Lt.
Commander Brigid Colding faced the ocean from the lee of the hanger, waiting
for the sun to rise over it, knowing it never would. A charcoal wall of clouds
confronted her as it had the entire east coast of the state for the past five
weeks, low, looming and ominous, yet unmoving. A sheet of rain curtained off
the sea several miles offshore. Hurricane Alpha.
Sparse
traffic darted along the coastal highway, most of it official. While many
residents remained, few ventured out unless absolutely necessary. Under a
hurricane watch for over a month, with two mandatory evacuations set and called
off, even the diehard remainers had settled into a siege mentality. Once a week
like clockwork, they checked their shutters and topped off their supplies.
Batteries, water, food, fuel, the nation’s production had only recently been
able to overcome the shortages from stockpiling along five hundred miles of the
eastern seaboard, despite both state and federal admonishments against hoarding
and now official rationing.
The Air
Force base sat eerily empty, almost abandoned. The regular airwings and most
personnel had evacuated to the points north and west weeks ago. Even the C-130s
her plane ran recon for had retreated across the peninsula to a base situated
beside one of the three major ports in the state. Miami was all but closed to civilian
cargo traffic. Interservice rivalry had ruled out the Naval Air Station near
Mayport. NOAA had transferred operations here temporarily to cut back on their
flying time, and to facilitate coordination with the Air Force Hurricane
Hunters even if they weren’t a unified command. Not yet, anyway.
The two Orions
in NOAA’s squadron had been the last to arrive, bringing the total number of
planes up to twelve. Normally, her crew was based half an hour west. That
they’d been transferred to collocate with the Air Force said that
militarization would not be far behind. The corresponding State of Emergency
had been in place for weeks. All it took was the stroke of a Presidential pen,
one that was rumored to be forthcoming any day. And that was the least
disturbing rumor she’d heard in O-Club since she’d been on base.
Colding
suspected more than a few of those rumors were true, at least from the informal
inquiries she’d received. For weeks, the Administration’s proxies had been quietly
pushing a debunked sixty-year-old Plowshare plan on social media. She hadn’t
taken them seriously until senior Air Force officers started asking her probing
questions in security briefings that she couldn’t answer. But with a little internet
research, she put pieces together. The crew did not yet know nor would they unless
the plan was put into effect. If that happened, a lot of people would die. She
wanted no part of it.
Not that
the O-Club would last much longer either. A tattered gale advisory pennant
whipped on the flagpole anchored next to its long-abandoned lifeguard platform.
The wind whistled out of the northeast, drifting sand across the highway and driving
the relentless longshore surf that had begun to undermine both the road and the
building’s foundation. The older sergeants whispered that the club was cursed. Sixteen
years ago, a fire had burned it nearly to the ground. Now, Alpha threatened to reclaim
it along with half the barrier island for its mistress, the Atlantic. The port,
just ten miles up the road, ran dredges weekly just to keep critical supply
convoys moving south after they’d repurposed the cruise ship terminal for cargo
to partially compensate for the loss of Miami. They dumped the spoil off the south
jetty hoping it would run down the coast. It barely made a difference.
Between
the shore and the slowly advancing rain curtain, Colding watched a cutter begin
its long crawl south from the port to take up station for patrolling off West
Palm. A Dunkirk armada of civilian boats held anchor in the Intercoastal, ready
to deliver aid and evacuate survivors if Alpha ever moved. The Coast Guard
plucked at least one impetuous captain and crew from the 30-foot seas at the
outer buoys each day.
“Alves is
ready to pull onto the tarmac,” Lt. Friedel almost shouted in her ear. Her
navigator’s entrance had been masked by the relentless wind.
Colding stepped
back into the wind-shadow of the recess by the door where they both could hear.
“Who’d we
draw today?” she asked, not moving to return inside.
“Strand
and Zuma,” he replied.
Colding
managed to contain a grimace. Strand was a Texas-sized lozenge that always
seemed to lodge sideways in her throat, one she just couldn’t seem to swallow. With
him, everything was bigger and better, including his opinions, especially of
himself. He was an academy grad who’d washed out as a pilot so felt he had
something to prove. He was more interested in ideology than meteorology, a combat
supply specialist with experience in hot drop zones overseas. Security over
science was the official Administration watchword he personified. He had only minimal
qualifications as a flight meteorologist. Zuma was amiable enough, at least
when she wasn’t around Strand, and more than competent. That command had
stripped Colding of her own meteorologists in the name of interagency
cooperation was yet another indication that change was on the wind.
“How’s the
crew holding up?” Colding had spoken to them only briefly since the transfer. Most
of her time had been consumed in mission updates and mandatory briefings about
how to integrate into life on the empty airbase.
“Honestly,
they’re wondering about our situation.” No rank, no ma’am, no sir, just their
normal informal conversation when no one official was around. Their new Air
Force hosts had more formal expectations. “Any word on our status?”
“Nothing
new,” she said, wishing she had something concrete. “Remind them that they can
submit their resignation paperwork to the Director conditionally. Anybody with
their time in will get an early out. She’s got a VERA in her pocket from the
cutbacks last year. She says she’ll waive the advanced notice requirement and
sign off on everything on her desk as soon as she gets a heads-up the transfer
is coming. That should prevent DoD from stop-lossing anyone. If it never happens,
she’ll hold everything in a drawer unopened and burn it if anyone changes their
mind. No judgement.”
“What
about you?” Friedel eyed her intently. “Sent yours up?”
Colding
turned away to watch the cutter battling the waves. They were ten feet lower
near shore than out by the buoys, yet still dangerous enough. If other rumors
were to be believed, the State of Emergency would formally transform the Coast
Guard’s mission from search and rescue to interdiction. Not that any foreign evacuees
had yet set foot on American soil.
Colding
turned back to face her navigator. “I didn’t sign up to join the Air Force,’
she stated bluntly. “Feel free to discretely tell the crew I’ve put a
contingency in place. If they are concerned about saluting the likes of Strand,
they should, too. But it’s a personal decision. No judgement here, either.”
Friedel
nodded, then headed back inside. Colding didn’t follow.
She’d give
him time to spread the word. If anyone was holding their papers in reserve,
they still had time to drop them in interagency mail. They would land with the Director
tonight. She hated the thought of leaving anyone in a lurch, but equally hated
the perversion of a job she loved.
Once again,
she faced the storm, trying to fathom what might come next. Up to now, the
scientists had kept the worst ideas at bay. Recently, they’d been sidelined or
intimidated into silence. Desperate and unstable voices within the
Administration increasingly held sway. But if someone actually implemented one
of the debunked plans from the 50s, blame would flow downhill like a dam burst
of untreated sewage until it slammed into everyone who couldn’t dodge out of
the way. No one further up the chain than the Director had their backs. And serving
at the pleasure of the President meant that she likely couldn’t continue to
when push came to shove.
The
problem was that none of the scientists understood how Alpha had maintained the
newly established Cat 6 intensity for five weeks without moving. The energy
within the ocean should have been long exhausted. Replenishment through the
Florida Current was the only working theory they had. Sea surface temperatures
in the Gulf and Western Caribbean were both at record highs. Alpha had sucked
up all the moisture and cloud cover for hundreds of miles around. All they knew
for certain was that anyone surviving on the islands desperately needed help.
When
Operation Skytrain had ramped up, the Air Force brass had slated four sorties a
day, which the 53rd’s ten Hercules alone couldn’t cover. Even with
NOAA’s extra two Orions, that schedule had pressed their functional limits
between mandatory rest and maintenance. With at best a three-day rotation, the
extra roundtrip of flight time from Biloxi or even Lakeland had become
critical, not for range, but for time on station. Not for the cargo planes, for
the Hunters who guided them in.
Colding’s
job was recon, finding weak spots in the wind fields the C-130s could slip
through. Their best opportunities came during eyewall replacement when the
worst winds temporarily broke down. At least that portion of the science hadn’t
collapsed. But with four daily runs needed to keep the islands minimally fed,
they didn’t have the luxury of waiting. So, the Hunters found seams for the
cargo giants to drop supplies onto whatever islands were within the dead-eye
calm. Alpha’s center wobbled slightly, expanding and contracting, though the
storm’s position didn’t officially move. In five weeks, they hadn’t lost a
plane, a Hercules or an Orion. Not that they hadn’t come close.
Colding
glanced at her watch. Time to go to work.
The metal
door almost got away from her as she retreated back inside. She struggled to
close it against a sudden gust of wind. The hanger door stood open, waiting for
her plane to emerge from its metal cocoon and take flight. Lt. Garcia, her
flight engineer, waited at the nose of the plane. Together, they circled the
WP-3 slowly, doing a visual inspection. They found no anomalies.
As they
approached the ladder to the midline door, Colding heard raised voices from
inside. She entered to find her copilot, Lt. Alves, in a confrontation with Captain
Strand, barring his way to his duty station in back. It was still strange to
see anyone on her plane in an Air Force green instead of NOAA blue. Even their
rank structure contrasted, Army versus Navy. She continually had to stop
herself from calling Strand “Lieutenant”.
“What
seems to be the problem here, gentlemen?” Colding asked in her best command
voice as she stepped inside to clear the way for Garcia.
“Strand seems
to think this is a combat mission,” Alves replied. Working his ever-present
chewing gum, he pointed the pistol holstered on the belt of Strand’s two-piece
flight suit, its grip tucked just beneath his flight jacket.
“You will
not wear that on my plane, Strand,” Colding ordered.
“With all
due respect, Commander, we’re flying over unknown, potentially hostile
territory,” Strand drawled in what she found to be an insufferable Texas twang.
“New regs allow it.”
“Air Force
regs, maybe,” Colding countered, though she doubted even that was true. “But
this isn’t an Air Force plane, at least not yet. And if I have to repeat
myself, Captain, I’ll see you grounded with that gun.”
Reluctantly,
Strand unhitched the holster, wrapping it in his web belt. He brushed past her
toward the door. Colding scanned the remaining crew. It was eerie to see ten of
the twelve meteorologist stations empty. But their mission was reconnaissance
not research. Fewer personnel meant fewer lives at risk.
“Where’s
Zuma?” Colding demanded. If she grounded Strand, she couldn’t afford to lose her
only other flight meteorologist. Calling up a replacement would take time.
Though technically her flight director could fill in. Redmond was top-notch.
“Entering
the hanger now,” Garcia answered from the doorway.
Colding
nodded, closing the subject in her mind. “Prepare for rollout. We’re wheels up
in fifteen.”
She turned
toward the cockpit. By the time she and Alves had performed their preliminary
checks, her flight director reported the door was closed and locked with all
crew aboard and accounted for. Final gear strapdown was complete.
Colding
signaled the groundcrew they were ready. The ramp-rats connected the tow
tractor and pulled the plane out onto the rain-slick tarmac. They were the only
one on the ramp, wind and weather keeping the few other remaining planes on the
base under cover. The hanger door rolled shut behind them.
Soon she
and Alves were consumed in executing, coordinating and crosschecking the preflight
checklist with the rest of the crew. All systems green, she radioed the tower
for clearance. When she received a hold short, she taxied down to the holding
apron of Runway 30, nearly two miles away.
While she
awaited clearance for takeoff, Colding tuned in for a final weather report. The
wind was strong and steady from the northeast at twenty-five knots, gusting to
thirty-seven. Rain lashed down with worse on the way from the approaching
squall line. If they didn’t beat it out, there would be a half-hour
ground-stop. As it was, they’d have to bank and climb directly after takeoff to
avoid the worst of it.
Another
day in the Commissioned Corps. In the past five weeks, she’d seen worse.
“November-4-3-Romeo-Foxtrot,”
Colding heard in her headset, “you are cleared for takeoff. Good hunting. Keep
our airmen safe.”
“NOAA-4-3
copy,” she responded with her informal squawk out of habit. “Don’t worry,
tower, we’ll bring ‘em all home.”
She pulled
onto the head of the nine-thousand-foot runway. Fully fueled and loaded, she’d
need almost half of it to get into the air. She and Alves performed their final
checks. By the time she set the flaps and released the parking brake, she couldn’t
see the far end of the runway for the rain.
“Hang on,
people, this could get a little rough” she announced to the crew over the
intercom. She couldn’t help but tweak Strand and Zuma. “Our guests might want
to keep their airsick bags handy.”
She
throttled up the Orion’s four turbo-props. They began to roll. Rain sheeted
against the windshield. As they picked up speed, she felt every knot of the
fifteen-degree crosswind.
Halfway
through her minimum takeoff distance, something began to feel off. The ride
felt too smooth, the sounds too muted, as if they were already in the air. Alves
identified the problem first.
“Commander,
we’re hydroplaning,” he informed her.
Shit, he
was right. They were slewing sideways along the strip. One good gust and they’d
lateral off the runway at speed. If she aborted, there was no guarantee she’d
regain control. Any sudden course change could spin them sideways. Her only
option was to get air beneath her.
“Rotating,”
Colding announced calmly. “Hang on.”
She gunned
the engines and pulled back the yoke. The airframe bucked from the added power.
The wheels bounced once, twice then settled again. The side of the runway slid
closer. It was up or off. Come on, Missy, she coaxed her plane silently. Catch
some damned air.
Reluctantly,
the Orion crept off the runway. Colding could almost feel individual blades of
grass tickling the port wing wheel before she corrected her heading and gained
altitude. Only when they had climbed a few hundred feet with ocean beneath them
did she slowly let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Alves blew
out a more audible sigh before he started chewing his gum again. He smiled over
at her broadly. “Nice flying, Yeti.”
He used
her callsign, the one she’d been anointed with soon after she’d first shown up
on base. She wanted to take it as play on her name and her calm, professional
demeanor, but she suspected it had something to do with shooting down more than
one amorous advance, including Strand’s. Female pilots still had more to prove.
“Let’s
hope that’s the last of our bad luck for this mission,” Colding replied.
As she
turned away from the feeder band before them and rose to cruising altitude, she
had Alves check on everyone in back. No problems reported, no airsick bags
required.
Colding
informed Redmond they’d be on station in half an hour. Their C-130 flight wing
had taken up a holding pattern over Avon Park, waiting for the Hunter to guide
them in. First, her crew would need to identify an acceptable flight corridor.
That meant slowing to 200 knots at about ten thousand feet and flying a
butterfly pattern through Alpha’s eyewall while Strand and Zuma mapped it out
under Redmond’s direction. Which would put them through the thickest part of
the wall about a third the way up. With sustained surface winds at 185mph, it
would be another nasty flight at best.
There was
no training for this kind of flying. It was all OJT.
Hopefully
they could map out a wind seam so the Air Force could deliver supplies. The
C-130s could take a lot of beating. They were the Air Force Hurricane Hunter alternative
to NOAA’s WP-3s. But airdrops had fairly particular requirements in course,
altitude and speed. They were compressing those limits already. But without any
replenishment of supplies, it was doubtful anyone on the islands could survive.
Operation
Skytrain had been an internal Administration compromise. The internecine
infighting between FEMA, USAID and the Air Force for control had been brutal.
Homeland Security, State and DoD all wanted to stake a claim to the credit but
to deflect all the blame if the mission slipped sideways.
With heavy
seas offshore, airdrop had been the only viable resupply option. That fit the
Air Force’s continual push for standalone air operations. Their Chief of Staff
had convinced the Administration to approach it as a training exercise, against
the Secretary of the Air Force’s advice. The loss of the Space Corps
functionality still stung the upper brass. The PR didn’t hurt. But operation
and maintenance costs were adding up with little sign they were doing any good.
Morale had begun to fray.
The
authorization of aid to the islands hadn’t diminished the Administration’s
fixation on containment. Parachuting in aid Berlin Airlift style served to
justify their continuing interdiction of “undesirables” from the country’s
shores. Refugees had been transferred to the lower islands, or had disappeared behind
tall cyclone fencing in southeast Cuba. They were all gang members, drug
runners and rapists anyway if the official press releases were to be believed.
On the
islands, reserves of batteries, power and gasoline had been long ago exhausted.
One by one, day by day, week by week, intermittent signals had gone silent. Low
sunspot activity now limited shortwave traffic to line-of-sight. Rain, clouds
and constant lightning attenuated and interfered with most other frequencies. A
perfect storm. With no way to get word out, there was little measure of
Skytrain’s success or failure.
Five weeks
later, the American public had grown restive. They wanted the resources
redirected to Miami, West Palm, and Lauderdale, any of which might be next. The
rain down there was measured in feet, not inches. King tides had reclaimed vast
tracts of shoreline, lowlands and barrier islands. The coast was littered with
inundation zones and fresh breaches. AIA had become more of a concept than a functional
road. Long sections of U.S. 1 required Humvee snorkels to traverse.
With no
sign of a reprieve or an exit strategy, and relentless pressure from the
conservative media, the Administration’s patience was wearing thin. The Air
Force Chief of Staff had been relieved a week ago. He had been the last
compassionately conservative adult in the Presidential briefing room. Homeland
First voices had begun to reemerge, and with them, long discredited plans to
dissipate the storm.
Quietly, various
agencies had begun repositioning satellites away from the area in preparation,
limiting the information emerging even further, likely by design. American
airwaves were now flooded of self-serving propaganda that no one on the islands
could have survived. Continued operations were counted in days. Hers could be
the final flight. The militarization of NOAA would be the Rubicon leading to a
brave new phase of operations, one refocused on dispersal rather than relief.
There was
an insidious calculus behind those Homeland First voices. As Katrina and Maria
had clearly demonstrated, black and brown faces mattered less to them. Garcia
and Alves knew that from experience. Zuma probably did as well, though she
didn’t show it.
The Orion
bounced around in the outer reaches of Alpha. The storm didn’t want to make
this mission easy. No storm ever did.
Something
flickered in Colding’s peripheral vision. She glanced down at her instruments
just in time to see her turbulence radar come back online.
“Did you
see that, Alves?” she asked her copilot. “My radar display went dark for a
second.”
“Yup,” he
confirmed, “Mine, too.”
So, it
wasn’t a cockpit issue. It had to be the feed.
“Garcia…”
Colding started.
“On it,”
the Flight Engineer replied. Behind her, Colding could hear her issuing
instructions to her engineering and electronics specialists.
Both
cockpit displays continued to stutter. If they fully lost the radar feed, they
would be forced to turn back, which would scrub the flight wing over Avon. It
was unlikely a replacement plane could be scrambled before their time on
station ran down.
“Let’s try
to get above as much of this as possible,” Colding said. Alves acknowledged.
She
climbed toward the plane’s ceiling. She couldn’t get over the eyewall itself
but she could get above the rest of the cloud cover. Alves informed Friedel of
their new altitude, speed and course. In the compartment behind Colding,
Friedel and Redmond began to consult on adjustments to the mission profile.
Redmond relayed the new parameters to Strand and Zuma so they could coordinate.
It was a small plane. Everyone was in the loop.
Colding
delayed reporting back to air traffic control until she had a better outline of
the problem. ATC would want to scrub the mission. Colding had dealt with glitches
like this before. WP-3s were old planes that had taken a lot of beating
recently despite the ground crew’s best efforts to keep them fit. Like an aging
athlete or boyfriend, they needed a little massaging now and then to stay in
the game. She had confidence Garcia and her crew would straighten out the issue
before they had to abort.
A minute
later, Garcia broke in by intercom. “We need to swap out a cable on the radar
feed, Commander. It should only take a couple seconds. We await your go-ahead
to proceed.”
“Colding
copy. Proceed.”
Both of
the turbulence radar screens in the cockpit again went dark. A moment later,
both sprang back to life in a mottled pattern of orange, yellow and green. They
could see again.
“Commander,”
Redmond said over the intercom, “I have a request to update to our mission
plan.”
“Go
ahead,” Colding responded.
“Strand
requests we make our first run at altitude. Since we’re already up here, I see
no reason to object.”
That was Redmond’s
way of passing the buck up the chain of command. Strand, like all the new Air
Force regime, favored higher altitude drops. They were somewhat safer for the aircrews
but the dispersal pattern meant fewer supplies would land within the intended zones.
Simulations and observation from the cargo planes themselves indicated that up
to seventy-five percent of supplies were lost in high altitude drops, which
struck the planners as excessive. But with no groundside confirmation of
whether sufficient supplies were actually getting through, that argument had
worn thin. As the heated exchange in this morning’s briefing had confirmed.
But Colding
thought a high-altitude recon was more likely a trial run. Based on the
questions she’d been asked unofficially, she suspected the next stage birds
could fly right over the eyewall and would need no guidance in. Their target
was large enough that they literally couldn’t miss. But while they wouldn’t
need guidance, they would still need data on the wind fields before deploying. She
suspected the Air Force’s real objective in militarizing NOAA was to limit
disclosure of the science and that data before, during and after the operation.
A signature on an interim security clearance would silence a lot of sins. The
ultimate NDA she refused to sign.
Even so,
Colding could think of no reason to decline the request without it appearing as
straightforward bias. Which Redmond knew as well. He was just hoping she might come
up with something he’d missed.
She
couldn’t.
“Friedel,”
she ordered her navigator, “update our initial butterfly to accommodate the
Flight Director. Keep our subsequent passes according to flight plan. Inform ATC
of the change.”
That was
as much of the baby as she could split.
By now,
they had risen above all the clouds except the high cirrus shield of the storm.
They no longer needed the wipers to clear the windshield. They dodged around
dark cumulonimbus anvils sprinkled through the feeder bands. Lightning danced
erratically below. Ahead, the inky eyewall loomed, veined with more strobing blue-white
bolts.
“Strap in,
people,” Colding said. “It’s going to get bumpy.”
The wall of
darkness drew closer. The high clouds condensed and curdled, blotting out the
sun. In a series of seconds, the windshield went from clear air to mist to
sheeting rain. Turbulence jolted the plane through three degrees of freedom,
pitch, roll and yaw, as well as every conceivable combination of displacement
along each axis, vertical, horizontal and 3D diagonal. Pelletized precipitation
began bouncing off the windshield. Rime ice spiderwebbed in from its metallic
edges.
And this is
along a crease in the wind-field, Colding thought.
With terse
efficiency, her crew began to do their jobs.
Mere
moments into mapping, Colding’s controls began to feel sluggish. She fought to
maintain their course after each bounce and slew, and return to their flight
plan. Their airspeed slowed, requiring more throttle to compensate.
Alves
noticed her adjustments and craned his head to look through the side
windshield. “I’m seeing signs of icing,” he notified her. “That might account
for the increased drag.”
Colding
nodded without turning away from the forward view and her instruments. She
interrupted the coordination over the intercom. “Friedel, Redmond, give me a
visual assessment of the wings.”
Her
navigator was first to call out a report. “I’m seeing significant ice buildup
on the control surfaces of the starboard wing.”
Redmond
echoed that to port, adding, “Positive confirmation of ice crystals on the
number two engine intakes.”
That tore
it. The adjusted flight plan was too high. They either had to shed altitude or
risk dropping from the sky. The upper air layers of Alpha were just too cold.
“Descending
to previous flight plan altitude,” Colding informed the crew as she pushed the
yoke forward into a rapid but controlled descent.
“Can’t you
press through it?” Strand questioned her unprofessionally. “My display
indicates there may be an upcoming break in the wind fields. The C-130s won’t
have a problem with this.”
“Negative,
Captain,” she responded flatly. “This crew’s safety is my primary concern. We’re
returning to our flight path from the briefing. The birds behind us won’t know
the difference. Friedel, update our flight plan. Redmond, coordinate with ATC
and our guests.”
The intercom
chattered back to life. Colding detected more than a note of professional
disapproval in Strand’s acknowledgements. Which was likely one reason he was
not a pilot.
Before
they achieved their new cruising altitude, they hit a sudden downdraft. The
bottom fell out. They plummeted several thousand feet in a matter of seconds.
Colding heard a crashing sound somewhere behind her. She hoped it was just
equipment breaking loose, not unsecured personnel.
“Everyone
ok back there?” Alves inquired over the intercom. “Report by station.”
Even as
affirmatives came rolling in, an eye-piercing flash-boom across the entire
windscreen whited out Colding’s vision and left her ears ringing. Her forward
radar screen went dark again. She glanced over at Alves’s station and found it
dead as well.
She
interrupted the rollcall. “Garcia, our radar glitch is back. I need you on it, ASAP.
We’re flying blind up here.”
“Flight
engineer, copy,” was her only reply.
The intercom
erupted in new coordination between Garcia and her specialists. Eternal minutes
later, Colding’s display flickered back to life.
“Oh,
crap,” Alves interjected, staring at his screen. “Where did that come from?”
“I see
it,” Colding responded, her eyes moving methodically between her instruments
and the rain-shrouded forward view. The radar display indicated a wall of wind
in front of them rising vertically.
She issued
a warning over the intercom. “Buckle up, everyone. We’re headed into a
roll-vortex. There’s no way around or over it. Our only path is through. This will
not be pleasant.”
Colding
angled the plane to face the vortex nose on to avoid getting slewed or rolled
when the tornadic winds hit. She climbed as steeply as she dared, but there was
no way to clear it in time. With any luck, she could use the updraft to
slingshot over it, straight into the storm’s eye.
When the
plane slammed into the vortex, the wings vibrated uncontrollably. It took all
of her and Alves’s combined effort to keep the plane from entering a spin. Something
on the exterior audibly snapped.
“Commander,
we’ve lost contact with ATC,” Garcia informed her. “Radio is offline.
Attempting repairs. Lack of signal strength indicates possible antenna damage.”
A moment
later, that was the least of their problems. Rain mixed with the seawater the
roll-vortex had dredged up from the ocean. The forward view entered whiteout
conditions. Colding and Alves flew by instruments alone. Salt rime encrusted at
the edges of the windshield where the water ice had receded.
Within moments
the plane began to buck and stutter. The background noise of the engines
changed tempo from a consistent yet comforting whine to the chatter of a poorly-tuned
car engine. They shed altitude as the decreasing updraft no longer overcame the
effect of gravity on the multi-ton airframe.
“Garcia,”
Colding called back over the intercom, “we’re losing power.”
“The
mixture’s all wrong,” her flight engineer replied. “Number two, number three,
and number four engines are running too rich. I tried overriding the choke. No
effect. The intakes might be clogged. I can cut back fuel to get the mixture
right but we’ll lose even more power.”
“Do what
you have to,” Colding responded. “Just keep these engines lit. I need everything
you can give me when we hit the downdraft on the other side.”
“I’ll do
what I can,” Garcia said, sounding haggard. “No promises.”
Colding
knew that meant it was bad. She felt the drag increase as the winds shifted
from beneath to behind them. The engines developed a full stammer. Each of the
four blanked off and on before firing back to life. The wind’s buffeting
increased.
“Alves, coordinate
with Strand and Zuma,” Colding instructed her copilot with a calmness she
didn’t feel. “See if you can find a way through this. We need a seam to flush
the intakes with rainwater. Friedel, Redmond, search for a contingency landing
strip within the eye.”
The plane
lurched as she lost a quarter of her remaining power. What little lift they had
went missing.
“Number
two engine offline,” Garcia informed her. “Attempting restart... No joy.”
“Keep
trying,” Colding ordered, knowing it was redundant. She adjusted the plane’s
trim to compensate for the missing engine. In ideal conditions, they could stay
aloft with just one. Their current situation was far from that.
The plane
rocked again as they suffered another drop in power, this time by a third.
“Number
three engine offline,” Garcia stated flatly. “Attempting restart… No joy.”
Now they
began a steady yet controlled descent, a combination of loss of power and the
roll-vortex turning downward. They hadn’t climbed nearly far enough. The salt
rime continued its creeping incrustation from the edges of the windshield.
Colding angled the plane to attack the wind and create as much lift as
possible. Their decent barely slowed. At this rate they’d emerge just a few
hundred feet off the deck. That didn’t leave much margin.
That
changed when Colding’s stomach climbed into her throat. This time their power
dropped by half. If it happened again, all she’d have was glide.
“Number
four engine offline,” Garcia intoned before continuing her mantra. “Attempting
restart… No joy.”
Please,
please, please, just let us keep the last one, Colding thought.
The number
one engine sputtered and coughed, seemingly oblivious to her prayers. Their descent
continued precipitously. Colding glanced at her altimeter. Unless they emerged
from the vortex soon, they’d either find themselves skimming the waves or
clipping them if they were higher than thirty feet.
“Strand,
Zuma, where are we?” she asked as levelly as she could.
Zuma broke
into the intercom. “Commander, forward radar indicates a potential crease
fifteen degrees starboard.”
Colding
didn’t even glance at her radar or request confirmation from Alves. She banked
the aircraft as much as she dared, shedding even more altitude she couldn’t
really afford. But if they didn’t emerge quickly, their scant margin would no
longer matter.
The number
one engine blanked into silence then spontaneously jump-started back to life.
Come on, Piggy.
Stay up just a couple minutes more.
And just
like that, their descent ceased. The sudden press beneath Colding's seat felt as
if they’d bobbed up like a cork, even though her instruments told her they were
barely maintaining altitude. They immediately leveled off.
The
un-encrusted circle of the windshield cleared from sheeting rain to a halo of
stark blue sky. Along the entire horizon, another black wall of clouds loomed
before them, as if they’d somehow emerged like a drone skimming the flooded
field of Raymond James stadium. Spray from the wavetops not twenty feet below
brushed against the wings.
Colding
tried to get as much lift as she could from their lone rattling engine. As if
to register a dissent, it idled for a cycle at a time. Slowly, excruciatingly
they rose beyond the reach of the spray.
“Friedel,
Redmond, tell me you have something,” she called into her mike.
“Nothing
yet, commander,” her navigator answered. “We’re still syncing up exactly where
we are. No IATAs within our forward cone.”
“Ok, people,
man your windows” Colding called out to the entire crew. “Visual flight rules from
this point forward. I’ll get us as much altitude as I can. If you see anywhere
viable for landing, sing out. Even a straight shot of highway will do if it’s
clear. I’d rather not put us into the water. It’s a long swim home.”
Garcia
broke back in. “Number one engine is running too rich, commander. Leaning the
mixture.”
“Is that
absolutely necessarily?” Colding asked, though she already knew the answer.
Garcia was working a minor miracle just to keep them in the air. But any less
power and they’d only be able to maintain their current altitude.
“It’s that
or risk stalling. Without an intake flush, I’m not sure how long I can keep it running.”
“Do what
you have to, Garcia,” Colding responded. “Just keep us aloft.”
“Attempting
restart on the other three engines in regular rotation. No go, not even a
tickle. Don’t count on them until we set down.”
Alves
interjected to the rest of the crew. “You heard our Flight Engineer, everyone.
Let’s help her out. Eyes sharp. Find us a temporary home.”
Then to
Colding directly, covering his mike with a hand, he said, “You ok? You look
like you could use a break.”
Colding
smiled wanly. She very much could. But if they had to ditch, she wanted it on
her record, not his. Not that they’d likely survive long enough to file a
report. “Thanks, I’m good. Just double-check me on the instruments.”
They
circled within the storm’s eye searching for any strip of sanctuary where they
might land, regroup and, with any luck, return to the air. Former islets that
now were mere shoals zipped beneath them, showing up as muddied aqua against a
deeper, turbid grey-green-blue. Reefs of roofless cinderblock disrupted the
surf just offshore of the larger islands. Colding spotted several bright yellow
parachutes submerged in the inundation zone. Debris and detritus littered the
roads and spaces between half-covered buildings that looked more like medieval
ruins than a contemporary civilization. She wondered if Strand and his kind
were right, that no one on the islands could have survived.
Then
movement caught her eye. From behind empty eye socket windows half covered by
shattered plywood, from beneath the remains of roofs stripped bare of tiles and
shingles, from between the fissures in partially collapsed cinderblock, dark
faces cautiously peered up, following the sound of her lone stuttering engine
against the high whine of distant winds. Men and women, young to old, some
sheltering toddlers and children, others supporting grey-haired pensioners. All
shaded their eyes with a hand, tracking the plane across the sky. Probably
thinking she was the first of their long-awaited rescue, when in fact she and
her crew would be lucky not to share their fate.
But she spotted
no waving hands, no celebrations, just stone-cold, hollow eyes bordering on
exhaustion, emaciated with hunger and disbelief. Most receded back into the
shadowed spaces quickly. One man, beyond shock or awe, shook a fist at them, in
anger or defiance she couldn’t say.
“Not much
of a welcoming committee,” Alves observed.
She nodded
ruefully. “At least we can confirm they’re alive.”
A silence
stretched between them, neither wanting to share or acknowledge their private
thought: For how long?
“Commander,
I think we’ve got something,” Friedel interrupted over the intercom. “Four
o’clock, on the high ground on the far end of that medium island. Might be private
airstrip. Not on the charts, anyway. Can’t quite tell, but it looks clear.”
Colding
circled back for a closer inspection. At first, she didn’t see it. Then she
spotted the flat, straight, unnatural cut flanked by trees and brush, all surreally
green instead of expected dun and grey.
“Is that sand?”
she asked no one in particular. She couldn’t set down on dirt. Even packed, the
Orion’s wheels would punch right through. They had better odds of surviving with
a water landing, though that would be mission terminal.
“Looks
like just some blow in,” Redmond said. “I see asphalt.”
“Concur,” Alves
said. “Sand around the edges but the center looks solid.”
Colding
didn’t have time for another pass, not while trying to keep the plane in the
air. She’d have to rely on everyone else’s eyes, as much as that violated every
rule of piloting. “What else do you see, Alves?”
“It’s
short,” he said, peering intently out the side window. “I don’t see any debris.
We can set her down but getting her back up might be a trick.”
The number
one engine stuttered and blanked one more time before coughing back to life.
“Ok,”
Colding said, “unless anyone sees a better option, we’ll set down here. We’ll
figure out takeoff after landing.”
Even that
depended on having more than one engine. Two was the minimum for takeoff under
ideal conditions. On a short strip, all four was their only realistic option.
“Someone
give me a wind report. Are we better off landing one way or another?” Hopefully
there wasn’t a crosswind. There was no tower, no windsock. The trees, eerily
leaved out in bright green spring foliage, weren’t enough to get a visual read.
Ripples through the dune grass along the island’s shore seemed to swirl first in
one direction then another.
Strand
answered, “Winds are light and variable, consistent with interior eye
conditions. Should be clear either way.”
“Good
enough,” Colding said. She lined up with the runway by the shortest route
possible. She stole another glance down on the way by. At one end of the
island, she spotted a large house with numerous outbuildings, all worse for
wear, and the pilings of a dock. Alves wasn’t kidding the inland field was
short. Close to their minimum. She’d have to touchdown almost where the warning
track should be just to make sure they didn’t overshoot.
She and Alves
ran their normal checklist, abbreviated by the absence of air traffic control.
She had no idea how bush pilots, smugglers and drug runners did this on a daily
basis. This was well outside her comfort zone for all her other skills. But
necessity was a mother, or so her own mother used to say.
Colding
lined up the plane with the cut and came in as low to the trees and scrub as
she dared. As much as it went against all her instincts, she dropped the moment
she confirmed pavement beneath her. As the last few feet of air fell away, she mouthed
a silent prayer.
The wheels
touched down harder than expected from a sudden downdraft, then bounced back
up. When the plane dropped again, the starboard wing wheel caught sand and
stuck while the port wheel bounced again, leaving the wing exposed. A crosswind
through a break in the trees grabbed and lifted it, dipping the starboard wing
tip dangerously low. A moment of light equilibrium told Colding the plane was
poised to flip. She immediately steered to port with all the power her lone
engine would give her, dropping that wing again, hard. This time the wheel
stuck. Only now, they were headed straight for the surrounding scrub. She
slewed the controls back immediately to realign them with the runway.
Because
she’d gunned the engine to get the plane back on course, the end of the runway
was racing up on them faster than she’d anticipated. Colding applied all the
aerobraking the flaps would give her. She then calmly killed the remaining
engine, hoping the prop drag would slow them down enough. It wasn’t like touch
and go had been an option from the onset.
Slowly,
painfully, they rolled to a stop, gravity and friction doing the rest of the
work. The Orion came to rest a couple dozen feet from the end of the runway, a Hunter
no more.
An eerie
silence descended through the cabin as their situation settled in. If they
didn’t find a way to get airborne again, they would be stuck here for the
duration. Wherever here was. But Colding knew that here might not exist soon if
certain policymakers won their argument.
Now that the
plane had stopped moving, she was exhausted. Alves noticed and took over, like
a good second should. First, he popped in a fresh stick of gum.
“Ok,
listen up,” he called over the intercom. “We’ve got a lot to do to get back in
the air. First, we run through our post-landing checklists as normal. I want
reports on any and all damage and systems malfunctions. Second, Garcia, you and
your crew break into the survival kit. Take the water packets and see if you
can flush the engine intakes. If it’s just salt, we should be able to refire
them and get back in the air. That’s our top priority. Friedel, see if you can
nail down our exact position and reestablish comms with base. Let’s get on it,
people. We don’t want to be here come sunset.”
“No one is
to stray too far from the plane,” Colding added, trying to keep the weariness
from her voice. “Strand, you and Zuma help Redmond inventory our survival
supplies. Everything, including personal effects. Then identify any equipment
that isn’t flight critical that we can easily remove. We’ll need to shed weight
to make this runway work. Alves and I will assess the strip after we inspect
the exterior of the plane.”
“I
recommend we establish a security perimeter,” Strand stated flatly, his input
unrequested. His tone made it sound like an order, which Colding didn’t
appreciate. “Someone must have seen us land.”
She
conceded the second point but not the first. “Zuma will establish a lookout and
alert us if anyone approaches. But remember, we’re here to help the locals.
They are not the enemy.”
“With all
due respect, ma’am,” Strand drawled, “I think you underestimate the power of
desperation. The indigenes won’t see us as help. They’ll see us as a source of supplies
they need to survive. We need to defend our position.”
“We have
neither the time nor resources to pursue your recommended course of action,
which in my estimation is counterproductive.” Colding hated how much mil-speak
she’d picked up already just from the daily briefings. But she had to speak a
language she knew he would understand. “This isn’t a military flight, Strand.
There’s no rifle in the survival kit. There’s probably not even bear-spray,
just a knife. Our best defense right now is to get back into the air ASAP. That
is our primary objective.”
“If we’re
stuck here,” Strand responded with more arrogance than sense, “we’ll need to
adjust those priorities.”
“Noted,”
Colding replied icily. “Until then, you have your orders, Captain. See to
them.”
“Aye,
aye,” he replied with the barest edge of contempt.
Colding
knew that if she didn’t keep him busy, Strand would find a way to cause
trouble. She suspected he might anyway when they got home. As the plane’s
commander, failure fell on her, regardless of circumstances. Hers was only the
second Hurricane Hunter to go down on a mission in the Atlantic Basin. The
first was more than six decades earlier, a Navy P-2 with no survivors. The Air
Force had lost three planes to typhoons in the Pacific. NOAA none at all. She’d
be damned if her plane and crew would add to those statistics.
Within
moments, she was too busy to think about it more. Routine and training were
their keys to survival right now. She and Alves ticked through their
post-landing checklist. Soon, station reports came trickling in.
They were
lucky. There was no damage to avionics or flight critical systems. Mostly just cosmetic
dings and scratches from equipment breaking loose. The stabilizing cable
between the fuselage and the tail had shorn clean away, thankfully without
taking either anchor point with it. If it had whipped loose, they’d have been a
brief oil slick in the Atlantic.
They
weren’t as fortunate with comms. Their radar glitch had migrated to their
software-defined radio, which was currently offline. It looked like their
nosecone had taken a direct lightning hit that had scorched the diverter
strips. There might be antenna damage, but without a full teardown, there was
no way to know. At a minimum, indirect lightning effects had injected a gremlin
into the electronics. Their transponder was still working, but they were beyond
line of sight to any monitoring station.
Which
meant they’d simply dropped off the air traffic control screens. Out of
communication and presumed lost. Would base even send Search and Rescue?
Unlikely, given they’d disappeared in the eyewall. By now, the C-130s would be
returning to MacDill, awaiting a new guide plane tomorrow. If there was another
mission. Perceived loss of life could be the excuse the hardliners needed to
convince the Administration to implement their plan. That created a new sense
of urgency.
What
little luck they had held when Garcia and her crew flushed the intakes. All
four engines refired. The controls showed no lingering ill effects. That meant
they were minimally flightworthy. The hard part would be finding a way to get
the plane back into the air. Realistically, they needed a full maintenance
overhaul. In the past month, they’d seen more than an average season’s worth of
flight hours on the airframe. And that was on top of an already record season
before Alpha arose. But that wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.
Before she
and Alves walked the strip, Colding set the crew on the task of removing every
ounce of unnecessary weight from the plane, everything Redmond and Strand had
identified. Personal gear, the dropsondes, any and all loose equipment, the
smaller of the modular, rack-mounted electronics they could maneuver without a lift,
even the survival kit. If they had to ditch into the thirty-foot seas, the life
raft wouldn’t make much difference. The bill on the materiel they were leaving
behind would be enormous. Colding didn’t care. Lives mattered more.
The
biggest reserve of weight they had was fuel. They were already down a quarter
of their capacity, which lightened their weight profile by a few thousand
pounds. In theory, she could dump half the remainder and still have enough reserves
to get back to the mainland. The problem was that with no depot, there was only
one way to get rid of any remaining excess: burn it before takeoff. That was
impractical. Once they were airborne, they could dump fuel over the ocean but
by then it wouldn’t matter. A catch-22.
Outside,
the air was warm and dry. The sky overhead was clear. The sun felt good on
Colding’s face. She hadn’t seen clear skies in weeks, except intermittently
before Alpha’s cloud cover had fully settled in. There was very little wind,
just a constant breeze. After so long, the lack of wind was eerie. Just a whine
from the distance like a gust that never quite arrived. Except for the looming
charcoal clouds on all horizons, she could almost forget where they were.
Almost.
The scrub and low trees lining the runway were a stark reminder they weren’t
where they were supposed to be. Like they’d dropped onto a deserted tropical
isle, or been transported through a rift to some hidden world like on a slow
Saturday matinee movie she remembered as a kid. The constant susurration through
the new, bright green leaves reminded her of whispered conversations in her
college dorm, the late-night ones she couldn’t quite make out the words to but which
kept her mind half-awake desperately trying to understand.
She
focused on the task in front of her. The runway looked sound. Someone had spent
a lot of money on it, cutting back the scrub, levelling the karst, pouring the
tarmac, with all the equipment shipped in from elsewhere. But she supposed that
was a minor expense compared to the cost of a private island or the private jet
its owners needed to access it, when they didn’t use a yacht.
“What do
you think, Alves,” Colding asked as they neared the end of it, “maybe two
thousand feet?”
He
critically examined the lay of the airstrip, looking first back toward the
plane, then to the trees nearby. “Twenty-two hundred, best.”
“So,
twelve hundred short if we’re fully loaded.” She kicked a small, dead-leafed
branch at her feet. There was surprisingly little debris given the surrounding
scrub looked to have been stripped nearly bare when Alpha had settled into
position. Five weeks later, it had all leafed back out. Most of the detritus had
blown off to the clear, grassy space lining runway.
Colding
looked at the scrub on the end farthest from the plane. “How high would you say
those trees are?”
Alves eyed
them a moment. “Twenty-five to thirty maybe.”
Colding
gazed back at the plane, doing calculations in her head. If she backed the Orion
to the very edge, set the brake, then fully throttled the engines…. It all
depended on how much weight they lost.
“Hello,”
Alves interjected as much in surprise as to get Colding’s attention. “We’ve got
company, Yeti.”
She turned
to him then followed his eyes to the tree line. A face watched them from inside
the shadows of the underbrush maybe twenty yards away. She caught the glint of
metal lower, somewhere near its owner’s body. He, she decided.
“Hey
there.” Colding called to him using her command voice, a clear calm the carried
without making it sound like an order but not quite a request. “Why don’t you
come out.”
He faded
back as she stared but didn’t quite disappear. Like a cat torn between caution
and curiosity.
“We’re
here to help,” she added reassuringly.
He paused.
He didn’t move for a moment, then seemed to make a decision. He stepped into
the light without hesitation. A hand tried to grab his arm and missed, then
pulled back into the shadows.
He was
tall, an inch or two over six feet, with a once lean, athletic build that now
looked gaunt in ill-fitting work clothes, faintly stained. His own, no doubt.
Still, he stood straight, perhaps defiant, a machete trailing easily from his
right hand.
“We’re not
going to hurt anyone,” Colding said, hoping he felt the same. Alves just stood
beside her, watching intently, chewing his gum.
The man
used the machete to point down the runway. “That your plane?”
“Yeah,”
she answered. “We’re from the States.”
“I thought
you were drug runners,” he replied evenly, with a slight Caribbean lilt.
Colding
tried to keep the surprise from her face, but doubted she succeeded. A non
sequitur she hadn’t expected.
“You’ve
heard of the Hurricane Hunters?” she asked. He nodded slowly. “That’s us.”
“It’s not
safe for you here,” he said.
“We
weren’t planning on staying,” Alves replied dryly.
“They will
have spotted your plane and come looking,” the man continued.
“The drug runners?”
Colding asked.
He nodded
again. “They use the field sometimes at night when the owner isn’t here. It’s
best we turn a blind eye. They’ve raided the main house a few times for
supplies but otherwise have left us alone.”
“Us?”
Colding probed. “How many of you are there?”
The man
hesitated, realizing he’d given away more than he’d intended. He shrugged and
shook his head, still intently watching her. “My wife and I are caretakers.”
“And it’s
safe for you when these drug runners come?” Colding tried to map out their
situation in her mind.
“We hide
in the brush until they leave. They know we’re here but so far haven’t searched.”
“Just you
two?” Colding gauged his weight and started calculating again.
He
hesitated before answering. “Us and the children. A boy and an infant girl.”
Oh, sweet
Jesus. How had they survived. Colding couldn’t imagine.
“And
they’re with you.” She left it between a question and a statement, nodding
toward the brush.
He stared
at her opaquely, then turned over his shoulder and called a name, his eyes still
never leaving hers. “Cynthia.”
A woman
stepped from the shadows, a baby perched on a hip in the crock of one arm, her
other hand clutching her young son’s. All their clothes were smudged but not
dirty, their faces clean. The boy, maybe four, looked equally hollow and haggard
as the adults. His mother’s eyes smoldered at her husband. “Ian Beneby, what
have you done? Bad enough those thugs steal our children’s food.”
Colding
smiled reassuringly. “It’s ok, ma’am. We’re here to help.”
“Can you
lift this scourge of God?” Cynthia snapped, nodding toward the horizon.
“No, but maybe
I can help you escape it,” Colding replied. Suddenly she had the attention of
all three adults, including Alves. “I’m Brigid, by the way. This is Thomas. And
who are these two little ones?”
Ian Beneby
rested the dull side of the machete against his shoulder. “Troy and Arianna,”
he said, not disguising a hint of pride.
“Don’t try
your charm offensive on me, Miss Pilot,” his wife interrupted before Ian could
say more, eyeing Colding critically. “My husband may be swayed by a pretty lady
in a uniform, but I, for one, am not.”
Colding
faced her. “Your husband told me it’s not safe here, Mrs. Beneby. He couldn’t
be more right. We need to evacuate you.”
Ian now stared
at her slack jawed. Alves stopped chewing his gum. Cynthia started to laugh.
“Your
plane just dropped out of the sky like a heron shot by a fisherman.”
Colding
nodded. The other woman had a point. But she had to convince them. If the
hardliners won, they would never survive.
“We had some
engine trouble but that’s all been fixed. You probably heard us test them a few
minutes ago. Thomas and I are checking the runway while the rest of my crew is
lightening our load.”
“And why
would they do that if your engines are working perfectly?” Cynthia asked
pointedly.
Colding paused,
considering how best to explain it.
“See those
trees at the end of the runway?” she pointed. “We just need to make sure we get
high enough over them. Once we do, the rest of the flight shouldn’t be a
problem.”
“Don’t
talk down to me, Miss Pilot. I’ve been to university. You will be flying
through a category 6 tropical cyclone the likes of which this world has never
seen. And you are saying this runway is too short for your plane.”
Cynthia
Beneby was sharp, Colding would give her that. She tried honesty instead.
“About a thousand feet too short. If we get our weight down far enough, I should
able to clear those trees. The flight home shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve flown
through this storm once every three days for the past five weeks. This is the
first trouble we’ve experienced.”
“And why
would I trust my babies’ lives to shoulds and shouldn’ts?” Cynthia shot back.
Colding
eyed her, appraising. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Because in a few days,
it is likely there will be no more supply drops coming to the islands. People
are saying no one on the islands could have survived, and that continuing to
drop supplies would just be a waste of resources needed on the mainland.”
“The only
people who receive your crates and boxes, the ones that don’t sink into the
ocean, are thieves and drug runners. They are best armed and organized. They always
have been because they are connected to our government. Your government has
tolerated their corruption for far too long because it suits them, Miss Pilot.
They know it exists and yet refuse to grant people like us asylum to escape
it.”
Colding
nodded gravely. “The Administration and the public need to see they’re wrong.
They need to hear your story. If you come back with us, everyone will listen to
what you and your husband have to say.”
“What my
fool of a husband does is up to him,” Cynthia snapped, but her expression said
she was considering. A decision Colding wouldn’t want on her shoulders.
“Like you said,”
Colding continued, this time going from honest to blunt, “those thugs will come
back to investigate the plane. What are the chances that this time they don’t
search for you to find out what you know, or whether we gave you supplies? How
much longer can you make it out here alone? How much food do you have for the
children? We all need to leave soon or none of us will be safe.”
Cynthia Beneby
chewed her lip, looking first at her young son, then at her infant daughter, obviously
weighing what Colding had said. “It sounds so risky.”
“Yes, it’s
a risk,” Colding admitted, “but no more than ones Thomas and I take every day.
It’s our job to calculate them. We don’t take them unnecessarily. NOAA has
never lost a Hurricane Hunter. Mine won’t be the first.”
Alves
seemed to sense Cynthia Beneby needed one final nudge. Something Colding said
must have convinced him, too. “Ma’am, I’ve flown with a lot of pilots over the
years. Commander Colding is the best. I grew up in San Juan. Trust me, you’re
safer on her plane in this storm than in any car in the Caribbean.”
Both Ian
and Cynthia laughed at that, the tension broken. Everyone knew that driving on
the islands was like entering a demolition derby staffed with unlicensed New
York cabbies.
Now Cynthia
looked uncertainly at her husband who nodded encouragingly. She turned back to Colding,
hitching her infant a little higher onto her hip. ‘Ok, Miss Pilot. Show me this
plane.”
Colding
smiled as she turned away. Maybe some good could come out of this mission after
all.
---
As they
approached the grounded Orion, Colding saw piles of equipment stacked in the
grass just off the runway. The crew had made good progress. She just hoped it
was enough. No one was in sight which struck her as odd. Then she spotted Zuma lurking
within the stacks of discarded electronics. When Colding raised a hand to wave,
Zuma put her fingers to her mouth and emitted a long, sharp whistle.
Strand
emerged from the hatchway into the plane, striding down the folding ladder. When
he reached the ground, he brought up the pistol in his right hand, pointing it
at Ian Beneby. Where the hell had he gotten that? He must have smuggled it back
onboard in Zuma’s flight bag.
“Drop the
machete,” Strand ordered in his Texas twang, sighting down the barrel at Ian’s
chest.
Slowly,
carefully, Ian laid the machete on the ground. It didn’t appear this was the
first time he’d had a gun pointed at him.
Cynthia turned to shield little Arianna with her body, pushing Troy
behind her. Ian deliberately sidestepped to position his body in front of hers.
“Strand, lower
your weapon,” Colding ordered. “The Benebys are with me. They’re coming with us.”
“I’m
afraid that’s not possible,” Strand replied, his eyes never leaving Ian. He
crouched slightly, moving cautiously forward, stabilizing his grip on the
pistol with his left hand.
Colding
straightened and turned on her full command voice. “I said drop your weapon,
Captain. That’s an order.”
“With all
due respect, Commander, I am no longer in your chain of command.” Strand kicked
the machete to one side with a foot. “This is an Air Force mission and I am the
senior Air Force officer on the ground.”
The rest
of the crew crowded into the hatchway of the plane, watching the situation play
out. Colding wondered exactly what had transpired while she and Alves had been
away. She stepped toward Strand, reaching out a hand for the pistol. He swung
the barrel to her. She froze.
“Be
careful who you point that at, Strand,” she observed coolly. “It’s a long walk
home.”
“You
aren’t the only one who can fly this plane, Colding,” he replied, his eyes
darted toward Alves.
“If you
think I’ll fly for you,” Alves retorted, “you’ve lost more of your mind than I
thought you ever had.”
Strand
smiled slowly. “I can fly this plane if I have to.”
“Don’t
make me laugh,” Alves shot back. “Under ideal circumstances your limited
training might suffice. With an experienced crew, which I doubt you’ll have
behind you. But you’re pointing a gun at the only pilot I know who can clear
the trees at the end of a very short runway. How you’ll explain that when you
get back is beyond me.”
“Security
risk,” Strand stated tersely, eyeing Colding. “We’re too tight on weight as it
is.”
“I’ve
already run the calculations, Strand,” Colding explained calmly “These four
people aren’t the difference between getting airborne and not. The only
obstacle right now is you.”
“You told
them what’s coming, didn’t you?” Strand’s aim didn’t waver. “You’re endangering
the mission.”
“In case
you’ve forgotten, Captain,” she responded, remind him she still outranked him,
“these people are the mission.”
“Not for
long,” he replied with certainty. “In two days, we start taking care of our own
like we should have from the beginning. We’ll do what you and your bleeding-heart
scientists have been unwilling to do from the beginning; we’ll solve the
problem of Hurricane Alpha. Permanently.”
“What the
hell are you talking about?” Alves demanded. “Solve it how?”
When
Strand met him with stony silence, he looked to Colding for an answer.
“If I read
the situation right,” she said slowly but loudly enough for the crew in the
doorway to hear, “the Air Force wants to drop two twenty-megaton bombs into the
eye of this storm to try to disperse it, in accordance with Jack Reed’s 1959 Plowshare
Program plan. They want to militarize NOAA so our Orions can fly recon for the
bombers, as well as to silence our dissent.”
“That’s
crazy,” Alves exclaimed. “If they were going to do that, why wait five weeks?”
Colding
didn’t face her copilot, just kept watching Strand for his reaction as she
unveiled a theory based on what she’d read. “They probably needed time to
recondition a couple weapons from the stockpiles. We don’t have anything that
big right now.”
Her
revelation was met by stunned silence that simmered toward outrage as a smug
smile played at the corners of Strand’s mouth. She was right.
A new
sound caught Colding’s attention, a steady, high-pitched whine that rose above
the distant wind. Outboards. Approaching at full throttle. Strand cocked his
head.
“You hear
that, Strand?” Colding said. “That’s decision time approaching. Those are drug
runners coming to check out our plane and turn over the island for supplies.
And I guarantee they will be better armed than you.”
“How do
you know that?” he asked skeptically, narrowing his eyes.
“Because I
talk to people rather than pointing guns at them. Now you have a choice,
Captain,” she used his rank honorarily at this point, knowing he wouldn’t keep
it long if they returned. “You either let us do our jobs, or you can reenact
the Alamo as a one-man play. Me and my crew are the only ones who can get this
plane off the ground before those men get here. You’re running out of time.”
Strand
hesitated a moment, then seemed to relax slightly as if he’d made a decision.
When he started to swing the pistol back toward the Benebys, Colding moved and
Alves with her. Colding stepped inside Strand’s guard, clamping her arm over
his while Alves grabbed for the gun. Strand was strong, strong enough to move
her body with his arm. Two shots rang out. Behind her, someone shrieked.
Colding brought
up a knee as hard as she could but missed her target, connecting only with Strand’s
thigh. She quickly brought down the heel of her boot on the top his foot. That
earned her a blow to the head from his left hand, one that left her ear ringing. She
lost her balance but desperately clung to her hold on his arm, sending both of
them tumbling over sideways. She pinned her body onto Strand’s elbow hoping to
give Alves an opportunity. Her copilot stomped Strand’s hand with his flight
boot. She heard the snap of dry kindling. A moment later, Strand slumped in
defeat as Alves came up with the pistol and pointed it at him.
Colding
turned toward the Benebys, expecting the worst. Both adults stared at the scene
before them in horror, but otherwise looked unharmed. Troy burrowed into his
mother’s legs, while Arianna let out howl of fear as loud as a warning siren
that drowned out the approaching boats.
As she clambered
back to her feet, Colding stared down at Strand. “I should leave your
two-hundred pounds of deadweight here. But that’s not what we do.”
She turned
to crew in the door of the plane. “Redmond, zip-tie his mutinous ass and throw
him in back. Everyone else, prepare for takeoff. I want this plane turned
around and wheels up in fifteen, if not sooner. Move with a purpose, people.”
Colding
was surprised it took no convincing to get the Benebys to board the plane after
the violence on the tarmac. Ian Beneby summed it up as he paused on the
fold-down ladder in the doorway, staring at the bright yellow arrow marked
“rescue” pointing directly at him. Distractedly, Colding thought they’d need to
add a new flag to the collection trailing down the fuselage behind it once they
got home.
“I will
never forget what you have done here for me and my family,” he said, turning to
face her.
Cynthia
Beneby added, “WE will never forget, Miss Pilot. You will have saved us twice.”
Colding
smiled back at them professionally. “We’re not out of here yet.”
Just then,
the whine of motorboats ceased. Ian said it would take the men ten minutes to hike
through the brush to the landing strip. Less if they hurried.
They
strapped the Benebys into spare seats, one of which was Strand’s. Cynthia held
her infant daughter on her lap. Not ideal but there was no other choice.
Redmond strapped Strand into a seat as far away as he could.
“We’ll
have to roll through the checklist hot, “Colding informed the crew. “Cut out
everything nonessential. Critical systems and safety only.”
As soon
as she and Alves buckled into the cockpit, Colding fired up the engines and
conducted a three point turn on the pad at the end of the runway. Zuma, who had
the good sense to look stricken at what Strand had done, claiming she hadn’t
known what he’d intended, relayed instructions and their position from the
ground to Redmond in the doorway who then shouted them forward to Garcia and
the cockpit.
Colding
backed the Orion’s wheels to within a foot of the ragged edge of the tarmac. The
tail section overhung the grassy clearing between the strip and the edge of the
brush. With the added weight of their four new passengers, they’d need every extra
inch. Once they were positioned, Zuma climbed back aboard. Redmond pulled up
the ladder and sealed the hatch behind her.
“Door
secure. Passengers and crew strapped in,” he relayed over the intercom.
Passengers.
That was a word Colding wasn’t used to hearing.
She
engaged the brake and set the flaps for maximum lift. She and Alves ran through
an abbreviated checklist, double checking that they hadn’t overlooked anything
critical. There would be no time for recovery if something went wrong.
After
confirming each station was secure and ready, Colding throttled the engines to
just below their redline maximum. Once the props were fully up to speed, she
released the brake.
The heavy
plane not so much jumped as surged forward, gaining speed as they steadily
rolled down the runway. Alves called out the estimated remaining distance.
“Seventeen
hundred feet.”
They were
moving slower than Colding had anticipated. They hadn’t shed enough weight.
“Twelve
hundred feet.”
Colding
expected to feel a lightness to the plane but it still remained solidly connected
to the tarmac, despite their groundspeed being near what it would have been at
almost double that distance on a routine takeoff.
“We’re not
going to make it, Yeti.” Alves covered his mike and shouted directly at her so
the rest of the crew wouldn’t hear. “Now or never to abort.”
Colding
nudged the throttle a fraction farther forward. “When pigs fly.”
“Seven
hundred feet,” he continued his countdown.
Colding finally
felt the lightness she’d expected. Garcia informed her all four engines were
now flickering into red. Come on, girl, you can do this.
“Five
hundred feet.” Alves’s voice betrayed his concern.
Just then,
a group of men emerged from the brush in front of them, near where she and
Alves had first encountered the Benebys. In the center of the runway, they
brandished assault rifles, waving the plane to stop.
Too late
for that, gentlemen. Colding wound up the engines with all the remaining
throttle she had. The men dove to the ground, scrambling out of her way.
“Three
hundred feet.” Alves voice rose, intoning a warning. They were running out of
space and time. The wall of trees rushed toward them second by second. Second
by second, the wheels bounced a little higher.
Zuma broke
into the intercom with a VFR report. “Commander, we’re taking fire from our
six. I think our friends back there are unhappy they missed their flight.”
“They’ll
just have to be content with the luggage we left at the gate,” Redmond quipped
back lightly.
Colding
didn’t laugh, just kept focused on threading the needle with her plane. If their
bullets hit anything vital, theirs would be a tragically short flight.
“Two
hundred feet,” Alves called out, his voice tightening further.
Colding
felt the wheels part from the ground one last time. She immediately pulled back
on the yoke.
“Retrack
landing gear,” she ordered as calm as if she were noting an interesting weather
phenomenon. The mechanism whirred and thunked as it locked the wheels back into
the plane.
When they
reached the trees at the end of the grassy warning strip, Colding could almost
feel the new, green leaves tickle the bottom of fuselage.
Once she
was certain the plane had enough air beneath it, she waggled the wings as a
final taunt to the men behind her, then banked to gain as much altitude as
possible within the calm at the center of the storm before confronting the
looming gray eyewall before them.
“Cinch up
those straps, people,” she announced over the intercom. “We’re headed home.”
---
Three days
later, Colding and Alves stood in the sheltered doorway behind the hanger,
watching through the sheeting rain as the wind and waves continued to undermine
the O-Club at the base. Parts of its foundation now hung over open air. The
road just north of it was gone. The main runway would be next. They’d have to abandon
the air base soon.
She was
still in her dark blue uniform although, technically, she was no longer
employed by NOAA. None of the airwing was now, only the research fleet. But the
Director had insisted she wear it, she suspected for a photo-op when they
landed. It had taken three days to spring the Gulfstream, which wouldn’t be
officially turned over to the Air Force until after it gave her a lift home.
Most of that time, Colding had spent in debriefing, explaining up through the
chain of command exactly what had transpired on the mission, where the bullet
holes in her plane had come from, who had ordered a crew member restrained for the return
flight, why she’d made an emergency landing at the international airport just a
few miles to the south and inland of the base, and how the press and an
immigration judge just happened to be on-hand.
That and
filling out all the additional paperwork confirming her early retirement.
“Did you
see the Benebys on the news last night?” Alves brought her back to the moment.
“Cynthia gave as good as she got. I’ve never seen O’Really at a loss for
words.”
Colding
smiled. Cynthia Beneby would make the perfect advocate for her islands. All
talk of nukes had gone silent overnight. Not that all they would have done was
create a radioactive storm that would have further devastated the Florida
coast. The Administration would have known that if they’d listened to their own
scientists.
“I couldn’t
get past the talk of a Presidential pardon for how ‘unfairly’ we treated Strand,”
Colding replied.
Alves
snorted.
She turned
back to face him, trying to picture him in his new uniform. It would be odd not
to see him in her same dark blue. She wasn’t sure Air Force green fit him. “It
sounds like that man might still have powerful friends, Thomas. You sure you’ll
be ok?”
“Not
powerful enough,” Alves replied. “Zuma’s been undermining him at every opportunity.
She feels pretty sorely used.”
“She
should,” Colding agreed, although she wondered how much the other woman had
really known.
“The crew
all stand by you,” Alves continued. “None of us will ever forget that
incredible piece of flying. Hell, we’ll never have to buy drinks in an O-Club
again. We can all say we flew with a genuine hero, the only NOAA pilot to be
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a takeoff under fire.”
“Don’t
believe it until they pin me with a medal,” she admonished him. “They’re more
likely to bring me up on charges if they can. Or we’ll be taught as the
last NOAA flight from hell. Our names will live in infamy.”
Alves eyes
twinkled mischievously. “That nets free drinks, too, Yeti.”
They fell
into a comfortable silence, staring out as the next feeder band crashed ashore.
Hard to believe that in only six weeks, this had become routine.
“How much
longer do you think it will last?” Alves finally asked, seeming to read her
mind.
Colding
shrugged. “It can’t be much. It’s almost December for Christ’s sake. The
Atlantic should be as cold as hell by now.”
“I hear
they’ve detected a drop in central pressure that might be more than eyewall
replacement. There’s talk it might dissipate in place.”
“Sounds
like wishful thinking,” Colding said staring back out. “I believe that about as
much as the talk of rescue operations.”
Their
conversation lapsed again into silence. Rain pelted the roof overhanging their
temporary shelter.
“Why do
you think it’s here? “Alves asked idly. Turning to her, he added, “Alpha?”
Colding
shrugged then shook her head. “Hubris?”
“I am beginning
to think Cynthia Beneby is right,” Alves continued. “It’s a scourge from God.
But for whose sins?”
Colding
smiled as the answer formed inside her head. The sins of a society that creates
men like Strand and then promotes them to the highest ranks of power.
Before she
could give it voice, someone pounded on the inside of the metal door behind
them. A second later, it cracked open. Friedel stuck his head out. “The
Gulfstream’s almost ready. Roll-out in five minutes.”
“That’s
your cue, Lt. Alves. Or should I say Captain?” Colding smiled, clapping him on
the shoulder. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
When the
door behind her shut, she stared back out at Alpha, wondering when it, too,
would grow weary of fighting nature and retire like its name.
©
2019 Edward P. Morgan III
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