John Nance - Headwind

“Does Harris know?”

Goldboro glanced at Diane Beecher, who was already on her feet. “Well, that’s all for me, fellows,” she said, exiting Rollins’s office before any more could be said that she would not officially want to know.

“Michael?” Rollins prompted when she was gone.

“That’s what we need to talk about, Jack. Is it our responsibility to tell President Harris he needs to get the hell out of there if he can? Or does that constitute the very interference that President Cavanaugh agreed we have to avoid?”

“And your recommendation, of course, would be silence?”

“You know how I feel, Jack,” Goldboro said quietly.

The electronic data block for Cessna 225JN was steady on the scope, but the numbers were disturbing. The air traffic controller working the low altitude Fort Collins sector glanced at the data strip again, double-checking that the altitude clearance was eleven thousand.

It was.

Yet the Cessna’s transponder was reporting ten thousand one hundred and descending.

The controller triggered his transmitter again, trying once more to raise the pilot.

“Still having problems with that guy?” a voice said over his shoulder. The controller glanced around at his supervisor and nodded. “He can’t hear a thing from me, but I’ve heard every call he’s made.”

“Partial radio failure, then,” the supervisor grumbled.

“He’s on the proper course, and he’s past the highest mountains, but he’s started descending without clearance.”

“Transponder’s not on seventy-seven hundred, either,” the supervisor said, referring to the emergency transponder code. “He should squawk the radio failure code, at least.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t yet,” the controller said

“You tried calling him over the VOR frequency?”

“Yep. No luck.”

The controller checked the clearance again on the handwritten paper strip to his side. If he couldn’t regain contact, he could expect the pilot to bore on in toward Denver’s International Airport using the very specific published procedure known as the Rammes 3 arrival, and probably try to fly an ILS to one of the runways. He would have to notify a Denver approach controller in a minute or so, and a sky full of commercial traffic would have to be routed around the little Cessna to keep everyone safe.

“Better let Denver Approach know,” the supervisor said.

The controller nodded, cringing inwardly at the disruption the private pilot was about to cause. 747’s, DC-10’s, 737’s, and a myriad of other large airliners would be wasting untold gallons of jet fuel all because a solitary pilot hadn’t made sure his radios were working before departure.

He looked back at the glowing data block next to the target that represented the Cessna’s position on his computerized radar display.

Now he’s down to nine thousand eight hundred. Why? What’s going on up there?

“What’s happening, David?” Jay asked, his fears reaching new heights as he watched David Carmichael glance repeatedly at the left wing and the engine cowling and windscreen in front of them, which had frosted up.

Jay saw him check the throttle, pushing it as far in as it would go.

“Just… a second…” David managed, as he looked again to the left.

Jay followed his gaze to the left side brace that came up from the lower fuselage to the bottom of the wing on the left side, holding the wing in a rigid position. The brace was intact, but there was something on the leading edge of its metal surface.

Ice, Jay thought to himself. Even as he watched, the crust of ice thickened. Mostly clear, there were flecks of white, as if they were picking up sleet or snow as well.

“I ah…” David began, his eyes still outside.

“What?”

David turned to look at Jay. “I wasn’t expecting this. We’re picking up ice. I’ve got to get us out of here.”

“Where?” Jay asked as he felt a wave of cold rush through his body. “Turn around?”

David shook his head. “Too late. We’re over the pass, and… the ground below us is probably about six thousand feet. We’re sinking slowly at full power.”

“What… what do mean, ‘sinking’?” Jay stammered.

“I can’t hold this altitude with the added weight of ice,” David said quietly.

The sound of the engine had been a steady, cacophonous drone, but it changed suddenly, sputtering and surging and sputtering again.

David’s hand snaked out to pull a knob on the forward panel and the sputtering was replaced again by the steady drone of gasoline-powered pistons.

“What was that?” Jay asked, his words coming too fast.

“Carburetor ice. I needed… carb heat.”

“Is it… going to keep running?”

David nodded. “Oh, yeah. Just… routine problem.”

Even I know that’s a lie! Jay thought as his cell phone rang again. He fumbled for it and flipped it open.

“Yes?”

“Jay? Sherry Lincoln.”

“Yeah… hold on, Sherry. We’ve, ah, got a problem up here.”

“What is it?” he heard her say as he pulled the phone from his ear and held it in his lap, his mind whirling with conflicting emotions and thoughts. They were sinking, David had said. Did that mean they were going to crash?

“David… what are you going to do?”

The pilot’s right hand came up in a “wait” gesture, but Jay could see it shaking, and only shards of a sentence came out of David’s mouth.

“I… ah, we’re going… wait… wait a minute…”

Jay forced himself to disconnect from the nightmare and focus on the cell phone and Sherry Lincoln and Sigonella.

“Yes, Sherry,” he said.

“What’s happening there?” she asked.

“Not important,” Jay replied. “We’ll be in Denver shortly. What’s going on there?”

Jay could see David pushing on the throttle again, even though they both knew it was at full power.

“When I lost you a while ago,” Sherry was saying, “you’d just asked if we had any reason to think the Italians might change their mind about letting us stay on the ground here undisturbed. We’re worried, Jay, that we need to get in the air and aim for someplace else. Campbell was pretty mad when he left the airplane and I’m not sure what else he can pull. Do you know?”

There was a momentary shrill sound, an electrical buzzer or horn of some sort, and he saw David shove the control yoke forward slightly in response.

Jay shook his head, reminding himself suddenly that she couldn’t see the gesture. He forced himself to ignore the needles of the instrument David had identified as the altimeter, even though he could see them slowly unwinding in his peripheral vision.

“I don’t know for certain, Sherry, but his only real option is to find a high court judge there in Italy, probably in Rome, and try to get a ruling that Italian jurisdiction covers that flight-line ramp as well.”

“How long would that take?”

“The Italians don’t react like our judges, but then, Campbell is well known and respected. It’s not impossible that some jurist would let himself be disturbed at home.”

A hand appeared in front of him as David changed a radio frequency and adjusted several knobs, calling once again in vain for Denver Center.

“What should we do, Jay?” Sherry asked. “Plain and simple. It’s decision time.”

He swallowed hard, trying to weigh the options with a mind badly divided between considering the situation in Sicily and considering the possibility of his own imminent demise.