Final Winter

AB 107

YOUR AIRCRAFT AND EIGHTEEN OTHER AIRBOXES CARRYING TWO CANISTERS IN AIR CONDITIONING PACK EXHAUSTS THAT CONTAIN AIRBORNE ANTHRAX.

REPEAT, YOUR AIRCRAFT CARRYING TWO CANISTERS IN AIR CONDITIONING EXHAUST PACKS THAT CONTAIN AIRBORNE ANTHRAX.

CANISTERS SET TO RELEASE ANTHRAX UPON DESCENT BELOW THREE THOUSAND FEET SORRY TO SAY NO METHOD CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO ALLOW YOU TO DISABLE OR REMOVE CANISTERS.

CONTINUE TO HOLD CURRENT ALTITUDE. AVOID ICING CONDITIONS, MAXIMIZE FLIGHT ENDURANCE.

WE ARE WORKING TO RESOLVE ISSUE,

GET YOU AND AIRCRAFT SAFELY TO GROUND WITHOUT RELEASING ANTHRAX.

MORE TO FOLLOW.

BOCKS.

Sean read the message and said, ‘Well, the General is there.’

‘Hurray for the General,’ Carrie said, crumpling up the message sheet and letting it fall to the cockpit floor. ‘Notice what he left out?’

‘Huh?’

She pointed out the windscreen, to their quiet escorts. Lance One and Lance Two.

‘He didn’t tell us what we already know. That those fine pilots out there, if they start seeing us descend, are going to blow us out of the sky. That’s what he left out. That if they don’t figure out something, something quick, we and the eighteen others are going to be shot down.’

Ahead of them dawn was breaking.

~ * ~

Brian listened to Monty and Randy debate options, plans, possibilities, and Brian yawned and rubbed at his sore chest and hoped that in the next few hours the Memphis police wouldn’t figure out where he was and come arrest his ass for assaulting that cop and the EMT. And for stealing the cop’s service weapon, one of the worst crimes to commit against a cop.

Monty said, ‘Look, isn’t there any way to get fuel in those wing tanks? Get a guy lowered down from a helicopter or something… get the cap off… get some fuel in. Anything to buy us some time.’

Randy said, ‘No. Shit, man, this isn’t like one of those Airport movies, where you’re going to get somebody dangling from a cable, ten thousand feet up, and ask him to unscrew a fuel cap about seven inches in diameter while the outside air temp is twenty below. Not going to happen. And even if you were able to get those fuel caps off, where is the fuel coming from? Air Force and Air National Guard are the only outfits that have airborne-refueling capability, and only with aircraft that have the refueling ports designed to receive a refueling hose. Otherwise you’d be trying to dangle something like a garden hose into a small hole while traveling at two hundred knots in mid-air. Can’t happen. Trust me, 1 know. I was in the Air Force long enough and my own son is a pilot for a refueling jet, the KC-135.’

Brian said, ‘Okay. Let’s agree that airborne refueling is off the table. We already know that the crew can’t reach the canisters from where they are. Is there any way to block those air-conditioning exhaust vents from the outside?’

‘Oh, sure,’ Randy said, his voice sharp. ‘We’ll just ask for volunteers from my machinists. We’ll go up in an open-cockpit aircraft, like a Sopwith Camel, a two-seater, maybe, and my guy will reach up and plug the vents with chewing gum. Is that what you want?’

Monty leaned forward. ‘No. What I fucking want are some goddamn ideas, that’s what, some suggestions on how to fix this goddamn problem.’

Randy shouted back, ‘It wasn’t our goddamn problem to begin with! We listened to you, we trusted you, and look what the fuck happened! We’re hours away from killing hundreds of thousands of people, and I’m telling you, we can’t get to those canisters! We can’t! And it’s your fucking fault!’

And in the silence following this outburst, a new voice was heard in the room:

‘Excuse me, could somebody tell me what all the screaming is about?’

~ * ~

Somehow, somewhere, the word got out to the news media, and as usual the first stories were a mix of truth and supposition, seasoned with ill-informed speculation. With the story breaking of the color change to red in the Homeland Security threat level — coupled with the story of the evacuation of the President, his Cabinet and Congressional leaders off to secure areas — there was a media frenzy as reporters, assignment editors and network and newspaper executives, some of them awake for less than a hour, worked the phones.