Authors: John J. Nance
"UNDERSTAND? I'm not going to tell you, you're going to tell me, and in exquisite detail. Or, your lousy ass is going to die."
There was an uneasy silence for more than a minute.
"Are you through, Captain?" Rudy asked in a small voice.
Ken nodded. "Yeah. Without a doubt, I'm finished. But so are you, Counselor."
Rudy fell silent, his right hand massaging his chin. He stared out the copilot's side window as Ken's grip tightened on the yoke, his left hand carefully holding the trigger, his jaw clenched in fury, his mind momentarily far away as the 737 flew alongside a ridge, bucking in the rising columns of air propelled by the heat of the noonday sun.
There was another valley to the right, a broad one leading away to the south, and he banked toward it at less than five hundred feet above the terrain, as he checked again to make sure the aircraft wasn't transmitting its usual radar identification to the air traffic control radars that would be searching for him. With his eyes momentarily focused inside the cockpit, the flock of buzzards just ahead at the same altitude escaped his notice until the last second. Ken looked up just as the flock tried to dive away in all directions. Two sickening thuds rumbled through the airframe as Ken jerked the controls back too late.
"What--what was that?" Rudy asked.
"Bird strikes," Ken responded, mostly to himself. He checked the engine instruments, relieved to find them steady. He looked carefully at the left wing then cycled the controls in all directions, satisfied there was no serious damage. One of the impacts had come from over the cockpit, and Ken leaned forward to look up through the small eyebrow windows, his eyes focused on the airframe and missing a sudden glint of sunlight reflecting off the high-flying shapes of two F-16s as they handset as Kat sprang to her feet and moved back to the cockpit to relay the position.
"Good," Dane said as he studied the flight management computer after entering the coordinates. "He's about twenty miles south of us.
What do you think, Jeff?"
"About one-seven-zero degrees?"
The captain nodded as he pushed the power levers forward, then turned to Kat.
"You might want to get on a headset now. The frequency you gave me is in this radio head right here. Your transmit button is on the panel."
"Got it. And we're still at twenty thousand?"
The copilot nodded as Dane turned to her. "When we get to where we think he might be, we probably ought to be around ten or less."
Kat leaned forward and focused on a small spot etched into the matte black of the center instrument console, organizing her thoughts.
If Wolfe was able to hear the radio calls she was about to make, how would he react? Logically he should be pleased, but his actions had hardly been logical.
But what choice was there?
She pushed the transmit button.
"AirBridge Ninety, Gulfstream Five-Lima-Lima, how do you copy?"
There was no answer.
"AirBridge Flight Ninety, this is Gulfstream Five-Lima-Lima, can you hear us? Over."
Nothing.
Kat repeated the call several times before lifting her head and realized altimeter was already unwinding.
"Are we there already?"
Dane shook his head no. "I'm going to take us up to maximum speed on descent. We should be on him in about eight minutes."
She looked down again, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine what might be going on in the cockpit of the hijacked 737.
How is he going to play this? she thought. How is he going to try to force our hand? He's got to know we can't arrest people at random or just set up a grand jury and a trial because someone demands it.
Her eyes flew open all of a sudden. Of course he knows that, which means that only new evidence, or new information will make it happen.
So what does he have?
"Kat, I think I may see him up here," Dane said.
She thought of the copilot's words from Durango, and the captain's reactions in Colorado Springs. Who was it he had aboard?
Oh yeah, the candidate for Attorney General.
"Kat, did you hear me?" the captain was asking. Her eyes were closed again.
The guy's currently a U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, and that's...
New Haven... her eyes fluttered open. Which would have jurisdiction over Stamford, Connecticut, where Ken Wolfe lived when his daughter was murdered!
Dane Bailey banked the Gulfstream slightly to the left.
"I think we may have him about ten miles dead ahead, Kat."
She stood up and followed his finger as he pointed beyond the radome of the Gulfstream. "I don't see him."
"Just a small speck right now, but it's weaving down a valley, and it's too big and fast to be a light plane."
She nodded. "Wonderful. Get as close as it takes, but don't let him see us. You have a Flitephone?"
"Yeah, right here," Jeff Jayson responded, pulling the handset from its cradle and handing it to her. Frank was waiting on the other end.
"We've spotted him, Frank, but so far he won't respond to my calls.
I need some quick information."
"Go ahead, Kat."
"What was the name of the U.S. Attorney aboard that plane?"
"Hold on.... Rudolph Bostich."
"Check to make sure he's headquartered in New Haven, second that New Haven has jurisdiction over Stamford, third that the jurisdiction over the murder of Captain Wolfe's daughter was the same area, and finally, do we know of any involvement Mr. Bostich had with the Wolfe case?"
"I've got it, Kat. I'll get back to you in a minute. What's your theory?"
"I don't think Bostich is a hostage as much as he is an unwilling source. He's got something Wolfe wants. Remember his first statement about what the hijacker wanted? An end to dishonest federal prosecutors?
And the copilot said Wolfe threw up after finding out Bostich was '138
on board. There has to be some kind of link between Bostich and Wolfe's tragedy."
Dane Bailey touched her arm with his right hand and pointed ahead. Kat looked up with the receiver still pressed to her ear and saw the shape of the 737 clearly for the first time, as it rolled into a left turn just a few miles ahead.
Frank's voice filled her ear. "Stand by, Kat."
"Okay. Bill, are you still on?"
"Yes, Kat."
"Could you keep monitoring this line, please?"
"You bet."
She handed the receiver back to the copilot and stood again, leaning forward to see over the glareshield as she raised the microphone to her mouth.
"Captain Wolfe, this is Kat Bronsky. Please talk to me. I know you're still there. Half the homeowners in Utah are complaining about you flying through their clotheslines."
There was silence for a second, then the sound of a transmitter being keyed.
"Seems a strange time for humor, Bronsky."
Kat flashed a thumbs up sign to the pilots as she pressed the transmit button again.
"Hey, gallows humor is the FBI's favorite pastime--when we're not dealing with guys who're trying to change the world, that is."
"That what I'm trying to do?"
"Sounds like it to me, and since you didn't fly into the mountains like you wanted us to believe, I'd wager you still want us to do a few things for you."
"Worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah, you tested our blood pressures, but I already had you pegged, Wolfe. You're not what you want us to believe you are. That doesn't mean you wouldn't do what you threaten, but you don't want to hurt anyone. What you want is to stop your daughter's killer from hurting anyone else, right? Isn't that what this is all about?"
There was silence for a few seconds as she watched the silver Boeing below bank to the right and alter its course southbound, gently rising over an undulating terrain.
"That's part of it, Bronsky. There are a lot of scores to be settled, and that's the bottom line."
"But there's more, isn't there, Captain? You said earlier you wanted an end to unscrupulous federal prosecutors, or however you put it.
Right?"
"You mean lying bastards like Rudolph Bostich? Yeah, you could say that."
"Tell me about Bostich."
"I'll do better than that, Agent Bronsky. Kat, wasn't it? In a little while I'll have Rudolph Bostich himself telling you precisely what he did. He's going to spill it all, while he still can."
"We're aware he's on board, Ken."
"I figured you would be. In fact, he's sitting right here next to me in the copilot's seat, wondering when I'm going to bury the crash axe in his miserable skull."
Kat held her finger away from the transmit button and thought hard and fast. Wolfe had taken the man he blamed for doing something regarding his daughter's death and forced him in the copilot's seat.
Since Wolfe didn't seem suicidal, the move had to be for purposes of coercion. He was going to try to scare the D.A. into saying something, admitting something, or promising something.
Come on Frank! Get back to me with the basics.
Kat pressed the button again.
"Okay, Ken, I'll admit that's a surprise. Probably a surprise for Mr. Bostich, too. Where do you want to have this little chat?"
"When is the question, Bron--Kat. It's a matter of time."
"You've only got so much fuel."
"True, but I've also got a planeload of folks back here and a bomb with an electronic trigger I can't let go of, so when I need fuel, I'll land and you'll make sure I get fuel. How are you talking to me so clearly, by the way? Your radio signal is excellent."
Dane Bailey turned to Kat and pointed urgently ahead. She let up on the transmit button and hooked up. "What?"
"He's headed up a box canyon, Kat. Tell him to pull up and get out of there."
"We'll give ourselves away!" she said. "Where is it?"
"There! Hurry, I'm not kidding. Right around that bend the canyon comes to an end in a two-thousand-foot cliff."
They had been in a perfect position, unseen and pacing him from behind, but there was no time to debate it.
Kat mashed the transmit button. "Ken, PULL UP, PULL UP NOW! You've blundered into a box canyon. There's a two-thousand-foot wall ahead you can't see?
She released the button and waited, her eyes glued to the 737 as it neared the turn in the canyon. The aircraft was less than five hundred feet above the roadway that ran down the middle of the valley.
"KEN, FOR GOD'S SAKE I'M NOT KIDDING! WHAT WILL IT HURT TO CLIMB? PULL UP NOW!"
There was a short burst of transmission from the other radio, but no voice. The Boeing was coming up on the turn now, rolling into a right bank.
Dane Bailey's voice cut in on the frequency as he mashed his transmit button on the control yoke. "AIRBRIDGE, NO SHIT, MAN, SHE'S RIGHT! CLIMB NOW!"
Instantly the 737's nose came up and the ship began to climb as it entered a tight bank to the right to get around the cliff that was blocking Wolfe's view of the sheer wall less than two miles ahead.
"Oh, God? Kat muttered.
Dane maneuvered the Gulfstream over the cliff that formed the bend in the canyon, and for a few seconds the 737 slipped from view over the far edge, still beneath the altitude of the surrounding mesa.
They could see where the canyon ended now, the plateau green and verdant thousands of feet above the valley floor.
Suddenly the silver 737 popped into view, nose high, approaching the rim from below, its wings level, its engines obviously at full power.
Kat felt herself squeezing the microphone in a death grip as the Boeing closed in on the wall of exposed cap rock.
The Boeing was less than a quarter mile away, its altitude close to that of the rim, how close she couldn't tell.
"I think..." Jeff began, his voice strained, "... he's got a chance."
There was no way to know whether the rim was higher than the aircraft or vice versa in the microsecond before the 737's image merged with the stark promontory of the ridge. Kat felt her breathing stop, waiting for impact, a part of her wondering how she was going to feel about losing them so quickly, knowing this time it was a mistake, not a charade.
One moment there was airspace between the aircraft and the ridge, the next the green of the plateau was slipping safely beneath the 737
as the twin engine jetliner soared over the rim with less than a hundred feet to spare. It kept climbing, then stabilized a thousand feet above the altitude of the mesa ahead.
After a short eternity, Kat let out a ragged breath.
"Jeez, that was close!" Jeff said from the right seat.
Kat reached over with her left hand and patted the captain's shoulder.
"Thank you, Dane. You saved them. He wasn't going to listen to me."
The captain nodded, his jaw clenched with tension, as Kat tried to calm her heart rate.
More than a minute passed before the sound of a transmitter clicking on filled the headset.