Chapter 5 - The Choice Over the Atlantic
Rebecca ripped the black device from the rack.
Nothing happened.
“Seven.”
Shaw shouted, “Disconnect the gateway!”
Rebecca pulled the maintenance connector.
“Six.”
The lights went dark.
Emergency illumination snapped on.
“Five.”
The airplane rolled hard right.
Rebecca slammed against the equipment rack.
“Four.”
Shaw grabbed a support rail.
“Three.”
Rebecca looked at the black device.
A tiny screen displayed:
EXECUTE CONTROL PROFILE.
“Two.”
She threw it onto the floor.
“One.”
The countdown stopped.
For half a second.
Then the aircraft pitched downward.
Rebecca became weightless.
Shaw hit the ceiling.
Tools floated.
A panel swung open.
“Pull up!” someone screamed above.
Rebecca grabbed the ladder.
The nose continued dropping.
She knew what Mercer was doing upstairs.
He would be fighting instinct.
A pilot’s entire body screamed to pull when the ground—or ocean—filled the windshield.
But if the control system was delaying inputs, a large pull could arrive seconds later with catastrophic force.
“Don’t chase it,” Rebecca whispered.
As if he could hear her.
The aircraft began recovering.
Slowly.
Shaw fell back to the floor.
Rebecca checked the gateway.
Disconnected.
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know.”
The airplane leveled.
The electrical hum returned.
Rebecca climbed the ladder.
“Stay here.”
Shaw grabbed her ankle.
“You need this.”
He handed her the black device.
“I don’t want it.”
“It contains the active profile.”
Rebecca stared.
“Proof?”
“And maybe the sequence.”
She took it.
Then climbed.
The cabin was chaos without becoming panic.
Oxygen masks had not deployed.
Good.
Passengers were shaken.
A few cried.
Monica helped Rebecca toward the cockpit.
Lily was strapped into a crew jumpseat beside another attendant.
Rebecca touched her shoulder as she passed.
Lily looked terrified.
Rebecca wanted to stop.
She didn’t.
Not yet.
The cockpit door opened.
Mercer was sweating.
“Status?”
“Gateway disconnected. Found unauthorized hardware.”
She held up the device.
“Airplane?”
“Control response improved after the dive.”
“Improved?”
“Not fixed.”
Rebecca sat in the right seat.
Mercer pointed to altitude.
They had lost nearly four thousand feet.
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“Stable?”
“For now.”
Rebecca examined control behavior.
No oscillation.
Airspeed sources still disagreed.
But the airplane responded more predictably.
“We may have isolated the trigger.”
“Maybe.”
Radio contact returned.
Shanwick was calling.
“Atlantic 217, confirm level two-five-zero.”
Mercer replied.
“Atlantic 217 level two-five-zero, flight-control emergency, request nearest suitable airport.”
The controller responded.
“Atlantic 217, recommend Shannon. Runway obstruction expected cleared within twenty minutes.”
Rebecca looked at Mercer.
“Go.”
He nodded.
They turned east.
Shannon was closer now.
Not close enough.
Rebecca examined the device.
No obvious controls.
Only screen text.
She pressed nothing.
“Can Shaw decode this?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Neither do I. But we may need him.”
Mercer contacted Monica.
“Bring Shaw to the cockpit door. Keep him outside.”
Minutes later, Shaw spoke through the interphone.
Rebecca read display codes.
Shaw interpreted.
“Profile Delta.”
“What does that mean?”
Silence.
“Shaw.”
“It was designed to create cascading sensor disagreement followed by control-law degradation.”
“What’s final phase?”
“I never saw final phase.”
Rebecca slammed her hand against the armrest.
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“What does Delta target?”
“Pitch first. Roll second.”
“And after?”
“Engine data.”
Mercer looked at the engine display.
Both engines normal.
Then engine one’s N1 indication flickered.
Rebecca felt cold.
“David.”
“I see it.”
Engine one thrust reading dropped.
The actual engine sound did not change.
False indication.
Maybe.
Or early failure.
Engine two then showed temperature spike.
Shaw spoke rapidly.
“Do not react to single-source engine indications unless confirmed independently.”
Mercer cross-checked.
“Actual thrust stable.”
Rebecca understood the attack.
Not just against the airplane.
Against the pilots.
Flood them with contradictory information.
Make them choose which instruments to believe.
Eventually force a wrong decision.
It was a psychological weapon built out of uncertainty.
“Who created Delta?” Rebecca asked.
Shaw hesitated.
“Victor Dane.”
Rebecca knew that name too.
Helix program director.
Senior executive.
The man who had chaired the internal review after Evan’s crash.
The man who had looked Rebecca in the eyes and told her grief was distorting her judgment.
“Dane is still at Helix?”
“Chief technology officer.”
Rebecca laughed once.
No humor.
“Of course.”
Mercer asked, “Is he aboard?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he would never put himself on an airplane he intended to break.”
Rebecca stared at the device.
“Then who is?”
“The man you restrained works for him. His name is Cole Rainer.”
Rebecca looked toward the cabin.
“Why attack you?”
“Because I took this device before departure.”
“You stole it?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“Heathrow maintenance access.”
Mercer’s head snapped toward the interphone.
“You breached airport security?”
“I had contractor credentials.”
“You planted yourself on this flight.”
“I followed Rainer.”
Rebecca’s anger rose.
“And you knew I was booked.”
“Yes.”
“You could have warned authorities.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
Shaw’s voice broke.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Rebecca went silent.
He continued.
“Six years ago I signed the report that blamed Evan Cole because Victor Dane showed me photographs of my wife leaving our daughter’s school. I was a coward.”
Rebecca stared at the panel.
“I have spent every day since trying to find something that would prove what happened.”
“Then why now?”
“Because Dane scheduled this flight as a live demonstration.”
Mercer frowned.
“To whom?”
“Potential buyers.”
The cockpit went still.
Rebecca whispered, “Buyers for what?”
“A system capable of remotely destabilizing civilian aircraft while making the event look like pilot error.”
The enormity hit them.
Not one airplane.
Not one revenge scheme.
A weapon.
Mercer asked, “Who are the buyers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they onboard?”
“Possibly.”
Rebecca thought of nearly three hundred passengers.
Families.
Students.
Business travelers.
Children.
Someone among them might be watching the demonstration.
“Why would they risk buyers’ lives?”
“They may not know this is the aircraft.”
Mercer’s voice hardened.
“Or they may have parachutes?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“On a commercial 787? Unlikely.”
“Then perhaps the demonstration wasn’t supposed to crash us.”
Shaw said nothing.
Rebecca asked, “Was it supposed to stop before loss of control?”
Still nothing.
“Shaw?”
“I think the original plan was to force an emergency diversion.”
“Why?”
“To prove they could dictate where an aircraft landed.”
Mercer stared at the route.
The false messages had pushed them north.
Toward Keflavik.
Rebecca understood.
“Someone wanted us at a specific airport.”
Shaw said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca looked at Shannon.
East.
Safe.
Or safer.
Mercer committed to the diversion.
Then a new problem appeared.
Fuel.
The unexpected maneuvers and lower altitude had increased burn.
Still enough for Shannon.
But margins were shrinking.
“How long?” Rebecca asked.
“Forty-seven minutes.”
She looked at Lily’s seat location on the cabin diagram without meaning to.
Forty-seven minutes felt like a lifetime.
Then Shannon control came on frequency.
“Atlantic 217, be advised runway obstruction removal delayed. Estimated reopening forty-five minutes.”
Mercer closed his eyes briefly.
Rebecca calculated.
Hold forty-five minutes?
Maybe.
With degraded systems?
Dangerous.
“Alternate?”
“Cork.”
“Distance?”
“Longer than Shannon.”
“Military?”
“RAF bases across the UK, but fuel margin.”
Rebecca said, “Land Shannon even if runway partially obstructed.”
“We don’t know what’s obstructing it.”
Controller answered soon enough.
A cargo aircraft had collapsed nose gear near an intersection.
Main runway unusable.
Secondary runway too short for their current landing weight.
Mercer checked numbers.
“Not enough.”
Rebecca studied fuel.
“What about Prestwick?”
“Possible.”
Longer.
Weather deteriorating.
But runway suitable.
They turned northeast.
Then engine two actually changed.
This time Rebecca heard it.
A subtle drop in sound.
Mercer looked at the instruments.
“Engine two thrust loss.”
False?
Real?
They checked independent parameters.
Real.
“What caused that?” Rebecca asked.
Shaw’s voice came through.
“Could be Delta.”
“You said the gateway is isolated.”
“The sequence may already be resident.”
Mercer began engine procedures.
Thrust fluctuated.
Recovered.
Then dropped again.
Rebecca felt the airplane yaw.
“One engine may be compromised.”
Mercer looked at fuel and range.
Prestwick suddenly seemed far.
Keflavik even farther.
Rebecca pulled charts.
“Any closer runway?”
Mercer hesitated.
“There’s one.”
“Where?”
“West of Ireland.”
“Civilian?”
“No.”
“Military?”
“Yes.”
“Length?”
“Enough.”
“Then why are we hesitating?”
Mercer looked at her.
“Because it’s closed.”
Rebecca stared.
“Closed as in no operations?”
“Closed as in decommissioned.”
“Runway condition?”
“Unknown.”
Rebecca looked at the map.
It was their only reachable strip before the engine problem worsened.
“How long?”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
The interphone rang.
Monica.
Her voice shook for the first time.
“Captain, we have smoke in the rear cabin.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Of course.
Mercer asked, “Source?”
“Unknown.”
Shaw shouted through the other line.
“That isn’t Delta.”
Rebecca looked at Mercer.
Fire changed everything.
Smoke meant land.
Immediately.
Mercer pointed toward the abandoned military field.
“Twenty-three minutes.”
Rebecca looked at engine two.
Then at the smoke warning.
Then at their fuel.
“No.”
Mercer turned.
“What?”
“We don’t have twenty-three minutes.”
She tapped a smaller symbol on the chart.
A narrow strip sat on a remote Atlantic island.
Mercer stared.
“That’s not rated for us.”
“Length?”
“Marginal.”
“Surface?”
“Concrete.”
“Approach?”
“None.”
Rebecca looked through the windshield.
Clouds thickened ahead.
Mercer shook his head.
“We cannot put a 787 there.”
Rebecca looked at the smoke warning again.
Then engine two rolled back to idle.
She spoke quietly.
“We may not get to choose.”
Mercer stared at the island.
Then the radio crackled with a voice neither of them recognized.
“Atlantic 217, do not attempt that landing.”
Rebecca reached for the microphone.
“Identify yourself.”
May you like
The voice answered.
“Major Lawson, if you land there, your daughter will die.”
