Алистер Маклин - Air Force One is Down

Philpott rubbed his eyes. He turned to Sonya, who said, ‘My God, it’s gone.’

The green snake was still somehow imprinted on Philpott’s retina. He closed his eyes and creases gathered at the bridge of his nose.

‘It was – turning,’ he said slowly. ‘Just before the track went out, the plane was definitely turning.’ He opened his eyelids and glared at the wall map, as if willing the green trace to return. ‘It was turning maybe forty-five degrees.’

Swann’s voice, small but oddly consoling, came from the computer console.

‘I can confirm that, sir,’ he said, ‘it appeared to be changing course to take it up the Adriatic Sea instead of the Mediterranean and Tyrrhenian Sea.’

‘But why?’ Philpott murmured. ‘And why have we lost the trace? Or is this just another “localised difficulty”?’

The telephone rang, and Sonya, who was nearest the receiver, snatched it from its cradle. She identified herself and listened in silence, then said to Philpott, ‘It’s General Morwood, Malcolm. They’ve lost the trace as well.’

Philpott jumped to his feet.

‘Tell him I’ll be back to him shortly,’ he said brusquely. ‘Basil – those fighters. I want them airborne like thirty seconds ago, and out on the track of Air Force One.’ Swann bent his head to the console and flexed his fingers.

Then Sonya Kolchinsky shouted, ‘Wait.’

Philpott turned to see her with a hand raised, listening intently to Morwood’s operations centre. She covered the mouthpiece and said quickly, ‘Morwood says Gibraltar Radar reports that AF One is still, repeat still, on track. They’ve picked her up on the fringe of their area, and they’re certain of their identification. There’s no other comparable traffic.’

The UNACO director cursed under his breath, and snapped, ‘Basil, do as I said. Get the fighters off. I don’t care what the Pentagon says, or Gibraltar Radar. Something’s wrong out there, and it’s not happening by accident. It’s Smith. I know it’s Smith.’

Sonya waved at him and pointed to the telephone. ‘General Morwood,’ she whispered, handing him the receiver.

‘What the blue bloody blazes is happening, Philpott?’ Morwood shouted. ‘First we lose the track and then Gibraltar say they’ve got her all safe and sound. What does it mean, for God’s sake?’

‘It means that I’ve requisitioned an Eagle flight from Naples Command,’ Philpott replied tersely. ‘It means that I’m convinced something has gone wrong with the President’s plane, and I’m not taking any chances.’

‘You’ve done WHAT?’ the General roared.

‘You heard.’

Silence reigned in the Pentagon operations room. Then, from Morwood, ‘Good thinking, Malcolm. I should have done it myself. Keep me posted. I’ll ring you if anything comes up at this end.’

‘There is, of course, one thing you can do, George,’ Philpott continued airily. ‘Raise Air Force One through Andrews and get them to check that everything’s A-OK on board. Tell them to confirm without any possibility of doubt that things are absolutely normal there, and as they should be.’

Morwood grunted, and snarled an order to his aide.

The false Air Force One had long since finished her steep climb and was giving a passable imitation of an on-course flight to Gibraltar Radar when Andrews AFB finally raised the flight deck. Her speed had dropped to barely 150 miles per hour, and she was stealthily losing altitude as well.

‘What’s going on there?’ Andrews demanded. ‘Naples and Athens said they lost you, and your own communications are on the blink. The inertial guidance track has gone, too. Do you read?’

‘Systems malfunctions at both ends, I suppose,’ the skipper replied in a more than adequate imitation of Latimer’s languid drawl, filtered to an indistinguishable metallic rasp by the communications equipment.

‘Is that you, Pat?’ Andrews asked.

‘Who else?’

‘Is Tom there?’ Andrews pressed.

‘Fairman here,’ the co-pilot replied. ‘What’s all this about? We are on schedule and raring to make Geneva. McCafferty sends his love. Got something special lined up for tonight, I think.’

Andrews probed gently at other openings, but eventually retired satisfied. They passed the good news to Morwood, and Morwood informed Philpott, whose Eagle flight was by now airborne and beyond recall … even if Philpott had any intention of summoning them back to base, which he hadn’t.

The skipper of the ‘identikit’ Boeing checked his precisely calculated schedule and suggested to his co-pilot that it was time they were gone. They strapped on parachutes and made for the emergency exit. The plane was on autopilot, and at their greatly reduced speed and height, the two men would easily clear the freighter’s slip-stream.

The skipper kept an ear cocked to the radio desk, waiting for a particular signal to pierce the fuzzy sound. It came, transmitted from a ship in the Mediterranean two miles below them. He turned to his colleague with a ‘thumbs up’ sign, and crossed to join him at the exit door.

Then he reached up a hand, slid off the top of a black plastic box wired to the emergency exit sign, and pressed a switch.

The aircraft was plunged into darkness, and the two men jumped out into the swirling breeze …

In the stateroom of the real Air Force One, Sabrina saw the ‘fasten seat-belts’ sign flash on, and felt the liner dip as it banked to starboard.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said, and then gave an experimental cough and tried again, a little more loudly. Heads turned and inquiring eyes fastened on her.

Sabrina indicated the sign and said, ‘The Commander requests you to put on your seat-belts, please.’

Hemmingsway looked at the electric wall clock and pointed out that they were still the better part of a thousand miles short of their destination.

‘Probably a little turbulence?’ Sheikh Dorani, the Libyan, asked.

‘Something of the sort,’ Sabrina replied.

‘We appear to be going downwards,’ Sheikh Zayed Farouk Zeidan observed.

‘We are,’ his grandson Feisal confirmed, ‘at a rate of perhaps fifty feet a second, or thereabouts.’

The news, coming as it did from a boy of twelve in precise and clipped Oxford English, sounded so incongruous that Hemmingsway started giggling.

He fell silent when the Iraqi, Sheikh Arbeid, addressing the room at large for the first time, since he was not gifted with the capacity for smalltalk, said, ‘The young one is correct. We are diving.’

Eyes turned again on Sabrina, who flushed and said, ‘I’ll – uh – I’ll try to find out what’s happening. No doubt we’re just getting under some bad weather or something.’

‘No doubt,’ Sheikh Zeidan commented urbanely.

‘Unlikely, though,’ Feisal ventured.

‘Why?’ Hemmingsway asked, curious, and then cursing himself for seeking an opinion on aeronautical practice from a lad younger than his own children, whose knowledge of anything beyond sex and pop music could be safely abandoned to the back of a small postage stamp.

‘We would not need to dive as steeply,’ Feisal replied, ‘and we do not seem to be encountering turbulence or an airpocket. We are, simply, descending.’

Hemmingsway pulled himself together.

‘Now look here,’ he said, ‘I am your host aboard this aircraft in the absence of the President of the United States, and while I’m sure the opinions of our young friend are of consuming interest, I see no reason why we should not be told what is occurring, rather than having to guess . Airman,’ he said to Sabrina, ‘we will follow the Commander’s orders and keep our seat-belts fastened. You will get a member of the flight crew to come out here now , and give us an explanation.’