The Last Hostage

by Nance, John J. ;

  No response. Kat felt her heart pounding. She was all too aware of the chance she was taking, but she had to know.

  A full minute ticked by, then two. Kat found herself longing to hear just the captain’s voice again, anything to confirm they were still okay.

  My God, what if I just pushed a madman over the edge?

  The sound of a transmitter clicking on filled her ear, and for a moment she was too lost in relief to realize she was hearing a new voice. Gruff, deep, and masculine, it growled at her.

  “Listen you stupid broad. I don’t wanna talk to you or anyone! The captain will relay for me. You put this kind of pressure on me again, I’ll detonate this seven-three and you hotshot feds can spend the rest of your lives wishing you’d listened to me.”

  Silence again.

  Kat snapped her head around toward the technician. “You get that?”

  He nodded, “Loud and clear.”

  “Agent Bronsky?” The captain’s voice had returned, and Kat pressed the phone hard to her right ear.

  “Go ahead, Captain.”

  “I hope you’re satisfied with that answer, because you really made him mad. I’d recommend you not try that again if your purpose is helping us survive this.”

  “We’ve filled the square, sir. We’ll talk with just you from here on.”

  Kat replaced the receiver and glanced at Frank Bothell, who looked deeply worried as he pulled off his headset. He stood up and moved to her side, speaking quietly.

  “What in hell was all that about, Kat?”

  She looked him in the eye. “I was following a hunch, Frank.”

  “You needed the bastard’s voice on tape that bad?”

  She nodded. “I’ll fill you in shortly.”

  Frank nodded and began to turn away, then looked back at her, speaking softly out of the corner of his mouth as he leaned near her shoulder. “Don’t freelance too much, Kat. The world, and more important, the Bureau, is watching, and you’re the new kid on the block. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  As Frank moved away, Kat caught the technician’s eye and walked quickly to the desk holding his recording equipment.

  “Larry, can you run an analysis on both those voices?” she asked.

  “What, you mean a stress analysis?”

  “That, and more. Can you digitalize the voices and run a comparison of the voice prints?”

  The technician studied her face, trying to discern her meaning.

  “I’d have to feed this through the phone to the lab in D.C. I don’t have the equipment here.”

  “Okay. As soon as you can.”

  “But, Kat, you’ve got to tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “Just tell them to compare the voice prints, analyze the stress in each, and make certain we’re … dealing with two different larynxes.”

  The technician drew back slightly and searched her eyes. “You want to make certain the voices come from different people?”

  She looked down at the table and nodded. “Don’t make a big deal of this, okay? Just get it to the lab guys with that request. This is just a precaution, not a theory,” she fibbed.

  The technician took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. You’ve got it. It’s a simple procedure.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes. Fifteen on the outside.”

  “Let me know.”

  Kat walked quickly across the room to where Frank was huddling with several newly arrived members of the Bureau’s Regional SWAT team.

  “Frank? Can I borrow you for a minute?”

  He turned and gestured to the three men. “These fellows are providing the SWAT team from Salt Lake Police, Kat.”

  She smiled at them and raised an index finger. “Forgive my manners, gentlemen. We’ll meet formally later.” She grabbed Frank’s arm and steered him a few feet away.

  “I need some quick research done without raising questions. Do we have agents at AirBridge headquarters in Colorado Springs, yet?”

  Frank nodded. “Two agents. They arrived maybe five minutes ago and checked in with me. Why?”

  “How can I reach them?”

  Frank sighed and looked down for a moment before finding her eyes again. “Kat, tell me what you want them to do and I’ll make it happen, but don’t be coy with me. I need to know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not being coy, Frank. I’m being cautious. Something’s very wrong here.”

  “What?”

  “About the captain. About this whole scenario. Something doesn’t ring true and I need as much information about this captain as I can get.”

  Frank massaged his chin for a few seconds as he studied her face. “Okay, Kat, spit it out. What do you suspect?”

  She looked around, then sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, Frank. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I just talked to the copilot who was left behind in Durango, and I talked to the passenger they left. Frank, this captain was acting very odd this morning in Colorado Springs on the aircraft and in Durango. There’s reason to believe that he may have been trying to get rid of any other pilots, including passengers who were pilots.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew. There’s apparently a big-shot politician on board, but I don’t know for certain that he’s got anything to do with this.”

  Frank was nodding. “Yeah. Rudy Bostich, U.S. Attorney from Connecticut. He’s up for Attorney General.”

  She nodded. “Frank, the copilot said that the captain came unglued this morning when he discovered Bostich was aboard. He witnessed some very weird reactions at the gate in Colorado Springs, and then there’s this sudden engine shutdown out of the blue, and a convenient hijacker, and he gets all the pilots off the plane who might be able to land it.”

  “What’s the bottom line here, Kat?”

  Kat studied his face for a few seconds before answering. “I think the captain may be alone in that cockpit.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “It’s possible the captain is the hijacker.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Larry’s feeding the voice tape to the lab right now to find out. I need background on this guy, any evidence of instability, or myopic allegiance to some weird cause.”

  “Kat, are you saying that second voice sounded phony to you?”

  “Not really, but everything else points to the possibility, and whoever owns the hijacker’s voice knows about airplanes. Did you catch his reference to the Boeing?”

  Frank looked puzzled. “What reference?”

  “The average person would call it a jet, or a jetliner, or a Boeing, or if they were really specific, a seven-thirty-seven. He called it a ‘seven-three.’ That’s pilot talk, Frank. If there’s a second person on that flight deck, he’s either a pilot or he’s very knowledgeable about the aviation community.”

  “That’s hardly conclusive,” Frank replied.

  “But it’s consistent with the impression we already had that the hijacker is not afraid of aviation.”

  An airport police officer appeared at Kat’s side. “Excuse me, Agent Bronsky?”

  Kat kept her eyes on Frank Bothell as she waved the officer away. “Not now, please.”

  Frank exhaled sharply. “Kat, if that’s true—”

  The officer raised the palm of his hand to get her attention. “Agent Bronsky, I’m sorry, but you’ve got a call, and it’s really urgent.”

  She glanced over at him with obvious impatience. “Who, for God’s sake?”

  “The aircraft. The captain wants to talk to you. He’s on a cell phone and he’s yelling.”

  Kat stared at him in silence for a heartbeat before lunging at the nearest telephone.

  “Agent Bronsky here.”

  The sound of Ken Wolfe’s voice blew back through the receiver instantly.

  “Get these damn F-sixteens the hell out of here! Do you hear me, Bronsky?”

  Frank picked up an extension to listen in as Kat looked
at him in confusion, her right hand in a questioning gesture. He gave her a wide-eyed shrug in return.

  “Captain, what are you talking about?” Kat asked.

  “I told you no tricks, no fighters, no nothing! You make these guys go away. You’re gonna get us killed.”

  “Captain, what’s going on up there?”

  “What do you think, Bronsky? You sent fighters, the hijacker is upset about the fighters. I want you to stop endangering us. Understood?”

  “Captain Wolfe, tell me precisely what’s happening.”

  “Dammit, he’s threatening to kill us because of these F-sixteens!”

  “We did not order fighters, Captain. Tell the man that.”

  “Cute, Bronsky. You arrange for the Air Force to launch two fighters to shadow me and then pretend you don’t know? That’s a real trust buster. He’s real impressed. He’s waving the trigger around. With him in the right seat and you down there playing games, we’re probably doomed.”

  Kat cupped her hand over the receiver. “Frank!”

  He was already nodding as he punched up a clear line on the telephone desk set and began punching in numbers. “I know, I know. I’m checking.”

  Kat closed her eyes and tried to focus on the scene in the cockpit, and the mind behind the hijacking.

  “Okay, Captain, look. We all know that sometimes the right hand and the left hand do not communicate. I honestly do not know where those fighters have come from or what they’re doing there. Are you saying they’re in formation with you?”

  “That’s right, Bronsky. As if you didn’t know. Off to my left. He wants—hold on—he says he wants them to land at Salt Lake City International Airport, and before we even think about landing, he wants to see those two fighter pilots on the ground standing outside their planes.”

  “Affirmative, Captain. We’re working on it.”

  She whirled around toward the adjacent desk again. “Frank?”

  Frank Bothell pulled the receiver from his ear and rolled his eyes.

  “Goddammit! Headquarters called the Air Force without telling us. The fighters are from Hill Air Force Base in Ogden. I’m calling them off.”

  Kat shook her head and repeated Wolfe’s orders. “Frank, he’s demanding the F-sixteens land here at Salt Lake International.”

  Frank nodded and pressed the phone to his ear again to issue the urgent instructions as Kat hunched over the receiver again, her eyes closed.

  “Okay, Captain, tell him we’re relaying the message right now. It will take a couple of minutes to reach them.”

  “They’d better hurry—he’s waving the damn trigger around again.”

  There were some banging noises, then Captain Wolfe’s voice in the background. “I told you … stop doing that. Please. They’re complying. There’s no sense in this.”

  There was silence on the other end for several long moments.

  “One more slip, Bronsky, and he says he’ll activate the trigger. Please, don’t give him any more reasons!”

  AirBridge Headquarters, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 12:10 P.M.

  The Director of Flight Control, Judy Smith, spotted the two darksuited men the moment they entered the building. When they were scooped up by the company’s general counsel and escorted toward the second floor, she knew they were FBI agents. And they were about to be presented with a whitewashed version of Captain Ken Wolfe from a chief pilot who had undoubtedly been manicuring his personnel files. There would be no reference to instability, mood swings, copilot complaints, or the overall feeling that was eating her alive that the hijacking was somehow a product of the hell Ken Wolfe had been living. There would be only the feigned wide-eyed innocence of a chief pilot who was very worried about one of his best and most senior employees. The dog and pony show would take, what, five minutes? She wondered if veteran agents would be able to see through it, and the answer was obvious: Not in time.

  Soon, the two men were back, shaking hands with the chief pilot in the hallway outside dispatch and heading for the parking lot, a folder in the hands of one of them.

  Judy watched them get in a black sedan.

  There was a long drive leading past the rectangular operations building to the opposite end, where the drive rejoined the road and passed a rear entrance. The rear entrance was the only way out of the building on that side, and the only one without surveillance cameras—a door smokers used to catch a quick cigarette without invoking the wrath of their nonsmoking coworkers.

  She quickly pushed back her chair and got to her feet, smiling at one of the dispatchers who happened to look up. The hallway was empty, and she moved as fast as she could toward the far end.

  She pushed open the door, relieved that no one was lounging outside. Above her, the back side of the building contained no windows, and no way for the senior executives to see what she was doing.

  Judy positioned herself in the middle of the drive just as the black sedan turned the corner. The two men braked to a halt, one of them rolling down the passenger side window as she moved to his side.

  “Are you gentlemen with the FBI?”

  The passenger nodded, his eyes on her identification badge. “Yes, ma’am. And you are …?”

  She introduced herself and pointed to the car’s rear door.

  “Get me out of here quickly. I need to talk to you in private.”

  Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 12:12 P.M.

  For almost five minutes after closing the cockpit door, Annette had sat on the jumpseat in shock. When she felt the 737’s engines throttle back for descent, she grabbed the P.A. microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your lead flight attendant. We’re going to be landing soon at Salt Lake City International, but due to the uncertainty of our situation, I want you all in a brace position. Take off your shoes now, take all sharp objects out of your pockets, and listen closely as I give you the basics of what to do.”

  The call chime from the cockpit rang. Annette ignored it and read through the list of procedures for passengers to follow.

  “This is also known as the ‘grab your ankles’ position, but that’s only to get your head down and secure so if we come to a rapid halt, your head won’t be propelled into the seatback in front of you.”

  The cockpit call chime began ringing almost continuously.

  “I’ll give you the brace command just before landing, but if anything odd happens in the meantime, get into the position on your own, and wait for—”

  The P.A. system was suddenly snatched from her control as Ken pushed his microphone button on the flight deck, overriding hers.

  She replaced the P.A. microphone and reached for the handset.

  “What, Ken?”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Taking care of my passengers!” she said as calmly as she could.

  “I told you to stay down.”

  “I guess you’ll have to shoot me, then, because I’m going to do my best to keep these people safe.”

  “Annette, I’m warning you—”

  “Let me take care of my job, dammit! You don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want to explain, you just want to terrify our passengers, and I’m not going to sit on my butt and let them be unprepared.”

  “Unprepared for what, Annette?”

  “I wish I knew, Ken.”

  “All I’m going to do is land. Then we sit while I negotiate and make threats. Is that so difficult to understand?” Ken’s voice had lost some of its bite.

  “Threats, Ken? Is that all they are?” Annette pressed.

  “Well … not really. I’ve got the bomb trigger. I could set it off. I will if I don’t get what I want.”

  “So what do you want, Ken? What on earth do you want?”

  “Justice, Annette. There are little girls out there who’re going to be murdered if I don’t succeed.”

  “What … what are you talking about, Ken? You’re trying to prevent a murder by threatening to kill all of us?”

  “ENO
UGH, Annette! Sit down.”

  She felt her heart pounding, her hands shaking. Her voice had been too loud, and she could see the alarm in the eyes of the female passenger in 1C who had overheard much of the exchange.

  “Annette, you push me too far, you’ll be responsible for killing everyone on board. Now cool it! Get them prepared if you’re determined to play stewardess games, but don’t push me any more. Is that clear?”

  “Very clear,” she said quietly.

  Annette replaced the handset and forced herself to jump to her feet and move into the first class cabin.

  Rudy Bostich motioned her over urgently. The cell phone, she noticed, lay unopened in his lap. As she leaned toward him he caught her left arm in a vice grip and guided her down to the adjacent seat.

  “That hurts, Rudy.”

  “I’m sorry. But you were talking to the cockpit. Wolfe doesn’t know I’m aboard, does he? You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  She hesitated, studying his eyes, aware that his face was contorting in pure fear.

  “Back in Colorado Springs, Rudy, I showed him your card.”

  “Jesus! I asked you not to let him know.”

  “I showed him before we took off. I said nothing more, but he already knew, and the hijacker knows.”

  “Oh, God!” he said, his right hand shooting to his mouth. “Oh, my God.”

  “Look, Rudy, we’ve got a big problem.”

  Bostich was nodding, his eyes on the forward bulkhead. “I know. I know. He’s up there alone, isn’t he?”

  She nodded slowly, wondering if he’d overheard her conversation on the interphone, or somehow figured it out by himself. “He says you’re responsible for all this, Rudy. I have no idea what he means.”

  He was staring out the window and chewing on the knuckles of his right hand as she stood up. “Rudy?”

  He didn’t respond, and she hesitated only a few seconds before turning toward the right side of the aisle and meeting the gaze of the frightened passenger in 1C, who was trying to ask several questions at once.

  Annette put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a minute and we’ll talk.”

  The woman nodded.

  There were three other first class passengers besides Bostich. They were all apprehensive, all trying to catch her eye. She raised her hand in another wait gesture and shot through the coach cabin, purposely catching the eye of Nancy Beck, whose imagination was obviously running wild.