Pandora's Clock

by Nance, John J. ;

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  Praise for the Writing of John J. Nance

  “King of the modern-day aviation thriller.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Nance is a wonderful storyteller.” —Chicago Tribune

  Final Approach

  “A taut high-tech mystery that could have been written only by an airline industry insider.” —New York Times–bestselling author Stephen Coonts

  Scorpion Strike

  “Gripping.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  Phoenix Rising

  “Harrowing … Nance delivers suspense and smooth writing. A classy job.” —The New York Times Book Review

  Pandora’s Clock

  “A ticking time bomb of suspense.” —Chicago Tribune

  “A combination of The Hot Zone and Speed.” —USA Today

  Medusa’s Child

  “So compelling it’s tough to look away.” —People

  The Last Hostage

  “A thrilling ride … [Will] keep even the most experienced thriller addicts strapped into their seats for the whole flight.” —People

  Blackout

  “A high tension, white knuckle thriller … Joltingly scary.” —New York Post

  Turbulence

  “Mesmerizing in-flight details [and] a compelling cast of realistic characters … once again prove John J. Nance ‘the king of the modern-day aviation thriller’.” —Publishers Weekly

  Skyhook

  “Readers are in for death-defying plane rides, lively dialogue, and realistic characters who survive crises with courage and humor.” —Associated Press

  On Shaky Ground: America’s Earthquake Alert

  “Gripping! Breathlessly unrolls a succession of disasters.… If you want a literary equivalent of the quake experience, On Shaky Ground is the book for you.” —San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

  Pandora’s Clock

  John J. Nance

  To

  Captain James J. Nance

  and

  Reverend Gerald A. Priest

  Jim—cousin, fellow Airline Pilot, and award-winning World-Class Sculptor

  Jerry—brother-in-law, World-Class Pastor, and the only Father Priest in all of Catholicism

  … and both, truly, my brothers.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  As used in this book, and in the aviation world, “Z” time (or “Zulu” time) always refers to Universal Coordinated Time—formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time.

  In the winter, when daylight saving time is not in use, Washington, D.C., is five hours earlier than Zulu time (in other words, 4 P.M. in D.C. is 2100Z, and 3 A.M. is 0800Z). The time in London in the winter is the same as Zulu, and Germany is an hour later (Zulu plus one hour).

  PROLOGUE

  Professor Ernest Helms had returned to the starting point of the snowy forest trail just in time. Fifty yards distant, someone was breaking into his car.

  Security had been the last thing on his mind when he’d parked amid the beauty of the snow-dusted Bavarian forest an hour before to tape some of the scenery for his family. His had been the only car around.

  But there was no mistaking the man’s intent. The thief was male, heavy-set, wearing some sort of institutional coveralls, and frantically scraping away at the door lock with some sort of tool—oblivious to Helms’s presence.

  Helms hesitated and calculated the odds. He was not in good physical shape, and the thief was probably twenty years younger. Yet the man’s effrontery triggered a primal rage.

  As he stood in shocked silence trying to decide what to do, the sound of a helicopter reached his ears from behind, faint at first but coming fast. For a moment more his eyes remained on the thief. Then, without thinking, he dropped his camera bag to the ground and dashed out of the trees, yelling as he ran, trying to keep his footing on the snow-covered ground.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get away from that car!”

  The thief jerked upright instantly, staring in Helms’s direction. Helms stopped in his tracks, uncertain what to expect, but the man just stood there acting confused, looking from Helms to the sky overhead and back again, his right hand pawing the car door ineffectually. His actions were more frantic than threatening.

  The helicopter was closer now, and the man heard it too, his eyes darting away from Helms as he shielded his vision and strained to see the machine overhead. He stepped back and stumbled, then regained his balance and retreated a few more steps. Suddenly the chopper swooped in from behind Helms’s position and slowed to a hover over the parking area, the occupants obviously spotting the thief as he turned and bolted into the forest on the opposite side as fast as he could go.

  The pilot hesitated for a minute, as if inspecting the car amid the swirls of snow kicked up by the rotors’ downwash. Helms could see someone in the left seat of the machine straining to look down. The helicopter accelerated then in the same direction the thief had taken, the noise of its rotor blades and jet engine receding slowly as it disappeared from view over the trees.

  Ernest Helms had instinctively backed up a few steps and retreated into the edge of the forest when the helicopter appeared. He’d stumbled slightly over the edge of his camera bag, breaking a small strap that held an identification tag. Now he came forward and scooped up the bag, but the ID tag fell unnoticed to the forest floor.

  The door handle bore deep scars from the metal tool the man had been using. Whoever he was, he was no professional car thief. In fact …

  Helms turned and looked in the direction of the receding sounds of the helicopter, remembering the small crest on the side of the machine and the institutional clothes the man was wearing.

  Suddenly it all made sense.

  An escaped prisoner, I’ll bet anything! And obviously trying to steal my rental car!

  Helms realized his heart was pounding from the adrenaline. He felt faint suddenly, and dizzy, and his chest hurt. He fumbled with the key and opened the car door, sitting down hard sideways in the driver’s seat to catch his breath.

  The helicopter was still less than a half mile away, apparently circling. He wondered if the pilot would end up herding the escapee back toward the parking area. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be sitting unarmed with the keys in the ignition.

  Helms swung his legs into the car and closed the door. Just as his hand touched the ignition key, something slammed against the side of the vehicle.

  Helms jerked his head to the left and found himself staring into the eyes of the wild-eyed man who’d dashed from the clearing minutes before.

  With adrenaline pumping, Helms frantically twisted the key in the ignition, but nothing happened.

  The man was pounding on the window now, his eyes wide with fear and panic. Somewhere in the background Helms heard the staccato sound of the helicopter, but the repeated impact of fists on window glass drowned it out.

  Helms shook his head no again and again, as he tried to force his trembling hand to turn the ignition key, but something wasn’t working. He was living the universal nightmare—running from an apparition but unable to move.

  The man’s face disappeared for a second and reappeared. This time a far louder report filled his ears, and Helms realized the man was striking the glass with a rock. The glass began to shatter as Helms turned the ignition key as far as it would go—and realized the engine had already started.

  A gust of cold air on his left cheek told Helms the man was breaking through. He forced his hand to the gearshift and mashed the clutch, jamming the car into first.

  Pieces of safety glass exploded into his face. Just as his left foot let up on the clutch an
d his right one shoved the accelerator to the floor, a hand came through the window and grabbed his collar.

  Helms instinctively threw his arm up, knocking the man’s grip free as the car lurched forward.

  He gunned the engine and rocketed down the small road toward the main highway. At the same time, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the man fall to his knees, making no move to give chase. He could see blood running down the man’s arm.

  Several miles away, when his heart rate had slowed, Professor Helms pulled to the side of the road to take inventory. His video camera was safe in the backseat along with the tape of the narration he had been doing for his son and daughter-in-law back in Maryland. During all six months of his sabbatical at the University of Heidelberg, he had intended to do some taping in Bavaria, but he had put it off until the last minute. He wished now he hadn’t waited so long. In two more days he’d be back with them in the States anyway.

  As Helms pressed the clutch again, preparing to enter the highway, he looked to his left through the shattered window. Something caught his eye on the lower jagged surface of the hole.

  Blood.

  The glass was drenched with blood, obviously from the crazed man in the woods.

  But there was also an insistent burning on the side of his left hand.

  With a cold chill climbing his back, Ernest Helms looked at his hand and found a deep cut.

  ONE

  MAINZ, GERMANY—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22—1:50 P.M. (1250Z)

  Captain James Holland shifted the telephone receiver nervously to his other ear and glanced at the clock by the bed. There wasn’t much time left. Irritation at being left on transatlantic hold was growing—almost as much as his anxiety at receiving the fax from Crew Scheduling.

  In ten minutes ten flight attendants in a holiday mood would be waiting in the lobby for the short walk across the street to the train station for the brief rail trip to the Frankfurt airport. They knew the way on their own, of course, but protocol demanded the captain show up on time and lead the parade.

  A series of clicks coursed through the line, but no voice. Where was the doctor anyway? The message had been urgent.

  Holland unfolded the fax and read it again, looking for clues:

  To: Capt. J. Holland, c/o MAINZ HILTON. Dr. David Wilingham contacted us this morning requesting you call ASAP

  re: recent exam.#214-361-1076/CrewSked/DFW.

  A distant and disinterested voice finally drawled through the static. “Dr. Wilingham is not available right now. Do you wish to leave a message?”

  Dammit! An answering service! “Tell him Captain James Holland returned his call. Tell him I’m in Germany, and I’ll call back within an hour. I’m … I really need to talk to him.” He started to hang up, then pulled the phone back to his ear. “Uh, can you reach him by beeper?”

  But the line was already dead.

  Holland replaced the receiver, feeling his apprehension build. The exam three days ago was supposed to have been routine—a simple prostate sonogram—a checkup. He had no symptoms, no indication of cancer or any other problems, but if the doctor was calling like this …

  He checked his watch again: 1:54 P.M. Six minutes left.

  Holland folded and pocketed the note as he straightened his tie and closed the overnight bag. He pulled his uniform coat with its four gold command stripes over his white uniform shirt and placed the two bags on the folding handcart. There was a full-length mirror by the door, and he hesitated for a moment to check his appearance, all too aware of the dark circles under his eyes and how they telegraphed the weight of his forty-six years.

  It had been Sandra who first noticed his face melting into bags and creases. Sandra, his wife—his former wife, he reminded himself—had wanted him to have plastic surgery. She didn’t want to be married, she said, only half in jest, to a man who resembled Lyndon Johnson more each day.

  But then she’d left him, for reasons that had nothing to do with appearance.

  He opened the heavy door to the hallway, feeling old, tired, and defeated. Christmas was going to be a lonely agony. The flight attendants had been gift shopping all morning. They’d be excited and ebullient all the way to New York. The phrase “Bah, humbug!” replayed in his mind, but he was determined not to crush anyone else’s mood.

  Yet with the worry about the doctor’s message, a six-hour flight over the Atlantic was going to be brutal—made even worse by the presence of Dick Robb as his copilot.

  Holland glanced down the hall, relieved that Robb wasn’t in sight. He would already be waiting in the lobby, of course, arrogant as ever, flirting with the younger flight attendants and monitoring his watch like a trainmaster. Robb, a young check captain from the training department assigned to give Senior Captain Holland an initial qualifying check ride in the Boeing 747-400, had spent the past two days energetically criticizing everything James Holland had done—and Holland had all but reached the breaking point.

  Yet, as usual, he would say nothing.

  He remembered trying to explain check captains once to Sandra. “They’re training department pilots,” he had told her, “some of whom are upgraded to captain years ahead of their seniority. They give check rides; they fly with and evaluate the competency of the rest of us who fly the daily schedules, the line pilots.”

  “And you don’t like them?” she had asked.

  “Most of them are gentlemen, but some of them become arrogant—little Caesars drunk with their own righteousness and power, more given to judging than instructing. An arrogant young check captain is the worst.”

  Robb fit the description perfectly.

  Holland stepped on the elevator and checked his watch, noting with grim satisfaction that he’d be arriving with two minutes to spare.

  As the captain left the elevator, Dick Robb moved toward him, pointedly looked at his watch, and asked if the flight was on time.

  “As far as I know, Dick,” Holland replied, realizing instantly he’d stepped into a trap.

  “Wrong. It’s delayed!” Robb said with barely disguised glee. “I called Operations a half hour ago to check on things. I figured you’d already called, but I was surprised when they said they hadn’t heard from you.”

  A sticky fuel valve had to be replaced, Robb told him, and Flight 66 would now depart for New York thirty minutes late at 4:30 P.M. with a moderate load of two hundred forty-five passengers.

  It was snowing very lightly in a beautiful wintry scene, but Robb was oblivious to it. He spent the train ride to Frankfurt importantly reminding Holland that his responsibilities as captain included staying in touch with Operations at overseas airports. Holland remained polite, nodding in all the right places, but his lips were white from the effort and Robb had noticed. As they neared the airport, Robb sighed to himself in resignation, regarding Holland as burned-out and lazy.

  Holland, in turn, regarded Robb as a self-righteous jerk.

  They parted at Operations, Holland leaving Robb to do the ground checks normally expected of first officers, while Holland himself headed for the departure gate, passing through the busy terminal without seeing it, oblivious to anything but the gnawing worry about the doctor’s call. All his career he had envied those few pilots who could seem to put their troubles on a shelf in some mental closet when they went flying, but he could never achieve such detachment. When Sandra had stormed out, shattering what was left of a fragile marriage, she had left behind an aching hollowness that had become his constant companion. He’d flown with that emptiness for many months, and now this.

  The immense image of the 747-400 loomed ahead outside the windows of Gate 34. There was a dusting of snow on the wings, but the deicing trucks were parked nearby. As he located an empty phone booth and slid inside, fumbling to find the number of AT&T Direct, he thought of the Air Florida crash in Washington back in 1982 and the effects of ice on an airplane. He made a mental note to double-check that Robb did the correct post-deicing inspection.

  Standing near Gate 34,
Rachael Sherwood brushed back her shoulder-length auburn hair and realized she was staring at the stranger just as hard as some men stared at her. Poor manners for an ambassador’s assistant, she told herself. She adjusted her skirt self-consciously and glanced back down the concourse, slightly irritated that U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Lee Lancaster was so late. She’d already spent ten minutes standing in a pair of torturous pumps, scanning the onrushing Christmas crowd, when she’d noticed the big American pilot. He was leaning against an open phone booth near the gate, apparently in some distress, one arm draped along the top edge of the partition, his large hand beating a nervous tattoo on the smoked glass. She knew the four-stripe epaulets on his shoulders were the mark of a captain, but it was his deep-blue eyes that had captivated her. It was obvious he wasn’t noticing her or anyone else at the moment. She quietly maneuvered in to get a closer look, slipping into another phone booth several yards away to watch. Rachael felt an odd rush of excitement, mixed with some embarrassment. She’d never done such a thing before.

  I must be bored! she thought as she continued to stare openly at him.

  He was at least six feet three, with thick eyebrows over heavy eyelids, a square-jawed, clean-shaven face framed by dark brown hair on its way to salt-and-pepper gray. She let her eyes linger on his broad shoulders and stray to his chest. Obviously a man who kept himself fit, she concluded. And obviously a man worried about something. The deep frown on his face was punctuated suddenly by a sigh she could almost hear across the concourse, and Rachael felt an illogical, empathetic urge to go comfort him—unaware that James Holland had been triggering such responses in women all his life.

  Whatever was bothering him had apparently been resolved by the phone call. She could see that. She watched him square those magnificent shoulders as he replaced the receiver and stood up. He was even smiling slightly as he put on his hat with its gold-braided bill.

  Rachael looked away at the moment he walked past, hoping he hadn’t noticed her staring, then dared to turn and look again. A hint of cologne followed in his wake, a pleasant, woody fragrance she didn’t recognize, but one that quietly urged her little fantasy along. She wondered which flight he was there to command—and hoped it was hers.