Skyhammer (27 page)

“I don’t think he’ll let you, not right now. But if things go well—if Farraday can get him to agree to land, or even just
to consider it, then you’ll talk to him. I want you to ask him first if he’ll talk to me one more time. I would think he would.
If he won’t, I’ll have something worked out for you to say to him, okay? Now find some place to take Katherine Winslow, someplace
out of sight maybe, if you can, but close by.”

“Will do,” Kelly said.

L’Hommedieu put his head in his hands and closed his eyes and thought carefully. Right now it seemed like their only hope
was that Katherine Winslow had gotten through. If so, then Emil Pate had to be right at the edge. Now if he could only reach
out they might be able to pull him down. But how did his Nez Perce upbringing factor in? L’Hommedieu knew very little about
Native American cultures, but he had to suppose they were essentially similiar to other tribal societies, like those of the
Middle East. For the Moslem fundamentalists anyway, social allegiance went far beyond mere patriotism. The Palestinian kids
dying for their cause were motivated by promises of martyrdom. Khomeni’s teenage cannon fodder had charged the Iraqi lines
for such honor. But would Pate,at almost fifty, be susceptible to a cultural influence more than thirty years behind him?
Now L’Hommedieu wished he had Katherine Winslow on the phone again.

Except that there really wasn’t any time to pursue the whole question. The problem now was, if Pate wouldn’t talk to him again,
or Katherine, then they had only Jack Farraday. What could Farraday say that might get Pate to land? Would he be willing to
confess his own guilt, admit he had cheated and lied? That seemed beyond all possibility. So how could they use Farraday?
For another minute L’Hommedieu could think of nothing. Then an idea came to him. Getting Farraday to agree to try it wouldn’t
be easy, but maybe possible.

Interstate 1-25

Albuquerque, New Mexico

20:01 GMT/13.01 MST

During Jack Farraday’s call to the FAA command center, Walter Frye had watched and listened with the feeling a dam had burst
somewhere and the water was beginning to rise around him. Not a flood that would engulf Jack Farraday and New World Airlines;
no, this was his own personal drowning in progress. He had invested his reputation—his career—in this move to New World. He’d
done it in the belief that he could be of service and with the understanding that Phil Masters had told him the truth: Jack
Farraday had gotten a bad rap. It was clear now, though, he had been dead wrong about Jack Farraday, and he had also been
far too naive—far too stupid—to think that New World had hired him to tell it straight. All they’d ever wanted was to coat
Farraday’s ruthlessness with his, Walter Frye’s, credibility. Farraday’s own disguise—his mild-mannered, distracted act—didn’t
work well enough.

Frye was more than disgusted by Jack Farraday, however. He was downright scared of the man. Frye had seen some sinister people
in his life—some brutally unpredictable men—but Farraday, ever since learning of the hijacking, had seemed positively psycho.
Cold and rational while talking to the FAA, but abusive and maniacal with Boyce, him, and everyone else at New World. Now,
as they rode toward the Albuquerque control center in the back of Farraday’s white Mercedes limousine, the bulletproof windows
sealing them like insects in a jar, Walter Frye wondered how he could get out of this trap. If it wasn’t already too late.

“We’re going to murder this guy,” Farraday said quietly, his rage icy for the moment. “That’s priority one. Get him on the
ground and kick the living shit out of him—post mortem if we’re so lucky. I want him painted as the coldest sonofabitch that
ever stood on two legs. A fucking calculator machine. Heart made of computer chips. No way anyone could have foreseen his
action.”

Frye sat between them, Farraday on his right, Boyce on the left. Masters was up front. Farraday slapped Frye’s knee with the
manila folder he held—Pate’s file. ‘It’s all right here. All his excellent performance, the hotshot, decorated vet. Fighter
pilot—nerves of steel. The guy’s one of the best pilots on the line. We don’t need to change any of that.”

“Right,” Boyce said. “That’s our body of evidence. And we’ll also touch lightly on his ethnicity, I think. Nothing blatant,
but there is a ground swell against minorities. At least among some classes. It couldn’t hurt, if we’re careful.”

This made Frye’s stomach churn. Boyce had talked to Pate’s chief pilot before they left, had found out Pate was half Native
American. Now they were even plotting to use that against him? Frye wanted to tell them he thought this was wrong, not the
way you did things. But he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to talk at all and give Farraday any reason to start screaming
again, not as long as he was this close to him. And both of them were quiet now. Frye hoped it would last.

A minute later, however, Farraday said, “The problem is getting the bastard down, I suppose. What should I say to him first,
Edgar?”

“Avoid any pleas for compassion. For the record we’ll want to establish his motive quickly.” Boyce nodded toward the file.
“Remember, it doesn’t matter what’s in the record—we can always block submittal in court—anything we don’t want. What matters
is that we get evidence we can use. Soget right to the bargain. Offer to do what he wants first. He’ll probably want you to
spell it out.”

“But what if he vents first? What he wants is a piece of me, right?”

“A piece of you, yes.” Boyce glanced at Frye. “Figuratively speaking, of course. So you’ll have to apologize, offer to restore
benefits, salaries, seniority. You’ll probably have to promise to quit New World as well. All of that, and then, because he’s
got an ego to salve, you’ll have to make personal restitution. That’s what you’ll call it. Ask him how much personal restitution
he wants for his family.”

“What do you think, Walter?” Farraday slapped the file on Frye’s knee again.

Frye could not look at him. He had been listening to Boyce but now the words flurried in his mind. “Yes,” he heard himself
say. “He’s probably got an ego—”

“So I lay mine on the table for him, that it? Let him chop it off?” When Frye didn’t answer, Farraday said, “Basically, if
I’m to get him to land, I’ll need to lie right down on the runway for him, right?”

Was he supposed to agree? Yes, Frye wanted to—anything to get Farraday’s eyes off him. But his mouth wouldn’t open.

“I think you should be as conciliatory as possible,” Boyce said now, to Frye’s relief. “The best thing you could do is play
the role of repentant. Be sorry. Say you wished you and he could sit down and work this out together. Show him you’re not
what he thinks. Tell him you’ve made some bad decisions and want to set things right again. Don’t play it at all the way you
played it this morning. Praise him for bringing you to your senses. All of that will sound very good in the press.”

“Even though it’s all a load of crap,” Farraday said, but he was nodding. Then he said quietly, “You’re not giving us your
two cents, Walter. I didn’t hire you to sit there like an idiot. Are you still behind the curve on this?”

He was more than behind the curve. He wasn’t even on the curve, Frye realized. He wanted no part of it. But what was he supposed
to do? Ask them to let him out right then and there? He truly felt kidnaped, as if he were riding along on a bank robbery.
And they were going to put a gun in his hand and make him shoot someone. No, it was worse than that. It had nothing to do
with this Emil Pate or whatever motive he had or how justified it was. They were talking about the whole situation in terms
of aftermath. Damage control. What to say in order to sound good to the public, not to Pate. And maybe worst of all was the
fact that they were building one colossal lie, a terrible irony.

“It’s just too bad,” Frye offered. “I mean that this Pate isn’t simply doing it for money. That would—” He stopped. He hadn’t
meant to speak his mind. In the corner of his eye, he saw Farraday staring at him again. With effort he turned his head to
meet the gaze, and was astonished to find that Farraday was grinning.

“You want to know my regret, Walter?” Farraday’s eyes traveled down past Frye’s throat and then back up to his eyes. Here
it comes, Frye thought. Farraday would tell him he was a weakling, a big mistake. And suddenly he hoped that Farraday would.
It would save him the trouble of confessing as much. But instead Farraday said, “My only regret is that it’s happening to
us. If it was happening to any other airline, we’d have a field day.” His smile widened at Frye’s dismay. “How about the homosexual
angle?” he asked. “Two faggot pilots getting off in the
cockpit
?” He made a noise, a snickering laugh through his nose. “A lover’s spat gone bad? We’d drive the competition right into the
ground.”

“Very funny, Jack,” Boyce said. “That was very good.”

“How about you, Walter?” Farraday said. “You like that one?”

In fact, Frye was horrified. But he nodded. Then, in the long minutes that followed, as he stared down at his hands clasped
between his knees, he wondered what he would do. He had given up a lot to be there in that back of that limo. But he would
not be able to work with Jack Farraday. He could hardly bear sitting next to him. Thank God they were finally pulling off
the freeway, driving up to the low, white Albuquerque control center.

As the car pulled up, a man came rushing through the front doors of the building. Boyce and Farraday got out on either side
of him, and Walter Frye, numb now, slid toward Boyce’s door to get out.

“Walter?”

Farraday was leaning back into the car. Frye tried to answer, but his mouth had gone as dry as sand.

“I want you to stay in the car with Bobby,” Farraday said, nodding toward the bodyguard in the driver’s seat. “Watch a football
game. We’ll handle this.”

Even though Frye knew what this meant, that he was not trusted, it seemed like a wish come true. In utter relief, he watched
Farraday and Boyce go up the front walk and into the center. Then he settled back and closed his eyes. He would wait. But
not because he was afraid of Jack Farraday anymore, or trying to please him. No, he’d wait because he’d be damned if he’d
pay cab fare back into town.

Bobby had gotten out of the front seat and gotten in beside him. He turned on the TV. The sound of cheering filled the car.

Flight Deck

New World 555

20:04 GMT/15:04 EST

Pate had decided the sky was beautiful. Like the blue of a clear lake high above the timberline. It had the depth of water,
the shades layered, the layers bleeding into each other. What
was
it that made the sky blue? Ice particles, high up in the ionosphere? The light struck the ice and the ice refracted the part
of the spectrum that was blue so that it was many shades, blending into blue. There wasn’t really any such thing as pure blue.
Or maybe there was, but it was a shade so discrete, so rare, you probably had to rise to the very edge of the atmosphere to
see it.

The clouds were broken into pieces now, floating over their shadows on the surface of the denser air beneath them, like islands,
whole subcontinents on a transparent sea, a geology of clouds—rumpled mountains, deep canyons, escarpments, valleys, translucent
coastal plains. A faint haze shimmered above the clouds, like an aura. As high as he was, there was more space above. Interminable
s pace. Pate stared at the yoke, listened to the whine of the slipstream—felt himself, his body, the dense confusion of his
mind, and the earth spinning fast beneath the plane. You never were more conscious of time, he thought, than when you were
moving fast over the earth.

But flying high above the earth—where you floated, hardly seeming to move—that wasn’t real flying, he thought now. Real flying
happened close to the ground where speed registered—skimming over the land, rising up suddenly and feeling the bond of gravity
bend and stretch, the land tilting suddenly, seesawing, the horizon soaring as you fell, then falling again as you soared.
That’s what he had lived for, the same thing Jeeps Henry had lived for.

He could take the plane down right now, he thought. Get this done with. Just roll it over and head straight for the ground.
But not into it. Skim the ground. And soar up again? Why was he thinking this? Was he afraid to die after all? No, it wasn’t
that. He was only afraid of something else. A whisper of doubt
had
entered his mind. Abruptly he felt it. For the first time since he’d come to the decision to die, he’d realized he might
actually be insane, hanging onto his pride as if it were a lifeline, terrified that he’d fall into the bottomless abyss if
he let go, when in fact his pride was an anchor, dragging him down. Was Katherine right that he’d gotten it backwards?

He looked around the cockpit, then at the still form of the dead man. He was trapped there now, inside the small, fragile
shell. The uncertainty was too much like the old pain—the desperation brought sweat to his face and palms. But what if she
was right?

Pate waited another minute. Then he turned the radio dial back to the assigned frequency. They could reach him when they wanted
to now. He would call them when he hit the next sector. Maybe there was some other way out of this. Maybe it would depend
on Jack Farraday.

Passenger Cabin

New World 555

20:06 GMT/15:06 EST

Mariella Ponti picked up the handset on the first-class bulkhead and pushed the cockpit call button. As she waited for an
answer, her gaze moved from one passenger to another. Senator Sanford and his aide were dozing. The two business men and Mrs.
Howard were reading.

“Engine room,” Pate responded.

The voice startled her. She barely recognized it.

“Emil?”

“Yeah. What?”

The chill in his voice made her shiver. She turned away from the passengers. “It’s Mariella. You guys all right up there?”