“Four miles. 430 knots, 2,500 feet. Wu, you’re still too fast,” Liu announced. The lit runways were in easy sight now, as well as the dark runway. The dark runway was magnified by looking through the forward looking infrared Heads-Up Display, allowing full sight of the darkened runway.
Wu shook his head, thinking this damn jet is just too fast. They were now at 1,000 feet and in a tight turn at three miles out, just in front of the approach end of the runway.
“Pulling G’s, hold tiiigghhtttt… …” Wu announced as they pulled a left 6-G turn than compressed them into their seats. Wu did a complete 360 degree turn and were now at 1-mile with the gear up, and finally slow enough to drop the gear. Still, no one could see them, but Wu was sure that they were making some unbelievable noise down below. There was no way a high performance military jet could do a 6-G turn at 1000 feet to bleed off airspeed without waking up a few sleeping babies below in the City of Tianjin. The thunderous roar set off car alarms and caused people to look outside and into the sky from their high-rise apartment building balconies.
“Wu, we are at a one-mile, drop the GEAR ALREADY!” Liu nervously yelled out.
Ford waited in silence with the steel grate over his head, and heard the second police car screech his wheels and peel off. They left. He gave it a few solid seconds, waiting as quietly as he could. Then his phone vibrated twice. What timing, he thought. Luckily his ringer was off. Then a second vibration. It was a text message.
Ford quietly climbed out and put the grate back on the hole. He slid on his belly up to the position he had earlier and saw that the police sedan was gone, and finally realized why the second car stopped. Ford was near a taxiway that crossed a runway. The first police sedan most likely had clearance from the tower to race cross, while the second police sedan one had to wait for the Air China jet to finish his landing. After the Air China Airbus rolled past the sedan, he could continue on their police call.
Ford pulled out his phone and read the text from Wu:
Wu: JOJO RISING, 4 minutes.
Whoa, Wu wasn’t kidding around, he thought. At the same time, off in the distance to the north, Ford could hear an outlandish, deep grumble noise that sounded like nothing he had ever heard before. It wasn’t the usual turbofan of a Rolls-Royce or Pratt and Whitney engine sitting on the wing of a commercial airliner. This noise had a loud growl. It had guts, and sounded mean. As the seconds clocked by, the deep growl of the engines made Ford’s inside vibrate. This was an intense sound. The rumbling roar reminded him of being near the concert speakers when he saw Metallica years ago at Giants Stadium. What in the hell is that? That has got to be Wu, he thought, and turned his one-eye, night vision goggle towards the approach end of the runway. It was at least two miles away from where Ford was, but he could see a dark object in the sky at the approach end of the runway with no landing lights on. Yup, gotta be Wu. It was coming towards the airport, getting bigger with each passing second. Look at that thing.
Ford didn’t have time to sightsee. He took out his laser, and aligned it with his night vision device, and looked through the monocle at the target. Ford switched to the non-night vision portion, as the hangar lights were washing him out and he couldn’t see that well. Ford searched the ceiling of the large, open hangar doors that housed Air China jets. There were a surplus of maintenance folks working on two aircraft tonight. On the right side of the hangar was an Airbus A319 with all the engine compartment doors open and propped up, which appeared to be fully broken down for extended overhaul work. To her left was a Boeing 777 on jacks, on what looked to be a brake job. Ford continued to scan the hangar, looking at the back wall, and again where it met the ceiling. After about 15 seconds, he spotted the metal sprinkler heads, and they all came into view now. Just like when he was firing the M9 Beretta in small arms training, he took a deep breath, let it out and held it, squirting the laser to hit the sprinkler target. He moved it around ever so slowly, and after five to eight seconds, the show began.
The sirens and lights started flashing inside the hangar, and Ford could hear the alarm bells from his position. With his naked eye, he could see the white foam shooting from highly-pressurized foam guns located all over the hangar. It looked like a ski resort was shooting man-made snow out of its snow guns because a small mountain of foam promptly filled the hangar floor. Like a bathtub filling up with water he’d thought. The employees were under it now, scrambling and running outside on the ramp, and the foam was easily above the wing level on both jets parked inside the hangar.
The deep grumble of the Devil Dragon was getting closer, and the timing seemed to be perfect. Ford turned his head to see Wu again, but could not locate him. His attention was diverted from looking for Wu when the firehouse, the closest building to his staging area, came to life. The doors of the firehouse went up vertically and opened, as the lights on the fire apparatuses lit up. Ford could see the fire fighters getting into their boots first, then putting on their large coats, and finally their fire helmets. The driver of each apparatus pulled out in front of the firehouse, and waited a moment for everyone to get on board. Once the firefighters were on the engine and truck, they pulled out and hurriedly drove over to the hangar with a purpose. Little did they know, that an unknown aircraft was landing on the same dark runway that they would be crossing to reach the emergency.
Tianjin Binhai International Airport, Runway 16 Left
“GEAR DOWN. GEAR DOWN! Flaps 100 percent,” Wu commanded. He was sure that the landing gear coming down would give their position away on radar, just like a wing holding an external weapon, so Wu waiting until the last possible second was smart business.
“Roger, gear down, flaps down!” Liu announced. Liu saw the speed was good, but their landing speeds for their weight made them fast. He quickly checked the runway length again, and was happy it was a long 11,000 footer. The problem was that since they were faster than the 139 knots landing speed, Wu had to use aerodynamic braking, holding the jet off the runway as long as he could. He traded airspeed for altitude, and delayed the main gear from touching the runway, gliding just on top of it. They landed long, about a third of the way down the runway.
At the end of the very same runway, Runway 16 Left, a major problem was brewing. Wu looked ahead in his normal landing scan and saw that the fire department was rolling two fire engines or trucks out of the fire house. The first one was following the second one, and they were crossing the runway directly in front of them. Wu planted the main gear on the runway, already at idle with the throttles. They are going to the hangar! Wu remembered silently.
“Speed brakes,” Wu said, in addition to practically standing on the jet’s brakes. We’re gonna be hot he’d said to himself. Wu was rolling the dice with these two fire engines. Wu was too slow to takeoff again, and too fast to come to a complete stop. They were on the final rollout of a dark airport, on a dark runway, in a flat black secret jet, and only seconds away from slamming into the back of the local fire department.
Wu moved his feet to steer the Devil Dragon to the left side of the runway, and hoped he wouldn’t drag his left wing on any obstacles. By doing this, he could effectively steer around the moving second fire truck, who still was on the runway. At a minimum, Devil Dragon’s right wing would pass directly over the fire fighters heads, and at everyone’s speeds, they would only feel the air.