Final Approach (7 page)

The officer was dead serious, and intimidating. In his early fifties, probably ex-military, in control and waiting for an intelligent answer from the shorter, twenty-nine-year-old federal hotshot standing before him. Rich was the one legally in command, and the one expected to swing into action. But he had never felt so inadequate, alone, and out of place.

“Is this the newsroom?” The voice was deep and gruff, but the words were clearly enunciated.

“Yes.” The reporter said it sharply. With a major story breaking in Kansas City, all she needed was another time-wasting phone call.

“Did anyone on that airplane from Washington, Flight 255, get out alive?”

“We don't have that information yet, sir. Who is this?”

“Don't matter. Listen carefully: this crash wasn't no accident.”

She froze for a second, wondering if this was a prank. “What do you mean by that? What do you know?”

“The whole story. I heard them plotting it. D'you know that Congressman Larry Wilkins was on that airplane?”

The reporter hadn't known that. Wilkins had been in office less than a year and was already widely disliked on Capitol Hill. He was a determined right-wing extremist with a scary agenda trying to masquerade as a responsible Republican, but it was standard knowledge he had grown up with a white supremacist philosophy. He had built a small empire of car dealerships while being groomed for politics by a shadowy collection of powerful, wealthy Southerners based in New Orleans—a group with ties to elements as diverse as the Ku Klux Klan and Lyndon La-Rouche's rabid crowd. But somehow, for some strange combination of reasons she couldn't fathom, Wilkins had scrubbed his public image well enough to win election from one of the Louisiana districts.

“He was on 255? From Washington? How do you know?”

“I just do. And he's dead, isn't he?”

She hesitated. The word from Kansas City was that no ambulances had made Code 3, lights-and-siren runs from the wreckage of 255. That seemed to indicate that no one got out, but it was too early to confirm. That was not reliable information.

“I don't know.”

“Yeah, he's dead. The airplane was brought down. I can't tell you exactly what it was they monkeyed with in Washington, but I can tell you it weren't no accident.”

“Who is this?”

“Forget it, little girl, I told you it don't matter who this is. Just remember
what
I told you.” The line was dead in an instant, but it took her nearly a minute to replace the handset, carefully and slowly, as if it were a snake. Her editor was 20 feet away, framed by the plate-glass window at the Cable News Network facilities in Atlanta, which occupied several floors of a spectacular glass-and-steel office-hotel complex known originally as the Omni. Their newsroom overlooked the enclosed courtyard, contained within a soaring atrium.

The reporter made her decision, walking briskly to her editor, who listened intently before picking up a phone to consult with his boss at home, all three of them trying to decide whether to sit on the call, report it to the authorities, or report it to the world.

“How could it be sabotage? One landing airplane hit another one on the ground!”

“I don't know. All I know is what he said … that it wasn't an accident … something about monkeying with the airplane in D.C.”

“Was Wilkins really on board?” The editor swung around, addressing a young man several desks away. “Jerry? Call Wilkins's AA in Washington at home. You have the number?” The man nodded, already digging for the name of the congressman's administrative assistant—AA in political shorthand.

The editor turned back to his reporter, three more staffers now gathered around them. “Even if he
was
on the airplane … even if he's dead … unless somebody can tell us this is an unnatural crash, I don't see how we can use it.”

Through the din of background noise in the newsroom a young woman hurried toward the editor's desk holding a freshly ripped page of Associated Press wire copy, her approach unnoticed until she placed it in his hands.

“Thanks.” He looked at the copy and whistled softly. “Oh boy! Either our mystery man's been active, or something else is going on. Listen to this:

“
Washington, D.C
.—Among the victims reported to be on North America Flight 255, which crashed into another North America flight Friday evening in Kansas City, was a highly controversial U.S. congressman recently elected from Louisiana. Congressman Larry Wilkins, a self-described ultra-conservative and past associate of Lyndon La-Rouche, was en route to Kansas City to deliver a speech, according to his office. Wilkins's fate has not been confirmed, but an anonymous phone call to wire service offices within an hour of the crash alleged that the crash was not an accident. The caller claimed that Mr. Wilkins's flight was deliberately sabotaged by a person or persons who intended to assassinate him. The FBI has been notified of the phone call, and has begun an investigation. There is no word yet from the FAA or the NTSB on the possible causes of the crash, but …” et cetera, et cetera.”

The editor looked up at his companions, silently polling the group.

“Everyone's gonna be airing this now. We'd better go with it.”

Pete Kaminsky had fought the paramedics off for what seemed like an eternity as they appeared from nowhere and tried to put him in an ambulance ahead of his passengers. At one point he had spotted Jean, her uniform shirt drenched in blood, her arm hanging limp, yet still working with people. He had helped get her into an ambulance, trying to stem her violent shaking, a result of exposure, pain, and the trauma of what she had experienced, hugging her for reassurance before they closed the door. Finally there was no one left to help, and he had to succumb to the medics, the numbing ride to the hospital as unreal as what had come before, his admission to the emergency room another fight—there were other patients to treat before him.

“Captain, you're bleeding at the forehead, you may have a concussion, and you could have internal injuries.”

“Take care of the others first.”

“Sir …”

“I'm okay. I'll wait.”

Behind him were two gurneys covered with sheets, one bloodstained. Pete realized their occupants were beyond help. A team of doctors and nurses was working feverishly on someone to his left, a crash victim who had gone into cardiac arrest.

And in the room beside him a young doctor in a rumpled tuxedo was working on someone Pete could barely see. The patient was wearing a white shirt with epaulets and stripes on the shoulders—a male, judging by the exposed arm. The man was alive, but quiet and unconscious, if Pete had overheard the doctor correctly. He realized with a curious, cold feeling in his stomach that the man had to be one of the pilots from the Airbus. He tried to lift up on one elbow, a sharp, stabbing pain protesting the action. Straining, struggling, trying to count the stripes on those epaulets through the door and past the rapidly moving figures working to save the man's life, Pete lifted himself even higher, the pain reaching new levels that he was determined to ignore. The doctor moved aside at last, only to be replaced by the starched white frock of a nurse, who finally stepped away herself for a split second, leaving Pete a clear view of the shoulder stripes on the patient's torn shirt, the stripes which represent a pilot's rank.

There were four. It was the captain of Flight 255. Thank God, Pete said to himself. At least Dick had made it.

As Pete Kaminsky was being coaxed into the ambulance just after midnight, a member of the airport fire department was positioning himself with a fire hose to wash down spilled and unburned jet fuel near the mauled tail section of the 737 which had been partially crushed and folded and had separated from the main fuselage. Most of the fuel-fed fire had incinerated seats and occupants in the main fuselage during the minutes following the impact of the marauding Airbus. The tail had not burned, but the twisted structure that had been the aft cabin area bore little resemblance to an airplane, with jagged pieces of aluminum jutting everywhere, reflecting in staccato bursts the red-and-blue flashes from the galaxy of rescue-vehicle beacons, the ruined section seemingly lost in the noise of engines and shouted orders that obscured what the fireman now thought he heard from within.

The man laid down the nozzle of the hose and moved forward, ear cocked, sure what he had heard was an echo. But it got louder as he approached, the sound of someone, a female, trying to yell for help but not managing much volume above the din surrounding them. He selected a likely foothold—a punctured gap in the silver skin which formed a wall before him—and tried to mount it, but there was no handhold that wouldn't slice through his heavy gloves, and he had to back off.

The voice was definitely there now, and definitely female, coming from somewhere within the twisted jumble of metal. He stabbed the beam of his powerful flashlight at the mess but could see nothing. One thing, however, was now certain: someone was alive in there. Someone they had all missed before.

“Hang on! I hear you! I'm coming!” He screamed the words as loudly as he could while dashing around to the other side, playing the flashlight through the wreckage, spotting seat fabric and what looked like a limp arm deep within. Obviously not the source of the voice. At last he found a foothold
and
a handhold, clambering up as carefully as he could, shocked at the razor-sharp edge on the metal stringers. Against his better judgment, he quickly tossed his fire hat away in order to maneuver his head through the twisted structure, wiggling and dodging and climbing steadily until the voice seemed close enough to track. He shone his light once again into the interior, into what appeared to be an impossible cage of shredded metal reeking of jet fuel just waiting for an ignition source. Why it hadn't already burned, he couldn't understand. Apparently the fire in the main section had been kept away by the wind.

There. To the right of a greenish piece of serrated metal, a face, a moving face, eyes staring back at him, pleading in the process.

“Can you hear me?”

There was a long pause, and then an answer, as if the owner of the voice couldn't quite believe someone had finally come.

“Yes.”

“Are you injured?”

“I … we can't move. There … we're … six of us here. All hurt. Several are unconscious, bleeding badly. One may be dead, I can't tell … he's not moving or talking. We can't move. My leg's trapped. There's a piece of metal in it, and I can't get free. I'm afraid to try. Please … please get us out. You're going to have to come in, though.”

“Okay, I'm going to get help here immediately.”

“Mister …?”

“Yes. I'm here.”

“We're all soaked in gas.”

Her sentence froze his stomach, confirming what he had already not wanted to admit: he was climbing around inside a primed firebomb.

“There're big puddles everywhere in here. It's burning my skin and some got in my eyes. Please don't light anything. We're soaked.”

The fireman carefully pulled his two-way radio from a coat pocket, taking pains not to strike metal against metal, wondering if he even dared hit the transmit button to call for help. This was going to be a dangerous race … and a nightmare.

Joe Wallingford arrived at the FAA hangar on the north end of Washington National Airport at 2:45
A.M.
, only to find it dark, unoccupied, and locked, the FAA's Gulfstreams unmanned inside and members of the NTSB Go Team standing around in confusion. Infuriated but controlled, Joe found a pay phone and dialed the FAA command post back in the city, knowing instinctively what had happened the second a sheepish and apologetic Wally came on the line.

“Joe, I'm terribly sorry, but Caldwell said you can't use either airplane. He wouldn't tell me why.”

“Thanks a hell of a lot for letting me know.”

Joe half slammed the receiver back in its cradle as Andy Wallace, one of his investigators and a human-factors expert, approached the booth.

“What's wrong, Joe?”

“We're orphaned, that's what. Damned duty officer assured me we'd get the Gulfstream for a three
A.M.
departure, and Bill Caldwell has refused the request. We've gotta go commercial.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah. Wonderful start.” Joe shook his head in disgust, his mind already racing over plan B. “Let's round up everyone. I'll run over to the terminal and get us booked and ticketed on whatever's first out to Kansas City. You get the bags all loaded into one vehicle, if someone has a pickup or camper?”

“One of us does.”

“Good. After I get the tickets, I'll come back here and get you and we'll go get the bags checked. Maybe you should send everyone to a restaurant to wait it out while you wait for me here. We can't get out of here till six
A.M.
at the earliest.”

“They're gonna be thrilled.”

“Aren't we all.”

Joe drove the half mile to the main terminal, working to control his temper. Caldwell had been uncooperative before, but this was too much. Yet Bill Caldwell was a powerful man. Any protesting Joe could do would have to be done carefully through NTSB Chairman Dean Farris, who was friendly with Caldwell. Not only would they be at least three hours late getting to Kansas City now, but the trip would also cost the NTSB budget several thousand dollars. The public just assumed the NTSB's job was important enough to justify adequate funds and interagency governmental cooperation. The public would be shocked to know the truth, he muttered to himself.

Joe flipped his NTSB badge at an airport police officer to explain the presence of his car at the curb and dashed inside, startled by the relative silence of the deserted terminal in the wee hours of morning—National by day was a familiar swarm of human activity and noise. The earliest flight to Kansas City was on North America at 6
A.M.
, and Joe booked the nine seats he needed in coach with the lone ticket agent on duty, using his own American Express card. By 5:30
A.M.
the team had assembled in the departure lounge, boarding the empty Boeing 727 early with the help of a solicitous gate agent, the pilots coming back before departure to share worried assessments of the holocaust in Kansas City. The captain, a younger pilot in his late thirties, lingered until the last minute, pumping Joe for information he didn't have, until his flight engineer found them. “Captain, is this gentleman the NTSB team leader?”