Ben Bova - Able One

“Get back in your seat and strap in tight,” said Colonel Christopher. “We’re going in. It’s going to be rough.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Karen Christopher was as scared as she’d ever been in her life, but once again she felt an icy calm engulfing her. It was as if she were somewhere else, somewhere in an ethereal world, watching this slim woman who looked just like her wrestling with the controls of the massive jumbo jet.

ABL-1 was shaking badly now. From somewhere in the plane’s innards something was banging, like a wild beast trying to get out of its cage. Hold together, baby, Karen cooed silently to the huge airplane. Just a few more minutes. I know you’re hurt, but just hang together for a little bit longer. Just a little bit—

As they broke through the bottom of the clouds she could see the runway lights strung out straight and beautiful like a guiding arrow leading her to safety, glistening wet with rain.

“The runway!” Kaufman shouted.

We’re on the nose, Karen saw. Got to thank Jon for getting us through the soup and lined up exactly right. Now comes the tough part, the real test. She remembered the old adage: Flying is the second most exciting thing a person can do. Landing is the first.

“Full flaps,” Kaufman said. “Speed on the button.”

Nothing in the fuel tanks but fumes, she knew. If we break up on the runway we won’t burst into flames. Not a big fire, anyway. Maybe some, but not so much we won’t be able to get out. We’ll be okay if I can get her on the ground without tearing her apart.

Gently, gently, Karen eased the big plane onto the runway, kissing the concrete with the right main gear so smoothly that for an instant she wasn’t certain the wheels had actually touched the ground. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a long line of fire trucks standing by along the edge of the runway. And two ambulances. They don’t expect to pull many of us out, she thought.

Bring the nose down, she told herself. Kaufman was babbling something, but she paid no attention to her copilot. The plane was rolling along the runway now on its nose and right main gear. Losing speed. No thrust reversing, Karen told herself. Not enough fuel left for that.

She pressed on the brakes and the plane slowed with a screeching, squalling shriek. And the battered left wing dipped toward the ground.

“Hang on!”

The wingtip caught the concrete and the outboard engine nacelle smashed into the ground in the next instant. Christopher felt herself lurch painfully against her harness straps, her head thrown forward and then snapped back against the seat back with a thump. The plane was grinding against the concrete, slewing to the left, tilted at a crazy angle. The cockpit was shaking, bouncing, slamming her sideways, back and forth with a roaring, tearing, groaning noise like a monster truck being smashed and squashed by car crushers.

And then it stopped. The cockpit filled with gritty, dusty fumes as Christopher sat there, totally wiped out, too weak to lift her arms.

But only for a moment. “Hartunian!” she yelled at the intercom microphone. “You okay?”

“No broken bones… I think.”

“You and your people go out the forward hatch with us.”

“Yes, ma’am!” came the heartfelt reply. Kaufman was already getting out of his chair. Karen heard the wail of sirens approaching.

Kaufman reached over and helped her to her feet. “Helluva landing, lady. Helluva landing.”

“Thanks,” she said, feeling weak in her knees. “Now let’s get out of here before something blows up.”

“So you’ve never been married?” asked Zuri Coggins Sitting across the narrow table from her, Michael Jamil shook his head as he swallowed a mouthful of well-done hamburger, loaded with ketchup.

“No,” he said at last, reaching for a paper napkin from the dispenser at the end of the table, where it abutted the wall. “My parents picked out a wife for me when I was in undergrad school, but by the time I graduated she had gone off to school herself and she met a guy there and married him instead.”

Coggins watched him dab self-consciously at his lips. The diner was almost empty this late at night; only one other couple in the booths, and one policeman sitting at the counter, munching a doughnut.

“No serious relationships since then?” she probed.

He smiled self-deprecatingly. “I didn’t have a serious relationship then, Zuri. You didn’t go to bed with your fiancée. Not in my neighborhood. Wasn’t done.”

“But since…?”

He started to look uncomfortable. But he replied, “I’ve had a few girlfriends. Nothing serious.” He hesitated, then went on. “I haven’t met anybody I could get serious about.”

Zuri nodded understandingly. “Same here. Men seem to get scared of a woman who has an IQ higher than theirs.”

His smile came back. “So what’s your IQ?”

“One forty-two,” she answered immediately. “Yours?”

“Not that high.”

“How high?”

The smile widened. It was a good smile, she thought. Warm. Jamil said, “One thirty-eight.”

She leaned back on the thinly padded bench and said, “Well, that’s within the statistical margin of error. We’re practically on the same level.”

“Yeah.”

She felt herself smiling back at him. “Do I scare you?”

“You? No. Why should I be scared of you?”

“Because I’m as smart as you are.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Because I might be your boss.”

“Huh?”

Zuri hadn’t really thought about it until the words popped out of her mouth.

“How’d you like to work in the National Security Advisor’s office? With me?”

Jamil’s face clearly showed surprise. And a good deal of uncertainty.

She continued. “I mean, the Secretary of State is pissed with you. She’s got a mean hatchet, you know. You could use a new job.”

He said slowly, “But if there’s a change in the White House next November…”

“There won’t be. We’ll have five years together.”

“You mean it?” Jamil asked.

“I sure do.”

He nodded. “You’re certain? I mean, you’re not just doing this because . . .” His voice trailed off.

“I’m not doing it because I feel sorry for you, or because of anything except I think you’re damned smart and I need somebody in my office who’s as smart as I am.”

“Oh. I thought you were doing it because you like me.”

“That too,” she admitted.

Minutes later they left the diner. The streets were still wet from the earlier rain. Hardly any traffic. No taxicabs in sight.

“It’s after midnight,” Jamil muttered. “And my car’s over in Langley.”

Zuri Coggins slipped her arm in his. “That’s okay. My apartment’s within walking distance. You can stay the night at my place.”

He nodded thoughtfully, then disengaged his arm and moved around her to be on the curbside of the street. “A gentleman always walks on the curbside,” he said, quite seriously.

“Sure,” she retorted. “The muggers always hide in the doorways.”

They both laughed and started down the street into the new day.

It was pouring rain as they jumped, one by one, down the inflated chute that extended from ABL-1’s forward hatch to the puddled concrete of the runway.

This isn’t going to be good for my back, Harry thought as he waited behind Monk Delany and the others of his team. Three of the Air Force crew had already slid down the chute; Wally Rosenberg was next.

“Off I go into the wild blue yonder,” Rosenberg wisecracked. He jumped from the lip of the hatch, hit the chute with his rump, and slid down into the waiting arms of a team of Air Force noncoms.