He asked for Grant’s laptop and opened the browser.
Grant edged closer. “What did I say?”
“Bedova said Wisconsin Ave, not Wisconsin Avenue, right?”
Grant shrugged. “That’s the way I remember it.”
“What’s the difference?” Morgan asked.
“Either Colchev had been using a code or Bedova interpreted the abbreviation the wrong way. It’s not Wisconsin Ave. It’s pronounced Wisconsin A Vee.”
“What do the letters A and V stand for?” Jess said.
“AirVenture.”
“Wisconsin AirVenture?” Fay said. “What’s that?”
Grant slapped himself in the forehead. “Of course! The EAA.”
“The Experimental Aircraft Association has a huge air show every year,” Tyler said. “It’s in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, smack dab in the middle of the country. Thousands of private aircraft pilots fly their planes to the show. It’s so big that for one week, Oshkosh becomes the busiest airport in the world, with over ten thousand takeoffs and landings. I flew to it a few years ago, but I didn’t make the connection until just now because I always called it the Oshkosh Fly-in.”
Morgan looked at the tablet. “This is tomorrow’s schedule.”
Tyler pointed to the middle of the schedule. “Check out what happens at noon.”
Morgan peered at it, then her eyes went wide. “I’ll call the FBI.” She jumped up and furiously dialed her phone.
“What is it?” Jess said. “What happens tomorrow?”
Tyler put a hand on Fay’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I laughed at you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were right. Tomorrow a company called ExAtmo is making a demonstration flight at noon of their brand new product, the Skyward.”
Grant recognized the name instantly. “Damn! You think Colchev is planning to hijack it?”
Tyler nodded grimly. “He must be planning to fly the Killswitch up to an altitude of seventy miles.”
“I don’t understand,” Jess said. “What’s ExAtmo?”
“They’re a commercial sub-orbital tourism venture. Skyward is their experimental spaceplane.”
SPACE
FIFTY-ONE
From the copilot’s seat of the Cessna 340A, Colchev could see vast rows of planes lined wingtip to wingtip on the grassy field bordering the northern runway of the Oshkosh Whitman Regional Airport. The previous night, he and Zotkin had landed in Calgary, Canada to refuel the Gulfstream, where they were able to sneak off the plane disguised as pilots. Two other men dressed as pilots took their places and the jet continued on its way toward Moscow. Then Colchev and Zotkin drove across the border into Montana using a new set of false passports and boarded the smaller twin-prop six-seater at a tiny airport in Shelby.
To cover his tracks, Colchev planted a small explosive device on the Gulfstream, timed to blow up over the remote Canadian tundra. It would take days to confirm that he and the xenobium were not on board.
Zotkin, who was flying the Cessna, got clearance to land on runway 27, which was closer to their parking spot in the north field than the main 36L runway used for the demonstration flights and daily air shows. They made their final turn, Lake Winnebago glistening just a few miles to the east under the azure sky. Excellent conditions for the launch.
As they came around, Colchev got his first glimpse of the Skyward spaceplane. It was situated in a place of honor at the primary taxiway leading to the main runway. Even from this distance, the vehicle was a technological wonder to behold.
The Skyward was slung underneath its carrier plane, the Lodestar. Like a mother hen, the wing-shaped Lodestar sat atop the spaceplane, which nestled into the curvature of the larger aircraft’s concave underside and was already in place for the launch in two hours.
The most distinctive feature of both the Lodestar and the Skyward was the unusual design of their fuselages. The carbon-fiber bodywork was constructed with criss-crossing struts that seemed to be oriented in a haphazard fashion. The delicate-looking framework was optimized to provide the maximum strength to the spaceplane for its weight, much like the hollow bones of a bird. The spaces in between the struts were filled with state-of-the-art polymer windows that gave intrepid passengers a 180-degree view of the Earth when the spaceplane reached its maximum altitude of seventy miles.
Colchev had been following the news about the Skyward ever since its existence had been made public. By acquiring the rights to use Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipTwo, Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic had a huge head start on ExAtmo’s effort to bring spaceflight to the commercial market, so the newer company had to come up with an attention-getting ploy to wrest some of the spotlight away from the pioneer and showcase its own advanced technology. The exhibition flight at the premiere experimental aircraft show in the world was the answer. As soon as Colchev had heard about the planned demonstration six months ago, he knew it would be his best chance to cripple the entire United States in one blow.
Getting information about the Skyward out of the notoriously secretive ExAtmo files had been difficult, but not impossible. One of the gems they’d acquired had been film of a test flight, showing the cockpit operation of both the carrier and spaceplane. With that, they knew their plan was possible.
The flight profile of the spaceplane was straightforward, helpfully sketched out in a CGI video on the ExAtmo website. The Lodestar could take off from any commercial runway. When it reached an altitude of 50,000 feet, the Skyward dropped from the belly. Once it was clear, the Skyward ignited its liquid rocket engine, propelling it to three thousand miles per hour, or mach four, twice the speed of the Concorde. Shooting straight up toward space, the engine disengaged after seventy seconds, giving the six passengers five minutes of weightlessness as the spaceplane was pulled back toward Earth, its fuel spent. Twenty-five minutes later, it glided in for an unpowered landing at the airport just like a Space Shuttle.
Of course, there was a pilot in case anything went awry during the flight, but on a typical trip he was superfluous during the launch. The Skyward was completely automated, the computer controlling the entire powered portion of the flight. As soon as the Skyward dropped from the carrier, the pilot didn’t need to do anything but monitor the gauges until it was time to land.
That automation was going to make it possible for Colchev to fly into space.
Building anticipation for the flight, ExAtmo had garnered extensive publicity by withholding the names of the pilots of the spaceplane and carrier aircraft as well as the two passengers. Fully suited and helmeted to maintain the mystery of their identities, they would be taken by shuttle bus to the flight line, where they would get on board the craft in full view of the crowds. The entire flight was to be recorded by telescopes on the ground. When the Skyward returned, the successful crew and passengers would be revealed in a massive press conference right on the tarmac.
Only it wouldn’t happen quite as planned.
Colchev and his men would take the place of the pilots and passengers. Zotkin, an experienced pilot rated on many different types of aircraft, would fly the carrier plane. Colchev and the other men, Nisselovich and Oborski, would climb aboard the Skyward. Once they were in the air, Nisselovich and Oborski would crawl through the mating hatch into the Lodestar, leaving Colchev alone to pilot the Skyward.
Colchev’s sole task during the Skyward’s launch would be to cut off the rocket early. After arming the Killswitch, he would depressurize the Skyward and eject the weapon, where it would continue on its ballistic arc. Then Colchev would fire the engine and use up the remaining fuel to get as much distance as he could between him and the Killswitch.