16 Souls

CHAPTER SIX

Seven Months before — January 21^st

Air Traffic Control Tower, Denver International Airport

“Regal Twelve, Denver Ground. Runway Two-Six is now closed. You’re cleared to Runway Two-Five via Taxiway Golf. Caution, snow removal men and equipment off to the east of Golf.”

“Roger,” the unseen pilot reported, his tone slightly more cheerful than the situation justified. “Regal Twelve is cleared to Runway Two-Five via Golf.”

The shift supervisor in Denver International’s control tower had been pulled into the ground control position when two of his controllers couldn’t get to the airport. Now it was getting irritating with the airport progressively losing control of the blizzard’s assault. The last straw was hearing one of his controllers replace the approach control tie line and announce that one of the regional flights was coming back.

“Who?” Jimmy Toulon asked, a bit too sharply. Too much time in the office and too little in a control position meant his temper was unduly short.

“It’s Mountaineer 2612. He can’t get his gear to retract. Tracon wanted to bring him back to Two-Six, but…”

“Runway Two-Five is all we got.”

“They already know.”

“But,” Jimmy added, “Tell Tracon to give me at least ten minutes to clear out these other departures.”

“Will do.”

The controller picked up the tie line again as Jimmy struggled to make out the fuzzy lights through the snow obscuring almost all the visibility from the tower cab. The ground radar was the basic tool they had in situations this bad, and he was appreciative of how easy it now was to see the data block of each moving aircraft.

The voice of the snow removal boss came through his headset at the same moment.

“Tower, be advised, if it keeps up at this rate, we’ve got, tops, an hour before we’re going to have to give up on Two Five between Bravo Four and Golf.”

Great! Jimmy thought. We’ll be down to nine thousand feet of slick concrete on one remaining runway.

Complete closure of the airport before 10 pm was a real possibility.

Several floors below in the Terminal Approach Control Radar room the computer-generated blip representing the Beech 1900 regional airliner known as Mountaineer 2612 had completed the course reversal ordered two minutes before. The controller issued a turn for an inbound British Air Boeing 777 before refocusing her thoughts on Mountaineer. He was doing around a hundred fifty knots with the gear hanging out, but he’d undoubtedly have enough fuel, and the tower wanted an extra ten minutes, so…

I’ll bring him northwest past the airport, then I’ll turn him east, she decided. “Mountaineer Twenty-six-twelve, Denver Approach, turn left now Three-two-zero, maintain twelve thousand.”

“Roger, Mountaineer Twenty-six-twelve, left to Three-two-zero, maintain twelve.”

The controller mentally acknowledged Mountaineer’s compliance and focused on the approaching 777. “Speedbird Sixty-two, cleared ILS Runway Two-Five now, contact Denver Tower One-three-two-point-three-five.”

“Speedbird Six-two, cleared approach, Tower on One-three-two-point-three-five. Cheerio, ma’am.”

She started to respond in kind, then stopped herself. Too much competing traffic and a rapidly deteriorating airport for casual exchanges. Keeping the picture was more important than radioed niceties, even though she always loved acknowledging the professionalism of the British crews.

In the tower cab, Jimmy Toulon verified the position of the outbound Regal 757 and issued the directive to contact the tower controller standing next to him. He heard the pilot acknowledge in that same too-happy voice and wondered why it irritated him so.

The controller in the tower position issued the takeoff clearance along with the standard warnings about slick concrete and poor braking action, and Jimmy noticed the electronic blip begin moving down the east-west runway as the big Boeing accelerated to flying speed and lifted off to the west.

In many ways, he envied the pilots climbing out of a storm. In thirty minutes they’d be miles above the weather and looking at stars, and he’d still be in the middle of an arctic blizzard, all his instincts on red alert against anyone making a mistake. A complete airport shutdown would be a relief. Nights like this really worried him.