Shoot, Pate thought. Go ahead. He didn’t care anymore. Wasn’t he already inside Farraday, a poison in his belly, in his bloodstream, already hurting him by simply being there? Coyote had broken all his flint knives, trying to cut the cords that held Monster’s heart, but Coyote hadn’t given up. He had leaped onto the heart and torn it lose with the weight of his own body. Now, he, too, had to leap, Pate thought. It would come down to that one final leap, momentum carrying him forward far enough.
SEVENTEEN
Passenger Cabin
New World 555
20:30 GMT/3:30 MST
Mariella Ponti waited for another passenger on his way back from the lavs, then moved quickly past the last four rows to 28, where David Crane was waiting tor her. She had done as he’d suggested—asked Emil Pate to explain the problem. She hadn’t understood the answer, but Crane would, and from the anxious look on his face, she knew he was tired of waiting for her.
Well, she couldn’t help it. Halfway to the back of the plane, at aisle 14, a hand had caught hold of her sleeve, and suddenly here was this heavy-set, big-eared guy in peach-colored golf pants grinning up at her. “Honey, I’m gonna trouble you for another of these.” He’d held up a plastic cup half full of melted cubes.
For one thing, she didn’t like being called “Honey.” And for another, couldn’t he see she was in a hurry? But she hadn’t wanted to attract attention, worry anyone. And Peach Pants wasn’t to blame. He was probably just some Arizona real estate salesman, a friendly guy, headed home and tanking up in the meantime. Wanting a refill at exactly the wrong moment. She had wished she could tell him she would be right back, but that wouldn’t do. Where were Christy and Lori? Back in the last row, heads down, chitchatting, no doubt.
“What do you want in this?” she’d asked, taking the cup, smiling as best she could.
“Well, let me try another one of them—“’ the man had hesitated, trying to remember whatever drink it was. Ponti had caught sight of Crane again, desperately impatient now.
“Gin and something?” she had guessed, sniffing the plastic cup.
“That’s it.” Peach Pants had beamed. “One of them little bottles of Tanqueray and soda?”
Scarcely ever could a passenger annoy Ponti. Most were generally patient and polite. They knew she wasn’t merely a waitress but also a cop, who could send them to their seats and save their lives if she had to. Or put them off the plane if necessary. It was really only the chronic whiners and the bullies and the outright weirdos she wanted to thump on the noggins with a baseball bat sometimes. The rest, like this guy, were only asking her to do her job; they just seemed to have uncannily bad timing.
Finally, she managed to slip into aisle seat 28D and lean over the center seat to whisper to David Crane.
“It’s okay,”’ she assured him. “I talked to Emil. I asked about any special landing prep. He said no, not necessary. So, what’s wrong I asked him. He said there was a problem with the ‘HF transmitter,’ that it could affect the flight controls, but they thought they had it under control.”
“Wait a minute.” Crane seemed dazed. “What did he call it?”
“An HF transmitter. Here, I wrote it down.” She unfolded a napkin crumpled in her hand.
He shook his head now, as if even more confused.
“What’s the matter?”
“HF transmitters don’t have anything to do with flight controls. It’s a long-range radio. This plane probably doesn’t even have one.”
“Then what’s going on?” she asked and held her breath.For another few seconds Crane stared at her, but his dazed look had vanished. He studied her now, as if he were trying to decide something. Ponti felt a chill go up her back. Something was wrong.
“Don’t show any reaction,” Crane whispered, then waited until she nodded. He lowered his voice further. “I think we’ve been hijacked.”
She heard the rest of it as if from a distance outside herself. A fighter plane was chasing them? Someone must have gotten into the cockpit. Crane was saying, and was holding both pilots hostage. Procedures tumbled through her head. What to do if the plane were hijacked—Rule Number One: Maintain professional demeanor.
“How could it be possible?” she whispered. “No one’s gone up there, as far as 1 know.”
“I can’t say how,” Crane whispered back. “But we have to assumed it’s happened. The first officer’s trying to send us a signal.”
Ponti nodded. “Emil sounded real strange. But I thought—”
“Then he’s under duress and that’s another signal. Did he say anything else strange?”
Ponti shook her head. “It’s more the way he says things.”
“My bet is there’s only one hijacker. Maybe he’s already killed the captain—injured him anyway. That would explain why you haven’t heard from him.”
The idea that Boyd had been killed was too shocking. Too impossible. For an instant Ponti thought of her husband, but quickly she shoved the image out of her mind. What about Emil Pate? Was there a gun to his head right this moment? “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“We can’t just sit here.” Calculating. Crane’s eyes darted toward the cabin’s forward bulkhead. He paused “How does that Airfone thing work?”
“Credit card. We can use mine. I’ll bring it back to you.”
Ponti made her way forward again. This time she would not be waylaid by anyone. It didn’t matter who needed what. Even old Peach Pants would have to dry out a while longer. She brushed past him and kept going, pulled the Airfone from its bracket and turned back.
But now a swarm of faces met her; she couldn’t help looking at them. Was it a premonition? All these people suddenly seemed like friends. Ponti held her lower lip tight to keep it from quivering. In fourteen years she’d lost sense of how good people were, how different and how interesting. Now each face seemed instantly familiar—that woman in 10A, gazing out the window. Hadn’t she seen her somewhere before? An old school acquaintance? Maybe it was only because the woman seemed so forlorn that she wanted to stop and console her. She hurried on, but now she looked down at the older man across the aisle in 13D, head lolled back asleep, glasses askew, the way her own father slept in his armchair. Did he, too, have children, grown and scattered? Was he, like Mrs. Howard in 3E, on his way to visit a son who even now waited at Sky Harbor, with grandchildren?
She couldn’t think about it. But here was Peach Pants with his goofy, friendly face. “Right away,” she whispered, her throat choked, and hurried on, past sweet-faced children a teen couple holding hands—ordinary, good-hearted, innocent people—until at last, mercifully, she reached Crane’s aisle. But even now a girl came out of the lav, her pretty hair copper, her mouth big and full as she smiled sweetly at Ponti and stepped past, her arm bumping Ponti’s elbow, her hip Ponti’s hip.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Ponti, holding back an almost overwhelming grief, sat down beside Crane and handed him the phone.
New World Airlines Flight Crew Scheduling Office
Phoenix, Arizona
20:32 GMT/13:32 MST
It was one hellacious mess, Gordon Miller thought, scratching a note to himself on a bare corner of his cluttered worksheet. The thick-set, prematurely graying crew scheduler was sitting at one of a dozen desks in the department. Each desk was equipped with a computer terminal and a multiline phone system. Each of the airline’s crew bases, or domiciles, had two desks: one handled captains, the other first officers. Miller was working the Cleveland first officers, and at that moment he was talking to one. He was in his customary position, slouched forward, one hand propping up his head, telephone receiver perched on his shoulder, the cigarette in his mouth leaping up and down when he talked, like the needle of some gauge that registered his impatience. This afternoon was anything but customary. The diversion of New World’s inbound flights and evacuation of the aircraft on the ground was crating a huge spider’s nest of snarled communication. At that moment
. Miller was explaining for the second time to a first officer why they were being reassigned to Oklahoma City, rather than being sent back to Cleveland. The second line of his phoneset was flashing, but he was in no hurry to hassle with another goddamn pilot. “Look, you’ll get an extra day off when you get back to Cleveland. Tomorrow. I’ve got another call waiting.”
Dismissing the hapless man with a stab of his finger, he gazed reluctantly at the second, insistently flashing line. He was tired. He’d just about had it up to here, and one of these days, he thought, the job was going to wear him out completely.
But, after taking a sip of lukewarm coffee, he perched the handset again on his shoulder and punched in line 2.
“Crew schedule. Gordon.”
“Gordon? This is first officer David Crane.” The voice was full of static, and urgency as well. “Look, I’m calling from aboard one of our planes.”
“Who’d you say you were?”
“David Crane. Cleveland 737 F.O. I’m calling on an Air-fone. From flight five-fifty-five.”
For a moment. Miller couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t that the hijacked flight causing all this mess? “Repeat that. You’re on Five-fifty-five?”
“Correct. What’s going on? We’re being followed by an F-15, and the flight crew’s ...”
“Hold on!” Miller broke in. “You say you’re a pilot? And you’re on the plane?”
“That’s what I said. Now tell me what the hell’s going on! Is this a hijacking or what?”
“Wait! Crane, listen. You’re in big trouble, but I’ve got to get you to the right people. Okay? Just hold the line a sec. Don’t go away!”
Miller cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, afraid even to put Crane on hold. “Ed!” he shouted to his supervisor. “I’ve got a pilot here who’s on board five-fifty-five!”
Miller’s supervisor, Ed Sikes, whirled around. “What?”
“He’s in the goddamn cabin, can you believe it? He’s on the Airfone right now!” Miller brandished his receiver.
“Holy shit!” Sikes’s eyes went round. “Jesus, don’t lose him.” Sikes was already dialing on his phone.
Miller uncovered his receiver. “Crane, you there?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Your first officer’s taken over the plane.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I wish.”
“What’s he going to do with it?”
Sikes arrived with a slip of notepaper. “Have him call this number. Fast.”
“Listen, Crane. I’ve got a number for you to call. They’ll tell you what it’s all about.”
“Okay, give it to me.”
Miller read off the seven digits.’ ‘Good luck,” he said, and then, after Crane had already hung up, added, “and God help you.”
Air Route Traffic Control Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
20:32 GMT/13:32 MST
“They’re in position,” Curtis told Charbonneau. On his screen the twin blips of 555 and Shadow were almost to the grease mark. He looked up at the colonel. The colonel nodded.
“We have to do it now.”
Curtis’s hand was unsteady as he keyed his headset mike, and he swallowed, trying to keep his voice from cracking.
“Shadow, Albuquerque.”
There was a considerable pause. Then, “Shadow here. Go ahead, Albuquerque.”
“Roger, Shadow.” Curtis swallowed again. “Stand by for firing instructions.” The blips were no more than fifteen miles—two minutes—from the mark. The blood pounded in his temples, and he could feel the perspiration break out on his face. He looked at Charbonneau again. The colonel was sitting beside him now, his face propped in his hand as he stared at the blips. Kelly was on the phone to Washington. Curtis could hear him tell the FBI man that they’d done everything they could.
The blips closed in on the grease mark. Again Curtis looked at the colonel. The officer returned his look now, his mouth drawing into a tight line. Then he nodded, his eyes blinking slowly.
Curtis turned back to the screen, a sense of utter hopelessness overwhelming him. His blood was no longer pounding. His heart seemed still.
“Shadow, this is Albuquerque.”
“Go ahead, Albuquerque.”
“Shadow ... destroy the target.”
Seconds passed. Then, “Roger, Albuquerque, Shadow. Understand ... destroy the target.... Authenticate Charlie X ray, please.”
Curtis took a deep breath. “Roger, Shadow,” he transmitted, his voice cracking. “Destroy target. Authentication Papa.”
Shadow
20:33 GMT/13:33 MST
O’Brien took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. He scanned the panel, wishing beyond reason now that he might suddenly find some malfunction that would force him to abort the mission. But the array of dials and CRT displays only confirmed the fighter’s incredible power, its letial force. At his fingertips, literally. He suddenly felt very alone. Very insignificant. Very sorry.
Reaching above the weapons panel, he toggled the master arm switch. Instantly a green cross appeared on the HUD, confirming hot armament.
“Master arm switch on,” he told Nesbitt.
Nesbitt didn’t answer. O’Brien looked at him in the mirror, and Nesbitt shook his head. “Didn’t think it would get this far, Stick.”
“Me neither,” O’Brien said. He stared at the cross for a moment and then thumbed a switch on the throttle to select the Sidewinders. The target box had superimposed on New World 555, and now a circle appeared in it. The electronic growl of the missiles’seekers sounded in O’Brien’s earphones. They had found a sufficient heat source. O’Brien uncaged the seeker heads, anxious to put an end to the awful growling. Now the circle began to track the source, the growl eased, and the pointer appeared below the target box, flashing on and off. In his peripheral vision, the two amber shoot-lights on the canopy bow were flashing in unison. To fire, he had only to nudge the pickle switch on the control column, just above his thumb.
O’Brien opened and closed his hand. His stomach was churning, and his heart seemed to pound in time with the flashing cues. The harsh sound of his own breathing, and Nesbitt’s, filled his helmet. He thought briefly of how strange it was that such a constant noise could become so ordinary you didn’t even notice it after a while. Then his thumb found the pickle.
He had been through this drill a hundred times in mock combat. But he’d never actually shot down another airplane. The Iraqis had been smart enough to stay out of the skies during the Gulf War. He had only seen videotapes of what happened to MiG’s and Mirages. They burst apart, disintegrated. What would happen to a plane the size of an MD-80? The heat-seeking rocket would probably blow off the engine it flew into, blasting shrapnel into the fuselage, severing control cables and hydraulic lines and sending the airliner spinning into the desert floor below. What was more, it would probably rupture the cabin, creating an explosive decompression and rendering everyone inside unconscious in seconds.
Unless the engine struts were designed to fail, O’Brien realized. Made to shear off under extreme stress. If they were, the cabin might not rupture, might remain pressurized. Then most of the passengers would be conscious during the two or three minutes it would take the plane to fall.
O’Brien’s thumb slipped away from the switch. He had an idea. They should fire two Sidewinders, to increase the chances of really opening the airliner up, shortening its trajectory, and killing everyone aboard instantly, mercifully.
“I’m firing two Sidewinders,” he told Nesbitt.
“Two?”
“Yeah.” Quickly, he explained his reasons.
“Roger,” Nesbitt answered. “I concur.”
O’Brien repositioned his hand on the control stick. He could feel the perspiration building up inside his glove. This would be over in another few seconds, but would he ever forget? He blinked rapidly a few times and then forced his thumb to find the pickle again. A second went by. Then one more . .
.
“Shadow, Albuquerque!” The transmission jolted him like an electric shock. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Acknowledge, please!”
O’Brien slumped in his seat, letting his hand slide down the stick’s handle. In the next instant he wanted to scream obscenities at them. Were they insane? Was this some kind of grotesque training game, a crazy experiment to see if they could do it? But the rage passed quickly. His breath was broken. Sobs, he realized. Tears of relief were streaming down his face. A half dozen seconds passed before he could key his mike.
“Roger, Albuquerque,” he transmitted, his voice unsteady. “Shadow acknowledges.” And then, pulling himself together, recalling protocol, he added, “Authenticate, please—Charlie Zulu”
“Authentication Tango Echo, repeat, Tango Echo.”
“Roger, Albuquerque, Shadow is going nose cold.” O’Brien snapped off the master arm switch.
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