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“What should we do, Jay?” Sherry asked. “Plain and simple. It’s decision time.”

  He swallowed hard, trying to weigh the options with a mind badly divided between considering the situation in Sicily and considering the possibility of his own imminent demise.

  “All right, Sherry. I . . . need to make a few more calls to verify that nothing’s changed in the British approach to the torture treaty and extradition. Have the pilot file a flight plan for London, but stand by and don’t leave for an hour. Call me back in an hour. If I’m . . . not available . . . take off, go to London, and have the President surrender to any properly constituted authority trying to serve the warrant. But, if they aren’t waiting, refuel and get as far toward the U.S. as possible. Canada would be okay.”

  “What do you mean, if you’re not available?” Sherry asked, aware of his frightened tone.

  “Just . . . don’t worry. Call me in an hour.”

  Jay ended the call as David once again twirled radio frequency dials, his hand pausing suddenly over one of the knobs. Jay saw him grab the outer ring of the dual plastic knob and turn it back and forth.

  “Oh, DAMN!”

  “What?”

  “Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, how do you hear me now? I think I’ve fixed my radio problem.”

  A male voice boomed into their headsets, the tones as welcome a deliverance as suddenly flying into clear skies would have been.

  “Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, Denver Center. Can you hear me, sir?”

  “YES! Thank heavens!” David managed to say. “I’ve got you five by, Denver.”

  “I’ve been hearing all your transmissions, Juliet November, but you apparently weren’t hearing me on any transmitter.”

  “I . . . somehow the volume control slipped, sir. I apologize.”

  “Observe your altitude to be nine thousand three hundred and descending, Juliet November. You were cleared to eleven thousand.”

  “I can’t control it, Denver! I’ve picked up ice. That wasn’t an intentional descent.”

  “Understand, sir. Are you declaring an emergency at this time?”

  “Yes! I’ve got full power and I can’t stay level . . . and I got a stall warning a minute ago.” David’s voice was several levels higher than normal, the extreme stress showing in the pace and timbre of his words, and the controller had obviously picked up on it.

  “Okay, stay calm, Two Five Juliet November, we’ll get you home. Are you still picking up ice?”

  “Yes! I need to get away from the front range.”

  “Understood, sir. Come left this time to a vector heading of one-zero-zero degrees. I’m going to clear out everyone ahead of you and bring you into Denver for an ILS to runway nine left. Weather at Denver is indefinite ceiling, visibility one-half mile, runway visual range on nine left is three thousand feet, temperature twenty-nine, dew point seven, altimeter two nine seven four, winds calm.”

  “Roger. I’m descending through nine thousand feet!”

  “Okay, sir, you’ve got twenty-six miles to go, ground speed shows to be one hundred twenty knots, and I show you descending at about two hundred feet per minute. You should be fine.”

  “Denver, we’re still picking up ice!”

  Jay felt a sudden shuddering of the aircraft.

  David shoved the control column forward, partially lifting them from their seats as the nose came down. Again he let the speed build back and slowly raised the nose.

  “What . . . was that?” Jay asked in a voice barely above a squeak.

  “Stall. We stalled. I’ve got to keep the speed up faster than normal because we’re carrying a heavy load of ice and it’s redesigning the wing.”

  “Oh, wonderful.”

  David was breathing hard, his eyes all over the instrument panel as the voice of the Denver controller returned.

  “Okay, Juliet November. I see you suddenly lost several hundred feet there. You okay?”

  “I . . . almost stalled, Denver.”

  “Call me Bill, okay?” The controller said. “And your name?”

  “Uh . . . Dave . . . David,” he swallowed hard.

  “Okay, David, we’re gonna get you in. I’m a pilot, too. Just keep that speed at least five knots above wherever she wanted to stall. What’s your descent rate?”

  David leaned forward, peering at another round dial before answering.

  “Ah . . . three hundred feet per minute . . . about.”

  “Still should work. Now, David, don’t try to look up anything, I’m going to read you the frequencies and all you’ll need to do is the ILS. You are, of course, instrument rated?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry. I’m IFR rated.”

  “Good. I was sure you were, but we have to check. Okay, I want you to carefully dial in the ILS frequency one one two point four and visually check to make sure it’s in your navigation radio and not your communication radio.”

  “Got it,” David replied, after quickly rotating the knobs.

  “Altitude, David?”

  “Ah, eight thousand four hundred. Still three hundred feet per minute down, speed one twenty-five.”

  “Very well. You’re twenty-two miles out, and we need to make a decision here. I can try to land you at Centennial Airport, which is south of you about five miles, or we can continue on to Denver International. You could make Centennial just fine, but the ILS is out, and while they’re reporting a three-hundred-foot ceiling, it’s an automated ASOS report. Fact is, sometimes the ASOS can’t detect rapidly changing conditions. It could be much worse there.”

  “Okay.” David glanced at his passenger, calculating the reason for the flight to begin with and the danger of descending closer to the front range of the Rockies to find a fog-shrouded Centennial.

  “Ah . . . International. Denver International,” he said.

  “Okay. Are you out of the icing?”

  David looked to the left at the wing and then through the windscreen at the cowling before answering.

  “Yeah . . . I think we’re out of it. But it’s not melting.”

  “Nineteen miles out, David, and your altitude is still good.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, put your course selector on the ILS inbound heading of zero nine zero degrees.”

  “Okay. Done. Am I going to change to Denver Approach?”

  “No, David, I’ll stay with you the whole way. Denver Approach is keeping everyone else away.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re approaching the localizer.”

  “What’s a localizer?” Jay heard himself ask.

  “It’s . . . this needle . . .” David answered, pointing to the Horizontal Situation Indicator on the forward panel. “When it slides over to the center, it means I’m on course to the runway.”

  “Okay.”

  David triggered the transmitter. “Intercepting localizer, Denver. I’m turning on course.”

  “Roger. Sixteen miles to the runway.”

  Shuddering coursed through the aircraft again and once more David shoved the nose over, waiting for the airspeed to come up before shallowing the rate of descent.

  “What’s your altitude, David?”

  “I had to lose some to avoid stalling. Seventy four hundred.”

  “Okay, you’re fourteen miles out, doing two miles per minute, we’ve got to keep you airborne for seven minutes more, the field is at five thousand three hundred feet above sea level, which means you can’t descend at more than three hundred feet per minute maximum. As a fellow Cessna driver, let me advise you not to use flaps. Don’t do anything to increase your drag.”

  “Understood,” David replied, his heart in his throat as he did the math in his head and watched the rate of climb indicator holding just under three hundred feet per minute rate of descent.

  Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center, Denver, Colorado

  “He’s not going to make it, Bill,” the supervisor said.

  T
he controller nodded reluctantly, his blood running cold at the thought that he might have steered the panicked pilot wrong. Only plowed fields surrounded Denver International, though. If he couldn’t make the runway, perhaps he could put it down safely in a field.

  The controller swallowed hard and looked over at his supervisor. “Alert DIA to get the fire trucks ready to look for touchdown short of runway nine left.”

  “Okay.”

  “He might still make it.”

  The supervisor picked up the tie-line handset without comment and punched the appropriate buttons.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sigonella Naval Air Station, Sicily—Monday—9:10 P.M.

  Captain Swanson took the unexpected call from the foreign minister of Italy at his desk, where he’d been sitting in thought, rubbing his eyes and wondering if there was anything else he should be doing to defuse the situation on his ramp.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Commander Swanson?”

  “Captain, actually.”

  “Very well. This is Giuseppe Anselmo, and this call has never happened.”

  “Ah, you mean this is completely off the record?”

  “If that’s the correct phrase.”

  “Very well, sir. Go ahead.”

  “I will be brief. I am aware that you know all the appropriate names. Mr. Campbell’s representatives have been at the home of one of our highest judges asking that our interpretation of the lease on your base be changed to include immediate Italian jurisdiction over the flight line.”

  “Yes?” Swanson said with a sinking feeling.

  “The judge is considering his request. We have no control over that, any more than you control your courts in the United States.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand. If the captain of that aircraft wants to leave Italy, will you protest?”

  “That’s a diplomatic question, Captain,” Anselmo replied with a chuckle. “A military officer should not be so astute. Let me answer in this manner. As of this moment, no request for an air traffic clearance for that aircraft would be handled in any other manner than normal and routine. In other words, the government of Italy has no interest in blocking or interfering with air traffic at Sigonella at this moment.”

  “But . . . if the judge rules otherwise . . .”

  “Then we shall behave in accordance with the law, and even though our government may appeal any court order or decision, we may still have to honor it in the meantime.”

  “How long, sir? When is the judge likely to rule?”

  “Not until noon on the day after tomorrow. He has refused to make a decision until then, and has set this for a hearing. Nothing changes until then. After that, who knows?”

  “Understood. Thank you.”

  Aboard Cessna 225JN, in Flight, Sixty Miles

  Southeast of Laramie, Wyoming

  David Carmichael looked closely at the temperature gauge on the end of the vent above the dash panel and shook his head.

  “What?” Jay asked.

  “I was hoping it’d warm up and we could shed the ice, but there’s a temperature inversion, and it’s getting colder as we descend.”

  “Five miles to go, David,” the controller was saying.

  David looked at the altimeter, now reading five thousand six hundred fifty feet, the rate of descent steady at two hundred ninety. If he tried to stretch his flight path a bit farther by pulling more back pressure, he ran the risk of stalling again, and a stall so close to the ground would undoubtedly be fatal. But all he needed was to stay in the air a short distance more.

  “What can I do?” Jay asked.

  “Pray,” was the response.

  “Four miles,” the controller told him. “You might pick up a small tailwind that will help you. Just a couple of knots.”

  “Good.”

  David forced his eyes around the panel as he fought through the wall of panic obscuring the other thing he knew he was forgetting. Was there anything else he could do to make the airplane fly more efficiently?

  Wait a minute! He glanced at the mixture control. He had set it just after takeoff and it was partially lean, but nowhere close to maximum performance!

  He reached over and pulled the knob carefully, watching the cylinder temperature gauge as he felt the power increase slightly.

  “Only two miles to go, David,” the controller said, his voice utterly calm and reassuring.

  The engine power suddenly diminished and David backed off on the mixture control, pushing it in slightly, his heart almost stopping before the power revved again. He pulled his hand away and returned his eyes to the gauges as the stall warning sounded momentarily, then stopped.

  One hundred twenty indicated and I can’t slow! I must be carrying a ton of ice!

  “One mile now, David. I show you right on centerline.”

  “Roger.”

  “It’s a huge runway, and it should come swimming into view in just twenty seconds or so.”

  There was nothing but gray in front of the windscreen.

  “Can’t I do anything?” Jay asked.

  “Yeah,” David replied. “Look hard. It’ll show up just ahead of us.”

  “I see fuzzy lights!” Jay replied. “They just appeared.”

  Splotches of red and white and something flashing furiously swam into view just ahead of the aircraft, and visions of setting the Cessna down in a tangle of steel approach light towers sent yet another shudder through David as he worked to resist the tendency to pull back on the yoke, a move that would instantly stall the airplane and kill them for certain.

  “Half a mile to go,” the controller said.

  David couldn’t force himself to push the transmit button to answer. All his concentration was focused on keeping the airspeed precisely the same, the airplane aligned, and praying they’d stay clear of the metal approach light structures that were reaching up to grab his airplane, closer and closer with every second. All he could see ahead were the approach lights, the sequential strobes leading him forward, the galaxy of lights steadily flattening.

  We’re not going to make it! he felt himself think, rejecting the idea in the same microsecond.

  The last approach light tower was just ahead, coming up at him, the lights bright and threatening, the metal structure unyielding and unforgiving to the thin skin of a Cessna. If the landing gear snagged those . . .

  And just as suddenly they were past the structure with concrete coming up at them and the runway visible ahead of them, the main wheels of the 172 passing just two feet over the lip of the runway’s threshold before David yanked the yoke back to break the descent. The aircraft shuddered, the wings losing the battle to stay airborne with the wheels less than six inches off the pavement.

  And suddenly they were rolling down the runway after a bone-jarring touchdown.

  David found the top of the rudder pedals with his toes and pressed forward to apply the brakes, wondering why the pedals were shaking before realizing his feet were doing the vibrating, propelled by a bloodstream full of adrenaline.

  There was a turnoff just ahead and he guided the little Cessna toward it, remembering at the same moment the Denver controller who was probably not breathing.

  “Denver . . . ah . . . we’re down okay. We’re on the runway.”

  The transmitter came on without a voice, but he and Jay could hear cheering in the background at Denver Center and a long sigh on the controller’s headset microphone.

  “Understood, David. Great job,” he said simply.

  “You, too,” David managed. “Thank you, sir.”

  “No problem. Turn off when you can. Call Denver ground now on one one nine point two, and we’ll give them back their airport.”

  Aboard EuroAir Flight 42, on the Ground,

  Sigonella Naval Air Station, Sicily

  Sherry Lincoln punched off the GSM cell phone and looked up at the starfield above Sigonella as she stood on the small platform topping the portable airstairs. She’d stepped out into the night f
or better reception, but the air had cooled considerably and she was shivering now in the light breeze.

  Most of the clouds overhead were gone, leaving the stark blackness of the sky as an inky canvas for the stellar work of art above, the spiral arm of the earth’s own Milky Way galaxy spread above in spectacular profusion, diminished only mildly by the filtered glow of the sodium vapor lights bathing the ramp.

  Sherry took a deep breath and exhaled, her mind still whirling from the intensity of the past few hours. There was a window of opportunity now to take control of the situation and, depending on Britain’s attitudes, perhaps quash the warrant within a few days. Thanks to the Italian leaders, they could safely wait until tomorrow before leaving, with no concern that the enemy was going to reappear.

  She thought about the C-17 out there somewhere in the darkness thousands of miles distant as it hung in the sky over the Atlantic, moving ever closer to American shores—an utterly wasted flight without John Harris aboard. She wondered what the crew was thinking. Military men and women felt the ache of an unsuccessful mission far more than civilians could ever understand, their entire purpose for being called into question by any political override of a military operation.

  The Vietnam syndrome never leaves us, she thought, suppressing a flash of anger.

  The warning the President had given her just twenty minutes ago replayed in her head: his could be a long stay in Britain, and she should be thinking about other career plans. “Nonsense,” she’d told him. “I’m sticking with you, regardless of where you are, and I’ll be there for you as long as you need me.”

  “Need you? Are you kidding?” John Harris had replied. “I certainly can’t imagine handling things without you, Sherry.”

  She smiled at the memory and the fact of being needed, the smile quickly fading with the reality that he was about to surrender to an uncertain fate and become a gold-plated pawn in an international tug-of-war.

  Sherry remembered the mission of the call she’d just received from Jay Reinhart and turned to hurry back into the 737 to brief the President.