He glanced round the room which was now alive with people excusing themselves as they headed for their morning constitutions. Coffee, like beer, was never bought, merely rented, he thought with a chuckle and decided he’d better make a pit stop in the washroom before heading back to his office. But first, decorum dictated that he await the departure of the Holy Father who was rising even as the bishops followed suit.
Across the room, the Pope caught Malachi’s eye, looked briefly at the heavens and gave him a wan smile indicating his weariness with his admirers. As he walked, he tried to rub the stiffness out of the back of his neck.
Malachi returned the smile thinking: so near and yet so far. He understood that the Holy Father didn’t dislike him; it was merely that he didn’t know him all that well. After a pope was inaugurated and established, as with the routine of his predecessors, he would customarily move people, with whom he had worked and was familiar into positions of power. Lopez had been one of his crew; Malachi had not.
The Pope now hastened his departure, moving through the shifting throng of clergy who clustered in his path. His stature was slightly bent and he walked with difficulty.
His rheumatism must be acting up, thought Malachi. As he waited, he couldn’t help reviewing portions of the last 24 hours. His thoughts filled him with a mixture of concern, excitement and a healthy dose of trepidation.
At midnight he’d received word that the Vatican’s leased A320 aircraft was en route from New York to Rome. It was quickly followed by the carefully worded air-telephone call from Bishop Aquila. “It begins Mustavias. As you know, we did not have the tools on hand so we removed the package. There was an obvious dark envoy present but our people moved quickly and successfully. According to reports, there can be no doubt we are dealing with it!”
Obviously, Adramelech had taken the bait and since the Watchmen couldn’t bring in the Crusaders, they carried out Plan B and moved in to save Montague. Further details would have to wait until the man either reached a secure telephone or arrived in Vatican City.
With a six-hour time difference between the two cities and a brief sleep-over at Gatwick, he figured they had an ETA of three hours from now. On board were the witnesses he needed to show that their “prophecies” were unfolding. In fact they were taking place much quicker than any of them would have imagined, or preferred! He prayed inwardly that by removing Montague from harm’s way, they hadn’t tipped their hand. The creature was cunning; it must already know that the hunt for it was on again, but hopefully not that the Church had an ace up its sleeve.
The Pope was now near the door, bowing slightly and shaking hands with the many clerics lining his escape route. Lopez was already at his side, his own perceived self-importance manifested in the way he mimicked the Pope’s gestures and occasionally shook hands with someone whom His Holiness had missed. The look of intense disappointment on the passed-over prelate’s face as he caught Lopez’s hand instead of the Pope’s, made Malachi chuckle. Lopez didn’t seem to notice.
His good humor quickly faded as he made ready to follow the Pontiff outside. He might have a better idea of how good a hand he actually held when the aircraft landed. Idly he wished that right now he was with Aquila sailing gaily somewhere above the clouds, listening to piped in music and sipping champagne. Oh, for the life of a jet-setter.
~ 14 ~
“Mayday...Mayday...Mayday!” Gostini shouted, over the scream of the stall warning indicator as the stick shaker vibrated and the A320 stalled out and then plummeted earthward through the night sky like a mortally wounded bird. He’d tried radioing their position moments before but had no reply from Gatwick or any other control center; an infernal static crackled madly through the headset. Now they were broadcasting to anyone on the 121.5 emergency band.
When the engines died, they had lost their last generator and all power. A Ram Air Turbine, a small propeller-driven emergency auxiliary propeller that powered an emergency generator, had immediately dropped out of the fuselage and was now providing enough power for a few basic standby instruments, flight controls and some linked hydraulics. Despite this, their hi-tech jet plane now featured the instrumentation and control of a World War I Sopwith Camel.
The roar of their dive was building, audible to the pilots as the big jet plunged towards the waves.
Outside, in the frigid night air at thirty thousand feet, a small man-like shadow let go the freezing aluminum of the huge tail and peeled away from the sinking aircraft; its eyes glowed with a fiery brilliance as its skin wings filled once more with wind and it soared aloft.
The Beast circled in the pale light of the full moon and watched the jet drop towards the black ocean waves far below.
Inside the cockpit, both pilots, oxygen masks now clamped over their faces, fought the hollowness in their stomachs and their own escalating fear as they frantically sought to control the aircraft and regain power in the eerie luminescence of the emergency lights.
Both engines had rolled back and flamed out. Thankfully he still had some hydraulic assist due to their emergency generator but it was at a minimum and Bowden was largely relying on skill to maintain control. Keeping the airplane flying and under control depended solely on having enough air slipping past the surfaces of wings, the rudder and ailerons for him to manipulate them and influence the attitude of the craft. That meant keeping up the airspeed through a dive. In turn, once they ran out of altitude, they also ran out of flying time.
Corded muscles standing out in his neck, Bowden held the aircraft in a steady descent as Gostini flipped switches to attempt a restart of their engines. He set the APU bleed to on, the engine selector from normal to IGN/START, the ENG MASTER switch to ON and tried again
“We’re at two four zero...” Gostini yelled to the pilot, the underlying fear in his voice kept strictly in check by his professionalism. “They won’t spool up!
Bowden stole a glance at their working standby altimeter. Its needle steadily unwound bringing them ever closer to their fate. Twenty-four thousand feet didn’t give the pilots much time, barely minutes before the plane hit the water. He decreased the angle of their dive to gain a few more precious seconds in the air.
One wing dipped and Gostini, watching the captain struggle for control of the aircraft grabbed his stick and helped as he called out their altitudes as they plummeted towards the earth.
“Come over sweetheart,” Bowden said, through gritted teeth as their combined strength managed to straighten the jet.
They were still in a controlled descent but the seconds were ticking away. Their only hope lay in regaining power.
“Let’s go...try again,” Bowden said, knowing that the manual called for an attempted restart; in the event of continued failure, they were facing what was clinically termed – a water landing. In reality, a crash into brick-solid water that would see their life expectancy reduced to nil. Gostini tried to relight number one engine.
Bowden mentally said a quick Our Father and wondered what it would be like to die. If he had to take the jet in, it would certainly break up and explode in the giant sea swells. The end would come quickly. But even if they somehow managed to ditch and hold the aircraft together, and through another miracle were able to evacuate the jet before it settled and slid beneath the waves, freezing to death in the icy Atlantic waters wasn’t exactly a win.
On impact, an Emergency Locator Transmitter in the tail of the jet would be automatically jettisoned and electronically signal a satellite pinpointing their position. Small comfort that some bodies might be recovered.
“She won’t respond –!” Gostini said.
“Restart again...RESTART...!” Bowden yelled desperately, angry with whatever powers had chosen to make this his last day on earth. He longed to see his wife and know their baby, and to make amends for any of his failings. More than anything in the world he wanted to simply tell her he loved her and their unborn child. Now he wouldn’t have the opportunity.
“I’m trying...” Gostini cr
ied, even as he checked his own remaining instruments. The ASI gauge showed their airspeed at two hundred and eighty knots.
The plane dropped lower.
Suddenly the heavy plane began to vibrate as it descended through a temperature inversion. It pitched, swayed and bumped much as an automobile would driving from pavement onto a gravel road filled with potholes.
The pilot rammed his feet tighter on the rudder pedals and fought to hold it steady. If it heeled over he might not be able to regain straight and level flight; it would begin a death roll that would seal their fate.
“Oh Jesus...we’re not gonna make it!” Gostini said.
The resignation in his copilot’s voice sent a tremor through Bowden.
The aircraft abruptly pitched to starboard and the pilot felt a jarring blow as his head slammed against the cockpit window ledge. He cursed as blood ran down the side of his face. With a groan he managed to straighten the wings once again.
“Eighteen thousand...try again!” he yelled, his voice quaking as the aircraft’s stick-shaker vibrations began again. Quickly he lowered the nose further.
Gostini leaned over and again threw the switch for engine number one. This time there was a whine, a pop and a welcome roar as one red light on the control panel over his head switched to green and the engine spooled up.
“One’s up!” he yelled, in jubilation.
The aircraft was suddenly alive with instruments returning to life. The cabin lights came on. Instrument needles jerked to position, digital readouts magically reappeared in their previously dark instrument windows, the weather radar glowed, and the radio crackled in both their ears.
“Advance the power... slow and easy!” Bowden said, through gritted teeth, unwilling to take his hand from the stick; he needed to keep the wings level. Beads of sweat ran unheeded down his cheeks and under the collar of his shirt.
Gostini advanced the throttle on number one.
As the hydraulics took hold, the stick responded and Bowden found himself easing back into his seat. The nose of the aircraft was rising but suddenly the plane heeled to the right as the starboard wing dipped. He quickly eased the stick forward and to the left until they were again on an even keel. If it stalled now, there might not be time to recover. He had to keep it slowly dropping until they had enough power to fully level out and then regain altitude. The auto-pilot was now working and Bowden immediately off-loaded work to it.
They were at forty-five hundred feet as Gostini punched up number two and the turbine whined and roared as though nothing had been amiss. The copilot gently eased the throttle to the second detent as Bowden now pulled his control stick back; the nose of the jet slowly lifted level.
“C’mon sweetheart!” Bowden said, the joy in his voice evident as their rate of descent finally showed zero.
The welcome G forces of acceleration started to push them both back in their seats and Gostini’s eyes flickered to his altimeter. They had been at less than thirty-five hundred feet ASL when the artificial horizon finally showed them in level flight. At their previous rate of descent, they had been seconds away from doom.
The altimeter was now gaining feet, breaking four thousand and then five; they were in a full climb. Only now did Bowden identify the strange pounding in his ears he’d assumed had been the buffeting of the aircraft; it was the blood pumping from his heart. Well, he thought, if it took the last few minutes and didn’t give out, I won’t have to worry about my next medical.
The reprieve filled the pilot with an exultation, unabashed, uncompromised happiness that permeated his every sense; they weren’t going to die. He found his mind clear of all worries and regrets; the accumulated mental baggage that typically weighs down every human being had magically been cast off at the doorway to death. His senses were unbelievably alive and sharp: he was certain he could now hear every screw straining and the composites flexing as the jet blasted upward towards the stars. In fact, he could smell the ripeness of the leather in his week-old shoes, feel the rough cotton of his starched shirt collar rubbing against some beard he’d missed shaving, and even detect a certain metallic taste in the air furnished from the compressed air cylinders feeding his mask. He was alive! There was veracity after all in the saying: to truly live, one must almost die.
Gostini, smiling wanly in relief, was also scanning the instruments. All showed normal functioning. “What the hell happened!?”
“I don’t know...but it could happen again,” Bowden said, now discarding the euphoria for the reality of their situation. His eyes were still on the vertical speed indicator. “Get out the manuals.”
The pilot’s pronouncement was as sobering as it was accurate and Gostini pulled out the operational manuals even as his thoughts drifted back to a few minutes before. Had he seen what he thought he’d seen outside the window? Impossible. It must have been a trick of the moonlight because nothing could live outside at 35,000 feet; the temperature was easily 50 below zero and there wasn’t enough oxygen to keep a plant alive, much less anything else.
And yet...it seemed so real. When the dull thud of something hitting the aircraft had come, Gostini had been sure it was on his side and he’d instinctively glanced out the window and back towards the starboard wing position.
At first he thought he was staring at an old coat near his window, that it had somehow gotten snagged in a service bay door or some such thing and managed to miraculously remain throughout their flight. But then, just as quickly, he’d realized that there was no service door where the ‘coat’ was alternately spinning wildly in the air and being flattened against the skin of the aircraft by the tremendous slip stream. Then, to the copilot’s horror, the supposed coat had taken shape!
It had ballooned out as though inflated by some mysterious force, and he found himself looking at a naked, leather-skinned, winged and horned creature clinging to the side of the aircraft. As he gaped, his numbed brain tried to deny the sight of the monster staring squarely at him through his window less than three feet away. Yellow, slanted eyes, shining like glowing embers, imprinted on his brain as the creature hung by fingers somehow sticking to the aluminum of the aircraft. Huge folds of wings flapped wildly on its back and a hole in the face yawned open where a mouth should be. Razor teeth gleamed in the moonlight. And then it was gone!!
It had vanished in the blink of an eye; it had to be an illusion...
...and yet it had seemed so real!
“Captain...?” It was Bishop Aquila, his face deathly white. He stood in the doorway. “What happened?”
“We don’t know but it could happen again, Your Grace! Please go back and belt yourself in.”
“A malfunction...?”
The jet was in a steady climb now, breaking fifteen thousand feet, behaving as though they had just rotated out of La Guardia.
Trying to understand what had gone wrong, Bowden scanned the instruments again. They all read normal. Then why had they suddenly lost their airspeed? Why had they experienced almost simultaneous flameouts in both engines? There had to be a freak lightning strike that hit the plane. Or perhaps they had flown into some atmospheric anomaly that somehow formed a vacuum bubble starving the engines of the oxygen they needed to run. For a minute or two before they dropped, they had seemed to hang motionless in midair, almost as though suspended by their stabilizer from a giant skyhook. Nothing made sense which made him increasingly uneasy; whatever happened could repeat.
If it had been a headwind, it had to be the mother of all headwinds! And anyhow, while their groundspeed might have eroded, their airspeed wouldn’t. Of course, Bowden didn’t believe it had anything to do with a headwind. But, at the same time he didn’t know what to believe. He looked over at Gostini. “Get Gatwick on the horn and inform them we had a double engine failure, descended to four thousand, reason unknown and we are now reassuming our original flight level and vector.”
“Captain...?”
Bowden looked back at the bishop. If he wanted to keep his job, he’d better b
e a little more circumspect in his treatment of the old gentleman. The man was clearly frightened. “Everything’s operating normally now, your Grace.” The pilot realized he was speaking into his oxygen mask, pulled it off and continued: “We lost our engines...we’re not sure why...but they seem to be fine now.”
“Will we turn back?”
“No, we’re past the point of no return...it’s shorter to continue.”
Suddenly a thought seemed to hit the old man. He stared at Bowden: “The running lights! Are they on?” There was urgency as well as a hint of concern in the old man’s voice, almost as though he knew what the answer would be.
Bowden reluctantly shook his head. “Nor will they be.” The bishop vanished from the cockpit.
~ 15 ~
High above the Atlantic Ocean, Adramelech flew purposely on demon wings back towards the city from which he had first risen to seek vengeance on his prey. His speed outpaced any form of aircraft. Barely minutes into his return flight, miles ahead and tens of thousands of feet below, the first glow of the millions of lights of the distant New York shoreline lit the night sky.
Now he paused in flight.
Within seconds he had abandoned his arrow-straight singular route, and circled and soared on the high winds going neither forward nor back. Buffeted roughly by the unforgiving jet stream, he scarcely noticed it as he tried to decipher his feelings.
A sixth sense, an evil omnipotence, had begun to overcome him, needling at his confidence, crying dire warnings until finally persistence paid off; the creature took heed of his instincts.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
The Plan Page 26