Skyhammer (9 page)

He slept on the sofa, too broke to get a motel room. The next morning, he did not even try to feel different about the whole
rotten deal. He simply left without looking back, feeling completely emptied of all desire to do anything more than get out
of her life before he screwed it up anymore.

Even that wasn’t the end of everything. You never stopped hoping, Pate thought now. Not until it was too late.

The cockpit cooling fans hummed softly. The air passing over the windscreen hissed like a gas flame. He could hear the engines,
too, whispering a higher moan. With his eyes closed he was disconnected, floating through space, the whine of the slipstream
as steady as the wind coming down off the Camas Prairie. He thought of the loose, crazy freedom of that time, when he was
16 when he’d learned to fly. A man named Jeeps Henry had taught him. A cropduster, a rough-edged old flyer from Texas who’d
jockeyed fighter jets in Korea. One day Pate had watched him dusting, and the next day asked him for a job.

After two months of cleaning tanks and sprayer heads, he’d gotten Jeeps to take him up in his restored Stearman biplane. Such
a long time ago, but Pate could still remember the day clearly: The stuttering roar of the motor, the propwash beating back
over his face. The wheels bouncing through the chuck-holes, and then suddenly the ground falling away, the shadow of the plane
shrinking, crashing into the trees, the sky going big as they climbed out of the Clearwater Canyon. Jeeps had tried to scare
him, rolling the plane over and looping it and bringing it down low again, skimming the unripened wheat. Then soaring up again,
like a diver off a diving board, the green-gold fields receding, until the motor had reached the limit of its strength and
the plane was suspended there for an instant, before it slipped backwards and fell off to one side, nosing straight for the
ground.

It didn’t scare him. He soloed two months later, and earned his commercial license within the year. Two years after that the
Marines took him.

But Jeeps Henry was long dead now. Pate had quit missing him years ago, didn’t want to think about him. Or any of it. All
of those early days seemed like someone else’s. And he’d finally gotten nowhere, ended up with nothing.

He tried to let himself sink into the nothingness, take shelter in it. He didn’t have to think at all for a while.

But into his mind came a shadow, watching him. and at first he did not know what it was. Then it was Boyd, falling forward,
and then backward, groaning while he grinned at Pate, and Pate’s heart raced again.

My God, he thought, how
was
it possible he had done it?

With a start, he opened his eyes. A half-inch of ash fell from the end of his burned-down cigarette.

The smell of raw meat was in the air. The smell of blood. Holding his breath, turning, Pate looked at the dead man in the
seat beside him. Sunlight was pouring through the cockpit’s left side window onto Boyd’s shirt. The shoulders of the shirt
were still white, but the front and even the sleeves were the color of wet liver, the burgundy of blood congealing. It had
soaked into Boyd’s seat, even dripped down onto the floor of the cockpit.

Boyd’s head had fallen toward him. Pate stared at the face, stricken again with the odd, shuddering hope that Boyd was only
pretending. But the bright sunlight was slicing between the half-open lids of the left eye, showing the vacant, dead blue
of the iris.

Three days ago he’d felt like killing Boyd. In the pawnshop on Lorain Avenue where he’d bought the silencer for his pistol,
he had conceived his plan as if it would be some sort of repair job—this first, then that, step one, step two—simple, necessary.
He had let a furious need for revenge make him think it necessary. But now it seemed crazy, like plunging off a cliff to take
a shortcut.

Except that was exactly why he had done it. Because memories were like lifelines his mind would toss down to him. He would
think of Katherine and Melissa and Carrie, of Jeeps and Deke, of better times, because he wouldn’t be able to keep himself
from reaching out, taking hold, changing his mind ... but none of it would make any difference now because he had already
fallen too far. Now, if he thought of Mariella Ponti, or John Sanford, or all the rest of the passengers—if he forgot for
a moment that they would be casualties of war ...

But he would not think about them. As if turning his head, pate willed his mind forward again.

He
was
sorry about Boyd, though. He looked at the blue eye again—as lifeless as the eye of a doll. No, it wasn’t Boyd’s fault after
all—now that the cockiness was gone out of him, all Boyd’s arrogance, everything Pate had hated about him. But he couldn’t
undo it. That was the whole point. Why it was necessary.

For another minute Pate stared straight ahead at the brilliant haze on the horizon. Then he unbuckled his lap belt and pulled
out of the well beside his seat the blanket he’d gotten from the first class overhead. He worked quickly to cover the body,
tucking the edges in carefully, meticulously.

Then he eased into his seat, refastened his belt. The horizon was indistinct now, the blue fading into the white. He got out
the plastic water bottle he’dpacked in his kit and took careful sips from it—there would be no trips to the lav. He started
another cigarette and looked out at the horizon again, then down at the rumpled tops of the undercast. The cigarette smoke
looped up into the stark sunlight and then was sucked away by the air conditioning. Garfield, Boyd’s good-luck charm, stared
idiotically at him from the left corner of the windshield. He tipped the water bottle up to sip from it again. Then he let
his head fall back.

But the radio crackled sharply. Indianapolis Center was calling, the calm voice of the controller handing him off to Kansas
City on frequency 135.35.

“Roger, Indianapolis,” Pate transmitted back. “Thirty-five, thirty-five.”

The exchange relieved him. Reminded him there was more to it than this. He stared out for another minute at the impossibly
vast emptiness on the other side of the windscreen. Then he began to reconnect himself to the airplane, running his mind down
its pneumatic and hydraulic lines, its electrical conduits, its sinewy cables. He let himself flow outward to the edges of
its furthest surfaces. Thirty-six minutes had elapsed since takeoff. His mind was clear now, focused. He checked the navigation
display—still almost forty minutes to Indianapolis. Three hours and thirty-two minutes to destination. He entered the new
frequency. Checked the fuel column, noting the cumulative burn figures. The MD-80 was cruising at Mach.78. Five-fifty-five
would arrive in Phoenix with a good 9,500 pounds remaining. Enough, but he could conserve a little more fuel by slowing the
plane a bit. He stared for a moment at the orange LED displays on the autopilot, wondering if he wanted more time. Then he
adjusted the knurled knob below the readout, resetting the airspeed to.74. The twin throttles responded, retarding slightly
as the autothrottle system commanded the speed reduction.

He rechecked the clock. 17:21 GMT—Zulu time. Another sweep of the flight instruments. The central LED annunciators indicated
that the autopilot was holding a course of 253 degrees into Indianapolis. Altitude was stable at flight level 310. The plane
was performing flawlessly. Pate pushed back his seat and brought his left foot up onto the footrest. He heard transmissions
between Kansas City and other aircraft, and he knew the crews on those flights would be able to hear him. For a moment, he
considered keeping quiet. It would be so much easier to simply say nothing until he started down in Phoenix. But he’d already
thought it through, and he knew that the whole country had to be watching by the time he got there.

Using the switch on the console-mounted VHF control head, he keyed his microphone.

“Kansas City,” he transmitted. “New World Five-fiftyfive.”

Kansas City Air Route Traffic Control Center

Olathe, Kansas

17:23 GMT/11:23 CST

The supervisor on duty that Saturday at the Kansas City center was a man named James Slusser. He was at his desk when Bill
Nordstrom, his controller for Sector 18, called to him, motioning with his arm.

Slusser pushed himself out of his chair and ambled down the row of Situation Display stations. He was heavy-set, fifty, almost
bald.

The station next to 18, used for controlling low-altitude traffic during heavy traffic periods, was unoccupied, so he pulled
out the chair and sat. He’d suffered lower back pain off-and-on over the last year, and this was one of the days when sitting
felt better than standing.

“What’ve you got, Bill?”

“I’ve got a pilot here,” Nordstrom said, “New World flight Five-fifty-five, says he wants to talk to you.”

“Me? Personally?”

“Says he wants the supervisor. He wouldn’t explain.”

Slusser stared at the Sector 18 display screen. It wasn’t a regular request by any means.

“Okay, let me have the headset.” He fitted it on. He was an experienced controller, with twenty-three years in the business.
He liked the job. The ever-increasing traffic loads didn’t even bother him much, except in principle—more work, same pay.
In fact, the job was actually better when things got a little busy. Boredom was the real enemy. Routine. This wasn’t routine,
and so it interested him.

He keyed the mike. “Five-five-five, this is Jim Slusser, K.C. supervisor. Go ahead, sir.”

For several seconds there was no answer. Then Slusser heard a voice say, “Yeah, K.C. Be advised ... Five-fifty-five’s got
a problem.”

Frowning at the small, green blip that marked 555’s location on the display, Slusser waited for elaboration. When none came,
he keyed the mike again.

“Roger, Five-five-five,” he transmitted. “State the nature of your problem, please.”

But there was no response. Slusser punched in the call-up code so he could zoom in on the blip: 555’s numbers appeared—altitude,
speed, heading. It all jibed. The plane was on course, on time, still at 33,000.

“Five-fifty-five, state your problem, please,” he transmitted again, a small jolt of adrenalin jabbing his stomach now.

He was about to key his mike again when the same deep, quiet voice said, “K.C., be advised—the captain is incapacitated.”

Incapacitated? Slusser exchanged a glance with Nordstrom. Why was this guy not specifying? He keyed his mike again. The first
reaction to any problem was supposed to be to find out what the flight crew wanted to do about it. “Roger, New World Five-five-five,”
he transmitted. Your captain is incapacitated. State your intentions, please.”

Whoever it was waited another dozen seconds, then said calmly, “He’s more than incapacitated, K.C” Then he clicked off again
for another five. Then he was back on. “The truth is, K.C., the captain is no longer in command.”

Slusser had been expecting a request for an emergency landing. Not getting it was odd as hell. He glanced at Nordstrom, who
had been checking the traffic inbound to St. Louis, the runway nearest to 555’s position. Nordstrom shook his head in dismay.

Slusser keyed the mike. “Say again, New World Five-five-five?”

“I say again, K.C.—the captain of Five-fifty-five is out of service. I’m in command. You copy?”

The voice had an edge to it this time. Impatient. Something was definitely wrong. But Slusser still needed to find out what
the intentions were.

“Roger, Five-fifty-five,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “Understand the captain is incapacitated. Say your
intentions, please; would you like a vector to St. Louis?”

There was silence again. Then the transmission came: “My intentions?” The voice was calm again, strangely calm. “Well, K.C.,
my intentions are to take this plane on down to Phoenix, and when I get there ... maybe I’ll just drive her right into New
World headquarters.”

Slusser and Nordstrom looked at each other again, in amazement. “Say again, New World Five-fifty-five?” Slusser responded.
“Repeat your last transmission, please?”

“I say again,” came the reply, immediate this time, and toneless. “En route from Cleveland to Phoenix. We have one hundred
and thirty-six souls on board. First officer’s in control of the flight. When it arrives in Phoenix there will be a major
air disaster. Do you copy?”

“Jesus Christ,” Nordstrom said. “A hijacking?”

Slusser nodded. “Five-fifty-five, are you saying the plane has been hijacked?”

“Negative,” came the response. “Not hijacked. Commandeered.”

“And who am I speaking to?”

“First officer. Emil Lewis Pate.”

Slusser’s mouth fell open in surprise, and he and Nordstrom stared at each other. “Jesus Christ,” Nordstrom whispered.

Slusser wagged his head in return. Certainly it was beyond anything he had ever heard of. But he knew his reaction had to
be cool, professional. In his years with the FAA he’d learned not to question the unexpected but to assume it. And what he
had to assume, at least for now, was that New World flight 555 had indeed been hijacked by one of its own pilots. And any
hijacking, real or not, meant calling up the Washington center.

But first he had to implement the FAA procedure for immediate response. He was to ask a series of questions, record the answers,
and listen for covert signals that all flight crew members were trained to sprinkle into their transmissions, code words that
would provide clues as to how many hijackers there were, their ages, nationality, weapons, emotional state. But all this assumed
he’d be talking to a member of the flight crew, not the hijacker. What if, as this pilot was claiming, they were one and the
same?

Perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps the copilot was being forced to lie. It seemed more likely than the alternative, and Slusser
figured he could find out quickly enough by talking to the pilot, listening for the code words.

But not on the frequency all the other traffic was using. Already other flights had probably overheard the transmission. “Take
him over to twenty-one twenty-five,” he told Nords-trom, handing back the headset. “I’ll pick him up there.”