With her nose ten degrees up, the Maiden’s multiple-carriage main landing gear screeched when the rearmost wheels caught the runway at 206 knots. Like giant shock absorbers the struts on the main carriages compressed under the massive weight, but not enough to compensate. Two tires on the right mains blew a fraction of a second after hitting, but it was barely noticeable as an occurrence, entirely because of the violent metal-scraping-stone sound that came as the contoured rear of the 747 made contact and dragged along the runway. Sparks shot sideways and backward, then the nose eased forward, setting the dual front wheels on the ground.
The jolt inside the aircraft was tremendous. Below, several passengers went frantic, a reaction unnoticed by the hijackers, who were themselves frightened by the noise and violent vibrations. Wael hadn’t settled into a seat and fell awkwardly into the aisle, forward of a group of male passengers. He recovered quickly, grabbing the arm of an empty seat and pointing the submachine gun at the startled men. One, he noticed, was smiling, an expression he could not comprehend at the moment.
Hadad, too, was surprised, even in his enforced serenity. His free hand found the fold-down armrest and dug into it instinctively. In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful…
Instantly upon feeling the nose wheel touch, Buzz reversed the remaining two turbofans and stood on the brakes. Hendrickson also brought both his feet down on the pedals, full force. There was barely anything left of the brakes, and less than seven thousand feet of cement in front of them.
“Push the stick!”
Buzz heeded the shouted command, joining the captain in holding the control column all the way to the panel. The front end of the Maiden dropped noticeably as upward force on the rear elevators caused an opposite reaction on the nose.
It was working. Though the big Boeing was still moving down the runway way too fast, she was slowing. Whether it would be enough would become apparent very soon.
“Halfway,” Buzz called out.
Hendrickson broke protocol and took his eyes off the direction of travel, glancing at the speed gauge. “One-ten.”
“It’s too damn fast. We’re not gonna make it.” Buzz looked left. The captain was staring through the thick windshield with an icy gaze.
“Weave!”
“What? At one hundred plus? We’ll…”
“Do it, with me, or we’re going to fire-ball regardless.”
Again the pilots broke the rules. Not those of behavior or standards — though several of those were notably excepted in their unorthodox techniques — but those of mechanics and accepted physics. By all common sense and engineering logic the nose wheel, barely enabled to steer at a hundred knots, should break off when forced to turn at the high rate of speed they were traveling.
It didn’t, not even emitting a groan or squeal. The captain, backed up on the rudder pedals by Buzz’s strong pressure, played the Maiden left and right, close to one side of the runway then back to the other. He was creating all kinds of forces to slow the aircraft, and now added severe friction to the list. It was similar to a near skid, only the rear never jackknifed — thankfully.
Eighty. Seventy. Sixty.
“One quarter! She’s doing it!”
“C’mon, girl,” Hendrickson coaxed and cajoled his big baby.
Fifty. The steering was more responsive now, but the brakes were practically nonexistent. On the floor, the pedals felt like steel slabs on a weak spring.
Forty. Thirty. The runway end was upon them.
“Left! Hard!”
Buzz followed the lead, instinctively leaning toward the center console as the Maiden heeled over to the right, opposite the direction of her turn. The tires screeched, and for the first time the blown right-side tires were apparent as the aircraft slid slightly. They were turning hard onto the last taxiway at the end of two-three. It wasn’t even lighted. The aircraft’s own landing beams provided illumination, sweeping across the grassy edge of the strip and painting the fronts of several buildings with a passing glow. Then she slowed in mid turn onto the sweeping taxiway, her brakes letting out a final, abrupt moan as the massive discs ground metal into the contact surfaces, and finally, stopped cold.
The 747’s right side was displayed perfectly to the center hangar which her lights had passed over only seconds before. Behind a line of metal-framed windows a group of men in black stood watching.
“Hell if she didn’t make it down,” Antonelli said, genuinely surprised after the show of sparks they had seen at the far end of the airport.
“Damn,” someone said. The team was realizing it now. They were going to go.
McAffee nodded to Graber.
“Okay, troops,” the captain began. “This is your only good look at the bird. Look at the rear — where the cargo door is.” He was standing behind the others, trying to prep them based on his own experience. “Remember what it looks like now, because you’re going to be up close and personal real soon.”
Less than ten minutes later their pistols were loaded and their faces blackened with anti-flash cream. Then, with two Cubans at the slightly parted hangar door, they boarded the Humvees, which nosed close to the exit.
Hadad refused to allow the aircraft to be towed to the refueling point nearer the service area, and also nearer the terminal. Four fuel trucks, ancient in comparison to those in the ‘real’ world, approached, along with a dispensing pumper. Their antiquity, in this instance, was an asset, allowing the four big tankers to feed fuel to the dispenser truck, basically a big piston-type pump on wheels. Hendrickson gave the tower — and whoever else was there — credit. With only a short radio refusal to come to the normal fueling station, he hadn’t been able to give them much. But someone had figured this solution out, and it would work. Within twenty minutes her not quite depleted tanks should be back up to just beyond two hundred thousand pounds, a little more than half full. It would be plenty to get them to New York, though all three men in the cockpit knew that there was no intention of going there.
“There’s nothing left of the brakes. Zip.”
Hendrickson knew his first officer was right. The pedals barely sprang up from fully depressed, and the metal-on- metal sound near the end of their roll could only have been the retaining pins of the brake pads digging into the discs. There would be several concentric circles of gouges in the hard metal surfaces, caused by the tens of thousands of foot pounds of pressure applied. When the brakes were released after the roll, they were frozen open. The captain thought there might have been some further damage caused by the heat generated during braking, possibly to the hydraulics on the struts. That was of little consequence now. Other problems and happenings would soon be in the forefront, namely that if they had to land again, an act their captor had no intention of allowing, they wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Wherever we go from here, I hope they have a net big enough to stop us,” Captain Hendrickson joked, knowing that the hot mike was still engaged, and hoping that those listening were appreciating the seriousness of their situation. If someone tried a rescue they might be dead, and if they had to take off — with no flaps and less one engine — they might be dead. And landing — though both pilots had figured that this guy had no intention of setting the Maiden down anywhere in one piece — was potentially the most dangerous of all the possible outcomes.
Things weren’t looking good, an understatement the captain was frightened to surpass.