by Terry Toler
“The Queen runs a tight schedule,” Bond said. “They would know that she’s not going to be late or early. And the wedding starts at eleven. They know she has to be in her seat before then. A timer makes sense.”
“I guess, we just fly the bomb out into the countryside as far as we can,” I answered my own question since Bond wasn’t going to.
“How do we get away from the bomb before it explodes?” Jamie asked. “Will we have enough time to get away from the blast? If I land the helicopter in a sparsely populated place, there won’t be any shelter to get away from it.” She was obviously still considering the possibility that she could be the one who ended up on the helicopter with the bomb. She was bringing up a concern for all of us, but I’d thought about that already.
“You’ll have to land the helicopter and get the bomb off,” I answered. “And then get out of there as quickly as possible. Before it explodes. Hopefully, the timer will be in clear view, so you know how much time you have.”
“The best bet would be to fly south,” Bond said. “To South Downs National Park. That’s basically a preserve. Not many people live there.”
The road was straight now, and Bond floored it. I estimated we were going well over a hundred miles per hour. The houses and trees were whizzing by in a blur.
“No, wait. I just thought of something,” Bond said. “Go northeast. About fifty klicks north is an abandoned missile testing site. We haven’t used it in years. Top secret. Very few people even know about it. There’s a big cavern there. It will absorb a lot of the blast. We tested nuclear bombs at that site back in the fifties.”
“That’s like our Area 51,” Jamie said.
“Exactly.”
“Will I have enough time to get there?” I asked, assuming I’d be the one in the helicopter with the bomb. If I did my math right, fifty klicks was about eighty miles.
“You’ll be cutting it close. These are military choppers. They can travel one-hundred eighty miles an hour. You can get there in under thirty minutes.”
“That means I’ll have to act as soon as we take off.”
The MSO were getting lower by the minute. Mission Success Odds were what Curly taught us to use to determine whether or not we should continue on with a mission. The lower the odds, the less likely the mission would be successful. In this case, we had no choice. We continued on with the plan even if the odds were close to zero.
At that moment, all I could think of was Jamie. Maybe she was thinking the same thing because she was suddenly resting her hand on my shoulder. An overwhelming sadness came over me like a punch in the emotional gut. Was I going to make her a widow five days into our marriage? Having never even had the chance to be intimate with her?
Too late now.
Bond pulled up to the security gate at Windsor Castle.
He flashed his credentials. The guard waved us through.
We were in.
***
The helicopter with the bomb was obvious. The one in the far back of the formation was the only one with a middle eastern pilot. Racial profiling wasn’t the only reason. The man was nervous. Fidgeting in his seat. I saw him wipe his brow several times. Look over at the soldiers. Then the other helicopters. Then the door where the Queen would exit. Then his watch. His eyes were beady. His beard and mussed hair seemed out of place for a soldier of the royal guard. I was surprised no one else had noticed.
My impulse was to go right to the helicopter, but I couldn’t. We had exited our car and were at the entrance to the heavily guarded courtyard. Bond was talking to the security supervisor. Jamie and I were standing next to him although we weren’t doing any of the talking. The supervisor seemed confused. Like he wasn’t happy with the sudden change of plans. Bond was smooth and persuasive and tried his best to convince him.
“I’m just following orders, sir,” Bond said. “The Director wants a man on each helicopter. Just in case there’s any breach in security or something goes wrong. Just an added precaution.”
I realized at that moment how far Bond was sticking his neck out. If we were wrong, this might cost him his career. A momentary flash of guilt shot through me as I remembered how I had questioned his nerve to go against orders back at the safehouse. Bond was like Jamie and me. We’d sacrifice our careers for the good of the mission. In fact, we had. That’s why we were no longer with the CIA. That brazenness was why we were the best in the business. Bond had that potential.
If we did hire him at AJAX, he’d have to quit flirting nonstop with my wife, though.
The man in charge wanted to call the higher ups. Somehow, Bond talked him out of it.
“Go ahead,” the man said reluctantly, waving his hand in the air like he wanted to be done with the whole conversation. It had worked to our advantage getting there at the last minute when he didn’t have time to check out our story.
Jamie went to one helicopter. Bond went to the other. I went straight to mine. The pilot had a sudden look of terror on his face as his mouth flew open and his eyes widened. More confirmation that he was the man with the bomb.
I flashed him a reassuring smile.
The helicopter was idling in place. I ducked my head to avoid the rotor blades and went around to the passenger side. My tie blew out of place and over my shoulder at the sudden rush of wind. I put my right hand down to make sure my gun stayed in place. One I had taken from the safehouse. A glock. One magazine and a clip attached to my belt.
I opened the door, climbed in, and said in my most British accent, which Jamie hated, “Hi, mate. My name’s Alex. How are you today, bloke?”
I stuck my hand out for him, and he reluctantly shook it.
“It’s blimey hot today, isn’t it, mate?” I asked.
Then I playfully punched him on the arm. What I really wanted to do was coldcock him in the jaw. He still hadn’t said anything. The impulse for violence was tamped down. Whatever I was going to do had to wait until the bird was in the air. I didn’t see a detonator in his hand or anywhere on his body, but I couldn’t be sure. At that point, I hadn’t even confirmed the bomb was on this helicopter.
The door to the castle suddenly burst open, and an entourage of armed men exited the building. Wearing suits and sunglasses. Like our secret service. I pointed that way. The pilot turned his head to look.
I took that opportunity to look in the back. The seats were missing. On the floor was a suitcase-looking, metal container wrapped in explosives. A timer on the outside was facing toward me, counting down. A green light signified my worst fear.
The bomb was activated.
The countdown had begun.
29:15… 14… 13… 12… 11.
Bond’s words echoed around in my head and sent chills down my spine. You have thirty minutes to get there.
That’s not enough time.
33
Indecision can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Curly’s words whirled through my mind like the deafening sound of the blades of the helicopter resounding in my ears. He clarified the statement about indecision during one of his many lengthy lectures on operational decision making. If a mouse is looking at a piece of cheese in a trap, indecision will save his life if he does nothing. If he’s caught in the trap, and does nothing, he’ll die. Are you trapped or are you about to be? That’s the most important question to ask in a life or death situation.
In my current predicament, I wasn’t sure. Hence the indecision. The one thing I did know was that indecision had already cost me valuable time. I’d boarded the helicopter at Windsor Castle. The terrorist and I were now flying in formation toward Buckingham Palace with the Queen’s helicopter and two other escorts. Our bird was loaded with a dirty bomb that would kill millions of people, including the Queen, the Vice President of the United States, and the other dignitaries who were attending the royal wedding..
My intention had been to attack the man as soon as we reached altitude which was a little over a thousand feet. Simply pull out my gun and shoot the j
erk in the head and take command of the craft. A number of factors caused me to rethink my plan. The first being that the controls on my side of the cockpit had been disabled. For whatever reason. I hadn’t expected that. Consequently, the terrorist had full control of the craft, and if I wanted it, I’d have to take it from him.
Killing him or knocking him unconscious wasn’t the problem. If I incapacitated the man, the helicopter would go into a ninety degree roll within seconds. By the time I undid his seat belt, opened his door, and pushed him out, it’d be too late to regain control of the helicopter. I’d have to undo my belt, climb over the center console, avoid hitting any of the many buttons that controlled vital functions, get into his seat without hitting any of the control mechanisms, then bring the bird under control before I crashed into the ground. Which I figured would take about twenty to thirty seconds from the moment I acted. If I could even do it considering I’d be tossed around the cockpit like a rag doll. In the best case scenario, it’d take about six to ten seconds for the hovercraft to fall to the ground.
The autopilot was within my reach, and I could activate that, which seemed like my best option. The problem was that all the pilot had to do was move one steering mechanism, and the autopilot disengaged. For that plan to work, I’d have to engage the autopilot and shoot him within fractions of a second of each other. All kinds of things could go wrong. If he slumped down, he’d fall on the cyclic and cause the helicopter to veer out of control. If he slumped backward, his feet would hit the pedals and send us into a spin. Even if neither of those things happened, when I tried to push him out of the plane, I had no doubt his left leg would hit the cyclic and disengage the autopilot, and I’d be in the same predicament.
If I only had one control to worry about, it wouldn’t be a problem. I had three to concern myself with. The cyclic stick came up from the cockpit floor and sat between the pilot’s legs. That was what enabled the pilot to tilt the craft to either side or forward and back. The foot pedals controlled the tail rotor. The right pedal turned the helicopter to the left and the nose to the right. The left pedal did the opposite. It would take several seconds for me to gain control over those pedals. They were the only things controlling the torque.
The collective lever was at his left side—within my reach. That lever controlled the altitude and the throttle attached to the lever and controlled the speed. So, I could control altitude and throttle. But that was like controlling the accelerator of a car, but not the steering wheel. What difference did it make? The only thing I controlled in that instance was how fast I was going when I died.
I stared at the man.
He stared back.
Like he knew what I was thinking.
In his beady, steely eyes, was the same indecision.
The difference between us was that he already had a death wish. He was prepared to die either way. I wanted to stay alive. He wanted to kill millions. I wanted to save as many people as possible. He thought seventy virgins were waiting for him in heaven. I wanted to go home safely and be with my one virgin.
A stalemate ensued.
Time to act to break it.
Make a decision, even if it’s wrong.
I pushed the altitude hold button and the heading hold button activating the autopilot. As expected, he moved the cyclic, and it disengaged. I pulled out my gun and pointed it at him.
The terrorist jerked the cyclic to the right and the helicopter banked sharply. In essence turning me on my side. Unexpected The gun was still firmly in my grip, but if I pulled the trigger, we’d fall out of the sky in seconds.
Fortunately, he still had the helicopter under control and hadn’t decided to end it all right there. But I had no way to engage him. The only thing I’d done was play my hand. He now knew my intentions. When he yanked the cyclic back to center, the craft stabilized. Apparently, he was at least committed to trying to get the helicopter to downtown London so the bomb would kill the most people.
That was the opening I needed. Either way, this helicopter was never going to London. I reached out to push the buttons again, this time ready to fire the gun as soon as the autopilot was activated.
Before I could, he jerked the bird to the left causing us to go into a roll. My heart felt like it was suddenly in my throat. A roll in a helicopter was a one-way ticket to disaster if you didn’t know how to get out of it.
He didn’t.
Whether I lived or died was now totally out of my hands.
I grabbed the collective and pulled back on the throttle. That got us out of the roll, but the idiot overcorrected, causing us to begin to spin uncontrollably and lose altitude. Alarm buttons sounded, sending sirens echoing through the cockpit. Trying desperately to get the helicopter under control, the inexperience of the pilot was evident as we pitched back and forth. If I didn’t act soon, we’d go into a death spiral and crash.
I didn’t want to risk firing the gun and have the bullet go in the fuselage or the gas tank. Instead, I brought my right arm up and backhanded a karate chop into his chin. I’d take my chances with no one controlling the helicopter as opposed to that yahoo. The blow was glancing as the helicopter torqued just as I began my motion. The blow was enough to stun him, though, at least momentarily.
Before the helicopter began to roll again, I activated the autopilot. The bird stabilized, although we were flying dangerously low. I didn’t want to give it any throttle because the autopilot would disengage.
I had to hurry.
My heart was pounding. The change in altitude and jerking motion caused my ears to pop and sound like gunfire. Then came the trickiest part. I undid the terrorist’s seat belt and reached across him and opened his door. Only then did I undo my seat belt. On my knees, I lifted the man’s torso straight up in the air. One wrong move and we were both dead.
I was totally at the mercy of the movements of the helicopter. The slightest jerk one way or the other, I’d be plastered against the wall or thrown out the opened door. I swung the man’s legs around. They were facing me. His back was to the open door and his head was leaning out the side of the helicopter. The air rushed by with what sounded like the force of a hurricane.
The man’s eyes twitched. Then they opened. He recovered enough from the blow to his chin to realize what was happening. His eyes widened. I saw in his face a sudden steely resolve and a decision to kill me.
He lifted his body like he was doing a sit-up. With one flick of my wrists, I sent him tumbling out the door to the ground below.
Already half-way into the pilot’s seat, I climbed the rest of the way to the right side of the craft, careful not to hit the collective or the cyclic. When I got into place, I moved the hand and foot controls deactivating the autopilot. The helicopter lurched, but her course was stable and true.
For the first time since I had moved on the man, I looked out the cockpit window. What I saw was horrifying.
A cell phone tower was dead ahead. Coming at me like the iceberg toward the Titanic. If any part of my bird hit that tower, I was a goner. I banked hard to the right to miss it and then cringed halfway through the maneuver, expecting the collision or a blade to clip the top of it.
When it didn’t, I let out a huge breath of air. I immediately pulled back on the collective and began climbing. Then turned to the northeast. I entered the coordinates of the missile-testing site that Bond had sent to my phone. Then put the machine on full throttle. Open. As fast as she could go. The helicopter literally lurched in the air as the powerful engines thrust us forward with the same determination I felt inside.
Only then did I look back at the timer on the bomb.
00:23: 7… 6… 5… 4… 3.
I had twenty-three minutes to make a thirty-minute flight. I could only hope that Bond’s estimate was at normal speed. I hit the throttle harder. Trying to get every mile-per-hour possible out of her. She responded and gave me more. The bird creaked and moaned as her limits were tested. I figured based on the size that she’d do 175 mph at top spe
ed. That wasn’t good enough. If we went 200 mph, I wouldn’t make it in time.
The realization hit me. I wasn’t going to make it. I’d have to ditch the bird before I could get to the missile site. My resolve was to get as far away from population as possible.
I put the helicopter in what I guessed was the most aerodynamic position. Then did the same for me, although, it wouldn’t make any difference, except mentally. I got into a crouch. So that my eyes were barely looking above the dashboard. Like a soap box derby racer. Somehow, it made it feel like we were going faster.
Then I saw a flash.
Out of the corner of my eye.
Off the left side of the helicopter.
Then another one. To my right.
Two fighter planes surrounded me.
I’d forgotten about them. Bond mentioned them. They were patrolling the airspace over London. I could only imagine what they were thinking. One of the Queen’s escorts broke formation. The door opened and a body flew out.
This was not good.
They must think I’m a hostile.
They began taking evasive action to force me down to the ground.
If I didn’t, I knew exactly what was going to happen if they didn’t give me time to explain.
They’d shoot me down.
34
The fighter jet to my right was so close, I could almost reach out the window and touch it. The pilot of the jet shook his fist at me and pointed his thumb down to signal for me to land. I could only imagine his confusion. He’d no doubt seen my helicopter break formation from the Queen’s escort. Then fly wildly out of control and almost hit a cell tower. Right after a person was thrown out of the plane to his death.
Now he saw me speeding away from London. The picture probably didn’t make sense to him or his commanders. I figured, the only reason he hadn’t shot me down was because of that. As long as I was moving away from populated areas and not toward them, they had time to try and figure out my erratic behavior.