Since the aircraft was probably carrying a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, there was significant risk involved even in trying to land it.
Wouldn’t it be better to crash it into the Mediterranean Sea?
That way he wouldn’t expose tens of thousands-maybe hundreds of thousands or millions of people-to dangerous radiation. It was the safest, most sensible option. Even better, he thought, than trying to fly the plane out over the Atlantic Ocean.
Better to end it here. Get it over with, before he lost control of the plane or passed out from loss of blood.
He thought of Captain “Sully” Sullenberger landing US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. Remembered seeing him interviewed on Letterman after the incident, this humble, soft-spoken professional who had kept his head and made the right split-second decisions in a moment of crisis. But Flight 1549 had landed on a river, not an ocean, and Sullenberger was an experienced pilot, not a novice with little training.
Crocker’s options were more limited.
The jet was currently 21,000 feet above the Mediterranean. Crocker lowered the flaps and pulled back on the throttles until the 727 slowly started to descend.
He’d led a full, exciting life. Now his wife was missing, and he was going to die. His only regret was that he couldn’t save her. He prayed someone would. Then he wondered what would happen to his teenage daughter. Thinking of the two of them started to break him up inside. He flashed on images of his mother, father, sisters, brother, while his whole body started to tremble.
He shifted his attention to the altimeter, which had dropped below 20,000 feet. The jet hit a pocket of turbulence and jolted to the right.
He watched the numbers descend: 18,000, 17,000, 16,000. Thinking about Holly, he realized she was the person he would miss most. He prayed he’d meet her again, somewhere, and hoped there was a heaven, or something like it.
It seemed wrong that everything he’d seen and experienced would just end. He’d find out soon enough.
Now 14,000 feet.
Hearing the door creak behind him, he looked over his shoulder and saw two dark-haired men staring at the bodies on the floor. They looked at Crocker with hatred in their eyes, as if asking Where the fuck did you come from, devil?
The man standing directly behind him stepped forward and smacked him in the side of his head with a pistol.
Crocker felt a jolt of pain. Saw stars.
Facing forward and holding tightly to the steering tiller, he lowered the flaps further. Now 10,000 feet and falling. When he reached toward the center console to pull back on the throttles, the man bashed him in the head again. The second man grabbed Crocker around the neck.
The cockpit spun, and he lost consciousness.
He awoke seconds later to bloodcurdling screams. A man’s body had fallen forward onto the center console, pinning Crocker’s right arm.
The aircraft was gaining speed and altitude.
Crocker pushed the man off and noticed the blade of a Swiss Army pocketknife protruding from the back of his head. He eased back on the throttles again.
Turning, he saw Mancini struggling with the second of the two intruders. They looked like wrestling bears. The big SEAL had the smaller man in a headlock and was punching him repeatedly in the face. He heard bones breaking, the man cursing and gasping for breath. Saw him reach for a pistol that had fallen onto the flight engineer’s seat.
Crocker rose, spun around, grabbed the man’s wrist, and snapped it back violently until it popped, just the way his defensive tactics instructor had taught him soon after he was selected for ST-6. The man arched his back and released a terrible wailing sound that ended when Mancini drove his head into the sharp edge of the cabin door. Then he let go and let the body slump to the floor.
Feeling the red gashes carved down his neck, Mancini said, “Ugly bastard scratched me like a girl.”
Crocker, hugely relieved, said, “Manny, it’s real good to see you. Your neck will heal.”
“Sorry it took me so long.” This comment delivered like it was no big deal. He plunked himself down in the copilot seat and took control of the second steering tiller as if he knew what he was doing. He started to level the jet off.
“You know how to fly something this big?” Crocker asked.
“Does a rabbit know how to fuck?” Mancini felt along the ridge of his front teeth and asked, “Jesus, boss, were you deliberately trying to crash this thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey. That little fucker mess up my front tooth?”
Crocker waited for Mancini to push away the blood with his tongue, then reported, “There’s a piece missing on top. Makes you look even meaner.”
“You know I’m a nice guy. I just have zero tolerance for assholes, especially tyrants and fanatics.”
“I’m real glad.”
Crocker watched him check the gauges and reset the flight director. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he asked, “Where the hell were you?”
“Snuck onto the aircraft after you. Went up the back stairway but got locked in the rear storage compartment where I was hiding. Luckily I had my Swiss Army knife with me. Couldn’t tell if it was a lever lock or tumbler. After numerous tries, I picked it.”
“Think there’s a chance you can land this sucker?” Crocker asked.
“We wanna go back to Tripoli, right?”
“That would be good.”
“You sure? I bet I can locate Ibiza. We can have a few days of R &R.”
“I’ve got some unfinished business in the Libyan capital.”
“Roger that. Love these old 727-200s. My next-door neighbor bought an entire cockpit instrument panel on eBay, and the two of us have been assembling it in his basement.”
“What for?”
“Fun.”
Chapter Fifteen
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…
– Rudyard Kipling
Twenty minutes later they touched down smoothly on runway 1B at Tripoli International Airport and were immediately surrounded by three pickups filled with NTC soldiers. Crocker refused to let them board the plane. He borrowed a cell phone from a Belgian soldier and called Jaime Remington, who showed up twenty minutes later with an NTC deputy foreign minister in tow.
A tense hour of back-and-forthing later, the deputy minister still wanted the plane’s cargo turned over to him.
Crocker was willing to let them have the bodies, but as for the six shipping containers, he said, “No way that’s ever going to happen.”
Remington: “Be reasonable. These people are extremely sensitive when it comes to issues of national sovereignty.”
“We’re talking about nuclear material that was being smuggled out of the country.”
“The trouble is that technically it belongs to the Libyans.”
“I don’t care who it belongs to. We’ll fly this motherfucker back to the States if we have to. Under no condition am I turning it over to them.”
The American ambassador, the NATO commander, and the head of the Libyan interim government got involved. Frantic calls were made to the White House, IAEA, and NATO headquarters in Brussels.
At 2 a.m. the Libyans agreed to release the six containers to the temporary custody of the NATO commander until IAEA inspectors could arrive and identify their contents.
Ambassador Saltzman asked, “You happy now, Crocker?”
“I’m a little less annoyed. Any news about Holly?”
“No news is good news.”
“Is it, sir? Are you sure about that?”
“I suggest you and your colleague go to the hospital to have your injuries looked after.”