The secretary read the note and nodded as she dashed from the office.
“Okay, Chris. You say you’re calling on a seat phone?”
“Yeah, and it’ll cost a fortune, but—”
“Don’t worry, we’ll pay the bill. I’m going to put you on live.”
Billing’s voice interrupted her.
“Forgive me, Ms. McNair, but we have to reach an agreement on something first.”
His words stopped her for a second as she wondered why a job applicant who wanted to be a CNN correspondent would demand money up front for a story. He should know they didn’t pay money for stories. Besides, this was a perfect opportunity for a live audition.
“Ah, what agreement would that be, Chris?”
“Have you hired anyone yet for that news position?”
“No.”
“Good. I want that job. I’m good, I’m the best applicant you have, I’m sick of Phoenix and local news, and, well, I want the job. Hire me right here, right now on the terms we discussed for the money you advertised, and the story is yours.”
“That’s a form of blackmail, Mr. Billings. I don’t appreciate—”
“Please, Ms. McNair! It’s not blackmail, it’s called bargaining power. I didn’t have it the other day. I do now. I could call the other nets and make the same offer, but I dearly want to work for CNN.”
“The other nets would tell you to go to hell.”
“I don’t think you really believe that, and neither do I. I’m not selling a story, I’m selling me. Look, I’m a damn good reporter, but I haven’t had the chance to prove it at network level. Have you looked at my tapes?”
She sighed. “No, frankly, I’ve been too busy with interviews.”
“Okay. Hire me right now for a six-month trial. Your word will be good enough. If you really like what I do for you on this story, waive the trial period and bring me on in full. But please give me a shot.”
“Or you walk with this story, right?”
“Ms. McNair, you’re a professional broadcast journalist, too. What would you do?”
Julie McNair ran it over in her mind. She’d always loved making decisions under pressure. Network broadcasting was a highwire act without a net, so what the hell. Even if she screwed up she could bury him for six months and hire someone else.
“Okay, Mr. Billings, you got a deal.”
“Chris.”
“Chris. You’re hired, Chris. Now can we get this story on the air before it gets stale?”
“I’m your man, Ms. McNair. I’m standing by.”
AirBridge Airlines Dispatch Center, Colorado Springs International Airport. 11:30 A.M.
Within twenty minutes, the senior executives of AirBridge Airlines had come together to form a crisis management team, taken over a glassed-in conference room adjacent to the dispatch center, and summoned the chief pilot and his boss, the vice president of operations. With several of the executives milling around in animated conversations on desk phones, two others using cellular phones, and the company president huddled with the corporation’s general counsel in the far corner, only the chief pilot was looking up when the director of flight control entered the room wearing an ashen expression.
Judy Smith caught the eye of the tall, distinguished-looking senior pilot and moved quickly to his side.
“Steve? Got a moment?”
The captain looked haunted. He had been chief pilot during a hellish year of constant financial pressure and management demands to keep the airline running with a minimum number of pilots. Even if his pilots worked for free, they’d be costing too much money in the eyes of the company, or so he’d complained at every opportunity. The job was wearing him down, and cumulative fatigue was underscored by the dark bags under his eyes.
“Something new, Judy?” he asked.
She inclined her head toward the hallway. “Could we … talk out there?”
Captain Steve Coberg satisfied himself that the others in the room were all occupied before following Judy into the hallway and around the corner out of view.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She looked him squarely in the eye and said nothing for a few seconds.
“Steve, how well do you know Ken Wolfe?”
Coberg cocked his head suspiciously. “Well, he’s one of my pilots, of course. What are you getting at?”
“I think you already know, Steve. I think we both know there are some real concerns here. I know Ken fairly well in an over-the-counter way. I respect him, but there’s no avoiding the reality that Ken Wolfe is a very stressed man, and I do not understand why.”
He spread both his hands in the air in a constrained gesture.
“Judy, Wolfe went through hell before he hired on here. Let’s just leave it at that, okay? There are things that aren’t really material to this discussion that make him the way he is.”
“What things, Steve?”
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and snorted as he raised his hands in a gesture of frustration, then looked back at her. “Things the man asked me not to go blabbing around this airline. Things that caused him great pain. Things that are none of your damn business in dispatch, okay?”
Judy studied her shoes for a second in thought. She snapped her eyes back to Coberg’s suddenly. “I wonder if these things he doesn’t want us to know about might explain his strange behavior around here.”
Coberg sighed and gestured again.
“Look, I know he’s a moody bastard, but what can that possibly have to do with a … a hijacking?”
“Ken’s had a lot of complaints from fellow pilots, hasn’t he?”
There was another long hesitation as he studied her eyes. “You know I can’t discuss that sort of information.” Coberg watched her eyebrows flare slightly as she moved imperceptibly closer.
“Steve, I’ve talked to a bunch of the copilots who’ve been flying with Ken this year. They all say he’s a good stick-and-rudder guy in the cockpit, a by-the-book captain, but he’s driving them crazy out there. Are you going to tell me you haven’t noticed?”
“We get crybaby copilots whining about captains all the time, Judy. You probably don’t understand that.”
“You ever hear of People’s Express, Steve?”
He snorted again. “People’s Distress, we used to call them. Of course.”
“Well, I was a Boeing 727 captain for what you call People’s Distress before we collapsed in the eighties. I do understand, thank you very much.”
“Sorry, Judy. I didn’t know. I was with Eastern. We didn’t like you folks very much.”
“I understand that. I also understand that there’s been a steady stream of worried copilots coming upstairs to tell you the same things they tell me.” She began counting off points on her fingers. “They describe Ken as distant, distracted, distraught, and inconsistent, they say he misses radio calls, that he’s moody, which you already pointed out, and I know for a fact that in crew scheduling’s point of view, he’s undependable because of all his sudden sick calls. That’s hardly a normal profile. If I’m hearing these things, Steve, you’re hearing them.”
Coberg sighed and looked pained. “God sake’s, Judy, of course the man’s moody.” Coberg turned and shoved his hands deep in his pockets as his eyes studied the far end of the hallway. He looked at the floor then, then back up at Judy, speaking at low volume. “Judy, four years ago, he lost his wife to a car crash. Two years ago, his only child, his little eleven-year-old daughter, was kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered back in Connecticut. He’s in agony every day about that. The man’s lost everyone close to him in this world. He has a right to be moody.”
Judy knew her mouth was hanging open, her eyes huge, but she couldn’t help it.
“My God, Steve!”
“See, that’s the type of reaction I think he wanted to avoid around here. That’s why he asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Did you know about this when you hired him?”
Coberg hes
itated, then nodded. “Most of it, yes. He’d been flying for a regional airline back east. Part of the Davidson empire of small airlines. I assume you know about Tom Davidson?”
Judy nodded. Davidson was a familiar name in the Wild West post-deregulation airline world. He was also one of AirBridge’s biggest stockholders.
“Well, Mr. Davidson called me personally and told me the story. He explained that the murderer had gone free on a technicality and said he was worried about Wolfe living there in Connecticut.” He stopped for a moment and then continued. “Mr. Davidson asked me to make a place for Ken Wolfe at AirBridge and sent me his file. I couldn’t see any reason to refuse.”
Judy studied the chief pilot for several seconds before replying.
“Has Ken Wolfe been in counseling, Steve? Did Davidson tell you whether he had?”
Once again, Coberg sighed heavily and glanced around in frustration before locking his eyes on hers again. “Judy, the man’s an excellent pilot, and we’re desperate for excellent pilots. The suits in this airline are on me every time we cancel a flight because I can’t get enough pilots hired who’ll stay here for the peanuts we pay. I can’t be concerned whether a good pilot’s seeing a shrink or not, as long as he does his job. That’s a personal question.”
“Counseling? Whether an upset captain needs counseling is a personal question?”
“Yes, dammit!”
“But Steve, if you haven’t noticed, he’s flying our airplanes. He’s flying our passengers. Should he be? Regardless of what Mr. Davidson wanted, did anyone check to make sure Wolfe was getting psychological help?”
Coberg snorted. “Is this going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Well, where, then? Tell me!”
“How’d the hijacker get on board, Steve?”
Coberg stared at her in silence for a few moments before shrugging his shoulders. “What?”
“Exactly what I asked. How did the hijacker get aboard that aircraft?”
“Hell, Judy, why ask me? You told us what happened.”
She shook her head. “No, I briefed you only on what I had so far, that the aircraft landed unexpectedly in Durango and apparently was commandeered by someone while the copilot was off running a very strange errand, and a passenger who happens to be the only other pilot on board was also sent off the airplane.”
“And?”
“And the captain just happens to be our ranking problem child, with a file of worrisome feedback on inconsistent behavior that’s probably several inches thick.”
Judy saw his eyes narrow as he squared his shoulders and stepped back slightly.
“Judy, I don’t like the implications here.”
“Steve, if a hijacker was lying in wait, how’d he know our flight was going to make an emergency landing in Durango? Who would plan a hijacking in Durango, for God’s sake? There’s not enough commercial traffic through there. Have you asked yourself that question?”
“Well, he couldn’t know, of course. Even the captain didn’t know, which means the hijacker must have made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I mean, who knew Wolfe was going to lose an engine?”
“Wolfe didn’t lose an engine. He shut it down. Wolfe shuts it down and then decides to go to Durango. You get it? He decided. He was the only one who could have known.”
Steve Coberg’s eyes narrowed under a furrowed brow as he thought about the contradiction.
“Well, I suppose the hijacker could have already been on board.”
“Maybe he was. But the only other individual we’ve talked to who went to the cockpit was the pilot left behind, and he told me he saw nothing suspicious before the captain tricked him into leaving.”
“Tricked?” Coberg’s face betrayed total shock. “Jesus, Judy! What are you suggesting? You telling me you suspect the hijacker is Ken Wolfe’s accomplice? Hell, the man’s depressed. He’s not a criminal.”
“I don’t know, Steve. I don’t know the answer. But I do know something’s very wrong here, and my guy Verne Garcia even commented on how distracted Wolfe was this morning at the desk.”
Suddenly, Coberg was glancing in both directions down the hallway before looking at her, his voice kept very low.
“Judy, you can’t repeat unfounded suspicions like this to anyone!”
She bristled. “Well, if you can’t explain it, and I can’t explain it, someone’s got to be told.”
“But you’ve got nothing!”
“I’ve got loose ends that don’t fit and a captain who probably shouldn’t have been flying, and we need to know—they need to know in that room there—what we might be dealing with. And hey, Steve. You think that will get you in trouble? Just try taking the blame for letting the suits in there get blindsided.”
Coberg was breathing hard. He paused to wet his lips, his voice coming low and urgently to her ears.
“Judy, look. He was all right to fly, okay? I had no reason to ground Wolfe. We did everything right with him, but you’re gonna screw around and second guess me and get me in real trouble here. Don’t forget, Tom Davidson personally asked me to hire Wolfe.”
“And that means what?”
“Well,” Coberg gestured wildly to the ceiling, “if AirBridge is made to look stupid for hiring Wolfe, it reflects on Mr. Davidson.”
“Can you prove Davidson made that call to you?”
Coberg looked shocked. “Well, no …”
“Steve, men like Tom Davidson are too smart and powerful to leave themselves open for blame. If the decision to hire Wolfe blows up in our faces, you can bet Davidson will have no memory of that call.”
Coberg began to protest, but Judy raised her hand to silence him.
“Look, I’m not trying to get you in trouble, Steve, but either I’m going to tell them about Ken, you’re going to tell them, or we’ll do it together. Forget Davidson. This one’s at your doorstep.”
Again he regarded her over an endless bridge of awkward silence.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said at last.
“Dead serious. We’re going to do it right now.”
Steve Coberg swallowed loudly and took a deep breath as he rubbed his chin and glanced in the direction of the conference room.
“Okay. Okay, we do it together.”
“Good.”
“Ah, I’ll tell them his background problems, you tell them what Verne saw today.”
“Okay.”
“But please don’t say he shouldn’t have been flying.”
She nodded slowly. “Steve, I think they’re going to figure that one out all by themselves.”
Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 11:40 A.M.
Annette paused halfway up through the coach cabin to look back at Bev and Kevin, who were watching her from the rear galley area. There was a thin, supportive smile from Bev, but Kevin seemed angry. Annette looked inside the plastic trash bag she was carrying. There were perhaps ten cell phones already, and more to come, since she had obeyed the hijacker’s relayed orders and used the P.A. to ask everyone to surrender all their phones. Any cellular signal from the cabin, she had told them, could be detected by their captor.
She had seen ads for the type of cellular signal detector Ken had mentioned. They did exist.
“Ma’am?” She turned toward the familiar face of the young man she’d seen using the seat phone earlier, and realized with a start that he was reaching into her bag to get one of the cell phones.
Annette yanked the bag away.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’ve got to borrow one of those! I’m a CNN reporter. I was on the air when they pulled the plug.”
“No! Jeez, didn’t you hear what I said? The hijacker can detect if a cell phone’s in use, even back here. We can’t afford to upset him.”
The thought of angering some psychopath in the cockpit with a bomb trigger in his hand was a terrifying presence in her mind, and she wondered if the passengers could sense her massive upset.
&nb
sp; Chris Billings motioned her closer, his voice a whisper.
“You don’t understand. I’m trying to tell the world exactly what’s happening.”
Annette leaned close to keep her voice low. “Why, sir? Why is that important enough to risk a bomb?”
“For rescue purposes in Salt Lake. It’s vital the FBI know details, or they could make a fatal mistake.”
She pulled back, shaking her head. “We can’t take the chance. The safest way to deal with a hijacker is play it the way he wants it.”
She resumed the trek forward toward first class, collecting several more phones before stopping in front of Rudy Bostich’s seat.
Bostich was smiling up at her and holding out one of the smallest phones she’d ever seen.
“They’ll be making these as surgical implants in the next few years, I guess,” he said with a worried chuckle as he placed it in the bag. Annette smiled back as best she could, her eyes memorizing his familiar face, her mind trying to imagine what he could have done to so profoundly upset Ken Wolfe.
Rudy Bostich had noticed the frightened, faraway look on her face as he read her nametag.
“Are you okay … Annette, is it?” he asked.
She drew a sharp breath, nodded her head and tried to smile. It was an unconvincing performance, and they both knew it.
“I’m … just worried, like all of us,” she said.
“Do you have any idea what the hijacker wants?” he added.
She shook her head and tried to force a smile.
“Not yet.”
Bostich shifted in his seat and raised a finger. “Ah, you know, it would probably be better if you didn’t tell the captain or the hijacker that I’m aboard, since we don’t know what’s going on. Just a precaution. The idea that there’s a federal prosecutor on board, you know, could be a target.”
“I understand,” Annette replied, trying to keep her expression neutral while the memory of handing his business card to Ken Wolfe in Colorado Springs, and Ken’s strange reaction to it, flashed across her mind.
The Last Hostage Page 7