“You will ensure that your drop is precisely on target,” Cazaux shouted on the radio, the anger in his voice barely attenuated by the crackle and warbling of the frequencyhopping system, “or I will personally hunt you and your family down. I know where your family resides in Belize, and I know about your eighteen-year-old mistress. I know the license plate number of the Land-Rover your wife drives. I know which Catholic school your twin daughters go to, and I know that your lovely daughters have just become women… ” Cazaux let up on the mike button, and sure enough, Mikheyev was letting loose a stream of epithets in Russian.
“If you fail, I will drag your wife, your mistress, and your daughters before you, have my soldiers sodomize them, then strip their skin off, one by one. You will watch them all die, slowly and painfully.”
“You bastard!” Mikheyev shouted. He said something unintelligible in Russian, but it was obvious that the force of his anger was subsiding. He knew full well that Cazaux would carry out his threat.
You are a professional soldier,” Cazaux added in a softer tone after Mikheyev had ceased his protests. “You know the price of failure — death, to you and your family. That is the law of the mercenary. My laws were well known to you before you signed up and before you took your very generous payment for this mission. Failure is not allowed.
On the other hand, if you succeed, I will see to it that your family is paid the full amount of what is owed to you. They will be made comfortable for the rest of their lives. I give you my word as a soldier, and I have never broken faith with a comrade-in-arms. Failure will be severely punished. Success will be rewarded — even if you do not survive.”
Cazaux was not going to say anything else to Mikheyev, but the Russian pilot did not reply anyway. He had his choice perfect accomplishment of his mission, or the undignified, horrible death of every woman close to him, then himself.
Of course, there was only one way Mikheyev could ensure that the target was totally destroyed…
At exactly four miles out, the call came in: “Express- 107, outer marker.”
Aha, Gayze thought, a new voice! Definitely older, definitely more professional sounding, with a trace of a foreign accent. The Captain was finally awake… “107, roger, traffic ahead is a MetroLiner one mile descending, you’re number five.”
“107, contact on the Metro, cancel IFR.”
This flight was finally starting to sound like they really had a professional pilot at the controls, Gayze thought with relief. Canceling IFR erased the cylinder of protected airspace around his aircraft and really helped to expedite traffic flow, especially since Universal-107 was the one responsible for gumming it up in the first place by keeping his speed up so high. Gayze could now tighten the spacing up on the arrivals and clear out the airspace that much faster. He didn’t know for sure if the Universal pilot could really see the much smaller Fairchild Metro commuter airliner, but he was committed to following it now: “Roger, 107, maintain visual contact with the Metro, squawk 1200, you’re number four now behind the MetroLiner, cleared to land.”
“Universal-107 cleared to land on the left,” the Universal pilot responded. Couple more minutes, Gayze thought, and this flight would be out of his hair for the night, or at least until it was time for him to turn and depart. Maybe he would be off on break by then.
“Memphis Tower, American-501, with you level seven.”
“American-501, good evening, winds three-zero-zero at three, you’re number six, report established on GPS inbound course.”
“501, wilco.”
Things were busy, but not too bad. To an air traffic controller, spacing was the name of the game. After ten years, Gayze could look at the lights in the sky and accurately determine a plane’s altitude, speed, and spacing — radar was the best way, but a quick glance at the landing lights usually told him what he needed to know the fastest—
And now there was a glitch developing and, no surprise, it was from the Universal Express newcomer. There was a noticeable gap in the sequence of landing lights — the Universal Express plane had no lights on, which meant its landing gear was probably not down. “Express-107, check wheels down, wind calm.” No response. “Universal Express-107, Memphis Tower, check wheels down and verify, over.” Gayze didn’t wait for tin answer this time, but said to the tower supervisor in a loud voice, “John, number four for landing three-six left has no lights — and I get no response.”
Simultaneously, someone else shouted out, “John, I got a NORDO and possible no gear down on two-mile final on two-seven. I think he’s going missed approach.” This was incredible — two radio-out planes landing at once with no radios and no landing lights! The chances of that happening were astronomically high — and so was the potential for disaster.
“Bill, what’s your NORDO’s altitude?” the supervisor shouted.
Gayze checked the BRITE scope: “Five hundred and level — he might be going missed too.”
“Is he turning?”
“No.”
“Damn it. Conflict alert procedures!” the supervisor shouted. “Abort all departures! Clear the runways, get on the lights, give those pilots some safe options.”
The tower supervisor calmly stepped over to his communications console while watching his radarscope. The phone and radio buttons on his console were arranged precisely in conflict alert procedures order, which connected with Memphis International’s two fire departments, the airport security office, the Memphis fire department, and with dispatchers for Universal Express and all of the major airlines on the field. One by one, he hit the buttons without looking at them and calmly started talking: “Victor, Gayze at Memphis Tower, conflict alert procedures, runways three-six left and two-seven, two NORDO aircraft, three inbounds going missed, one takeoff abort… Atlanta Center, Memphis Tower, conflict alert procedures, stand by… Memphis Crash Network, Memphis Crash Network, this is Memphis International Control Tower, we have an aircraft collision conflict alert, two no-radio airliners, possible landing-gear malfunction on both, on runways three-six left and two-seven, estimated six souls on board, all stations stand by.” By the time he finished all those calls, the pilots flying the affected planes should have gotten to the “What was that? What the hell did he say?” stage, and the supervisor went through all the buttons once again and repeated his instructions and notifications.
“Two miles out,” someone called out. With a phone in one ear and the radio earpiece in the other, Gayze scanned the BRITE scope. Both no-radio airplanes had accelerated and climbed slightly, both at about five hundred feet above ground. On the radio, Gayze said, “Express-107, are you able to execute the published missed approach? Ident if you are executing the missed approach.” No response, either on the radio or on the radarscope.