“Bringing up engine one.”
Gould fumbled for his headphones. “Wait, wait— warm-up!”
“Hurry up, then!”
Gould started running through a modified checklist. “Can you get Tower?”
POP POP POP!
Head fumbled with the radio equipment, muttered a curse, then tried a backup unit. “No. Radio’s shot.”
Gould punched on the avionics package. Something flipped, then there was a soft sigh as the lights slowly grew dim. “What in the world?” Gould stared incredulously at the panel. He toggled the power switch. “Look at this!”
Richard Head reached over and tried the switch himself. “Well, I’ll be dipped.” A quick run-through of the electronics modules confirmed his suspicions. He slouched back in his seat. “All the fly-by-wire stuff is out.”
“All of it?”
Head checked a few more items. “Yeah. Everything that’s run by solid-state.” Head pulled off his helmet and waved to the men outside in the rain to cut the APU. “I know our stuff is soft, but this is crazy. It’s like someone hit us with a bolt of lightning.”
The intercom went silent as the lights went out. Vice President Adleman grasped the sides of his chair. His breathing increased.
The 747 jerked to the right, then straightened. It seemed to straighten, but papers continued to slide off the desk onto the floor. A lamp crashed against the bulkhead, spraying glass.
Adleman felt helpless.
Muffled shouts came from outside the chamber.
Adleman felt the plane suddenly bump. He felt a growing wetness around his crotch; he couldn’t stop from urinating. The plane bumped again, this time harder, and his stomach seemed to fly up into his throat. He closed his eyes, but nothing changed — he was still alone and in the dark, helpless.
A dozen things ran through his mind, the foremost being that he had lost the chance to become President of the United States.
Then came faint brushings underneath the plane. It started as a scrape, then quickly crescendoed to a tearing, ripping, jarring, flipping, nauseating sound that seemed to bore right through his body. It went on, slicing and burning up through his senses. Thick acrid smoke, sharp alarms, and screams penetrated his senses.
The plane seemed to be ripping away. Wetness filled the cabin, splashing him with water, leaves, and branches.
And then it stopped.
Silence.
Adleman thought that everything was quiet until he made out the soft sound of water dripping, then moans of other people.
Dim light filtered into the aircraft from holes ripped in the side of the craft. He tried to move, but found that one of his legs was jammed in between the safety chair and the desk. He pushed up with his hand and cried out “Help!” but his voice cracked.
A sharp pain shot through his arm. Adleman tipped back his head and tried to get as comfortable as the pain would let him.
Sirens on the base ran up and down the scale. Throughout Thirteenth Air Force Headquarters preparations for Search and Rescue, Site Security, Hospital Mobilization, Disaster Preparedness, and Personnel Readiness had swung into action.
Major General Simone paced up and down his office, conferring via conference calls with the different emergency site commanders. “Maintenance, one more time — what’s the story on the Black Hawks?”
A voice came over the intercom. “Both MH-60 Black Hawks lost avionics as they prepared for flight, General. The specialists are dismantling the units now, and we have an open line with the contractor.”
“The HH-3s?”
“We’re working on getting one up, sir. They … ah, weren’t being used because of the Black Hawks. We are cannibalizing three of the Jolly Greens in the shop.”
Simone strained to keep his voice calm. “So we have no Search and Rescue support.”
“Correct, General. Not at this moment.”
Simone turned to Major Stephanie Hendhold, who stood in one corner of the room, speaking on a phone. “Stephanie, get me Subic. We’ll have them throw everything they can to help us.”
“General,” interrupted the colonel from maintenance, “there’s no need to call in the Navy. We should have the Black Hawks up and flying in fifteen minutes. Besides, they’ll just claim credit for everything.”
“And if we don’t call in the Navy, then that’s a quarter of an hour lost. I don’t care if the Boy Scouts find the vice president, I’m not going to let inter-service rivalry hold up this rescue.”
Hendhold held up a telephone. “General, we got through to General Newman.”
Bruce took no time deciding what to do. The clouds were too low to safely fly any lower, so he flipped the fighter upside down. Charlie was incoherent. Bruce hesitated, then turned off the intercom — he couldn’t afford to let Charlie’s pain affect what he was doing.
He slowed his airspeed and pulled back on the stick. The F-15E descended through the clouds.
Or at least Bruce hoped they were descending. From the blood pounding in his forehead, he could tell they were still inverted.
Bruce strained to see through the clouds. There was nothing but gray-white randomness out there.
Flying upside-down gave him two advantages: With his instruments out, his “feel” for which way was down was better this way; and more importantly, since the cloud layer was so low, if he was right side up, he might not see that the fighter had broken through until they were too close to the ground. This way, the cockpit would be the first thing below the clouds.
Bruce pulled back on the throttles, slowing his air speed. He tried not to rush his descent, but the thought of pranging into the mountains gnawed at him. If only they’re tracking me on radar, he thought, they’re at least keeping other planes away.
The descent seemed to take forever. Slowly, slowly, don’t rush.…He imagined he heard Charlie’s screams of pain, saw images of what — broken glass in his backseater’s face? Suddenly he saw swirls, could make out patches of cloud. Bruce pushed the F-15 lower.
Still flying upside down, below him now were buildings, streets. It seemed orderly enough to be Clark. He thought about flipping back over, but decided to get a fix on the runway first.
Bruce pulled the F-15 into a slow bank, lost altitude, and fought to pull the craft back up. He searched for buildings, anything that might give him a clue as to where he was. He spotted the Officers’ Club.
The runway came up almost too quickly.
Bruce remembered the stunt for which Colonel Bolte had bawled him out upon his arrival at Clark.…
Bruce waited until he was over the road and pulled a tight turn, flipping the F-15 over just as he started to flare out.
The runway spread before him, white lights running down the two-mile stretch and disappearing into the rain at the other end. Bruce continued to descend, and when the wheels touched the ground he finally eased his grip. He shot off the drag chute, further slowing the craft. The runway was slick, but at least he was down.
It seemed strange: he was alone out there, no fire trucks, ambulances, military police. He brought the canopy up and rain started coming in. The screams had stopped from behind him, but he could still hear Charlie’s sobs. “Charlie — hold on!” As he unstrapped and turned to try and see Charlie, he heard the sirens approach.
Barguyo glanced at his watch. Five minutes had passed since he had fired off the weapon for the first time.
Barguyo listened intently for sounds other than the rain and wind, but could hear nothing. Cervante had directed that they continue to shoot at other airplanes, but he thought that it was time to show some prudence.