Phoenix Rising

by Nance, John J. ;

  A collection of men stood beneath the nose of the aircraft, including FAA, NTSB, and Boeing engineers, and Conrad began introducing Jennings to those the operations vice-president wouldn’t know—reminding Chad with a discreet whisper that the man with the FAA badge on his coat lapel was Pan Am’s PMI, the FAA’s principal maintenance inspector. Twice before, Jennings had forgotten the inspector’s face and name, and effectively snubbed him.

  “Okay, fill me in, Bill. What are we doing here at three A.M.?” Jennings asked.

  Michael Rogers of the NTSB and the FAA man listened carefully as the maintenance chief explained to the operations vice-president what he already should have known about Clipper Forty’s engine failure.

  “So, Chad, we’re up in the electronics bay trying to find what could possibly introduce a stray signal to the fuel switch logic circuits that could cut off the engines.” He gestured to several stands of testing equipment under each open engine cowling. “Those switches aren’t hard-wired, they feed a computer logic circuit, but none of us—and especially not Boeing’s folks—can find a way a normal failure mode could do this.”

  Bill Conrad let that sink in a minute, satisfied that Jennings was at last concentrating. Jennings had been truly shocked at the pictures of the recovered number-three engine that they’d hauled out of the water around noon the day before. Risking censure for the cost, Bill had hired a helicopter to bring an NTSB team out—and all of them back—along with the pictures. There was no doubt now that Clipper Ten had been sabotaged with a bomb in the engine, and the NTSB was going to announce that to the world later on Wednesday.

  But was Clipper Forty a victim of sabotage too?

  Captain Dale Silverman had reached him around midnight in a panic. Silverman now stood quietly to one side, watching the proceedings with an ashen expression. A quick check had revealed that the man he had seen on Ship 102 in Denver on Friday night did not match the description of anyone working for the contract company Pan Am had used, and there had been no maintenance scheduled that night.

  “There was no way,” Bill Conrad explained to Jennings, “that anyone should have been changing out electronic units like the black boxes Captain Silverman here saw on the floor of that cockpit.”

  Jennings nodded solemnly. “And … Ship 102 …”

  “Is the very one sitting on the ice slab above the Arctic Circle as we speak,” Bill finished.

  “Bill, look at this.” One of the Boeing team leaned down through the hatch and motioned the maintenance chief over to the ladder beneath the electronics bay. Bill climbed in carefully.

  “Okay, this is the main box controlling the center display. The way it feeds data into the adjacent systems, it could conceivably be programmed to cause havoc, but any normal circuit failure will simply drop that function out of the loop. We built it to fail to null, or fail-safe.”

  Bill Conrad fingered the ends of the cannon plug. “If you wanted to bring down this airplane—cut off the fuel—and you had this box and all the time you needed to monkey with it, could you engineer that result?”

  The man shook his head. “I can’t for the life of me see how, unless you screwed this thing up so badly you were putting wild currents and signals in where they shouldn’t be. I guess you could overpower and confuse the other computers that actually relay the engine on and off switch signals … I guess you could, but I don’t know.”

  “If so, once you removed the problem, the unwanted system …”

  The man smiled and nodded. “Yeah, then it should work again.”

  Bill started to climb out.

  “One problem.”

  “What?”

  “You remove this box, you have virtually no engine indications.”

  Bill looked the Boeing man in the eye. “They didn’t anyway. Thanks, Phil, this may be our edge.”

  He climbed out and spoke to one of the Pan Am maintenance team.

  “Go run a telephone line over here and up into the electronics bay. We’re gonna get Brian on the satellite connection and talk him through this—if he can find a way to get outside and up into the compartment.”

  A large hand landed gently on Bill’s shoulder, its owner a stranger who extended his other hand in greeting and introduced himself as Loren Miller of the FBI. His hand was huge, and Bill had the impression his grip could crush. With the NTSB’s Rogers, the FAA’s man, and Chad Jennings in tow, they compared notes—Agent Miller finally raising his hand with an inevitable conclusion.

  “We have to assume,” he told them, “that there is someone willing to commit mass murder by bringing down a Pan Am airplane any way he can. Whoever it is, he isn’t finished. There is no way you people”—he gestured to Jennings and Conrad—“should allow a single additional departure without a massive security effort, including complete examination of each and every aircraft and locked-down access to all aircraft.”

  Chad Jennings swallowed hard and sighed. “I’d better get Ron Lamb on the phone. This sounds like an emergency board meeting.”

  The FBI agent checked his watch. “My records will read, gentlemen, that you were warned about this as of four-twenty-three A.M., Pacific Standard Time. Liability being what it is, I suggest you heed the lesson of the original Pan Am’s disaster at Lockerbie and act immediately.”

  “All of us are witnesses,” the PMI added gratuitously.

  Bill Conrad’s middle contracted with a combination of apprehension and anger.

  As if I’m not taking this seriously! He must think we need a two-by-four across the head to get the point!

  He glanced at Jennings then, and understood.

  Wednesday, March 15, 1:00 P.M.

  London, England

  The message was waiting for her the moment Elizabeth opened the door to her suite. Call Ron Lamb at the office, whatever the hour.

  He answered his private line on the first ring, anxious to notify her of what she already knew about her mother and daughter’s presence on Clipper Forty. In turn, she filled him in on the optimism of the first meeting, and the next appointment, set for 2:00 P.M.

  “Unless someone’s figured out I’m here and moved in to interfere, as I’m convinced they did in New York, I may get this done. Can you have our general counsel sworn to secrecy and on standby late tonight, Seattle time? I’m meeting with Alastair Wood again in the morning at nine, one A.M. there, and I don’t want to waste a split second. Have the fax machines ready.”

  Ron sounded grateful, hopeful, and agonizingly tired.

  “You okay, Ron?”

  There was a long delay in his answer. “My head’s killing me, Elizabeth. I used to have migraines. I think they’re back.”

  He told her of the security precautions, the massive schedule disruptions, and the pending NTSB confirmation that Clipper Ten had been bombed—and Clipper Forty more than likely sabotaged as well.

  “Ron, could this all be connected? The financial interference and these emergencies?”

  “We have a saboteur, yes. You may have uncovered one on that end. Are they connected? God, I don’t know, Elizabeth, but if so, what force are we facing here? The Mafia can bomb airplanes, so can the PLO, but who can also turn everyone on Wall Street against us and be sophisticated enough to mess up our reservations computers?”

  There were no answers, and they ended the conversation with mutual fears growing exponentially.

  Elizabeth spent less than a minute in thought. There was no time to waste, and keeping busy was probably as good a remedy as any to the bow wave of anxiety that Clipper Forty’s dilemma had created.

  She pulled the list of contacts and phone numbers out, but called the concierge first, to order a U.K.-compatible cellular phone. Her U.S.-based cellular was useless in England, and she was not going to be out of touch again.

  That done, she began phoning down the list, making additional appointments, explaining Pan Am’s attractiveness as a loan customer, and explaining as well what was happening in the Arctic.

  In the backgro
und the television stayed tuned to CNN’s world service, the constant updates on the rescue attempts in northern Canada catching her attention from time to time. She would call Brian and Kelly again in late afternoon.

  The two-o’clock appointment with a major bank went well, but it was obvious they needed more time than Pan Am had. Her three-o’clock with a major investment house held similar hope, with the prospect of greater speed than the bank, and her four-fifteen also showed refreshing promise. She returned to the hotel, anxious to get back on the phone.

  The lines to Clipper Forty were continuously busy, even after an hour of continuous dialing. She turned the television on at last to check CNN for any late news, hoping to hear they’d been rescued.

  The sound of a live telephone interview with Brian from the aircraft dashed those hopes—and explained the blocked lines. Most of the media would be trying to dial in, she figured. It was going to be difficult to reach him again.

  There was nothing they could do but wait out the storm, Brian told the news anchor in Atlanta. Yes, it was dangerously cold outside. Yes, it was true that only a small jet engine in the tail was keeping them warm, and no, there had been no damage to the aircraft and no injuries.

  She was proud of Brian’s steadiness. He handled the questions with authority and confidence, and it was a strange feeling to know that there was uncertainty and worry behind that strong voice.

  “Captain Murphy,” the CNN anchor asked, “forgive the question, but what happens if that power unit you’re relying on fails?”

  The quiet buzzing of the satellite line could be heard for a few seconds as Brian thought it over.

  “Well, it would be a problem … but one way or another we’d keep ourselves warm. We would be out of contact, though.”

  Elizabeth ordered dinner from room service and decided to hold off trying to get through to Brian for a little while. There was another call she should make in the meantime, one Lloyd White had insisted on, though she couldn’t really see the use.

  Then again, I’ve got to leave no stone unturned.

  White had briefed her that his friend in Scotland had been the victim of a sabotage campaign, and if there was any chance he could help, it was worth a try—though there was only one trip she was yearning to make: to northern Canada.

  She searched her notepad for the name, Creighton MacRae—Craig, Lloyd had called him—and punched in the number.

  The phone rang nine times before someone picked it up. Even then, whoever was on the other end took his own sweet time in bringing the receiver to his mouth. Elizabeth began to wonder if she’d called an invalid, when at last a gruff voice with a distinct Highland accent rang through the line.

  “Yes?”

  She introduced herself and mentioned Lloyd White’s name.

  “And?”

  She related in capsule form what was happening to her company, and why she had been told he might help.

  There was no response.

  Finally, in frustration, realizing she was talking faster and faster to fill the void, Elizabeth hit the breaking point.

  “Would you be kind enough, Mr. MacRae, to at least say something in return?”

  “What would you like me to say?” he asked. His voice was smooth and cultured, but there was a hint that he might be laughing at her.

  “Well … I was told by Mr. White that you were once head of your own airline company, and that you’re an excellent financier who can appreciate another professional’s need for advice or assistance.”

  “White exaggerates. Did he also tell you I’m retired?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Yet you call me at suppertime in need of advice. Very well, my advice, Miss … Sterling, was it?”

  “Yes. Elizabeth Sterling.”

  “And your position, again?”

  “Senior vice-president, finance, and chief financial officer of the new Pan Am.”

  “Ah, the bloody carrier that tried to wipe out Lockerbie—or its ghost, at least.”

  This is useless! Elizabeth thought to herself.

  “My advice, Miss Sterling, is to go ring up someone in the business of providing corporate financial advice. I’m finished swimming with sharks. Good night.”

  The line went dead suddenly.

  The jerk hung up on me! Elizabeth held the receiver out and looked at it in disbelief, then slammed it back in its cradle.

  That was that. She had tried.

  She turned the volume up on CNN again and began dialing the satellite number for Clipper Forty’s telephone once more, but still it was busy. She tried turning her attention to other things then, but Lloyd White’s voice kept working its way back through her subconscious, reminding her again of the similarities of the fight that MacRae had fought and the one Pan Am was facing.

  MacRae might be as hard as a stone, but if so, he was a stone unturned—and that was intolerable.

  She dialed his number again.

  “Yes, Miss Sterling?” he said instantly on picking up the phone.

  “Are you always this insufferably rude, Mr. MacRae? Or is that a Scottish tradition?”

  “Rude? You interrupted my supper. I didn’t interrupt yours.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t hang up on a lady.”

  “Ah, but I was interrupted by a self-proclaimed chief financial officer. Now I am to understand you’re a lady? Which is it?”

  “This may come as a shock, Mr. MacRae, but in my country it’s possible to be both.”

  There was a snort from Scotland. “I tend to forget that America always trends to the bizarre.”

  “Perhaps you’ve also forgotten that your head of state, the Queen, is a woman—and a lady? Not to mention your former prime minister, also a woman—and a lady. So what’s your problem?”

  There was no answer.

  “Look, Mr. MacRae, hear me out just a second, and if you refuse what I’m going to ask, I’ll leave you alone.”

  “If that’s what it takes to dine in peace, by all means proceed!”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth continued. “I know you won a large judgment after a long and torturous lawsuit against a plethora of organizations and individuals who forced you to sell the airline it took you so much agony to build. The tactics that you proved in court they had used against you included financial sabotage, operational and financial interference, and even physical sabotage of your company’s property. In addition, in the process of investigating what happened, you singlehandedly uncovered a network of foreign companies that had joined in a collusive effort, through offshore banks, to provide the eight-point-six million pounds they spent to wage the war against you—a war that cost you personally every penny you had, and that forced you into personal bankruptcy—until after collection of the thirteen-point-two-million-pound judgment you received in 1990. Does that about sum it up, Mr. MacRae?”

  “Well done, Miss Sterling. You obviously know how to absorb a briefing paper.” His voice was still somewhere between gruff and flippant, but there was a change—a grudging acceptance that she wasn’t a complete twit.

  “Mr. MacRae, someone is now doing the same thing to us. If that in any way makes you angry—because we’re underdogs like you were—then please have the decency to let me come to Scotland and discuss this further.”

  More silence.

  This man is impossible, Elizabeth concluded. I shouldn’t be wasting my time.

  “When would you be coming, then?” he asked.

  The question caught her off guard.

  “Ah … in a day or two. I’m trying to work out a loan for our company here in London. It’s very critical. But as soon as I’m finished—”

  “Call me, then. I can only promise you a meeting in Inverness, you understand, but I will do that.”

  She felt herself soften a bit.

  “That would be helpful. Thank you, Mr. MacRae, I really—”

  “No need for thanks. I doubt I’m doing you a favor. Frankly, I’m just curious to see a hybrid lady vice-presi
dent.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t decide whether she was hearing a chuckle or a sneer in his words.

  “May I get back to my supper now, Miss Sterling? My chips have gone stone cold.” The tone was as abrupt as before.

  “By all means. I’ll call you,” she said.

  “And I can hang up now without offending you further?” he asked with affected concern.

  “You may, Laird MacRae.”

  She disconnected before he could think of another reply, hoping the use of the Scottish equivalent of “Lord” had been an appropriate parry to his sarcastic thrust.

  Lloyd White warned me! she recalled.

  19

  Wednesday, March 15, 8:00 P.M. EST

  Clipper Forty

  The interior of Clipper Forty had been plunged into darkness, the cabin illuminated now only by the ghostly glow of the emergency exit lights. The howling of the wind outside rose to demonic levels as the frigid Arctic void began sucking the heat from the winged aluminum tube known as a Boeing 767.

  Brian could hear the sound of the APU’s turbine winding down as he cleared the doorway and headed for the cockpit, a few steps away. It was Tyson’s watch. Why wasn’t he restarting it?

  How long have I been asleep? Could we be out of fuel?

  Brian heard the turbine wind back up as he burst onto the flight deck and saw the copilot holding a flashlight beam on the start switch with one hand while he tried to coax it back into operation with the other.

  They waited through tense moments, wondering if the 767’s battery was up to the challenge of spinning the small jet turbine engine fast enough to let it restart.

  Brian slid into the left seat, watching intently.

  “I think we’re going to get her back!” Tyson said, the concern in his voice deep and obvious. In the reflection of the flashlight, Brian could see the enlarged diameter of his bloodshot eyes as clearly as he could feel the cold void at his back through the cockpit windows.