Lockout

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Aboard Pangia 10 (0440 Zulu)

After almost a half hour of pulling relay cubes and trying unsuccessfully to find the key to restoring the flight controls, Dan had scrambled back out of the electronics bay to find Josh Begich still sitting in the copilot’s seat, out of ideas, and looking to anyone for hope. The glow of impending daylight was illuminating the cockpit, but they were in a solid cloud deck.

“Josh, let me sit there for a few minutes,” Dan said, prompting a flurry of activity as the teen quickly motored the seat back on its rails and jumped out.

Dan sat down sideways, facing Jerry. Carol, Bill Breem, and Tom Wilson had also remained in the cockpit. There was no question this was the final briefing before the battle, and two of the other flight attendants were standing in the door as Moishe Lavi came up behind them, listening. Carol considered asking him to return to his seat, but the gesture seemed futile, and she said nothing.

“What’s our status, Dan?” Jerry asked, his voice betraying the disappointment he knew the copilot was bringing.

“Our status is this. We’ve yanked damn near everything I can find to pull, with the exception of the relay that nearly turned us over, and we powered up a few things, but nothing on the flight controls. There is a bank of relays back there in the lower rear of the cabinet I just can’t reach. Just no friggin’ way to get to them, even if I didn’t mind being electrocuted.”

“Dan,” Jerry said, stopping him. “We’re over the Iranian border in sixteen minutes. Do we have any options?”

Dan sighed and nodded, parsing his words.

“Okay, option one is to pull that same relay that nearly turned us over and buy a 360 turn, or two, or three. By the third one we’ll probably flame out the first engine, and God only knows what the airplane will do then. But at least we’d crash in Iraq instead of Iran.”

“Is there a second option?”

“Yes. That’s what I was getting to. It’s pure desperation, Jerry, but Frank and I have identified the main power lead to that hellish box, and although we can’t find a way to disconnect it in civil fashion, we have a crash axe and I can cut the damned thing.”

“And it would let go of us?”

“Yes. But we have no idea whether the relays would return to normal position and repower our controls, or if we’d be sitting in a dead cockpit with an unpowered airplane we couldn’t control.”

“Those fighters are armed, Dan,” Jerry said quietly.

“I know it. I would never expect an Israeli fighter to not be armed. What’s your point?”

“They could hold off Iranian fighters, maybe, but all it would take is a lucky shot by an oncoming Iranian jet or a ground surface-to-air missile and we’re Malaysia 17.”

Dan sighed again, shaking his head. “We’re going to flame out just over the border in any event, if my calculations are right.”

“We got all the displays back, including fuel quantity. I have to agree.”

“What do we have, Jerry?”

“Sixteen minutes, and we’re as slow as I dare go without flight controls.”

“Okay. So, here’s the deal. Frank and I will keep trying individual relays until we’re five minutes out. At that point, on your order, I’ll cut the power lead with an axe, and we’ll just have to pray a lot.”

“If that’s all we’ve got…”

“That’s all I can see. Whoever built this infernal thing did a really professional job. They may not have been planning for someone to disable it, but they effectively created the same result. I wish I could know for sure who turned the damned thing on!”

Only Carol noticed the former prime minister of Israel turning back to the cabin.

First class cabin, Pangia 10

Carefully maintaining a virtually unreadable expression, Moishe Lavi sat down and opened the laptop Ashira had returned, bringing up the document he had been working on hours before. He made a few corrections and additions, pulled in a copy of his signature, and plugged a small interface cable in between his handheld satellite phone and the computer. With the crew regaining the use of their radios, he doubted anyone would notice the sat phone, but he took care to keep it out of view nonetheless, nudging it up against the window for a better lock-on obscured by a small blanket.

At long last the connection flashed green, and he entered the appropriate keystrokes to send the carefully parsed message to the inbox of a journalist he had always trusted. There would be no doubt that within hours, if not minutes, the whole world would be reading his words, and hopefully understand, even if they did not approve.

Moishe Lavi shut down the computer and sat back, resigned to whatever the next twenty minutes would bring.