Rogue Element

There was no argument. ‘Luke, you’ve got the flaps and the undercarriage. Jenny, read off our airspeed. We’re only going to get one go at this so let’s do it by the numbers.’ Flemming wanted to say he thought they’d been a good crew, but the best he could manage was a crooked smile.

It was possibly the most forbidding landscape Luke Granger had ever seen. The fact that he was about to set down a fully loaded 747 on it didn’t improve his impression any.

The flight deck was hot and humid. It didn’t take much to figure out that they probably had a large hole blown in the side of the aircraft. The engine must have exploded and taken part of the fuselage with it. It was possible that shrapnel from that explosion had wrecked their E&E Bay, taking out their communications and hydraulics in the process. Then Granger remembered what he thought was a fighter’s deadly pass down the side of the 747. No, surely not… Was it possible? Part of Granger’s mind knew they’d been attacked and shot down. Another part refused to believe it. Knowing the answer wouldn’t help the situation any. He couldn’t even radio anyone with his suspicions. The disquiet evaporated almost the instant it formed. There was too much demanding his attention.

Despite the tropical heat, the sweat on Luke’s body was cold, and he realised grimly that he’d pissed himself. Moonlight washed through a break in the clouds, revealing a lumpy tree canopy. Jungle. They were almost on top of the equator, so it wouldn’t be anything else. Not a single reassuring light winked through the expanse below them.

The ridge Captain Flemming had pointed out was now lined up in plain view. Granger scanned the instruments and tried to focus on anything other than his impending death. Their hydraulics pressure was virtually nonexistent. At least the flaps were fully extended and the undercarriage had locked. That was something. With luck, they’d slide along gently after the gear tore off, eating up much of the plane’s energy, coming to rest peacefully with no lives lost, held aloft by the waving arms of friendly palm trees.

Who was he kidding? thought Granger. Murderously steep gorges ran off from either side, beckoning. There was only one possible outcome.

Joe couldn’t help himself. He’d heard the familiar whirr and bump of the undercarriage coming down and locking in place, and he managed to convince himself, briefly, that they were about to settle on a smooth runway. Then there was the sickening screech of grinding metal as the flaps lowered and the hope evaporated. The big 747 was flying with its nose high in the air. Joe had tested all the top flight sims; he knew the pilots were trying to slow the aircraft down so that it would arrive at its point of impact with the ground just as the lift under its wings gave out. The desire to know what they were about to land on gripped him again. He realised it might be the last thing he ever saw. He looked out and down and saw the tops of trees flashing by at alarming speed. ‘Shiiiiiiit,’ he said, throwing himself forward again into the crash position.

QF-1 slammed onto the ridge. The force of the impact fractured the fuselage behind the wings’ trailing edge. The huge fin and tail section, split from the main body of the aircraft, was thrown high in the air. It began to spin like a child’s toy as it fell, flinging chairs, people and luggage into the trees. It whirled down into a steep gorge where it shredded itself against volcanic rock like cheese against a grater.

The main body of the aircraft, now engulfed in a fireball, continued to plough through the jungle. A rock outcrop caught the leading edge of the port wing. The violence of the impact carved off the centre section of the fuselage. The remaining fuel in one of the wing tanks exploded, turning the centre section of the aircraft into burning shards of aluminium that rained down over the jungle.

The forward section of the fuselage spun into a small depression. Its mass combined with its speed, telescoping the nose in on itself. Flemming, Granger and Rivers were turned into paste.

Burning fuel caused small fires for a thousand metres around.

The savagery of the crash silenced the jungle. Smoke from the burning fires hung like a mist of death in the moist, pre-dawn air.

* * *

Raptor watched the 747 hit the ground. It didn’t appear to be going very fast at all but it was difficult to make out any detail until the fireball lit the scene. The sight of the aircraft breaking up was gratifying and he congratulated himself on a job well done. He thumbed the Send button on his control column several times, broadcasting the agreed code for a successful mission. Raptor noted the lat and long coordinates on his thigh-pad from the GPS. He lit his afterburners and set a course for Hasanuddin AFB.

NSA Pacific HQ, Helemanu, Oahu, Hawaii, 2050 Zulu, Tuesday, 28 April