“Military One Four Eight, Gang Lead?”
“Go Gang.”
“How are your control problems now?”
“Well as you can see, we’ve so far turned through one eighty once and are well on our way to doing it again… port tanks are about full, so we are going to commence a fuel dump from the right side… its restoring trim slowly.”
“Roger… any thoughts on how you are going to put that thing back on the ground?”
“So far we seem to be limited to shifting fuel from wing to wing and throttling back individual engines in order to steer… a guy put a DC-10 on the ground, after a fashion, at Sioux City a few years back, steered by altering trim this way. He wasn’t able to get even close when he tried duplicating it in the Sim, and neither has anyone else… so I’ll take a rain check on replying to that one Gang.”
Arndeker checked his altitude, they were down to 27,000 feet, and the 747 still had a slight nose down attitude.
“Roger that… are you able to get the nose up?”
“Fella, we’re both hauling back like son’bitches in here… next step is to move passengers toward the rear of the cabin, and hope that helps.”
Arndeker gained a few feet in altitude to stay clear of the fuel that would be entering the slipstream from the damaged wing.
Sergeant Nancy Palo entered the Presidential office and smiled at the occupants, the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister received the genuine ones, but Senator Rickham’s was of the strictly professional variety.
The PM returned the smile.
“Sergeant, are you able to tell us what is going on yet?”
“Prime Minister, one of the escorts has looked us over and there has been some kind of explosion in the starboard wing wheel bay. It has damaged that wings control surfaces and fuel lines to one of the engines… ”
Senator Rickham mopped his brow with a handkerchief, his heart was pounding, and had been since the emergency began, the conversational tones of the Limey and the bitch in blue served only to irritate him further, and he snapped at her, cutting her off in mid-sentence.
“Just what the hell does that mean?”
Sergeant Palo opened her mouth to answer, but the PM was talking.
“It means Senator, that we cannot steer properly and there are three engines running instead of four.” Rickham coloured, sure that the PM was talking down to him, but the PM did not apparently notice his discomfort and looking back to the Sergeant he gave her an apologetic half smile. “Please excuse me Sergeant… do carry on.”
“Sir’s, we have pumped a lot of the fuel out of the starboard wing and into the port wings fuel tanks, now we are going to jettison some of the remaining fuel in the starboard wing. That will bring the wings level, but at present we are losing height slowly, so I will be moving people to the rear of the aircraft, that should help bring the nose up.”
The German Chancellor had a suggestion that met favour with the PM, although the senator was not so sure, but forced himself to keep silent in case either of the supercilious, European sons of bitches put him down again.
“I would be correct in assuming that the rear of the aeroplane is the safest place to be, if we force land, yes?”
Statistically he was right, so she nodded in affirmation. “Then if I may suggest that the ladies are moved first?”
It was a very gallant suggestion, typical of the Chancellors Old World values, but she suspected one or two of the females aboard would take umbrage at the suggestion that they were ‘little women in need of protection’.
The front of the cabin was emptied until the Boeings nose rose again to the horizontal, and the wings slowly came level as the fuel was dumped.
Lt Col Arndeker sat above and behind during the entire process, feeling relief as the Boeing held its current height, in a wings level attitude. One by one the valves in the wing tanks were closed as the desired trim approached, until just one remained open, that nearest to the fuselage.
“One Four Eight, Gang Lead.”
“Go ahead Gang Lead.”
They were one hundred and twenty miles off the Irish coast, but heading almost due north.
“Your attitude looks lots healthier now, are you going to complete the dump before turning?”
“Gang Lead, we completed jettisoning fuel a few minutes ago, we will reduce power on number four to effect a turn to the right, commencing in about one minute.”
Arndeker did not reply immediately, he brought the F-16 in a few feet, peering at the starboard wing, in the area occupied by the tank nearest the seat of the explosion. There in a steady stream, was fuel that was faintly visible whenever the amber collision light swept over it.
“One Four Eight, Gang Lead… check your gauges please, you are still venting from whichever valve is nearest the starboard wing root.”
“Roger.”
There was silence for a few minutes, and then he heard the Boeings AC call the AWAC.
“Overview Four Nine, Military One Four Eight… we have a problem.”
Admiral Gee had just settled onto the camp bed in the CJOs office in the Haddon’s Rock facility when the phone rang. Rolling off the flimsy device he grabbed the handset off the receiver.
“Gee!” He listened to the senior communications supervisor for a minute without comment and then sent a questing foot, outwards for his shoes whilst he replied. “Okay, let me speak to the Brit AWAC guys.”
Admiral Gee was a good listener, provided the speaker knew what he was talking about and all relevant information was included. Once the details were passed over as to what had happened, what was still occurring and what action was in progress 4316 miles away, he went to wake the President.
“Gun Lead, One Four Eight.”
200m away, Lt Col Arndeker thumbed the send switch. “Go.”
“We’ve reset the switches… standby while we try again.”
The Boeing had completed its wide turn back to the south before running a systems diagnostic, the F-16 backed off whilst the manoeuvre was in progress, and then moved back in where it could watch and report.
“Roger, One Four Eight… observing.”
For five minutes he watched, willing the flow of fuel from the wing to stop, but it continued unabated.
“One Four Eight, Gun Lead.” His tone conveyed the message as succinctly as a picture would have.
“Roger Gun, had to try… we are beginning our let down now.”
There was nothing else for it, the Boeing Corporation engineers were in agreement that something was broke, and it wasn’t going to fix itself.
Mid-air refuelling was only going to prolong the inevitable, so it was left up to the AC as to where he was going to set it down. He was 100 % convinced that trying to land on a runway was not an option, he couldn’t manoeuvre worth a damn so he elected to ditch off the Irish coast once there were rescue services on scene. In his words, there was less tall stuff about to bang into, and an ocean was easier to line up on than a strip of tarmac.
The President was wearing an expression that said it all, “What the hell else can go wrong!” but the way the war was going, he wasn’t about to tempt fate by saying it aloud.
Striding into the situation room, he asked the question without directing it at anyone in particular.
“Do we have an up to date passenger list… and are the various governments aware?” Seating himself he rubbed hard at his eyes and the back of his neck, seeking to remove the last vestiges of sleepiness.