Blackout

CHAPTER 14

The urgent call from Central Intelligence for satellite support in the Meridian 5 matter had triggered a flurry of activity in the NRO’s surveillance center near Washington. As the newly targeted orbiting sensors peered intently at the Hong Kong area from space, three men and one woman gathered around a large, sophisticated video screen in a small room within the high-tech warrens of the cutting-edge installation. One of the men had been holding open a phone line to a CIA team in Langley, but he put them on hold to peer at the display screen, following the small pointer being used by the chief NRO analyst.

“This is Hong Kong over to the far right,” Janice Washburn said. “The satellite we’re using is approaching at almost ninety degrees overhead. There’s a solid cloud cover both above and below the jet’s altitude, so we’re using a primary infrared depiction with an optics backup.”

“We have this real-time, correct?”

“Yes, Sir,” the woman answered. “But remember, this is a processed shot. Real-time information for a composite depiction. We’ve got the other stuff on tape.”

“Bottom line, Janice, have you found anything?”

She nodded. “I’ve filtered out all other known air traffic being worked by Hong Kong, Vietnam, or any of the other air traffic authorities in the vicinity.”

“And?”

“Take a look,” she said, pointing to a tiny white dot southwest of Hong Kong. She repeatedly toggled a switch on the display to zoom the picture. “This is twenty-mile range from one side of the screen to the other. Ten miles. Five. Two. One.” The target became progressively larger, streaming white plumes behind it as it moved to the southwest. “Okay, I’m zooming in to a matter of yards.”

Suddenly the screen was filled with a white, ghostly shape that could only be a 747. The inboard power plant on the left wing was obviously not producing heat, since there were plumes from only three engines. There was another, smaller plume from the tail-mounted auxiliary power unit.

“Are we sure that’s Meridian?” George Barkley whispered.

She nodded. “We’ve dovetailed the track of the aircraft from before the landing attempt back to when we could pick up the radar transponder. That’s him, okay, and as you can see, he’s still very much airborne and alive — though his course has been erratic. By the way, George, I’m told the Chinese have launched a search-and-rescue force. Are we going to be able to tell them the aircraft hasn’t crashed?”

George Barkley shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not our decision, but you know the concerns. Too much information about what we’ve seen and how we did it compromises our capabilities.”

“In other words, probably not.”

He nodded as he pulled the phone receiver to his ear and smiled. “At least I can tell our side, and it’s going to feel good to relay positive news for a change.”

Dan Wade had fully expected to die.

Unable to actually see the altimeter unwinding toward the surface of the South China Sea, and caught in the maw of a massive thunderstorm downdraft, he couldn’t sense the sudden exit of the 747 from the downburst until Dallas Nielson’s voice rang through his consciousness.

“There! Oh sweet Jesus, THERE! We’re level. Three hundred fifty… no, we’re climbing now! Thank you, Lord!”

The heavy turbulence continued bouncing them around. Lightning flashed ceaselessly outside the windows. Suddenly, a soul-shattering crack tore through the cockpit, lighting up everything and receding just as fast. The electronic flight instrument displays went dark, leaving only a few small instrument lights beneath the forward dash panel.

“WE’VE LOST POWER!” Dallas yelled.

Dan’s left hand snaked up to the overhead and cycled two electrical switches, restoring the power. “Did that cure it?” he asked.

“Yes. What in hell was that?” Dallas asked.

“Lightning strike. Knocked off the APU, I think.”

There were three more horrendous flashes of lightning not accompanied by noise as they flew through the lower western wall of the cell, and within a minute, a clear night sky opened up before them, framed by towering storms.

“Altitude?” Dan asked in a more normal volume.

“One thousand five hundred and climbing fast. Two thousand.”

“Geoff,” Dan said, “take over as I push the nose forward. Keep a positive climb… back to eight thousand, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” Geoff Sampson replied, his voice thin and fatigued.

To the right, the top part of a cumulonimbus towering above 60,000 feet boomed away with lightning, and to the left, another wall of storms could be seen. But ahead there were stars and moonlight glinting off the ocean’s surface.

“Good heavens! What on earth happened?” Geoffrey asked.

“We… blundered into a massive thunderstorm cell, I’m afraid, and a huge downdraft,” Dan said, shaking his bandaged head carefully. “Is everyone okay?”

“That was one hell of a ride,” Robert said softly.

“We’re okay, Dan,” Britta added as she pulled the interphone handset from the pedestal and punched in an All Call. She polled the flight attendants below before disconnecting. “No one’s hurt below. They’re all terrified, but no injuries. The galleys are a mess, of course.”

“Geoff? You okay?” Dan asked.

“In all honesty, Dan, I think Ms. Nielson should consider taking over. I’m doing a frightful job. I nearly lost it.”

Dan started to answer when the cockpit door opened. Britta turned around, shocked to see young Steve Delaney standing just inside with a hesitant expression and looking around with wide eyes.

Britta moved toward him instantly. “Mr. Delaney! I did not say you could come up here!” Britta’s voice was sharp and irritated, and Steve Delaney backed up.

“What did we hit?” Delaney asked, his voice betraying fright.

“Who are you, Darlin’?” Dallas asked, looking at the teen.

“A brash young irritant who says he knows how to fly simulators,” Britta said, turning to push Steve back out the door.

“Whoa, Brits,” Dallas said, sliding out of the jump seat toward the door. “We aren’t exactly running a surplus of pilots up here. What’s your name, Honey?”

“I’m, uh, Steve Delaney.”

“Can you fly this airplane, Steve?”

He nodded, repeating the information about his father’s simulators.

“He taught you? Your dad, I mean?”

“No. He didn’t want me near them, but I’d fly them anyway, at night.”

“My man! Self-starter, then,” Dallas said, offering him a high-five palm slap, which he met somewhat timidly.

Dan Wade had been listening to the exchange without comment as Dallas turned to check the instruments. “Dan, pull the nose up a bit for Geoffrey and roll right about ten degrees.”

“Thank you, Dallas,” Dan replied.

“Just a moment here,” Geoffrey Sampson said, his hands maintaining a death grip on the control yoke. “Look, it’s time we faced the fact that I’m not helping you at all. I’m doing a horrible job. We don’t have many options, it seems, so may I be so bold as to suggest that if this young chap thinks he can fly, why not give him a go?”

Dallas was nodding. “Geoffrey, why don’t you climb out and let Mr. Delaney here get in.”

“WHAT?” Dan barked the question.

“Hey,” Dallas said, “maybe he can help. In any event, it’s like chicken soup. May not help but it can’t hurt!”

Dan Wade’s head came around to the left. “Dammit, who’s in charge here?”

The response from Dallas Nielson was instantaneous and sharp. “We thought you were, Danny boy, but you seem to be giving up, with this babble about ditching.”

“The hell I am!” Dan interrupted. “Who the hell are you to—”

Robert MacCabe clamped his hand on Dan’s right shoulder and shook it slightly. “Keep your cool, Dan. We won’t make it without teamwork. The lady’s got a good suggestion, and you should listen to it. It’s not mutiny, it’s teamwork.”

“Listen, Daniel!” Dallas continued. “You’ve worked miracles to keep us alive, but you gotta open your mind to different ideas.”

“I really… don’t need… California hot-tub psychobabble right now, thank you!”

“I’m not from California, Dan,” Dallas shot back, “my name’s Dallas, and I don’t own a hot tub, and you don’t have a lot of options. Fact is, I was gonna suggest maybe we audition every passenger and find out who can learn to fly the quickest.”

A sarcastic young voice spoke from behind, tinged with fear. “There’s not much to flying this airplane, anyway. It’s just a big video game with wings.”

Dan turned his head to the left, in the direction of the voice. “You know what an attitude indicator is, son?”

“Yeah. And I’m not your son.”

“Read my attitude indicator. Right now.”

Steve Delaney moved forward past Britta and peered at the instrument panel in front of Geoffrey Sampson. “You’re one degree nose-down, and you’re rolling left about five degrees.”

“I’ve got the airplane, Geoffrey,” Dan said, making the corrections to raise the nose and roll back right. He began nodding slowly. “Okay, kid. Not bad. Just tell me the number of degrees of roll-left or — right, and degrees nose-up or nose-down.”

“I’m not a kid, Mister. My name’s Steve.”

“Okay, Steve. Can you do that? Can you call out those corrections?”

“I just did.”

Dan nodded again, this time more forcefully. “Okay, Dallas, I agree. Britta, help Mr. Sampson out of the left seat and put… Mr. Delaney in it. Quickly.”

“All right, Dan,” Britta said in a resigned tone, “but after that I’m going to check on things downstairs.” She helped Geoffrey maneuver out of his seat and motioned for Steve to move in.

“In the captain’s seat?” Steve Delaney asked, as Britta hurried from the cockpit, followed by Geoffrey.

“Yes. You’re going to be my eyes and my hands. There’s no autopilot. There’s only me, and I’m blind. If someone else… can keep the airplane straight and level”—Dan stopped and took a long breath—“then maybe I can work on figuring out how to get us down somewhere alive. I need you to keep reading the attitude indicator… and using the yoke to keep the wings level and keep the little dot at about four degrees nose-up. Think you can do that?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “Want me to program the flight computer, too?”

“You know how to do that?”

“Sure. I studied the manual.”

“First,” Dan said, “let’s see if you can fly.”

Kat thanked the Approach Control supervisor again and headed for the consulate car, the image of the radar tapes still playing in her mind. She was amazed they had been so open about something that would inevitably end up the subject of a major accident investigation, but the supervisor had hesitated only a few seconds before agreeing to show her the recordings.

The Bombardier Global Express business jet’s transponder had blinked off without warning eight miles ahead of Meridian 5, but there had been shadowy skin paint returns. Kat knew transponders radioed back an electronic answer to radar scopes every few seconds, whenever they picked up an air traffic control radar beam interrogating them. But without an operating transponder, the only thing a controller could see on his scope was the echo of a raw radar signal bouncing off the metal exterior of an aircraft. The skin paint target had appeared just three miles to the side of the 747.

Kat had carefully plotted the speed and altitude of Global Express N22Z when it disappeared, and the speed of the skin paint return, and found they matched perfectly. The Global Express’s crew had turned off their transponder and turned back to cross in front of Meridian 5. Not once, but twice. And the second time, at the very moment the Meridian pilot’s eyes were hit, there were a few more skin paint radar hits, which the Hong Kong Approach facility chief interpreted as debris from a midair collision. The supervisor supplied the tail number of the business jet, explaining that it was operating as an air ambulance and had come out of the business jet terminal.

Kat slid into the backseat of the consulate car and gave directions to the driver to go to the business jet facility, then unfolded the satellite phone to call Jake.