“The only ones I want to harm are Lumin and Bostich,” Ken replied. “But remind them in Washington I’m one flick of a finger away from blowing this airplane off the map. Don’t let them forget that for a moment.”
Kat looked back at the forward panel, seeing nothing, her mind darting after a dozen possibilities at once.
“Another thing, Frank,” she said into the phone. “Get that detective on the phone in Connecticut. Detective Matson. Tell him what I’ve found. See if he can connect the dots somewhere.”
“Will do, Kat. I’ll try to hold off the Air Force plane. If I can’t, however, please make the captain understand that no one’s going to attack or try to disable the airplane unless he does something very rash.”
“He doesn’t believe that, Frank.”
She disconnected as Ken finished taxiing the 737 to the east end of the runway.
“Where is he now?” Kat asked.
Ken’s eyes were searching the far horizon. “He disappeared down the valley back west.”
“Good. So he’s probably out of here for a while.”
Ken shook his head no. “I doubt it. He’s probably looking for a wide spot to turn around in without my seeing him.”
She reached behind the captain’s seat and grabbed Bostich’s computer as Ken turned the aircraft back toward the west once more.
“I probably shook him up, Kat, but if his orders say to land here—”
Ken stopped, straining forward, his eyes focused on the far end of the runway as she followed his gaze. Something was wavering just above the grass in the distance, something indistinct and undulating, but moving. Suddenly the shape coalesced into a C-130 as the transport leapt above the edge of the mesa into full view.
“Dammit!” Ken’s hand shot to the throttles and shoved them forward again as the C-130 bore down on the far end of the runway, its landing lights off this time.
“Where did he come from?” Kat asked.
“He made a tight turn down in the valley below the level of this runway and then popped over the ridge to catch me by surprise.”
The 737 gained speed, and once more Ken reached up and snapped on the landing lights as the big Lockheed transport roared toward them at over a hundred and forty miles per hour.
“Airspeed!” Ken demanded once again.
“Ah … forty, fifty …”
“Call eighty.”
“Okay, we’re sixty.”
“If he lands and reverses those props, we’ll hit,” Ken muttered to himself, the power still up as the 737 continued to accelerate.
The C-130 was flaring slightly, its wheels nearing the runway surface, the engine power pulled back as the pilot waited to slam on the runway in an assault landing.
“Eighty knots!” She looked at Ken’s right hand, expecting him to yank the throttles back. Instead, he pushed the thrust levers forward even more, his eyes glancing to the center panel to check the maximum thrust readings.
“Ninety knots. Ken, this is awfully fast! We have enough room to stop?”
There was no answer.
The C-l 30 loomed frighteningly close, its wheels touching the runway in a puff of rubberized smoke, the large machine barreling toward them.
“One hundred knots! Ken, stop!”
Her eyes left the airspeed indicator and snapped to the oncoming airplane in time to see it suddenly pitch up, its huge four-bladed propellers clawing the air as its pilot commanded an instant leap from the surface in the face of the onrushing 737.
“He’s off! He’s off!” Kat cried, her eyes glued to the underbelly of the C-130 as it hung in front of them, slowly lifting out of the way like a reluctant whale.
But she realized with a hopeless feeling the 737’s throttles were still full forward.
She glanced at the airspeed again.
Jesus! One hundred ten!
The end of the runway was visible beneath the hulking image of the C-130, the threshold much closer than she’d figured.
“Ken, he’s already off. What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“We’re too fast to stop, Kat,” he said calmly.
The rumble and roar of the C-130 passing just above them sent vibrations of terror through her. She expected an impact with the 737’s tail. The whole sky seemed to be filled with C-130. There was no way they could avoid a collision.
But as rapidly as it had smothered them with soul-rattling noise, the C-130 rumbled overhead and was gone without impact.
Now it was merely the end of the runway threatening them, hurtling at them.
Kat’s eyes locked on the airspeed indicator.
“One hundred twenty-five knots. What do we need to fly?”
“One forty-eight is rotate speed,” he said.
Less than a thousand feet of runway remained. She could see the red lights marking the western end of the runway and the grassy area beyond, a tiny overrun leading to the edge of the cliff. Even if he tried to stop now, they would slide over the cliff.
Time began to dilate, their speed seeming almost laconic, as her mind accelerated into an unreal dimension.
“One hundred thirty-five,” she heard herself say. Fifteen knots less than flying speed, and only a little concrete left. She wondered if the 737’s wheels would break the red lights when they rolled across them.
The control yoke was coming back in her lap as Ken pulled, the control column touching the edge of Bostich’s computer, which she instantly moved out of the way.
The last of the runway disappeared in a heartbeat just as the Boeing’s nose jumped up in response to Ken’s commands, the deck angle of the 737 increasing rapidly, the yoke back in her stomach as he pulled, the distant roar of the engines sounding too puny to help them now.
We’re off the end!
There was a shudder somewhere behind them and a sudden feeling of climbing, rising, but the fact that the main landing gear had lifted from the last few feet of the runway didn’t sink in until Ken snapped a quick command in her direction.
“Gear up! Kat. The wheel-shaped lever. Pull it up.”
Kat reached forward with her left hand and pulled the lever with the small wheel on it, snapping it to the up position, feeling the instant hydraulic response as the gear began its retraction sequence just as the terrain ahead disappeared and the control column in front of her began to vibrate furiously.
“What’s that?” she asked, startled.
“Stall warning.”
He pushed forward on the yoke, dropping the nose of the 737, and banked the jet slightly to the left as they soared above the edge of the mesa and out over a narrow valley, clawing for airspeed.
A highway was visible to the left, along with another huge mesa, and a cliff somewhat ahead of them.
The control columns were still being shaken by the stall warning system, the 737 on the ragged edge of a stall, its airspeed too little to sustain flight more than a few feet above a flat surface—the phenomenon called “ground effect,” which disappeared with the mesa.
They were half-flying, half-falling. Kat felt herself get light in the copilot’s seat as the Boeing dropped into the abyss, the passengers and crew of Flight 90 experiencing less than one half of normal gravity.
Ken was banking slightly to the left, trying to line up with the highway that snaked down the valley to the west, trading altitude for airspeed as the jet accelerated.
The vibrating stopped!
Just as quickly as it had started, the control columns stopped shaking, the tiny electronic mind of the stall warning system having declared that they were once again flying.
But they were also still descending, the highway looming large in the windscreen.
Kat felt a surrealistic calm as the hundred-thousand-pound jetliner dropped toward it at well over a hundred fifty miles per hour.
Ken’s right hand snaked out and snapped the flap lever partially up to a detent labeled two degrees. He was banking back to the right, the jet aligned over the highway some one hundred feet
below them, a cliff on the right, a mesa on the left, the surfaces of both soaring many hundreds of feet higher than they were flying.
He’s going to follow the highway and gain speed down the middle of this little canyon.
She glanced at the airspeed. It was showing a hundred and eighty now and increasing steadily, the engines still pulsing a dull roar through the cockpit.
There were cars on the road below, and she imagined the shock of the drivers as they looked up to see the big jet flying at what would seem treetop level down the highway, an image at once undeniable and nonsensical.
Two hundred knots!
She felt gravity once again pressing her down in the right seat as Ken Wolfe leveled the 737 and began to climb. The walls of the mesas on either side began to sink, and suddenly fall away as the Boeing soared above the surface of the surrounding terrain, climbing smartly, the captain pulling back the throttles slightly and adjusting the engines to climb power.
Kat took inventory of her senses and found them abused but recovering. Her heart was pounding, her breathing rapid, but the increasing altitude and airspeed were a magical tonic and a wave of relief swept through her as she leaned back in the seat, cognizant of Ken’s hand moving the flap lever to the full up position.
He glanced at her. “Thank’s for the help. You did good.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“You’ve flown before, haven’t you?”
Alarm bells went off in her head.
“I’ve been in a few cockpits before. You know, FBI aircraft and such. Someday I’d like to learn to fly, but I doubt I can.”
Ken searched the horizon before looking hard at her, searching her face, reading, she was sure, the telltale signs that she was lying through her teeth.
“You’d enjoy it,” he said at last, looking back at the instruments. “I know I’m going to miss it terribly.”
She let a few seconds of silence pass, her mind trying to grapple with the priorities she faced. Three minutes ago she had expected they would remain in Telluride. Suddenly they were airborne again, with a major mystery before her and little or no time to solve it for a disturbed man who wanted the impossible done immediately.
Kat looked at Ken Wolfe, unable to resist the question.
“Was that a guess, Ken?”
He looked puzzled. “What?”
“You said I should trust you about a takeoff, but we almost crashed.”
He was shaking his head. “No, we didn’t. That was exactly what I expected. Get it a few feet above the runway, suck up the gear, fly it off the cliff and accelerate. Worked perfectly. I just hadn’t expected to go yet.”
“So what are you planning now?”
He snorted and shook his head as his eyes remained ahead.
“The basic equation is the same, Kat, despite what we’ve found Bostich carrying. Lumin must be taken, the grand jury has to indict, and Bostich has to confess or be nailed on that lie so the state warrant can be reinstated.”
“We’re halfway there, Ken.”
He turned and looked at her, his eyes tired, wearing an expression of sad determination.
“Kat, halfway isn’t good enough to a man who has no time left.”
She sighed loud and long. “Look, Bostich is toast after what you found, and Lumin will be arrested any minute. There’s no reason to keep this hijacking going any longer. Let’s get this thing on the ground and let all the people off safely. You know that the criminal penalties for what you’re doing are severe, but if you end it now and without anyone getting hurt, there is hope for you.”
He was shaking his head slowly.
“There’s no hope for me, Kat. There hasn’t been for a long time.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Kat, it is over for me.”
She shook her head in disgust. “Stop being fatalistic and assuming your life is finished. Due process takes a long time, and a lot can happen. You just have to wait and see.”
“I don’t intend to wait.”
“What else can you do but wait and see?”
“Kat, you need to understand something here,” he replied, his eyes on the center pedestal for a while before he raised them up to search hers. “I didn’t take that deputy’s pistol to shoot Bostich.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 3:52 P.M.
When it was apparent they were going to stay in the air without hitting something, Annette Baxter left the forward jumpseat and moved into the cabin to take inventory of her wide-eyed passengers.
She could see Kevin and Bev doing the same thing in the rear of the cabin, both of them avoiding the last row where Rudy Bostich was sulking.
Louise Richardson, alone now in first class, waved at Annette and motioned to a notebook.
“I’m trying to do something useful. I’m trying to take notes on all of this.”
Annette smiled at her and moved into the coach cabin as the P.A. came alive.
“Folks, this is Ken Wolfe again. I had not planned on taking off from Telluride, at least not yet. But I had no choice. That roar you heard overhead while we were on takeoff roll was an Air Force transport trying to land to bring in a team of federal agents to deal with me. That’s why I had to get us airborne, because this isn’t over yet and I don’t want to subject you—or me—to possible commando tactics. Now. Where are we going? The answer is, I don’t know. I’m waiting for the government to tell me that my daughter’s killer is in custody, and that a grand jury has handed down a federal indictment. Both things should be forthcoming. The last item depends on Mr. Kiddie Porn back there. Bostich. I must have his confession to end this. So, if any of you would like to say anything to a man who buys pictures of little children being sexually abused, please be my guest. The sooner Bostich is ready to admit he lied, the sooner I’ll put this aircraft safely on the ground somewhere and let you go. Oh, and the phones should work again now that we have some altitude, so please use them all you like.”
Annette had been looking at the rear of the cabin when Elvira Gates’s hand reached for her sleeve, and she looked down to see the fear-of-flying group leader looking up at her with an expression of grim determination.
“You okay, Elvira?”
“That would depend,” Elvira replied.
“On what?”
She ignored the question, her eyes boring into Annette’s.
“I need to ask you a question, my dear, and I need an honest answer.”
Annette knelt beside her. “Of course.”
“Is your captain telling us the truth about his daughter?”
“Yes, I believe he is.”
Elvira Gates nodded slowly and looked over her shoulder briefly toward the rear of the airplane, then back at Annette. “I’m well aware that what he’s doing is criminal, but we’ve come this far …”
Annette shook her head. “What are you saying, Elvira?”
“I took a poll of my people. We’re all willing—all but one—to stay hostages until Mr. Bostich owns up to what he did.”
Annette was in the process of answering when a flurry of activity several rows back caught her eye.
Mike Clark, the retired police detective who’d spoken with Ken Wolfe earlier, was on his feet, charging toward the back of the cabin with an angry scowl on his face.
Annette stood up, unsure what to do.
Clark brushed past Kevin and moved rapidly to Rudy Bostich’s row as Annette began walking in the same direction. She could hear Clark’s angry voice ten rows away.
“Bostich, you sorry sonofabitch, you’re holding all of us hostage here, and by all the evidence I’ve heard, you’re guilty as hell!”
Bostich’s reply was sullen and almost inaudible. “I don’t confess to things I haven’t done.”
“Then you’re going to get us all killed.”
“Who the hell are you?” Bostich snarled.
“Who the hell am I? I’m Detective Mike Clark, retired. And you, you bastard, are obviousl
y a liar and everyone on this airplane knows it. But it so happens I already know you by reputation, Bostich. You defamed a good friend of mine back in Connecticut. Roger Matson. He’s as honest and upright a man as I’ve ever seen. That’s enough reason to distrust you, but now we find out from the FBI you’re a child pornography customer to boot. Jesus!” Clark had his fists knotted, restraining himself with considerable effort. “You did it, dirtbag, and you’re going to confess to it!”
Bostich had his jaw set, his eyes squinted, and his body molded against the seat and window in a defensive posture as he glowered back at the detective.
“I had no such things on my computer. This is some sort of amateurish attempt by the captain to force a false confession out of me, and it isn’t going to work.”
“So how about the FBI agent up there, Bostich? She in collusion?”
Bostich shrugged. “She’s a hostage. He probably threatened her to get her to say those things. If there’s anything on that computer that shouldn’t be there, Wolfe planted it.”
“Yeah, Mr. Prosecutor, like I haven’t heard that excuse from every drug dealer I ever met.” He raised his voice to a mocking falsetto. “‘Oh, dear! You mean you found three hundred pounds of crack in my basement right next to the methamphetamine lab? What a shock! That isn’t mine, Officer. I have no idea where it came from.’ Right, Bostich! Try again.”
Bostich snorted derisively. “If that maniac up there really found anything, he’d be looking at the shadowy remains of files that were there once, but were erased before I bought the computer. What are you, anyway, some hick town constable? You planning to rough me up if I don’t confess, Marshal Earp? Go crawl back under your rock. The felon in the cockpit is simply manipulating you, and you’re too stupid to realize it.”
Without a flicker of warning, the detective’s beefy hand shot out and grabbed Bostich by the collar, hauling him bodily across two airline seats and pinning him against the back wall behind the last row. Annette moved forward to stop him, then thought better of it and paused to watch as the big man put his face within inches of Bostich’s, his voice a guttural growl.
“Get this, scumbag! You’re talking to Detective Mike Clark of the Providence Police, thirty-eight years on the force, now retired with no intention of being a victim of your stupidity. I know your type, Bostich. Another slimy, slippery, snob of a legal whore who thinks he’s better than the rest of us. Captain Wolfe up there is certainly committing a bag full of felonious acts, but he’s sure got your sorry hide pegged. You’re the one holding us here, and that stops now.”
The Last Hostage Page 30