For a moment we held each other, panting. "What about your rules against overlapping?"
"I changed them."
Once back in the light we both realized we were late. Maybe that was the reason we ran from each other.
As I plugged into the console next to Dearborn, I nodded to Rowe at his station in the back. Lost in thought, he didn't see me. Which didn't bother me in the least.
"Glad you could make room for us in your busy schedule," Dearborn said.
"Had to answer a call of nature." If he only knew.
"Curtain's going up," Dearborn said. He keyed the intercom. "Tank, this is flight. Comm check."
Moments later, Guinan's tank was airborne.
***
We had film cameras mounted in the KC-135 and at two places in the 11A cockpit. I mention this because we weren't able to see anything ... we had to rely on the audio comm lines and telemetry. As did the rest of the world: NBC had managed to convince NACA and the Defense Department to allow it to broadcast the attempt live. (The Soviet failure made our image-conscious policy makers eager to show them up publicly.)
As the 11A approached the tank from behind and below, we heard Enloe, Guinan and the boom operator speaking from the script, which had by then been through a dozen in-flight rehearsals.
Suddenly we heard Grissom, in the lead chase plane, holler, "Watch it!"
At the same time Meadows, the other chase pilot, called, "Mid-air!"
"Abort." (According to the tapes, that was me, though I don't remember saying it.)
The next thirty seconds were confused. Guinan said he was rolling left. Grissom told him he had lost part of his tail and right wing. Guinan's broken reply: Can't hold."
I literally punched Dearborn on the shoulder. "Where's Enloe!" Forgetting that all along Dearborn had been calling, "11A, this is flight. 11A, this is flight."
At the same time I was hearing from every console at once. The one that registered was propulsion - the engineer monitoring the X-11A's rocket. "We're at redline."
"Woody, shut it down!" I didn't wait for Dearborn to make the call.
No response. No response. Finally, Meadows' voice. "Dust on the lake. Ten miles north of Boron."
Dust on the lake? That's when I realized that it was all over. One of the aircraft had crashed. But which one?
Then I heard Grissom's voice. "Tank's down, too. Five miles from Boron."
***
Rescue crews were already on their way, but it was too late. The X-11A had suddenly pitched up as the boom was being inserted. This would have been incovenient, but not disastrous, except that the two craft were physically connected. The 11A actually pivoted around the boom, slamming into the tail of Guinan's tank, rolling across the bigger plane and shearing off the right wingtip.
Guinan might have been able to save the tanker with damage to the tail or the missing wingtip, but not both. He was helpless to stop the beast - laden with fuel - from rolling over and plunging to earth.
Even so, he managed to retain some kind of controclass="underline" the KC-135 was almost level when it hit ... in the proper attitude for landing. But it broke apart and exploded, leaving a blackened smear four hundred feet long across the desert. The only recognizable structure was the crew cabin with the bodies of Guinan and Ridley. (It was later determined that Vidrine, the boom operator, had been decapitated in the initial collision.)
Both of the men in the cockpit had suffered "severe thoracic trauma," in the bland words of the investigating board. There was one curious bit of damage to Guinan which could not be explained by the impact:
He had lost his right hand.
***
Enloe's death was more chilling. The cabin films, one frame a second, show him in control and in position up through the beginning of fuelling. Suddenly - in the space of one frame - his hands fly off the controls, as if he is reacting to an explosion of sorts in his lap. (The board later concluded it was due to a failure in the oxygen hose attached to the belly of his suit. It literally blew apart.)
At that delicate moment, the lack of a steady hand - and the sudden, reflexive push on the pedals - is enough to throw the 11A into its fatal pivot.
Even though he is in his flight harness, Enloe is flung toward the camera by the collision with the tail of the tank. The cabin remains intact. The light changes, shifting from sun to shadow to sun, as the 11A rolls across the tank, clipping the wing.
The canopy shatters. Enloe, in his pressure suit and helmet, seems unhurt, though one of the straps of his harness comes loose. Sun, shadow, sun, shadow. Faster and faster, until the rate of rotation exceeds the frame speed.
The last two frames show a mountainside reflected in the faceplate of Enloe's helmet.
(From the Special Committee Investigating the X-11A Disaster, Maj. Gen. John B. Medaris, Chairman:)
MEDARIS: Mr. Thayer, the 11A did not contain an ejection seat.
THAYER: No, sir.
MEDARIS: Why not?
THAYER: Because of Major Enloe's wild card abilities. He was literally capable of flight.
MEDARIS: But he did not fly away from the 11A.
THAYER: No, sir.
MEDARIS: Why not?
THAYER: I don't know. The medical telemetry shows that he was conscious until impact, or shortly before.
MEDARIS: Was he impeded in any way? Could he have gotten out?
THAYER: Film from the chase plane shows that the 11A cabin was relatively intact until impact, and that one or both of his harness straps were loose.
MEDARIS: He should have been able to fall out and fly. Is that what you're saying?
THAYER: That's one possibility, yes, sir.
(By hand: If he wanted to!)
(From the notebooks of Edgar Thayer:)
Three days after the accident we held a memorial service out on the flight line. The Navy hymn. The missing man formation. Margaret was there, in sunglasses, somber, serene and distant. I stood next to Rowe. He and I had been in the hands of the investigating board since the hour of the accident. I hadn't slept more than a total of four hours. At that point, I didn't think I'd ever sleep again.
When it was over, I caught up with Margaret, who was hurrying toward her car. "Don't run away from me, goddamnit!"
"All right, Ed." She turned toward me, waiting. "What do you want?"
"I'm in trouble."
"I heard. Why you?"
"They think they've found the cause of the accident. It was in Enloe's life support system, which I was supposed to check."
"But didn't?"
"No."
She shook her head. It might have been sympathy. "What's going to happen?"
"I'm going to be in a lot of trouble."
"With the program ..."
"Oh, it's finished. They'll investigate for two years and realize there's nothing wrong with concept. But there's no more money. Especially since the Russians are grounded, too."
"I'm sorry, Ed. I mean, I'm sorry for you. This was your dream." Then she said something that didn't shock me until much later. "What the hell, Ed: they were aces. It wasn't as though human beings were the ones going into space."
"I never cared about that. I worked for Dr. Rowe."
She started to laugh. "Yes, Dr. Rowe. When you get a chance, ask him why he hired you."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Talk to Rowe. He's got all the answers."
Without a kiss, without another word, she got in her car and drove off.
I found Rowe cleaning out his office. An air policeman stood guard outside.
"I had an interesting conversation with Margaret Durand."
Rowe smiled for the first time in days. "Oh, yes, Peggy Durand. I'm going to miss her."