Moments later, with the supervisor in the watch center, the big jet was pushed back from the spot it had occupied for just over a day. All the troops were gone. Just the aircraft and the tow vehicle were in frame.
The supervisor asked for the phone. “Get me a line to the White House.” He held the phone to his ear, waiting for the connection.
“There she goes,” Matt said. The tow unhooked and moved out of frame. He increased the field of view to include the entire tarmac just as the four turbofans came to life.
Flight 422
The four engines whined at idle, not fast enough to move her but sufficient to circulate fluids within the turbines and provide power to the other systems. Hendrickson gave the instruments a final check.
“Can I contact the tower for weather and clearance?” the captain asked.
“There is no need.” The answer came from behind. “Just fly.”
In front was a shimmering road of cement—the taxiway—that ran parallel to the runway. Both pilots looked over the taxiway. It was covered with a layer of dust, with drifting swirls, reminiscent of sandbars stretching the width of the thoroughfare.
“Hand me those binocs,” the captain said. Buzz handed the glasses over, watching as Hendrickson dialed in and scanned the runway from left to right, leaning forward to his console for a better vantage. Its condition wasn’t any better than the taxiway. “That thing hasn’t been swept in days.” He realized they had landed on all the crud scattered over it. “Look.” The glasses were passed back to Buzz.
“So what do we do different?” Buzz asked from behind the binoculars.
“Besides pray? I don’t know.” The captain sat back and twisted his body into what should have been a comfortable position, but wasn’t.
“Here.” Buzz handed the performance calculations over. These were figured by a computer and took into account the aircraft’s weight and load, altitude of the airport, and weather conditions present. They were always hand-checked by the first officer, then displayed along with other information on the displays. Still, there was an element of uncertainty. “Some of it’s just a guess.”
“I know.”
“I allowed an extra five knots, just in case,” Buzz added. His tone didn’t display much confidence in his words, which got him a furrowed-brow look from the captain. “I don’t have any idea what they loaded.”
Hendrickson looked at the written figures. “Let’s try it.”
Takeoff and landing for a commercial aircraft are considered the times when the likelihood for a disastrous event is highest, necessitating procedures that assumed the worst would happen. The pilot held a firm grip on his stick, the co-pilot “backing up” the captain, ready to take over in the unlikely event that a medical problem, such as a heart attack, should strike him at a critical moment.
The worst was also planned for when considering mechanical performance. Everything assumed that the most important part of the aircraft would fail at the most crucial time during takeoff or landing. Where takeoff was concerned, the engines were the major system. Their performance, or lack of it, was the basis for calculating several variable airspeed ‘barriers’ that aided a pilot when deciding whether to go ahead with or abort a takeoff. V-l was the speed at which the decision to proceed had to be made and the last point at which a takeoff could be aborted by reversing the engines and applying full braking power. Beyond V-l an abort would surely end up in a fiery slide past the runway’s end. V-R indicated the speed at which the aircraft would be generating sufficient lift for a safe takeoff and climb-out, allowing the pilots to nose up—or rotate—the aircraft.
There was a gentle forward push on the back of the captain’s right hand as he and Buzz advanced the numbers one and four engine throttle levers. The Maiden lurched up and forward, coming back down on the nose gear shocks with a pronounced bounce. Turbine compression increased in the two outboards, moving the aircraft slowly onto the taxiway, where the captain turned her to the right, lining up on the yellow center line. The ground speed crawled upward.
“Jesus, Bart. We should be rolling easy at this thrust-to-weight.”
They were an eighth of the way to the threshold area, and rolling way too slowly. Captain Hendrickson moved his aircraft to the left side of the taxiway, then to the extreme right, testing the feel of the Maiden. She was heavy. Sluggish was a good word, but not completely descriptive. The bird was...unbalanced, almost like she wanted to do a wheel stand. He touched the throttles forward a bit, then backed off, getting the same forward rise and lurch as before. Buzz looked over to him, and they both knew. Their aircraft was too heavy, and misloaded. Her center of gravity had been altered, by how much they would find out once airborne—if they got that far.
“We’re damn heavy,” Buzz said. “I didn’t figure on this. Man, we feel real heavy.”
“I know.” The captain brought her back to center. “She’s mushy on the ground, like we’re steering with a flat nose wheel.”
Buzz checked the overhead panels for any reds: There were none. The weight of the new cargo was going to present a big enough problem without having to worry about any minor system glitches. And just what was the weight? He wanted to ask—politely deferent, if necessary—but remembered the wrath of the hijacker. Buzz would love to get a crack at him, just a chance to snap his shit-brown neck, but not at the risk of another passenger’s death. Not him. The handiwork was readily apparent on the wing, and he tried not to think about what was going to happen to the body when the aircraft accelerated down the runway.
The nose of the big Boeing came sharply left at the end of the taxiway, and a hundred yards farther came left again onto the runway. Brakes were applied and the throttles brought back to hold the Maiden steady. The strip before them was too short for their weight. Both pilots knew it. They would never leave pavement.
“We’re beyond spec,” Buzz pointed out, referring to the hot, thin air of the midday desert that would further complicate a liftoff. “What do you think?”
The captain analyzed the question. Conventional approaches could be cast aside for now. After all, the only certainty was that they were going to dig a long trench in the desert sand at the end of the ten-thousand-foot runway. He figured they would need at least twelve thousand feet to get enough speed up. Unless...
“Buzz, we need speed, right?”
“Yeah,” he answered quizzically
It was a radical idea for a non afterburning jet, possibly ludicrous when applied to the 747. “We’re going to roll with the flaps retracted, smooth-skinned. That’ll give us speed.”
“But lift? We can’t rotate without flaps.”
The captain pointed to the console. “Look, you call out speed, like usual. Just add ten knots to rotation. We’ll use up a hell of a lot of runway, I know, but we’ll be fast enough. At V-R you hit the flaps—ten degrees.”
“That can rip the wings off.” But it might work. Buzz smiled at the runway and sighed a dry breath. In a way the thought excited him. “Just like flying a Harrier off a jump ramp.”
They would trade assured lift for speed, and throw lift in at the last moment, a risky move that very well could bring the first officer’s worry to reality. No one knew if the wings could take the stress, or even if the flaps would extend under the force created by the forward motion. Commercial aircraft were not designed for this.
“You ready?”
Buzz nodded.
“We firewall them on my mark.”
“Okay.”
Hendrickson stretched his hand around the four levers, arching his fingers to touch each of the plastic caps. His palm tensed. “Now!”
They pushed the throttles forward as quickly as the built-in resistance would allow. The cockpit rose up as before and settled down as the aircraft began moving.
Hadad heard the words from his seat behind the pilots, but he was not concerned. Everything had been prepared for. All the calculations were long since made. The plane would fly. The added load could be ha
ndled easily by the giant jet—his knowledgeable comrades had assured him of this. It would be so.
The jet blast from the Maiden’s four engines sent rocks and other debris flying from the runway and its edges as the aircraft gained speed.
“Come on...” The captain watched the airspeed increase slowly—too slowly.
Buzz pushed on the captain’s hand, holding the throttles full open. The turbines were sucking fuel from the integral wing tanks in huge gulps as they approached 100 percent capacity, a measure of performance they would surpass. Operating beyond full capacity was possible, but not recommended for any period of time. “It’s gonna be close,” he said, louder than he realized. The aircraft passed the halfway point on the runway.
Those who flew did so with an instinctive ability to sense performance beyond what the mechanical indicators told them. For some it was a feeling in the gut, literally, one that told them whether the aircraft was going too slow or fast, or if some meteorological condition was affecting it. Captain Hendrickson felt the Maiden’s bulk beneath. It moved slowly, but there was increasing acceleration.
“V-one,” Buzz called out. The 747 was already beyond the halfway marker by a thousand feet.
“We go,” the captain decided, though that had been fated. He held the throttles forward.
Buzz kept his eyes on the rising speed indicator, not the ever-shortening slab of pavement which was now three quarters gone. The electronic needle crept past the first calculated V-R speed...less than ten knots to go.
* * *
A uneasy expression covered Michael’s face. He gripped Sandy’s arm with one hand, and the armrest with the other. Something felt wrong. The speed was too high. His stomach told him so. His hand squeezed, feeling his wife’s soft flesh.
Silently, he willed the jet to fly.
* * *
Captain Hendrickson was invoking the same prayer when his first officer shouted, “V-R!”
“Rotate.” Hendrickson pulled the stick back in a smooth motion while Buzz brought the flaps down.
The Clipper Atlantic Maiden’s nose rose in response to the downward pressure on the elevators, which were located on the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizers at the jet’s rear. The most obvious motion, though, was the vertical jump that accompanied the lowering of the flaps. Buzz’s body bent slightly forward from the force of the upward surge.
“Shit!”
“We’re up!” the captain exclaimed.
Buzz retracted the gear without prompting. The aircraft responded to the reduced drag with more speed. The climb-out was on a gentle slope—no jump into the sky for noise abatement reasons. Instead, the Maiden skimmed above the glistening desert floor at two hundred knots, gaining speed and altitude at a mild, but acceptable rate.
“My stick,” the captain announced as they passed through fifteen hundred feet. Buzz released his soft backing grip and checked the displays thoroughly.
“Number three’s acting up.”
“Like usual.”
“It’s hot.” Buzz took out the performance manual. “Down four percent—no, five percent.”
“We’ll back all of them off twenty percent when we pass eight thousand.”
“Gotcha,” Buzz agreed.
They continued to take the jet up and over the water, oblivious to Hadad, who stood from his seat and now crouched behind them, looking through the thick windshield. He would rather look behind, but what was the point. Several months ago he had left his home, and now he was leaving without seeing his friend. The colonel had worked tirelessly to bring the mission, once just a concept, to reality, and the effort had weakened him further. Hadad would pray for him.
Now it was time for instructions. “Fly two-seven-oh, at thirty thousand.”
Neither pilot responded verbally to the command—they simply acted upon it, banking the Maiden to the left in a smooth, fluid turn. The captain knew he had his hands full with the unbalanced load. Trim would be a problem, especially later as fuel was burned and the balance further changed.
They both concentrated on their flying, trying to keep thoughts of how they had left a passenger behind in the dark, quiet recesses of their minds. It was horrific. Benghazi was behind them, and what was ahead neither knew.
“Set reduced thrust.”
Buzz followed the instructions, selecting reduced climb thrust on the Thrust Control Panel.
“At reduced thrust,” Buzz announced. He noted the altitude. “Passing eight-five-hundred.”
“Spell me?” the captain requested.
“Sure.” Buzz gripped his column. “My stick.”
“Slow and easy climb. The trim is lousy,” Hendrickson said unenthusiastically.
The Maiden rose into the sky, finding the cool, thin air that made its ascent slow. It would be a full thirty-five minutes to thirty thousand feet.
The captain checked the instruments, trying to occupy his consciousness. Everything was as it should be, save number three. The mere fact that the wings were still attached could be construed as a positive. But he cared little about the technicalities at the moment. They were small, infinitesimal concerns that would not be able to hold his attention. His thoughts were elsewhere, back at Benina, somewhere along the runway.
Benina
The checkpoint was gone.
Muhadesh slowed his Range Rover, then stopped. Where the tank had been was now only a wide circle of disturbed hard sand and track marks onto the road. They had gone, by the way of the main road from the direction of the tracks. He put it back in gear and continued on.
Two minutes later he again stopped, this time at a guard shack on the north side of Benina’s control tower, and was promptly waved through on recognition by the two smiling guards. Muhadesh was well known to the garrison at Benina, whose company and conversation he preferred to the ideologues back at the camp. These soldiers were from the rabble: common people, not very sophisticated, most from the arid regions far from the city. They were like him, doing their duty. Some did it reluctantly, some willingly. Few of them understood the significance of their government’s attitude toward the Western world, or to their Arab neighbor states. In conversation with them, topics such as goats, and old people, and the joy of swimming in the waters of the Mediterranean were common. It was refreshing, a welcome and too seldom respite from everyday happenings.
Muhadesh brought the vehicle around to the front of the tower, the bottom floor of which was the airport garrison’s command post. The implied formality of the term held little stock here. A lone lieutenant, his shirt open to the waist, dozed with his feet up while an old metal fan high on the wall struggled uselessly to cool the room.
The creak of the tattered screen door awakened the disheveled junior officer.
“Captain Algar!” The lieutenant sat up, struggling against the liberal reclining springs of the old wooden chair. He noticed the captain’s lowered stare and began buttoning his tunic.
“Good morning, Lieutenant. Or is it afternoon? I thought you might be waking from a good night’s sleep.” Muhadesh strode from one side of the CP to the other, his hands behind his back, eyeing the lieutenant alternately as he feigned a cursory inspection. “Is this your usual dress at your post?”
“No,” came the answer, and with it the second from the top button.
The look was the next interrogative.
“It has been a long night, sir.” He fingered some papers on the desk, as if they were some magic explanation. “A very long night. And today’s heat...as always, it takes your strength.”
“Mmm.” Muhadesh picked up a heavy paperweight, tossing it up over and over. “Lieutenant...”
“Hafez.”
“Lieutenant Hafez, where is Captain Ibrahim Sadr?”
“Sadr?” He looked to the piles of work.
A heavy, flat hand came down on a stack of files. “I am asking you...not your unfinished work. Now, again, where is Captain Sadr?”
“Sir, he left when the American plane departed.
”
“Where?”
A swallow, justified by fear of the captain’s legendary, if seldom exhibited wrath, preceded the reply from the wide-eyed officer. “I do not know. He...he did not say.”
Eyes bored into the junior officer. You tell the truth. “Did he have anything with him? A duffel, possibly?”
The lieutenant shook his head, which was enough of an answer. Muhadesh had a good idea what it meant Sadr would not have gone directly back to Tripoli, not the prissy captain who was the “model” of a perfect officer. It was a joke, though one not funny in the least.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Muhadesh left the CP without further discussion and departed the airport by the way he came, waving at the guards as he passed through the gate.
The drive to the camp would be short. He would go there first, and a bit later into Benghazi. Muhadesh would have preferred that it be a clean, simple job. If Sadr had been here, it might have taken less time. He could have lured the prima dona into the open spaces outside of the airport, where things would be less conspicuous. As it was, that was not to be. He would venture into the city and punctuate his departure, making life in his homeland impossible.
And it would be worthwhile. He thought for a moment as he drove. Yes, it would be, but for whom?
The White House
Was this a normal reaction? the president wondered. He was angrier than he had ever been, at the hijackers, the Libyans, even at himself, though that was caused by the frustration and helplessness he felt. Vengeance was on his mind, and he knew that wasn’t right.
“Has there been any success contacting the Libyans?”
Bud shook his head.
“Sir, even their UN ambassador can’t get through,” Gonzales added.
The president scoffed at that. “He’s falling in line.”
“She, sir,” the COS corrected him.
Bud felt underdressed. The president and chief of staff were dressed somberly for the viewing at eleven.
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