Headwind Page 18

  David took a deep breath and realized his mouth was cotton-dry. They had ninety miles to go, and he had to do an instrument approach in a tiny airplane to one of the largest airports in the world, flying down to probably two or three hundred feet above the surface before seeing anything. He was also acutely aware of his inexperience as a newly minted instrument pilot with only six hundred hours of total flight time—and he hadn’t flown in nearly two months.

  Carmichael, this was a stupid idea! he thought to himself, as he tried yet again to make radio contact with the controller.

  “Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, how do you read?”

  What was it his instructor had said? The most important element of piloting an airplane was judgment, and he’d just exercised precious little of it by jumping at the chance to please a professor without really thinking through the risks.

  This is an important mission! he argued to himself. It’s worth pushing the envelope.

  But pushing the envelope was what killed people in aviation, especially pilots who flew beyond their experience or their capabilities.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down, but his hand was shaking slightly on the control yoke, and the thought that he might be forgetting something was eating at him.

  Oh my God, did I bring the approach plates for Denver?

  Making an instrument landing required having the right pages aboard from a book full of such procedures. The “plates,” as the five-by-seven-inch pages were called, were packed solid with information about frequencies and minimum altitudes and headings and all the additional information a pilot needed to approach an airport safely without seeing the ground outside the windscreen until the last few hundred feet.

  David felt his heart in his throat as he turned around. With no autopilot aboard the 172, he had to maintain control every second, but the brown leather, loose-leaf manual he needed—containing his Jeppesen instrument charts—sat where he’d placed it on the back seat. He reached around to grab it, pulling it back to his lap in time to realize he’d let the Cessna roll into a steep right bank.

  He righted the airplane and held it steady while he flipped through the book with his right hand to find the ILS approach he needed for Denver International.

  “Can I help you with that?” he heard Jay ask.

  “I’m fine,” he lied.

  Another unexpected gust shoved the Cessna to one side slightly, enough to cause a flutter in his stomach. He could imagine what Professor Reinhart was feeling.

  There was high terrain ahead, he knew. The minimum safe altitude through this area was eleven thousand three hundred feet, and they were just climbing through ten thousand five hundred very slowly. The engine was at maximum power, and the cumulo-granite ahead—as pilots sometimes called mountains—reached ten thousand feet.

  Once again he called for Denver Center, hearing nothing but static in return.

  “I don’t understand this. It was working on the ground,” he said in frustration, immediately sorry he’d spoken his concern.

  “We, ah . . . have a problem?” Jay Reinhart asked, his voice tense.

  “No . . . not really. I just . . . it would be better if we could talk to them.”

  There was a small electronic chirping suddenly in the cockpit, heard over both headsets. The warning noise was totally unfamiliar, and David began looking for the source of the warning, checking his airspeed and instruments.

  That’s . . . what IS that? That’s not a stall warning? Engine’s okay. What the hell?

  He noticed movement to his right and looked around to see his passenger pull a small cell phone from his pocket and point to it before placing it to his ear.

  David brought his eyes back to the ADI and felt his heart leap. The artificial horizon line was nearly vertical when it should have been horizontal.

  “Jeez!” He rolled the control yoke to the left, instantly realizing he’d gone the wrong way. They had rolled almost ninety degrees left and the nose was dropping, the altitude beginning to unwind as he rotated the yoke to the right and righted the horizon, bringing the nose back to level flight.

  Ten thousand one hundred! Climb! Dammit, dammit, dammit! Control yourself!

  He’d lost five hundred feet to a momentary spatial disorientation, but Professor Reinhart had been busy talking on his phone and hadn’t seemed to notice.

  Thank God, David thought. The professor was nervous enough as it was.

  Lord! Do NOT do that again! David told himself. Eyes remain on the ADI. Don’t forget that’s exactly what killed JFK Junior!

  David checked the mileage from Laramie on one of the instruments. They were twenty-two nautical miles from the field and approaching the mountain ridge crossed by U.S. 287. He checked the altitude again. Ten thousand three hundred, climbing very slowly. His heart was pounding but he kept a poker face as he scanned the instruments and began wondering whether they should turn back.

  No, I can’t turn back on instruments. I’m cleared to Denver. If I can’t talk to the controllers, there’s no way I can get cleared for an approach back to Laramie. I’d better go on. Besides, Denver International has a lot more facilities than Laramie.

  Having to peel his hand away from the edge of his seat to grab the cell phone had been a small agony for Jay Reinhart, but the moment Sherry’s voice came on the line, his entire concentration shifted to what she was saying.

  “Yes, Sherry. I’m . . . in flight . . . heading for Denver. It’s pretty rough. What’s happening there?”

  She quickly brought him up to date on the approval of the charter, Campbell’s visit, and her suspicions that he was regrouping for another try.

  “Shouldn’t we get out of here now?” she asked. “The captain says he can leave at any time.”

  “Not yet, Sherry. I don’t know where to send you.”

  “I thought you said Britain.”

  “I did, and that’s probably right, but I’ve got some research to do, and I can’t do it in this small plane. Is there any reason to think the Italians are changing their minds about not invading that ramp?”

  There was a burst of static on the line and a muffled voice where Sherry had been.

  “Sherry? Hello?”

  More static, then a click, and a series of squeaks and squawks before the line went dead.

  “Damn cell phones.”

  David’s eyes remained welded to the forward panel, but Jay could see him nod. “They’re not supposed to be used in the air, and we’re probably in a marginal area anyway.”

  “Still no contact with Denver?” Jay asked.

  David shook his head, gesturing to the panel. “I tried switching to my second radio, but I totally forgot it’s been intermittent. I meant to have a radio shop look at it last month. But they know we’re here. See that little blinking light on the transponder?”

  “The what?”

  David pointed to it. “That little panel. When the air traffic control radar beams sweep past us, they trigger that little transmitter, and it sends the controller our altitude and position. The blinking light means they’re tracking us, even though I can’t talk to them.”

  “That’s a relief,” Jay said. “I think.”

  David checked the mileage from the Laramie VOR, the radio navigation beacon he was using to navigate down the center of the invisible air lane called V-575.

  Forty-three miles. We’re past the highest terrain.

  He felt himself relax slightly for the first time.

  The White House

  The Chief of Staff was back in his favorite perch on the forward edge of his desk while his secretary and three other staff members stood, leaned, or sat in various positions in the cramped office.

  “So they know already?” Jack Rollins asked.

  Richard Hailey, the Deputy Communications Director, glanced at Press Secretary Diane Beecher before replying. She diverted her eyes, leaving Hailey to speak.

  “The Italian Foreign Ministry was informed a
bout ten minutes ago by Peru’s lawyer that President Harris was still aboard.”

  “That’s Stuart Campbell who did the informing, you can be sure,” another staff member added, checking the name on a notebook.

  “Right,” Hailey agreed. “And we expect he’ll be informing the media almost immediately to try to portray Harris, and us, as purposefully deceptive.”

  “So,” Rollins said, “Diane? We’d better talk to them.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got a tentative briefing scheduled in fifteen minutes.”

  He nodded. “Same script we all agreed on?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “We’re really concerned that some members of the media may have misunderstood our previous briefing that the reception at Andrews was for President Harris, when in fact we’re simply saying thank you to the flight crew for their rapid response. The President was not on board because President Cavanaugh determined that it would be inappropriate, yada, yada, yada.”

  “Will it wash?” Rollins asked, already shaking his head.

  “That’s a rhetorical question, right?” Beecher replied. “At least it’ll be on the record.”

  National Security Advisor Michael Goldboro had come in quietly.

  “Jack,” he said, getting Rollins’s nodded acknowledgment. “Campbell apparently had a plan B on the shelf. His people have snagged an Italian justice from the Court of Cassation, their equivalent of a supreme court for criminal matters. The judge is at home, and they’re trying to convince him to issue an order which would essentially require the police to forcibly enter the flight-line ramp at Sigonella and arrest Harris.”

  “How?” Rollins asked. “I mean, that affects a treaty right.”

  Goldboro shook his head. “The Foreign Ministry’s been fudging that interpretation for us. They know, and the judges know, that the lease on that base—more accurately called the Status of Forces Agreement—does not preclude Italian jurisdiction. The flight-line thing is a red herring. If that order is issued, the police, or the army in Sicily, can blow past the Navy guards in an instant, and we can’t, and shouldn’t, try to stop them.”

  “In other words, the judiciary may take over the issue.”

  “That’s right. The second an order is issued, the Foreign Ministry is out of it.”

  “Does Harris know?”

  Goldboro glanced at Diane Beecher, who was already on her feet. “Well, that’s all for me, fellows,” she said, exiting Rollins’s office before any more could be said that she would not officially want to know.

  “Michael?” Rollins prompted when she was gone.

  “That’s what we need to talk about, Jack. Is it our responsibility to tell President Harris he needs to get the hell out of there if he can? Or does that constitute the very interference that President Cavanaugh agreed we have to avoid?”

  “And your recommendation, of course, would be silence?”

  “You know how I feel, Jack,” Goldboro said quietly.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center, Denver, Colorado—

  Monday—1:05 P.M.

  The electronic data block for Cessna 225JN was steady on the scope, but the numbers were disturbing. The air traffic controller working the low altitude Fort Collins sector glanced at the data strip again, double-checking that the altitude clearance was eleven thousand.

  It was.

  Yet the Cessna’s transponder was reporting ten thousand one hundred and descending.

  The controller triggered his transmitter again, trying once more to raise the pilot.

  “Still having problems with that guy?” a voice said over his shoulder. The controller glanced around at his supervisor and nodded. “He can’t hear a thing from me, but I’ve heard every call he’s made.”

  “Partial radio failure, then,” the supervisor grumbled.

  “He’s on the proper course, and he’s past the highest mountains, but he’s started descending without clearance.”

  “Transponder’s not on seventy-seven hundred, either,” the supervisor said, referring to the emergency transponder code. “He should squawk the radio failure code, at least.”

  “Yeah, but he hasn’t yet,” the controller said

  “You tried calling him over the VOR frequency?”

  “Yep. No luck.”

  The controller checked the clearance again on the handwritten paper strip to his side. If he couldn’t regain contact, he could expect the pilot to bore on in toward Denver’s International Airport using the very specific published procedure known as the Rammes 3 arrival, and probably try to fly an ILS to one of the runways. He would have to notify a Denver approach controller in a minute or so, and a sky full of commercial traffic would have to be routed around the little Cessna to keep everyone safe.

  “Better let Denver Approach know,” the supervisor said.

  The controller nodded, cringing inwardly at the disruption the private pilot was about to cause. 747’s, DC-10’s, 737’s, and a myriad of other large airliners would be wasting untold gallons of jet fuel all because a solitary pilot hadn’t made sure his radios were working before departure.

  He looked back at the glowing data block next to the target that represented the Cessna’s position on his computerized radar display.

  Now he’s down to nine thousand eight hundred. Why? What’s going on up there?

  Aboard Cessna 225JN, in Flight, Sixty Miles

  Southeast of Laramie, Wyoming

  “What’s happening, David?” Jay asked, his fears reaching new heights as he watched David Carmichael glance repeatedly at the left wing and the engine cowling and windscreen in front of them, which had frosted up.

  Jay saw him check the throttle, pushing it as far in as it would go.

  “Just . . . a second . . .” David managed, as he looked again to the left.

  Jay followed his gaze to the left side brace that came up from the lower fuselage to the bottom of the wing on the left side, holding the wing in a rigid position. The brace was intact, but there was something on the leading edge of its metal surface.

  Ice, Jay thought to himself. Even as he watched, the crust of ice thickened. Mostly clear, there were flecks of white, as if they were picking up sleet or snow as well.

  “I ah . . .” David began, his eyes still outside.

  “What?”

  David turned to look at Jay. “I wasn’t expecting this. We’re picking up ice. I’ve got to get us out of here.”

  “Where?” Jay asked as he felt a wave of cold rush through his body. “Turn around?”

  David shook his head. “Too late. We’re over the pass, and . . . the ground below us is probably about six thousand feet. We’re sinking slowly at full power.”

  “What . . . what do mean, ‘sinking’?” Jay stammered.

  “I can’t hold this altitude with the added weight of ice,” David said quietly.

  The sound of the engine had been a steady, cacophonous drone, but it changed suddenly, sputtering and surging and sputtering again.

  David’s hand snaked out to pull a knob on the forward panel and the sputtering was replaced again by the steady drone of gasoline-powered pistons.

  “What was that?” Jay asked, his words coming too fast.

  “Carburetor ice. I needed . . . carb heat.”

  “Is it . . . going to keep running?”

  David nodded. “Oh, yeah. Just . . . routine problem.”

  Even I know that’s a lie! Jay thought as his cell phone rang again. He fumbled for it and flipped it open.

  “Yes?”

  “Jay? Sherry Lincoln.”

  “Yeah . . . hold on, Sherry. We’ve, ah, got a problem up here.”

  “What is it?” he heard her say as he pulled the phone from his ear and held it in his lap, his mind whirling with conflicting emotions and thoughts. They were sinking, David had said. Did that mean they were going to crash?

  “David . . . what are you going to do?”

  The pilot’s right hand came up i
n a “wait” gesture, but Jay could see it shaking, and only shards of a sentence came out of David’s mouth.

  “I . . . ah, we’re going . . . wait . . . wait a minute . . .”

  Jay forced himself to disconnect from the nightmare and focus on the cell phone and Sherry Lincoln and Sigonella.

  “Yes, Sherry,” he said.

  “What’s happening there?” she asked.

  “Not important,” Jay replied. “We’ll be in Denver shortly. What’s going on there?”

  Jay could see David pushing on the throttle again, even though they both knew it was at full power.

  “When I lost you a while ago,” Sherry was saying, “you’d just asked if we had any reason to think the Italians might change their mind about letting us stay on the ground here undisturbed. We’re worried, Jay, that we need to get in the air and aim for someplace else. Campbell was pretty mad when he left the airplane and I’m not sure what else he can pull. Do you know?”

  There was a momentary shrill sound, an electrical buzzer or horn of some sort, and he saw David shove the control yoke forward slightly in response.

  Jay shook his head, reminding himself suddenly that she couldn’t see the gesture. He forced himself to ignore the needles of the instrument David had identified as the altimeter, even though he could see them slowly unwinding in his peripheral vision.

  “I don’t know for certain, Sherry, but his only real option is to find a high court judge there in Italy, probably in Rome, and try to get a ruling that Italian jurisdiction covers that flight-line ramp as well.”

  “How long would that take?”

  “The Italians don’t react like our judges, but then, Campbell is well known and respected. It’s not impossible that some jurist would let himself be disturbed at home.”

  A hand appeared in front of him as David changed a radio frequency and adjusted several knobs, calling once again in vain for Denver Center.