Final Winter

‘All right. Look — we know the score up here. We know there’s not much time. But we’re not ready to roll over and play dead for you or anybody else. Got it?’

‘Yes, Carrie,’ the General said. ‘We got it.’

‘Good. The way I see it, everything comes back to making sure that the anthrax doesn’t reach the ground. Right?’ ‘That’s right,’ Bocks said.

‘I know that sounds simple to you guys, but I’ve been thinking. We can’t get to those damn canisters, we can’t turn them off, we can’t plug them up. So that anthrax is coming out, one way or another. Thing I see is, how do you stop the anthrax from getting to the ground? I think I’ve come up with something… shit, I know I’ve come up with something, and sorry, Mr FAA, for that little slip back there…’

Now Monty and Victor were staring at the speakerphone, and Brian thought they looked like religious pilgrims, staring at a holy relic that was going to save them and their family.

His voice louder, Bocks said, ‘Carrie… please… tell us what you’ve got.’

A burst of static, and her voice came back, ‘…kill the little bastards. Right? We’ve got to kill the anthrax before it reaches the ground. Why not use jet fuel?’

Monty turned to Victor and said, ‘Is she right? Can jet fuel kill anthrax?’

Victor said, ‘I… I don’t see why not — jet fuel is petroleum-based, quite harsh to anthrax. But how do you get the fuel from their fuel tanks to the canisters?’

Carrie’s voice seemed to carry through the entire room. ‘Not fuel from our jet. Fuel from another jet. A refueling jet, like the Air Force KC-10 or KC-135. They have booms they lower to refuel aircraft. But instead of trying to fuel us up, they’d fly ahead of us while we’re descending to below three thousand feet. And when we cross that mark, they start dumping fuel. I’ve seen it before. The fuel makes a big cloud of vapor, and we and the anthrax will fly right through it. Very precise flying, but if it works… we can dump that anthrax into a big cloud of JP-4 aviation fuel. Kill it before it reaches the ground.’

Brian could not believe what he was hearing. Could it? Would it?

Monty said, ‘Victor — tell me it’ll work.’

Victor swallowed. ‘It’s… it’s possible… I mean, you won’t have a hundred percent… but hell, it’s a lot better than a shoot-down and having the anthrax spray out as the fuselage descends. Question is, can you get those refueling aircraft to those three AirBox planes in time?’

Monty got up and started running out to the Operations Center.

~ * ~

Lt Gen. Mike McKenna said, ‘Mister Zane, we’re working, working it right now… hold on, all right.’

‘All right,’ came the voice on the other end of the line. McKenna put the phone down. He waited in his office. Waited. Looked at the phone, knew that one of these days he’d have to meet this guy, face to face, and find out how in hell he did what he was doing without cracking. Right now, he could use some tips. Outside on the floor his adjutant, Colonel Anson, was huddled with other officers, talking, gesturing with her hand, and then she looked around at the other officers, nodded, and ran back up to his office.

She was out of breath. ‘General… with so many overseas on deployment… it’s… it’s…’

‘Go on.’

‘Two, We have just two KC-135s that can reach them, once we configure the refueling booms so they can dump the necessary fuel.’

‘Which ones?’

‘The flights in Missouri and Kentucky. We don’t have anything in the area that can reach the one in Pennsylvania in time.’

‘I see. All right, get on it, get those jets to the AirBoxes in Missouri and Kentucky.’

McKenna picked up the phone and said, ‘Mister Zane, got a mix of news for you

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Monty said, ‘Could you repeat that, general?’

McKenna said, ‘We will have two KC-135s airborne shortly that can reach the AirBox aircraft in Missouri and Kentucky. The KC-135 heading to Missouri just came back from a refueling mission over Nebraska. They’ll have enough fuel to do the job. The Kentucky KC-135 is fully topped off and is on its way. But your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania, one-oh-seven…it’s going to be tricky.’

‘Define tricky.’

‘If we can get the KC-135 in Kentucky to your AirBox flight in time — and if they can disperse the fuel in record time — and if your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania flies on an intercept mission to them… they might have enough time and fuel to pull off a rendezvous.’

‘That’s a lot of ifs,’ Monty said.

‘Like I said, tricky. But your one-oh-seven flight — if it doesn’t get pulled off…’

‘I know. A one-way trip.’

‘Hell of a thing,’ McKenna said.

‘On that we agree, general.’

~ * ~

Aboard AirBox 15 over the Ozark Mountains, Steve Jayson said to his captain, Trent Mueller, ‘Tell me again you’ve had experiences with KC-135s.’

‘That I surely have, son,’ Trent said. ‘Back in my days, humping C-141s, I refueled from them a number of times. But today it’s going to be some tough flying. We’re breaking all the rules, you know.’

‘No, I don’t know,’ Steve said. ‘Enlighten me.’