Skyhammer

by Richard Hilton

  L’Hommedieu had no time to think about it now. The driver had made a sharp right and headed down the long ramp that led under the building. Now the guard at the entrance to the garage was asking for his ID. L’Hommedieu dug out the card and handed it through the window, then took it back a moment later when the guard had finished with it. The driver drove down the first row of spaces to the end and stopped. He was out in the next second and opening the back door before L’Hommedieu could.

  “Don’t forget your lunch,” he told Hommedieu.

  There was still half a sandwich, a kosher dill, and a baggie of potato chips lying on the seat. L’Hommedieu stuffed them back into the paper sack before getting out of the car. He thanked the driver and then hurried through the metal door and down the short hall to the elevator at the other end. What floor was the Aviation Command Center on? The eleventh, he remembered, around the corner from the administrator’s office. He waited for the doors to open, wondering what his opening line to the hijacker would be. That would depend on what kind of profile he could build from whatever data was supplied. He’d have to be quick without being haphazard, if that was possible. But judging people quickly was his strongest suit. All the course work he’d done for his master’s did not count as much as his ability to quickly sense personality. And mood. And what was truth and what was a lie. If anything, the formal training worked against him, cautioning against stereotyping and leaping to conclusions, when leaping ahead and stereotyping was what you had to do. And, too, his formal training had constantly preached the need for objectivity when subjectivity was what it really came down to. Subjectivity gave you empathy, and empathy put you in the hijacker’s shoes.

  The elevator doors slid open. L’Hommedieu got on and turned to face the doors as they closed again. It was his wild card, he thought, but he needed data, background, because there was no standard profile this time. He wondered how much they’d be able to dig up. Would there be anyone to help him get inside the guy’s head? A wife? Parents? Brothers or sisters? Fellow pilots? And had they made contact with Jack Farraday yet?

  The elevator doors opened on the eleventh floor. L’Hommedieu stepped out and walked quickly down the hallway, around the corner, the second corner.

  And then he was lost. What was the room number? L’Hommedieu came to a stop. He tried to think of it. But his mind was still working on the hijacking, and suddenly his heart turned over at a different thought: Searing had said the hijacker was the copilot. If so, what had happened to the rest of the flight crew?

  Flight Deck

  New World Flight 555

  18:15 GMT/13:5 EST

  Briefly, Emil Pate studied the flight plan again. It would take him north of St. Louis, just south of Kansas City. He’d cross the corner of Kansas, passing a little north of Coffeyville, then make a slight course correction and slice across the Oklahoma panhandle, clip the corner of Texas. Then he’d cross into New Mexico, flying directly over Albuquerque, and then go on in on the FOSSL 2 standard arrival to Sky Harbor. He checked his panel clock. Nineteen minutes had passed. They would need time, though, he knew, to get the response team into the center. Especially since it was the weekend.

  He lit another cigarette and told himself to be patient. He had two hours, and when they did contact him the negotiator would want to talk to him plenty. But he was ready for that. He knew just about how it would play out. They would get his file from New World and comb through it for anything they could use. What would they find? His service record, his history at Westar. They’d make something out of that—what, he didn’t know. Except he knew there was nothing in the file to make them think he was crazy. All it would tell them was that he’d been stable, reliable, disciplined—that there was no insane reason for him to be doing this, only one good reason.

  He blew smoke at the cloud-spattered horizon beyond the windshield. He glanced at Boyd’s Garfield doll. Then, holding onto his calm, as if gripping a safety line, he studied the shape in the seat beside him, the places where the spread knees pushed against the blanket, the round profile of the head. The captain of 555 was dead all right. Pure and simple. Pate shook his head—a needle of sharp regret worked its way in. But he wouldn’t let regret weaken him. He thought instead about his decision to keep Boyd a secret for the time being. It would give them more to guess about, more blanks they couldn’t quickly fill in and build strategies from. The same was true for Sanford. They’d find out soon enough the senator was aboard, but he wouldn’t mention him. Make them guess he didn’t know and then use it if he had to, when it would mean something.

  A chime sounded. The blue cabin-call light on the overhead panel flashed. Pate got the intercom handset from the rear of the center pedestal. “Engine room,” he answered, doing his best to sound normal.

  “Hi, Emil. Mariella. You guys ready for lunch? We got—you guessed it—steak or chicken.”

  He hadn’t forgotten Mariella Ponti either. Only tried to, because he regretted more than he cared to admit, how bad he felt that she was aboard. It wouldn’t make what he had to do any easier. He hadn’t imagined that anyone he knew would end up on the same flight.

  He had anticipated her question, however. “Let me check with the captain,” he told her. He released the microphone key on the set and waited, tapping off eight seconds on his knee. Then he keyed the mike again.

  “Hey, Mariella. Tell you what. We’ll pass on lunch. Gotta hold out for that burrito, remember? Why don’t you guys split’em up?”

  “Well, okay,” Mariella said hesitantly. “How about some drinks?”

  “No thanks, sweetheart. We’re okay.”

  She’d wonder about that, he knew. They were at 31,000 feet, the cabin pressured to about seven, the humidity near zero. She’d be offering liquids again before long because she was trained to, and he’d have to put her off again. He knew Mariella well enough to know she wouldn’t simply get tiffed and leave him alone. But that didn’t matter either. The cockpit door was locked; she couldn’t get in without permission.

  He got another pack of cigarettes from his flight bag and settled back and scanned the instruments. Then, abruptly, he unbuckled his lapbelt, leaned across the body of Boyd, yanked Garfield from the windshield and tossed him to the back of the cockpit. The damn thing had been staring at him long enough. The silence was driving him nuts too. There was no chatter at all on the radio. They’d obviously changed him to a discrete frequency. So why hadn’t they been talking to him? A half hour was plenty of time. Maybe they were letting him hang—maybe that was part of their plan, let him sweat a little, make him wonder what was going on.

  He wouldn’t sweat it, though, Pate told himself. He slid his seat back, reclined the back cushion, and brought his right foot up onto the footrest. Fourteen thousand feet below, the stratus undercast was starting to break up, and he could see most of central Missouri, the long, narrow fingers of the Lake of the Ozarks flashing sunlight at him.

  Truth was, they had to be in a panic, he thought. Had to be running around frantically, rounding up the response team, gathering all they could on him, waiting until they had their game plan straight before they put it in motion. They’d try to find Katherine, of course. Maybe try to get her on the radio. He wouldn’t talk to her, though. He knew better. Trying to explain to her why this had to happen would be too difficult, too painful. Besides, she knew what it was about. They’d only be putting her on to try to get him to realize the hurt he was causing her. Another way to crack him. Better to pretend he didn’t love anyone. Better to believe it.

  He made another routine scan of the engine and flight instruments. Ship 109 was still operating flawlessly, her two engines churning steadily away, the autopilot tracking perfectly along Jet Route 19, applying a good ten degrees right-drift correction to counter the powerful west-northwesterly jet stream.

  Aviation Command Center

  FAA Headquarters

  18:20 GMT/13:20 EST

  “It’s an MD-80” Otis Searing said. “That means no
third pilot, just the captain and first officer. And we don’t know yet what’s happened to the captain. I’d say it’s real possible the hijacker’s killed him.”

  L’Hommedieu had found the ACC a minute earlier and entered the same way the others had, through Operations. He had asked about the flight crew as soon as he saw Searing. Now he listened, sitting at station 8 on the horseshoe, making notes while Searing briefed him. The news about the captain damped his excitement. If the hijacker were already a murderer, talking him down would be more difficult.

  When he had finished the briefing, Searing introduced him to Peggy Lofton and John Travis. Both of them were busy on telephones and could only nod. They were hemmed in on either side by TV monitors and other electronic gear, and L’Hommedieu was suddenly aware of the disarray everywhere. There were enough extra chairs in the room to seat a dozen more.

  “Remodeling.” Searing explained. He stood beside him, surveying the room grimly, his thick arms folded. He was a very dark black man, L’Hommedieu thought. His round black forehead glistened. The room did seem too warm now. He eyed L’Hommedieu again. “When do you want to make contact?”

  “Not until I know more about him. I assume we’re faxing in his files?”

  The supervisor nodded. “We’ve got some time yet. But not much.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Maybe a hundred miles east of K.C.”

  “And still on course?”

  “Yeah. And we’ve got one piece of good luck. The jetstream’s pretty far south this time of year. He’ll be flying right into the teeth of it most of the route—it’ll slow him up by a hundred knots or more. Should buy us an extra twenty minutes, give or take.”

  “We can use it,” L’Hommedieu said.

  Searing gave him another grim stare. “Time is talk, right?”

  L’Hommedieu nodded, looking around the room again, at the FAA and DOT emblems displayed on the far wall, at the windows through to Operations, a duty officer sitting at a desk against the far wall. The room seemed too small, too confining. “Who else knows about this? Other than your team?”

  Searing shrugged. “I’ve activated the net. That adds some folks. Transportation Secretary, a senior captain at New World and whoever he talks to. Farraday, when they get him. The White House Situation Room, the Pentagon. They’re all patched in, all on mute right now. They only know that we’ve got a domestic hijack. I figured we’d keep the lid on as much as we can until we get some top dogs on the line. Couldn’t reach the administrator. Out of town for the weekend. But the assistant administrator’s on his way in.” Searing paused, leaned an inch toward L’Hommedieu, his head tipping forward slightly. “Personally, I think too many oars in the water won’t get the ship nowhere. So I’d just as soon keep the politicians out as long as possible anyway.”

  L’Hommedieu agreed. He’d lived in Washington long enough to know what Searing meant. “What about Farraday? You don’t know if he’s been reached yet?”

  “No.” Searing scowled. “They only said he’d be notified. I left the order for him to call ASAP.”

  “Let’s not worry about him too much yet. How about the rest of the crew? The passengers? You think they know?”

  “No way to tell, not for sure, but the best guess is not—except for the captain if he’s still alive.” Searing saw that L’Hommedieu was wanting an explanation. “It’s an FAA requirement to keep the cockpit door locked during all portions of a flight. On top of that, some airlines don’t allow flight attendants on the flight deck without flight crew permission. That might be the case at New World. Whichever, you can bet he’s figured a way to keep the cabin crew out of the loop.”

  That would make sense, L’Hommedieu thought. And if it was true, it would be just as well. No telling what Pate might do if the cabin crew tried anything. “But won’t they start getting suspicious? A long flight, yet neither pilot wants a drink? Or needs to use the can?”

  Searing shrugged. “Again, we’ve got to assume he’s thought of that, figured ways to handle it.”

  L’Hommedieu agreed again, looked for somewhere to put his jacket. “How will we talk to him?”

  “ARINC.”

  He tossed the jacket onto one of the extra chairs. ARINC —it stood for Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated, he recalled, a private, non-profit communications company funded by the industry. They could provide nationwide VHF voice coverage between flights and ground personnel, via radio and landline connections. Phone patches, essentially, they made it possible for airborne pilots to confer with maintenance personnel or dispatchers during emergencies, weather diversions, changes in the flight’s release. During air piracy incidents, the FAA could preempt use of the system. There were limitations, although L’Hommedieu wasn’t sure what they were.

  “Is it all in place?”

  Searing nodded. “And that chair and handset’s yours. Station eight. We’ll give you a list of who’s on which line. Want some coffee? They’ve got a pot in Operations.”

  “Sure.”

  “Anything in it?”

  “No thanks.”

  In a minute the Supervisor was back with two Styrofoam cups. A minute after that the duty officer from Operations brought in a sheaf of documents faxed from New World Airlines—the flight data for 555, the maintenance records and specifications for the MD-80 and Pate’s records.

  EIGHT

  Aviation Command Center

  18:32 GMT/13:32 EST

  Searing and L’Hommedieu sorted the documents, L’Hommedieu taking the files on Pate while Searing got the plane’s specs, mechanical record, flight plan, and manifest. Searing handed the flight plan to Travis, the manifest to Lofton. Travis would work out alternative landing sites, including military, within the reach of 555’s fuel load. Lofton would check through the list of passengers for names that were foreign or suspicious in any way—they wouldn’t rule out terrorists yet. And she would count women, children, and medicals because they’d be trying to get the hijacker to release those first. L’Hommedieu had also asked her to make a list of the children’s names and of the flight attendants.

  L’Hommedieu set the timing function on his watch. He’d allow himself ten minutes’ research. Then maybe another five for discussion. Then they’d have to make contact.

  But before he could get started, Lofton brought the manifest over.

  “Look at this.” She spread the printout on the counter between L’Hommedieu and Searing. “The VIP list.”

  She pressed her finger down beside the only name on it.

  “John Sanford,” L’Hommedieu said quietly. “Senator Sanford?”

  “From Arizona,” Lofton said.

  Searing made a note on his pad. “We’ll need to confirm it. Put a call in to his office. For now we’ll assume it is Senator Sanford. And let’s also assume that Pate knows he’s aboard. Which will complicate things, won’t it?”

  L’Hommedieu started at the list of names on the printout, reading down the column quickly. Yes, there was no doubt that Sanford changed the situation. The senator made a valuable hostage. But it worked both ways. Terrorists could be awestruck by celebrity, and the presence of a known person could alter their perception of all the victims. How would Pate use him if he did know about him?

  “We won’t mention Sanford right away,” he said. Let’s let Pate tell us, see if he knows.”

  Scaring waited, expecting an explanation, but there wasn’t time to give him one. L’Hommedieu glanced once more at the passenger list and then turned back to Pate’s file, blocking out Searing, Lofton… and the names he had seen.

  The first page of the file was Pate’s employment application for New World. A black-and-white photograph fixed inside a square in the top-right corner of the first page had transferred fairly well. The subject was not particularly photogenic, but he had an impressive face, and L’Hommedieu took a moment to study it, noting the high, prominent cheekbones, the narrow bridge of the nose, the wide nostrils, the sharp, guarded squint of the eye
s. An ethnic face. Cajun perhaps? Was the name Pate a corruption of some French surname? The complexion was dark, the hair black. The mouth was wide, and the cheeks formed distinct folds that ran down from either side of the nose to the corners of the mouth, forming a triangle. There was something distinctive about that, something L’Hommedieu couldn’t quite place. He needed more information and began to read the data on the lines below.

  First he learned that the subject’s age was forty-nine. Older than he’d expected. And no college degree—at least none was noted under Education. That was also significant. Almost all commercial pilots these days had degrees of some kind. But Pate had been in the Marine Corps, ‘63 to ‘67, and that was where he’d learned to fly, attending the Naval Flight School in Pensacola, ‘64 to ‘65, then on to Fighter Weapons School and F-4 Phantom jet fighters. “Assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk,” the notation concluded, “106 combat missions, Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy Cross.” L’Hommedieu was impressed. The subject was a superior aviator, it would seem. What did this mean in conjunction with the subject’s age, his education? For one thing, it was a good bet that Pate identified himself closely with the role of pilot. And anything threatening that role might threaten his sense of himself.

  L’Hommedieu glanced at the next page, where Pate’s physical data was listed: “Height: 6’0”. Weight: 170.” The ideal Marine physique. It fit the emerging profile—a physical type, not overly introspective. Maybe introverted. Did Pate have an inferiority complex about his lack of education? That was a fairly good bet as well, but L’Hommedieu shook his head.-Don’t overdo it too soon, he told himself. Except that without much to go on and not much time he had to leap to conclusions.

  He read on, looking for clues that might confirm his intuition. Under the employment record he found that Pate had been hired by Westar in November 1967, with 3,400 flying hours. Most of those hours were military, but 256 he’d accumulated as a student and 1,200 as a cropduster. Which answered the question of how Pate had gotten into Marine flight school without a college degree. He’d already known how to fly. And cropdusting, L’Hommedieu supposed, would’ve looked like excellent experience to the Marines.