The Last Hostage

by Nance, John J. ;

  He knew Grand Junction well. AirBridge had been serving it with 737s for the past six months, and Ken had made many a landing in the arid community. The ramp area was sliding past his left shoulder now at more than three miles per minute, the scene appearing non-threatening, except for one small detail which might mean nothing. Along the flight line, a large hangar stood with the doors partially open. Normally it was either full open or full closed.

  He looked again.

  There was a haphazardly parked gaggle of aircraft outside the hangar, as if someone had emptied it in a hurry. Normally the ramp in front of the hangar was empty.

  Ken pushed the throttles up and began a climb to the south. He was preparing to push the transmit button when another voice came on the frequency.

  “Grand Junction Tower, AirBridge Forty-five with you for the visual.”

  AirBridge Forty-five? Ken thought. Oh, of course. The noon flight from the Springs. Somehow it seemed strange that the airline’s flights would be going on uninterrupted, but if the airport was being kept open to fool him, adding another AirBridge flight was a convincing touch.

  The tower’s reply came quickly in his headset.

  “Roger, AirBridge Forty-five, cleared to land runway eleven, winds, one-seven-zero at one-two knots.”

  “Roger, cleared to land.”

  Ken turned west and flew several miles away from the airport before turning back east toward it. He saw the landing lights of the other AirBridge flight—an identical 737—as it approached the north end of the runway, and he watched it touch down, taxi off the runway, and head back up the ramp abeam the open hangar, toward the commercial terminal.

  The other 737 was just passing the hangar. Ken tried to visualize what might be waiting inside. If there were police cars and a SWAT team, the commanders would be standing out of sight.

  Ken punched the transmit button, altering his voice slightly to sound irritated. The other 737 flight crew would be on ground-control frequency and wouldn’t hear him.

  “Tower, this is AirBridge Forty-five about ten miles to the north for a visual. We just heard another flight using our call sign down there. There’s only one of us. What the hell’s going on?”

  Ken turned his aircraft right to a southerly heading to give himself a better view of the suspicious hangar, now four miles distant. He could imagine the exchange of startled looks among anyone waiting down there. If he was right and there was a reception committee hiding in the hangar, there would be a sudden explosion of activity in a few seconds as they convinced themselves that the hijacked aircraft had landed under the guise of a regularly scheduled flight.

  “AirBridge Forty-five, we’re, ah, confused, sir,” the tower controller began. “You say you’re still airborne?”

  “Roger that, Grand Junction, and we’d like landing clearance,” Ken replied.

  “Ah, roger, Forty-five, you’re cleared to land, runway eleven, winds one-seven-zero at eight.”

  Ken pressed his nose against the glass of the pilot’s side window, startled at the stream of vehicles that rushed suddenly from the interior of the hangar, red rotating beacons clearly visible even miles away, all of them racing after the real AirBridge Forty-five as it taxied innocently toward the terminal past the waiting Gulfstream.

  “So what are you planning now to make things worse, Captain?” Bostich asked suddenly.

  Ken looked at the occupant of the right seat and raised his left hand, showing the electronic trigger once again.

  “Shut up and start thinking about how you’re going to phrase your confession, Bostich. By the way, your life is worth something only if you’re willing to tell that judge you lied. You don’t do that, you don’t deserve to live.”

  “So now you’re threatening the life of a federal prosecutor?”

  Ken looked over in mock amazement. “You mean to tell me I hadn’t made that threat crystal clear before? Lord! Let me make it clear for the record, scumbag. Confess or die. That clear enough?”

  Bostich nodded a sullen nod. “Quite.”

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL, Grand Junction Airport. 2:17 P.M.

  Jeff Jayson lowered the steps of the Gulfstream and Kat scrambled down to the ramp, followed closely by Bill North. The two of them moved around the nose of the private jet and squinted into the sky, looking for the hijacked airliner as the captain, Dane Bailey, brought up the rear with a handheld aviation radio tuned to the tower frequency.

  Kat glanced back at the open hangar, assuming whatever police and SWAT team assets the Bureau had been able to gather would be waiting inside. There was no sign of the hijacked 737 to the west now, and she felt her apprehension rising as the seconds ticked by and another flight, AirBridge 45, landed and taxied past them headed for the terminal.

  When a second AirBridge 45 called in for landing, the conclusion was obvious.

  “I’ll be damned. He just taxied by us!” Kat said in amazement. “He used the other call sign and we all bought it!”

  A line of police and security vehicles were streaming out of the hangar now to chase the 737 as it approached the terminal.

  “Where’s he going?” Bill North asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Kat replied, shading her eyes as she watched the taxiing 737 still moving north along the ramp, now pursued by at least twelve vehicles, including an Army Humvee with a gun mounted on it.

  North shook his head in amazement. “You know, Kat, I think he’s actually going to taxi right up to a jetway. I can’t believe it. He’ll be trapped unless he can force someone to push him back from the gate.”

  Kat watched in silence for a few seconds, straining to follow the jet.

  “Maybe it really is over, and he’s not planning on going anywhere else.”

  She stood in thought for a second, alarm bells going off in her mind.

  “No,” Kat said aloud. “This is too easy. This is wrong somehow.”

  In the distance, off to the southwest, the sound of another aircraft could be heard.

  Kat turned her head and searched the horizon, shading her eyes with her hand.

  “What is it, Kat?” Bill North asked.

  “Sh-h-h!” she responded, pointing to the southwest. “There. Can you make that out?”

  She heard nothing for a few seconds, then the sound of Bill North’s voice. “Oh, shit.”

  Kat whirled around to find him looking through a pair of tiny portable fieldglasses.

  “What?”

  He handed them to her quickly.

  “Take a look, Kat. It’s an AirBridge seven-thirty-seven. I already looked to the north for the so-called other flight Forty-five. There’s no one out there.”

  She took the glasses and pointed them to the southwest.

  “Wolfe,” North added, “obviously wanted everyone down here to think Flight Forty-five was Flight Ninety so he could see how you’d react.”

  Kat lowered the glasses, feeling a deep cold creeping through her body.

  “We’ve tipped our hand,” she said. “Damn, damn, damn! He’ll run now for sure.”

  Kat raised the glasses and adjusted the focus. The outline of the 737 was unmistakable, the markings on the tail clearly visible.

  She lowered the glasses and shook her head. “Bill, can I talk you into—”

  North had already grabbed her elbow to move her toward the door of the Gulfstream with Dane following as he yelled up to Jeff in the right seat. “Get her cranked!”

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:21 P.M.

  Well, well, well, Ms. Bronsky. No reception committee, huh? At least I know I can’t trust you.

  Ken banked the 737 back to the north and skirted the western face of the Grand Mesa, a huge flat-top mountain standing like a sentinel to the east of Grand Junction. He pushed the power up and watched the airspeed climb above two hundred fifty knots as he hugged the lower foothills and followed the flanks of the huge mesa until he was running along the north face some three thousand feet beneath the top of the cliffs that towered to their
right.

  He was aware of Bostich sitting wide-eyed and watching his every move in startled silence, but his attention had to remain on the flying until the plan he’d suddenly hatched to slip away had been executed.

  Ken snapped on the transponder before rounding the northwest side of the mesa, knowing Grand Junction’s approach control radar antenna would pick up the hijacking code he still had set in the window. The sudden appearance of the code and the target in conjunction with the flight identification and low altitude would cause pulses to race in the air traffic control facility as they relayed word to the FBI that AirBridge 90 was racing east just south of Interstate 70 toward Glenwood Springs and Aspen.

  That was the plan.

  Once the 737 was around the north side, he turned the transponder off again and forced the nose of the Boeing down until it was skimming along less than a quarter of a mile from the mountainside.

  Speed three hundred. God, don’t let me hit any more birds at this speed. The windshields might not take it.

  A small rise in the terrain loomed up without warning and Ken pulsed the control yoke back to bring them safely over it.

  Three hundred ten knots. Just about right.

  He strained to look up and to the right at the cap rock speeding by above them.

  Now!

  Ken pushed the throttles almost to the firewall and pulled the yoke back smoothly and steadily until the Boeing had reached almost twenty-five degrees nose up.

  “What are you doing?” Bostich asked in alarm.

  Ken Wolfe ignored him.

  The speed was decreasing slowly, the rate of climb shooting from zero to more than six thousand feet per minute as the mountainside melted away on his right. Ken rolled in the same direction just before the jet popped above the top of the mesa and he pulled hard, bringing them around to a southerly heading and stabilizing just two hundred feet above the trees and lakes and startled campers shooting by beneath them at just under two hundred fifty knots.

  Within two minutes, that surface dropped away suddenly as the 737 roared over the southern rim of the mesa and Ken shoved the nose down and yanked sharply left to follow the terrain, hiding from air traffic control radar as he prepared to dash across the wide valley to the south. He let his eyes wander to the fuel gauges again as his mind calculated how long he could remain airborne. Flying at lower altitudes was extremely fuel inefficient in a jet, and the otherwise miserly engines were gulping fuel at a furious rate. He thought he had more, but the gauges now showed less than six thousand pounds remaining.

  Forty minutes tops, he decided. Maybe Montrose would be a good place to get fuel. No way would anyone be expecting this aircraft to drop in.

  Ken’s left hand fumbled blindly through his map kit looking for the small binder which listed western airports for private pilots. He had to hold the electronic button tightly and feel with his free fingers, but finally they closed on the binder and pulled it out. He alternated between looking out, checking the airspeed and radar altitude, and glancing at the book as his right hand flipped the pages looking for Colorado and Montrose.

  There!

  He reached down and punched in the three letter identifier, MTJ, in the flight computer.

  The distance remaining showed thirty-eight miles.

  Magnificent spires of snow-capped mountains loomed to the south as Ken pressed the Boeing down to five hundred feet and shot across a highway, aiming the jet for the entrance to a broad valley to the south he knew well, a valley that contained a U.S. highway and led to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, as well as the San Juan Mountains. He would have about three minutes to decide whether to go to Montrose or veer to the east following the Gunnison.

  Unlike Utah, he knew this country. Years of flying commuter airplanes through the Rockies had mapped it in his mind. There would be no blundering into a box canyon this time.

  So now what do I do? Ken asked himself. You’ve given them the slip, you have half a plan, but how do I crack Bostich?

  Ken rubbed his forehead with his right hand, his left hanging on awkwardly to the electronic trigger and the control yoke. Bostich was still quiet in the right seat, but Ken was watching him carefully in his peripheral vision.

  Bronsky will be back in the air looking for me the minute she realizes the other aircraft was an inadvertent decoy. Maybe … maybe I should let her find me, or at least try to talk to her again.

  The thought of going on the air nationally to expose Bostich was growing, though it was probably too dangerous. There were too many ways they could trick him as he talked into a camera.

  Ken banked sharply to the right as he descended over the highway and checked the fuel again. Forty minutes was the maximum. Forty minutes to squeeze a confession out of Bostich or figure out a way to get fuel. He didn’t need the passengers now, he only needed Bostich, but how could he get the people off the aircraft without imperiling the whole effort?

  And what if Bostich didn’t crack? What if there was no way to get Bradley Lumin? How many more little girls would he be allowed to kill?

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 2:28 P.M.

  “Gulfstream Five-Lima-Lima, Grand Junction Approach. We had a couple of radar hits on him just northwest of the mesa, about ten miles northeast of the field. He was at seven thousand, heading approximately zero-three-zero, and doing three hundred knots. That was four minutes ago. We lost him heading east just south of the Interstate.” Kat looked up at Dane, who was concentrating on the instruments and running the after-takeoff checklist as he banked the Gulfstream to the north and climbed to their clearance altitude of fifteen thousand feet.

  She saw him punch the transmit button.

  “Thanks, Approach. Five-Lima-Lima.”

  “Why would he turn his transponder back on?” Kat asked, her eyes on the center panel but her mind in the cockpit of Flight 90.

  Dane shook his head. “Maybe he forgot and switched it back on accidentally, or maybe he never had it off and we just didn’t hear.”

  Or maybe, Kat thought, he turned it on because he wanted to establish his presence running toward Glenwood Springs, which he’d do if he were trying to disappear again.

  “Dane,” Kat tugged on his right sleeve and caught his eyes as he turned to look at her.

  “Yes?”

  “He’s going to skim the top of the mesa and run south. The transponder is a ruse.”

  The captain looked pained. “Are you sure? That sounds pretty bizarre.”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “Please get us to the south as fast as possible, and let me look at a sectional chart. He can’t have a lot of fuel left, and there are only a few airports out here he could use.”

  Dane was shaking his head. “If we run south and he’s going east, we’ll lose him, Kat. There are some pretty high mountains in between.”

  She nodded again. “Trust me, Dane.” She picked up the Flitephone and asked for Frank, explaining her theory.

  “They’re throwing things at walls back in Washington, Kat, over losing him in Grand Junction. The decision to let that other AirBridge flight land and pretend business as usual was disastrous.”

  “Frank, that wasn’t my decision.”

  There was a grunt of acknowledgment on the other end. “I know. It was mine. But it’s done now, and he’s running east.”

  “No, he’s going to run south.”

  “Kat, I’m looking at a map. South is where he came from this morning. The Durango area, Four Corners, Monument Valley. I don’t think he’d go back there, and besides, you said they had a radar hit on him headed east.”

  “That was a ruse. He’s clever, Frank. Desperate and clever. Nevertheless, get every airport in western Colorado with more than a four-thousand-foot runway up to speed on what’s happening. Also, if you can, get AirBridge to stop any seven-thirty-seven service to this part of the state until we know where he is.”

  “I’ll do it, but I want you to head east.”

  “No, Frank. This is instinct, but I’m
beginning to understand this guy, and what he wants requires some time to set up. He needs to buy time, and he needs to buy fuel, and I need you to trust me.”

  “Kat, the word comes from headquarters. Fly east and try to talk to him, try to shadow him. I’m already taking a lot of heat for allowing you to go off on your own in that private jet.”

  She sat in thought for a few seconds, gripping the receiver, her jaw clenched.

  She raised the receiver again, then stopped.

  “Frank, there’s a lot of static on this line.”

  “What? What static, Kat? It’s perfectly clear.”

  “I CAN’T HEAR YOU. If you can hear me, we’re heading south to intercept. Please alert the airports. I’ll check in later.”

  She replaced the phone and looked up. They were headed south at fifteen thousand, the expanse of the Grand Mesa’s flat-topped terrain now behind them and a broad valley below.

  “He might head for Montrose, Kat.”

  She shook her head. “He’ll think of it, but unless I miss my guess on his fuel state, he’ll go down the Black Canyon of the Gunnison thinking we’d never suspect that. He’ll head for Gunnison’s airport.”

  Dane looked around at her. “You sure?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I’m not sure. I’m just rolling the dice and depending on instinct, which may be wrong, but if you’ll set me up again on the radio, I’m going to try to raise him once more.”

  SIXTEEN

  Offices of Davidson Aviation, Stamford, Connecticut. 2:29 P.M. MST, 4:29 P.M. EDT.

  Hilda Lungaard winced internally as the click of the intercom on her desk announced her boss’s voice.

  “Hilda? Get Steve Coberg on the phone, please. That’s the AirBridge chief pilot in Colorado Springs.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied as she reached for her Rolodex. She glanced behind her at the closed double doors leading to Tom Davidson’s plush office, wondering what had set him off. All morning the tension had been thick enough to cut with a knife.

  She punched in the number, navigated the inevitable secretarial barriers on the other end, and announced the call.

  On the other side of the heavy oaken doors, awash in the expensive decor of a wood-paneled office full of aircraft models and framed pictures of the owner with various dignitaries, Tom Davidson pressed a portable receiver to his face and paced the thick carpet. In his mid-sixties with a full mane of silver hair and carrying an excess fifty pounds on his six-foot frame, Davidson’s craggy face had been chiseled into a perpetual grandfatherly smile.