Lockout

by John J. Nance

  “No, he didn’t. We didn’t know you were ill.”

  “Bad ill,” he said, coughing again.

  “How are you?” Jaime asked, chiding himself for what sounded like a stupid question. Obviously the man was in poor condition.

  “A little better. Worst flu I’ve ever had. Thought I was going to die and was equally afraid I wouldn’t.” He negotiated another coughing spell and looked back over his shoulder. “I’d invite you in, Mr. … Lopez?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d invite you in, but the place looks like it’s been hit by a bomb and I may still be contagious.”

  “No problem. You did list this address as apartment number three, by the way.”

  The man looked up, shaking his head as he met Jaime’s eyes.

  “I really didn’t want anyone to know I’m living this basic, y’know? It’s embarrassing.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I once had a law partner who lived on a beach in a tent. He’d clean himself up each morning, put on a sharp suit, and we never knew.”

  “You’re a lawyer?”

  “Yes. I’m Mojave’s general counsel.”

  “Why … would a big lawyer come all the way out here if it isn’t to fire me?”

  “Well, that’s what we need to talk about.”

  “I was hoping to come back to work next week, Mr. Lopez. I like the job.”

  “I see no reason why you can’t, Carl, but it’s not my call.”

  “Then, why are you here, sir?”

  “First, let me ask you, has anyone else come out here today?”

  “No, sir. You’re the first human I’ve seen in a week.”

  Jaime shook his head in disgust, letting a few more tumblers fall into place regarding the honesty of the two supposed TSA agents.

  “Carl, our company’s got a big problem, and I need to ask you a question, and I need a completely truthful answer.”

  “Okay. Sure. I have no reason not to be truthful.”

  “Is Carl Kanowsky your true name?”

  Jaime saw the man’s expression fall as he looked down at his feet and sighed deeply. He ambled out of the trailer door and flicked on a hanging camp light over a low wooden bench, sitting heavily. A long silence finally gave way to a ragged sigh as he answered in a low, almost inaudible voice.

  “How’d you find out?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to go back there now, right?” he looked up with tears forming.

  “Back where?”

  “The looney bin. In Indiana. The psychiatric hospital. It’s been thirty-five years, but I knew they were still looking for me. Every night, every day, I’ve expected this knock on the door. I’ve been terrified for thirty-five years, and now …”

  “Were you … ruled criminally insane for something?”

  The man’s eyes flared as he looked up. “Oh, God, no! No, no, no! Nothing like that. I just, had a bad breakdown and … I had several. Actually, they committed me. They said I was schizophrenic, and I’d have to live there for life. Yet one day they left the door to that living hell open, and I … just … walked away. Then I ran, as fast as I could. I hitchhiked west. A lot of truck drivers took pity on me, I guess.” He looked up pleadingly at Jaime before letting his gaze fall to the desert again. “I’d rather die than go back, Mr. Lopez.” He buried his face in his hands.

  “What’s your real name?”

  It took almost a minute for Kanowsky to compose himself and look up again.

  “Vic Stevens. Victor. But you already knew that.”

  “No, I didn’t, and I don’t care that you were once committed somewhere if it wasn’t a criminal matter. Even if they are still looking for you, I doubt they’d spend a penny to bring you back, and we have no interest in turning you in. I checked your record with us, Carl … ah, Vic. You’ve been a good employee. If you want to still be known as Carl, no problem with me.”

  “I do. I like Carl.”

  “It’s a good name.”

  “But they’re still looking for me! I just know it. They’ll never stop.”

  “Carl, times have changed drastically. People aren’t locked up like that anymore. Not even when they need to be.”

  Yet the assurance was not about to counter three and a half decades of visceral fear.

  “You’re really from Mojave Aircraft?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am, and I’m here because you apparently sent the wrong aircraft back to Tulsa last week.”

  In an instant the man’s expression morphed from despair to complete alarm and he seemed to rise from the old wooden bench like a balloon re-inflating, eyes flaring in

  concern.

  “I did what?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Aboard Pangia 10 (0440 Zulu)

  After almost a half hour of pulling relay cubes and trying unsuccessfully to find the key to restoring the flight controls, Dan had scrambled back out of the electronics bay to find Josh Begich still sitting in the copilot’s seat, out of ideas, and looking to anyone for hope. The glow of impending daylight was illuminating the cockpit, but they were in a solid cloud deck.

  “Josh, let me sit there for a few minutes,” Dan said, prompting a flurry of activity as the teen quickly motored the seat back on its rails and jumped out.

  Dan sat down sideways, facing Jerry. Carol, Bill Breem, and Tom Wilson had also remained in the cockpit. There was no question this was the final briefing before the battle, and two of the other flight attendants were standing in the door as Moishe Lavi came up behind them, listening. Carol considered asking him to return to his seat, but the gesture seemed futile, and she said nothing.

  “What’s our status, Dan?” Jerry asked, his voice betraying the disappointment he knew the copilot was bringing.

  “Our status is this. We’ve yanked damn near everything I can find to pull, with the exception of the relay that nearly turned us over, and we powered up a few things, but nothing on the flight controls. There is a bank of relays back there in the lower rear of the cabinet I just can’t reach. Just no friggin’ way to get to them, even if I didn’t mind being electrocuted.”

  “Dan,” Jerry said, stopping him. “We’re over the Iranian border in sixteen minutes. Do we have any options?”

  Dan sighed and nodded, parsing his words.

  “Okay, option one is to pull that same relay that nearly turned us over and buy a 360 turn, or two, or three. By the third one we’ll probably flame out the first engine, and God only knows what the airplane will do then. But at least we’d crash in Iraq instead of Iran.”

  “Is there a second option?”

  “Yes. That’s what I was getting to. It’s pure desperation, Jerry, but Frank and I have identified the main power lead to that hellish box, and although we can’t find a way to disconnect it in civil fashion, we have a crash axe and I can cut the damned thing.”

  “And it would let go of us?”

  “Yes. But we have no idea whether the relays would return to normal position and repower our controls, or if we’d be sitting in a dead cockpit with an unpowered airplane we couldn’t control.”

  “Those fighters are armed, Dan,” Jerry said quietly.

  “I know it. I would never expect an Israeli fighter to not be armed. What’s your point?”

  “They could hold off Iranian fighters, maybe, but all it would take is a lucky shot by an oncoming Iranian jet or a ground surface-to-air missile and we’re Malaysia 17.”

  Dan sighed again, shaking his head. “We’re going to flame out just over the border in any event, if my calculations are right.”

  “We got all the displays back, including fuel quantity. I have to agree.”

  “What do we have, Jerry?”

  “Sixteen minutes, and we’re as slow as I dare go without flight controls.”

  “Okay. So, here’s the deal. Frank and I will keep trying individual relays until we’re five minutes out. At that point, on your order, I’ll cut the power lead with an axe
, and we’ll just have to pray a lot.”

  “If that’s all we’ve got …”

  “That’s all I can see. Whoever built this infernal thing did a really professional job. They may not have been planning for someone to disable it, but they effectively created the same result. I wish I could know for sure who turned the damned thing on!”

  Only Carol noticed the former prime minister of Israel turning back to the cabin.

  First class cabin, Pangia 10

  Carefully maintaining a virtually unreadable expression, Moishe Lavi sat down and opened the laptop Ashira had returned, bringing up the document he had been working on hours before. He made a few corrections and additions, pulled in a copy of his signature, and plugged a small interface cable in between his handheld satellite phone and the computer. With the crew regaining the use of their radios, he doubted anyone would notice the sat phone, but he took care to keep it out of view nonetheless, nudging it up against the window for a better lock-on obscured by a small blanket.

  At long last the connection flashed green, and he entered the appropriate keystrokes to send the carefully parsed message to the inbox of a journalist he had always trusted. There would be no doubt that within hours, if not minutes, the whole world would be reading his words, and hopefully understand, even if they did not approve.

  Moishe Lavi shut down the computer and sat back, resigned to whatever the next twenty minutes would bring.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  St. Paul’s Hospital, Denver, Colorado (10:50 p.m. MST / 0450 Zulu)

  Pulling the chief attending trauma surgeon away from an ER full of patients had required a level of insistence and, basically, rudeness that Steve Reagan hated in others. But there had been no choice, and now a miffed doctor was standing before him in a small alcove demanding to know what the problem was, his voice low and not unkind, but decidedly irritated.

  “I need you to give my wife something to wake her up enough to answer some critical questions.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, doctor, I am far from joking.”

  “You beat up my nurses to get me over here because you want to question your wife? Man, you’re lucky she’s alive! She’s got to rest, for Chrissake!”

  “Doctor, I can’t explain too much to you, but this is a matter of national security.”

  “Yeah, right!” He started to turn away, and Steve grabbed the sleeve of his scrubs. The physician whirled on him.

  “Get your hands off of me!”

  “Doctor, is it dangerous to wake her up?”

  “That’s not the point. I won’t allow it.”

  “Doctor, at this moment, there is a commercial airliner about to run out of fuel because the pilots cannot regain control of their aircraft. I am not at liberty to tell you how I know this, but I can tell you that Gail … my, my wife in there … has in her head the … the numbers for want of a better word … that will give control back. Almost 300 people will die if we don’t wake her up enough to get that sequence.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the doctor demanded.

  “I’m Steve Reagan, and I … work for the air force.”

  “Yeah? Well, Mr. Reagan, so happens I am a flight surgeon and a major in the Air Force Reserve, and we don’t have people like you running around without IDs. So cough it up or get out of my face.”

  “I’ll do better than that. Please wait a second.” Steve pulled his phone to eye level and punched redial on the last number connected.

  “General? Steve Reagan. I have a physician here who refuses to wake Gail up and who doesn’t believe me. He’s also an air force doctor, a major. Dr. Mark Wellsley. Yes, sir, I thought you’d say that.”

  Steve held out the phone. “Lieutenant General Paul Wriggle is on the other end. He’s speaking from the White House.”

  Uncertainty now crossed the face of the doctor as he reluctantly took the phone, listening and responding in guarded fashion before asking the key question Steve knew had to come.

  “How the hell do I know you are who you say you are?” The doctor looked back at Reagan, eyes flaring with distaste as he agreed to hang up and find the main number of the White House switchboard on his own and call in.

  He handed the phone back to Steve as if it were contaminated and moved to a desk phone at the nurses’ station, punching up information and then dialing the number, obviously astounded when he was recognized and connected immediately.

  “Okay, yes, I’m satisfied. What the hell is going on general?”

  A few more words were spoken before the doctor replaced the receiver and turned to Steve.

  “Okay. We can do this safely, but you’ll only have a few minutes, because I’m not going to let you wear her out.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The White House (1:00 a.m. EST / 0500 Zulu)

  “Will? I’m in!”

  “What? To the Internet?”

  “Yes! And I’m cueing up that transponder again. I think I know how to get through the firewall.”

  The sound of the door opening filled the room as the same Secret Service agent who had ushered them in returned, his face an unreadable mask.

  “Come with me please.”

  Jenny looked up at him, startled.

  “I need a minute.”

  “No, ma’am. Close the computer.”

  “But I …”

  “Now, ma’am.”

  Only a few seconds’ hesitation was needed to study the man’s face and know it wasn’t a request. Jenny carefully lowered the lid and gathered up the power supply as she fell in behind Will, who was already moving out of the door.

  “We were about to give up on you,” Will said, trying not to sound too disparaging but equally aware that the man leading them was impervious.

  Another agent picked up the lead and escorted them through several hallways and into an ornate conference room Jenny recognized from pictures as the Cabinet Room.

  General Paul Wriggle knew he was grasping at straws, so the sudden appearance of someone claiming to have codes relating to Flight 10 was deserving of an immediate response.

  Introductions were short and urgent, and Paul looked at both IDs, fixing Will Bronson with a steady gaze to make a quick assessment of his response.

  “Are your leaders looking for you, Bronson?”

  “Yes, sir. Everywhere, I’m sure. I think I’ve stumbled onto an illicit operation, which is why I sought out Jenny, here, and why I refused to come in.”

  “An illicit operation? By Defense Intelligence?”

  “Yes, sir. It will take some explaining.”

  “I would think. Your boss is downstairs right now in the Sit Room and, fortunately, the duty officer didn’t inform him you were here before informing the president.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him, sir, until I talk to you, or the president.”

  “No time for that. Who has the codes?”

  “I do, I think,” Jenny replied, filling him in as quickly and succinctly as possible on reversing the sequence, using a version of a code she wrote.

  “Do either of you have any idea what’s going on with that aircraft, other than the pilots are locked out?”

  “No, sir,” Jenny answered. “We just know something turned on a … I guess, circuit or device aboard that plane that won’t let the pilots control it, and I think the sequence I have … which is just eight numbers representing a reverse algorithm … will undo it. I’m just guessing, of course.”

  “Is there an Israeli operation behind this?”

  Will and Jenny exchanged startled glances, before Will replied.

  “I … honestly don’t know, sir. I just know DIA, and I think some faction of NSA is involved. It could be an Israeli op.”

  The door opened, and the president himself came in.

  “Paul?”

  “Meet our missing DIA man, Will Bronson, and his NSA compatriot, Jenny Reynolds. Apparently he’s not William Piper. Face is completely different.”

&n
bsp; The president nodded at both of them as he turned to Paul.

  “Your assessment, Paul?”

  “Neither of these people has any idea about the basics of how this happened, therefore there can be no realistic chance that the code she’s offering is meant to sabotage a disconnect. I vote we use it as fast as possible.”

  The president was nodding. “You’re my final authority. Okay. Do it. Jenny is it?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Give General Wriggle the code. He’ll make the calls from here. Then … stay here. Both of you. It may be a few hours but we’ll want to debrief.”

  “Okay.” She slid a folded piece of paper across the highly polished table she’d seen in countless presidential photographs, and the general opened it and studied the contents.

  “This is it?”

  “As best I can figure. Do you want me to tell you why I think so? The code that apparently caused the original lockout …”

  The general had his hand up to stop her. “Won’t be necessary. I read 62993178.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Paul Wriggle turned to one of the deskset phones and pulled the receiver to his ear as he dialed. Colonel Dana Baumgartner answered immediately.

  “Paul here, Dana. Any word from Denver since I spoke to the doctor?”

  “No, sir. She’s slowly coming around. She did confirm what we already know that the numbers we got from her desk safe were not the codes.”

  “Dana, I’m going to read you a set of numbers. The question is this: If this is the code that the unit would take if it received the appropriate satellite broadcast, would it also work if typed in or sent by UHF relay?”

  “No need, Paul. The code is the same regardless of how it’s delivered. Of course the MDCU entry method takes more preparation, but they’re in essence all the same, a string of numbers.”

  “All I needed to know.”

  With an ashen-faced Will Bronson and Jenny Reynolds watching, Paul Wriggle checked his watch, catching their eyes as he punched up the White House operator.