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ident of the United States knew that there was a problem–and nothing else.
“Okay, keep me posted.” Ryan looked down at the desk he was about to leave. “Oh, shit.” It was such a pleasure, the power of the presidency. Now he had virtually instant knowledge of something he could do nothing about. Were there Americans on the aircraft? What did it all mean? What was happening?
IT COULD HAVE been worse. Daryaei got back on the aircraft after having been in Baghdad for less than four hours, having dealt with the problems even more tersely than usual, and taking some satisfaction from the fear he’d struck into a few hearts for having bothered him with such trivial matters. His sour stomach contributed to an even more sour expression as he boarded and found his seat, and waved to the attendant to tell the flight crew to get moving–the sort of wrist-snapping gesture that looked like off with their heads to so many. Thirty seconds later, the stairs were up and the engines turning.
“WHERE DID YOU learn this game?” Adler asked.
“In the Navy, Mr. Secretary,” Clark answered, collecting the pot. He was ten dollars up now, and it wasn’t the money. It was the principle of the thing. He’d just bluffed the Secretary of State out of two bucks. Miller Time.
“I thought sailors were crummy gamblers.”
“That’s what some people say.” Clark smiled, as he piled the quarters up.
“Watch his hands,” Chavez advised.
“I am watching his hands.” The attendant came aft and poured out the rest of the wine. Not even two full glasses for the men, just enough to pass the time. “Excuse me, how much longer?”
“Less than an hour, Monsieur Minister.”
“Thank you.” Adler smiled at her as she moved back forward.
“King bets, Mr. Secretary,” Clark told him.
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Chavez checked his hole card. Pair of fives. Nice start. He tossed a quarter into the center of the table after Adler’s.
THE EUROPEAN-MADE Airbus 310 had lost its right-side engine to the missile, but that wasn’t all. The heat-seeker had come in from the right rear and impacted on the side of the big GE turbofan, with fragments from the explosion ripping into the outboard wing panels. Some of these sliced into a fuel cell–fortunately almost empty–which trailed some burning fuel, panicking those who could look out their windows and see. But that wasn’t the frightening part. Fire behind the aircraft couldn’t hurt anyone, and the vented fuel tank didn’t explode, as it might have done had it been hit as little as ten minutes earlier. The really bad news was the damage to the aircraft’s control surfaces.
Forward, the two-man flight crew was as experienced as that of any international airline. The Airbus could fly quite well, thank you, on one engine, and the left-side engine was undamaged, and now turning at full power while the co-pilot shut down the right side of the aircraft and punched the manual controls on the elaborate fire-suppression systems. In seconds, the fire-warning alarms went silent and the co-pilot started breathing again.
“Elevator damage,” the pilot reported next, working the controls and finding that the Airbus wasn’t responding as it should.
But the problem wasn’t with the flight crew, either. The Airbus actually flew via computer software, a huge executive program that took inputs directly from the airframe as well as from the control movements of the pilots, analyzed them, and then told the control surfaces what to do next. Battle damage was not something the software engineers had anticipated in the design of the aircraft. The program noted the traumatic loss of the engine and decided it was an engine explosion, which it had been taught to think about. The onboard computers evaluated the damage to the aircraft, what control surfaces worked and how well, and adjusted itself to the situation.
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“Twenty miles,” the co-pilot reported, as the Airbus settled in on its direct-penetration vector. The pilot adjusted his throttle, and the computers–the aircraft actually had seven of them–decided this was all right, and lowered engine power. The aircraft, having burned off most of its fuel, was light. They had all the engine power they needed. The altitude was low enough that depres-surization was not an issue. They could steer. They just might make this, they decided. A “helpful” fighter aircraft pulled alongside to look over their damage and tried to call them on the guard frequency, only to be told to keep out of the way, in very irate Mandarin.
The fighter could see skin peeling off the Airbus, and tried to report that, only to be rebuffed. His F-5E backed off to observe, talking to his base all the while.
“Ten miles.” Speed was below two hundred knots now, and they tried to lower flaps and slats, but the ones on the right side didn’t deploy properly, and the computers, sensing this, didn’t deploy them on the left side, either. The landing would have to be overly fast. Both pilots frowned, cursed, and got on with it.
“Gear,” the pilot ordered. The co-pilot flipped the levers, and the wheels went down–and locked in place, which was worth a sigh of relief to both drivers. They couldn’t tell that both tires on the right side were damaged.
They had the field in view now, and both could see the flashing lights of emergency equipment as they crossed the perimeter fencing, and the Airbus settled. Normal approach speed was about 135 knots. They were coming in at 195. The pilot knew he’d need every available foot of space, and touched down within two hundred meters of the near edge.
The Airbus hit hard, and started rolling, but not for long. The damaged right-side tires lasted about three seconds before they both lost pressure, and one second after that, the metal strut started digging a furrow in the concrete. Both men and computers tried to maintain a straight-line course for the aircraft, but it didn’t work. The 310 yawed to the right. The left-side gear snapped with a cannon-shot report, and the twin-jet bellied out. For a second, it appeared that it might pinwheel onto the
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grass, but then a wingtip caught, and the plane started turning over. The fuselage broke into three uneven sections. There was a gout of flame when the left wing separated–mercifully, the forward bit of fuselage shot clear, as did the after section, but the middle section stopped almost cold in the middle of the burning jet fuel, and all the efforts of the racing firefighters couldn’t change that. It would later be determined that the 127 people killed quickly asphyxiated. Another 104 escaped with varying degrees of injury, including the flight crew. The TV footage would be uplinked within the hour, and a fullblown international incident was now world news.
CLARK FELT A slight chill as his aircraft touched down. Looking out the window, he imagined a certain familiarity, but admitted it was probably imaginary, and besides, all international airports looked pretty much alike in the dark. Forward, the French aviators followed directions, taxiing to the air force terminal for security, instructed to follow another business-type jet which had landed a minute ahead of them.
“Well, we’re here,” Ding said, with a yawn. He had two watches on, one for local time and one for Washington, and from them he tried to decide what time his body thought it was. Then he looked outside with all the curiosity of a tourist, and suffered the usual disappointment. It might as easily have been Denver from what he could see.
“Excuse me,” the brunette attendant said. “They’ve instructed us to remain in the aircraft while another is serviced first.”
“What’s a few more minutes?” Secretary Adler thought, as tired as the rest of them.
Chavez looked out the window. “There, he must have gotten in ahead of us.”
“Kill the cabin lights, will you?” Clark asked. Then he pointed at his partner.
“Why–” Clark cut the SecState off with a gesture. The attendant did as she was told. Ding took his cue and pulled the camera out of his bag.
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“What gives?” Adler asked more quietly, as the lights went off.
“There’s a G right in front of us,” John replied, taking his own look. “Not many of them around, and he’s going to a secure terminal. Let’s see if we can tell who it is, okay?”
Spooks had to be spooks, Adler knew. He didn’t object. Diplomats gathered information, too, and knowing who had access to such expensive official transport could tell them something about who really rated in the UIR government. In a few seconds, just as their own wheels were chocked, a parade of cars rolled up to the Gulfstream fifty meters away from them on the Iranian–UIR-ian– air force ramp.
“Somebody important,” Ding said.
“How you loaded?”
“ASA 1200, Mr. C.,” Chavez replied, selecting the tele-photo setting. The whole aircraft fit into the frame. He couldn’t zoom any closer. He started shooting as the steps came down.