Final Winter

‘Sir, you need to ensure your pilots understand that they are to maintain altitude and stand by to divert. Understood? In a matter of minutes each of your aircraft is going to have an Air Force or Air National Guard escort. They have orders to respond if any of your aircraft begin an unauthorized descent. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Bocks said, ‘That I do. You intend to shoot down any of my aircraft that start descending without authorization.’

‘Correct. Sorry to have to tell you this, sir.’

Bocks said, ‘Not as fucking sorry as I am to hear it.’

~ * ~

The airport was a cluster-fuck early this morning, and Randy Tuthill had to use guile, arguments, and his old Air Force ID to gain entry to his maintenance hangars. After parking his Jeep Cherokee, he was about to trot down to the Operations Center when one of his senior machinists, a guy named Clarke, grabbed his arm.

‘Randy, you’ve got to see what’s going on over here.’

‘Shit, Gary, I’m overdue to see the General.’

‘Trust me, the General’s gonna want to know what’s going on up here.’

He followed Clarke to one of the open bay doors and stopped. Yellow tape had been strung across the entrance to the bay, and men in black jumpsuits, Kevlar helmets and automatic weapons strapped to their chest kept a quiet vigil from inside the hangar.

‘Holy Christ,’ Randy said. But it wasn’t the men with guns that had caused the outburst. Before him, about twenty yards away, was one of his MD-11s, parked quietly, but looking like some giant science experiment. A huge translucent plastic bag of some sort had been draped over the fuselage, and small air generators were keeping it inflated. Two dark green trailers had been backed up to the covered airplane, and Randy could make out shapes working just below the aircraft.

Randy rubbed at his chest. It felt like it was about to tear itself open. He knew what was going on, but he had to ask.

‘What do you know, Gary?’

‘All the fuck I know is that these guys took over both maintenance hangars, kicked us out, and they’ve started working on this first piece of equipment. I think they’re going into the air-conditioning packs.’

‘All right.’

‘Oh. And one more thing. Just before you got here, I saw one of the guys — wearing an EPA suit or something — go into the trailer, carrying something. And a while after that, one of those guys started yelling something.’

‘What was he yelling?’

‘Positive,’ Gary said. ‘He was yelling that whatever it was, it had tested positive.’

Randy nodded, his chest even more tight. ‘I’ll make sure to tell the General.’

~ * ~

Carrie Floyd was thinking of what to say when she and Sean had their little conversation in Boston when a blinking light caught her eye. She looked down at the control pedestal between her seat and Sean’s, and saw a flashing yellow light in the corner of a small square box that was starting to spit out a piece of printed paper.

‘Sean, message coming in from ACARS.’

Sean reached down, tore off the slip of paper as it came out of the top of the ACARS unit. ACARS was a data link system to their Operations Center and allowed them to send text messages back and forth. Most airlines in the world used a type of ACARS and AirBox was no different.

Sean said, ‘What kind of bullshit is this?’

He passed the message slip over to her. She read:

AB 107

POSITIVE THREAT TO YOUR AIRCRAFT

THREAT ALTITUDE SENSITIVE

DO NOT DESCEND BELOW 3000 MSL

DECLARE EMERGENCY WITH ATC.

HOLD PRESENT POSITION AT MAX FUEL ENDURANCE

ACKNOWLEDGE WITH DISPATCH

MORE TO FOLLOW

It felt like a jet of cold air was playing against the back of her neck. ACARS was usually used to inform aircraft about changes in weather or advise about conditions at destination airports. Nothing as… nothing as terrifying as this one. Had to be a bomb of some sort. Something that would be triggered in a change in altitude… a barometric device of some sort.

Carrie said, ‘You’ve got to be shitting me… Sean?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Contact ATC. Declare an emergency and ask them where we can hold. Tell them we want to stay at altitude.’

She started to throttle back the engines and said, ‘All right, I’m slowing to max conserve speed… and in fact, I’ve changed my mind. You take the aircraft. I’m going to contact ATC.’

‘Roger, I’ve got it.’

She toggled the microphone switch on the yoke handle as the aircraft slowed down, allowing the minimum amount of fuel flow to the engines to keep them airborne for the longest period of time.

Big question, of course, was how much time?

Carrie said, ‘Memphis Center, AirBox one-oh-seven.’

‘AirBox one-oh-seven, go ahead.’

‘Ah, we’ve been advised by our dispatch that there is a positive threat against our aircraft. We’re declaring an emergency and need to hold at altitude for the present time.’