesture watched closely in both the Situation Room and the Pentagon as he made his decision. There was simply too much at stake to take a chance, he thought. A true terrorist operation would have worked hard to make the decision just this difficult, fuzzing up the line between a clear threat and a possible horrific mistake.
If it was anthrax, or a nuclear weapon, millions could die if he took a chance. If he was wrong, some three hundred people would pay the price. The numbers alone made it inescapable. The risk was too great.
“Very well,” the President said in a defeated tone. “Destroy the aircraft.”
“Yes, sir,” Bill Sanderson said, nodding to someone else in the Situation Room who relayed the command, unaware that the Pentagon had already heard it.
The order was flashed from the Combat Decision Center of the USS Enterprise to Lieutenant Commander Chris Burton within seconds.
“Green light, Critter. Repeat, home base relays green light.”
“Roger,” Burton acknowledged, his voice betraying defeat. “Moving in position now.”
The background sounds of an air-to-air missile warhead growling its silicone acknowledgment that a target was in its sights and being tracked was audible on the channel, a noise that rapidly escalated to a radar lock-on.
“In position for Fox one,” Burton transmitted.
The controller aboard the Enterprise came on the channel again, his voice urgent. “Critter, your target is eighty miles from the coast. Bring him down now. A flight of eight Mirage fighters, French, approaching as backup, range four-six miles.”
“We have them on the scope,” Burton acknowledged. “Two, three, four, lock up Fox one and two. Tiger flight, stay high.”
The wingmen acknowledged as they, too, locked their Sidewinders on the engines of the Boeing.
In the cockpit of the lead Tomcat, Chris Burton felt his finger brush the launch trigger and hesitate as he spoke to his backseater.
“Help me here, Blackie. Anything we haven’t tried?”
“Go for it, Critter. For God’s sake, that could be a flying nuke.”
Chris felt his mind issue the tiny electrochemical order to move his finger back against the trigger, but he consciously overrode it, his internal conflict rising exponentially as he looked for something, anything, to calm the fear that he was about to murder innocent civilians.
“What are you waiting for, Critter?” Blackie asked.
“One more thing!” Chris responded, hitting the transmitter to tell his wingmen to hold their position. “Blackie, hit that VHF radio again on one-twenty-one-point-five and tell him if he doesn’t follow me, we’ll shoot him down.”
“Roger,” Blackie replied.
“Home base,” Burton transmitted, “I’m trying one more maneuver to get him to follow.”
He safed his missiles and nudged the throttles up, accelerating once again to catch up to and slide just forward of the Boeing.
“Negative, Critter,” home b
ase replied. “Execute your orders now.”
“Not yet, sir. Something’s not right about this.”
“Critter, you are to fire immediately.”
“Stand by, home base.”
“Negative, dammit. Fire those missiles now!”
“Stand by, flight. Home base, I’m going to fire a burst of cannon to get his attention.”
“There’s no time, Critter. Carry out your orders.”
In the backseat of the lead Tomcat, Blackie was holding the transmit button down.
“Meridian Six, this is your last warning. Repeat, this is your last warning. We see no one aboard except in the cockpit, and if you do not turn your aircraft and follow on a reverse course for a landing in Algeria, we will shoot you down. Repeat, in the absence of any evidence of passengers or any evidence of compliance, we will shoot you down. This is your last chance.” He released the transmit button, hoping against hope to hear a reply, but there was nothing.
Turbulence Page 38
