“Kaddafi wanted it. So did some of the PLO. Even Saddam wasn’t crazy enough to consider their requests—but now I don’t know.”
“If we do get you into your lab, can you destroy all the virus?”
He nodded slowly. “If it’s all still there. I know exactly how, and in the lab I have the right equipment.”
Abbas looked down, his mind racing. If it’s not all there, how can I tell this man the possible consequences? He looked up just as quickly and locked eyes with Doug once again.
“All the cultures should still be there,” he said with feigned conviction, “and when they are destroyed, the virus is destroyed. There are no formulas for this, as there are for chemical weapons. Not even I know how to create this again. It was a random, unexpected mutation.”
“But are you sure it’s all still there in the lab?”
Abbas ignored the scream of apprehension echoing through the hallways of his mind. “I left instructions that none of the canisters could be shipped before March eighth, or the contents would be useless. This is not true, but they will have believed me.”
“Why? Why would they believe someone who defected?”
“They do not know I defected—yet. I … forgive me, it was most unpleasant … I knew of a funeral in a nearby village. After I left, I went to where this man was buried and dug up his body, carefully closing the grave again. I drove halfway to Baghdad before putting him in the driver’s seat and making the car go off into a wadi. I soaked it with gasoline and everything burned. Some of my papers were there. There is no time for autopsies, so they will think I am dead. I had to do it. There are many, many who will die if we do not stop this.”
“Doctor, if this does slip through, how could they spread it?”
He shook his head slowly, sadly. “An aqueous solution sprayed into a cloud, and when it rains, it rains death.”
Doug recoiled as if hit. “In a cloud? You’re saying this can contaminate clouds, and rain?”
“You understand now. If it gets out of that lab, it will be easy to rain Iran out of existence, as well as anyplace else Saddam wants to infect.”
Doug sat back, thoroughly stunned. Even an airplane flying through such a cloud at high altitude could suck in the virus through its pressurization ducts, compress the infected air, and pump it into the lungs of everyone aboard.
“How long, Doctor … how long could such a cloud remain, for want of a better word, contagious?”
“Perhaps long enough for the water vapor to circle the earth. I do not know how far it could travel. I pray no one ever has to find out.”
Refueling Track Charlie, over the Red Sea northwest of Jiddah
Wednesday, March 6, 1991—10:20 P.M. (1920 GMT)
Exxon 92, a KC-10 tanker—the Air Force version of the Douglas DC-10—began its fourth turn in the racetrack-shaped holding pattern as the crew finally made radio contact with the approaching MAC Alpha 284. With the proper air-to-air channels relayed and set in on both flight decks, the respective aircrews watched as their navigation radios—Tacans—locked on the opposite aircraft, giving precise distance and direction to each other’s position.
Heading north with the accompanying C-141 flying some fifty feet off his right wing, Exxon 92 began his turn at last—a left 180-degree course reversal back to the south.
In the cockpit of MAC Alpha 284, Sergeant Sandra Murray adjusted her headset and fastened the lap belt on the flimsy cockpit jump seat, an almost makeshift folding chair anchored just aft of the center instrument console, between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats.
“You guys hear me now?”
“Loud and clear.” Doug took the opportunity to glance around at her again appreciatively. She didn’t know it yet, but her squadron had already submitted a recommendation that Sandra Murray receive a commendation medal for singlehandedly finding and fixing an engine problem that had threatened to scuttle an important mission to Turkey early in the war. As her commander, Doug had signed the recommendation letter with enthusiasm.
“How far out are we?”
Will looked around briefly at Sandra and smiled. “About twenty-three miles now. You see that white light out there at ten o’clock?” He pointed to the left, where a twinkling light hung against the black velvet background of the night sky.
“Yeah.”
“That’s the tanker. He’s in his turn now and level at twenty-five thousand feet, and we’re at twenty-four thousand. We’ll fly up behind him, get clearance to climb up under him, plug up, hang on through several turns, get our fuel, and go. I figure the transfer will take about fifteen minutes.” Will looked back at Sandra again. “You know what a holding pattern looks like?”
Sandra nodded impassively as Doug reached for the interphone button. “Will, Sandra’s a licensed private pilot, and she’s sat at the panel through a hundred of these ARs.”
Will glanced back apologetically. “I’m sorry, I assumed …”
“No problem, sir,” she said quickly. “Actually, I’m not finished with my instrument rating, so any information is appreciated.”
Exxon 92 rolled out at last, a distant constellation of position lights and rotating beacons—with no visual trace of the four-engine jet flying formation just off his right wing.
They finished the rendezvous checklist and Will keyed the transmitter. “MAC Alpha two-eight-four’s moving into pre-contact position.”
“Roger, MAC. Cleared to come up.”
Will’s hand tightened on the control yoke, his eyes glued to the tanker’s belly as he eased the throttles forward and brought the 141 closer. Time was the critical variable. With the Balair DC-10 ahead of schedule, they had raced at a fuel-inefficient speed of nearly Mach .80—eighty percent of the speed of sound—all the way from level-off, but they still had less than twenty minutes to complete the refueling, and that was barely enough, even when everything worked perfectly.
It was getting warm in the cockpit by Will’s estimation. “Engineer, this is the pilot. Would you cool us down a bit, please? I’m going to be working up a sweat here in a minute.”
“Roger, sir.” Backus reached up and toggled the flight-deck temperature control toward the cool side as Will brought the Starlifter steadily up and forward toward the rotating red beacons and position lights of the KC-10, which loomed larger and larger in the upper windscreen.
“What do you think, copilot? Is that about right for the pre-contact spacing?”
Doug turned toward Will and feigned a startled expression. “You’re asking me? I haven’t done one of these for six months. I’m noncurrent.”
Will paused briefly, and Doug saw him grin. “So am I.”
“What?” Doug looked to the left again, now in mock panic. “Good grief, Westerman, we’re up here in the middle of the night, needing sixty thousand pounds of gas from the flying gas station ahead of us, and you tell me you don’t know how to air-refuel anymore?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t know how! I just said I’m noncurrent. You’re going to scare the crew, talking like that.”
“Really?” Doug paused, then hit the interphone button again. “Crew, this is the copilot. Are you scared?”
Sergeant Backus answered immediately. “Yes sir. The engineer’s scared.”
Another microphone clicked on. “Loadmaster’s scared.”
Sandra was reaching for her interphone button as well when Will cut her off.
“Okay, okay!” Will was shaking his head, his eyes still riveted on the tanker’s belly. “My last plug was two months ago, everybody. Don’t panic. I can still hang in there.”
“Now he tells me!” said Doug.
The deceptive stability of the huge Douglas jet suspended just above them seemed to deny the fact that they were merely matched in airspeed—a 600,000-pound, three-engine jumbo-jet tanker with a 250,000-pound, four-engine transport less than one hundred feet away, both traveling at over three hundred miles per hour.
When the pre-contact checklist was out of the way, t
he voice of the boom operator—the “boomer”—approved the final closure from the pre-contact position to actual connection. Will eased the throttles forward and gently nudged the yoke back a hair, the KC-10 swimming ever closer; the huge refueling boom—guided by two small fins “flown” by the boomer—was already extended and in the ready position, a small white light marking its end.
A muffled roar announced the engineer’s opening of the UARRSI, the universal refueling receptacle on top of the aft cockpit area—a target marked with lights for the boomer to use in making the final adjustments as he flew the refueling boom into place and locked it.
The control yoke was now beginning to move in small jerks backward and forward, left and right, the throttles walking forward and backward slightly, constantly, as Will jockeyed the ungainly 141 into position, the bow wave of the massive KC-10 causing predictable turbulence across the horizontal T-tail of the Lockheed jet. The end of the boom finally disappeared over their heads, the position lights along the belly of the tanker guiding Will’s slow advance beneath the tail of the tanker, and within seconds the sound of a muffled thump marked the final connection.
Suddenly the boomer’s voice was coming more clearly through their headsets on the interphone circuit through a connection in the boom.
“Connected, sir. Ready fuel.”
Backus called, “Ready,” flipped the appropriate switches, and watched with satisfaction as the pressure gauges swung into proper position on his fuel panel. “Fuel pressure, fuel flow,” Backus reported.
With a small movement of the boomer’s hand, 5,500 pounds per minute of JP-4 jet fuel began rushing down the tube from the KC-10 to the 141 as the engineer routed it to the appropriate tanks. Will fought to stay inside a narrow zone beneath and behind the tanker within which they could stay safely connected. If he got to the edge of that envelope, the boomer would pull back his probe, stopping the fuel flow instantly, until the pilot could get the 141 back in position.
Doug, whose right hand had been resting lightly on the control yoke, looked away from the tanker for a second, glancing down quietly, unhappily confirming what his hand had been feeling. Will’s movements of the control column and the yoke were becoming staccato and slightly excessive. He’s struggling, Doug thought.
“Twenty thousand pounds onloaded so far.” The voice of the boomer came over their headsets again, followed by the voice of the KC-10 pilot.
“Starting turn in thirty seconds.”
The yoke was gyrating even more now, the throttles jockeying more rapidly as well, and the 141 was beginning to move around within the boom’s vertical and lateral envelope more than it should on what was essentially a night of smooth, turbulence-free air. As the gyrations increased and Will struggled harder to control them, Doug felt his hand tighten around the yoke, just in case.
“Start turn.”
The KC-10 pilots, flying their airplane on autopilot according to normal operations, had begun a gentle bank to the left for the 180-degree course reversal back to the north. The star field and the distant lights of Jiddah out to the left tilted now, and the moon began a weird and wobbly transit from the left across their field of vision. First up a bit, then down and to the side, banking a bit too much to the left, using an excessive roll rate back to the right and coming down too fast, back up with the yoke, jerk back left, a bit of rudder to the left to skid her around, Will struggled to stay within the envelope—to hang onto the boom—to maintain perfect formation with the KC-10.
But he was losing it, and Doug could see and feel what was happening.
For a second it looked as though he had settled down. The gyrations suddenly slowed as Will dampened his control inputs. But just as suddenly they drifted much too far to the left as Will overreacted, snatching the yoke back in the wrong direction. In a heartbeat the C-141’s nose canted up, and the windscreen was suddenly filled with KC-10.
“Break away!” The boomer’s words were spoken at the very instant he yanked the boom out and away, as Will shoved on the yoke, throwing everyone up against the straps as the 141 lurched downward. He let the airplane descend over a hundred feet before stabilizing—Doug’s hand still guarding, but not taking over.
“Jesus!” Will pushed the transmit button. “Sorry, Exxon. I’ll stay in pre-contact till you roll out.”
“This is the boomer, sir. You got to the limits with that last correction. I barely got it out.”
“Roger. I’m sorry.”
“We’d rather not have you go back as a unicorn tonight,” the boomer added. Bad time for humor, fellow, Doug thought to himself. The image of a C-141 flying to an emergency recovery base with the ripped-off refueling boom still stuck in the refueling receptacle was not amusing.
Beads of perspiration were all over Will’s forehead now. There was little time for such mistakes, as he knew well.
“How much did we get?” Will asked the engineer.
“Only twenty thousand, sir. We need an extra forty thousand pounds.” With every second’s delay, the rendezvous time with the Balair DC-10 grew closer. Will took a deep breath again, and tried to concentrate.
Once again the two huge airplanes were streaking through the night sky less than fifty feet apart as Will inched toward the tanker, fighting hard to dampen his control inputs and average his corrections, trying to get his responses in sync. Once again the boom moved over the cockpit out of sight behind them and thunked into place in the UARRSI, the engineer calling fuel flow.
And once again the gyrations began.
I’m up and to the right a bit too much, bring her back to the left and down, not too much, back right, RIGHT, and down, just a little … little bit more … too far … DAMN!
Will was fighting harder and harder, with less and less success, to dampen the control inputs, sweat beading up on his brow and dripping into his eyes as the tanker seemed to wave and bob in the upper windscreen. Once again the KC-10 seemed to lurch to one side with a momentum that seemed guaranteed to take it beyond the limits …
“Breakaway!” The boomer’s voice again, this time slightly calmer. The gyrations had told the tale. He had been anticipating another disconnect.
They stabilized in the pre-contact position again as Doug studied Will’s face and toggled the interphone. “Hey, old buddy, how long since you’ve had any sleep?”
“I’m okay.”
“I know you’re okay, but how long?”
Will shot him a questioning glance. “Last night. Why?”
“Let me give it a try, Will. Fatigue is what’s getting you. I’m more rested.”
Will Westerman felt a flash of anger as he looked to the right, ready to snap at Doug. He was perfectly capable of doing this, thank you. A sarcastic retort rocketed through his mind, but he suppressed it.
“Let me give it one more try,” Will began.
“Will …” Doug was watching his face carefully. “We’re out of time.”
Will Westerman glanced to the right in a quick turn of his head and read the look of concern on Doug Harris’s face, realizing he was right. This wasn’t a contest. They either got the gas, or the mission failed. This is not a testosterone check, Westerman! The voice in his head was his.
“Okay, Doug. Your airplane.” Will felt Doug’s hand wobble the yoke slightly to indicate he had the airplane.
“Nope, just gonna borrow it a few minutes,” Doug said. “If I bend it, it’s your fault.” He was trying to smile at Will, who was trying to let go gracefully.
Once again they approached the tanker. Time was running out. Will was acutely aware that Balair would cross Tansa intersection north of El Dab’a on the Egyptian coast in just over two hours and twenty minutes, and that it would take their clandestine flight of two C-141s about two hours to get to the same point. Either they were there at the same moment or the mission would have to be quietly scrubbed, and all the effort would have to be repeated a day later—if it wasn’t too late. In addition, the last update of the DC-10’s time would have to co
me through the interphone connection in the refueling boom. Such information could not be transmitted in the clear on the radio. Even if they had enough fuel, they would still have to plug up one last time just to get that update.
Doug brought her in steadily, all the old instincts coming back. He had always been good in formation. In pilot training, Will had been the master of instrument flying, Doug the master of contact—or visual—flying, especially in formation and acrobatics. It had been a massive shock to the rest of the class when Doug, the pilot with the “golden hands,” got a C-141 transport, and Will, the “hood master,” took an F-4 Phantom, the contact pilot’s dream-machine of that decade.
The boom moved over the top of them again, followed by the sound of a solid connection and the confirmation of fuel flow. Doug worked the throttles back and forth along with small movements of the yoke that he wished were smaller and more precise, but this time at least they were steady.
In the left seat, Will’s mind was racing ahead, recognizing the futility of maintaining the refueling track and accepting another turn to the south at the end of the northbound leg. That would lose more precious time. They were far enough to the south already. If they ignored the racetrack pattern and flew north for the remaining seven minutes it would take to transfer the fuel, they could still finish before crossing the major air routes between Egypt and Saudi. And it could only help Doug hang on.
“Exxon, MAC. Delay your turn. Let’s stay straight until we’re filled, even if we bust the area.”
“Ah … okay, MAC.”
“Thirty thousand.” The boomer again, calling the onload increments. “MAC, Exxon 92 cockpit here on interphone. We have your target update from our satcom link, if you’re ready to copy.”
“Go ahead, Exxon.”
“Okay, the estimate for Point Alpha is two-one-one-eight Zulu, and for Point Bravo it’s two-one-four-four Zulu. Monitor frequency one-two-three-point-two for Playmate’s position reports at that time. Off the west coast of Italy, Playmate was thirty minutes ahead of flight planned time at thirty-five thousand feet.”
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