H.M.S. Unseen (17 page)

“
Climb when you’re ready…cruise between 50,000 and 60,000 feet on track Sierra November
.”

Flight Engineer Pryor began the rearward transfer of the fuel, preparing for supersonic flight, and Brian Lambert pushed the throttles hard forward, on full power. The afterburners were fired up two at a time, as Concorde streaked through the sound barrier, smoothly accelerating to MACH-1.3.

Many passengers felt the two gentle nudges as the afterburners were ignited, and still others paused from the morning papers to listen to the sounds of the big engines changing slightly in tone. Bob Trueman wondered if he might hear the sizzle of a couple of cheeseburgers deep in the galley. He regarded sudden loss of weight much more seriously than he would ever have regarded sudden loss of altitude.

He and his team occupied a block of seven seats close to the front of the cabin—two doubles on either side of the aisle, row four; one single on the aisle, right behind in row five; another double for Bob alone, plus briefcases, on the other side, row five C and D.

Immediately in front of them was the unmistakable figure of the 1970s British pop icon Phil Charles, who was still recording at the age of fifty-five, with a reputed net worth of $300 million. The small, balding, unshaved figure sat unobtrusively with his pony-tailed manager. Both men wore T-shirts and leather jackets. The seats to their right, row three, C and D, were occupied by two sour-looking, willowy blondes in their mid-twenties, who might have been daughters, but were probably not.

Phil Charles’s long lifetime of philandering was a constant source of delight to London’s tabloid newspapers, mainly because he was such an unprepossessing individual with a plain and obvious vendetta against the shareholders of Gillette. He always looked dreadful to the middle-class eye.

Steve Dimauro had recognized him immediately and nodded a greeting, which was returned with a grin. In Steve’s opinion the scruffy-looking Phil might not have cut it with the willowy ones, but for that $300 million. “Sonofabitch can still sing, though,” he muttered as he took his seat on the aisle opposite the chief.

Way back in the aft section of the cabin was another pop singer, also British, the piano-playing rock star Shane Temple. He and Phil Charles wore nearly identical clothes, and they sang a lot of the same music. The difference was in the bank balance. Whereas Phil had never stopped being successful, deftly changing his style with the moment, but retaining his traditional sound, Shane had floundered in the eighties, and floundered more in the nineties, being reduced to working on the northern circuit of nightclubs, Skid Row to a pop icon.

His career had been begun again with a sensational rock-opera revival in the opening months of the new millennium. But times had been hard for a long time, and Shane was still a few hundred thousand pounds light of his next castle.

Concorde trip was a big event for him; a major recording session in New York might see him right back on top this year, and he had spent at least ten minutes cooperating with the airport press corps. Nonetheless, as they boarded the flight, his longtime manager, Ray Duffield, had groaned when he saw Phil Charles slumped in his seat reading the sports pages of the
Daily Mail.

“
Son,” he growled to Shane, “I’ve got bad news. If this fucking thing crashes, you’re not gonna get the ink.”

Concorde reached 50,000 feet at longitude 10 degrees west. This is the north–south meridian, which cuts through the westerly isles of Connaught, bisects the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry and runs to the east of Mizen Head. Brian Lambert crossed it at1136.30 flying at MACH-2 at latitude 50.49N. First Officer Brody reported their way point to Shannon, and the air traffic control center made a note to expect Concorde to come in again 450 miles later, at the 20-degree west way point. Time: 1157.

The air routes were, as always, busy at that time of day, and to the north of Concorde’s flight path there were no fewer than six westbound air tracks in operation, with big passenger jets running through them 100 miles apart, but flying in eight layers of aircraft, “stacked” at different altitudes. Only Flight 001 made her journey in solitary splendor, moving nearly three times faster than any of the others.

Bob’s burgers arrived at approximately the same time as First Officer Joe Brody checked in to Shannon from way point 20 West, at 1157(GMT) precisely. Out of range now on VHF, he used the High Frequency radio, confirming that the next communication would be their last before handing over to oceanic control Gander, Newfoundland, when they were 1,350 miles out from Heathrow, approaching the middle point of the oceanic crossing.

Shannon “rogered that,” and signed off. Henry Pryor checked the fuel tanks of
Speedbird
Concorde 001, and the first officer confirmed the precise distance to way point 20 West…just a little more than 450 miles, since they were running slightly south, and the lines of longitude were edging fractionally farther apart.

171210JAN06. 49N, 30W. HMS
Unseen
at PD.
Speed 5.

Commander Adnam’s radar was searching the skies to the east, the operator paying particular attention for long-range air detections. “Just keep looking,” said the CO. “Anything at over 1,000 knots, that’s the target.” The first detection found Concorde 210 miles out at 1210.33.

“
New target, sir. Moving very fast.”

“Must be an aircraft.”

“Fits Concorde’s route plan, sir.”

“SURFACE. BLOW ALL MAIN BALLAST. I want a good blow…maximum buoyancy right away. Officer of the Watch, keep her headed into the swell
…
avoid surface rolling as much as possible.
”

The jet-black submarine came bursting out of the icy depths of the winter Atlantic, water cascading off her casing. Deep inside the hull, the Russian missile systems’ computer established the critical data for a surface-to-air missile attack.

“
Speed 1,300 knots plus, sir.”

“Approximate course two-six-zero.”

“Range now 188 miles.”

“Okay team,” said Ben Adnam calmly. “Check the surface picture visual. No hurry, chaps…what do you have…? Fine. Just those three civil airliners 80 miles to the north. No problem. Let’s just relax and do it right.”

By 1213 all the known data, the radar range and bearing, had been fed into the computer. And now they had refined the target. The CO had an accurate course, speed, and closest point of approach. The range was now 153 miles. CPA: 4 miles. Every 5.2 seconds
Unseen
’s radar completed a sweep, and every sweep signified Flight 001 was 2 miles closer.

“
Officer of the Watch, sir. Submarine at full buoyancy now.”

“I have an adequate firing solution within the parameters, sir.”

“We have set the pressure height: 54,000 feet. CPA remains 4 miles.”

“Computer estimates time of launch 1216.”

1214: “
Target holding course and speed, sir. CPA same. Predicted time to enter the missile envelope 1218.12.”

At 1215: “
Computer in final prefiring sequence, Captain! Countdown now sixty seconds.”

Commander Adnam betrayed nothing. He stood motionless in the control center, awaiting the information that would confirm he had not crossed the Iranian border from Iraq in vain.

At 1216 it came. “
MISSILE LAUNCH!”

And up on the casing, in the huge box situated right behind the fin, there was a searing burst of fire and fury, as the Russian-built SAN-6 Grumble Rif guided missile blasted into the empty skies above the ocean, making a dead vertical course, straight up through the thick grey cloud, to 54,000 feet. The 10.5-mile journey took it a shade less than thirty seconds.

Right there, guided, like Concorde, by its pressure-height barometer, it leveled out, and its preprogrammed computer brain changed its course, sending the fiery weapon 4 miles across the no-man’s-land of the upper stratosphere, right onto the Closest Point of Approach of Flight 001 out of Heathrow. Again the Russian rocket swerved for its final course change, now aiming east-northeast.

The radar that lanced out of the head of the missile made a long, unseen, cone shape in the sky, and Concorde was heading straight into it. At that point, barring a spectacular malfunction, Ben Adnam’s killer Russian SAM could not miss.

Back in the cockpit, First Officer Brody, checked in to Shannon, again reporting his position on the primary band of the HF radio. They were now approaching the 30 West way point, and Joe Brody made his radio switch, changing to the secondary band to make contact with the air traffic controllers at Gander.
“Good morning, Gander…
Speedbird
Concorde 001…flight level five-four-zero to New York…MACH-2…. 50 North, 30 West at1219 GMT
…
ETA 40 West 1241 GMT…. Over.”

On board HMS
Unseen,
tension in the radar room was beginning to mount.

“Missile on height through CPA, heading out to target
…
it’s looking good.”
The words of the radar operator hung in the air as the SAN-6 streaked along course zero-eight-zero, down which Brian Lambert’s oncoming aircraft was 78 miles away. Concorde and the Grumble Rif were closing at a colossal speed of more than MACH-4, 3,000 mph, a mile every 1.2 seconds.

At 1217: “
Holding missile and target firmly on radar, Captain. If the bird’s on the right height, it’s looking good.”

Commander Adnam moved into the radar room, gazing at the screen over his number two operator’s shoulder. His fist clenched the back of the chair, as Concorde entered the firing envelope at 1218:12.

At 1218:18, the operator called: “
Target and missile returns merged, sir.”

At 1218:20, Brian Lambert saw it, bright glinting in the sunlight, fire rampaging in its wake. He opened his mouth to speak, uttered the sound
“MISS—”
as Benjamin Adnam’s radar-programmed warhead smashed into the underside of Concorde’s nose, blowing off the entire front end of the aircraft, leaving the fuselage to rip back from the structural frame like a peeling banana.

The total disintegration of the aircraft was over in a split second, and death came instantly for the 100 passengers, as they blew into the silence of near space. The changes in the pressure caused the bodies to explode, suddenly lacking the 15 pounds per square inch of pressure that normally accompanies human life. The gigantic detonation of the fuel stored in the aircraft’s wings blew even the wreckage to smithereens. Bob Trueman died with a cheeseburger in his hand.

171219JAN06. HMS
Unseen
. The radar room.

“No contacts on radar bearing, Captain. Just three civil aircraft to the north.”

Commander Adnam turned away from the screen and walked back to the control center. And there he ordered the submarine dived. “Open main vents. Slow ahead. Ten degrees bow down, 17 meters.” And as
Unseen
disappeared again, he ordered, “When you’ve checked the trim, go to 100 meters. We’ll clear the datum to the southward at nine knots. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much.”

The world’s first disaster involving a supersonic aircraft had taken place. But at that stage, as the burned-out pieces of wreckage tumbled eerily down over a wide area of the windswept North Atlantic, no one yet knew anything. And it would be a while before anyone did know anything.

It would not take as long as the great Naval brains had taken to work out that HMS
Unseen
had vanished the previous spring. But it would be another twenty minutes before an unnatural silence in one small corner of the great aircraft control room at Gander would alert the world to the shocking truth that the unthinkable had indeed happened.

By 0743 (EST) in the snowbound air traffic control center on the east coast of frigid Newfoundland, the operator in charge of Concorde was already worried. The British supersonic jet had come in a minute early at 30 West, and it was most unusual for the next call-in to be late. By now Bart Hamm knew that Flight 001 must have passed 40 West, and he had heard nothing.

At 0743.40 he went to SELCAL (selective calling), Concorde’s private code on High Frequency. No reply. Transmitting direct to Concorde’s cockpit, it activated two warning tones, like little bells, designed to alert the pilots. At the same time Bart transmitted a radio signal designed to light up two amber bulbs right in the line of Brian Lambert’s vision.

“
Speedbird
001…this is Gander…how do you read?…
Speedbird
001…this is Gander…how do you read?”

At 0746 Bart Hamm called in his supervisor. At 0747 (local) Gander Air Traffic Control sounded an international alarm, alerting British Airways that Concorde was missing, instigating a massive air-sea search and rescue, informing the United States and Canadian military that a major passenger airliner was down in the North Atlantic.
“Last known position 50.30N, 30.00W….British Airways Concorde Flight 001.”

There were few ships in the area on that freezing January day, but two Japanese fishing trawlers began to head south out of the Labrador Basin to the position in which Concorde might have come down. It was a forlorn hope, because survival was unlikely. There was no question of slowing down to a reasonable landing speed on the water, given its cruising speed of 1,330 mph.

In the Canadian Naval Base in Nova Scotia, the Commander Maritime Forces Atlantic, Rear Admiral George Durrell, ordered two of his 4,800-ton guided-missile frigates, the Halifax-Class
Ottawa
and
Charlottetown
to make all speed to longitude 30 West on the fiftieth parallel. Both warships carried a Sea King helicopter. For good measure Admiral Durrell also sent in his massive 14,500-ton Heavy Gulf Icebreaker
Louis S St. Laurent,
turning it east-northeast from 500 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. With a crew of 59, plus 38 scientists, this ice-busting giant had been the first ship ever to reach the North Pole. Its three-shafted props could drive it through a big sea at 18 knots. The chances were the
Louis S
, carrying two helicopters, would arrive at 30 West before the frigates. But it would still take a day and a half to get there.