The place was a madhouse. Sylvia had decided to avoid LAX and take a commuter jet to San Francisco, but the usually quiet airport in Santa Monica was teeming with angry, yelling, ticket-waving customers. One look at the electronic status board showed Sylvia that half the scheduled flights had been canceled. Most of the others were badly delayed.
Her daughters seemed unimpressed by the furor boiling all around them as Sylvia left them in front of the status board to fight her way to the ticket counter.
“Don’t move from this spot,” Sylvia commanded. Both girls nodded dutifully. “And watch my bag!”
“Sure.”
As their mother plunged into the crowd, Vickie said, “Must be a lot of people trying to get to San Francisco today.”
“Or someplace,” Denise agreed.
“The place looks like a zoo.”
“This is where they filmed
The two girls were standing in the midst of the bellowing, surging crowd like a pair of slim palm trees in the middle of a tropical typhoon. Vickie nodded. “The airport scene in the beginning,” she said.
A harried-looking, red-faced man lugging a bulging briefcase rushed past the girls and tripped over Vickie’s roll-on suitcase. He went sprawling, his briefcase popped open, papers fluttering in all directions.
Vickie and Denise helped to scoop up the papers. The man stuffed them back in his briefcase, his face sweaty and angry, as he muttered something about being late for the last flight to Sacramento. He dashed off, clutching the briefcase under his arm like a football.
“He never said thank you,” Denise complained.
“A jerk,” said Vickie.
Sylvia came out of the crowd, reached for the handle of her roll-on, and said grimly to her daughters, “Follow me.”
They pushed through the fuming, bawling crowd and up a flight of stairs, their roll-ons bumping with each step.
Sylvia pushed through a door marked FLIGHT OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, the two girls at her heels.
It was mercifully quiet inside the office. No one was there except a rake-thin, harried-looking man sitting behind a desk with a phone at his ear and both eyes staring at his desktop computer screen. He was in his shirtsleeves, which were rolled up. His tie was pulled loose from his wrinkled, soggy collar.
“It’s a total mess!” he was saying into the phone, his voice high, agitated. “Computers are down, phone lines are jammed, navigation system is kaput—a real mess!”
Sylvia stood before his desk, her two daughters flanking her, and waited patiently until at last the man put the phone down and looked up at her.
Before he could speak a word, Sylvia said sweetly, “Congresswoman McClintock is waiting for us in San Francisco. If we don’t get there to be with the President this evening there’s going to be a lot of trouble.”
“Congresswoman McClintock?”
“We’re due to be with the President of the United States this evening at the Cow Palace,” Sylvia said in a tone that you could pour over pancakes.
“The President?”
“The President,” said Sylvia sweetly. “And Congresswoman McClintock. And the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. Among others.”
The man groaned, but then said, “Wait right here. I’ll see what can be done.”
Sylvia gestured for her daughters to take the two wooden chairs in front of the desk. She herself remained standing while the badly stressed director of flight operations picked up his telephone again.
“Kamchatka Peninsula coming up.” Colonel Christopher heard her navigator’s voice in her headphone. The kid sounded more sure of himself since they’d made the rendezvous with the first tanker.
“There it is,” Major Kaufman said, pointing to a smudge of gray clouds on the horizon, at about the two o’clock position.
Christopher said into her lip mike, “Jon, we need to stay well away from Russian airspace.”
“Workin’ on it,” the navigator replied. “I’ll have a course correction for you in two minutes, Colonel.”
“Colonel, we’re getting pinged by Kamchatka,” said the communications officer. O’Banion’s voice sounded worried. “Oh-oh. Message coming in.”
“Pipe it to me,” she commanded. A smooth baritone voice said in flawless midwestern American English, “Unidentified aircraft, you are approaching Russian airspace. Please identify yourself.”
Christopher thumbed the comm switch on her control yoke and said crisply, “This is U.S. Air Force ABL-1. We intend to remain over international waters.”
“We have no information on your flight plan,” said Kamchatka, without the slightest trace of anxiety.
The colonel bit her lips momentarily, then replied, “We are on our way to Japanese airspace. We will stay well away from your territory.”
Silence for several heartbeats. He’s waiting for his superiors to tell him what he should say, Christopher reasoned.
Finally, “U.S. ABL-1, our air defense command has sent a flight of interceptors to accompany you away from Russian airspace. They have no hostile intent.”
“Copy,” Christopher said curtly. “No hostile intent.” Then she clicked off the radio switch and grinned at her copilot. “Bet they’ve got plenty of cameras on board.”
“They’ll have air-to-air missiles, too, count on it,” Kaufman muttered.
“Of course.” She turned the situation over in her mind for a few moments, then said, “We better make a left turn, Obie.”
“I guess so.”
Lieutenant Sharmon gave them a new heading and the big 747 turned southward twelve degrees. Not enough, though.
“Hey!” Kaufman yipped. “We got company.”
Following his pointing finger with her eyes, Christopher saw a trio of swept-wing jet fighters boring in on them from above and ahead.
“Fulcrums,” Kaufman said. MiG-29s, the mainstay of the Russian fighter forces.
“No,” Christopher said, eyeing the sleek, silvery fighters. “They look too new. More like MiG-35s.”
“There’s another one,” Kaufman said, “comin’ up fast.”
“That’s not a MiG,” said Christopher.
“Looks a lot like one of our F-15s.”
She nodded, making her flight helmet wobble slightly on her head. “Sukhoi SU-27. Photo recon plane.”
Kaufman had an Air Force catalog displayed on the small screen to his right. “Flanker. Supersonic.”
“She’s not carrying any missiles.”
“The other three are.”
“That Flanker’s a photo plane. Looks like a two-seater.”
The three MiGs pulled up alongside ABL-1 on the right, speed brake flaps down to slow them to the 747’s lumbering pace.
Kaufman said, “They’re keeping themselves between us and Mother Russia.”
“Just following orders,” said Christopher, “same as us.”
At that moment all three MiGs pulled their flaps up and roared ahead of ABL-1. The lead fighter suddenly jinked straight up, then sideways.
