My King The President

by Tom Lewis

  “What in hell are you talking about, man?” Captain Nichols growled.

  I turned to him, hoping my face was showing half of what I felt. I yelled at him. “Captain, that fighter plane isn’t coming up here to take pictures. Soon as you hook up with that tanker, he’s going to shoot us down. With all that gas, and one little missile, there won’t be pieces of us big enough to find. The President’s life is on the line. Yours and your crew’s, too. You’ve got to get us out of here.”

  President Fordham’s voice was ice. “He’s right, Colonel Nichols. Do as he says. Immediately, please. That’s an order. I’ll explain the details later, if I’m still alive. Where’s the nearest place we can land? Denver?”

  I yelled again, “We can’t go there. We’d run right into him, and we sure as hell can’t go back to Offutt. I wouldn’t trust Omaha either.”

  Major Jamison spoke up. “What about Sioux City? Not much traffic there, and the runways are long enough.”

  Nichols nodded. “You’re right. Okay, SUX it is.” He turned further around and barked an order to Bert, “Strap the President in that jump seat, mister. Hold on to your hats, everybody. Grab hold of whatever you can. I’m taking us down. Gotta get us under radar.”

  “Want me to call Sioux City, Captain?” Jamison wanted to know.

  “And tip everybody off? Hell, no. I’ll tell you when.”

  With that, he put the giant plane into a hard right bank, pushing the yoke forward. As Air force One changed directions and went into a steep dive, the sun flashed brilliantly inside the cockpit, then disappeared just as quickly. It seemed to take forever for the big bird to turn, yet she did, and the ground telescoped upwards toward us at an astounding rate. So much so that I found myself holding my breath in frozen fear, certain that Nichols was going to drive us straight into the brown, snow splotched earth. I gave one quick thought to Ernie and the other unsuspecting people behind us. Not knowing what was happening, they had to be experiencing mass hysteria at best and sheer terror at worst.

  After an eternity of less than a minute, we leveled off, only two hundred feet above the ground! Nichols pushed the quad throttles forward as far as they would go. Our speed was tremendous, and staring through the windshield, it was as though I was watching a special effects movie—in fast forward. I looked first at Major Jamison, who was already talking softly to the crew on headsets, then to Captain Nichols, who was chewing his gum in slow motion. Didn’t appear to be in the least nervous. Like he practiced doing this every day!

  At last he spoke—to Jamison. “ETA Sioux City?”

  “Thirteen minutes, Captain.”

  Nichols merely nodded. I glanced backwards at President Fordham. Her eyes were closed, her mouth drawn in a thin line. I could see moisture on her upper lip. I looked over at the First Officer who gave me a grin and a thumbs-up. His neatly trimmed mustache reminded me of the captain who had driven us back from the museum to the plane. The one who’d told us their guys had given the President’s private plane a wash job and a—Holy shit! Offutt maintenance crews had been all over her, inside and out. Plenty of time to—plant a fucking bomb? Maybe that fighter wasn’t sent to shoot us down. Maybe it was supposed to take pictures after all. Maybe it was to film a terrible accident while the President’s plane was refueling. I opened my mouth to say something more, but quickly changed my mind. This wasn’t the moment. Nichols was busy busting the President’s aircraft over farms, barns, and housetops as if it was a tiny barnstorming biplane, except at nearly five hundred miles per hour. There would be time enough to tell him, I hoped, when we landed. If we landed.

  Nichols asked again, “How much time?”

  “Ten minutes, thirty seconds, sir.”

  “Roger that. Okay, call SUX. ID us and tell them to divert all traffic. Full Mayday status.”

  Chapter 30

  “Wait!” Nichols shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice. “We have to lighten her up. Dump fuel first, then call. Forget the Minneapolis ARTCC. Bypass them. We don’t want the whole universe listening in. Use the tower frequency. 118.7.”

  “Roger that,” Jamison answered, reaching forward to levers which he pulled, then to a knob which he turned a few clicks. “Sioux City tower, Sioux City tower, this is Air Force One. We have an emergency.”

  A metallic, clear voice answered instantly. “Acknowledged, Air Force One. What is the nature of your emergency and what is your position?”

  I seized my chance, screaming, “We’ve got a bomb on board, Captain. I’m sure of it.”

  Nichols turned. Stared at me hard, his jaw clenching. He shot a rapid glance to the President, who nodded affirmation, and then he stared at Jamison. “Tell them.”

  Jamison wasted no time. “We are eight-zero miles northwest of you, Sioux City, altitude one-five-oh. That’s one-five-oh feet, Sioux City, and we may have a bomb aboard. Fear imminent internal explosion. Request emergency landing in ten minutes.”

  “Roger, Air Force One. Turn right and come around to heading three-zero-seven, runway three-one.”

  “Negative, Sioux City. No time to turn. Divert any local traffic now. We’ve got only one shot and we’re coming in hot as hell. What’s the weather?”

  “Clear. Visibility unlimited. Wind northwest, sixteen knots. Use runway one-three. No traffic expected. Do you request emergency equipment?”

  “Everything you’ve got.”

  “Roger that, Air force One. We’ll be ready. Good luck.”

  The two pilots exchanged quick glances. Major Jamison didn’t need to be told what to do next. He flipped yet another switch. “Attention, please, all on board. This is First Officer Jamison speaking. We have a small problem and Captain Nichols is bringing us into Sioux City, Iowa for an emergency landing. Please follow the instructions of our crew. They are well trained for just such an eventuality. Stay calm, everybody. Everything is under control. We will be landing in approximately seven minutes. After landing, you will use emergency exits as per instructions. Sorry for the bumpy ride. Thank you.”

  Strangely enough, I wasn’t yet worried! The cool, professional competence and demeanor of the two magnificent officers was such that I managed a reassuring glance at President Fordham and gave her hand a squeeze. “We’re gonna make it in fine. Just fine.” She responded by closing her eyes. Her lips were moving in what I knew was a quiet prayer.

  I looked forward again, through the windshield. I couldn’t recognize anything ahead of us, but I knew we had to be close.

  As if reading my thoughts, Nichols said, “How far out?”

  “Fifteen miles, Captain.” Jamison answered.

  Nichols reached for the throttles. Began pulling back. At first, I couldn’t feel any reduction in our speed, nor did I know which of the hundreds of instruments to watch. Seconds later, he pulled the knobs further back still. “Flaps.”

  “Roger, full flaps. Twelve miles, Captain.”

  When the flaps took hold, the backward centrifugal force nearly pitched me over the console between the two pilots. I grabbed the backs of their seats and held on with all my strength, my teeth rattling. I watched Captain Nichols gently pull the throttles back a little further.

  “Eight miles, Captain.” Jamison’s steady voice hadn’t changed pitch.

  “Six… Five… Four…”

  I glanced up, but still couldn’t see the runway.

  “Three… Two… One mile, skipper.”

  Suddenly there it was. It looked like a stretch of desert highway, shimmering in the mid-afternoon sun. We were, just as Jamison had told Tower Control, coming in hot as hell. But there was plenty of runway, wasn’t there? It seemed to narrow into infinity ahead.

  “Two thousand feet, Captain.”

  Nichols’ response was barely audible. He pushed the yoke forward ever so slightly with his left hand, working the throttles with his right one. “Okay, we’re going in.”

  I watched the scraped, gray runway easing up to meet us, its middle lines flashing by like tracer bu
llets. Closer. Closer. Then I heard the short squeal of the rear wheels hitting solid asphalt. The moment the nose wheels touched, Nichols reversed the engines’ thrust. Their roar was deafening.

  I almost didn’t hear Captain Nichols’ yell, “Full brakes.”

  This time Jamison didn’t repeat the order.

  Over the din, Nichols yelled again. “How long is this runway?”

  “Ninety-five hundred.”

  “Shit! We need ten thousand with this tailwind.”

  That was the last of the talk. Nothing else needed saying. The three of us watched the horizon zooming toward us. The ride felt like we were in a loaded pickup truck with no shocks on a washboard farm road. Had we slowed down at all? The horizon kept coming. And coming. I looked out the side window. Saw distant parked planes, a few low buildings. White fields. But, yes, we were definitely slowing down!

  The reversed engines screamed their loudest. I didn’t need anybody to tell me the brakes were melting. Worse, I could now see the end of the runway, coming at us like hell. At the end of it was snow. Blessed, glistening white snow. I had no idea how deep it might be. I was aware how fast we were slowing down, but I didn’t think it was going to be enough.

  With the others, I felt a sudden jolt. A lurch to the left. The big jet started veering slightly to port, and I knew the left side brakes were gone. Then we passed the end of the runway. There was an enormous shudder as I noticed the yoke wrenched out of Nichol’s grip. We turned sharply left, but the snow helped. Groaning, we ground to a stop. We had done it. Down. Safe!

  Nichols shut down the engines and collapsed in his harness. He sighed once heavily, closing his eyes. Jamison was crossing himself.

  I looked at my watch. Eight minutes till three. “Captain,” I said, trying to keep my own nerves under control. “Every second counts now. How do we get out?”

  Jamison’s voice answered, but he was talking to the crew. “Deploy slides now. Get the people off as quickly as possible.”

  “What about up here?” I wanted to know. “The President. We don’t have time to go back—”

  “Shut up and listen,” Nichols said, his voice as hard as the set of his jaw. Then he reached up and pushed a button practically right over his head. Jamison did the same on his side. Twin compartments opened, and from them coiled lengths of braided nylon rope fell out. Both officers punched out their side windows, hooked the ropes to a steel ring over them, and tossed the weighted ends out the windows. I hardly noticed the freezing northwest wind now whistling through the flight deck.

  Nichol’s left his seat, clawed his way back to the jump seat where President Fordham was still strapped in. His hands worked fast to free her. “Ms. President, there’s no time to get you into the bubble. You have to get out this way, with the rope.”

  Helene Fordham didn’t flinch. She stood, made her way to the portside window, looked Nichols in the eye and said, “I can do this, Colonel, and if I make it, and you do, I promise you by next week you’ll be a General. Give me a hand, please.”

  Both Nichols and Jamison helped her out the window, feet first. “Don’t panic, ma’am,” Nichols said. “Wrap one leg around the rope and let yourself down a little at the time. Don’t try to slide. “You’re right. You can do this.”

  When she was out, lowering herself down so that only her head was visible, she looked up one last time and smiled. “Good thing I’m not wearing a dress!” Then she dropped out of sight.

  Jamison looked at me, his eyes steady. “You next, this side, and no arguments please.”

  I didn’t offer any. I climbed through the window feet first, wrapped a leg around the rope, and started down hand over hand, unmindful that I had thirty feet to go! Half way down, from the corner of my eye, I could see that three long slides were protruding from the fuselage, and people were tumbling down them pell-mell; head first, feet first, whichever way, with a lot of screaming. I knew the same process was happening on the opposite side. As I hit the ground, or rather the eight inches of snow covering it, I looked frantically around for the President. She was on her hands and knees, having apparently dropped the last few feet. I plowed over to her. Helped her to her feet. “Run! This way, into the wind. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I didn’t look back to see if Nichols and Jamison had followed us down, or if any of the others were running in our direction. Over the President’s bobbing head, I could make out dozens of flashing lights on the shapes of toy vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, and tiny people fanned out on both sides of the runway, coming toward us at top speed. We had covered maybe two hundred excruciating yards when the President stumbled. Fell head first into the snow. I jerked her up. “Run, goddammit, the plane could blow any—”

  Whump—WHUMP… The two blasts were practically simultaneous. The President was thrown forward to the ground by my own body, but it had not been by the force of the twin explosions. I had been knocked into her by Bert Franklin’s flying tackle. Both of us lay on top of her, pushing her further down into the snow as bits and pieces of flaming debris landed all around and ahead of us, for another hundred yards at least. We lay there praying for what seemed like hours, until we felt strong hands lifting us. Helping us struggle toward a vehicle. I remember that from virtual shock, I giggled like an idiot when I saw the bright orange lettering: ECNALUBMA. . .

  Sioux Gateway is not a large airport. Only two boarding gates, but its terminal is spacious, including a fair sized restaurant, both of which were soon filled with dazed, jabbering people. Bert Franklin and I pushed our way through them, making a path for the President, who had calmly told the ambulance crew she was unhurt and refused to be taken to the hospital. “Close that door, Jeb,” she said once we were inside the politely vacated restaurant. Then she turned to her faithful Secret Service man. “Is your phone still working, Bert?”

  Franklin quickly tested his cell phone. “Yes, Ms. President.”

  “Good. Call the Attorney General’s office. I want to speak to Richard Cameron personally.”

  When Bert turned away to comply, she looked back again at me. “I’m going to have Koontz arrested for murder. Go out there and see if you can find out who’s in charge here. Whoever it is, send him in here, then see if you can locate Captain Nichols. Tell him to gather his crew together. My orders are for none of them to make any comment. Not to anybody. Got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I found Nichols first. He was already rounding up his crew. I passed the President’s message along, then began shooting questions to everybody I bumped into. It only took me a couple more minutes to locate the Airport Director, a stout, worried little man who looked as though he might wet his pants at any minute. I checked his brass nametag. “Mr. Grissom? My name is Jeb Willard. With the President’s party. She wants to see you. Please come with me.”

  I led him through the crowd into the restaurant and introduced him. President Fordham smiled, shook his hand and calmly told him what she wanted. “Mr. Grissom, I have two requests. There has to be a local television station here, right?”

  Grissom found his voice. “Uh, yes, Ms. President. Three of them, and I’m sure they’ll all have crews here any minute.”

  “No doubt. What I want you to do is call the station managers of each of them. Tell them I want them to patch into their national networks—right now! By any chance, is there a private or corporate jet here?”

  “Yes. Two of them.”

  “Good. Soon as you call those TV people, I want you to call whoever owns them and tell them I need to borrow one of them to get back to Washington right away. If a pilot is available, fine. If not, I have two of the best. Can you arrange that?”

  “Certainly.”

  She turned. “Bert, lend him your phone and wait for me here. Jeb, you come with me.”

  I followed her through the door into the terminal, where she climbed onto the seat of one of the chairs and yelled, “Listen to me, all of you. I want you all to sit down. Please just sit down right where y
ou are. Everything is all right. I have one request of each of you. Members of the press will be here soon. Say nothing to anybody. I’ll take care of it myself.”

  Like so many sheep, the stunned crowd followed her orders. Satisfied, she hopped down and marched straight to the Northwest Airlines ticket counter, smiling sweetly once more, this time at the white-faced agent. “I’m Helene Fordham. What’s your name, dear?”

  “T-Toni Ellis, ma’am.”

  “Nice to meet you, Toni. I need a favor. Go get your topcoat and your pocketbook and meet me in the ladies’ room in one minute, please. Okay?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel, pulled me aside and said, “Jeb, find Captain Nichols again. Tell him to count noses. Find out whether we have casualties, and tell him I may need him and Major Jamison for flight duty again. Hop to it, I’m sure those TV people will be here any minute.”

  She was right. I was in the middle of telling Nichols what she’d said when a small army of them came rushing though the front door, lights and cameras at the ready, already fighting for position.

  Nor were they disappointed. I shook my head in both disbelief and admiration when Helene Fordham came out of the women’s rest room wearing a red three quarter length coat, a white scarf, fresh makeup on, and every hair in place! She walked resolutely to a central spot, waited for the cameras and lights to be set, and with her chin up and with a rock steady voice, made her electrifying announcement:

  “Ladies and gentlemen of Sioux City, and my fellow Americans, let me first say that I am, as you can see, perfectly fine. I will also tell you that on our flight west, Air Force One developed a serious problem, which started an in-flight fire, but Captain Edgar Nichols and his heroic crew brought us in for an emergency landing here at Sioux City in plenty of time to avoid disaster. I’m sure the Federal Aeronautics Agency and the National Transportation and Safety Board will quickly confirm that was the cause of the terrible explosion which happened after we safely deplaned.