Authors: John J. Nance
"Whoever's back there, thank you. That wasn't part of the plan."
Kat let the statement hang on dead air before she hit the button again.
"I tried to tell you, Ken."
The answer was quick and almost contrite. "You did. You did, Kat.
Which means you're shadowing me. So where are you?"
She shook her head and shrugged, holding her finger off the transmit button as she looked at Dane. "So much for surprise."
He looked back and smiled a nervous smile. "Might say the cat's out of the bag, huh?"
She grimaced before punching the transmit button. "Ken, we're behind you, and we're at 'let's make a deal' time. Please. You almost bought it just then."
There was a long period of dead air before the radio clicked on again from AirBridge 90.
"So what do you suggest?"
Kat was not expecting the words to flow so easily from her mind, but her answer was immediate. "Grand Junction is off to the east.
They've got a good airport, and we've got no one waiting for us, since no one knew any of us would be here." She let up on the transmit button for a second, then pressed it again. "Remember, Ken, I told you our cooperation officially depends on getting your passengers out of harm's way. Why not land at Grand Junction, let your passengers off, and give me the leverage I need to get you what you want?"
She let up on the button and waited, watching the silver Boeing as it kept running southbound, maintaining a more healthy altitude above the plateau than before.
Finally the transmitter clicked on as the 737 began a sudden left turn.
"Grand Junction it is, Kat. No tricks, no guns, and no Bostich. I'll give you everyone else, but I keep the aircraft and I keep Bostich, until he's ready to confess, that is."
She exhaled heavily and closed her eyes for a second to give a small prayer of thanks. "It's the right way to handle it, Ken. Then we can work on accomplishing the things you want."
She put the microphone down and looked at the two pilots.
"How far to Grand Junction?"
Dane Bailey was already punching the identifier of the Grand Junction Airport into the flight computer, which gave an instant readout.
"One hundred ten nautical miles, Kat. At his--and our--present speed, a little under a half hour."
She nodded and relayed the mileage and time to Frank on the Flitephone extension before peeling her knees off the carpet and getting to her feet. Most of the feeling had drained away from her right leg, and she grabbed the edge of the cockpit bulkhead for balance while she tried to shake out the pins and needles reawakening her right calf and foot.
"Frank, do we have anyone nearby? Is there any chance of scrambling one of our people to Grand Junction in time, but keeping them out of sight?"
Dane Bailey saw her nod in response to the reply on the other end.
"Okay, but warn them, Frank. Warn them how volatile this man is.
I'm convinced Wolfe is making this up as he goes along, which means he's not going to trust any decision he makes for more than a few seconds. He'll be expecting at any point to have done the wrong thing, and he'll be ready to change course at the first sign that he's misestimated our reaction. No police, sheriff, or even crash trucks at Grand Junction Airport unless they're hidden in a hangar, okay? We spook him, we'll lose him."
Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 1:30 ?.M.
Annette, Bev, and Kevin had been in a frantic huddle in the aft galley when the engines suddenly throttled up and the 737 began a steep climb. They scattered to respective windows, wondering what was ahead, and returned to the galley ashen faced after seeing the cap rock of the mesa whistle beneath them less than a hundred feet below.
The passengers had grown very quiet--young members of the high school band were holding on to each other for support, and Elvira Gates had been busily hopping to her feet to try and comfort the few members of her group who had moved from fear-of-flying to stark terror with each new shock. Others, she had whispered to Bev, were responding like they were on an amusement park ride, and she wondered aloud if her course hadn't succeeded too well. The tour company owner from Seattle had been quiet as a church mouse, but the one passenger whose level of terror was worrying them all was the FAA maintenance inspector. He seemed somewhere close to catatonic.
The near-miss suddenly made a dangerous decision wholly unanimous:
The passengers had to know the truth. It was more a spontaneous gut reaction than a reasoned decision, a collective revulsion to the lie that they were the faithful crew of Captain Wolfe. That's what the passengers would be thinking, and that had to change.
Annette hurriedly pulled the battery-powered megaphone from one of the overhead compartments and walked forward to first class, knowing Ken would be monitoring anything she said on the PA. system.
The aircraft seemed to be flying steadily now without any of the weaving and bobbing that had sent a dozen passengers grabbing for their airsick bags.
At the head of coach she turned and looked into the frightened eyes of her passengers, and began briefing them, keeping the volume too low to be heard in the cockpit, holding onto the overhead compartments with her left hand in case Ken Wolfe began some new gyrations.
"There's no easy way to say this, folks. As bizarre as this will sound, we've been hijacked by our own captain. Captain Wolfe is the only hijacker aboard. He's the one making the threats, and the federal district attorney he said so many nasty things about on the PA is his captive, and is up there in the cockpit alone with him. The copilot was apparently left behind in Durango. Your flight attendants did not know any of this until just outside Salt Lake City. I have no idea what to expect next, but I want all of you to stay belted in your seats. Do not try to play the hero.
The captain says he had placed a bomb in the forward baggage compartment, and he is holding an electronic trigger in his hand. I have seen that trigger. It does exist, and he claims if he lets go of it, we'll explode.
We can't afford to second guess that threat. We have to assume it's valid."
She paused and lowered the megaphone for a second, surveying the wide-eyed disbelief before her.
"Okay, look, I know the main question many of you have is the same one I can't answer. 'Why is he doing this?' "She shook her head in the negative for emphasis. "I don't know. I understand the captain's young daughter was murdered two years ago, and he holds Mr. Bostich responsible for not going after the murderer. I do not know the details, and I don't know why we're caught up in this. I do know Captain Wolfe holds all the cards right now, and all we can do is stay strapped in and pray.
Your flight attendants are just as much trapped by this situation as you are, but we're still in charge of keeping you as safe as possible, and that's what we're going to keep on doing."
She walked back ten rows at a time, repeating the same message, putting off questions, aware that the passengers seemed no more stunned than before. It was all surrealistic anyway, being hijacked, cliffs and bluffs and mountainsides whistling by the windows, wild banks and turns, and strange messages from the cockpit.
She'd been waiting for the chance to talk to Nancy Beck, and as she reached row eighteen, Annette knelt beside her.
"Nancy, listen closely. Your husband's okay. I didn't know this until a few minutes ago, but somehow he left the airplane in Durango and we left before he got back aboard."
She looked utterly stunned, and Annette filled the silence.
"So, stop worrying. He's back in Durango, safe and sound, and probably worrying himself to death about you."
She stood, then, and began moving backward up the aisle toward the front, a row at a time, looking carefully at each one of her passengers as Bev followed.
At every row the basic questions were the same: "Do we know where he's really taking us?" and "What does he want?"
"I don't know," was all she could say.
"Somehow it all makes sense now, in a peculiar sort of way," one of the fear-of-flying group said with tears in her eyes. "I mean, after the rest of it, what's another bizarre twist like finding out the captain is a maniac? At least he knows how to fly. I was afraid they were wrestling for the controls up there."
Annette worked her way back to first class. She stood for a while, feeling an eerie calm settle in over the confusion she felt-the sensation of a hand being placed gently on her shoulder seeming too distant to be real. Annette jumped and turned to find herself facing a barrel- chested man in his sixties. Five more passengers, four men and one woman, stood behind him.
"You startled me. Can I help you?"
"Miss, I'm Mike Clark, a retired police officer, and the folks behind me all want to help."
She looked at him in confusion. "Help with what?"
"Look, we've got to take some action immediately. This guy's gonna kill us flying the way he is. Did you see how close we came to hitting that ridge back there?"
Annette nodded slowly as she examined the group. "What do you suggest, sir?"
"We were talking, the bunch of us. Do you have a key to that cockpit door? I thought I saw you open the cockpit door earlier. If we can get in there quickly enough by yanking the door open when he's least suspecting it, I think we could subdue the S.O.B., especially since you say he's the only hijacker."
She shook her head no. "It's locked, and the captain has the only key."
"I can't accept that. There's got to be a way to force that door open."
She shrugged. "I don't know, but it's far too dangerous to try."
There was a flurry of voices as the group behind him all spoke at once, demanding action, the retired cop in the lead summing it up.
"We stay back here like sheep, we're gonna get slaughtered like sheep."
Annette shook her head and grimaced as she looked the man in the eye.
"I understand the frustration. I'm frustrated too, but if you disable him, who's going to fly?"
The cop was shaking his head. "No, you don't understand. We know he's the only pilot, but if we could yank that trigger away from him--"
"And if he's suicidal?" She regretted the word the second it left her mouth. The blood drained from the retired officer's face and there were gasps from those behind him as he tried to recover.
"You say he's.., suicidal?" "No!" Annette said quickly. "I don't have reason to believe he is, but we don't know. Take away his options and force him into a corner when he's the only one flying, and do we really know what he'll do?"
The man was shaking his head in shock. "I do not believe this!"
"Sir, I'm just as scared as you are,"
He raised his index finger. "I'm not scared, ma'am, I'm madder than hell. This is supposed to be an airline. We trust you not to put maniacs in the cockpit! How the hell did his happen?"
"I don't know. I wish I did."
She tried to meet his eyes, but felt herself turn away, as much in shame, she concluded, as anything else.
He was right. She was AirBridge, and AirBridge was responsible for this.
She wet her lips and tried again. "Sir, please, we can't lose our heads. He says he's got a trigger up there that will blow us up if he lets go of it for a second. I've seen it in his hand. I don't know if it's real, but I don't want to find out the hard way."
The retired cop sighed angrily and turned to look at the others before turning back to Annette. "Did you see how dose we came to that damn ridge back there? You stand here and tell me we can't do anything.
Are you really that helpless, or just terrified?"
The words were like a hard slap to the face. Helpless, indeed! she thought. But that's how I've been acting.
Annette snapped her head up and looked him squarely in the eye.
From somewhere inside she felt herself mustering up the air of authority that Ken had beaten out of her in the previous hour, a loss that had left her floundering and flustered. She felt her throat expand slightly as she straightened her back and found the familiar tone in her voice that had always exuded command.
"Okay, sir, listen up. Here's the deal. We got too close to that ridge, but the fact is, we're still intact and we're still flying. No, we're not in control of where this man is taking us, but I am in control back here, and I told all of you to remain seated. As tough as it is, you've all got to follow my instructions and stay calm. I know where you are, and now I know who you are." She looked over at the group's spokesman. "If there's a need for your help as a police officer, you can absolutely count on me to come back here and get you instantly. Understood?"
He studied her face for a few seconds in silence without moving, his head cocked ever so slightly to one side as if he were seeing her for the first time.
"I'm in Twenty-one-D," he said with a nod and a thin smile as he turned and made a move-along sign with the palms of his hands to the people behind him. "Okay, folks, you heard the boss."
Aboard Gulfstream NSll. 1:38 P.M.
Kat had waited to make sure AirBridge 90 was steering a straight line toward Grand }unction before racing back to use perhaps the plushest airborne bathroom she'd ever seen, a leather-trimmed roomette complete with gold-plated faucets, a small glassed-in shower, and a flat-screen color display of the exact point over planet earth where N5LL was flying at that moment.