The Last Hostage (27 page)

"You just won't understand, will you, Wolfe?"

Ken glanced at him. "You thought up a new explanation for the phone records yet?"

"It's still Matson. He's a detective, he probably has a buddy in the cellular phone company and they diddled the computer records. That proves nothing."

"Do you have the original records from your phone bill?" Ken shot back. "That could prove real quick whether the phone record I've got was changed from the original."

Rudy fell silent for a few seconds in thought. "I... I may, but I'm not a pack rat. I do throw things out."

"After only two years? Phone bills and records? Not unless you didn't want something to be seen."

"Dammit, that's trying to prove a positive with a negative. I don't have them, therefore they corroborate the false record you say you have."

"Interesting," Ken said, his eyes on the listing of Colorado airports as he dialed a new frequency into the second radio head.

"What?"

"Interesting that you shifted almost instantly from, 'I might not have them,' to 'I don't have them,' which is what a guilty man would do.

An innocent man would have grasped at straws and at least told me the original phone bill was probably still in his desk at home, or in a box in his attic, and that it would show no calls to Matson's number.

I might have been swayed by that, but once again you've tipped your hand."

The sound of the cabin call chime rang through the cockpit, and Ken looked at the interphone handset in confusion before grabbing it, surprised to find Annette on the other end.

"Captain, I've got someone here who wants to talk to you. He's a friend of Roger Matson, the detective you mentioned. And he's a retired police officer himself."

Ken glanced at Rudy Bostich, who was watching him with a worried expression as he hunched over the copilot's yoke, unable to hear the other side of the interphone.

"What does he want?" Ken asked.

"He wants to tell you that Matson is an extremely reliable man."

"Put him on."

Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 2:50 P.M.

"But where is he?" Kat asked.

Dane Bailey shook his head. "I assume he's pacing us back there, but since his transponder is turned off--that's the little device that pings back identification information every time a radar beam hits--"

Kat had her hand up and smiled. "I know what a transponder is, Dane."

"Sorry. Anyway, without that, Denver Center has been watching only a raw radar reflection from the aircraft."

"Skin paint, they call it?"

Dane nodded. "Right." He punched the transmit button and asked Denver if they still saw the 737 on their scopes.

"Negative, Five-Lima-Lima. He was right behind you, then the target merged with yours. He's probably still there, but too close to separate from your radar return."

Jeff Jayson pointed to the west. "That's Telluride on the right, Kat."

She followed his gaze through the right window and down to a spectacular bowl of snow-covered mountains.

"The airport?"

"Yeah, and the town."

"Any chance he'd try to land there?"

Both pilots shook their heads no as Dane replied. "Far too high, runway's less than seven thousand feet. You could get a Boeing seven- three-seven in there, but I'm not sure he could take off."

Kat's own words to Frank came back for quick review. "Call every airport in Colorado suitable for a seven-thirty-seven" she'd requested, and Frank had reported it done.

Kat sighed and pointed to the west where Telluride was supposed to be. "If it's not suitable for a Boeing, then he won't head there. I'm guessing, but I think he's headed for Durango, and he'll try to peel off without our noticing, which we're going to let him do."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 2:54 P.M.

Ken adjusted the throttles to hold his position just behind and beneath the Gulfstream and reached down to punch a button on the communications panel, certain Kat Bronsky wouldn't be monitoring that frequency.

"Telluride Regional Unicom, AirBridge Charter Seventy-two-twenty."

Rudy Bostich turned toward the left seat, puzzled by the call. Without a headset or earpiece, he couldn't hear the reply.

"Ah, AirBridge, what, a charter?"

"Yes, sir. Seven-two-two-zero, out of Colorado Springs. We've got a small problem on planned delays ahead and need to drop in for some more fuel."

"Okay, ah, how much do you need, AirBridge? I assume you're a Saab three-forty."

The image of the far smaller turboprop commuter flashed across Ken's mind, the only type AirBridge used to service the smaller airports.

But if he said yes and taxied a seven-thirty-seven into the ramp, the confusion factor would be a problem.

"Negative, Regional, we're a Boeing seven-three-seven. Can you give us, say, twenty-five thousand pounds of Jet A?"

The voice sounded shocked, but the reply was what he wanted to hear.

"Ah, yes, sir. We only have one fuel truck and it holds twenty-two hundred gallons, about fifteen thousand pounds. But we can use that, then fill the truck back up."

"How long to refill?"

"About twenty-three minutes."

"Okay, please get the truck ready. Don't bother dispatch, I've already coordinated, and they want as fast a turnaround as we can get."

"Roger. What time are you estimating here?"

Ken looked over the right side of the nose at the San Juan Mountains and calculated the remaining distance.

"Twelve minutes."

"We'll be ready, but, ah, are you sure you're okay to land and take off on this runway at this altitude with a seven-thirty-seven? We've always joked around here you could get one in, but you'd have to take it out on a truck."

"I've checked the density altitude and the weight. We're okay."

Ken clicked off and rechecked the position of the sleek Gulfstream IV as it hovered in the top visual perspective of the windscreen less than a hundred yards ahead and barely fifty feet higher. He inched the throttles up and closed the distance some more, staying around eighty feet below the jet as it seemed to move backward until the tail section was directly over the 737's nose.

"Captain, if this is another 'scare Rudy' demonstration, don't bother. I'm as terrified as I can get."

"Not my purpose this time," Ken replied.

"So where are you going to land?"

Ken snorted softly. "Telluride. The highest commercial airport in North America, one that everyone will consider unsuitable for seven-thirty- sevens." "Is it?" Rudy asked. "Unusable, I mean?"

Ken nodded. "Probably."

He pulled the power back slightly and began a descent, carefully keeping the 737 directly under the Gulfstream and its radar image, bringing the rate of descent to six thousand feet per minute as the Boeing dropped from sixteen thousand feet toward the ten-thousand- foot terrain below. When the highest mountain peaks were significantly above them along with most of the radar beams from Denver Center, Ken punched Telluride's identifier in the flight computer and banked sharply to the west, aiming for a preplanned low spot in the ridge east of Telluride near the tiny mining town of Pandora.

"Not again?" Rudy Bostich was tensing in his seat as the ridgeline approached.

Ken shook his head. "No, not this time. I'm just keeping low until we get closer. We'll clear it by five hundred feet."

Aboard Gulfstream N5LL. 2:57 P.M.

Kat Bronsky had left the cockpit for a minute to brief Bill North. Suddenly she was back with North behind her.

"Dane, would you please try something for me?"

"Sure, Kat. What?"

"Tell Denver Center you're going to turn off your transponder for a moment. See if he can spot two skin paint targets up here."

Dane nodded and smiled as he punched the transmit button and turned off the transponder simultaneously.

The answer came back within thirty seconds.

"Negative, Five-Lima-Lima. I've got only one target on skin paint, steady, and in the same position your blip occupied."

She nodded. "I should have known. I ruled out Telluride for the same reason he was ruling it in."

"Want me to relay to Frank?" Bill North asked.

Kat shook her head. "Not yet. Dane, can you turn around and head for Telluride? And can we land there?" "Yes, to both questions," he said, clicking off the autopilot and beginning a descending right turn as he punched the button to inform Denver what they were about to do.

"If he lands there, Kat, he may not be able to get it out," Bill said quietly as they stood for a moment in the alcove behind the cockpit.

She nodded. "I know. I'm hoping that's all he's doing. Get the passengers off and hope to sit there and negotiate knowing we can't get much equipment in, at least not rapidly."

"What would you need, normally?"

She bit her lip. "FBI SWAT team preferably. Maybe armored equipment. Manpower. There are a variety of ways to handle it, but Telluride... I've only been there once, I don't think they've got anything but the county sheriff and some town marshals." She fell silent, her eyes vacantly looking through the side of the aircraft, her mind back on Ken Wolfe's flight deck trying to discern his next move.

Bill North inclined his head toward the main cabin. "You want to check in with your guy at Salt Lake?"

Kat followed him back into the plush surroundings and placed the call to Frank Bothell, who sounded strained.

"He's going into Telluride, Colorado, Frank. We'll need to scramble what we can there."

"Kat..."

"What?"

"I'm told to direct you to call Clark Roberts in Washington. I'm out of it."

"What's going on, Frank?"

"The national coverage is increasing, the pressure is increasing, and Headquarters is getting nervous that we're screwing this up."

"Good Lord, Frank?

"I know, Kat, but I warned you we might lose control."

"What, are they upset with me?"

"Well, they're not happy with either of us for what happened in Grand Junction, and there's a lot of second guessing going on as to what, precisely, you're doing in that bizzjet."

"How about tracking and trying to control the situation?"

"Kat, there's something I'm not sure you know. Is Bill North still on the line here?"

"I don't know. Bill, are you on?"

There was no answer.

"I guess not, Frank. Why?"

"Are you aware that Bill North is the vice chairman of the board of AirBridge Airlines?"

"What?"

"He'd filed a flight plan to Colorado Springs to race to AirBridge headquarters in response to this very hijacking."

"No, Frank, I didn't know that!" "I'm not sure it makes a difference."

"I'm not sure either," she replied, her mind racing back through the various exchanges with North, wondering if she'd disclosed anything she should have kept to herself.

But he was listening to most of our exchanges anyway.

"Kat, a caution, okay? Remember one of the first things I told you about the Bureau when you walked in the door? If it ain't in the book, someone is going to challenge you for doing it. Innovation is not always rewarded here."

"I remember."

"Look, we're wasting tine. Call FBI Headquarters. I'll stand by if you need me for anything, but as command and control, I'm out of business."

"Thanks, Frank."

"Be careful if you get Wolfe on the ground there. You know the priorities. Get the passengers off safely, then stall until the cavalry arrives.

If you can get Bostich out of there in the meantime, please do, but it sounds like we've got a good chance of losing him."

"Frank, have they made the arrest in Ft. Collins?"

There was silence on the other end for too long.

"Frank, did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

"So what's the answer? That's step one for this guy."

There was a sigh on the other end.

"Washington wouldn't let me do it. Justice is involved and they vetoed it. The usual we'll-never-give-in-to-terrorists thing."

"This guy isn't a terrorist, Frank. I need to give him something. I can't tell him that! You want to lose Bostich, that's the way--"

"KAT! Calm down. I did it anyway."

"Had him arrested?"

"No, I called the Ft. Collins police chief and explained things. He sent two of his men out there to at least surveil him."

"And?"

"That's the problem. The place is empty. This is a ratty little single-wide trailer on the edge of a fallow farm quite a ways out of Ft. Collins, toward the Interstate. They're watching it, but so far there's no information on where this Lumin has gone. But Kat, they found something really interesting outside."