by Bob Finley
Anxious to please, Enrique leaned his plane into a good camera angle, his left wing dragging low and slow. Just fifty feet off the water, he passed within a hundred and fifty feet of the tower. On the second pass, as he pulled out of the turn and began to climb away from the tower, the hot exhausts of his twin engines were more than the pair of Mk-30 surface-to-air missile launchers could stand. Two missiles erupted in a brilliant flash of light from their launch tubes and streaked for the departing aircraft at stunning speed, trailing smoke and a sound that was unmistakable to the naval ships two miles away. The first missile lost lock on the heat signature from the left engine as the plane began to bank right. But the second missile tracked the right engine and, had there been more distance between the launcher and the target for corrections to be made, would have taken out not only the engine but the entire right wing as well. Instead, it exploded outboard, taking only four feet of the wing tip and setting fire to the stump.
The quarter-century-old Cessna reeled under the side impact but held together except for chunks missing here and there from shrapnel. Enrique earned his money in the next few minutes as his long hours of low-level contour flying experience as a smuggler instinctively kicked in. Without thinking, he made corrections and compensations for the instantaneous and drastic change in the aerodynamics of the aircraft's ability to fly. With black, oily smoke roiling off what was left of the wing and a possible fire beginning in the engine nearest the explosion, he fought for altitude and grabbed the microphone.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Victor Lima Charlie five-two-niner! We have had an explosion and have lost part of a wing. I have an engine on fire! We have a Mayday! Mayday!" Enrique had not yet realized that he'd been shot down by a missile attack.
Jackie had screamed as she'd been thrown violently against the far wall of the cabin, slamming her head against a reading lamp hard enough to lacerate her scalp.
Jerry, braced as he'd been to steady his camera, had been shaken but not dislodged. It was a couple of seconds before he realized that he couldn't hear out of his right ear, and another couple before he realized that there was no glass left in the window out of which he was staring at the thick black smoke trailing from the jagged edge of the wing. He glanced at Jackie, who was pulling herself to her feet. Blood was running in thin rivulets down the left side of her head and face. Without a second's hesitation, he brought his unharmed camera to his shoulder and filmed the inside of the cabin, panning from the pilot up front to Jackie, who seemed to be in shock, to the open window, and the fiery stump of wing and engine beyond. He glanced down at the satellite transmitter on the seat beside him and felt the wave of relief wash over him as he saw that the signal output was still strong.
"We're getting it!" he thought. "We're still on the air, and we're getting it! Man, oh, man! This is it! This is the real thing!" He suddenly had a thought and whirled to the open window. Jamming the camera out the window, he saw he was right. He rammed the camera in the corner of the window to steady it and leaned into it. Sure enough, the smoke trail of the missile curved gracefully from its point of impact on their plane back down to the tower. It was beginning to drift and break up, but it was unmistakably the track of a missile. No, more than one! "Man! Talk about your smoking gun!" he grinned in triumph.
"Enrique!" he shouted. "Enrique!!"
"What?!" Enrique shouted back, angrily resentful of any demands made on him that didn't include keeping his ship in the air.
"That was a missile!"
"What?!"
"That was a missile hit! We've been shot by at least two missiles from the tower back there!"
"Madre...!"
The word ‘missile’ instantly cleared the fog for Jackie. She stumbled to where Jerry was still leaning out the window and dragged him bodily back into the cabin. She thrust her own head out and, even though the distance was rapidly growing between them and the tower, she could read the smoke signals as clearly as had Jerry. She was back on duty.
"Cue me!" she ordered, backing away to get some distance between her and the camera.
"You've got blood..." he started to say, pointing toward her head, but she cut him off.
"I said, cue me!"
He shouldered the camera, gave her a short, three second count-down and they were off and running.
"Assuming our transmissions are still being received, then you are aware that we have just been the victims of a missile attack. At least one, possibly two missiles were fired at us by the terrorists. We believe they came from the tower you just saw in our fly-by. We have lost part of one wing and we have an engine on fire." As if on cue, there was a THUMP! from the engine and shrapnel spattered the right side of the fuselage like hail. All three of them jerked, thinking another missile had hit them. But Enrique recovered first. He triggered the engine's built-in fire suppression system, shut down the engine, and feathered the prop, all in rapid succession. When Jackie resumed her running commentary, Jerry pulled the camera off the engine and back to her.
"We've just lost the engine that was on fire. The pilot has attempted to put the fire out but we don't know for sure yet if he was successful."
"Señora, we have another problem," Enrique called. They both looked at him. His hands were flying over the console, flipping switches and turning dials. Ever the creative photographer, Jerry zoomed in to show the pilot's hands.
"What problem?" Jackie asked, very much aware of the live camera.
"When the engine blew up just now, I think some pieces hit the airplane and mebbe cut an oil line."
"Is that bad?" she asked.
"Sí, señora, it is bad. We are losing oil pressure on our other engine."
"How bad is it?"
"Very bad, señora."
"Define ‘very bad’."
"Qué?"
"How bad is ‘very bad’?"
His eyes found hers in the cabin's rear view mirror. "Can you swim?" he asked.
"You're kidding."
He shook his head. "No, señora. I do not make jokes about my airplane."
She looked at Jerry. The camera was still on her. She looked out the left window, and as she did the left engine stuttered and a thin ribbon of something white began to bleed into the slipstream. She turned back to Enrique.
"How long?" she said urgently.
He shook his head and looked at his gauges. "Mebbe five minutes," he answered.
"How far is it to some kind of land?"
"Too far," was all he said.
In desperation, she looked around her for inspiration. Then she glanced out the window. And she saw the answer.
"Enrique, how long a runway do you need to land this thing?"
"What do you mean, Senora?"
"Hand me that microphone."
The pilot put it in her hand and watched her. She half-turned, so she was profiled for the camera and put the microphone to her lips.
"This is...what did you call this airplane?"
"Victor Lima Charlie five-two-niner."
She started again. "This is Victor Lima Charlie five-two-nine calling the United States aircraft carrier George Washington. Do you hear me?" She waited. Three seconds.
"George Washington, do you hear me calling you? This is an emergency. Hello?"
Enrique realized what she was doing. He reached over and gently took the microphone from her. "United States aircraft carrier George Washington, the is Victor Lima Charlie five-two-nine declaring a MAYDAY. We have an emergency and are going to be forced to ditch. We are requesting assistance on the international channel. Please respond. Over."
"Victor Lima Charlie fiver-two-niner, we read your MAYDAY and request for assistance. How can we be of service to you?" They sighed in tandem. He looked at Jackie. She held out her hand and he put the microphone back into it.
"Take her around and line up on their runway. Will it hold together that long?"
"Him."
"What?"
"Not ‘her’. The airplane is a ‘him’."
; "Maybe that's why it's giving up. Is it going to hold together or not?"
"I think so. But, Señora, I have never landed on a ship before."
"Get serious. Remember that dirt airstrip where we gassed up?"
"Sí," he nodded.
"If you can land there, you can land here." She raised the microphone.
"This is Jackie Darlington of CNN. We're going to have to land on your ship."
"I'm afraid that's impossible, Ms. Darlington. No civilian aircraft is permitted to land on a military ship."
"Well, I'm afraid that's just too bad. We have injured people aboard this airplane, one wing has been blown away, one engine is burned up, and the other one has about five minutes left to live. It's either crash into the sea and maybe get three people killed, or land on the biggest airport within a hundred miles. I don't think the Navy wants that on its conscience does it? Especially with fifty million U. S. taxpayers watching. The taxpayers who, I might add, paid for that glorified airport of yours. Now, what's it going to be?"
Jerry was grinning behind his camera. Jackie caught him at it and slitted her eyes at him. He just grinned bigger and gave her a thumbs-up with his free hand. She'd waited as long for an answer as she intended to.
"Well, how about it? Are we going to be allowed to land, or are you going to shoot us down when we try? You got about..." She looked out the right windshield. Enrique was just coming out of his turn and beginning to straighten up on a final approach. The engine coughed and a big cloud of greasy gray smoke belched out behind them.
"The temperature is rising," Enrique warned. "Soon the engine will not run anymore."
"Spit on it," she told him crossly. "Washington, you got about a minute. We're about to lose our other engine and we're coming in. Make up your mind."
There was no response for a full ten seconds. The carrier was quickly growing in their windshield.
"Señora..."
"Victor Lima Charlie fiver-two-niner, we have you on approach. I don't suppose you have a tail hook on that airplane, do you?"
Jackie looked at Enrique. Surprisingly, he smiled. "They are making a joke, señora."
"The only tails that are about to drag are the ones we're wearing, sailor," she said into the mic.
"Roger that, ma’am. We are raising the barricade for you now. You'll have to kill your engine the moment your wheels touch down. If you don't, your props 'll get chewed up on the barricade and could infiltrate the cabin."
"Infiltrate the...what does that mean?"
"Know what a fragmentation grenade is?" Jerry asked.
Jackie looked around at him. "Do I want to?" she said. He solemnly shook his head.
"Okay. We'll turn off the engines when we land," she said into the microphone.
"Can you bring your aircraft up any? You are too low on the glide path."
Enrique pulled the yoke toward him but there wasn't enough power to climb. He red-lined the throttle. The engine became alarmingly more labored, but the altimeter crept up another eighty feet.
"That's good. Now maintain that rate of descent if you can. Come two degrees left. Have you ever landed on a carrier deck before?"
"Not in our wildest dreams."
"Very well. We estimate twenty seconds to touchdown. Now listen carefully. In about ten seconds you should be able to see two rows of black marks on the deck, side by side. You want to put your aircraft down on the deck where those black tire marks first begin. Do you understand?"
Enrique nodded and Jackie said "Yes" into the microphone.
"Very well. Once you touch down, roll straight down the runway. Do not, repeat, do not turn right or left. If you do, you'll probably go over the side into the sea."
A loud buzzer went off in the cabin.
"What's that?!" Jackie yelled over the noise. Enrique reached over and turned it off.
"The engine has overheated because the oil is all gone. It will catch fire if I don't shut it down."
"You can't shut it down! We're almost there!"
"Señora, it..."
"Let it burn, I said! Or we won't make it. We'll fall short of the carrier and crash into the sea behind it!"
It was all Enrique could do to deliberately mutilate his plane. But he gritted his teeth and held on.
"I see the tire marks!" Jackie sang out. "Do you see them?" Enrique only nodded, drops of sweat dripping from his chin as he did so. There was a muffled thump from the engine and instantly black smoke began to boil out. Three seconds later it was engulfed in flames. They began to lose altitude quickly as the engine died away. As it did, the Cessna was thrown out of compensation and it slewed sideways.
"You're turning to starboard! Keep your aircraft headed straight down the runway!" The radio wasn't telling them anything they didn't already know. Enrique shut down the gas to the burning engine and then alternately pumped his rudder pedals. The plane skewed back to port and wobbled in the air. They were all suddenly very much aware they'd lost their only remaining engine. Except for the sputtering of the fire outside and the muted rush of air around the fuselage, there was no noise.
"Well, we don't have to worry about shutting down the engines," Jerry quipped into the quietness that followed.
They crossed the stern of the carrier. The tire marks came up fast. They had almost stopped flying and were on the razor's edge of simply falling out of the air. The Cessna, with its right engine blackened and its left engine still on fire, slammed down onto the runway. The landing gear shrieked in torture under the stress, but held. As Enrique jammed on the brakes, the plane fishtailed erratically down the armored steel deck until it careened into the safety net the carrier's crew had raised to keep the small plane from overshooting and going into the sea. Braced as they were, they still weren't prepared for the violence of the instantaneous transition from sixty knots to zero in the space of two seconds as they hit the barrier and bounced back a dozen feet.
Suddenly everything stopped moving. They were hit from several sides by cascades of white foam as the ship's crew extinguished the burning engine. They heard someone's feet as a crewman clambered onto the wing.
Jackie pulled herself up from where she'd been thrown into the floor. She tugged her skirt down, adjusted her blood-encrusted hair and looked into the camera lens that Jerry had somehow kept going.
"We're safe," she said simply.
"I dunno ‘bout that," Jerry murmured.
"What?" She looked around at him.
"Have you looked out the window yet?" he asked in an odd voice.
Through the empty hole where there had once been a window, Jackie Darlington could see at least three military types in Marine green. They were all carrying rifles at the ready. And none of them were smiling.
Chapter 66
Jambou was fascinated by the events of the past 45 minutes. First the U. S. Navy jet practically inviting him to shoot it down, after which he decided it was time to enable the SAM site to discourage further incursions into his territory. Then the warships arrived. He figured that made the opening gambit official. Negotiations would shortly follow. Then, from out of nowhere, what looked like a civilian plane. Once the tower radar alarms made him aware of its presence, he'd easily found the radio frequency they were using. What had surprised him was the disclosure that there was a CNN news team aboard. He was astounded at their efficiency in arriving on the scene so quickly. Then, even more to his amazement, he realized they were transmitting live by satellite feed. He wished fervently that he could intercept their transmission so he'd know firsthand what they were saying about him. Their arrival and short stay of only two circuits around the tower had him so mesmerized that he was as startled as anyone else when the two missiles fired. Leaping from his chair and staring open-mouthed at the contrails tracking across his floor-to-ceiling television "screen", he was immensely relieved when the first missile lost lock and dissipated harmlessly. But he exploded simultaneously with the second missile in frustration at having shot down his only source of publicity wi
thin at least a hundred miles. He hung on every word of the radio exchange between the doomed aircraft and the carrier, locking in his tower-mounted camera on the flight path of the twin-engine Cessna, and agonizing at every plume of dark smoke that erupted from its engines that were cannibalizing themselves in the pilot's valiant efforts to stay airborne. His hopes soared at the stroke of genius on the part of that woman reporter in turning defeat into victory by announcing their intention to land on the aircraft carrier. He was appalled when the fools aboard the huge ship refused to accommodate the landing and exulted when that strong-willed woman refused to take no for an answer. She was his kind of a man. The crash landing was anticlimactic. When he didn't see them overshoot the deck and fall into the sea, he slowly sat back down in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. Of all people to wander in and get shot down, it had to be the one group he most needed: the world press. They could do more for his cause than anyone else because the more awareness he could create throughout the international community, the more empathy he could generate for his stand. And the fact that it was CNN...well, it just didn't get any better than that. Their tenacity would ensure saturated coverage, ad nauseam. Then, of course, the benefit of being constantly under scrutiny by a worldwide audience would preclude any rash action by a military community sensitive to public outcry. Perfect! Skewered by their own sensitivity against taking preemptive surgical strikes even though fully justified. Now, if they'd been Russians, or Israelis...but they weren't, were they?
He suddenly realized he would need to locate the news channel that would carry the close encounter that had just taken place. He really wanted to see it from an ordinary viewer's perspective to get a feel for the tone it would establish. That was critical to the negotiating process.
"Well! It could have been worse," he decided. The line in the sand had been drawn. There hadn't quite been firstblood, but close enough. Now he would be taken seriously. He was glad he'd spent the money on those missiles. The first two shots fired in this confrontation had been his. And, with any luck, they'd also be the only ones fired. He had every confidence in the political community to waffle long enough to justify caving in. He smiled as he reflected in the waning afterglow of sunset up above, gradually dimming the room in which he sat to a deep mauve. He smiled again.