The reference to Greenwich Mean Time as “Zulu” was a standard for aviators.
“Roger. Thanks.” Sandra had been waiting for the message. While Doug hung on to the boom and the last few thousand pounds of fuel coursed into the 141’s fuel manifold, she consulted a small table Will had given her an hour earlier and traced the column of figures with her finger as Will looked back to his right and watched her. “Playmate” was the Balair DC-10. Will was relieved that the Balair captain was apparently maintaining the slower airspeed of Mach .78 as he had been instructed by his company. The message had been relayed by satellite connection to the KC-10 from U.S. intelligence sources monitoring the progress of the Balair flight through Roma Control in Italy. Balair was estimating the position known as Paleochora in Greek airspace over the island of Crete at 2118 GMT, and Tansa intersection at 2144 GMT. Tansa, a navigational fix that exists only on aviation charts, marks a point in midair halfway between Crete and the north coast of Egypt—the jurisdictional dividing line between Cairo Control and Atheni Control.
Sandra keyed her interphone. “Pilot, jump seat. I calculate that if we’re finished here in five minutes, we’ll just make the rendezvous at Tansa.”
The boomer’s voice cut in.
“That’s a total of sixty, MAC.”
The sound of the refueling boom withdrawing from the C-141’s refueling port echoed through the cockpit as Sandra quietly reached to her left and positioned her microphone selector to the same radio carrying the young male voice of the KC-10’s boomer.
She waited for his next call.
“Okay, MAC, we’re clear.”
Sandra keyed the transmitter then, her feminine voice suddenly filling the boomer’s headset as she purred with exaggerated sensuality and feeling.
“Oh wow! Was it good for you, too, Exxon?”
Doug whirled around to his left and tried to shoot Sandra a stern look of disapproval, but his grin was ruining the effect.
“Sandra!”
She repositioned her radio switch and tried to look wide-eyed innocent. “Yes?”
“No telling how long the poor guy’s been out here,” Doug said. “That’s cruel!”
Will bit his lip and said nothing.
Doug eased the aircraft down about fifty feet as the KC-10 pilots said farewell and began a climb, the aircraft’s lights diminishing rapidly overhead.
Doug shifted his gaze to the other C-141 as Will pointed to their sister ship and keyed the interphone. “Bring us into a modified pre-contact position beneath our friend out there, copilot.”
“Yes sir, Captain, sir. And I’ll take the chicken,” Doug replied, eyes straight ahead.
Will toggled the interphone button and held it for a few seconds before speaking, looking at Doug in confusion. “What?”
Doug chuckled. “I’ll explain later. It’s just something junior flight officers say to their captains in the civilian airline world.”
“Are reservists always like this?” Will asked.
“Like what?” Doug replied, affecting as innocent a look as Sandra’s.
The radio call to the other 141 on the secure radio channel was next on the agenda, Will reminded himself. He should have checked the radio already, but in the confusion of the departure from Sandy 101, he had forgotten. The special type of secure frequency-hopping radios was vital to the mission, especially now, he thought. The other C-141 now flying formation with them less than a hundred feet away had been specially configured for this mission and had special UHF radios. The other crew was supposed to be standing by and monitoring those frequencies already, waiting for MAC Alpha 284 to initiate the frequency-hopping procedures, which would let the two airplanes communicate in almost impenetrable privacy.
Will glanced to his left at the pilot’s side panel then to find the special control head—and stopped cold.
Many C-141s already had the frequency-hopping secure radios installed.
This one didn’t!
The pilot’s left side panel was, in effect, bare, leaving them no way of communicating safely with the other C-141.
Will’s heart sank. Another mistake! I should have checked to make sure they were installed before we left!
He glanced up at the dark bulk of the other 141 now ahead of them in the windscreen, acutely aware that both of them were wasting time by flying north at the sedate cruising speed of .74 Mach. The other flight crew was obviously waiting for instructions from Will over their secure radios! Without them, there was no secure way to coordinate the changeover of the transponder, the turn on course, the call to Cairo Control, the airspeed, or the plan for crossing Tansa some two hours ahead. Time was indeed running out. They would have to race toward El Dab’a now at red-line speed to have any hope of intercepting Playmate, but how could he tell the other aircrew all that without telling the world below as well?
Will suppressed the additional butterflies and tried to think through the options. The 141 ahead was probably monitoring what MAC crews called “button ten,” a particular UHF frequency for air-to-air conversation. It wasn’t secure and it wasn’t private, but anyone hearing what he needed to say wouldn’t be likely to figure out what they were doing unless they already knew.
He reached down to UHF radio number one and dialed in preset frequency 10, then moved his radio wafer switch to the UHF-1 position and hit the transmit button on the yoke.
Keep it cryptic! “Up button ten, friend?”
No response. The 141 was looming large in the windscreen now. He tried again, on UHF-2, with no response, then on the VHF radios tuned to frequencies they had used with the tanker.
Still nothing. No response.
They had to establish some sort of contact, and fast.
Doug glanced toward Will with a question on his face. “Are you talking to them?”
“I wish I could. They’re monitoring their frequency-hopping radios, but we have a small problem: we don’t have any in this aircraft. I just now realized it.”
“Oh boy. The other airplane did? The one that crashed back there at our departure base?”
“Yeah,” Will replied.
“Well, what now, Kemo Sabe?” Doug was maintaining position about fifty feet behind and below the 141, which was still heading north, waiting for instructions.
“Pull out to his left, Doug. Make it a safe distance, but make sure he sees us.”
“Okay. We’d better turn our lights on.”
Doug reached up and snapped on the leading-edge lights, position lights, and rotating beacon as he slid the airplane to the left and began to gain on the other Starlifter.
“Engineer, pilot. Do you have a large-tipped felt marker of some sort?”
The answer took a few seconds in coming. “No sir … I don’t think so.”
“I do, pilot.”
“Who’s that?” Will asked.
“The loadmaster. I’ve got one. Passing it up now.”
“Good. Now I need two sheets of paper, around standard letter size. Blank and white. Anybody?”
“Okay, pilot, this is the engineer. I’ve got the back of some computer paper here.”
Will swiveled around toward the engineer. “Okay, take that marker, and in as large a format as you can make it, with one number per sheet, write down a one and a zero.”
The image of the other 141 was now coming into the two-o’clock position several hundred yards to the right.
Will turned to Sandra again. “Jump seat—Sandra—when the engineer has those ready, I’ll need you in the copilot’s window. We’ve got to get the other crew to come up button ten. Hold up one number at a time until you think the pilot over there’s seen each one of them. Got it?”
“Uh, sir. Can I make a suggestion?” Sandra asked.
“Please do,” Will shot back.
“We’ve got the Aldus light over there. Why don’t we use Morse code? I don’t think they’re going to be able to make out these numbers in the window in the dark.”
The engineer was noddi
ng vigorously. “I concur, pilot.”
Will shook his head as if to clear it. “The pilot’s embarrassed,” he began. “That’s obviously the better solution. I completely forgot we had a signal lamp. Sandra, do you know Morse code?”
“Yes sir. I have a ham radio license.”
Her seatbelt already off, Sandra knelt in the right-hand cockpit window and plugged in the high-powered signal lamp, holding it against the glass and aiming it carefully at the other 141 as she found the trigger and waited for them to pull abeam of the other airplane, which was now about two hundred feet to their right. She saw the outline of the pilot in the other cockpit, and saw him look left. Now! She triggered the light, flashing it off and on several times as the sound of an irritated voice crackled in everyone’s headsets.
“Hey! Cut it out! MAC, you up button ten?”
Will moved his wafer switch back to UHF-1. “Roger. You see the light?”
“Have I been blinded, d’you mean? Hell, yes! Turn that off!”
“That’s our man,” Doug added.
Will thought through his phraseology for a few seconds and triggered the transmit button. “Okay, here’s the deal. Wrong radios installed here, so button ten is our channel. Increase to point-eight-two-five Mach immediately, get clearance, blaze the trail, and head for Point Alpha as agreed. Copy?”
“Hold it, I’m writing.” The radio fell silent for a full twenty seconds.
“Okay … roger. You sure about eight-two-five?”
“We’re sure,” Will replied. “It’s lights-out here, and we’re going to have an identity crisis in one minute. Yours will end at the same time.”
“We … ah … wait a second.” There was a pause lasting no more than ten seconds. Sandra could see the pilot looking to his right, obviously talking the meanings over with the other crew members.
“Roger, all received and understood. Identity in thirty seconds, mark.”
Will let his hand drop from the transmit switch, worrying that he’d said too much or maybe too little. At least they understood over there that “identity” meant the point at which they would become MAC Alpha 284. He reached over and snapped off all the lights, and turned the transponder off at the twenty-second point, motioning to Doug with his thumb to drop back. “Take us back to the trail position as before.”
“You got it, pilot.”
The position lights, formation lights, and leading-edge lights of the other aircraft snapped on as the frequency for Cairo Control came alive at once with a voice from the other cockpit. “Cairo Control, MAC Alpha two-eight-four, flight level two-five-zero, estimating Wedj at one-nine-four-two Zulu, requesting flight level three-five-zero.”
“He’s accelerating.” Doug’s hand pushed the throttles up smartly to keep pace with the lead Starlifter as he suddenly leaped ahead. Mach .825 was the red-line speed, the fastest cruise permitted for a C-141. Doug turned to Sandra, who was already punching the waypoint that corresponded to Tansa into the inertial navigation display. Within seconds the distance remaining and time estimate would be displayed.
Will sat back, noting that Doug seemed to be settling in and enjoying the formation flying, although nothing more than a few lights marked the position of the other 141 just out front of the cockpit.
It always seemed so sedate and simple and even elegant, two airplanes perfectly matched in speed and direction, one of them appearing to float effortlessly in the windscreen of the other. But the realities were brutally different. Behind the lead Starlifter was a trail of disturbed air streaming over them and barely clearing their huge T-tail, 160 feet behind the cockpit. If Doug should get too high and run the horizontal stabilizer into that slipstream, the consequences could be anywhere from startling to disastrous. The thought of two huge airlifters colliding in the night was an apocalyptic vision Will pushed out of his mind. Better to enjoy the almost poetic image of those lights hovering just above and ahead.
Doug caught Will’s eye and inclined his head toward the sister ship. “Thank God he thought to turn off the anticollision beacon. I can’t imagine that thing flashing in my face for the next two hours.”
Will nodded as he toggled the interphone. “Now, for the next two hours, people, we play like we’re invisible.” He turned then to look at Sandra, and beyond her at the engineer, then back at Doug. “Copilot, scanner, engineer, loadmaster—all of you, this is the pilot. Thanks, team. That was excellent response and coordination to my lousy performance.”
Doug looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “And you think we didn’t know you were just testing our responses, huh? We know you did all that on purpose, just to see if we’d be assertive.”
The green display screen of the FSAS flight computer flashed the figures Sandra had been waiting for. She scribbled down the time estimate, compared it, and triggered the interphone—a concerned frown crinkling her face.
“Pilot, this is the jump seat. Ah … I think we’ve got a problem. The DC-10’s supposed to cross Tansa at twenty-one-forty-four Zulu. We’re already at maximum speed, and the computer says we’re not going to get there until twenty-one-forty-seven!”
Will and Doug both checked and rechecked the figures and the FSAS, but the estimate was accurate.
Sandra couldn’t hear Will Westerman sigh, but she could see his chest fall, and read the weariness around his eyes.
It was Doug, however, who tried to sum it up. “Okay, this is the copilot. We have only two choices,” he said. “Either we speed up—and we can’t do that—or we alter course. To alter course, we’ve got to call the other flight crew, and we’ve already said too much on the air.”
Will had been deep in thought and staring through his instrument panel. Now his right hand went up slowly. “No, there is a third option. We can wait. We’ve got two hours to Tansa, and within ninety minutes we’ll be able to hear the DC-10’s position report. Until we know when he’s really going to cross Tansa, we’re playing a roulette game of chronological dead reckoning.”
“Yeah,” Doug replied. “And if we reckon wrong, we’re dead.”
5
Cairo Air Traffic Control Center
Wednesday, March 6, 1991—11:35 P.M. (2135 GMT)
Farouk Hammedi reached over and switched off the circular polarization function on his radar display—a handy feature that kept pesky thunderstorm cells and other weather from clogging the scope. Ten minutes ago he had been sleepy. Now he was wide awake—and getting angry. Most American Air Force transport crews were reasonably polite and very careful to comply with their clearances. This one—MAC Alpha 284—was becoming a major irritation.
As I suspected! Not a weather cell anywhere on the scope.
Hammedi checked his transmitter control switches. He was broadcasting on 123.5 VHF, and simultaneously on 246.55 UHF. Ultra high frequency was supposed to be the common frequency for the U.S. military, but most Military Airlift Command pilots chose VHF. He had always wondered why.
“MAC Alpha two-eight-four, Cairo.”
Nothing. Damn them! Why don’t they listen to the frequency?
“MAC Alpha two-eight-four, MAC Alpha two-eight-four, Cairo, Cairo. Do you hear me?”
The distance between the MAC flight and his assigned course was increasing by the minute. He mentally projected the track forward, startled to see it would cross another midair navigational fix some fifty miles east of Tansa, known as Aioa, and, like Tansa, on the dividing line between Cairo Control and Atheni Control.
“MAC Alpha two-eight-four, do you hear Cairo?” He was half-yelling into his headset microphone now, and one of his fellow controllers in an adjacent position was looking at him with puzzlement.
Finally, a laconic American voice cut through his headset. “Roger, Cairo, MAC Alpha two-eight-four with you.”
“Where are you going, two-eight-four? You are twenty-five miles now to the right of your assigned course.”
There was a pause on the radio channel as Hammedi watched 284’s blip flare once again in the same strange
way it had done earlier.
“Ah … Cairo, two-eight-four. We told you, sir. We’ve had to deviate around thunderstorm buildups ahead of us.”
Hammedi snorted to himself and keyed his transmitter again. “Two-eight-four, I show no weather tonight in your area. I repeat, no weather. Where is this weather you are trying to avoid, sir?”
“Cairo, two-eight-four, I’m sorry you can’t see it on your radar, but we see it on ours, and I’m just not going to fly through it. If I have to use my authority to deviate in the interest of flight safety, then consider that’s what I’m doing.”
The answer made no sense. What “authority” was he talking about? Cairo Control had the authority in Cairo’s airspace, and, at the moment, only Hammedi could grant or take away authority to fly through that airspace.
Hammedi keyed his transmitter again, deciding to be as diplomatic as possible. “Can you come back to course now, two-eight-four? When can you return to course?”
The pilot’s casual, unconcerned attitude was becoming infuriating. Is he unaware of the trouble I can make for him? Hammedi realized he was grinding his teeth, threatening to dislodge a loose filling that had been bothering him. He willed himself to stop.
“Cairo, this is two-eight-four again. I think we’ll need to stay on our present heading until, well, we’ll probably need to cross Aioa intersection.”
Hammedi sat back a second and thought hard. Something was very wrong about this. American Military Airlift Command flights just didn’t disobey air traffic control directives.
He scanned his flight strips. Two-eight-four was at flight level 350. Behind him was a MAC Alpha 299, also at FL350. There was also a Saudi 747—Saudi flight 334—at FL330. Coming in from Greek airspace and headed for both Tansa and then Aioa was a DC-10, Balair 5040, but he was safely at FL370. There was a westbound 707 headed for Aioa at FL330, and … there … an Egyptair Boeing 737 out of Cairo was climbing north and due to cross Aioa at 2147 at FL350! That meant that MAC Alpha 284 was headed straight for the same position at the same time.
“MAC Alpha two-eight-four, you cannot cross Aioa at flight level three-five-zero. It is impossible, sir, due to conflicting traffic.”
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