He scanned the list that was put up on screen and muttered a thank you when a mug of hot fresh coffee was placed beside him.
“Are there any options apart from ditching or forced landing, for getting anyone off?” It was a throwaway comment that he already knew the answer to, only in the minds of Hollywood screenwriters did the schemes to evacuate passengers from aircraft in flight exist. Even parachutes were fanciful, the Boeing would endanger itself further by slowing to above a stall in order for a parachutist to exit safely, not that the VC-25A carried any of them anyway. He had little doubt that even if there were only two aboard, neither the German Chancellor nor the British Prime Minister would use them themselves, they were ‘women and children first’ kind of folk.
“At least Henry Shaw isn’t aboard, or more state heads.” He looked up as Admiral Gee entered. “Is it possible to listen in to voice communications, Admiral?”
“Yessir… do you want to speak to anyone out there, we can do that too?”
“No… and I’d just as soon they didn’t know I was listening either.” He did not want to add to the pilot’s pressure by knowing the boss was looking over his shoulder.
“Who is in the drivers seats aboard 28000, by the way?”
“Lt Col Redruff and Major Pebanet.”
Jaz Redruff and Sara Pebanet had flown the President all around the world, he was confident that if either pilot were on their own, they could still put it down safely if anyone could.
“So what’s the plan, Admiral?”
Gee brought up a map of the west coast of Ireland, and zoomed it in.
“Mr President, they are flying south at the moment and letting down gradually, in the meantime we are scrambling helicopters and rescue craft to the Galway Bay area of Eire. The aircraft will turn again, a wide turn to the right to come around onto a roughly north-easterly heading to line up on the bay and continue letting down… aiming to ditch somewhere between Roadford and Murroogh. The aircraft’s flaps may also be impaired, but we won’t know that until they are extended… if they are screwed, then it will be a higher speed landing than one would wish for. The IRCG, Irish Coast Guard, will be running the show; they will have six Sikorsky S-61s on scene. A minesweeper and a fisheries vessel will be backing up the four inshore lifeboats already in the area. Britain has an ocean-going lifeboat and two inshore's on the way, and of course they have signed off on the Irish using the AWAC for communications and rescue co-ordination.”
The President looked at the aircraft’s icon on the big screen map, and puffed out his cheeks.
“So now we wait.”
As the aircraft got lower, so too did Senator Rickham’s spirits. The Presidential office was situated against one side of the cabin, midway down the airframe. There were people still seated forward of them, but that was only due to the lack of seats in the office. He desperately wanted to be at the rear of the aircraft, he could see in his mind’s eye the Boeing hitting the sea and breaking up, the tail section floating whilst the rest sank, with him still attached to his seat, drowning. Everyone was now wearing life vests, with strict instructions about how, and more importantly when to inflate them. Sgt Palo, the bitch in blue, had come around and personally checked the vests were on correctly, and repeated her trolley-dolly speech, but Rickham had deliberately ignored her.
The Kraut and the Limey were busy talking with members of their cabinets and parties by phone, so he made a decision. The PM looked across as the senator undid his seatbelt and stood up, but his party chairman on the other end of the phone, was speaking in urgent tones so his attention swung back to matters of state. He gave the chairman the location of the combination to the safe in his home, should anything go wrong, and requested that what he had outlined for the country be continued if anything happened tonight. It was all in the safe on paper and floppy discs, ideas and solid plans dating back to the 70’s.
He heard someone sit back down in the senators’ seat, and fiddle with the seatbelt, adjusting its size for a far slimmer person; he glanced across and then did a double take. The senators young aide, Janette something or other, was doing up the belt in jerky, agitated movements, shooting him an ever so brief nervous smile, with eyes close to tears.
The Chancellor gave a puzzled look as the PM left the office; the German was still in conversation with his defence minister so he couldn’t ask. He hadn’t noticed the senator leave so he cast a questioning look at the young aide, but she looked away in embarrassment. A minute later and the cabin door was violently thrown open, and the senator preceded the way inside, the large American politician’s face was contorted in pain as he came through sideways into the office, and then the PM appeared. It almost seemed that they were walking arm in arm, yet the PM had both his hands clasped around the back of the American’s left hand, and his forearm was trapped between the Englishman’s right arm and body. Rickham was leaning to his left in an effort to relieve the awful pain being caused by the gooseneck hold that the PM was applying to his wrist. He hardly heard the Englishman speak to his aide, telling her to go back to her own seat at the back, so great was the pressure that was being applied to the joint. He tried to reach over with his own right hand to pry away the offending fingers but the pain increased sharply, and he screamed shrilly. The young aide hurriedly vacated the seat at the Englishman’s request, then crossed to the door, stopped and was about to say something but then decided against whatever it was, and disappeared from sight. Sgt Palo entered through the doorway that the aide had just vacated, she had been alerted to a scuffle at the rear of the aircraft, and stopped just inside the office. The PM was back on the phone; the Chancellor was still talking and looked for all the world as if all was calm and normal with the universe. Senator Rickham was nursing his left wrist, his face a mask of misery as he sprawled in his seat. Nancy crossed the office and bent to strap him back in, but had to grab the back of his chair as turbulence shook the airframe. Her own crash position was in this office, in a fold down seat against the forward bulkhead, it was her job to ensure that these VIPs got out safely, but she wouldn’t strap in until just before they ditched.
The F-16 known as Chain Gang Lead had followed the Boeing through its last turn, and now edged down toward the cold seas as the airliner did.
County Clare was at the three o-clock position, and five thousand feet below, to the left was nothing except the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Chain Gang Lead… Military One Four Eight, on Guard.”
“Go ahead One Four Eight?”
“How’s your fuel state Gang Lead, you gotta be getting close to bingo?”
Arndeker didn’t bother checking his gauges; he knew he had enough to recover to RAF Aldergrove in Ulster, to refuel and then head back to Germany.
“Gun Lead is fine… I haven’t flown this slowly since I soloed in a Cessna, I think at this speed I could make Alaska without topping off… it must be real peaceful for you old folks, tooling around at a walking pace in big ‘ole buses like that one.”
The last remark was answered by a snort of laughter.
“For your information junior, that toy you think so highly of couldn’t catch my last ride to kiss its ass.”
“And what would that have been One Four Eight?”
“It was black, it was beautiful, and it cruised at over two grand at eighty-five thousand.”
Only one aircraft on the air force inventory had ever been able to do that, the 90th Strategic Reconnaissance Wings SR-71A.