Blackout

CHAPTER 28

There was a flurry of activity at the rear of the cabin. Dallas turned to look as Robert emerged from a curtained area with a large metal box.

“Look what I found!” he said. He set it on the floor and opened it, pulling out a heavy object that resembled a couple of diminutive scuba tanks with a telescopic sight on one side, along with a small liquid-crystal control panel. He turned it around, finding an aperture on one end, and a handgrip on the other.

“What the heck is that?” Dallas asked.

“I don’t know,” Robert said as he moved to the prisoner to yank his head up, aiming the object’s small aperture directly at his face. The man didn’t flinch.

“What is this thing?” Robert asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” the pilot said.

“Then you don’t mind if I fire it at you?”

“Hell, man,” the pilot replied, “I’m apparently dead meat anyway. Frankly, I think you’re all crazy as loons. First I get hired by the guys you apparently have a beef against, and now I’ve got the paranoid agents from hell. Do whatever you want. I’ve never even seen that thing before.”

Kat had reappeared. “Do you normally fly captain or copilot, Pollis?”

“Uh, copilot. Right seat, but I’m a qualified captain on this bird.”

Kat nodded as she pulled out a knife and cut the flex cuffs. “Well, now you’re going to upgrade. And Mr. MacCabe here is going to have a gun with orders to kill you if you so much as raise an eyebrow, understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Get up there in the left seat and get this machine started. Do NOT touch the radio, and do NOT put on a headset.”

She repeated the instructions to Robert and passed him her 9mm pistol.

“Oh, and Pollis? Understand this. I can fly this thing if I have to without you, so don’t think for a moment that you’re indispensable.”

“Ah, Agent?” Steve Delaney had been looking out the left windows.

“I’m Kat,” she said.

He nodded. “Kat, some cars with armed soldiers are coming out there.”

“What are they doing?” she asked.

“They’re standing and pointing, and I think they’re talking about us.”

“Which means,” Kat concluded, “at best we’ve only got a few minutes.” She glanced at the others. “Buckle up. We’re getting out of here.”

Kat turned and moved to the entryway to say good-bye to Pete, who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She stowed the stairs and closed the door before moving into the cockpit. Pollis was already running the prestart checklist in the left seat as she slid into the right-hand copilot’s seat and fastened her seat belt. He started the auxiliary power unit and clicked it on-line for electrical power, as he read the checklist items aloud and began starting the left engine.

Kat adjusted the headset she’d found on the copilot’s side and checked the frequency for Da Nang Ground Control on the approach plate still clipped to the yoke. She dialed in the frequency and pushed the Transmit button on the control yoke. “Da Nang Ground, Global Express Two-Two-Zulu.”

There was a short hesitation before a high, nasal voice came back, struggling with an approximation of English.

“Two-Two-Zulu,” Kat began, speaking slowly, “must do an engine run for maintenance purposes. We will start engines and taxi to the end of the runway, then come back to this location. Roger?”

The controller’s voice came back again, slightly more understandable. “Two-Two-Zulu… approve request… taxi runway. Running of engine okay.”

“Roger,” she said.

The left rear-mounted engine was at idle, the right one winding up.

“Pollis, soon as you can, head for the south end of the runway.”

He nodded.

“Steve?” Kat yelled over her left shoulder. “Check the left side and see if those goons are still following us.”

There was a small interlude of silence before Steve answered. “Yes. Three jeeps filled with men. Soldiers, I think.”

The end of the runway was just ahead, and Kat checked to make sure the approach was clear of any landing aircraft before directing Pollis to taxi toward it, then quickly turn the Global Express 180 degrees to face the oncoming jeeps, all of which braked to a halt.

“Set your parking brake,” Kat ordered. He complied quickly. “No,” she countermanded, “push up the throttles and aim us directly at those vehicles until all three drivers have turned around.”

The Global Express moved toward the jeeps and Kat watched with satisfaction as all three drivers turned quickly and raced off to a safer distance.

“All right, Pollis. Run your before-takeoff checks, then I want you to suddenly swing the bird around and taxi onto the runway in one fluid motion. Understand?”

He nodded as he worked his way through the list. “Are you ready?” He asked her.

“Go!” she ordered.

He pushed the throttles up and continued moving away from the runway for a few yards, waiting until the jeeps began moving away in the same direction.

“Is the runway clear over there to the right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kat answered, before Robert could look and reply. “Well, about halfway down, there’s a fire truck sitting there on the taxiway, but he’s not blocking.”

Pollis swung the Global Express around.

“Here we go,” Kat said as she punched the Transmit button. “Da Nang Ground, Two-Two-Zulu needs to go to the end of the runway again. Approved?”

“Roger,” was the response.

With a rapid movement of her left hand, Kat gestured for Pollis to position the aircraft on the runway, watching carefully as he complied. “Okay. Takeoff power. Let’s go,” she said. “And remember, there’s a gun to your head, Pollis.”

The Global Express moved onto the runway and accelerated. Pollis reached over and engaged the automatic throttles, and Kat watched as both throttle levers moved smoothly to the maximum thrust position.

“The jeeps are moving, Kat. On your left. They’re going to try to get in front of us,” Robert said. “That fire truck way up there is moving in, too!”

“Let’s go,” Kat ordered. They began to accelerate down the runway.

“These bastards are liable to shoot,” Pollis said, worry tingeing his voice.

Kat glanced at the airspeed depiction on the glass cockpit’s electronic flight panel. They were above a hundred knots, accelerating toward the rotate speed of 135.

“The jeeps have chickened out, Kat,” Robert reported.

“Is anyone shooting?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Robert said, as he strained to see out the pilot’s side window.

One hundred ten! she told herself, watching the large fire truck pick up speed as it raced toward the next taxiway intersecting the runway.

“He’s going to beat us there!” Pollis said.

The Global Express was accelerating, but not fast enough. The fire truck was clearly moving from left to right in their perspective, meaning he would reach the center of the runway before they arrived at the same spot.

One twenty.

“Ah, Kat…” Robert began.

“I’d better abort,” Pollis said, stunned when Kat’s hand firmly covered his right hand on the throttles to prevent his pulling them back.

“Don’t even think about it,” she ordered. “Steady on!” Kat’s concentration shifted to the airspeed and how fast it was rising.

“I’m not kidding, Agent… we’re not gonna make it!”

“KEEP GOING!” she yelled.

The fire truck was at the entrance to the runway, moving at perhaps thirty miles per hour, when the forward door flew open and the driver jumped to the tarmac, leaving enough momentum for the truck to roll to the center on its own.

“Kat… KAT…!” Robert’s voice was rising in pitch and volume.

The truck was less than 2,000 feet ahead, moving slower now, but still in their path, no matter how hard she might try to steer to the right.

“WE’RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT!” Pollis called out in genuine alarm.

“Yes we will. STEADY! I’ll call your rotate!” she barked One thirty. That’s enough. “OKAY, ROTATE NOW!”

Pollis pulled back smartly on the yoke and the jet’s nose rose rapidly through ten degrees up, but the main wheels remained on the runway.

The truck was directly in front of them, less than 500 feet away, with the Global Express moving toward it at 222 feet per second. Kat grabbed the yoke on the right side and pulled the nose up sharply until the heavily loaded jet leapt from the surface and began to climb. Simultaneously she reached for the gear lever and snapped it to the Up position.

The fire truck disappeared beneath the raised nose of the business jet as it sped upward. The main wheels retracted sideways into the belly and reached a forty-five-degree angle at the moment the Global Express flashed over the fire truck. The partially retracted main tires cleared the top of the machine by less than a foot. The underside of the tail, however, clipped the top of the truck a glancing blow, creating an incredible metallic thud that reverberated through the fuselage and scared everyone into silence.

Pollis’s voice rang out as they pitched up to more than twenty-five degrees. “Whoa! Too much pitch!” He pushed forward on the yoke, lowering the pitch angle. “We only want about eighteen degrees,” he explained. With the pitch angle under control, Kat felt herself begin to breathe again. The jet settled into a rapid climb, the airspeed sitting at a safe 180 knots.

“We hit it, didn’t we?” Robert asked in a strained voice.

Kat nodded. “We touched it, but everything looks normal and feels normal.”

“Except my heart rate,” Robert added.

“Flaps up,” the copilot said.

“Flaps up,” Kat repeated, her hand shaking slightly as she reached to the center pedestal and raised the flap lever to the fully retracted position.

“Okay, break to the right, Pollis. Right around that hill. Keep it fast and low.”

He banked the jet tightly to the right, flying just north of the hill to the east and keeping the climb rate to a minimum as they picked up speed. At 300 knots he pulled back and began a shallow climb.

“Where’s the transponder?” Kat asked.

“There,” Pollis replied, pointing to the control head. “You want it on?”

“No, I want to make sure it’s off.” She reached out to make certain the switch was in the right position. “Okay, Pollis. You’re going to talk me through this as you set up the navigation system to go direct to Guam, understood?”

“Whatever you say, Ma’am. But do you really want to do this without an air traffic control clearance? Some countries get really nasty about that sort of thing.”

She gave him an acidic glance. “When I want your opinion on my strategy, I’ll ask for it,” Kat snapped. “Meantime, do precisely what I order you to do.”

He looked over at her. “I know this probably cuts no mustard with you, Agent, but would you please consider that I might be telling the truth? I was just hired to fly copilot for this trip, and I honest-to-God had no idea what they were doing. I don’t even know where they leased this airplane, since I doubt the Bureau owns it.”

Kat shot him a puzzled, glance. “What are you talking about, ‘the Bureau’?”

“FBI.”

“What?” Kat asked, cocking her head with a pained expression.

“You’re an FBI agent, just like them, right?”

Kat shook her head as if to clear the confusion. She could see Robert leaning forward in the jump seat to looking at Pollis’s face. “All right, Pollis,” she said. “Are you attempting to tell me that the people who hired you to fly this aircraft represented themselves to be FBI agents?”

“You mean they weren’t?” he said, with an expression of pure shock.

This guy is a really good actor! Kat thought. His eyes were now huge, and his voice shook slightly.

“I… Ma’am, they told me they were FBI agents. They had IDs just like yours.”

Robert MacCabe’s left hand lashed out to grab Pollis’s collar, getting a tight grip on it as Pollis fought to keep the aircraft steady. “Hey! You want me to lose control?”

“How long,” Robert began, snarling his words, “have you been working on that stupid story?” He aped a whining, high-pitched voice: “If I’m caught, I’ll just pretend I was hired by the FBI.”

“It’s the truth!” Pollis replied. “Every time I asked what they were doing, the head guy would warn me that I was interfering with a federal operation.”

Robert tightened his grip and shook Pollis hard. “Now what’s the real story, bastard? Who’re you really working for?”

“I told you. I thought they were FBI. But they weren’t federal agents?”

Kat’s eyes were on the instruments and outside the aircraft, searching the sky ahead. She knew his ploy didn’t justify a response, but she couldn’t help herself. “Whatever you might think, Pollis, and whoever you really are, the fact is, FBI agents do not run around the world like CIA covert operatives destabilizing governments, and we don’t shoot down jumbo jets.”