Among them was Helen Torrinson, the co-pilot aboard AirBox 10, which was currently orbiting a patch of Mississippi sky about twenty thousand feet above Biloxi. With her, in the captain’s seat, was Hank Harmon, also known as ‘Hammerin’ Hank’, not only for his checkered flying past with the Marines but also because of his habit of heading straight to one of Memphis’s nightspots whenever he got back from a flight. Helen — who had flown CM 30 transport aircraft in the Air Force Reserve — knew that in most other carrier companies Hank might have been grounded months ago for his drinking.
But AirBox, as the advertisements liked to point out, wasn’t like any other carrier.
And ever since that ACARS message had come through, Hank had remained pretty quiet for Hank, though Helen had noticed that his face had been turning grayer, with trick-les of perspiration dripping down his cheeks and neck. Her own attempts at conversation had been met with an occasional ‘yeah’ or a grunt as they continued to fly on autopilot.
But it had been the arrival of the F-15s — calling themselves Sword One and Sword Two — that finally triggered something.
Hank had whipped his head back and forth, leaning forward in his seat to get a better view of the escorting fighter jets, and he had started murmuring something, about plots, about death, and Helen had sat there, almost frozen with indecision.
What to do?
And then Hank made the decision for her.
He turned and said, ‘You know we’re dead, don’t you?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Christ, yes,’ he said. ‘We both know this fucking aircraft. You can’t get to those air-conditioning packs, you can’t unplug ’em, you can’t block ’em. If there’s anthrax down there, the only solution is to give those guys flanking us the shoot-down orders.’
‘Hank, we should just give them the time to—’
‘Fuck that. We need to act before they realize that a shoot-down is the only solution. Put on your oxygen mask.’
Helen put on her mask and switched on her microphone, and there was a
Hank turned to her and said, ‘We’re going to get this piece of shit on the deck
His right hand pulled the throttles to idle and extended the aircraft’s speed brakes. As Hank pushed the control yoke forward and lowered the nose, the aircraft’s rate of descent quickly increased.
Over the cockpit’s speaker, Helen heard the voice of one of their escorts: ‘Ah, AirBox Ten, this is Sword One, level off and halt your descent, please.’
Hank keyed the microphone. ‘Houston Center, AirBox Ten, we’re an emergency aircraft and we are now descending for immediate landing at Keesler Air Force Base.’
Helen felt herself being pressed back in the seat as the jet quickly descended. Declaring an in-flight emergency meant that for most intents and purposes Hank was the closest thing to an air god. He and she and this aircraft now had priority for everything, including an immediate clearance to land at any airfield in the vicinity. Hank could pretty much do anything he wanted to get the aircraft on the ground, and it was a hell of a gamble, because once they had landed there would be some serious hell to pay, from the FAA to the military to the General himself.
But they would be on the ground. That was what counted. Yeah, most times it would work.
But this wasn’t most times.
An urgent voice in the earphones: AirBox 10, AirBox 10, this is Sword One, Sword One, immediately resume your previous altitude. Immediately. Please acknowledge.’
Hank said nothing. The ground was approaching. Helen swallowed.
‘Hank?’
Not a word.
The earphones. ‘AirBox 10, AirBox 10, acknowledge. This is Sword One.’
‘Hank…’
‘Fuck them all…’ he said.
Suddenly bright lights flared in front of them…flanking them, reaching out ahead of them.
Tracer fire, from the F-15s’ cannon.
‘AirBox 10, this is Sword One. You will level off immediately. You will climb back to altitude. You will continue to hold.’
‘Or what!’ Hank shouted.
‘Sir, we are authorized to engage. Don’t force us to shoot you down!’
‘Fuck you! You don’t have the balls to shoot down a civilian aircraft! Go ahead, Air Force!’
Helen watched in horror as the altimeter unwound as the jet descended. Twelve thousand feet and lowering…She thought of the anthrax in the belly of her jet. She thought of her husband Tony, her two kids, thought about the Air Force pilots back there, knowing what they had to do… knowing that after 9/11 so many of the rules had been rewritten or tossed out.
‘Hank, pull up! C’mon, they’re going to shoot us down!’
Hank yelled back. ‘Shut up! They don’t have the balls. They’re not gonna do it!’
‘How do you know that? Hank! Pull up.’
‘Shut up!’
Ten thousand feet.
‘AirBox 10, Sword One. Your last warning. We are weapons hot, repeat, we are weapons hot.’
Eight thousand.
What to do, what to do — a fight in the cockpit? Helen remembered that Egypt Air flight years back, when the
Seven thousand.
‘AirBox 10! Last warning!’
Six thousand feet.
‘AirBox 10!’
Five thousand, five hundred.
Helen rotated in her seat, reached up back against her seat restraints…reached out, fingertips barely touching, Hank busy with flying…
There. Grabbed it.
‘Sweet Jesus, forgive me,’ she breathed. Then she bashed in the back of Hank’s head with the emergency crash ax.
And bashed him again.
And again.
She dropped the ax, grabbed the controls so she was now in command of the aircraft, started pulling back on the control yoke and adding power.
Helen keyed the microphone switch, saying, breathing heavily, ‘This is AirBox 10… AirBox 10… we’re climbing… we’re climbing back to altitude…’
There seemed to be relief in the F-15 pilot’s voice. ‘Roger, AirBox 10. Good job. We’ll get through this together. This is Sword One.’
She looked over, at the slumped figure of Hank, at the blood on his shirt, blood on the panel, blood on the windscreen.
‘Sword One — to hell with you. I’ve just killed my pilot — and you’re going to land and be alive today… which is more than I can be sure of for myself.’
Sword One didn’t answer.
Monty looked at the flushed face of Victor, at the other faces of Brian and the General and Randy, the machinist. He said, ‘General, what will those pilots do when they get low on fuel?’
