‘You think we’ve got enough assets on this, Roy?’ asked Hamilton, his facetiousness failing to ease the tension.
‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Garret, lighting a Chesterfield. He’d learned through experience that, in all reality, you could never have enough feeds. Things often went wrong through malfunction and random accidents and there was rarely enough redundancy built in.
‘Where’s the target?’ Hamilton asked.
‘The Cobra Dane radar on Shemya will pick it up when it comes online any time now,’ said Garret as he took a bite out of his lunch—a ham and cheese on rye.
Arctic 16 had completed yet another altitude change, this time climbing to flight level three three zero—33,000 feet—and accelerated to its maximum speed at this altitude of 434 knots indicated. The aircraft’s speed wasn’t something the buzzards usually stipulated, which intrigued Curtis. Heading: two zero five. They were on the very edge of the Russian radar envelope. He leaned forward against the harness and absently tapped a dial. All temps and pressures were in the green and there was plenty of gas in the tanks. Amen, he thought, glancing at the bleak world beyond Arctic 16’s nose. This was a long sortie, though by no means the longest—some stretched beyond eighteen hours. And there was always the chance that if the weather was foul at Shemya, the crosswinds beyond the RC-135’s maximum, they’d have to divert all the way to Eielson, more than 1300 miles away, which had happened enough times in the past.
Still no word about Nikki. Another watch check: 16:03 Zulu, which meant she’d been in labor now fifteen hours and . . . fifty-two minutes. Sitting back in his seat and trying to relax, Curtis took a deep breath, expelled it, and willed that Nikki would be okay.
‘Boss, we’ve got something here from the buzzards. It’s a first,’ Tex informed him.
‘Yeah? What?’ Curtis replied, back on the job.
‘Somewhere ahead in our one-o’clock, a thousand feet out, is another aircraft.’
‘What kind of aircraft?’
‘A heavy—a jumbo jet.’
‘A what?’
‘Yeah, you heard right, a 747.’
‘What the fuck’s one of those doing this far north?’
‘Now there’s a question,’ said Tex.
Curtis verified their heading again—force of habit: two-zero-five degrees.
‘I’ve got a visual,’ Eli announced. He pointed up and to the right, through the windshield. ‘It’s dark. Look at where the stars are obscured.’
‘No strobe, no nav lights, no tail light,’ Curtis said, thinking aloud.
‘Is she lost?’ Eli said, asking the obvious.
‘Inform the buzzards we’ve got a visual,’ Curtis told Tex.
Tex, linked directly through to the buzzards, told them, and then turned to Curtis. ‘Boss, they want us to maintain heading and adjust speed to close with it. They want us to join up with her.’
‘It has to be civilian,’ said Eli.
‘Eli, you want to handle the maneuvering?’ Curtis asked.
‘On it,’ he replied, adding, ‘Doing this kind of flying with a civilian plane—it’s illegal as hell.’
Curtis ignored the comment. Minor course and speed alterations drifted the RC-135 gently into position just fifty feet behind, below and to the left of the 747—close, but well out of its slipstream.
‘What now, Tex?’ Curtis asked.
‘Maintain the formation, apparently.’
No one spoke for a moment as they looked at the huge aircraft filling the top right-hand quadrant of their windshield.
‘Eli,’ Tex said eventually, ‘you’ve got the best eyes here. Whose is she?’
‘Do I look like Superman? I can’t tell in this light,’ he said, alternately squinting and then frowning. ‘It’d help if the moon wasn’t hidden by cloud . . .’
‘Or if the thing was running lights like it’s supposed to,’ Curtis commented.
‘Do we make contact with it?’ Eli asked. ‘Maybe they’re lost and need assistance. And this ain’t a particularly forgiving part of the world to be blundering around in, as we know.’
‘Tex, put it to the buzzards,’ said Curtis.
‘It’s at least 200 miles north of Romeo 20,’ Eli observed, putting voice to the thoughts running through Curtis’s brain. ‘A modern passenger aircraft getting so lost . . . Is that possible?’
‘Boss, the buzzards say under no circumstances are we to compromise standard operational radio silence.’
Curtis said nothing in reply.
‘Assuming that jumbo stays on this vector, she’ll cross the Kamchatka Peninsula in twenty-eight minutes,’ Eli said. ‘I don’t think Ivan is gonna appreciate that.’
‘Tell that to the buzzards,’ Curtis told Tex.
Moments later, Tex replied, ‘I think they know, Curtis. I just got back more of that “maintaining radio silence” stuff.’
‘Anything coming up on Russian combat frequencies?’
‘Nope. But they’ll know we’re here. Bet on it. We’re retracing an earlier orbit. We hit these same coordinates on the same heading an hour ago.’
‘How many passengers do those things carry?’ Eli asked, the glow from the instruments giving his skin a sickly green color.
Curtis didn’t know for sure, but he was thinking in the hundreds.
‘You realize we’re making things a hell of a lot worse,’ Tex informed them. ‘In this position, we’re ghosting. Not only that, because we formed up just outside Soviet radar range and we’ve been flying a regular pattern, the Russians will believe that this commercial 747 is us—a United States Air Force reconnaissance aircraft.’
‘Is someone trying to start World War Three here?’ asked Eli, voicing the question on all their minds.
Curtis had broken into a sweat. ‘Tex, assuming they maintain their current course, where will they cross Kamchatka?’
‘It’s not so much where they’ll cross. By my calculations, they’ll virtually overfly Petropavlovsk,’ Tex informed him.
Petropavlovsk—the Soviets’ main submarine base in the Russian Far East. Oh, Jesus . . . ‘We need to get a warning off on Criticom, and fast,’ Curtis said.
Criticom, the critical intelligence communications system carried by the RC-135, gave them the ability to communicate with Washington over an ultra-secure network. A Critic dispatched from this system was the highest-priority message. It was sent via uplink to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the equator and beamed straight to the NSA’s Fort Meade complex. If the system worked as it was supposed to, the Commander-in-Chief would have the Critic outlining the plight of this civilian 747 on his desk within seven minutes. And within minutes of that, Arctic 16 could receive orders to communicate with the civilian craft and save it from certain annihilation. And perhaps avert a global cataclysm.
‘The buzzards are fine with that, boss,’ Tex told him. ‘They’re sending someone forward to take a letter.’
Curtis checked his watch, and this time thoughts of Nikki had nothing to do with it. Four minutes had passed since they had come into contact with the jumbo. In that time, they had closed on the Soviet coast by roughly twenty-eight miles and were now well inside what the USAF and the USSR alike considered to be the Russian buffer zone.
Roy Garret was out of cigarettes, which added to the tension. Were they counting down on a thermonuclear war? Cobra Dane had picked up both the 747 and the RC. The tracks of KAL 007 and the RC-135 had merged for five minutes now. Radio intercepts indicated that the Soviets were beginning to stir on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The intrusion had been noted. The clock was ticking.
A sudden buzzing sound startled him.
‘What’s that?’ asked Hamilton.
‘The door.’
Garret slipped off the headset and went to answer it. The surveillance camera told him an army specialist was waiting outside. Garret punched in the code and the door opened. The specialist had an envelope for him, stamped in red across the top ‘Top Secret. Eyes Only’. Garret return
ed to the console, took his seat, tapped the envelope on the bench.
‘You going to open that?’ asked Hamilton.
Garret sent him a flash of annoyance. He was trying to prepare himself. It could be anything—including a mission abort. He wound the string off the button and then broke the seal. Inside was a slip of computer printout. The code in the top right-hand corner indicated it was a decryption. This was a particular kind of message, one with the highest protocols—a Critic. His heart pumped an extra beat. He read the message.
‘Get Bilson on the phone,’ he told Hamilton. ‘Use the secured line.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘The commander of Arctic 16.’
‘What about him?’
Garret handed Hamilton the terse bulletin. ‘This is exactly why I was against using an RC-135. The guys flying the plane aren’t NSA.’
‘I’m sure Des will have it covered,’ Hamilton said, handing it back.
‘Maybe.’
A few moments later, a familiar voice on the line said, ‘I wasn’t expecting a call. Not yet. Everything okay?’
‘Arctic 16 fired off a Critic.’
‘Oh.’
Garret waited for Clark’s chief aide to elaborate, but all he got was silence.
‘I can’t stop a Critic, Des,’ Garret said, an edge in his voice. ‘I have to send it on, and it’ll hit the President’s desk within a matter of minutes.’
‘In the White House, right?’
‘That’s the protocol.’
‘Relax, Roy. The President’s at Rancho del Cielo, Santa Barbara. And that’s a long way from his desk.’
‘Any word from the buzzards?’ Curtis asked, time ticking away, the silhouette of the 747’s tail area floating over their windshield.
‘Nope,’ Tex replied, crouching between the pilot and co-pilot’s seat, mesmerized by the sheer bulk of the jumbo jet just sitting in midair above them like it was levitating. ‘But the Critic only went off three minutes ago. We need to give Washington at least another five minutes to respond.’
That would mean a total of eight minutes at seven miles per minute: fifty-six miles. Those civilians are getting way too close to the fire for comfort, Curtis thought.
‘You know, I think that’s a bird on the fin,’ Eli proposed all of a sudden. ‘Which airline has a bird as its logo?’
‘Malaysian Airlines have one, don’t they?’ Tex asked.
‘I don’t think it’s Malaysian,’ replied Eli. ‘Wrong hemisphere.’
‘The buzzards have given us a new altitude and course,’ Tex interrupted. ‘We’re dropping down to flight level one two zero, maximum rate of descent, whereupon we head zero eight five.’
Curtis was stunned. The look on his face was transparent.
Tex shrugged. ‘That’s what we’ve got.’
Curtis stared at the giant plane for what seemed like an age.
‘Boss?’ Tex prompted. ‘Time to go.’
Curtis swallowed hard. ‘Eli, you have the controls. Tell the buzzards to buckle up.’
The captain took over. The maneuver—diving steeply beneath the 747—made it appear as if the airliner was being sucked into the murk above. In a few short seconds, it had disappeared.
‘Hey, Curtis,’ said Tex, suddenly jolting him. ‘I just heard.’
‘Heard what?’ The major’s heart leapt. Washington had responded to the Critic after all and it wasn’t too late to—
‘It’s a boy! Mother and baby doing fine.’
‘What did she name him?’ Eli enquired.
‘She named him Ben. Benjamin Foxx. Damn sight better than Aardvark. Congratulations!’
September 1, 1983
Shemya Island, Bering Sea. ‘Goddamn it, Joe,’ said Curtis, stopping mid-stride in the belly of the plane, on his way back to the flight deck. ‘What the hell is going on here tonight?’
Joe Marich, an NSA Raven, the signals monitor on Arctic 16, removed his headset and stood up. ‘Hey, calm down, Curtis. Going on where?’ He went to put a hand on Curtis’s shoulder, but it was pushed aside.
‘Did you send off that Critic?’ Curtis asked.
‘Of course we sent it.’
‘And you got nothing back?’
‘Not a word.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe whatever you want. I’ve got no reason to lie.’
‘Bullshit,’ Curtis spat.
‘Just do your job, Major, and keep your goddamn nose out of ours, okay?’
The next thing Curtis knew, he was being pulled off Marich, arms around his shoulder and chest, restraining him.
‘Jesus, what . . . what the fuck’s got into you?’ Marich stammered, sprawled against his station, blood oozing from his nostrils.
‘You bastards signaled that 747. You lined it up for us,’ Curtis shouted.
‘Shit . . . it was a 747?’ he heard someone behind him say, stunned.
Curtis suddenly realized that the buzzards may not have known what was going on, either.
‘You need to take a break, Major,’ said Marich. ‘I’m going to forget about this, but it damn well better not happen again. Go get yourself some fucking R&R for Christ’s sake.’
‘Have you any idea what’s going to happen to those civilians?’ Curtis demanded.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Curtis felt the arms around him relaxing. He wiped his face with his sleeve, straightened his flight suit, and headed for the cockpit. The buzzards all turned to stare at him as he passed.
Curtis was returning to duty after an hour of fitful dozing, tossing and turning in the crew rest facility down the back of the plane, unable to shake the image of the black and gray 747 filling their windshield and the accompanying feeling that he was responsible for turning it into some kind of airborne Mary Celeste—a ship of the damned.
‘You okay?’ asked Tex as Curtis stepped past him.
‘What landing weather have we got?’ Curtis said, ignoring him.
‘Wind at thirty gusting to three-five knots, from two-two-zero degrees. Scattered cloud at nine thousand, and broken at five thousand. Drizzle patches. Visibility, seven miles,’ Tex said. ‘The usual friendly homecoming.’
‘Runway two-eight, and twenty-seven to thirty-two knots of cross-wind,’ said Curtis, thinking aloud. He took the wheel and put his feet on the rudder pedals, his eyes automatically scanning the instrument panel for errant dials. Ordinarily, these kind of crosswind numbers were quite a handful, unless your regular job was to land a 707 with no thrust-reversers, chute or tail hook on a speck of rock mostly lashed by far worse than what lay ahead of them. But the landing would still require concentration, and Curtis welcomed anything that would take his mind off the last couple of hours.
‘Oh, by the way, boss,’ said Tex through his headset. ‘In case you were wondering, we haven’t heard anything.’
Curtis didn’t need to ask what Tex was referring to—a radio report that the Soviets had shot down a plane full of civilians.
He nodded. ‘Places, everyone,’ he said.
Twelve minutes later, Arctic 16 made a perfect landing, turned and then backtracked the runway blasted by a rain squall and headed for the hangar. Between sweeps of the windshield wipers, another RC-135 could be seen parked on the ramp.
‘What have we got here?’ Eli enquired.
‘A training RC,’ Tex told him. ‘That’s our ride to Eielson, those of us who are going back.’
Arctic 16 taxied to the ramp and lined up on the markings guided by a guy in a rain poncho waving glowing red wands. When the wands crossed, Eli engaged the parking brake and commenced the shutdown procedure.
Later, they jogged to the hangar door fifty yards away during a break in the downpour. Inside, the training crew was standing around with welcoming smiles. Somewhere a radio played ‘Horse With No Name’.
‘Nice landing,’ commented a second lieutenant from the training crew.
‘For a duck,’ add
ed another voice, followed by a little laughter, none of it shared by the crew of Arctic 16.
‘Hey, Curtis,’ said Kyle Hensley, a maintainer, coming up to him. The man suddenly stopped. ‘Jesus, Major, you don’t look so good. You feelin’ okay?’
‘Turn on CBS in a couple of hours,’ Tex suggested as he walked past.
Curtis grabbed the bucket hanging from Hensley’s hands and threw up into it.
September 1, 1983
Sea of Okhotsk, northeast of Sakhalin Island. The weather radar screen between Captain Chun’s and First Officer Sohn’s knees was switched to ground-mapping mode. Just ahead, at twelve o’clock, was the outline of Sakhalin Island; at ten o’clock, the northern tip of Hokkaido; at three o’clock, the coastline of the Russian mainland; at nine o’clock the southernmost islands of the Soviet Kuril chain. Chun allowed himself a nod of grim satisfaction—they were exactly where they were supposed to be. His eyes met Sohn’s and a shared fear passed between them, along with a mad sense of elation and achievement. This was the mission of a lifetime, the likes of which they had never dreamed would be attempted, at least not by the Korean Air Force. But here they were, and flying it for a civilian organization.
The Zero Option Page 10
