[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.‘Not much desert down there.Or emptiness.’‘Alaska,’ Sean said.‘What?’Sean said, lips tight.‘Lots of empty places in Alaska.Lots.’She reached over, grabbed a hand, squeezed.‘Let’s say we quit this gig later today and go to Alaska tomorrow.The three of us.You and me and Susan.’Sean just nodded.Carrie thought she saw that his eyes were filling up.She released his hand and went back to the day’s flying, boring holes in the sky, waiting for instructions, waiting for rescue, waiting for those F-16s to drop back and do their jobs.~ * ~Victor Palmer listened to Monty and said, ‘Yes.I think it’d work.’‘How much time before the canisters empty out?’‘Twenty minutes, to be on the safe side.But you need to make sure that stretch of ocean is empty.Ah, the Coast Guard or Navy will have to be contacted.Get shipping out of the area.’Monty went back to the desk he had taken over, picked up some handwritten notes.‘Tight.Christ, it’ll be tight.’Victor said, ‘Do it.Just do it.’Monty started making a call.‘It’ll be done.’~ * ~At Northern Command, Lt General McKenna was on the phone with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.He said, ‘Sir, we’re making progress.We’ve got just over half the planes on the ground.And I’ve been advised that the Tiger Team is working on a way to handle the other aircraft by vectoring them out to the ocean.Apparently the anthrax will be dumped over the water.Hell of a better place than down-town DC or Philadelphia.’The Chairman said, ‘All right, Mike.I’ve got a briefing with the Man in five minutes.I’ll tell him about the progress.but Mike, those aircraft have got to be out of the air within two hours.Or you’ll be taking them out for us before those pilots try to land them someplace populated.Understood?’‘Absolutely, sir.’~ * ~Aboard AirBox 10, Helen Torrinson flew south, lowering the aircraft towards the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.Off to starboard she could make out oil-drilling rigs, but she didn’t care about them, not at all.She had gotten the instructions from ACARS and from Houston Air Traffic Control on where to go and how to do it, and she knew that back there were two F-15s, making sure that she went where she was told.Part of her - a part no doubt corrupted by her captain - thought that this was probably all just a ruse.The DoD probably wanted her and the other AirBox planes to head out over the ocean so they could be shot down without any problems, without any witnesses.Beside her, the body of Hammerin’ Hank lay still, slumped back in his shoulder straps.She was grateful that at least his bloodied head was turned to the left so she didn’t have to look at his face.Helen checked the altimeter.She was dropping below one thousand, was now at nine hundred, and when she got to five hundred feet, she leveled off the aircraft.Twenty minutes.She was to fly for twenty minutes.Which was what she did.She checked the time, watched as each minute slipped by, wondering if this was going to be the minute when an air-to-air missile ripped through her aircraft’s engines.But the minutes still slipped away, and when the twenty-minute mark had been reached her earphones crackled with a message.‘AirBox Ten, this is Houston Center.You’re cleared directly to Hutchinson Field, Louisiana.Initial heading zero-one-zero, climb to one-five thousand.’‘Roger, direct Hutchinson Field, and fifteen thousand,’ Helen said, keeping her voice curt and proper.She’d be goddamned if she was going to be grateful to somebody who was ready to help the Air Force drop her plane and kill her without warning.She went to her kit bag and pulled out the approach charts that would help guide her into Hutchinson Field, wherever the hell that was.Then she turned her head to the left.‘Oh, you stupid bastard,’ Helen said to the body of her pilot.‘Why did you have to be so goddamn impatient?’~ * ~Aboard the shrimp boat Flanagan, out of Metairie, Louisiana, Georges Bouchard stepped out of the pilot house as the jet aircraft roared nearby, almost passing right over their heads.His two boys, Henri and Louis, were at the stern, and they looked up as well as the jet circled around, and kept on circ-ling around, at a low altitude.‘What’s up with that plane, eh, papa?’ Henri called up to him.Henri and his younger brother were shirtless, tanned, and Georges felt such pride, seeing those boys who would carry on the family name and business for years to come.‘Not sure,’ he said, shading his eyes with his hand.‘It doesn’t seem to be in trouble.look.it’s going away now.’The jet flew off to the north, and Georges noticed two things: the first was that it looked like two fighter jets were flying with the larger jet as well, something he hadn’t noticed earlier.The second was that something was tickling his throat.He swallowed, and then went into the pilot house to drink from a plastic jug of water and clear his throat.The water was kept on a wooden shelf underneath the radio, which had been acting up since they had left port nearly a week ago.The water went down well enough, but something still tickled back there.By that night, Georges and his boys were ill, very ill, breathing hard, coughing.And by the next morning the Flanagan, named after his wife’s family, was wallowing in the Gulf Stream, crewed only by corpses.The shrimper was boarded some time later by the Coast Guard.It was burned down to the waterline and sunk, along with its dead crew, as soon as night fell.~ * ~CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXHomeland Security Deputy Director Jason Janwick hung the phone up, saw the expectant faces of his crew, sitting there, looking at him for answers.He said, ‘That was the Secretary.Due to time constraints, this emergency is still ours to manage.’‘Sir?’ one of his people asked.‘It’s like this,’ he explained.‘Like the Secretary said, there isn’t time for him or for anybody else to catch up on what’s happening.One way or another, this sick puppy is going to be done with in an hour or so.So it’s ours to solve, or it’s ours to fuck up.Let’s make the right choice.Sam? Status.’Sam Pope, his IT guy, said, ‘It looks like the AirBox guys and that Tiger Team have taken care of the majority of the AirBox flights.Either they’ve been able to land at airstrips with minimal population density, or some have flown out over the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico.But there’s still a handful up in the air.’‘Where?’‘Pennsylvania.Missouri.Kentucky.They’re conserving fuel and holding in orbits but.soon enough, they’re going to be running out of fuel.That means they’re going to come back to earth, and there’s not much unpopulated land where they are.The choice is.the choice is not a good one.’‘Explain.’‘Sir, when the fuel is at a certain limit those pilots are going to descend and pick the nearest airfield.There aren’t that many airfields in those areas that don’t have some populated areas around them.The choice, then, is to direct them to those airfields or.or direct them someplace else, where the population density is low, thereby reducing anthrax exposure.Like a federal park or wilderness area.A mountain range, for example.’Janwick said, ‘And what then, after they’re over a minimally populated area?’Pope’s voice was just a touched strained.‘Then, sir, they would have to be shot down.I doubt the pilots will crash into the side of a mountain on anyone’s say-so.’Janwick nodded.‘Yeah.I figured that out a while ago.Just wanted to see if anybody else had any better answers
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]