The Last Hostage (15 page)

"I told you no tricks, no fighters, no nothing! You make these guys go away. You're gonna get us killed."

"Captain, what's going on up there?"

"What do you think, Bronsky? You sent fighters, the hijacker is upset about the fighters. I want you to stop endangering us. Understood?"

"Captain Wolfe, tell me precisely what's happening."

"Dammit, he's threatening to kill us because of these F-sixteens?

"We did not order fighters, Captain. Tell the man that."

"Cute, Bronsky. You arrange for the Air Force to launch two fighters to shadow me and then pretend you don't know? That's a real trust buster. He's real impressed. He's waving the trigger around. With him in the right seat and you down there playing games, we're probably doomed."

Kat cupped her hand over the receiver. "Frank!"

He was already nodding as he punched up a clear line on the telephone desk set and began punching in numbers. "I know, I know. I'm checking."

Kat closed her eyes and tried to focus on the scene in the cockpit, and the mind behind the hijacking.

"Okay, Captain, look. We all know that sometimes the right hand and the left hand do not communicate. I honestly do not know where those fighters have come from or what they're doing there. Are you saying they're in formation with you?"

"That's right, Bronsky. As if you didn't know. Off to my left. He wants-- hold on--he says he wants them to land at Salt Lake City International Airport, and before we even think about landing, he wants to see those two fighter pilots on the ground standing outside their planes."

"Affirmative, Captain. We're working on it."

She whirled around toward the adjacent desk again. "Frank?"

Frank Bothell pulled the receiver from his ear and rolled his eyes.

"Goddammit! Headquarters called the Air Force without telling us.

The fighters are from Hill Air Force Base in Ogden. I'm calling them off."

Kat shook her head and repeated Wolfe's orders. "Frank, he's demanding the F-sixteens land here at Salt Lake International."

Frank nodded and pressed the phone to his ear again to issue the urgent instructions as Kat hunched over the receiver again, her eyes closed.

"Okay, Captain, tell him we're relaying the message right now. It will take a couple of minutes to reach them."

"They'd better hurry--he's waving the damn trigger around again."

There were some banging noises, then Captain Wolfe's voice in the background. "I told you.., stop doing that. Please. They're complying.

There's no sense in this."

There was silence on the other end for several long moments.

"One more slip, Bronsky, and he says he'll activate the trigger.

Please, don't give him any more reasons!"

AirBridge Headquarters, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 12:10

The Director of Flight Control, Judy Smith, spotted the two dark-suited men the moment they entered the building. When they were scooped up by the company's general counsel and escorted toward the second floor, she knew they were FBI agents. And they were about to be presented with a whitewashed version of Captain Ken Wolfe from a chief pilot who had undoubtedly been manicuring his personnel files. There would be no reference to instability, mood swings, copilot complaints, or the overall feeling that was eating her alive that the hijacking was somehow a product of the hell Ken Wolfe had been living. There would be only the feigned wide-eyed innocence of a chief pilot who was very worried about one of his best and most senior employees. The dog and pony show would take, what, five minutes?

She wondered if veteran agents would be able to see through it, and the answer was obvious: Not in time.

Soon, the two men were back, shaking hands with the chief pilot in the hallway outside dispatch and heading for the parking lot, a folder in the hands of one of them.

Judy watched them get in a black sedan.

There was a long drive leading past the rectangular operations building to the opposite end, where the drive rejoined the road and passed a rear entrance. The rear entrance was the only way out of the building on that side, and the only one without surveillance cameras--a door smokers used to catch a quick cigarette without invoking the wrath of their nonsmoking coworkers.

She quickly pushed back her chair and got to her feet, smiling at one of the dispatchers who happened to look up. The hallway was empty, and she moved as fast as she could toward the far end.

She pushed open the door, relieved that no one was lounging outside.

Above her, the back side of the building contained no windows, and no way for the senior executives to see what she was doing.

Judy positioned herself in the middle of the drive just as the black sedan turned the corner. The two men braked to a halt, one of them rolling down the passenger side window as she moved to his side.

"Are you gentlemen with the FBI?"

The passenger nodded, his eyes on her identification badge. "Yes, ma'am. And you are... ?"

She introduced herself and pointed to the car's rear door.

"Get me out of here quickly. I need to talk to you in private."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 12:12 A.M.

For almost five minutes after closing the cockpit door, Annette had sat on the jumpseat in shock. When she felt the 737's engines throttle back for descent, she grabbed the P.A. microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your lead flight attendant. We're going to be landing soon at Salt Lake City International, but due to the uncertainty of our situation, I want you all in a brace position. Take off your shoes now, take all sharp objects out of your pockets, and listen closely as I give you the basics of what to do."

The call chime from the cockpit rang. Annette ignored it and read through the list of procedures for passengers to follow.

"This is also known as the 'grab your ankles' position, but that's only to get your head down and secure so if we come to a rapid halt, your head won't be propelled into the seatback in front of you."

The cockpit call chime began ringing almost continuously.

"I'll give you the brace command just before landing, but if anything odd happens in the meantime, get into the position on your own, and wait for--"

The P.A. system was suddenly snatched from her control as Ken pushed his microphone button on the flight deck, overriding hers.

She replaced the P.A. microphone and reached for the handset. "What, Ken?"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Taking care of my passengers!" she said as calmly as she could. "I told you to stay down."

"I guess you'll have to shoot me, then, because I'm.going to do my best to keep these people safe."

"Annette, I'm warning you--"

"Let me take care of my job, dammit! You don't want to talk to me, you don't want to explain, you just want to terrify our passengers, and I'm not going to sit on my butt and let them be unprepared."

"Unprepared for what, Annette?"

"I wish I knew, Ken."

"All I'm going to do is land. Then we sit while I negotiate and make threats. Is that so difficult to understand?" Ken's voice had lost some of its bite.

"Threats, Ken? Is that all they are?" Annette pressed.

"Well... not really. I've got the bomb trigger. I could set it off. I will if I don't get what I want."

"So what do you want, Ken? What on earth do you want?"

"Justice, Annette. There are little girls out there who're going to be murdered if I don't succeed."

"What... what are you talking about, Ken? You're trying to prevent a murder by threatening to kill all of us?"

"ENOUGH, Annette! Sit down."

She felt her heart pounding, her hands shaking. Her voice had been too loud, and she could see the alarm in the eyes of the female passenger in 1 C who had overheard much of the exchange.

"Annette, you push me too far, you'll be responsible for killing everyone on board. Now cool it! Get them prepared if you're determined to play stewardess games, but don't push me any more. Is that clear?" "Very clear," she said QUIETLY.

Annette replaced the handset and forced herself to jump to her feet and move into the first class cabin.

Rudy Bostich motioned her over urgently. The cell phone, she noticed, lay unopened in his lap. As she leaned toward him he caught her left arm in a vice grip and guided her down to the adjacent seat. "That hurts, Rudy."

"I'm sorry. But you were talking to the cockpit. Wolfe doesn't know I'm aboard, does he? You didn't tell him, did you?"

She hesitated, studying his eyes, aware that his face was contorting in pure fear.

"Back in Colorado Springs, Rudy, I showed him your card." "Jesus! I asked you not to let him know." "I showed him before we took off. I said nothing more, but he already knew, and the hijacker knows."

"Oh, God!" he said, his right hand shooting to his mouth. "Oh, my God."

"Look, Rudy, we've got a big problem."

Bostich was nodding, his eyes on the forward bulkhead. "I know. I know. He's up there alone, isn't he?"

She nodded slowly, wondering if he'd overheard her conversation on the interphone, or somehow figured it out by himself. "He says you're responsible for all this, Rudy. I have no idea what he means."

He was staring out the window and chewing on the knuckles of his right hand as she stood up. "Rudy?"

He didn't respond, and she hesitated only a few seconds before turning toward the right side of the aisle and meeting the gaze of the frightened passenger in 1C, who was trying to ask several questions at once.

Annette put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute and we'll talk."

The woman nodded.

There were three other first class passengers besides Bostich. They were all apprehensive, all trying to catch her eye. She raised her hand in another wait gesture and shot through the coach cabin, purposely catching the eye of Nancy Beck, whose imagination was obviously running wild.

"He's okay. I can't tell you more," Annette said, her eyes recording the look of terror on an older woman several rows back in an aisle seat who had a fist stuffed in her mouth, her body visibly shaking.

Annette gathered Bev and Kevin into the rear galley and filled them in on what lay beyond the cockpit door, watching the blood drain from both their faces.

"My God, he's gone mad!" Kevin gasped.

Annette shook her head. "It involves Bostich, but neither of them will tell me anything, though Bostich asked if Ken had lost a child, and was he from Connecticut." "He is," Bev said. "He's talked about that. I don't know about losing a child, though." "Okay, look," Annette said. "We've got a bunch of terrified passengers all hunched over in a brace position and expecting the worst.

We've got to handle that."

"Let's go," Kevin replied, gesturing to the cabin.

Annette led the way back up the aisle with Kevin and Bev on her heels. She found the frightened woman she had seen earlier in row 12 and sank to a knee beside her.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up and shook her head no.

A distinguished man in his seventies sitting next to her raised up slightly and leaned toward Annette.

"Miss, she's terrified, and I can't talk her out of it. Neither can Mrs. Gates."

"Is she your wife, sir?"

"No, we're just sweethearts. Look, when we signed on for this graduation flight with our fear-of-flying group, we thought it would be kind of a gentle exposure to your world, but I think all this is a really bad idea."

Annette stared at him uncomprehending for a second.

"A bad idea?"

"I'll agree it's a very clever training course you've devised, and you've all been staying in character really well, but I'd appreciate your ending this now. Jenny, here, thinks it's real, and I can't convince her otherwise."

"Ah--"

"Truth is, scaring us all to death is not the best way to make us like flying on your airline."

"Sir--"

"I want you to ask the captain to please stop the show. He's got some of us really deeply alarmed."

"Sir, I hate to tell you, but this isn't an act. We really have been hijacked."

The man sat back as if she'd punched him in the nose.

"This is real?" Annette nodded.

"There really is a hijacker in the cockpit?"

Annette nodded again.

"Well!" The man stroked his chin for a few seconds and looked out the window before turning back to his seatmate, whose fist was still pressed against her mouth, her eyes scrunched tightly shut.

"Jenny, are you still terrified?"

She nodded.

"Good," he said. "I'm going to join you."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 12:20

Ken Wolfe felt his left hand shaking slightly on the control yoke as he waited for the two Air Force F-16s to leave the perfect formation they'd been maintaining to the left side of his 737. There was a dull ache in his head, but he ignored it. No use asking Annette for aspirin. All sympathetic connection with her was gone. He was the enemy now.