“You said you were taking a cold medicine … maybe it’s a virus and not a cold. Not that a cold isn’t a virus, but … you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Ben smiled at him and clapped a hand on his shoulder in an ineffectual attempt at reassurance as a desperate possibility coalesced in his head. “I’m, ah, going to run out to the aircraft and check a few things, Gene. Where are we in the process?”
“We’ve found nothing,” Gene replied, a puzzled expression crossing his face. Ben held up a finger.
“Ah … no one removed any sections from the master code for testing or anything this morning, right?”
Gene Swanson looked stunned. “Removed? You mean, without authorization?”
“No, I mean … maybe a test copy or something.”
“What are you asking, Ben? None of us would do that.”
Ben shook his head again. “Just a thought, and obviously a silly one. I know you know this, but we’re under such pressure, if any of you find any section of the master code that’s been contaminated in any way, isolate and copy that section and wait for me to get back, okay?”
“Well … sure. We would anyway.”
Ben left the lab as Gene moved back to the main test stand.
“What was that all about?” one of the other programmers asked.
“Frankly? I think Ben’s losin’ it.”
The short drive to the secure hangar where Uniwave’s Gulfstream was housed took less than five minutes, but processing through the security entrance took an additional fifteen since the name “Ben Cole” was not listed on the approved roster for that precise day and hour. First Lindsey, then Joe Davis, had to get involved by phone, verbally approving his visit after questioning why he needed to be there.
“Just checking a theory about the programming,” Ben explained.
“Yeah, but, Ben,” Joe Davis replied, “you bring the central hard drive back with you after each flight. There’s nothing out there to see.”
Ben glanced over at the security officers and smiled, rolling his eyes at the shared agony of dealing with bureaucratic machines.
“Joe, I could ask you the same thing in reverse. Is there something out here I’m not supposed to see?”
“No. No, of course not.” There was a hesitancy in Joe Davis’s voice, but it didn’t register in Ben’s thinking.
“Well, I’m chief software engineer, Joe, and the computer out here still has software embedded in it, and I’d like to look at it. Why is that a problem?”
“It isn’t, now that you’ve explained yourself,” Joe replied. “You should let people know, Ben. Don’t just show up. It makes our security people very nervous.”
The Gulfstream sat freshly washed and sparkling in the lights of the windowless hangar as Ben walked to the entrance and climbed aboard, pausing to look to his left into the technical complexity of the cockpit. Somehow the Gulfstream had reverted to the exciting, friendly, safe environment he’d always considered it, almost as if the nightmare of the uncontrolled descent two nights before had never happened.
There were technical manuals open on the copilot’s seat, and the captain’s seat had been pulled back to its full extent.
Must be the T-handle installation, Ben mused as he let his eyes roam over the area left of the captain’s rudder pedals, where the emergency disconnect T-handle was supposed to be. He could hear voices in the hangar and hurried footsteps apparently approaching the entry stairs.
The telltale signs of a new installation were there, all right, along with the manual disconnect handle, which would physically knock the autoflight relays away from the flight controls if the computer glitched again. It was a comforting feeling to see the little handle, and he knew the pilots would equally appreciate having a way to pull the computer’s silicon hands from their throat if anything else went wrong.
The footsteps were coming up the Gulfstream’s entry stairs behind him, and Ben casually took note, letting his eyes rest on the engineering plans laid out on the copilot’s seat. They were obviously the installation instructions for the emergency disconnect T-handle. The word “copy” was stamped in the upper left-hand corner over the more detailed engineering identification box, but it contained another stamped word he couldn’t quite make out.
Ben could hear someone approaching the top of the stairs as he reached out and moved the top page to get a better look at the papers.
“Anyone here?” a male voice asked from the entryway, distracting him.
“Yes. Ben Cole. I’m in the cockpit.”
A heavyset, worried-looking man moved in behind him and leaned over, snatching the engineering papers off the copilot’s seat.
“Is there a problem?” Ben asked, twisting around and looking up to catch the man’s eyes.
“No. I just left these … maintenance papers here,” he said.
“I’m Ben Cole, chief software engineer,” Ben said, extending his hand as he got to his feet.
“Ah … Don Brossard,” the man said, reluctantly shifting the papers to his left hand and meeting the handshake.
“You’re maintenance?”
Ben saw Brossard’s eyebrows rise visibly. The man nodded, his eyes darting to the entry way with a clear desire to bolt and run. “Yeah. Sorry … I’ve got a … a conference.” He pointed toward the far door of the hangar.
“Understood, but before you go, let me ask you a question about that emergency disconnect handle you just installed.”
Brossard nodded. “Yeah?”
“Is it operational yet, and have you tested it?”
“I’m sure that … whatever they’re supposed to do has been done. You’ll have to ask the chief of maintenance about that. I’m just supposed to bring these papers.”
“You’re not doing the installation?”
“Not if it’s complete. Look, I’m sorry, Mr. Cole, but I’ve gotta run. Nice meeting you.”
Ben watched him descend the steps and hurry out of the hangar before moving back into the spartan cabin and running a series of tests on the computers in search of a stray copy of the main Boomerang program.
After an hour of careful probing, it was obvious it was wasted effort. Ben stood and moved back toward the front entry door and the cockpit, visualizing the final flight test and wondering if the two pilots would be able to pull the new T-handle fast enough if the program went nuts again. It was prominent enough and large enough to get a hand around easily, and judging from the complexity of the engineering drawings he had seen, it had obviously been carefully conceived.
Something about the plans snagged his memory, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Ben looked around to see if anyone was observing him, but the hangar appeared empty. He leaned into the cockpit out of curiosity and decided to sit down in the surprisingly comfortable captain’s seat, his eyes on the red T-handle.
Ben let his left hand close around the cool metallic mass of the red T-handle as he absently wondered how much force was required on the specially installed device to actually pull the autoflight servos free of the control cables somewhere below in the Gulfstream’s belly. He pulled gently on the handle to gauge the resistance, unprepared for the response, as the T-handle came off smoothly in his hand, effortlessly trailing a loose length of cable.
Ben raised the handle to eye level, feeling a flash of guilt for breaking something that shouldn’t have been touched, before realizing with a start that the cable had been loose for a very specific reason: It had never been attached to anything.
He threaded the cable back in and replaced the T-handle, recalling the strained encounter with the maintenance man, who had apparently been trying to retrieve the T-handle installation order before Ben Cole could find it. Lindsey had promised him the disconnect would be installed, but if the installation was complete, this was a placebo, a dummy device for show only.
There had been a word stamped in the information block of the papers Ben had seen, and he tried to pull up the visual image of it now, wondering
if it was a growing paranoia or reality working to convince him the word he’d seen was “canceled.” If so, Lindsey had lied to him.
He scrambled out of the seat and almost fell down the Gulfstream’s airstairs in his hurry to leave the hangar as fast as possible. There was a parking lot across the road adjacent to the base exchange and he found a spot and parked, letting the engine idle as he tried to think through the growing puzzle.
Am I being watched? he wondered, glancing around. Why would they lie about the emergency disconnect? Or could the installation just not have been complete? No. If it were incomplete, why send a nervous maintenance guy to snatch the plans away?
He recalled the delay getting admission to the Gulfstream hangar in the first place, and his suspicions coalesced.
Davis! He tried to talk me out of getting aboard because he didn’t want me to find out they’d canceled the disconnect. Davis and Lindsey are in on this together, but do they have anything to do with the renegade lines of code and their disappearance?
Lindsey’s smiling face returned to his thoughts, along with the very pleasant memory of her hair brushing his face the day before, that invigorating wave of femininity now drying into the brittle reality that she had merely been using him. He felt betrayed and helpless.
The memory of the terror two nights before when their jet dove toward the ocean and skimmed the surface returned. That icy fear was all too familiar, like the childhood dream of trying to run from the monster but being unable to move an inch. The memory of those few moments of panic and indecision was enough for a lifetime. Going up again was okay as long as they had the manual disconnect, but without it, and with dangerously unknown lines of code appearing and disappearing in the master program, the possibility that the next test would be fatal was growing at almost the same speed as the conclusion that he was helpless to stop the disaster.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the lab.
“I’m … really feeling lousy, Gene,” Ben said, keeping his voice even. “Unless you seriously need me back there to look at anything new, I think I’m going to go home and go to bed.”
“Go home, Ben. Nothing new to talk about.”
He punched the disconnect button and put the car in reverse. He had no doubt that he was little more than a pawn now, and just along for the ride.
Could I be wrong? There was little hope of that. But the question of why hung in the air as he put the car in gear and moved out of the parking lot.
FIFTEEN
WEDNESDAY, DAY 3 ANCHORAGE, ALASKA LATE AFTERNOON
“I’ve found him, April.”
“Who?” April replied, still fumbling for control of the cell phone she’d yanked from the holster on the side of her purse as she tried to steer.
“An aviation lawyer we can trust. He’s in D.C., and he’s making calls at FAA headquarters to see if he can head off any problems with that inspector Harrison.”
“That’s good news, Gracie.”
“No guarantees, but he’s one of the best. He’s spent two decades battling the FAA enforcement division’s demonstrated desire to revoke every pilot license in America, and to the extent they can be scared of anyone, they’re scared of him. He charged a three-thousand-dollar retainer, which I’ve already sent.”
“Gracie! Thank you. I’ll pay you back as soon as I return.”
“I’m really seriously worried, as you can tell.”
“Dad will deeply appreciate your doing that.”
“So how is our captain?”
April related Dean’s arrival and her trip to the Coast Guard in lieu of staying at the hospital. “Dean called a few minutes ago. Mom and Dad will be released by four, and we leave for Seattle at six.”
“Tell me about the Coast Guard,” Gracie said.
“Okay. The Coast Guard is a military-style organization placed under the control of the Department of Transportation with a mission that—”
“April!”
“Well, you do that to me all the time.”
“Yeah, but that’s how we’re supposed to do it. You set up the joke and I deliver the punch lines. Okay. Tell me what you found out from the Coasties.”
April outlined the conversation with Lieutenant Jim Hobbs and the fact that he’d called just fifteen minutes before to arrange a meeting. “Gracie, something’s obviously making him cautious. He wants me to meet him at a Starbucks nearby. I’m trying to figure out what that means.”
“Perhaps he likes coffee.”
“No, really. He said he was calling on his cell phone and that he’d have a civilian parka over his uniform, and he said not to mention to anyone that I was meeting him.”
“Well, at least he wasn’t asking you to join him for a serious discussion at the Happy Bottom Motel.”
“He’s married, Gracie.”
“I keep telling you, Rosen. You leave this wide wake of interested males behind you. That’s why I can always find you in a crowd.”
“Where are you right now, O’Brien?”
“Still in my office under a ton of briefs.”
“The legal kind, I assume?”
“There you go again, stealing my lines. You headed over to meet him now?”
“Yes. And are you going to meet us at Seatac when we arrive?”
“Absolutely. But this time I’ll be one of the pathetic supplicants waiting outside security with the rest of the unwashed masses. Call me after your Coast Guard rendezvous, will you?”
“I will.”
There was a long pause from Seattle. “It may be important to salvage the Albatross, April, regardless of the expense.”
April nodded before remembering Gracie couldn’t see the gesture. “I know. I have the disturbing feeling that the believability of Dad’s story rests on the broken propeller blade, and if so, we may have no choice.”
Lieutenant Jim Hobbs was waiting just inside Starbucks when April arrived. He joined her in line and insisted on paying before motioning her to the most remote table.
“Why the cloak-and-dagger routine?” April asked, smiling and enjoying the warm, caffeinated aroma of the place.
Hobbs glanced around carefully, satisfied that no one seemed inordinately interested in them. He met her gaze. “Here’s what I can tell you. Yes, there were ships in the area. Yes, our radar out of Valdez did track what was probably your dad’s aircraft. But—and I haven’t seen any readouts or copies of what’s on the radar tapes—I’m told the targets did not intersect. The only other thing I can tell you is that I believe those tapes are in the public domain, but you may need to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get them.”
“They’re stonewalling?”
Jim Hobbs smiled thinly and glanced around, mentally tracking the various people in the store. He turned back to her. “Let’s just say this. Even in the most innocuous situations, the Coast Guard is institutionally nervous about letting civilians see their radar tapes. Second, in this case, there’s way too much official interest in the very same tapes for this to be routine, and before you ask”—he held up a hand to stop the question he saw coming—“I don’t know who’s behind that special interest, but it means I’ll deny that I ever talked to you about it. I was never here.”
“Why are you? Talking to me, I mean?”
He smiled nervously. “Because you’re a damsel in distress, and I’m a sucker for pretty women in need of aid and comfort. I guess that’s why I joined the Coast Guard to begin with. I thought ‘Baywatch’ was an accurate portrayal.”
“Babewatch was in California. This is Alaska.”
“The recruiter lied,” he laughed. “And then I got married,” he said.
By arrangement, April left first, motoring back to the hospital, where her brother and parents were waiting for the trip across town to the airport.
Arlie and Rachel Rosen both refused wheelchairs when they reached the Anchorage airport, but the deep bruises from the crash were forcing Arlie to move with uncharacteristic care as they went through securi
ty on the way to the gate, where he insisted on standing in line himself.
“Dad, April tried, “don’t you want to sit? There’s no shame in that. You and Mom went through a terrible ordeal.”
“I’m fine, honey,” he said, forcing a smile to hide the pain he was obviously feeling. A shaft of light from the low-hanging sun on the southern horizon cut through the glass of the terminal and illuminated his face, and April fought a sudden wave of sadness at how old and weathered he looked. She’d always thought of him as indestructible and ageless, a dynamo who held off the effects of aging by simply refusing to participate in the process.
But the orange Alaskan sunlight was telling another story, and she purposely refrained from glancing at her mother for fear the same truths would be reflected there.
“We’ll start looking this weekend for another Albatross,” Arlie Rosen was saying, as much to himself as to April. “It’ll take quite awhile to re-create the interior, but with the insurance, it should be straightforward.”
“How much recuperation did the doctor say you’d need before you get back on the schedule at United, Dad?” April asked.
Arlie snorted and smiled. “The kid doctor was really serious about that. He said maybe a month, but he has no idea what he’s talking about. Pilots are tougher than that. I’ll see my FAA flight doc next Monday and get re-cleared immediately.”
“Dad, you told me yourself you have enough sick leave to probably sit it out until retirement. Why not use it?”
Arlie reached out and placed the palm of his hand on her head, his infectious smile riveting her. “Now, once more April, let’s get this concept down. Repeat after me. Retirement is bad. Retirement is not our friend. Your father does not play well with retired people.”
“You’ve got four years left before—”
He quickly placed his index finger against her lips, shaking his head to expunge any mention of the hated age-sixty mandatory retirement rule. “We don’t use cusswords in this family. ‘Retirement’ is a damn cussword!”
“You just love to fly, don’t you, Dad?” Dean said, joining the exchange.
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