CHAPTER 64
Cotton could feel that something was wrong with the EMB besides the initial damage to the starboard-side wing. He’d brought the plane out of the sharp bank and leveled off at two thousand feet just over the Swedish coastline, heading north.
So that’s what the Russian had been firing at. A parting shot. The look of concern on Ivan’s face said that he’d heard the bad news too. So he anticipated the question, Can we land? and said, “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”
Okay. Time to aviate, navigate, and communicate.
The pilot’s three rules in a crisis.
He’d already aviated and reviewed the plane’s status, the gauges all fluctuating. He worked the control column and kept the altitude gyro even. He also knew exactly where he was and where he wanted to be.
Time to communicate.
“I need a place to land,” he said into the radio.
“Karup Air Base is close. About 120 miles west.”
Which he knew. Located in the central part of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula about two miles west of Karup.
Built by the Luftwaffe during the German occupation in 1940 and used for offensive operations against England.
The Royal Danish Army took control of it after the war.
Midtjyllands Airport, which serviced Karup, shared the base’s runways.
A busy place. Lots of flights. Now home to several wings of the Royal Danish Air Force, including helicopters, a flying school, and fighter jets.
He’d visited there a couple of years ago and had flown over it several times on his recreational outings.
Sweden was closer. Definitely. But he knew what Stephanie was going to say.
Get Ivan and the codex to a place we control.
“I’m declaring an emergency,” he said into the radio. “Have Karup clear us a path.”
That meant he would keep flying by using the ground to show the way. Air traffic controllers would take that declaration to heart and divert every plane out of his way, making the airport all his.
“How about the Russians? They gone?” he continued.
“Cut tail and ran when our guys showed up.”
Good to hear.
He banked the plane left and turned west, heading back out over the ?resund, just north of Copenhagen.
The track to Karup was familiar. They would need to cross Zealand Island over Roskilde, then back out to open water past Sams? Island, then northwest to the Jutland peninsula and Karup.
Short hop. Luckily, the engines sounded reasonably okay.
But half the control surfaces were gone, the other half sluggish and barely responsive.
“I need that guy you have at Ramstein,” he told Stephanie. “The EMB expert.”
“Already have her patched in.”
Her? “My apologies.”
“We can let that go,” a new female voice said. “Captain Andrea Malarkey, U.S. Air Force. You seem to have your hands full.”
“You could say that, Captain.”
“Call me Andrea. We have you headed northwest, three hundred degrees, straight to Karup at two thousand feet.”
“Okay, here’s the deal. I have a good nose gear and one good main, the other is badly damaged. My starboard flight controls are nearly gone. Good news? Engines are working, but keeping this thing level is becoming increasingly difficult.”
“We can take a look at that gear when you get to Karup with a fly-by. You still flying dirty?”
“I thought it best to not clean it up. I slowed to 150 knots. We need to burn fuel. I’ll also need your help to dump the rest before we head down.”
“Never flown one of these before?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Lucky for you that is not the case with me.”
“That is lucky for me.”
Stephanie realized the situation was dire.
Cotton was flying a severely damaged plane that he had to land without hurting either himself, Ivan, or the codex.
The Russians had done their worst, and there’d be hell to pay for those actions.
But a man like Konstantin Franko could not care less what Sweden or the United States thought or did.
In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to provoke whoever he could whenever he could.
She could see that Cassiopeia was concerned too, though she was trying, like herself, not to show it.
“Colonel, are you still there?” Stephanie asked her phone.
“I’m here. I’ve been in contact with Karup Air Base. They’re preparing for the arrival. The runway will be fully foamed with fire retardant, and all emergency vehicles will be standing by. The other runways are closed to all traffic.”
“Sounds like they’re ready. It’s important that this plane survive in one piece. No fire.”
“That’s always the goal.”
“Make sure Captain Malarkey stays with him. Cotton might have a tendency to not ask everything he should. Part of that navy macho.”
“She’s one of our best pilots. She’ll get him down.”
But Stephanie was not reassured.
And neither, it seemed, was Cassiopeia.
Cotton kept a lookout ahead as they passed Zealand Island and headed over ?rhus Bay.
He held the plane as steady on the horizon as he could.
He could see the Jutland peninsula to the west, in the distance.
Karup not far beyond that. He had maybe twenty minutes to get ready for a controlled crash landing.
He’d practiced those in the navy, but only in a simulator.
There were two kinds.
Gear up or gear down.
He’d decided to go with gear down, forgoing any cycling of the undamaged gear up, then back down.
No sense pushing their luck and losing the other two.
Just leave things as they were. Bad enough that the starboard flaps were gone and the plane was flying like an eighteen-wheeler with half its tires flat.
There was also banging and clanging. Lots of stuff loose below.
None of which boded well for what lay ahead.
“Can you do this?” Ivan asked.
He wasn’t sure, but he knew that was not the right answer. So he smiled and said the obvious, “I’m all we’ve got.”