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  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Aboard Pangia 10 (0535 Zulu)

  Ten minutes before the Iranian border, the digital fuel readouts indicated the engines were seconds from flameout. Jerry asked Josh Begich to return to his seat, touching his arm as he climbed out of the copilot’s chair.

  “Josh?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I want to apologize for my conduct hours ago in yelling at you and scaring you.”

  “That’s okay. I understand.”

  “You’ve really helped us up here. I won’t forget that.”

  “Thanks. What’s … going to happen now?”

  “I’m not sure, Josh, but go back and strap in, grab that little girl’s hand you’re sitting next to and say a few prayers. Carol told me you were trying to impress her, and now’s your chance.”

  “I will,” he answered, his face suddenly ashen.

  Bill Breem had come off the jumpseat and moved the short distance to Jerry’s side, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Is there anything I can do to assist?” he asked.

  Surprised, Jerry shifted as far around as he possibly could.

  “No, Captain, other than watch carefully and let me know if I’m missing something.”

  “You haven’t so far, Jerry. I …” He was searching for words that didn’t come easily, but there was no time to indulge in an apology.

  “Thanks. Okay, everyone strap in.”

  With Carol once again on her knees by the hatch, Dan was poised below waiting for the order to cut the power lead, his gloved hands holding the wooden handle of the crash axe. Frank had been sent back to his seat as well, since the time for analysis was long past. This was their last chance, and both men knew it.

  What appeared to be a flash of an explosion to the left in the distance with the Israeli fighters apparently engaging an unseen enemy ahead would have unnerved Jerry, if he wasn’t already so numb. Without the ability to hear the tactical channel the Israeli pilots were using, his imagination was being fueled by his own experiences as a navy fighter pilot trying to imagine what was going on: radar lockups, missiles fired, possibility of being engaged by a ground-to-air battery, and basically flying through their own little war with no munitions, no defenses, no chaff, no flares, little visibility even at dawn, and no options. The whole thing would only last a few minutes. He assumed the unseen enemies were Iranian fighters determined to shoot them down. Who else would they be? And against a sky full of armed fighters, Pangia 10 was a fat, sitting duck.

  Jerry hadn’t noticed the Israeli F-15 sliding back alongside his left wing, and he had not even imagined the possibility that another Israeli pilot was in trail formation, the targeting icon on his tactical screen locked on Flight 10 as he awaited orders from Tel Aviv.

  He caught himself wondering what the last conscious seconds were like for the pilots of Malaysia 17 when they were blasted out of a clear blue Ukrainian sky by a surface-to-air missile. Blessedly, they had had no warning, he thought. But here we are waiting for the end. The cold certainty of death began to enfold him, and despite the determination to fight, somewhere inside he was already letting go.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  The Kirya, Tel Aviv, Israel (7:42 a.m. local / 0542 Zulu)

  With one all-consuming thought demanding his attention, the Israeli prime minister closed his eyes to meet it head on. What, exactly, was going through the diseased minds in Tehran? Were all of them nothing but murderous bastards to whom infidel humanity was no more sacrosanct than insects?

  Or were the Iranians the insects, and Gershorn the appointed exterminator?

  The confidence level was high, he had just been told that control of the nuclear weaponry had not been shifted to outlying commanders. At least, not yet. Was it one of the religious mafia in Tehran hesitating or merely a professional military man using logic and not religious hysteria?

  Or could there be, in the midst of that cultish insanity, someone like him, even at this moment weighing the moral as well as the strategic consequences of taking the next step? The mere thought seemed heresy, and with Hamas or ISIS and any other insane collection of genocidal maniacs it would be. But maybe, just maybe, someone in Tehran could still understand the concept, if not the benefits, of restraint.

  He glanced again at the screen. No movement at the various missile sites, and especially none at the launch site Mossad had identified as most likely to be carrying what was perhaps their only nuke.

  To defuse it, all he had to do was order the missiles off the rails of the fighter trailing Pangia 10. If there was no inbound airliner with Moishe Lavi aboard, there was no reason for launching against Tel Aviv, and no reason for Israel to incinerate Iran.

  Airborne, in trail of Pangia 10

  The pilot flying Patyish 26 assigned to trail the Pangia Airbus with missiles ready to fire had maintained the radar lock for what seemed an eternity, waiting for an order one way or another. The massive internal battle between the obligation to follow orders and the nightmarish possibility of committing mass murder, even as an instrument of his government, tore at his soul. The thirty-four-year-old father of two was not entirely sure he could squeeze the trigger if given the command.

  “Patyish 26, stand by for orders.”

  “Roger,” was the correct reply, and all he could manage as he tensed for what was coming next. A cold chill had already enveloped him, and he could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he strained at the silence on the channel.

  Pangia 10

  “Tell Dan to get ready,” Jerry said.

  “He says ‘on your command,’ Captain.”

  Jerry glanced at the moving map display. Was there any point in waiting further? Mere minutes of fuel remained.

  Jerry reached up and grabbed his sidestick controller perhaps for one last comforting moment of pretense that all was normal and this had been just a nightmare.

  He deflected the stick to the right, reacting in absolute disbelief as the big aircraft rolled to the right, obeying his command as if nothing had ever been wrong.

  What the hell?

  Carol’s voice from just behind his seat partially filtered through his disbelief.

  “Captain, Dan says to tell you there was a large noise down here and a lot of relays clicked. Are you ready for him to cut it?”

  Jerry looked at the sidestick controller in his left hand as if it had materialized out of the either. For hours it had defied him, and now, suddenly, when it was probably far too late, it decides to work? What the hell?

  Her words finally coalesced. Dan was ready to bring an axe down on the power cable below. He forced his body to swivel around as far as he could to make sure Carol heard him. “NO! Tell him do NOT cut it! Do NOT cut it! We have control again somehow! Tell Dan to get up here.”

  Jerry could hear Carol getting up from the floor as Dan all but levitated through the hatch, barely believing Carol’s words.

  “You have control Jerry?”

  “Yes! Get back in the seat.”

  “Jesus, yes!” Dan scrambled past Carol, patting her on the butt as he passed in some unconscious form of celebration as he all but leapt in the copilot’s seat.

  “How’d you do it, Dan?”

  “I didn’t! I have no idea why it let go!”

  The Kirya, Tel Aviv, Israel

  The generals, and especially the air force chief, were feeding in an almost three-dimensional picture of the aerial battle, and as expected, Iran was doing very poorly, even as the second wave of fighters closed in. That would hasten Tehran’s decision. If they couldn’t shoot the airliner down …

  “How long a delay in seconds between a ballistic missile launch and when our board here would show it?” Gershorn asked no one in particular.

  Two members of the general staff turned to answer. “No more than five seconds, sir. This is an amalgam of real-time satellite sensors and imagery.”

  He nodded thanks, his mind racing. The order to intercept any launched missile
in boost phase was already signed. The order to launch the nuclear preemptive strike would take a maximum of two minutes consultation.

  “One more question,” Gershorn asked evenly, consciously hanging on to his emotions. “What are the expected civilian casualties if we go for preemption?”

  The room quieted immediately, as if a judge had asked a defendant at the start of a trial which prison he’d prefer.

  “Between … 7,000 and 20,000, sir, in primary and secondary casualties in the communities in which they’ve tried to hide the enrichment facilities.”

  “And our fighter is in place for a shootdown?”

  “Awaiting your order, sir.”

  “How long would it take Tehran to understand the threat was gone?”

  “They would see the target break up and disappear. But, they might not know who shot them.”

  “In other words, they might still push the button based on the assumption that we were attacking?”

  The generals in the room were all glancing at each other as if forming an unspoken collective resolve over what to say. The prime minister was clearly teetering on a razor edge. The wrong phrase, the wrong word, might push him in the wrong—or the right—direction.

  The final tumbler suddenly dropped into place in Gershorn’s mind, unlocking his resolve.

  And somehow, in Tehran, he knew his counterpart had also reached an equally historic decision.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Aboard Pangia 10 (0542 Zulu)

  “I tried to tell the fighters, but they’re not responding,” Jerry said as Dan pulled on his headset and triggered the radio the Israeli had been using. “I’m starting a turn.”

  “Patyish Lead, this is Pangia 10! We have regained control! Repeat, we have regained control and are reversing course back to Iraq.”

  There was no response, yet another explosion in the distance off to the east announced the fact that the engagement wasn’t over.

  “Where are we?” Dan asked.

  “Just inside their airspace. Baghdad is right behind us. See if you can punch up the airport in case we need it.”

  “Absolutely we’re going to …”

  The rest of the answer was drowned out by a thunderous explosion on the right side of the Airbus and they could feel the big bird stagger and yaw to the right. Emergency warnings, beeps and horns and messages began flooding the ECAM computer screens.

  “Jesus God!”

  “What the hell was that?” Jerry demanded.

  “Something exploded!”

  “No shit, Sherlock! But what?”

  “I don’t know … maybe a missile. We’ve lost number two engine, I think.”

  Dan jerked his head back forward, quickly scanning the cascading readouts on the screen. “Yes, number two engine is down!”

  “We have a fire light?” Jerry asked.

  “What? Yes, dammit!”

  “Run the ECAM procedure.”

  “Roger. Engine fire number two, I have the fire switch for number two, confirm?”

  The procedure intimately familiar from training scenarios, Jerry reached his right hand up and touched the same fire switch Dan was pointing to.

  “Roger, number two confirmed.”

  “Pulling two, continuing checklist. Shutting off number two start switch.”

  The sudden feeling of deceleration superimposed itself over all their other senses as Jerry looked with feral intensity toward his copilot.

  “No, No, Dan! Number TWO! Not number ONE!”

  “I pulled two!”

  “We just lost number one! Confirm the fire switch is in and try a restart …”

  “Jerry!”

  “… we can get her back! Quickly!”

  “JERRY!”

  “What?”

  Dan was pointing to the forward panel and the depiction of the fuel tanks.

  “We’re out of gas, Jere!”

  “What?”

  “We’ve run out of fuel. I’ve got all the pumps on.”

  Dan leaned left to get closer to the fuel readouts, confirming it. No useable fuel in number one main tank, and essentially none in number two.

  “We’re zeroed, Jerry.”

  “Oh, fuck! But what happened to two?”

  “They shot us.”

  “Who? Who is they? Who shot us?”

  “Man, I don’t know, but it had to be the Iranians.”

  “But I’d just started the turn! We were nose on to them.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Couldn’t be a surface-to-air, we’d be in pieces.”

  “Okay, look, we need to maintain control here.”

  “I know it!”

  “Is she still responding?” Dan asked

  “Yes. Sluggish but responding.”

  “I’m deploying the RAT. And … we’re depressurizing, Jerry. Oxygen masks on, confirm 100 percent.”

  Jerry let go of the sidestick long enough to sweep on his oxygen mask, checking the 100 percent position on the selector before resuming his death grip on the stick.

  “Comm check, Dan. How copy?” Jerry asked, his voice sounding strange in the oxygen mask microphone.

  “Loud and clear. How me?”

  “Good. Run the depress checklist, but we cannot do an emergency descent.”

  “Hell, no. I got that. We don’t want to anyway. We don’t know the damage.”

  “Jump seat on,” Bill Breem reported, followed by a quick confirmation from Tom Wilson.

  “Obviously it punched our fuselage,” Jerry added. “Do you suppose we’ve lost anyone back there?”

  The question was in cadence with the rapid fire back and forth of the previous thirty seconds but the reality of it stopped both men cold. The memory of the gaping hole that had swallowed nine of United Airlines Flight 811 passengers in 1989 replayed in their heads as clearly as if there had been an HD screen on the glareshield.

  “No,” Dan answered suddenly. “No, not possible. The pressure loss was slow and steady, not explosive.”

  The electrical power flickered and stabilized with a reduced number of instruments, as Dan reached up to start the auxiliary power unit.

  “The APU isn’t going to do us much good without fuel, Dan,” Jerry managed, trying his best to grin at him.

  “I forgot,” Dan replied, shaking his head at the oversight.

  “Is there an airport we can reach?”

  “Yes. Baghdad International! Eighty-five miles, heading two-eight-zero. We’re at 37,000 feet … we have enough energy to glide 120 miles, Jerry. So we can do this.”

  “You think it was a sidewinder or something?”

  “Yeah, a missile, I’ll bet anything. But you’re the fighter jock.”

  “We’ve got to get on the ground before someone comes back to finish us off!”

  “Agreed.”

  “That had to be a heat seeker or we’d be toast. Had to be Iranian.”

  “Probably,” Dan said, another possibility nipping at the back of his mind.

  “I imagine our Israeli friends are still holding them off.”

  “Let’s just concentrate on getting down, Jerry,” Dan replied, trying to force his thoughts back to the myriad of tasks at hand. “Lemme dial up Baghdad tower. I have no idea if they’re clear or socked in down there.”

  “Dan?” Jerry’s voice was suddenly tentative, puzzled, almost indignant, as if the scenario was going significantly off script and there had been no approval for such a deviation.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m … having control problems here, Dan.”

  “What do you mean, control problems?”

  “I mean … she’s sluggish on roll to the left, and the vibrations … feel that?”

  “Yeah. No time to go back and look, but the right wing’s probably damaged.”

  “Bet it ripped open our fuel tank.”

  “Not that it matters!” Dan chuckled, in spite of the all-consuming tension.

  They had one shot at landing with no power, limit
ed instruments, only the force of the slipstream turning the ram air turbine and batteries providing instrument power, and a totally unknown situation on landing gear and flaps.

  “We can do this, Dan!”

  “That’s what I said. Damn right! You’re in direct law. What can I do to help?”

  “Make the radio calls, call my altitude, keep calculating energy status, and make sure we don’t forget any emergency checklists.”

  “We’re eighty miles out.” With the iPad on his lap and Baghdad’s main airport punched up, Dan located and dialed in the tower frequency and hit the transmit button for number one radio.

  “Baghdad tower, Pangia Flight 10, declaring an emergency. All engines out. Eighty miles to the east, we’ll be making a no-engine approach and landing. Please acknowledge and say current winds and … ah … ah … ceiling.”

  Seconds ticked by before the very American voice of a contract controller came back to them.

  “Roger, Pangia 10. Runway Three-Three-Left is the active, 13,100 feet available, current winds three-two-zero at five knots, visibility unlimited. State fuel and souls on board.”

  “Fuel is zero, and we have … I don’t know … several hundred souls on board. We will need the equipment and would recommend a few ambulances … we don’t know the situation in the back.”

  “Please explain, Ten.”

  “We’ve been hit by an Iranian air-to-air missile. We were attacked by the Iranians.”

  “Dan … Dan she’s vibrating even more. Something’s coming loose out there!”

  “Can you control her?”

  “I’ve gotta slow down more … Jesus, it takes full left deflection to hold her level.”

  “Want me to run back and look?”

  “I … think we’d better! I need to know what we’ve got.”