Kestrel turned to Hardcastle and Vincenti and said, “Okay, gents, I’ve just given the order for the short-range air defense systems to open fire on the inbound 757 if he strays more than a mile off course within five miles from the runway, more than a half-mile within two miles of the extended runway centerline, or more than one thousand feet toward the terminals within one mile. Meanwhile, the F-16s will try to join on him or orbit nearby until he’s turned off the runway. This jet jockey is screwing up by the numbers, and now he — and his passengers, don’t forget — are looking down the barrel of about twenty-four missiles and two F-16 Fighters with missiles and guns of their own. Just plain stupid. He can die at any time between now and about two minutes from now, and you’ll have a major disaster on your hands.”
It was a very tense wait as they watched the final two minutes of the approach. The F-16 fighter joined on the 757 when the airliner was about two miles from touchdown: “Tiger Control, Tango X-Ray-311 flight, target looks clean, no open panels or devices, wheels are down. I see passengers in the windows. Looking good…” There was a short pause as the F-16 pilot configured his own plane for landing. He would fly to the right and above the airliner as long as he could, away from the Hawk and Avenger missile units arrayed between the runway and the east terminals of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. “Control, — 311 going around.”
“Control, this is Tiger-148, I’ve got a visual on the target,” reported one of the Avenger ground units, stationed at the approach end of the runway and tracking the airliner all the way on a telescopic infrared camera. “He’s looking good, wheels and flaps down… Control, the target has touched down… Control, I see thrust reversers and spoilers, looks like a normal rollout… Control, he’s turned off onto the high-speed taxiway one-north, moving onto taxiway 21… Control, security units are on the scene. Request permission to disengage. Over.”
“Attention all Tiger units, this is Tiger Control, all batteries hold fire, repeat, all batteries hold fire. Target ID U7113 is down. Tiger Control clear.” Kestrel slid off his headset after telling his Senior Director he was going off the air for a few minutes, then motioned to Hardcastle and Vincenti toward the back of the AWACS plane: “I gotta take a break.”
Hardcastle and Vincenti followed Kestrel to the galley, where Kestrel hit the lavatory and stayed in there for what seemed like a long time. When he finally emerged, his face still damp from the water he had splashed on it, he slugged down a couple of antacid tablets with a grimace. “It’s gonna be a long day, I can see that now,” he muttered.
“Very good work over there, Major,” Hardcastle offered.
“That routine happens about twice, maybe three times an hour, gents,” Kestrel said to Hardcastle and Vincenti, as if he hadn’t heard Hardcastle’s compliment. The strain really showed. “The pilots declare an emergency, and all our rules go out the window. All the air traffic controllers want to do is get these guys on the ground, so they clear them for landing before we can check them out. It’s wearing my crews down real fast, and this is only the second day.”
“But aren’t your crews accustomed to this?” Hardcastle asked. “You’ve got some Desert Storm veterans on your crew. In the Middle East you were flying thousands of sorties a day, controlling hundreds of aircraft.”
“In Desert Storm, and in most controller situations, most of the targets on the scope are good guys, and we’re on the lookout for the bad guys,” Kestrel explained. “Here, every target is a potential bad guy, right up until he turns off the runway after landing. Furthermore, all of our ‘bad guys’ are flying right toward the spot that we’re assigned to defend — and we have to let them! That’s pretty unheard-of in the AWACS game. We’re used to playing on a much bigger scale — here, most of the real tense action occurs close to the ground and close to the defended spot, where if something goes wrong we don’t have a lot of time to react—”
“Nothing personal, Major, but I’d rather burn out a few AWACS crews rather than see Cazaux bomb another terminal,” Vincenti said. “Air defense is a shitty game, but we gotta play it.”
“I hear you, Al, and I can’t argue with that — it’s our job and we’re going to do it,” Kestrel said. “I’m getting an ulcer because some flyboy wants to land five minutes earlier than his buddies — fine. But I wonder if that pilot realizes that if he does so much as wag his wings toward the terminal when he’s on final approach, sirs, one of those kids riding in the Avengers is going to pull the trigger and send two Stinger missiles into an airliner full of civilians. It’s something you guys from Washington are going to have to deal with if this thing drags on and a mistake happens. Either we turn up the heat and catch this Cazaux bastard right away, or you’ll have to tighten up the rules a bit more, before we start flaming a lot of innocent Americans.”
“We can’t do much about the tactical situation,” Hardcastle said. “We can nail the pilots busting the rules or declaring an emergency in order to circumvent the rules and get on the ground faster, but for the time being I don’t think Washington is going to want to hear any more plans to restrict air traffic any more than what we’re doing right now. I’d like to see the FBI take off the kid gloves and beat the bushes a little harder for Cazaux, but I believe they’re working as hard as they—”
“Major Kestrel, another target just busted the arrival routing,” one of the surveillance technicians said as he approached the group. “SD wants you back up on headsets.”
“On my way,” Kestrel said, popping one more antacid before leading Hardcastle and Vincenti back to the Weapons Controller section of the AWACS radar plane. He reached his seat, slapped on his headset, and turned to his Senior Director: “What do we have, Todd?”
“A private 727 on the Acton Two Arrival with a lost flight plan,” the Senior Director reported. “Departed San Antonio International about an hour ago — that’s been confirmed by the tower crew.”
“Can’t let him into DFW without a flight plan,” Kestrel said emphatically. “Why the hell didn’t ATC kick him out and tell him to return to San Antonio?” He knew that was a rhetorical question that his Senior Director couldn’t answer, so he flipped his communications panel to his discrete Dallas Approach channeclass="underline" “Dallas West Approach, Tiger Airborne Control.”
“This is Dallas West Regional, go ahead.”
“Yes, sir, that private 727, radar ID 35T90, doesn’t have a flight plan for Dallas-Fort Worth International. Landing is prohibited without an IFR flight plan coordinated through me. Landing at DFW, Love, or Alliance is not authorized.”
“Stand by one, I’ll give you to my military operations desk.” Kestrel was put on hold for about a minute, and then he had to explain the situation all over again to the Dallas TRACON military operations officer again, who responded, “We’ve been losing lots of flight plans, Tiger. The system is jammed. We’d lose five percent of the flight plans on a normal full-up day — now, with every plane in the sky filing a flight plan, we can’t keep up.”