Berry found the switch. Not only was it covered by a special guard, but the guard was fixed in place by a thin strand of safety wire. Clearly, this switch was not used very often. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll read it again… a covered switch labeled fuel valve emergency power. Engage the switch…” She paused. “John, please hurry. We’re almost into the storm.”
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of Berry’s mind a warning flashed for a thousandth of a second, like a subliminal message on a video screen. He could not see it, though he sensed it for a passing moment, but did not believe what he thought it said. For to believe it was to admit to something he could not possibly handle. Without another thought, John Berry snapped the safety wire with his thumb and lifted the guard.
He pushed the emergency power switch into an engaged position.
Within the span of a microsecond, an electrical signal went to each fuel valve on the Straton’s four jet engines. Before John Berry had even taken his hand off the switch, the valves had already begun to choke off the flow of fuel to all four of the engines.
Mayday
13
Lieutenant Peter Matos had never fired a shot in anger, but now he was to fire one in sorrow. His first kill would be an unarmed American civilian transport.
Matos edged his F-18 twenty-five yards astern of the transport’s towering tail and one hundred fifty feet above it. He snapped his manual gun sight into place and looked through it.
Shredded clouds flew by his canopy and over the wide expanse of the silvery Straton, causing alternating overcast and bright glare in the gun sight. Matos rubbed his eyes. These were not optimum conditions for a close-in shot.
He looked out toward the horizon. The dark, ugly storm clouds rolled toward him like a high surf sweeping up the beach. In front of the storm were several thin layers of clouds, and he would pass under them within a minute. Then and there, under the heavy veil of gray, he would strike. “Okay, okay, let’s go,” he said to himself, and pushed forward on the control stick, then hit the transmit button. “Navy three-four-seven beginning the attack.”
“Roger.”
Matos snapped back the safety cover and put his finger over the missile’s firing button.
The target proved more difficult to align this time. The increasing turbulence caused the two aircraft to sway and bounce, and the bull’s-eye danced in circles around the center of the airliner’s high dome.
They were under the cloud cover now, and the light was subdued but consistent. He stared through his gun sight. Several times he almost pushed the button, but the Straton would sway out of his bull’s-eye. He glanced up. He was only a few minutes from the front of the storm. If the Straton got into the black clouds, his chances of holding a trail formation were zero. “Homeplate! I have turbulence. Can’t hold it steady!”
Sloan’s voice cracked in his ears like a whip. “Shoot the goddamned missile!”
For an irrational moment Matos thought of ramming the Straton’s high dome. He went as far as to give a slight forward impulse to his control stick, and the motion carried his fighter closer to its target. Suddenly, he pulled back on the stick and backed off. What held him back was not a fear of death but something he had seen, with a fighter pilot’s highly developed sense of peripheral vision, from the corner of his left eye.
As he slid back and above the Straton, he looked down at the airliner’s left wing. The flow of hot exhaust gases from the Straton’s number-one engine had stopped. Then the number-two engine cut out. Matos looked quickly to the right and saw that the two star-board engines had also stopped producing power. He jammed his thumb on the transmit button. “Homeplate! Homeplate! The Straton is flaming out! I say again, the Straton is flaming out!”
Sloan’s response was quick, and his voice was as excited as Matos’s. “Are you positive? Where are you? Can you see it clearly?”
Matos composed himself. “Yes. Yes. I’m right on its tail. No vapor trails. Flame out.” He watched as the Straton began its slow, powerless descent toward the sea. “It appears that the autopilot is still flying it. Its speed remains at three-forty. The rate of descent is increasing. It’s dropping. Going down.”
“Stay with it, Matos. Stay with it. I want you to see it hit the water.”
Even the scrambler, thought Matos, could not mask the vengeance in Sloan’s voice. “Roger, Homeplate.” Matos had already begun his descent to follow the dying airliner. He could see that it was still steady on its 131-degree heading, and its glide would take them both directly into the thunderstorms. Matos slammed his hand on the dash panel. “Shit!”
“Situation report,” said Sloan tersely.
“Roger. Rate of descent is twenty-one hundred feet per minute. The airspeed has slowed to two-ninety. The wings are level and steady. It still appears that the autopilot is engaged.” He broke the transmission, then hit the button again. “Homeplate, there are thunderstorms just ahead. I may lose them shortly.”
“Matos, you son-of-a-bitch, your mission is to keep that fucking aircraft in sight until it crashes. I don’t give a shit if you have to follow it to hell.”
“Roger.” Matos put James Sloan from his mind and concentrated on following the plunging Straton. The first scattering of oversized raindrops splattered against his canopy. Within seconds, his visibility had dropped to less than a half mile, then a quarter mile, then five hundred feet. Matos edged as close to the Straton as he dared, but the increasing turbulence made any tighter formation suicidal. There was no reason to throw his life away-not anymore.
“Situation report.”
“The Straton is down to forty-eight hundred. Air-speed and descent rates are constant. No power in any engines. They’ll hit within two minutes.” As he looked up, the huge silver outline of the Straton blended in with the heavy rain and gray clouds, then the airliner faded from sight.
“Roger. Understand two more minutes. Do you still have visual contact with target?”
“Stand by.” Matos peered into the grayness in front of him. Now that the Straton was no longer visible, he was afraid of colliding with it. Almost involuntarily, his hand pulled back on the control stick. He considered trying to track it with his radar, but the calibration would take too long and it would not work well at this close range. Damn it. He was becoming frightened. At this distance he knew he wouldn’t see the airliner until it was too late to take evasive action. He pulled back further on the control stick.
“Matos! Do you have visual contact?”
“Visibility near zero. Heavy rain. Turbulence.” Matos’s eyes darted around to all the places where the Straton might be, but he saw nothing. Sheets of water ran from his canopy and a bolt of lightning cracked behind him, suffusing his cockpit with an eerie luminescence. Fuck this. The only way he’d find the Straton again was if he rammed into it. His hands were shaking as he pushed on the fighter’s throttles and pulled back hard on the control stick.
As the fighter began to climb out of the storm, he hit the transmit button. “I have the Straton in sight again,” he lied. “Straight ahead. Twenty yards. All conditions remain the same.”
“Roger. What is your altitude?”
“Descending through twenty-six hundred feet. Approximately one minute to impact.” As he spoke, Matos glanced at his altimeter. Seven thousand feet and climbing. He turned his fighter northwest so he would clear the storm as quickly as possible. Even in a high-performance aircraft like the F-18, the turbulence was jarring. He felt his stomach heave. For a brief instant, Matos pitied whoever might still be alive on that Straton.
“Report.”
“Down to twelve hundred feet. Turbulence heavy. Clouds less dense here. I can see the ocean now. No chance of a successful ditching in this kind of heavy sea.” The F-18 broke out into the sunshine at 19,000 feet. Matos continued to climb at full throttle, as if the altitude would get him far away from the whole situation. Below him nothing was visible except solid, heavy rain clouds.