Headwind

TWENTY-THREE

David Carmichael scanned the air traffic control clearance he’d jotted down and pressed the transmit button on the Cessna’s small control yoke.

“Roger, ah, ATC clears Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November to the Denver airport via the Laramie VOR, then Victor Five Seventy-Five to the Ramms Three Arrival to Denver International. On departure, climb to twelve thousand, departure frequency one two five point nine, squawk two six six nine.”

“What is all that?” Jay asked, hearing Carmichael’s words in the headset against the background noise of the engine and propeller as they sat by the end of the runway.

David raised a finger in a “wait” gesture for a follow-up exchange with the controller.

He turned to Jay as he changed frequencies. “It’s our instrument clearance to Denver,” David explained.

“That’s the control tower?”

“No. There’s no tower here. That’s Denver Center. We take off on our own, then talk to them.”

Jay checked the tightness of his seat belt for the fifth time and forced his mind onto the more practical question of catching his transatlantic commercial flight in Denver. If it took an hour to get there, as David had said, he would have less than ninety minutes to get from the private terminal to the huge commercial terminal, buy his ticket, navigate the mysterious barriers the commercial industry always erected in the path of its customers, and board his flight.

“Laramie area traffic, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November taking runway one two for departure to the south, Laramie.”

The sound of the engine revving to maximum power yanked Jay’s attention back to the present as the small Cessna leapt forward and began accelerating down the runway, bounding and swerving slightly on its spindly landing gear before David pulled on the control yoke and powered them into the air, leaving the concrete to drop away beneath them with sickening finality.

David banked the airplane to the southeast and leveled the wings as they climbed into the overcast sky and the world outside the windscreen became gray. Jay watched with growing alarm as the last images of pastures and ranch land and a westbound Union Pacific freight train disappeared below. His hands gripped the sides of his seat as he watched the pilot shift his concentration to the glowing instruments on the forward panel, adjusting the controls and throttle in accordance with the obscure and arcane things the instruments were telling him.

“This is some sort of black art, flying in weather!” Jay managed to say, his voice strained.

“Sorry?” David asked.

“I said… I don’t see how you’re doing this… flying blind, I mean.”

David reached up to change the radio frequency. “Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, airborne Laramie, climbing one-two thousand.”

The movements of the small Cessna, the up-and-down and side-to-side bouncing and lurching became an accusatory voice in Jay’s ears screaming that he shouldn’t have pushed this young man to fly to Denver, regardless of the need to help John Harris.

“We are… right side up, right?”

“Yeah.” David chuckled.

“I can’t tell. I can’t read those instruments.”

Jay realized he had only one thing to hold onto: the reality that David didn’t seem to be panicked.

“It’s not that hard,” David said, his eyes boring into an instrument just in front of him. He turned and glanced at Jay and took his right hand off the throttle long enough to point to the round dial in the center of the panel.

“See this?”

“Yes, but are you sure you should let go of that?”

“Don’t worry. It’s okay. Now, that instrument is called an ‘ADI,’ Attitude Deviation Indicator. In the old days they called these ‘Artificial Horizons.’ What I’m doing is called attitude flying. See that little bar that looks like an airplane?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I keep the wings of that little artificial airplane level against that line that represents the horizon – my attitude, in other words – and it’s almost like flying on a clear day by visually looking at the real horizon.”

Jay tried to loosen his grip on the seat long enough to lean over and interpret what David had just said. He could see the horizontal bar within the circular instrument, and the little artificial airplane, but figuring out which way to push or pull the control wheel to keep the display in correct alignment was still a mystery.

“Then I watch my altitude, my heading, and my airspeed, and it all works,” David said.

The Cessna bounced through some sort of air current, and Jay felt himself being shoved upward as he heard the sound of the propeller change for a second, an alteration that caused what was left of his stomach to finish contracting into a singularity.

David refocused his attention on the so-called ADI, and Jay decided that distracting him with any more questions was a bad idea. He forced himself to focus on the legal battle ahead, and the question of where to send the President, if he could escape Italy.

“Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, airborne Laramie, climbing one-two thousand,” David called again.

Still no answer, Jay noted, his concentration broken. “You doing okay?” Jay said, instantly angry with himself for saying another word.

“Yeah,” David Carmichael replied, hoping his passenger couldn’t see how nervous he really was. “We’re probably just not hitting their transmitters yet.”

David adjusted the throttle again and checked his altitude as he continued climbing through ten thousand. He looked out at the wing on the left side as casually as he could, checking for ice and relieved to see none. The outside air temperatures were probably too cold for icing, but there was a question in the Denver area.

David took a deep breath and realized his mouth was cotton-dry. They had ninety miles to go, and he had to do an instrument approach in a tiny airplane to one of the largest airports in the world, flying down to probably two or three hundred feet above the surface before seeing anything. He was also acutely aware of his inexperience as a newly minted instrument pilot with only six hundred hours of total flight time – and he hadn’t flown in nearly two months.

Carmichael, this was a stupid idea! he thought to himself, as he tried yet again to make radio contact with the controller.

“Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, how do you read?”

What was it his instructor had said? The most important element of piloting an airplane was judgment, and he’d just exercised precious little of it by jumping at the chance to please a professor without really thinking through the risks.

This is an important mission! he argued to himself. It’s worth pushing the envelope.

But pushing the envelope was what killed people in aviation, especially pilots who flew beyond their experience or their capabilities.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down, but his hand was shaking slightly on the control yoke, and the thought that he might be forgetting something was eating at him.

Oh my God, did I bring the approach plates for Denver?

Making an instrument landing required having the right pages aboard from a book full of such procedures. The “plates,” as the five-by-seven-inch pages were called, were packed solid with information about frequencies and minimum altitudes and headings and all the additional information a pilot needed to approach an airport safely without seeing the ground outside the windscreen until the last few hundred feet.

David felt his heart in his throat as he turned around. With no autopilot aboard the 172, he had to maintain control every second, but the brown leather, loose-leaf manual he needed – containing his Jeppesen instrument charts – sat where he’d placed it on the back seat. He reached around to grab it, pulling it back to his lap in time to realize he’d let the Cessna roll into a steep right bank.

He righted the airplane and held it steady while he flipped through the book with his right hand to find the ILS approach he needed for Denver International.

“Can I help you with that?” he heard Jay ask.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

Another unexpected gust shoved the Cessna to one side slightly, enough to cause a flutter in his stomach. He could imagine what Professor Reinhart was feeling.

There was high terrain ahead, he knew. The minimum safe altitude through this area was eleven thousand three hundred feet, and they were just climbing through ten thousand five hundred very slowly. The engine was at maximum power, and the cumulo-granite ahead – as pilots sometimes called mountains – reached ten thousand feet.

Once again he called for Denver Center, hearing nothing but static in return.

“I don’t understand this. It was working on the ground,” he said in frustration, immediately sorry he’d spoken his concern.

“We, ah… have a problem?” Jay Reinhart asked, his voice tense.

“No… not really. I just… it would be better if we could talk to them.”

There was a small electronic chirping suddenly in the cockpit, heard over both headsets. The warning noise was totally unfamiliar, and David began looking for the source of the warning, checking his airspeed and instruments.

That’s… what IS that? That’s not a stall warning? Engine’s okay. What the hell?

He noticed movement to his right and looked around to see his passenger pull a small cell phone from his pocket and point to it before placing it to his ear.

David brought his eyes back to the ADI and felt his heart leap. The artificial horizon line was nearly vertical when it should have been horizontal.

“Jeez!” He rolled the control yoke to the left, instantly realizing he’d gone the wrong way. They had rolled almost ninety degrees left and the nose was dropping, the altitude beginning to unwind as he rotated the yoke to the right and righted the horizon, bringing the nose back to level flight.

Ten thousand one hundred! Climb! Dammit, dammit, dammit! Control yourself!

He’d lost five hundred feet to a momentary spatial disorientation, but Professor Reinhart had been busy talking on his phone and hadn’t seemed to notice.

Thank God, David thought. The professor was nervous enough as it was.

Lord! Do NOT do that again! David told himself. Eyes remain on the ADI. Don’t forget that’s exactly what killed JFK Junior!

David checked the mileage from Laramie on one of the instruments. They were twenty-two nautical miles from the field and approaching the mountain ridge crossed by U.S. 287. He checked the altitude again. Ten thousand three hundred, climbing very slowly. His heart was pounding but he kept a poker face as he scanned the instruments and began wondering whether they should turn back.

No, I can’t turn back on instruments. I’m cleared to Denver. If I can’t talk to the controllers, there’s no way I can get cleared for an approach back to Laramie. I’d better go on. Besides, Denver International has a lot more facilities than Laramie.

Having to peel his hand away from the edge of his seat to grab the cell phone had been a small agony for Jay Reinhart, but the moment Sherry’s voice came on the line, his entire concentration shifted to what she was saying.

“Yes, Sherry. I’m… in flight… heading for Denver. It’s pretty rough. What’s happening there?”

She quickly brought him up to date on the approval of the charter, Campbell’s visit, and her suspicions that he was regrouping for another try.

“Shouldn’t we get out of here now?” she asked. “The captain says he can leave at any time.”

“Not yet, Sherry. I don’t know where to send you.”

“I thought you said Britain.”

“I did, and that’s probably right, but I’ve got some research to do, and I can’t do it in this small plane. Is there any reason to think the Italians are changing their minds about not invading that ramp?”

There was a burst of static on the line and a muffled voice where Sherry had been.

“Sherry? Hello?”

More static, then a click, and a series of squeaks and squawks before the line went dead.

“Damn cell phones.”

David’s eyes remained welded to the forward panel, but Jay could see him nod. “They’re not supposed to be used in the air, and we’re probably in a marginal area anyway.”

“Still no contact with Denver?” Jay asked.

David shook his head, gesturing to the panel. “I tried switching to my second radio, but I totally forgot it’s been intermittent. I meant to have a radio shop look at it last month. But they know we’re here. See that little blinking light on the transponder?”

“The what?”

David pointed to it. “That little panel. When the air traffic control radar beams sweep past us, they trigger that little transmitter, and it sends the controller our altitude and position. The blinking light means they’re tracking us, even though I can’t talk to them.”

“That’s a relief,” Jay said. “I think.”

David checked the mileage from the Laramie VOR, the radio navigation beacon he was using to navigate down the center of the invisible air lane called V-575.

Forty-three miles. We’re past the highest terrain.

He felt himself relax slightly for the first time.

The Chief of Staff was back in his favorite perch on the forward edge of his desk while his secretary and three other staff members stood, leaned, or sat in various positions in the cramped office.

“So they know already?” Jack Rollins asked.

Richard Hailey, the Deputy Communications Director, glanced at Press Secretary Diane Beecher before replying. She diverted her eyes, leaving Hailey to speak.

“The Italian Foreign Ministry was informed about ten minutes ago by Peru’s lawyer that President Harris was still aboard.”

“That’s Stuart Campbell who did the informing, you can be sure,” another staff member added, checking the name on a notebook.

“Right,” Hailey agreed. “And we expect he’ll be informing the media almost immediately to try to portray Harris, and us, as purposefully deceptive.”

“So,” Rollins said, “Diane? We’d better talk to them.”

She nodded. “I’ve got a tentative briefing scheduled in fifteen minutes.”

He nodded. “Same script we all agreed on?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “We’re really concerned that some members of the media may have misunderstood our previous briefing that the reception at Andrews was for President Harris, when in fact we’re simply saying thank you to the flight crew for their rapid response. The President was not on board because President Cavanaugh determined that it would be inappropriate, yada, yada, yada.”

“Will it wash?” Rollins asked, already shaking his head.

“That’s a rhetorical question, right?” Beecher replied. “At least it’ll be on the record.”

National Security Advisor Michael Goldboro had come in quietly.

“Jack,” he said, getting Rollins’s nodded acknowledgment. “Campbell apparently had a plan B on the shelf. His people have snagged an Italian justice from the Court of Cassation, their equivalent of a supreme court for criminal matters. The judge is at home, and they’re trying to convince him to issue an order which would essentially require the police to forcibly enter the flight-line ramp at Sigonella and arrest Harris.”

“How?” Rollins asked. “I mean, that affects a treaty right.”

Goldboro shook his head. “The Foreign Ministry’s been fudging that interpretation for us. They know, and the judges know, that the lease on that base – more accurately called the Status of Forces Agreement – does not preclude Italian jurisdiction. The flight-line thing is a red herring. If that order is issued, the police, or the army in Sicily, can blow past the Navy guards in an instant, and we can’t, and shouldn’t, try to stop them.”

“In other words, the judiciary may take over the issue.”

“That’s right. The second an order is issued, the Foreign Ministry is out of it.”

“Does Harris know?”

Goldboro glanced at Diane Beecher, who was already on her feet. “Well, that’s all for me, fellows,” she said, exiting Rollins’s office before any more could be said that she would not officially want to know.

“Michael?” Rollins prompted when she was gone.

“That’s what we need to talk about, Jack. Is it our responsibility to tell President Harris he needs to get the hell out of there if he can? Or does that constitute the very interference that President Cavanaugh agreed we have to avoid?”

“And your recommendation, of course, would be silence?”

“You know how I feel, Jack,” Goldboro said quietly.