B006U13W The Flight (Jenny Cooper 4) nodrm

by M. R. Hall

  ‘Anomalies happen. You can trace a faulty servo or a leaking valve easily enough, but a one-off computer glitch is a different order of challenge altogether. If every plane that had one was grounded, there’d be virtually no carriers left in the air.’

  ‘What about Captain Farraday’s experience? Losing all flight computers and the ability to control the aircraft for twenty minutes is more than just a glitch.’

  ‘Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. A similar thing happened on a BMI A321 from Khartoum to Beirut in the summer of 2010 – all computers went down for several minutes before somehow resetting themselves. I admit it’s terrifying, but I don’t build aircraft, I just operate them.’

  ‘Farraday had been talking to Nuala Casey.’

  ‘Farraday was talking to anyone who’d listen. That was why we altered the pilots’ contracts – not to keep secrets, but to stop rumours. Having the internet buzzing with wild stories won’t make a single plane any safer. I’m very sorry about his accident, but I can assure you that’s all it was.’

  There was nothing overly polished or pre-rehearsed about Ransome’s explanations and Jenny felt that he seemed relieved to be sharing his problems with someone outside his inner circle. She watched him reach up to his tie knot and loosen his top button. Look sympathetic, she told herself, play the understanding woman.

  ‘Nuala Casey thought Farraday’s incident was more than just an anomaly,’ Jenny said. ‘That’s why she came to see you here after Christmas, isn’t it?’

  ‘Partly . . .’ He hesitated, then changed the subject. ‘What do you have to say about the theory that my plane was shot down by a missile?’

  ‘I don’t believe that. There’s no evidence of a mid-air explosion.’

  ‘I heard about the Patterson girl’s phone call – is that what you’re basing your conclusion on?’

  ‘The passenger post-mortems are the most persuasive evidence. There’s no sign of injuries caused by an explosion in the air.’

  Ransome considered her answer for a moment, turning over the possibilities in his mind. He switched the subject back again. ‘What do you know about Nuala?’

  ‘I know she sent a one-word text to her ex-boyfriend while the plane was heading for the ground. It was a password connected with an online forum she ran—’

  ‘I know about Airbuzz,’ Ransome interjected. ‘But before you jump to conclusions, Mrs Cooper, it wasn’t me who had it taken down. Look, there’s another layer to all this . . .’ He leaned forward towards her, as if taking her into his confidence. ‘Tell me about the helicopters. Did one of them fire a missile?’

  ‘That’s what the evidence suggests. And I’m beginning to think that Sir James Kendall’s inquiry must have known that very soon after the crash. It also looks as if whoever was in the helicopters cut Brogan’s lifejacket from him too.’

  ‘Who do you think was in them?’

  ‘I honestly have no idea.’

  Ransome sat back, looking like his bleakest fears had been confirmed. ‘We got hold of a leaked report from one of the salvage crew that said the avionics bay was partly blown away – it’s directly beneath the cockpit. I’m told the photograph of the “lightning strike” was taken from the other side – from an angle at which you can’t see the damage.’

  ‘Where all the flight computers are housed?’

  Ransome nodded. ‘I took it up with the security services. They weren’t happy that I knew, but they didn’t deny that it had been hit. But if they had any idea who did it, they weren’t letting on.’

  ‘Who do you think it was?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I can make an educated guess, but I’m still struggling with the reason why.’ He turned his head abruptly towards the window as if fighting to control a surge of anger. He was bitter about something; something outside his control.

  Jenny said, ‘You tell me your theory and we’ll see if it fits with what I know about some of the passengers who were on board.’

  ‘You mean Jimmy Han?’

  ‘Among others.’ She had his interest. ‘Why don’t we start from the beginning?’

  The airline’s problems had begun in May of the previous year, Ransome said, starting with an unannounced visit from an American named Doug Kennedy. He claimed to be working for the US Federal Aviation Authority, but would later admit that he was attached to the Central Intelligence Agency. Ransome had since come to believe it was the other way around: Kennedy was a senior CIA agent who formed part of a team responsible for international aviation security. ‘He had an Englishman with him by the name of Sanders – ex-military, I’d guess; he seemed to be acting as Kennedy’s man on the ground.’

  Sanders again. Now Jenny was beginning to understand his involvement more clearly. She kept her knowledge to herself and allowed Ransome to continue.

  ‘We receive security bulletins all the time,’ he explained, ‘but never personal visits. Kennedy told me that more than one intelligence source in the Far East had tipped off US agents to expect attacks on Western interests doing business with Taiwan, including airlines like ours that fly there. He said I was to report anything suspicious directly to him, and under no circumstances was I to speak to the British security services. If for some reason he wasn’t contactable, I was to speak to Sanders. He didn’t trouble himself with explanations – he simply told me that if I didn’t cooperate fully my US landing slots would vanish overnight and with it my business.’

  ‘What was his problem with the British?’

  ‘He was rather colourful on the subject – said our government was “halfway up Beijing’s ass”, and that ministers would still be sipping tea with the ambassador when Chinese tanks were rolling up Whitehall. He was a real armchair cowboy, even had the boots to go with it.’

  ‘What kind of attacks was he anticipating?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Did you talk to him again?’

  ‘He called me once or twice over the following months, but as far as I was concerned there wasn’t anything much to report. We had some technical problems, as you know, but nothing I equated with the kind of threat he had warned me of. I confess, I’d more or less forgotten about him when Captain Casey contacted my assistant asking for a meeting. I already knew about her forum and, I’ll be honest with you, I had recently taken legal advice about the best way to deal with her before she harmed my airline. Naturally, I was curious about what she had to say that was so urgent, so I invited her over.

  ‘We met here in this room. She told me that she had been speaking to my chief engineer, Mick Dalton, about what she considered was an unacceptably high incidence of faults in our flight computers and that they resembled those that had been cropping up on aircraft operated by a number of other airlines. It turned out they all had one thing in common: landing slots in Taiwan. That was interesting enough, but then she informed me that she had been contacted by Doug Kennedy, who had traced her through her internet postings. Apparently he was very exercised about a threat to computerized aircraft control systems and wanted her to attend an emergency summit he was organizing in Washington. He had expressly instructed her not to tell me – I think he assumed that for selfish reasons I would have tried to silence her – but I told her she should go; no one could have been more concerned about the safety of my aircraft than me. We agreed she would report back in confidence, and ten days later she headed out on Flight 189.’

  The fog was finally starting to lift. ‘And was this summit specifically concerned with aircraft computers?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘As far as she knew. But she thought that what had really grabbed Kennedy’s attention was a new message thread on Airbuzz about the dangers presented by integrated modular avionics.’

  ‘You’ve lost me—’

  ‘Older aircraft had sealed flight computers. They were closed systems. If a fault developed, you would replace the whole unit. On the most modern aircraft such as the A380 the computers are modular – one module for engines and fuel, one for the aileron
actuators, one for cabin pressure and so on. If there’s a problem with one part of the system you unplug a module and slot in a new one. It’s cheaper, allows for more frequent updating, and in theory it’s an easier system to maintain. The only snag is that you’re introducing vital components into a single aircraft from multiple suppliers, some of whom are using commercial off-the-shelf software. In other words, any one of a number of companies can produce a module to run a vital system—’

  The penny dropped. Jenny finished his sentence for him. ‘And if faulty or malicious software were somehow introduced into it—’

  ‘That’s the worry,’ Ransome said. ‘But big modern planes mean cheaper seats. And if I’m not the cheapest, I’m not in the sky.’

  They looked at each other, the enormity of the story leaving them at a loss for words.

  After a moment, Ransome said, ‘You mentioned other passengers on 189.’

  ‘Yes. Jimmy Han you know about, but there were several others with onward flights to Washington. It seems some of their tickets had been rearranged to ensure they were all travelling together—’

  She was interrupted by the phone ringing on the coffee table between them. Ransome answered it and listened to a message from his assistant. He looked across at Jenny. ‘There’s a Detective Inspector Williams wanting to speak to you.’

  Williams? How had he traced her here?

  She took over the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Cooper – you’re with Mr Ransome.’

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘It just came over the police radio – I expect you’ll have company in a minute. Listen, I’m at Heathrow Terminal Four. Your Mr Dalton’s just hopped on a plane to New York – Flight 199. I almost caught up with him, but it took off five minutes ago. And you’ll never guess who was raising hell at the departure gate – a Mrs Michelle Patterson. She was trying to get her husband off the flight and telling anyone who cared to listen that his company were responsible for what happened to 189. She told me he was attempting to flee jurisdiction before he was arrested. Can you tell me what the hell’s going on?’

  Jenny’s mind was racing ahead. She called over to Ransome. ‘New York Flight 199 that’s just left Heathrow – get me a passenger list now!’ Picking up with Williams, she said, ‘I need some more time. Can you put a message out that you’ve apprehended me.’

  ‘Lie, you mean?’

  ‘Call it misinformation.’

  ‘Call it shafting those English bastards and I’ll do it with pleasure, Mrs Cooper.’

  ‘Thanks. I owe you.’

  Jenny replaced the receiver and joined Ransome, who was issuing instructions down another line. Moments later his assistant was running through the door with an open laptop.

  ‘The passenger manifest—’

  The assistant set the machine down on the meeting table and opened the newly arrived email.

  Taking control of the computer, Jenny scrolled through the list of names listed in alphabetical order, their corresponding seat numbers in a column on the right.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ Ransome asked.

  Jenny didn’t hear him. Having spotted Dalton’s name she skipped straight down to the ‘Ps’. There was Patterson, Greg (Mr) 18C, then scrolling down she picked out Sanders, Thomas (Wing Cmdr) 55C, and right below him, Sherman, Michael (Mr) 57A. What was Michael doing on the flight with Sanders and Patterson? Could they have been summoned to Washington, too?

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ransome demanded.

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to Kennedy?’

  ‘Shortly after 189 went down. Why?’

  ‘Just tell me what was said.’

  ‘I called him. Naturally, I wanted to know if he had any insight into what had happened. He was adamant that what happened to 189 was nothing to do with any of the threats he’d mentioned last year. He was insistent we keep flying at all costs.’

  ‘Or what?’

  Ransome didn’t answer.

  ‘He must have said something,’ Jenny insisted.

  ‘He repeated his earlier threat . . . He said we’d lose our US landing slots.’

  ‘I try hard not to leap to unfounded conclusions,’ Jenny said, ‘but I have a feeling that the problem with your planes might be bigger than anyone dare contemplate. It seems the computers operating them have developed minds of their own, but of course computers don’t have minds, do they? They just do what someone has told them to do. And what if that someone isn’t the pilot?’

  ‘It wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t—’

  ‘Surely that depends on whether the person trying to make their point feels they’ve made it. You could trust Kennedy and carry on regardless, but if I were you I’d get this aircraft back on the ground as quickly as possible.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  FLYING CONDITIONS OVER ENGLAND were as favourable as could be expected in late January. Skies over Heathrow were bright and departures were running on time. Captain Patrick Finlay and First Officer David Cambourne had conducted their pre-flight preparations in a subdued atmosphere and Flight 199 had secured a take-off slot for eleven fifty-four a.m., six minutes ahead of schedule. Taxiing away from the stand at Heathrow, Finlay gave silent thanks. He had been the pilot originally scheduled to fly 189, but had been put out of action by a bout of full-blown flu that had laid him low for nearly a fortnight. Dan Murray and many of the cabin crew had been good friends. It would take a long time to accept they were gone.

  David Cambourne was a reassuring presence alongside Finlay in the first officer’s seat: quiet, dependable and thorough. Despite having been close to First Officer Ed Stevens and having been on friendly terms with many of 189’s cabin crew, he was dealing with his grief like a true professional. The briefest glance in a meeting room in the canteen had sealed their tacit agreement that the crash wouldn’t be mentioned. They had an aeroplane with 576 passengers on board to get safely to New York; nothing was more important than that.

  As Finlay lined up at the head of the runway for the first time in nearly three weeks, he was surprised not to feel in the least nervous. Like Dan Murray, he had cut his teeth flying older Boeings and hadn’t flown an Airbus until his early forties. Since the crash he had heard other pilots voicing their suspicions of fly-by-wire technology in the media, but he remained resolutely in favour. As a young first officer he had had his one and only brush with disaster when his captain – a man nearing retirement – had decided to try to fly over a tropical storm en route to Barbados in an ageing DC9. The Airbus simply didn’t allow a pilot to stray so far from the boundaries of safety. Better to trust to the cold logic of computers, he reasoned, than to the whims of stubborn pilots who thought they knew best.

  ‘Beautiful day,’ Finlay said, as he awaited the final word from the tower.

  ‘Enjoy it while it lasts,’ Cambourne replied, glancing at the weather display on his navigation screen. ‘Dense high-level cloud over mid-Wales and a hundred-mile-an-hour headwind all the way from Anglesey to Iceland.’

  Finlay ran a swift mental check on his fuel contingency. Ransome’s insistence on loading light always made him a little insecure, especially on a transatlantic crossing, but he was confident that he had taken on more than enough to cope with a little wind.

  He watched the American Airlines 747 that had been queuing ahead of them slowly lift from the ground and take to the air.

  Word came through from the tower. ‘Skyhawk 1–9-9 cleared for take-off runway two seven left, wind two three zero at ten.’

  First Officer Cambourne replied: ‘Cleared for take-off runway two seven left, Skyhawk 1–9-9.’

  Captain Finlay released the brakes and moved the four thrust levers forward. The flight management computers did the rest, pushing the engines up to the pre-set take-off thrust level of 88 per cent of maximum power. As the aircraft weighing over one million pounds slowly picked up speed, it struck Finlay that the thrust lever he was gripping tightly in his left hand was for no one�
��s benefit other than his own. It was merely an electrical selector switch whose function could as easily have been performed by a tiny joystick a few centimetres high. One day soon pilots would lose the emotional attachment to controls that mimicked the manual levers of the analogue age; flying a plane would be more akin to a video game and, some even predicted, more safely done remotely from the ground.

  Moments later the only sound in the cockpit was the gentle hum of the engines as Flight 199 began its slow, sweeping pre-programmed turn to the west. Finlay ran his eye over the array of screens that seemed to envelop him and felt there was something deep in the human psyche that was profoundly excited by a machine so far removed from the baseness of nature. As they passed through 5,000 feet, leaving the ugly sprawl of London far behind, he realized what that was: the world below was stuck in the inexorable cycle of life and death; this wonderful craft was a glimpse of immortality.

  Michael looked down from his window seat at the green Berkshire countryside flitting beneath wisps of cloud. He had expected to feel uneasy aboard the 380, but it appeared so solid and enormous, and the seats were so comfortable, that he was already beginning to sense the gentle pull of sleep. God knows, he could do with some. Sitting at the bar in the departure lounge, he had declined Dalton’s offer of a pill, preferring a large Bloody Mary, and then another. Sanders had drunk tonic water. He was still on duty and wouldn’t relax until he had safely delivered both men to Kennedy. Michael had a lot of questions for the American when they met, and if he didn’t get answers he fancied he might punch the bastard’s lights out.

  It had been a hell of a two weeks, a hell of a twenty years. There had numerous pilots he’d known whom he hadn’t expected to see grow old, but Nuala was never one of them. He had had a colleague in the RAF who had become so tightly wound during their first tour in Afghanistan that he would have laid money on him putting a bullet through his head if he managed not to be shot down; more than a decade later he was still very much alive and well. It was Nuala, the sensible, capable one, who had fallen from the sky; Nuala, the kind and beautiful girl he had loved, but was so scared he’d hurt that he’d walked away.