The crashing noise wrenched Dex from a nap he hadn’t planned to take. His eyes flew open, but his brain couldn’t register what he was seeing. Not at first. But when he suddenly remembered where he was—and more importantly why—he nearly panicked. Goddamn it, I fell asleep. Shit!
From his first-class seat, he leaned into the aisle and peered toward the cockpit, searching for the cause of the racket that had jolted him awake. His vision was blurry, but he quickly found what he was looking for. What the hell? This can’t be right.
Dex rubbed his eyes and squinted, but the scene didn’t change. A flight attendant slumped face forward over a toppled beverage cart. Cans and bottles littered the aisle, clinking against one another as they rolled back and forth along with the plane’s unstable motion. A dark puddle slowly expanded on the dirty gray carpet just below the flight attendant’s head.
Oh man, he’s bleeding badly, Dex thought, but then he noticed the real source—a broken bottle of red wine. Maybe he’s okay. Maybe he just passed out. But the other flight attendant didn’t look so good either. She sat on the floor, propped against a bulkhead. Her head hung forward and her arms dangled at her sides. Dex felt bad about privately nicknaming her Chatty Kathy.
He turned to check the rest of the first-class cabin, hoping to see other flight attendants or maybe a passenger with medical skills coming to help, but no one else in the cabin appeared to be awake. How the hell could they sleep through all the noise?
“Hey,” he shouted. “We need some help up here.” No one budged. He unfastened his seatbelt and struggled to stand. A throbbing in his head worsened and his stomach wanted to do a somersault. Worse, the airliner seemed to be yawing. He collapsed back into his seat. My God. I think we’re going to crash.
Dex was on the airplane for only one reason—to protect a precious cargo tucked away in the plane’s belly. He reached under his jacket and felt the .45’s familiar bulge, but so what? He knew it wouldn’t help him if the plane plowed into the ocean at several hundred miles per hour. His seatbelt wouldn’t save him either, but Dex buckled up out of habit.
He felt his brain shutting down, and in his growing state of confusion, his next thought was, do I have a will? He couldn’t remember. He’d lost his parents when he was eighteen and he had no brothers or sisters. No wife or kids either, and the only living thing he really cared about was Dancer—a big cat who’d been a farewell gift from Lisa, his prior on-again/off-again girlfriend who’d finally left him for good a year ago.
The cabin lighting, already dim for the nighttime flight, seemed to grow even darker. Dex felt himself slipping away. He fought hard to stay conscious, but he was losing the struggle. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the young woman in the seat next to his. She was wide awake and she was staring at him, smiling.
* * *
Air Route Traffic Control Center
Palmdale, CA
Millie’s eyes were on the electronic display, but her mind was elsewhere. She enjoyed working the graveyard shift. It was a lot less hassle than working days or evenings—the control center was quieter, and there was no waiting for the restroom. Palmdale’s open floor plan allowed Millie to see and hear her shift supervisor, Joe Martinez, along with her two fellow controllers. Some banter was going on among them but it wasn’t a distraction. Air traffic was sparse in the middle of the night, Millie only had one flight to track—an America-Pacific Airlines Boeing 777—and she appreciated the relaxed atmosphere.
She took a sip of coffee from her favorite mug—dark blue with LOS ANGELES CHARGERS printed in large, bright yellow letters—then set it back down on her desk. Millie wasn’t much of a football fan, but she liked the gold lightning bolt emblazoned across the front.
In another couple hours, I’m outta here. I really should go straight to the gym. These skinny jeans weren’t always this damn tight. But she had to admit that an egg and cheese bagel from Einstein’s sounded a whole lot better than a sweaty workout.
This thing is practically begging for a refill, Millie thought as she raised her coffee mug again. Time to visit the Keurig. Maybe a caramel vanilla this time. The flight she was tracking was an every-night occurrence. Same airline company, same kind of aircraft. A change in altitude or a reroute to avoid bad weather was occasionally necessary, but most other nights, like tonight, it was just another routine flight over the Pacific. In a few more minutes the plane would be nearly out of her range, and she’d hand it off to the Flight Information Region, or FIR, center that tracked airplanes over the ocean.
But the handoff to FIR didn’t happen. Millie eyed the screen, a bit puzzled when the white tracking symbols and aircraft data on her primary console began to behave somewhat oddly. At first it was more of a curiosity, but when both of the key data points disappeared completely, she jumped up from her chair and dropped her mug, spilling the remaining coffee on her nightly log sheet.
“Something’s wrong, Joe,” she shouted to her supervisor. “AP One-Zero-Two is diverting from its flight path and rapidly descending. Down from thirty-three thousand to twenty-seven thousand, and I just lost transponder and ADS!”
Joe, along with the other two controllers, turned to stare at her. ADS was short for Automatic Dependent Surveillance, and losing that signal at the same time as a transponder was beyond troubling. In theory, it shouldn’t even be possible unless the plane had just experienced a catastrophic power failure. Or worse.
Millie was a rookie controller trying like hell not to freak out. All thoughts of skinny jeans, an egg and cheese bagel, and a fresh mug of caramel vanilla-flavored coffee disappeared. This is bad. Probably really bad. Her training at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy helped her stay focused and in control of her actions, but only barely. This wasn’t an exercise. This was the real thing, and many people were no doubt on that airplane.
Joe hurried over, and Millie pointed at her screen. “I was about to hand AP One-Zero-Two off to FIR when it diverted.”
“Radio the captain,” he ordered. “Find out what’s going on.”
Damn it, I should have already done that.
“AP One-Zero-Two, this is Air Route Traffic Control. Report your status please.” When she didn’t get a reply, tears began to fill her eyes. She wiped them away and tried again.
“AP One-Zero-Two, are you experiencing difficulty?” Still no response.
Switching to high frequency—the standard backup mode—Millie again queried the captain. “AP One-Zero-Two, are you hearing Palmdale ARTCC?” Faint but constant static was the only response.
Joe stood behind Millie. The radar image showed the triple-seven’s rate of descent was steady and the big plane was executing a gradual left turn. God, please don’t let this be another Swissair 111, she silently prayed, remembering a case study from tech school that she hoped she’d never have to experience in real life. She could still hear the recorded voice of the doomed airliner’s pilot just seconds before the plane crashed into the Atlantic. All two hundred and twenty-nine passengers and crew perished when Swissair 111 hit the ocean at three hundred and forty-five miles per hour only five miles from shore. “We are declaring an emergency now, Swissair One-Eleven,” the pilot had said. Millie could hear the sadness and resignation in his voice, but not an ounce of panic. Those were the last words Captain Urs Zimmerman ever spoke.
Millie turned to look at Joe for further direction. She saw a film of sweat forming on his brow, and Joe’s obvious stress scared her. As far as she knew, he had never experienced an emergency like this, and in one way it was worse than Swissair 111. At least the controllers back then were able to communicate with the airliner’s crew, but now, Millie couldn’t even make contact with the pilot. She continued her attempts to reach the captain, but her voice grew more anxious each time, and she had to keep wiping the building moisture from her eyes. Still no contact, no transponder, and no ADS. Shit!
Suddenly, the plane’s electronic image completely disappeared from her screen. “I’m no longer painting AP 102!” she cried out.
“Dammit,” Joe mumbled. He turned to his senior controller. “Instruct SCT to look for AP One-Zero-Two. Request preparation for a possible triple seven emergency landing.”
Millie’s last contact showed the aircraft turning left. Maybe the captain lost communications, but he’s returning, looking for a long-enough runway that’s reachable. If so, SCT—short for Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control—might be able pick it up. Their radars couldn’t see as far as hers, but they could usually acquire lower-altitude targets.
“Contact Coast Guard Station Santa Barbara immediately,” Joe shouted to Millie’s other colleague in the ARTCC. “Request SAR. Provide details.” The controller picked up the phone, but Millie privately feared that search and rescue, known as SAR among the controllers, in open ocean and in total darkness was a long shot at best. If the plane had gone down it would likely be a recovery mission, not a SAR. The US Coast Guard wouldn’t be looking for survivors. They’d be searching for airplane debris, body parts, and personal belongings that their owners would never need again.
“While you do that,” Joe said, “I’ll call Navy Base San Diego. Maybe they can help us find our airplane.” He raced back to his desk, picked up the phone, and checked the list of phone numbers on a yellow sheet of paper tacked to the wall next to his workstation. Millie and the other controllers called it the “Oh Shit List,” because having to use it meant that something was terribly wrong.
Joe punched in the emergency number for the navy base and put the call on speakerphone so Millie could listen from her station while her two fellow controllers were on phone calls of their own. The phone rang twice before a man answered. “This is Lieutenant Lewiston, watch desk, US Navy Base San Diego. How may I help you sir or ma’am?”
“Joe Martinez here, shift supervisor at Palmdale ARTCC. We have an emergency situation and we could really use your help.”
“What’s the nature of the emergency, sir?”
“A triple seven aircraft with passengers aboard may have gone down off the coast. We lost radio, transponder, and ADS, and the flight path radically changed a few minutes ago. All this happened before we lost radar contact, though, so maybe it’s still airborne at very low altitude. We sure hope it is.”
“Sir, I’ll need to contact our base commander at home and let him know the situation. While I do that, I’m transferring your call to PAR so you can coordinate with them.” Millie saw Joe nod to himself. The Precision Approach Radar system, used by the military to assist with near-in and low-flying military aircraft, particularly in bad weather, had the best chance of locating the plane if it hadn’t already gone down.
“Ok,” Joe said to the lieutenant and waited to be connected. It seemed to Millie like it took forever, but finally a female voice came on the line.
“Mr. Martinez? This is Seaman First Class Chapman speaking. Lieutenant Lewiston told me you have an emergency. What can I do to help, sir?”
“We lost America-Pacific Flight One-Zero-Two from radar. SCT is looking, but no luck. We’ve requested that all other inbound aircraft be diverted away from coastal airports, and outgoing flights be delayed. Every runway long enough to handle a large crippled airliner along the California coast needs to be cleared for AP One-Zero-Two. Ask your commander to clear your navy base runways too, please.”
“Yes, sir, right away.”
“And I need to know if you’re tracking any aircraft at very low altitude over the Pacific, possibly approaching the coast.”
“It’s pretty slow this morning,” she replied. “No military aircraft in the area right now. Give me a moment to check.” Millie listened and watched Joe as he impatiently drummed his fingers on his desk while he waited for the sailor to come back on the line.
When she returned to the call, she sounded excited. “Yes, sir, PAR just acquired an unidentified target below fifteen hundred feet. Aircraft is running south, parallel with the coast, but flying erratically. Air speed is three fifteen knots. It’s a large aircraft too, way bigger than ours. It must be your airliner!”
There was a collective cheer from Millie and her two colleagues who’d heard the seaman despite their own phone calls, but Joe held up his hand to quiet the team. He asked Seaman Chapman to keep him posted on its progress, but she’d already turned the phone over to a chief petty officer who informed him that Chapman was currently contacting everyone on the navy base emergency call list.
“How is the plane doing?” Joe asked. “Is it holding altitude?”
“PAR only had the image for a moment,” he answered. “We’ve since lost it. The plane may have changed course again, or it might have gone down. Frankly, if it’s still airborne, we don’t know where it’s headed. They may have one hell of an emergency, but with no radio contact and no squawk, we have to assume we’ve got some kind of hijack or terrorist thing going on. PAR is attempting to reacquire the signal, but right now my crew is notifying NORAD.”
The line went dead, and Millie looked at Joe in disbelief. “What the hell?” she said. “I thought we had an aircraft and personnel safety issue, but now it’s a national security threat?”
“Apparently so,” Joe said. “And our only eyes on AP One-Zero-Two just hung up on us. Fuck!”
* * *
North American Aerospace Defense Command
Colorado Springs, CO
NORAD’s operation center is buried deep inside Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs. Antennae bristle at the top of the mountain, and a complicated array of electronics link the facility to a myriad of sensors around the world and in space.
Born in the early days of the Cold War, the joint US-Canada facility’s purpose is to help the two countries detect incoming ICBMs and Soviet bombers. If NORAD does its job, it would give the president an early enough warning to launch America’s own ballistic missiles, bombers and submarine-borne nuclear weapons to turn whatever country attacked the US or Canada into a burned-out wasteland.
Post-9/11, NORAD’s role had expanded to help identify all potentially hostile aircraft, including commercial or private planes that were deemed a threat. It was impossible, though, to track every single one of the thousands of daily flights and ferret out all suspicious activity. Such was the case with AP 102, and NORAD had to rely on a tip-off from another source.
NORAD’s watch officer, an air force staff sergeant, rose from his desk and hurried over to a full colonel who was the on-duty commander. “Sir,” the sergeant said urgently, “I just received a Priority One alert from Navy Base San Diego. An airliner changed course without authorization and quickly descended after reaching cruise altitude over the Pacific. They think it might be headed for the West Coast and that it might be a terrorist threat.”
The colonel groaned and asked, “Do you have any further details on that airliner?”
“Yes sir,” the sergeant answered. “And it’s not good. There’s no radio contact and no squawk. PAR was able to paint it for a few minutes, but they’ve lost the target. I hate to say it, but it looks an awful lot like someone’s trying to evade radar.”
The colonel hesitated a moment, then stood and began to bark orders loud enough for everyone in the ops center to hear. “Let’s get going on this, ladies and gentlemen. Get ahold of the California Air National Guard and tell them to get their fighters airborne and find that goddamn airliner. Make sure the Navy’s got their surface to air missiles armed and ready and their Gatling guns too. Tell them to use ‘em if they have to. Treat anything that looks suspicious as a hostile act.”
Some of the personnel looked shocked, but the colonel knew most of them understood that that would be better than anything as bad as another 9/11 attack. Several of the crew picked up their secure phones, and others started typing on computers connected to SIPRNet, the military’s secret-level network.
“And see if the George H.W. Bush carrier is nearby,” the colonel said. “If it is, have them launch some F-18s to help out.”
“Sir?” the Director of National Intelligence desk officer asked. “Shall I see if NSA has picked up any electronic chatter that might be connected to this? CIA might have some HUMINT too.”
“Good idea,” the colonel said. “And see if the National Reconnaissance Office has any spaceborne image collectors they can aim toward the southwest US coast.”
“How about the president, Colonel?” the Homeland Security desk officer shouted out. “Shall I contact the White House?”
“Yeah, I guess we’d better,” he said. “He’ll be pissed if things go to shit and we didn’t inform him before hand.”
