Final Vector

by Allan Leverone

  The bar didn't move at all, and Nick smashed into the door with a loud thud. He smacked his forehead and twisted his wrist.

  "Shit," he muttered.

  He looked down at the silver bar and was dismayed to see that the right side was completely destroyed, twisted metal puckering around a jagged hole where a bullet had quite clearly been fired into it. The mechanism had been jammed with the obvious intention of preventing anyone from leaving or entering. If Nick hadn't been so preoccupied, he would have seen the damage as soon as he had burst out of the equipment room; it was that obvious.

  He cursed bitterly. He should have expected this. It was a stark testament to how rattled he had been by tripping over Harry's lifeless body that he thought he was just going to waltz out the door and into the safety of the black night. Of course the terrorists disabled the door; otherwise Harry would have run right out of it when he had spotted them. He must have run into the disabled door like Nick had done. He had then turned and tried to escape his pursuers through the equipment room. And he hadn't been quick enough.

  He trotted right down the center of the hallway, too rattled to slink along the side wall, and disappeared back into the equipment room. Nick tried not to look at Harry's body as he racked his brains in an attempt to figure out what the hell to do next.

  He had no luck accomplishing either objective.

  Chapter 43

  The Ops Room felt incredibly quiet to Larry, although in reality the sounds from the scopes, the air-conditioning, and other equipment created a constant low hum--a white noise that was not really noticeable until it wasn't there anymore.

  The terrorist with the gun constantly pointed in Larry's direction continued lounging next to him, a situation Larry had come to accept was not going to change until this whole thing was over, and he was beginning to suspect that would be soon. Air Force One would have to depart Andrews Air Force Base for Boston within the next few minutes, Larry guessed, if the president was going to arrive at Logan in time to make his scheduled sunrise service.

  The terrorist seemed to have no problem with the silence in the room, although it was driving Larry nuts. When Larry had gotten the man talking, it was much easier to pretend the guy was just a visitor, maybe a pilot or someone else with an interest in aviation, rather than a terrorist. But when they sat side by side without talking, Larry could feel panic building inside him, threatening to overwhelm him and make him do something foolish, like bolt for the door or try to attack the man and get control of his gun.

  Doing either of those things would be a guaranteed ticket to an early grave. There was no way he could outrun a bullet to the door, and he knew the man sprawled so casually on the controller chair was paying much more attention to his every move than it appeared. If he took any action that the man interpreted in any way as a threat, Larry had no doubt the guy would simply shoot him right between the eyes.

  Finally he could stand the screaming silence no longer; he had to try again. He cleared his throat. "May I ask you a question?" He felt ridiculous speaking so formally to this cold-blooded terrorist, but he didn't want to appear overly aggressive and get his head blown off as a result.

  The man studied him for a moment before answering. Larry was certain he was going to tell him to shut up, so he was surprised when he said, "Of course." The gun never wavered.

  "Are you here because of a certain VIP arrival at Logan later this morning?"

  The man continued staring at him as a smile spread slowly across his face. He might as well have leapt up and shouted, "Yes, yes, death to the president!"

  He pondered how to frame his next question. The faint smell of stale sweat drifted up to his nose, and Larry knew it was coming from him. He wondered for just a moment whether the terrorist could smell it.

  Finally Larry spoke again. "You do understand, I assume, that at no time is the VIP's flight ever going to come within thirty miles of this building, right?"

  The man laughed boisterously and continued to aim his gun at Larry. It was amazing he could laugh that hard and hold his hand as still as he did. "We both know we are discussing President Cartwright. Why do you refer to him as VIP?"

  Larry felt a flash of irritation. "Okay, then, fine. President Cartwright. But my question remains the same--do you realize Air Force One is not going to fly anywhere near this building?"

  The terrorist laughed again, but this time it came out short and bitter, almost a cough of disdain. "Oh yes, I do realize that. But thank you so much for your concern."

  Larry waited for him to expand on his answer, and when it became clear he wasn't going to, he pushed on. "If you've researched aviation as extensively as you told me earlier, then you know that with modern advances in safety equipment such as TCAS, the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, which all modern airliners are equipped with, it would be virtually impossible for me to direct the president's plane to crash into another airplane or into the side of a mountain, if that's your intention. Even if you forced me to do that, the equipment in the airplane would tell the pilot that something was not right, and he would have ample time to escape the imminent danger."

  The terrorist's feet landed on the floor with a thud. He stood and faced Larry, his eyes black and angry and devoid of any trace of his previous apparent good humor. "Do not presume to understand what is going on here. I do not need or want your advice.

  Keep your mouth shut and your comments to yourself, and do not make the mistake of assuming that I will not kill you just for the fun of it. I have devoted my entire life to accomplishing what we are going to achieve here soon, so do not treat me like an idiot."

  The man sat heavily back down in the controller chair. His hooded eyes regarded Larry steadily. He seemed to have regained control of his emotions, and it suddenly occurred to Larry that this man was feeling the pressure of the situation nearly as much as he was, regardless of how cool and collected he appeared to be. It was not a comforting feeling, considering the other guy was the one holding the lethal weapon, and he had nothing.

  Larry swallowed hard and felt the click of his dry throat. He returned his attention to the radar scope, which was still devoid of traffic. The situation was hopeless.

  Chapter 44

  With the construction of the BCT in 2004, the Operations Room had been placed on the second floor, in an area that was so high above the ground floor that it might as well have been a third story.

  Under the floor of the Ops Room was a work area. The wiring and cables for each radar scope were fed through slots in the floor down into the workspace, where it was all organized and easily accessed by the techs for repair and maintenance.

  It was a pretty clever bit of engineering, and it was in this area that Nick now stood, listening through the air ventilation exchanges built into the floor to the terrifying conversation between one of the terrorists and Larry. Nick stood less than six feet beneath the two men; he could clearly hear everything being said but was completely invisible to them. He considered the fate of Ron, whose voice he could not hear. Hopefully the Manchester controller was still alive, but after seeing firsthand the fate Harry had suffered, Nick had grave doubts on that score.

  He wondered if Fitz was buying the terrorist's line of bullshit that cooperation in whatever they were planning would buy him his freedom when all was said and done. He doubted it. This wasn't the first time around the block for Larry Fitzgerald. He had to know something big was going down involving the president of the United States, and whatever it was, the odds of the perpetra-tors leaving any witnesses alive who could earn them a death sentence were pretty much nil. Of course, Nick had seen the terrorists'

  handiwork up close and personal, and Fitz presumably had not.

  Nick thought again of Lisa, and the anger inside him flared brightly. The same men who had coldly executed his wife and had so sadistically sliced up Harry were now holding Fitz and--hopefully--Ron hostage and forcing him to hide like a cowardly mouse in the innards of the BCT. It took all of
Nick's willpower not to charge blindly up the stairs and into the Ops Room to confront the crazy bastard right now.

  He forced himself to slow his thoughts. Breathe deeply. Concentrate. Rushing upstairs to a certain death was not something Lisa would have wanted for him, and if there was any kind of af-terlife to look forward to, which Nick had always believed to be the case but was now beginning to doubt, he was pretty sure she would be waiting for him with a stern lecture that just might last for the remainder of eternity.

  There must be something he could do to wrest control of the situation away from the terrorists, but he couldn't imagine what it might be. He had no weapon, no idea where the other two men were, no idea how many others might be in the building, no idea even exactly what the terrorists were planning. They were presumably versed in violence and guerrilla tactics; he was not. He was outnumbered at least three to one.

  He thought desperately. Nothing came to mind.

  Chapter 45

  Placed high on the walls of the Operations Room were nine TSDs--

  Terminal Situation Displays--each one roughly six feet in width by four feet in height. On two of these plasma monitors--one on each side of the cluster of radar scopes that made up the Boston Area--

  was a depiction of roughly seven hundred miles of airspace immediately surrounding Logan Airport, with tiny different colored airplane icons superimposed over the displayed airspace. Each icon's color was representative of a different type of aircraft, and the icons symbolized all the planes currently airborne that were scheduled to arrive at Logan Airport in roughly the next hour.

  The position of each airplane icon was updated several times per minute, giving the controllers and supervisors in the Ops Room a real-time picture of how much arrival traffic would be entering the facility's airspace in the immediate future as well as which sectors were going to get the most airplanes.

  During a busy day or night shift, these screens would seem almost alive, pulsing with sometimes more than one hundred airplane icons, glowing in colors from white to red to green to yellow.

  Controllers joked that when the Boston Area was busy, the screens looked like their very own electronic Christmas trees.

  Right now, though, at just after four in the morning on a Sunday, the screens were practically blank. Traffic at Boston was almost always slow after 1:00 a.m., and that was especially true of the Saturday night into Sunday morning midnight shift.

  Only three airplane icons graced the huge expanse of northeast airspace depicted on the monitors. Two were inbound on a northern track. The other was inbound to Boston from the south, and this was the one that drew the attention of the man holding the pistol on Larry as soon as it became airborne at its departure airport. It glowed a bright blue, indicating it was a "heavy" jet, or what a layman might consider a jumbo jet. Larry knew immediately that Air Force One had just departed Andrews Air Force Base, carrying President Robert Cartwright on the short hop from D.C. to Boston.

  Larry glanced--casually, he hoped--from the TSD display to the terrorist and saw the man gazing back at him steadily. Any hope that the man would not be aware of the significance of that airplane icon glowing blue over Washington was lost. From the look in the man's eyes and his mocking smile, Fitz could see that he was well aware his target was approaching, due to arrive in less than an hour's time.

  Larry had not voted for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsyl-vania Avenue--he disagreed with just about everything the man stood for--but still he could not process the notion that he might soon be partially responsible for the president's impending violent death.

  "Well," the gunman said, still smiling, "we have some time yet before the esteemed Mr. Cartwright concludes the final airplane ride of his presidency, so perhaps now would be an appropriate time to discuss the duties you will be performing for me."

  "And what would those be?" Larry was surprised at how steady and strong his voice sounded, considering how close he felt to a full-fledged panic attack or maybe even a nervous breakdown.

  "When Air Force One enters your airspace, you will direct the plane to the final approach course for Runway 33 Left at Logan."

  "But we're not using Runway 33 Left for arrivals. We're using Runway 4 Right."

  "That's not my problem; it's yours. I want that airplane lined up for Runway 33 Left."

  Larry shook his head. "But as soon as the pilot listens to the ATIS, he's going to expect to be vectored to the approach for 4

  Right."

  The ATIS--Automatic Terminal Information Service--was a radio broadcast on a continuous loop, updated by the control tower at least once per hour. The pilot simply dialed in the appropriate ATIS frequency and was rewarded with a listing of the current weather conditions at the airport, what approach to expect and to what runway, and any other information that might affect the flight, such as airport construction or runway and taxiway closures. As soon as the pilot in command of Air Force One listened to the ATIS, he would immediately question why he was being vectored to a different runway.

  The man jammed the barrel of his gun under Larry's jaw, his eyes burning with intensity. "Perhaps I have not made myself sufficiently clear. I do not care what you have to say or who you have to say it to, but if you are not successful in getting Air Force One where I want it and when I want it there, you will not draw another breath. Not one."

  "Okay, okay, I get it." Larry's voice cracked; no longer strong and steady, it sounded to him like someone else was speaking, someone who was completely terrified and might just piss his pants.

  "Take the plane to 33 Left. Okay. I can do that." Larry was panting like he had just run the Boston Marathon and could feel sweat soaking the back of his shirt, even though the temperature in the TRACON was always kept relatively low, more for the sake of all the expensive equipment than for the comfort of the controllers.

  The man withdrew the gun from Larry's neck and sat back, once again appearing calm and collected. The swiftness of his mood changes was breathtaking and unsettling. "You will direct the aircraft to intercept the final approach course at least fifteen miles from the airport and as low an altitude as possible without eliciting any suspicion on the part of the pilot."

  Larry nodded. "The minimum vectoring altitude southeast of Boston in that particular area is fifteen hundred feet."

  The man waved the gun dismissively. "I don't care about your regulations. You will take the plane down to a thousand feet--do you understand?"

  Larry did a quick calculation in his head and knew that he could break the MVA by five hundred feet and Air Force One would still be safe--minimum vectoring altitudes were assigned with the intention of allowing plenty of clearance for aircraft over any obstacles on the ground that could be a factor. "All right, a fifteen mile final to 33 Left at a thousand feet. I can do that. But why?"

  The man laughed loudly. "Why? I'll tell you why. We have a little gift waiting for your pig president, and he must be in the proper location to receive it. I only wish I could be there to see the wreckage of his airplane sitting at the bottom of a smoking hole in the ground, but unfortunately I will have to make do by visualizing it." He sighed. "We all have our roles to play."

  Larry looked back up at the TSD--it was a reflexive action; he couldn't help himself--and saw that the blue icon representing Air Force One had moved just a little bit closer to Logan Airport.

  It would be a little while before it arrived in BCT airspace, but it was coming. And there wasn't a damned thing Larry could do to stop it.

  Chapter 46

  Nick listened with mounting horror as the words spoken by the terrorist wafted through the air exchange grate loud and clear.

  The Stinger missiles that had been stolen from the United States Army--the very same weapons that he now knew had gotten Lisa killed--were in the hands of a group of fanatical lunatics and would be used to shoot down the airplane carrying the president of the United States.

  The irony of both he and Lisa being affected by the very same crime was
not lost on Nick. First, Lisa had stumbled upon the plot to sell the information regarding the missiles to some unknown group and had paid for that with her life. Now, members of the very group that had presumably purchased the information were here in Merrimack at the BCT, forcing Fitz to put the president's plane in the proper location to allow the remainder of the group to shoot it down with those missiles.

  That had to be it. There was no other conceivable explanation as to why this man would insist on Air Force One being vectored so far out of position from Runway 4 Right, which was what Logan was utilizing for arrivals tonight. No other reason why he would crow about the "gift" they had waiting for President Cartwright. Nick had done some research on Stinger missiles after his conversation with the FBI agents at his home--he hadn't known why, exactly; he just had not been able to stop himself--and what he learned was terrifying in light of the situation taking place now.

  Normally the missiles were fired by two-man teams, but it was possible for one person to operate the shoulder-fired weapons. They required a minimal amount of training, and modern versions of the Stinger were extremely accurate, combining visual acquisition of the target by the shooter with a heat-seeking component that allowed the missile to track its target even if the aircraft took evasive maneuvers.

  Stingers could be used to shoot down targets at altitudes as high as ten thousand feet, but Nick guessed that the man wanted Fitz to get Air Force One to a thousand feet to provide the best possible odds of taking it down. Undoubtedly Air Force One was equipped with the most sophisticated countermeasures available against just such a weapon, but every aircraft, no matter how tech-nologically advanced, eventually reached an altitude on final approach where it was extremely vulnerable.

  At one thousand feet, the president's plane would be "low and slow," with flaps extended, traveling at the relatively slow speed of around one hundred thirty miles per hour. At that altitude and speed, Nick knew it would be virtually impossible for the flight crew to take any meaningful evasive action, even if they knew it was coming.