“This is reality, Barb, as strange as it is,” Holland said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
Holland pointed out the right window. “There’s an empty strut out there where number four engine was. It was blown off the wing by a missile. We all heard it. That’s one truth I can fully accept. We weren’t in anyone’s forbidden airspace. We were over international waters and we were attacked. This whole thing seems nuts, but Sanders makes sense.”
Lee Lancaster sighed and spoke up. “Let me add something, James.” He looked at Barb Rollins, standing inches from him, then at Rachael, then back at Barb. “At the national and international level, what often appears to us ordinary outside observers to be insane reasoning and bizarre thinking actually starts out as a logical progression of thought in the minds of very ordinary people trapped in positions of extraordinary power. Conclusion A leads to conclusion B, and so forth. The chain is logical, but the ultimate conclusion can be illogical, and at times even criminal.”
He looked Holland in the eye. “James, you’ve pinpointed the element that scares me the most. We’re now perceived as a major, lethal biological threat to all human life. We don’t think that’s true. The evidence doesn’t bear it out, at least not yet. But down there, out there among those who make high-speed decisions with low-speed brains, that has obviously become conclusion A.”
James Holland studied Lee Lancaster’s face. Lancaster’s skin was exceptionally black, so much so that his features tended to blend into the darker corners of the cockpit. But the humane warmth in his eyes radiated confidence and calm. Holland suddenly understood how this man could be such a calming influence in a perpetual hurricane of wildly homicidal emotions in the Middle East.
“Ambassador—” Holland began.
“James, my mother named me Lee, not ‘Ambassador.’”
“I’m sorry. Lee, you believe Sanders is telling me the truth, then?”
Lee Lancaster cocked his head slightly. “I think you already know the answer to that, James. As you say, we’re missing an engine to prove it. The CIA didn’t fly whatever craft shot that missile, but it’s a good bet they helped set it up. Yes, I think that’s possible, and correct. Remember, everything flows from conclusion A. And …” He looked down at the floor for a second.
“What?” Holland prompted.
Lancaster looked back up, making eye contact with everyone but Dick Robb, whose eyes remained glued to the radio altimeter.
“Well, James, when different elements of our government—including this renegade group—discover we’re still alive, that won’t alter conclusion A. It will, however, force some tough decisions based on that conclusion.”
“Such as?” Barb asked.
“Such as, if we’re going to run, could we possibly imperil and infect a population center somewhere? If so, then we’d be threatening the lives of thousands, perhaps millions. Such an act would have to be prevented. If not by reason, then by force.”
“Lee, what are you saying?” Holland asked quietly.
The ambassador’s eyes returned to his.
“If we go to the Sahara, to Mauritania, whoever tried to get us before will finish the job. That’s a logical conclusion. If we go anywhere else, the United States may have to make the decision to kill us themselves so as to prevent us from infecting and killing untold millions of innocent civilians in some foreign nation. What I’m saying is, your plan to disappear for as long as possible is sound reasoning, if there’s real hope of pulling it off. Within a few hours the U.S. military may be given search and destroy orders.”
“Our own Air Force …” Holland’s words trailed off in shock.
Lancaster nodded. “Our own Air Force. And our own Navy. Remember conclusion A: We’re a flying biological time bomb of historic proportions. We’re the Typhoid Mary of the jet age, yet of a magnitude much more deadly.”
“What if we just land on the Canary Islands and refuse to move?”
Lancaster smiled. “That may be the best solution, James, but it could be easier said than done. I’m sure you can land. I have no idea how hysterical the reaction will be, but if you stay there long enough, you can be sure the situation will spin out of your control. That’s a choice you’ve got to make as a pilot, as a captain.”
Holland inclined his head slightly. “I don’t think I understand.”
“The choice is between two extremes: One, is it safer to refuel and keep flying while trying to evade the rest of the world, or two, is it wiser to stay uninvited on someone’s airport tarmac and let the resulting international incident spin an unbreakable web of control around us? I can’t help you with that one. I don’t know which is best, but I do fear the latter, even if the media were able to put the glare of worldwide attention on us. Planned mistakes become simple to engineer in the midst of mass confusion and panic, even on live TV.”
“Such as?”
“Fire, explosion, frightened trigger-happy security guards, as in Iceland. But then, it may be safer than flying on three engines.”
Holland was shaking his head. “This is a tough old Boeing, Lee. It takes more than an engine loss to imperil a ship like this.”
“Then,” Lancaster said, “you may have already found the solution.”
GRAND HYATT, WASHINGTON, D.C.
With the Hollingsworths watching quietly and Sherry using the second line on the bathroom extension, Rusty Sanders negotiated with the airport authorities in charge of fuel for the targeted Canary Islands airport. His telephone credit card bill was approaching meltdown.
“We’d like direct billing,” Rusty told him.
There was a long hesitation on the other end. “Eh, I am so sorry, but we will need some credit arrangements to have been filed. We will accept a credit card, however.”
Rusty nodded, wondering how to cajole American Express into approving such a purchase on his personal card.
Maybe there’s a company card aboard Holland can use, he thought. Best to get the gas pumped first.
“Okay, señor?” Rusty asked. “The captain will provide the credit card when the fuel is loaded. Okay?”
“What is this airline, again?” the man asked.
Rusty’s mind raced through the possible answers. He could see Quantum’s logo in his mind’s eye: a large, stylized Q flying through a red, white, and blue starfield. It was similar to the famous logo of another airline, and there had even been rumblings of litigation over the similarity.
Of course! he recalled. United!
Rusty relayed the name.
“Ah, sí. United.”
“It’s a new division of United, and we’re using a leased aircraft,” Rusty lied, hoping it wouldn’t matter. After all, United could be leasing a Quantum aircraft.
Within forty minutes Sherry and Rusty hung up the phones and compared notes. The fuel and water would be waiting. Latrine service would not. The only latrine service truck big enough to handle a 747 was broken. Those things would have to wait a bit longer.
The issue of dumping potential biologically contaminated waste at an unsuspecting airport also crossed Rusty’s mind. Perhaps he should be glad the truck was broken, just in case he was wrong—in case they were infected.
He dialed the number of Lancaster’s Iridium telephone and relayed the information to James Holland.
“Captain, you should identify yourself as a United flight,” Rusty said. “I’ve told them you’re a new division of United.”
“United!” Holland sounded slightly taken aback. United was a bitter competitor.
“It’s all I could think of,” Rusty told him. “Your logos are similar. And while you’re at it, I’d turn off that light in the back that shines on the tail and the logo.”
“That’s already been done.”
ABOARD FLIGHT 66
Within fifty miles of the targeted island, Holland took over again and dropped the 747 back to less than two hundred feet over the water. There was a Spanish Air Force installation in the islands, but it
was unlikely fighters would be scrambled in the middle of the night for some phantom radar return, which was probably appearing and disappearing at random on their scopes.
When the lights of the city rose into view over the curvature of the ocean ahead, Holland began maneuvering to the east, skirting the northern edge of the island until he was lined up with the east–west runway. He turned then and headed straight in at one hundred feet, the shoreline looming ahead of them.
It was a risk, he knew. He had explained it in detail to Rachael Sherwood and Lee Lancaster. They were running without lights, without radar, and with little more than an intelligent guess as to the exact geographical spot at which the low cliffs of the island met the sea.
When he could stand it no longer, Holland pulled the 747 up to five hundred feet and nodded to Dick Robb, who pressed the transmit button.
The radio frequency of the Tenerife control tower had already been dialed into the number one radio.
“Tenerife tower, United Charter Twelve-eleven on final for runway two-seven.”
The puzzled, heavily accented voice came back hesitantly.
“Ah, United Charter, where are you, please?”
Holland reached up to the overhead panel and snapped on all the landing and taxi lights the 747 possessed. He knew the tower controller was straining to see something off the east end of his airport, probably with binoculars. The instant sun-storm of light would nearly blind the man, but it would also momentarily confuse him and forestall deeper attempts to wonder about the sudden, unheralded arrival.
There had been no handoff from Approach Control or the oceanic controllers, neither of whom had a flight plan for an inbound jumbo.
“Ah, United Charter Twelve-eleven, cleared to land.”
“Roger. Cleared to land.”
Holland called for the flaps and landing gear in sequence as they approached the airport. To his relief, everything extended normally. While Robb ran through the items on the engine-out checklist, Holland retarded the throttles and settled the big ship in on a seven-hundred-foot-per-minute rate of descent through the last five hundred feet to the runway. Even with corrective left rudder applied to compensate for the missing engine on the right wing, the touchdown was one of the smoothest in his career.
At the same moment, one hundred forty miles to the southeast at Las Palmas Airport, a ramp serviceman finished plugging his fuel nozzle into the receptacle of a sleek business jet flown by some rich Arab. It was a task the serviceman inwardly despised.
He hated rich Arabs. He had worked under contract for a Saudi company for one year, hoping to make more money for his family. It had been a terrible experience. No one spoke Spanish, and all the rich Arabs whose airplanes he was hired to service treated him like excrement.
He looked up at the turbaned pilot and kept his expression neutral. It would be so satisfying to pull out the other hose and soak the bastard with kerosene, but he would be fired immediately, and good jobs were too hard to get in the Canary Islands.
He watched the pilot as he walked around his aircraft and knelt down to inspect a series of long panels on the Gulfstream’s belly. He had never seen panels there on a Gulfstream before and wondered what they were. Curious, he thought. There was a streak of black soot, almost like jet exhaust, running from the back of one of the panels along the underside of the aircraft. They would have to get that cleaned off: Soot was acidic, and there would eventually be corrosion damage. Of course, those rich Arabs don’t give a damn, he reminded himself. Look at the strutting rooster! He’d let his airplane corrode away, then just go buy another one!
The refueler pretended to be concerned about one of the grounding wires plugged into the fuselage of the airplane from his truck. He walked over and inspected it, then stood up to get a glimpse inside the open doorway. There would be at least one beautiful woman aboard. There always was. In Riyadh he had nearly been arrested for looking at Saudi women too closely. Saudi men hated that, but they couldn’t control his eyes in his own country. He loved to irritate Arabs who passed through his ramp by leering at their women.
But the cabin was empty, and there were no other pilots.
And that was very strange.
He heard a small scraping noise behind him and turned, startled, to see the Arab pilot standing a few feet behind him. The sudden appearance was unnerving, as if his thoughts had been overheard. There was something about the man and his private jet—something vaguely threatening in a way he couldn’t define.
TENERIFE AIRPORT, CANARY ISLANDS
With the auxiliary power unit back on-line and powering the aircraft’s air-conditioning and electrical systems, James Holland applied the parking brake and brought the engine start levers to cutoff. The sound of the three remaining engines winding down vibrated lightly through the cockpit as a truck-mounted set of stairs suitable for a 747 approached carefully on the left, preparing to dock with the aft left door. Holland had briefed the crew and the passengers thoroughly on the PA. No one was to leave his or her seat, and no one would be allowed aboard. “And,” Holland had ordered, “I’ve got to insist that everyone without exception pull your window shade and under no circumstances raise it. We do not want anyone out there to know there are passengers on this aircraft, because we don’t want them to know who we are. They believe we’re an empty seven-forty-seven getting in position for a charter flight. Our safety depends on your following my instructions to the letter.”
According to Barb, there had been no dissent. Everyone was far too scared.
Door 5L was to be opened only a crack, to allow them to confer with the ground crew, if necessary, and Barb would do the talking. Customs, she would tell them, refused to clear them, so they would be unable to let anyone in or out.
“When they find out who we are, James,” Dick Robb had said, “they’re going to be homicidally angry, because they’ll think we’ve just exposed their people and their island.”
Holland had nodded. “Can’t be helped. Besides, we can’t expose them to something that, hopefully, we’re not carrying. With luck, we can get back in the air before they figure anything out.” Holland looked at Robb and saw him nod reluctantly.
“I guess. But then where do we go?”
“I think I’ve got that figured out. We’ll discuss it in a few minutes.”
The sound of a cockpit chime rung by one of the ground crew near the nose gear interrupted them.
Holland selected the appropriate interphone channel and pushed the transmit button.
“Cockpit.”
A frantic voice with a heavy Spanish accent came back in his ear. “¡Capitán! ¡Capitán! You have no engeen at número four! An engeen is missing! ¿Capitán, comprende?”
Holland shook his head. “Yes, comprende. We know. Please don’t worry about it. Just refuel the airplane, but do not put fuel in the number three reserve tank.”
“But, capitán … you have no engeen! You cannot fly with one engeen not there, sí?”
“It’s OKAY, señor! Believe me! We are going to ferry the airplane to a maintenance base.”
There was confused silence from below for a few seconds. “We were told this flight is a charter, no? It is a ferry flight?”
“We’re positioning for a charter,” Holland told him. “We’re ferrying the airplane empty because the engine fell off.”
More silence.
Holland decided to try again. “¿Señor? Did you understand about the reserve fuel tank?”
“Sí, capitán. We will no fill the number three reserve tank. You have no passengers aboard, then?”
“No passengers,” Holland replied.
The man seemed to be thinking it over. His finger was still pressing his transmit button as he conferred in rapid Spanish with someone else on the ramp. His voice finally returned to the interphone.
“Where you go for maintenance?”
“Madrid,” Holland snapped. “Iberia’s handling it. Okay?”
“Okay, sí,” the man said, recogniz
ing the name of Spain’s national airline.
Within five minutes the fuel quantities began to increase.
In a small airport office facing the lighted terminal ramp, the local Iberia maintenance foreman, Francisco Lizarza, sat behind a heavily scarred wooden desk and drummed his fingers. Why, he wondered, would a competent aircrew ferry an airplane with a missing engine—not to mention dangling cables, burn marks, punctures in the wing, and an active fuel leak—without at least securing the damaged areas? He stared out through dirty blinds at the 747-400, the earlier upset at staying late to deal with a grounded Iberia jet now forgotten.
Iberia Maintenance in Madrid would inherit the problem, the captain had told the ramp service coordinator by interphone. But there was fuel still dripping from the right number three reserve tank, where a series of ugly gashes had perforated the underside of the wing—undoubtedly, he figured, as number four engine had disintegrated and left its pylon.
Lizarza reached for the phone suddenly and dialed the familiar number of Maintenance in Madrid. He asked for the night supervisor and explained the problem. Did they want him to do anything to secure the leak and the dangling cables on engine number four before the crew ferried it to Madrid?
“What airplane are you talking about, Francisco?” the supervisor asked. “We have no such airplane scheduled in here.”
The conversation ended, leaving Lizarza even more puzzled. Why would the captain lie? He reached for his copy of the World Aviation Guide to look up United’s Maintenance headquarters back in the United States, and considered calling Quantum Airlines to see what they wanted done.
But there was something very familiar …
¡Madre de Dios! he thought.
Lizarza looked across the small office to where a tiny color television set perched on a workstand. A friend from Radio Maintenance had rigged up a satellite antenna to pull in several channels, including the American CNN. He had been watching it much earlier in the day, but now the TV was off and he lunged across the room to turn it on, impatiently waiting for it to warm up.
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