“These three, undo all the straps holding them down,” Chase ordered, pointing at the rearmost containers on the port side of the main hold.
“But then they’ll come loose when the plane moves,” said Nina, confused.
“They’ll do more than that. Go on, quick.” As Nina pulled the release levers on the securing straps, Chase limped to the controls for the cargo door.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to blow the door.”
Nina froze. “You’re gonna do
“We need to get these containers out of the way. See that bike?”
Nina looked back at the motorbike on its pallet. “Yes?” It suddenly struck her what Chase was thinking.
“It’s the only way off! If we just jump out, we’ll still be doing over a hundred miles an hour-there’s no way we’d survive the impact!”
“As opposed to what’ll happen if we ride a motorbike out of the back of a flying plane?”
“So it’s not a perfect plan! But it’s better than being
“I think the blood you’ve lost came straight from your brain,” Nina complained unhappily, but she continued to release the containers from the lugs in the deck.
Chase read the warning sign. “Okay,” he yelled when Nina had unfastened the last strap, “get back to the bike and hold tight!” She hurried up the hold as Chase let go of his injured leg to grip a fuselage spar with one hand. With the other, he turned the first of the two red-painted levers that fired the explosive bolts.
Then the second…
The cracks as the bolts detonated, severing the heavy hinges of the cargo door, were nothing compared to the ferocious roar of wind and engine noise as the door blew out. A hurricane-force gale screamed into the hold. The A380 was descending, so the aircraft didn’t depressurize, but it was still traveling at over three hundred knots.
The plane lurched. The computers were already trying to counteract the unexpected movement, but the first container shifted, moving backwards over the rollers set into the deck with a banshee shriek of metal against metal. It crashed against the container holding the virus, then plunged through the gaping hatch to be whipped away by the slipstream.
Chase watched it fall. They were still over the sea, but it would only be a few minutes before they made landfall.
The A380 swayed again as the autopilot compensated for the shift in its balance caused by the loss of the container. Another metal crate screeched over the rollers, slewing sideways-coming right for him!
He had nowhere to go, no way to dodge the container-
He let go of the spar and flung himself backwards. The blasting wind caught him, snatching him off his feet.
The rear frame of the cargo door bisected his vision like a knife blade. To its left was the narrow gap between the side of the virus container and the hold wall; to the right, open sky and certain death.
He hit the frame, pinned for a moment by the wind…
And was blown left.
He grabbed a strap and clung on as the loose container juddered over the rollers and fell through the door. The third container was right behind it like a train carriage, the A380’s sudden upwards lurch as it shed more weight sending it hurtling at him. It smashed into the container holding the virus and jolted to a stop less than an inch from Chase’s face. Then the wind hammering against its flat front flung it out of the hold into empty space.
The freezing gale hit him again. Eyes forced almost shut, he squinted up the hold. Nina clung to the container next to the bike. Through the door, he could see a dark line on the horizon ahead. The Norwegian coast.
Chase pulled himself around the mangled corner of the virus container. Each step on his wounded leg was like a spike being driven through his flesh. He continued forwards, using the straps on the starboard line of containers to drag himself towards Nina.
Once past the door, the wind lessened slightly. He reached Nina and the Suzuki, yelling over the roar, “Unfasten the bike and start it up!”
“What if there’s no gas in it?” she shouted back.
“Then we’re fucked! Get it ready-I’ve got to get back to the cockpit!”
“What for?”
“To switch off the autopilot!” Using the containers for support, Chase hobbled up the hold, emerging in the crew area. The bodies of the two guards had been thrown to the side of the cabin by the plane’s maneuvers, and Kari was now lying facedown at the foot of the stairs. He spotted his Wildey and tried to bend down to pick it up, but a fireball of pain in his leg deterred him.
He entered the cockpit and checked the autopilot display. As he’d thought, Kari had engaged all the plane’s automatic emergency systems. The A380 was following a course back to Ravnsfjord’s main runway, using signals from the ground to guide it in for a landing.
Even from several miles away, he could see the runway lights through the cockpit windows. The Airbus was still over the North Sea, but the coastline was only a few miles distant, the airport three miles inland. He checked the other controls. The plane was losing speed, the engines slowing as the computers brought it down in a shallow descent, trying to make the landing as simple as possible.
Chase looked back through the windows. There was the fjord, a dark indentation in the coastline. A line of black smoke marked the location of the biolab…
The central pillar of the windscreen acted as his guide to the A380’s course. Right now it was aimed directly at the runway lights. He had to bring the plane around a few degrees to the right…
He checked the altimeter. Eight thousand feet and descending. He needed to be lower. A
Leaning painfully over the dead pilot, Chase took hold of the joystick with one hand as he deactivated the autopilot with the other.
A warning buzzer shrilled, but he ignored it. Instead, he gently tipped the stick to the right, banking the plane. Slowly the runway lights drifted to the left of the pillar. He held the stick in position until the column of smoke was dead ahead, then pushed it upright. The A380 swayed queasily before leveling.
So far, so good. Now for the tricky part…
He pushed the stick forward. The nose dipped, the altimeter’s countdown suddenly accelerating. He would have to judge everything entirely by eye: too high and the A380 would fly right over his target; too low and it would plow into the rocky side of the fjord…
The plane dropped below four thousand feet. The coastline loomed ahead. They were running out of time.
He pushed the stick farther forward, steepening the descent. Another alert sounded. “I know, I
Too fast, but there was nothing he could do about that now. If he slowed the plane too much, it might stall.
Two thousand feet. The coastline was coming up fast. The plane was still aimed right at the smoking ruins of the biolab. He reached over to the autopilot panel and hammered repeatedly at the “cancel” button, praying he was wiping all the commands Kari had entered. If the plane tried to follow its previous programming and make an emergency landing at Ravnsfjord, it was all over.
One thousand feet. A honking klaxon filled the cockpit, the synthetic female voice speaking beneath it. “Warning. Ground proximity alert. Warning. Ground proximity-”
“I
He leveled off. The artificial horizon tipped sluggishly back to the central position. Four hundred,
Three-fifty. Level. The terrain on the southern side of the fjord was roughly three hundred feet above sea level.
