“This is James Holland, Doctor. We need your help.”
Rusty’s head was spinning. He stood up unconsciously. “James Holland? You’re … you’re alive!”
There was a pause, then Holland’s voice. “We’re alive, Doctor, but we’ve got a major, overriding problem.”
“What? Tell me. What?”
“You were right. Someone was waiting, and they’ve blown off one of my engines. Number four. We’re still intact otherwise and running on the surface, and I think we’ve shaken the bastard for the moment. But …”
“What can I do to help, Captain? Tell me.”
He heard Holland snort softly. “Well, you wanted me to run. So I’m running. But where the hell am I running to?”
James Holland shifted the Iridium phone to his other ear.
“Doctor? Still there?”
“Yes.”
“Any ideas? We’ve got less than two hours of fuel at this rate.”
Rusty fought to recover his composure. There was no time for self-indulging in shock. He could be shocked later.
“Captain, anywhere you go is going to spark an immediate demand for you to leave. Remember that the world media have been saying that the virus was confirmed by that autopsy. Even our government is acting like they believe it. There’s even a chance some military pilot might be sent out with orders to shoot you down before you could touch their soil.”
Sanders’ voice sounded as frantic as Robb’s, Holland thought.
“So what do I do? There are islands nearby, such as the Canaries, but they won’t welcome us either.”
“Captain, we’ve got to buy you some time,” Sanders said. “At least twenty-four hours more. I don’t have any maps here. You say the Canary Islands are close?”
Holland sighed, exasperated. “Didn’t you have this thought out before you called me the first time?”
“There wasn’t time!” Rusty replied, feeling off-balance. He had saved their lives, or at least tried to. Why was Holland attacking him?
“Captain, I had to move heaven and earth to contact you to begin with.” Sanders explained quickly that they were in a purloined hotel room and probably being hunted.
Holland nodded. “Okay, okay. I apologize. I appreciate your help. In fact, you seem to be the last resource we have. I’m just not sure there’s anything you can do for us.”
Sanders felt a cold fear gripping him. Before, he had been only a bystander trying to send an urgent warning. Now he had somehow gained full responsibility for finding a solution and ensuring the safety of a crippled 747 carrying people who could be infected with a deadly virus—a virus that could spark a devastating worldwide pandemic. He kept the receiver pressed to his ear and closed his eyes, trying to think.
This was a Level Four pathogen he was dealing with. The aircraft could be considered a biological hot zone of the first magnitude, with the possibility of a viral life form aboard that could kill its human hosts within four days of infection. Did he have any ethical right to expose any population center to such a threat? He tried to focus on the autopsy results from Iceland. It was possible his gut instinct was right, that no one else aboard was exposed. There was zero evidence of exposure.
But what if he was wrong? What if he became ultimately responsible for killing tens of millions?
Nevertheless, he had to help.
Holland had taken over the controls again. Dick Robb had spread out the high-altitude route map over the center console while Holland flew, and Rachael was studying it with him.
Holland told Sanders to stand by as he looked over at Robb. “How about you, Dick? Any ideas? We’re running out of time. I’ve got to head for land.”
Robb cocked his head. “The closest ones are the Canary Islands, as you said. There are one, two … three, looks like four different airports on as many islands there. The largest is Las Palmas.”
Holland shook his head. “Dick, you take over and fly. Keep us at two hundred fifty feet, heading two-seven-zero for now.”
Robb nodded and took the controls as Holland raised the phone to his ear again and looked at the map. “Doctor, we went through this in Iceland. We landed and they trapped us there. Anywhere we go, we run the risk of being impounded again. But, come to think of it, isn’t that exactly what we want? We stay parked for twenty-four hours, no one’s sick, and it’s all over, right?”
There was a telling hesitation from Washington. Something Sherry had said was firing through the neurons of Rusty’s brain, something about the legendary tenacity of Aqbah. They wouldn’t just give up and go home, any sooner than Roth would change his mind. Once they discovered Flight 66 on the ground, the tactics would change, but the overall goal would remain just as lethal.
But why? Why would even a cold-blooded terrorist organization purposefully troll for worldwide condemnation by doing such a deed? Was the killing of Lancaster really that important to them? Or was there something more—some darker purpose? Rusty shook his head slightly in frustration. There was a logical answer just beyond reach, but he couldn’t seem to grasp it. Yet he knew the Arab mind well enough to know that even in front of a worldwide television audience, Aqbah would find a way to take out Lancaster if they could. Flight 66 would simply become a means to an end.
Sanders relayed the apocalyptic thoughts to Holland, who was skeptical.
“If you’re right, it doesn’t leave us with many options, does it, Sanders?”
“I’m sorry, no,” Rusty said.
“Hold on.”
James Holland lowered the phone and turned to Dick Robb and Rachael Sherwood. Holland now felt Rachael to be as much a crew member as Robb, perhaps more. She hadn’t said much, but he could feel the warmth of her just inches behind him, radiating support and confidence in him, and it gave him an odd sense of strength.
Holland explained what Sanders had said, and pointed to one of the Canary Islands on the map.
“This one, Dick. I’ll plug the coordinates in the computer. Keep us in the air at this altitude—fly the radio altimeter—and head for this one.”
Robb looked at Holland carefully, “You … think it will be safe to land there?”
Holland cocked his head. “No, I think Sanders is probably right. But we don’t have much of a choice. If we can refuel and leave, we will. If not, well …” Holland’s voice trailed off. He picked up the Iridium phone and explained the decision.
“Doctor, is there any way you could confirm that they have fuel? While you’re at it, see if you could arrange catering and lavatory service. Maybe if they don’t know who we are—maybe if they think we’re a charter diverting in—we could get away with it. It will take us about an hour and twenty minutes to get there.”
Sanders nodded on his end. “I’ll try! Keep the phone near a window. I’ll call as soon as I’ve got the information.”
“Tell them you’re calling from Quantum Operations. Tell them anything. It’s dark out here, so the small fact that we’re missing an engine might not get too much attention. Find out if they’ve got fuel trucks or hard stands.”
“Hard stands?” Rusty asked.
“Places on the airport ramp where the fuel can be pumped from an underground connection.”
“Okay.” Rusty had pulled a small scratch pad across the end table and was scribbling rapidly. “How much fuel?”
“Full load. Two hundred forty thousand pounds of Jet A or whatever jet fuel they have. And since we’re not headed to a rendezvous with the transports they had sent to meet us in the desert, I’m going to need meals for, say, three hundred—anything will do.”
There was a pause.
“Wait a minute. We’ll have to act like a positioning charter flight with a missing engine, so now we’re headed for maintenance somewhere. I guess meals wouldn’t make much sense. But getting toilets serviced and potable water refilled would.”
“Got it,” Sanders said. “But, Captain, if you get all this and get off the ground again, we still have to decide where to go.”
We? thought Holland. Am I letting someone else make the decisions again?
No. This is my only outside ally! Holland reminded himself. “We” is right. I need his help.
Holland exhaled loudly. “What was your first name again?”
“Rusty.”
“Okay, Rusty. I’m James, not ‘Captain,’ okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m thinking we need to go somewhere unpredictable, somewhere very heavily populated. A place where terrorists would dare not attack us. Rio de Janeiro, for instance, or Cape Town, South Africa. That is, if I can stay airborne long enough to get there. Would you research that? Help me figure out where to go if we can get away from the Canaries?”
“I’ll do it, James.”
“I appreciate that. And I appreciate your help earlier. I’m … I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”
“I understand, believe me.”
“Well,” said Holland, “I wish I had.”
In Washington, Rusty replaced the receiver at the same moment he and Sherry heard the sound of a key turning in the hotel room door.
TWENTY-FOUR
SITUATION ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.—SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23—6 P.M. (2300Z)
The security message from Langley had been slipped under Jon Roth’s nose with shocking effect, but Roth—his half-glasses resting on the top of his head—leaned back in the overstuffed leather swivel chair and nodded with a practiced air of boredom at the Situation Room staffer who had brought it.
The staffer, painfully familiar with the blasé facades of panicked men in high positions, quickly closed the door behind him, knowing that the deputy director of Central Intelligence would sit forward immediately to scan the message again, his mind racing through the possibilities and complications.
All commercial satellite transmissions from Flight 66 had been monitored—not from Langley but from the Company’s new electronic center south of the Beltway. The distress call had come from Flight 66 at 2226Z. They were going down, one of the pilots had said. That meant that within three minutes of the distress call, the 747 should have impacted the water, destroying all ability to access the commercial telephone satellite channels.
Yet, according to the message from Langley, two satellite telephone calls had been made from Flight 66 a full fourteen minutes after the Mayday! And the calls had been terminated several minutes later in mid-conversation, simultaneously.
Perhaps, thought Roth, they kept it in the air as much as fourteen minutes longer, but finally lost control and crashed.
That was a reasonable possibility, he concluded. After all, the rescue force approaching from the USS Eisenhower was tracking nothing on radar in the area, and 747s were hardly stealth aircraft. Any 747 flying away from the presumed crash site should be spotted.
But fourteen minutes?
There were two possibilities, Roth decided. The more likely was the delayed-crash scenario.
But the more worrisome—the possibility they had faked a crash and somehow run without detection—demanded immediate action. If they were still alive and flying and had contacted no one, they had to be consciously faking. Otherwise, the captain would have called for help to save him from his attacker. Any unarmed commercial pilot would do exactly that.
Roth exhaled sharply. Everything was at stake. The CIA Director was still in intensive care and unconscious, with little prospect for recovery, but the President hadn’t named an acting CIA chief as yet. Roth knew he was the logical choice, but if he whipsawed the President in too many directions, the presidential staff would whisper in their boss’s ear and the vacillating occupant of the Oval Office would drop Roth instantly.
Yet, if Flight 66 was still in the air, it represented a very real threat to both human civilization and his carefully hatched plan to focus the rage of the world on Aqbah.
That’s what I have to play on, Roth reminded himself. The President must be very sensitive to the fact that this is an American aircraft threatening to infect the world!.
Roth got to his feet. The President must not speak out publicly just yet.
Stopping the news conference would be easy.
Convincing the President to unleash the Air Force with lethal intent against a civilian airliner would be the hard part.
GRAND HYATT, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Harold and Janie Hollingsworth from Chinook, Montana, had lingered all afternoon in the National Gallery of Art. It was the third day of their vacation, and they were in a great mood by the time they returned to the hotel. Janie, a striking brunette in her late thirties with a fondness for micro-miniskirts, was an aspiring mystery writer and reporter for her local paper. They had dinner reservations in Georgetown, but first she planned to seduce her husband with some new and scandalous lingerie she’d slipped into her suitcase.
She smiled to herself, thankful their sexual appetites were the same. Harold had fondled her small, well-rounded rear end all the way up on the elevator and she’d reached back to reciprocate. Now, heated and happily impatient, he fumbled with the key to room 1443 before getting it to turn. The door swung open and Janie shot past him into the room in the process of unbuttoning her blouse—and came to a sudden halt.
“Who the hell are you?” Harold heard her ask.
Harold moved to her side, startled to see a man and woman in the their room, the man holding the telephone and standing by the bed, the woman pacing.
Both looked caught in the act.
Rusty Sanders replaced the receiver and stood up, his left hand out in a stop gesture as he fumbled in his back pocket for his ID.
Harold Hollingsworth saw the strange man’s right hand disappear in a pocket and expected to see it emerge with a gun. Instinctively he grabbed Janie by the shoulders and pulled her back toward the open door.
“Wait!” The command came from the woman. It carried enough authority to cause Harold to hesitate, and in that instant Rusty Sanders found his ID and opened it in front of them, holding it out.
“Please. Close the door,” Rusty ordered.
Harold looked closely at the ID.
“Central Intelligence Agency. I’m Dr. Rusty Sanders; this is Agent Sherry Ellis,” Rusty said.
Agent Ellis? Sherry thought to herself, amused, but working hard not to react.
Rusty couldn’t recall ever having introduced himself like an operative before. It sounded strange, and staged.
“Okay …” Harold said cautiously as Janie squirmed out of his grasp.
Rusty pointed back at the nightstand. “You’ve heard of the police commandeering vehicles? Well, we’ve sort of commandeered your room to use the phone. We’re in the middle of a real, ah, problem, with an ongoing operation, and we had to have a quiet and inconspicuous place. Look … I don’t have time to explain,” Rusty said with authority. “You two please sit down. My partner will fill you in on what’s at stake here while I get back to work. With any luck, we’ll be out of here in thirty minutes.”
“Sherry.” Rusty looked at her intently. “Tell them what’s happening.”
As Sherry nodded, Harold and Janie Hollingsworth looked at each other, their passion suddenly cooled by curiosity. They had heard Washington was a strange town, but to have the CIA conducting an operation in their hotel room was worth a decade of storytelling back home—not to mention a new plot for Janie’s writing!
Harold held his wife’s forearm as they sank together onto the edge of their bed.
ABOARD FLIGHT 66
James Holland called Barb Rollins up to the flight deck for a hurried conference and asked for Ambassador Lancaster as well. Rachael departed to escort her boss back upstairs, and with all of them crowded into the diminutive cockpit, Holland swiveled as far around as he could in his seat to fill them in.
“We’ve been attacked,” he told them, “and we’re being hunted.” He told them about Sanders and the renegade operation he had uncovered. He outlined the loss of number four engine to an air-to-air missile and how they had tried
to dive their way to safety, and succeeded at least temporarily. “We knew everyone in the cabin would be scared beyond words, but there was no time to focus on that or say anything on the PA. We were kinda busy up here.”
He described their diminished options and the need to remain low to evade radar.
And he laid out the worst element of all. “This man Sanders tells me we’re probably not infected, but that this renegade operation has the world—and the President—convinced that we’re all dead. They’ve lied about the autopsy on Professor, ah …”
“Helms,” Barb said.
“Helms. Sanders says there was no evidence whatsoever of an active viral infection, as he put it. The media is putting out the opposite message, and Sanders says it may be coming from the CIA. Bottom line? No one wants us around, everyone on the planet with a television, radio, or newspaper thinks we’re worse than Typhoid Mary, and our own country has written us off. We can’t even contact our own company now because any outside phone calls could prove we’re still flying and attract whichever terrorist group is after us.”
He looked around at each of them before continuing. “We’re pretending to be dead. We’ve tried to turn that desperate getaway attempt into a fake crash to buy time. We need to stay alive and apart from the rest of the world for twenty-four hours, or as much of that as possible. When that period of time has passed and if no one aboard has fallen seriously ill, our status will begin to change. In the meantime, we’ve got the CIA and some fanatic Middle East terrorist group trying to kill us.”
Barb Rollins looked down and shook her head, as if to clear away the horrific vision. Her eyes snapped back to James Holland’s.
“Let me get this straight, James. There’s one other human on the planet who knows we’re alive, and to whom you can speak, and this guy is a CIA spook on a cellular phone in some hotel in Washington?”
Holland nodded, then shook his head in frustration. “I know it sounds—”
“Why,” she interrupted, looking around the cockpit at the various occupants, then back at Holland with an expression of dead seriousness, “why do I keep expecting Allen Funt, or maybe Rod Serling, to walk in?” She was not smiling.
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