Jeff Kaminsky sighed and nodded, then turned back to his screen. “Keep me informed,” he said, regretting the utter uselessness of the remark.
“Sage Ten, Crown,” Kaminsky said. “How’re you doing on the disconnect?”
The chief software engineer Kaminsky had met several times replied, his voice taut, “I can’t just kill the computer without knowing which channel I’m dealing with.”
“Dr. Cole? Listen to me. You’ve got about two minutes maximum to knock that thing offline and give your pilots control again.”
“I’m trying… stand by,” Cole replied. “I may need more than a couple of minutes. I’m running a critical diagnostic.”
“You don’t have more than that, Doctor. You may just have to yank the plug, so to speak. Reset the computer or something drastic.”
“What’s going on?” Hammond cut in. “Why two minutes?”
Jeff Kaminsky sighed quietly to himself as he decided how much to say. “There’s… a possibility of an obstruction ahead of you. It’s imperative you either change course or climb, within… a couple of minutes.”
Some twenty feet to the rear in the AWACS cabin General MacAdams replaced a handset and pointed to a window on the communications panel as he caught the attention of a young sergeant.
“Quickly and quietly dial me up on UHF frequency three twenty-two point four.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, punching in the numbers and giving a thumbs-up.
Mac plugged into the console and toggled the radio to transmit.
“Shepard Five, this is Crown.”
The reply was instantaneous.
“Shepard Five.”
“Max speed and lock him up. Inform me when you’re within firing range.”
The lead pilot of a flight of two F-15 fighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage gave a brief acknowledgment. Mac could imagine them going to afterburner, the two fighters accelerating to more than twice the speed of sound in an emergency dash across the eighty miles separating them from the slower Gulfstream.
Mac forced his mind away from the horror of the situation and focused instead on being grateful for having the foresight to launch the two fighters as a precaution against something unforeseen that might threaten civilian interests.
That “something” had occurred. One Exxon Valdez oil spill was enough.
“You have both targets on radar?” Mac asked the sergeant, who nodded toward his screen.
“Yes, sir.”
“Give me decreasing range, down to six miles.”
Ben Cole felt his mind accelerating to a speed he’d never experienced as he worked through the logic of the problem, eliminating possibilities one by one, struggling hard to make sure nothing he triggered would cause a sudden pitchdown. He was aware of the radio discussion about an object in front of them, but it was a shadowy snippet of information rumbling in the background. The main event was unfolding all around him, but a part of his consciousness was perversely standing to the side, exhilarated to be watching himself trying to master such a complex problem.
The software commanding the Gulfstream was his, and there were only a finite number of possible reasons it wouldn’t release, half of which he’d already eliminated. The remaining ones, however, were even more complex, involving safety procedures to use in case of radio link failure. The system was supposed to be able to fully control an Air Force jet anywhere over the planet.
Seven down, four to go! Ben thought, feeling the timeline stretch even more. He had a minute left. It was a numbers game now, but he should have plenty of time.
“Ben, dammit, talk to me!” Gene Hammond was saying over the interphone. “We’re getting something on the radar ahead, about thirteen miles.”
He took his hand away long enough to punch the interphone transmit button. “I’m working on it. Hang on.”
“We don’t have much time, Ben! In about a minute we’re going to merge with whatever the hell that is.”
He forced himself to ignore the pilot and stay focused. There was an additional possibility he hadn’t considered. Should he take time and probe it? That hadn’t been in his plan ten seconds before.
No! Stay with what you were doing, he chided himself, tuning out the pilot’s voice booming in his ear again.
“Ben, old boy, what say we just reset that damn computer of yours and let the two of us up here deal with the consequences, okay? The possibility of a sudden pitchdown won’t really matter much if we don’t regain control.”
More silence.
Two possibilities left. Has to be one of them.
More keystrokes, his fingers flying with nimble certainty over the keyboard.
“Ben, dammit, disconnect the thing NOW! Please, Ben. Your tip depends on it. Ben? For crissakes answer me! BEN?”
One more. Murphy’s law dictates the solution will be the last one I try.
He fired off the final string of orders, but nothing changed, and the realization was a sudden slap. He’d been wrong, it wasn’t any of them.
What now? Maybe a power supply lock! Oh, Lord, let it be power supply.
“Ben, I’m sending the copilot back to either get you on channel or kill you. Please, guy, shut down that damned computer now! We’ve got eight miles left.”
Ben could hear the forward cabin door being yanked open as the copilot burst through.
“Ben? What the hell are you doing? Pull the plug!” the copilot yelped, but Ben shook his head before looking up suddenly. “I don’t believe this,” Ben said.
“What?” the copilot asked, even more alarmed.
“It won’t respond!”
For several critical minutes General MacAdams had stood in silence watching the Gulfstream’s radar target close at 340 knots on the huge thousand-foot-long supertanker. The Coast Guard had confirmed the identity, but warned there was no time for the tanker’s captain to change course.
Mac felt himself running the alternatives over in his mind again and again, but the equation always yielded the same result.
“Eight miles to go, sir,” the sergeant said quietly.
MacAdams sighed and raised the microphone to his mouth, hesitating before pressing the transmit button. “Stand by, Shepard. Launch on my command only.”
“Roger, Crown. We’re still locked, range twenty miles, and we’re slowing.”
The sergeant was intoning the decreasing range as he watched the general for any indication the impending deaths of the three men below could be averted.
“Six point five. Six point four. Six point three…”
The general sighed and punched the transmit button again.
The copilot had spotted a crash axe along the cabin wall and grabbed it before arriving at Ben Cole’s side. “Show me where to whack it! We’re down to seconds.”
“No need,” Ben replied. He reached over with one hand and toggled the interphone. His other hand reached for a single switch on the side of the main computer tower. “Hang onto your controls. I’m disconnecting.”
There was an immediate jump in G forces as the pilot yanked the jet into a climb.
“Shepard, this is Crown. On my mark… NO! Hold it.”
The sergeant was shaking his head energetically and pointing to the radar screen. “I’ve got an altitude and course change, sir.”