The Last Hostage (26 page)

"He's about four miles away," Dane added. "Our closing velocity is over nine miles per minute."

"Ken? Kat Bronsky. I know you can hear me. What on earth is this going to solve?"

Dane was shaking his head. "I'm going to have to veer off here in just a few seconds!"

"Ken? Answer me!" Kat knew her voice had grown tense, but the 737 was looming ahead, getting bigger by the second.

"Okay, that's enough!" Dane said as he rolled the Gulfstream into a right bank to change headings, and realized the 737 was altering its course in the same direction to maintain the intercept.

"Ken, please, tell me what you're trying to accomplish? If we jerk this aircraft the wrong way, it might not be what you planned."

Jeff Jayson's voice reached her ears. "Dane, better break right. He's serious."

The Boeing was less than a mile away, pointed directly at them as Dane rolled the Gulfstream to the right and pulled hard, simultaneously shoving the thrust levers almost full forward. The powerful business jet leaped into a climb as the Boeing closed on them, its five-hundred-mile- per-hour passage marked by a sudden muffled roar as the 737 passed just aft of the Gulfstream's tail.

"Jesus Christ!" Dane said through gritted teeth as he pulled the power back and entered a left turn while Jeff Jayson notified Denver Center what was happening.

"Roger, Five-Lima-Lima, I see the skin paint target that just passed you now behind you and in a left turn. He appears to be coming around to follow you."

Dane looked back at Kat in utter amazement. "Now what is he up to?"

She raised the microphone to her lips and pressed the button.

"That was too damn close, Ken, and it was unnecessary. Now that you're on our tail, and since you don't have guns or missiles aboard, tell me precisely where you'd like us to lead you?"

His voice came back rapidly, calm and collected. "Turn left to a heading of one-seven-zero degrees, Kat. You're going to lead me south to Albuquerque."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:44

The sound of a seatbelt being released startled Wolfe, and he looked to the right with disbelief to see Rudy Bostich climbing out of the copilot's seat.

"Where the hell do you think you're going, Bostich?"

Rudy stopped with his leg half over the center console and looked Ken in the eye. "I've had about enough of this. Maybe if I'm back in the cabin, you won't be pulling any more stupid stunts just to scare me."

"Sit down, Bostich"

He remained half in, half out of the seat.

"Or what? You going to explode the jet and kill us all because I climbed out of the seat?"

Ken transferred the control yoke to his right hand and raised the trigger into view with his left. "That's exactly right."

"I don't believe you, Captain. I don't think you'd do it. You know I'm still aboard, I can't get out, and therefore you still think you can pressure me into a false confession, and who knows, maybe you can.

In the final analysis, it wouldn't be worth anything. If you weren't aware of it, coerced confessions are worthless."

"Don't forget I've got evidence," Ken said, true alarm beginning to form in the back of his mind.

Rudy Bostich snorted. "Bullshit! If you had real evidence, which, of course, you couldn't, you'd have already presented it to that judge, not put yourself on death row by hijacking your own aircraft."

Ken was shaking his head, trying not to look as desperate as he felt.

In his peripheral vision, the Gulfstream IV remained in the proper place in the forward windscreen as he flew formation on it, staying behind and out of their visual range.

"I only received the evidence a few days ago. There hasn't been time. Besides, that evidence you don't believe I have may ultimately convince the judge, but your confession will reverse, his ruling instantly.

Of course, it'll ruin you professionally if you're exposed, but a confession with some sort of explanation might just get you off the hook in the public arena."

Still Rudy remained frozen halfway out of the seat. "I'm touched by your concern for my career, Captain."

"I don't have any damned concern whatsoever for your career, but I have to admit that if you're going to be exposed--and you are--you'd be a lot smarter to do it yourself and put your own spin on it. I don't give a rat's ass as long as that warrant and the evidence are reinstated."

Slowly, Rudy's right foot resumed its arc toward the alcove behind the center console, and once more Ken thrust the trigger into view.

"Don't try it, Bostich! I am not kidding, and you can't take the chance that I am."

Once again the leg stopped.

"You've basically told me you didn't know I was going to be on this plane this morning," Rudy said, carefully monitoring Ken Wolfe's reactions. "Unless you always carry a bomb along when you go fly, why should I believe you suddenly found a way to plant one?"

Ken lowered his left hand into his brain bag on the left side of the captain's seat and pulled out a small rectangular package, then tossed it to Bostich, who caught it deftly in midair.

"What's this?"

"Look inside, Rudy."

Still half out of the seat, Rudy Bostich supported his left shoulder on the seatback and pulled open a portion of what appeared to be a burlap wrapper. Inside was a block of pliable material which resembled an off-white plastic, and was soft to the touch. Somewhere he had seen such a thing before. In fact, it looked a lot like...

"Be careful with that," Ken commanded. "It's fairly stable, but it's what's left from the lot I have downstairs in my bag, a big block of it with an electronic detonator."

Rudy's eyes had grown large. "You... you mean to tell me I'm holding plastique?"

"C-four, actually. I couldn't get plastique."

Rudy Bostich handed the block back as if it were a live cobra and swung himself back in the seat, his eyes locked forward, his breathing rate increased.

"Good God, man, I didn't think a pilot would.., would..."

"I've been checking the reservations computer daily for a long time, Rudy. Suddenly your named popped up. I knew where to find this stuff, and I know how to use it. I just needed a few hours."

Rudy looked at Ken Wolfe with a wild expression. "You got this through security?"

Ken let out a derisive snort. "Airline pilots have to go through the same screening as everyone else, which is asinine, and useless. The whole block, the detonator, everything, went through security."

"Good God! I thought you were bluffing. You really are crazy!"

Ken nodded. "You said it yourself, didn't you, Rudy? What would you do? Probably go crazy. I've had two years to deteriorate to this, thanks to you." "What do you mean, two years?" he asked in a sullen voice.

Ken turned and stared with an intensity that froze Rudy's blood.

"Two years ago today," Ken began, "in a forest in northern Connecticut, my beautiful eleven-year-old daughter was killed, and her body dumped. Lumin destroyed a monitored electric fence in a state wildlife preserve when he dumped her, which is the only reason we know the date. Her body was found months later. That's how I got my daughter back, Mr. Prosecutor." "I'm truly sorry," Rudy said in a quiet voice.

Ken turned back to the panel, barely holding on to his emotions.

"You're damn right I'm crazy, Bostich, and you'd be well advised to help me do something about it, because I've got nothing left to lose."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:48

The sound of Ken Wolfe's voice on the P.A. took everyone in the cabin by surprise.

"Folks, this is the captain. In a few minutes I'm going to be landing somewhere, hopefully, to let you off--all of you except one, that is. Rudy Bostich stays here to face the charges. Now, it's time I told you the unvarnished truth. This is hard for me, because this is the last time I'll ever sit in the left seat of an airliner. Truth is, the only hijacker up here is a heartbroken airline pilot who's terrorized everyone to try to catch a killer.

I fully realize what I'm going to tell you is neither legal nor moral justification for what I'm doing, but I want you to know anyway."

Annette had been sitting quietly on the arm of a seat in the forward part of coach when the PA. began, watching Kevin and Bev continuously moving up and down coach trying to calm and soothe the passengers as best they could. In that instant, though, everyone in the cabin was looking toward the ceiling at the speakers, their faces impassive masks of tension, their minds riveted on what was being said.

Ken Wolfe's voice was sad but steady, and as he unfolded in excruciating detail Melinda Wolfe's kidnapping and murder, and the saga of the botched search warrant, Annette watched in amazement as waves of shock, grief, and outrage played in sequence across the faces of her passengers, many of them barely holding back tears as he finished.

"The federal D.A. who lied about making that call is the man sitting next to me here in the cockpit, Rudy Bostich, who, until today, was the leading contender to be U.S. Attorney General. As I've told Mr. Bostich, my life is forfeit, but I can't let Bradley Lumin kill again, and I can't let my little daughter's death go unpunished. I have the evidence on Mr. Bostich, and I have no choice now, the rest of this day, but to do whatever it takes to get him to tell the truth to the judge back in Connecticut. He's shaking his head up here and denying he lied, but I know differently. I have the telephone records from the phone company showing his call to Detective Matson the very night and the very time the detective said the call was made. Bostich says the detective is a liar and a bad apple, he claims Matson has a long history as a cowboy cop and that somehow Matson colluded with the phone company to falsify the call record. However, I have never heard anything bad about Detective Matson, who, I believe, is an honorable and honest man. For his part, Bostich claimed under oath that he was home alone that night, and that he never called Matson about anything. The police checked the phone records for his home number, but they didn't know he had an unnamed, unlisted cellular phone. His cell phone record proves he lied, and because of that lie, a serial killer is still free right now."

A sudden movement in coach caught Annette's eye, as the retired policeman who'd approached her earlier moved out of his seat and rapidly up the aisle, pushing past Bev and Kevin, his eye on the distant cockpit door.

She rose to block his way.

"Sir? Where are you going?"

He pointed to the speakers overhead as Ken continued.

"Folks, I hate it that I've had to involve my passengers and threaten you and load a real bomb in the belly. There is one there, by the way, and I do have the trigger up here."

The man was breathing hard, and was obviously agitated.

"He mentioned Roger Matson in Connecticut!"

"Yes?"

"I've known Roger all his professional life. He's a member of our police association."

"Okay, but--"

"I want the captain to know that. Anyone speaking ill of Roger is definitely a liar."

"Sir, this is a very delicate situation."

The PA. came on again, drowning them out.

"I don't want any of you to think any of this has been a bluff. It hasn't, and it isn't. I am holding a live trigger, and I am endangering you, and for that I am sorry. But there seemed to be no other way to force the authorities to act. I had already tried everything else. It's just important to me that you know why."

The police officer pointed to the ceiling again, irritated at being restrained.

"Look, I've got to talk to him." "Why, sir?" Annette asked, her curiosity rising.

"Because, Miss, if Roger Matson said that Jesus Christ himself had come back, I'd say hallelujah without a second's hesitation and head for the nearest church. The man's incorruptible and the most honest cop I've ever known."

For several seconds Annette searched his eyes.

"This captain has hijacked us, sir."

"Dammit, I know that. But when he mentions a man I know that well, I've got to let him know he's right to trust Matson. Your captain may end up in the chair for what he's doing, but I'll bet anything he's right. I remember Roger being in agony over this case, and over having his reputation tarred by that arrogant fed. He was horribly hurt to be called a liar by the judge."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want to talk to the captain. Now."

Annette nodded and inclined her head toward the front as the P.A. clicked on again. There was a pause and the sound of the P.A. microphone contacting a metal surface in the cockpit.

"Folks, earlier I turned off the seat phones. I just now pushed in the circuit breaker and turned them back on. You're free to call whomever you like, and tell them what's happening, just please, tell them why. Tell them my story. Tell them about Rudy Bostich. If I don't succeed with this, more little girls are going to be killed, all because a politically ambitious lawyer doesn't want to embarrass himself by doing the right thing."

Ken clicked off the P.A. as Rudy Bostich shook his head vigorously.