Osama Bin Laden did not like the expression on the face of his chief of operations when the man came into his office after knocking on the door.
‘’What is it, Musab?’
‘’I have bad news about our planned operation in the United States: our main operators who were learning to fly planes there were found and arrested by the American FBI. What is left of our network there is now being hunted down by the Americans.’
‘’WHAT? HOW COULD THE AMERICANS HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT OUR
OPERATION?’
‘’We are not sure, Amir. However, my assistant reminded me that the Americans have been in possession for decades already of documents supposedly brought from the future, documents which describe History prior to the Christian year 2012 in detail.
Maybe the Americans used those documents from the future to predict our attack and kill it before we could launch it.’
Still fuming, Osama Bin Laden did have to agree that this was a plausible explanation for this disaster. However, abandoning his ideas of making the Americans pay for the many
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insults to Islam they had committed was out of the question. He finally looked back at his chief of operations and pointed an index at him.
‘’Find out another way to kill many Americans, a way we never used before.
Then the Americans will not be able to predict what we will do.’
‘’A new way… Er, yes, Amir.’ said Musab al Zarkawi, bowing to Bin Laden before leaving his office. As he walked down the hallway of the house towards the room housing his operations center, Musab scratched his head.
‘’A new way to kill many Americans…’
06:21 (West Coast Time)
Prototype workshop/hangar, Hiller Aircraft Plant Fairchild D. International Airport, Port Angeles Washington State, U.S.A.
‘’Get us at least a few first customers for our SKYTRUCK in Europe, Elliot: we will need orders to at least recoup the costs of designing and developing our newest baby.’
Elliot Goulding, Hiller’s Vice-President for Sales, nodded his head once while shaking hands with Jeff Hiller as they stood next to the SKYTRUCK prototype.
‘’I already have a few potential customers interested in our new aircraft. I sent a few weeks ago offers and invitations to come and look at our SKYTRUCK to dozens of airlines and governments who will have commercial representatives at the Le Bourget Air Show5. Since our aircraft occupies a niche that no other aircraft manufacturer has been able to fill yet, I am confident that we will have a good success at Le Bourget.’
‘’I believe so as well, Elliot. I saw that you loaded aboard our prototype a number of scale models of the various types of mission pods we designed for the SKYTRUCK.’
‘’Correct! I wish that we could have had a second prototype ready to go to Le Bourget with our first one, so that we could display in real life our general cargo pod, to supplement the search and rescue and waterbomber pod carried by our first prototype.
However, I am confident that demonstrating our S.A.R. pod will be enough to wet the appetite of many potential customers.’
5 Le Bourget Air Show : Aerospace display held every two years in Le Bourget Airport, near Paris, France. The Le Bourget Air Show is the biggest such aerospace display in the World.
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‘’I think so as well, Elliot. Well, have a nice trip and enjoy yourself in Paris.’
‘’Thanks, Jeff!’
With his two suitcases and three boxes of printed advertising booklets already inside the prototype, Goulding then went to the forward left side airstair door of the aircraft and climbed aboard the SKYTRUCK, which was already fully fueled and checked out for its long trip to France. Inside, he went to the cockpit, where the crew was already sitting in the ten seats installed there in two rows: a front row of four seats for the pilot, copilot, flight engineer and mission specialist and a second row of six seats lining the back wall of the cockpit. Since the SKYTRUCK was designed so that a major portion of its fuselage-cum-main wing could be quickly changed to accommodate various specialized mission pods and since it was relatively slow compared to jet aircraft and thus needed to carry a relief crew for long trips, those extra seats only helped add flexibility of use to the aircraft. Goulding then smiled to Ingrid Dows, who was occupying the pilot’s seat.
‘’Well, I believe that we are ready to go, Ingrid.’
‘’We indeed are, Elliot!’ replied Ingrid before signaling to the technician driving the aircraft tractor linked to her aircraft that he could start pulling the SKYTRUCK out of its hangar. As the aircraft started moving, Goulding went to sit in one of the back-row seats, with the three members of the relief crew occupying other seats of that row. As he buckled his safety harness, Goulding smiled to Elizabeth Gardner, the designated relief copilot for this flight.
‘’I can’t wait to see how the public and commercial and government representatives will react to our SKYTRUCK. It may not be the prettiest aircraft but no other aircraft can do what it can in terms of capabilities.’
‘’Who else produces an aircraft that can deliver up to thirty tons of payload at the vertical, without the need for an airfield or even a dirt runway? Apart from various government coast guards around the World, I believe that our aircraft will be perfect for charter airlines, which have to transport a mix of cargo and passengers between points which often have only limited landing facilities. The trick for us will be to convince our prospective customers that buying our SKYTRUCK will mean more profits for them in the long run.’
‘’And that’s where I will operate my magic, Miss Gardner. This trip will undoubtedly be one of the most important ones in my career in selling aircraft. By the way, Ingrid, how advanced are you on that other secret aircraft project you were working on?’
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‘’Quite advanced when it comes to its basic design, Elliot. However, I still have a lot of calculations and wind tunnel testing to do before we could start the detailed design work on it.’
‘’Secret aircraft project? What secret aircraft project?’ asked Shirley Slade, confused. Ingrid smiled at her reaction.
‘’Sorry if I hid things from most of you guys but I kept this latest project of mine as discrete as possible, in order not to see one of Hiller’s rivals steal my ideas. Basically, I have in mind a new type of jet airliner which could hopefully replace the thousands of Boeing B-717s, which I helped design some fifty years ago, which are presently in service around the World. My planned Hiller ARROW would be a VTOL-capable jet airliner with high subsonic speeds, transcontinental range and a capacity of around 250
to 300 passengers. It will be more economical to operate than the B-717, will be a bit faster, will have a longer range and will also have the benefit of not needing any runway or airport, since it will be a VTOL aircraft. It will also look a bit like our SKYTRUCK but with much sleeker lines. My main problem with that project though will be its production once it is tested and accepted in service. In view of the large number of B-717s which will be in need or replacement in the next few years, Hiller’s production capacity will never be sufficient to produce it, by a long shot. Me, Elliot and Jeff Hiller are presently studying the possibility of producing my future ARROW in collaboration with Boeing. We would build the more specialized variants of the ARROW, while Boeing could produce the basic airliner variants for us under licence. That way, Hiller would still profit from those bulk sales while not having to build a brand new assembly plant for the ARROW, something that would be way outside the financial capabilities of our company.’
‘’That’s right, Ingrid! Only twenty years ago, the Hiller Corporation was nearly moribund and produced only a few light helicopters, that is until you showed up with your AIRCAR design. I am however confident that we will be able to present to Boeing a deal that will prove juicy enough for them to sign on.’
Goulding then fell silent and concentrated on what he could see through the windows of the cockpit section as the SKYTRUCK was being towed to a spot in front of its workshop/hangar. As soon as the aircraft tractor was uncoupled from it, Ingrid started one by one her six powerful turboshaft engines, then conducted a pre-takeoff checklist with her copilot before starting to roll towards one end of the main airport runway. It normally would have taken off in short roll mode but this time the SKYTRUCK took off in conventional mode, being heavily loaded with its maximum internal fuel capacity of thirty
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tons and with Ingrid wanting to burn as little fuel as needed. It thus rolled on the runway for about 700 meters before rising off the ground, to then turn towards the East after taking some altitude.
16:08 (Eastern Standard Time)
Bridge of the cruise liner PRINCESS OF THE SEAS
Approaching the coast of New Jersey, on the American East Coast Captain Roger Knudsen was quite satisfied with how this cruise trip to the Bahamas with some 3,442 passengers aboard had gone. Launched some two years ago, his 68,000-ton, 311-meter-long liner had shown a few minor mechanical glitches during the voyage but that was to be expected in such a young ship, which also happened to be the first of its class to be built. Besides, his engineering team had proved very professional and skilled in dealing with those minor problems. Now, he was only a few hours from completing the nine-day trip and from docking in New York. Using his binoculars to check for the ship traffic in his vicinity, he saw two ships in the distance: one cargo ship heading East and one large tanker ship heading West on a roughly parallel course to the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS and slightly ahead of it. The liner was in fact catching up to the tanker ship quite fast, as it appeared to sail at only half the speed of the liner. That didn’t surprise Knudsen one bit: his liner was quite fast, while typical tanker ships, especially when loaded down with oil, had quite a low top speed.
Pivoting on the spot, Knudsen then looked at the approaching American coast, barely visible on the western horizon. He was still looking westward with his binoculars when he heard his bridge officer exclaim himself.
‘’What is this idiot doing?’
Snapping his head to his right, he quickly saw why his bridge officer had spoken up: the tanker ship was now in the process of turning hard to its left, a move that would make it cut directly across the path of the liner. Anger immediately flared in Knudsen at that most unprofessional display of poor seamanship and of disregard for the most basic navigation rules.
‘’Mister Chiarelli, blow our horn twice to remind that idiot that we are here.’
‘’Yes, Captain!’
Knudsen then watched for how the captain of that tanker ship would react on hearing the horn from the liner. To his complete surprise and incredulity, that tanker then
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seemed to accelerate at maximum power while heading straight for the PRINCESS OF
THE SEAS.
‘’Is that captain mad? HELM, VEER EIGHTY DEGREES TO PORT! MISTER
CHIARELLI, CALL OUR ENGINES TO FULL POWER!’
For the next minute, Knudsen kept hoping to see that tanker ship veer away but that was in vain. A nasty, scary thought then came to his mind.
‘’THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL ATTEMPT AT RAMMING US! MISTER
CHIARELLI, CLOSE ALL WATERTIGHT DOORS AT ONCE! SOUND THE COLLISION
ALARM!’
An alarm started ringing all over the ship the moment that the bridge officer punched the large red button which would make the watertight doors across the whole ship close tight. The passengers, who were either in their cabins, on the open deck or in the boutiques and restaurants of the ship, mostly froze on hearing the alarm or looked at each other, confused. The members of the crew, the majority of which were service personnel like cooks, maids and janitors, also reacted slowly and in a confused manner, having only minimal training in emergency drills. As for the sea-trained officers and sailors of the crew, they did react properly and quickly but there was very little they could do right now about the impending collision. The frantic helmsman of the liner nearly managed to avoid the collision with the tanker ship but ‘nearly’ was not good enough.
The 110,000-ton tanker ship, fully loaded with Saudi crude oil, impacted at a speed of fourteen knots the right side of the liner, close to its stern. The massive bow of the tanker, with its prominent underwater bow bulge, ripped through the hull of the cruise liner, destroying its propellers and rudders and breaking the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS
in two, with a sixty-meter-long section of the stern breaking off and sinking in a mere minute. The colossal impact threw to the deck every crewmember and passenger on the liner, with many of those suffering wounds from slamming against walls, corners or pieces of furniture, or from falling down sets of stairs. The last-minute closing of the watertight doors however saved the whole ship from sinking outright in minutes and what was left of the ship continued to float, although flooding of some compartments made the liner take a pronounced list to starboard. As for the tanker ship, it survived the impact mostly intact, save for a crushed and deformed bow section. However, that crushed bow caused the forward-most crude oil holds to start gushing highly flammable oil in large quantities into the sea, where it started to float in a progressively expanding layer.
Then came something possibly even more damaging than the collision itself. Shaken
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but only slightly wounded by the impact of the collision, one of the two Al-Qaeda operatives who had taken control of the bridge of the tanker ship ran down to the open weather deck, then started to run as fast as he could towards the bow. Once close to the part of the bow that had been crushed, the Al-Qaeda operative went to the railing on the starboard side and took a white phosphorus incendiary grenade from one of his pockets. Looking down at the oil now gushing out of the tanker’s forward tanks, the Saudi pulled out the safety pin of his grenade, then let it drop overboard while shouting as loud as he could.
‘’ALLAH U AKBAR!’
The moment that the incendiary grenade burst in the water, projecting white phosphorus around and over the floating crude oil, it ignited at once the tons of crude oil already in the water, creating a mighty flash of flames which started to blacken the white hull of the liner and roasted alive the unlucky passengers and crewmembers nearest to the tanker.
With the sea itself being apparently on fire and with the layer of floating and burning oil steadily getting larger, the panicked passengers and crewmembers ran towards the bow of the ship in order to escape the flames’ searing heat.
Some four kilometers away, on the bridge of the cargo ship M.V. SOUTHERN
STAR, Captain James Whitby could only look with unmitigated horror at the tragedy that had just happened within sight of his ship. With both the tanker ship and the cruise liner now partially engulfed in flames, he finally shook himself into action and shouted at his helmsman.
‘’HELM, TURN TO HARD STARBOARD! MACHINES FULL AHEAD! GET US
TO CLOSE TO THE BOW OF THE CRUISE LINER! WE WILL NEED TO BE AS
CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO IT TO HELP THOSE POOR PEOPLE EVACUATE THEIR
SHIP.’
‘’AYE, CAPTAIN!’
Whitby then ran to the radio sets installed near the helm and picked up the handset of the HF radio tuned to the International Distress frequency.
‘’MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS THE CARGO SHIP M.V. SOUTHERN
STAR, PRESENTLY LOCATED 92 NAUTICAL MILES EAST-SOUTH-EAST OF NEW
YORK. A LARGE TANKER SHIP JUST COLLIDED WITH A CRUISE LINER AND
BOTH ARE NOW IN FLAMES. I AM GOING TO HELP AS MUCH AS I CAN BUT I WILL NEED HELP, LOTS OF IT. OVER!’
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To his relief, he got a response just after repeating his call.
‘’M.V. SOUTHERN STAR, this is the U.S. Coast Guard Center in Boston. Please describe the present situation, over.’
‘’To Coast Guard Boston: a large tanker ship heading West deliberately collided with a big cruise liner also heading West and apparently sheared off the stern section of the liner. The oil contained in the tanker ship then burst into flames. The cruise liner is still afloat but is listing to starboard and is partially in flame as well. I am now approaching the cruise liner in order to help evacuate the people aboard it, over.’
‘’SOUTHERN STAR, did you say that the tanker ship deliberately rammed the cruise liner, over?’
‘’Affirmative! The tanker turned hard port towards the liner, then kept changing course in order to intercept it. This was no accident, over.’
‘’We acknowledge, SOUTHERN STAR. We will immediately dispatch all the resources available in this sector. Please keep us appraised of the developments in this situation, over.’
‘’Will do! SOUTHERN STAR, out!’
James Whitby then put down the radio handset and used his binoculars to see how things were going on the cruise liner. Tears came to his eyes when he saw dozens of desperate people, unable to use the ship’s lifeboats because of the ship’s inclination, jump into the water, close to the floating layers of burning crude oil. He also could see hundreds more people packing the relatively small bow deck of the liner.
‘’The poor bastards. They will now have to choose between drowning or roasting alive.’
16:22 (Eastern Standard Time)
U.S. Coast Guard District One Operations Center Boston, Massachusetts
Commander Norman Keating started shouting orders around him as soon as he finished talking with the SOUTHERN STAR.
‘’Sound the alert to all our stations! Also advise District Five about this and ask for their help! Lieutenant Manning, send a general call on the International Distress Frequency, asking all ships and aircraft in the vicinity of New York to reroute and render assistance to this cruise liner as much as possible. Do we know the identity of that cruise liner?’
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‘’According to its last recorded position, it must be the PRINCESS OF THE
SEAS, which was returning from a cruise to the Bahamas, sir.’ answered a junior officer.
‘’According to its manifest, it was carrying 3,442 passengers, plus 1,186 crewmembers.’
Those numbers struck Keating hard: over 4,600 persons were now trapped on a burning and sinking cruise liner.
‘’Have we received any distress call from the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS?’
‘’Negative, sir! With the SOUTHERN STAR reporting that the tanker ship sheared off the stern section of the liner, the cruise ship probably lost instantly all power.’
‘’And what about that damn tanker ship?’
‘’We earlier noticed some forty minutes ago that the Saudi-registered tanker MEDINA, which was approaching the coast of New Jersey, switched off its locator beacon. We have tried to contact it ever since but we got no answers, sir.’
A black look appeared on Keating’s face as he digested that information.
‘’This indeed sounds like a deliberate terrorist attack. I will have to advise our headquarters in Washington about this. In the meantime, help direct all responding ships and aircraft towards the scene of that collision. Tell our own ships and aircraft that this was a probable terrorist attack against us and to treat any survivor from that tanker ship as potentially hostile.’
‘’Aye, sir!’
16:24 (Eastern Standard Time)
Logan International Airport, Boston