Strike Eagle (22 page)

“Let me try something.” She typed rapidly on the keyboard next to the screen. The screen reconfigured and showed a test echo. Whiltree pointed at the blip. “That’s a return signal from Wallace Air Station. It’s not our gear that’s broken.” She switched the screen back to Air Force Two and Escort One.

Figarno straightened. “All right, keep trying to raise them.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Whiltree turned back to the screen and spoke into her microphone.

Chief Master Sergeant Figarno strode to a red telephone sitting on a table in the center of the room. He picked up the phone, “This is Figarno. Threatcon Delta Emergency—launch rescue helicopters and patch me into Thirteenth Air Force.”

Fifteen miles northeast of Clark AB

The jumbo jet flew beneath the low cloud cover, away from Clark. If Emil had not been watching for the plane he would not have noticed it.

It appeared to be making a normal approach to a runway, descending at a slow rate with its nose elevated slightly higher than its tail. But the jumbo jet was headed toward no runway; instead, it seemed to be aiming for the old Del Playo rice field. And, even more curiously, the plane’s landing gear was not extended.

Emil had sat just off-base at the end of the Clark runway many times, drinking San Miguel and watching the lumbering jets scream overhead in a landing. He would laugh with his friends, and they all hoped to someday witness a crash. What a sight that would be! But the planes always seemed to land, and all Emil had to show for his outing would be a ringing in his ears.

But today … this jumbo jet kept heading to the ground, unwavering in its determination to land in the rice paddy. Emil flicked on the radio.

“The Del Playo rice paddy—a jumbo jet is about to crash.”

Emil heard excited voices in the background. “Are you sure? The Del Playo fields?”

“Of course. But I do not think the plane is going to make it.” Emil dropped the radio to his side. Like a behemoth, the jumbo jet continued to drop in altitude. It kept a constant rate of descent.

Still a good hundred feet in the air, it overflew the end of the rice paddies. The plane kept coming down, lower and lower, until the bottom of the craft just scraped the top of the jungle.

Seconds later, the plane’s wings ripped from the body; they tumbled out, spewing a liquid fire from its ends and skipping across the tree tops. The jet’s fuselage started to flip over, but it skidded in the trees and made a gash a quarter of a mile long. The crash seemed to take forever, and Emil reveled in it.

When the long fuselage finally stopped moving, no flames came from the wreckage. The sound of the crash reverberated over the countryside, reaching Emil a half minute after the plane first hit the tree tops. The wings exploded and burned, two hundred yards on either side of the plane.

Emil spoke into the radio. “The plane has stopped, north of the fields.”

But no answer came back.

Emil stowed the radio and started his motorcycle. He felt elated. After all these years he had finally witnessed a crash. Best of all, he was going to get paid for doing it.

Clark AB

The alert siren warbled an ear-splitting shriek. There was no time to think—only react.

Captains Bob Gould and Richard Head threw down their cards and ran for the doors, knocking over the table.

Gould managed to shout, “This for real?”

Head puffed out, “I don’t want to find out,” as he followed right on Gould’s heels.

The two ran fifty yards through the rain, across the slick asphalt helicopter pad to their MH-60 Black Hawk. The modified attack helicopter looked menacing as they approached, a crouching gargoyle ready to devour anyone who came near.

Gould swung into the helicopter just as a crew of enlisted men reached the auxiliary power units. Head waved a finger quickly around his head, indicating that the men should crank up the APUs. Seconds later, the engine caught and spat out thick smoke.

“Bringing up engine one.”

Gould fumbled for his headphones. “Wait, wait— warm-up!”

“Hurry up, then!”

Gould started running through a modified checklist. “Can you get Tower?”

POP POP POP!

Head fumbled with the radio equipment, muttered a curse, then tried a backup unit. “No. Radio’s shot.”

Gould punched on the avionics package. Something flipped, then there was a soft sigh as the lights slowly grew dim. “What in the world?” Gould stared incredulously at the panel. He toggled the power switch. “Look at this!”

Richard Head reached over and tried the switch himself. “Well, I’ll be dipped.” A quick run-through of the electronics modules confirmed his suspicions. He slouched back in his seat. “All the fly-by-wire stuff is out.”

“All
of it?”

Head checked a few more items. “Yeah. Everything that’s run by solid-state.” Head pulled off his helmet and waved to the men outside in the rain to cut the APU. “I know our stuff is soft, but this is crazy. It’s like someone hit us with a bolt of lightning.”

The intercom went silent as the lights went out. Vice President Adleman grasped the sides of his chair. His breathing increased.

The 747 jerked to the right, then straightened. It
seemed
to straighten, but papers continued to slide off the desk onto the floor. A lamp crashed against the bulkhead, spraying glass.

Adleman felt helpless.

Muffled shouts came from outside the chamber.

Adleman felt the plane suddenly bump. He felt a growing wetness around his crotch; he couldn’t stop from urinating. The plane bumped again, this time harder, and his stomach seemed to fly up into his throat. He closed his eyes, but nothing changed—he was still alone and in the dark, helpless.

A dozen things ran through his mind, the foremost being that he had lost the chance to become President of the United States.

Then came faint brushings underneath the plane. It started as a scrape, then quickly crescendoed to a tearing, ripping, jarring, flipping, nauseating sound that seemed to bore right through his body. It went on, slicing and burning up through his senses. Thick acrid smoke, sharp alarms, and screams penetrated his senses.

The plane seemed to be ripping away. Wetness filled the cabin, splashing him with water, leaves, and branches.

And then it stopped.

Silence.

Adleman thought that everything was quiet until he made out the soft sound of water dripping, then moans of other people.

Dim light filtered into the aircraft from holes ripped in the side of the craft. He tried to move, but found that one of his legs was jammed in between the safety chair and the desk. He pushed up with his hand and cried out “Help!” but his voice cracked.

A sharp pain shot through his arm. Adleman tipped back his head and tried to get as comfortable as the pain would let him.

Sirens on the base ran up and down the scale. Throughout Thirteenth Air Force Headquarters preparations for Search and Rescue, Site Security, Hospital Mobilization, Disaster Preparedness, and Personnel Readiness had swung into action.

Major General Simone paced up and down his office, conferring via conference calls with the different emergency site commanders. “Maintenance, one more time—what’s the story on the Black Hawks?”

A voice came over the intercom. “Both MH-60 Black Hawks lost avionics as they prepared for flight, General. The specialists are dismantling the units now, and we have an open line with the contractor.”

“The HH-3s?”

“We’re working on getting one up, sir. They … ah, weren’t being used because of the Black Hawks. We are cannibalizing three of the Jolly Greens in the shop.”

Simone strained to keep his voice calm. “So we have no Search and Rescue support.”

“Correct, General. Not at this moment.”

Simone turned to Major Stephanie Hendhold, who stood in one corner of the room, speaking on a phone. “Stephanie, get me Subic. We’ll have them throw everything they can to help us.”

“General,” interrupted the colonel from maintenance, “there’s no need to call in the Navy. We should have the Black Hawks up and flying in fifteen minutes. Besides, they’ll just claim credit for everything.”

“And if we don’t call in the Navy, then that’s a quarter of an hour lost. I don’t care if the Boy Scouts find the vice president, I’m not going to let inter-service rivalry hold up this rescue.”

Hendhold held up a telephone. “General, we got through to General Newman.”

Bruce took no time deciding what to do. The clouds were too low to safely fly any lower, so he flipped the fighter upside down. Charlie was incoherent. Bruce hesitated, then turned off the intercom—he couldn’t afford to let Charlie’s pain affect what he was doing.

He slowed his airspeed and pulled back on the stick. The F-15E descended through the clouds.

Or at least Bruce
hoped
they were descending. From the blood pounding in his forehead, he could tell they were still inverted.

Bruce strained to see through the clouds. There was nothing but gray-white randomness out there.

Flying upside-down gave him two advantages: With his instruments out, his “feel” for which way was down was better this way; and more importantly, since the cloud layer was so low, if he was right side up, he might not see that the fighter had broken through until they were too close to the ground. This way, the cockpit would be the first thing below the clouds.

Bruce pulled back on the throttles, slowing his air speed. He tried not to rush his descent, but the thought of pranging into the mountains gnawed at him.
If
only they’re tracking me on radar,
he thought,
they’re at least keeping other planes away.

The descent seemed to take forever.
Slowly, slowly, don’t rush
.…He imagined he heard Charlie’s screams of pain, saw images of what—broken glass in his backseater’s face? Suddenly he saw swirls, could make out patches of cloud. Bruce pushed the F-15 lower.

Still flying upside down, below him now were buildings, streets. It seemed orderly enough to be Clark. He thought about flipping back over, but decided to get a fix on the runway first.

Bruce pulled the F-15 into a slow bank, lost altitude, and fought to pull the craft back up. He searched for buildings, anything that might give him a clue as to where he was. He spotted the Officers’ Club.

The runway came up almost too quickly.

Bruce remembered the stunt for which Colonel Bolte had bawled him out upon his arrival at Clark.…

Bruce waited until he was over the road and pulled a tight turn, flipping the F-15 over just as he started to flare out.

The runway spread before him, white lights running down the two-mile stretch and disappearing into the rain at the other end. Bruce continued to descend, and when the wheels touched the ground he finally eased his grip. He shot off the drag chute, further slowing the craft. The runway was slick, but at least he was down.

It seemed strange: he was alone out there, no fire trucks, ambulances, military police. He brought the canopy up and rain started coming in. The screams had stopped from behind him, but he could still hear Charlie’s sobs. “Charlie—hold on!” As he unstrapped and turned to try and see Charlie, he heard the sirens approach.