Skyhammer

by Richard Hilton

  “Goddamn it!” Curtis shouted, and a collective groan went up from the rest of the men grouped around him.

  New World 555

  Now Pate looked “up” and found the horizon, which split the windscreen. He had guessed close enough; the stadium was dead ahead. He only had to adjust the aircraft’s trajectory by pulling the nose down a fraction. He aimed for just beyond the center of the field, then used his right hand to quickly lift his left up to grip the yoke. The pain in his arm was excruciating now, the bone—the whole shoulder socket—obviously smashed. With his right hand he groped in the pedestal area, just behind the throttle quadrant, feeling for the ship’s fuel switches. He needed to concentrate on his target now, could not look down. He could see the field plainly, the white stripes. The bowl of the stadium was a mosaic of colors. Now there were flashes at the far end of the field—had to be sunlight glancing off the instruments of the marching band, massing behind the end zone for halftime. He would fly right into the band. The plane would explode, engulf the whole stadium in a fireball ...

  Out of sheer habit. Pate scanned the instruments one more time. Triple Nickel was still flying perfectly. It had done all he’d asked of it—taken the stress, gotten him there. For the briefest moment he wanted to yell, shout in triumph.

  But the air had gone from his chest. The will. How could he destroy the plane when it had come through for him so faithfully? Astonished at this thought, he stared at the stadium again, and this time he saw the people, thousands of them, as a strange moment of blankness seemed to suspend him, like a mote of dust. He couldn’t give in—the mission had to be completed.

  But the thought seemed like tissue paper, and even now it flew from his mind. He was killing himself, he realized, and killing others who weren’t to blame, not saving anybody. He knew this. He’d always known it. With sudden intensity a recollection of his entire life surged over him, and the darkness squeezing his mind drew back like a blanket thrown off. He heard the air moaning against the windscreen. The yoke pushed back against his hand, urging him to pull up, and the cockpit seemed suddenly glowing with brilliant, sharp light. There was still time. Already he had smoothed the aircraft’s flight path. Positive gravity pulled him down into his seat. He knew the man behind him would be able to aim the pistol again, but the man wouldn’t have to shoot. No, Pate thought, he wouldn’t have to.

  It was his last thought. After it came only a soundless thunderclap of white, dense nothing.

  NINETEEN

  Flight Deck

  New World 555

  20:51 GMT/13:51 MST

  In the instant he pulled the trigger, Crane saw fragments of skull and tissue fleck the windscreen. The. bullet had struck its mark. Flinging the pistol aside, he lunged into the cockpit. Pate’s hands were still on the yoke. He ripped them away and seized it. Old skills, honed in his thousand hours in T-38 cockpits, had to come into play now. It was just another airplane, he told himself, staring wide-eyed at the huge football stadium that seemed to hang above the plane, growing larger with alarming speed.

  High speed dive recovery, Crane. Come on,execute!

  The procedure came back to him.

  Step one: Throttles idle and unload. He slammed the power levers back to idle, simultaneously releasing all the back pressure, relieving the aerodynamic forces—the lift and its attendant drag—from the airframe.

  The stadium nearly filled the windscreen now. Crane could see banners, the band, the teams on the field.

  Step two: Roll to the nearest horizon. The airplane was not perfectly inverted; its wings were at a slight angle to the horizon. He applied full right yoke to roll the ship back upright in the “shorter” direction. The plane responded with what seemed incredible sluggishness, but it did respond, and finally, with the wings dead level, the plane upright again. Crane stopped the roll. The stadium had swung around now, but it still blossomed across the windscreen, opening like some gigantic apparatus about to swallow him. And now the ground proximity warning system began screaming at him—“Whoop, whoop. .. Pull up!... Whoop, whoop.. .Terrain!”

  Step three: Break the descent. Crane hauled back on the control column. Straining against the g-force, he held on, pulling the big jet out of its dive just as the upper tiers of the stadium passed under the nose—so close he could see the people falling away in waves on either side. Now the far end of the stadium passed beneath the rim of the windshield, a huge Scoreboard Hashing to one side, then an expanse of parking lot, then a swimming pool, a vast rectangle of turquoise water. The plane was skimming above rooftops,streets, parking lots, no more than a couple hundred feet beneath the floor of the cockpit. He’d done it.

  Still the ground prox system brayed at him. The altitude was decaying, he realized, the airspeed less than two hundred, close to a stall. They could easily mush right into the ground.

  Keep flying, he told himself. Get the power up. Keep the nose up. He pushed the throttles forward and eased back on the column. He found the trim switch on the yoke and thumbed it until the MD-80 was maintaining a shallow climb with no back pressure. Finally the raucous aural warnings ceased. Carefully, Crane adjusted the power to stabilize the airspeed at 250 knots and the rate of climb at 500 feet per minute.

  His legs were aching. All this time he had been hunched over in the narrow space between the two pilot seats, half his upper body pressed down across the dead body of Pate. Crane sagged now, onto his knees as tears of relief streamed down his face. The cabin behind him seemed eerily silent. They must be all screamed out, he thought.

  “Mariella?” He couldn’t leave the controls. “You okay?”

  There was no answer. Then he heard someone behind him and snatched a look back.

  Mariella had leaned into the cockpit doorway, dazed. Then, her eyes darting from the dead captain to Pate, she whispered, “Oh, my God!”

  Crane turned back to the controls. “We’ve got to clear one of these seats. See if you can get someone to help.”

  He looked back at her again. For another moment she stared at him. Then, blinking, she recovered.

  “Are you all right, David? Are we okay now?”

  “I’m okay. And yes, we’re okay. We’ll make it just fine now.”

  “I’d better check the cabin then. And get some help.”

  “Bring a blanket, too,” Crane told her.

  Alone again, Crane couldn’t prevent himself from glancing sideways into the face of the man he’d killed. Pate’s left temple was shattered, and gore had oozed down into his left eye socket—scalloping there under the eye—and on down, around the corner of his mouth and then down his neck and into the collar of what had once been a clean, white uniform shirt. The wound itself was a gaping hole, bits of pink skull still held to it by strands of skin and hair. Crane was horror-struck, but he could not look away. The wound was some kind of terrible make-believe, not real. He hadn’t just killed this man. With his free hand, he reached up and gingerly touched the dark hair. Then, as if what he’d done could be repaired, he touched the wound itself, the red-matted hair at the very edge of it, the torn scalp. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Air Route Traffic Control Center

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  20:53 GMT/13:53 MST

  O’Brien had been shouting exuberantly, telling Center of the recovery. Now Kelly and Curtis and the rest watched the radar screen as 555’s coded symbol, followed closely by Shadow’s, crossed the approach course for Sky Harbor’s Runway 26 left and then continued southward, its altitude digits slowly increasing.

  “She’s under control,” O’Brien reported again. “Repeat, Albuquerque. They made it.”

  “Roger, Shadow,” Curtis acknowledged.

  In the Center, a cheer broke out.

  Curtis switched to his other line. “Control, Albuquerque. Did you guys get all that?”

  “Yeah,” Searing answered. “We got it. The plane’s okay. But who’s flying it?”

  Curtis shook his head. “We don’t know. I’ll tel
l Shadow to pull up alongside for a look-see.”

  He glanced up at Kelly. Kelly shook his head. He didn’t know if Emil Pate would have gone that far only to give up.

  “It’s over, anyway,” Curtis said. Then his eyes shifted. Someone had just entered the room, and Kelly turned and saw the figure, standing just inside the doorway. Farraday gazed back at him squarely. Kelly got up and crossed the room. Now Farraday was smiling, gloating. Yes, Kelly thought, his hide had been saved as well. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to swing his fist into Farraday’s face.

  “You goddamn bastard,” he said quietly, his voice cracking, his eyes going blurry. “Emil Pate was ten times the man you are.”

  Then he had to turn away and go quickly through the door, down the hall and out, into the warm, bright, early afternoon sunshine. It was a beautiful day. Kelly wiped his eyes with the back of his forearm and remembered how, back when they’d both worked for Westar, nothing could get to Redman Pate. What had happened to him? Nothing that couldn’t have happened to anyone?

  Parked in the loading zone at the far end of the building was Farraday’s white limousine. Kelly went to the trunk of his own car and got out the tire iron. Then he walked down to where the limo was parked. The engine was running, the windows up. Sealed comfortably inside were two of Farraday’s henchmen. They were both in the back seat, watching a small television screen—a football game. The man on Kel-ly’s side lowered the tinted window and looked up when Kelly leaned down next to the glass.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re in a loading zone,” Kelly said.

  “So?” The man smirked. It was a joke, right?

  Kelly nodded. “So, it’s time to unload. My name’s James Kelly, Federal Aviation Administration. You can find me easy, so there’s no need for you guys to even get out, okay? I’d roll this window shut again, too, if I were you.”

  Kelly smiled at the look of puzzlement on the other man’s face. Then he straightened up.

  He started at the back of the car, smashing the tail lights first. At the sound of the breaking plastic, the man’s door came open and the man sprang out.

  “I told you to stay in the car!” Kelly shouted, brandishing the tire iron. Then he went back to work.

  Flight Deck

  New World 555

  20:54 GMT/13:54 MST

  Crane examined the MD-80’s autopilot control panel, located along the glareshield. It was different from a 737’s, but well labeled. He made another throttle adjustment, and found the switch marked “AP.” Tentatively, he fingered it for a moment, and then switched it on. Through the yoke he felt the autopilot take control of the machine, working to hold its present pitch and bank settings. A check of the altimeter showed them passing through seven thousand feet. Just to the left of the on-off switch was a small thumbwheel labeled “V-SPD.” Crane gave this a nudge, and the row of LED digits in the window next to it switched from “5(K)” to “400” as the aircraft’s nose dipped slightly. Okay, he decided, rolling the control a bit more, until the window showed only three dashes. The plane responded, its nose descending smoothly, the altimeter stabilizing at 7,600 feet. That was close enough. He adjusted the power to maintain 250 knots.

  “David?”

  Mariella had returned. She handed him a blanket. Then, wordlessly, she helped him drape it carefully over Pate and tuck it around the body. Behind them in the cockpit doorway a man who identified himself as John Sanford’s aide watched. Behind him was another passenger, a husky man with a bearing Crane immediately recognized as military. The man, in fact, was a police sergeant, as Crane found out when they were quickly introduced.

  “How’s Senator San ford?” he asked the aide.

  “He needs medical attention as fast as we can get it.”

  “Let’s get this scat cleared then,” Crane said. “Let’s get them both cleared.”

  It was a tricky operation. Crane had to stand as far forward as he could, straddling the center console and leaning up against the windscreen. But he didn’t want to leave the cockpit. Once they got Pate’s body out of the right-hand scat, he occupied it quickly.

  He had just put on the headset and adjusted the boom microphone when he saw the F-15 maneuver up (in his left side, less than a hundred feet away. Crane raised his hand and waved, and the pilot of the fighter waved back. Then the flyer in the rear seat, looking straight ahead, brought his hand up to pat the side of his helmet. He was giving the standard military signal for a radio frequency change. Crane nodded again. The man began signaling, holding up first one finger, then three, then two, and so on, retracting his fingers between each digit. Crane dialed the digits into his radio control head.

  “Albuquerque, Consul Five-fifty-five,” he transmitted.

  The response was immediate. “Mr. Crane, I presume?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Roger, this is Albuquerque. The guys out your left window want to know how you’re doing.”

  Suddenly Crane felt so giddy he could hardly keep from laughing out loud. He was alive and well. What more could be said? The joy of it surged through him. He smiled over at the F-15, sorry he couldn’t talk to them directly. But he knew they had only UHF radios. “Tell ‘em we’re okay,” he transmitted. “We’re going to make it.”

  “Roger, Five-fifty-five. Please advise when ready for a vector to Phoenix.”

  Crane pulled himself together. “ Roger, Albuquerque. Stand by.”

  Mariella had come in behind him again.

  “How’re they doing back there?” he asked.

  “Couple of injuries. You know how it is—always someone who won’t fasten his seat belt.”

  “Sanford?”

  “It’s not too serious. We found a doctor on board, thank God. He’s says he’s lucky. It missed everything important.”

  “Maybe he got it wrong at first,” Crane said, “but he also saved my life, does he know that? He saved all our lives.”

  “I told him. He said we’d better vote for him when he runs for president.”

  “If he wants to run for king of the world I’d vote for him.”

  “How do you feel?” Mariella frowned at him.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like you were just scared out of ten years. Do you think you’re up to making a PA announcement? They’re all still pretty worked up back there. It would help them to know there’s a friendly guy flying the plane.”

  Crane nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I think.”

  He took the PA handset from the rear of the pedestal. What should he say? He decided, to tell them who he was and that everything would be all right and they’d land in a few minutes. But he wouldn’t reveal what had really happened. They’d have to find that out later, if ever.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “This is David Crane speaking. I’m an off-duty New World pilot. Everything is going to be fine. We had an attempted hijacking, but everything is over now. The plane is undamaged. We’re all safe. I thank God none of you were hurt seriously. We’ll be landing in a few minutes.” He paused, then keyed the mike again. “I guess I’ll add one more thing. For what it’s worth, there aren’t too many people around who can say they’ve been upside down in an airplane, even fewer who’ve done it in an MD-80. It’s something to tell your friends and grandchildren anyway. I’ll see you all when we land.” He released the key then and hung up the set. Some would probably be upset with him for making light of it, but he didn’t care.

  “Thanks, David,” Mariella told him, patting his shoulder. “I’d better get back.”

  “Okay, Albuquerque,” Crane transmitted. “Ready for that vector.”

  Aviation Command Center

  21:04 GMT/16:04 EST

  They had gathered in the Operations Room to watch 555’s landing on the monitor. The plane appeared now out of the clear Arizona sky, gear already extended, wings tipping gingerly one way and then the other—like some giant sea bird, Searing thought, one of the kind that spent weeks aloft and forgot how to
land. But the landing seemed perfect, and the camera followed it all the way through its deceleration. Finally it came to a stop at the far end of the runway and was immediately surrounded by vehicles. They could hear cheering from the crowds, beyond the newscaster’s excited voice.

  One of Searing’s assistants from downstairs arrived, bringing the book L’Hommedieu had wanted. Searing turned from the monitor and realized the agent was no longer in the room. He had gone back into the command center and was sitting at station 8, slumped forward with his hands cupped over his eyes.

  Searing glanced at the title of the book, then carried it into the command center and laid it down carefully on the desk in front of L’Hommedieu.

  “Book you ordered.”

  The agent stared at it but said nothing. Searing sat against the edge of the desk and let his big shoulders go loose. The sudden relief was curiously familiar. It was that same vacuum of sensation—and even thought—that he had felt dozens of times before as a college football player, when the final seconds were ticking down at the end of a close game, when it was too late for anything else to happen, the contest all over except for the three ... two .. . one ... win or lose. He looked at L’Hommedieu, who still sat hunched over with his face hidden in his hands. The agent would never know, he thought, if Emil Pate could’ve gone through with it or not. That was what troubled him. But that was the way things went sometimes, especially in this business.

  “How about some fresh air?”

  L’Hommedieu nodded. “Look at this,” he said, lifting the book as though he were surprised to see it there. He stared at it for another moment but then put it down again and got to his feet.

  In the elevator, they leaned against opposite walls and stared at each other.

  “It’s a sorry thing,” Searing said to him, and L’Hommedieu nodded. He looked haggard, a five o’clock shadow smudging his jaw. He took off his glasses to wipe the lenses with his handkerchief, and the red marks they’d made on the bridge of his nose looked like fresh bruises. He rubbed them for a minute, then he smiled faintly.