The Last Hostage

by Nance, John J. ;

  Rudy sensed a reaction from Ken Wolfe, but he was unprepared to see Ken laughing.

  “What?” Rudy asked him in an offended tone.

  “What?” Ken replied. “What? Listen to yourself, you overblown, lying, pompous sack of shit! You’re about to lose your life here, you and I both know you’re lying about that tip, and you’ve got the audacity to try to intimidate her because she’s just a little female FBI agent and you’re a big, badass, male prosecutor! Jesus Christ, Bostich, you’re an egomaniacal bastard! Your arrogance simply knows no bounds, does it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re blathering about, Wolfe.”

  “Oh, yes you do, and I think you probably just alienated the only friend you’ve got in this equation, fool. Go ahead. Pick up the microphone. Snarl at the woman some more. After all, she doesn’t count, does she? She’s just a little female, like my daughter. Just a little female, and females are so much baggage, aren’t they Rudy?”

  “Her questions are nonsense,” Bostich stammered.

  “Well, please explain that to her in acid detail, Rudy. Because when you’re through demonstrating your total disdain, she’ll probably come over here and shoot you herself. Save me the trouble.”

  Bostich snorted. “You don’t have a gun, just that electronic thing.”

  Ken looked at him in deep thought for a few seconds, then leveled his index finger at him.

  “You know, you’re right about that.”

  He turned back toward the Gulfstream and clicked off the overhead speaker.

  “Kat, I’m sad to report the big candidate for Attorney General doesn’t like you very much. In fact, I think Mr. Bostich is a misogynist.

  “I’m just trying to get at the truth, Ken. What do we do now?”

  He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the glareshield for a few moments before answering.

  “I see the deputy coming aboard. Send him back out. I want him about twenty-five feet to the side of my forward entry door, his hands on his head where I can see them at all times.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not going to tell you, but I can assure you I’m not planning on hurting him, Kat. You be sure to explain to him, though, that he can’t hurt me without blowing up everyone.”

  Ken pulled what appeared to be a small handheld radio from his map kit with his right hand, then snapped off his seatbelt as he looked at Bostich and raised the electronic trigger into view with his left.

  “The first sign of movement out of that seat, Bostich, and I let go.”

  Rudy shook his head disgustedly. “I’m not going anywhere. Apparently.”

  Ken clipped the small handheld to his belt and stepped over the center console to stand in the small aisleway between the console and the cockpit door. Without warning, he reached out and yanked the shoulder harnesses on the copilot’s seat from their stowed position. Rudy flinched at the vibration and began to look around.

  “Freeze!” Ken commanded. “Get your eyes back forward.”

  Rudy complied, his eyes focusing on the instrument panel as Ken reached down to the base of the copilot’s seat and adjusted something, then handed the shoulder harnesses over Rudy’s left shoulder.

  “Here. Grab these two straps and pull hard.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t argue. Just do it.”

  Rudy took the straps in his right hand and pulled them to their maximum length.

  “What now?”

  “I’ve wedged the trigger into the shoulder strap inertial reel at the base of your chair, Bostich. The pressure you’re putting on that strap is holding the button down. As long as you keep constant tension on those harnesses, the button will remain depressed.”

  “No!” Rudy cried out. “You can’t leave me like this!”

  Ken snorted in disgust. “What, in suspended agony, like you left me when you lied to that judge? I can leave you any way I want to, scum.”

  “What are you planning?” Bostich’s voice was an anguished whine.

  “What am I planning? I’m planning to use the lavatory, and I don’t want you thinking about leaving. Any attempt to pull that trigger out without knowing precisely which button is depressed, and we’re all gone.”

  Rudy was breathing hard. “After you use the bathroom, you’re coming right back? Right?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I may evacuate this aircraft and leave you like this until I get a confession. Or I might get the people off and set it on fire to let you make your own decision whether to blow up or roast. I haven’t decided, except for one thing.”

  “What-what’s that?”

  “You sign a confession, you walk away. Think about it.”

  Ken leaned behind the left seat and pulled the circuit breakers for the communication radios.

  “Remember, Bostich. Even a slight lessening of the tension may trip the trigger. And don’t get any ideas about the radios. They’re turned off.”

  TWENTY

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90, Telluride Regional Airport, Colorado. 3:27 P.M.

  With Rudy Bostich afraid to move in the copilot’s seat, Ken Wolfe reached down to the back of the center console and pulled up the P.A. microphone.

  “Folks, you’re going to see someone come out of the cockpit. Make no attempt to stop him, approach him, talk to him, or otherwise interfere with him. Stay in your seats. That includes the flight attendants.”

  Ken looked through the peephole before moving out of the cockpit and into the adjacent lavatory. He emerged again rapidly and glanced back up front, satisfied that Bostich was holding onto the straps for dear life, totally unaware that the trigger was still in Ken’s left hand.

  “I just want you to know, Bostich, that we’re all depending on you,” Ken said mockingly.

  The passenger cabin was quiet, with several sets of startled eyes following him. Annette was nowhere to be seen, so Ken reached down to the same panel Annette had used constantly to talk to him and rang the rear galley. Annette answered almost instantly.

  “Are you all three back there?”

  “Yes,” was the icy response.

  “Okay. You’re going to feel the pressure change as the front door is opened. Stay back there! Do NOT come forward, and do NOT let any passenger stand up.”

  “We get the idea, Captain.”

  “Just one thing. I’ll have the trigger with me if I step outside. If I see any human being open a door, or worse, try to leave the aircraft, I’ll detonate.”

  He replaced the handset and looked through the small window on the door. The deputy was visible on the tarmac below, his hands on his head as requested.

  Ken disconnected the automatic exit slide and worked the door handle before flipping the switch that extended the self-contained boarding stairs. The sound of motors whining finally ended, and he swung the door open and stood for a moment in the doorway, half expecting the impact of a bullet.

  Instead, the flow of a cool breeze washed over him as he stepped outside and raised his left hand. “You see this black plastic thing, Deputy?” he yelled.

  “Yes,” Goodwin replied.

  “Did the FBI agent brief you that it’s a trigger?”

  Goodwin nodded.

  “Okay. I’m coming down these stairs. If anyone’s waiting with a gun, you’d better stop him. I get shot, we all go up in one horrendous explosion.”

  “No one else is close, Captain. I told all my people to stay away. What do you want?”

  Ken reached the bottom and stepped onto the ramp, immediately dropping to a squatting position to inspect under the 737 and around behind it.

  No one there. So far, so good, Ken said to himself as he stood.

  He turned back to the deputy. “I want your gun, Deputy. Take it out of the holster with two fingers and place it on the ground, then back off. I see any sudden movement, or see your fingers closing around it, I’ll trigger the bomb.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Ken said, his head inclined to one side in surprise. “No?” />
  “I can’t give you my gun, Captain.”

  Ken looked down and shook his head before looking back at Goodwin.

  “I don’t think you thoroughly understand the situation here, Deputy. What’s your name?”

  “Gary Goodwin.”

  “Don’t try to be a hero, Gary. You’re going to give me that gun, or you’re going to be the cause of a hundred and thirty deaths.”

  “No, sir,” Gary said, shaking his head.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re an airline captain, sir, and I just can’t believe an airline captain would really do that.”

  Ken was shaking his head in wonder. “Believe it, Gary. This one will.” He gestured toward the Gulfstream. “Did the FBI agent up there tell you I’m too desperate to really give a damn what happens?”

  “No, sir.”

  “See, Gary, live or die, blow them up, save them, I could care less at this point. She tell you that?”

  Goodwin shook his head.

  Ken paused, a sudden flash of an idea in his head.

  “Gary, didn’t she tell you how many people I killed last night near Ft. Collins?”

  A wide-eyed look of shock spread across Goodwin’s face as he tried to stammer an answer. He’d heard nothing about any multiple murder, but then again, he hadn’t listened to a radio or TV newscast in the last week.

  “Are you willing to gamble all their lives, Gary, on the unpredictable actions of a maniac like me?”

  “Why … why do you need a gun if you’ve got a bomb, Captain?”

  Ken could see faces pressed against the Gulfstream’s windows and suddenly an attractive woman appeared on the top step of the business jet, holding the handrail and looking alarmed, her hair blowing wildly from the stiff breeze whipping across the tarmac.

  He pulled the handheld radio from his belt.

  “You see this?”

  The deputy nodded.

  “It’s an amplifier. It’s part of the trigger mechanism. The trigger in my left hand doesn’t have a timer. This base unit does. It’s like nothing even the FBI has seen because I modified it myself.” Ken fiddled with the buttons on the front and set it down on the ground beside him, then began walking slowly toward the deputy.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to play a little game of electronic chicken, Gary. I’ve set it to go off in less than a minute. Remember, I still have to hold this trigger down in my left hand or the bomb blows immediately, but in less than fifty-five seconds, if I don’t get back to this unit and punch in the disarm code, it’s all over.”

  “Look, Captain, I can’t give you this gun.” It was more of a plea now, Ken noted, and less a battle cry.

  “Okay, then I’ll take it out of the holster myself,” Ken replied, “and if you delay me with a fight, you’ll bear the responsibility for blowing up the hostages you’d like to rescue.”

  Ken continued walking steadily toward Goodwin, whose eyes were getting even wider with indecision.

  “Stop right there, Captain!” Gary’s voice had become slightly shrill, slightly less assured, and Ken understood the tone.

  “I’m giving the orders here, Gary, and you’re just making it more difficult for me to return to the timer before it goes off.”

  Eight feet remained between the two men.

  “Look, Captain—”

  “It’s not a wise idea, Gary, to gamble with a dead man who’s got nothing left to lose.”

  Five feet remained.

  Kat’s voice rang out from the top of the Gulfstream’s stairs.

  “Ken?”

  Ken continued walking slowly toward Goodwin.

  “What’s it going to be, Gary? We’ve probably used up twenty seconds, and it’ll take me at least five to run back to turn it off.”

  The deputy glanced nervously at Kat, then back at Ken, licking his lips as he tried to decide what to do.

  Ken was three feet away, moving steadily, his eyes locked on the deputy’s eyes.

  In his peripheral vision he could see Kat descending the Gulf-stream’s stairs in a hurry.

  And suddenly he was standing nose to nose with the startled deputy.

  “We’ve probably got twenty seconds left,” Ken said. “Want to continue arguing?”

  There was a two-second pause before a single word exploded from the deputy’s lips.

  “Damn!” Gary spat the word off to one side as he shook his head, then glanced down to his right. “Take it. Take it quick. Just … get back to that radio.”

  Kat was moving slowly across the tarmac toward them, trying to decide what was happening.

  Ken reached over with his right hand and slipped the .44 from the holster, then turned and moved swiftly back across the ramp to scoop up the handheld unit. He jabbed at one of the buttons, then turned back to see Kat stop next to Goodwin.

  “Timer disarmed …” Ken announced, holding the base unit aloft, “… with eight seconds left.”

  “Ken?” Kat Bronsky called out, smoothing her hair back with her right hand as she held her position some thirty feet away.

  “Yes, Kat. Have they found him?”

  She shook her head reluctantly as he glanced at his watch, then back at her.

  “Sixteen minutes left, Kat.”

  “Then what, Ken? Suppose it takes us just a bit longer than that?”

  He shook his head. “The deadline is non-negotiable.”

  “You want Bostich, right?”

  A sudden gust of wind from behind Kat cascaded her hair around her and she fought for control of it, pushing it off her face as Ken glanced around him, making certain no one was creeping up.

  He turned back to her. “You know I want Bostich. I want him to confess so I can get Lumin convicted. You know that already.”

  “If you’ll give me some time, I can crack Bostich. I agree he’s probably lying.”

  Ken checked over his shoulder again. The fuel truck was nowhere to be seen, and the fifteen thousand pounds of fuel they’d already loaded wouldn’t get him more than two and a half hours of flight time. He looked down at the large handgun he’d taken from the deputy, who’d dropped his hands to his hips and was standing slightly behind the FBI agent.

  “I’m not kidding, Ken,” Kat said. “I know about the hearing, and I know about the detective, and I believe Bostich is lying. But if I can’t talk to him eye to eye, I don’t have a prayer of proving it.”

  She started moving toward him with the same slow, steady speed he’d used to approach the deputy.

  “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  “Cut me some slack, Ken. Give me some time to come aboard and question Bostich. He doesn’t like me, I don’t like him, and let’s just see where it leads, okay? If it doesn’t work, I’ll leave. You can kick me out of the airplane at any time and I’ll return to the Gulfstream and talk to you on the radio, okay?”

  As she came closer, he could see the wind whipping her blouse against her body, revealing her feminine contours, and confirming the fact that she wasn’t wearing a shoulder holster.

  “The deadline still holds, Kat.”

  She nodded. “Okay, but then what? Are you going to blow everyone up while there’s still a chance of success? That’s pretty lame.”

  “I’ve got a better plan,” he said, the words causing a flicker of uncertainty to cross her face. “You wondering why I haven’t stopped you from walking over here, Kat?”

  “No,” she said. There were ten feet separating them.

  “Have you thought of your own safety? I’m armed with a bomb and a gun, I’m desperate and dangerous as hell. Why get too close to me? Are you that brave?”

  She let out a short laugh and looked off to the side in reaction before meeting his eyes again.

  “Brave? Brave? Are you kidding, Ken? My knees … are literally shaking here! You’re scaring me to death, but I can’t talk to you very well over the radio, and I can’t question Bostich that way either, and despite what you think I’m try
ing to do, I want to help you get to the bottom of your daughter’s murder as well as end this … this … hijacking thing.”

  He smiled for the first time as she came up to him and stopped, her arms folded in front of her.

  “I guess,” Kat began, “I’ve always had this blind trust thing about airline captains, y’know? Call me crazy, but it’s this nutty idea I get when I buckle up in a commercial airliner that my captain probably isn’t going to kidnap me today.”

  “This is bizarre!” Ken said, looking off to the left at the sky and shaking his head. “Really bizarre.”

  “Hey, fella, you’re calling the tune,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep dancing.”

  He looked her in the eye, the smile gone. “Kat, don’t think for a moment I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  “What am I up to, Ken?”

  “You’re an FBI agent, for chrissakes, despite the soft, feminine package. Don’t you think I know you’re trained to kill people caught doing what I’m doing?”

  She laughed suddenly, a short chuckle, somewhat forced but incongruous enough to throw him off guard even more.

  “What am I going to kill you with, Ken, my bare hands? I probably couldn’t even reach around your neck.”

  “Nevertheless, keep those arms folded.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. They could be lethal weapons.”

  He smiled again, in spite of himself.

  “You’re trying to con me, young lady.”

  “No I’m not, Ken!”

  “You want me to believe you’re suspicious of Bostich, but you don’t believe he lied any more than I believe he’s telling the truth.”

  She shook her head, her face serious. “Not true. There’s something in that man’s voice that’s beyond a reaction to fear.”

  “Yeah, he’s a pompous ass to begin with.”

  “Let me try, Ken. Please! I’ll leave anytime you decide it’s not working.”

  He looked at her once more, studying her eyes, wondering if there was a way to let her try, but still keep control. Maybe there was a way to let her probe Bostich while avoiding the web of endless delays she’d been taught to weave.