Medusa's Child

TWENTY-SIX

With an eagle eye on his fuel consumption and the amount of fuel remaining, the command pilot of one of the last operational SR-71's in the world shifted his head inside his fully helmeted pressure suit and began a left one-hundred-eighty-degree turn back to the north to stay within the radio search area. He'd already briefed his backseat companion, another pilot sitting several feet to the rear in his own cockpit. It was always difficult to read all the instruments and gain a sufficient view of the outside world through the visor of his helmet and the small cockpit windows of the Blackbird, but he was a veteran SR-71 pilot and ignoring the discomforts of what was essentially a space suit was almost second nature.

A small flash of pride mixed with anger fluttered across his mind at the stupidity of parking all but two of the Lockheed SR-71's, still the world's fastest operational aircraft. There was another reconnaissance plane, a super-secret hypersonic craft being tested in Nevada. Those few who had seen its unique smoke trail on late-evening or early-morning test flights had dubbed it "Donuts-on-a-rope." But the design had severe problems, and when the United States needed better reconnaissance than satellites could provide, once again they dusted off the Blackbird— and called him back to the saddle.

This emergency, however, was unique.

More than thirty thousand feet below, the outer reaches of Hurricane Sigrid churned away with wind speeds above a hundred and sixty knots, but the Blackbird's ride was smooth and stable as the craft slid through the rarified atmosphere at more than three times the speed of sound.

"Nothing on 343.0, Jim," the space-suited backseater said in the interphone.

"Okay. You're trying VHF guard now?"

"Roger."

The pilot moved his head slightly inside the helmet of the pressure suit, trying to loosen his neck muscles, which were tense and hurting. He checked his clock again. The detonation time he'd been given was drawing uncomfortably close, although they could traverse the two hundred miles back to the East Coast in ten minutes if there was no contact or no success after they relayed the message.

He could hear the backseater calling repeatedly.

The Boeing 727 was somewhere below, but either not hearing or not answering.

"I'll fly two more minutes north, then reverse south," the pilot told the backseater.

Again he checked the SR-71's clock. Air Force One and the Pentagon were waiting to hear from them on a satellite channel. He could try for perhaps fifteen minutes more, then a dash westbound was mandatory. They would barely have enough fuel to rendezvous with the tanker at that.

"Got something!" he heard the backseater say.

The pilot boosted the volume on the VHF and waited as the backseater called again. For a few moments there was nothing. Then there was the sound of a microphone being keyed, and again silence.

Once more the backseater called, and this time a voice came back almost instantly.

"Go ahead, over."

Adrenaline propelled by excitement and apprehension filled his veins as his unseen partner in the rear compartment of the SR-71 spoke into his helmet microphone.

"ScotAir Fifty, is that you? This is Condor Ten, calling with an urgent message."

The voice returned.

"Ah, you're calling ScotAir Fifty?"

"Yes. Is that you, ScotAir?"

Another hesitation.

"No, this is the USS Eisenhower. We're calling ScotAir Fifty on guard as well, Condor Ten. Sorry about that."

The pilot sighed and shook his head in disappointment as the radio calls resumed. He poised a finger over the satcom connection, and then drew back. A few more minutes, he decided. He wasn't ready yet to admit defeat.

The pain was visible on Vivian's face, but she said nothing as Linda struggled to brace her hand against the constant turbulence as she guided the scalpel. She completed the incision along the edge of the pacemaker and began sliding it out. The wires were more difficult to disconnect than she had expected, and the bleeding more profuse, though it was controllable. With her hands shaking slightly, she managed to pull one, then the other, of the wires from the small unit, which she placed on Vivian's chest as she carefully put the wire leads back under the flap of skin and pushed the wound back together, securing it with a butterfly bandage directly over the incision.

Finally, with the bleeding controlled and the wound inundated with antiseptic, she put the bandage in place and let Vivian apply pressure to it as Linda helped her get dressed.

And that was it.

Amazing! Linda thought to herself.

"Thank you, Linda. Thank you eternally!" Vivian said.

"Hey." Linda smiled. "It's enlightened self-interest. I don't want that damn bomb going off when we push it out."

For the first time in hours Vivian got to her feet and stood, somewhat shakily at first, looking at the device.

"Go on up to the cockpit, Viv. I'll be right there," Linda told her.

Vivian smiled and nodded as she reached out to the sidewall for support. But after taking a step forward, she turned back. "Linda, please, please don't think me rude, but if you don't mind, I prefer my full name, Vivian, instead of Viv."

"Not rude at all, Vivian. You got it."

Linda dried off the diminutive pacemaker and carefully taped it just inside the hatch of Rogers Henry's Medusa Weapon. They should close the hatch before pushing it out, she decided, so the air blast wouldn't tear the pacemaker away.

"Okay," she said to herself. "That's done." Linda looked at her hands, surprised that they were no longer shaking. She looked at the Medusa screen once more. The time remaining continued to tick down steadily, second by second. She was also aware of her ears clicking as the pressurization in the cabin changed. Vaguely she had been aware of the engine power coming back as well.

Was this all Rogers Henry had planned? she wondered. Just a straight uneventful countdown and an historic detonation? No more tactics to terrorize his wife? He would certainly have expected an attempt by the military to defuse his weapon, but that hadn't come. No one had tried to cut into the bomb casing or heated up any part of it with a torch. Would Henry's demented thinking have caused him to believe Vivian could really have succeeded in delivering the device to the Pentagon, where she would be blown up along with it? Would he have concluded that the military could just abandon the Pentagon and Washington, D.C., and let it explode?

The answer to those questions, she knew with growing certainty, had to be yes.

Now she wondered if there was some other last-minute terror campaign waiting to be triggered by the clock as it counted backward toward zero.

Linda stepped away from the device as if it had come alive, trying to fight the feeling that it somehow knew what she was thinking.

Suddenly she couldn't get back to the cockpit fast enough.

The relief was palpable on the faces of the three men in the cockpit as Vivian Henry walked in unsteadily, sat down in the observer's seat, and reached for her seat belt as the 727 bounced its way through the turbulent fringes of the hurricane.

"Vivian! Thank Heaven you're back," Doc said.

"Amen," Jerry added.

"You okay, Vivian?" Scott asked.

She nodded and Scott continued, "We've got to finish getting this figured out."

She waved them on.

"Where's Linda?" Scott asked.

"Finishing with the first-aid kit," Vivian said. "She'll be back in a moment."

"Leveling at ten thousand, Scott," Doc reported. "Jerry, how's the cabin pressure?"

"Almost there. The cabin's at nine thousand eight hundred. We'll be depressurized by the time we can get back there."

"You'll open the outflow valve then?" Doc asked.

Jerry nodded. "No residual cabin pressure means no explosive force when we crack it open."

Doc leaned over the radar and adjusted the signal "Lots of red areas ahead, Scott. We'll need to keep picking our way through the heaviest thunderstorm cells." He looked over at Scott. "You ready to take over?"

Scott shook his head no.

"Doc, I've been flying this airplane less than a year, and I never flew large transport category aircraft before this. You've been flying 727's and transport aircraft for all your career. How long for the 727, fifteen years?"

"Yeah, at least," Doc agreed.

"Okay, so doesn't it make more sense to keep you on the controls? Especially if we're going to potentially affect the flying characteristics of the bird or try to knock the tail off?"

"Makes sense to me," Jerry chimed in.

Doc looked at Scott with a raised eyebrow.

"I still need a tail to fly, Scott, but the rest makes sense."

Scott nodded. "Okay. Decided. You fly. Now, as to the door opening, our best guess is slow her to two hundred twenty knots, clean, no flaps. We're all in agreement?"

"We're agreed," Doc said.

"Yes," Jerry said. "That way, the airstream is dynamic enough to take it off the hinges, but it's likely with that steep deck angle the door could just flip safely past the tail. At least, that's what I'm hoping."

"It's a bloody guess, any way we cut it," Doc added, "but that sounds very logical to me."

The 727 impacted a small pocket of hail, which caused all of them to jerk their heads forward. But as quickly as the jackhammer sounds began, they ended.

Scott looked at his watch, then at the copilot and flight engineer.

"Ready?"

Jerry nodded as he pushed the engineer's seat out of the way and opened the cockpit door, startling Linda, who had just reached for the doorknob to come in.

"Better strap in, Linda. We're going to blow the door."

She moved past him and let Scott slide by as Doc disconnected the autopilot and pulled the throttles back to slow the aircraft. He looked back at the door as Scott moved through it, holding the door frame for support.

"Scott!" Doc yelled after him. "Wait a second!"

Scott stuck his head back in the cockpit. "Yeah?"

"Jerry can do it alone. We shouldn't imperil both of you. It may be macho, but it's not smart."

Scott looked at him for a few seconds before nodding. "You're right, Doc. I'll tell Jerry."

He disappeared into the cargo cabin and returned within seconds.

"I fold Jerry we'd tell him on the PA when we're at the right airspeed." He turned to Linda and nodded approval as she maneuvered into the second observer's seat and began fastening the seat belt.

Scott fastened his seat belt and shot a worried glance at Doc, who was inching the throttles forward and holding altitude. The deck angle of the 727 was above eight degrees nose-up.

"Right there, Scott. I think we're ready."

"I'll tell him." Scott grabbed the microphone and toggled the PA switch.

He looked back at the engineer's panel, verifying that the cabin pressure differential was zero. They had almost become used to the constant moderate turbulence. The bouncing and lurching of the 727 never abated.

"Okay, Jerry, we're completely depressurized. Go ahead."

And God be with us, please! Scott thought to himself.

He glanced at Doc.

"Ready?"

Doc nodded, adjusting his grip on the control yoke.

Fifteen feet behind them on the other side of the cockpit bulkhead, Jerry checked the heavy strap around his middle, braced himself, and moved the toggle switch to the open position.

The pilot of Condor 10 was momentarily confused by the voice of the President of the United States on the other end of his satellite channel.

"Condor Ten, can you hear me?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Have you been able to raise him?"

There was a short delay as the signals bounced back and forth between earth stations and geosynchronous satellites twenty-three thousand miles above the Equator, connecting the Starsuite aboard Air Force One moving at five hundred miles per hour with the cockpit of the SR-71 moving at over two thousand miles per hour.

"No, Mr. President, I'm sorry to report we can't raise him on any frequency. He has to be down there, but we've tried everything we know, UHF and VHF guard frequencies, and there's no response."

"Lord in Heaven."

"What was that, sir?"

"A form of prayer, my friend. I'm afraid we're all going to need all the divine intervention we can muster in the next twenty minutes. What's your name, Condor Ten?"

"Jim Davidson, sir."

"Well, Jim, thank you for trying your best. You'd better get the hell out of there."

"Sir…"

"Yes?"

"We've got a few more minutes. We're going to keep trying. We're going to broadcast in the blind the instructions on entering that shutdown code."

"Your choice, but set yourself a realistic bingo time and depart on the button. Don't let yourself be caught out there if that thing goes off on schedule."

"It's that bad, then?"

"You probably haven't been fully briefed, but it's the electromagnetic pulse from hell. That's what we're facing.

By the way, can you fly that Blackbird without computers?"

"Yes, sir. I'd rather not, but I can."

The President terminated the connection and pointed to another line.

"Is this Moscow?" he asked.

"That's him," the Secretary of State confirmed.

The President punched the line on, then held his hand over the receiver. "The British Prime Minister is next, and I know he's a good friend of yours, so I'll want you on, too."

The President put the phone to his ear.

"Mr. President? Sorry to bother you at this hour, but we have a serious situation we need to tell you about in detail."