The Last Hostage (10 page)

"Okay. Okay, we do it together."

"Good."

"Ah, I'll tell them his background problems, you tell them what Verne saw today."

"Okay."

"But please don't say he shouldn't have been flying."

She nodded slowly. "Steve, I think they're going to figure that one out all by themselves."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 11:40 A.M.

Annette paused halfway up through the coach cabin to look back at Bev and Kevin, who were watching her from the rear galley area.

There was a thin, supportive smile from Bev, but Kevin seemed angry.

Annette looked inside the plastic trash bag she was carrying. There were perhaps ten cell phones already, and more to come, since she had obeyed the hijacker's relayed orders and used the P.A. to ask everyone to surrender all their phones. Any cellular signal from the cabin, she had told them, could be detected by their captor.

She had seen ads for the type of cellular signal detector Ken had mentioned. They did exist.

"Ma'am?" She turned toward the familiar face of the young man she'd seen using the seat phone earlier, and realized with a start that he was reaching into her bag to get one of the cell phones.

Annette yanked the bag away.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

"I've got to borrow one of those! I'm a CNN reporter. I was on the air when they pulled the plug."

"No! Jeez, didn't you hear what I said? The hijacker can detect if a cell phone's in use, even back here. We can't afford to upset him."

The thought of angering some psychopath in the cockpit with a bomb trigger in his hand was a terrifying presence in her mind, and she wondered if the passengers could sense her massive upset.

Chris Billings motioned her closer, his voice a whisper.

"You don't understand. I'm trying to tell the world exactly what's happening."

Annette leaned close to keep her voice low. "Why, sir? Why is that important enough to risk a bomb?"

"For rescue purposes in Salt Lake. It's vital the FBI know details, or they could make a fatal mistake."

She pulled back, shaking her head. "We can't take the chance. The safest way to deal with a hijacker is play it the way he wants it."

She resumed the trek forward toward first class, collecting several more phones before stopping in front of Rudy Bostich's seat.

Bostich was smiling up at her and holding out one of the smallest phones she'd ever seen.

"They'll be making these as surgical implants in the next few years, I guess," he said with a worried chuckle as he placed it in the bag.

Annette smiled back as best she could, her eyes memorizing his familiar face, her mind trying to imagine what he could have done to so profoundly upset Ken Wolfe.

Rudy Bostich had noticed the frightened, faraway look on her face as he read her nametags "Are you okay... Annette, is it?" he asked.

She drew a sharp breath, nodded her head and tried to smile. It was an unconvincing performance, and they both knew it.

"I'm... just worried, like all of us," she said.

"Do you have any idea what the hijacker wants?" he added.

She shook her head and tried to force a smile.

"Not yet."

Bostich shifted in his seat and raised a finger. "Ah, you know, it would probably be better if you didn't tell the captain or the hijacker that I'm aboard, since we don't know what's going on. Just a precaution.

The idea that there's a federal prosecutor on board, you know, could be a target."

"I understand," Annette replied, trying to keep her expression neutral while the memory of handing his business card to Ken Wolfe in Colorado Springs, and Ken's strange reaction to it, flashed across her mind.

"I'll make sure no one tells the hijacker," she said.

Annette turned in confusion and retreated into the forward galley, pulling the curtains behind her, and drew a ragged breath. The plastic bag of cellular phones was still dangling from her right hand and she hadn't even noticed. She placed it in the corner of the galley, against the right front door, and at the same moment remembered her incomplete phone call to operations. She'd tried to find out whether a passenger had been left in Durango, but had they heard her?

Probably not, she decided, but even if they had the answer ready, how could she get it?

The kid from CNN is right, she thought. The FBI needs to know what's happening.

Annette looked at the cockpit door and tried to imagine the cellular signal detector going off. What would the hijacker do if he thought someone was communicating with the ground without his permission?

Was there somewhere around the airplane she could use the phone without the vibrator activating?

He'd have Ken call me on the interphone, she decided. He'd yell at me not to try again. That's all.

Annette made sure the curtains to the galley were pulled before leaning down and digging out the smallest phone she could find. It was the one Bostich had handed her, and she slipped it in her apron pocket before picking up the bag and moving to the interphone panel.

Ken answered immediately.

"I've got the phones in a bag here by the door. You want them up front?"

"I'm going to unlock the door, Annette. Open it just far enough to toss the bag inside, then shut it immediately. Look only at the floor.

He says if he sees the whites of your eyes, he'll shoot. He doesn't want you identifying him. Understand?"

"Yes, but Ken, can I come in and talk to you?"

"No! Do you understand the procedure?"

She looked back toward the cabin, wondering if anyone was listening to her side of the conversation. The woman in 1(2 was watching the cockpit door, but Rudy Bostich was out of sight behind the partition dividing first class from the forward entryway. Annette kept her voice as low as she could.

"I understand the procedure, Ken."

Annette picked up the bag of cell phones as the click of the electronic door lock release reached her ears. She moved to the door and put her hand on the handle, which was on the right side, the hinge on the left. She pulled it open less than twelve inches. In her peripheral vision, she was aware of the back of Ken's head in the captain's chair as she reached in and quickly dropped the bag on the floor just inside the door, but from her position at the right edge of the door-frame, the copilot's seat was invisible.

There was another familiar object visible in the few seconds the door was ajar, and her mind raced to consider the possibilities: The crash axe sat in its storage harness on the left sidewall just inside the door.

Could I grab the axe before he could stop me? she wondered. But what then?

Annette closed the door as fast as she could, then moved back to the interphone panel, her knees shaking at the mere thought of attacking someone with an axe.

She picked up the interphone handset and pressed the button.

"Okay, Ken. They're all there."

"Thanks, Annette."

"Ken?"

There was no answer.

"Ken, please answer me."

The interphone transmit button finally clicked on.

"What?"

"Ken, is he listening?"

"Yes, but we're getting close to Salt Lake City. We don't have much time left. There's much to prepare for, and even I don't..." His voice trailed off.

"Don't what, Ken? Don't what?"

"Never mind. I'm being told to shut up. Go sit down and strap in.

It'll be easier that way."

A cold chill began creeping up her back.

"What will be easier, Ken? What is he planning?"

There was no response, except for the sound of the interphone button being released in the cockpit.

Annette sank into the forward jumpseat, a hand over her eyes, the phone clutched tightly to her ear. It'll be easier that way, he had said.

The sound of the P.A. clicking on stunned her.

"This is the captain again. Everyone in this aircraft, flight attendants included, must be seated and belted in immediately. Do not get out of your seats for any reason!"

Annette jumped to her feet and moved into the forward portion of the first class cabin as she felt the aircraft enter a sudden bank to the right. The eyes of a dozen frightened passengers were on her as she realized they were still banking, still rolling to the right. She caught a glimpse of tree-covered mountainsides thousands of feet below, filling the right-hand side windows of the 737.

The roll was continuing!

Annette braced herself with a firm hand on the edge of the overhead compartments. She had planned on walking through the cabin, checking on seatbelts, then briefing Kevin.

They were still rolling, almost through ninety degrees. She was looking straight down on the trees below.

Straight down!

Trees continued to move vertically in the windows on the 737's right side, from the bottom to the top, as the roll continued. A squadron sunbeams shot through the left side windows at a wild angle, raking the cabin with as many shafts of moving light as the jet had window What on earth is he doing?

She realized they were rolling upside down. Trees and rocks a meadows were moving at a crazy angle out of the top of each window frame, giving way to an upside down view of the horizon as she herself was getting light on her feet and floating!

We're completely inverted!

There were brief screams and gasps throughout the cabin as the 737 continued to roll through the inverted position.

Annette realized she was completely weightless. Blue sky and up side down clouds were visible through the right side windows, and trees and mountainsides were appearing from the top down. then the windows on the left side, all of them still moving as the roll con tinued.

She heard the engine power being throttled back, and the sound of an increasing slipstream as the aircraft sped up, its nose pitching slightly down as it continued to roll past 270 degrees, three quarters of the way around.

And within a few seconds, normal gravity returned and the sky positioned itself correctly in both sets of windows as the 737 returned to level flight.

Once again the P.A. clicked on, barely overpowering the steady sound of cries from the passengers and her own pounding heart.

The voice was strained and curt.

"People, I'm told to tell you that was just a sample of what will happen if anyone disobeys this guy's orders. Don't even think of trying anything. Stay seated. Stay calm. Stay out of it, or he'll put us through worse than what you just experienced."

AirBridge Airlines Dispatch Center, Colorado Springs Inten Airport. 11:20 A.M.

With the connection to AirBridge 90 broken, Judy Smith replaced the handset and looked around at the faces of the chief pilot, operations, and the company's president. The three men had followed her from the conference room when the excited crew scheduler had burst in and summoned her.

"What, Judy? What?" Steve Coberg asked.

She shook her head. "I lost the connection. We can replay the tape, but she asked the question 'Did we leave a passenger behind...' and then I lost her. I never heard what she was referring to."

Judy followed them back into the conference room, aware that a stern- looking man from corporate headquarters she recognized as one of the company's attorneys pointedly closed the door behind her. She heard the distinct sound of the door lock clicking into place, and she noticed that the curtains between the conference room and the dispatch center had already been drawn. When they were completely isolated, the man moved to the head of the table and introduced himself as the airline's vice president-law as he looked squarely at the chief pilot.

"Captain Coberg, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

His gaze shifted to Judy, and he spoke her name with a question mark.

"Yes," she replied.

"Okay. What you two were just telling us--these concerns you had about the captain's reaction to a terrible personal loss-can never leave this room. Any unfounded speculation or observations about the emotional stability of one of our pilots is proprietary information, and in fact, it's not even information. It's just dangerous gossip."

Judy started to speak, but Steve Coberg cut her off.

"We have no intention of letting that out of here, Mr. Wallace. But we felt these were observational details that the senior leadership needed to know."

The lawyer straightened and snorted, a stormy look on his face.

"Yeah, we really need to know after the fact that this captain may be a loose cannon in a financially marginal commercial airline operation with a gazillion dollars of liability exposure in a volatile stock market."

Coberg glared at Judy, then raised both hands in a gesture of puzzlement.

"Well, are you suggesting I shouldn't have said anything to this group? I mean, these are just background worries, but I don't want the senior leadership to be, well, blindsided if anything ever came of it."