John J Nance - The Last Hostage

by The Last Hostage(lit)

  "I'm with the FAA, miss. Dudley Harris. I need to talk to your captain, right now."

  She read the name on the identification card as he continued.

  "I'm a maintenance inspector, but I can still file violations, and you're required to admit me to the cockpit on request."

  Annette studied the man for a second, then gestured toward the forward entry alcove. Harris followed.

  Annette molded her back against the forward entry door next to the interphone panel and motioned Harris to within inches of her face as she held her finger to her lips.

  "What is it?" he asked in a suspicious tone.

  "Mr. Harris, there's something I have to tell you," she said very softly.

  He pulled back slightly. "I'm sorry, what? I'm having trouble hearing you." His voice was softer, too, but still loud enough to startle her, and she motioned for quiet again as she leaned forward to speak directly in his ear.

  "Mr. Harris, the passengers have not been told, but we've been hijacked. There's a hijacker in the right seat in the cockpit with a gun claiming he has a bomb in the baggage compartment."

  The FAA inspector jumped back, his eyes wide, mouthing the word "Hijacker?"

  Annette nodded solemnly, and leaned toward him again.

  "The captain told me the hijacker is listening on the interphone.'

  Harris took a deep breath and looked around toward the close cockpit door before replying. He turned back to Annette, alarm shoing clearly on his face.

  "I--I had no idea." She shrugged. "He said not to tell anyone."

  The sound of a call chime reverberated through the airplane an Annette checked the ceiling call lights, startled to see it was the cod pit call button that had been pushed. She swallowed hard and motioned to Harris to wait as she picked up the handset.

  "Hello."

  "Annette?"

  "Yes, Ken."

  "I heard voices outside the door. What's going on? Is that sorry son of a bitch Rudy Bostich acting up?"

  "Bostich? Ah, no, captain. You mean the guy in coach?" She looked at Harris in confusion, her mind whirling around his reference to Bostich as she raised the receiver to her lips again. "There's an FAA inspector here who didn't appreciate your tour. He wants to talk to you, but"But you told him we've been hijacked, didn't you?"

  "I had to, Ken."

  There was silence for a few heartbeats as Annette held her breath.

  "Is he still there?" Ken asked.

  She nodded silently, before remembering to speak the words. "Ye Yes, he is. He's right here with me."

  "Well, I'm instructed to tell the FAA to go back to his seat. I've.

  I've got to hang up now."

  Annette replaced the receiver and relayed the message to Harry who raised the palms of both hands.

  "I'm gone, but I'm in Twenty-two-C if you need me."

  "Thanks, Mr. Harris."

  The inspector moved through the first class cabin and headed back to his seat, leaving Annette with a desperate, hollow feeling that only increased when the sound of the P.A. filled the aircraft once more.

  "Okay, folks, this is captain. Here's the deal. What I couldn't tell you a while ago was that we've had a forced change of plans. I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. We've been hijacked, and the hijacker is sitting right next to me holding a gun."

  There was a low, collective gasp throughout the cabin.

  "What's worse, he claims he has a bag full of explosives in the baggage compartment, and he's holding an electronic trigger. If he lets go of that trigger, we've had it. Therefore, I caution everybody to remain seated, remain calm, and under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone try to intervene. Even if you could successfully overpower him, if his fingers leave that electronic trigger, it's all over."

  Annette stood in shock watching the equally horrified expressions on the faces of her passengers. There had been a few short cries in the coach cabin, but now there was stunned silence as the captain continued.

  "'Scuse me just a second folks. What?"

  The captain's question seemed to be partially off microphone, as if listening to the hijacker's response. There were the sounds of a voice murmuring in the background as the hijacker spoke, then Ken's voice returned to the P.A.

  "Folks, the man tells me to assure you that he has no intention of hurting anyone on board, but that he's had to use real explosives just to make sure no one fails to believe him. He says--What? I can't hear you."

  There was silence as the captain kept the P.A. button depressed, but every few seconds Ken would interject an "okay" or "all right" as the hijacker told him what to say. Annette turned and looked at the cockpit door, which was fairly easy to hear through. Countless times on the forward jumpseat she'd been scared to death by various warning horns going off in the cockpit during landing and wafting clearly through the door. If she could hear warnings, maybe she could hear the hijacker's voice, too.

  She remembered clearly the voice of the young man from seat 18D, the other pilot. If he was the hijacker, she had to know.

  Annette 'moved quietly to the cockpit door and put her ear against the surface as Ken began speaking once more.

  "Sorry for the delay. I'm trying to relay exactly what I've been requested to relay. He says that he'll tell us what he's demanding a little later, but in the meantime, he's ordering me to fly us to Salt Lake City, and that's where we're headed right now. He also says-- hold.., hold on."

  Annette listened for the hijacker's voice as Ken began listening again to instructions. She could hear him saying "right" and "okay" every few seconds, but even with her eyes closed to help sort out the sounds, she couldn't make out the second voice.

  "Okay, I got it. All right, folks, the word is that he's demanding certain actions by various governments, including the U.S. government, in trying to right a terrible wrong. He says he knows what he's doing is a capital crime, but the crime he's trying to address is far worse. I'll tell you more when I'm permitted to. In the meantime, stay very calm, and again, do NOT try to be a hero. It could get us all killed."

  The P.A. clicked off, but no additional sounds came from within the cockpit.

  Annette pulled back from the door and slid over to her jumpseat as a flight attendant call chime rang from the passenger cabin.

  She wondered why the hijacker was speaking so quietly. Obviously, whoever he was, his vocal range was being masked by the sound of the engines and the slipstream in flight. Listening through the door was going to shed no light on who--or what-they were facing.

  The call chime had been ringing repeatedly for the last thirty seconds.

  A distinguished-looking silver-haired woman in row nine was jabbing the overhead call button as if she were trying to kill it, and as Bev approached, she could see the alarmed passenger was none other than the leader of the fear-of-flying group.

  Bev knelt beside her in the aisle, trying to keep her voice down. "Mrs. Gates, are you okay?"

  The woman turned to the right, startled to see Bev. Her eyebrows were flaring, and with a flick of her right hand, she pulled her reading glasses free, allowing them to drop on the cord around her neck as she took a quick breath, her voice coming in cultured intensity.

  "Certainly not! Good heavens! I told these people this would be a calm flight, and then I led them into the middle of a nightmare." "I'm awfully sorry-"

  "I'm sure you are, but the fact remains, I've spent the past three months calming down twenty-two people who have just been returned to the status of emotional basket cases."

  As Bev tried to respond, an older gentleman in the seat behind leaned forward and grabbed Mrs. Gates's elbow, his voice calm and gravelly.

  "Elvira, my wife and I may be having a small coronary episode back here, but I take exception to being referred to as a basket case."

  Elvira Gates turned and flashed the man a wide-eyed look, before a small smile spread across her face.

  "Very well, then I'm the basket case!"

  "We're all doing quite
well back here, Elvira," he added.

  "How could you be?"

  "You told us even hijackings almost always end peacefully. Don't they?"

  "I said that?"

  "You did."

  Mrs. Gates suddenly nodded. "Of course they do, Jack. I'm sure we'll be fine."

  The man patted her elbow and sat back as Elvira Gates leaned toward Bev, her voice a whisper.

  "When we get out of this, I may have to take my own course."

  Salt Lake City.

  11:27 A.M.

  Trapped by the third interminable stoplight in a row, Kat Bronsky pounded the dashboard of her aging Volvo in disgust, and remembered she'd promised to call headquarters on the way. The traffic light turned green just as she pulled out her flip-phone, and she punched in the Beltway phone number with one finger of her right hand as she let out the clutch, steered with her knee, and shifted to second with her left hand.

  A horn blared on her left as she drifted into the adjacent lane. "Okay, your horn works. Now try the lights? she yelled the words to the windshield, being careful not to actually look at the alarmed driver as she grabbed the wheel and swung back in her lane, holding the phone against her chin and shoulder.

  "Not enough hands, that's the problem," she muttered.

  "Hello? I didn't understand that," a voice on the other end replied in a puzzled tone.

  She hadn't expected Washington to answer so fast.

  "Ah, sorry.

  Kat Bronsky here. I'm en route to the airport."

  "Okay, Kat.

  How long?"

  "Ten, eleven minutes. You say we're set up in the airport cop shop?" "That's right.

  You have the location?" "Yes. Been there, done that." "What?" "I said I've been there."

  "A lot of static on this line, Kat. I heard you then."

  "What's the latest?

  Do we have anything yet on the subject?"

  The agent filled her in on the demands relayed by Albuquerque Center, as well as the strange buzzing of Monument Valley and the copilot's abandonment in Durango.

  Kat glanced at the receiver with raised eyebrows. "He left the copilot?"

  "That's our information.

  And the hijacker apparently kicked a private pilot off, too."

  "That's worrisome. Maybe the hijacker is also a pilot and didn't want company."

  "We don't know, Kat. We're trying to talk to the copilot right now.

  Everything's secondhand."

  "Can you have the copilot and the passenger standing by to talk to me the second I get to the command post?"

  "Should be able to do that."

  "And, of course, it's critical that I get an ID and a profile on this suspect the instant you get one."

  "You understand, Kat, that right now we don't have a clue. The hijacker hasn't even been described by the captain, except that he's apparently a male."

  "No threats yet?"

  "A gun in the cockpit. That's all we have from the FAA."

  A huge semi was slowing in front of her on a four-lane road with too much traffic on the left to go around. Kat hit her brake hard and balanced the phone on her shoulder again as she downshifted and tried to scan the side mirror to clear the left lane.

  "Dammit. Hold on."

  A final car shot past on the left and she accelerated into the clear lane and regained speed before grabbing the phone again.

  "Okay. What I was saying.., see if you can find what military air assets I have to work with. Are there any fighters in the area that could shadow him if we need them? I assume you're letting me call the shots on this?"

  Another driver decided to slow in front of her and Kat shot to the right lane and swerved back to the left, deftly passing the slug.

  "I'm the agent in charge, Kat," the voice in Washington said. "You know the negotiator's role. We'll do this in complete accordance with standard procedures, and you'll have me and the rest of the bureau standing by to help."

  And standing by to take over in a heartbeat if they think the broad is going to screw it up, she thought.

  "Okay. Have someone hold a receiver out to me as I come in the door at the command post. I'll talk to you then. In the meantime, it's the night of the driving dead out here."

  "I didn't catch that. What about tonight?" "No, I said it's-there's heavy traffic out here."

  "Okay. Talk to you in a few minutes."

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 11:29 A.M.

  The sight of the lead flight attendant shooting down the aisle headed to the rear of the cabin alarmed every passenger who glanced up. Her eyes were wide with obvious fear, her eyebrows betraying shock and urgency, her demeanor leaving no doubt she wasn't going to stop and answer questions.

  Annette reached Kevin and Bev and fairly yanked them into the galley for a quick conference.

  "Ken is all we've got, and I can't make out the hijacker's voice, so I have no idea who we're dealing with, but I suspect it's the young man who responded in Durango when Ken asked for pilots to come forward. His name is Johnny Beck. His wife's name is Nancy Beck. She's in Eighteen-E."

  Bev's eyes widened. "You're kidding, right?"

  Annette shook her head.

  Bev glanced up the aisle. "I helped get their bags in the overhead, Annette. He couldn't have been sweeter, to his wife or to me."

  "Could have been an act. Besides, where is he?"

  "Could we have left him behind in Durango?" Kevin asked.

  "How?" Annette countered. "He never got off as far as I know."

  Bev raised an index finger. "But his wife was frantic, remember?

  She thought he had. That's when I called you. She freaked a minute ago at the hijacking announcement, and I don't know what to tell her.

  She's scared to death her husband's up there and in danger."

  All three of them looked forward toward the seat that held Nar Beck. Bev was shaking her head. "Either he's still up there and being held at gunpoint too-" "I asked, Bev," Annette said, "and Ken told me he was up front Then when I asked if he was the hijacker, he disconnected. It has to be him."

  Kevin's teeth were grinding. "If so, I can take the bastard if we get the door open fast enough."

  "That's not our job!" Annette snapped, regretting her tone instantly. "I'm sorry, Kev. It's just... you know, we're not supposed to be Rambo up here."

  "Annette, did you see how close we came to the Mittens?" Kevin asked.

  Annette nodded as Bev chimed in. "It was far too close, Annette. If he's forcing Ken to fly crazy, he'll kill us if we don't overpower him."

  The three of them stood in silence for nearly a minute before Annette took a deep breath and spoke. "Okay. If Beck--that pilot--is on this aircraft, then he's the hijacker. If he was left behind, the company should know it by now, and someone else slipped aboard."

  "Had to," Kevin added. "I did a seat count. No one else is missing.

  It was either him, or someone from the ground in Durango." "What do we do, Annette?" Bev asked.

  "We go to the ET maneuver and phone home. You two please hold the fort back here. I'll get on one of the seat phones and call the company."

  Kevin was nodding. "Ken Wolfe's experienced. He'll keep us safe."

  Annette hesitated and Kevin noticed. "What, Annette?"

  She shook her head as if clearing cobwebs. "Oh, nothing."

  "Come on, what? Something crossed your mind then that really had an impact."

  She looked up at Kevin and studied his eyes for a moment, then glanced at Bev. "Just... just something that happened back in the Springs I don't understand." She told them about the captain's reaction to Rudy Bostich, and his apparent recovery before departure.

  "That's why we were late?" Bev asked.

  Annette nodded. "Whatever his upset with Bostich, I'm sure it has no connection to being hijacked, but it was really, really strange. A few minutes ago when Ken asked about the misbehaving S.O.B. in Six-C, he slipped and used Bostich's name."

  Annette hurried back up the a
isle, feeling her heart pounding every step of the way as her peripheral vision took in her traumatized passengers, some glancing over their shoulders at her, some sitting with their eyes straight ahead, and several using the seat phones.