making a slow but inexorable run down to the bridge.

The small, dark-skinned man picked up his mobile phone. The foremast of the cruiser HMAS Sydney had been positioned as a memorial to the men who had taken part in Australia’s first naval engagement of World War I. As the colossal bow of the Ocean Venturer went past, the man pushed the send button on a text message: ‘Passing the war memorial now’. Modern technology meant that Jamal would be able to read the exact moment the message was transmitted and calculate the precise time the tanker would pass over the tunnels. The man’s mobile phone beeped and he read Jamal’s reply: ‘May Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful, be with us’.

Further down the harbour, another of al-Falid’s men standing near the Jeffrey Street Wharf at Kirribilli read the message as well. The text on the location of the tanker and Jamal’s response had also been copied to seven other mobile phones.

Every driver had calculated his start based on the exact time that the tanker’s bow passed the memorial, all designed to get each of them to their targets at the right moment, all linked to the tanker passing over the tunnels on the harbour bed.

The operation had begun.

Further to the south, the weather had thrown the flight schedules at Sydney Airport into chaos and the controllers were battling to clear the backlog.

CHAPTER 69

THE CONTROL TOWER, SIR CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH AIRPORT, MASCOT

m ick Hammond was on the third-last shift of his career. He was a big man with a moustache to match and he had a relaxed view of the world; a temperament that made him ideally suited to the extraordinary stresses associated with being an air traffic controller. With forty-two years up next month, he was the longest serving controller among Sydney’s team of highly trained professionals.

The tower had been built at the edge of the main runways, alongside General Holmes Drive, less than 300 metres from where the freeway passed into a tunnel under the taxiways and the main north-south runway. In three days, the little holiday shack at Sussex Inlet on the south coast would become home for him and his wife of thirty- seven years, but at the moment, Mick had no time to reflect on fishing or pottering about in his tool shed.

All of the control tower’s nine operator consoles were at full capacity. Although the weather of the morning was lifting a little and controllers could now see the ends of the runways jutting into Botany Bay, the backlog was fierce. Across the road in the Terminal Control Building, another team of controllers was battling to get aircraft out of their holding patterns and onto final approaches where they could be handed over to the tower. The director for ‘Runway 34 Left’ focused on one of a dozen radar blips on the screen in front of her. The blip that was slowly moving to the point where she’d vectored it for final approach into Sydney was Qantas Flight 12 from Los Angeles with 458 passengers and crew onboard.

‘Qantas 12 you have 6 miles to touchdown. Wind is 15 knots from the west, gusting to 20 knots. Contact the tower on 120 decimal fife when established.’

‘Qantas 12.’ The Captain reached up to change frequencies as his co-pilot prepared to land. On the ground the queue for take-off was getting longer.

‘Qantas 438, heavy, ready.’

‘Sydney Tower, G’day. Expect a delay, there are twelve aircraft in front of you.’ Even when the pressure was intense Mick Hammond was unfailingly polite and good humoured. Qantas 438 lined up behind a Singapore Airlines 747 bound for London. There were now thirteen aircraft waiting to take off and Mick glanced at the ‘Maestro Ladder’, a computerised schedule which showed the landing sequence on the radar screen in front of him. Every rung was occupied.

As the controllers battled to get aircraft on the ground, seven nondescript trucks rolled along with the morning traffic. The first truck turned into Missenden Road near Sydney University, heading for Dunblane Street. Two more trucks headed west towards the M5, destined to pair up with two others heading east on the same expressway. The last two trucks had reached their positions; one at Woolloomooloo and one on the north side of the harbour at Neutral Bay.

‘Sydney tower, Qantas 12 established.’ Mick allowed himself a smile. Inbound aircraft were stacked up like poker chips in the dark clouds above the tower and the pilot sounded a little terse. Being forced into a long holding pattern after a 16-hour flight from Los Angeles would not have improved the mood on the flight deck.

‘Sydney tower, G’day.’ Mick’s voice was calm as he looked to the south. Through the gloom he could see the powerful landing lights of the big 747. Several sets of lights were lined up behind it. Mick Hammond was about to clear the big inbound 747 when his headphones crackled again.

‘Sydney Tower, this is Lifesaver One. Request immediate departure. We have a Medical One at the Light Horse Interchange on the M7.’

Mick glanced over his right shoulder towards the heliport on the eastern side of the airfield. With a priority clearance from the ground controller, the brightly coloured red and yellow rescue helicopter was already moving towards the threshold of the east-west runway. The weather and impatient driving was being blamed for a horrific accident involving a semi-trailer, a bus and three cars at the intersection of a dozen twisting overpasses that connected the M4 and M7 near the foothills of the Blue Mountains. Seven people had been critically injured, and three of these were fighting for their lives. To clear Lifesaver One would mean it would have to cross the path of the incoming 747.

Mick weighed up his options in an instant. The 747 was just inside the separation required for the chopper to cross in front of him, but was probably getting low on fuel and to send him around again would do nothing to ease the controlled chaos in the clouds above him. Mick calmly reached towards the big console in front of him and pressed the button that connected him with one of the departure directors in the terminal control unit across the highway.

‘I’m going to clear him direct but he’ll need to stay below 3000 feet, Shelley, if you can do that?’

‘No problem, I’ll whack in a quick flight plan.’ All of the controllers were under enormous stress but they took the load off one another in whatever way they could. It was one of the most professional operations in the world.

‘Lifesaver One, you’re cleared direct to the Light Horse Interchange below 3000 feet. Rapid departure on Runway 25, Qantas 12 inbound from the south on 34 left. Winds gusting to 20 knots from the north-east, contact departures when airborne.’

‘Lifesaver One, much obliged.’ As the medevac chopper tilted forward and powered down the cross runway, Mick shot the hastily made-up flight stick around the slide that connected adjacent controllers.

‘Qantas 12, you’re cleared to land runway 34 left. Lifesaver One crossing in front of you. Rapid exit Bravo.’ Mick Hammond glanced at the needles on the weather computer on his console. ‘Crosswinds are now gusting to 25 knots,’ he added.

‘Qantas 12.’

‘Damn it.’ The captain of the Qantas 747 peered through the fast-moving windscreen wipers and the driving rain. In the distance the white lighting that marked the edges of the main runway stretched into the gloom but on the left, the lights of the visual approach system flashed in and out of sync as the onboard computers adjusted the glide path and the weather played havoc with the instrument approach being flown by his co-pilot.

‘25 knots, I’ll take her, Jim.’

‘Handing over,’ his co-pilot said good-naturedly. The two worked well together. One day, Jim thought, he would be sitting in that left-hand seat and he’d be qualified to land this baby in a strong crosswind, but not today.

CHAPTER 70

Вы читаете The Beijing conspiracy
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату