Medusa's Child

THIRTY-ONE

The captain of the USS Eisenhower entered the Combat Decision Center at flank speed, moving with familiar ease through the multiple rows of computer displays, blinking lights, and electronic wizardry. The act of tossing his gold-braided cap on one of the consoles was a gamble, since his eyes hadn't adjusted to the low light level, but the hat slid to a perfect halt in front of the Tactical Action Officer— TAO—before anyone could announce the captain was on deck. He put a beefy right hand on the shoulder of the ship's TAO and gestured toward one of the radarscopes.

"Show me his current position and where you think he dumped the damned bomb."

The TAO nodded and pointed out the two coordinates, as well as the radar targets now moving south toward the position of the carrier. "The Boeing and the Air Force F-15's are right here, about seventy miles north. The bomb site is approximately one hundred forty miles north. The ship will be on a downwind heading in three minutes, sir. Over the deck wind speed can be stabilized at about forty knots. We'll have two helos turning up top in five minutes."

The TAO studied the captain's face for a few seconds. "Are they still expecting a detonation?"

The captain shrugged. "Nobody really knows. Personally, I suspect the damn thing was a hoax. We've never been briefed on anything like a Medusa Weapon, and I don't buy the idea that a single nutty scientist could build such a thing at home."

"But the official word is it's real?"

The captain nodded. "The Pentagon is convinced it's a live nuke. At least if it does detonate, it should be a thousand feet or more underwater by now, and that should shield the continent, in case this Medusa Wave threat turns out to be valid. But if I'm wrong, we're going to find out how well we've hardened these ships against electromagnetic pulses."

There was silence between the two of them for a few seconds before the TAO cleared his throat and spoke again.

"I understand you know the pilot of that aircraft, sir?"

The Navy captain chuckled. "Mr. McKay?" He nodded. "Good kid, good officer, even for a pilot—and a dangerous handball player. That's how I knew him. Normally I don't get to know the Tomcat jocks. But he was the only character on the ship I could never seem to beat."

The TAO smiled as the captain reached for his hat at the precise second a strange power fluctuation pulsed through the CDC, momentarily dimming the already subdued lights. It was a flicker at first, followed by the sound of cooling fans slowing down.

"What's that?" the TAO asked in alarm.

The captain looked around quickly as wild bursts of visual static exploded across various radar screens and computer displays and the projected wall map dissolved momentarily into shards of random images.

"Oh shit," the captain muttered.

"What?"

The TAO's eyes were darting back and forth, his mind rebelling at the sights and sounds of electronics gone berserk.

"Oh shit," he repeated.

It was real, after all!

The high-pitched squeal of tortured electrons could be heard all too clearly through the overhead speakers in the cockpit as Doc and Scott looked at each other in instant alarm, chills running up and down their backs.

There was an odd flash of light outside that could have been lightning, followed by a brief intense flare on the radarscope before it went dark. As Scott looked, the global positioning satellite display also flared and died.

Doc noticed his digital watch was blank at the same moment the remaining two electrical generators tripped off-line, leaving them with only battery power.

"Loss of all generators," Scott announced. "Keep flying her, Doc. I'll get Jerry's panel."

Scott threw off his seat belt and squeezed between Linda and the center console in a fluid leap to the engineer's position.

Jerry had opened his eyes and was trying to make sense of things from the floor as Scott tackled the number two generator and tried to get it back on-line.

"Battery power's failing, too, Scott. It's fluctuating all over the place!" Doc yelled.

"Hang on," Scott replied.

A series of weird light pulses in the battery-powered emergency lights caused an unreal flickering in the cockpit as Scott activated the appropriate switch and restored one of the two engine-driven electrical generators.

Light flooded the forward panel.

"I've got number two back," he announced.

His fingers labored to bring the number three generator to life and parallel it with number two in powering the airplane.

It refused to connect.

The thought that something else might be closing on them from behind gripped his middle, and he tried to suppress it.

The Medusa Weapon was thermonuclear. If it had caused this, was there a shock wave, too? Was there a wave of radioactivity?

The field switch for the number three generator finally closed, and Scott made the appropriate adjustments before closing the remaining two switches to repower all the circuits.

"It's holding, Doc," he said.

Scott returned to his seat as Doc assessed the situation. "Radar's out, autopilot's out, radios are probably out, but I haven't tried them."

Scott looked over at the two F-15's, still off their left wing. He could see both pilots working, heads down, in their cockpits. Scott checked that the UHF radio was still selected to his microphone.

"Wolf flight, you fellows still hear us? Did you experience any electronic problems just then?"

The helmet of the lead pilot came up, and he saw him look over before replying.

"Affirmative, ScotAir." Static almost blocked his voice, then diminished. "Jesus Christ, I think your bomb just went off. I've lost my computer over here."

"Scott…" Doc began, his eyes examining the instrument panel in front of him.

"Yeah?" Scott jerked his head to the right and followed Doc's finger to the center panel.

"This isn't tracking right. The computer's feeding it garbage."

Scott checked the navigational computer on the center console, as well as the inertial reference systems. They were both spitting out endless streams of useless numbers in their displays.

"Don't try to connect the autopilot to the computer," Scott said sternly.

"No problem," Doc replied. "The autopilot isn't working, either."

"Keep on steering one-eight-zero until we get the Eisenhower back on-line. At least we've got basic flight instruments, airspeed, attitude, and altimeter."

They both stared into space for a few seconds, feeling stunned.

"My God," Scott said quietly. "It was real all along. All this time we were carrying a real hydrogen bomb just fifty feet behind us."

Doc was shaking his head slowly. "I didn't really believe it, either." He looked over at Scott with an ashen expression. "You gonna call them?"

Scott jerked his head in Doc's direction, thoroughly distracted.

"What?"

"The ship. You gonna call the ship?"

"Oh. Yeah." Scott checked the UHF frequency again and held the microphone just short of his mouth as he glanced up at Doc. He raised the microphone and punched the button to call the Eisenhower.

There was no reply.

He tried again.

Same result.

Scott dialed the emergency frequency into one of the standard aviation radios, but it was completely dead.

"Doc, the VHF's aren't even working."

"But the UHF is?"

"Yeah. Why is that?"

"Isn't that UHF Air Force surplus?"

Scott nodded. "You're right. I'd forgotten that. It's probably shielded."

"I doubt anything else in here with an electronic board is working, including the flight computers and navigation radios."

"How can we find that ship without navigation?" Scott asked Doc.

"I don't know. It's a big ocean. Radar's out, too, or we could probably spot them on the surface."

"Scott, why don't we ask our shadows out there for help?"

Scott nodded and mashed the transmit button.

"Wolf lead, our radar's out. Is yours still working?"

"Not yet, ScotAir. We're working on it."

"Are you in contact with your command?" Scott asked.

"Not now," was the reply.

"We were wondering if you could help us locate the Eisenhower if we can't talk to them anymore?"

Scott heard the microphone trigger in the F-15 and could hear the lead pilot take a breath before speaking. "I was thinking of asking you the same question regarding our tanker."

How on earth could we help him with that? Scott wondered.

"That was a lame joke, ScotAir," the F-15 lead added quickly. "We're going to be in rather critical need of finding an airborne gas station in about thirty minutes."

Slowly, the glowing displays in the electronic nerve center of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier came back on-line.

"Status, Chief?" the captain asked.

"Coming back to normal, sir, on most equipment. We've got a couple of antennas not responding up top and one radar out. But satellite links are back. Flash traffic indicates an orbital confirmation of the explosion."

"Mr. Wilson?" the captain addressed one of the watch officers.

"Sir?"

"Time to tell our commanders. Flash CINCNAV our status and any damages. Preparing to assist in recovery of crew of the civilian airliner… provided they're still out there." He turned back to the chief of the watch.

"Are the radios back up, Chief? Can we talk to the aircraft?"

"Yes, sir." He gestured to one of the consoles, and the captain picked up the microphone and looked at the chief of the watch. "That was ScotAir Fifty, right?"

"Yes, sir."

He punched the mike button. "ScotAir Fifty, this is the Eisenhower. How copy?"

The voice of Scott McKay responded almost immediately.

"Loud and clear, Eisenhower, thank goodness."

"Commander McKay? This is the skipper."

"Hello, Captain. Thanks for helping us out."

"Your little package apparently blew up, Scott. Any effects up there?"

Scott quickly summarized the strange anomalies.

"Okay," the Eisenhower's, captain continued, "I'm going to pass you over to the airboss in a moment. He'll get you vectored in and coordinate with you how we're going to handle this. We've got to keep the ship downwind while you're ditching so we can get the helos off the deck. We're almost at maximum permissible wind speed for launch."

"Understood, sir."

"Good luck."

The captain replaced the handset and looked at the officer who had just joined them, the commander of the F-14 squadron.

"Well, Bill, what do you make of his chances?"

The Navy commander looked at his feet for a few seconds before engaging the captain's eyes.

"Tigger's a good pilot, sir, but it'll be a miracle if we get even one of those people out of there alive. We're running thirty-foot crests out there."

"Prospects of landing intact are that bad?"

"If they don't break up on impact, I'll be astounded.

He'd have to land on the crest of a wave so precisely it would be unprecedented, and even then with a cargo door open, he'll sink like a rock."

"You're saying it's hopeless?"

The commander shook his head no.

"Not hopeless, but close to it. Their chances of surviving are very remote."

For more than two minutes the satellite links were transmitting gibberish instead of the highly scrambled and secure data stream that normally connected the President's airborne teleconferencing suite to its counterpart Star-suites in the Situation Room and Pentagon. Slowly, however—coaxed by a team of technicians digitally massaging the satellite transponders back into linked operation— connections were reestablished.

In the Pentagon's Starsuite the President's image finally coalesced into a wide-eyed and obviously upset Commander in Chief waiting on the other side of the airborne table.

"Okay, what's your status there?" the President asked. "I've received confirmation that we've had a detonation."

General Kinney stepped closer to his side of the conference table and briefed the President on the growing evidence that the explosion had caused some very strange effects.

"I need the bottom line, General. Are all our command and control networks and systems still operational?" the President said.

"Yes, sir."

"So no apparent damage to military channels, right?"

"We have no idea how much dropped off-line, sir. All sorts of connections were affected, including this one. But we're operational worldwide."

The President nodded. "Okay."

"And everything seems to be coming back on-line. We have no assessment of civilian impact. Frankly, we're having a lot of trouble getting through the civilian communications lines, and that's worrisome."

The President sat down and studied the general for a second.

"This thing was under thousands of feet of seawater, General. How could it have boggled our hardened communications links?"

The general raised both hands, palms up. "I don't know, Mr. President. It's too soon to tell. But I'll bet we're going to find this was no ordinary nuclear event. And if it was the Medusa Wave, all the evidence of how it was built just vaporized."

The President frowned. "And if you'd succeeded in tinkering with it at Seymour-Johnson, Goldsboro right now would be another Hiroshima, with all the attendant horrors."

The general chose not to reply.

"What's the status of those people on the 727?"

The general filled him in on the impending ditching alongside the Eisenhower.

"The Eisenhower was inbound to Norfolk and trying to skirt the south side of the hurricane. He's the only one close enough for a rescue."

"And the two F-15's didn't get there in time to deliver the code, right?"

"No, sir. They found the Boeing just as the bomb was being jettisoned."

The general knew much more, but details on the near miss and the dangling passenger could wait for later briefings.

The President studied some papers on the table before looking up again.

"I want you to notify me immediately when you have word on the ditching and rescue. Tell the captain of the Eisenhower from me personally to spare no effort to save those people."

"Yes, sir. I know, for one, the FBI is still dying to get their hands on the scientist's wife."

The President looked stunned and came forward in his chair. "Still? I thought that was a moot point."

"No, sir. Her husband may have built it, but she's still the shipper who put a thermonuclear weapon on board a civilian airliner and intended to take it to the Pentagon. I'd say she's about number one on the FBI's most wanted list at this moment."

Trying not to move him any more than necessary, Vivian Henry worked as rapidly as she could to put a life vest around Jerry Christian as he lay on the floor. With Doc flying and Scott rifling through the flight manuals for last-minute tips on ditching a Boeing 727, Linda, still shaking with trauma, began pulling the small orange life vest packages from behind each seat and unsealing them. Fumbling with the straps, she slowly helped each of them put on their inflatable vests.

"Okay, we need all of us concentrating on this plan," Scott said, motioning Vivian and Linda forward. Doc glanced over. "Go ahead, Scott. I'm listening."

"Our problem," Scott began, "is going to be getting out in time and trying to stay together until they can get all of us in the helicopters. If this was a calm, smooth surface ahead, I'd say our biggest worry would be scooping up too much water through the cargo door and sinking. But we've got huge waves down there, and my strategy is going to be to land crosswind along the top of one of the crests and parallel to it. If I succeed, the tail will dig in first, then the wings, as the wave subsides beneath us. Whether we come to a halt straight-ahead and intact or get spun around and break up is pure guesswork. We've all got to be firmly strapped in, and we need to make sure we've secured Jerry's strap down there."

Linda cleared her throat. "Ah… there's a chance, I take it, that we could be knocked out, right?"

Scott nodded. "I'll be brutally honest with you, Linda. There's a chance we'll all be knocked unconscious for too long to recover. If only one or two of us are still conscious and able to react when we stop, whoever's conscious will have only a few seconds to pull the rest of us out of the seat belts, pull the inflation lanyards, and try to kick us toward the door."

"Scott, we've got safety cords on each of these vests," Doc added. "Shouldn't we tie all of us together right now?"

Scott thought back to his water survival training and shrugged. "That's probably a good idea, as long as we don't get tangled up trying to get out of the cockpit."

"What about Jerry?" Vivian asked.

Scott sighed loudly. Jerry was worrying him deeply. The odds of getting the injured and anesthetized flight engineer out the door and into a rescue basket without massive additional damage to his crushed legs and pelvis were grim.

But it wasn't something he could say aloud.

"Well," Scott began, "we'll just have to nurse him out and get him in the baskets first."

"Baskets?" Linda asked.

"Billy Pugh nets, or whatever they have waiting for us." He described some of the types of water rescue devices the Navy used. "If it's the one I expect, just roll yourself into it and go limp. The helo crew will do the rest."

Linda was looking through the door toward the back of the cargo cabin, and Scott followed her gaze to the small mound of Antarctic research materials they had labored so hard to relocate and tie down at the back of the aircraft.

"I'm sorry about your equipment and research, Linda," he said gently. "I wish there was another way."

"It's okay."

"Can you recover? Professionally, I mean?" he asked.

She nodded. "But first I've got to survive this swim, don't I?"

Vivian leaned forward. "Scott?" she said. "What is this going to feel like when we hit the water? Honestly."

He shrugged. "I'm guessing. I've never ditched a plane. But we'll get the flaps out and gear down and go as slowly as we can, and if I do it right and we're lucky, it'll be like a very hard landing, with a waterfall coming through the door immediately afterward. The winds are sixty knots, but I can't land directly into the wind, so I'm estimating that we'll have the equivalent of a forty-knot headwind, and if I can slow us to a hundred knots, that'll mean we'll touch down at sixty knots, or about seventy miles per hour. That's survivable."

Doc looked over. "You say you want to go in with gear down?"

Scott nodded. "I know what the book says, Doc, but with the gear digging in, we'll slow faster before we actually get the fuselage in the water."

"Could cause us to cartwheel, too."

"It could." Scott nodded. "But it makes more sense to me. You disagree?"

"Never ditched one," Doc said. "Neither has Boeing. I think we're all guessing."

"There are no life rafts, you said?" Vivian asked.

Scott nodded and sighed. "I… didn't expect any overwater flights when we started this company. Life rafts are expensive and quite heavy…" His voice trailed off in embarrassment.

"The FAA doesn't require them, Vivian, even for crew members," Doc added, "unless you're doing extended overwater flying, which we weren't planning on doing."

"Until I came along," Vivian added with a grim expression.

Doc turned toward her quickly. "I didn't mean it that way, Vivian. You're as much a victim in this as we are."

Linda reached out a hand and took Vivian's. "That's the truth, Vivian. We all heard it back there."

"We did, and we all feel the same, Vivian," Scott added. "You shouldn't feel guilty."

Vivian nodded, her eyes fixed on Jerry, who had lapsed back into an anesthetized sleep.

There was silence among them for a few seconds before Scott spoke again.

"Okay, if the plane begins to sink, swim out of this cockpit and toward the cargo door. Even if it's below the waves, you've got a good chance of getting clear and getting to the surface. Don't give up! That's the main thing."

"The water down there," Doc added, "may be influenced by the Gulf Stream, and if so, it may be in the sixty to seventy-degree range, in terms of temperature, and reasonably, well, warm. But it won't feel warm. It will be one hell of a shock to your system, but at least, thank God, it's not the North Atlantic."

The voice of the controller aboard the Eisenhower cut into their thoughts.

"ScotAir Fifty, descend now to one thousand feet, come left, heading one-four-zero. We're going to bring you below the prevailing ceiling, which is three thousand six hundred, and alongside the ship. Call the ship when we're in sight."

"How far, Eisenhower?"

"Twenty-one miles. When you call the ship in sight, we'll transfer you to the airboss for a briefing on what we've worked out for the splashdown zone."

"Roger, Eisenhower."

From the depths of the hangar bays below, the forward elevator had raised two SH-60F Seahawk helicopters to the flight deck. With the ship now steaming at greater than thirty knots and the wind coming from the stern, the wind speed over the flight deck was down to forty knots—with occasional gusts to forty-five.

A small cadre of deck crew spotted and prepped the helos and adjusted the chocks and chains as the pilots and aircrewmen strapped in. With a final signal from the airboss, both crews started their engines and began bringing their rotors up to speed as the ship pitched and rolled through the gigantic waves kicked up by Hurricane Sigrid.

On the bridge, several senior officers were huddled with the skipper over a large piece of paper containing a diagram of the ship.

"We need to keep sailing downwind, but if we have him aim to touch down just ahead of us, moving from our left to our right—like this—along the wave crests, with any luck he'll come to rest no more than a thousand yards off our starboard side."

"So," the captain repeated, "he'll be about forty-five degrees into the wind?"

"We're steering zero-one-zero degrees right now. The wind is directly behind us, coming from one-nine-zero degrees. The prevailing wave crests and troughs are running roughly west-northwest to east-southeast. So if he makes his final approach on a heading of, say, one-zero-zero degrees…"

"Roughly east-southeast, in other words?" the captain asked.

"Correct. That will align him with the wave crests and yet put him mostly into the wind. If he keeps us in his right windscreen and uses a touchdown aim point just beyond our bow, that will get him in as close as we dare."

The captain studied the hastily scribbled lines and straightened up.

"Agreed. But make damn sure he understands not to land short. We don't want any risk of the ship running him over in the water. That's a nightmare we don't need."

The officers turned to go as the captain caught one by the shoulder.

"One… more thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"Get the television cameras all rolling and call up the guys from our TV studio. I want every Navy TV camera on board trying to capture this. I can't recall a 727 ever ditching before, and this could prove valuable for safety purposes, however it turns out."

"You want a camera on board the lead helo, sir?"

The captain nodded. "Have them record whatever they can, regardless."

"Aye, sir."

The Officer of the Deck—the OOD—appeared at the captain's side. "Captain?"

"Yeah?"

"Sir, there's a secure call for you from Air Force One."

Doc stabilized the 727 at a thousand feet and worked to adjust the throttles on the two remaining engines as Scott, Linda, and Vivian scanned the dark gray waterscape ahead for signs of the aircraft carrier. With daylight savings time, it was still light, though the setting sun remained hidden by the overcast.

"Scott, can I make a suggestion?" Doc asked, his eyes on the instruments.

"Sure," Scott replied, as he watched the horizon.

"Yeah, well, I'd like for you to fly this landing."

Scott glanced over at the big copilot in surprise. Doc looked agonized.

"Why, Doc?"

"Neither of us has ever ditched. Either of us can do it, but from the left seat it takes you longer to operate the flaps and gear and things. I should be playing my normal copilot role. It's more efficient."

"You've got far more experience…"

"I know I do." Doc cut him off. "I know I've got a hell of a lot of time in these birds, but I'm telling you, we need to work like a normally configured team now. Your place is flying, mine is supporting your aeronautical orders as rapidly as humanly possible."

"Which would you really rather do, Doc?"

Doc looked at him with a scowl. "Dammit, I'd rather fly! You know that. But that's not the best way to handle this."

"Look, Doc…" Scott began.

"No, you look! I appreciate the continuous vote of confidence. I appreciate the fact that you're a careful team player sensitive to utilizing your resources correctly. But listen, dammit. If we have to make some last-second adjustment in here, we're not going to have time for you to search out the right lever. Simple fact is, I'm far faster from the right on flaps and gear and radios and all than you are from the left, and you know I'm right. Okay?"

Scott searched Doc's eyes for any indication that the argument was some sort of subterfuge.

It wasn't.

"Okay, Doc. I'll take over now," Scott said, taking the control yoke.