The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  “Yes. Hi, JC, and welcome.”

  JC noted it on his map.

  “Next is Jonathan Whitaker, everyone calls him Jon, of the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. Kirby Drinkard, DHS National Counterterrorism Center, and right now the center is sorting out the right personnel for this task force, so you may see different folks in her monitor as we go along.

  “Captain Louis Palova, US Navy Special Operations, will be representing the entire Department of Defense if needed. Pedro Santos, assistant to the US Ambassador to Brazil. Barry Mantile, Treasury Department, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Dusty Mae Watt, special agent in charge of the FBI Field Office in Chicago. And of course, I’m Phil Henry of the FBI National Security Branch.”

  Wow, he thought, what a crew! JC decided he’d better say a few words, to settle himself as much as anything else. “Hello everyone. Thanks for the welcome. I’m JC Smalley, retired Air Force Intelligence and friend of the first officer on flight 94. At this point, we have no idea if there is a threat to the aircraft. We have no idea who hacked in or what their interest is. I will be contacting the flight, and we will also get a line to Air Traffic Control to give them communication priority. Hopefully, I will not have much to contribute. When they land safely at LHR, I will butt in and let you know. Thanks.”

  Penny came over and whispered in his ear, “As soon as I back away, smile at the camera and press the Freeze button.”

  He did so. A woman approached from a side door.

  “Hi, I’m Jackie. I’m running the video teleconference for you, and it looks like Penny has gotten you the radio setup you need. I’d like to suggest that while you are busy on the radio, that the conversation be displayed as text on your VTC monitor. The complete radio traffic will be recorded and converted to text anyway, and if anything crucial happens, I can unfreeze you. They can all still watch you and listen to the audio.”

  “Okay. Is there some way I can tell you to turn it off or on? Or can I do that myself? Everything might not be appropriate for display.”

  “Yes, we’ll work something out.”

  Penny had been busy setting up the bundle of equipment she had brought in, with the help of a technician. “There is a secure channel on every large aircraft that the pilots must verify as part of their run-up checklist. It rarely gets used, even in emergencies. It was initiated after 9/11 for just this sort of situation. To you, it will be just another radio, which scrambles and descrambles your traffic. The pilots know this channel is secure. We will not be using the silent mode, but the system will announce us so the pilots won’t be startled when you start talking to them.

  “Once the channel is opened, you will hear the audio in the cockpit even when they are not speaking on your channel. ATC has given us the code for flight 94 and we have entered all the protocol streams. When you flip this toggle, you will be talking to the pilots. These two switches on top allow you to talk to both simultaneously or just one of them.”

  Jackie came over and hooked several wires to various ports on the radio. “Here’s the headset. Before you flip the On switch, I need you to do a communications check with me to ensure the recording and reporting is working right.” While JC donned the headset, she went back to her station and programmed the rolling display to show the Zulu time stamp, the source of the radio transmission, and the message.

  He gave a slow count to Jackie. After she gave him a thumbs-up, he said to Penny, “I have two headsets, one for Phil and one for the aircraft. You’ll have to be my link to Phil.”

  “Okay.” She sat down next to him and put on the headset. “Phil, this is Penny. JC is on the call with the aircraft. … Yes. … Roger.”

  She wrote him a quick note. “He said you did well on the intro. He’ll let you know if he needs to talk to you, and if there’s anything you should listen to, in the other part of the VTC.”

  JC looked over to where Jackie was sitting in the doorway. He gave her a thumbs-down and she nodded. He flipped the On switch to talk to the aircraft, then glanced down at his watch. It was 1105 hours.

  14

  The cockpit was relatively quiet and the flight was progressing smoothly. They had not been flying over the North Atlantic very long, when a sound like a goose honking alerted them to the secure channel, which was now blinking red. Neither Chuck nor Joel had ever seen or heard this except when completing their pre-flight checklists. Joel reached up to the secure console and pressed the blinking button. The honking stopped and the red light was steady.

  A voice came through their headsets, without them having to change any channels. “This is JC Smalley. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Captain Chuck Merkel.”

  “First Officer Joel Barth.”

  “Good, I had to verify I had the right flight, flight AW94 heading to LHR. I need to speak to Joel first, then both of you. I am not quite familiar with this radio, so I might not get it right on the first try.”

  The first officer heard an electronic click, followed by the voice of his friend. “Is that you, Chuck?”

  “No, this is Joel. I don’t think Chuck heard you.”

  “Good. I’d like to chat, but that will have to wait. I need you to answer just yes or no. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Have you known Chuck Merkel a while?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he seem like his head is screwed on right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have either of you been drinking, or impaired by drugs or medications, or crew rest issues?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a third pilot with you?”

  “No.”

  “I know you well enough to be able to answer this about you, but do you have any reason to doubt his ideologies or loyalty to our country?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I was hoping for. I’m going to turn you both on now.”

  Another click. “Chuck, I’m back. In response to Joel’s email, I did some checking in Air World’s flight data. Someone had hacked in and put a temporary hold on the luggage for some reason. I could see his IP address, and it was from a foreign country. I have no idea what he wanted, so I called up my FBI contact in DC. I told him the IP address and it turns out there’s already an international issue connected with that.”

  Chuck and Joel looked at each other, a little concerned by the issue but relieved they were getting some helpful attention.

  “I was immediately deputized and brought onto a team that has all kinds of resources to help if need be. Of course, everything you hear on this channel is highly classified. I will be listening to everything going on there, your voices and all the radio traffic. This won’t interfere with normal radio transmissions, and you won’t hear me unless I speak. If there is anything, anything at all, out of the ordinary, tell me. I’ll be listening until you land at LHR.”

  “Thanks. I assume you’ll hear either Joel or myself?”

  “Yes. And if anything does happen, follow the normal ATC protocols. I will glean what I can from those first, but I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  Then silence.

  15

  After the call to the pilots, JC gave Jackie a thumbs-up, and since the radio was quiet, he tuned back in to the briefing in progress. Ty Harris, State Department, was talking about a shadow regime of some sort and the tracking of their agents. “There’s quite an international flavor to this, and it would benefit us if the organization responsible for foreign intelligence were brought on board.”

  JC waved at Jackie. He pointed at his mic to let her know he wanted to speak to the group. “And since we have this flight heading to London, we ought to call the Brits and let them know about it. Maybe they can have someone meet this flight or even the one carrying the Russian passengers. At least, they ought to be aware.”

  Phil answered both. “Good suggestions. Ty, I have a contact there. They may already be tracking, and if not, would certainly be highly interested i
n getting involved. JC, we’ll get right on that.”

  Jackie turned him off, and JC’s monitor went dark once more.

  16

  Chuck Merkel saw the plane first. “Joel, did you see that?”

  “Yes, what was it?”

  “It looked like a MiG. Couldn’t tell if it’s a twenty-three or twenty-seven.”

  “They look identical from a distance. Look, there’s another one! They’re too close! They seem to be tracking us specifically!”

  “Joel, I need to concentrate on flying this, and can’t deal with them in the sky here. Let someone know what’s going on.”

  “Affirmative.” He switched to the ATC channel. “Boston Tower, Air World flight 94.”

  They began to notice a little static in their radios. There was no response from Boston Tower. Joel tried again, again with no response. His Air Force training started to kick in. He tried Kennedy Tower, then Newark Tower. There was no response at all.

  “Try Halifax. It’s Canadian and on a different frequency set, but they are actually closest to us.”

  Halifax Tower did not answer either. Joel switched back to the Boston ATC frequency.

  “JC, are you there?”

  “Yes, I’ve been following you. Two MiGs, and no contact with ATC. Can you describe the planes? Do they appear threatening?”

  “Black on top, light blue underneath, both of them. No other markings. They just appear to be stalking us. Wait — they’re flying off, toward our ten o’clock and slightly below us.”

  Abruptly, Boston, Kennedy, and Newark Towers were calling them.

  “Chuck, they were jamming us!”

  “MiG twenty-sevens have jamming capability. Next time we’ll just transmit in the blind, and maybe the message will get through.”

  Joel called the anxious control towers and explained about the MiGs and the jamming. “Did you track them?”

  Boston Tower responded for them all. “When we heard you calling, we answered, and when you didn’t hear us, we homed in on your location. We couldn’t see them until they left you, then we saw them heading north.”

  “Thanks, Boston Tower. They may be back. We’ll keep you posted.”

  17

  In Chicago, JC suddenly heard voices in his headset at the same time it was being flashed across his monitor and started scrolling.

  Time 16:15:24Z. Source AWA94. “Joel, did you see that?”

  Time 16:15:30Z. Source AWA94. “Yes, what was it?”

  Time 16:15:34Z. Source AWA94. “It looked like a mig. Couldn’t tell if it’s a twenty three or twenty seven.”

  JC noted the six-digit, down-to-the-second, time stamp in Zulu time, five hours ahead of Chicago’s Central Daylight Time.

  Phil was watching at the same time he was speaking to his counterpart, Bob McGee, at the CIA. He motioned to his VTC operator, and the meeting was filled with the audio from JC’s radio. He gave the code for the VTC to Bob. When he hung up, he dialed his contact in MI-6 in London.

  JC signaled Jackie, then addressed the group. “This is JC. Can we get the passenger list checked to see if there is a significant person on board, including the Russians, as a possible target? Captain Palova, or anyone, might there be military aircraft in the area which could provide cover or escort? Thanks.”

  At CIA headquarters, Bob McGee spat out his gum, drained his can of diet soda, grabbed his sweater, and headed to the VTC room. On his way out the door, he glanced at the thirty-year service certificate on his wall, affectionately dubbed his “marriage license” by his co-workers and subordinates. I love this job, he said to himself.

  A minute later, the tenth monitor lit up in Phil’s meeting.

  18

  “JC, this is Chuck. Those MiGs don’t have radar, but they found us, so I assume they are talking to some station that is tracking us. My gut was telling me earlier to fly below the radar, but I have a lot of passengers and we need to know the best course of action if those guys come back. ‘Below the radar’ is thirty thousand feet below us.”

  “I have a US Navy captain here,” JC said, “and he has really been scrambling since we started tracking you. He just let me know there is a carrier somewhere in the North Atlantic on an exercise, and he will get me the location. If they’re close, they might be able to provide you cover or an escort. You might have to descend for them to protect you. He is also getting with his flight experts to advise you on your best maneuver courses.”

  Chuck’s gut was talking to him again. “Sounds like starting a descent now might get us a head start on whatever course of action we come up with. We can reestablish our altitude later.”

  He explained the situation to Boston Tower. “At your discretion, descend to five thousand feet,” they replied.

  JC came back on. “The Air Force has two armed F-18 fighters in the air already, but they are about an hour away from where you’ll be in an hour, assuming your current speed and heading. They have been directed your way.”

  The captain was on the intercom with the passengers, letting them know they would be descending as a precaution, and all services would be suspended until afterwards.

  “Thanks, JC. Chuck is getting the passengers ready. Any word from the Navy?”

  “Matter of fact, the office just got a call on the location of the aircraft carrier. Hold on a sec … How close are you to, it looks like, 35.3 north and 52.4 west?”

  Joel consulted the flight map to plot the latitude and longitude. “That’s just east of us, maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes. Good. Let them know we’re coming.”

  A minute later, JC had some advice from the task force. “The consensus here is to descend below five thousand feet, pick up the escort, then ascend back to your original altitude.”

  Chuck did a quick calculation. “We’ve started our descent rather shallow, but we’ll steepen it out to over eight hundred feet per minute. The passengers won’t feel it, and we’ll be below five thousand feet about the same time we reach the carrier. About thirty minutes. Let the Air Force know about the change.”

  Joel contacted Boston Tower and received authorization for the change in altitude.

  “JC, why were you not jammed when all the towers were?”

  “I think because this secure channel is digital and sends in bursts, like text messages. Because it’s digital, it burns right through the analog signal the jammer is using.”

  Nothing to do now but wait.

  19

  “Say, Maggie, do you know a nine-letter word for a fishing net?”

  Maggie laughed. “I saw that, too. I love crosswords. I saw the crosswords when I first got on and decided to save them for later. Did you already finish the easy one? The fishing net was in the hard one.”

  “You mean there are two?”

  “Yes. I like doing the American ones because they are harder than the British ones. I spend most Sundays online doing American crosswords. Evan Birnholz is my favorite puzzle author. He’s very clever. Plus, I get to learn American words and slang.”

  Matt didn’t realize they put those kinds of words in crossword puzzles.

  “Not all slang is vulgar, you know,” she replied. “When my cousin Clarice said ‘y’all’ I knew what that meant. And when her five-year-old daughter Clara asked for a Moon Pie, I knew we were in for a treat and said I wanted one too.”

  “What was the clue for Moon Pie?”

  “There’ve been several. I’ve seen it more than once. RC-Cola go-with, and s’more cousin. That’s how I found out what a s’more is. And do you know where to get an RC-Cola? Eight letters. Fourth letter N.”

  “Um, I give up.”

  “Drinkbox. At least that’s the way it’s spelled. Clarice told me it’s really pronounced drankbox.”

  They both chuckled at her attempt at speaking Southern.

  “You came to visit me from first class. From luxury to not-enough-room. From five-course meals to bag lunches. From royalty to the commoner.” He threw that last one in because of her accent.r />
  “Haha! Yes, first class is very nice,” she replied, not knowing she would never see that business class seat again. “I wish I could afford it!” She saw his quizzical look and went on. “I won a prize. I’m a primary school teacher in Bristol, and the city held a raffle to raise funds for all the primary schools there.”

  “We do that in some parts of the States.”

  “Yes, we learned that from our sister city in Tennessee.”

  “What city is that?”

  “Bristol, of course! Not an official sister city, though. Anyway, the sponsors got Britannia Airlines to provide the tickets. From London rather than from Bristol because the Bristol flights are so much more expensive. First place was round-trip in first class for a family of four to anywhere they flew. Second place was first class for one person. Third place was an all-expenses-paid tour of the Royal Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland.

  “I got the third-place prize, but the second-place winner was afraid to fly and offered to swap with me, because she had always wanted to see the castle, she said. My cousin Clarice lives in Macon, Georgia, and was thrilled I wanted to come see her. Second cousin, actually.”

  “To me, this is an Air World Airlines flight.”

  “BA is a partner with Air World. This flight has a BA flight number and a different AW number.”

  “It was nice of your husband to let you go.”

  “Oh. I’m not married. I was, but I’m not now.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am.” He looked at Jenny. “I made a bad assumption.”

  “It’s okay. It’s really complicated, but I don’t mind you knowing. My husband, John, couldn’t get me pregnant. We both had tests done and it was him, not me. His best friend and best man at our wedding, Edward, offered to help. We both told him no. Not too long after that, we tried again and I got pregnant. Then we, my mum and I, found out that John and Edward were more than just best friends. They had had a lover’s quarrel, and long story short, they got in a fight and killed each other. After they died, I grieved for a while, but was over it by the time Jenny was born.”