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  An interphone call chime rang, and Dan punched up the channel. .

  “Cockpit!”

  “This is Lucy at Four-Right. We’re on fire!” The voice was as strained and frightened as he imagined he sounded.

  “What are you seeing, Lucy?”

  “Outside on the right wing, we’re trailing a sheet of flame!”

  “Okay. One of us is coming back,” Dan said, pushing the receiver back in its cradle, as he quickly briefed Jerry and reached for the glareshield, his hand searching for the engine fire switch and the button for the fire extinguishing bottles.

  “You already fired one, right?” Jerry asked.

  “Yes. The ECAM’s saying to fire the second now. I’m shooting number two.”

  “Go ahead!”

  Tom Wilson had thrown off his seatbelt. “I’ll go back and take a look, guys.”

  “Please!” Jerry affirmed.

  Inside two minutes, Tom Wilson was on the interphone.

  “Okay, guys, we ARE on fire. It’s not just whatever remains of number two engine, but it looks like we’re trailing flame off the middle of the right wing. How, I don’t know, since there’s no fuel left …”

  “Could it be the metal of the wing burning?”

  “God I hope not! But it’s pretty intense.”

  “That’s probably hydraulic fluid, too, which means we could lose all the right side controls.”

  “No wonder she’s sluggish!”

  “I need to dive, Dan,” Jerry was saying. “I need to blow the flames out!”

  “We have some extra altitude, but if you go down too fast, we won’t make the airport!”

  “And if we don’t, it could burn through the wing.”

  “She may not be able to structurally handle too much speed!”

  “Gotta try! Increasing speed to barber pole,” Jerry said.

  Patyish 21

  The major flying the lead F-15 had seen the explosion on the right wing of the lumbering Airbus just before it turned back and headed out of Iranian airspace, but the air battle was still too engaged to give chase until they confirmed the Iranians were bugging out east and the Israeli force acknowledged his “knock it off” call.

  Now he ordered the remainder of his flight to reform on Patyish 22 as he plugged in afterburner and dove to the west to join up on Pangia 10.

  He had not monitored the special command channel Patyish 26 had been ordered to contact, and he’d restrained himself from asking about 26’s remaining ordinance when they were “safeing up” their weapons for the return. The possibility that the explosion he’d seen came from an Israeli missile was nauseating, but at least Pangia was still in the air.

  The target of the huge Airbus flared clearly ahead of him as he pushed past Mach 1.8 in chase, closing the fifteen-mile gap easily before coming out of burner and timing his arrival alongside the stricken commercial liner.

  Aboard Pangia 10

  Carol had reached forward to grab the PA handset and both pilots registered the fact that she was making the announcement they wished they had time to give.

  “Everyone check your seatbelts tightly fastened and keep your oxygen masks on! Stay down, lean as far forward as you can. We’re making an emergency descent and will be making a no engine emergency landing in Baghdad.”

  “I’ll keep calculating the lowest altitude you can descend to and still make Baghdad, Jerry.”

  “How far out are we?”

  “Sixty-two miles on the GPS. That means no diving lower than 24,000.”

  “And we’re still at 31,000.”

  “She’s shaking pretty badly, Jerry!”

  “I know it!”

  “I didn’t see any obvious damage to the cabin, but somehow we’ve got a hole in us. You’re coming through 30,000 now.”

  “That’s as fast as I dare.”

  “Agreed. Twenty-nine, five … twenty-nine … twenty-eight, five …”

  “Is someone watching back there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wish we could talk to the passengers, too, but no time.”

  “Twenty-eight, now Jerry, twenty-seven, five … this shaking is really worrying me!”

  “Distance to Baghdad?”

  “Fifty-four miles. We need 21,000, we’re descending through twenty-seven.”

  “Call her, Dan!”

  “Got it,” he replied, yanking the handset back out of its cradle and punching the button for 4R.

  “Tom … status?”

  He hunched over the phone, nodding and acknowledging before hanging up and turning back to the captain.

  “He says the flames are less now, but it’s still burning, and every few seconds something else seems to fall off and blow away.”

  “Like … parts of the wing?”

  “Jerry, he said each piece is glowing hot or flaming when it falls away! We gotta get down man … we’re coming apart.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Situation Room, The White House (1:47 a.m. EST / 0547 Zulu)

  “Who fired that missile?”

  The president had reappeared in the Situation Room without warning and was standing at the far end of the table, waiting for a response.

  The air force colonel who had been handling the real-time connections with Tel Aviv realized no one else was going to reply. “We’re not sure, Mr. President. They apparently took an air-to-air missile up the tailpipe of their right engine just before they regained control and began to turn around.”

  “Before anyone knew they’d regained control?”

  “Yes, sir,” the colonel confirmed.

  “Have we asked Tel Aviv that question? Who fired?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Do it, please.”

  The president was chewing his lip in thought, weighing the probabilities that Gershorn Zamir had issued the shootdown order, and how to keep a lid on it.

  “Status of the aircraft?” the president asked.

  “Out of fuel, having control problems, about thirty miles east of Baghdad and trying to make it to the airport.”

  “And the Iranian fighters?”

  “The Iranians have lost five fighters, sir. Casualties are uncertain. Israel has had two F-15s hit, but one is limping back to base. The pilot of the other one ejected in Iraqi territory and is being picked up. The remaining Iranians have bugged out.”

  “Any ground launches?”

  “If you mean surface to air, no sir … not that we’ve detected.”

  “I mean ballistic. ‘Wipe Israel off the map’ launches.”

  “No, sir. At least five missiles are fueled and ready on their respective launch pads, but the Iranian command channels are deathly quiet. Of course, they could issue a launch order at any second. “

  “As can Israel, I imagine.”

  Aboard Pangia 10

  “What’s the situation, Tom?”

  Dan asked the question with his eyes unconsciously closed, as if waiting for a final exam score he just knew would be rotten. And indeed there was a long and worrisome hesitation measured in milliseconds from the back before the copilot’s voice returned to his ear, but a slight tone of excitement sounded an up note.

  “It’s better, he said. “Much better! I can still see sparks coming off, but the flame front … if that’s what you call it … it’s gone. I’m coming back forward.”

  “Keep watching. Call if there’s a change.”

  “Dan? Status?’ Jerry asked.

  Dan summarized Tom’s report, adding the distance and altitude left to the Baghdad runway. “Thirty-three miles to go, Jerry! Energy’s good. We’re descending through 18,000, and that means we can glide no wind about fifty miles.”

  “You ever dead stick the simulator?” Jerry asked, his voice low and urgent, the question anything but casual. The term was all but archaic, “dead stick” being the traditional term-of-art for landing a powered aircraft without power, a maneuver for which you had one chance alone.

  “Yes. In a 737, and once in this
beast.”

  “How’d it work out?”

  Caution lights blared at him from his personal mental dashboard, another aviating embarrassment he’d rather forget.

  “You keep the numbers under control, it’s a piece of cake,” Dan answered, hoping the captain wouldn’t ask more.

  “I hate that phrase! Piece of friggin’ cake indeed.”

  “So do I, now that I think about it.”

  “I’m full left deflection, Danny. I don’t have anything more.”

  The words shattered what had been a fragile growing confidence. Slower speed would mean the need for more roll control, more aileron deflection, wouldn’t it? What else could they use?

  “Are you hitting the rudder as well?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic?” Jerry shot back.

  “We can’t split the flaps …”

  “We can’t even get the flaps, what with the fire on the right wing!”

  “You’re still wings level, though,” Dan said. “Speed’s 260 knots. Is she getting worse as you slow?”

  “What’s our altitude?” Jerry demanded.

  “Ah … coming through sixteen now, thirty miles out.”

  “I’m slowing. The control pressure to the left wasn’t as great when I was diving. Now it’s full.”

  “Want me to try mine?”

  “I doubt there’s anything wrong with the stick on my side, Dan.”

  “Jerry, nothing else has worked right in this airplane for the past six hours, and God knows what we screwed up downstairs trying to regain control.”

  He could see his partner take a deep breath and decide.

  “Okay … take it and go immediately full left aileron. Hit the priority button just in case. If it’s the same as what I’ve got, I’ll take her back.”

  Dan positioned himself in the copilot’s seat and wrapped his right hand around the sidestick controller and pressed the top button.

  “Priority right,” the female computer voice intoned as he immediately deflected the stick full left, not quite believing it when the big Airbus obeyed with a sudden roll to the left.

  “Jesus! Level the wings, Dan!”

  “Already … doing it!”

  “Holy moly … you were right!”

  “That sometimes happens,” Dan replied through the shock that wasn’t wearing off fast enough.

  “What happens? That the sticks are mismatched?”

  “No, that I’m right.”

  “Well, you’ve got her now, partner, for better or worse. How’s she flying?”

  “Reasonably steady. I can’t believe it!”

  “Okay, lemme get oriented here. I’ll talk you in.”

  “Roger that. At least this time I can’t screw up the autothrottles,” Dan said, unprepared for the belly laugh from the left seat.

  “Okay, we’re down to 12,500, and twenty-four miles from the runway,” Jerry reported. “We’ll probably have the gear, depending on how much damage there was to the right side, but we’ll have no flaps and no reverse, of course, and only raw brakes.”

  “We need to run the checklist.”

  “Yeah. That’s right.” Jerry reached forward to trigger the appropriate page on the ECAM, but the number of failure items and pages scrolling across the screen was beyond overwhelming.

  Tom Wilson re-entered the cockpit and slipped back into the jump seat behind Dan.

  “Too much here!” Jerry was saying. “I’ll have to do it from memory. We’ll add thirty knots for no flaps. We’ll be faster than hell, Dan.”

  “I know it.”

  “The runway is more than two miles long and with a desert to overrun into, but we can’t get too slow on final or too high.”

  “I know how to slip a bird, Jerry.”

  “We may have to, but we’re going to run out of hydraulic pressure when we get too slow. We’ve got one windmilling engine and the RAT providing the hydraulic pressure.”

  “Got it.”

  “Of course the brakes have an accumulator.”

  “Rog.”

  “We’re coming through 10,000 now, Dan. Speed is 220 knots, eighteen miles. I can see the runway ahead.”

  “Can we get an ILS up for the glide slope?”

  “I … no. Not needed, Dan. We’ll be a light year above the glide slope anyway.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I get that.”

  “Keep her at 220.”

  “Jerry, shouldn’t we allow for aerodynamic damage out there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stall speeds could have increased. We’re essentially test pilots right now.”

  The captain hesitated, grimacing as he took it in. “You could be right. We were really shaking.”

  “Still are. Maybe we should test the touchdown speed while we’ve got excess altitude,” Dan said.

  “You’re joking?”

  “No … really, I’m not. If we’re going to touchdown at 220, we need to make sure that’s not stall speed, right? Let’s slow briefly to 200 and make sure she’s still controllable.”

  “Then speed up?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Seventeen miles out. I’ve got some ground contact out there. Okay, slow her up, but the second we start getting an excessive descent rate …”

  “I’ll dump the nose. Don’t worry.”

  Dan held enough back pressure to let the airspeed bleed away, feeling the aircraft as best he could as she decelerated through 210 knots and then 205, aware of a sudden buffeting that was shaking the flight deck with alarming force.

  “Speed up!” Jerry called as Dan forced the stick forward, accelerating the aircraft again to 220 knots. “What the hell was that?”

  “Precisely what I was worried about,” Dan said. “We’ve got serious damage out there. The buffeting was from the right side.”

  “We’re sixteen miles out. You have the airport visual?”

  “I...think so. Coming through 8,000 at 1,500 feet per minute descent.”

  “Not enough, Dan! Drop her to 2,000 feet per minute descent rate. We’ll take the additional airspeed.”

  “I’d suggest gear down one mile out, Jerry.”

  “Right. No more.”

  “Maybe more if we’re over 240! Our speed brakes work?”

  “Yes, but do NOT use them! Keep it on this glide angle and keep the speed under 230 without them,”

  “Roger. But I will use them for landing.”

  “Got it. We’re at 7,000 feet, fourteen miles out.”

  “We’re too high.”

  “No we’re not.”

  “Yes we are, Jerry. Too high and too fast. I’m gonna ‘S’ turn us.”

  “Okay, but … don’t go too far in either direction.”

  “Call the distance and altitude. I want to be at 1,000 feet three miles out at 220 knots. That’s the needle I need to thread—the ‘Gate.’”

  “Okay … ah, ten miles to go to that gate, and we’re coming through 6,500, so …”

  “Lose 5,500 feet in ten miles and we’re going four miles per minute.”

  “Right. That’s—”

  “That’s 2,200 feet per minute down, or a couple of good ‘S’ turns.”

  “Okay.”

  “Everyone ready in the back?”

  “What? Yeah, I guess.”

  “Yes, they are,” Bill Breem replied from the back of the cockpit.

  “Not too much, Dan! Just a few shallow turns.”

  “Got it.”

  “We’re 240 knots now, down 2,000.”

  “Altitude?”

  “Ah … ah … coming down through 4,000, six miles from the gate we want.”

  “That’s about right. Coming back to centerline,” Dan said, shocked that his voice sounded so unreasonably calm. “I can see the airport ahead.”

  “We’ve got one shot at this, Danny!”

  “Yeah … no pressure, right?”

  “Right. You’re at 240 knots, 2,100 down, through 3,000 above the ground, 2,000 above the gate, a bit over fou
r miles from the gate.”

  “Got it. I’m going be twenty knots too fast. Wanna drop the gear?”

  “What will it do to us?”

  “Slow us down. Maybe too much. But we’re way too fast.”

  “Hold on, just … hold on. You’re steady on 240, slowing a hair, on descent rate, three miles from the gate, ahead of the descent rate, a bit over a thousand to lose.”

  “I’ll pull the nose up a bit and slow. Jerry, to recap, the Landing Gear Gravity Extend lever is below the landing gear lever and remember it has to be pulled out toward you before moving it down.”

  “I know.”

  “Just wanna make sure.”

  “Got it.” Jerry watched the numbers winding down, trying to stay ahead of the unfolding scenario but feeling like he was somewhere behind, chasing the bird.

  “We’re 230 and slowing.”

  “Distance?”

  “Two from the gate, 500 above.”

  “Just … a … little more.”

  “We’re 225, Dan. One mile to go, just a hair above 1,000 feet.”

  “I’ve got the runway. Are we cleared to land?”

  “Who the hell cares? But yes, we are.”

  “On speed?”

  “Yes! Yes, you’re doing it right: 220, through the gate at 950 feet, a hair less than three miles out.”

  “Don’t drop the gear yet.”

  “I won’t. We’ll plan for a mile out.”

  “Pray it works.”

  “Already in progress. Two miles to go, 600 feet.”

  “Roger.”

  “Hold her, man. We’ll have a large nose up angle on touchdown with zero flaps.”

  “Got it. Gear down, Jerry!”

  “Roger, gear down,” the captain replied, reaching to the copilot’s side to reach the Landing Gear Gravity Extension selector, opening the safety door and moving it down . The sound of the unlocks on the nose landing gear releasing the nose gear into the slipstream combined with the feeling of deceleration as the main gear became speed brakes, pitching them up slightly before latching into place just as a loud metallic report reached them from the right side..