Executive orders - Tom Clancy [153]
VALETTA APPROACH, VALETTA Approach, this is November-Juliet-Alpha, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.
The controller at Valetta immediately noted the triple-bogie signature on his scope. It was a quiet watch at the traffic-control center, the normally sparse air traffic to monitor, and this night was as routine as any other-he keyed his microphone at once as his other hand waved for his supervisor.
Juliet-Alpha, Valetta, are you declaring an emergency, sir?
Valetta, Juliet-Alpha, affirmative. We are medical evacuation flight inbound Paris from Zaire. We just lost number-two engine and we have electrical problems, stand by-
Juliet-Alpha, Valetta, standing by, sir. The scope showed the aircraft's altitude as 390, then 380, then 370. Juliet-Alpha, Valetta, I show you losing altitude.
The voice in his headphones changed. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! Both engines out, both engines out. Attempting restart. This is Juliet-Alpha.
Your direct penetration course Valetta is three-four-three, say again, direct vector Valetta three-four-three. We are standing by, sir.
A terse, clipped, Roger was all the controller got back. The altitude readout was 330 now.
What's happening? the supervisor asked.
He says both engines out, he's dropping rapidly. A computer screen showed the aircraft to be a Gulfstream, and the flight plan was confirmed.
It glides well, the supervisor offered optimistically; 310, they both saw. The G-IV didn't glide all that well, however.
Juliet-Alpha, Valetta.
Nothing.
Juliet-Alpha, this is Valetta Approach.
What else is- The supervisor checked the screen himself. No other aircraft in the area, and all one could do was watch anyway.
THE BETTER TO simulate the in-flight emergency, the pilot throttled his engines back to idle. The tendency was to ham things up, but they wouldn't. In fact, they'd say nothing else at all. He pushed the yoke farther forward to increase his rate of descent, then turned to port as though angling toward Malta. That should make the tower people feel good, he thought, passing through 25,000 feet. It actually felt good. He'd been a fighter pilot for his country once, and missed the delightful feelings you got from yanking and banking an airplane around the sky. A descent of this speed would have his passengers white-faced and panicking. For the pilot it just felt like what flying was supposed to be.
HE MUST BE very heavy, the supervisor said.
Cleared into Paris De Gaulle. The controller shrugged and grimaced. Just topped off in Benghazi.
Bad fuel? The answer was merely another shrug.
It was like watching death on television, all the more horrible that the alpha-numeric blip's altitude digits were clicking down like the symbols on a slot machine.
The supervisor lifted a phone. Call the Libyans. Ask if they can get a rescue aircraft up. We have an aircraft about to go down in the Gulf of Sidra.
Valetta Approach, this is USS Radford, do you copy, over.
Radford, Valetta.
WE HAVE YOUR contact on RADAR. Looks like he's coming down hard. The voice was that of a junior-grade lieutenant who had the CIC duty this night. Radford was an aging Spruance-class destroyer heading for Naples after an exercise with the Egyptian navy. Along the way she had orders to enter the Gulf of Sidra to proclaim freedom-of-navigation rights, an exercise which was almost as old as the ship herself. Once the source of considerable excitement, and two pitched air-sea battles in the 1980s, it was now boringly routine, else Radford wouldn't be going it alone. Boring enough that the CIC crewmen were monitoring civilian radio freqs to relieve their torpor. Contact is eight-zero miles west of us. We are tracking.
Can you respond to a rescue request?
Valetta,