Dark Side of the Moon Page 3

  “Definitely not,” DeSantos said. “Can you fix comms?”

  “My tech knowledge is a bit limited in a machine like this—I can’t tap into the operating system flying at 400 KCAS. Not to mention I don’t have a direct—” Uzi was interrupted by audio coming through their headsets:

  “Brave 01 and 02 airborne.”

  “They’re scrambling F-16s from Andrews to intercept,” DeSantos said.

  “Intercept? You mean assist.”

  “No, Boychick. Intercept. I have a feeling we’re pointed at the NCR.”

  The NCR, or national capital region, comprised restricted and prohibited areas above and around Washington, DC, that extended out to thirty nautical miles. Created after 9/11 to ensure the safety of the federal government, it was a controlled region that governed all aircraft—including that of the military. If a jet or plane wandered toward the sensitive security zone, it would be intercepted. If it was noncompliant or presented a threat, it was shot down.

  “We need to return to base,” Uzi said.

  “And which way would that be?”

  “Let’s try to get a location, do a ground-to-map navigation.”

  “In this soup?”

  “Hopefully the cloud cover’ll break soon and we’ll be able to see some landmarks. Or in a matter of minutes, two F-16s are gonna pull up alongside us and tell us to get our asses away from the capital.”

  “Oh man. Perez is gonna be one pissed colonel. When he gave us this sortie, he specifically said, ‘Just don’t crash the damn thing.’ He said it tongue-in-cheek, but in retrospect the comment seems a little too prophetic for my taste.”

  “So let’s try to make sure we don’t have to crash this thing.”

  “All right,” DeSantos said, “here’s the plan. When the 16s show up, we’ll signal them what our situation is and ask them to guide us through the weather to a drop-off landing at Andrews.” Once they were around 1,200 feet and below the clouds, Brave 01 would give the lead back to DeSantos, who would land their F-18.

  “Break in the soup,” Uzi said. “Got us a landmark. We’re headed northwest, over the Potomac. Let’s use our whiskey compass to confirm we’re headed northwest. Turning right at least 90 degrees should point us southeast of Nottingham, away from the NCR and toward Annapolis. Need be, we can set her down in the Chesapeake.”

  “If we make it that far. Hate to say it, but I don’t think this bird is gonna live to see the boneyard,” DeSantos said, referring to the military base in Arizona where planes go in their old age to retire.

  “I’m not giving up yet,” Uzi said, “are you?”

  “Hell no. But we’ve got another issue to deal with.”

  “Fuel.”

  “Roger that. We’ve been up here too long.” F/A-18s did not have a big fuel tank to begin with—and with the addition of a second seat for training, it meant less room on the jet for gas.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough,” DeSantos said. “Wish we hadn’t done that last afterburner loop and kept more fuel in reserve. We’ve only got 1,600 pounds left. And we’re burning 4,000 pounds an hour.”

  “So no matter what, one way or another, in twenty to thirty minutes, this flight’s gonna be over.”

  They were well aware that F-18s had no backup hydraulics or electrical. If they lost the second engine, they could not glide to find a good place to put her down.

  “That second engine goes,” DeSantos said, “we’ll have to jump out. And one huge drawback to flying on the East Coast is—”

  “Population density. Yeah, I know. We may not be able to see what’s below us, but I think we both have a pretty damn good idea.”

  Houses. Businesses. Apartment buildings. Highways and expressways. Lots of people.

  DeSantos checked the instrument panel and MFD displays. “There’s a limit to what we can do. If our checklist can’t solve the problems with our redundant systems—and it obviously can’t—if we need to ditch this thing, we’ll be dropping twenty tons of metal and flaming jet fuel on innocent people. Hopefully we won’t kill anyone.”

  “Including us. What was I saying about being the luckiest guys in the world?”

  “For what it’s worth, there’s no one I’d rather have in the backseat.”

  Uzi chuckled. “You’re just saying that.”

  “I am. But we may not survive this. We should be generous with the bro praise, don’t you think?”

  “We are gonna survive this, Santa. We’ll stay with this ailing bird for as long as we can, but if she gets too sick, we’ll just have to ride the rails and give her back to the taxpayer.”

  DeSantos knew Uzi was talking about ejection, the absolute worst flight experience next to exploding a plane into the ground—and those who had been through ejections argued that the latter was still a more pleasurable experience.

  The sequence was complex yet simple: after pulling the lever, the canopy exploded open and the cockpit filled with flames from the ejector rockets. They would then blast up and out, experiencing 20Gs—intense pressure that was bad enough if it were not for simultaneously getting hit in the face with winds of 300 miles per hour. Many pilots ejecting at high speed blacked out immediately, the force whipping their hands back behind the seat, dislocating their shoulders and breaking bones.

  That was if everything went well. Then there were potential ejection malfunctions.

  “Cloud deck clear,” Uzi said. “We’re—shit, just like we thought. Lots of houses and buildings all around us.”

  DeSantos glanced down at the network of humanity below. “Just be ready. Hydraulics fail, second engine goes, there’s nothing we can do. Copy?”

  “Copy.”

  As he spoke, the clouds returned, obscuring their view.

  DeSantos clenched his jaw. “Dammit.”

  “X-Ray Bravo 69, this is the United States Air Force on Guard. You have been intercepted by armed fighters. If you hear this transmission, rock your wings and contact Brave 01 on 243.0.”

  “I’d love to respond, buddy, but you’re gonna have to meet me halfway.” DeSantos rocked the F/A-18 as requested and saw the nose of the NORAD F-16, call sign Brave 01, edge up parallel to them, about five to ten feet off his left wing. DeSantos knew that the other F-16, Brave 02, was maintaining a mile trail with a radar lock on his jet, ready to fire, in case he and Uzi had gone rogue and intended to wreak havoc.

  “Uzi, you remember your HEFOE signals?” DeSantos asked, referring to the emergency procedure used by pilots to visually communicate problems they were experiencing with their plane: a fist held at the top of the canopy, followed by hand gestures, indicated a failure of one or more systems: hydraulic, electrical, fuel, oxygen, or engine.

  “Passing them now.” Uzi gave the Brave pilot a one, two, and five, then a hand waving up and down across the face mask with a thumbs down, telling him that they could not transmit. He then tapped his helmet on his left side with a thumbs up, indicating that “receive is good.”

  “X-ray Bravo 69, Brave 01 understands,” came the response. “Hydraulic, electrical, and engine problems. No transmit but can receive. If correct rock your wings.”

  DeSantos gently pivoted the F/A-18’s body left to right a couple of times.

  “Hallelujah,” Uzi said. “Kind of like sign language in the sky.” He passed additional signals, telling the Braves to take the lead in guiding them down through the soup.

  The F-16 moved out in front and DeSantos lined himself up on Brave 01’s right wing as they descended into the thick cloud cover, grayness enveloping the canopy above and around them, drops of precipitation streaking across the glass.

  DeSantos glanced down at the fuel—so far so good. He figured they were about twenty miles south of Andrews Air Force Base, so they should make it without—

  “Warning. Warning.”

  Uzi groan
ed. “I think I’ve heard enough out of Bitching Betty.”

  “Looks like I was right about this baby,” DeSantos said, seeing a flame through the window. “Second engine’s gone.”

  Caution alarms started blaring. Their airspeed dropped, as if they had applied their brakes while riding downhill on a ten-speed bike.

  “Get ready,” DeSantos said, tension elevating the volume of his voice. “We’re goin’ for a ride.”

  “Roger that,” Uzi said as he grabbed onto the handle. “Good luck, Santa.”

  “Back at you,” DeSantos said, his finger joints aching from holding the ejection handle so tightly. Nothing was going to knock it off—or make him pull it prematurely. “We’re at 9,200 feet. Stand by, I want to get us down a bit lower—6,000 or even 8,000 would be better.”

  “Standing by,” Uzi said.

  DeSantos kept his eyes on the altimeter as the numbers tumbled lower. “Remember, we pull on three. Watch your arms and shoulders.” He waited a beat, then said, “Bail out, bail out, bail out!” He yanked the grip with both hands toward his abdomen and the canopy covering both pilots flew back as smoke filled the cockpit. With a sudden burst, the two rockets under Uzi’s seat exploded.

  A second later, DeSantos shot skyward.

  “WASHINGTON CENTER, BRAVE 01 on scene. I’m picking up a large fireball on the ground, breaking through the clouds, North 38 35, West 76 40.”

  The pilot knew the media would be listening in and hightailing it to those coordinates—but he hoped the NORAD team would get there first to cordon off the scene because of the airborne fibers and toxins given off by the explosion of a modern day fighter jet.

  “Copy, we confirm. Any sign of the X-ray Bravo 69 crew?”

  “Negative. Weather precluding visual confirmation. We’re staying above their last known punch-out altitude.”

  “Brave 01, we need to find our men.”

  “Roger. All eyes on alert.”

  THE OPENING SHOCK HIT DESANTOS with an aggressive tug, like being hit on the leg straps and harness by a 240-pound linebacker.

  The emergency locater transmitter, or ELT, an iPhone-size radio buried in the kit below his seat, started blaring an alarm heard by everyone on the frequency.

  The early April air was a chilly fifty-five degrees, meaning it was about thirty-seven at their altitude. DeSantos swore he felt every single degree as it sliced through the thin Nomex flight suit.

  The parachute had deployed from the ejection seat and was slowing him down, moisture beading up on his helmet’s visor.

  As DeSantos descended to about 1,200 feet, the cloud deck broke and he could finally see the ground. He figured they had about a minute before touchdown.

  With the round type of chute on their backs, they had very little control over where they landed—they were largely at the mercy of where the wind blew them. About all they could do was pull the risers to slip/turn to gain some gross maneuverability while trying to avoid getting caught in power lines or large trees. The former could decapitate them and the latter could hang them. Neither was appealing.

  DeSantos was attempting to avoid obstacles and Uzi was trying to follow his lead and get as close to DeSantos’s landing site as he could.

  As the grassy field accelerated beneath him, DeSantos’s training came back to him: ground impact … eyes open and on the horizon … feet and knees together, knees slightly bent, elbows tight to his side, chin on his chest.

  He was only going to get one shot at this. He would be striking the ground at thirty-two feet per second; if he did it wrong or hesitated, he would end up a human pancake, severely injured—or dead.

  THE COSPAS-SARSAT SEARCH AND RESCUE SATELLITE, a distress alert detection system in low Earth orbit, picked up the signal from DeSantos’s and Uzi’s seat kits hanging thirty-five feet below their boots as they descended through the clouds.

  Until the NORAD team arrived, the two F-16 Braves were the on-scene commanders tasked with coordinating search and rescue. Using GPS, they narrowed DeSantos’s and Uzi’s twenty to within 1.24 miles—but depending on the terrain, it would still require a meticulously plotted effort to find them.

  AS DESANTOS’S BOOTS HIT THE GRASS, he became a rag doll and went with the fall, as his instructors had drilled into his brain: the “parachute landing fall,” touching down on the balls of the feet, then the side of the calf, thigh, and buttocks, and lastly the back.

  He caught his breath and immediately disconnected the chute risers to keep from getting dragged to death by the gusting wind. After rolling to his knees, he dug out the ELT, which he knew was still transmitting its endlessly repeating alarm.

  After turning it off, DeSantos removed his helmet and got to his feet to look for Uzi. He swung his sore torso around and saw his buddy about a hundred yards away, walking toward him and waving an arm above his head.

  “You okay?” Uzi said over the radio.

  “Sore but in one piece. Good to see your ugly face.” DeSantos pulled out his survival radio. “I’m gonna contact Brave 01 and have him push over to 2828,” he said, referring to the secondary 282.8 channel that would allow them to communicate with one another.

  As Uzi trudged toward him, Brave 01 came back on the radio. “X-ray Bravo 69, I have your location.”

  DeSantos glanced around. “We’re in a clearing about two football fields in diameter, just west of what looks like two nuclear smoke stacks, those huge cooling towers that are part of a reactor.”

  “Affirmative on that,” Brave 01 said. “You look to be located inside the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. Don’t breathe too deeply. Risk of exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination. Rescue helicopters are en route and should be on your position in ten minutes.”

  “Roger that, Brave 01.” DeSantos turned back in time to receive a bear hug from Uzi.

  “Can you believe this, Santa? We landed inside a—”

  They both spun around at the rumbling sound of an approaching truck. DeSantos knew the vehicle: a Bearcat used by tactical teams. It skidded to a stop and six men poured out of the rear, semiautomatic rifles at the ready.

  “Hands on your heads! Don’t move.”

  DeSantos and Uzi did as instructed.

  “Everyone keep a cool head,” Uzi said. “We’re law enforcement. If you let me—”

  “Law enforcement officers don’t parachute into a secure nuclear power facility. Wearing flight suits.”

  “We’re on a training mission out of Pax River. I can dig out my ID—”

  “I don’t think so,” the commander said. “You two clowns are with me. We’ll straighten it out later.”

  DeSantos figured the men, clad in their black turnout gear, were a hired security team bored with its monotonous drill routines and itching for some genuine action—and a fight.

  “I think we’re screwed,” Uzi said.

  DeSantos shook his head. “We’ll get it sorted out. A few hours in custody, a couple calls, and we’ll be headed to the base hospital.”

  “Or maybe not.”

  The low rumble of an approaching helicopter vibrated in DeSantos’s chest. “Here comes the cavalry.”

  Uzi kept his hands on his head but craned his neck toward the sky where an orange red HH-65 Dolphin Coast Guard rescue helicopter descended in the clearing a few hundred feet to their east, its single main rotor flattening the grass as if the fine green blades were being crushed down by a massive invisible weight.

  A second later, a Black Hawk appeared over the treetops and landed a few dozen yards from the Dolphin.

  Everyone remained where they were, the security team no doubt beginning to wonder what the hell was going on.

  Two Coast Guard personnel in khaki flight suits hopped out of the Dolphin and joined four soldiers in BDUs—battle dress fatigues—from the Black Hawk, in addition to a large Afri
can American man wearing tactical gear. The contingent advanced with purpose on the knot of personnel.

  DeSantos recognized the gait of the lone non-uniformed individual as his OPSIG colleague, Troy Rodman.

  The security officers kept their weapons raised as Rodman strode up to the commander. “I’m here on orders of the secretary of defense. Looks like you’re holding our men. Is there a problem?”

  “They’re trespassing on a secure facility. We’re taking them into custody.”

  “No,” Rodman said, his deep voice devoid of emotion. “You will stand down and release them to us.”

  “All due respect, I don’t know who you are, if you’re legit or some guys dressed in uniform who hired a couple of fancy helicopters. I don’t have any orders—”

  The commander’s radio crackled. He clenched his jaw then lifted the mic off the hook on his shirt. “Repeat.” He stuck his index finger against the left earpiece and listened, then frowned. “You two are free to go. Next time get clearance before you conduct your training exercises in our backyard.”

  Uzi frowned. “Thanks for the tip, buddy. Dumbshit clowns like us never think of those things.”

  4

  Joint Base Andrews

  Air and Space Expeditionary Forces

  Camp Springs, Maryland

  FBI director Douglas Knox pressed a button on the conference room desk and glanced at the attendees: Hector DeSantos and his fellow OPSIG covert operatives Troy Rodman and Alexandra Rusakov, Uzi, CIA director Earl Tasset, Secretary McNamara, and General Eisenbach.

  “I need to confirm that you left your phones at the door,” Knox said.

  This meeting was above top secret, the highest level of security classification, and any potential for electronic eavesdropping had to be eliminated.

  DeSantos and Uzi, looking a bit rough around the edges with facial scrapes and superficial burns, nodded affirmatively, as did Rodman and Rusakov.