Skyhammer

by Richard Hilton

  His stomach suddenly aching, L’Hommedieu turned to look at Searing. Then he slumped forward. Everything had gone out of him.

  “I’m calling the president now,” Searing said quietly. “We’ve got to go through with it.”

  L’Hommedieu nodded. He sat still, watching Searing make the call. Had he done all he could? He would never know, and that was the worst of it. Could they get the airport evacuated in time? He didn’t think so. It didn’t matter anyway. Five-fifty-five would never get there.

  A minute later Kelly was back on the line. “He’s started his descent, Homm. What do we do?”

  L’Hommedieu had to swallow the dryness in his throat. “Have them get Shadow back into position,” he said.

  Sky Harbor Airport

  Phoenix, Arizona

  20:23 GMT/13:23 MST

  Virgil Bensen, the deputy director standing in for the Airport Authority director on this Saturday, had been briefed the first time almost two hours ago: A New World plane, originally bound for his airport, had been hijacked, and he was to prepare a restricted area, ready emergency crews, and coordinate with the Phoenix police department’s Special Operations and the FBI. An hour later he had been briefed again: Maintain readiness, but now the plane would likely be diverted to another airfield. Four minutes ago he had received a final instruction: Evacuate Terminal 4 in fifteen minutes, starting with the New World Airlines concourse. If Bensen had had time to, he would have thrown a shitfit. Whoever the hell was running things had screwed up royally. What did they think, he could perform miracles? All the orderly plans for evacuation, drawn up years ago during the last wave of international terrorism, weren’t worth a lead peso with so little time. And you couldn’t just put out a PA: “Everyone, please leave immediately.” That was a sure-fire way to start a panic.

  Panic was the problem. If they tried to move people too rapidly, someone would leap to a conclusion, go bananas, and panic would shoot through the whole crowd like a flu bug. So they had to do it calmly and methodically, and they had to have a plausible, non-threatening reason. A support-power-system failure, he’d decided. Not a global failure—they couldn’t fake it—but a bogus failure of the system that supported the planes. The crowd wouldn’t even understand it, and then, starting with the New World concourse, they would tell everyone they were merely shuttlebusing them to another terminal to meet their flights.

  It would be a race against rumor, though. No doubt, people on the concourse had been picking up the story from TV news bulletins. They’d start putting two and two together as soon as New World operations began deplaning passengers. And since New World was already rerouting the inbounds to other airports, more and more airport personnel would be catching on that something was up. Any minute, stories would start, leaks develop.

  He hurried down the corridor to the New World concourse, leading a cadre of security personnel. Maybe, just maybe, with adequate and effective direction, this hare-brained scheme would work out. Reminding his men they had scarcely more than twenty minutes, Bensen dispatched his people to their stations. He and ten men would make announcements to the passengers waiting on the concourse. Five would man the cordoned-off corridor connecting the concourse to the main terminal.

  Four staff members stationed themselves ahead of the others, their task to keep any passengers from carrying the news prematurely to the farther gates. The other six, three on each side, began to announce the power-system failure. Bensen, stationing himself at Gate 26—the first waiting area—watched the passengers. People registered dismay, then grudging compliance. The crowd was moving far too slowly, but atleast they were buying it without suspicion. He was cautiously optimistic. Every passenger was an unknown variable, however, capable of altering all the others. After nearly twenty years in the business, he knew about crowd psychology. And airport crowds weren’t like, say, baseball crowds. These people were all tense—the drinkers, the businessmen who seemed lost in their files, and even the ones who didn’t show it. They worried about arriving on time, finding their luggage intact, or climbing into machines that looked too heavy and slow to even lift themselves off the ground. Most people could rationally understand that with thousands of flights daily the odds were vastly in their favor. Just the same, deep down, most couldn’t shake the belief that fate was waiting to single them out. It was human nature. Even Bensen, whenever he flew, had tinglings of dread just before touchdown.

  Bensen moved forward now, walking against the tide and smiling to show that there was no reason for alarm. Up ahead, at Gates 29 and 30, his men were making their announcements. Passengers there were shaking their heads, rising from their seats, hefting their bags. The lower concourse was filling, everyone moving reluctantly ahead. The floor beneath his feet vibrated slightly. Bensen caught snatches of complaint, disgruntled voices.

  There was a commotion now, beyond Gate 30. From the Gate 28 waiting area, he could see a man arguing vehemently with two of the blockers. The man wanted to get past them, head in the wrong direction. People were tuning to look. Suddenly another man pushed through into the crowd, stumbling as he did so, breaking stride as if he meant to start running. Everyone was turning now to stare.

  Then Bensen saw something that made his heart beat hard. On the TV monitor in the bar across the walkway, was a picture of the airport, an aerial view. Even as- he watched, hoping it wasn’t true, the newscaster appeared again, and behind him the image of New World Airlines’ logo. People leaving the bar were turning back to look. Then, an invisible wave seemed to ripple through the crowd, spreading out and down the concourse. The pitch of voices rose. Someone was running, shoving his way past the rows of seats. A woman tried to follow him, but her suitcase swung sideways behind her and banged against one of the support pillars. She fell. A dozen people scrambled around her. Passengers were spilling out of the concourse bars and restaurants. Now, the whole mass of them was surging forward. “He’s headed for the airport!” someone shouted.

  If Bensen had been observing the scene on videotape, he might have marveled at the geometry of the pandemonium breaking out. But if anyone were injured, it would be his head on the block. He stepped back into the shelter of a pillar, shouting vainly there was no need to panic. The crowd was running full out, though, making a noise that sounded like a single angry shout. A dozen were down already, trying to get back on their feet. A mother struggled past, dragging two screaming little girls behind her like luggage. One old man tottered now in the midst of the swarm, his eyes startled in fear. As Bensen pulled him behind the safety of the pillar, he saw one of his staffers climb over a row of seats and come running down the line of waiting areas, yelping at the mob like some kind of cowboy trying to head off a cattle stampede. It was futile. The mass had turned the corner and started down the connecting tunnel to the main terminal. They broke through the cordon. All Bensen could do now was wait for them to pass, then try to get first aid to the injured. And things would get worse when they reached the main lobby. He cursed under his breath, remembering how he’d opposed the design of the new terminal—the fact that it connected to the lower-level exits via two long, narrow escalators. When the mob got there, it’d be like a flash flood trying to go down a bathtub drain.

  Overwhelmed by frustration, abruptly infuriated, he turned suddenly and yanked an emergency phone from its bracket. He punched in his office number. “Put me on line three,” he ordered. In another moment someone answered. “Better do something fast,” he shouted. “The goddamn news bulletins just screwed everything out here!”

  Passenger Cabin

  New World 555

  20:25 GMT/15:25 EST

  The plane was crossing over a deck of cirro-stratus, thin and uneven, several thousand feet thick. Sometimes 555 was in it, skimming the tops, and sometimes the plane was several hundred feet above the cloud layer. Now the deck obscured the ground, and the light beyond David Crane’s window was a luminous white, the wingtip disappearing, reappearing, the strobe on its trailing edge flashing stead
ily, reassuringly.

  Mariella Ponti’s concerns about the flight crew were still bothering him, but Crane had decided not to take any action. Not that Ponti didn’t seem level-headed, but in general flight attendants overreacted to operational problems—at least he knew that’s what most seasoned pilots thought. And maybe he did, too, to some extent. Although, to Ponti’s credit, she hadn’t asked him to talk to the cockpit. He didn’t want to. He could imagine what a captain might say about some newly hired first officer calling up from the cabin to see if everything was all right. Why draw attention to himself while he was still on probation? If anything, the captain was probably sick as a dog and the copilot covering for him. Things out of the ordinary usually had a very ordinary cause. He wouldn’t let a minor inconsistency lead him to any wild conclusions. Growing up as a farm kid in Nebraska, Crane had learned to be prepared for surprises but not to expect them. His parents had run a dairy farm—not an occupation for anyone with a pessimistic outlook. Instead you trusted in the odds and in your own prudence.

  The cloud layer dropped away again, and he looked down at it, a hundred feet below the plane now. The sun was just behind them, on the opposite side, and he could see the plane’s shadow skimming along the cloud, surrounded by a thin, brilliant ring of multi-hued light—like a rainbow—a parhelion effect. He’d seen these before, though only rarely, during his T-38 instructor days in the Air Force. Crane wondered if they were leaving a contrail and if contrails left shadows subject to the same effect. A contrail would begin fifty feet or so behind the airplane, if they were leaving one, so he leaned forward, searching the area aft of 555’s shadow.

  At that moment, the cloud top dropped away farther, to a thousand feet or more below the plane’s flight level. The aircraft’s shadow became a fragment of dark on the white field—two fragments, in fact. A double shadow? That was curious. Now 555 was back in the cloud again, but the image stayed in Crane’s mind like a snapshot. Two shadows, yes, but not of the same plane. He was sure of that. The one had been big, long bodied; the other small, with short wings. A fighter plane—he was sure of this, too. An F-15, if he knew his silhouettes. It had been very close to them. Way too close. Crane breathed in, let it out, telling himself to stay calm. But why would an F-15 be flying so close? No Air Force pilot would be that crazy. Unless it was deliberately tailing them. But why?

  For another moment Crane stared out at the white light beyond the window, trying to sort out a plausible reason. Ponti hadn’t talked to the pilot since takeoff. And the copilot had sounded strange. If it weren’t so far-fetched he would think that someone had . ..

  But the idea was crazy, wasn’t it? Crane’s heart seemed to tighten. He recoiled hack against his seat, sucking in breath. Where was Ponti? She would’ve found out by now what was really going on. He looked up, searching over the heads of the other passengers for her. She had gone back into first class some time ago. Just when he was about to get up and go forward, she stepped back through the curtain separating first class from coach. She smiled left, then right. Then her eyes met his, and the smile vanished. She could see he was alarmed. For the merest moment she, too, seemed scared. Then she regained her composure. As if everything were fine, she began to make her way back.

  Aviation Command Center

  20:24 GMT/15:24 EST

  “Any way to gain more time?” the president asked. “I don’t understand why there isn’t a contingency for this sort of situation.”

  Otis Searing had expected such a response. The president, like all presidents, did not like making decisions on short notice, especially one that sanctioned the taking of American lives. Politics. He was probably looking for someone to blame. Otis Searing, for instance. Still, Searing quickly decided, he was just plain lucky to be finally talking directly to the top dog instead of some go-between.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Searing told the president now. “Let me describe it this way. If a hostile aircraft was inbound to Phoenix with the announced intention of attacking the airport, and if we had an interceptor already in firing position, would you give the order to fire? It’s that simple, sir. Because that’s exactly what we’ve got here.”

  “Not exactly,” the president answered. “There are people on board. Innocent civilians.”

  And John Sanford, Searing wanted to add. But accusing the president of ulterior motives wouldn’t help matters. Instead he said, “Yes, but lots more on the ground. Getting Terminal 4 cleared now will take a miracle. And what if he changes his target again? He’s done that once already. Maybe we can’t save the hundred on board, sir, but we can save hundreds on the ground. Maybe more than that.”

  There was no response from the president. Searing pounded his fist quietly on his knee. He had to use tact, he knew, but at the same time he had to go straight at the man. “Mr. President,” he said, “as you know, in all these events, every conversation is being recorded in some fashion. When the record is brought to light, everyone will understand that you did the only thing you could. But if you wait, if you don’t make a decision in time, the press will have you for lunch.”

  The line was still silent. He’d been blunt—too blunt? But what else could he have said, Searing wondered. Should he tell the president now that this was exactly the reason there was a presidency? That someone had to be there to make a decision when there wasn’t time to argue about it? But the man wasn’t stupid. That was the problem, actually: The president was too smart. He saw options where there weren’t any, saw all the ramifications, the effects of any action, rippling out across a sea of voters. If only he were smart enough to see it didn’t matter. This was a lesser-of-two-evils situation, and doing nothing was not the lesser. So tell him, Searing thought. But he didn’t have to.

  “All right,” the president said suddenly. “You have my authorization.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Searing answered, breathing out his relief. He killed the line before any more could be said. In the same second he opened the line to Albuquerque.

  Air Route Traffic Control Center

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  20:28 GMT/13:28 MST

  Colonel Charbonneau took the call. As he listened to Searing’s brief message, his expression collapsed. He acknowledged, hung up, and returned to Sector l^’s low-altitude console. With Farraday gone, Lenard Curtis had taken over the station. Charbonneau leaned over him now, staring for a moment at 555’s blip on the screen.

  “Lenard,” He said, placing his hand on the controller’s shoulder. “We’ve just been ordered to move Shadow into firing position.”

  Curtis’s shoulder seemed to sag under the colonel’s hand. Charbonneau, knowing they had to remain objective, keep it matter-of-fact, moved around beside the controller and spread part of an Air Force tactical pilotage chart out on the console table.

  “I figure the airplane can glide forty to fifty miles from twenty thousand,” he explained. “The missile should break her up, though, but still the wreckage might go fifteen or twenty. We’ll call it thirty.”

  As Curtis watched intently, Charbonneau used a pair of dividers to plot off thirty miles, working backward from Paradise Valley, northeast of Scottsdale, Arizona. “That puts us here,” he said. “About sixty-five out of Phoenix.” With a grease pencil he made a small arc on Curtis’s screen, across the Fossl Two arrival depiction. “Make the call,” he said.

  Without a word, Curtis keyed his microphone

  Flight Deck

  New World 555

  20:23 GMT/15:23 EST

  The waiting seemed to exhaust him, taking what little energy he had left. He couldn’t think straight aiymore. He wanted water, but the bottle was empty. His mouth was parched, his throat sore from the cigarettes. Was there any food in Boyd’s kit? Pate looked at the blanketed body, then gave up the ridiculous idea and stared straight ahead again. Why was he thinking of food? He would be dying any minute.

  He closed his eyes. Tried to let his mind go slack. But it caught again, lik
e a hook, jerking his eyes open. Any second now, the explosion would ring through the airframe, the yoke go wobbly in his hands. How long would it take the plane to fall? The ground would rise toward him, slowly at first, then fast. Any moment now. The cloud deck had almost dissipated, and the sky ahead was like a huge valley ringed by mountains of clouds, so the fighter could see him clearly and would fire a rocket at point-blank range.

  He felt it now, in his hands, arms, chest. Not an ache but a tingling numbness, as if his bones and flesh were hardening. Was this a fear of death, he wondered? No, he’d been scared of dying before. It wasn’t fear, only the damn waiting that made his breathing labored, his mind tight and slow. Even the anger seemed sluggish now, lying in the pit of his stomach. He could manage only a sad resentment. He had been stupid, while Farraday had been smart—playing the innocent man, knowing all along they would shoot him down. Why had he wanted to talk to Farraday? To hear him grovel? It still astonished Pate that he hadn’t guessed they would put up a fighter. He had trusted in something—some ultimate justice maybe. Not in God to make it come out fair, but in the story, he realized. There was justice in it. Some kind of justice that wasn’t even a question of right and wrong. It was a question of balance. Things were out of balance, and only some sacrifice could put it right. Was that insanity? Insanity was sacrificing for nothing. Insanity was leaving Farraday in charge. So why couldn’t they let him go, use these lives and his own to good purpose? He had warned them, allowed them to clear the concourse. Wasn’t that enough? If it had been possible, he would have landed, let the innocent people get off. If it had been possible, but it just wasn’t. He’d always known that to land the plane was what they wanted. They would never have let him take off again. Now they would never let him land.

  Another minute had passed. Pate stared at the clock. Why hadn’t they fired? He willed it. Then his mind escaped him again and seemed to travel through a focal point—an instant of noise and sight, keen smell, weight and ringing pulse. And then it expanded, as if trying to remember everything at once, bring all his life down to one clear moment. Or strings of moments—that’s what they were—but so tangled he couldn’t separate them. Katherine, Westar, Viet Nam. They tangled again, with earlier memories, repeating endlessly—all of them part of some whole. Until like a miracle, one string came loose. The first day he’d ever seen Jeeps Henry’s plane—cool, gray, early-summer afternoon, rain falling lightly on the green wheat. A crossroads somewhere up on the land above Lapwai. He sat in the cab of a pickup truck. The big empty Idaho prairie, the camas, rolling away on all sides. Wipers steady as a heartbeat, sweeping spots of rain from the windshield. Alone. Nothing at all ahead of him. Only the blankness of horizon meeting gray sky. A mountain bluebird darting along the fence posts—sharp, flashing, swooping, iridescent sapphire against the yellow green—darting like an arrow, wings spreading, folding to catch and release the air. Then Jeeps Henry’s plane, out of nowhere, roaring past, close by, laying down a trail of white, billowing cloud. That’s when it had all started. The escape from the canyon into the sky.