Shadow of Eden (5 page)

The jolt snapped Captain Palmer awake. His head hurt. Wait. He felt a new and different pain. He rubbed his scalp and fingered a tender lump.
How?

As he rubbed his scalp, he looked around, puzzled. He realized his cockpit lay directly in front of him.
Why am I not in it?
He tried to remember the sequence of events. He had been flying his plane and then a bunch of people had started wrestling with him, pulling him out of his seat. In a flash of anger, he realized someone was flying his plane. His tremors hit again, although briefly, but they again disoriented him.
I’ve got to fly my plane.
Unbuckling his seat belt, he staggered towards the cockpit.

“Hey . . .” Steve had been intently watching McElroy in the cockpit and Palmer’s move surprised him. He tried to stand up, but was jerked back by his seat belt. Steve popped the latch and sprang down the short corridor to throw his arms around Palmer’s chest. The burly captain easily shrugged him off and kept walking. Thinking quickly, Steve grabbed Palmer’s belt and fell backwards pulling Palmer down on top of him.

“Give me that engine,” Verness ordered.

“Three seconds.”

The rain-slicked runway rushed underneath them, as the anti-lock brakes pulsated. Verness struggled to steer the huge jet straight on the slick runway. The black Potomac River waiting at the end of the runway was coming at them alarmingly fast.
Too fast.
They would go in. He made a fateful decision.

“Engaging reversers.” Deftly, he lifted numbers one and three thrust-levers, pulling them back to full reverse. Straight away, he felt the increased deceleration. Would it be enough?

Engine number one, just coming up, and without full operating thrust, did not completely counteract the rotational torque from number three. The tires could not resist the torque of the unbalanced reversed engines and the 747 edged towards the side of the runway.

Chapter 7

V
erness swore as the right main gear slipped off the runway, twisting the plane even more to the right. The front landing gear next skidded off the pavement and the weight of the jetliner drove it into the soft earth. The stress exceeded its design limits and snapped the locking pin. The massive nose of the widebody jet dropped to the ground spewing standing rainwater skyward in forty-foot sheets.

The impact suddenly decelerated the plane, hurling Steve and Captain Palmer through the cockpit door and onto the console between Verness and McElroy. The two pilots barely glanced at them as they focused on their controls. Verness applied hard left rudder and modulated his reversers, but the plane twisted fully sideways on the grass next to the runway. The landing gear collapsed and pitched the massive belly of the plane onto the soggy ground. The left wing, now leading, plowed the soft earth, progressively buckling and folding as the plane slid, but it slashed the speed.

McElroy and Verness watched the cold waters of the Potomac draw close.

“We’re going to get fucking wet,” Verness muttered helplessly, having lost all control of his aircraft. “Cut the engines.”

McElroy quickly shut down the now useless engines.

The remaining stub of the leading wing slowly ground across the gravel riverbank just dipping into the dark, murky river and then the massive jetliner shuddered to rest.

Verness rapidly flipped switches. The plane shook as the emergency slides deployed. Looking over the instrument panel, he shook his head. “That was ugly as hell.”

McElroy blew out a huge breath. “It sure was, but at least we’re here to bitch about it.”

Verness slid his seat back and unbuckled his harness. He stood up and steadied himself on the seat back, just then really noticing Palmer and Steve.

Steve, white with pain, had pushed Palmer off and rolled onto his side to get off his back. He gritted his teeth waiting for the waves of agony to subside. Palmer held up his hand for help and Verness hauled him to his feet.

“What in the hell happened, Ralph?” Verness demanded.

Palmer collapsed into the jump seat behind McElroy and rubbed his temples. “I don’t know. Jesus. Flashbacks, like I was—” He looked around as if seeing everything for the first time. “Did I . . . ?” Seeing Verness’s expression, he murmured, “Lord save me.”

Steve pulled himself up from the floor and took two unsteady steps. Dropping into the second jump seat, he breathed deeply.

Verness smiled at him. “Thanks for saving our asses up there, doc. We’re here because of you.”

“No problem,” Steve shrugged. “I’m pretty happy to be here, too.”

Verness put his hand reassuringly on Steve’s shoulder. “You did good up there. Thanks.” He then turned towards the door. “I’m going to go help the passengers. McElroy, you stay on the com with the tower.”

“Roger, Marvin.”

Lieutenant Kuss, trailed by his wingman, circled over Washington National airport one last time, feeling a wash of emotions as he saw the passengers climbing out of the emergency exits and walking away from the plane. There would be lots of injuries and maybe some dead, but most were alive and safe.

“That was one hell of a bad landing,” Piper said.

“Roger that.”

“National’s not rated for wide bodies,” he added. “It wasn’t going to look pretty no matter what.”

Kuss knew his wingman was trying to distract him, but still, what he might have ordered rested heavily with him. He felt sure he would catch hell for ignoring protocol, but he also knew that his decision had been the right one. He turned the fighter’s nose east and skyward, back towards Washington and their usual patrol route.

“Kisser?” His wingman said, turning along with him.

“Yeah?”

“Good call.”

Lieutenant Kuss gazed at the panoramic view of Washington DC spread before him. The massive Capital building and the Washington Monument lined up below. The stately Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials each gleamed in their grandeur while the White House, small by comparison, sat off to the side, a bright splash of light in the darkness. He never tired of the sight.

“Yeah.”

Chapter 8

State Department, Washington, D.C.

L
inda Resnick marched into the State situation room wearing a charcoal wool wrap-around dress, her unwashed chestnut hair pulled up into a loose bun. Her face, once too beautiful to be taken seriously, now had the ageless look of a Mother Superior. Dropping into the dark leather chair at the head of the conference table, Linda looked around at the busy staff. Larry Calhoun, her Chief of State intelligence and Research, known as the INR, had a phone stuck to his ear, but glanced up to nod at her arrival.

An aide walked over with a fresh pot of coffee and an empty mug and poured a cup. He dropped two yellow packages of Splenda and a red plastic stirrer next to the cup.

“What’s new, Larry?” Resnick inquired after he had hung up. She hoisted her hot mug of coffee and held its warmth in her chilled hands.

“Look here,” he replied, pointing at the wall-mounted plasma monitor. A fresh satellite image scrolled down the display. “This is Kowloon Park.” He drew a red circle with his laser pointer.

She put on her glasses, as he pointed to a large area filled with people. “There are about thirty thousand Falun Gong demonstrators in this area. Now, over here,” he indicated several other areas with his pointer, “you can see about two thousand army troops forming a perimeter around the Park. We can also see that more soldiers are disembarking from this train here, as we speak.” His pointer moved to a dark line at the confluence of several train tracks.

He continued. “About five hundred or so have fanned out across the city and are occupying intersections, guarding the China News Agency and other key places. More, say two hundred, are even on Hong Kong Island.”

Resnick frowned. “How old is this image?”

“Uhh,” he squinted at the time stamp at the bottom of the image. “Six minutes. Oh, and they’ve also brought in APCs.”

“Armor?” Linda asked, surprised.

“Yeah. My China desk-lead tells me that was the pattern before the break-up of the Tiananmen demonstration. The spooks say the same thing. I think we’re going to see some nastiness before the night is over.”

“Anything from the demonstrators?”

“Peaceful as a church full of church ladies.”

“What time is it there?”

Calhoun glanced at the row of clocks above the bank of TVs. “About six forty-five P.M. It’s pretty dark there now. We expect they’ll move in anytime. Here’s the kicker. They’ve shut down every major independent news outlet, except for sporadic field reports from CNN.”

Resnick considered this information. “That’s bad.”

Larry looked over at a slight man with a vanishing hairline. “Harry, can you update us?”

Harold Wright, Calhoun’s technical analyst, looked up from his laptop. “OK, sure. Well, my information shows that the news agencies’ satellite uplinks are all cut off. Some reporters have apparently been detained. They’ve also shut off all landline and most cellular phone communication into and out of Hong Kong, virtually cutting off the area to outside communication. We have no pictures or eyewitness reports coming from the demonstration, except the CNN reports. Their main station’s off line, but they’re getting field reports relayed from, we believe, a hidden satellite truck the Chinese haven’t located yet.”

Resnick finished the thought. “They don’t want anyone to watch. So how come CNN is still on the air?”

Calhoun answered. “My friend, Ernie Whiteside, who’s stationed here at CNN Washington, clued me into their secret. Apparently, their HK station chief used to be assigned to South Korea and had to find work-arounds from periodic government interference. Guessing there might be a media crackdown, he hid the satellite truck well in advance. Pretty clever. But,” he added, “they’re the only on-site source of information we have.”

“Your estimate of the possibility of significant violence?”

“High. How much? I don’t know, but one earlier CNN report said the army had their assault rifles out.”

Linda chewed her lip while she digested the information. “Get Ambassador Gung on the line for me. Let’s let them know we’re watching.” She took a long drink from her coffee, feeling the heat burn its way down her throat. It would aggravate her reflux, but right now she didn’t care.