Free Fall (28 page)

Seventy-Three

Weld County, Colorado

H
igh above the vast reaches of the empty prairie, an FBI drone scoured the ground below.

It flew at a height that kept it invisible and silent from detection.

Equipped with high-powered video cameras and sensors, the small surveillance aircraft gave agents at the command post in Galeton a critical aerial view of the area where the GPS trail of their subjects had stopped.

The agent piloting the drone at a control console exercised the precision of a surgeon, carefully watching the video screen as she stabilized its position.

The camera panned, captured objects, then zoomed in.

The clear image of a lone vehicle emerged on the screen. Near the vehicle two people came into view, one male and one female, sitting on a blanket with laptop computers.

The camera pulled in closer.

“Is that the grip of a handgun by the male's leg?” asked Nick Varner, who huddled with other agents and SWAT team leaders near the monitor.

“We can't confirm,” the drone pilot said. “But that's as close as we're going to get, sir.”

“All right, let's go,” Burt Young, the FBI SWAT commander, said. Then he instructed the drone pilot, “Keep us updated on movements because they're going to see us coming.” Young confirmed coordinates with the other teams, who would each take a compass point for their approach, boxing in their subjects. Then he turned from the group and signaled to his team. They shrugged into their gear and climbed into the vehicles parked outside.

Varner strapped on a vest and helmet, checked his weapon and found a seat next to Mitch Butler, who had been on the phone.

“So what about those missile launch sites?” Varner asked.

“Just had it confirmed—they're empty and inactive.”

Varner nodded. “Good. We can rule that out.”

Engines revved and seconds later FBI, city and state SWAT teams moved out in a convoy of armored police trucks, along with two ambulances from Weld and Morgan counties, and two NTSB experts in an SUV taking up the rear.

They were braced for all eventualities.

Seventy-Four

Washington, DC

T
he two police officers who'd entered Robert Cole's Metro car had moved past him without stopping.

Cole exhaled his relief but kept his face in his files until he got off at the Metro Center station, where he boarded an Orange Line train to the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station.

Anxiety surged through him during the short ride but he regained his focus on what he had to do as he stepped from the train, blending in with commuters as he made his way to NTSB headquarters. Suddenly, the enormity of his situation caught up with him, stopping him in his tracks outside the building's entrance.

How did my life come to this? I'm wanted by the FBI. Veyda's killed fifteen people and is planning to kill more
.

He ran his fingers over his dry lips. He craved a drink. One drink.

No, you have to keep going
. Cole tightened his hold on his briefcase.
Stop thinking of yourself. You have to fix this and you have to do it now
.

He entered the main lobby.

Streams of government workers and employees of companies in the building were using their ID badges to go through the security turnstiles. Nongovernment visitors had lined up at the security desk, where they had to show identification and provide the names of the people they were there to see. Their personal items were passed through a scanner and x-rayed.

I can't let it end here. I've got to see Hooper.

Cole licked his lips and fumbled for the ID badge he'd used when he'd worked on NTSB investigations long ago. He eyed the security officers while keeping his head down. His line moved steadily.

Remain calm and act natural. Calm and natural
.

“Next,” said the young female security guard, Atley, according to her nameplate.

“Robert Cole to see Jake Hooper with NTSB Major Investigations.” Cole placed his ID on the desk.

Atley looked at it carefully, deepening his fear.

“It's urgent,” Cole added. “I'm party to an investigation.”

Atley looked at Cole, typed on her keyboard then reached for her phone.

Cole glanced at other security officers, momentarily eyeing their holstered guns. Then he looked back at Atley, not liking the way she was tapping his card on her desk while on the phone.

It telegraphed a problem.

Cole saw that one of the other security guards was taking a longer look at him. Cole looked away for several seconds, but when he looked back the guard was still looking at him—directly at him.

* * *

A collision course! Dear God, they did it. They've breached the system
.

Jake Hooper rushed from the emergency meeting to his desk, stunned by the horror playing out over the sky, refusing to believe Robert Cole would engineer such devastation.

How can we stop it?

The nation's best experts with the NTSB, the FAA, the military, the airlines, the planes' makers, were all frantically searching for solutions that would release the cyber stranglehold that had locked the jets on a death course.

Nothing was working.

Jet fighters were getting into position to take whatever action the White House advised.

Impact was less than forty minutes away.

More than eleven hundred people would die.

The FBI was on-site in Colorado, minutes from moving in on Seth Hagen and Cole's daughter.

Is there time to stop what's been orchestrated?

Hooper racked his brain for a solution. It was futile. Whatever he'd thought of had already been conveyed to the crews by the Air Route Traffic Control Centers, and nothing was working.

Hooper glanced at the time: thirty-eight minutes to impact. His line rang and he seized it.

“Hooper.”

“Security, sir. I've got Robert Cole at the desk for you.”

“Who?”

“Robert Cole. He says it's urgent.”

Hooper's pulse rocketed.

“Don't let him leave! I'll be right down! Hold him there!”

* * *

“Sir,” Atley said to Cole upon hanging up, “your card's expired.”

“Expired?”

“Yes, would you—”

“Let me take a look.” The guard who'd been staring at Cole held out his hand for Cole's ID. He studied it, then the pages posted near the computer. His sharp blue eyes flicked to Cole, then to the pages, then to Cole.

Both men knew.

Cole's stomach clenched and he took a step back from the desk.

The guard very subtly shifted his weight while unsnapping the button strap of his holster.

“Sir, get down on the floor, on your stomach,” the older guard said.

Cole didn't move.

In one smooth motion the guard drew his gun from his holster and leveled it at Cole's head.

“Get on the floor now!”

A woman screamed. People nearby backed away as Cole dropped to his knees, raising his open hands.

“Please, I have to see Jake Hooper! It's a matter of life and death.”

“Atley, move your ass! Cuff him!” the older guard said.

“You don't understand,” Cole said.

Atley rose from her seat and moved behind Cole, pushing his stomach flat on the floor, and handcuffed his wrists behind his back. The older guard replaced his gun in his holster and spoke quickly into the shoulder microphone of his radio. Then he helped heft Cole to his feet and moved him around the security desk toward a small office, just as Hooper emerged.

“Jake!” Cole called to him. “Jake, it's my daughter and her boyfriend! They found a point of vulnerability! I can fix it!”

“Shut up!” the older guard said as his radio crackled a response.

“Hold on!” Hooper said. “I need to talk to this man!”

“No,” the guard said. “He's wanted by the FBI. We've just alerted them.”

“Where're you taking him?”

The guard nodded to the small office.

“Jake, please, let me help! I can fix it!”

More security people arrived, along with Reed Devlin.

“Reed,” Hooper said, “Robert says he has the solution!”

Devlin's face tensed as he assessed the scene.

“This man's wanted by the FBI,” the security supervisor said, “and we're holding him here. They're on their way.”

“Reed,” Hooper said. “Cole can help us and we're losing time!”

“Listen to me,” Devlin told the guards. “We've got a crisis happening now and we need this man's expertise immediately. Please hold him in our operations room so we can talk to him. Keep him in custody and watch over him. The NTSB will assume responsibility but we must do it now!”

As the security supervisor shook his head Devlin stepped closer to him, enabling the security man to read the fear in Devlin's eyes.

“We have a thousand lives at stake! Do you want to be the guy history remembers as the one who stood in the way of saving them?” Devlin said.

The security supervisor's face whitened.

“We're in this together,” Devlin said. “Let's do this now!”

The supervisor turned to the guards and nodded.

“Let's go. Take him up to the sixth.”

Seventy-Five

Grand Junction, Colorado

“I
t's not working.”

Beads of sweat grew on Lloyd Quinn's brow as he looked at Shawn Krenski, who was shaking his head.

Thirty-five minutes ago, they'd learned that their plane, Trans Peak Airlines Flight 2230 from LA to New York, was locked on a collision course with Seattle-bound NorthSun Airlines Flight 118. The time of impact was in thirty-one minutes.

Both crews had now been alerted and advised not to tell passengers of the situation so as not to risk chaos on the flight. Since the alert, Quinn and Krenski had made countless attempts to regain control of their aircraft.

“Anything happening with the autopilot?” Joe Brazak, the top engineer for the 880, said from Trans Peak's headquarters in Seattle.

“Nothing.”

“Let's try that override again.”

“Roger.” Quinn nodded to Krenski, who issued a sequence of commands but to no avail.

“Nothing,” Quinn reported, just as his headset beeped with a transmission from the ATCC.

“TP Twenty-two Thirty, Denver Center. No change to your course.”

“Twenty-two Thirty. Roger, Center. We're working on it with engineering.”

Quinn's headset beeped again.

“Try it again but with the reset,” Marty Chan, the systems chief, suggested from Seattle.

Krenski wiped his sweating fingers on his shirt as he tried the reset without success.

“Okay,” Brazak said, “try to reduce speed again.”

“We tried again. Nothing.”

“Try adjusting altitude.”

Quinn made yet another effort, which failed, leaving him to curse under his breath and face the fact that they were trapped. Every command was shut out. He had no control of his aircraft as it cut across the sky thirty-six thousand feet above Grand Junction, Colorado.

They were moving at more than five hundred miles an hour, locked into a course that would end in a midair collision with a Seattle-bound flight in about thirty minutes.

Quinn looked to the corner of the console, where he'd placed a small photo of Maria, his wife, and Sophie and Ella, their two daughters. It was in keeping with a promise he'd made to himself long ago. If ever he faced something impossible on the job, their faces were the last thing he wanted to see.

Quinn then looked at the sky ahead.

God help us.

Seventy-Six

Garden City, Kansas

C
aptain Will Miller's jaw muscles spasmed as he gripped the handles of the control wheel and battled his anger with engineering.

“We've run diagnostics three times now!” Miller said. “It's been futile! You guys have to give us something that works. We're running out of time!”

Seattle-bound NorthSun Airlines Flight 118 was high over Garden City, Kansas. Miller and First Officer Sam Zhang had worked in vain to recover control of the Startrail AV600. Engineers from the plane's builder in São Paulo, Brazil, and US operations in Houston had provided a line of possible remedies over the radio. Each one had failed.

“NorthSun One Eighteen, this is Kansas City Center. We see no change in your course.”

“Kansas City Center, nothing's working for us.”

“One Eighteen, we're handing off to NORAD. You'll find them on the emergency frequency. Good luck, One Eighteen.”

One minute later, an F-16 appeared on Zhang's right side, while Miller saw one on his left side.

The two jet fighters were with the 140th Wing, Colorado Air National Guard out of Buckley Air Force in Aurora.

“One Twenty Tactical to NorthSun One Eighteen, this is Major Brennan. How do you read?”

“NorthSun One Eighteen, this is Captain Will Miller. Loud and clear, Major.”

Miller took a deep breath.

It was now twenty-three minutes to impact with the New York–bound flight.

Seventy-Seven

White River National Forest, Colorado

K
ate's plane was somewhere over Colorado.

She had no internet access, of course, underscoring her apprehension that she was missing something. Once she got to New York, she'd track down Robert Cole. She'd already started outlining her story but Cole was the most critical aspect.

I wish this jet could go faster
.

She looked from her notes to the window, still troubled by Varner's cryptic response to her about Cole—that they were on the same track and things were unfolding.

What's unfolding down there?

A chime sounded and the seat belt sign illuminated. The in-flight beverage-and-meals-for-purchase service was abruptly halted. Attendants returned service carts with a sense of urgency.

Another chime sounded, and the captain's voice rang through the cabin. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Quinn.” A long silence passed before the captain cleared his throat. “We request everyone remain in their seats with their belts fastened and refrain from using the washrooms. We have a situation with national security implications...”

Murmurs rose throughout the cabin.

“...and as a precaution, you may see military aircraft beside us momentarily. I'm sorry, but we have no further details that we can pass to you at this point.”

An outcry of dismay, fear and anger erupted among the passengers.

“What the hell's going on?” one man shouted as attendants, with worry etched in their faces, patrolled the aisles to confirm all seat belts were fastened. One woman seized an attendant by the arm. “We have a right to know what's happening!”

“I'm sorry, but we only know what you know, ma'am.”

“There they are!” a boy shouted.

Necks craned as people turned to the windows to see F-16 fighters flying off the wings on either side of the plane. The sight of the military jets a few feet from the jetliner hammered home the gravity of the situation.

“Oh my God!” One woman made the sign of the cross.

Attendants pinballed between the emotional trouble spots, comforting passengers, and soon a heavy, silent dread settled over the cabin as families held hands. Some passengers wept softly and others prayed.

Kate felt all the saliva dry in her mouth as she dropped her head back on her headrest and blinked several times.

Oh dear God
. She gripped her armrests.
Is this tied to Zarathustra? Maybe they've taken control of the plane.

Her stomach twisted at the surreal truth of her situation and she acted on the one clear thought she had. She took out her notepad, uncapped her pen and began writing.

Dear Grace and Vanessa. Right now, I don't know what's going to happen, but I want you to know you are both the lights of my life...