Cloudburst (48 page)

“Will it fly?”

It was Hendrickson’s turn. “She’ll fly, but if we need the RAT we’re going to be out of luck, unless it resets.”

Hadad sat back.
Allah. Allah. Not now, when I am so close.

*  *  *

Graber waited until two of his teammates clambered up onto the platform before pulling on the key. Once turned it functioned as a handle, allowing the cargo door to be hefted upward. This was the manual method, of course, the usual way being to use the built-in hydraulic lifters. The necessary equipment to do that was a luxury in this case, requiring brute force to be used.

“Ready?” Graber shouted above the engine noise, getting nods from Antonelli and Quimpo.

He made sure the handle was turned fully, then pulled. The door cracked, then came outward and up giving an eighteen-inch clearance for entry. Sean maneuvered his head under the big door and felt for a handhold on the floor of the cargo deck. The perforated floor provided many, and he hefted himself up through the opening, which Antonelli had made even larger.

He was in. The viewpoint looking down was impressive. The driver of the Humvee looked straight ahead, gauging his speed perfectly against that of the aircraft. “Let’s go! Move! Move!”

Quimpo came next, and by the time he was fully in, McAffee and Anderson were atop the platform.

“Don’t drop that thing,” the major joked to Antonelli as Joe was pulled into the hold. McAffee followed the civilian in immediately. Two of the team then held the door from the inside as the biggest Delta trooper slid through the opening.

Joe slid back, away from the door to give the soldiers room, and came up against something solid with his back. His quarry.

The first vehicle pulled away and the second spurted forward into the precise spot. It took under two minutes to get the remaining Delta men aboard, then the Humvee slowed, turned abruptly, and joined its partner in a dash to the darkness of the taxiway behind.

Graber, Antonelli, and Quimpo found handholds on the door and pulled it down to the closed position. “There’s supposed to be an inner handle here,” Sean yelled above the rumbling.

“There.” Quimpo had the light on the black twist handle.

“Got it.” Antonelli gripped it and turned it back to vertical. That would release the outer key they had used. It would be lying on the pavement now.

“We’re in.” McAffee said, then gave the order to get ready.

*  *  *

The
Maiden
had to travel a near complete squared oval, much like the Indianapolis speedway, before she would be back in position to take off. First she crossed the runway on which she had landed, and then a parallel runway before coming left on the far taxiway. Then another left brought her back to her takeoff point, a spot she had traversed in the opposite direction a while before. The tug swung left one final time and positioned the 747 at her start point.

“This is it,” Buzz commented. The tug pulled away forward and turned off the runway at the first crossway.

“Fire-wall it and forget, I guess,” Hendrickson suggested. There was no procedure for anything like this. Taking off with three engines, overloaded, and with no flaps; they’d either write the aviation history books or fire-ball into a cane field.

“One, two, and four all show nominal.” Buzz looked at the overhead console. “Safety systems are ready.”

The captain looked up, too. Right above was the switch that, when thrown, would require the greatest acting job by any pilot since Jimmy Stewart.

And the tires. Hendrickson remembered about those. The four blown right mains would mean even more difficulty. “We’re going to need to compensate for the tires.”

“Rudder and nose wheel, as long as she holds.” Buzz didn’t know if it would. The flat tires would add friction on the right side, making the aircraft want to steer in that direction. Rudder to the left and manual steering would have to work, otherwise they would find mud and grass less than halfway down the runway.

“You know, Buzz, in my craziest dreams I could have never thought this up. Never.”

The old Marine smiled. “Something to tell the grandkids about.”

The captain looked around the cockpit, for no real reason he realized. It just seemed the thing to do. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”
Ever? Now or never.

Once again the throttle hand of each pilot held the lever, Buzz backing up the captain. In one quick motion they pressed the handles forward against the built-in resistance. It was a quicker acceleration than normal, which bounced the 747’s nose up and then down as she gained speed.

“Fifty.”

Hendrickson had only one plan to get his baby airborne: pull the stick into his crotch at the end of the runway. It would be close. Without the flaps they would need to be going in the neighborhood of 200 knots to get up with just the elevators to point the nose skyward. With a 25-knot head wind—if it was still blowing—they could do it with 180 knots, their normal takeoff speed with systems functioning fully.

Buzz tweaked his column left with taps to keep the
Maiden
straight. It was working, even without using the nose wheel.

“One-twenty.” They were passing the halfway point, gaining speed. The faster they went, the more lift the wings generated. As that happened there was less pressure on the main gear, which allowed the blown tires to actually rise up off the pavement and spin somewhat freely. That reduced the friction and allowed for more speed and less worry about keeping on the centerline.

“One-fifty. She’s doing it! She’s doing it!”

Hadad heard the number two’s excitement, but he already knew they would make it. It had been difficult. More difficult than he had imagined, but he had been successful. He laid the Uzi on his lap and reached into the left breast pocket. The click came first, and then he let his thumb rise for the last time. He massaged it on his forefinger, and set about clearing his mind for the journey that would begin at the end of this one.

The three-quarter mark shot by as Buzz called out 170 knots. The captain brought the stick fully back into his gut as fast as the built-in resistors would allow. The nose came up around them.

“One-ninety!”

If he had calculated correctly the end would be right…

Now!
The feeling of air enveloping a plane was unmistakable. It was like suddenly being suspended in smoothness, with the vibrations of the earth lying far behind.

“Shit.” Buzz kept his hands ready to back up on the stick and the throttles. “She’s up! We’re up!”

They were at one hundred, then two, then three, and slowly gaining altitude and speed as the captain brought the nose down a bit. He looked across the console to his first officer.

“You’re sweatin’, Bart.” Buzz smiled like a kid in a go-cart.

“Slow climb. Real gentle.” Hendrickson would keep the
Maiden
right where the powers that be wanted her. The rest was up to them. Almost.

Twenty One

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Flight 422

“Hold tight ‘til he levels it out,” McAffee said. Once off the ground the noise abated. The team had placed and activated several small magnetic lights, each one spreading a wide beam of high-intensity light. Some of the men were squeezed in the spaces between the four big boxes, their arms pressing to the sides to steady them.

Joe, however, was already prying at one of the wood coverings. It was all cosmetic, he was sure. Whatever was in there was heavy, and, with the amount of shielding necessary to make the crude reactors feasible, the wood wouldn’t support any of it.

“Shouldn’t you wait, Anderson?”

Joe ignored the major and kept working at the box. By the time the aircraft leveled somewhat he had one side almost off.

Delta had its own job to do.

“Lewis.” Graber led the sergeant forward. He shone his flashlight on the curved right side as they walked. Red numbers stenciled on white backgrounds proceeded in ascending order as they moved. Each one was a location number, identifying the support section at that point. The 747, like other large aircraft, was made up of many parallel circular frames which were held together by long metallic stringers that ran the length of the fuselage. Around the skeletal cylinder a thin skin of aluminum was stretched, giving the aircraft structure and most of its load-bearing capability. Graber was looking for a specific section—or ring—that would put them below their desired entry point.

But first things first. Before going in they had to see what was there. Debriefing of released hostages had told them that the passengers were all forward now. That would lead one to believe that the terrorists were also. But they had to know for sure. If they went in aft, and there was a bad guy standing over them, it would be beneficial to know that first so he could be taken out.

Sixteen C. Sixteen C.
“Where are—here.” Graber stopped and cocked his head to the right to get a look at the ceiling. They were all walking hunched over in the five-foot-five- inch cargo hold. He ran his hand from right to left on the smooth aluminum panel. Above that would be a flame- resistant plastic floor liner that acted as a sound and climate insulator, and above that an eighth of an inch of padding, and then the carpeting. The center floor stringer was his guidepost. Six inches to the right was the spot. He looked forward at the solid metal bulkhead three feet away, then behind three feet at the forward most crate. The rest of the team was readying the charges near the door.

“Do it, Lewis.”

The sergeant was the team’s tech specialist, which meant that he handled the high-tech—expensive—gear. In this case an ultra-high-speed lithium-powered drill and the fiber-optic viewing device that would be inserted through a hole into the cabin above.

Lewis scratched the spot with an etching pen, just to give the carborundum bit a starting point. There was only one speed on the specially built instrument: fast, or fucking fast as its users said. The sergeant held the pen-like tip and tucked the flexible drive cable under his arm. It led to the actual motor unit, hooked to his belt.

It whirred first, then went almost silent. He touched it to the aluminum. Only a slight hum was heard. That was the beauty of the instrument. Unless you were drilling through granite or marble, the high rotational speed of the bit simply pulverized its target, allowing no room for resistance. The high heat tolerance of the carborundum bit aided in the silencing of the work. Friction caused great deals of heat, which expanded traditional bits of steel or light alloys. As it expanded it would contact the sides of the hole it was boring, causing sound. A foot away the captain could barely hear it.

Lewis sensed the breakthrough and continued with little pressure on the instrument, cutting right through the plastic and padding. Dyed guide marks on the bit told him the penetration and when to stop. “Through.” He switched it off and let it dangle to the floor. Next he undid the instrument and set it down.

“Let’s take a look.” The captain checked the time.
Six minutes.

Lewis retrieved another instrument. It looked like a camera lens, or a sniper scope, with an eyepiece at one end and a thin black tube at the other. Barely visible extending from the tube was a thin monofilament wire, much like fishing line. At the end was a micro-manufactured lens.

Graber slid the fiber-optic lens through the hole after spraying it with an aerosol coolant. His left hand maneuvered the filament housing while his right held the viewer to his eye.

The picture was bluish at first as the lens penetrated the carpet’s fibrous clumps, then absolutely clear except for the slight fish-eye distortion of the wide-angle lens. Graber had practiced this often, and he found that the stress of a real takedown wasn’t affecting his performance. He moved the lens to the left and right with simple twists of the housing, his head instinctively twisting to mimic the motion.

“Clear,” he announced after twenty seconds.

“Nothing at all?” Lewis inquired. McAffee approached.

“Both sides.” Sean pointed to the bulkhead. “There’s a wall right above that.”

“Aft most galley,” the major said, remembering the layout. He touched the ceiling just aft of the hole. “Row forty-five, troops.”

Lewis nodded. “Right on.”

McAffee and Graber started marking the precise points for the entry holes. Each would be just forward of seats 45D and 45G, the inner aisle seats at the front of the rearmost cabin section. They measured out the twenty-four by twenty-inch space needed. It was close. The longer dimension was laid out parallel to the bulkhead.

“Charges. C’mon.” Jones and Buxton brought the frame charges to the spot and test-positioned them first.

“It’s tight, but a good fit.” Jones did some crude hand measuring. “Move them back an inch, okay? There’s plenty of room back to the seat.” He pointed to the metal plates eight inches behind that marked the tie-down point where the seats were bolted to movable runners.

“They could be a little forward, remember.” Graber remembered the pilots of the practice aircraft showing them how the rows of recliners could be slid up and back to a desired position, then wrenched down and locked.

“Not here,” Jones contradicted. “It’s the forward row, so, like that pilot said, they’ve got to have thirty-six inches.”

“You’re right.” It came back to Sean. “So if we move back a bit we’ll have more pull-up room.” It would make it easier for the troopers to get out of the hold, not having the galley wall in their faces.

Jones did a quick position check, then peeled off the strong adhesive covers on the business side of the frame charge and placed it on the aluminum overhead. Lieutenant Buxton did the same.

Joe had no interest in the military side of things. He was at work. A form of obsessive tunnel vision focused him on the task at hand.

Once the covering was off he could see the first device. The sketches didn’t do it justice, either in description of ugliness or bulk. It was squat, and massive, resembling a newly picked garden vegetable, upside down, with four short roots poking out at equal angles toward the sky. And it was as black as coal.