David interrupted. “We understand the risks, sir. I expressed that your company was not to blame if anything goes wrong.”
“Hey, I mean officially, Al, she’s not even built yet, right?” said the colonel, grinning.
David and his colleague shook hands with the colonel.
“Godspeed, sir. Fly safe.”
“Thank you, Mr. Manning. Good luck to you too.”
David and his colleague left and were taken to the CIA’s Gulfstream. They were airborne within minutes, headed to D.C.
Ninety minutes later, the SR-72 taxied to the approach end of the runway and took off into the night sky.
Most air defense systems didn’t even spot it on their radar scopes. The ones that did were immediately informed that it was a friendly and instructed not to communicate anything about it on open channels.
Colonel Wojcik flew at subsonic speed until feet wet over the Pacific. The cockpit was dark and tightly enclosed. A very small window a few feet in front of him gave him glimpses of the outside world, which would be dark until he crossed into daylight over the Pacific. Then he ran through his checklist, ensured he was strapped in tight, and said a quick prayer. That never hurt.
His gloved thumb and forefinger hovered over the final switch in his checklist before turning on the scramjet engine. He both loved and hated this part.
Flick.
Up went the switch.
The sound was the first thing he heard. A rhythmic booming sound emanated from the rear of the aircraft, each noise jolting him deeper into his seat, the digital airspeed indicator jolting up and up and up along with the noises.
A decade earlier, aviation enthusiasts had caught sight of the scramjet engine prototype aircraft’s contrail. Big puffs of cloud, separated thousands of feet from each other. That engine had been improved, and it was now getting warmed up behind him. The noises getting louder and louder.
WHOMP. WHOMP. WHOMP.
The scramjet engine continued to accelerate. The thick cockpit window in front of him began to lighten as he chased the setting sun into the previous day. His flight path would take him west almost six thousand miles, from Nevada to the Philippine Sea. At Mach 6, it would take him less than eighty minutes to get there. Then he would make a wide turn and tank near Hawaii before heading back to Nevada.
The rhythmic explosive noises coming from the engine continued, dulled by his hearing protection. But the speed had reached equilibrium. At an altitude of eighty-five thousand feet, the SR-72 was now traveling at forty-six hundred miles per hour.
Colonel Wojcik ran through his next checklist, reciting the steps out loud to himself out of habit as his fingers danced over an electronic keypad. The multipurpose display in front of him divided into three as the surveillance systems came online.
The SR-72’s surveillance and reconnaissance payload was the most advanced equipment in the US Air Force’s inventory. It included electro-optical and infrared cameras and synthetic aperture radar as well as a multispectral targeting system. Colonel Wojcik had to laugh at that name. He was traveling at Mach 6 with no weapons. What the hell was he supposed to target? There was also a signals intelligence payload that would collect a variety of data, which the NSA would pore over.
Wojcik looked at the left-most screen to make sure that the aircraft’s autopilot was navigating them on his intended track.
Twenty minutes until he was over the 144th east longitude line.
The rightmost screen displayed the images being captured by the optical camera. While the camera would record everything in its field of view, Colonel Wojcik had the ability to adjust the zoom and focus of his display with software, so he could zoom in on a subsection of the larger picture but still allow the equipment to record the entire scene for later. Wojcik moved a trackball and tapped a few keys to zoom in on a white dot on the ocean’s surface. Eventually the white dot increased in size until it transformed into a merchant vessel. Op check complete.
The aircraft started vibrating, and he checked the center panel. One of the scramjet engines’ internal cooling systems was right on the operational limits.
Come on, baby. Just a few more minutes and we’ll be able to slow you down.
The world sped by in a blur, and the rattle grew louder. Wojcik felt a twinge of fear in his chest. Or was that the vibrations of the aircraft? He checked the chart. They had just reached the checkpoint for the left turn. A slow one-thousand-mile arc over the Pacific. The turn would take them over the entire area of uncertainty where the southernmost Chinese fleet might be.
The engine noise grew louder. His eyes shifted to his instruments. Shit. Internal temperature was now out of limits in the scramjet engine.
He looked at the right-side screen. A large cluster of white dots was surrounded by a computer-generated red square. Wojcik tapped a key, and the image zoomed in and became clear. Dozens of white wakes.
It was the Chinese fleet.
A red flashing light came on, and a ringing tone sounded in his helmet earpiece.
WARNING: ENGINE TEMP
The master caution panel was telling him what he already knew. If he didn’t dial back the airspeed, the cooling system wouldn’t be able to keep up with the friction generated by the speed of air molecules entering the intake, and catastrophic engine failure could result.
Another flashing light, and a distinctly different tone in his earpiece.
WARNING: SAM RADAR DETECTED
The electronic sensors had detected the signature of Chinese surface-to-air missile radars.
His breaths came fast and heavy in his oxygen mask. Each WHOMP of the engine was like the flash of a moment in time. Colonel Wojcik’s decades of training forced him to take action.
WHOMP. His eyes scanning the navigational chart, heading, and altitude.
WHOMP. His mind calculating the time it would take for the Chinese ships to launch an attack on his aircraft if he kept his speed versus if he slowed to below Mach 1, as the emergency procedure prescribed.
WHOMP. His eyes darting back to the image of the Chinese fleet, now showing…
What the hell are those? For a brief moment, everything else fell away. The alarms, the flashing lights, his mind focused on a new and interesting riddle. Trying to place the giant whitish-gray shapes he saw clustered around the aircraft carrier. They almost look like…
BOOM.
His master caution panel lit up like a Christmas tree.
EJECT.
EJECT.
EJECT.
Everything seemed to go in slow motion. The gyro showed his aircraft was now banking hard to the left. His speed was bleeding down. Mach 4.2. Mach 3.8. The light sky and dark blue of the ocean began revolving in the tunnel of a window. Then everything went bright white as the aircraft disintegrated around him.
Colonel Wojcik felt his stomach flutter as negative Gs came on. He was being shoved downward, the aircraft’s safety system initiating bailout procedures. His pressure suit inflated, which was good. The pressure suit would keep his blood from boiling at almost eighty-five thousand feet above sea level, and act like an escape pod… as long as it held. It also gave him oxygen. A small kick near his back told him that the tiny parachute behind his seat had been activated. It was designed to slow him down and prevent tumbling motions.
He hurtled towards the ocean, wondering if he would live through the next few minutes.
19
Victoria Manning heard the familiar sound of an ELT in her headset. The emergency locator transmitter was checked before every flight. Every aircraft had one. It broadcast a high-pitched audio sound on Guard, the emergency radio frequency that aircraft and ships monitored at all times.