The Matter of the Deserted Airliner

by Levi, Steve;

  Approaching the police tape was a lot more difficult than spotting Ayanna. It was summer time and the Anchorage International Airport was packed with tourists. While Anchorage is a small city by American standards – it has all of about 300,000 people depending on whether you count the two military bases and the bedroom communities – it will see one million tourists in the three summer months. There are not a lot of tourists in the other months. Lots of ice and snow but very few tourists. There is an old saying in Alaska; every year has nine months of snow and three months of relatives.

  True to human nature, the moment the police tape went up there was a crowd of lookie-loos. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. But nothing was going on. All anyone could see were three figures at the far end of concourse just standing around. There was no body, no hustle of men-and-women in blue with their guns drawn to hint of a hijacking. Hijacking a plane in Alaska?! Where would you demand to go? There were already scheduled flights to Russia and Cuba was a l-o-n-g way from the land of ice and snow.

  Noonan fought his way through the crowd like a defensive lineman until he came to the tape. He was stopped momentarily by a very tired Anchorage Airport security guard who looked about as old as Noonan’s son Otto. He was old enough to be carrying a revolver, which, Noonan was pleased to see, was buttoned down in a nylon holster. Noonan liked guns in holsters. He liked them even more when the holster was buttoned down.

  There was a moment of confusion before the guard let Noonan under the tape. Noonan showed him a badge from the Sandersonville Police Department and the guard grunted something sounding like “OK.” His facial expression read he didn’t know why he was on duty anyway. He had been told it was crowd control except for some guy with a badge who would be coming. Then some old guy with a badge showed up so what’s a minimum wage security guard to do? So he let the old man through.

  Noonan ducked under the police tape, to the titter of the crowd. They couldn’t go to the crime scene but he could. (What a shame, Martha!) But then again, the crowd was only going to stand around for a moment or two. No body, no blood, no reason to waste any time at the airport when they could be spending their afternoon fishing for salmon or sucking up suds at any one of half-hundred places in town which catered to the three-months-and-then-gone crush of humanity.

  Noonan proceeded down the empty carpet toward the far end of Concourse A. The only other individuals at the far end of the terminal were a pair of Alaska State Troopers who appeared more as bookends than officers of the law. Both stood well over six feet tall, carried a good 250 pounds apiece, and looked like weight lifters. Both also had small toothbrush mustaches making them look a bit like Adolf Hitler on steroids. Why anyone would want to look like Adolf Hitler was beyond Noonan but clearly here were two men who did. The uniforms enhanced the image. They fit as if they were tailor-made, odd because police uniforms were supposed to be loose enough to chase felons. These two were obviously for show not sweat. Noonan could tell because both men had shoes so shiny they reflected the overhead lights like strobes on the runway.

  Noonan could smell politics in a hurricane. Even before closing the two dozen yards between himself and the trio the stench of bureaucracy and incompetence was overpowering. Just what he needed on vacation, more of what he was escaping in North Carolina.

  In the real world there are two pillars in the chain of command. One is of sweat and the other for show. Those of the sweat did the work; those of show took the credit. They were like oil and water, always together but never combining. Show people are like spiders: they come in pairs. Whenever you found show people in the singular they are looking for a telephone. They were members of the penultimate mutual admiration society, party animals in the sense they needed a litter of their own to feel comfortable. They passed around the blessings of the credit they did not earn to make sure every one of the good old boys – and, this day and age, good old girls – received the blessings of playing politics the right way.

  You will always find people of sweat alone. They did not work alone because they so prefer. They work alone because it is the only way to get anything done. People of sweat do not come in gaggles; they work best when not hindered by the people of show. People of show leave people of sweat alone because, without them, there would be no credit. So the people of show let people of sweat work alone. People of show are never far away. They circle like vultures waiting for the right instant to snatch the victory they could never earn by themselves. The two Alaska State Troopers reeked of the stench of people of show.

  The troopers dwarfed Noonan, not a tall man by any definition. He still stood a good head above Ayanna. She was slight and weighed in the range of 110 pounds, small enough to make her attaché appear to be a suitcase. She wore a rumpled uniform looking as though she had slept in it, which she clearly had, and her boots were a cross between hiking gear and combat footwear. Un-shined they showed the scuffmarks and scratches of years in the field. The toes were solid, probably steel-toed, which was par for the course for a person of sweat. You never knew when you were going to have to crawl over luggage or around machinery.

  Ayanna’s jet black hair hung straight and limp, the conditioner sheen it probably had possessed the previous day had been replaced with a dull greasy look. A fleck of white, possibly a strand of the cottonwood which filled the late summer sky, clung to a strand at the nape of her neck. If either of the troopers noticed it, they had clearly not mentioned it. The only thing on Ayanna which shined, was a yellow gold necklace chain with a small medallion. Noonan could see it was not religious but appeared more of an antique, something a woman of class would have worn proudly a century earlier.

  Ayanna may have been exhausted but there was no way to tell from her posture or body language. The troopers were like all people of show, always on stage. Noonan introduced himself and there was a round of perfunctory hand-shaking. Ayanna indicated they should move toward the walkway to the plane and one of the troopers raised a section of police tape stretching across the end of the concourse. Why this tape was at the end of the concourse where they were no people was beyond Noonan. The crowd was already being contained behind the first tape he had ducked under. He smelled bureaucratic incompetence, again a stench he was well used to avoiding in North Carolina.

  From the terminal window at the Anchorage International Airport, Unicorn 739 looked just like every other airliner waiting for passengers. The cigar-shaped 737 filled Gate 17 at the far end of the A Concourse and other than the fact Gates 14 through 17 were closed it looked just like any other plane about to receive passengers. Noonan did not know much about aviation but he did know a 737 when he saw one. It was not hard to spot a 737 since it was the workhorse of the aviation passenger business.

  The most visual product of the Boeing assembly line, it had been around since the 1960s. Over the years it had morphed into variants, from the 737-100 to the 737-800 with a 737-900 probably on the design boards. And why not? It was the most commercially successful civilian aircraft since the Second World War. At any one moment there could be as many as 1,000 of them in the air. They didn’t crash. They needed little maintenance and, most important of all, passengers had complete faith in them. If you were on a 737 the only problem you were going to have would be a broken coffee machine. There was not a single design flaw of common knowledge. The 737 was such a dependable aircraft that after American airline companies flew the planes into obsolescence they were sold to Third World countries who flew them into oblivion. A century from now, Noonan mused, there would probably be some pilot somewhere flying a 737 over a remote landscape and the plane would be just as dependable then as it was the day it came off the assembly line.

  Looking out of the terminal window–and considering the two police tapes–Noonan expected to see a flurry of activity around the plane.

  He was in error.

  The only visual indication something was amiss was a squad of airport security people sitting in parked cars strategically scattered around the pla
ne. The cars were just there in the sense they were not moving. The personnel inside those cars were not moving either. It did not look like a crime scene with people scurrying hither and yon. It looked like a used car lot around an airplane at the end of the concourse. The plane wasn’t going anywhere and neither were the security people. Everyone was just sitting, waiting for the curtain to rise in the next act of this drama.

  One of the vehicles, a heavy van, was parked directly behind one of the massive back wheels of the 737, clearly to block the plane if it tried to back-out of the gate. Noonan gave a soft snicker and said to himself, “a bit late, eh?”

  “Sorry?” said Ayanna as she scanned the scene below to see what Noonan was referring to.

  Noonan indicated the van with a tilt of his head. “The security van behind the back wheel of the plane. It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”

  Ayanna smiled and now she looked tired. “Well, yes, I guess so. You have to understand we have procedures here at the airport we have to follow even if they seem stupid. We do everything by the book. When there is a problem involving a plane, we block the plane. It’s in our rule book.”

  Noonan gave a slight grunt. “True. But as we get into this case keep in mind the bad boys and girls know your procedures and there are going to use them against you. I’m not saying to stop doing what you are supposed to do. What I am suggesting is you force yourself to start thinking outside of the box. We are up against some very clever people.”

  “Well,” replied Ayanna tiredly, “at this point we don’t know what is going on so we are not going to take any chances.” Then she backtracked a bit and said, “If you have any suggestions. . .”

  “Oh, no. All I was saying was we are a long from over on this case and every detail has been planned in advance. We, rather, you, are only going to get through this successfully if you become just as clever as your adversaries. Yes, if I have a suggestion I will let you know. For the moment, follow your procedures. Just do not let them get in your way of making a quick, creative decision.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean but I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “That’s the first step to being a creative thinker.”

  Noonan turned from the terminal window and looked back down the concourse. Other than it was old and clearly in desperate need of repair, upgrade or, probably, total demolition, it looked pretty much like any other terminal in any other small city in America. The carpet wasn’t threadbare yet but it has hardly new. It was a facsimile of the galaxy with a brightened constellation of stars making up the Alaska Flag every dozen or so feet. The carpet must have been stunning when it was new – and during the decade it had been installed. Now it was old. Visibly old. Threadbare with a footpath right down its center where millions of passenger shoes and boots had trod their way to waiting aircraft.

  There were alcoves of seating on both sides of the terminal carpet, which extended three deep all the way to the windows except where the gate entrances were located. The front wall was glass to capture whatever sunshine there was during the summer. There was an ocean of surface of industrial ceiling squares stretching down the concourse, all of them old and loaded with asbestos. A lot of Alaskans were going to be very happy when the concourse was upgraded because, from experience, Noonan knew every one of those ceiling tiles was going to end up as insulation in cabins and hunting lodges from Katmai to Talkeetna. Waste not want not was the Alaska way of life.

  “This is a pretty old terminal for an international airport.”

  Ayanna smiled. “Alaska’s a bit different than the rest of country. Before there was oil we didn’t have much of a tourist industry other than along the coastline. Now we get about a million tourists coming through this terminal during the three months of the summer. We are so packed during the summer we can’t do any repair or upgrade work. We have to do all the upgrade in the off-season.”

  “Doesn’t look like a lot of work has been done on this concourse.” Noonan pointed to some loose ceiling tiles and the buckling of some of the wainscot panels along the wall below the windows.

  “This is the last concourse to be upgraded. We started the renovation three years ago on Concourse C,” she pointed down the hallway, “at the other end of the airport. Where the dignitaries land. We’re been progressing this way year-by-year.”

  “So this is the last concourse to be worked on?”

  “Yes. It should be finished before next summer.” She stalled for a moment. “Is it important?”

  Noonan smiled.

  Ayanna was learning.

  “Until we know what is going on, everything is important. Was this the actual gate where the plane arrived?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because it’s at the end of the concourse – and the oldest concourse. Odd.”

  “It was where Unicorn 739 was scheduled to arrive. Being at the end of the concourse was just the luck of the draw. Gates are assigned weeks ahead of the arrival but lots of things happen which move planes around. Planes are late, it takes longer than expected to off-load cargo or emergencies come up, the usual. So planes get moved around. Gate 17 was where Unicorn 739 was supposed to dock.”

  “You might check just to be sure.”

  “The luck of the draw?”

  “I’m guessing there was a reason the bad boys and girls wanted the plane to be here. Why don’t you check to make sure it was the luck of draw and not something which was somehow engineered into the system? It might also give you a clue as to who might be in the inside person.”

  “You think there was an inside person?”

  “Had to be. Even if there was no inside person it’s the place to start. Planes do not land without pilots, passengers do not vanish into thin air and crimes like this usually have a cash motive. Cash means an inside job.”

  “What cash are we talking about?”

  Noonan gave Ayanna a fatherly tap on the shoulders. “This case is very young. Believe me, before it is over there will be a cash motive. No one goes to this kind of trouble for a prank.”

  Noonan scuffed the carpet while Ayanna dug around in her attaché for a pad. The carpet here was even more discolored than the concourse walkway. The traffic was clearly more concentrated where people boarded the planes.

  Noonan turned back from looking out the window at the 737. “OK,” he said to Ayanna almost excitedly, “Let’s take a look inside the plane.” This was clearly better than spending the day listening to his mother-in-law prattle on and on and on.

  One of troopers raised the crime scene tape while Ayanna and Noonan went under. Three steps later one of the trooper bookends posted himself beside the check-in carrel like an oak and immediately picked up a phone to report his location. The other escorted Noonan and Ayanna as far as the entrance to the ramp. There he stationed himself and started scanning the empty concourse cul-de-sac as if there was a crowd and he, a Secret Service agent, was looking for assassins.

  Noonan and Ayanna proceeded down the elevated ramp as if they were going to enter the plane from the walkway. At the bend in the walkway, Ayanna stopped and opened a door in a side wall. From there they descended to the ground on a rolling walkway and walked to a ramp at the rear of the plane.

  “Why are we entering the plane from the rear?” Noonan asked as he blinked in the bright Alaska summer sunshine.

  “Sorry for all the Security, Captain, but. . .”

  “Call me Heinz. I’m on vacation, remember.”

  “Uh, OK,” she paused, clearly at a loss to call a captain by his first name, “Heinz.”

  Noonan smiled. “Relax, you’ll get used to it.”

  Ayanna smiled nervously for a moment and then relaxed. “There’s a bulkhead at the front of the airplane dividing the cockpit from the passenger compartment. Are you familiar with cargo hauling in Alaska?”

  “Not really.”

  “A lot of flights from the Lower 48, or within Alaska, carry cargo as well as passengers, often together. Because the cargo is heavier,
it is put to the front of the wings. It’s loaded first. When all of the cargo to be taken is loaded onboard, a bulkhead is slid into place. The bulkhead separates the cargo from the passengers. The more cargo there is, the less room for the passengers.”

  “What you are saying is the area in the plane between the pilot and the passengers is chock full of boxes and crates and bags and whatever else is being transported as cargo?”

  “We say carried. Carried as cargo. Yeah but it’s more complicated than how you expressed it. You are thinking of cargo as boxes and crates like you were filling a U-Haul. Air cargo can be sheets of plywood, pianos, hospital beds, thousands of feet of steel pipe, whatever. I’ve seen elephants.”

  “Elephants?”

  “Two, actually. They were small but they were elephants and they were alive.”

  “For the zoo?”

  “No. They were part of an educational project funded by a federal grant. Someone came up with the idea of flying elephants around in the bush so Natives children could see there really were such things as elephants.”

  Noonan chuckled, “If you can’t go to the zoo then the zoo comes to you.”

  “A nice way of putting it. Carrying live animals is not unusual. Large animals are carried in the cargo area while cats and small dogs go onboard with the passengers as carry-ons. I’ve seen a lot of chickens going into the villages and a number of years ago a Japanese Airlines jumbo jet broke open on the runway. It was loaded with cattle and when the plane finally came to rest the cattle still alive were running all over the runway. We didn’t have a fence between us and the park,” Ayanna said as she pointed the south across the runway, “to Kincaid Park. I’m sure there are a few cattle still out there, roaming around and wondering how they ended up in the land of ice and snow.”

  “There’s a fence there now?”

  “To keep the moose off the runway.”

  “Does it work?”