Free Fall (26 page)

Sixty-One

Rockville, Maryland

T
hat morning, the man next to Robert Cole in the communal shower ranted Scripture as he coughed and wheezed.

Cole didn't mind.

After he toweled off and found a free sink and mirror to shave, he considered the line of prayer from Saint Francis taped to the rust-stained wall: “It is in dying that we are born into eternal life.”

There's wisdom in those words,
Cole thought as he reflected on the reasons he'd chosen to stay in a homeless shelter near Washington, DC.

Yes, he believed that if police were looking for him, he'd stand a better chance of evading them if he stayed at a shelter.

But it was more than that.

He needed to get closer to the truth of what he'd become: a wretched failure and a waste. If he was going to be resurrected and redeemed, he needed to bury himself.

The night staff had asked no questions when Cole had arrived requesting to stay at the shelter, which was an abandoned school. They'd accepted his cash donation, given him a piece of paper with the rules then escorted him, via a flashlight beam on the floor, to a lower bunk in the gym where dozens of other men had been snoring.

Cole was grateful, for he felt that he was undeserving.

Now he dressed in his best shirt, tie and suit.

One of the staff, a woman named Polly, was generous in letting him use one of the shelter's phones to check his number for any response from Veyda to his video.

There was nothing.

His heart sank.

He collected his briefcase and made his way to the Rockville station of the Washington Metro, blending in with other commuters.

He was destined for the NTSB headquarters to see Jake Hooper.

I'll see him and I'll show him what we need to do, if it's the last thing I do on this earth.

Sixty-Two

Washington, DC

T
he president sat at the center of the mahogany table, back to the Rose Garden, facing the vice president and other officials who'd been called to the Cabinet Room.

Eighteen people, including cabinet secretaries, members of the National Security Council, Defense, FBI, Homeland, FAA, CIA and NTSB were at the table, while two dozen other experts flanked the walls.

The Zarathustra situation was allotted thirty minutes on the White House agenda for assessment and action.

The meeting began with the president giving the FBI director five minutes to brief the table. The heads of the FAA and NTSB were each given three minutes. The president then opened the discussion, starting with the transportation secretary.

“Given the situation, we recommend a national ground stop followed by a global ground stop,” the secretary said.

“You want to ground all flights?” the commerce secretary asked.

“Yes, we believe that's the prudent step to take.”

“I think under the circumstances it's an overreaction,” the commerce secretary said.

“It's the best safety measure,” the transportation secretary said.

“Yes, of course, but that hasn't been done since 9/11. And with 9/11 we were under attack,” the commerce secretary said. “The economic impact of a ground stop today would be devastating, and I don't need to remind this table how fragile economies are in some parts of the world now. We must consider other options.”

“Without this precaution, we risk lives until the suspects are apprehended and the threat is removed,” the transportation secretary said.

“I understand that,” the commerce secretary said, “but we haven't identified a specific target, have we?”

“Nothing specific,” the FBI director said. “The two stricken aircraft had Richlon-Titan flight systems, and the suspects are linked to Richlon-Titan.”

“Have the manufacturer and airlines been advised, or asked to ground these aircraft?” the Homeland Security secretary asked.

“Those discussions with industry are taking place as we speak.”

“How close are we to arresting the suspects?” the president asked.

“We're tracking two in Colorado now, and we believe we're close. One is believed to be here in the Washington area.”

“Washington?”

“Yes. We're going to make a public appeal shortly, with photos, and place them on our Most Wanted list.”

“Do we have conclusive evidence confirming the suspects interfered with the flights?” the president asked.

“No, but we have mounting evidence that points to that conclusion,” the FBI director said.

“We'll move into a higher stage of readiness,” the president said. “I want the FAA to immediately put out alerts to the airline industry. In particular, advise commercial crews to be vigilant and to immediately report any anomalies. We'll have NORAD and the National Military Command Center stand by. I want State to advise other countries of our situation through intelligence protocols.”

“What about a ground stop?” the transportation secretary asked.

“No ground stop will be undertaken at this point. We'll allow law enforcement time to apprehend the suspects and remove the threat. If stronger evidence surfaces to confirm direct interference with the flights, we'll take appropriate action.”

The president took a quick look around the table.

“Finally, I want to be kept abreast of any developments. Thank you.”

Sixty-Three

Mobile, Alabama

S
ome thirty-four thousand feet above Mobile Bay, NorthSun Airlines Flight 118 was a little over an hour out of Miami when a bell sounded in the cockpit, indicating a flight advisory.

First Officer Sam Zhang's brow creased as he studied the console screen.

“What is it?” Will Miller, the captain, asked.

“It's an alert from the FAA advising extreme vigilance concerning any control anomalies. We're to alert ATC if we experience any unexpected incidents beyond SOP. It arises from the Shikra crash at Heathrow and the EastCloud flight into LaGuardia.”

“Let me take a look.”

Miller had been a fighter pilot with the US Air Force prior to logging twenty-five years as a commercial pilot, the last fifteen as a captain. Zhang had flown cargo planes around the world before joining NorthSun, where he'd been a first officer for ten years. Miller read the alert on the screen, shook his head slowly then resumed looking into the sky.

They were flying on autopilot.

Their aircraft was the Brazilian-built Startrail AV600, one of the largest passenger jetliners in operation with a seating capacity of six hundred. Today they had a full flight, mostly European and Asian tourists who'd come off a Caribbean cruise for the second leg of their trip—an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle.

“So what's your take on the advisory, Will?”

Miller raised his shoulders in a subtle shrug.

“To be honest, I think they're overreacting.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“There've been some recent news reports speculating on the causes. Maybe the FAA or NTSB's got new information that gives them reason to be cautious?”

“Maybe. But this stems from Richlon-Titan's systems and we know RT's a penny-pincher with a penchant for cutting corners. Anyway, my buddies in the UK are hearing that Shikra was a computer malfunction, not a cyber breach.”

“What about what happened to EastCloud?”

“Word is that was clear-air turbulence and a distracted pilot.”

“So you have no concerns?”

“No, I wouldn't say that, but our bird's a long way from anything RT makes. It's got a solid safety record, so I'd say we're okay, Sam.”

Zhang nodded but failed to quell the slight twinge in his stomach over the advisory. He concentrated on monitoring readings on the flight deck, eyeing every parameter. The autopilot did its job, making minor self-adjustments for latitude, longitude, speed, course and direction as they continued their slow climb toward thirty-six thousand feet, the altitude they'd be at for much of the long flight.

Zhang took a soft breath.

All looked good.

Sixty-Four

Los Angeles, California

K
ate couldn't shake her sense of unease, feeling that somewhere, something major was breaking on the story.

And I don't know what it is
.

Her anxiety had arisen from what Nick Varner had told her when she'd called to alert him to Robert Cole.

We're on the same track and things are unfolding.

What was unfolding? What had Nick meant by that?

Something was up. Kate could feel it in her gut, and it tormented her as she inched along the security lines at Los Angeles International Airport for her return flight to New York.

She needed more information from Varner. She'd tried contacting him again last night and today but it was futile. She'd also reached out to Erich for help but so far he hadn't responded. Her worry deepened with each passing minute because once she was on the plane she'd be incommunicado for at least five hours.

Maybe she should alert Chuck.

Alert him to what—my failure to advance the lead we got on Cole? No, I'll handle this my way. Once I get back to New York, I'll go flat out to find Cole and I'll press Nick to tell me what the FBI's doing. He's got to give me something. We put out the story with the appeal like the FBI wanted, and I told them about Cole.

At last, Kate reached the front of the line and the scanners, where she hefted her carry-on bag to the table, removed her laptop from its case and presented her boarding pass.

Once she'd cleared security and made it to the preboarding area of her gate, she immediately went online, checking for any reports on the story by other major news organizations.

Nothing so far.

But that did little to calm her feeling that the story was about to bust wide open.

Sixty-Five

Linthicum, Maryland

A
t that moment, across the country in the Defense Cyber Crime Center, Keith Dorling's breathing quickened.

“Let's go over this again. Look at the bus crash.” He was on the phone with a British cyber analyst working on the Zarathustra email that had been received by the Kuwaiti Embassy in London.

“See?” Dorling said. “There was a power outage in London.”

Dorling read the notice aloud: “‘A double-decker bus crash has caused a disruption of power southeast of Hyde Park for the Brompton Road area.'”

“The Kuwaiti Embassy is in the area on Albert Gate,” said Lynn Utley, Dorling's colleague.

Dorling and Utley scrolled through supplemental information from the Kuwaitis.

“The Kuwaitis said that the crash caused the embassy's system to go down,” Dorling said. “But the crash happened around midnight. Look at the time shown on the Zarathustra email and the date stamp.”

“How did everyone miss this?” Utley said.

Dorling checked and rechecked.

“See? When power was restored, the system's time stamp failed to reset correctly,” Dorling said.

“This means the email warning of pain and sorrow was sent
before
Shikra Airlines Flight 418 crashed at Heathrow and can't be a wild, after-the-fact boast,” Utley said.

“Yes, they predicted the event. It means they had to have been behind it.”

“We've got to alert people,” Utley said.

“They're going to have to ground everything.”

Sixty-Six

Los Angeles, California

A
t LAX, Kate eyed the screen above the agent's desk at her gate.

Her flight's departure was still on time.

Good.

She resumed studying the TV monitor above the seating area, watching CTNB while focusing on the ticker crawling at the bottom of the screen. The news was about an economic downturn. Nothing on the flights had emerged.

Kate continued watching until her flight, Trans Peak Airlines Flight 2230, nonstop to JFK, was called. The plane was the largest in the airline's fleet, the five-hundred-seat Ultra Supreme 880. It had a stellar safety record. Kate had checked it to offset the nervousness rippling through her about flying today.

She remained locked on CTNB until her row was called.

Despite being a sold-out flight, the boarding process went quickly,
Kate thought after she'd stored her bag in the overhead bin, settled into her window seat and fastened her seat belt. Some fifteen minutes later, the jetliner taxied into position and waited for clearance to take off.

The engines roared as the big plane accelerated down the runway, pushing Kate deep into her seat. Great, she thought, as it lifted off and climbed over Southern California. The sooner she got back, the sooner she could dig into Robert Cole's life.

* * *

On the ground, as the 880 disappeared from the sky over Los Angeles, the faces of Seth Hagen, Veyda Cole and her father, Robert Cole, appeared on CTNB.

News was breaking that the FBI had identified them as the most wanted people in the country.

Sixty-Seven

Weld County, Colorado

V
eyda and Seth's SUV cut across a desolate stretch of the high plains.

They'd left Denver, heading north on Highway 85. After passing through Greeley, they were now traveling east.

“Not too much farther,” Seth said.

While he concentrated on the GPS and his laptop, Veyda took in the miles and miles of flat, arid land. The farther they drove, the fewer cars they saw. It was spiritual here, she thought, loving how the sky met the horizon on even terms. She couldn't help but think of her father's video.

Veyda, sweetheart, this is your father. Whatever you're doing or thinking of doing, please stop... I'm begging you... You will always be my daughter and I will always be your father. I love you...

Her eyes stung and she shook her head.

You're not my father and I am not your daughter
. She remembered how her mother had died.
No, you're not my father and I'm not your daughter.

She saw her father's face, the kind face she'd once adored, saw his pain.

I'm begging you... I will always be your father. I love you...

She wiped her eyes.

No, I won't let you stop me
.

She gritted her teeth, standing hard against the waves of sentimentality rising within her. Her knuckles whitened on the wheel, her blind determination killing any notion of doubt.

“Turn left at that gate post,” Seth said.

He guided her along a secondary road that after several miles became an earthen path. Soon the main road had disappeared behind them in the small hills. The path was akin to a trail, undulating several more miles along a dry, uninhabited extent of treeless land.

“Slow it down. We're nearly here.”

The SUV continued, gently twisting over the soft, grassy trail until they crested a gentle slope that swept down to a winding river and panoramic expanse.

“Stop—this is it. Let's get to work.”

No other people or buildings were in sight as they unloaded their laptop computers to a thick patch of grass near the car and switched them on.

Their high-powered systems were equipped with wireless satellite technology, giving them optimum online access. For the next twenty minutes, Seth carefully entered coordinates, codes and other data into his system as Veyda watched over his shoulder, double-checking the process. Occasionally, they'd pause to discuss a code sequence, but their work proceeded swiftly.

Seth turned to Veyda.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” she said.

A soft click sounded when Seth pressed the enter key, unleashing their greatest operation.

“It's done. It's in motion,” he said. “Nothing can stop it. Soon everyone on the planet will be speaking our names.”

Tears rolled down Veyda's face as she and Seth kissed, celebrating what was to come.

The gun waited on the grass beside them.