Silent Enemy (18 page)
Authors: Tom Young
And there it was, a blip on the screen, dead ahead. Clear on the radar but hard to pick up visually because of shreds of cirrus clouds hanging at precisely Parson’s altitude. Inside the cloud vapor, the C-5’s strobes reflected back like heat lightning. The flashes distracted Parson, so he reached up and switched the strobes from white to red.
He closed on the blip to within twenty miles, and the cirrus layer opened up to reveal clear sky ahead. Eventually, Parson recognized an artificial constellation, the vaguely cruciform pattern of the tanker’s lights as seen from the back.
A nudge on the thrust levers increased the rate of overtake, but Parson tried to be judicious with power. This was nothing like accelerating a car; he couldn’t just tap the brakes to slow down. Newton’s laws came into stark clarity—an object in motion tended to remain in motion, especially if it weighed hundreds of tons. Now the distance closed to yards, and Parson could discern the green light on the end of the KC-135’s boom.
He slid his seat full forward and down. This wasn’t comfortable for someone so tall, but it gave him a better view of the boom and the pilot director lights on the underside of the tanker. The C-5 crept toward the other aircraft with agonizing slowness. Part of Parson’s mind wanted to hurry up and get the gas, but he tried to limit his closure rate to no more than one foot per second. Anything much faster and the bow wave from the C-5’s nose would create control problems for the tanker. He’d have to back off and start all over, and he knew he didn’t have the fuel for that.
When he was fifty feet behind the boom and about ten feet below it, he pressed his TALK switch and said, “Eight-Four is stable.”
“Cleared to contact position,” came the response.
Parson watched the red and green lights on the tanker’s belly, made minor adjustments accordingly: Fly forward. Fly aft, Fly up, Fly down. The boom extended . . .
And Parson felt his aircraft yaw, not from anything he’d done.
“Flameout on number two,” Dunne said. Instruments for the number two engine, now starved of fuel, began dropping toward their zero points.
A loud thump overhead.
“Latched,” Dunne called.
Parson pressed his right rudder pedal and added power on number one to try to stay on the boom. With uneven thrust, the jet wanted to fishtail. Parson’s feet, hands, and mind held it steady as if his flesh, blood, bones, and brain were mere systems of the aircraft.
“Approaching aft limit,” the boom operator called over the radio. The boom was almost fully extended. If it reached its limit it would disconnect.
“I got pressure and flow,” Dunne said.
Parson struggled to stay within the arc of the tanker’s boom. He had to keep the nose of his aircraft within a space smaller than his kitchen—with a dead engine and partial hydraulics. If he broke away now, it was all over.
“Flameout on number one,” Dunne called.
The pilot director lights flickered between red and green as Parson fought the thrust levers and yoke.
“Ignition on number two,” Dunne called.
Out the corner of his eye, Parson saw that engine’s rpm spool up as fresh JP-8 fuel found its way to the spray nozzles in the combustion chamber.
“Approaching forward limit,” the boom operator called. Parson adjusted his power almost imperceptibly, willing it more than physically moving it.
“Ignition on number one,” Dunne called.
Another yaw as that engine relit.
“Left limit,” the boomer called.
“LATCHED light out,” Dunne said.
Parson tensed for engines to start failing again, and he pressed a rudder pedal with the toe of his boot.
“Reset,” Dunne called. As calmly as if he were in a simulator.
Parson pressed a button on his yoke, and the READY light came back on. The boom extended again.
“Flameout on four,” Dunne called. Then he said, “Latched. Pressure and flow.”
Number four reignited, and now Parson had all four engines back. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose. He realized he’d clenched his abdominal muscles so hard, they hurt. He tried to relax them, took a deep breath. Every tendon in his body stretched tight as a throttle cable. A knotted stomach won’t do anything but wear you out, he told himself.
Parson held the aircraft as steady as he could, and he nulled out a little bit of leftward roll with a TRIM knob on the center console. “How much fuel we got on board now?” he asked.
“About ten thousand pounds,” Dunne said.
Maybe twenty minutes’ worth. “Let’s take it up to a hundred and fifty thousand,” Parson said.
“Yes, sir.”
With fuel flowing and the aircraft stable, Parson decided he could afford a break. “Can you take it for a while?” he asked Colman. The copilot placed his hands on the yoke and throttles, and he nodded. “Your airplane,” Parson said. “I got the radios. Don’t worry if you fall off the boom. We have enough gas now to take your time latching up again.”
Colman did not fall off the boom. He flew formation with the Stratotanker so smoothly there was almost no relative motion between the planes, as if the sky were made of glass and the two aircraft embedded in it.
GOLD WATCHED THE TANKER CLIMB AWAY
and disappear above a night ocean the color of amethyst. She didn’t know how much hope to allow herself, but the crew had bought some time. And with their lives extended at least by a few hours, they could continue working the problems.
and disappear above a night ocean the color of amethyst. She didn’t know how much hope to allow herself, but the crew had bought some time. And with their lives extended at least by a few hours, they could continue working the problems.
She thought about Mahsoud and the others downstairs. The circle of their existence down to the dimensions of that cargo compartment—a purgatory of bloodstained metal, odors of aircraft fluids, and the sight of corpses.
“Major,” she said, “before we go back to the tail, should we put those two bodies someplace where the patients can’t see them?”
“Yeah,” Parson said, “we need to do that.”
“We’ve placed them in bags,” the MCD said on interphone. “Where would you like us to take them?”
After a pause, Parson said, “On the floor in the courier compartment, at the aft end of the flight deck.”
That made sense to Gold. Nobody was sitting back there. But it meant pulling the dead up the flight deck ladder.
“I’m going off headset,” Gold said. She’d gathered that was something she should say. “I’ll help move them.”
“You’re cleared off,” Parson said. “Be careful on that ladder. I’m about to turn the airplane.”
Gold unbuckled the nav seat’s harness and started downstairs. When she was halfway down the rungs, she felt the aircraft bank to the left, and she held to the handrail. Parson was resuming his westerly course toward Johnston Atoll.
In the cargo compartment, Gold went first to Mahsoud. His breathing still seemed labored, but his color looked better, and he was awake.
“How are you?” Gold asked in English.
“I am well,” he said. “What is happening?”
“The airplane nearly ran out of fuel, but we have plenty now. In a few minutes, we will go photograph the bomb.”
Mahsoud nodded and gave a thin smile. Then he placed his head back down on his pillow and closed his eyes.
Gold watched some of the loadmasters and aeromeds unzip their exposure suits. No need for them anymore, at least not for a while. The crew members struggled out of the rubber clothing and piled it over an unoccupied stretcher. The hoods had left their hair matted and sweaty, and dark patches of moisture stained the backs of their flight suits.
The medics brought the two body bags to the foot of the flight deck ladder. With both hands, Gold took the end of one of the bags. She noticed smears of blood and hydraulic fluid; this was apparently the sergeant who’d gone mad. The MCD took the other end of the bag.
They lifted it, and Gold led the way up the ladder. She climbed one rung at a time, gripping the body bag in her left fist and holding the rail with her right hand. Why were the dead so unaccountably heavy? Gold wanted to do this with some dignity. She pulled hard to keep her load off the steps, but it scraped along despite her efforts.
When Gold shifted her footing for balance, she glanced down at the cargo compartment. Three loadmasters and one of the aeromeds held a salute, as custom required when moving the fallen.
Gold reached the top of the steps, pushed open the folding door, and she and the MCD hoisted their burden onto the flight deck. Parson and his crew watched in silence. Gold picked up her end of the body bag with both hands and led the way past the galley, all the way aft to the courier compartment. Two aeromeds followed with the second body. They left them on the darkened floor, between the rows of seats.
Too bad we don’t have a chaplain on board, Gold thought. Someone to say something appropriate.
She looked out a window just forward of the galley. Nothing visible from this view, neither a ship nor a star. Just glare reflected back from the plane’s interior lighting. It seemed the aircraft had become disassociated with the earth and sky—there was just the night, and the aircraft carrying its bomb like a terminal cancer.
Gold felt her ears pop; the crew was apparently depressurizing the plane again. She worried about how that would affect Mahsoud, but she knew it had to be done. She dreaded returning to the noise and cold in the tail, too. Just another thing that couldn’t be helped.
Up front, Parson was getting up from the pilot’s seat, untangling himself from harness straps and interphone cords.
“You ready to do this?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Gold took an oxygen cylinder from its mounting and checked the pressure. She carried the cylinder, an oxygen mask, and her headset down to the cargo compartment. She went to her pack, withdrew her camera, and placed it in a cargo pocket. Then she hunted through the pack until she found a T-shirt. She removed her ACU blouse and donned the fresh T-shirt over the one she already wore. As she buttoned the ACU blouse again, she noticed Fawad staring at her. Maybe I just offended him, she thought. He’ll get over it if he lives through this.
The aeromeds were hovering over Mahsoud again. Probably watching him closely during the pressure change. Gold felt the swell in her ears again and she swallowed.
Mahsoud looked at her, and she didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Worry or fear. She went to his litter and placed her hand on his shoulder. “We are going to take that photo,” she said.
“That is good,” he whispered.
“Even while injured, you are fighting for your friends, Mahsoud. With your intellect. That is a fine thing.”
“Thank you, teacher.”
“There is an English poem,” Gold said. “I cannot remember all of it. But it says,
‘I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul
.
’
” She had quoted that line to an Afghan once before—to a teenage girl she’d visited at a hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif. From scars across the child’s face and neck, Gold could see how the acid had made her skin bubble and burn: the penalty for going to school. And the girl still wanted to learn.
‘I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul
.
’
” She had quoted that line to an Afghan once before—to a teenage girl she’d visited at a hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif. From scars across the child’s face and neck, Gold could see how the acid had made her skin bubble and burn: the penalty for going to school. And the girl still wanted to learn.
“I would like to read your poetry when I know your language better,” Mahsoud said. “What is this poem called?”
“‘Invictus.’ It is a Latin word.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means ‘unbeaten,’ Mahsoud. It means ‘undefeated.’”
Mahsoud nodded, then raised himself slightly and looked out his window into the vastness of the night. For a better view, Gold put her hand over the glass to shade it from the airplane’s interior lighting. Her gesture revealed nebulas and galaxies drifting above, with other worlds and other troubles.
14
I
n the troop compartment, at the negative pressure relief valves, Parson noticed the placard: EMPENNAGE ACCESS—GROUND USE ONLY. He pulled on the flight jacket he’d borrowed from Dunne, and Gold draped a blanket around his shoulders. It was an awkward process because he had to work around his oxygen mask and the MA-1 cylinder he held by a carrying strap. It felt as though he were girding himself with battle armor.
n the troop compartment, at the negative pressure relief valves, Parson noticed the placard: EMPENNAGE ACCESS—GROUND USE ONLY. He pulled on the flight jacket he’d borrowed from Dunne, and Gold draped a blanket around his shoulders. It was an awkward process because he had to work around his oxygen mask and the MA-1 cylinder he held by a carrying strap. It felt as though he were girding himself with battle armor.
Gold breathed from an identical mask, and she wore her own oxygen cylinder around her shoulder. She had learned her lesson about touching cold-soaked metal; flight gloves now protected her hands.
Parson eyed the pressure gauge on his oxygen supply. Every breath seemed to pull at the needle. No wonder: At eighteen thousand feet, you had only half of sea-level atmosphere. And here at twenty-five thousand, matters became even worse.
When Gold handed him her camera, he placed it in a pocket of his flight suit on his lower leg. From another pocket, he took his Maglite and turned it on. Gold held open the pressure valve, and Parson crawled through.
The cold hit him like a blast of ice water. His T-shirt was still clammy from the tension of refueling; now it seemed to close on his chest and freeze. He began to shiver almost immediately. This wasn’t the worst hypothermia he’d ever experienced, but it was damned sure the strangest.
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