Sorentino got into the cab of his RIV and moved off ahead of the tug vehicle, leading it to a taxiway that in turn led to the security area, not far from Runway Four-Right.
Sorentino could hear all kinds of chatter on his radio frequencies. No one sounded very happy. He broadcast, "Unit One moving, tug and aircraft in tow, Unit Four in trail."
Sorentino maintained a fifteen-mile-per-hour speed, which was all that the tug could do pulling a 750,000-pound aircraft behind it. He checked his sideview mirrors to make sure he wasn't too close or too far from the aircraft. The view in his mirrors was very strange, he thought. He was being followed by a weird vehicle that didn't know its ass from its dick, and behind the vehicle was this monster silver aircraft, being pulled along like a string toy. Jesus, what a day this turned out to be.
Inaction is not John Corey's middle name, and I said to George Foster, "I'm again requesting permission to go out to the tarmac."
Foster seemed indecisive as usual, so Kate said to me, "Okay, John, you have permission to go down to the tarmac. No further."
"I promise," I said.
Ms. Del Vecchio turned and punched in a code on the door's keypad. The door opened, and I walked through it, down the long jetway, and descended the service stairs of the jetway to the tarmac.
The convoy that was to take us to Federal Plaza was grouped close to the terminal building. I moved quickly to one of the Port Authority police cars, flashed my tin, and said to the uniformed officer, "The subject aircraft is stalled at the end of the runway. I need to get to it now." I got into the passenger side, deeply regretting my lie to Kate.
The young PA cop said, "I thought the Emergency Service guys were bringing your passenger here."
"Change of plans."
"Okay . . ." He started driving slowly, and at the same time called Tower Control to get permission to cross the runways.
I was aware of someone running alongside the car and by the looks of him, he had to be FBI agent Jim Lindley. He called out, "Stop."
The Port Authority cop stopped the car.
Lindley identified himself and said to me, "Who are you?"
"Corey."
"Oh . . . where you going?"
"Out to the aircraft."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Who authorized—"
All of a sudden, Kate came up to the car and said, "It's okay, Jim. We're just going to check it out." She jumped in the back seat.
I said to the driver, "Let's go."
The driver said, "I'm waiting for permission to cross—"
A guy's voice came over the speaker and said, "Who's asking for permission to cross the runways and why?"
I grabbed the microphone and said, "This is . . ." Who was I? "This is the FBI. We need to get out to the aircraft. Who is this?"
"This is Mr. Stavros, Tower Control Supervisor. Look, you can't cross—"
"It's an emergency."
"I know there's an emergency. But why do you have to cross—"
I said, "Thank you." I told the Port Authority cop, "Cleared for take-off."
The PA cop protested, "He didn't—"
"Lights and siren. I really need you to do this for me."
The cop shrugged, and the car moved off the tarmac toward the taxiway, its flashers and siren going.
The Tower Control guy, Stavros, came on the speaker again, and I turned down the volume.
Kate spoke for the first time and said to me, "You lied to me."
"Sorry."
The PA cop cocked his thumb over his shoulder and asked me, "Who's that?"
"That's Kate. I'm John. Who are you?"
"Al. Al Simpson." He turned onto the grass and followed the taxiway east. The car bumped badly. He said, "Best to stay off the taxiways and runways."
"You're the boss," I informed him.
"What kind of emergency?"
"Sorry, I can't say." Actually, I had no idea.
Within a minute, we could see a big 747 silhouetted on the horizon.
Simpson turned and crossed over a taxiway, then headed across more grass, avoiding all kinds of signs and lights, and headed toward a big runway. He said to me, "I really need to call Tower Control."
"No, you don't."
"FAA regulations. You can't cross—"
"Don't worry about it. I'll keep an eye out for airplanes."
Simpson crossed the wide runway.
Kate said to me again, "If you're trying to get fired, you're doing a good job."
The 747 didn't look as though it were too far away, but it was an optical illusion and the silhouette didn't get much bigger as we traveled cross-country toward it. "Step on it," I said.
The patrol car bounced badly over a patch of rough terrain.
Kate asked me, "Do you have a theory you'd like to share with me?"
"No."
"No, you don't have a theory, or no, you don't want to share?"
"Both."
"Why are we doing this?"
"I got tired of Foster and Nash."
"I think you're showing off."
"We'll see when we get to the plane."
"You like to throw the dice, don't you?"
"No, I don't like to throw the dice. I have to throw the dice."
Officer Simpson was listening to Kate and me, but offered no insights and took no sides.
We drove on in silence, and the 747 still seemed out of reach, like a desert mirage.
Finally, Kate said, "Maybe I'll try to back you up."
"Thanks, partner." This, I guess, is what passes as unconditional loyalty amongst the Feds.
I looked at the 747 again, and this time it definitely hadn't gotten any bigger. I said, "I think it's moving."
Simpson peered out the window. "Yeah . . . but . . . I think they're towing it."
"Why would they tow it?"
"Well . . . I know they shut down the engines, so sometimes it's easier to get a tow instead of restarting them."
"You mean you don't just turn a key?"
Simpson laughed.
We were making better time than the 747 and the distance started to close. I said to Simpson, "Why aren't they towing it this way? Toward the terminal?"
"Well . . . it would seem to me that they're heading toward the hijack area."
"What?"
"I mean, the security area. Same difference."
I glanced back at Kate, and I could see she was concerned.
Simpson turned his radio volume up, and we listened to the radio traffic. What we heard was mostly orders, reports on the movement of vehicles, a lot of Port Authority mumbo jumbo that I couldn't make out, but no situation report. I guess everyone else knew the situation but us. I asked Simpson, "Can you tell what's going on?"
"Not really . . . but I can tell it's not a hijacking. Don't think it's mechanical either. I hear a lot of Emergency Service trucks going back to the house."
"How about medical?"
"Don't think so—I can tell by the call signs that they're not calling for backup medical—" He stopped short and said, "Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh, what?"
Kate leaned forward between us.
"Simpson? Uh-oh, what?"
"They're calling for the MM and the ME."
Which means Mobile Morgue and Medical Examiner, which means corpses.
I said to Simpson, "Step on it."
CHAPTER 10
Andy McGill peeled off his hot bunker suit and threw it on an empty seat beside a dead woman. He wiped the sweat from his neck and pulled the fabric of his dark blue police shirt away from his wet body.
His radio crackled, and he heard his call sign. He spoke into the mouthpiece, "Unit Eight-One. Go ahead."
It was Lieutenant Pierce again, and McGill winced. Pierce said in a patronizing voice, "Andy, we don't want to bug you, but we have to be sure, for the record, that we're not missing an opportunity to deliver medical aid to the passengers."
McGill glanced through the open cockpit door and ou
t the windshield. He could see the opening of the enclosed security pen only about a hundred feet ahead. In fact, Sorentino was nearly at the gates now.
"Andy?"
"Look, I personally checked out about a hundred passengers in each of the three cabins—sort of like a survey. They are all cool and getting colder. In fact, I'm in the dome now, and it's starting to stink."
"Okay . . . just checking." Lieutenant Pierce continued, "I'm in the security area now, and I see you're almost here."
"Roger. Anything further?"
"Negative. Out."
McGill put the radio on his belt hook.
His eyes went to the three men he was supposed to escort out of the aircraft. He walked over to the two sitting together—the Federal agent and his cuffed prisoner.
McGill, because he was a cop first and a fireman second, thought he should retrieve the pistols so there would be no problem later if they disappeared. He opened the suit jacket of the agent and found the belt holster, but there was no piece in it. "What the hell . . . ?"
He moved to the agent in the row behind and checked for a pistol, again finding the holster but no gun. Strange. Something else to worry about.
McGill realized he was very thirsty and moved to the rear galley. He knew he shouldn't be taking anything, but he was parched. He tried to ignore the stewardess on the floor as he looked around. He found a small can of club soda in the bar cabinet, fought with his conscience for half a second, then popped open the can and took a long swig. He decided he needed something stronger and unscrewed the top of a miniature bottle of Scotch. He downed the Scotch in one gulp, chased it with club soda, and threw the can and bottle into the trash bin. He let out a little burp, and it felt good.
The aircraft was slowing, and he knew that when it stopped, the cabins would be swarming with people. Before that happened and before he had to talk to the bosses, he had to pee.
He stepped out of the galley, went to the door of the lavatory and pulled on it, but it was locked. The little red sign said OCCUPIED.
He stood there a second, confused. He'd checked the lav when he came into the dome. This made no sense. He tugged on the door again, and this time it opened.
Standing in the lavatory facing him was a tall, dark man wearing a blue jumpsuit with a Trans-Continental logo on the breast pocket.
McGill was speechless for a second, then managed to say, "How did you . . ."
He looked at the man's face and saw two deep black eyes boring into him.
The man raised his right hand, and McGill saw that the man had a lap blanket wrapped around his hand and arm, which seemed odd. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am Asad Khalil."
McGill barely heard the muffled sound of the shot and never felt the .40 caliber bullet piercing his forehead.
"And you are dead," said Asad Khalil.
Tony Sorentino passed through the opening of the security pen, aka the hijack area.
He looked around. This was a huge horseshoe-shaped enclosure with sodium vapor lights mounted on tall stanchions, and he was reminded of a baseball stadium, except that the whole area was paved with concrete.
He hadn't been in the security pen for a few years, and he looked around. The blast fence rose about twelve feet high, and every thirty feet or so was a shooter's platform behind the fence. Every platform had an armored shield with a gun slit, though no one was manning any of the positions as far as he could tell.
He looked in his sideview mirrors to be certain the tug guy hadn't panicked at the opening and stopped his vehicle. The fence on each side of the opening was low enough so that the wings of just about any commercial jetliner would clear, but the tug guys didn't always get it.
The tug was still behind Sorentino and the wings of the 747 sailed over the fence. "Keep moving, bozo. Follow Tony."
He glanced around at the scene spread out over the concrete. Nearly everyone had gotten here before him. He spotted the Mobile Incident Command Center, a huge van inside of which were radios, telephones, and bosses. They had direct communication with half the world, and by now they'd called the NYPD, the FBI, the FAA, maybe even the Coast Guard, who sometimes helped out with helicopters. For sure they'd called the Customs people and the Passport Control people. Even if the passengers were all dead, Sorentino thought, no one got into the USA without going through Customs and Passport Control. There were only two differences in today's procedures—one, everything would be done here and not at the terminal, and two, the passengers didn't have to answer any questions.
Sorentino slowed his RIV and checked his position and the position of the 747. A few more feet and they'd be centered.
Sorentino also spotted the mobile morgue and a bigger refrigerator truck near it, surrounded by a lot of people in white—the crew who would tag and bag the passengers.
On each side of the enclosure were mobile staircase trucks, six in all. Standing near each mobile staircase were his own guys, Port Authority cops and EMS people, positioned to get on board and begin the shitty job of unloading the corpses.
He also saw a lot of Trans-Continental vehicles—trucks, conveyor belts, rollers, baggage carts, and a scissor truck to unload the baggage containers in the hold. There were about twenty Trans-Continental baggage handlers standing around in their blue jumpsuits, holding their leather gloves. These guys usually had to hustle or a supervisor was up their ass. But the unloading of Flight 175 was not going to be timed.
Sorentino also spotted a Port Authority mobile X-ray truck to check out the baggage. He also noticed four catering trucks, which weren't there to put food on board, he knew. The catering trucks, which could raise their cabins hydraulically to the level of the 747 doors, were actually the best way to unload bodies.
Everybody was here, he thought, everybody and everything that normally took place at the terminal was here. Everybody except the people waiting for Flight 175 to get to the gate. Those poor bastards, Sorentino thought, they'd be in a private room soon with Trans-Continental officials.
Sorentino tried to imagine Trans-Continental making all those notifications, keeping track of what morgue the bodies were in, getting the baggage and personal effects back to the families. Jesus.
And then, in a few days or weeks, when this 747 was all checked out and the problem was fixed, it would be back on the line, earning money for the company. Sorentino wondered if the passengers' families would get rebates on the tickets.
A Port Authority cop was standing in front of Sorentino's RIV now and motioning him forward a little, then the guy held up his hands and Sorentino stopped. He checked his sideview mirrors to make sure the idiot in the tug stopped, too, which he did. Sorentino reached up and turned off his rotating beam. He took a deep breath, then put his face into his hands and felt tears running down his cheeks, which surprised him because he didn't know he was crying.
CHAPTER 11
Kate, Officer Simpson, and I didn't say much, we just listened to the patrol car radio. Simpson switched frequencies and made a call directly to one of the Emergency Service vehicles. He identified himself and said, "What's the problem with Trans-Continental One-Seven-Five?"
A voice came over the speaker and said, "Seems to be toxic fumes. No fire. All souls lost."
There was complete silence in the patrol car.
The speaker said, "Copy?"
Simpson cleared his throat and replied, "Copy, all souls lost. Out."
Kate said, "My God . . . can that be?"
Well, what more was there to say? Nothing. And that's what I said. Nothing.
Officer Simpson found the taxi way that led to the security area. There was no urgency any longer, and, in fact, Simpson slowed down to the fifteen-miles-per-hour speed limit, and I didn't say anything.
The sight in front of us was almost surreal—this huge aircraft lumbering along the taxiway toward this strange-looking wall of steel that had a wide opening in it.
The 747 passed through the opening in the wall, and the wings passed over the
top of the wall.
Within a minute, we were up to the opening, but there were other trucks and cars ahead of us who'd waited until the 747 cleared. The other vehicles—an assortment of everything I'd ever seen on wheels—started to follow the 747, causing a small traffic jam.
I said to Simpson, "Meet us inside." I jumped out of the patrol car and started running. I heard a door slam behind me and heard Kate's footsteps gaining on me.
I didn't know why I was running, but something in my head said, "Run!" So I ran, feeling that little pencil-shaped scar area in my lung giving me a problem.
Kate and I did some broken-field running around the vehicles and within a minute we were inside this huge enclosure, filled with vehicles, people, and one 747. It looked like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Maybe the X-Files.
People who run attract attention, and we were stopped by a uniformed Port Authority cop, who was joined quickly by his sergeant. The sergeant said, "Where's the fire, folks?"
I tried to catch my breath and say, "FBI," but only managed a sort of whistle that came out of my bad lung.
Kate held up her Fed creds and said, without any huffing or puffing, "FBI. We have a fugitive and escorts aboard that aircraft."
I got my creds out and stuck the case in my outside breast pocket, still trying to catch my breath.
The Port Authority sergeant said, "Well, there's no rush." He added, "All dead."
Kate said, "We have to board the aircraft to take charge of . . . the bodies."
"We have people to do that, miss."
"Sergeant, our escorts are carrying guns as well as sensitive documents. This is a matter of national security."
"Hold on." He put his hand out, and the police officer beside him laid a radio in his palm. The sergeant transmitted and waited. He said to us, "Lots of radio traffic."
I was tempted to get uppity, but I waited.
The sergeant said, while we waited, "This bird came in total NO-RAD-"
"We know that," I said, happy that I'd picked up this jargon recently.
I looked at the 747, which had stopped in the center of the enclosure. Mobile staircases were being driven up to the doors, and soon there would be people on board.
Nelson Demille - [John Corey 2] Page 8