Free Fall (22 page)

Forty-Nine

Washington, DC

T
he faces of the dead haunted Jake Hooper as he and Pax rounded the corner at the east end of the pool at the National Mall.

It had been two days since he'd returned from London.

During his time there the
Daily Mail
had run a front-page gallery of photos of the Heathrow crash victims, six children and nine adults, inlayed over the wreckage.

The images were seared into Hooper's memory and weighed heavily on him as he tried to resume his routine. His early-morning runs with Pax at the Mall helped him organize his thoughts about his work and his life.

The night before, at their anniversary dinner, he'd given his wife, Gwen, the pearl necklace and earrings he'd bought in London. She'd given him a watch he'd liked and good news.

The vet says they're going to put Pax on an experimental drug therapy. It'll give him three to four more pain-free years. Isn't that great?

It was more than that.

Now, as Hooper finished his run, Pax's spirits seemed lifted. He panted happily as Hooper bent down and nuzzled him.

“Now we have hope, buddy. Now we have hope.”

That was not the case with Hooper's work on the Shikra and EastCloud flights. The investigations were progressing slowly, though that was expected because they were always meticulous and exhaustive.

They had to be.

But recent developments had deepened Hooper's concerns about a possible cause.

When he got to his desk in NTSB headquarters at L'Enfant Plaza, he took out his copy of the
Daily Mail
and spread it across his desk. He stared into the faces of those who'd been killed and vowed to find the answers their families deserved.

Shikra, British, American and Kuwaiti investigators had examined a range of potential causes. Was it an irregularity in the computers controlling the engine systems? Was it an electronic malfunction? They'd studied weather systems and the possibility of a bird strike and they'd looked at radio interference.

All were ruled out.

But there were still hundreds of other aspects of the aircraft that they needed to study, and the investigation continued with plans for Hooper and other members of the team to return to the UK at the end of the month.

As for EastCloud Flight 4990, Hooper reviewed the latest examination of the fault logs of the Electrical Load Management System. So far their review had gone back thirty flights. No anomalies had emerged. They would go back another thirty flights. And they were still studying the quick access recorder. Meanwhile weather systems had found no indication of turbulence, nothing on radar. Bill Cashill and Irene Zimm were still pointing to human performance and crew behavior as the likely cause behind the trouble of the Buffalo–to–New York flight.

Hooper disagreed.

He believed the source of the cause in both incidents would be found in Richlon-Titan's fly-by-wire system, which was present in both planes. Underscoring his view was the increasingly disturbing aspect with the emails, the so-called Zarathustra messages, claiming responsibility.

The FBI had advised the NTSB that it was investigating and working on tracking the sender, which included the public appeal for help identifying the person behind them. Yes, investigators received crackpot claims of all sorts with high-profile incidents, Hooper thought, but they were rarely published. But the recent news story on Zarathustra and the FBI's approach took matters to a troubling level.

When Hooper went to the kitchen for a fresh coffee, investigators Jayden Kennett and Vernon Nall were having a heated discussion.

“What's up, fellas?” Hooper asked.

“Did you see Cal Marshall and Stuart Shore on CTNB last week?” Kennett asked.

“Yeah, I caught it online after it aired.”

“We think Shore came close to identifying the technology with Project Overlord,” Kennett said.

“Could be,” Hooper said. “I don't know a lot about Overlord. I was never part of it. It was a long time ago and classified. You guys ever touch it?”

“No, I didn't have the clearance. It was beyond us,” Kennett said.

“But you're thinking it's something we need to look into?” Hooper asked.

“I think so,” Nall said. “Last night I went to the game with Cal Marshall.”

“You know Marshall?”

“Our wives are cousins,” Nall said. “Anyway, he told me he's hearing rumors on the grapevine about Overlord. Something's buzzing about it.”

The lunchroom door closed behind Bill Cashill, who'd been standing in the doorway.

“Overlord was abandoned. It never happened,” Cashill said. “So let's just kill any cockamamie ideas about it having any bearing on EastCloud and Shikra.”

“Were you on the project, Bill?” Nall asked.

“No. It was a very select group back then, people from the military, industry, systems, FAA. There were two NTSB people on it—Elwood King, who died a few years ago of cancer, and John Carmody, who fell off a cliff last summer while hiking in New Zealand.”

“Hang on, hang on.” Hooper snapped his fingers at a memory. “I think a guy I worked with a few times from the industry had mentioned once that he'd worked on Overlord.”

“Who was that?” Cashill asked.

“Robert Cole.”

“Robert Cole? The guy who became a drunk and lost his marbles? The guy who calls us on every investigation with his wild-ass theories?”

“You know he worked with Richlon-Titan on their fly-by-wire system.”

“So?” Cashill's face tightened. “Where're you headed here, Jacob?”

“I just don't think, given the current context, the FBI, the emails, that we can categorically rule out a cyber breach of the system in both planes.”

“A cyber hack?” Cashill began shaking his head bitterly. “We've been down this road a dozen times. We know the systems. It can't happen. What you're suggesting is a distraction.”

“It's our duty to be open-minded and investigate all scenarios.”

“We have no real evidence!” Cashill raised his voice.

“But the emails,” Nall said.

“The emails came out after the fact! They're post-incident claims!” Cashill said. “They're nothing but typing from a disturbed mind! The FBI's searching for the sender to charge them for making threatening claims, not interfering with flights, because that's impossible.”

“Is it, Bill?” Hooper asked. “Do you know this conclusively?”

“Are you challenging me, Jacob?”

Hooper said nothing.

“Listen to me.” Cashill held a finger near Hooper's face. “With EastCloud, everything points to pilot error, and with Shikra, everything points to errors in maintenance. I'm ordering you to stop this bullshit search for ghosts in the machine and to focus on reality. Is that clear?”

Cashill looked at his three investigators one by one.

“Now get back to work,” he said before leaving.

At his desk, Hooper dragged his hands over his face.

He could not and would not let go of the real fear that someone had discovered a back door into the system or a wireless jump point—that they'd somehow found a way to override the plane's security software and gain access to the flight-critical system.

The faces of the Heathrow tragedy stared at him.

Then he noticed his discarded phone messages from Robert Cole.

Fifty

Clear River, North Dakota

I
t's the coding.

Robert Cole stared hard at the screen of his laptop, then at the pages of notes and calculations spread across the dining room table.

It's the decision logic in the Omega Protection system
.

In the days since he'd recovered his lost files from the second-hand dealer in Bismarck, he'd worked nonstop on repairing RT's fly-by-wire system. With his redesign he'd firewalled the vulnerability of the kill switch network, absolutely securing it against any attack. Then he'd checked and double-checked and triple-checked his work. Then he'd reviewed it again and again, until he'd been satisfied.

This is it. This will fix the problem in the control system.

Cole sat back in his chair, scratched the stubble on his chin, pushed back his hair that had curtained in front of his face, and downed the last of the tepid coffee in his cup. His next problem was getting his solution to the NTSB and convincing them that he was not the drunken shell of a man that they thought he was.

At least not anymore
.

He'd go to Jake Hooper because he was the only person in Washington, the only investigator, with whom he had a slim chance of being heard. The truth was Hooper had never responded to his recent calls, but in the time after Cole had lost Elizabeth and fallen into the abyss, Hooper was the only one who'd acknowledged him, taking the time to speak with him, asking how he was doing.

Even when I called him drunk and out of my mind he was there
.

He'd go to Hooper and beg for ten minutes, just ten minutes, and he would show him the problem and the solution. Cole had to do it. He had to make them understand before it was too late.

Before more people died.

Cole hadn't checked the news for the latest developments on the investigations into the London and New York incidents. He went online, scrolling through news sites from the United States and the UK. Finding a recent article from Newslead, he began reading.

A potential puzzle piece has emerged in the mystery surrounding the horrific crash of a jetliner at London's Heathrow airport and the near-tragic incident experienced by a New York–bound commuter plane.

Coming to the paragraphs concerning the FBI “examining cryptic communications made by someone claiming to have knowledge of what is behind both events,” Cole read faster. His breathing quickened as he saw that the FBI was attempting to locate “a person or persons of interest.”

Looks like a break in the case. They must have a lead,
he thought, racing to finish the story, slowing when he read about the emails sent by “Zarathustra” to Newslead and the Kuwaiti Embassy in London. Cole read the excerpt in which the sender had written:

“...tell the ordinary masses that we are extraordinary people destined to soon achieve a monumental victory of a colossal scale, the likes of which the world has never seen. We will take civilization to unprecedented heights, lighting the way forward for all of human existence. We are Zarathustra, Lord of the Heavens.”

Cole froze.

In a buried corner of his heart an alarm sounded, faint at first, telling him what he refused to believe—that the warning's words, the syntax and the meaning of the passage were familiar.

I know this. Where's it from?

But he'd no sooner posed the question when the answer hit him like a sledgehammer to his stomach.

“No, no, no!”

He searched helplessly among his papers, manuals and files spread on the table. He rushed to the other stacks of records he'd recovered from the second-hand dealer. He spotted the thick brown envelope from MIT, slid it from the stack and pulled out its contents, starting first with an old letter addressed to him:

Dear Mr. Cole:

Please forgive me for contacting you confidentially but I feel the need to bring a matter of concern to your attention.

I am your daughter Veyda's doctoral thesis advisor. As you may know, her thesis topic was to advance research in aircraft systems engineering. However, upon her return after the horrible tragedy your family has suffered—for which I offer my deepest and belated condolences—Veyda informed me of her intention to switch the subject of her thesis.

She subsequently produced a hastily pulled together work in another discipline. It was a rambling, nearly incoherent manuscript that bordered on a manifesto, calling for the Third Reich to be praised for its accomplishments. She also argued that Nietzsche's philosophy of supremacy without consequences should not only be worshipped, but applied in contemporary society in order to advance civilization.

Her thesis committee, supported by the graduate program chair, rejected her submission and suggested Veyda's tragic loss of her mother may have had a bearing on her emotional and intellectual state. The committee, with whom I concurred, suggested Veyda seek counseling.

At this writing we are unaware of her whereabouts or her welfare.

Mr. Cole, I hope you will understand that I felt a need to bring this matter to your attention privately out of concern for your daughter's well-being.

Sincerely,

Rachel Rinchley, PhD, Aerospace Engineering

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PS—I've enclosed a copy of Veyda's thesis for your reference.

Cole recalled receiving the package when he'd been grieving Veyda's estrangement from him. He'd been in an inebriated haze when he'd first read it. Now, as he set her doctoral thesis before him, he exhaled slowly and began a meticulous line-by-line examination. With every sentence and every paragraph, the crushing realization soon overwhelmed him.

Veyda had written the emails quoted in the article.

The notes he'd made on her paper confirmed his fear. Chills shot through him as he read every reference to Hegel, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky; and the “extraordinary human whose achievements must be unfettered at any cost, take civilization to unprecedented heights, lighting the way forward for all of human existence.” Then, “Without pain, without blood, there is no birth, no advancement for humanity.”

He burned through the pages and the awful truth screamed at him.

Oh God
.

Cole drew his shaking hands over his face to stop the room from spinning as he struggled to absorb the implications.

If Veyda had written the emails, was she also responsible for the Heathrow crash and the EastCloud incident?

News images of the bodies amid the fiery Shikra wreckage, the video of horrified passengers on the EastCloud flight, swirled before him.

Did Veyda cause this? Is my little girl a murderer?

He glanced at his photos: Veyda the diapered baby sleeping on his chest. Veyda on her bicycle. Veyda receiving academic awards.

God, please. No.

Maybe she'd written the emails but hadn't hacked into the RT system? The one he'd designed. But she was brilliant. She'd studied the engineering of systems much of her academic life. This could be Veyda's revenge for Elizabeth's death.

In killing my mother, you killed part of me. I no longer want you in my life. I never want to see you again. You are not my father and I am not your daughter.

Veyda's words hammered against his brain and his heart.

Cole had to do something.

I'll call the FBI. I'll tell them.

Suddenly he envisioned a SWAT team descending on Veyda, wherever she was. They could hurt her. Or she could hurt herself.

They could kill her.

No, he couldn't, he wouldn't, go to the FBI.

No, this is my fault. I created this monstrous situation! I have to find her. Veyda's mind is broken. She needs help. I have to find her, get a lawyer, surrender her properly and bring this all to an end.

But how?

He held his head in his hands, listening to the table making soft vibrations from his trembling as he searched for an answer. He needed a drink. There were bottles at the hangar. He could go get them, take a drink, just one to help him think.

No. No. That's not what he needed.

He got up, washed his face, put on a clean shirt and combed his hair. He sat before his laptop, activated his camera and microphone and made a short video. After three takes he'd settled on one and replayed it, watching himself, tears in his eyes as he pleaded to his daughter.

Cole knew full well the risks he'd face at every turn if he released this video. But he had no choice. Lives were at stake and time was running out.