John J. Nance
Blackout
To my mother,
Texas poet Peggy Zuleika Lynch,
whose dynamic creativity and
love of life lights the way
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Chapters in this novel list the local time and, after a slash, the Zulu time. In the aviation world, Z time, or Zulu time, refers to Universal Time — formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time.
In winter, when Daylight Saving Time is not in use, the East Coast of the United States is five hours earlier than Zulu time; for example, 4:00 P.M. in Washington, D.C., is 2100Z, and 3:00 A.M. is 0800Z. The time in London in winter is the same as Zulu time, and Germany is an hour later (Zulu plus one hour). Hong Kong is eight hours later than Zulu. Vietnam is seven hours later.
PROLOGUE
Karen Briant suppressed a smile as she watched Jim Olson struggle. His athletic body was stretched to its six-foot limit, his jeans just inches from her face as he stood on tiptoe and yanked again at the door of the overhead compartment. It opened at last, and she heard him unzip his carry-on bag and rummage around. He grunted with satisfaction and reclosed the bag before looking down at her.
“Good. I feel better now,” he said, snapping the compartment shut.
“And what, exactly,” she began as he slid back into the window seat, “were you afraid you’d forgotten, Sir?” She ruffled her shoulder-length auburn hair and looked at him with mock suspicion. “Not another self-indulgent gift from Victoria’s Secret, I hope?” Another bikini would be too much. She was already feeling overexposed in the revealing sundress that he’d bought for her.
He smirked and shook his head in response as he scanned the right wing of the huge three-engine Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 jetliner, noting the towering cumulus clouds in the distance. He turned back to her sparkling green eyes, his laugh coming easily. It was a feature of him she particularly treasured.
“Not important, young lady,” he said, tuning out a routine PA announcement.
“Sure it’s important!” Karen coaxed. “When I agree to spend a week in the Canary Islands with a man, I want to make sure he’s got the right stuff.”
“How do you mean, ‘right stuff’?” Jim asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Well, you’re a pilot, and pilots are supposed to pack the right stuff, right?”
“I’m an airline pilot, not Chuck Yeager.”
“Maybe that’s not the ‘stuff’ I’m talking about. You obviously have something in that bag up there you were worried about leaving.”
“And now I’m not,” Jim said, suppressing the urge to give her the engagement ring now as he rode the small wave of relief that he hadn’t left it back in Houston.
No, he cautioned himself. It all depends on this week together.
He had to be sure.
She squeezed his hand and chuckled as Jim looked out the window, mentally calculating the distance to the line of 60,000-foot-high cumulonimbus clouds towering over the Gulf of Mexico to the north of the jetliner’s course. He wondered what the pilots were seeing on radar. The small but vicious hurricane north of that line was threatening New Orleans, but they should slip safely to the south of it — according to his check of the weather map a few hours ago.
Relax, for crying out loud! Jim told himself. This isn’t even your airline! Besides, we’re on vacation. They can handle it just fine without me.
He squeezed Karen’s hand in return, breathing in the soft hint of her perfume and letting a warm tingle of anticipation wash over him.
This was going to be a wonderful week.
Retired Chief Master Sergeant Rafe Jones looked up from the complex instruments of the mobile test van he operated under civilian contract for the Air Force. He squinted through his sunglasses, trying to focus on the aging F-106 fighter/interceptor as it sat at the far end of the runway, its image undulating in the heat, waiting for his remote control team to start the takeoff.
Rafe took a deep breath, savoring the signature aroma of the Gulf of Mexico wafting in on a hint of fresh salt air, the heat a balmy pleasure. He double-checked the data link between the mobile control van and the aircraft, satisfied it was steady on all channels. His mouth was dry again, and not for want of water. This was the part that always unnerved him: launching a full-sized pilotless airplane over a populated area with nothing to keep it safe but a data stream of radioed commands. Sometimes the F-106 target drones his team operated carried a live Air Force safety pilot, but today only a dummy crammed full of sensors occupied the cockpit.
He glanced at Randy and Bill, the flight techs who controlled the jet.
“Rafe, what’s the holding fix again?” Randy asked on the interphone.
“Fluffy intersection, about thirty miles south,” Rafe answered, mentally picturing the specially created MOA — Military Operations Area.
“Isn’t that awful close to Uncle Fidel’s turf?”
“We know nothing,” Rafe said, smiling. “We have no reason to confirm or deny our intention to irritate Havana.”
“Yeah, right,” Randy replied. “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.”
The tower controller cleared the F-106 team for departure. Rafe nodded to his team and watched Bill push the throttle to full power in preparation for brake release.
The staccato pulse of lightning from the angry clouds to the north flickered through the left-hand windows of the MD-11, riveting Karen’s attention and stiffening her back. Jim could feel her left hand tighten on the armrest as she turned to look.
“We’re a safe distance to the south,” he reassured her, momentarily puzzled by an incongruous flash of lightning from the right side of the cabin. The MD-11 suddenly rolled sharply to the left. The bank reversed itself as quickly, and the nose came up.
Obviously he punched off the autopilot and the bird was out of trim, he thought. Jim glanced at Karen, feeling uneasy.
“Must be a buildup just ahead, Honey,” he said, forcing a smile. “The flight crew was probably debating which way to go around it and changed their minds. We’d all like to be smoother on the controls.”
The bank angle was past thirty degrees now, which was the normal maximum for a jetliner.
But why is it increasing?
The nose pitched up as if they were climbing, but more power would be needed to climb, and the whine of the engines hadn’t increased. Another sudden roll, this time to the left, and the nose was coming down.
Jim felt himself get lighter as the flight controls were pushed forward up in the cockpit. He felt a cold chill up his spine as he tried to recall what normal maneuvers would cause such gyrations.
There were none. It wasn’t normal.
Jim glanced toward the right wing, puzzled by the complete absence of clouds in that direction. There had been lightning out there.
“Jim?” Karen began, her voice tight. She sat forward in her seat, aware of the increasing slipstream as the nose continued to drop and the airspeed built.
There were voices around them now, acknowledging the shared concern, a communal rumble accompanied by alarmed glances. The MD-11 steepened its left bank, the nose dropping more, the speed rising, the huge jetliner turning sharply toward the thunderstorm to the north.