Shadow Line

by Stephen Edger

  Brian took the identification from the man and studied it carefully, as if trying to test its authenticity. In truth, he had no idea how he could make such a distinction but he tried to make it seem real enough. Eventually, he passed the identification to Ruth and shrugged his shoulders. She too looked at it before passing it back, with a smile.

  ‘So, are you like James Bond?’ she said, suddenly interested in getting to know the stranger better.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he replied, ignoring her flirtatious efforts. ‘But I do need to know if there is a problem, as I’m carrying some important cargo with me on board.’

  This last statement seemed to excite Brian, almost as much as Ruth and having seen her attempts rebuked, fancied his own chances with the handsome stranger. Nina was the only one who seemed to have made the mental connection that the presence of the spy and his ‘cargo’ could have any link to what was going on inside the cockpit.

  ‘Okay,’ Nina eventually whispered. ‘We have lost contact with the pilot…’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ruth interrupted, shushing her at the same time.

  ‘Look, if he is who he says he is, he might be able to help,’ Nina offered.

  ‘What do you think he is going to do?’ mocked Ruth, ‘Climb out of the plane and break in through the windscreen?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Nina admonished. ‘He might have some alternative ideas, is all I meant.’

  The man in the Panama hat spoke quickly and quietly. ‘When did you last speak to the pilots?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago,’ replied Nina. ‘I phoned them on the intercom but then the line went dead.’

  ‘Did the pilot say anything?’

  ‘No, but I think I heard the co-pilot say something about the pilot attacking him. There was a commotion or thudding as well.’

  The man in the Panama hat considered this for a moment.

  ‘All planes are equipped with an air-phone, aren’t they? Something they can use to call air traffic control in emergencies, which doesn’t interfere within any of the flight equipment? Can one of you go and fetch the phone and make contact?’

  ‘We’ve tried,’ said Brian, eager to participate in the conversation, ‘but that’s not working either. There’s no dial tone.’

  The man in the hat considered this as well. He was about to speak again when something caught his attention.

  ‘The plane is descending,’ he said.

  None of them had noticed it until the man had spoken, but sure enough, the plane did appear to be descending. Brian was the first to speak, ‘Well that’s pretty normal; we are probably nearing our destination.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ whispered the man, nodding his head towards the small window in the plane’s door. Each of the stewards followed his gaze and noted that the rate of descent did seem greater than they would have expected.

  ‘Considering our options,’ continued the man, ‘I think one of you needs to phone air traffic control and find out what is going on.’

  ‘But the air-phone is broken,’ Brian repeated.

  The man pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and passed it to the Scot, adding, ‘Use this.’

  ‘But we can’t. It might interfere with the equipment…’

  ‘At this point, I don’t care,’ interrupted the man forcefully. ‘If there is a chance that one of the pilots has taken control of this plane, or that they are both passed out, the last thing we need to be worried about is what a phone call will do to the equipment!’

  Brian took the phone without another word and stomped off to the rear of the plane to fetch the air traffic control number and place the call.

  The man in the Panama hat shuffled back to his seat and seemed to whisper something to the man next to him, before returning to where Nina and Ruth still hovered.

  ‘Is he a spy like you?’ asked Ruth, as if she saw the second man as another chance of bagging herself a fling with a secret agent.

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied the man. ‘Forget about him. Has he placed the call yet?’

  The three of them turned when they heard sudden fast footsteps approaching them. It was Brian, and he was running.

  3

  Eddie Travers lifted the baseball cap from his head and ran a hand over his now squashed fringe. He glanced up at the large clock hanging from the wall and cursed when he realised he still had another three hours left of an uneventful shift. Not that he wished for something eventful to happen, as working in the control tower was stressful enough, but he hated the days when time just seemed to drag. Eddie was one of three air traffic controllers on duty at Southampton airport on this late Thursday afternoon, but the other two had started their shifts later than him so he believed his day was probably dragging more than theirs.

  Eddie had three flights on his monitor that he was responsible for but one in particular had caught his attention. It was a routine flight from Orly in Northern France that was due to land in about a quarter of an hour, but it appeared to have drifted slightly off course. Rather than adhering to the usual circling pattern that all aircraft were supposed to adopt, it was heading on a more direct course to the airport. Of the three flights, it was the second due to land and, based on current trajectory, it would be lucky to narrowly miss the flight due in from Lisbon.

  Eddie looked up to see where his supervisor was, and spotted him by the drinks machine, chatting to the rent-a-cop security guard charged with ensuring no intruders entered the tower. He waved in their direction but they either didn’t notice him or were choosing to ignore him. In the end, Eddie stood up and hollered his supervisor by name.

  ‘Doug, can you take a look at this please?’

  Doug Paxton sighed audibly as he ended his conversation with the security guard and made his way across to Eddie’s workstation.

  ‘What is it Travers?’ he asked, unable to hide the contempt in his voice.

  ‘Flight BZ-1209 is off course and not following the circling pattern.’

  ‘And?’ Paxton replied dismissively. ‘What do you expect me to do about it? Have you contacted the pilot yet?’

  ‘Well…no,’ Eddie mumbled. ‘I thought I should check with you first.’

  ‘Look Travers,’ his boss declared abruptly. ‘You’ve been off probation for eight weeks now. You are capable of making these decisions yourself without running to me every five minutes. Radio the pilot and ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing and to get bloody well back on course. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Eddie replied, lowering his eyes like a cowering dog.

  Paxton turned on his heel and headed back towards where the security guard had returned to his post to continue his conversation about the coming weekend’s football fixtures. Eddie pulled the microphone of his headset back down and keyed in the plane’s details and waited to be connected to the pilot.

  ‘Flight BZ-1209, this is Eastleigh tower, come in, please?’ Eddie stated.

  There was no response on the other end.

  ‘I repeat, Flight BZ-1209, respond, over,’ he said in a raised voice.

  Still no response was received from the pilot or co-pilot. A growing sense of unease started to form in the pit of Eddie’s stomach.

  ‘Flight BZ-1209,’ he continued, ‘this is the control tower at Southampton, you are off the circling pattern, please respond with what you are doing.’

  The little green dot on Eddie’s screen continued on its direct course towards the airport and the likelihood of it not colliding with Flight LN-7542 grew slimmer. Eddie looked back over to Doug. He didn’t want to get berated again but it was his supervisor’s responsibility to be monitoring this situation. Eddie tried to hail the pilot once more but still there was no response.

  ‘Hey Eddie, what’s going on with ‘1209’?’ asked Michelle Rowan, one of the other controllers two desks away. ‘It’s way off course.’

  It was the blessing that Eddie needed as Michelle’s question caught Paxton’s attention and brought him back over to Eddie’s workstati
on.

  ‘Why is this flight still off course, Travers?’ Paxton demanded, as if it was Eddie’s fault that the pilot wasn’t heading the right way.

  ‘I’ve hailed the flight three times now, Doug, but there is no response.’

  Paxton rubbed a hand over his chin while he considered the next course of action.

  ‘Is there anything unusual about this flight that we know of? Is it carrying any celebrities or cargo?’

  ‘Not that we’ve been informed of,’ replied Doug, scanning the report that had been sent through by their counterparts in France. ‘It’s just a standard flight. Nothing special.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Doug calmly, ‘we need to get in touch with the cabin crew. If there is a chance that the pilots have passed out for some reason, we will need to engage the auto pilot to land the plane from here. Phone the air-phone and see what they know.’

  Eddie complied with the order and looked glumly back at his boss when the line failed to connect.

  ‘The air-phone is disconnected, sir.’

  ‘Disconnected? That’s strange,’ Paxton concluded. ‘If we can’t get in touch with the cockpit or the cabin crew, we are going to have to…’

  ‘Doug, there’s a call for you on your desk phone,’ shouted the security guard, who was now at Paxton’s desk. ‘It’s some guy called Brian, reckons he’s phoning from a plane. Do you want me to take a message?’

  Paxton and Eddie stared at each other, and then the supervisor rushed across the room and grabbed the handset from the guard.

  ‘This is Doug Paxton in the control tower. Who’s speaking?’ he barked into the phone.

  ‘This is Brian McAndrew,’ replied a camp-sounding Scottish voice. ‘I’m one of the stewards on Flight BZ-1209. We can’t get through to the cockpit and wanted to see if you are in communication with the pilots.’

  Paxton looked back over at Eddie and covering the mouthpiece shouted, ‘It’s one of the crew, they say they can’t get through to the pilots. I’m going to transfer the call to your workstation. Michelle, can you monitor the other two flights on Travers’ screen? I think we need to pay this flight close attention.’

  ‘No worries, Doug,’ acknowledged Michelle.

  Paxton transferred the call and moved back to Eddie’s workstation. Eddie removed his cap again and this time wiped away the sweat that was now forming on his brow.

  ‘Right, Travers, we have no time to waste. We need to engage the autopilot from your workstation. Do you know how to do that?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ replied Eddie, hurt at the questioning of his ability.

  Eddie punched some keys on his computer and a box opened up on his monitor asking him to confirm that he wished to engage the autopilot on Flight BZ-1209. He hit the ‘enter’ key to confirm his choice but a red error message flashed up stating that the communication had failed.

  ‘Give me that,’ Paxton snarled, grabbing the keyboard. He repeated the steps that Eddie had followed and was frustrated to see the same error message flash up on the screen.

  ‘Blasted thing!’ he shouted and moved across to Michelle’s desk. ‘Can you try and engage the autopilot of BZ-1209?’ he ordered.

  Letting out a sigh because she already had her hands full monitoring five flights, Michelle punched in the same routine of keys that both her colleagues had pressed. The same red error message flashed up.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Paxton shouted at nobody in particular.

  ‘Doug, this guy is asking what is happening,’ Eddie piped up. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’

  Doug stared at the red flashing message on Michelle’s screen while he racked his brains for what to do next.

  ‘Tell him we are having difficulty reaching the plane and ask him to try and break into the cockpit. Someone needs to land that flight.’

  Eddie relayed the message to the now terrified air steward and waited for a response. Two minutes later an even more fearful-sounding Brian returned to the line declaring ‘There is no way in. It’s locked and won’t budge.’

  Eddie was about to share this news with his supervisor when he noticed something strange on his screen.

  ‘Sir, the plane’s course just changed again.’

  Paxton slid back across and stooped to look at the flashing green dot.

  ‘Changed? In what way?’ he questioned. ‘Has it corrected itself?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied Eddie, scribbling some numbers onto a pad of paper, to calculate where the new course would leave the plane. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘What is it, Travers?’ Paxton asked, the first hint of fear in his voice.

  ‘The thing is, sir,’ Eddie began, ‘we were assuming that the pilot and co-pilot had maybe passed out, right?’

  Paxton nodded eagerly like a puppy waiting to be fed a treat.

  ‘Well, if that were true then the plane’s course wouldn’t have changed like this.’

  ‘Spit it out, Travers, what are you getting at?’

  ‘Sir, there is only one way this new course could have occurred. Somebody did it. There is somebody flying that plane, which means the fact it is way off course is no accident.’

  ‘What is the new course, Travers?’

  Eddie pointed at the numbers on his pad, ‘Based on my calculations, in exactly four minutes, Flight BZ-1209 will land on the M27. What are we going to do, Doug?’

  Paxton wiped his own sweaty forehead as the realisation of what was happening dawned on him. ‘You better tell that air steward to brace the passengers for a crash landing.’

  4

  ‘Crash landing?’ Brian repeated back into the mobile phone, slightly too loud. He looked back up at the man in the Panama hat with a look of despair.

  ‘Give me that,’ said the man, snatching the phone from the now very pale steward. ‘Who am I speaking to?’ he barked into the phone.

  The man on the other end identified himself as Eddie Travers, an air traffic controller.

  ‘Well, Eddie,’ the man replied, ‘be a good boy and put your boss on the line will you?’

  There was an audible shuffling as the headset was passed from the controller to the supervisor.

  ‘Doug Paxton here, to whom am I speaking?’ said a gruff voice.

  ‘Mr Paxton, my name is Scott Aldridge. I work for Her Majesty’s Security Services and I am on Flight BZ-1209. What is going on at your end?’

  There was a pause on the line while the supervisor considered how much information he should relay to this stranger claiming to be a spy.

  ‘Look,’ said Aldridge, breaking Paxton’s concentration. ‘I am your best shot of landing this plane safely. If you feel the need to check my credentials, be my guest, but every second you waste now, is condemning the passengers on this flight to a death that none of them would choose. Do you understand me?’

  It did the trick.

  ‘Mr Aldridge, we have been unsuccessful in establishing radio contact with the pilot and co-pilot. We have also attempted to engage the craft’s autopilot system without success.’

  ‘Without success?’ Aldridge repeated. ‘How come?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Paxton replied. ‘It comes back with an error message. The only logical reason it can’t be engaged is because somebody aboard the flight has disabled it. The obvious culprit would be one of the pilots.’

  ‘So you believe one or both of the pilots has hijacked this flight? To what end?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Paxton. ‘Whoever is in control has altered the flight path. You are on a direct collision course with the motorway that borders the airport.’

  ‘How long have we got?’ replied Aldridge calmly.

  ‘Just under four minutes,’ Paxton replied in a strained voice.

  Aldridge thought for a moment, before continuing, ‘We have tried getting into the cockpit but the door seems to be pneumatically sealed. There must be some kind of contingency for situations where the pilots become ill during a flight; there must be a back-up way for us to get i
n there.’

  ‘There is, but it only works once the plane is stationary. In theory, if both pilots became incapacitated during a flight, we would engage the autopilot and land the plane from the tower. Once it was safely down, there is an emergency release panel that will engage allowing the stewards to enter the cockpit and help the pilots. The panel is programmed not to engage unless the craft is stationary. Unless you can somehow convince the hijacker to open the door for you, there is no way in. You are sitting ducks.’

  ‘That sounds like defeatist talk,’ countered Aldridge. ‘There must be another way!’

  Both men considered the statement before Aldridge spoke again, ‘If the door is pneumatically sealed, there must be a pipe somewhere that supplies the air to seal and unseal the door, right? Where would that be?’

  ‘Well, I suppose all the controls and hardware are under the cockpit at the rear of the cargo hold. My guess is the door’s controlling mechanism would be down there somewhere.’

  ‘Great!’ enthused Aldridge, grabbing Brian by the shirt sleeve and pulling him to the rear of the plane.

  ‘Where are we going?’ whimpered a panicked Brian.

  Several of the seated passengers had sensed that there was a problem, what with all the to-ing and fro-ing of the cabin crew and this mystery man in a Panama hat. There were murmurings and mumblings until eventually one man stood up and demanded to know what was going on. Ruth and Nina responded by standing before the crowd and offering calming platitudes. They claimed that the plane was experiencing some technical difficulties and that whilst a crash landing was unlikely, it would be best to ask passengers to engage the emergency position for safety.

  Nina suggested they deploy the oxygen masks from overhead and Ruth complied.

  ‘Please strap on your own oxygen mask before helping anybody else with theirs,’ Nina beckoned, demonstrating how to apply the mask and where to tighten it.

  ‘Please secure any loose items beneath your seats, ensure your seatbelts are fastened and then place your head between your legs,’ Ruth continued, glad to have Nina’s support in this crisis. The two women nodded at each other in a second moment of solidarity.