John J Nance - The Last Hostage

by The Last Hostage(lit)

  She nodded to herself. "Okay. We're about--hold on." Kat looked up at Dane, who had been watching her in his peripheral vision. He saw the movement and turned toward her.

  "How much longer, Dane?"

  His eyes flicked forward to the "remaining distance" readout on the flight computer, then back at her. "About twelve minutes or less."

  She repeated the words to Frank.

  "Kat, Washington may rip this away from me in the next few minutes.''

  "What do you mean, Frank?"

  "Well, if AirBridge was on the ground in Salt Lake, this would be our show. With him practically in Colorado now, the Salt Lake office is no longer exclusive owner of the franchise, so to speak."

  "I don't want to be dealing with people I don't know, Frank. I need too much support on this."

  "Kat, I hate to say this, but I think you're going to lose control in Grand Junction the second they get another team in from Denver.

  They're launching someone now."

  She felt her face begin to flush, as much in embarrassment as in anger.

  "That's nuts, Frank."

  "Hasn't happened yet, but be aware it might. The media is all over this. CNN is live, the other networks are doing news breaks, and if we can nail that seven-thirty-seven to the ground in Grand Junction, you can expect a media extravaganza within a half hour. In that atmosphere..."

  She nodded, her eyes closed, reminding herself both the pilots and her host, Bill North, were listening to her side of the conversation.

  "Okay, Frank. Whatever the Bureau wants, the Bureau gets, but I need to stay in the loop."

  "I'll make the point with FBI Headquarters, Kat. Be careful."

  She replaced the phone, aware that his admonition had as much to do with how she handled their bosses as how she handled the hijacker ahead.

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 1:46 P.M.

  Rudy Bostich dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and watched in silence as Ken Wolfe retarded the throttles and began a slow descent, his eyes on the distant horizon toward what had to be Grand Junction, Colorado.

  For nearly ten minutes not a word had been spoken, and without a headset, Rudy could hear only the captain's side of the conversation.

  Wolfe's voice was more subdued after their close encounter with the ridgeline. Obviously, Rudy concluded, the captain had been shaken by that near-fatal mistake. Rudy had watched him sweating through the whole episode as he firewalled the throttles and pulled hard on the control column while the two-thousand-foot wall of rock loomed in front of them, then barely passed beneath them.

  That meant Wolfe was vulnerable, and not completely crazy. That meant he could probably be reached with reason. Rudy wondered if Wolfe realized his life as a pilot and a free man was over.

  And he wondered if Wolfe had any idea how alone he was, an enemy to everyone.

  Wolfe was craning his neck again and looking up through the small eyebrow windows in the cockpit ceiling. He'd been doing that since the ridgeline, and Rudy concluded they were probably being followed, maybe by Air Force jets. Someone must be up there and talking to Wolfe on the radio. At least he hoped so. Even if they couldn't physically help, it would be comforting to know someone was out there watching.

  He felt numb now, not paralyzed with fear like before. He was ashamed of his earlier reaction, but being marched to the cockpit had felt like an impending execution. Slowly, however, he was becoming aware that Wolfe's main purpose wasn't killing him, it was finding a way to convict the monster who killed his daughter, and in that, their goals had always been the same.

  Rudy glanced over at Wolfe again, this time more boldly. "Captain, may I ask you a question?"

  Wolfe shot him a withering look of hatred and disdain, but Rudy held an even expression, being careful not to show either fear or confidence.

  "What, Bostich?"

  Rudy swallowed hard and realized he had licked his lips, a nervous signal he should have stifled. "Isn't it possible you could be wrong?"

  Again Wolfe glanced quickly his way, this time more in curiosity.

  "About what?"

  "About me. About whatever you think I've done."

  '2 know what you've done, you bastard." "You said that, Captain, and I'm sure you think you know something about what happened in relation to your daughter's death, but--"

  "Get to the point, Bostich!"

  The impact of Wolfe's voice, sharp and angry and at full volume, caused him to flinch.

  Wolfe suddenly looked to the left and flicked something on his control yoke, then banked the 737 sharply to the left, pulling enough G-force to push Rudy down in the seat.

  Just as quickly they were back to stable flight and Wolfe turned angrily to him again. "I said, get to the point!"

  Rudy kept his eyes on the scene ahead. He nodded slowly. "The point is, I honestly don't know what it is you think I've done, and even a condemned man is entitled to know the charges against him."

  Wolfe's head jerked to the right, a sour smile on his lips. "So, you think you're condemned, huh?"

  "Aren't I? You're apparently planning on releasing everyone but me, and you want me to confess to something I don't even understand, unless all this is because I didn't file federal charges against the suspect.''

  Ken Wolfe adjusted the descent rate of the aircraft and reached down to the center pedestal to reposition some knobs, then glanced back at him.

  "Okay, shithead, I'll tell you what you already know. I'm very aware you couldn't file federal charges. No evidence, no charges. But you're responsible for ruining that evidence. You were subpoenaed by the judge and asked if you were the one who called and tipped the detective on who killed my daughter. You knew the warrant, and all the evidence, depended on your answer. You knew if you said no, the murderer would go free. I'm sure you got the original tip about who killed Melinda from some scumbag in the witness protection program, someone you were shielding, someone who knew the underworld enough to finger the killer. Go search this felon's home, you told the detective. Impound his computer and get an expert to look at all the files. The evidence will be there. And it was, wasn't it, Bostich?"

  Rudy nodded. "It was there, all right, but I wasn't the tipster."

  "Yeah, right. You knew there was no way that state judge was going to force you to disclose where you got the information. That's what I can't understand. You knew that telling the truth wouldn't have hurt anything you cared about, but you sat there on that stand, swore on a Bible, and lied! You, a federal prosecutor, a candidate for Attorney General of the United States, knowing that how you answered that question would make all the difference in prosecuting or freeing a murderer of little girls. YOU, you unspeakable piece of scum, lied."

  Rudy let out a ragged breath. "I didn't lie. I wasn't the tipster."

  "Bullshit! I've got you dead to rights. I've got evidence that you did make that call. Why the hell would a thirty-year veteran detective have made that up? He'd worked with you before. He knew your voice. You depended on that when you called him, didn't you?"

  "I didn't make--"

  "CAN IT, BASTARD! You made the friggin' call!"

  Rudy was shaking his head energetically, feeling like he was fighting a ghost, dealing with an accusation he had no way of refuting.

  What evidence? What on earth did Wolfe think he had? Certainly the detective claimed it was him, but that was old news. Discredited news.

  The word of a state police detective who was on the spot, against that of a respected federal prosecutor who had no apparent stake in the case and no apparent motivation to lie. Deciding whom to believe had been a no-brainer for the judge.

  Ken Wolfe reached toward the fuel gauges and pushed a button, then made some other adjustments on the front panel.

  Rudy looked over at him again. "Suppose your evidence is wrong?

  Evidence often appears to confirm one thing, and in fact, the opposite is true. Have you considered that?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"


  "This evidence doesn't lie, unless you were in the habit of making calls to detectives at random every night."

  Rudy studied Ken Wolfe's face from the side, his eyes in a squint.

  "Wait a minute, you think you have phone records?"

  "I don't think I have them, Bostich, I have them. And the originals are safe."

  Rudy shook his head. "Captain, phone records can be faked. Where did you get them?"

  "None of your damn business."

  "Did Detective Roger Matson give you those?" "I said, it's none of your damn business, until your trial for perjury, that is."

  Rudy looked forward and began shaking his head, slowly at first, then with energy as he snapped his gaze back to Wolfe.

  "Captain, you've been had! What you apparently don't know is that Detective Matson is a bad apple. He has a long history with his department of cowboyish operations, and a long history with area judges for making up so-called evidence to get warrants. You didn't know that, did you?"

  "I don't know that now, Bostich. I can't believe a word you say. If you said the sun was up, I wouldn't believe it without an astrophysicist's affidavit."

  "Captain, Matson is, in fact, a bad apple. It's all in his record, but I don't happen to carry that record with me."

  "Pity. Shut up a second."

  Wolfe banked the aircraft to the right and once again rotated a wheel- like thing on the side of the center pedestal as he spoke into the microphone boron attached to his headset.

  "Kat? Are you still out there shadowing me?"

  Wolfe listened to the response and nodded, his eyes on the horizon.

  "Okay. I want to see what you're flying. Now. Pull alongside on my left, one half mile spacing. Then you're going to land first. Understood?"

  He nodded again, then turned back to Rudy.

  "You have anything more to say?"

  Rudy nodded. "Captain, Matson certainly did know me, but you've been so eager to blame me, you never looked into his background.

  There are an awful lot of things a federal prosecutor can't tell the general public and the media, things that civilians like yourself can't know. God, I wish you would have come to me first before throwing everything in your life away on this.., this, stupid, pointless reaction."

  "I did, bastard. I've been writing letters to you. You never answered.''

  Rudy shook his head sadly. "You never asked questions in those letters, Captain. You just made accusations. I wish you'd come in person.

  Now... look what you've done."

  He gestured toward the front instrument panel while looking at the captain for a response. There was none.

  "Look, Ken."

  "Don't use nay first name, scumbag."

  "Okay, okay, I know you've convinced yourself I'm the bad guy, but you're wrong. Look, I've had to sit on Detective Matson numerous times in the past for getting in the way of federal investigations. He knew me well enough to want to discredit me, and this gave him a perfect opportunity. He was on the spot. Some impossibly unreliable tipster obviously told him who did your.., who killed your daughter, and to get himself off the hook for lying to get a warrant, he invents me as the caller, thinking I'd just say yes. But that would have been a lie! Don't you see, captain? I was under oath. I knew the stakes, but I could not lie about it. The fact was, I did not make that call."

  Wolfe had turned his head and was staring at Bostich, eye to eye, in silence.

  There was obviously a radio transmission Rudy couldn't hear. The captain looked up and said a few words in pilot jargon into his microphone, then banked the 737 to the left a few degrees as he reduced the power a little more.

  Ken Wolfe suddenly looked back at Bostich. "Are you trying to tell me those phone records are fake because I got them from Detective Matson?"

  Rudy nodded energetically. "That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. We've both been set up. I never anticipated he would do this to you, a grieving father. It shows what a scum he is! But that's what he's done. He's used faked records to turn you against me, for what reason I have no idea. Maybe just to hurt you, and he's certainly succeeded."

  Wolfe had turned his head forward again, and Rudy watched him with rising hope, knowing the captain couldn't have been aware of what he'd just told him about Matson. Rudy remembered the angry letters from Wolfe, always stopping just short of making actionable threats. He'd pushed them aside as innocuous, hysterical, and not worth his time.

  Wolfe was shaking his head slowly, and Rudy felt his heart leap.

  Maybe, just maybe, they could end it peacefully in a few minutes at Grand Junction. He would still recommend charges of air piracy, of course. This would be some other federal prosecutor's jurisdiction, but Rudy would be listened to.

  Ken Wolfe's expression was changing. As Rudy watched, a sarcastic little smile began playing around the captain's mouth, and Rudy watched it in puzzlement until Wolfe turned to look him in the eye.

  "Nice try, Bostich, I'll give you that. As a snake oil salesman, you're good. Too bad for you there's one small detail you didn't know when you concocted that smooth explanation."

  Rudy felt his confidence crumbling. "What are you talking about?

  I've concocted nothing."

  "Detective Matson had nothing whatsoever to do with the phone records I've obtained. He doesn't even know they exist."

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 1:58 '.M.

  Dane Bailey pulled back the throttles and let the Gulfstream slow as it pulled even with the AirBridge 737 at the same altitude of ten thousand feet. Kat was still on her knees just behind the center console, her left hand holding the back of Dane's chair, keeping her eyes on the Boeing as she pushed the transmit button.

  "Okay, Ken, we're out here to your left."

  There was a pause. She could see the outline of a head in the pilot's window of the Boeing, but she could make out no details.

  "A G-four is hardly a government-issued aircraft," Ken Wolfe replied.

  "I never said it was, Ken. We asked a concerned citizen for help, and he's lending us his plane and crew. The whole damn country's worried about you, Ken."

  She heard the transmitter click on, and she heard a derisive snort.

  "Sure they are, Kat. What they're concerned about are my passengers.

  They're concerned the FBI might not be able to get off a clean shot and drop me. The whole damn country doesn't have a clue what this is really all about."

  The opening was there and she took it.

  "Okay, but we could remedy that, Ken. We could hook you up with a camera crew on the ground and give you all the time you need to tell the country the whole story." She could almost hear the scream of outrage that would come from FBI headquarters if they heard her making such an offer, but it made sense.

  "I'll think about it," he said. "Meanwhile, we're ten miles out. You land first."

  "Ken, we went through this at Salt Lake with the F-sixteens. What does it matter? We're unarmed, and no threat to you."

  "Nevertheless, you land first or I'm not landing. Got it?"

  Kat looked up at Dane, who shrugged and nodded, as he radioed the approach controller and began a left turn to prepare for a visual approach.

  "Okay, Ken," Kat replied. "You just tell me how you want to handle this on the ground, okay?"

  "Remember, Kat. If you've set up any sort of reception committee, you've imperiled everyone. Anyone gets close to this aircraft without my permission, it goes up in smoke."

  "Nobody's going to violate your orders, Captain," Kat told him, praying whoever was leading the team below on the ground knew to keep all vehicles strictly behind the airplane once it was on the ground. They had to stay completely out of sight of the cockpit.

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:08

  Ken Wolfe lowered the 737's flaps to the five-degree setting and slowed to 180 knots as he orbited to the west of the airport, watching the Gulfstream land and turn off onto the ramp. When it was down, he positioned the 737 to fly over the airport, along the
runway a thousand feet above the surface to look for any sign of a reception committee.

  "Grand Junction Tower, AirBridge Ninety. I'm going to make a high- speed pass over the runway. I'll pull up into a downwind for a VFR landing after that."

  "Approved as requested, Ninety," the controller shot back, obviously primed to give the hijacker whatever he wanted.

  There was no doubt what the FBI's standard procedures would dictate.

  Con the hijacker into landing, get the passengers off safely, and somehow immobilize the aircraft without the hijacker thinking the FBI was responsible. In fact, he thought, they would be keeping the airport open just to convince him things were normal.