by Robert Gandt
“Who are you?” she made herself say.
“It doesn’t matter. The game is over. General Cassidy is dead.”
“What do you want?”
“Turn yourself in, Sam. You have one chance. Do it now and nothing will happen to you.”
Sam Fornier felt the spirit drain from her. The guy who sounded like God was right. She had one chance. It was time to quit. This wasn’t her fight. She was a catering officer, not a commando. She’d gotten sucked into this by that colonel on Air Force One. What was his name? She had to think. Brand.
In a flash Brand’s words came back to her. The President needs you. So does your country.
Tears sprang to Sam Fornier’s eyes. Hang in there, son. Brand was a blockhead. How was she ever going to show him who—and what—she really was? Damn.
Sam cleared her throat. This wasn’t the time to sound like a wimpy kid. “Hey,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster. “You still there?”
“Still here.”
“I have a proposition.”
“Go ahead.”
“The gun you just shot General Cassidy with?”
“What about it?”
“I propose that you take that gun and shove it up your ass.”
She didn’t wait for the God-like voice to reply. She punched END and swung her attention to the laptop keyboard. As quickly as her trembling fingers could hit the keys, Sam logged back on to the server. She began pecking out the message to Air Force One.
She was still typing, shifting her gaze from the keyboard to the front of the shop, when she saw them. Two of them, thick-necked, short-haired, each wearing a blue nylon jacket. Though she hadn’t gotten a good look in the darkness, she would swear they were the same ones who had chased her in the woods. The goons.
She rotated sideways in the seat, shielding her face with her shoulder while she finished typing. Sam keyed the SEND icon, then gathered up the computer and backpack. As she slipped from behind the table and headed for the ladies’ room, she caught a blur of movement in her peripheral vision.
Blue nylon jackets. Coming after her.
Chapter 20
“The text machine, Lowanda. Another incoming.”
Chief Master Sergeant Lowanda Manning looked across the galley at Morrow, the flight attendant she had stationed at the text machine. She saw the paper emerging from the output slot in the machine. Amazing, she thought. The little stone age text machine was still working while all the gee-whiz technology on Air Force One—phones, TVs, SatComms, data links—were as dead as a bag of rocks.
Manning could feel the deck angle of the aircraft tilting downward. They were going to land soon, and that suited Lowanda Manning. This flight was supposed to be her last trip as Chief Flight Attendant aboard Air Force One. Thirty years active duty, stacks of commendation letters, four rows of service awards and decorations, and she’d never seen real combat. Never been shot at, which was fine with her. Now this. Not in Lowanda Manning’s worst dreams did she expect that some crazy assholes might try to blow her—and the President of the United States—out of the sky on their way home.
Manning yanked the print sheet from the machine. Whatever the message, it was too late. The crew would be too busy to deal with it until they got this ship on the ground. As she started toward the cockpit, she pulled the readers from her jacket pocket and gave the message a quick scan.
And stopped. She had reached the end of the passageway, about to turn toward the stairway to the command deck. She gave the message one more quick read.
Oh, sweet Jesus. Sergeant Manning whirled to head up the stairs, then she abruptly stopped. She had just been joined by a familiar figure in a blue jumpsuit.
<>
Twenty miles. They were descending over Delaware Bay. The shoreline was coming up beneath the nose. Three miles beyond the beach lay the approach end of runway three-two.
“Here comes another landing without clearance,” said Brand.
“Another violation,” said Morganti. “Keep this up and we could get in real trouble.”
Brand glanced to see if he was joking. He was. It was hard to believe. Morganti wasn’t exactly smiling, but his face had shed most of its hostility. Maybe Morganti was coming around.
Or it could be a ruse, thought Brand. Setting them up for a trap on the ground. Maybe, but he doubted it. Still, he wasn’t ready to trust Morganti. He would keep his guard up. Keep it up until they were on the ground and safe.
Brand was shifting his sight from the F-15C to the steadily approaching airport ahead. He had to hand it to the F-15C pilot. The fighter jock was maintaining a slow enough speed for the damaged 747. He was leading them down a good glide path for Dover’s runway three-two. Someday, Brand told himself, he’d buy the guy a drink. Unless he turned out to be the sonofabitch who fired a missile at them. In which case Brand would flatten his nose.
According to Morganti’s chart, the Dover runway was long enough, but the 150-foot width would be a problem. Keeping the wide-body jumbo jet in the center of the runway would be difficult without hydraulic power to the steering.
Brand ordered the landing gear down. Because of the hydraulic failure, the gear extension would take two minutes instead of the usual few seconds.
The wheels clunked into the down position. “Landing checklist complete,” reported Switzer. Then he added, “Let’s get this thing on the ground.”
Brand nodded. They were descending through a thousand feet. He glanced out the side window. The F-15C was still there. Brand guessed that he’d be there until Air Force One touched down. Just to make sure.
They were over land. A patchwork of green fields and clumps of woods swept beneath them. The end of runway three-two was swelling in the windscreen. Brand was making tiny adjustments with the yoke, keeping the jet on the approach path, working the three throttles to maintain 169 knots.
“Two hundred feet,” called Morganti, “more or less.” They still had only the barometric altimeters with no current altimeter setting.
They were committed. From this point, with the failed hydraulics and missing engine, Air Force One couldn’t abort the landing and power back into the sky. They would land at Dover.
Brand was tilting the nose of the Boeing upward when he heard the cockpit door open. “Message from Cassidy!” yelled Sergeant Manning.
“Not now,” Switzer said to her. “We’re landing.”
“No,” said Manning. “Don’t land!”
“Twenty feet . . .” called out Morganti, “. . .ten.”
Clunk. Brand felt the dull vibration of the main trucks rolling onto the concrete. He pulled the three throttles back and snatched the reverse levers into the detent. The big jet was decelerating on the runway.
“We can’t land!” yelled Manning from the back of the cockpit. “Cassidy says it’s a trap.”
“Too late,” said Morganti. “We’re down.”
Brand was already applying pressure on the toe brakes. His brain processed this new information. Cassidy says it’s a trap. The runway was racing beneath them. Two thousand feet of precious concrete had already been used.
He snapped the reverse levers back into the forward detent. “We’re out of here,” he said and pushed the throttles forward. “Max thrust,” he ordered.
“No!” said Morganti. He reached for the throttles. “We won’t make it.”
Brand slapped Morganti’s hand away from the throttles. “Set the flaps for take off,” he said. He shot a glance at Morganti. “Do it!”
Morganti blinked, staring at Brand as if seeing him for the first time. He hesitated, then reached for the flap handle. “Flaps coming up.” He clunked the handle into the take off detent, then actuated the electrical switch for the alternate flaps.
The sides of the runway were blurring past them. In his peripheral vision Brand saw the F-15 flash overhead. Now what? Would the fighter blow them out of the sky after they took off?
If they took off. They’d already used up more th
an half the available length. Brand could see the far end of the runway rushing toward them. Beyond the runway lay an open meadow, then a stand of trees.
“A hundred knots,” called out Morganti.
Brand nodded. Without hydraulic power, the flaps were retracting slowly. Too slowly. The extended flaps produced aerodynamic drag, slowing them down. With part of a wing missing, the Boeing needed speed. Lots of it.
“A hundred-twenty knots.”
Not enough. The Boeing was accelerating too slowly. Brand wondered what he would do if they ran off the end. He pushed the thought away. The jet would fly. It had to fly. Somehow.
“A hundred-forty.” Morganti’s voice had a flat, fatalistic ring to it. “We’re almost out runway.”
Brand didn’t need reminding. He could see the runway end lights swelling like a signboard in front of them. It was a nightmare scenario he had rehearsed in simulators, never for real. The decision to take off again after landing was irrevocable. No looking back, no changing your mind. You lived or died with the outcome.
The runway end lights were rushing up beneath the nose. Brand tried to remember the Dover airport layout. Did the runway have approach lights protruding from the ground? If so, the light stanchions would rip through the belly of the airplane like a can opener.
“A hundred-fifty,” croaked Morganti. “Rotate, for Christ’s sake.”
“I will.” Brand waited. The end of the runway was nearly beneath the nose. He pulled back on the yoke, lifting the nose of the jet from the runway. The edge of the runway disappeared beneath them. Brand could see the grass-covered meadow and the trees beyond.
They were still on the ground. In the next instant the big main gear trucks rolled off the concrete onto the dirt. The airframe rumbled and vibrated as all sixteen wheels plowed through the earth.
“That’s it,” murmured Switzer. “We’ve bought it.”
Instinctively Brand tried to push throttles further forward. They wouldn’t move because they were already against the stops. The nose was in a high, climbing attitude, but the airplane was still on the ground. Brand nursed the yoke further back, willing the damaged airplane to fly, imploring it, using every ounce of skill he had accumulated in a lifetime of flying. Come on, do it. Lift off. Fly.
The rumbling continued. Brand felt a new vibration. A shuddering feeling, and he knew what it was. With the nose pointed so far upward, the tail of the airplane was scraping the earth.
The trees at the end of the meadow swelled in size. The tortured airframe of the Boeing rattled and groaned as it careened across the meadow. Brand lowered the nose a few degrees, held it another second, then gently tugged back on the yoke again. He felt connected to the airplane, willing it to lift from the earth.
The shuddering and groaning abruptly ceased. The wheels of the Boeing were off the ground, but barely. The massive aircraft was skimming the earth, clinging to the cushion of air beneath its wings.
“The trees . . .” Morganti was saying. “ . . . watch out for the trees . . .”
“I see the trees,” said Brand. And there was nothing he could do about them. Every movement of the yoke produced a clattering stick shaker, warning that a stall was imminent. The Boeing was on the thin edge of flight, suspended a few feet above the earth.
Brand forced himself to relax the back pressure on the yoke. Just enough to flatten the aircraft attitude a few degrees. Enough to let the jet accelerate a few knots. Please climb. Just a little.
The trees filled the windscreen. Again Brand nudged back on the yoke. Again the stick shaker clattered. The Boeing was about to stall. It didn’t matter now.
The Boeing’s nose tilted slightly upward, clawing for altitude.
It wasn’t enough. A sound like thunder resonated through the metal airframe. Green foliage splattered across the windscreen. In a nose high attitude, the 747 was plowing through the tops of the trees.
“Oh, shit!” Switzer blurted. Brand was fighting to keep the wings level, to keep the aircraft from settling into the trees.
A bell jangled. Brand glimpsed a red light illuminate on the overhead panel. “Fire, number four,” said Switzer.
“Leave it running,” Brand ordered. Number four engine must have swallowed part of a tree. Now it was burning. Shutting another engine down would doom them. They needed the thrust of all three engines, even if one was burning.
It was a desperate balancing act. Brand was flying on the edge of a stall, willing the airplane not to plunge into the ground, praying that number four engine would keep running.
The thunder abruptly stopped. They were past the trees. Ahead Brand could see another field, a highway, and to the left a cluster of suburban houses. A glance at the altimeter showed two hundred feet. The Boeing was climbing. Barely.
There was no way to raise the landing gear. The flaps had finally reached take off setting.
“There goes number four engine,” announced Switzer. “It’s spinning down.”
Brand felt the loss of thrust. The burning engine had lasted long enough to get them through the trees. “Shut it down, fire the extinguisher bottle.”
As Switzer and Morganti were executing the engine fire procedure, the engineer said, “More trouble, Boss. Fuel’s going down fast in the right outboard. We must have ruptured a tank going through the trees.”
“How long do we have?”
Switzer peered at the gauges. “At this rate, two engines at max power, I’m guessing fifteen minutes. Maybe less.”
The Boeing was struggling to maintain a thousand feet altitude. Below them swept the suburbs of Dover , then a patchwork of Delaware farmland. With just two engines running, the landing gear permanently extended, Air Force One had only minutes left to fly.
Brand remembered something else. The F-15. The fighter pilot had ordered them to land at Dover. The guy undoubtedly had orders to shoot them down if they didn’t comply. Was another missile headed for them?
Brand stopped thinking about it. There were some things he couldn’t control.
“Now what, Pete?”
Brand was startled by the voice behind him. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. “How long have you been there?”
“Since we almost landed at Dover,” said Libby. She was perched in the jump seat. Her eyes were glittering. “I came in with Sergeant Manning. I thought we were going to die.”
Brand nodded. There was no point in telling her that they almost did. Or that they still might.
“We have to put this thing down,” said Morganti. “Where do you want to do it?”
Brand glanced at the copilot. Morganti was being almost civil. Almost a team player. Amazing what a near-death experience could do for teamwork.
“What do you see for airports close by?” Brand asked.
Morganti unfolded the sectional chart. He studied it for several seconds, then peered out the windscreen. A piece of foliage was still stuck in the windscreen wiper, whipping against the glass. “Straight ahead, almost on the nose. A place called Summit. It has—” he went back to the chart “—never mind. Forty-four hundred feet of runway. It won’t work.”
Brand thought for a moment. Forty-four hundred feet wasn’t nearly enough. Not for a severely damaged jumbo jet with a too-fast approach speed. Losing number four engine had cost them another hydraulic system, which meant they were down to the reserve brake system.
“Number four’s still burning, Boss,” said Switzer. “We’ve fired the bottles and the light’s still on. We gotta put it down.”
“No choice,” said Brand. “We have to land at Summit and make the best of it.”
He could see the little airport coming into view just beyond the nose. Morganti was right. It was too short. The closer they came, the shorter the runway looked. And narrow as a pinstripe. Summit was a general aviation field, not a terminal for jumbo jets.
It didn’t matter. The Boeing was a wreck. With one engine shot away, another shut down and burning, the airplane having been run through a Delaware
meadow and then flown through a stand of timber, it was time for a replacement.
He needed to turn about twenty degrees to line up with the north-south runway. He ordered the landing flaps extended again. The controls felt stiff, which Brand knew was because of the limited hydraulic pressure. He felt a continuous vibration in the yoke from the damaged wing surfaces. Hang together, Brand silently urged. Sixty seconds more.
He remembered Libby. “This may get rough,” he said over his shoulder. “You’d better go back to the cabin and strap in.”
“I’m still the President, remember? This is my airplane and I get to sit wherever I want.”
A stillness fell over the cockpit. Morganti swiveled in his seat and stared at her. So did Switzer.
Brand nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You’re the boss.”
Chapter 21
The end of the runway swept beneath them. Brand chopped the two throttles back to idle. The main trucks of the landing gear thunked onto the tiny strip of concrete. Already he could see the far end of the runway coming at them fast. He snatched the reverse levers up, and the two remaining engines answered with a satisfying bellow. Brand applied pressure to the toe brakes.
“Careful,” said Switzer. “We don’t have anti-skid. You might blow the tires.”
It was a needless warning. Keeping the main gear on the skimpy runway was impossible. The tires were already blowing as they rolled over the light fixtures on the edges of the runway.
Half the runway was behind them. Brand stopped worrying about the tires. He had the brake pedals fully depressed. The main gear was shedding its massive rubber tires. With the engines screaming in reverse and the wheels disintegrating, the 747 seemed to be shaking itself to pieces.
The thin ribbon of runway slipped beneath them like a fast-running stream. Brand could see the runway end—another runway end in the space of ten minutes—and the open field beyond. He knew what was coming.
It took five more seconds. “Hang on,” Brand said. The big jet lurched off the concrete and lumbered into the open field. Brand guessed they were still going forty knots when the nose gear broke. The forward fuselage clunked to the ground. The added drag of the nose digging through the earth brought the jet to a grinding halt.
