“Okay, Mark,” she said to Fogelman, “all the checklists are done, right?”
Fogelman had been very quiet for the past thirty minutes. She could see his fists clenching and unclenching on his lap, his nervous, staring eyes, how he jumped at every new shudder and creak the bomber made. He was double- and triple-checking his landing data numbers, reading the checklists over after running them to make sure he had done all the items, and glancing around the cockpit, repeatedly securing loose items, checking switches and circuit breakers. Nothing like a good old-fashioned inflight emergency, she thought, to bring out the best in a crewdog. “Yes,” Fogelman muttered, “checklists are complete.”
“Go ahead and lock yourself in,” she said, “then pull those straps tight.”
“You don’t need anything else?” he asked nervously.
“I’m all set. Lock your harness.”
Fogelman tightened his straps one more time, lowered both helmet visors, tightened his oxygen mask connectors, then flipped a lever that would lock the inertial crash reel in place. He would not be able to reach any switches or move his body after that reel was locked. He pulled on the straps so hard that his thighs looked as if they’d been severed. “Locked,” he said. Then: “You ever take a cable before, Rebecca?”
Hearing her first name spoken by Mark Fogelman was a surprise — this was the first time he had ever said it. She replied, “No. I took a departure end cable once, but it was just a safety precaution. We took the cable going about forty knots — we hardly felt it. I guarantee we’ll feel this one. One-sixty to zero like that. “ She couldn’t see his face, but saw him hesitate for a long moment; then, as she turned final and began to line up on the runway, he began straightening his neck, pressing the back of his head securely against the contoured headrest.
The snow had started to fall harder now, and the visibility was down to perhaps three to five miles. There was only going to be one shot at this. “Thunder Zero-One turning final.”
“Got you in sight, Zero-One,” Delta replied. “Bring her on in. Equipment’s ready.” No one liked to say “fire trucks” or “crash trucks” on the radio — everyone used the euphemism “equipment” instead.
The touchdown zone had been heavily worked while Furness was in the pattern to make this landing as soft and smooth as possible. Airports did not foam runways anymore — foam was expensive, dangerous to work with, and not always effective — so Mace had used the next-best thing. The runway was scraped clean of ice and snow from its approach end to the arresting cable, but on the other side of the cable Mace had used snowplows, dump trucks, and huge snowblowers, and piled tons of snow on the runway to a depth of several feet. Then he had arranged the dump trucks and snowplows on either side of the runway to act as a barrier in case Furness missed or broke the cable and slid off the runway. Finally, the last half of the runway was again cleared and scraped so she could try for the departure-end arresting cable as a last resort. If she missed that, only the outer fence and some trees would stop her.
Rebecca pulled the yellow, hook-shaped handle, and the HOOK DOWN warning light illuminated. “I see your hook, Zero-One,” Delta reported. “Lock your harness and get ready.” Furness didn’t reply, but lowered both visors, locked her inertial reel, and prepared to land.
Furness’ no-flap, no-slat, no-spoiler approach was fast and low. The cold air buoyed her wings, threatening to sail her over the cable, but she was determined not to let that happen. Her wheels touched down just a few yards from the overrun. She held the nose off, using her flight controls to steer the bomber, not trusting the broken nose gear to steer straight on the runway.
As soon as the arresting cable disappeared under the nose, Furness began to lower the nose back onto the runway …
Then the hook caught the cable, and the huge arresting-gear brakes kicked in. Rebecca heard a doglike woof from Fogelman, and she heard herself cry out as Fogelman’s head and torso snapped forward and his head hit the thin metal glareshield — he had either failed to lock his harness or the reel itself had failed. The bomber’s nose came down as if the nose-gear strut were compressing as usual, but there was no typical oleo shock absorber bounce — the nose just kept right on coming down until the fuselage hit the snow. Furness held it off as long as she could, pulling the control stick back to her belly, but eventually the cable brakes held and the nose crashed to the ground. The cable continued to reel out for another two hundred feet, sending waves of snow over the canopy.
Rebecca’s body strained against the shoulder straps as the bomber began to slow, digging the thick web straps into her shoulders and thighs. The nose was pitched over so far that it appeared that they were rocketing into the ground, and the sound of the fuselage scraping against the porous-friction runway surface was what a building being dynamited must sound like. But Furness somehow had the presence of mind to act. When the bomber settled to a stop, she unlocked her shoulder-harness inertial reel to free her seat straps, yanked the throttles to idle, then to CUTOFF, pushed both fire pushbuttons to isolate fuel from the engines, and lifted the silver agent-discharge switch to activate the engine-compartment fire extinguishers.
Furness ripped her oxygen mask off and raised her visors, then reached over to Fogelman. He was slumped forward in his seat, the top part of his helmet was cracked, and there was no movement. “Mark, you all right?” she shouted. “Mark, answer me …”
The bomber was being pulled back slightly by the stretching action of the arresting cable, but Furness could hear voices and footsteps outside. At least a foot of snow was brushed off the cockpit canopies, and a silver-hooded fireman appeared over Furness’ head. “Other side!” she screamed through the canopy. “The wizzo’s hurt!”
The fireman motioned to someone on the other side of the cockpit, and was then pushed aside by a man in a winter-weight flying jacket and watch cap. “Check your throttles and fire buttons!” he shouted.
“Cutoff and depressed!” Furness shouted back. The fuel valves should have closed and the fire extinguishers should have activated by now, she thought, so she shut off the battery switch as well. “Battery switch off!”
“Good,” the man said. Rebecca thought the man looked remarkably calm despite the fact that he was standing atop the broken hulk of a fifty-million-dollar aircraft. “Guard the ejection levers.” He motioned someone else clear, then depressed the canopy-release button and swung the left-side canopy open. The first thing he did was put a spare set of safety pins in the two ejection levers and the capsule-recovery handles on the center cockpit beam. That done, he could relax a bit. “Capsule’s pinned,” he said to the firemen surrounding the bomber. “Clear to go in. Wizzo looks like he might be hurt. Be careful.” Puffing from the running and climbing he did, he turned to Furness, smiled, and said, “Nice to have you back in one piece, Major Furness.”
Despite the forced landing, despite the damage, despite her hurt crewmember and her own pain, Rebecca could think of only one thing — the man’s voice: “You’re … you’re Delta? The new MG?” The man nodded. And then she recognized that incredible face. “You’re also the guy from the bar last night!”
“Naw, that was my evil twin brother,” Daren Mace said with a smile. When her shocked expression remained, he nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Are you hurt, Rebecca? Can you move?”