Final Winter

by Brendan DuBois

‘Alex, we’re at four hundred, sinking 1500 and 15 slow!’

  No reply

  ‘We need power!’ Eugene shouted.

  ~ * ~

  From the Humvee, an alarm started going Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!, causing Major Cooper to jump. He shouted out, ‘What the hell is that alarm?’

  ‘Bio alarm,’ came the voice. ‘It’s detecting anthrax.’

  ‘Shit, of course it is. We knew that. Shut the damn thing down.’

  And he turned back to the approaching aircraft and saw the disaster unfold.

  ~ * ~

  Eugene shouted, ‘Alex, we need power, we need power now!’

  He reached over and pushed the throttles full forward to the stops and—

  — And the last thing that was heard on the cockpit recording system - the infamous black box - reconstructed months later by the National Transportation Safety Board: ‘Oh, you stupid cocksucker, I told you—’

  ~ * ~

  Major Cooper thought to himself, if I live another hundred years, please don’t let me see anything like this, ever again, as AirBox 12 started to pull out late from its descent at the end of the runway. For a moment it looked like it was going to make it, and then the aircraft’s right wing dropped suddenly, smacked the ground, crumpled, and in a flash, the jet and its crew and its cargo disappeared in a billowing black greasy cloud of smoke and orange flames.

  Cooper and his crew ducked behind the Humvee as the roar of the explosion reached them, the ground shaking from the impact. It took long minutes afterwards before anyone was calm enough to use their communications gear and contact Northern Command about what had happened.

  ~ * ~

  Adrianna Scott looked in the mirror of the restroom at the highway rest stop somewhere in Michigan, liked what she saw. She had spent some long minutes in a stall, listening to the nervous chatter of other traveling women and girls. She’d worked quietly and efficiently, doing everything that she had planned to do, all those years ago, all those long years that started in Baghdad when she had gathered up some belongings and valuables and had gone to Jordan. A journey of walking, hitching rides, and fending off the advances of the noble Arab men who had wanted to fuck her as she made her way west.

  And from Jordan into Israel, where she had portrayed herself - rightfully! - as a Christian refugee. A small Christian community in Bethlehem had helped her fly to the United States, to Cincinnati, and in those hours and days and weeks of travel she had planned her revenge so carefully that she had somehow known, even back then, that it would end like this.

  Before her in the mirror, through her own talents and the help of the nice people at the CIA’s Technical Services Division, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned woman gazed out confidently. The hair she had trimmed and colored herself. The eye color was from contacts. The skin color was a dye job, and even her fingerprints were no longer hers, through a temporary skin graft job with artificial skin that made her into somebody else.

  That somebody else, according to a Michigan driver’s license, was one Dolores Benjamin. Adrianna Scott no longer existed.

  And as she walked out of the restroom she knew that somehow, in the next few months, in her new home, Aliyah Fulenz would finally be allowed to live again.

  ~ * ~

  Randy Tuthill was standing next to the General when there seemed to be a sudden intake of breath and a sigh, as one of the AirBox icons, set over Colorado, began flashing red. The ringing of phones reached a crescendo and the General was passed one. He took the message. Randy couldn’t make out the General’s words, but what he saw was enough: Bocks closed his eyes and nodded and seemed to shrink four or five inches in size, right before Randy’s eyes.

  The General let the phone fall back into the cradle as Randy went to him and said, ‘Colorado?’

  ‘Yeah. AirBox 12. Augered right into the end of the runway at an Air Force installation.’

  Randy gripped his friend’s shoulder. Bocks shook it off. Randy said, ‘If you want, sir, I can start making the calls and—’

  ‘Not your place, Randy, not at all,’ Bocks said, straightening himself up. ‘It’s my call. My company. My fault they’re dead.’

  ‘General, if it’s anybody fault, it’s—’

  ‘Randy, I’ll make the calls. But later.’ The General turned his head to the display board and said, his voice bleak, ‘I’m afraid there’re going to be more calls later. Look up there, Randy. Look at the board. Those planes aren’t getting to the ground quick enough.’

  ~ * ~

  Brian Doyle sat next to Monty Zane as Monty worked the phones and keyboards with a vengeance, cursing, plotting and planning. Brian’s chest ached and he’d just realized his underwear was damp - he’d probably pissed himself falling off that balcony and wasn’t embarrassed by it, for who wouldn’t have pissed themselves in such a situation? — but he didn’t want to move. He had hardly anything to do now but he liked being in Monty’s company. He thought if the NYPD had a half-dozen guys like Monty working for them the crime level would go so low that it would even impress old Giuliani and his crew.

  ‘Fuck,’ Monty said, slamming down the phone. Then he leaned back in his chair, stretching out his arms.

  ‘What you got?’ Brian asked.

  ‘What I got, my friend, is the problem of fuel versus geography, and fucking geography is winning.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Monty raised a hand toward the display screen. ‘We’ve been putting these aircraft down where we can, at deserted airfields, remote strips without many people around, and even a couple of stretches of Interstate. But we still have a fair amount in the southeast and middle Atlantic seaboard. It’s pretty crowded out there, Brian. Not many places to put down, and man, we are running out of time and fuel.’

  Brian looked at the board, looked at the triangles that represented the airborne cargo planes. There were fewer up there than before, but Monty was right. There were still too many. He recalled seeing other display boards in the past, during the COMSTAT precinct meetings, another bit of Giuliani history. Precincts could no longer make do simply with shuffling paper and ignoring statistics. COMSTAT put up your history against everybody else’s and there was no hiding, no excuses. Brian remembered one of the first times his precinct chief came back, cursing, saying it wasn’t fair that he was up against another precinct, because that other precinct had a shitload of vacant lots, and of course they’d have a better burglary rate, because what the hell was there to burgle in an empty lot?

  He looked again at the map, at the southern and eastern states, at the icons marking the AirBox aircraft. A little flashing light, carrying all that death, all over the crowded United States, no place to run to, no place to go, no place...

  Empty.

  Not a place.

  Monty was on the phone again and Brian reached over, pressed the receiver button down, disconnecting Monty. The big man’s eyes flashed with anger and he said, ‘Brian, what the fuck was that?’

  ‘The ocean,’ Brian said.

  ‘The fuck you mean, the ocean?’

  ‘The jets...why can’t they go over the ocean and let the anthrax dump out there?’

  ‘Case you haven’t learned, there’s not many landing strips out in the middle of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t have to land, would they? Shit, Monty, all they’d have to do is fly in circles over a patch of water, let the anthrax spray out, and then head to land when the canisters were empty. Right?’

  Monty stared at Brian for what seemed like a long time. Then he yelled out, ‘Doc Palmer! Get your ass over here! Now!’

  ~ * ~

  Carrie Floyd looked at the ground below her, several thousand feet and a lifetime away. Pennsylvania. Definitely not Boston and definitely not home. She raised her head, saw the patient escorts out there, the proud F-16s that were ready to blow her and Sean out of the sky.

  She said, ‘Find anything out?’

  Sean said, ‘Dispatch is quiet. I’ve been
trying to pick up some of the local radio stations. Getting a CNN feed every now and then.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Well, we and the eighteen others are the lead story. Funny about that. Foreign airspace’s been closed to all American flights. Stock market will be closed today, people are bailing out of cities, it’s being called the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11.’

  ‘Should have kept my mouth shut.’

  Sean said, ‘Well, there is a bit of good news. Some of the AirBox flights, the ones headed to Seattle or LA or Salt Lake City, they’ve been able to divert them to empty airstrips out in the desert. Landing with no problem.’

  ‘Lucky bastards.’

  ‘You got that,’ he said.

  Carrie tilted the aircraft, just a bit. Farmland and towns and highways, as far as the eye could see. ‘Not much desert down there. Or emptiness.’

  ‘Alaska,’ Sean said.

  ‘What?’

  Sean said, lips tight. ‘Lots of empty places in Alaska. Lots.’

  She reached over, grabbed a hand, squeezed. ‘Let’s say we quit this gig later today and go to Alaska tomorrow. The three of us. You and me and Susan.’

  Sean just nodded. Carrie thought she saw that his eyes were filling up. She released his hand and went back to the day’s flying, boring holes in the sky, waiting for instructions, waiting for rescue, waiting for those F-16s to drop back and do their jobs.

  ~ * ~

  Victor Palmer listened to Monty and said, ‘Yes ... I think it’d work.’

  ‘How much time before the canisters empty out?’

  ‘Twenty minutes, to be on the safe side. But you need to make sure that stretch of ocean is empty. Ah, the Coast Guard or Navy will have to be contacted. Get shipping out of the area.’

  Monty went back to the desk he had taken over, picked up some handwritten notes. ‘Tight. Christ, it’ll be tight.’

  Victor said, ‘Do it. Just do it.’

  Monty started making a call. ‘It’ll be done.’

  ~ * ~

  At Northern Command, Lt General McKenna was on the phone with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He said, ‘Sir, we’re making progress. We’ve got just over half the planes on the ground. And I’ve been advised that the Tiger Team is working on a way to handle the other aircraft by vectoring them out to the ocean. Apparently the anthrax will be dumped over the water. Hell of a better place than down-town DC or Philadelphia.’

  The Chairman said, ‘All right, Mike. I’ve got a briefing with the Man in five minutes. I’ll tell him about the progress...but Mike, those aircraft have got to be out of the air within two hours. Or you’ll be taking them out for us before those pilots try to land them someplace populated. Understood?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir.’

  ~ * ~

  Aboard AirBox 10, Helen Torrinson flew south, lowering the aircraft towards the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Off to starboard she could make out oil-drilling rigs, but she didn’t care about them, not at all. She had gotten the instructions from ACARS and from Houston Air Traffic Control on where to go and how to do it, and she knew that back there were two F-15s, making sure that she went where she was told.

  Part of her - a part no doubt corrupted by her captain - thought that this was probably all just a ruse. The DoD probably wanted her and the other AirBox planes to head out over the ocean so they could be shot down without any problems, without any witnesses.

  Beside her, the body of Hammerin’ Hank lay still, slumped back in his shoulder straps. She was grateful that at least his bloodied head was turned to the left so she didn’t have to look at his face.

  Helen checked the altimeter. She was dropping below one thousand, was now at nine hundred, and when she got to five hundred feet, she leveled off the aircraft. Twenty minutes. She was to fly for twenty minutes.

  Which was what she did. She checked the time, watched as each minute slipped by, wondering if this was going to be the minute when an air-to-air missile ripped through her aircraft’s engines.

  But the minutes still slipped away, and when the twenty-minute mark had been reached her earphones crackled with a message.

  ‘AirBox Ten, this is Houston Center. You’re cleared directly to Hutchinson Field, Louisiana. Initial heading zero-one-zero, climb to one-five thousand.’

  ‘Roger, direct Hutchinson Field, and fifteen thousand,’ Helen said, keeping her voice curt and proper. She’d be goddamned if she was going to be grateful to somebody who was ready to help the Air Force drop her plane and kill her without warning.

  She went to her kit bag and pulled out the approach charts that would help guide her into Hutchinson Field, wherever the hell that was. Then she turned her head to the left.

  ‘Oh, you stupid bastard,’ Helen said to the body of her pilot. ‘Why did you have to be so goddamn impatient?’

  ~ * ~

  Aboard the shrimp boat Flanagan, out of Metairie, Louisiana, Georges Bouchard stepped out of the pilot house as the jet aircraft roared nearby, almost passing right over their heads. His two boys, Henri and Louis, were at the stern, and they looked up as well as the jet circled around, and kept on circ-ling around, at a low altitude.

  ‘What’s up with that plane, eh, papa?’ Henri called up to him. Henri and his younger brother were shirtless, tanned, and Georges felt such pride, seeing those boys who would carry on the family name and business for years to come.

  ‘Not sure,’ he said, shading his eyes with his hand. ‘It doesn’t seem to be in trouble...look...it’s going away now.’

  The jet flew off to the north, and Georges noticed two things: the first was that it looked like two fighter jets were flying with the larger jet as well, something he hadn’t noticed earlier.

  The second was that something was tickling his throat. He swallowed, and then went into the pilot house to drink from a plastic jug of water and clear his throat. The water was kept on a wooden shelf underneath the radio, which had been acting up since they had left port nearly a week ago. The water went down well enough, but something still tickled back there.

  By that night, Georges and his boys were ill, very ill, breathing hard, coughing. And by the next morning the Flanagan, named after his wife’s family, was wallowing in the Gulf Stream, crewed only by corpses.

  The shrimper was boarded some time later by the Coast Guard. It was burned down to the waterline and sunk, along with its dead crew, as soon as night fell.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Homeland Security Deputy Director Jason Janwick hung the phone up, saw the expectant faces of his crew, sitting there, looking at him for answers. He said, ‘That was the Secretary. Due to time constraints, this emergency is still ours to manage.’

  ‘Sir?’ one of his people asked.

  ‘It’s like this,’ he explained. ‘Like the Secretary said, there isn’t time for him or for anybody else to catch up on what’s happening. One way or another, this sick puppy is going to be done with in an hour or so. So it’s ours to solve, or it’s ours to fuck up. Let’s make the right choice. Sam? Status.’

  Sam Pope, his IT guy, said, ‘It looks like the AirBox guys and that Tiger Team have taken care of the majority of the AirBox flights. Either they’ve been able to land at airstrips with minimal population density, or some have flown out over the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. But there’s still a handful up in the air.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pennsylvania. Missouri. Kentucky. They’re conserving fuel and holding in orbits but... soon enough, they’re going to be running out of fuel. That means they’re going to come back to earth, and there’s not much unpopulated land where they are. The choice is ... the choice is not a good one.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Sir, when the fuel is at a certain limit those pilots are going to descend and pick the nearest airfield. There aren’t that many airfields in those areas that don’t have some populated areas around them. The choice, then, is to direct them to those airfields or ... or dire
ct them someplace else, where the population density is low, thereby reducing anthrax exposure. Like a federal park or wilderness area. A mountain range, for example.’

  Janwick said, ‘And what then, after they’re over a minimally populated area?’

  Pope’s voice was just a touched strained. ‘Then, sir, they would have to be shot down. I doubt the pilots will crash into the side of a mountain on anyone’s say-so.’

  Janwick nodded. ‘Yeah. I figured that out a while ago. Just wanted to see if anybody else had any better answers. Well, the shoot-down order is out of our hands. But we’ll still be making a recommendation. In the meantime...Gail?’