58 Minutes

by Walter Wager

  "I suppose that shorthand they talk helps."

  Wilber nodded and gestured toward one of the radar sets.

  "So does the hardware," he said. "We've got Airport Surveillance Radar to monitor what's flying within thirty miles of here, Airport Surface Detection Radar to control what's moving on the ground, Instrument Landing Systems, Approach Lighting Systems and a lot of other gear. And we've got damn good professionals to work it."

  Now he saw the trim woman at the desk hang up the phone.

  "First-class supervisors, too," he continued. "I'd like you to meet the watch supervisor who runs this shift. Smart, fast, cool—nothing ever bothers her. Annie, could you spare us a minute?"

  She turned at the same time that Malone did. She took two steps toward them and stopped. Wilber immediately realized that he was wrong about his watch supervisor. Something was bothering her right now, and it wasn't anything small. He'd never seen her like this before.

  She was staring at Frank Malone.

  She seemed to be very angry.

  10

  "SOMETHING WRONG?" Wilber asked.

  "No," she replied curtly.

  She was speaking to Wilber, but she was looking at Frank Malone.

  "Annie, if this is a bad time . . ." Wilber resumed.

  "It isn't."

  Even though she'd graduated at the top of her class from the FAA controllers' academy in Oklahoma City, Annabelle Green hadn't risen to become one of the few female watch supervisors by talking sharply to her bosses. There was something more than anger in her tone, Wilber decided. Whatever it was, this wasn't the moment to inquire.

  Not with an outsider present. Part of the public still wasn't entirely sure that the "new" controllers hired after the 1981 strike had enough experience, and newspapers kept questioning whether there were nearly enough of them. The inflated stories about nervous pressure and emotional burnout didn't help either. The last thing the air traffic manager for JFK needed was to have a senior New York City police officer see a watch supervisor pour out her problems or discontent.

  Short and sweet.

  That would do it.

  Wilber would make a quick introduction and hurry Ma-lone away to meet his daughter's flight.

  "We've only got a few seconds, Annie. I'd like to introduce Captain Malone of the police department."

  She didn't answer. It was Malone who spoke.

  "How've you been, Annie?"

  "You know the captain?" Wilber asked.

  Still staring, she shook her head.

  "I once thought I did," she replied. "He wasn't a captain then."

  Now Wilber recognized the other ingredient in her bitter expression. It was hurt.

  "I was just a dumb college kid," Malone recalled soberly. "That was a long time ago."

  Then he looked at his watch.

  "I'd really like to talk with you, Annie," he said, "but I have to go now."

  "You always did," she answered and walked away to check a message clattering in on one of the teleprinters.

  Peter Wilber didn't ask the question until he and Malone were at the bottom of the stairs from The Cab.

  "I don't mean to pry, but what was that all about?"

  To his surprise, Frank Malone suddenly remembered it clearly. He saw it in small disconnected bursts, like badly edited film clips. Walking hand in hand on the bank of the Charles . . . making love—her first carnal experience . . . her silent weeping when he left.

  "She's still beautiful," Malone said.

  "And mad enough to spit. What the hell did you do to that woman?" Wilber asked a moment before opening the metal security door.

  "It's what I didn't do—stay. Instead of going to law school and staying with her, I enlisted and went to Vietnam."

  "Enlisted?"

  Malone didn't seem to hear the question.

  "I heard that she was married," he said.

  "She's a widow—a very peaceful one until two minutes ago."

  "I didn't plan this," the detective reminded him.

  "I know. Jeezus, you're the only person I've ever seen rattle her—in four years. And you did pretty well stirring up Ben Hamilton, too."

  "It's a gift," Malone answered. "Just last week the commissioner complimented my terrific 'human relations.' "

  Wilber recognized the sadness beneath the irony.

  "I don't want to get into your private life, Captain . . ."

  "It's kind of messy," Malone said and pressed the elevator button.

  "You realize that she doesn't really hate you?"

  "Let's talk about security. I'm better at that," Malone said.

  "My business if safety, not security. Radar not guns."

  "Okay, how safe is your radar? What happens if a plane crashes into the tower or somebody fires a rocket into The Cab? Or blasts the tower with three hundred pounds of plastic explosives?"

  "We're still in business," Wilber replied confidently. "Our whole U.S. air traffic control operation is based on backup systems to deal with just about anything. Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark have overlapping radar coverage. So even if this tower was totally destroyed, the planes would be landed safely."

  "If the runways haven't been bombed or dynamited," Malone said and pushed the elevator button again impatiently.

  "Worst-case scenario, right?" Wilber tested.

  "I've got worse than that. Could it happen?"

  "It never has—anywhere—in peacetime, Captain."

  Terrorists and guerrillas were waging war around the world, Malone thought grimly, but many intelligent people such as Peter Wilber hardly noticed it. It hadn't come to their cities—yet.

  "Humor me," the detective urged. "Could it happen?"

  "It's theoretically possible," Wilber admitted and then he smiled. "We've got a system to deal with that, too. Pilots have to file flight plans, and every airliner's flight plan includes an alternate airport to be used if the plane can't land at the scheduled destination. If an airport's out of service, its tower radios inbound traffic to divert to the alternate. You want the rest?"

  "Why not?"

  "Every airliner is required to carry extra fuel for that. Part one twenty-one, Federal Aviation Regulations. It takes one gallon of jet fuel to haul four, so tankering that nonrevenue fuel reserve boosts the prices of airline tickets a bit. Any more far-out scenarios, Captain?"

  "Listen, I'm doing my job," Malone said. "It isn't that different from yours. We're both in the life-and-death business. Your system is terrific, but people made it and people run it, so it can't be impregnable. And I'm only half paranoid. There are terrorists out there."

  Wilber shrugged.

  "If you don't have any more questions, Captain . . ."

  "Just one," Malone broke in as he jabbed the "down" button for the third time. "Is there something wrong with this damn elevator?"

  Seven and a half miles away in the warehouse, Takeshi Ito was listening to a radio. It was a special set that could pick up both police calls and conversations between airport controllers and pilots. It was tuned to the frequency of the FAA's TRACON at Westbury.

  Ito had no trouble understanding the rapid-fire dialogue.

  He was used to it.

  The Red Brigade electronics expert had been eavesdropping on these conversations for weeks. The Americans made it easy. There were plenty of stores selling these sets to hobbyists who enjoyed listening to official transmitters on these relatively inexpensive transceivers.

  Delta 59 was being handed off to the JFK tower. Piedmont 47 was told to descend to 18,000 feet. BA 126 was ordered to hold at 14,000. Trans World 22 Heavy acknowledged a new heading, and U.S. Air 31 was handed off by New York Center to the TRACON five seconds later. The voice from Aerovias 16 sounded Hispanic. Then Ito heard a French-accented pilot from Tarman 2, followed by clipped tones from JAL 93 that Ito identified immediately. That was the speech of a fellow Japanese talking English. This was probably Japan Air Lines' nightly cargo flight from Tokyo, the earnest engineer decided.


  Ito had a cousin who flew as a JAL navigator. It didn't matter whether his cousin was up in that jet, of course. The Cause was much more important than any obsolete notions of family. Takeski Ito was the New Japanese Man, free of those primitive traditions. History, custom, ritual meant nothing to him. He had no past, and no one could stop him from seizing the future. If they tried, he'd kill them.

  He wasn't thinking of any of this now. He was concentrating on the flow of radio messages. When the phone beside him rang, he looked at the clock before he raised the instrument to his ear.

  It was 7:57.

  "Three minutes," Staub said.

  "Check," Ito confirmed.

  "I'll be in touch," Staub told him and hung up. He was standing in a phone booth four miles from the Kennedy control tower. He wasn't wearing the Loden coat anymore. He had changed to the attire of a priest before he checked out of the motel half an hour earlier. The black shoes, black clerical garb, black raincoat and hat were appropriate, he reflected. Black was the color of death and mourning, wasn't it?

  All the charges were in place.

  All his people were in position.

  Glancing from the phone booth, he saw the Arab waiting at the wheel of the truck ten yards away. Achmed was the one he knew best. That was why Staub had chosen him to be his driver and bodyguard tonight. If there should be an armed confrontation, Achmed wouldn't panic. He had courage, and he was almost as good a shot as Staub.

  Not that anything could go wrong tonight.

  His carefully designed assault was brilliant. So was the backup.

  It would all come as a shattering surprise, he gloated and studied his wristwatch again.

  Forty seconds.

  11

  IT WAS a mistake.

  He should never have agreed to do it, the man with the black leather attaché case thought grimly.

  All the other passengers near him in the First-Class section of BA 126 seemed to be relaxed. A few appeared to be bored. The man with the leather case was acutely uneasy.

  No, there was no point in lying.

  He was afraid.

  It had been bad enough last time, but this was much worse. He could feel the danger all around him. He had thought that he could do it. He had trained for this, and they'd assured him that he'd have no problem. He'd been a fool to believe them.

  He was going to die.

  He knew it.

  His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. He could hardly swallow. His stomach was knotted. Now he felt it convulse in another spasm, and he barely managed not to throw up. Wide-eyed and sheeted with perspiration, he silently cursed his stupidity.

  He forced himself to remember the training. It all seemed confused now. Suddenly he heard the blond flight attendant's crisp cheery voice over the loudspeakers.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts and extinguish your cigarettes. In a few minutes we'll be landing at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport."

  She continued talking, but he only half heard the words. Whatever she was saying so briskly didn't matter. Another wave of dizziness blurred his vision. The coppery taste of terror filled his mouth as he battled against the panic. One numbing thought swept through his mind again and again, as if on a continuous tape loop. His life was about to end.

  In The Cab atop the Kennedy Tower, the controllers were busy guiding seventeen aircraft in the sky and on the ground. Long-haired J. J. Seigenthaler had gone to the eighth-floor "staff lounge" for a cup of coffee, but the others were coping well and he'd be back in ten minutes so someone else could take a break.

  This should have been a relatively stress-free period for The Cab team—the heavy traffic period that made 4:30 to 7:30 P.M. a pressure cooker was over—but the snow was creating new complications for both the pilots and the controllers, and the FAA specialists in The Cab felt it. Annabelle Green almost welcomed it. The continuing need to concentrate intensely made it impossible to think about Frank Malone. It had been a shock to see him, and she didn't want to deal with that now.

  It was disturbing that he could still move her so.

  Was it the man or the memory?

  She had tried to answer that when he left The Cab. Then she had realized that she'd never know, for she wouldn't ever see him again. The wedding ring on his left hand guaranteed that. Frank Malone had always been a man of quiet principle. That was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him.

  She had nearly wept after he left The Cab. It was the planes that had saved her. They had forced her back to the reality of here and now. Escaping into the safety of her responsibilities and work, she had regained her self-control and focus. Within half a minute after he'd gone, she was the competent supervisor again—moving across the room, checking with her team, considering details and making de-cisions.

  She was functioning smoothly when the telephone rang. The others were "working" the planes, so she answered it. That was part of her job.

  "Kennedy Tower," she said.

  "Listen carefully," Staub ordered in a voice disguised with an Hispanic accent. "This is Number One. In two minutes—at eight o'clock—we will knock out your radar. Instructions will follow."

  Then she heard the dial tone.

  For a few seconds she wondered whether it had been a very bad joke or some lunatic. Whatever it was, there were specific, standard procedures for what to do in such a situation. There had been a threat to interfere with the safety of air traffic, and it was the watch supervisor's duty to signal an immediate "security" alert.

  In the adjacent International Arrivals Building, Wilber and Malone were descending the last few steps to the crowded ground floor. Looking down, the detective noticed a man in the white garb of a hospital attendant and guessed that he was the driver of the Mount Sinai van parked outside. Off to the right, the throng of reporters ringing Senator Joseph Bono had grown larger. Now Bono saw Malone on the stairs and remembered meeting him at a breakfast honoring medal-winning police heroes. As a good politician should, the senator waved and Frank Malone gestured back politely in obligatory response.

  "Mr. Gregory Kincaid . . . Mr. Gregory John Kincaid. Please call extension two-two-two-two," the overhead public address system rasped.

  Wilber froze.

  "Gregory John Kincaid. Call extension two-two-two-two," the metallic voice repeated.

  "Security alert in The Cab," the FAA official translated.

  "Let's go," Malone responded immediately.

  They ran. Pushing startled people aside, they raced up the steps against the flow of descending men and women. They sprinted past the DEA supervisor and his female aide to the tower lobby. Recognizing Wilber, the uniformed guard let them by without delay.

  "What is it?" Wilber asked when they entered The Cab fifty seconds later.

  "A man just phoned that they were going to knock out our radar at exactly eight o'clock," Annabelle Green reported.

  "Is that possible?" Malone asked swiftly.

  "No," Wilber answered, "but you did the right thing, Annie."

  "I went by the book."

  "That's the right thing," Wilber told her. "There's nothing to worry about. It was probably some crank."

  "Is The Cab number listed?" the detective asked.

  She shook her head.

  "Did he tell you who they were? Any name?" Malone pressed.

  "He called himself Number One."

  "Take it easy, Captain," Wilber counseled. "It's just eight now and everything's fine."

  He pointed at the nearest radar set and they looked.

  At that moment all the electronic "blips" on the screen disappeared.

  12

  WILBER stared at the nearest screen in stunned disbelief.

  "Hey," the controller at that radar said with a puzzled frown. "I've lost them."

  Annie Green didn't waste time talking. She hurried to check the three other screens.

  "We've lost them all," she told Wilber and Malone. "Every plane on every screen�
�on the ground and in flight— has vanished."

  "That's impossible!" Wilber insisted.

  Now other controllers were speaking, swearing, questioning. They were all talking when the watch supervisor's firm clear voice cut through their words. They immediately stopped to listen.

  "I'm declaring a radar emergency," she announced in a tone of complete calm and authority. "It may be sabotage. We'll find out—second. First we start standard emergency procedures, right now. Stanley, call for technicians to check the equipment. Betsy, notify the TRACON to alert the Newark and La Guardia towers we need help. Ground Control, hold all planes at the gate or on taxiways."

  She was cool and precise. Wilber nodded in professional approval.

  "Those working inbound traffic, radio them at once that we have a temporary problem with the ASR-seven," she continued swiftly. "They're to maintain altitude for a few minutes until we shift to nonradar landing procedures."

  "Perfect" Wilber commended and turned to Malone as the controllers hurried to carry out her instructions. "We can bring those planes down by ILS—Instrument Landing System—and radio if we have to. I told you that we had good backup systems, Captain."

  "I bet he knows that, too," the detective replied.

  "He?"

  "The man who called."

  The telephone rang. Wilber started to reach for the instrument.

  "Don't! Let Annie take it," Malone said quickly. "She knows his voice."

  The air traffic manager shrugged in assent, and she picked up the receiver.

  "Don't waste your time, puta," Staub taunted before she could say a word. "You can't fix it."

  She pointed to the receiver in her other hand and nodded. Then she held up a single finger.

  It was the man who called himself Number One.

  "Your radar's down, and we're taking out your ILS and radio next," the terrorist announced.

  Malone and Wilber saw her flinch.

  "Why are you doing this? What do you want?" she de-mended tensely.