A loud, jarring crash cut Grace off in midsentence. The two women looked at each other, eyes wide. Both had spent countless hours in the air over the years and knew whatever that sound was, it wasn’t good.
They waited a beat to see if anything else was happening. After a few seconds, they simultaneously released a held breath and shared a nervous chuckle.
Fiona got to her feet to ask the pilot if anything was wrong. She was halfway to the door when the aircraft shuddered violently and started to fall from the sky. Grace screamed when the wild descent pressed her up against the ceiling. Fiona managed to keep on her feet by pushing her hands against the molded plastic overhead.
In the forward section of the executive jet, she could hear other staffers screaming as they fought the effects of temporary weightlessness.
“I don’t know what happened,” the pilot, an Air Force colonel, said over the intercom, “but everyone get yourselves strapped in as quickly as you can.” He left the intercom on while he and his copilot tried to regain control of the hurtling aircraft, so Fiona and the others could hear the tension in his voice. “What do you mean you can’t reach anyone? We were talking with Tripoli two minutes ago.”
“I can’t explain it,” the copilot replied. “The radio’s just dead.”
“Don’t worry about it now, help me—damn, the port engine just kicked out. Try to restart it.” The intercom suddenly clicked off.
“Are we going to crash?” Grace asked. She had regained her feet, and she and Fiona clutched each other like little girls in a haunted house.
“I don’t know,” Fiona said more calmly than she felt. Her insides fluttered, and her palms had gone greasy.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Something mechanical, I guess.” That answer didn’t satisfy her at all. There was no reason the plane should have plummeted like that with both engines functioning. It could even fly on one engine. Something else had to have caused their sudden drop. And what was that loud bang? Her first and only thought was that they had been hit by a missile, one meant to cripple the plane, not destroy it.
The gut-wrenching descent slowly started to even out. The pilots had managed to regain enough control so they were no longer in free fall, but they were still plunging toward earth at breakneck speed.
Fiona and Grace groped their way into the main cabin and strapped themselves into the big leather chairs. Secretary Katamora said a few reassuring words to her people, wishing she could do more to alleviate the fear she saw etched on their faces. The truth was that she was barely in control of her own emotions. She feared that if she spoke more her terror would rise to the surface and bubble over, like lava erupting from a volcano.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—it was the copilot—“we don’t know what just happened. One of our engines is down and the other is barely producing thrust. We’re going to have to land in the desert. I don’t want anyone to worry. Colonel Markham has actually done this before in an F-16 during the first Gulf War. When I give the signal, I want everyone to assume the crash positions. Tuck your head between your knees and wrap your arms around them. As soon as the plane comes to a stop, I want the steward to open the cabin door as quickly as possible. Secretary Katamora’s Secret Service detail is to get her off the plane first.”
There was only one agent on board. The rest of Fiona’s detail, plus a number of her staff, had been in Libya for nearly a week preparing for her arrival.
The agent, Frank Maguire, unbuckled his seat belt, paused until the aircraft stopped buffeting for a second, and switched seats so he was between Fiona and the door. He quickly strapped himself in as the Boeing lurched violently. When the time came, he could grab her and have her out of the door in seconds.
Holding Grace’s hand, Fiona started to do something she hadn’t in years: pray. But it wasn’t for their lives. She prayed that if the worst did happen and they died in the crash, the momentous opportunity of the summit wouldn’t be lost forever. Unselfish to the end, Fiona Katamora cared more about the cause of peace than her own life.
She chanced looking out the window. The terrain not far below the aircraft was rough desert punctuated by jagged hills. Not a pilot herself, she still knew the odds were long despite the crew’s assurance.
“Okay, folks,” the copilot announced, “this is it. Please assume the crash positions and hang on tight.”
The passengers heard the pilot ask “Do you see th—” before the intercom went silent again. They had no idea what he had seen, and would be better off not knowing anyway.
EIGHT
ALANA SAT IN THE DRILL TRUCK’S PASSENGER’S SEAT WHILE Mike Duncan drove. The old riverbed was littered with rounded boulders. Some could be steered around, others they had to muscle over. Her backside was a sea of bruises after so many weeks traversing the same terrain.
At camp the night before, they had pleaded their case to the Tunisian representative, who believed they were searching for a Roman mill and waterwheel, that returning to the old ruins every night was an unnecessary precaution. They begged to be allowed to stay out for a few days, pointing out that Greg Chaffee had a satellite phone, so they would never really be out of contact with the main archaeological team.
While the legitimate members of the archaeological dig were making tremendous strides in excavating the Roman ruins, Alana’s team still had nothing to show for their weeks of effort. It was hoped that if they could remain out in the desert longer, and thus roam wider, they might pick up the trail of the old Barbary corsair, Suleiman Al- Jama.
The only thing keeping her going now was her nightly e-mail chat with her son back in Phoenix. She marveled at the advance in technology. Her first dig as an undergrad, at a site in the Arizona desert less than two hundred miles from school, had been more isolated than this godforsaken dust bowl, thanks to modern satellite communications.
The Tunisian government minder continued to refuse their request until Greg took him aside for about two minutes. When they had returned to the dining tent, the official beamed at Alana and granted them permission, provided they checked in every day and returned within seventy-two hours.
“Baksheesh,” Greg had replied to her inquiring look.
