Brendan DuBois - Final Winter

The General let the phone fall back into the cradle as Randy went to him and said, ‘Colorado?’

‘Yeah. AirBox 12. Augered right into the end of the runway at an Air Force installation.’

Randy gripped his friend’s shoulder. Bocks shook it off. Randy said, ‘If you want, sir, I can start making the calls and—’

‘Not your place, Randy, not at all,’ Bocks said, straightening himself up. ‘It’s my call. My company. My fault they’re dead.’

‘General, if it’s anybody fault, it’s—’

‘Randy, I’ll make the calls. But later.’ The General turned his head to the display board and said, his voice bleak, ‘I’m afraid there’re going to be more calls later. Look up there, Randy. Look at the board. Those planes aren’t getting to the ground quick enough.’

Brian Doyle sat next to Monty Zane as Monty worked the phones and keyboards with a vengeance, cursing, plotting and planning. Brian’s chest ached and he’d just realized his underwear was damp — he’d probably pissed himself falling off that balcony and wasn’t embarrassed by it, for who wouldn’t have pissed themselves in such a situation? — but he didn’t want to move. He had hardly anything to do now but he liked being in Monty’s company. He thought if the NYPD had a half-dozen guys like Monty working for them the crime level would go so low that it would even impress old Giuliani and his crew.

‘Fuck,’ Monty said, slamming down the phone. Then he leaned back in his chair, stretching out his arms.

‘What you got?’ Brian asked.

‘What I got, my friend, is the problem of fuel versus geography, and fucking geography is winning.’

‘Go on.’

Monty raised a hand toward the display screen. ‘We’ve been putting these aircraft down where we can, at deserted airfields, remote strips without many people around, and even a couple of stretches of Interstate. But we still have a fair amount in the southeast and middle Atlantic seaboard. It’s pretty crowded out there, Brian. Not many places to put down, and man, we are running out of time and fuel.’

Brian looked at the board, looked at the triangles that represented the airborne cargo planes. There were fewer up there than before, but Monty was right. There were still too many. He recalled seeing other display boards in the past, during the COMSTAT precinct meetings, another bit of Giuliani history. Precincts could no longer make do simply with shuffling paper and ignoring statistics. COMSTAT put up your history against everybody else’s and there was no hiding, no excuses. Brian remembered one of the first times his precinct chief came back, cursing, saying it wasn’t fair that he was up against another precinct, because that other precinct had a shitload of vacant lots, and of course they’d have a better burglary rate, because what the hell was there to burgle in an empty lot?

He looked again at the map, at the southern and eastern states, at the icons marking the AirBox aircraft. A little flashing light, carrying all that death, all over the crowded United States, no place to run to, no place to go, no place…

Empty.

Not a place.

Monty was on the phone again and Brian reached over, pressed the receiver button down, disconnecting Monty. The big man’s eyes flashed with anger and he said, ‘Brian, what the fuck was that?’

‘The ocean,’ Brian said.

‘The fuck you mean, the ocean?’

‘The jets…why can’t they go over the ocean and let the anthrax dump out there?’

‘Case you haven’t learned, there’s not many landing strips out in the middle of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.’

‘But they wouldn’t have to land, would they? Shit, Monty, all they’d have to do is fly in circles over a patch of water, let the anthrax spray out, and then head to land when the canisters were empty. Right?’

Monty stared at Brian for what seemed like a long time. Then he yelled out, ‘Doc Palmer! Get your ass over here! Now!’

Carrie Floyd looked at the ground below her, several thousand feet and a lifetime away. Pennsylvania. Definitely not Boston and definitely not home. She raised her head, saw the patient escorts out there, the proud F-16s that were ready to blow her and Sean out of the sky.

She said, ‘Find anything out?’

Sean said, ‘Dispatch is quiet. I’ve been trying to pick up some of the local radio stations. Getting a CNN feed every now and then.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Well, we and the eighteen others are the lead story. Funny about that. Foreign airspace’s been closed to all American flights. Stock market will be closed today, people are bailing out of cities, it’s being called the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11.’

‘Should have kept my mouth shut.’

Sean said, ‘Well, there is a bit of good news. Some of the AirBox flights, the ones headed to Seattle or LA or Salt Lake City, they’ve been able to divert them to empty airstrips out in the desert. Landing with no problem.’

‘Lucky bastards.’

‘You got that,’ he said.

Carrie tilted the aircraft, just a bit. Farmland and towns and highways, as far as the eye could see. ‘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.