“You still there, Clifton?”
“Yeah,” von Cairns said. “I’m here.”
“Look, I know what you are going through,” General Roxbury said. “And I’m doing—we are doing—all we can to get this situation resolved as quickly as we can. All I can say now is for you to just hang loose and keep your personnel ready to resume training at a moment’s notice. This can’t last forever.”
“No, it sure as hell can’t,” von Cairns said. “Good-bye, Bill, and give Connie my best.”
“Will do,” General Roxbury said. “I’m going to stay on this, Clifton, I promise.”
General von Cairns hung up the phone. Nearly one hundred soldiers were moving across the parade ground performing police call. But there was nothing left for them to pick up, because another group of one hundred had performed a police call earlier this morning. This useless waste of manpower was the result of junior officers and NCOs “making work,” for the men and women soldiers on the base. The lack of mission was having a serious impact on troop morale.
Von Cairns looked over at a shadow box on the wall. Inside the box was a Distinguished Service Cross, a medal of valor second only to the Medal of Honor.
The framed citation was right beside it.
CLIFTON VON CAIRNS
The door to his office being open, Lieutenant Phil Patterson stepped through it, then called out, “General von Cairns?”
Von Cairns swiveled back around. “Yes, Lieutenant ?”
“You wanted the 1352 forms? The Materiel Readiness Reports?”
“Yes, what do we have?”
“Forty-two percent of our aircraft could be made flyable by reconnecting the fuel control lines.”
“What? Only forty-two percent? What’s the problem ? You would think with as little flying as we are doing that we could at least keep our aircraft operational.”
“Yes, sir, well, it isn’t the fault of maintenance, General. Fifty-one percent of the red-X aircraft are grounded for parts.”
“Fifty-one percent? What’s the holdup? Are the parts on order?”
“Yes, sir, and they are on AOG, which as you know is the highest priority,” Lieutenant Patterson said. “Evidently there is a hold on all resupply.”
“How much authority can AOG have now, anyway ?” General von Cairns asked. “Hell, all aircraft are on ground.”
“That’s true, General. But I suppose that is the best they can do.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” von Cairns agreed. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Patterson returned to his desk. He had welcomed the assignment to run down the 1352s. That had given him something to do other than sit at his desk and read paperback novels.
Opening the middle drawer on his desk, he picked up
Pan World America Flight 103, out of Frankfurt, Germany, was just entering New York airspace for landing at JFK. Rena Woodward, the chief flight attendant, took the mic from its holder.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has just turned on the seat-belt sign. Please make certain that all trays are stowed, your seats are in the upright position, and your seat belts are fastened. We thank you for flying PWA.”
Suddenly, from the aisle seat in row twenty-three, Abdullah Ibrahim Yamaninan stood up and, using a cigarette lighter, lit the hem of his shirt.
“Death to all infidels! Allah hu Akbar!”
The shirt flamed as suddenly and as brightly as a magnesium flare.
“He’s got a bomb!” someone shouted.
Mike Stewart, a former linebacker for Penn State, was a passenger one row behind. He grabbed the blanket off the woman who was seated next to him, then leaped up and wrapped it around Yamaninan, knocking him down as he did so.
“Get a fire extinguisher!” Stewart shouted as he tried to smother the flames with the blanket.
Yamaninan was screaming in pain from the severe burns all over his body. Reena arrived then with a foam fire extinguisher and she emptied it on Yamaninan and Stewart, whose clothes were, by now, also burning.
One of the other flight attendants called the flight deck to inform the pilot of what had just happened, and the pilot called JFK to declare an emergency.
“Pan World, what is the nature of your emergency ?”
“It appears we have a bomber on board.”
“Say again, Pan World. You have a bomb on board?”
“A bomber. Or a would-be bomber. Apparently he tried, but it did not explode.”
“Pan World America, you are cleared for immediate landing on runway 13R, winds north–northwest at twenty knots, altimeter two niner niner seven.”
“Pan World, 13R, roger.”
“All inbound aircraft to JFK, be advised there is an emergency in progress. Northwest on short final for 13R. Please expedite your landing, exit runway at first opportunity. All other aircraft in queue for 13R go around for reassignment.”
“Northwest, roger, expediting approach.”
“JFK, this is Pan World, we request emergency equipment on site.”
“Roger, Pan World, we will meet you with emergency equipment.”
Back in the cabin, the fire was out, and Rena was applying ointment to the burns on Mike Stewart’s chest and arms. Yamaninan lay in the aisle, untreated and moaning quietly. He was naked because most of his clothes had burned off, and his chest, abdomen, arms, and face were charred black.
“Cabin crew, we’re cleared for immediate landing. Prepare to deploy slide chutes,” the pilot’s voice said over the cabin loudspeakers.
The big 777 made a much steeper and faster landing approach than any of the passengers had ever experienced. The landing was hard, and immediately after touchdown the thrust reversers were engaged at full power, causing everyone to be thrown forward against their seat belts.
Once the plane turned off the active it proceeded but a short distance before coming to a stop. The cabin crew opened the doors fore and aft and deployed the sliding chutes. There was an orderly debarkation of all the passengers except Yamaninan, who was now being watched over by Mike Stewart and a male flight attendant.
