Skyhammer (14 page)

That would make sense, L’Hommedieu thought. And if it was true, it would be just as well. No telling what Pate might do if
the cabin crew tried anything. “But won’t they start getting suspicious? A long flight, yet neither pilot wants a drink? Or
needs to use the can?”

Searing shrugged. “Again, we’ve got to assume he’s thought of that, figured ways to handle it.”

L’Hommedieu agreed again, looked for somewhere to put his jacket. “How will we talk to him?”

“ARINC.”

He tossed the jacket onto one of the extra chairs. ARINC —it stood for Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated, he recalled, a private, non-profit communications company funded by the industry.
They could provide nationwide VHF voice coverage between flights and ground personnel, via radio and landline connections.
Phone patches, essentially, they made it possible for airborne pilots to confer with maintenance personnel or dispatchers
during emergencies, weather diversions, changes in the flight’s release. During air piracy incidents, the FAA could preempt
use of the system. There were limitations, although L’Hommedieu wasn’t sure what they were.

“Is it all in place?”

Searing nodded. “And that chair and handset’s yours. Station eight. We’ll give you a list of who’s on which line. Want some
coffee? They’ve got a pot in Operations.”

“Sure.”

“Anything in it?”

“No thanks.”

In a minute the Supervisor was back with two Styrofoam cups. A minute after that the duty officer from Operations brought
in a sheaf of documents faxed from New World Airlines—the flight data for 555, the maintenance records and specifications
for the MD-80 and Pate’s records.

Aviation Command Center

18:32 GMT/13:32 EST

Searing and L’Hommedieu sorted the documents, L’Hommedieu taking the files on Pate while Searing got the plane’s specs, mechanical
record, flight plan, and manifest. Searing handed the flight plan to Travis, the manifest to Lofton. Travis would work out
alternative landing sites, including military, within the reach of 555’s fuel load. Lofton would check through the list of
passengers for names that were foreign or suspicious in any way—they wouldn’t rule out terrorists yet. And she would count
women, children, and medicals because they’d be trying to get the hijacker to release those first. L’Hommedieu had also asked
her to make a list of the children’s names and of the flight attendants.

L’Hommedieu set the timing function on his watch. He’d allow himself ten minutes’ research. Then maybe another five for discussion.
Then they’d have to make contact.

But before he could get started, Lofton brought the manifest over.

“Look at this.” She spread the printout on the counter between L’Hommedieu and Searing. “The VIP list.”

She pressed her finger down beside the only name on it.

“John Sanford,” L’Hommedieu said quietly. “Senator Sanford?”

“From Arizona,” Lofton said.

Searing made a note on his pad. “We’ll need to confirm it. Put a call in to his office. For now we’ll assume it is Senator
Sanford. And let’s also assume that Pate knows he’s aboard. Which will complicate things, won’t it?”

L’Hommedieu started at the list of names on the printout, reading down the column quickly. Yes, there was no doubt that Sanford
changed the situation. The senator made a valuable hostage. But it worked both ways. Terrorists could be awestruck by celebrity,
and the presence of a known person could alter their perception of all the victims. How would Pate use him if he did know
about him?

“We won’t mention Sanford right away,” he said. Let’s let Pate tell us, see if he knows.”

Scaring waited, expecting an explanation, but there wasn’t time to give him one. L’Hommedieu glanced once more at the passenger
list and then turned back to Pate’s file, blocking out Searing, Lofton… and the names he had seen.

The first page of the file was Pate’s employment application for New World. A black-and-white photograph fixed inside a square
in the top-right corner of the first page had transferred fairly well. The subject was not particularly photogenic, but he
had an impressive face, and L’Hommedieu took a moment to study it, noting the high, prominent cheekbones, the narrow bridge
of the nose, the wide nostrils, the sharp, guarded squint of the eyes. An ethnic face. Cajun perhaps? Was the name Pate a
corruption of some French surname? The complexion was dark, the hair black. The mouth was wide, and the cheeks formed distinct
folds that ran down from either side of the nose to the corners of the mouth, forming a triangle. There was something distinctive
about that, something L’Hommedieu couldn’t quite place. He needed more information and began to read the data on the lines
below.

First he learned that the subject’s age was forty-nine. Older than he’d expected. And no college degree—at least none was
noted under Education. That was also significant. Almost all commercial pilots these days had degrees of some kind. But Pate
had been in the Marine Corps, ‘63 to ‘67, and that was where he’d learned to fly, attending the Naval Flight School in Pensacola,
‘64 to ‘65, then on to Fighter Weapons School and F-4 Phantom jet fighters. “Assigned to the USS
Kitty Hawk
,” the notation concluded, “106 combat missions, Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy Cross.” L’Hommedieu was impressed. The subject
was a superior aviator, it would seem. What did this mean in conjunction with the subject’s age, his education? For one thing,
it was a good bet that Pate identified himself closely with the role of pilot. And anything threatening that role might threaten
his sense of himself.

L’Hommedieu glanced at the next page, where Pate’s physical data was listed: “Height: 6’0”. Weight: 170.” The ideal Marine
physique. It fit the emerging profile—a physical type, not overly introspective. Maybe introverted. Did Pate have an inferiority
complex about his lack of education? That was a fairly good bet as well, but L’Hommedieu shook his head.-Don’t overdo it too
soon, he told himself. Except that without much to go on and not much time he had to leap to conclusions.

He read on, looking for clues that might confirm his intuition. Under the employment record he found that Pate had been hired
by Westar in November 1967, with 3,400 flying hours. Most of those hours were military, but 256 he’d accumulated as a student
and 1,200 as a cropduster. Which answered the question of how Pate had gotten into Marine flight school without a college
degree. He’d already known how to fly. And cropdusting, L’Hommedieu supposed, would’ve looked like excellent experience to
the Marines.

But 1,200 hours? L’Hommedieu was astonished. How young had Pate been when he learned to fly? He skipped back to the physical
data. “Born May 10, 1945.” So Pate would have graduated high school in ‘62 or ‘63. That meant a year, at the most, before
he’d joined the Marines. And by that time he’d already had those 1,200 hours.

Where did all this take place? L’Hommedieu skipped to the personal data. “Birthplace: Kamiah, Idaho.” Where in Idaho was Kamiah?
And how long did he live there? He turned back to the education section. “Graduated, Lapwai High School, Lapwai, Idaho, 1963.”
L’Hommedieu shook his head at his own inefficiency; he could’ve looked up Pate’s graduation instead of wasting time doing
arithmetic. But what did they grow in Idaho that Pate could dust? Potatoes? Pine trees? Was it important? Maybe. Knowing about
the subject’s home turf could tell you a lot about the way he thought.

L’Hommedieu got up and pushed aside the extra chairs to get to the U.S. map. But he soon realized it wasn’t detailed enough.
“Ms. Lofton,” he said, “how can we get some kind of geographic profile on Lapwai, Idaho?”

“That his home town?”

“Looks like.”

“Flow Control has an Atlas. I’ll run down and get it.”

L’Hommedieu checked his watch again. He’d used a little over six minutes already. He reset the timer for five more, then began
to scan the airline’s training records. He saw immediately that Pate had “outstanding performance” on all check rides. And
he held a First Class FAA Medical, no waivers, 20/20 vision. There were no records from Westar. Had they been purged? The
second page of the New World file revealed something, however. In August he’d received counseling from his chief pilot for
“difficulties with New World’s cockpit resource management program” whatever that was. That same month he’d been “put off
a trip” by the captain. In October he had been cited again for a “hotel disturbance” in Omaha.

L’Hommedieu sat back to think about these two new pieces to the puzzle. How did they fit? Here was a man with exemplary professional
credentials who was also a troublemaker. A lifelong maverick? Or a man changed by recent circumstances? But why blow a career
like this? Vengeance, certainly, but why take it so personally? Did the guy have a Jesus complex? L’Hommedieu tried to fix
his mind on that possibility. But the image of Christ—bearded, haloed, backlit—intruded. He had to think it some other way.
What drove martyrs? Ego and pride. Rage and hatred. L’Hommedieu took off his glasses and used his thumb and first finger to
rub his eyes. Then he got up again and went around the horseshoe to the principal’s station. He waited until Searing looked
up.

“Tell me about this Wester merger. How did it go?”

Searing frowned, considering his answer. “Complicated. I don’t know half of it myself. First off, you need to understand about
Jack Farraday, why most people in the business hate his guts. He’s a bottom-line man all the way—Wall Street type. You know
what kind of men ran the industry before dereg? World War Two heros, astronauts. Guys who loved flying. I don’t know the ins
and outs, but it all comes down to employees or profits, and Farraday only plays for money. So he breaks the New World strike
five years ago by hiring replacements. Pilots’ union almost had him on the mat when he shot ‘em with Chapter Eleven.

“How do you mean?” L’Hommedieu knew virtually nothing about bankruptcy laws.

“Legal loophole.” Searing shrugged. “He tore up the contracts, said, ‘Okay, everybody back to work or else.’ Law’s been changed
since.”

“But what’s all that got to do with Westar?”

“Simple. Just like that—no debt, big pay cuts—Farraday can sell New World seats for half the price Westar can. Runs them under,
takes them over, forces a merger. They fought it. Who wants to work for a guy you hate bad? But it’s merge or shut down and
lose everything. So they vote in favor. And this is the bad part: Instead of integrating the seniority lists, Farraday staples
all the Westar pilots to the bottom. You got captains knocked down to copilot, flying under the scabs that broke the union,
and taking hefty paycuts while Farraday’s selling off planes, routes. Downsizing, raising cash. Where’s this cash goin’, though?”
Searing paused, asking with his eyes wide now on his black face. Then he slipped deep into his southern accent. “That’s the
big queshun. You ever hear of
upstreamin
’? The rap on Farraday—he’s pushin’ all the money into his own pockets, pockets of friends. Then askin’ more pay cuts.”

L’Hommedieu wrote “Justice” on his notepad. “So Pate, all these Westar pilots went back to work but mad as hell.”

“Some.” Searing wagged his head. “Some quit. Some went off the high dive. Our boy’s not the first. About six months ago—no
joke—they caught a couple ex-Westar pilots trying to plant a bomb in Farraday’s car. I’m surprised you didn’t read about that.”

L’Hommedieu did remember reading about the incident. He remembered other headlines, too, other bits of the story. But it hadn’t
been covered that well in the press. “So Pate’s one of these ex-captains and the captain he’s crewed with is probably a scab?”

Searing gave him a serious look, the whites of his eyes big again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the situation. And
you know what it means.”

L’Hommedieu did. If true, then Pate had a good motive for murdering the captain of the flight. Plus, Pate’s action, in his
own mind, was probably a collective revenge. He was getting even for the sake of all the New World strikers and the ex-Westars,
too. And maybe, as a further rationale, purging mankind of an evil? Certainly the martyr’s objective.

“How’s it going otherwise?” Searing asked, glancing up at the clock behind L’Hommedieu.

“Okay. I think we’ll have to start out somewhere in the middle, though. We’ll forgo confirming his intentions. The same for
his demands, since he hasn’t made any yet. I’m also going to save the appeal to his sense of mercy. It’s too obvious—we’ll
use it later. And yes, we’ll assume he killed the captain—intentionally. But we ought to bring it up. Ask him if the captain
was one of the strikebreakers. I’d like to know. I might want to get to that early on. If he killed the captain, and says
it was an accident, or that he doesn’t remember clearly—if he feels some remorse ... we need to make him see that the killing
has not made his plans irreversible.”

Searing nodded. “You getting any kind of profile?”

“I think so. I hope they can find that chief pilot, though—someone who’s met the guy, knows him personally. So I can get an
idea of what his flashpoint is. But my guess is that he’ll be fairly rational, on the surface anyway. What we’ll need to do
is get him to let it out in stages. Maybe asking about the captain will help, I don’t know.” L’Hommedieu shrugged. So much
depended on those first few exchanges that he couldn’t formalize a real plan before he talked to Pate.

“You want some more time?” Searing asked.

L’Hommedieu shook his head. “Go ahead and set it up. I don’t want to leave him hanging any longer.”

L’Hommedieu went back to his station and made a note: Threat real? Captain dead? Weapon? He crossed out “Threat real?” Then
he turned to the last page of Pate’s personnel record. An Albuquerque address had been scratched out, Pate’s Cleveland one
handwritten in. The pilot’s life insurance record designated a “Katherine (Winslow) Pate” at the same Albuquerque address
that had been scratched out. So chances were Pate was divorced. Maybe that was in their favor, though, if the reason for divorce
was what he suspected. L’Hommedieu wrote “Katherine Winslow” on his pad, along with the old address and telephone number.
He opened the line to Mac at the Bureau and told him to get someone in Albuquerque started on tracking her down, and to stay
on top of it. Just as he hung up, his timer began to beep at him. Somehow he’d managed to stay on schedule for a change.