The Last Hostage (22 page)

As she straightened her tunic and checked her face in the mirror while washing her hands, she studied the map. There was a dotted auin in line extending from their position to Grand Junction clearly depicted with the surrounding mountains in relief less than sixty miles ahead now. She could see the Canyonlands Park area to the south, lower mountains to the north, and even the Interstate running east to the same destination.

Kat glanced at her watch, anxious to get back up front, but there were buttons on one side of the screen and she couldn't resist pushing the one marked weather.

Instantly, an overlaid depiction of cloud coverage merged onto the picture. She worked another control and increased the scale, as if pulling up into orbit, the scope of the display now taking in a thousand miles laterally, and then the entire country. The cloud coverage included thunderstorms in the midwest, a veil of cloud coverage over Florida, and with one more touch of a button, temperatures at various spots across the nation.

"Fascinating!" she said out loud, simultaneously feeling guilty for taking the extra thirty seconds.

Kat returned to the cabin and whistled as she walked past Bill North, who was still listening to the Flitephone. "That is one beautiful bathroom, Bill, and I love the display screen."

He smiled and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm a control freak, I guess. I can't stand to be in there and not know where we are. By the way, Kat..."

She stopped and turned back to him."Yes?"

"I understand the captain is the hijacker. Wolfe is his name, right?"

She nodded cautiously.

"Well, maybe this is information you can't share, but I'm really curious what you know about this man."

Kat studied Bill North for a few seconds before replying. He had offered his expensive jet and crew without hesitation and had made no move to interfere. It seemed only fair to let him know what they were dealing with.

"Bill, I don't have time to tell you the whole tale right now, but apparently he's trying to force prosecution of a man who killed his daughter and we've got a very disturbed pilot on our hands who may be capable of mass murder himself."

Bill North shook his head, a distant look in his eyes. "You're right to worry, Kat. It amazes me what a desperate man is capable of doing."

He smiled suddenly and gestured toward the Flitephone. "By the way, Frank's waiting to talk to you. You're welcome to take it here, or in the cockpit."

She nodded and thanked him. "I think I'll go up where I can see," she said as she moved back to the cockpit to pick up the Flitephone extension.

"Frank?"

"Answers to your earlier questions, Kat. Ready?"

"Go ahead."

"Okay. Bostich is headquartered in New Haven, and yes, he does have jurisdiction over federal matters in Stamford. Now, Wolfe's daughter was kidnapped from Stamford, and her body was found in Connecticut, but there are indications she was tortured and murdered somewhere else over state lines, perhaps in Maine. In any event, if federal charges were appropriate, Bostich could have filed them in New Haven. He didn't. Finally--follow me on this carefully because it's a little convoluted--it was a Connecticut State Police detective who obtained the bad search warrant that later let the killer off the hook. He got the warrant by telling a state judge that he had received a tip from an unimpeachable source, a source he could personally vouch for, to search the computer of a known pedophile named Bradley Lumin. The judge granted the warrant, the police served the warrant and found a treasure trove of evidence on Lumin's computer, including a photo of the victim in the process of being brutalized.

There was no other physical evidence found. The whole case depended on the computer evidence. Then, the usual occurs. Some sleazy defense lawyer challenges the warrant before trial, and on examination of the detective, the judge discovers that it was a telephone tip, not an in-person tip, and worse, the detective never even asked the identity of the tipster."

"Wonderful. So he lied about knowing the tipster?"

"Not necessarily. He told the judge he didn't ask who the man was because he recognized his voice without question. But, the man the detective said the voice belonged to, when hauled in on subpoena, testified that he had never made such a call."

"How does this tie in with Bostich, Frank?"

"The man who claimed he had never made such a call was Rudy Bostich, the United States Attorney for Connecticut headquartered in New Haven. I had the transcript of the court record faxed in. Bostich was quite clear on the stand that he not only did not make that call, he would have had no access to such information, and even if he had, he would never have passed it anonymously in a phone call to a state cop. That all makes very good sense, Kat. This man has three decades of experience, and fifteen years as a U.S. Attorney. It's unlikely he'd be that stupid. Someone apparently used a fake voice to fool the cop, or just happened to sound like Bostich, and when the judge found out, he threw out the warrant. When the warrant went out the window, so did virtually all the evidence against the killer of Melinda Wolfe, a killer they had cold with the computer evidence."

Kat was massaging her forehead with one hand as she balanced the phone against her ear with the other, imagining Rudy Bostich's dilemma as he sat captive in that cockpit several miles ahead, his life in the hands of an aggrieved father. She'd been worried more about the passengers, taking Wolfe's fury at Bostich somehow at face value. But Bostich wasn't the enemy, it seemed. Wolfe's misinterpretation was.

"Lord, Frank, we've got an even worse problem than I figured.

Wolfe is apparently convinced he can force Bostich to confess to something, I suppose to lying about phoning the tip to the detective.

But if Bostitch is innocent and Wolfe won't accept that, where do we go from here?"

There was a pause back in Salt Lake. "You're the psychologist, Kat."

She sighed, loud and long. "Any chance we could dredge up some proof Wolfe might accept, like phone records or something? Maybe prove he couldn't have made the call?"

"I'll try, Kat, but you're talking major investigative footwork in a matter a year and a half old, and I don't think we can move that fast.

Somehow Bostich is either going to have to fake a confession to get out of this, or you're going to have to convince Wolfe he's got it wrong, or somehow we have to take him out."

"Wonderful. How about Grand Junction assets?"

"Local sheriff and police SWAT team are all we have. We're mobilizing them by phone, and they're cooperating fully. We're going to have them standing by out of sight."

She nodded to herself. "Okay. We're about--hold on." Kat looked up at Dane, who had been watching her in his peripheral vision. He saw the movement and turned toward her.

"How much longer, Dane?"

His eyes flicked forward to the "remaining distance" readout on the flight computer, then back at her. "About twelve minutes or less."

She repeated the words to Frank.

"Kat, Washington may rip this away from me in the next few minutes.''

"What do you mean, Frank?"

"Well, if AirBridge was on the ground in Salt Lake, this would be our show. With him practically in Colorado now, the Salt Lake office is no longer exclusive owner of the franchise, so to speak."

"I don't want to be dealing with people I don't know, Frank. I need too much support on this."

"Kat, I hate to say this, but I think you're going to lose control in Grand Junction the second they get another team in from Denver.

They're launching someone now."

She felt her face begin to flush, as much in embarrassment as in anger.

"That's nuts, Frank."

"Hasn't happened yet, but be aware it might. The media is all over this. CNN is live, the other networks are doing news breaks, and if we can nail that seven-thirty-seven to the ground in Grand Junction, you can expect a media extravaganza within a half hour. In that atmosphere..."

She nodded, her eyes closed, reminding herself both the pilots and her host, Bill North, were listening to her side of the conversation.

"Okay, Frank. Whatever the Bureau wants, the Bureau gets, but I need to stay in the loop."

"I'll make the point with FBI Headquarters, Kat. Be careful."

She replaced the phone, aware that his admonition had as much to do with how she handled their bosses as how she handled the hijacker ahead.

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 1:46 P.M.

Rudy Bostich dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and watched in silence as Ken Wolfe retarded the throttles and began a slow descent, his eyes on the distant horizon toward what had to be Grand Junction, Colorado.

For nearly ten minutes not a word had been spoken, and without a headset, Rudy could hear only the captain's side of the conversation.

Wolfe's voice was more subdued after their close encounter with the ridgeline. Obviously, Rudy concluded, the captain had been shaken by that near-fatal mistake. Rudy had watched him sweating through the whole episode as he firewalled the throttles and pulled hard on the control column while the two-thousand-foot wall of rock loomed in front of them, then barely passed beneath them.

That meant Wolfe was vulnerable, and not completely crazy. That meant he could probably be reached with reason. Rudy wondered if Wolfe realized his life as a pilot and a free man was over.

And he wondered if Wolfe had any idea how alone he was, an enemy to everyone.

Wolfe was craning his neck again and looking up through the small eyebrow windows in the cockpit ceiling. He'd been doing that since the ridgeline, and Rudy concluded they were probably being followed, maybe by Air Force jets. Someone must be up there and talking to Wolfe on the radio. At least he hoped so. Even if they couldn't physically help, it would be comforting to know someone was out there watching.

He felt numb now, not paralyzed with fear like before. He was ashamed of his earlier reaction, but being marched to the cockpit had felt like an impending execution. Slowly, however, he was becoming aware that Wolfe's main purpose wasn't killing him, it was finding a way to convict the monster who killed his daughter, and in that, their goals had always been the same.

Rudy glanced over at Wolfe again, this time more boldly. "Captain, may I ask you a question?"

Wolfe shot him a withering look of hatred and disdain, but Rudy held an even expression, being careful not to show either fear or confidence.

"What, Bostich?"

Rudy swallowed hard and realized he had licked his lips, a nervous signal he should have stifled. "Isn't it possible you could be wrong?"

Again Wolfe glanced quickly his way, this time more in curiosity.

"About what?"

"About me. About whatever you think I've done."

'2 know what you've done, you bastard." "You said that, Captain, and I'm sure you think you know something about what happened in relation to your daughter's death, but--"

"Get to the point, Bostich!"

The impact of Wolfe's voice, sharp and angry and at full volume, caused him to flinch.

Wolfe suddenly looked to the left and flicked something on his control yoke, then banked the 737 sharply to the left, pulling enough G-force to push Rudy down in the seat.

Just as quickly they were back to stable flight and Wolfe turned angrily to him again. "I said, get to the point!"

Rudy kept his eyes on the scene ahead. He nodded slowly. "The point is, I honestly don't know what it is you think I've done, and even a condemned man is entitled to know the charges against him."

Wolfe's head jerked to the right, a sour smile on his lips. "So, you think you're condemned, huh?"

"Aren't I? You're apparently planning on releasing everyone but me, and you want me to confess to something I don't even understand, unless all this is because I didn't file federal charges against the suspect.''

Ken Wolfe adjusted the descent rate of the aircraft and reached down to the center pedestal to reposition some knobs, then glanced back at him.

"Okay, shithead, I'll tell you what you already know. I'm very aware you couldn't file federal charges. No evidence, no charges. But you're responsible for ruining that evidence. You were subpoenaed by the judge and asked if you were the one who called and tipped the detective on who killed my daughter. You knew the warrant, and all the evidence, depended on your answer. You knew if you said no, the murderer would go free. I'm sure you got the original tip about who killed Melinda from some scumbag in the witness protection program, someone you were shielding, someone who knew the underworld enough to finger the killer. Go search this felon's home, you told the detective. Impound his computer and get an expert to look at all the files. The evidence will be there. And it was, wasn't it, Bostich?"

Rudy nodded. "It was there, all right, but I wasn't the tipster."

"Yeah, right. You knew there was no way that state judge was going to force you to disclose where you got the information. That's what I can't understand. You knew that telling the truth wouldn't have hurt anything you cared about, but you sat there on that stand, swore on a Bible, and lied! You, a federal prosecutor, a candidate for Attorney General of the United States, knowing that how you answered that question would make all the difference in prosecuting or freeing a murderer of little girls. YOU, you unspeakable piece of scum, lied."