She shook her head. “None. And that presents me with a problem, with the world ending and all. Don’t have a single soul that really cares about me enough to hold or comfort me. I was raised in foster homes.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she sniffled slightly. “Sorry, Major. The truth is, I'm scared totally shitless.”
He held onto her hand and said in a soft voice, “Look, you heard me tell everyone what this is really all about. You don’t have to be afraid of an asteroid destroying everything, but it is going to be a rough damned time for a while. You do believe me, don’t you? Guess you and I are in the same boat, so whataya say we hang onto each other?”
“I'm so scared and mixed up; I honestly don't know what to think.” she answered, looking him directly in the eyes. She quickly kissed his cheek and said, “Thanks for listening. I feel better now, but I have to get back to work. Won't be much longer until we land, and we need to get started on emergency procedures. See you later.”
As she rose and moved down the aisle, Major White watched her from behind, and the slight swaying of her really cute butt made his mind wander. Would she actually go for someone like me? She’s alone, and I’m alone. Imagine snuggling up to her naked in some cold cave, wrapped in a bearskin . . . hum . . . maybe I should ask her to go with me. Hell, what do I have to lose?
Major White exited his seat and headed straight for the galley to find Marlene. He almost stuttered, but finally said, “Listen, how about you stick with me when we get to wherever we’re going?”
She nodded and glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. “I was hoping you’d ask. If we survive the landing, that is.”
“You think there’s a chance we won’t?”
“Major, any time you try to land on a runway that’s about a mile short is cause for concern.”
His face broadened into a friendly grin and patted her arm, “I’ve been in some pretty tight spots and survived. Let’s hope for the best. I’m going up front to talk to the captain. See you in a bit.”
~~~
Major White had been in the cockpit for only a few minutes when Howard asked Marlene via the intercom to come forward. When she entered the cockpit, the Major sat in the engineer’s seat and smiled at her.
“Marlene, I want you to tell the rest of the crew to slip into civvies. Also, tell the passengers we’re about forty-five minutes from landing. After everyone has changed, get the passengers ready. Run through the emergency exit procedure with them again.”
“You got it, Sir.” She turned and passed John stripping his uniform.
“No peeking now, Marlene.”
She laughed nervously and said, “I’d peek if I thought there was something worth looking at.”
She immediately went to each individual attendant and told them to change clothes soon, and then picked up the mic and ran through the emergency evacuation procedure, all the while hoping they wouldn’t have to use it. When she’d finished, she punched the button to talk to the cockpit. “Captain, we have some really nervous passengers back here. Think you could say a few words?”
Howard flipped the switch for the intercom and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Saxton. I know this is an ordeal for all of you, just as it is for the flight crew. I’d like to tell you a bit about my background to ease your fears a little. I made a hundred seventy eight safe landings on an aircraft carrier. Now, that’s scary. The strip you land on is not only tiny, the thing is moving and pitching up and down. After that, this landing on the abandoned military strip is a piece of cake. However, it has been abandoned for some time, so it might be a bit rough. That’s why I’m going to ask you to remove anything from your pockets that might jab you if you are jarred about on landing. Stuff like ballpoint pens. Ladies, please slip your purse under your seat. You’ll still be able to grab it as you abandon ship. So, please follow all of the attendants’ instructions, and we’ll be fine. I'll see each of you out on the tarmac shortly. Thanks a lot for your patience and cooperation.”
Looking over to John he asked, “Did I sound convincing enough?”
“Oh, yeah. I'd follow you anywhere.” John chuckled and began whistling.
“There you go whistling again. I can always tell when you’re nervous. Look, John, here’s what I want to do when we touch down. If it looks like we’re going to run out of pavement, that damned strip is atop a small plateau . . . but if we continue more than a hundred yards beyond the pavement, we’ll go over the edge and have a long slide to the bottom. When the wheels are on the pavement, I want you to have one hand on the gear lever. If I yell to pull it, do it quick. I’ll turn the plane just as I yell. The gear collapsing will be a hell of a jolt, but we’ll stop a lot faster and the passengers won’t have nearly as far to go down the chute.”
“You’re serious?”
When Howard just nodded, John asked, “By the way, where are the passengers going to go?”
“I’ve thought about that. Wondered if the captain of a ship is still responsible once the crew abandons ship. What do you think?”
“Don’t guess we have a hell of a lot of choice. I suppose it’ll be every man and woman for themselves.”
“Yeah, unfortunately. How’s the fuel?”
“How do you want it to be?”
“Almost empty.”
“Let’s see.” John quickly punched some numbers in the computer and said, “Man, we have enough fuel for twenty minutes, I hope.”
“Should be exactly right. I estimate ten minutes to touchdown.” They had slowly lost altitude and could see the farmhouses and barns clearly. Howard adjusted the elevator, and they descended even steeper. He squinted his eyes, trying to pick up a familiar landmark. He had flown into Greg’s field with him a number of times and knew there was a narrow river running across their flight path about two miles from the end of the runway. “There it is. Shit! We’re too damned high. Enough fuel to go around?”
“Barely.”
He threw the plane into a hard left turn to make a complete circle, dropping as rapidly toward the ground as he dared. When the circle was completed, the end of the runway was just ahead . . . he yelled, “GEAR!”
The gear lights all lit up about a hundred yards from touchdown. Howard had deployed the flaps and the speed brakes full, upped the power momentarily, and then cut it way back. It was no way to fly a 777, but this was no ordinary situation. They hit the pavement barely ten feet into the runway and bounced slightly, the tires screaming at the sudden forced rotation.
Howard pulled the throttles to full reverse to help slow the plane to the point where he could stand on the brakes. Applying them at too fast a speed would set them on fire in about a second. Two thirds of the runway was gone when they both stood on the brakes and heard the linings against steel singing a death song. The screaming of their music was deafening . . . and the end of the runway was coming up much too fast.
Howard yelled, “You’re gonna hafta wreck the gear, Buddy! Get ready.” He smashed the switches that cut fuel to the engines about fifty feet from the end of the runway as he kicked the rudder full left. The huge aircraft swung harshly to the left and fell to the ground at the same time. Now, there was nothing they could do but try to cut switches to shut everything down that could spark a fire. What happened beyond that was out of their hands.
The right wing dipped into the soil so deeply it nearly lifted the fuselage off the ground and threw huge chunks of earth at the body of the aircraft. The wing dug deep enough to violently swing the entire plane around and the left wing dug into the ground. Then, they were sliding backwards, bouncing wildly. Suddenly, they stopped. The only sounds were the people screaming in the back.
“Get the hell outa here, John!”
Both men released their harness and moved through the companionway into the cabin. Damned if the chutes weren’t already deployed and passengers were pushing one another toward the exits. Howard started to yell at them to be calm and not trample anyone but knew they wouldn’t listen
. All he could do was try to help some of the people. “John! Get to the ground and help these people get off and away from the plane!”
John jumped onto the chute with three other people at the same time, and they slid to the ground. Howard saw a van racing down the runway toward them and hoped it was Greg. It was. Greg and the wives jumped from the van and ran to help. Finally, Major White and Marlene were the last to slide down and the plane was empty except for Howard. He patted the fuselage next to the door and said, “Sorry, baby. Thanks a lot,” and jumped onto the chute himself.
Josie grabbed him at the bottom and wrapped her arms around him. “My God, Howard, are you okay?”
“As far as I can tell. Let’s get away from this beast.” He looked at the people scurrying away from the aircraft and realized how damned close they had come to not making it. The plane sat at the very edge of the hill; if the 777 had skidded another ten feet, it would have all been over. The hill went down at a forty-five degree angle for at least six hundred feet, and that would not have been a comfortable ride.
~~~
Howard was eager to get going to their place in Colorado, but felt at least some responsibility to the passengers. Everyone was milling about in front of Greg’s hangar, many talking on cell phones, and Howard yelled, “Okay, everyone, listen up. We’ll give the plane a while to cool down, make sure there’s no fire anywhere aboard, then we’ll try to get the baggage doors open. Some of you younger men can retrieve the luggage. Inside the hangar, you’ll find restrooms. You might have to walk a couple of miles into town to arrange some sort of transportation to wherever you want to go.” He hesitated a moment, smiled, then said, “I'm sorry the landing was so rough and that we had to land in such an isolated place, but I didn't have much choice. But perhaps it isn’t so bad. After all we could have ended up in Atlanta.” This brought a cheer from the crowd.
As anxious as they were to get on with it, Howard insisted they wait twenty minutes before opening the one cargo door that was exposed and not half buried in the ground. Finally, when some of the passengers were handing bags out the door to others, Howard gave John a high sign; they climbed into Greg’s van and drove to the hangar, where Greg’s coperate jet was fueled and ready to go. The group climbed out of the van, as Major White and Marlene walked out from behind the jet and asked, “May we go with you?”
~ 7 ~
With nearly a full load of passengers, including Major White and Marlene, Greg taxied the jet out of the hangar, across the one taxiway, and turned onto the runway. Howard sat in the right seat, a grim expression on his face, thinking about the passengers he was abandoning. As Greg trotted toward the end of the runway, he looked down at the pavement with a huge smile. Finally, he laughed and shook his head. “By damned, I’ll tell you one thing, Howie, you sure as hell know how to ruin a runway. That heavy son-of-a-bitch almost went through the pavement. This strip was built for B36’s. Probably weighed a tenth of what the jumbo weighs.”
As he turned the jet around at the end of the runway, he said, “By the way, that was a hell of a job you did to get that bastard on the ground without killing everyone. How’d you think to drop the gear to stop it?”
“Planned it ahead of time. Worldtrans Airways wouldn’t be too happy with the way I fucked their plane up, would they? But right now I doubt they give a shit.”
Greg laughed quietly and pushed the throttles forward. Ten seconds later, after a rough ride down the bumpy runway, they lifted off. Another twenty minutes, and they cruised westward at thirty thousand feet. “Well, old buddy, since you’re playing navigator, you’d better give me a course to fly this baby bird.”
Howard pulled the book of maps from the metal holder attached to the right side of his seat. It was an air atlas used by private pilots flying cross-country. Not a lot of detail, but all the important info. After using the auto-calculator for a few minutes, Howard said, “Greg, I’ve got the numbers for you.”
“Howard, none of the LORAN stations are operating.” Normally, he could dial in the frequency of a Long Range Navigation station, and his indicator would keep them flying directly toward the station. “Well, what do you make of that?”
“Beats me. I forgot to mention that none of our navigation aids were working as we approached New York. It was like everything was intentionally turned off.”
“Christ, there must be a hell of a lot of bad people involved in whatever’s happening.”
Major White had been standing in the doorway of the cockpit talking to them since they had reached cruising altitude. “Gentlemen, whoever is masterminding all of this laid their plans well. Your navigation aids aren’t working because someone evidently figured out how to hack into the systems and turn everything off. Can you contact the Denver tower from here?”
“Most likely not . . . at least not for approximately another five hundred miles.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what’s happening that far from the east coast. By the way, Greg, don’t you have any stewardesses or in-flight meals aboard?”
Greg laughed and said, “This is the ultra economy flight, Major. There’s a two gallon thermos of coffee back there if you want to pass some around. I’ll take mine black. We’ll have to wait until we get to Denver to eat. I might add, thanks a lot for bringing it up. I was hungry before we took off.”
~~~
As the small group winged their way westward toward Denver, everyone speculated about what was happening world wide. Major White explained everything he knew about the situation. Even though he was part of the military team that had been preparing for such an eventuality, the one thing they had not been able to determine was who and how many were behind all of the conspiracy. He explained that they knew a large group of U.N. members who were involved in a One World Government movement as well as many possibly well intentioned people in our own government and military. After all, with the entire world population being part of one country, one government, wouldn’t that end war and killing forever? Wouldn’t peace for all time be worth it? Wouldn’t overlooking the freedoms lost--such as weapons ownership and freedom of choice where one lived or worked, and the freedom to say what one wished--be worth it? U.S. advocates of a One World Government asked, “What is our Constitution worth when placed alongside all the benefits of a world completely at peace? A world where assets and benefits would be equally distributed around the globe? What could be fairer?
Those aboard the Lear, who had been completely unaware that something like this was going on, were astonished by the idea.
~~~
Greg estimated from the landmarks below they were two hundred miles out of Denver when he tried to contact Denver Air Control. “Denver Control, this is Lear zero seven-seven.” He waited about a minute and tried again. “Denver Control, this is Lear zero seven-seven. Do you copy?” He looked at Howard and shrugged. “Seems Denver control is either off the air, or not answering for some reason.”
“Let me try the tower.” Howard dialed in the Denver International tower frequency and broadcast, “Denver tower, this is an unscheduled flight zero seven-seven. Do you copy?”
“Copy you, zero seven-seven. What’s your destination?”
“Your locale.”
“Sorry, zero seven-seven. Denver Inter is closed to incoming traffic.”
“Denver tower. This is zero seven-seven. We have no choice. We do not have fuel to continue to another airport. Over.”
“Like I said the field is closed to all incoming.”
“Denver, zero seven-seven. Why is the field closed?” Howard was on the edge of really getting pissed.
“Zero seven-seven. It is closed because I’ve ordered it shut down. You’ll have to divert elsewhere.”
Without even thinking about proper communication protocol, Howard nearly yelled, “And just where the hell would you suggest? We are coming to Inter, whether you like it or not.”
“I wouldn’t advise that. This airport is no longer under U.S. control, and it is off limits to
anyone not pre-approved.”
“Just exactly what do you mean; that it is not under U.S. control?” When there was no answer, Howard repeated, “Denver Tower, what do you mean by that statement?”
“I mean if you attempt to land here, you will likely be taken into custody and jailed!”
Howard looked at Greg. “What the hell do you suppose is really going on?” He got out of the co-pilot seat and motioned through the companionway for Major White. When the Major arrived, Howard said, “Denver refuses our landing. Says the airport is not under U.S. control. What do you think?”
“I guess the bastards have taken control of things faster than we thought they would.”
“What would happen if I did land there? He did say we’d be taken into custody and jailed.”
“I think we’d be shot. Remember we are at war.”
“Howard, check the air map for another airport. If we can find a small field close to Denver, we’ll figure out what to do from there. You guys have any ideas?” Greg asked.
“Greg, you wouldn’t by any chance have a wireless laptop lying around, would you?” Major White asked. “I had one on the plane, but forgot it after we landed.”
“Matter of fact, there is one I put in the cabinet beneath the coffee thermos. What good will it do us now?”
“Just a long shot, but what we need is a chopper so we can move quickly if we have to. I’ll be back in a few.”
His hope was that the wireless service Greg subscribed to was still operational. White hit the Explorer icon on the desktop window, and damned if it didn’t go to the home page for his service. “AHA! Maybe all our luck isn’t bad, after all.”
Marlene sat down beside him. “Whatcha doin’?”
“I’m going to try to find us a chopper.”
“What’s going on with Denver?” she asked. “I thought I heard you guys talking about not being allowed to land there.”
“Yeah. Seems someone has taken over the airport and won’t let anyone land without his permission. Hold on a minute while I try to tap into the airport computers.” He removed a small disk from his shirt pocket and slid it into the slot at the end of the laptop, then typed for about a minute, finally uttering, “Shit!” Then he spoke to himself aloud, “Wait a minute, Lee, what about the city site?” He quickly typed Denver in the search box and came up immediately with the Denver City Home Page. Scanning through the list of links, he found Air Services and clicked on it. Up popped exactly what he hoped he would find: Air Services. Again, quickly glancing at the list of aircraft services and airlines, he spotted Denver Helicopter Service. Once again, he was surprised when their home page popped opened and listed all their services. Sales, service, charter service. Farther down the page he found their location . . . they were located at Boxwood Airfield, five miles from the new Denver International Airport. Major White returned to the cabinet and found what he hoped he would . . . a plug-in headset for the computer. He quickly moved to the cockpit and asked Greg, “How much strip do you need to land?”
Patriots Awakening Page 8
