The door to the cockpit opened. Hadad held it back so the pilots could see into the lounge. Buzz saw the man standing a few feet from the door. His hands were atop his head, and his feet were slightly parted. He was young, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Probably one of the thousands of grad students from America who ventured to Europe each summer. Just a kid.
Captain Hendrickson looked away from the confused young man. A sacrifice, then. That’s the lesson. He looked up again to Hadad. “Don’t.” It was said as.a wishful command. He knew nothing else to say.
“Watch and learn, Cap-tan.” Hadad clicked the selector switch on his Uzi to single shot. The safety was already off. With one hand he aimed at the center of the man’s chest and fired a single 9mm round, propelling his upper body backward. His hands came down from his head as he fell, but never made it to a position to break the fall. Unconsciousness enveloped him before his body hit the floor. He lay with his legs apart and arms outstretched to each side. Two streams of blood came from the wound, one on each side of the chest, turning the brown carpet a darker shade. The eyes were open but lifeless. They stared at the ceiling with an expression of confusion still on the face.
“Put the body on the wing.” Hadad left the door open. Abu and Wael lifted the body by the arms and legs. They carried it to the stairs and dropped it with a swing onto the steps, letting gravity do the work. A few seconds later screams from below could be heard on the flight deck.
The captain felt what fingernails he had dig into the sturdy padding of the armrest. Buzz simply turned away.
“Now, Cap-tan, have you learned what will happen when you defy me?” There was no answer, just a look. Hadad couldn’t tell what it meant. “Get the plane ready.”
Hendrickson and his first officer felt sick as they quietly began the preflight routine by reflex. It was instinct now, just a survival drive. Get the aircraft ready, up, and down again safely — wherever that might be. Their duties would take over their minds and put the ugly incident away. Not gone, just away.
Hadad had calculated this one perfectly. They would obey his commands, for they feared too much for their passengers. He smiled at their backs as they chattered and twisted dials and pressed buttons. Tough old American soldiers, you forget too easily.
The watch teams were constantly monitoring Benina, as they had since the initial catch of the aircraft. It hadn’t been difficult considering its stationary position. Mostly they were zooming in and out on the scene, and once Number 8601 had needed to be moved to avoid some thick cloud cover. The team at Belvoir knew the severity of the situation, at least the situation they were aware of. At CSOC in Colorado Springs the controllers were monitoring their own dilemma: Number 8601 was almost out of fuel. So desperate was it that the general at CSOC insisted on a direct order from the secretary before maneuvering his $1 billion bird.
On the seventy-inch monitor scenes were replayed over and over in real time. Soldiers would sit on or around a military vehicle. One would leave, then come back. Officers would occasionally walk into the frame to survey the aircraft or talk to the troops. One, a short, balding man — a captain, they thought — was a frequent visitor. Every second was recorded on disk, to be later enlarged, enhanced, and analyzed, though ‘later’ meant half an hour as opposed to a few weeks under usual circumstances.
“Gotcha,” the senior tech exclaimed. She was former Navy out only a few years.
“Recorders and VDI are nominal, Jen. What’s up?”
“Starboard wing door, foreground. That’s…what’s the number?”
The junior tech looked at his notes. “Number three door.” He entered something on the side keyboard. “Got it. Marie 1347 local, 1247 Zulu. Look there.” A light cursor in the shape of an arrow moved across to the point. “That’s a pumper; they’re gonna fuel.”
“Oh God.” Jenny’s eyes focused on the number three door.
“Shit.”
“Zoom in, Matt. Just a little.”
The image grew of a person stepping onto the wing. It was a man. He wore military clothing, but there was no weapon. It was obvious why.
He dragged the body by its feet out to a spot above the inboard engine. A second man emerged and walked out on the wing, holding two weapons while they stood next to the body. They reentered a minute later. The body lay face up with its arms outstretched and above the head, as though crucified.
“They drew first blood, Jen.”
“Yeah. You better call the super in.”
Jenny continued to watch as the supervisor was summoned. Not long after the men left the wing the pumper truck connected its hoses to the underground pipeline and to the underside of the 747’s wing. Topping off the tanks didn’t take long; little fuel was used between Athens and Benghazi. When fueling was complete a tow vehicle darted under the wing and hooked up to the nose wheel.
Moments later, with the supervisor in the watch center, the big jet was pushed back from the spot it had occupied for just over a day. All the troops were gone. Just the aircraft and the tow vehicle were in frame.
The supervisor asked for the phone. “Get me a line to the White House.” He held the phone to his ear, waiting for the connection.
“There she goes,” Matt said. The tow unhooked and moved out of frame. He increased the field of view to include the entire tarmac just as the four turbofans came to life.
The four engines whined at idle, not fast enough to move her but sufficient to circulate fluids within the turbines and provide power to the other systems. Hendrickson gave the instruments a final check.
“Can I contact the tower for weather and clearance?” the captain asked.
“There is no need.” The answer came from behind. “Just fly.”
In front was a shimmering road of cement — the taxiway — that ran parallel to the runway. Both pilots looked over the taxiway. It was covered with a layer of dust, with drifting swirls, reminiscent of sandbars stretching the width of the thoroughfare.
“Hand me those binocs,” the captain said. Buzz handed the glasses over, watching as Hendrickson dialed in and scanned the runway from left to right, leaning forward to his console for a better vantage. Its condition wasn’t any better than the taxiway. “That thing hasn’t been swept in days.” He realized they had landed on all the crud scattered over it. “Look.” The glasses were passed back to Buzz.
“So what do we do different?” Buzz asked from behind the binoculars.
“Besides pray? I don’t know.” The captain sat back and twisted his body into what should have been a comfortable position, but wasn’t.
“Here.” Buzz handed the performance calculations over. These were figured by a computer and took into account the aircraft’s weight and load, altitude of the airport, and weather conditions present. They were always hand-checked by the first officer, then displayed along with other information on the displays. Still, there was an element of uncertainty. “Some of it’s just a guess.”
“I know.”
“I allowed an extra five knots, just in case,” Buzz added. His tone didn’t display much confidence in his words, which got him a furrowed-brow look from the captain. “I don’t have any idea what they loaded.”
Hendrickson looked at the written figures. “Let’s try it.”
Takeoff and landing for a commercial aircraft are considered the times when the likelihood for a disastrous event is highest, necessitating procedures that assumed the worst would happen. The pilot held a firm grip on his stick, the co-pilot “backing up” the captain, ready to take over in the unlikely event that a medical problem, such as a heart attack, should strike him at a critical moment.