"Just another fun day at the office," Harrison finally muttered.
"Yeah." Pam sighed and glanced at the rain streaking off the windshield. "I wonder if I could make it as a topless dancer?"
Chagrined as well as frightened, Harrison didn't respond to her comment. "We better tell the tower what happened." "As soon as I find my voice."
Allowing a thin smile, Harrison grudgingly turned his gaze toward her. "Don't ever let me do that again."
"Trust me," Pam said as her glance slid to Chuck. "I'm gonna carry a hammer from now on."
Julie Morgan could tell by her husband's sallow complexion that he, too, had been traumatized by the terrifying experience.
"I think we need a double bourbon and water," she commented in a weak voice as she tilted her head back against the headrest.
"I'll take mine straight," he said, letting out his breath, then slowly glanced at his wife. "I wonder what the hell was going on up there?"
"Who knows?" she answered with her own sigh of relief. "Just be thankful it's over and we're safely airborne."
He shook his head. "I'll feel a lot safer when we're on the ground in Washington," he replied with a hint of irritation in his voice.
"I'm sure the worst is over."
"Don't bet on it," he said sarcastically. "We aren't there yet."
Wide awake and on the verge of panic, Ed Hockaday felt beads of perspiration on his forehead. He placed his right hand over his heart. It was pounding so hard, he thought he was going to faint.
Looking around the cabin, Hockaday could see the raw fear in people's eyes. Something is wrong. Get out of the storm and land this thing!
"Regional tower," Pam said evenly, "American 1684 lost fifteen to twenty knots at rotation."
"Copy, 1684. We're shutting everything down until the storm passes. Contact departure, one three five point niner two, good day."
"Switchin' departure, American 1684."
"Flaps up," Harrison ordered.
"Flaps comin' up," Pam said, reaching for the lever. Marsha Phillips hesitantly opened her eyes and tried to slow her rate of breathing. Never again, . . . never, never, ever again. Her knees were shaking uncontrollably and her neck was as rigid as a steel post. I could drink an entire pitcher of water.
A nervous flight attendant attempted to calm the frightened passengers. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said over the PA, "please stay seated. Captain Harrison will turn off the "fasten seat belt" sign just as soon as he feels it's safe for you to get up and move about the cabin."
Marsha tuned out the announcement when she noticed her hands. They, too, were trembling uncontrollably. With a feeling of nausea sweeping over her, she closed her eyes and began taking deep breaths and exhaling slowly. After a few seconds she gripped the armrests to keep her hands from shaking and then slowly opened her eyes.
She glanced around the cabin and noticed the same strained looks on the faces of the other passengers, including a handsome young Navy lieutenant with gold aviator wings adorning his white uniform. He shook his head in disbelief and displayed a taut smile as he flexed his fingers. Marsha returned his smile. Even the topguns get scared. Somehow, she found that reassuring.
With their seat belts still fastened, many passengers were collecting their personal effects from the aisle. Most were grumbling to themselves and to others while they gathered their possessions.
"Regional departure," Pam said in a calm voice, "American 1684 is with you out of twelve-hundred, goin' to onezero-thousand."
"Roger American 1684, good afternoon, radar contact. Turn right, heading zero-seven-zero and maintain one-zerothousand. Expect filed altitude in eight minutes."
"Ah, zero-seven-zero on the heading, and up to one-zerothousand," Pam replied, then flinched when a blinding streak of lightning flashed in front of the windshield. "Sixteen-eighty-four can expect our filed altitude in approximately eight min--"
A deafening, blinding explosion ripped the cockpit to shreds and sent a powerful shock wave through the passenger cabin. The thunderous blast killed Harrison and mortally wounded Gibbs. The first officer remained semiconscious, but she couldn't lift her shattered arms high enough to grip the twisted control yoke.
The aircraft pitched nose up and slowly rolled to the right, rapidly bleeding off airspeed while total chaos erupted throughout the passenger cabin. Bloodcurdling screams and anguished cries of terror added to the trauma and confusion.
The intense explosion had blown the cockpit door into Julie Morgan's lap, caning her face and arms. Her heart pounded so hard that she could barely catch her breath. Hearing a strange ringing sound in his ears, Senator Morgan sat back in shock and stared wide-eyed at his bleeding wife. "Are you all right?" he uttered before realizing he could not hear the sound of his own voice. "Are you okay?" Julie mouthed what passed for a yes and then stared in disbelief at the fragmented remains of the cockpit. She could see the magnitude of destruction on the pilot's side of the mangled flight deck. Julie couldn't see the copilot, but the captain was slumped in his seat with his chin resting on his chest and his right arm dangling on the crushed throttle quadrant. There was no question in her mind that the pilot was dead.
Frozen with fear and disbelief, Ed Hockaday's legs turned into rubber and his right hand shook uncontrollably. An intelligent man, he knew he was about to die, but his mind refused to accept his fate.
The senior flight attendant in first class finally found her feet and struggled to the cockpit entrance. She gasped aloud at the condition of the pilots, then stumbled back in horror. From looking at the pilots and the twisted remains of the flight controls and throttles, the dazed woman knew they were doomed.
"Travis," Julie sobbed, and wiped the blood from her mouth. "We're not going to make it."
He held her close to him and cupped her head in the crook of his neck. "We'll always be together, I promise." For the first time in his long and distinguished political career, the senior senator was powerless to correct a problem. In one horrifying second, money and power and influence had become completely useless.
A chorus of howls and screams filled the cabin while the sleek jet--at climb power--rolled steadily to the right until it was inverted, then slowly pitched nose down to a pure vertical attitude. Full of jet fuel, the airliner was now an outof-control bomb plummeting toward the ground.
Powerless to stop the deadly plunge, Gibbs made a last survey of the shattered flight instruments. She willed her lifeless arms to grasp the bent control yoke, then felt warm tears as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Marsha Phillips screamed in desperate anguish as the airspeed rapidly increased to 330 knots.
Slumping in agony, Ed Hockaday felt like he was being suffocated. He convulsed twice, then gripped his chest and died of a massive heart attack.
Travis Morgan hugged his sobbing wife with all his strength and closed his eyes for the last time. Behind the first-class section, the piercing screech of a small child rose above the other anguished screams.
A moment later the MD-80 slammed into the ground and exploded in a mushrooming orange-and-black fireball. The kinetic energy of the impact compressed the fuselage to a length of seven feet at the bottom of a twenty-foot crater. Mercifully, no one onboard felt anything when the plane hit the ground. In less than a nanosecond everyone was gone.
Chapter 12
Dallas--Fort Worth International.
Here you go, the friendly airline agent said as she handed Jackie and Scott their revised tickets. Your flight should be boarding in about an hour."
"Thanks," they said in unison at the same moment Jackie's sat-phone rang. She answered it while they walked to a quiet area out of the mainstream of passenger traffic.
Scott double-checked their tickets while Jackie spoke in a hushed voice, then frowned and slid the cell phone into the leg pocket of her jumpsuit.
"What now?" he asked.
"That was my office." The look on her face was dead serious. "They just received a short message from M
aritza." "Is she okay?"
"Physically, she's okay for the moment, but they intend to take her to Tehran in five or six days. That was all she said before the call was terminated."
Dalton remained quiet a few seconds while he computed how soon they could launch the rescue attempt. It's going to be close.
"Well," he remarked in a flatly serious voice, "we had better redouble our efforts."
"We don't have much choice," she dryly countered. With their revised tickets in hand, Scott and Jackie were about to walk into the concourse cocktail lounge when they heard the first muted shriek of sirens. They made their way to a viewing area, then stopped to watch the twinkling lights of a fleet of emergency vehicles as they raced across the airport. Although Jackie and Scott had a good vantage point, it was difficult to see the crash trucks and other vehicles through the torrential downpour.
"I think someone ran off the runway," declared an army sergeant to his pregnant wife. "Man, they get to slippin' and slidin' in this here stuff and they're flat gone--I mean clean off in the pasture."
A hush suddenly settled over the waiting area as people rose from their seats to find a better view. A college student wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was intently listening to his small aviation radio. His anxiety mirrored the feelings of others as he methodically scanned the radio frequencies.
Glancing at the raging storm, Scott's expression was troubled and his eyes were dark with concern. His instincts told him it was Flight 1684.
"Look," Jackie said as she pointed toward the ramp. "A few of the planes are taxiing back to the gates."
"They must have closed the airport."
Jackie studied the slowly moving jets, then noticed two American Airlines agents walking rapidly down the concourse. Their expressions were strained and one of them was nervously talking into a handheld radio.
As word of the accident swept through the crowded terminal building, the young man from Embry-Riddle finally broke his silence. 'There's been a crash," he announced in a loud voice as he continued to scan various frequencies. "American ... they're saying American sixteen-eighty-four went down--crashed just north of the airport."
"What was the flight number?" boomed another young man.
"One-six-eight-four--sixteen-eighty-four."
A murmur carried through the concourse as Jackie and Scott locked eyes. In the horror of the moment they felt stunned, saddened, and relieved to be alive. His face was close to hers, examining the deep pain in her eyes. The caring JOE WEBER and concern she saw in his expression broke the paralysis of shock.
"Oh, God." She trembled uncontrollably. "Eddy was on that plane--we would've been there, too."
Scott's senses were on full alert and the hair on his neck stood up. "Let's go find out how bad it is," he said solemnly as he gently took her by the arm. "Come on, just start walking."
Visibly shaken by the incident, the young college student lowered his transceiver from his ear. He caught Scott's eye, then spoke in a hollow voice. "According to the reports I'm hearing, they went straight in."
"My God," Jackie said in a soft, flat voice. Her lip quivered as she remembered her friend's infectious smile and eccentric bow ties. "Eddy," she murmured with a sob. "That could have been us in ..." She trailed off, unable to get the rest of it out. "Oh, my God ... why?"
When Scott reached for her, she gratefully embraced him and buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder. He held her close and absorbed the shudders that shook her body. Fate had intervened. By the grace of God, they had dodged the Grim Reaper.
Horrified and shaken by their close brush with death, Scott looked around the immediate area. His instincts were screaming, Khaliq Farkas. He's here, 1 can feel it in the pit of my stomach. The sick little bastard just took out a plane full of antiterrorist experts.
Scott cupped the back of Jackie's head and held her more tightly to his shoulder. Did Farkas know we were scheduled to be on the plane?
"Jackie," he said in a barely audible voice. "Look at me." He paused to compose himself. "I don't think the crash was caused by the weather. I think--" He stopped when she pulled away.
Jackie stifled a sob and looked into his eyes for a long moment. The realization suddenly hit her, causing her stomach to twist into knots. "You think it was sabotage?"
"Yes," he said in a calm voice that left little doubt about his conviction. "I'm almost positive."
"Farkas?" she asked as a sense of terror gripped her. Scott frowned. "Think about it. He was spotted in Wyoming--flying a military jet--and now a plane full of terrorist experts crashes."
"You're right," she said weakly, staring into his eyes. "Did he know we were going to be on that flight?"
"That's what we need to find out."
Dalton studied the throng of people in the concourse, then turned to Jackie. "He prefers explosives that are triggered by radio control transmitters--the type used for model planes and boats."
"I know," she said, meeting the narrowed probe of his gaze. "He would have to be fairly close to his target to detonate the charge."
"If he did it, he isn't far away." Scott's eyes traveled to a young couple who were obviously from the Middle East. "He could be watching us as we speak. Keep an eye out for anything strange."
She shivered, then cautiously looked around the immediate area. "Let's get moving--we don't have a second to lose." He took her by the arm and headed toward the entrance to the concourse. After working their way through the crowd, they raced to the area where transportation was available for arriving passengers. Jackie cast a glance at the line of taxicabs and limousines while Scott surveyed the crowd.
"I'd like to shoot him on sight," Jackie said with a mixture of pain and bitterness. "We need to find out if there's an A-4 Skyhawk here at DFW, or at any of the other airports in the area."
"You're right," Scott agreed, then stopped dead in his tracks. He was staring at a familiar face, but something was strangely out of kilter. The man was dressed in the uniform of an American Airlines captain, complete with an ID badge and a chart case hanging from his left hand. Farkas saw Dalton at the same instant and stared in disbelief.
"Oh, shit," Scott exclaimed in shock as Jackie whirled around in total surprise. "It's him!"
Farkas drew a handgun from the chart case, then ran twenty yards to a waiting taxi and yanked the front passenger door open. Scott started toward the cab and then shoved Jackie behind a minivan when Farkas fired three shots at them. Two rounds ricocheted off the side of the van inches from Scott's face. The third bullet shattered the windshield of a Toyota, narrowly missing the startled driver.
After a moment of disbelief, the shocked bystanders began running in every direction as the taxi made a jackrabbit start, then sped off. Scott could see that Farkas had his gun shoved against the driver's head.
"He's getting away," Jackie shouted in frustration. Without hesitating, Dalton raced toward a new Lincoln Town Car that had been temporarily deserted by its frightened owner. The engine was running and the trunk was wide open, waiting to receive a set of luggage stacked neatly on the curb.
"Notify the authorities," Scott yelled to Jackie as he slid behind the wheel and placed the car in gear.
"I'm going with you," she exclaimed as she jumped into the front seat. "We're right on top of him! Go!"
"Hang on!" Scott said as he floored the Lincoln. The car lurched to the left at a forty-five-degree angle and careened off the side of a shiny red Jaguar.
"We're off to a helluva start," Jackie said breathlessly as she hurriedly buckled her seat belt.
"Yeah, that's always a crowd pleaser," he deadpanned. "Next time I steal a car, remind me to point the front wheels in the direction I want to go."
"I'll work on it."
With the headlights on and the windshield wipers flailing, Scott drove with wild abandon through the maze of airport roads. After bouncing off a curb and sliding through a grassy area, they spotted the commandeered taxi in the
midst of dozens of flashing lights.
Accelerating on International Parkway, Scott rapidly closed the distance between the Lincoln and the cab. Both cars were dodging law enforcement and emergency vehicles as a steady stream of flashing lights rushed toward the crash site. To Scott's amazement, the police were ignoring the speeding cars. Approaching the curve to Northwest Highway, the taxi began to swerve violently back and forth across the wet parkway.
"They're struggling," Jackie said a moment before the cabdriver's side window exploded into a million glass fragments. "He shot him," Scott shouted above the screaming engine. "Don't get too close!" she warned.
"I'm going to ram him!"
"No."
A few seconds later Farkas shoved the taxi driver out of his car. The mortally wounded man tumbled and flipped like a rag doll.
"Watch out!" Jackie warned.
Scott yanked the wheel to the left, barely missing the driver. The Town Car skidded sideways as Scott fought for control. Once he corrected the slide, he nailed the accelerator and started closing on Farkas.
"Fasten your seat belt," Jackie advised as she gripped the dashboard and braced her other hand against the roof.
"I'm working on it." Scott latched his seat belt, then reached between his back and belt and slid his nine-millimeter Sig Sauer to Jackie. "If we get close enough, shoot him."
As she reached for the handgun, her expression froze into a kind of stiffness. "How did you get this past security?" Scott swerved to avoid a slower-moving car. "Thanks to Hartwell, I have credentials from both the CIA and the FBI." "How convenient," she said as she checked the sidearm. "Is there anything else I should be aware of?"
"Nothing that comes to mind."
With the trunk lid bouncing up and down, Scott worked hard to stay directly behind Farkas. They were banging fenders with other vehicles as Farkas used the battered taxi to bulldoze his way through traffic. Cars and trucks were sliding off the side of the road as angry drivers mashed their horns, cursed, and shot Farkas and his pursuer the middle-finger salute.
Primary Target (1999) Page 9
