Maximum Reach

review.

PROLOGUE

The Boeing Business Jet was plunging down through the skies like a free falling star. There was an immediate urgency to get the aircraft on the ground as soon as possible. Mere minutes could spell disaster. Everyone in the cockpit was quiet and absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Bill, the co-pilot at the time, was worried that the wings would be shearing off the fuselage any minute, even though he had complete confidence in Austin’s abilities as a pilot. He had known him a few years now and they had flown together on several occasions with a previous company. If he had to trust someone in the cockpit of an airplane, it would be Austin. Today, however, he had his doubts for Austin was pushing the aircraft beyond its limits and exceeding every design parameter, but he accepted they had no other choice. He had faith, of sorts, and was praying that God would protect them.

How many people have to die because of me, Austin was thinking as he hand flew the midsize jet?

Austin had had to disengage the autopilot and disconnect the auto throttles to manually operate the aircraft because the automated flight systems would not allow the autopilot to exceed the safety parameters. The Mach airspeed indicator was hovering right at point nine five, only a half decimal point from the speed of sound, the aircraft was shuddering intensely and the Mach airspeed warning bell was chirping continuously warning him that his speed was excessive and corrective action had to be made.

Austin had to monitor the speed very closely, for exceeding the speed of sound would most definitely shear off the wings. He could have shut the warning system down by pulling the circuit breaker, but opted to keep it on as a reminder of the disastrous situation. Besides, that was the only noise in the aircraft other than the whistling sound of slicing through the air at such an excessive speed. He knew that everyone would be distracted by the noise and become a little annoyed. He would much rather have them annoyed than sitting in silence and becoming panicked. It allowed him to concentrate on the problem at hand.

He knew that the Boeing Aircraft Company built the best aircraft in the world. He ought to know, he had been piloting Boeings for most of his flying life, more than any other make of aircraft, and today he was depending on them. He knew that any other airplane would probably have broken apart by now and they would all have been dead, but with this airplane there was a chance of survival. He was praying he’d make it. He had to make it.

I plan on keeping the speed up until ten miles from the airport Austin told Bill, who was himself a captain but acting as co-pilot for this trip.

When I deploy full spoilers I want you to watch the speed very carefully and extend the gear and flaps just as we reach their maximum limits. Let’s pray that uncle Boeing knew what he was doing when he built this baby, and maybe we’ll make it in one piece.

I’ll go along with your plan, Austin, but I don’t really think we can slow down quickly enough from only ten miles out.

Let’s hope we can Bill, but let’s use maximum braking just in case we are a bit too fast at touchdown, referring to the automatic brake selector.

We have to make it; Austin thought to himself, I can’t let anything happen to Emily, his wife, the woman who had brought him back from the verge of insanity after he lost his first wife Megan and daughter Miranda. Emily is a wonderful person, she would do anything to help others, and how can she be put in a situation like this?

Emily and her daughter, Presley, had brought living back into his life. Thankfully, Presley was not on the flight, Austin thought. Although Presley would still have her Grandmother, she would grow up an orphan and he knew all too well what that felt like. He was not about to let that happen, not if he had any control over the situation. And Mrs. Johnson, Emily’s mother, how could he again put her through the suffering she had known for fifteen years? She had just found her daughter after years of pain and anguish. He didn’t want her dreams to be taken away from her now. What about the Russian girl, Tatyana? What would her father, the Chief of Customs at Moscow‘s Sheremetyevo airport, think of him? . The man would be devastated. He had trusted Austin and Emily to take good care of his daughter, yet here they were putting her life in jeopardy and for what? That girl had recently been instrumental in saving his life. How could he let anything happen to her?

He couldn’t let those assholes win, but if he didn’t make it to the ground soon, they would win and all the people that he held so dear would be dead, and God knows how many more people would die with them.

He was sick of scumbags killing Americans just out of envy. They would call this disaster a success, and hide behind their disparate religions, but it all boiled down to envy and believing that killing innocent Americans made them look heroic to themselves and their fellow assassins. Scum the lot of them.

A situation like this was not unfamiliar territory for him. How many times had he attacked a target when he was in the US Air Force? The only difference was if he missed the target during the practice runs in the Air Force there was no harm done and he always had the opportunity to make another run. Not here though, this was a one shot deal and he was mentally trying to calm himself. He could not afford to be nervous in this type of situation. This was the ultimate test; the test of his life. He knew he was up to the task but had to rely on luck to be on his side. He cleared his thoughts and tried to relax.

Austin glanced back to where Emily was sitting on the jump seat behind him in the cockpit and gave her a reassuring smile.

Emily smiled back trying to convey a brave attitude even though she was terrified. She somehow knew that she could not disguise her fears from Austin, no matter how brave and calm she tried to look.

She would have preferred to have Jason and Rebecca with her in the cockpit, letting them watch this extraordinary man at the controls of his aircraft rather than have them in the passenger section with the body of a dead Al-Qaeda operative. Rebecca was the friend she had cherished through their college years, the friend that sacrificed much for her and helped her build her advertising business in Chicago. She was the only family she had known for many years and it had been Rebecca who nursed her through her ordeal with the brutal orchestra conductor in London. Jason, the man Rebecca married, had helped her and Austin build their business into a world-renowned empire; but, unfortunately, the cockpit was not large enough to accommodate all of them safely. She had to smile at the thought, because Austin actually looked collected whilst handling the controls and discussing plans for the situation. Besides, Jason was too busy trying to tend his wounds and she knew Rebecca would not leave his side. The fight that sonofabitch put up was a little more than Jason could handle alone, finally Austin had come to help, but Jason had still taken a good beating. What about Tatyana, she would love to have her watch Austin handle this tense situation. The girl had become a member of their family and they loved her as much as she loved them. Emily wanted the whole world to see what she saw in her husband; her man! Her savior! Her lover! The smile did not go unnoticed.

How, in hell, did I manage to get myself in this predicament, Austin was thinking just as Bangor, Maine airport was becoming visible, with his speed still reading three hundred and fifty miles per hour.

Dear God, we are going to make it Austin thought, while Bill was almost certainly fearful of a negative outcome.

One thing they both knew was in their favor, the weather was perfect and the airport had become visible when they were still thirty miles away, but time was running out. The Al-Qaeda operative’s final stroke had been to activate the timer on the nuclear explosive device just before Austin put a bullet through his head.

The timer was ticking.

CHAPTER 1 – BETRAYAL

The first explosion on that early spring day of 1982 went off at exactly six in the morning. Residents at the northern Lebanese refugee camp of Nahr-Al-Bared were jolted awake. The explosion itself was not something unusual; they were used to hearing them occasionally amongst the sound of gunfire. This after all was a base for Palestinian guerillas fighting the Israelis.

What jolted them awake was the severity of the explosion. It was unusually loud and powerful, almost throwing them off their beds.

As people tried to gather themselves and walk towards their balconies to check it out, a second explosion sent them scrambling either for their weapons or to a safe hiding place. They knew exactly what was happening.

The Israelis were here.

The Israelis were fed up with all the incursions into their country by Palestinian guerillas coming through Lebanon. They had suffered so many innocent civilian casualties, so when the latest attack took the lives of several school children, they decided to invade Lebanon and solve their problem once and for all. They knew the Lebanese authorities did not have the ability or the will to hand the culprits over or even arrest them. The army was too weak, having been deliberately kept in this state under the Syrian occupation. Some people might argue that the Syrian presence in Lebanon was for security reasons and the protection of the Lebanese, but it was an occupation. Nothing happened in the country without the approval of Syria.

The invasion of Lebanon had been planned years earlier; however, like many of their other plans the Israelis had been forced to shelve it as a result of international influence. After the latest guerilla incursion, kidnappings and rocket attacks the Israelis had had enough. The plan was dusted off and put into action.

Israel had a lot of experience dealing with the Palestinians. They knew they had one chance to hit them hard and had to attack on all fronts. They could not allow them to escape into Syria to come back and fight again at a later date, even though the Syrians kept them under very tight control. The Palestinians in Syria did not have the freedoms they enjoyed in Lebanon – freedoms that grew from the weak Lebanese government who did not have enough power to deal with the Israelis, nor the Palestinians. They had taken full advantage of that.

While the main Israeli military force had to come through the south of Lebanon, the Palestinians were scattered in many different camps around the country, so they sent their air force and helicopter gun-ships, backed by rockets and artillery, to take care of the rest.

The Palestinians fought with all the munitions they had been given and the war opened up on other fronts. The Israelis had already accomplished their mission against the refugee camps and their armored division was inside the capital, Beirut.

The Syrians proved to be no match for the Israelis. It was a war of technology. It was a dogfight between the American built F-16’s and the Russian built MIGs, and the MIGs were no match for the far superior F-16’s. There were roughly 150 aircraft on each side, but the Israeli fighters shot down 86 Syrian aircraft, with no loss to themselves.

The leader of the Palestinian movement in the north knew what had caused those explosions. With his seventeen-year old son by his side, they looked through the window and saw droves of the helicopter gun-ships firing at their targets with deadly accuracy. His son, Abbas, ran and grabbed his Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifle and headed for the door and only did he stop when he heard his father scream after him.

Why father, he asked? I want to fight like everyone else.

Come here and see this, my son, his father said. You will soon understand.

Abbas moved toward his father and peered through the dusty window. What he saw made his blood boil over. Two of his father’s best friends, the second and third in command of the camp, were accompanying the Israelis, leading them towards the compound, and pointing at their house.

I want you to hide in the secret place my son. They should not find you.

I will not hide unless you come with me, pleaded Abbas.

If I come with you, they will not stop looking until they find and kill us both.

But no one knows about the hiding place, not even your friends.

I know my son, but unless they find one of us, they will not stop until they do. You know as well as I do, they cannot afford to give up.

I would rather die with you, father.

Listen to me, son. I have lived a long and productive life and fulfilled my duty to my people and my homeland. Now is your turn to do the same and take over. Just think of what will happen to our people if those two traitors manage to take control of the organization. Our families will be slaughtered. You have to stay alive.

Abbas listened to his father in utter desperation. He knew he was right. He had to stay alive.

Abbas and his father took another look outside and saw their enemies getting very close to the house.

Abu Abbas, the father, hurried to the refrigerator, grabbing a bag on the way and started filling it with food and water while Abbas, entering the closet, made his climb up into the coffin.

Abu Abbas handed the bag to his son with tears in his eyes.

Remember son, I will always love you and please remember what we always talked about. Never trust anyone my son. I am counting on you to avenge my death.

I promise I shall father, replied Abbas with tears streaming down his face.

Abbas stole a last glance at his father just before he closed the door to the coffin. His heart was breaking.

A few seconds after his father shut the door to the closet Abbas heard the front door burst open. After the screaming and commotion settled down, he heard the whole interrogation. At many instances he wanted to jump to his father’s aid, but every time he started to move, he remembered his father’s last words, I am counting on you, son, and he would contain himself.

Abbas never knew anyone could cry so deeply in silence. He listened.

The torture went on for at least thirty minutes, which passed slowly, like hours, and it seemed the only thing his father’s deputies wanted to know was his son’s whereabouts.

You better tell us where Abbas is, they would demand as they continued to beat and torture him.

I will tell you again, he heard his father respond. As soon as I heard the first explosion, I knew what was happening and told my son to run. I don’t know where he went.

Liar, the other one would scream. I was watching your house and never saw him leave.

Then you must be blind, because he is not here.

The men would search the house again. Abbas heard them come into the closet at least three or four times and he would hold his breath each time.

Abbas was lying in the coffin – praying that the Israelis would take his father away. He knew that would be the only possible scenario where his father might stay alive. He knew that his father’s friends would kill him where he stood.

He heard it.

He heard the shot that killed his father and, not really surprised, he heard the Israelis objecting to the killing. They argued that they would have made him talk once they had taken him into custody in Israel. He also heard his father’s friends argue that they could not take that chance.

For two unending days he kept hearing someone come into the house and search for him again and again. He had enough food and water to last him a week if he needed it. He only ate and drank when he could no longer stand the hunger pains or the thirst. He had no place to relieve himself and was able to hold off until the second day before he had no choice. He soiled himself.

Abbas was wondering how long he would have to stay in the coffin before he could dare to come out, when he heard an explosion that rocked the house. It was the third day. He felt everything move and it took him a few seconds to realize that the house had actually been blown up. The concussion was so severe as to disorient him. He thought it was the end for him, and was furious for not having put up a fight that first day. If he were going to die, he should have died fighting with a gun in his hand alongside his beloved father; fighting for what they both believed in.

To his surprise, things settled down. He knew he was under a pile of rubble and could not believe the coffin had saved his life. He remained where he was for a few more hours until he heard no more voices and everything had become silent. He felt it must be nightfall. He made the decision to wait one more day. He would try to free himself the following night.

Abbas reminisced about the day they built the hiding place. It had been seven years earlier. His father had worked most of his life at a pastry shop, saving every pound and piastre to buy this house. He worked at the famous Phoenicia Patisserie, baking their pastries. Even though the owner of the shop treated his father kindly, Abbas never considered that he treated him fairly. His father had made that shop famous with his delicious pastries and Abbas always thought that he should have been made a partner, even though his father tried to explain to him that it didn’t work that way. Also, he always resented the way the other employees treated his father. Just because he was a Palestinian, they treated him as if he were an intruder in their society. Oh, how he hated them. He hated all Lebanese and swore to himself that someday, no matter how long it took, he would make them pay.

*****

Abbas recalled the day they started on the coffin. After the main structure of the house went up, his father took him there on a Sunday, when the builders were not working, and built the hiding place. He thought his father would build the coffin in the ground and was surprised to see him build it inside the new house, and place it on top of the closet. It was heavy but his father had managed to lift it into position.

The first place they would look would be the ground, he remembered his father saying. The second place would be the closet, but usually behind the clothes. What we are going to do is build this haven above the top shelf and a little recessed, my son, where no one would think to look.

Abbas remembered it was extremely hard building the thing and, even though he was only ten years old at the time, he admired his father’s determination. When they finished, it was large enough for both of them, if they made no movements, and lay with their food and water on their chests.

Four days lying still in one place is not easy. One could readily go insane, so Abbas had to occupy his mind to prevent that from happening. Four days is a long time to reflect and mull over the events that had just happened. Four days seemed like an eternity. A lot can be planned during eternity.

Abbas did not remember much of his childhood. He had tried to forget all the misery he had been through. All he could remember was moving from one refugee camp to another, never having enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. He remembered how his father would take whatever clothes he had and wrap them round his son to keep him warm, shivering himself in the cold. He loved his father. He adored his father, his dead father. Revenge consumed his whole being.

The first time he remembered having anything was when they arrived at this camp and his father went to work at the pastry shop.

Abbas remembered his first trip with his father into Israel. It was the first time he had come to know the ruthlessness his father possessed. He witnessed him killing women and children without any remorse. It frightened him, but then it was explained that they were only Jews and if the shoe were on the other foot, they would do the same thing to them. He was reminded how those people had taken their homes away, thrown them out of their own country and turned them into refugees.

It was never told to him that after World War II, the Jews were buying up the properties in Palestine and when the Palestinian authorities realized they were actually buying the whole country, they tried to put a stop to it by taking the land and homes back by force, even after they had been compensated and the properties legally bought.

He was reminded constantly of how many Palestinians had died in the struggle. He was fourteen at the time. Since that time in his life he had been groomed to replace his father in the event anything happened and he was killed or captured.

To test the coffin they built, Abbas remembered the day, his father had told his mother they were going on another mission and, while she was out shopping, he and his father climbed into it. The reasoning was, that if his mother could not find them or hear them, chances were no one else would and it would be safe enough.

Abbas would never forget that weekend. His mother returned later in the day accompanied by a man. It took his father a while to recognize the voice, but recognize it he did. They lay there listening to the adulterous affair – every sigh, every rustle and every moan. For the first time in his life, Abbas saw his father cry. He saw the man he thought invincible, cry in silence like a little child. He wanted to kill his mother for doing that. He remembered that day like it was yesterday. He was not quite fifteen.

His father had inserted a sound booster on the coffin. He wanted to know what was going on outside the coffin if they ever found the need to use it. By using earphones, they could hear even the faintest noise in the room. He remembered how impressed he was with his father’s attention to the minute details.

On their next mission into Israel, his father made sure to take the man with him. He never returned. Everyone assumed that the Israelis had killed him, but Abbas was not so sure. A few months later, his father threw his mother out. Just as well. He remembered never talking to her again no matter how much she tried to contact him. She did however know why. His father faced her with the truth without revealing the existence of the coffin. He just told her that the mission was scrubbed that weekend and he saw her with the man.

Four days of reflection; Abbas had plenty of time to