by Ben Bova
“What are you guys doing down there?” Christopher demanded.
“We hit him,” Hartunian said. “The instruments show we hit him.”
Christopher started to shake her head, but Kaufman took one hand off the control yoke and pointed a shaking finger at the MiG.
“Look!”
A thin trail of whitish smoke was streaming from a spot on the MiG’s fuselage halfway between the cockpit and the jet engine’s tailpipe.
“Is that all you can—”
Christopher clamped her mouth shut. The MiG’s fuselage was burning. A bright cherry-red circle of flame was growing, spreading. The plane’s aluminum skin was on fire.
“It’s burning!” Kaufman shouted.
“Took a few seconds to burn off the paint,” said Hartunian, almost apologetically.
Colonel Christopher watched as the burning circle spread across the MiG’s rear section. The plane yawed violently to the left and suddenly its clear plastic canopy popped off and the pilot ejected, his seat firing up and out while the MiG slid off on one wing and began to spiral toward the sea below. She leaned forward and craned her neck to watch the pilot separate from his seat. A heartbeat later his chute streamed out and billowed. She could see the man’s tiny figure hanging beneath the parachute’s canopy.
“We got him!” Kaufman exulted.
“Right turn, Obie,” Christopher commanded. “We’re heading for Misawa.”
The lumbering 747 turned slowly while the second MiG flew past them and began to circle the pilot descending into the water in his parachute.
“Let’s get our butts out of here,” Colonel Christopher said.
Kaufman muttered, “Before the whole gook air force comes after us.”
“Colonel, DPRK air command is calling again,” O’Banion reported.
Wishing she were flying a B-2 instead of this beat-up hulk of a transport plane, Christopher said, “Put him on.”
The man’s voice sounded more agitated. “American 747, one of our fighters has suffered a malfunction. Nevertheless you will continue to follow a heading of three hundred ten degrees. Another flight of our planes will escort you to a landing in the DPRK.”
Christopher thumbed her radio switch. “This is United States 747 ABL-1. We are leaving North Korean airspace and returning to Japan. Out.”
To O’Banion she said, “No more transmissions on their frequency, Captain. Let’s get away from here before they send out more fighters.”
Kaufman nodded. “Amen to that.”
U.S. Route 12, Bitterroot Mountains, Idaho
Charley Ingersoll’s hands were completely numb. He couldn’t feel anything with them. When he tried to wipe the snow off his face it was like a pair of wooden boards scraping against his frozen nose.
With some surprise, he realized that the pain was gone. Numb. Freezing. At least it don’t hurt anymore, he realized. God never gives you a trial that’s too much for you. He watches over you all the time.
He wondered if God was keeping the wolves away. They must be out there. Wolves. They hunt in packs. Prob’ly go after that moose ‘stead of me, he told himself. God won’t let me get eaten by wolves.
Without warning, Charley’s legs collapsed beneath him. He simply folded up and fell facedown into the snow. No pain. He felt like he was floating. Going to sleep. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a tendril of fear, a vague memory of Martha and the kids.
God, don’t let them die! Charley begged silently. Take me if you gotta, but let Martha and the kids live.
He wanted to hear an answer, but only the biting, moaning wind came to his ears. And the distant baying of a wolf. Charley fought against falling asleep. You fall asleep and then you ireeze to death, he knew. But ultimately he had no more strength in him. He closed his eyes and drifted into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
But just before it all went dark, he thought he heard the snarl of a wolf. Several wolves. Very close to him. He knew he should be alarmed, but it was just too easy to go to sleep.
San Francisco: The Cow Palace
“So when’s he coming out?” Vickie asked, teen-aged impatience etched onto her face.
Sylvia frowned at her elder daughter. “He’s the President, Victoria. He has a lot of things to do. He’ll be out when—”
“Look!” Denise pointed. A portly woman was striding onto the stage. The audience began to applaud.
“That’s Senator Youmans,” Sylvia told her daughters, feeling relieved that something was happening at last. The chairs were totally uncomfortable.
Senator Youmans basked in the applause for a few moments, then waved both her chubby arms to still the audience.
“Good evening, and welcome to San Francisco, the City by the Bay. This is a momentous occasion for us all…”
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” Vickie moaned. “She’s going to give the same speech she gave at the big rally last week, back home.”
The President listened intently to his chief of staff’s cell phone. Foster had laid it on the table between them and clicked on its speaker function.
“Apparently they shot down one of the North Korean interceptors,” General Higgins was saying. In the phone’s minuscule display screen the general’s face looked red and bloated, clownish.
“Apparently?” the President snapped. “Did they or didn’t they?”
“The MiG caught fire and crashed into the sea, sir,” Higgins replied, his voice tinny and small. “Whether it was from ABL-1’s laser or just an engine malfunction remains unclear, Mr. President.”
The President glanced at Foster, who spread his hands, palms up. “Either way, we win,” Foster said.
“So where’s ABL-1 now?” the President demanded.
“Over the Sea of Japan, sir, heading for Misawa Air Base.”
“Can they send out a search-and-rescue team?”
“If the plane ditches—”
“Now! I want it sent out now. Whether the plane ditches or not.”
“Yessir. Of course. I’ll get the word to Misawa right away.”
“Good. Thank you, General Higgins.”
Foster clicked the cell phone closed.
The President stood in silence for a long moment, then said to his chief of staff, “We’ve done all we should do, Norm. Our skirts are clean.”
Foster ran a hand over his shaved head. “But if the North Koreans send out more fighters…” He let the thought dangle.
“If they shoot down our plane over international waters they’re clearly in the wrong. The important thing is that we’ve gotten rid of the missile threat. I don’t want a war breaking out now, there’s no need for it.”
Foster nodded. “Except for the crew of that 747.”
“That’s why I ordered the SAR unit, Norm. They’ll pick up the crew from the water.”
Unless the gooks shoot down the SAR plane, too, Foster thought. But he did not mention his fear aloud.
Out of the corner of her eye Senator Youmans saw the President standing in the wings, waiting to be introduced to the crowd. First I have to talk to them because he’s not ready to come out, she grumbled to herself, and now I’ve got to cut my speech short because he is ready. And antsy, from the looks of him.
She betrayed none of those thoughts on her face. With a dimpled smile, she said into the microphones before her, “So, without further ado, the President of the United States!”
The crowd roared to its feet. The band struck up “California, Here I Come,” and the President strode out onto the stage, grinning and waving both his arms.
ABL-1: Cockpit
“Colonel, we’ve cleared North Korean airspace.” Karen Christopher heard the obvious relief in Lieutenant Sharmon’s soft voice.
She spoke into her lip mike: “Brick, any more transmissions from their defense command?”
“Just repeating their order for us to head inland and wait for another fighter ‘escort,’ Colonel.”
“Screw that.”
Major Kaufman turned toward her an
d asked, “You think they’ll send another batch of fighters after us?”
“Probably.” Karen realized that she was tired, emotionally and physically drained. But the plane was flying better; they were barely above twenty thousand feet now, but the buffeting had eased a bit. Still, she wondered how long the bird would hold together.
“Obie, you think you can handle things by yourself for a few minutes?”
Kaufman nodded vigorously.
As she unstrapped her safety harness, Christopher said, “I’ll send O’Banion up here, in case you need another pair of hands to work the controls.”
The major nodded again, less enthusiastically.
Every muscle in her body seemed to be aching as Colonel Christopher pulled herself out of the seat and took off her heavy, cumbersome flight helmet. Nestling the helmet under one arm, she stepped to the hatch at the rear of the cockpit. Kaufman clutched his control yoke with both hands. The plane was still vibrating, rattling hard enough to make her grab for the rim of the hatch as she went through.
She stepped onto the flight deck and patted Lieutenant Sharmon’s shoulder. “How’re we doing, Jon?”
“On course for Misawa, Colonel. I’ve got their radio beam loud and clear.”
“Good.” Turning to O’Banion, she said, “Brick, go up and sit with Major Kaufman. Don’t touch anything unless he tells you to.”
O’Banion blinked uncertainly but murmured, “Yes, ma’am” and got up from his seat.
Karen dropped her helmet on one of the bunks, then climbed down the ladder and saw Hartunian and the Japanese-American woman sitting side by side in the battle management compartment.
“Good shooting,” she called to them through the open hatch.
Hartunian grinned at her. The woman asked, “What happened to the second fighter?”
“He stayed where his buddy went down. Standard operating procedure. Waiting for a SAR chopper to pick up the man in the water.”
Hartunian asked, “Are they sending out more fighters?”
“Maybe,” Christopher answered with a weary shrug. “Do you have enough fuel to shoot ‘em down?”
He shook his head. “Maybe one or two squirts, not much more. We used up a lot of fuel on that one fighter. Kept bouncing in and out of acquisition.”
Colonel Christopher looked at Hartunian, studied his face for the first time. Soft brown eyes, she noticed. He doesn’t look like a warrior. Not at all.
But she crooked a finger at him and said, “Come on to the galley with me, Mr. Hartunian.”
He looked surprised for a flash of a second, then unstrapped his harness and rose to his feet. The plane bucked slightly and he reached for the console to steady himself.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Colonel Christopher, with a thin smile.
“I guess not,” replied Hartunian shakily.
Once they entered the cramped little galley, Christopher went straight to the coffee urn. There was only half a mugful left, dregs. Still, it was better than nothing. She cradled the mug in both hands.
Turning back to Hartunian, she said, “Now, what about this saboteur?”
The engineer looked surprised. “What about him?”
“We’ve got to find out who he is and why he tried to scratch this mission, Mr. Hartunian.” “Harry.”
Christopher ignored his request for informality as she sipped at her coffee. It was bitter and only lukewarm. And full of grounds. The colonel repeated, “Which one of your people tried to ruin this mission, Mr. Hartunian?”
The Pentagon: Situation Room
General Scheib scowled at the blank screen of his laptop. He was getting audio from ABL-1, but no imagery. And now the audio was giving him trouble.
“What do you mean, she’s not available?” he grumbled into his lip mike.
A moment’s hesitation while his demand was relayed through a military communications satellite orbiting some twenty-two thousand miles above the equator.
Then Captain O’Banion’s voice came through the plastic bud that Scheib had jammed in his left ear. “She’s not in the cockpit, sir. She’s taking a break.”
“Did you tell her who’s calling?”
“Yes, sir, I did, sir. She said she’ll call you back shortly, sir.” The young man’s voice sounded clearly troubled.
Scheib clenched his teeth together, then growled, “I want her on this frequency right away, mister. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir!”
From down at the far end of the table, Zuri Coggins watched the grim expression of Scheib’s face. More bad news? she wondered. But the general leaned back in his chair, wormed the bud out of his ear, and simply sat there glaring at his laptop’s blank screen.
General Higgins was at the coffee cart again. Cog-gins glanced at her wristwatch and realized with a shock of surprise that it was after 9:00 p.m. We’ve been in this room for nearly ten hours, she said to herself. The President’s due to start his speech in San Francisco right about now.
The speech had been scheduled for the evening news hour, so that the network and cable TV shows could carry it live. But with all the commercial commsats off the air there could be no coast-to-coast TV coverage. Even radio would be spotty. That nuclear blast in orbit had rattled long-range radio transmission, too. Something about high-energy electrons in the ionosphere.
Sitting beside her, Michael Jamil had an expression of impending doom on his thinly bearded face.
Trying to cheer him up, Coggins leaned toward him and said, “Relax, it’s all over.”
Jamil shook his head. “The missile threat is ended, but this isn’t over. Not yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s China’s next move?” Jamil asked urgently. “You mean North Korea’s next move,” said Coggins.
“China,” he insisted. “China’s behind this. The DPRK didn’t have the resources to do this on their own. Or the nerve. Maybe if Kim Jong Il was still alive—he was nutty enough to try a stunt like this. But not now. Pyongyang doesn’t have any motivation to start a nuclear war.”
“How can you be sure?” Coggins asked. “History takes weird turns, you know.”
Jamil shook his head. “There’s always a motive, no matter how weird it looks at the time. North Korea doesn’t have a motive for this confrontation. China does.”
Coggins saw the intensity, the absolute certainty, in his face. But she heard herself say, “The Secretary of State doesn’t agree with you.”
Jamil immediately snapped, “Then she’s a bigger horse’s ass than I thought she was.”
ABL-1: Galley
“Which one of your people tried to ruin this mission, Mr. Hartunian?” Harry saw that Colonel Christopher was dead earnest.
“I wish I knew,” he said.
“Not good enough. One of your nerds tried to screw up this flight. This is my airplane, Mr. Hartunian. I’m responsible for everything that happens in it. I want that guy’s head on a platter.”
Harry sank into one of the bucket seats on the bulkhead opposite the coffee urn. The plane was still shaking badly, but he’d almost become accustomed to it by now.
“You’re taking this kind of personally, aren’t you?” he asked the colonel.
“Damned right I am.”
He shook his head. “I’ve tried to figure it out. I know it had to be one of them, but I—”
“It could be you, couldn’t it?”
He felt the accusation like an ice pick jabbed into him. “Me?”
The colonel broke into a smile. “No, I don’t think it was you,” she said, more softly. “Not really.”
“It wasn’t me,” Harry said. Then he heard himself ask, “Could it have been one of your guys?”
Colonel Christopher’s smile dissolved. “From what you’ve told me, whoever it is would have to have some detailed knowledge of your system. My crew doesn’t. They’re flyboys, not techies.”
The intercom speaker in the compartment’s ceiling blared, “
Colonel Christopher, General Scheib wants to speak with you, ma’am. Right away.”
Harry saw the expression on Christopher’s face harden. Looking up at the speaker, she said tightly, “All right, put him on the intercom.”
A burst of buzzing static, then, “Colonel Christopher? Karen?” The man’s voice sounded tight, insistent.
“This is Christopher,” the colonel said, her eyes on Harry.
A heartbeat’s delay while the signal was relayed to geosynchronous orbit and back. Then, “Are you okay?”
“So far, so good, General.”
Again the delay, longer this time. “There’s a flight of F-16s coming out to meet you.” Harry thought the general’s voice sounded lower, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear.
“The DPRK air defense command says they’re sending more fighters to us. They want us to land in North Korea.”
“According to our tracking data you’ve left DPRK airspace.”
With a nod, she replied, “They claim out to two hundred miles, but my navigator says we’re past that.”
Silence, except for the hissing of static. At last the general’s voice resumed. “As far as we can see they haven’t put any more fighters into the air.”
“That’s good.”
“What’s your situation, Karen? Can you make it to Misawa?”
“We’re going to try.”
Harry counted his own pulse silently. Two beats, three.
Then the general asked, “What’s your condition?”
“One engine out. Wing damaged. Cabin pressurization holding. So far. Boeing makes tough airplanes, General. You know that.”
There was something going on, Harry realized. Something between the two of them that went beyond the words they were speaking. It was like a couple of people talking in code, almost. Harry could see the tension on Colonel Christopher’s face, in her strained posture, the way she was gripping her coffee mug in both hands, like it was a life preserver or something.
“Well... take care of yourself,” the general said. “We’re doing everything we can from this end.”
