2020: Emergency Exit (48 page)

We knew the plane engines would draw a curious crowd but powered it up anyway, pulled out of the hangar, and rolled towards the distant runway. Sure enough, troops came scrambling out of a nearby building to see what the noise was. Fortunately, without reason to suspect any form of threat, they merely either headed back to bed, or wandered towards the tower to see what was going on. The explosion that greeted those who opened the tower door also took out the entire communication system. Similar explosions followed minutes later as we took off and the troops behind us scrambled to open the other hangar doors. As best they could, Lazzo and Danny had limited their options of both communication and pursuit.

We began our eight-hour, 2,800-mile, direct line flight towards Hawaii on a nearly full tank. Lazzo figured we’d be cutting it close, but with an approximate three-thousand-mile range, the C-130 should make it. It was what was coming behind us we were more worried about. The C-130 had no defense system. A one to two-hour head start would have to be enough. Lazzo told Danny most jet fighters could fly almost 1,400 miles an hour. If they knew where to find us, we’d never make it. Danny didn’t tell the rest of us that.

We were huddled in the back of the airplane with two brand new jeeps and crates of weapons. The events of the day, and for many of us the entire trip, were flashing through our minds like slideshows. We’d seen so many things we’d never dreamed of. The kids were scared but holding it together. Tara and I were snuggling for extra warmth, with Emily wedged between us. No one was talking. We were content to just sit together in the dark, to pray, and to wait—and pray. We’d made it this far. We only needed to make it a little bit further. But then, we all knew about the defense system protecting Hawaii. How were we supposed to get past it? Would we get shot down ourselves?

Nine hundred miles from Hawaii the first planes crossed our radar screen, but they didn’t seem to see us. Lazzo explained about the Integrated Defense Avionics system in C-130s. It was advanced technology, but other aircraft with the same system would be able to detect us. Some jets had it, others didn’t. Basically the system allowed aircraft to fly low over occupied enemy territory and map out troop movement and placement. It scrambled radio signals and bounced radar “flags” off inanimate objects. If we passed over a ship, our radar position could be redirected to that of the ship temporarily, something to that effect. It wasn’t new technology, but it was all we had.

An hour later, there were five dots on our radar screen. Three of them passed behind us and apparently didn’t see us, but the other two passed directly in front of us, and they definitely saw us. We were only 560 miles out now from the Hickam-Pearl Harbor Air Force Base. Danny was radioing every five minutes, desperately trying to reach someone in Hawaii. The airplanes circled around and flew by us one more time. The radio crackled, and we heard a voice speak in poor English. They were asking for a code word. We knew nothing of any code word and knew if we gave the wrong one we’d be shot down instantly. We ignored it, and Danny yelled back at us to put our parachutes on. He came back and helped strap us in as quickly as he could. He assisted Blake and Sam first, and they helped everyone else. Lazzo whistled at him and said, “Danny, they’re coming.”

“Open the back door!” Danny yelled. Lazzo flipped the lock switch and then released the back door. Danny tried the radio one more time and said, “Hawaii, this is Air Force One. Please respond.”

He was shocked when a voice replied.

EIGHTY-THREE: “Mayday”

“Go ahead Air Force One,” it said.

Danny had been about to put the radio down. Instead he squeezed the talk switch as Lazzo slugged his arm and pointed at the screen. Missiles had been fired. Danny screamed at the rest of us, “Hold on. Grab the kids.” We did as the plane rocked violently to the side. Most of us managed to hold on as two more explosions rocked the plane even more violently. These explosions jarred Mom, Isaac, Emily, and Kate loose, and they were launched across the back of the airplane. I heard Tara scream, and saw she wasn’t holding Emily anymore, but I couldn’t see where she’d gone. Isaac went straight out the door. Kate rolled across the floor of the cargo hold, bounced off the wall hard, and spun limply out the door. Mom caught a handhold momentarily by the back door but was barely holding on.

Dad was up instantly when Mom and Emily were separated from us. As I stood he shoved me back down and yelled, “Stay there!” Blake was second up and, as Isaac was sucked out, he too was running, with Dad, towards the back door. He had reached out for Kate, as she tumbled by, but he’d missed her and she disappeared out the back with Isaac. Blake grabbed a large bag off the wall, containing an inflatable raft, and threw it out the back door, launching himself out after it. At the same time Dad had caught up to Emily and was no more than a few feet from Mom. He had a firm hold on Emily, but he couldn’t hold on to her and reach Mom. He could only save one. “Don’t let her go!” Mom yelled at him. I watched in what seemed like slow motion as Mom seemed to intentionally let go and was sucked out the back door. She apparently didn’t want Dad to have to make that decision. She hit something hard on her way out, and Dad just held Emily tight. The rest of us were frozen in place.

Danny was back on the radio. “Mayday! We are an American plane with Americans on it.”

“Sorry, Air Force One, unless you have the president…” they replied.

“We have his daughters,” Danny cut in.

There was a pause. “What’s the code word?”

“Code word?” Danny screamed back.

“Yes, sir.”

“How the hell would I—” He paused. “Reagan, do you know a code word?” he yelled back at her. She shook her head. Lazzo punched him in the arm again and pointed at the screen. More missiles were inbound. Four this time. “Dammit,” Danny yelled. “We’re being shot at up here.”

“Sorry, sir. We can’t take the—” the voice began.

Then it occurred to Danny. “Tell the governor I need the Elephant Box.”

“The what?” the voice asked.

“Just tell him dammit!” Danny yelled back. “Elephant Box.”

Then to the rest of us he shouted, “Hold on again!”

Three of the missiles missed us, but the fourth was a direct hit to one of our left wing engines. It exploded into flames, and the plane spun through the air. Who knows how Lazzo was able to recover from that hit, but he managed to hold us marginally stable as we started to drop through the air. We were still four hundred miles from the airstrip. We’d be lucky to make it another hundred miles.

The planes were coming in again. We were a wounded duck, an easy target now. “We gotta clear out,” Danny yelled. We never heard another voice on the radio. Danny pulled everyone together and quickly paired us up. As the planes approached firing range, he sent us out the back, two by two. He threw three more of the large bags on the wall out after us, and then he grabbed Lazzo. “We can’t save this, man. We gotta go.” Lazzo stood and nodded. He turned with Danny to go, threw on his parachute, and started making his way towards the back. He was looking around for Danny but didn’t see him.

Figuring he’d already jumped, Lazzo turned around and headed back to the cockpit, apparently intent on piloting the plane away from us, and hopefully diverting the other planes. But then a solid blow to the back of his head knocked him out cold.

EIGHTY-FOUR: “Almost”

“Sorry, man,” Danny whispered in Lazzo’s ear. “I can’t let you do that.” Danny knew they didn’t have time to argue, and he’d considered Lazzo might try to give his life to save the rest of them. He only had one option. He knocked him out and dragged him to the back of the plane, pulling him out into the blue sky seconds before two more missiles hit the plane, and it splintered into a billion fiery pieces. Danny and Lazzo plummeted through the air. Suddenly there were four light streaks zipping towards them from Hawaii, followed by four more huge explosions around them. Danny shielded Lazzo as best he could, trying to get a grasp on what had just happened, while also aware they were closing in on the water. He grabbed Lazzo tightly and pulled his chute.

As the chute pulled them violently backwards, Danny dropped the last large bag he’d been carrying. It hit the water with a splash and burst open, converting into a raft. He and Lazzo landed shortly after it did, and Danny pulled him, still unconscious, through the water to the raft. There was debris all around them and no sign of the rest of us. Someone had fired at the remaining fighter planes from Hawaii. Whether they would fire at us as well, we weren’t yet sure. But those fighters now were gone.

Blake never saw where Isaac went. For some reason he’d never pulled his chute, or it hadn’t opened, and Blake never saw him fall or land. Blake, however, made it to Kate in plenty of time to pull her chute and then pushed off of her to try to help Mom. But by the time he made it to her and pulled her chute they were too close to the water. They hit hard.

He shook the cobwebs from his own head as best he could and checked Mom for a pulse. There was none. He pulled her to the raft nonetheless, and then swam frantically for Kate. He reached her and pulled her back to the raft as well. After a few minutes of CPR, she coughed up a gallon of salt water and slowly came back around. Blake knelt beside her, relieved he’d saved at least one life, but crushed he hadn’t been able to save Mom or find any trace of Isaac. He leaned back against the edge of the raft and pulled Kate up to a sitting position—wrapping his arms around her—tears streaming down his face. Crushed…devastated…there were no words to sum up their emotions. But the two of them were safe. For now.

The rest of us made it safely down as well, and made our way into two of the other three rafts. The third one was splintered by shrapnel from the planes and sank. We were a few miles closer to Hawaii than Blake and Kate, but had nothing to paddle with. We could see them in the distance but were helpless to do anything about it. We just had to sit and wait.

Twenty minutes later we heard another plane coming. As it approached from the direction of the mainland, we saw another streak of light zip through the sky—from Hawaii—and strike the plane. It too erupted into flame.
Did that mean someone knew we were out here? Or did they just shoot anyone who got this close? We had to still be almost three hundred miles out.
For the next five hours we didn’t see any other aircraft, but then, off on the horizon, we saw boats coming our way from Hawaii’s general direction. Minutes later four jet fighters flew overhead, also from Hawaii. They flew circular patterns around us for the next half hour as the two boats—Coast Guard Cutters—approached us. The Cutters pulled up alongside us, and asked each of us to identify ourselves. They looked up our information one by one on some computer, and then apparently satisfied, allowed us onto the boat. We then continued on over to pick up Blake, Kate, and Mom.

As we approached Blake, Kate, and Mom, it was clear that Mom hadn’t survived the fall. It wasn’t surprising but that didn’t make it any less shocking, or the pain any less sharp. Dad collapsed into a heap, the first time I’d seen him actually cry since Sophie’s funeral. Pulling alongside their raft, Jenna helped Dad stand to assist Blake—through a flood of tears—slowly lift Mom into the Coast Guard boat. We knew Blake had done all he could. Dad even hugged him as he climbed into the boat. I heard them both say, “I’m sorry” at the exact same time. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for either of them, and I was standing right there.

No one else had reacted nearly as quickly or decisively as Blake had. He honestly had nothing to be sorry about. But what else could he say? It was the ultimate conflictive moment. None of us could have simultaneously felt any better or worse than we did. Mom had been so close to making it all the way.

Kate was now mostly recovered and was kneeling, with Hayley, beside Dad. Dad had developed a tight bond over the years with both of them, and no one knew more about what Mom meant to him than those two did.

The Coast Guard captain checked to make sure we were ready to go, and I looked at him like he was crazy. “No sir. We need to get the other boat.”

“Other boat?” he replied, turning to look at the radar. “There is no other boat.”

EIGHTY-FIVE: “Fox and the Hound”

“Yes, there…” I began to object while also looking at the screen.
Danny had to be out there!
But he was right. There was no other boat. “Do you have any idea where the plane went down?” I asked, knowing the wreckage had long since sunk.

The captain turned to his maps and tried to determine exactly where they were in regards to where the signal had been lost by the airplane. “Has to be about ten miles that way.”

“Two hundred sixty miles from land,” another officer added.

“Have you been over there yet?” I asked.

“No, sir,” he replied. “Nothing came up on our screens.”

“Let’s go,” I cut in. “Can we please at least check?”

“We don’t have security clearance,” the captain replied. “We’re well beyond our safety zone out here.”

As I started to object, Blake grabbed my arm. “Are you Coast Guard?” Blake asked the captain.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“Well you’ve got a US Marine out there,” Blake continued, pointing towards where the plane had gone down. “And he’d never leave you if the roles were reversed.”

That’s all it took. The captain turned and gave the order to his man on the radio to have the other Cutter follow us. We raced off in the direction of the flight’s path towards the islands. We saw nothing until we were almost right on top of them. Then one of the captain’s men yelled, “Man in the water!”

One man?
I scrambled to see who it was, as a voice shouted out again. “Correction…two men in the water!”

We hurried to the side of the boat, and as we approached we could see Danny treading water, holding Lazzo around the neck. The crew tossed out a line to Danny, who grabbed ahold of it. He pulled Lazzo over to the boat, and the crew helped the two of them up. It appeared as if Lazzo was either dead or unconscious, but fortunately he was neither. He merely didn’t know how to swim, and Danny had been forced to give him a quick lesson on the back-float. As soon as he was able to grab the boat ladder, he pulled himself out of the water. He was fine. But as soon as they helped him up on the deck, and he said, “Thank you,” there was a commotion. The captain started shouting orders, and several men came running towards us with guns.