“And if they do? Then what?” Jason asked her pointedly. That was going to be a serious issue, especially with no air marshal on board, but Jason didn’t know that.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said, seeming unworried. Jason left the cockpit a few minutes later to carry out his mission, and Connor looked at her.
“Is there a bigger issue than that?” he asked, and she hesitated and shook her head. He wasn’t part of the crew on this flight, and she didn’t want to share the details with him. It might turn out to be nothing. “If there’s anything you need me to do, let me know.”
“I will,” she said with a smile to reassure him. “Don’t worry. Just enjoy the flight.” As soon as Jason got back, the door locked behind him automatically. Ben had suggested she keep the cockpit sterile and let no one in except the flight crew until they knew more, and she agreed with him. “I think we’ll skip lunch, gentlemen, until we know more about our passengers on this flight.” She didn’t want to take any chances. She looked remarkably calm and unconcerned as they rode on in silence after that. Ben hadn’t said there was an actual threat to the flight. He had just superficially mentioned San Francisco. But Helen knew better than anyone that anything could happen in today’s world, and it didn’t have to be political. All it took was one dangerous person, determined to bring a plane down. And all they could do now was wait for Ben to call them with news from the CIA.
Chapter Five
They had the crew profiles in less than three minutes and passed them around. The airline personnel office had provided them immediately. Ben divided them into two stacks for the two flights as he read them. He was looking for danger signs, and Amanda scrutinized them minutely and read each one several times, before putting them back on each stack.
Ben kept going over the files of the three pilots on board the A321 again and again. Something wasn’t working for him. They still didn’t know if they had a problem, but if they did, it could have been one of the three pilots in the cockpit, a member of the cabin crew, or anyone on board. It sounded crazy even to him when he said it out loud. He remembered that Bernice was in the room then, and might have noticed something unusual about the people who went through security before the two flights. Everything seemed to be in order on the 757. He wasn’t as sure about the A321. He questioned her, and she nodded slowly, thinking back to when she had come on duty and what she’d seen. But nothing had seemed unusual to her until she found the postcard in the bin.
“What did you notice about the crew?” Ben asked her intensely. “Any small odd detail?”
Bernice closed her eyes for a minute, trying to remember everything. “I noticed that the pilot was a woman, and she looked friendly and nice. She wasn’t talking much, but she seemed pleasant. And the copilot was kind of a smart-ass. He made a nasty comment about most of the TSA agents being African American, and the pilot called him on it and threatened to write him up. He didn’t say anything after that. The flight attendants didn’t do or say anything special. They went through pretty quickly. They always do.”
Ben nodded. It wasn’t the flight attendants he was concerned about. It was the cockpit crew. “If we’re looking for trouble,” he said quietly, in the privacy of the room, after he asked Bernice to leave for a few minutes, “we have the potential for it with any of the flight crew on the A321. We have a pilot who had a TIA two days ago, which caused a decision to retire him immediately, after a distinguished forty-year career. He could be bitter about it, angry at the airline, or even suicidal. He has no psychiatric history, but his wife died last year. Now he’s lost his job. He could be planning some kind of revenge on the airline, and if he is, this is his last chance. He’s in the perfect place to do that. He’s in the cockpit, and he sure as hell knows how to fly that plane.
“Helen Smith has gone through more than any human being ever should for the past two years. She left the Air Force, which is the only life she ever knew. She grew up with her father, an Air Force colonel. She came to work for the airline and expected her husband to join her months later. Instead, he was shot down in Iraq, taken prisoner, and the whole world watched him get his head sliced off on TV. I’m not sure how you recover from that. She’s living in an unfamiliar place, managing three kids. I don’t know if she has money troubles or not, but she has every right to a psychotic break, or could even want to commit suicide. I can’t imagine her doing it and taking a whole plane of people down with her, with her record, but if she snapped, no one would be surprised.” He himself had been through so much less than that when the hostages were killed, and he had thought of suicide several times after it happened, out of remorse over the way it had turned out and the people who had died, but he didn’t say that to Dave and Amanda, who were listening raptly to him. “She may feel guilty for leaving Iraq before he did, or have survivor guilt. There’s no sign of it, but she would have a right to mental problems more than anyone I know.
“And Jason Andrews is a loose cannon. It’s all here in his files. Every kind of insubordination and attitude problem. He’s probably mad at the airline for slowing his progress down because of it. He’s been passed over for several promotions, because of his attitude, not his skills. It says here that he’s a more than capable pilot, but he can’t keep his mouth shut, and he was referred to anger management classes two years ago. From what I’m reading here, I’m surprised that they haven’t fired him. He sounds like a giant pain in the ass. And if they do fire him, he can look forward to life as a waiter. Flying is the only thing he knows, and no one is going to hire him as a pilot if the airline lets him go.”
Ben summed it up. “So there you have it. We have three people in that cockpit, two of whom could want to commit suicide, especially Connor Gray, who has nothing to look forward to and no future ahead of him. And Jason Andrews is a wild card, with some kind of anger management problem we don’t know enough about. How angry is he? How far will he go?”
“Does he have a girlfriend?” Dave asked Ben quietly, and Ben looked in the confidential file about him.
“I don’t know. He lived with a woman he had listed as next of kin. But she’s not listed anymore.”
“Why don’t you send someone to talk to her? She may know something we don’t and shed some light on what he’s capable of and just how angry he is. Maybe we have nothing to worry about. The girlfriends always know.”
“Good point,” Ben said, and was going to call Phil and ask him to arrange it, when Amanda finally spoke up. She had read the files thoroughly too, and had been unusually quiet. Now she had on her serious, professional face when she spoke.
“I completely disagree with you,” she said to Ben. “I don’t think you understand the psychology of these people, or two of them anyway. Connor knew he had to retire next year anyway. Shortening it by a year is not going to make a man of his caliber commit suicide. I’m sure he has plans for his retirement. He may be intending to start a business or spend time with his grandchildren. He’s not going to take a plane down and murder innocent passengers on his way out. It’s not in his character. His wife has been dead for a year—why would he commit suicide over it now? And it says in his file she’d been sick for several years. It doesn’t sound like it came as a shock.
“And Jason Andrews may be a hothead, but he has a brilliant career ahead of him. Everything in his file says he’s an outstanding pilot. So he has a big mouth, and he’s been delayed for promotion a couple of times, so what? He’s not going to destroy his life, take out a national landmark, and kill innocent people because it’s taken him a year or two longer to become a captain. That would be insane. And even if he has an anger problem, he may put a fist through a wall or mouth off at a coworker, but he is not going to kill a hundred and eleven people, including himself. It’s just not in his psychological profile. Trust me, he’s not going to give up his future at his age.
“The one I’m worried about is Helen Smith. I don’t think
anyone can survive what she’s been through without deep emotional scars and smoldering anger, none of which shows until the day she loses it and shoots twenty people in a supermarket, or takes down a plane. She has every reason to be furious at life. The truth is, she got screwed. What happened to her just isn’t fair. I couldn’t watch my husband get beheaded on video, and ever lead a normal life again. I think she’s an accident waiting to happen, and I’m shocked that the airline didn’t think so too, and that she is still flying. If we do have a problem, I think she’s it. She has the potential to be a very dangerous person, to herself and passengers on the plane. She’s our prime candidate for a suicidal psychotic break.”
There was no arguing with the extent of Amanda’s education, but Ben didn’t agree with a word she said.
“I think you’re dead wrong about her,” Ben said firmly, “and about the others too. I think Connor Gray probably is suicidally depressed. And Jason Andrews sounds like such an unbridled asshole, he probably could kill a hundred and eleven people in a rage. More, if he were flying a bigger plane.” Amanda looked seriously annoyed to be contradicted and kept arguing with Ben about it, when his cellphone rang, and it was Phil. He had heard back from the CIA.
“Your Arab couple are okay,” Phil said, sounding embarrassed. “They’re both from prominent Saudi families. Ahmad, the husband, is a member of the Saudi royal family. They’re here as students and starting classes at UC Berkeley in a few days. They’re as far from terrorists as you can get. They’re on student visas. He’s enrolled at the business school, and she’s getting a master’s in art history. They’re not going to take down your plane. So where does that leave us? Do we have a situation on our hands or not?” Phil asked, sounding worried, but relieved about the young couple at least.
“We’re still trying to figure that out,” Ben said quietly. “This narrows the field considerably. We’re worried about the cockpit crew on the first plane. We have three potentially explosive scenarios and some complicated psychological issues. It’s credible that any one of the three could try to take the plane down, though we don’t agree on who. And I don’t know if any of them would want to take out the Golden Gate Bridge in the process, but I think the copilot is capable of it. So do we pull out all the stops and try to stop something from happening that maybe was never going to happen in the first place? Do we make fools of ourselves trying to save a plane that’s not at risk? Or do we let it go and end up regretting it when it turns out that we weren’t paranoid in the first place? Intelligently, I don’t think anything’s going to happen here, it’s all too unlikely, but my instincts are shrieking at me, and my gut tells me that a disaster is going to happen if we don’t try to stop it.” Dave was nodding as Ben said it. He agreed with him, and Amanda was pointing at Helen’s personnel file with a look of determination.
“Personally, I agree with you on most points,” Phil told him on the speakerphone. “I think we’re all letting our imaginations run away with us. A random postcard does not a disaster make. And I don’t see how any airline could be employing three pilots who would be capable of taking down a plane on a suicide mission, and those are three star pilots we’re talking about, or two of them, at least. But having said that, I don’t know why, I have a bad feeling about this too. This is the kind of situation we read about now too often, and no one saw coming. If we think there is any chance that what we fear here could in fact become a reality, then I think we have to do everything we can to stop it, even if we look like idiots later; if we turn out to be wrong, I’d rather look like a fool than have dead passengers.”
“That’s kind of the direction I’m leaning,” Ben said, reassured to hear what Phil thought about it. “I just have a nasty feeling that as crazy as it sounds, all based on a flimsy postcard, I think it could happen.”
“Then let’s get serious about it,” Phil said, relieving Ben of some of the responsibility of the decision. “Let’s put up all the roadblocks we can, and hope to hell the problem isn’t on the 757 and we missed it.”
“That’s not going to happen. I don’t see any potential there. No passengers stand out and the crew are clean,” Ben said firmly, with conviction. “I think we know where the problem is, if there is one, on which plane, and I think there is only one of the three pilots who would do it. Jason Andrews. The others are too responsible. It’s not in their DNA to bring down a plane, for any reason.”
“By the way, the airline gave us another detail on Helen Smith. Her daughter is neurologically handicapped in some way. She has a mild form of disability. As her children’s only parent, she’s not going to abandon her, or any of her kids.”
“That clinches it for me,” Ben said firmly. “I think Andrews is our man. The question is what do we do to stop him.” Ben thought about it for a minute and knew what he had to do, or to at least get started. “The plane is due to land at SFO at approximately eleven A.M. local time. I want the Golden Gate Bridge closed at ten, for ‘construction.’ They can tell people there’s a serious gas leak, which will keep away the curious. And I want Coast Guard rescue boats in the water, in case he gets that far. Let’s not take any chances.”
Phil noticed that Ben sounded like his old self again, from before the hostage situation, and was pleased to hear it. He was not afraid to make decisions or trust his gut. “What about the captain? Are you going to tell her?” Phil wanted to know.
“I have to tell her something,” Ben answered. “I’ll clear the Arab couple, of course. But I need to warn her she could have a serious problem in the cockpit. She has to be prepared for it. Maybe it’s a good thing that Connor Gray is there with her. I’ll call her on the satcom in a few minutes, and then I’ll come back to the office.” He wanted to be at home base with all this happening, not in the TSA supervisor’s office at Terminal 2. Ben suggested they take Bernice with them, and Dave had already said he would come along. Ben hung up with Phil, and saw Amanda staring at him in a fury.
“Do you realize what you’re doing? You’re backing the wrong horse here. What if I’m right and Helen is the most likely to bring that plane down? The death of more than a hundred people is going to be your responsibility if you make it possible for her to do that.” The force of what she said hit him like a wrecking ball, especially after what had recently happened with the hostages.
“It’s a chance we have to take. I’m in charge here, and I take full responsibility for my decisions,” Ben said in an icy tone, which didn’t stop her.
“If you’re wrong, I’ll see to it that our superiors know about it, and that I advised you against it.”
“Don’t worry, Amanda,” he said bitterly. “If I’m wrong, you won’t have to get me fired. Next time, I’ll quit.” He almost had this time, and Phil had talked him out of it and insisted that no one could have foreseen that the hostages would be killed, and any of them in authority could have made the decision to go in when they did. They had agreed with Ben on it 100 percent.
“You have no psychological training or insights,” Amanda insisted, adamant in her own position. “I listened to you, it’s all a grab bag of guesswork with you. There’s no science to it.” She was frustrated and furious at him. She thought he was sloppy and unprofessional.
“It’s called experience,” he responded. “With you, it’s all out of books you read. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been in the field here for twenty years. You can’t learn this stuff in books. You have to know people.”
“Like you knew the hostage takers?” It was a cheap shot and she knew it, and regretted it as soon as she said it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just think you’re wrong about Helen Smith. I think she’s going to be the one to bring that plane down.” Amanda was certain of it.
“Maybe none of them will,” Ben said honestly. “We’re starting from a postcard that may not mean a goddamn thing. It’s all guesswork. All we can do is prepare for the worst an
d see what happens. And if nothing happens and we all look like fools, so much the better. I’d like to have egg on my face for a change. It might feel better than watching people die when we could have prevented it.” He couldn’t have stopped the hostages’ death, but he still thought he might have.
“That’s my point,” Amanda said grimly. “Get Helen Smith out of the cockpit. Jason Andrews is the only one up there with a future. Trust him. He’s not going to bring that plane down. He may save it for you.”
Ben looked at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” and with that he walked out of the terminal with Amanda and asked Bernice to join them. He wasn’t going to explain it to Amanda again. She didn’t get it.
Bernice looked overwhelmed by what she’d heard before she left the room, and the knowledge that she had started it. Denise watched her leave the building with them, and wondered what would happen next. Ben had made it clear to all that no one was to talk to the press. Dave was lagging behind, talking on his cellphone. When he caught up, he looked at Ben with an exasperated expression.
“Great. We’ve got a guy on the plane who kidnapped his infant son from his estranged wife. She’s hysterical. He left a note telling her he’s on this flight. He’s on the A321 and the police are going to pick him up at the San Francisco airport. He’s in arrears on child support payments, he’s got the kid, who’s ten months old, and he has a connecting flight to Japan. So we’ve got to nab him at the gate and put the kid in protective custody. Jesus, can anything else happen on that flight?”
“Let’s hope not,” Ben said as they drove back to his office, where Phil was waiting for them. Phil could easily sense the tension between Amanda and Ben when they sat down for a meeting. She shared her theories about Helen, and Phil listened to her intently and spoke to her apologetically when she finished. Her theories made sense only to her. No one else agreed. And neither did he.
Accidental Heroes Page 7