He knew what was ahead for him, at least. Possible arrest, probably Congressional investigations, blah blah blah. Maybe he’d get back on the job. Maybe not. But at least he wouldn’t be in a small room, waiting for tens of thousands of Americans to die over the next few days. So much for being a guard for the guardians.
Monty was slumped in a chair, looking out the windows to the display board, and Doctor Palmer sat next to him, staring at his laptop, not moving. General Bocks seemed to be talking to himself, as he said, ‘Bankruptcy. As soon as we can, we’ll declare bankruptcy… sell the assets, try to get some settlement with the lawsuits… set up a trust fund for the families of the crews… Pay for the medical care of those who get sick…’
The doctor shifted slightly in his seat. ‘Monty.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Homeland Security is going to have to be advised where those planes go down. If we’re lucky, we can get a perimeter set up around the crash areas and the anthrax dispersal footprint. We can keep the outbreak to within reasonable limits.’
‘How reasonable?’
‘A thousand, maybe less. If we’re lucky.’
Monty said, ‘Fuck, doc, with luck like that—’
The phone on the conference-room table rang. Bocks picked it up and said, ‘Who? Are you sure?’
He put a hand to his face. ‘Sure. Put her on.’
Brian saw some agony in the General’s eyes, and with something cold starting to spread in his gut he realized that the man was talking to one of his flight crews, one of the doomed flight crews who would be dead within an hour.
‘Yes… Carrie… I’m sure I’ve met you before… thank you for all you’ve done… I understand… but there’s… hold on…’
Then something changed in the General’s expression. Brian leaned forward. The General sat up and said, his voice now entirely changed, ‘Hold on, Carrie. I’m in a conference room with some other people, including a DoD representative and a doctor from the CDC. Hold on.’
The General looked down at the phone and said, ‘Shit, there’s a speakerphone here somewhere… but I sure as hell don’t want to disconnect her… Christ, here we go.’
A button or two were pressed, the handset was replaced, and a hiss of static burst from the speaker. Bocks said, ‘Carrie, can you hear us?’
‘AirBox one-oh-seven is here, General.’
‘Carrie — repeat what you said to me. Please.’
‘All right. Look — we know the score up here. We know there’s not much time. But we’re not ready to roll over and play dead for you or anybody else. Got it?’
‘Yes, Carrie,’ the General said. ‘We got it.’
‘Good. The way I see it, everything comes back to making sure that the anthrax doesn’t reach the ground. Right?’ ‘That’s right,’ Bocks said.
‘I know that sounds simple to you guys, but I’ve been thinking. We can’t get to those damn canisters, we can’t turn them off, we can’t plug them up. So that anthrax is coming out, one way or another. Thing I see is, how do you stop the anthrax from getting to the ground? I think I’ve come up with something… shit, I know I’ve come up with something, and sorry, Mr FAA, for that little slip back there…’
Now Monty and Victor were staring at the speakerphone, and Brian thought they looked like religious pilgrims, staring at a holy relic that was going to save them and their family.
His voice louder, Bocks said, ‘Carrie… please… tell us what you’ve got.’
A burst of static, and her voice came back, ‘…kill the little bastards. Right? We’ve got to kill the anthrax before it reaches the ground. Why not use jet fuel?’
Monty turned to Victor and said, ‘Is she right? Can jet fuel kill anthrax?’
Victor said, ‘I… I don’t see why not — jet fuel is petroleum-based, quite harsh to anthrax. But how do you get the fuel from their fuel tanks to the canisters?’
Carrie’s voice seemed to carry through the entire room. ‘Not fuel from
Brian could not believe what he was hearing. Could it? Would it?
Monty said, ‘Victor — tell me it’ll work.’
Victor swallowed. ‘It’s… it’s possible… I mean, you won’t have a hundred percent… but hell, it’s a lot better than a shoot-down and having the anthrax spray out as the fuselage descends. Question is, can you get those refueling aircraft to those three AirBox planes in time?’
Monty got up and started running out to the Operations Center.
Lt Gen. Mike McKenna said, ‘Mister Zane, we’re working, working it right now… hold on, all right.’
‘All right,’ came the voice on the other end of the line. McKenna put the phone down. He waited in his office. Waited. Looked at the phone, knew that one of these days he’d have to meet this guy, face to face, and find out how in hell he did what he was doing without cracking. Right now, he could use some tips. Outside on the floor his adjutant, Colonel Anson, was huddled with other officers, talking, gesturing with her hand, and then she looked around at the other officers, nodded, and ran back up to his office.
She was out of breath. ‘General… with so many overseas on deployment… it’s… it’s…’
‘Go on.’
‘Two, We have just two KC-135s that can reach them, once we configure the refueling booms so they can dump the necessary fuel.’
‘Which ones?’
‘The flights in Missouri and Kentucky. We don’t have anything in the area that can reach the one in Pennsylvania in time.’
‘I see. All right, get on it, get those jets to the AirBoxes in Missouri and Kentucky.’
McKenna picked up the phone and said, ‘Mister Zane, got a mix of news for you
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Monty said, ‘Could you repeat that, general?’
McKenna said, ‘We will have two KC-135s airborne shortly that can reach the AirBox aircraft in Missouri and Kentucky. The KC-135 heading to Missouri just came back from a refueling mission over Nebraska. They’ll have enough fuel to do the job. The Kentucky KC-135 is fully topped off and is on its way. But your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania, one-oh-seven…it’s going to be tricky.’
‘Define tricky.’
‘If we can get the KC-135 in Kentucky to your AirBox flight in time — and if they can disperse the fuel in record time — and if your AirBox flight in Pennsylvania flies on an intercept mission to them… they might have enough time and fuel to pull off a rendezvous.’
‘That’s a lot of ifs,’ Monty said.
‘Like I said, tricky. But your one-oh-seven flight — if it doesn’t get pulled off…’
‘I know. A one-way trip.’
‘Hell of a thing,’ McKenna said.
‘On that we agree, general.’
Aboard AirBox 15 over the Ozark Mountains, Steve Jayson said to his captain, Trent Mueller, ‘Tell me again you’ve had experiences with KC-135s.’
‘That I surely have, son,’ Trent said. ‘Back in my days, humping C-141s, I refueled from them a number of
