Anyone monitoring the frequency would now be aware that the pilots were the only ones privy to communication from the outside. Transmissions would be heard in their headsets, and not on the cockpit speaker.
“She’s holding,” Buzz reported, turning to the captain. The corner of his mouth twitched with mischievous glee.
The Maiden was responding, her dead engine now compensated for. Now, they flew, and waited…and listened.
“Four-Two-Two, do you copy?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Buzz, is our fuel okay?” the captain asked, slipping the answer into the conversation. Buzz also heard the call. All right!
“Looks good,” the first officer answered.
“Four-Two-Two, this is Springer Seven-Three. Confirming that you copy and transmission is secure. Do you confirm?”
“Roger that, Buzz.”
“Four-Two-Two, that’s great. We assume you have some unwelcome company with you.”
“Uh-huh. We’re holding good, even with that drag,” Buzz said, trying to keep the words relevant to the situation.
“Understand, Four-Two-Two. We didn’t want to spook your company with a broadcast. Good work. Understand you have a malfunction: Your number three engine is out?”
“Number three is totally down now, Cap. Down for the count. Just spinnin’ in the wind.”
“Good. Watch the temp on the others.”
“Roger,” Buzz said, straining to hold in a smile.
“We copy. Number three engine is out. Stand by on this channel. Call out any changes if you can. We’re with you, Four-Two-Two. Hang in there.”
The silence on the channel was disquieting after the first contact with the outside world in two days, yet they had to be optimistic. There had been contact. Someone was listening. No mention was made of who exactly was contacting the Clipper Atlantic Maiden, but both pilots knew that somewhere in the vicinity a United States Air Force aircraft was watching over them as best it could.
He thought he had heard it all in his long Army career, but no longer. Blackjack sidestepped past the first Humvee and the miscellaneous gear stowed on both sides of it, emerging after the rearmost vehicle. Graber saw him first, noticing the look on the major’s face. Something was up.
Of all the team members, Graber and McAffee were the most in sync, despite the difference in rank. It was a closeness, an understanding, that come from chasing ‘it.’ ‘It’ was death. Knowing that a car or a bus could hit you any day, or wondering if the food you ate was so laced with chemicals that cancer was a probability, that was facing death. Chasing it was throwing yourself at the grim reaper with your teeth clenched tight and your HK hot to fire, its Streamlight beam striking all before it with the light of a coming death. Sean had chased it. So had McAffee.
Years before, in Thailand, Graber had been the second one into a hijacked aircraft, following the Thai commando leader. His job was relatively simple — throw flash-bangs as the Thai commander hit the carpet, then do the same. Two more native commandos, good men trained in the United States for precisely this type of mission, then literally ran over him and their leader, who came up from prone and cleared the front half of the aircraft. Sean brought up the rear.
The exact sequence happened at the same time, one door back on the opposite side, as the doors blew in. McAffee filled out that group. They went aft to secure the back of the airliner.
It was a picture-perfect raid. A success. The satisfaction and experience gained by the two Delta men was invaluable to the team, giving them firsthand experience to draw from. Graber was happy to share it with his peers, as was the major, but it was easier, Sean believed, for him to relate the fear they had experienced. Blackjack might have to lead them into an assault some day, and fear, though useful in many battles, was detrimental in the lightning fury of a takedown. Both, though, understood and accepted the peculiarities and advantages of each other’s place in the team, and they, with unspoken agreement, did not infringe upon that domain.
This was the closeness, born from successfully chasing death, that allowed Captain Sean Graber to connect with his leader, to read his face as he returned from the flight deck of the Starlifter.
The entire team was silent, but not the aircraft. It creaked and moaned, then roared as it began a gentle bank to the left, correcting itself back to straight and level after a turn of only twenty degrees. The engines pushed harder in an obvious move to bring the huge cargo jet up to max speed. There was something going on. They had all been subdued since the stand-down order, but heads came up, looking around to each other, and the eyes of those who were napping opened to join the others.
Blackjack leaned against the port fuselage frame, across and in front of Graber. “The go order is reinstated. We go from Jose Marti,” the major said, still not sure of the authorization himself. “If the Cubans give us a go ahead, then we go.”
Joe Anderson had a hard time fathoming this. A short time ago he was in his sedate, sterile office in Washington. Now, if what he heard was correct, he was going to be part of an American military operation on Cuban soil.
Neither the captain nor his first officer could have seen, heard, or sensed it happening, though neither would have been surprised considering the abuse the flaps had undergone. The event was, as yet, unnoticed in any performance-affecting way.
The massive flaps, used to give the aircraft added lift during takeoff and to slow it when landing, were moved by synchronized hydraulic sliders, activated and controlled by a lever between the pilots. Normally they would be set at the beginning of a takeoff roll and retracted during the climb-out to altitude. But the added weight carried by the Maiden, compounded by the degraded performance of the number three engine, had necessitated their use as a rapid ascent tool, requiring them to be lowered after the aircraft had gained sufficient speed on its takeoff run. It was a radical use of the control surfaces, one not recommended for reasons obvious to any pilot or engineer. The added stresses were liable to cause catastrophic damage: the uncontrollable, instantaneous failure of the flaps, and possibly the wing as a whole.
The flaps and wings, however, were proving to be stronger than could have been hoped for, withstanding the stress of two jump takeoffs. That was not so for the primary inboard hydraulic slider, which bore the brunt of the stress when it was commanded to extend, lowering the flaps under its control. Inside the solid-cast casing a three-inch sliver of metal sheathing, which formed the smooth surface the slider arm made contact with, separated from the rest of the cylinder’s interior. It came loose as the flaps were retracted during climb-out. Pressed between the slider arm and the casing, it slid out of place as the arm pulled back in, causing the casing to deform at its top. No fluid was released, as the base remained sealed and intact, and the rest of the unit was not opened by the defect.
The only effect of the mishap was yet to be felt.
Fourteen
THE WHITE HATS AND THE BLACK HATS
Sammy knew his big brother would take care of everything once he got to California. Three more hours. He had to remain cool. His shift ended at 2230, leaving him free for a late night on the town, but he wasn’t planning for that.
“So he’s alone?” the FBI agent asked. He was a huge man, reminiscent of a hockey goalie who had played too many years without a mask.