John J Nance - The Last Hostage

by The Last Hostage(lit)

Of course, it'll ruin you professionally if you're exposed, but a confession with some sort of explanation might just get you off the hook in the public arena."

  Still Rudy remained frozen halfway out of the seat. "I'm touched by your concern for my career, Captain."

  "I don't have any damned concern whatsoever for your career, but I have to admit that if you're going to be exposed--and you are--you'd be a lot smarter to do it yourself and put your own spin on it. I don't give a rat's ass as long as that warrant and the evidence are reinstated."

  Slowly, Rudy's right foot resumed its arc toward the alcove behind the center console, and once more Ken thrust the trigger into view.

  "Don't try it, Bostich! I am not kidding, and you can't take the chance that I am."

  Once again the leg stopped.

  "You've basically told me you didn't know I was going to be on this plane this morning," Rudy said, carefully monitoring Ken Wolfe's reactions. "Unless you always carry a bomb along when you go fly, why should I believe you suddenly found a way to plant one?"

  Ken lowered his left hand into his brain bag on the left side of the captain's seat and pulled out a small rectangular package, then tossed it to Bostich, who caught it deftly in midair.

  "What's this?"

  "Look inside, Rudy."

  Still half out of the seat, Rudy Bostich supported his left shoulder on the seatback and pulled open a portion of what appeared to be a burlap wrapper. Inside was a block of pliable material which resembled an off-white plastic, and was soft to the touch. Somewhere he had seen such a thing before. In fact, it looked a lot like...

  "Be careful with that," Ken commanded. "It's fairly stable, but it's what's left from the lot I have downstairs in my bag, a big block of it with an electronic detonator."

  Rudy's eyes had grown large. "You... you mean to tell me I'm holding plastique?"

  "C-four, actually. I couldn't get plastique."

  Rudy Bostich handed the block back as if it were a live cobra and swung himself back in the seat, his eyes locked forward, his breathing rate increased.

  "Good God, man, I didn't think a pilot would.., would..."

  "I've been checking the reservations computer daily for a long time, Rudy. Suddenly your named popped up. I knew where to find this stuff, and I know how to use it. I just needed a few hours."

  Rudy looked at Ken Wolfe with a wild expression. "You got this through security?"

  Ken let out a derisive snort. "Airline pilots have to go through the same screening as everyone else, which is asinine, and useless. The whole block, the detonator, everything, went through security."

  "Good God! I thought you were bluffing. You really are crazy!"

  Ken nodded. "You said it yourself, didn't you, Rudy? What would you do? Probably go crazy. I've had two years to deteriorate to this, thanks to you." "What do you mean, two years?" he asked in a sullen voice.

  Ken turned and stared with an intensity that froze Rudy's blood.

  "Two years ago today," Ken began, "in a forest in northern Connecticut, my beautiful eleven-year-old daughter was killed, and her body dumped. Lumin destroyed a monitored electric fence in a state wildlife preserve when he dumped her, which is the only reason we know the date. Her body was found months later. That's how I got my daughter back, Mr. Prosecutor." "I'm truly sorry," Rudy said in a quiet voice.

  Ken turned back to the panel, barely holding on to his emotions.

  "You're damn right I'm crazy, Bostich, and you'd be well advised to help me do something about it, because I've got nothing left to lose."

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:48

  The sound of Ken Wolfe's voice on the P.A. took everyone in the cabin by surprise.

  "Folks, this is the captain. In a few minutes I'm going to be landing somewhere, hopefully, to let you off--all of you except one, that is. Rudy Bostich stays here to face the charges. Now, it's time I told you the unvarnished truth. This is hard for me, because this is the last time I'll ever sit in the left seat of an airliner. Truth is, the only hijacker up here is a heartbroken airline pilot who's terrorized everyone to try to catch a killer.

  I fully realize what I'm going to tell you is neither legal nor moral justification for what I'm doing, but I want you to know anyway."

  Annette had been sitting quietly on the arm of a seat in the forward part of coach when the PA. began, watching Kevin and Bev continuously moving up and down coach trying to calm and soothe the passengers as best they could. In that instant, though, everyone in the cabin was looking toward the ceiling at the speakers, their faces impassive masks of tension, their minds riveted on what was being said.

  Ken Wolfe's voice was sad but steady, and as he unfolded in excruciating detail Melinda Wolfe's kidnapping and murder, and the saga of the botched search warrant, Annette watched in amazement as waves of shock, grief, and outrage played in sequence across the faces of her passengers, many of them barely holding back tears as he finished.

  "The federal D.A. who lied about making that call is the man sitting next to me here in the cockpit, Rudy Bostich, who, until today, was the leading contender to be U.S. Attorney General. As I've told Mr. Bostich, my life is forfeit, but I can't let Bradley Lumin kill again, and I can't let my little daughter's death go unpunished. I have the evidence on Mr. Bostich, and I have no choice now, the rest of this day, but to do whatever it takes to get him to tell the truth to the judge back in Connecticut. He's shaking his head up here and denying he lied, but I know differently. I have the telephone records from the phone company showing his call to Detective Matson the very night and the very time the detective said the call was made. Bostich says the detective is a liar and a bad apple, he claims Matson has a long history as a cowboy cop and that somehow Matson colluded with the phone company to falsify the call record. However, I have never heard anything bad about Detective Matson, who, I believe, is an honorable and honest man. For his part, Bostich claimed under oath that he was home alone that night, and that he never called Matson about anything. The police checked the phone records for his home number, but they didn't know he had an unnamed, unlisted cellular phone. His cell phone record proves he lied, and because of that lie, a serial killer is still free right now."

  A sudden movement in coach caught Annette's eye, as the retired policeman who'd approached her earlier moved out of his seat and rapidly up the aisle, pushing past Bev and Kevin, his eye on the distant cockpit door.

  She rose to block his way.

  "Sir? Where are you going?"

  He pointed to the speakers overhead as Ken continued.

  "Folks, I hate it that I've had to involve my passengers and threaten you and load a real bomb in the belly. There is one there, by the way, and I do have the trigger up here."

  The man was breathing hard, and was obviously agitated.

  "He mentioned Roger Matson in Connecticut!"

  "Yes?"

  "I've known Roger all his professional life. He's a member of our police association."

  "Okay, but--"

  "I want the captain to know that. Anyone speaking ill of Roger is definitely a liar."

  "Sir, this is a very delicate situation."

  The PA. came on again, drowning them out.

  "I don't want any of you to think any of this has been a bluff. It hasn't, and it isn't. I am holding a live trigger, and I am endangering you, and for that I am sorry. But there seemed to be no other way to force the authorities to act. I had already tried everything else. It's just important to me that you know why."

  The police officer pointed to the ceiling again, irritated at being restrained.

  "Look, I've got to talk to him." "Why, sir?" Annette asked, her curiosity rising.

  "Because, Miss, if Roger Matson said that Jesus Christ himself had come back, I'd say hallelujah without a second's hesitation and head for the nearest church. The man's incorruptible and the most honest cop I've ever known."

  For several seconds Annette searched his eyes.

  "This captain has h
ijacked us, sir."

  "Dammit, I know that. But when he mentions a man I know that well, I've got to let him know he's right to trust Matson. Your captain may end up in the chair for what he's doing, but I'll bet anything he's right. I remember Roger being in agony over this case, and over having his reputation tarred by that arrogant fed. He was horribly hurt to be called a liar by the judge."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "I want to talk to the captain. Now."

  Annette nodded and inclined her head toward the front as the P.A. clicked on again. There was a pause and the sound of the P.A. microphone contacting a metal surface in the cockpit.

  "Folks, earlier I turned off the seat phones. I just now pushed in the circuit breaker and turned them back on. You're free to call whomever you like, and tell them what's happening, just please, tell them why. Tell them my story. Tell them about Rudy Bostich. If I don't succeed with this, more little girls are going to be killed, all because a politically ambitious lawyer doesn't want to embarrass himself by doing the right thing."

  Ken clicked off the P.A. as Rudy Bostich shook his head vigorously.

  "You just won't understand, will you, Wolfe?"

  Ken glanced at him. "You thought up a new explanation for the phone records yet?"

  "It's still Matson. He's a detective, he probably has a buddy in the cellular phone company and they diddled the computer records. That proves nothing."

  "Do you have the original records from your phone bill?" Ken shot back. "That could prove real quick whether the phone record I've got was changed from the original."

  Rudy fell silent for a few seconds in thought. "I... I may, but I'm not a pack rat. I do throw things out."

  "After only two years? Phone bills and records? Not unless you didn't want something to be seen."

  "Dammit, that's trying to prove a positive with a negative. I don't have them, therefore they corroborate the false record you say you have."

  "Interesting," Ken said, his eyes on the listing of Colorado airports as he dialed a new frequency into the second radio head.

  "What?"

  "Interesting that you shifted almost instantly from, 'I might not have them,' to 'I don't have them,' which is what a guilty man would do.

  An innocent man would have grasped at straws and at least told me the original phone bill was probably still in his desk at home, or in a box in his attic, and that it would show no calls to Matson's number.

  I might have been swayed by that, but once again you've tipped your hand."

  The sound of the cabin call chime rang through the cockpit, and Ken looked at the interphone handset in confusion before grabbing it, surprised to find Annette on the other end.

  "Captain, I've got someone here who wants to talk to you. He's a friend of Roger Matson, the detective you mentioned. And he's a retired police officer himself."

  Ken glanced at Rudy Bostich, who was watching him with a worried expression as he hunched over the copilot's yoke, unable to hear the other side of the interphone.

  "What does he want?" Ken asked.

  "He wants to tell you that Matson is an extremely reliable man."

  "Put him on."

  Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 2:50 P.M.

  "But where is he?" Kat asked.

  Dane Bailey shook his head. "I assume he's pacing us back there, but since his transponder is turned off--that's the little device that pings back identification information every time a radar beam hits--"

  Kat had her hand up and smiled. "I know what a transponder is, Dane."

  "Sorry. Anyway, without that, Denver Center has been watching only a raw radar reflection from the aircraft."

  "Skin paint, they call it?"

  Dane nodded. "Right." He punched the transmit button and asked Denver if they still saw the 737 on their scopes.

  "Negative, Five-Lima-Lima. He was right behind you, then the target merged with yours. He's probably still there, but too close to separate from your radar return."

  Jeff Jayson pointed to the west. "That's Telluride on the right, Kat."

  She followed his gaze through the right window and down to a spectacular bowl of snow-covered mountains.

  "The airport?"

  "Yeah, and the town."

  "Any chance he'd try to land there?"

  Both pilots shook their heads no as Dane replied. "Far too high, runway's less than seven thousand feet. You could get a Boeing seven- three-seven in there, but I'm not sure he could take off."

  Kat's own words to Frank came back for quick review. "Call every airport in Colorado suitable for a seven-thirty-seven" she'd requested, and Frank had reported it done.

  Kat sighed and pointed to the west where Telluride was supposed to be. "If it's not suitable for a Boeing, then he won't head there. I'm guessing, but I think he's headed for Durango, and he'll try to peel off without our noticing, which we're going to let him do."

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:54 P.M.

  Ken adjusted the throttles to hold his position just behind and beneath the Gulfstream and reached down to punch a button on the communications panel, certain Kat Bronsky wouldn't be monitoring that frequency.

  "Telluride Regional Unicom, AirBridge Charter Seventy-two-twenty."

  Rudy Bostich turned toward the left seat, puzzled by the call. Without a headset or earpiece, he couldn't hear the reply.

  "Ah, AirBridge, what, a charter?"

  "Yes, sir. Seven-two-two-zero, out of Colorado Springs. We've got a small problem on planned delays ahead and need to drop in for some more fuel."

  "Okay, ah, how much do you need, AirBridge? I assume you're a Saab three-forty."

  The image of the far smaller turboprop commuter flashed across Ken's mind, the only type AirBridge used to service the smaller airports.

  But if he said yes and taxied a seven-thirty-seven into the ramp, the confusion factor would be a problem.

  "Negative, Regional, we're a Boeing seven-three-seven. Can you give us, say, twenty-five thousand pounds of Jet A?"

  The voice sounded shocked, but the reply was what he wanted to hear.

  "Ah, yes, sir. We only have one fuel truck and it holds twenty-two hundred gallons, about fifteen thousand pounds. But we can use that, then fill the truck back up."

  "How long to refill?"

  "About twenty-three minutes."

  "Okay, please get the truck ready. Don't bother dispatch, I've already coordinated, and they want as fast a turnaround as we can get."

  "Roger. What time are you estimating here?"

  Ken looked over the right side of the nose at the San Juan Mountains and calculated the remaining distance.

  "Twelve minutes."

  "We'll be ready, but, ah, are you sure you're okay to land and take off on this runway at this altitude with a seven-thirty-seven? We've always joked around here you could get one in, but you'd have to take it out on a truck."

  "I've checked the density altitude and the weight. We're okay."

  Ken clicked off and rechecked the position of the sleek Gulfstream IV as it hovered in the top visual perspective of the windscreen less than a hundred yards ahead and barely fifty feet higher. He inched the throttles up and closed the distance some more, staying around eighty feet below the jet as it seemed to move backward until the tail section was directly over the 737's nose.

  "Captain, if this is another 'scare Rudy' demonstration, don't bother. I'm as terrified as I can get."

  "Not my purpose this time," Ken replied.

  "So where are you going to land?"

  Ken snorted softly. "Telluride. The highest commercial airport in North America, one that everyone will consider unsuitable for seven-thirty- sevens." "Is it?" Rudy asked. "Unusable, I mean?"

  Ken nodded. "Probably."

  He pulled the power back slightly and began a descent, carefully keeping the 737 directly under the Gulfstream and its radar image, bringing the rate of descent to six thousand feet per minute as the Boeing dropped from sixteen thousand feet toward the ten
-thousand- foot terrain below. When the highest mountain peaks were significantly above them along with most of the radar beams from Denver Center, Ken punched Telluride's identifier in the flight computer and banked sharply to the west, aiming for a preplanned low spot in the ridge east of Telluride near the tiny mining town of Pandora.

  "Not again?" Rudy Bostich was tensing in his seat as the ridgeline approached.

  Ken shook his head. "No, not this time. I'm just keeping low until we get closer. We'll clear it by five hundred feet."