High flight kirk mcgarve.., p.72
High Flight (Kirk McGarvey 5), page 72
part #4 of Kirk McGarvey Series
Security had installed the Caller-ID system on their phones. She switched
it on. "Mrs. Kennedy, do you wish to speak with your husband?"
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"Yes, yes, please," Chance mumbled. Kennedy came to the office door. "It's your wife," Nancy said.
Kennedy came out of his office and snatched the phone from her. "Chance?
Chance, where are you?"
"David, it's Yamagata. They're planning something, but they're worried that
someone else is . . The phone line went dead. "I'll call the FBI," Nancy said. "I got the number." "No," Kennedy told her. "I'll make the.call."
America's pilot, Pete Reiner, wasn't happy about McGarvey's presence aboard, but when everything was explained to him he accepted it. "Cancel the flight." "Can't," Socrates said.
McGarvey had ridden with the crew up from Gales Creek, and now he watched
from a cockpit window as the ceremonies began in front of a terminal at
Portland International Airport. Security would not be as strict because the
Vice President had canceled at the last minute, sending instead the
assistant director of the Federal Aviation Administration. There were media
everywhere, their remote satellite up-link trucks parked along the apron to
the west, their cameras trained on America and on the grandstand where the
VIPs and a substantial crowd of onlookers had gathered to hear remarks by
the governor and others, including Al Vasilanti. McGarvey was unable to
pick Kennedy out of the crowd, however.
Making sure the flight-deck door was latched, he plugged into the
aircraft's public correspondence communications system and called Yemlin's
Washington number. It was answered on the tenth ring.
"InterTech," Yemlin said, and the connection was immediately broken.
A few minutes after 2:30, Vice President Cross, his wife Sally, his advisers, his secretary, his Secret Service contingent, a White House photographer, and a dozen White House correspondents arrived at Andrews Air
664 DAVID HAGBERG
Force Base and boarded Air Force Two. The plane would return to Washington within twenty-four hours so it could be redesignated Air Force One and be made ready for the President's Wednesday flight to Tokyo. The weather was overcast, but the winds were light.
"Ground control, this is Delta seven-five-six, we're ready with Baker to push away from the gate at this time," Delta Senior Pilot Bob Rodwell radioed.
"Roger, Delta seven-five-six. Hold up at eight-left for an incoming
American Airlines. You'll be ... ah, number four behind a Northwest
seven-four-seven. Report to the tower on one-two-one-point-niner when
you're in position."
"Roger, ground control," Rodwell said, and he gave the ground crew below
the thumbs up. Immediately the big jetliner trundled away from the gate,
pushed by a tractor on her nose gear.
In Baltimore Special Agent Clifford Wiener walked back to his car and telephoned John Whitman at FBI headquarters. The manager of the self-storage facility where the bodies of the two CIA spooks had been found had positively identified Bruno Mueller from the photographs. Wiener had sent his partner, Stan Tarnowski, over to the airport to interview the chief of security about the photos they'd distributed several hours ago. He'd not heard back yet, but it was clear that Colonel Mueller had killed the spooks less than forty-eight hours ago.
Aboard Air Force Two they were late starting up because a courier came with a last-minute dispatch for the Vice President from the White House. Edward Reid, who was to have flown with them, had a car accident on the way out of the city. He would not be able to make this flight. He'd fly on Wednesday with the President.
It was nearly three by the time Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler ordered the
starboard engine to be motored to speed. When the RPMS came up into the
green, the fuel
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and ignition were switched on. Immediately the exhaust gas temperature came up, indicating that the engine had lit. Fuel and hydraulic pressures were in the green as well, and the start-up procedure was initiated on the port engine.
Delta 756 moved up to the intersection as a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 rolled out onto the main runway and majestically turned into take-off position. Captain Rodwell noted the time on the panel clock as 2:58. He keyed the aircraft's intercom phone so that he could talk to the passengers. They were carrying a full load, only one seat in first class a no-show.
"This is the captain. We're next for take-off in just a minute or two,
which will put us in the air at exactly three o'clock. Thanks again for
flying the on-time airline. If there's anything I or my crew can do for you
during this flight, don't hesitate to ask. Now just sit back and relax."
Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler picked up the intercom phone. "Are you all set back there, Mr. Vice President?" he asked.
"We're ready any time you are, Colonel," Larry Cross answered.
McGarvey had to hide in the electronics bay beneath the flight deck while the FBI and Guerin security checked the hypersonic jetliner's main cabin, galleys, and heads before allowing the VIPs to board. Socrates came for him as they taxied away from the grandstands, out toward the active runway. "InterTech," McGarvey said scrambling up from bay. "Are you sure about this?" Socrates asked.
"It comes from the Russian spy network in Japan. They've got too much to
lose to lie."
Socrates was working it out in his engineer's mind. "It makes sense. But we
never caught it."
"Do you know which units they manufacture? Can we get to them from here?"
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"You were standing right in front of them," Socrates said, blinking.
"What the hell is going on?" Captain Reiner demanded. "Do we fly or don't
we, George?"
"If McGarvey is right, I think I know what the problem is." Socrates yanked
open the hatch to the electronics bay. "I'm going to pull the heat moni-
tor/alarm panels. You'll have to go to the override if the temperatures get
critical."
"We might get a shutdown," Reiner said. "Christ, we'll be out over the
water without engines."
"Just the port engine," McGarvey said. "But stop the fli ght now, George." "What if you're wrong?" "Then I'm wrong, and you'll fly later."
"We'd be right back where we started from," Socrates said, and he climbed
down into the equiprnent bay.
"Keep everybody out of here," McGarvey told the pilots. "No matter what
happens."
THIRTY-SIX
Bruno Mueller got back to Lafayette Square across from the White House a minute before three, and he placed a long-distance call to Tokyo Bank from a phone booth.
It took fifty seconds for the call to go through, and a computerized voice,
speaking Japanese, answered, giving the options for the system.
Mueller entered three-four-eight, and in three seconds he was connected
with the bank's electronic international funds transfer system. A warbling
tone indicated the program Louis had secretly installed was ready to accept
an input. A tour bus rumbled past, and he waited for it before
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whistling a single-pitched note. The warbling was replaced by a high-pitched screech, and he hung up, his job finished. Everything else that happened took only two seconds.
First the bank's computer prepared a funds-available query from a special
foreign account in the amount V 2,707,750,000. The account verified that
such an amount was indeed available, and Louis's program made the
electronic funds-transfer order, payable to InterTech Corporation of San
Francisco, California, U.S.A. At the current exchange rate of V 108.31 to
the U.S. dollar, the order was automatically converted to $25,000,000 and
sent via satellite to InterTech's account at Wells Fargo.
InterTech's bank automatically relayed the information to the company's
mainframe computer in Alameda, and the second stage of Louis's precisely
crafted program kicked in.
At 3:00:00 P.m. Washington time the encoded signal was simultaneously sent,
via InterTech's own communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit 22,500
miles over the equator to nine airports around the country. Portland, where Guerin's America had just taken off. Oakland, where United Flight 425 was taking off. Los Angeles, where Delta's 558 was just rotating.
Chicago's O'Hare, where American 228 was on the ground next for take-off.
Minneapolis, where Northwest 142 was landing, Northwest 342 was eight miles
out on final, and Northwest 1020 was on the ground waiting for a clear run-
way.
La Guardia, where United's 310 was on the ground waiting for Northwest 165,
which had just taken off, and Lufthansa's Flight 009 from Frankfurt was
eleven miles out.
JFK, where United's 280 was on the ground, American 138 had just taken off,
and British Airways I I I was nine miles out.
Dulles, where Delta 756 had just taken off, and U.S. Air's 1211 was stacked
twenty-one miles southwest.
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Andrews, where Air Force Two, which had been late getting away from
the apron, was just starting its takeoff roll.
All the airplanes were Guerin 522s, equipped with the InterTech heat
monitor/alarm subassembly and special wiring harness on the port
engines.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Captain Bob Rodwell initiated a gentle climbing
turn to the left, which would take them out of
the pattern, while at the same time he reduced power because of noise-abatement regulations. There wasn't an ATR pilot who didn't grumble about the inherently unsafe procedure.
The signal from the Dulles repeater reached the InterTech heat
monitor/alarm subassembly as Delta 756 passed through 2,500 feet twelve
degrees nose high. There were no indications on any of the cockpit
instruments, nor did the jetliner's sophisticated computer that monitored
the performance levels of every system notice anything was wrong. But
within the first ten milliseconds the fate of the airplane and her crew
and passengers was irrevocably sealed.
First to occur was the blockage of heat information from the port
engine's thermocouples, which caused internal temperatures to soar
several times beyond design limits almost immediately. The Mintori
Assurance engineers who had designed the method of sabotage correctly
reasoned that in order to mask evidence of an explosion when the sensor
frame ignited, there would have to be massive and legitimate heat damage
to the engine. Three times out of ten the blocked thermocouples would
have created sufficient overheating to cause
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the engine to disintegrate on its own. But thirty percent was not good enough odds.
The internal structure of the Rolls-Royce turbine blades began to change.
In this instance several of them would have disintegrated on their own
within four minutes. As it was the engine would be destroyed much sooner
than that.
The overheat also began to affect the fuel nozzles that metered heated
kerojet into the combustion chamber. Much of the plumbing was already
beginning to deteriorate. Soon the metal walls would be breached and a
catastrophic amount of fuel would be dumped into the chamber, causing a
massive explosion that in itself would seven times out of ten take not
only the engine but the entire wing.
Still there were no indications on any of the cockpit instruments. Nor
were the designers satisfied with seventy-percent odds.
Next out of the InterTech CPU was a modulated pulse that delayed GO-One
by less than a quarter wave shift. At the end of the wiring harness the
complicated signal spread resonantly across the engine-mounted harness
frame, which erupted in a fireball as if an uncontrolled fuel flow had
suddenly occurred, which it did a few hundredths of a second later.
Now the cockpit crew knew that something very bad had happened. Alarms
flashed and buzzed all over the panel as the Guerin 522 began its fatal
roll to port.
Captain Rodwell was the first to understand that what was happenihg was
the same as the accident at Dulles. When the flight recorders, including
the cockpit voice recorder, were recovered, the investigators' first
indication that something had gone wrong, was the single expletive from
the captain: "Fuck!"
Rodwell immediately powered back on the starboard engine in what he knew
was a futile effort to bring the jetliner back to level flight.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday," his first officer, Carol Gerrard, radioed, her
voice in reasonable control. "This
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is Delta seven-five-six, out of Dulles, calling mayday. We have lost our port engine and most of the wing. We are going down approximately four miles southwest of the airport."
They could hear the passengers screaming in abject terror as the airplane
plunged toward a wooded knoll.
Air Force Two accelerated down the runway past one hundred knots to V I, the point of no return at which the aircraft was committed to taking off. Everything in the cockpit showed normal. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Wheeler anticipated V Rotate and a smooth liftoff. He figured they would be on top of the overcast in just a few minutes, when they would turn northwest on the great circle route to their refueling rendezvous out in the Aleutians. Delta's mayday call came over 121.5 and 243 MHz simultaneously. An instant later a huge fireball engulfed Air Force Two aft on the left. Forjust a moment Wheeler thought that the Delta flight had somehow collided with them, but that was impossible. Air Force Two lurched sharply to port and began to slide, helped in part because the starboard engine was still developing full thrust. Wheeler started to pull all power when he correctly guessed that they had completely lost their port engine. Instead he hit the starboard engine's thrust reversal immediately slowing their rate of skid to the left, and averting a cartwheel, which would have been a much greater disaster. The airplane began to shudder, and the rate of slide again increased. Wheeler realized that his co-pilot, Major Larry Marthaller, was applying brakes, or they had locked. In either case it was exactly the wrong thing to do to avoid rolling. Their center of gravity needed to be reduced now. Barely thinking, most of his actions reflexive, Wheeler yanked the landing-gear retract control, and the jetliner sank onto its belly, its rate of slide still impressive, but definitely slowing. He cut all power, and then braced himself. There was nothing left for him to do except listen to his co-pilot's mayday call override Delta's.
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Viktor Yemlin had spent the morning packing the remaining books from his apartment. He was finally leaving for Moscow at eight this evening, and he'd already made the last of his courtesy calls on his American friends. He'd been in the U.S. for four years under the cover of cultural attach6, and he was going to miss a lot about the country. Not the high prices and the incredibly high murder rate, but he would never forget the quality of things.
Through the morning he'd thought about what Kirk McGarvey was suggesting,
and what Abunai seemed to confirm. It was insane. If it had been anyone
other than McGarvey he would not have given the notion a second thought.
As it was he drifted from his apartment down to the communications center
in the embassy on 16th Street around 3:00. It was Sunday and eleven in
the evening in Moscow. Except for emergencies most of the offices in the
Lubyanka and the Kremlin were closed, so there were only three clerks on
duty. But the new SUR rezident was probably still in the embassy.
In addition to maintaining a communications link with Moscow, the center
was a sensitive listening post. Its efforts were concentrated on
intercepting transmissions from the White House, the State Department,
and the FBI, in addition to police, fire, ambulance, and airport traffic.
Pentagon communications were handled by military intelligence from a
different location, although all information came back to the embassy for
collation and analysis before being sent on to Moscow.
One of the scanners stopped on the aircraft emergency frequency.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Delta seven-fivesix, out of Dulles,
calling mayday."
"What the hell . . ." Yemlin said half to himself. He went across the
room to the bank of radio receivers.
"We have lost our port engine and most of the wing. We are going down
approximately four miles southwest of the airport-"
672 DAVID HAGBERG
"Get this on a recorder," Yemlin ordered one of the clerks. "It's being done, sir."
The Delta transmission was overridden by another aircraft calling mayday,
and for a second Yemlin did not want to believe what he was hearing. It
was more than impossible, it was unthinkable.
". . . Air Force Two, on the ground at Andrews. We have lost our port
engine and wing, and are on fire. Eagle Two is on board. Repeat, Eagle
Two is on board."
Yemlin grabbed a phone and called the SUR rezident's emergency number.
Whatever the man's current location was he would be found.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is U.S. Air twelveeleven. We're going down,
we're going down!"
Yemlin stared at the scanner radio. What the fuck was happening?
