The Last Hostage (11 page)

"Did you think he should have been grounded, Captain?" Wall snapped.

"Well, no, of course not. If I thought Captain Wolfe wasn't fit to he would have been grounded."

Wallace scowled. "That's exactly the point, Captain. Officially, man had no problems whatsoever that would have left you or other employee of this airline with any doubt about his capability because"--he emphasized the word and drew it out-"because. "If you officially had held such doubts, you would have officially removed him from flying."

"Sir," Coberg began, but the lawyer's hand shot up to stop him.

"To do any less than ground a legitimately questionable captain would be considered gross negligence, even if his problems ultimately have nothing to do with the way this man handles this hijacking.

operations people need to remember that there's a country full of rabid plaintiff's attorneys out there who'll sue us in a heartbeat or mere suggestion that a captain wasn't absolutely perfect. An one smudge in his log book from thirty years ago may be thrown back at our faces in court. Even God might not know about it, but we're sup posed to, and we can't go around talking about unfounded cont because some damn four-striper didn't smile enough at the cute patcher when he picked up his papers this morning."

"Mr. Wallace, I take offense at that!" Judy snapped, trying to control the anger that had already been coursing through her mind.

"What, dear? At being cute? Fact of life. You are."

James Ryder, the president of the airline, sat forward slightly tugged at Jack Wallace's coat sleeve. "Enough, Jack. This is the nineties, and girls are sensitive."

"So are women, sir!" Judy replied. "I didn't think our company endorsed sexual harassment, even by officers."

Ryder sighed and raised his hand in apology. "I'm sorry, Ms. S Women, of course. I meant to say women." He sat back and sighed.

"Of course we don't tolerate sexual harassment here."

Jack Wallace shrugged as Judy drummed her fingers on the and spoke up.

"So, Mr. Wallace, you're saying that whatever information we actually had from observing our crews, we're not supposed to report it, and therefore--"

He slammed his fist on the table to cut her off.

"Dammit, Ms. Smith, there is no information unless you acted on it. You understand? If you knew, any of you," he pointed his index finger at Judy, moved it to the chief pilot, then back. "If you knew that this captain had real, genuine, nonspeculative, emotional problems that, without question, were materially affecting his ability to fly safely--not just his ability to baby-sit copilot egos-you should have canned him or grounded him instantly. That's what a court would say.

That's what a jury would say. And that's what the damned press will go clucking about later on, even if every last person gets off that airplane unscathed. So if you didn't determine whatever you saw in this captain sufficiently worrisome to cause you to act, you saw nothing, and there was nothing to report. Understand? There are no shades of gray here."

"But what if someone asks us officially how he seemed this morning?'' Judy asked, fixing the lawyer with a hostile gaze.

"Such as?"

"Such as the FAA. Such as the FBI. Such as a court, asking us under oath."

Wallace stared back at Judy with equal hostility and disdain before answering. His words were assembled with obvious care.

"I would never instruct you to lie, Ms. Smith. Remember I said that. But I will always tell you to be absolutely, positively sure that what you say under oath comes from hard facts that you absolutely knew at the time, and not from opinion or casual observations of an AirBridge pilot, or anyone else."

Steve Coberg shifted uncomfortably in his chair and spoke up. "But what about written reports from other pilots?"

Wallace shifted his gaze to Coberg and studied him for a few seconds, then smiled and looked down at the table briefly before snapping his gaze back with enough force to cause the chief pilot to flinch.

"What reports would those be, Captain?"

"Well--" Coberg began, but Wallace quickly cut him off.

"I would be very surprised and distressed if you, or your boss,"-- Wallace flicked his eyes momentarily at the vice president of operations, who was cringing--"would permit anything resembling such reports to be in the official files of this airline. I'm sure if I came upstairs this afternoon to look through your file cabinets, I would find no such files in existence. Isn't that right?"

Wallace kept his eyes locked on Steve Coberg for several awkward seconds until the pilot swallowed loudly and nodded.

"Good." Wallace looked at James Ryder, who nodded his assent.

"That closes the subject," Wallace continued. "We have an aircraft in the control of an unknown hijacker who has obviously overcome by force any reasonable resistance of one of our finest captains. We should be focusing on that reality, and that reality alone."

CNN Headquarters, Atlanta. 11:40 A.M. MDT, 1:40 P.M. EDT.

The director leaned toward the interphone to speak into the anchor's ear.

"We lost Billings. The line just went dead. All we can do is wait for a callback."

On the monitors, the director could see the anchor nod as he waited for a commercial break to end.

"We've got a freeze-frame of Chris Billings from the demo tape he left," the director continued, "and we'll rerun the audio."

A voice from the director's left caught his attention.

"That shot's up on five, Bob. That one okay?"

The director turned to look at the wall of monitors, studied the face of the young newsman, and flashed a thumbs up.

"Okay, here we go."

In the studio, the anchor looked up and resumed his steady gaze at the live camera.

"We have an extraordinary breaking news story we began reporting to you less than fifteen minutes ago, involving a hijacked commercial airliner--AirBridge Airlines Flight Ninety--bound from Colorado Springs to Phoenix with a hundred and thirty passengers and crew aboard. Also on board that aircraft is CNN correspondent Chris Billings, who, up until a few minutes ago when the connection was lost, had been able to maintain telephone contact from his seat."

The screen dissolved to the still picture of Chris Billings as his voice filled the control room explaining the unplanned stop in Durango, the strange and frightening low pass through Monument Valley, and the sudden announcement that the aircraft had been hijacked.

"At this moment, Reid, none of us on board this flight really knows what the hijacker wants, or who he might be. None of us in the coach cabin saw anything unusual before that startling announcement.

The captain has told us that the hijacker is holding a gun on him in the cockpit and has placed explosives in the cargo hold.

Here's part of the captain's announcement a few minutes ago."

There was a short pause and the scratching of the telephone handset against the speaker on the portable tape recorder as Billings held them together.

"... He says that he'll tell us what he's demanding a little later, but in the meantime he's ordering me to fly us to Salt Lake City..."

Billings's voice came on the line again.

"Every few sentences the captain would pause, apparently listening to orders from the hijacker. The most fascinating aspect was when the captain mentioned what he knew so far about the hijacker's demands."

"... certain actions by various governments, including the U.S. government, in trying to right a terrible wrong. He says he knows what he's doing is a capital crime, but the crime he's trying to address is far worse.

I'll tell you more when I'm permitted to. In the meantime, stay very calm, and again, do NOT try to be a hero. It could get us all killed."

"So, all we really know is that we're being diverted to Salt Lake City by a hijacker who says he's trying to right a wrong involving..."

Billings's voice ended abruptly as the screen dissolved back to the anchor.

"And as we said before, we lost contact with correspondent Chris Billings at that point. CNN has also learned that the hijacker is demanding that the Attorney General of the United States and a federal judge be placed on standby to talk to him, apparently when the aircraft reaches Salt Lake City. Additionally, we are told by sources close to the White House that the man most likely to be nominated this week to replace the retiring U.S. Attorney General is on that aircraft. Rudolph Bostich, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, was en route to Phoenix, Arizona, for an American Bar Association convention."

Salt Lake City International Airport.

A small conference room adjacent to the offices of the airport police department had been pressed into service as a command post by the time Kat Bronsky arrived. Frank Bothell, a thirty-year FBI veteran, looked up from a commandeered desk as she walked in. He motioned her over as he finished a phone call.

"Yeah... yeah, that's what I need." He held his hand over the mouthpiece and looked up at Kat. "It's Washington. I've already got things in motion. I'll brief you in a minute."

She smiled and patted his shoulder, suppressing the overwhelming feeling of relief that he was already there. The worry over how to diplomatically take over and organize an airport full of male officers in ten minutes or less had dominated her thoughts during the drive over.

Now she'd have solid help. Tough and kind at the same time, Frank Bothell was a man who genuinely liked working with women, though he cut them no slack as professionals.

Suddenly he was off the phone, leaving FBI headquarters on hold.

"Okay, Kat. Give me your laundry list."

"First thing I need, Frank, is the chain of command. Who's in charge?"

He nodded. "Overall local tactical command? I am. Negotiating and strategic planning based on your assessment of the hijacker? You are. Two of our other agents are inbound to help. I'll get everything ready to receive the airplane and coordinate with these folks," he turned to a startled looking airport police sergeant standing beside him. "Bill, was it?"

"Yeah. Bill Lipsky."

"Okay. Kat, Bill. Bill, Kat."

They shook hands quickly as Frank Bothell continued. "When it comes to dealing with whoever is in that cockpit, that's your baby, Kat.

You tell me what you need, when you need it, and give me directions on what to do or not to do. I'll try my best to make things happen the way you want."

She bit her lower lip and nodded. "Okay."

"If you tell me to storm the airplane, though, we'll need approval from Washington. I've got the Bureau's SWAT team coming and they'll be backed up by the Salt Lake City Police. Washington has alerted the Bureau Hostage Rescue Team as well, and will launch them if necessary. Other things I can do locally."

"I need to talk to someone in the airplane as soon as possible. How do we do it?"

Bill Lipsky sighed. "I've got an FAA man coming down right now to help with that. When they get within, say, ninety miles, we can hook you up directly over the aircraft's radio. On the ground, we can run a special hard-wire phone out to the aircraft if the hijacker will let us, or we can plug into the plane's interphone system by the nose gear and talk to them over that."

Kat nodded. "Or you could hand them a cell phone through the window or use a radio walkie-talkie. A digital cell phone would be better for privacy, though, if we can't do a hard-wire. I don't want the media broadcasting what we say."

"Okay," Bill Lipsky looked over his shoulder and motioned another airport officer over. "I'll get someone searching for one."

"Okay," Kat unfolded her arms and stood away from the desk she'd been leaning on. "Frank, before I talk to Washington, what do we know about the hijacker?"

"Nothing yet. We've got an urgent request to the airline for the names of all aboard, including crew, and we've got a team standing by in D.C. to run the backgrounds as soon as we get them. Did you hear about CNN having a reporter aboard, and the wild fly-by through Monument Valley?"

Kat shook her head no, and Frank filled her in. "The reporter was cut off in midsentence. They could have run past the.max range of the radio phones," Frank added. "Or-"

"Or the hijacker ordered them turned off, which would be significant," Kat finished.

"Did you know that the hijacker's demanding the Attorney General and a federal judge and several others be kept on standby?"

She nodded. "I heard." She fixed the senior agent with a steady gaze, "Any gut feeling whether this could be a Waco or Ruby Ridge thing?"

"No. It's all guesswork at this stage."

"I mean, asking for federal and state involvement sounds purely political. This isn't the anniversary of one of those disasters, is it?"

"Not that any one of us can recall, Kat. Nothing that's dear to those maniacs. Headquarters is doing a full check, and Clark Roberts is waiting for you on one of the lines there." He gestured to a telephone.

"But I agree, it sounds damned political to me."

Kat kept her expression neutral. If this was political and the hijacker suicidal...