“Josh, let me sit there for a few minutes,” Dan said, prompting a flurry of activity as the teen quickly motored the seat back on its rails and jumped out.
Dan sat down sideways, facing Jerry. Carol, Bill Breem, and Tom Wilson had also remained in the cockpit. There was no question this was the final briefing before the battle, and two of the other flight attendants were standing in the door as Moishe Lavi came up behind them, listening. Carol considered asking him to return to his seat, but the gesture seemed futile, and she said nothing.
“What’s our status, Dan?” Jerry asked, his voice betraying the disappointment he knew the copilot was bringing.
“Our status is this. We’ve yanked damn near everything I can find to pull, with the exception of the relay that nearly turned us over, and we powered up a few things, but nothing on the flight controls. There is a bank of relays back there in the lower rear of the cabinet I just can’t reach. Just no friggin’ way to get to them, even if I didn’t mind being electrocuted.”
“Dan,” Jerry said, stopping him. “We’re over the Iranian border in sixteen minutes. Do we have any options?”
Dan sighed and nodded, parsing his words.
“Okay, option one is to pull that same relay that nearly turned us over and buy a 360 turn, or two, or three. By the third one we’ll probably flame out the first engine, and God only knows what the airplane will do then. But at least we’d crash in Iraq instead of Iran.”
“Is there a second option?”
“Yes. That’s what I was getting to. It’s pure desperation, Jerry, but Frank and I have identified the main power lead to that hellish box, and although we can’t find a way to disconnect it in civil fashion, we have a crash axe and I can cut the damned thing.”
“And it would let go of us?”
“Yes. But we have no idea whether the relays would return to normal position and repower our controls, or if we’d be sitting in a dead cockpit with an unpowered airplane we couldn’t control.”
“Those fighters are armed, Dan,” Jerry said quietly.
“I know it. I would never expect an Israeli fighter to not be armed. What’s your point?”
“They could hold off Iranian fighters, maybe, but all it would take is a lucky shot by an oncoming Iranian jet or a ground surface-to-air missile and we’re Malaysia 17.”
Dan sighed again, shaking his head. “We’re going to flame out just over the border in any event, if my calculations are right.”
“We got all the displays back, including fuel quantity. I have to agree.”
“What do we have, Jerry?”
“Sixteen minutes, and we’re as slow as I dare go without flight controls.”
“Okay. So, here’s the deal. Frank and I will keep trying individual relays until we’re five minutes out. At that point, on your order, I’ll cut the power lead with an axe, and we’ll just have to pray a lot.”
“If that’s all we’ve got…”
“That’s all I can see. Whoever built this infernal thing did a really professional job. They may not have been planning for someone to disable it, but they effectively created the same result. I wish I could know for sure who turned the damned thing on!”
Only Carol noticed the former prime minister of Israel turning back to the cabin.
First class cabin, Pangia 10
Carefully maintaining a virtually unreadable expression, Moishe Lavi sat down and opened the laptop Ashira had returned, bringing up the document he had been working on hours before. He made a few corrections and additions, pulled in a copy of his signature, and plugged a small interface cable in between his handheld satellite phone and the computer. With the crew regaining the use of their radios, he doubted anyone would notice the sat phone, but he took care to keep it out of view nonetheless, nudging it up against the window for a better lock-on obscured by a small blanket.
At long last the connection flashed green, and he entered the appropriate keystrokes to send the carefully parsed message to the inbox of a journalist he had always trusted. There would be no doubt that within hours, if not minutes, the whole world would be reading his words, and hopefully understand, even if they did not approve.
Moishe Lavi shut down the computer and sat back, resigned to whatever the next twenty minutes would bring.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
St. Paul’s Hospital, Denver, Colorado (10:50 p.m. MST / 0450 Zulu)
Pulling the chief attending trauma surgeon away from an ER full of patients had required a level of insistence and, basically, rudeness that Steve Reagan hated in others. But there had been no choice, and now a miffed doctor was standing before him in a small alcove demanding to know what the problem was, his voice low and not unkind, but decidedly irritated.
“I need you to give my wife something to wake her up enough to answer some critical questions.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, doctor, I am far from joking.”
“You beat up my nurses to get me over here because you want to question your wife? Man, you’re lucky she’s alive! She’s got to rest, for Chrissake!”
“Doctor, I can’t explain too much to you, but this is a matter of national security.”
“Yeah, right!” He started to turn away, and Steve grabbed the sleeve of his scrubs. The physician whirled on him.
“Get your hands off of me!”
“Doctor, is it dangerous to wake her up?”
“That’s not the point. I won’t allow it.”
“Doctor, at this moment, there is a commercial airliner about to run out of fuel because the pilots cannot regain control of their aircraft. I am not at liberty to tell you how I know this, but I can tell you that Gail… my, my wife in there… has in her head the… the numbers for want of a better word… that will give control back. Almost 300 people will die if we don’t wake her up enough to get that sequence.”
“Who the hell are you?” the doctor demanded.
“I’m Steve Reagan, and I… work for the air force.”
“Yeah? Well, Mr. Reagan, so happens I am a flight surgeon and a major in the Air Force Reserve, and we don’t have people like you running around without IDs. So cough it up or get out of my face.”
“I’ll do better than that. Please wait a second.” Steve pulled his phone to eye level and punched redial on the last number connected.
“General? Steve Reagan. I have a physician here who refuses to wake Gail up and who doesn’t believe me. He’s also an air force doctor, a major. Dr. Mark Wellsley. Yes, sir, I thought you’d say that.”
Steve held out the phone. “Lieutenant General Paul Wriggle is on the other end. He’s speaking from the White House.”
Uncertainty now crossed the face of the doctor as he reluctantly took the phone, listening and responding in guarded fashion before asking the key question Steve knew had to come.
“How the hell do I know you are who you say you are?” The doctor looked back at Reagan, eyes flaring with distaste as he agreed to hang up and find the main number of the White House switchboard on his own and call in.
He handed the phone back to Steve as if it were contaminated and moved to a desk phone at the nurses’ station, punching up information and then dialing the number, obviously astounded when he was recognized and connected immediately.
“Okay, yes, I’m satisfied. What the hell is going on general?”
A few more words were spoken before the doctor replaced the receiver and turned to Steve.
“Okay. We can do this safely, but you’ll only have a few minutes, because I’m not going to let you wear her out.”