“There’s more, Tony.”
“Oh?”
“According to the National Security Council, we are officially even more panicked about the possibility of a Medusa Wave.”
“Really? I know almost nothing about the Medusa Project, or Medusa Waves.”
“We’ve got a briefing package coming over by secure fax from, I think, the Energy Department. We don’t know if such a thing exists, but we have to assume it does. The important point is that a Medusa Wave would be designed to cripple computer-dependent societies.”
“And we, of course …”
The director’s head was bobbing. “Are an incredibly computer-dependent society. The NSC supposedly has an old study from the late sixties on what it could do to us. It was pretty grim even back then before personal computers, Tony. Today it’s far worse. In the late seventies we were hardened against a major electromagnetic flux, or whatever they call it. I’m told we’ve gotten lax.”
“Is the FBI still in control of this?”
The director sighed. “I’m in the middle of a turf war, but for the moment, we’re calling the tune and the Navy’s dancing. Soon as you get that jet on the ground, I’m sure we’ll lose control to the NSC and the Situation Room and the Pentagon.”
ABOARD SCOTAIR 50—5:10 P.M. EDT
Jerry Christian handed the latest weather slip to Scott McKay as Doc Hazzard returned from the cargo cabin. Scott studied it for a few seconds and shook his head as he glanced up to brief the copilot.
“Winds are now three-six-zero degrees at forty-eight knots, Doc, gusts to sixty-five, and that’s a forty-degree crosswind to Runway 32, but a sixty-degree crosswind to Runway 6.”
“What about Runway 2? That’s almost perfectly aligned with the wind.”
“It’s closed.”
Doc slowly let himself down in the right seat and fumbled for the seat belt, his eyes on the swirling mass of dark clouds ahead. He glanced at the glowing radarscope, which was tracking cells of heavy rain and turbulence in all directions between their position and Pax River some ten miles to the east. The 727 was bucking in moderate turbulence now, and even reading the instruments was a struggle.
“Scott, I don’t know about this …” Doc said, the sound of his long sigh audible over the clatter of rain hitting the windscreen. “She’s going to be hard to handle down there.”
Scott nodded. “Jerry and I were looking at the wind charts. It’s out of limits, but not by much. Doc, what I’m thinking is, if I angle the airplane from the downwind side of Runway 32 to the upwind, rather than trying to land straight down the middle, we’ll be so slow over the ground I can probably get her stopped okay.”
“And if not?” Doc shot back.
“Well, if not, then we’ll go off into the grass and probably be out of business next week.”
Doc snorted and shook his head. They were out of business next week anyway.
“What if we jostle that thing enough to set it off? What if we crash? Will it detonate?”
“I don’t think so,” Scott replied.
“We’re landing at, what, a hundred and twenty knots?”
“We weigh one hundred sixty-five thousand pounds. For a normal flaps-thirty landing, that’s an approach speed of one hundred forty knots,” Jerry added.
Scott glanced back at the engineer and nodded a thank you. “Okay, one hundred forty minus about fifty knots of headwind equals one hundred knots. I’ve driven a go-cart almost that fast before.”
“Yeah, but with two terrified passengers and a ticking nuclear bomb aboard?” Linda McCoy added from behind Scott’s seat.
Startled, he struggled to turn his head far enough to see her. He’d forgotten she was there.
She wasn’t smiling.
“Linda, that’s slow enough to get us stopped without major damage, even if we end up in the grass.”
Doc adjusted himself in the seat and ran his hands gently over the control yoke. “Bottom line is, we’ve got no choice.” He looked Scott full in the face. “You ready, Captain McKay?”
Scott nodded.
“Okay.” Doc keyed the microphone and declared ScotAir 50 ready for the instrument landing approach to Runway 32 just as the 727 penetrated a hailstorm, the deafening sound of hailstones impacting the aluminum skin of the Boeing making conversation momentarily impossible.
A shattering sound like the crack of a rifle amplified several dozen times shot through the cockpit, accompanied by an incredibly bright flash of light. Scott could hear Linda gasp behind him as adrenaline filled his own bloodstream.
“Lightning strike!” he managed to bellow back to his right. “Not dangerous!”
“Just frightening as hell,” Doc added.
As quickly as it began, the hail ended.
“Come right, Scott. That’s a nasty cell three miles ahead,” Doc said.
“Tell the controller to give us an intercept to final from the south side of the straight-in nonprecision course.”
Doc nodded and pressed the mike button as a second flash of lightning filled their eyes and ears.
ABC NEWS, NEW YORK—5:10 P.M. EDT
The tip to look at an Internet “chat room” called U-235 came by phone from a friend at Columbia University forty blocks to the north. It took less than a minute for the ABC investigative correspondent to pull a rapidly moving discussion onto the computer screen in his office.
ROCKETDOC: HEY, EMC, THE MEDUSA PROJECT FAILED, REMEMBER? MEDUSA CAN’T HAPPEN. BAD SCIENCE.
EMC: COULD AND HAS, OR IS, HAPPENING. WE’RE IN IMMENSE DANGER THIS MINUTE FROM THE PROTOTYPE! I’M NOT KIDDING!
A3: WHO’S IN DANGER?
EMC: CERTAINLY ANYONE NEAR WASHINGTON, D.C., BUT ALL OF US ON THE EASTERN SEABOARD, AND IF IT WORKS AS DESIGNED, ALL OF NORTH AMERICA. I’M IN BOSTON, BUT IT’LL STILL FRY MY CHIPS UP HERE.
A3: B.S.! WHO’S MAKING SUCH AN ALLEGATION?
EMC: I AM. IT’S ON AN AIRBORNE CARGO JET IN FLIGHT OVER D.C. IT’S ACTIVATED AND IT’S SET TO GO OFF IN A FEW HOURS. THE GOV’T IS TRYING TO KEEP IT SECRET, BUT IF IT EXPLODES, THIS FORM OF COMMUNICATION WILL CEASE, AS WILL ABOUT FIVE MILLION PEOPLE!
ROCKETDOC: OKAY, I’LL BITE. WHAT ARE YOU WAXING HYSTERICAL ABOUT?
A3: HE’S GONNA TELL YOU IT’LL DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER CHIPS!
EMC: WHAT IT WILL DO OUTSIDE THE BASIC BLAST ZONE IS DESTROY COMPUTER CHIPS AND GARBLE BASIC OPERATING CODES ALL ACROSS AMERICA. ESPECIALLY ROMS.
ROCKETDOC: HEY, EMC, HOW IS IT THAT YOU HAPPEN TO BE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT ALL THIS?
EMC: I JUST TALKED TO ONE OF THE ORIGINAL PROJECT SCIENTISTS AT SANDIA. HE’S A FRIEND. SO HAPPENS, I WAS ONE OF THAT GROUP, TOO. BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, SEEN THAT, GOT THE T-SHIRT. SATISFIED? BY THE WAY, ARE YOU. GETTING THE MESSAGE THAT THE THING THAT DRIVES IT IS A THERMONUCLEAR AIRBURST? WE’RE TALKING ABOUT IMAGES OF ARMAGEDDON HERE! I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY’RE NOT FLYING THAT JET SOMEWHERE OFFSHORE THIS INSTANT.
A3: SO YOU’RE NOT KIDDING?
EMC: I’M DEAD SERIOUS.
A3: I’M IN BALTIMORE, AND I’M OUT OF HERE.
The correspondent leaned over his keyboard and fired a volley of keystrokes into the discussion using his usual screen name.
RESEARCH-R-US: S’CUSE ME, GENTS, BUT COULD SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN “MEDUSA WAVE” AND “MEDUSA PROJECT”?
For nearly a minute the screen remained unchanged. The possibility that all three participants had fled somewhere else in the face of a stranger ran through his mind, but at last a new line appeared.
EMC: DON’T KNOW YOU, “RESEARCH,” BUT STATE YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND I’LL CALL YOU.
The correspondent typed in the network’s 800 number and his extension and sat back to wait, his mind occupied with the details of a story he’d done about Los Alamos and Sandia Labs, and what was developed there.
Part of his mind was still tracking the hoped-for phone call when it dawned on him what he’d done.
“Damn!” The correspondent launched a number two pencil across his
small office. The automated voice on the other end of the 800 number would tell the man he’d reached the ABC Network. Undoubtedly he’d hang up before dialing the extension. Surely he’d be reluctant to talk to the media.
He turned back to his computer to offer a direct collect call number at the same moment the phone rang. He snatched up the receiver.
“So ABC wants to know about the Medusa Project. I guess it’s time.”
ELEVEN
ABOARD SCOTAIR 50—5:15 P.M. EDT
The lightning was almost continuous now, illuminating the soggy countryside below with ghostly, staccato flashes reflecting off an eerie landscape of dark forests bisected by small roads carrying long lines of rain-smeared headlights creeping northward.
Dr. Linda McCoy’s fingers dug into the armrests of her observer’s seat as the 727 lurched through another narrow band of severe turbulence. With each encounter she could see the two pilots struggling to keep the plane upright, while her stomach churned and her mind reeled. The storm, she realized, was terrifying her more than the bomb in the cargo cabin.
Linda watched Scott’s right hand shove all three throttles to maximum power as the bottom once again dropped from beneath them. He seemed incredibly calm, yet she could feel the stress in his voice each time he spoke. He was obviously frightened and trying hard not to show it.
If he’s scared, she concluded, I’m scared!
The sound of the air traffic controller’s voice clearing them to begin an instrument approach to Pax River was like music to her ears, especially after they’d been told minutes before that the field was closed.
Just a little bit longer! she told herself as the cockpit rocked and bounced massively, sending chills up her back and bile into her throat.
She’d never experienced anything like this, not even on bush flights in remote parts of the world. She couldn’t control the terror that was taking over. At that moment a sudden pitch-up slammed her downward in the seat as the 727 rammed into a massive column of rising air and just as suddenly staggered into a vicious downdraft. She wondered how much more the aging aircraft could take.
Face it, girl, she told herself, you might not get out of this alive!
Her thoughts flew to her home in Colorado. She should have been there by now. She thought of her cat. She thought of her parents. She thought of Christa McAuliffe on the doomed space shuttle Challenger and wondered if she’d felt the same panic as it exploded.
Scott McKay’s voice cut through her preoccupation like an electric jolt.
“Flaps fifteen!” he barked suddenly to Doc, his voice almost lost in a brief rematch with a column of hail.
“Flaps fifteen set,” Doc replied instantly as his left hand positioned the flap lever to the appropriate detent. “Engine anti-ice on. Your localizer is tuned and identified, Scott.”
“He cleared us to three thousand feet?” Scott asked.
Doc nodded. “That’s right. Three.”
“Gear down. Landing checklist. Flaps twenty-five.”
She watched Doc’s hand snap the gear handle to the down position and heard the instant sound of high-speed air rushing somewhere beneath their feet as the nose gear door opened. The main landing gear would be coming out as well, some eighty feet behind them.
Linda’s eyes darted from Doc to Scott to Jerry and back again. They were calm. She should be calm. But how could anyone be calm with such violent shaking and banging around? They were barely in control of the plane—and that thought sent her terror to new heights.
The approach controller’s voice cracked over the speaker above her head.
“ScotAir Fifty, fly present heading, cleared approach to Runway 32, maintain twenty-five hundred feet until on course inbound, and contact the tower now.”
“ScotAir Fifty cleared approach, twenty-five hundred until on course,” Doc repeated. “Cleared approach, Scott.”
“Roger. Set me up on the inbound course now. That’s three-three-zero. I’m gonna hold an extra thirty knots for wind shear.”
“I’d recommend a little faster, like a plus forty knots,” Doc said.
Scott glanced quickly at the copilot, then over his shoulder at Jerry. Somehow Linda was aware of Jerry nodding, though she couldn’t take her eyes off the windscreen ahead.
“Okay, plus forty,” Scott agreed as he reached forward to reposition a small white plastic pointer on his airspeed indicator.
Doc toggled the radio again to make contact with the control tower, and the controller’s voice came back weak through the overhead speaker as a burst of lightning-caused static crashed across their ears.
“… cleared to land. Winds are, ah, three-five-five at fifty-five to sixty, gusts greater than twenty knots above that. The runway is open for you, ScotAir, but landing is at your discretion.”
“Understood, Patuxent tower,” Doc answered, his head going forward immediately to read the instruments, his voice raised against the deafening sounds of heavy rain. “Okay, Scott, we’re at fifteen hundred, five miles out. That’s the final approach fix. We’re cleared down to four hundred feet.”
Jerry Christian’s voice chimed in from the engineer’s seat. “The navigation radio’s monitoring good and steady, and the runway’s in sight at about ten o’clock.”
“This is one helluva crosswind!” Scott said, his voice little more than a constrained squawk as his hands moved the control yoke ceaselessly to keep on the glide path and localizer course to the runway. “We’re crabbing nearly thirty degrees to the runway!”
“Scott, be ready for a go-around,” Doc said. “Don’t press it! We’ve got the fuel!”
Linda felt like a rag doll being tossed around in a washing machine. She heard the strain of Doc’s voice as he began calling out parameters and talking almost nonstop.
“Speed’s plus forty-five knots. You ready for flaps?”
“Yeah. Flaps thirty.”
“Roger. Flaps thirty.”
“Set final speed. I’m continuing down to the minimum descent altitude. Field in sight ahead. Let’s call it a visual.”
“You want the wipers, Scott?” Doc asked as he moved the flap lever to the final setting.
“Yeah!”
Doc snapped on the windshield wipers, which began making a terrible racket, almost drowning out his voice as he ran through the six-item landing checklist. The words “Checklist complete” were spoken just as a huge bolt of lightning lit up the landscape ahead.
Linda heard a gasp from the direction of the flight engineer’s seat. “That hit the tower!” Jerry Christian said.
“Sonofabitch!” Doc added, punching the transmit button. “Pax River tower, you still there?”
No answer.
“Eight hundred feet, and you’re forty knots above marker speed,” Doc intoned.
“Are they there?” Scott asked, his eyes riveted on the instruments.
“No, but we’re already cleared to land,” Doc replied.
“Okay.”
“You’re six hundred feet now, plus thirty-eight knots.”
“Okay.”
“Speed is plus thirty-four and … That’s a wind shear, Scott! It jumped up ten, maybe twenty knots … No, it’s more …!”
“I can feel it!”
Scott’s right hand was pulling back the throttles as Doc’s left hand covered his. “Not too much! Don’t pull off too much!”
“What’s my speed?”
“We’re four hundred feet, speed plus, ah, almost fifty.”
“I gotta slow down!”
“Scott …”
Doc’s voice trailed off as the airspeed rapidly increased another twenty knots, the sound of the slipstream roaring at them with greater authority every second.
“This could be a microburst, Scott!” Doc’s words echoed in Linda’s ears as the Boeing 727 flew through the precise midpoint of a massive rapidly descending column of air.
In an instant the forty-knot headwind became a forty-knot tailwind. Suddenly the wings had insufficient
airspeed to produce enough lift to keep them airborne, and the seventy-five-ton airplane shuddered and began falling.
Linda gripped the armrests, her heart in her throat. This time there was no hint of the climbing sensation she’d felt on the other side of each downdraft. This time they were falling.
She heard a sharp sound from Scott’s throat, but no coherent words. In her peripheral vision she could see Doc equally stunned as Scott shoved the throttles forward all the way to the firewall, making an audible impact against the stops.
It was Jerry Christian’s voice from behind that found the words. “WIND SHEAR! MAX POWER! PULL UP! PULL UP!”
“Doin’ it …” Scott managed.
“Airspeed is one hundred. Scott, we’re sinking!” Doc yelled.
“I know it!”
“Two thousand feet per minute!” Doc’s voice filled her ears as the captain responded.
“Max power!” Scott replied. Doc’s left hand followed the throttles, but they were already as far forward as they could go.
Doc’s eyes took in the radio altimeter, which dutifully read their exact altitude above the ground. The pointer was moving down through the last digit above zero.
“One hundred feet, Scott. PULL!”
“I am!”
The runway rushed at them as Scott hauled the yoke back into his chest. Linda felt the jet respond in pitch, the deck angle increasing suddenly as the tarmac and the grass alongside the runway raced up at them from a thirty-degree angle to the left. If they hit like that, she thought, they’d explode in a ball of fire!
“BACK! BACK! Up to fifteen degrees!” Doc yelled.
Scott gave a quick nod. His voice wouldn’t come. The 727 banked right, rolling right, into the wind. The ground was still rushing at them. He had to get the wings leveled! The controls felt mushy, as if the big jet had no more performance left to give.
“I’m trying …” was the best he could manage.
From the perspective of the two men in the control tower the shattering impact of the lightning strike accompanied by an incredibly bright light had momentarily wiped out their awareness of anything. Both controllers realized simultaneously that they were lying on the floor without a clear memory of how they got there. They rose quickly to their feet as the lights of ScotAir 50 punched through the black clouds on the approach end of the runway.
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