The Last Hostage (25 page)

"No, Frank. This is instinct, but I'm beginning to understand this guy, and what he wants requires some time to set up. He needs to buy time, and he needs to buy fuel, and I need you to trust me."

"Kat, the word comes from headquarters. Fly east and try to talk to him, try to shadow him. I'm already taking a lot of heat for allowing you to go off on your own in that private jet."

She sat in thought for a few seconds, gripping the receiver, her jaw clenched.

She raised the receiver again, then stopped.

"Frank, there's a lot of static on this line."

"What? What static, Kat? It's perfectly clear."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU. If you can hear me, we're heading south to intercept. Please alert the airports. I'll check in later."

She replaced the phone and looked up. They were headed south at fifteen thousand, the expanse of the Grand Mesa's flat-topped terrain now behind them and a broad valley below.

"He might head for Montrose, Kat."

She shook her head. "He'll think of it, but unless I miss my guess on his fuel state, he'll go down the Black Canyon of the Gunnison thinking we'd never suspect that. He'll head for Gunnison's airport."

Dane looked around at her. "You sure?"

"Are you kidding? Of course I'm not sure. I'm just rolling the dice and depending on instinct, which may be wrong, but if you'll set me up again on the radio, I'm going to try to raise him once more."

Offices of Davidson Aviation, Stamford, Connecticut. 2:29 P.M. MST, 4:29 p.M. EDT.

Hilda Lungaard winced internally as the click of the intercom on her desk announced her boss's voice.

"Hilda? Get Steve Coberg on the phone, please. That's the Air-Bridge chief pilot in Colorado Springs."

"Yes, sir," she replied as she reached for her Rolodex. She glanced behind her at the closed double doors leading to Tom Davidson's plush office, wondering what had set him off. All morning the tension had been thick enough to cut with a knife.

She punched in the number, navigated the inevitable secretarial barriers on the other end, and announced the call.

On the other side of the heavy oaken doors, awash in the expensive decor of a wood-paneled office full of aircraft models and framed pictures of the owner with various dignitaries, Tom Davidson pressed a portable receiver to his face and paced the thick carpet. In his mid- sixties with a full mane of silver hair and carrying an excess fifty pounds on his six-foot frame, Davidson's craggy face had been chiseled into a perpetual grandfatherly smile.

He pivoted in front of the glass wall lining the western end of his office and moved back toward the other end, his voice low and controlled as it echoed off the walnut paneling.

"Good Lord, Steve, do you have any idea what he's trying to accomplish?''

Davidson suddenly stopped pacing and stood still, listening to the reply.

"You say that came from the FBI?"

He took a step forward and turned, leaning his body against the edge of the desk.

"Jesus! I didn't know he'd been screwing up out there. Why didn't you call me?"

Davidson turned and pulled a notepad across his desk and fumbled with a ballpoint pen.

"Give me the fed's name and number, Steve. Wherever they have their command post. I'm going to need a patch to his cockpit. I need to talk to Wolfe."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:31 P.M.

Ken turned toward the right seat.

"Look at me, Bostich!"

Rudy turned his head slowly. "What is it?"

"I want to know something: Do you have children?"

Rudy looked back to the front of the cockpit and nodded. "A boy and a girl, now both in their twenties."

"What's the girl's name?"

"Captain, this isn't--"

"WHAT THE HELL IS HER NAME?"

Rudy swallowed hard and frowned as he shook his head and studied the rudder pedals. "I... all right, if you must know, her name is Annie."

"You care about Annie? You love her?"

Bostich glanced at him. "What kind of question is that? Of course I care about her, just as I know you cared deeply for your daughter."

"You know the details of how my Melinda died?" Ken asked through clenched teeth.

Bostich nodded. "The overall profile, yes."

"Yon know about the six days of rape and torture, the burns on her eleven-year-old body, the..." Ken coughed to cover the struggle he was having, then continued. "The other things that animal Lumin did to her."

Bostich was nodding.

"Have you ever pasted Annie's face on Melinda's mutilated body?

Mentally, I mean? Have you? What would you do, Bostich, if someone pulled a morgue drawer out and showed you that mangled body with Annie's face on it, and then said, 'We know who did it, but he's going free?'"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do! Look in your mind at that body. That's Annie on that slab."

Rudy was shaking his head, trying to expunge the image.

"I can't imagine...'

"Yes, you can! You are seeing it, aren't you? Annie Bostich. There she is, Rudy! The sweet little girl you've loved all her life, battered, ruined, dead, mangled, lying there in front of you. Remember how she looked at eleven?"

"Captain, stop it!"

"What's left of her hair's matted with things you don't want to identify.

Her face is contorted in a frozen scream."

Rudy turned to him, eyes flaring. "STOP IT! Damn you, leave my daughter out of this."

"Why, Rudy? There she is before you in your mind now, Annie Bostich, dead, destroyed, used up by an animal, her blue lips frozen in a scream as if she's asking 'Why, Daddy? Why didn't you keep me safe? I'm your daughter. Annie. You were supposed to protect...'"

"ENOUGH! DAMN YOU, ENOUGH!"

"What would you do, Rudy?"

"I'd hope for prosecution--"

"She's been raped and murdered, Rudy. That's your Annie on that slab, and no one will prosecute the murderer. What would you do?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?"

Rudy snapped his head to the left, his eyes burning coals boring into Ken's, his voice a constrained roar.

"All right, goddammit, I'd probably take a gun and go blow his fucking head off, after shooting off a few strategic body parts first!

Okay? I'd probably go completely crazy and end up in prison!"

Rudy turned back toward the forward panel in silence and put his head in his hands, the images Ken had created still swimming through his mind.

"Exactly," Ken said quietly. "That's exactly what the normal father would do. But I couldn't."

Rudy's face was still in his hands, his reply muffled. "What?"

"I couldn't do it," he repeated. "After you ruined the case, I started stalking Lumin. I thought I could prevent more murders, but I couldn't be on him every day. I had to earn a living. I was flying, and I had to be away a certain amount. Melinda was coming to me almost every night in my dreams, asking that question. 'Why, Daddy, why?'

Then two more little girls were killed the same way, as I told you, and the police wouldn't listen. No one would listen. Lumin hadn't been found guilty of murder, so there was nothing that could be done, even with a long list of child molestation convictions. Finally I realized I had to finish him off. For Melinda. For all the other little girls that were going to suffer her fate. I bought a gun. I picked the time. I drew a bead on him, but I couldn't pull the trigger."

Rudy Bostich looked up slowly at Ken Wolfe, his eyes reading the anguish on the man's face as he diverted his attention back to flying.

"You... you tried to kill him?"

Ken nodded.

"And you didn't?"

"I couldn't. I could not pull the trigger." Ken tried to suppress the tears welling up in his eyes. "I... didn't care about me. I don't care about me. As I told you, I've already died. But I couldn't pull the trigger! Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how helpless and impotent and useless that feels? After everything that's happened, knowing he did it, knowing what he did, and I can't pull the damned trigger!"

Rudy took a deep breath and nodded. "But that's good, don't you see? You didn't sink to his level. You're not a murderer. Even now, regardless of the bomb you say you've got below, you're not a murderer.''

Rudy tentatively reached out a hand and Ken recoiled instantly.

"Don't even think about touching me, Bostich."

Rudy withdrew his hand quickly. "I'm sorry. I was just trying..."

Ken's eyes were on the terrain as he banked the Boeing to the left toward the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

"I wouldn't have been a murderer. I would have been an executioner.

Better yet, I was exterminating a rabid dog that had killed my child. But that's not the point, you see. The point is, I couldn't save my daughter, I couldn't stop you from ruining the case, I couldn't get Lumin prosecuted, I couldn't stop Lumin from killing again, and then I couldn't even muster the courage to kill him." Ken looked over at him again. "Until God arranged for you to walk on my aircraft this morning, Mr. Prosecutor, I had been totally helpless. But that ends here, you see. You're going to confess and give that judge back in Connecticut the grounds he needs to reverse that ruling and reinstate the evidence, or you and I are going to die together."

"Captain--"

"AND I'd consider killing you the moral equivalent of putting down a mad dog."

Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 2:36

"Ken, this is Kat Bronsky again. Are you listening?"

The distant image of the 737 some ten miles ahead maneuvering at less than a thousand feet near the River had been difficult to spot, but she had been right. He was running south.

"I've been expecting you, Kat. You don't give up easily, do you?"

"No, not when someone stands me up."

"Good personalization of the issue, Kat. You're doing well. It's just unfortunate you've got such a knowledgeable opponent. Are you behind me again and in sight, or is it asking too much to get an honest answer from the FBI?"

"Yes, Ken, we're behind you and above you, and we know you've got to land somewhere soon for fuel."

"True, but this time, I'm not going to be dumb enough to tell you where."

"You don't need to," she replied. "Every airport in Colorado suitable for a seven-thirty-seven has already been notified you might be dropping in. Look, Ken, there's just no point in running like this.

Please get her on the ground and let those passengers out. I know you don't want to hurt them."

"They'd be on the ground safe in Grand Junction now, Kat, if you'd kept your word."

She sighed loudly and punched the button again. "Ken, I promised no intervention. I didn't promise there wouldn't be law enforcement units on the ground. You can expect a small army anywhere you land.

But back there in Grand Junction, they weren't about to violate your orders. You panicked for nothing."

"Are you in touch with your headquarters, Kat?"

She glanced at the Flitephone and thought the answer through carefully.

"Ah, periodically, yes, but with you running so low to the ground, it's hard to stay in contact. I'm trying to reestablish contact right now to see if that arrest has been made."

There was silence on the channel for nearly a minute.

"When it has, call me back."

Kat had replaced the microphone and was reaching for the Flitephone to report back to Frank when Dane's voice rang out.

"What the hell is he doing now?"

"What?" Kat looked up and over the glareshield, following the captain's finger.

"He's climbing suddenly like a missile, and turning left. He doesn't seriously think he's going to lose me back here?"

The Boeing was still climbing and turning, its left side presented to the oncoming Gulfstream.

"What's our altitude, Dane?" Kat asked.

"Twelve thousand, and he's got to be coming through eleven right now."

"He's turning back in this direction," Jeff added from the right seat.

Kat watched the rising jetliner ahead as she tried to imagine what was going on in Ken Wolfe's mind. He wanted to land unobserved to discharge the passengers and keep Bostich. What was she missing in that equation?

"Kat?" Dane's voice rang out louder than normal, and she jerked her head back up to see the 737, which had leveled its wings at their altitude and was now headed straight for them.

"What on earth?" she exclaimed.

"That's what I was about to ask you. He's seen us, and now he's aiming straight for us. Might be a very good time to talk to the boy."

Jeff was holding the microphone out to her, his eyes getting larger by the second.

She grabbed the microphone and punched the button. "Ken, this is Kat Bronsky again. Are you trying to tell us something, or just create a midair collision?"

No answer.