Nightwatch

Chapter 59

Trent Warner had been in the forward entry area, at the base of the stairway leading to the flight deck, when Nightwatch unexpectedly fell from the sky and began its harrowing, out-of-control spiral dive into oblivion. He found himself violently flung forward, and a tenuous hold on a secured food-service cart kept him from being thrown to the deck like the others in his party.

During the terrifying free fall that followed, his entire life seemed to pass before his horrified eyes: those exciting days of his early Navy career, his first submarine ride while only a midshipman, his initial meeting with the legendary Hyman Rickover.

Then to have sacrificed the best years of his life helping to win the Cold War, only to die with his lifework so close to fruition, was the ultimate tragedy.

Yet, as if he were a condemned man with a last-minute pardon, destiny had another fate in store for him, which came to pass when Nightwatch miraculously pulled out of its dive and achieved level flight. Warner ignored the spilled food that stained his flight suit; and, ever thankful to still be alive, he made his way back to Operations to assess the damages.

He found it in shambles. Overturned equipment and fallen personnel lay scattered everywhere, with the compartment itself lit eerily in the dim red emergency lighting.

The first priority had been to attend to the many injured. A makeshift triage was set up in the aft technical control area. The majority of injuries were cuts and bruises, with several fractures and four concussions, the most severe of which had knocked out their wire operator. Yet there were no fatalities so far, an astounding fact considering the severe damages they had incurred.

Once the wounded were tended to, it was time to get on with the task of assessing these damages. The Chairman then called a meeting in the conference room, and the first person to report in was Colonel Pritchard.

The balding Op team leader refused to sit down, preferring instead to deliver his brief standing, with several ceiling panels conspicuously absent above him. After revealing that over half of his team had been injured in some manner, he made it a point to complain that his every effort at contacting the flight deck had been unsuccessful.

“I’m beginning to think it’s a communications glitch,” he added, a certain nervousness in his voice.

“And when I sent Maintenance to check it out, they found the fire door sealed shut at the top of the stairway.”

“Colonel Pritchard,” interrupted the Chairman after briefly meeting his SIOP advisor’s steady glance, “I realize the great concern that you have for your staff, and I’m sure the flight crew will contact us in time. But right now, I desperately need a comprehensive list of all the damages done to our communications systems. Do I still have a workable command post, or must I transfer my responsibilities to the NMCC?”

Pritchard seemed a bit embarrassed as he answered the Chairman.

“I’m sorry, sir. For the moment, the only system that’s completely inoperable is our high-frequency radio. I’ve got Sergeant Schuster doing a complete diagnostic on the state of our other equipment, but as long as we can stay in the air, the damages suffered shouldn’t prevent you from carrying out your duties.”

“Captain Richardson,” said the Chairman to the seated FEMA representative, “does the loss of HF capability affect your monitoring of the central locator system?”

“It shouldn’t, sir,” answered the crew-cut Air Force officer.

“I’ve been routing my priority comms through Milstar. In fact, the latest transmission arrived barely five minutes ago, and indicated that Vice President Chapman’s whereabouts continue to be unknown.”

The Chairman looked genuinely upset with this news, and he made it a point to scan the faces of all those present while voicing himself.

“It appears that Andrew Chapman might very well have met the same unfortunate fate as our President. What does the locator say about the next in line. Captain?”

“Sir,” said Richardson, “the plane carrying the Speaker of the House has safely landed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where he’ll be standing by to assume the Presidency should Vice President Chapman be unable to do so.”

This was the vital news that the Chairman had been waiting for, and he abruptly cut short the briefing, and called aside his SIOP advisor.

“Major, I find it a bit disturbing that Richardson had nothing to say about any FEMA reports of a nuclear accident in southern Missouri.”

“Perhaps the news hasn’t reached them as yet,” offered Hewlett.

The Chairman grunted.

“Or just maybe Yankee Hotel was never fully implemented. Either way, we must continue on, ever ready to meet every possible contingency.”

“How do you want to deal with that bunch up on the flight deck?” Hewlett questioned.

“It’s only too apparent that Pritchard hasn’t figured it out yet, and with them sequestered up there, the possibilities are good that it will remain that way.”

The Chairman responded in a bare whisper.

“And that’s the way I want to keep it. From what I understand, short of using an explosive device, the maintenance crew will never be able to budge that fire door from this side of the forward entry area.

Major Foard and his cohorts will surely keep it sealed until we’re on the ground, and that’s when we must strike, to wipe out the entire lot of them before they share their suspicions with the others.”

“I’ve got it!” proclaimed Owen Lassiter, who tightly grasped one of the dozens of FAA landing-facility charts he had been anxiously sorting through.

“How does a halogen-lit, fifteen-thousand foot-long, three-hundred-foot-wide, reinforced concrete runway, with a thousand-foot soft-soil concrete overrun sound?”

From the adjoining upper-deck rest area, Brittany and Red couldn’t help but overhear Lassiter’s promising news, and they poked their heads into the cockpit just as Coach was in the process of replying.

“Owen, if we’re going to have any chance of getting this baby safely on terra firma, that’s just the kind of facility we’ll need.

So where in the hell is this dream of a runway?”

“It’s the Shuttle Landing Facility at Cape Canaveral,” Lassiter excitedly replied.

“And at our current speed, we can be there in just under two hours.”