The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

was securely fastened, Everyone aboard was too seasoned a flyer to be the least
bit concerned, but he preferred a smooth ride as much as the next person. The
President, he saw, was fully relaxed, reading over a folder that had just
arrived a few minutes before they'd left. Connor settled back also. Connor and
D'Agustino loved Camp David. A company of handpicked Marine riflemen provided
perimeter security. They were backed up and augmented by the best electronic
surveillance systems America had ever built. Backing everyone up were the usual
Secret Service agents. Nobody was scheduled to come in or out of the place this
weekend, except, possibly, one CIA messenger who would drive. Everyone could
relax, including the President and his lady friend, Connor thought.
'This is getting bad. Better tell the weather pukes to stick their head out the
window.'
'They said eight inches.'
'I got a buck says more than a foot.'
'I never bet against you on weather,' the co-pilot reminded the colonel.
'Smart man, Scotty.'
'Supposed to clear tomorrow night.'
'I'll believe that when I see it, too.'
'Temp's supposed to drop to zero, too, maybe a touch under.'
'That I believe,' the colonel said, checking his attitude, compass, and
artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being
churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. 'What do you call visibility?'
'Oh, in a clear spot . . . maybe a hundred feet . . . maybe one-fifty. . .' The
major turned to grin at the colonel. The grin stopped when he started thinking
about the ice that might build up on the airframe. 'What's the outside temp?' he
murmured to himself.
'Minus 12 centigrade,' the colonel said, before he could look at the
thermometer.
'Coming up?'
'Yeah. Let's take her down a little, ought to be colder.'
'Goddamned D.C. weather.'
Thirty minutes later, they circled over Camp David. Strobe lights told them
where the landing pad was – you could see down better than in any other
direction. The co-pilot looked aft to check the fairing over the landing gear.
'We got a little ice now, Colonel. Let's get this beast down before something
scary happens. Wind is thirty knots at three-zero-zero.'
'Starting to feel a touch heavy.' The VH-3 could pick up as much as four hundred
pounds of ice per minute under the right – wrong – weather conditions. 'Fuckin'
weather weenies. Okay, I got the LZ in sight.'
'Two hundred feet, airspeed thirty,' the major read off the instruments. 'One
fifty at twenty-five . . . one hundred at under twenty . . . looking good . . .
fifty feet and zero ground-speed . . .'
The pilot eased down on the collective. The snow on the ground started blowing
up from the rotor-wash. It created a vile condition called a white-out. The
visual references which had just reappeared – vanished instantly. The flight
crew felt themselves to be inside a ping-pong ball. Then a gust of wind swung
the helicopter around to the left, tilting it also. The pilot's eyes immediately