“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”
The next morning, Governor Brahman walked into his regular staff meeting with a sense of purpose. He scheduled this one an hour earlier than usual, starting at 7:00 a.m.
The governor’s schedule for the day was packed. After the thirty-minute meeting, he was to go straight to the airport for a short flight to San Antonio to speak to a GOP women’s conference, then turn right back around and fly back to Austin to meet with Pops Younger, Tommy Wilson, and Bradley Drummond to reveal some of the information passed on by the Free Texas trio.
As the governor’s vehicle pulled up to the Texas Department of Public Safety Aviation terminal at the Austin airport, the King Air 400 twin turboprop was already running its propellers and poised to roll down the tarmac when the governor’s entourage boarded. Traveling with the governor was Lieutenant Governor Wilson. The flight to San Antonio was a short one, only twenty minutes or less from take-off to touch down.
Wilson had sensed something ominous in the meeting with Pops that Wilson was asked to leave. He called the governor the night before Brahman’s San Antonio trip and asked to join him so he could get some one-on-one time with the governor to discuss what he learned in his meeting.
The gleaming King Air, adorned with the State Seal of Texas on the tail, rocketed down the runway and caught air quickly, climbing rapidly.
As it flew over the road at the end of the south runway, the flight attendant looked down to see the cars parked at a small parking lot made for aviation enthusiasts.
Six cars were parked watching planes taking off, including a plain white panel van. The two occupants sitting in the front seat looked up.
“Bye, bye governor,” said Vasily Volkov to his comrade as he put the van in drive and slowly left the parking lot.
Fourteen minutes into the flight, at an altitude of eighty-eight hundred feet, a red warning light began flashing in the cockpit.
“Low on fuel? Hmmm… Got to be a malfunction. We are full of fuel,” said the co-pilot.
“Reset the indicator,” instructed the pilot.
“It won’t reset. I watched them load the fuel. It’s got to be an indicator malfunction,” said the co-pilot, confident no real issue existed.
Suddenly, an engine warning light came on for the starboard engine.
“Starboard engine not getting fuel. I don’t like this; should we put her down?” asked the co-pilot, now with some fear creeping into his voice.
“RPM is not dropping; makes me think it’s the electronics,” shot back the pilot.
The passengers had no clue this type of activity was going on in the cockpit. The governor and lieutenant governor were deep into their conversation, and the flight attendant had just freshened their coffees.
“There it goes! Starboard engine RPM just dropped. We are losing the starboard engine!” yelled the co-pilot.
The King Air yawed toward the engine still under power. As the plane surged to the left engine, it was enough to jolt everyone in their seats.
The flight attendant opened the cockpit door.
“Do we have a problem, captain?” she asked.
“We’ve lost the starboard engine, but port engine is running fine. We are only about seven minutes or so from landing. Tell them we will hold course and should land as scheduled,” the pilot reassured her, but noted the co-pilot’s uncertain expression.
The highly trained, experienced pilot began his emergency procedures like clockwork, with no emotion visible.
“Feather the dead engine props,” commanded the pilot, trying to limit the windmilling effect wind speed had on the propellers. The propellers were causing a terrific drag on the aircraft, pulling the plane in a right-hand direction.
“Props feathered,” replied the co-pilot.
“Banking five degrees port,” announced the pilot, following the first rule in a twin-engine single failure, which was to raise the dead, meaning tipping the wing on the dead engine side to create more lift on the left wing.
“Cut fuel to starboard,” the pilot said.
“Starboard fuel shut off,” repeated the co-pilot.
The very second the fuel to the dead engine was cut, the remaining engine on the port side shot up in RPM.
“What the hell?” the pilot exclaimed, fighting the yawing effect with his stick and pedals.
The pilot knew that part of the protocol when losing an engine when not in take-off mode was to point the nose downward to gain airspeed, but that also reduced the margin for error. It was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario.
“San Antonio, this is Governor One,” the pilot radioed the San Antonio tower. “We have lost our starboard engine. Requesting clear flight path to land and permission to lower to eighteen hundred feet.”
“Governor One, permission granted to lower to eighteen hundred feet. We will clear airspace for you immediately. Please stand by. Do we need emergency equipment on runway?”
“We should be okay. Port engine spiking in RPM intermittently. Lowering to eighteen hundred feet now,” returned the pilot as he began a fairly rapid descent.
“Go tell the governor where we are and what we are doing,” said the pilot.
“You got it?” asked the co-pilot.
“I’ve got it. I don’t understand the RPM spikes, but we are only twenty-four miles out,” the pilot re-assured him.
The co-pilot unsnapped out of his seat and climbed over the controls console to open the cockpit door.
When he got into the cabin, the co-pilot told the governor, “Governor, we lost the right engine but the left engine is fine. The back-and-forth effect you are feeling is the pilot adjusting the yaw effect caused by having power coming from only one side. We are about twenty miles from the airport and we are cleared to land,” the co-pilot stated, appearing confident.
“Do we need to be concerned?” asked Wilson.
“Well, we would rather have both engines,” chuckled the co-pilot, trying to lighten the situation. “But one engine will get us there.”
“I may need a flight bag,” Brahman told the flight attendant. He was getting motion sickness from the yawing effect of the plane.
“No problem, sir. I’ll fetch one,” she said.
In the meantime, the plain white van that had been parked at the end of the Austin runway was making its way south on Interstate 35 toward San Antonio, driving at posted speeds. The pair in the front seats was listening to a police scanner.
The co-pilot went back to the cockpit, closing the door behind him and crawling back over the controls console and was almost strapped in before multiple warning lights went off and the RPM on the port engine suddenly surged.
“Damn it!” said the pilot as he tried to look at his gauges, but he was busy fighting the stick and pedals. With the sudden surge in power, the King Air was literally trying to turn itself on its axis, twisting violently to the left, counterclockwise.
The co-pilot didn’t even bother to strap himself into his seat.
“RPM is redlining, sir!” he yelled. “Twenty-six hundred feet, dropping too fast, sir!”.
“I’m fighting this damned thing. What the hell is going on with this engine?” the pilot grimaced as he struggled with the stick.
The pilot, who had remained calm from the beginning, now had real fear on his face, and the co-pilot could see it.
The pilot had to make a split-second decision to cut the engine to keep the aircraft from turning upside down and beginning a deadly spiral.
“Cut the engine! Cut the engine!” he yelled to the co-pilot as he fought with the stick and rudder pedals.
“It’s not shutting down!”
“Try again. Keep trying! Keep trying!”
“My switch is not working!”
“Hit mine! Hit mine NOW!”
“Damn, it won’t shut off either!”
The King Air turboprop aircraft slowly started to roll over on its left wing.
“San Antonio tower, this is Governor One. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! We have lost control of the aircraft!”
In the cabin, the flight attendant felt a sensation she had never experienced in her ten-year career―fear.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked, grabbing the armrests of her chair.
“Oh, no, this ain’t good…” exclaimed Governor Brahman.
“God, please help us!” Wilson murmured under his breath as he also grasped the arm rests on his chair.
The King Air rolled to a ninety-degree angle as the pilots fought to cut off the engine and keep it from rolling further. Meanwhile, the plane was losing altitude. Had the pilots been able to cut the engine, they still would have had a major problem keeping airspeed to prevent the aircraft dropping from the sky. Their only hope would be to glide into some type of emergency landing, but there simply wasn’t enough altitude had they succeeded.
The King Air rolled to one hundred ten degrees and the engine cut off on its own. Now, almost completely inverted, the nose dropped and began an intense spiral from twelve hundred feet.
“Governor One, Governor One, do you read?” shouted the San Antonio tower.
“God forgive me,” said the pilot to himself.
Thirteen miles from the San Antonio airport runway, the King Air, in steep descent and traveling at a speed of more than 320 miles per hour, slammed into a hillside nose first right outside the small bedroom community of Selma, Texas.
A ball of fire rose up from the ground several hundred feet and could be seen in the Texas hill country sky for miles. Despite the fuel warnings on the aircraft, the King Air had plenty of fuel.
Within minutes, the chatter on the police scanner in the van traveling south on Interstate 35 increased rapidly. The two occupants looked at each other and smiled.
The special concoction they were able to load into the aircraft fuel supply was only a little more than a gallon but, in thirty minutes and under pressure, it caused the jet fuel to gel and clump. The clumping had the same effect as a clogged artery when it caused a heart attack.
The pair had solicited help from an employee of a contract jet services firm that contracted with the Department of Public Safety for aircraft maintenance. The employee had managed to get Volkov access to the King Air, and uploading the fuel additive was a simple procedure. With Volkov wearing the bright blue jumpsuit of the aircraft maintenance firm, nobody knew the difference.
Volkov picked up one of four cell phones in a cardboard box on the floor between the two front seats and dialed a number.
“The eagle has landed,” Volkov said in broken English.
“You confirmed it?” asked the voice on the phone.
“Watch the news. You’ll get your confirmation,” answered Volkov, ending the call and handing the phone to his passenger to destroy.
In Washington, D.C., Nils Ottosson ended the call.
Two hours later, the pair knocked on the front door of the apartment the maintenance worker lived at in South Austin with his young wife and four-year-old son.
When the pair of Russians left the apartment, their silenced pistols were hidden inside their shirts, which were tucked neatly into their jeans.
Inside the apartment were the three dead members of the young family. The maintenance worker had a gunshot upward in his mouth through his brain. The wife and mother had been shot in the back of the head with a single bullet, along with the four-year-old boy.
The Russians’ only ties to the King Air were now dead, and the chances investigators could trace the jet fuel coagulant from a fiery crash scene were remote.