Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (39 page)

 
          
It
was the newcomer—Dog Zero-One Fox.

 
          
“Mayday,
mayday!
Seattle
Center
, Dog Zero-One Fox!”

 
          
“Zero-One
Fox, I copy your emergency code.” The controller buzzed his shift supervisor,
who hurried over and plugged his headset into a jack on the console.

 
          
“Shift
supervisor A. Watt on console seven, ID number S-one—one- three-one, time
two-three-one-seven local time.” That was for the benefit of the continuously
running tape that was monitoring all communications—the tape that would be used
in an accident investigation.

 
          
“Dog
Zero-One Fox is declaring an inflight emergency at this time,” came the hurried
transmission. The voice—presumably the pilot, the one who had made the initial
call-in to Seattle—was nearly drowned out by a thunderous noise in the
background.

 
          
“It
sounds like . . . water? A waterfall?” the controller murmured.

 
          
“He’s
depressurized, Ed,” the supervisor said. “It’s windblast. A big one, too. If
it’s a depressurization, the noise should stop. If it’s glass panel failure, it
won’t . . .”

 
          
The
shift supervisor switched to a Center-wide intercom. “This is Watt to all
controllers. Clear airspace from radials two-six-zero to three-two zero from
Hoquiam VORTAC for inbound emergency aircraft in ten minutes. Advise Boeing,
McChord, Bowerman, and
Portland
of possible diverting emergency aircraft, type unknown. Advise McChord
and Coast Guard search-and-rescue. Aircraft is currently on the two-eight-two
degree radial from Hoquiam at one hundred and thirty nautical miles, flight
level two-five zero, groundspeed four-twenty knots.”

 
          
Meanwhile,
the first controller watched transfixed as the altitude readout of the
emergency aircraft began to wind down. “Zero-One Fox, are you encountering difficulty
maintaining altitude?”

 
          
Through
the roar in the background the pilot said, “
Seattle
, descending below ten thousand feet . . .
lost pressurization . . . fire on board . . . emergency! Emergency! Mayday!
Mayday!”

 
          
“Understand,
Zero-One Fox. We are clearing the airspace for you. If possible, turn left,
heading two-eight-zero, vectors for emergency landing at Boeing Field, cleared
to descend and maintain ten thousand feet.” No reply. The altitude readout was
winding down, faster and faster. “Twenty thousand ... eighteen thousand ...
fifteen thousand ... Andy, rate of descent increasing ... passing through ten
thousand feet...” Over the radio he said, “Dog Zero-One Fox, climb and maintain
ten thousand feet. Acknowledge.”

           
The noise of the windblast over the
frequency all but drowned out any reply.

 
          
“Passing
eight thousand . . . rate of descent slowing but he’s still going down . . .
passing five thousand . . . low altitude warning!” Over the channel the
controller said, “Zero-One Fox,
climb.
Pull up, pull
up.
If you’re in a spin
release your controls. Acknowledge . . .”

 
          
“Beacon
target lost,” the supervisor said. “This is A. Watt plugged into console seven,
local time two-three-two-zero, Seattle ARTCC. We have lost Dog Zero-One Fox on
radar. Last report from the pilot said he was descending to ten thousand feet
due to inflight emergency, fire, and loss of pressurization. Rate of descent
from flight level two-five-zero estimated at fifteen thousand feet per minute,
slowing to approximately ten thousand feet per minute but mishap aircraft never
regained altitude or appeared to level off. No primary or secondary targets
visible at this time. No flight data visible. No aircraft within sixty nautical
miles of mishap aircraft noted. No emergency locator beacon transmissions yet
received. Coast Guard and Air Force search-and-rescue forces have been
alerted.”

*
 
*
 
*

 
          
S
everal minutes later the President,
still in the Oval Office with General Wilbur Curtis, took the message from Jeff
Hampton that the FAA had lost Dog Zero-One Fox from radar, that the plane had
experienced a major emergency and had plummeted twenty-five thousand feet into
the ocean in less than two minutes.

 
          
The
President forced his left hand steady as he replaced the phone receiver on its
cradle. He looked at Curtis. “Dog Zero-One Fox has disappeared. Presumed lost a
hundred and thirty miles off the west coast.”

 
          
Curtis
said nothing. Apparently too shocked, the President decided.

 
          
“How
long can the
Excaliburs
stay in their
orbit, General?”

 
          
Curtis
checked his watch, made a fast calculation. “They must leave in six hours to
have enough fuel to reach Eielson with the necessary reserves. We’ll have a
tanker back in the first orbit area to give them extra fuel, but six hours is
the most.”

 
          
“Order
them to depart the orbit area in five,” the President said. “I know it doesn’t
make much sense keeping them out there. They’d be sitting ducks if they tried
anything, but at least it will make the Soviets nervous having two B-ls heading
toward their backyard. We may even be able to bluff them into thinking those
Excaliburs
have more fuel and firepower
on-board then than they thought. It might even get them to negotiate for real .
. .” The President’s voice was flat. Who could blame him? He was still thinking
of the Old Dog—thinking of another plan that had failed, and of the crew that
would never come back.

 
          
He
swiveled his seat around and stared, unseeing, into the gray, snow- covered
world outside the Oval Office.

 
          
Dave
Luger checked the master computer’s clock on his TV display. Weird, he thought.
Watching a machine doing his navigation for him. Playing a big “video game” in
the belly of a B-52 somewhere over the north Pacific.

 
          
Well,
not exactly “somewhere.” With the GPS up and running, he knew within sixty feet
where they were at any given moment—and the GPS measured those moments within
one-hundredth of a second.

 
          
Luger
plugged his nose and blew against the pressure—a “valsalva,” designed to clear
his ears after their hair-raising dive to “disappear” from
Seattle
Center
radar. “General?”

 
          
“Go
ahead, Dave,” Elliott said.

 
          
“Fifteen
minutes to the decision point.” Luger quickly called up a fuel reading on his
video display. “I’ve got us right on your updated fuel curve, Colonel.”

 
          
“Checks
up here,” Ormack acknowledged.

 
          
“So
we’re not leaking fuel?” Wendy asked.

 
          
“Negative,”
Ormack said. “At least there’s some good news.”

 
          
“Well,
it’s time we talked about the bad news,” Elliott said. “This is what we’re
looking at. According to Patrick and Dave, and courtesy of those twelve
navigation satellites feeding our computers information, we’re fifteen minutes
from a major decision point.

 
          
“We
now have about thirty-four thousand pounds of fuel left. Thanks to that phony
screaming-ass descent back there that had all those air traffic controllers
buffaloed, and the hour-long cruise at five hundred feet above the water, we’ll
soon be running on fumes. From our decision point ahead we can divert to
Elmendorf Air Force Base in
Anchorage
and have about fifteen thousand pounds of fuel. That’s the absolute
minimum amount of landing fuel for a normal B-52. With this plastic monster of
ours we can overfly Elmendorf and with favorable winds and a lot of luck divert
again to Eielson Air Force Base in
Fairbanks
with about three thousand pounds remaining.
That figure is significant because that’s the normal tolerance of the fuel
gauges we have—we can have six thousand at Eielson—”

 
          
“Or
we can have zero,’’ Angelina said.

 
          
“Exactly.
But that plan does give us two available airfields to set this beast down on.”

 
          
“Is
there another option?” McLanahan asked.

 
          
“Yes,
Patrick. We can continue on our flight planned route. The only available
airfield with a halfway decent runway for us becomes Shemya in the
Aleutians
. Fuel reserve over Shemya would be about
five thousand pounds.”

 
          
“Five
thousand pounds?” Wendy said. “That’s cutting it close. Are they any—?”

 
          
“There
are other airfields nearby,” Elliott said, anticipating her question. “All of
them are shorter and narrower than Shemya, but we should be able to put down on
any one of them. I bring up this option because Shemya has two things that we
could use—a fairly isolated runway and fuel. We need the isolation if we ever
hope to keep this plane and this mission secret. The decision becomes this—head
toward Elmendorf with one good option but an end to our mission, or head toward
Shemya with only a few poor options but an outside chance of continuing on.”

 
          
“I
don’t see there’s an option, General,” Ormack said. “We’ve come this far . . .”

 
          
Elliott
nodded at Ormack, silently thanking him. To the crew he said, “I guess I’m
bringing all this up to give each of you another out, another chance to put
this bird down.”

 
          
“We’ve
given you our answer, General,” Wendy said.

 
          
“I
know, and I thank you. But you’ve had a few hours to think about it. I’m
putting the question again.”

 
          
“I’ve
got a different question,” McLanahan said. “How’s your leg, General? We can’t
complete this mission with less than a one hundred percent effort from
everybody
—you said so yourself. Are you
one hundred percent, General?”

 
          
“Of
course I am.” Elliott turned and found Ormack looking at him carefully.

 
          
“I
can handle it, John.”

 
          
“He
has a point, General. You’re worried about us not having the commitment—but do
you have the capacity?”

 
          
Elliott
paused, then spoke into the interphone. “I won’t deny it, crew. My leg hurts
like a sonofabitch. But if I didn’t think I could get this beast to Kavaznya
and back again, well, I would have said so back there when we were over
Seattle
.”

           
Silence. Then McLanahan spoke. “All
right, General. That’s good enough for me.”

 
          
“Me,
too,” Angelina said.

 
          
“And
me,” Luger added.

 
          
The
entire crew voiced their assent.

 
          
“All
right, then,” Elliott said, “do any of you have any brilliant ideas about how
we can get enough gas to finish this mission?”

 
          
Downstairs
in the lower offensive crew compartment McLanahan gave his partner Luger the
thumbs-up sign and spoke into the interphone.

 
          
“I
have an idea, General,” McLanahan said. “But it may involve breaking some
rules.”

 
          
“If
there was ever a time to break rules, Patrick, this is it. Let’s hear it.”

 
          
“Well,
we’ll have to call you General Jean Lafitte after this one,” McLanahan said,
“but here’s what I had in mind . . .”

 
          
Elliott
flipped his radio over to HF TRANSMIT, took a deep breath: “Skybird, Skybird,
this is Genesis on
Quebec
. Emergency. Over.”

           
The command post senior controller
on duty in the tiny SAC Command post on the tiny
island
of
Shemya
, perched nearly at the tip of the
Aleutians
, had to restrain himself from spilling his
coffee as the emergency call blared through his speaker. Calls over HF,
especially emergency calls, were few and far between up here at the extreme
northwestern tip of the
United States of America
. He whipped out a grease pencil and noted
the time on the slate of glass covering his desktop.

 
          
He
switched his radio to HF and keyed his microphone. “Calling Skybird on HF, this
is Icepack on
Quebec
. Spell your call sign phonetically and go ahead with information.”

 
          
“We
got him,” Elliott said over interphone. Over the high-frequency radio, he said,
“Copy you, Icepack. I spell golf, echo, november, echo, sierra,
india
, sierra, SAC Special Operations. We are
one-eight-zero miles east-south-east of your station. We have declared an
emergency for a double engine fire and fire in the crew compartment. Massive
fuel leaks. Request emergency random refueling with strip alert tanker and
emergency recovery at Shemya.”

 
          
The
deputy controller was furiously writing the information down on a logbook. He
opened the classified call signs book.

 
          
“Checks,”
the controller said to his partner. “Special ops out of Edwards.”

 
          
“So
what’s he doing way the hell up here?” the senior controller said. “Call the
commander.” He checked the weather forecast printout on his console, then
turned back to his radio.

 
          
“Understand
your request, Genesis,” the controller replied. “Shemya is reporting marginal
conditions. Can you divert to
Anchorage
? Repeat, can you divert to
Anchorage
?”

 
          
“Negative,
negative,” Elliott replied. “Less than one-five minutes of fuel at present rate
of loss. No navigation equipment. Magnetic instruments only. We are only
estimating our present position.”

 
          
“Understand,
Genesis,” the senior controller said and looked over to his NCO partner.

 
          
“Got
the boss on the line, sir,” the NCO said. The senior controller grabbed the
phone.

 
          
“Colonel
Sands here.”

 
          
“
Major
Falls
in the Command Post, sir. Inbound inflight
emergency requesting a strip alert tanker.”

 
          
“How
far out is he?” Sands asked.

 
          
“He
estimates about one hundred and seventy miles now, sir. He said less than
fifteen minutes of fuel.”

 
          
“Hell,
we might not make it even if we launched right now. Who is it?”

           
“They’re using a strange call sign,
sir,” Falls said. “Genesis. It’s a special ops call sign out of Edwards.”

           
Sands swore under his breath.
Special Operations. An experimental or highly classified mission. But from
Edwards? “How’s the runway now?”

 
          
“Slick
as owl shit, sir. RCR still about ten. Fifty feet either side of centerline is
free of ice to about twelve RCR. Taxi ways are about eight RCR.”

 
          
“Status
of the strip alert bird?”

 
          
“In
the green, sir,” Falls said, glancing over at his assistant. The NCO cupped his
hand over the telephone he was using.

 
          
“The
crew’s being recalled to the pad, sir,” the NCO reported.

           
“Have them report directly to their
plane,” Falls said. He turned to his telephone. “Crews are responding to their
planes, sir.”

           
“Get an authentication from this Genesis,”
Sands said. “I’m on my way.”

 
          
“Command
post clear.” Falls opened the communications code book, checked that the date
and time were good and turned to his radio. “Genesis, this is Icepack control.
Authenticate Alpha Echo.”

 
          
Elliott
turned to Ormack. “They want me to authenticate.”

 
          
“We
don’t have any code documents.”

 
          
“Unable
to authenticate, Icepack,” Elliott replied quickly.

 
          
Falls
winced. What the hell was going on?

 
          
“Genesis,
we cannot provide strip alert support without authentication.”

 
          
“Icepack,
this is the senior controller aboard Genesis,” Elliott said over the
high-frequency radio. “The communications compartment has been severely
damaged. Half the crew is dead or injured. We have no means to authenticate.”

           
A few moments later Colonel Sands
was wriggling his chubby desk-bound body out of his parka. “Status?”