by Young, Tom
“Air Evac Eight-Four,” the lead fighter called. “Gunfighter’s bingo fuel again. We’re going to have to drop into Rota for gas. Somebody will catch up with you later. Best of luck, sir.”
“Copy that,” Parson said. “Thanks.” For nothing.
The F-15s began to descend. To Parson, it seemed they were dropping to an ocean floor he could never reach.
He wondered if they would see anything of the C-17 that had disappeared. A column of smoke or dark smears on the ground. All that remained of thirty-one passengers and the crew. Rota command post interrupted his thoughts.
“Air Evac Eight-Four, Matador,” called a voice on the radio.
“Go ahead, Matador,” Parson said.
“Sir, I’m sorry to tell you this, but the Spanish authorities don’t want you landing here. TACC is working on a reroute.”
Parson shook his head, muttered, “Son of a bitch,” before pressing his TALK switch. Then he said, “Do they understand we’ve already diverted from Germany?”
“I think they do, sir.”
“Do they understand this airplane is coming down somewhere sooner or later? Or are they going to revoke gravity, too?”
“Our base commander says he’s doing all he can. He’s even contacted the embassy.”
Parson looked across at Colman, back at Dunne. “Can you believe this shit?” he said over the interphone. Then he transmitted: “Air Evac Eight-Four copies all.”
What is wrong with these people? Parson wondered. Fifty-six lives on the line up here, and all those suits can think about is how to make the problem go somewhere else. That’s why the world is so fucked up.
Parson switched over to HF and called Hilda. The latest dip clearance problem wasn’t TACC’s fault, but he was annoyed enough that he dropped the “sirs” when the DO came on the air.
“Where do you want us to go?” Parson asked.
“We’ve found you a good place not too far from where you are now. We want you to divert to the old space shuttle abort landing site in Morocco.”
“Isn’t that field closed?” Parson asked.
“It is, but the runway’s still there, and it’s nice and long.”
Parson reached down into his publications bag and thumbed through a listing of airfields. “It doesn’t seem to be in the IFR Supplement,” he said. “Can you get us any data?”
“We’ll send you something on satcom,” the DO said.
Parson looked out at the sinking sun. He took off his aviator’s glasses. The horizon glowed red like a bar of iron heated on a forge.
“Do you at least know if the runway lighting there is still operative?” he asked. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”
“The flight manager is checking on that.”
“What about some guidance from EOD?” Parson said. “We can’t descend for landing until we deactivate this thing.”
“They’re still working on a course of action. We’ll get something to you as soon as we can.”
“Understood,” Parson said. He shook his head. Check’s in the mail, he thought.
Parson called ATC and received a clearance south toward Morocco. The Spanish controller sounded glad to be rid of him. The coastline glided past underneath, and the late-day sun turned the water to a rose color. A cutter plowed a pink wake toward Africa. It felt to Parson that the world outside the windscreen was already something apart from him, a world that would very likely go on without him before that sun came up again.
A rattling noise caught his attention. He turned to see that Dunne had thrown down his pen onto the flight engineer’s table in frustration.
“What’s the matter?” Parson asked.
“Computer trouble,” Dunne said. “Again.”
Parson squinted to read the message across the top of Dunne’s screen: COMMUNICATIONS CONTROLLER FAILURE. “I’ll see if I can get it back,” Dunne said.
Parson hoped he’d do it quickly. The crew needed that computer to receive satcom messages, among other things. He started to remind Dunne of that, but decided not to state the obvious.
Dunne shut down the computer, then pressed buttons on the panel behind it to depower the processor. After it all went dark, he turned the system back on. The screen remained blank for more than two minutes, but it finally booted up.
“Got it working?” Parson asked.
“For now, I reckon,” Dunne said. “Last mission I flew this plane, I fought with the communications controller all the way over the Atlantic. I wrote it up and it got signed off, but it’s doing it again.”
The computer restart came just in time for a box to appear in the middle of Dunne’s screen: YOU HAVE I NEW MESSAGE. Dunne opened it, printed it out and passed the strip of paper to Parson. It was what fliers called the Giant Report, for the former Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco.
Parson skimmed through the data: Runway 36, 13,720 feet long, with more than two thousand feet of dirt overrun. Built for the old Strategic Air Command with its Stratojets standing alert for World War III. General Curtis LeMay had left his mark on the world permanently, with runways more than two miles long for launching bombers armed with nuclear weapons. Perfect for catching a space shuttle that had to make a transoceanic abort. And it would have been perfect for catching a C-5, even heavier than the biggest bomber.
But the Cold War was over and so was Ben Guerir, deactivated in 2005. Not used anymore by NASA. The Giant Report said negative ATC, negative weather services, negative runway lighting. EOD will have to come up with a real quick solution for this to work, Parson thought. Even during the day, a disused runway dusted by grit could be hard to pick up visually if the light came from the wrong angle.
They aren’t trying to find me a landing field, Parson thought. They’re looking for a good crash site.
As the aircraft flew south, the Mediterranean yielded to the Sahara and its waves of dunes. Past the coastline, Parson noticed something in the fading daylight on the earth below. Though the air at altitude was clear as branch water, a dust storm was making its way across the ground, the leading edge so distinct it looked like a taut rope being dragged over the sand, whipping it aloft.
Parson knew these wild desert winds had several names, depending on their location and direction: the Scirocco, the Simoon, the Haboob. Like different names for the devil in various cultures, depending on the form he took. And whatever the name, it always meant bad news. Visibility at Ben Guerir was about to go to shit.
The moon began to rise behind a veil of dust low on the horizon. It glowed red like torchlight, near to full. In an optical illusion created by the high altitude, it appeared the C-5’s flight path would take it over the moon. Parson looked down at it as if it were some final gift, like the cigarette and shot of rum for the condemned man facing a firing squad.
THE WOUNDED AMERICAN SERGEANT was sitting up now. The aeromeds had cut loose his Flex-Cuffs so he could visit the lav, escorted by a medic. He seemed calm enough. Gold kept an eye on him, mainly out of instinctive wariness. But she was more interested in what Mahsoud had to say.
“If someone can get close enough to this bomb to photograph it,” he said in Pashto, “then perhaps that computer in the cockpit can send it to your bomb experts.”
“That is an excellent suggestion,” Gold said. “I will tell Major Parson.”
Mahsoud smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “IEDs have many configurations. They are limited only by the imagination of the evildoers.”
“And by the imagination of those fighting them,” Gold said, “such as yourself.”
“That is kind of you, teacher. I wished to train to become a bomb technician, but it will never happen now.”
“You have studied IEDs on your own?”
“Only a bit. I found little about ordnance disposal in my own language.”
“But you learned enough to offer intelligent advice,” Gold said.
Mahsoud nodded, pressed his lips together. Gold couldn’t tell whether that was a look of satisfaction or resignation.
Maybe both.
Gold climbed the ladder to the flight deck. She had left her headset on the navigator’s table, and when she put it on, she found Parson in the middle of radio conversations. She didn’t understand all of it, but Parson kept moving a switch, apparently talking to different people on different frequencies. One voice was clearly that of an American; the other sounded Arab, perhaps an air traffic controller. Gold didn’t know where they were now, but the short trip over the water suggested somewhere in North Africa. During a break in the radio chatter, Gold spoke up.
“Major,” she said, “my student has a suggestion you might want to consider.” She told Parson about Mahsoud’s idea.
“That’s worth thinking about,” Parson said. “I got my hands full right now, but let’s talk about it in a few minutes.”
Gold felt gratified that Parson took the suggestion seriously. She hadn’t been sure he’d want to listen to one of the Afghans. He was hardly the most politically correct officer she knew, but he seemed to respect anyone trying to help. She remembered an old joke about how to handle officers: Talk them into doing the right thing and let them think it was their idea.
For a few minutes, Gold watched the crew work, with Parson communicating, Colman flying the plane, Dunne monitoring instruments. One of the things she loved most about military service was teamwork, like that of parachutists checking one another’s rigs, executing the drop, securing the DZ together. She had never watched a flight crew this closely before, but it was a variation on the same theme—if everybody did their jobs and put egos aside, they could accomplish the difficult immediately. The impossible would take a little longer.
Gold took off her headset and descended the flight deck steps. Fawad waved to her as she returned to the cargo compartment.
“What is happening?” he asked in Pashto.
“Recruit Mahsoud has an idea that can help us. To take a digital photo of the bomb and transmit it to the experts. I have been discussing it with the aircraft commander.”
Fawad looked over at Mahsoud, then back at Gold.
“Mahsoud is a fine recruit,” Fawad said. “It is a pity he cannot serve.”
“I am trying to convince him he can serve in other ways,” Gold said. “He should go to university and become a teacher of literature.”
“If Allah wills.”
“How is the pain in your eye, Fawad?”
“It endures, but so do I.”
Gold smoothed the blanket over Fawad, grateful he at least had all of his limbs. Through Mahsoud’s window she could see the day was dying. It was getting dark. She figured that would concern Parson; on the radio earlier, he’d been talking about visibility somewhere.
When she moved closer for a better look, the earth had turned black, though some blue remained in the sky. As evening fell, scattered lights appeared on the ground like vesper candles representing prayers of congregants. Isolated homes, Gold supposed, or perhaps the fires of nomads.
Mahsoud raised himself higher. He grimaced as he moved, but he seemed determined to view the ground. From his resting position, he could see only sky. He steadied himself in nearly a sitting position and looked out.
“The lamps are lighted for us,” he said in his own language. “The wicks are trimmed, and the oil burns. Some pray for our salvation, and some for our destruction.”
Not necessarily a comforting notion, Gold thought. But if Mahsoud could speak so eloquently, maybe his pain wasn’t too bad.
A few litters aft of Mahsoud, the American sergeant was eating from an MRE pouch. Another good sign, Gold hoped. Little victories in the midst of a crisis. But it was a bit unnerving the way he kept eyeing everyone, scanning the whole cargo compartment. Someone hungry should be looking at his food. No telling what that head injury had done to him, and the pressure changes couldn’t have done him any good.
Gold was helping Mahsoud ease himself onto his back when she heard a scream. It hardly sounded like a person, more like an animal being slaughtered. When she looked up, the sergeant was running down the cargo compartment, back toward the troop doors.
An aeromed and a loadmaster chased him. The wounded man grabbed the handle of the left troop door and pulled hard.
“I’m getting out of here!” he shouted. He yanked the handle again, but it did not budge.
“Stop him!” the MCD yelled.
The aeromed tackled him, slammed him against the door. The loadmaster tried to pin his legs.
“Take it easy, dude,” the loadmaster said. “As long as we’re pressurized, Mike Tyson couldn’t turn that handle.”
The man kicked, arched, fought with the loadmaster and aeromed. Another medic joined the struggle. It took all three of them to subdue the sergeant. Gold had heard that people suffering fits of mental unbalance could have seemingly inhuman strength, and it was frightening to see.
He finally lay still, and the men who’d held him down helped him to his feet. They gripped him by the shoulder and upper arms to keep control of him. But it seemed the ballast of the sergeant’s mind had shifted back into place. He appeared calm, even apologetic.
“All right,” he said, a slight smile on his face. “I guess that didn’t make a lot of sense, did it?”
“Can’t say that it did,” the loadmaster said.
“I just want to stretch out somewhere that’s not moving. Know what I mean?”
“We all do, Sergeant.”
The loadmaster and aeromeds walked him back to his litter. He began to lie back, but when he saw an aeromed pull out a Flex-Cuff, he let out a shriek.
The sergeant sprang from his litter. He grabbed a pair of scissors from a medic’s pocket, elbowed the loadmaster in the mouth.
The loadmaster stumbled backward, spat teeth and blood. The sergeant slashed at the air with the scissors, forcing the nurses and medics to retreat, then he ran down the cargo bay again.
He began to hack at the wall, raking the scissors through soundproofing blankets. Long rips appeared in the fabric. The man stabbed as if fighting for his life. The scissors clanged into something metal.
A jet of red fluid spewed from behind the soundproofing. The spray struck the sergeant in the neck, and he dropped the scissors. He clutched at his throat and fell to the floor as if he’d taken a bullet to the throat. Blood poured from between his fingers. At first Gold could not understand what had hurt him. But then she remembered the red liquid she had seen on the floor earlier during the initial search for the bomb. That was hydraulic fluid. The sergeant must have ruptured a hydraulic line—a line containing such great pressure that the fluid had cut into him like a laser scalpel.
The spurt of fluid shot across the cargo compartment and sliced into the soundproofing on the other side. Oily smoke boiled from the source of the leak. Gold expected to see flames. But then she realized what looked like smoke was more hydraulic fluid, particulated under intense pressure. Some of it fogged into the air, and what did not atomize injected itself into the opposite wall. A smell like that of auto mechanic’s grease filled the airplane.
“Fucking nutcase,” the loadmaster shouted. Blood and saliva streamed down his chin.
Two of the aeromeds ducked under the spray and grabbed the sergeant. They dragged him forward, left smears on the steel floor. As they lifted him onto his litter, his hand fell away from his throat. Gold saw blood drip from his fingers onto the floor plates. The MCD pressed a gauze pad against the wound. Dark flecks appeared on the front of her flight suit, spattered the wings on her name tag.
“Did it get his jugular?” a medic asked.
“Might have,” the MCD said.
“If that shit’s in his bloodstream, he’s had it.”
“I know it.”
An aeromed wiped the loadmaster’s mouth and chin. Gold helped him sit down on an empty stretcher.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m gonna need a dentist if we live through this,” he said. His injury slurred his words as if he were drunk.
“Why
did it cut him like that?”
“Three thousand psi, that’s why.”
Another loadmaster was talking on headset. Sounded urgent. Gold had no idea how this would affect the airplane, but it couldn’t be good.
She surveyed the scene around her. The spray of fluid seemed to be losing force, but it had soaked the blankets and clothing of two patients. The sergeant struggled with medics, his blood on their latex gloves. Gold couldn’t tell whether he was fighting or in the spasms of death. Some of the wounded began to cry out. Mahsoud looked on in silence, then began to cough. Hydraulic fluid slicked the floor and mingled with bloody swirls of a deeper crimson.
10
Warning indicators flickered on Parson’s annunciator panel in front of him. They also lit up overhead. He saw a light labeled AILERON POWER, then LAT AUG FAULT, then more.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I got quantity loss on system four,” Dunne said. “Pressure’s dropping, too.”
“Pilot,” a loadmaster shouted on interphone. “Bad hydraulic leak down here in cargo. A psych case chopped into a line with a fucking pair of scissors.”
“All right,” Dunne said as he flipped toggle switches, “I have that system isolated.”
“Still see the leak?” Parson asked.
“It’s slowing down,” the loadmaster said. “But we got a compartment full of hydraulic mist.”
“Son of a bitch,” Parson said. “Smoke and fume elimination checklist.”
“Do you want us on oxygen?” Colman asked.
“Negative. That mist is explosive. The last thing we need is to add oxygen to it.”
Parson wanted the mist gone right now. Not many things were more toxic, or more flammable, than hydraulic fluid turned to aerosol. He glanced back at Dunne and saw him turn the pressurization master switch to MANUAL. Then the flight engineer twisted a rheostat. Parson felt his ears pop.
“Cargo, this is the engineer,” Dunne called. “Still got the mist?”
“It’s dissipating. Looks like it’s getting sucked through the outflow valves.”