Besides, he could sleep a little longer on base without the drive.
Of course, it wasn’t technically night yet, and he hadn’t had time to check into the BOQ, but there was still enough to keep him busy and still allow a few hours’ sack time before takeoff for the approximately ten-and-a-half-hour flight.
He got up from the desk in his office, went out into the hall and into the adjacent office. A black man with the brass oak leaves of a major on the epaulets of his uniform was hunched over a desk running numbers on a calculator.
Jim Patterson.
Major was a relatively junior rank for the copilot of Air Force One, particularly the service’s youngest major. Patterson had been promoted with unusual speed. But then, he was an unusually talented pilot.
Eighteen months ago, he had been a captain, transporting combat support material from Ramstein Air Base. It had been a cold March night, the rural Rheinland-Pfalz district in Germany shimmering white with snow and more forecast. The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules had a load of ninety-four paratroopers prepared for a night training exercise.
Clumsy on the runway, the aircraft climbed into the ragged sky with grace, its four turbo prop engines at full throttle as it was swallowed by low clouds. The problems started when the pilot, Patterson, eased back the throttles to climb power.
As is often the case in aviation, things happened all at once: The stall warning horn beeped frantically, the plane yawed violently to the left, and a red light was blinking from somewhere in the cluster of engine instruments.
“Sir, we’ve lost the number-two engine,” the flight engineer’s panicked voice would later be heard on the cockpit voice recorder.
Patterson lowered the nose of the climbing aircraft to regain airspeed, postponing, if not ending, the possibility of a stall. He quickly feathered the prop on the dead engine to present minimum resistance to the air. What happened next was best described by replaying the tape:
(Loud blast of stall warning)
Copilot: Captain, now the number one has quit!
Patterson (with the calmness of a man discussing his entrée with a waiter in a restaurant): I can see that from the panel. Wonder what the odds of that happening are?
Flight engineer: I don’t know, but with the two left engines out, this plane isn’t going to climb and we’re below MOCA (minimum obstacle clearance altitude).
Patterson (to copilot): Lieutenant, put the emergency code on the transponder and tell Ramstein departure we’ll be making a forced landing. Flight engineer, give me a GPS position.
Flight engineer (voice wavering): Sir, shouldn’t we try to return to base?
Patterson: We have a line of hills to our right, if I recall, and I’m sure not going to put us in a graveyard spiral by turning into two dead engines.
Flight engineer: Captain, we’re two and a half kilometers from the fence, flat farmland, but by the time you get down, we’ll be less than a thousand from some woods. We’ll hit the trees.
Patterson: This was built as a STOL aircraft. I’ll get her stopped before then.
Flight engineer: Sir, the book says you’ll need at least 3,000 feet to stop.
Patterson (annoyed): Lieutenant, I am flying this airplane, not some fucking book. Clear?
(Unintelligible voice, presumably copilot talking to Ramstein departure)
Copilot: Sir, departure orders you to attempt to return to base.
Patterson: Tell them to fly their fucking radar scopes. I’ll fly this airplane. Now, give me ten degrees of flaps and tell those grunts in the cargo bay to tighten up their seat belts.
Captain Patterson made a gear-down landing, coming to a stop not fifty feet from a grove of very large oak trees. The only damage was large trenches in the wet ground of a potato field. The only injuries were the badly lacerated face and the broken ankle of two paratroopers who didn’t buckle up quickly enough. The other ninety-two received only a bad scare. Patterson’s skill and judgment had saved their lives, as well as those of his crew.
The ensuing inquiry found that one of the switches used to change fuel tanks after takeoff had jammed between tanks, starving both left engines. Although the problem could have been discovered in flight, the plane’s low altitude and certain collision with ground obstacles did not leave time to do a thorough checklist of possible culprits.The ultimate result of the hearing was the red bar of the Legion of Merit Patterson wore among other decorative ribbons above his left breast pocket.
Patterson was definitely the man Hasty wanted in the right seat of any plane he flew.
Patterson looked up from his calculator, started to rise. Hasty waved him back into his seat.
“Colonel?”
“Weight and balance calculations?” Hasty asked.
Patterson nodded. “Almost everything except passengers and the president’s personal baggage is aboard — food, fuel, oil, press’s luggage, et cetera.”
The aircraft must be loaded not just according to weight, but where that weight is placed so that the plane is balanced. A pound at the rear of the plane is given more significance than, say, the same pound at the center of gravity, usually right over the main wing spar. An improperly loaded ship will not handle properly and could become dangerous in turbulence.
“Be sure the president’s golf clubs come off first.”
Last year, the clubs had been misplaced. America’s chief executive had played Scotland’s St Andrews with borrowed equipment.
“I wasn’t aware golf was on the agenda for this trip.”
“It isn’t but if the opportunity arises…”
Becoming serious, Hasty held up some papers in his hand. “When you get it all inside the envelope, take a look at this. I got a discrepancy in the fuel burn depending on whose winds-aloft forecast I use.”
“Different winds, different air, and ground speed.”
Hasty dropped the papers on Patterson’s desk. “I’d take it as a favor if you’d take a crack at it.”
Major Patterson suppressed a smile. He knew the colonel redid every calculation every crew member did. The man was a perfectionist. His job demanded it.
56
There was the sound of feet on the staircase. Jason turned the door’s dead bolt.
“Swell,” Andrews observed dryly. “They can’t get in but we can’t get out. Stalemate.”
Jason went to the window and peered out.
“Thirty or forty feet down,” Andrews said. “If you’re lucky, a broken leg is all you’ll get. At least until those assholes outside that door find you.”
“You always this optimistic, or just having a bad day?”
His answer was the click of the knob turning, followed by beating on the door.
“How long you suppose until they get whoever has the key?” Andrews asked. “Any chance you can turn that machine around and blast them?”
Jason shook his head. “I don’t think the power source is in this room. Besides, if this thing can bring down an airliner, I don’t want to be that close to its beam or whatever when it strikes something.”
Voices from the other side of the door were audible. Jason caught a few words his limited Arabic vocabulary allowed him to understand.
“At least they’re not trying to break the door down,” Andrews noted.
“No. They’ve probably sent for the man with the key.”
“Now who’s the optimist?”
Jason holstered his Glock and went to the window again. He stuck his head out. “I don’t see anyone down there. They must all be in the stairwell.”