The Last Hostage (28 page)

"They didn't look inside of course? No warrant?"

"No warrant, no search, but outside in some trees they found an unfired thirty-ought-six bullet someone had dropped, and indications someone had been out there stalking the trailer for some time."

"Any bullet holes in the trailer?"

"None. No broken glass. No empty rounds. No blood outside, but a lot of footprints in the dirt and various car tracks. Nothing, however, to justify going in. They did look through the windows. It's a small trailer. What's your guess, Kat?"

"He's been taken. Somebody else snatched him, probably to kill him."

"My thought exactly."

A wave of hopelessness swept over her at the thought of Ken Wolfe throwing everything away to convict a killer who might already be dead.

She sighed loudly. "I'll call Headquarters, but Frank, unless we can prove he's dead or find him, I've got almost nothing concessionary to hand this pilot."

"Other than what he already has--Mr. Rudolph Bostich, whom even the White House likes."

Telluride Mountain Village. 3:05 P.M.

staccato sound of someone channel-surfing the hanging TV set echoed through the Java Shack, causing Deputy Gary Goodwin to look up momentarily from his mocha. He looked back at the wait-ress-Julie, the raven-haired dropout from Colorado State whose feminine allure had been drawing him daily for the last few months. She finally settled on CNN and replaced the remote on the counter.

"Is that okay for you, Gary?" she asked as she adjusted her peasant blouse, well aware where his eyes had been.

"Whatever," he grinned back, paying little attention to the CNN anchor covering the breaking story of AirBridge 90.

"Just after this hijacking began, we were able to bring you a dramatic report from the passenger cabin of the aircraft as CNN's Chris Billings reported live on an airborne telephone."

Gary picked up his oversized coffee cup and moved to the counter opposite where Julie was busily working the espresso machine.

"There's, ah, something I'd like to ask you, young lady."

She smiled and glanced at him before looking back at the machine.

"And that would be of a personal nature, I assume?"

"Chris has been out of contact for more than an hour, but we've reestablished the connection."

"Well, I was just wondering-" he began.

"Hold that titillating thought for a second," she said, inclining her head toward a customer waiting for his order. She handed over his coffee and took the money as Gary glanced up at the TV, trying to look casual.

"We're going live now to the cabin of AirBridge Ninety. Chris? Can you hear me?"

A burst of static filled the speakers as a male voice cut in and out in the background, only a few words understandable.

"... on descent right now as... have little idea..."

Finished with the transaction and wiping her hands on a towel, Julie appeared beside him. "So, you were in the process of asking whether I wanted to go out with you, and do some boy-girl stuff..."

He smiled at her self-consciously as the voice on the TV cut in again.

"... into Telluride, Colorado, where.., think there is a chance..."

Gary looked back at the TV. "Hold it a second!" He held up his hand and Julie, too, shifted her focus to the TV as CNN attempted to reestablish the connection.

"Chris, we're having trouble hearing you."

Suddenly the voice of Chris Billings returned in the clear.

"... possibility that all the passengers will be released in Telluride, when the airplane gets on the ground. At this moment, I'm looking out the window on the left side at a stunning array of snow-covered mountains and what appears to be a very deep mountain valley to one side. I have no clear idea of where we are in relation to the Telluride airport, but our flaps are coming out, and... right now I'm hearing the landing gear extending as we appear to be descending.

This odyssey has been perhaps the strangest in the annals of the airline industry, with the admission a few minutes ago by the captain over the public address system that he, in fact, is the hijacker, and his explanation of why he has become perhaps the first captain in U.S. airline history to hijack his own aircraft."

Gary Goodwin was on his feet and reaching for his handheld radio.

"What are they talking about?" Julie asked.

"There's a hijacking. I heard about it earlier, but it sounds like he's coming in here, for Chrissakes! I've gotta go."

Her eyes were still glued to the screen.

"Julie?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you monitor what they're saying? I'll call you in a few minutes from ny cell phone for details."

She nodded as he raced out the door talking to the San Miguel sheriff's dispatcher on his handheld as Chris Billings summarized the killing of Melinda Wolfe and her father's desperate gamble to force prosecution of the accused murderer.

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 3:07

Ken checked his airspeed again as he lowered the 737's flaps to the thirty-degree landing position while guiding the Boeing through a left turn back toward the airport. The east-west runway was visible in the left half of the windscreen as the 737 began to line up finally with the 6,870-foot runway, a hundred-foot-wide strip of asphalt cut along the top of a mesa.

Antiskid on, flaps down to forty degrees, gear is down, landing check complete. Ken hurriedly pushed the power up and worked to stabilize the airspeed. The landing would be very fast, the tires hitting the surface at a speed of just under a hundred and seventy miles per hour because of the thin air. There was no margin for error. Any hesitation in reversing the engines or going to maximum braking could send them skidding off the opposite end of the runway and off a thousand foot cliff.

He was five hundred feet above the mountainside, concentrating all his attention on the landing, but marginally aware of a white Bronco-like vehicle with lights flashing on top tearing up the mesa on a road just below, apparently headed for the airport.

He gauged the remaining distance to the runway, the speed, and the Boeing's sink rate.

Okay, concentrate. One hundred feet, a little slow, pull some power off, hit the very end like a carrier landing, twenty feet maximum altitude over the runway threshold. Here we go, don't flare, don't flare, hold it...

The last of the approach lights disappeared at a dizzying speed as the 737's main landing gear slammed hard onto the surface some fifty feet down the runway from the threshold.

In the right seat, Rudy Bostich watched with dry mouth and wide eyes as Ken's right hand lashed out like a striking snake, yanking the speed brake handle back to full deployment, then moving with blinding speed to the thrust reverse levers, pulling them into the max reverse position. At the same time, Ken shoved his feet full forward on the brakes, causing Rudy to lurch forward as the fifty ton jetliner decelerated with frightening efficiency, the runway environment flashing by but slowing, arriving finally at a sedate taxi speed with several thousand feet of runway left.

"Good Lord!" Bostich murmured.

Ken snorted, his hand shaking slightly on the yoke, his body full of adrenaline. "You think that's impressive, wait'll we try to get out of here." Rudy looked at him in mortal alarm, but said nothing.

Last Dollar Road, Telluride, Colorado. 3:10 '.M.

Deputy Gary Goodwin had used lights and siren to race out of the Mountain Village area to the highway and on to the airport while alerting as many of the nine other deputies as he could raise.

The San Miguel County sheriff's dispatcher was taking a call from the FBI at the same moment.

Gary had been too busy to call Julie back for information, but somehow, on her own initiative, she'd relayed word to the dispatcher, who in turn was briefing everyone over the radio.

Within minutes Highway 145 out of town was alive with three white sheriff's Broncos, all racing from the town toward the turnoff for Last Dollar Road, which connected the highway with the airport.

Gary raced up the road ahead of the formation and was nearing the airport when the 737 whistled overhead on short final approach. His speedometer was topping eighty as he rounded a curve too fast, nearly lost control, then settled the Bronco back on all fours as he braked hard and steered back to his lane. The airport was less than a half mile away now.

"What does the FBI want us to do?" Gary managed to ask on the radio.

The dispatcher's voice came back strained and unsure. "I don't know. They say there's an agent on her way in another airplane, but there are no specific instructions."

Gary nodded, reviewing the procedures he knew. Unknown situation, the FBI in charge, this is a capital federal crime, the hijacker appears to be the plane's captain, and a bomb's on board with the captain holding an electronic trigger.

Gary picked up the radio microphone again. With the sheriff out of town, his position as chief deputy meant he was in charge, but the small prestige of that position now seemed a bit double-edged in the pressure of the moment. The decisions, and the responsibility for getting it right, were his, while the FBI and the whole world would be looking on and second guessing his every move.

"This is Goodwin, everyone. We do not intervene until we have more information. Set up a perimeter on the airport road and keep everyone out. I'll take the point on the airfield, but no one draws guns and no one tries to approach the aircraft without my approval. Dispatch, you still talking to the feds?"

"Affirmative. I'll relay back and forth."

"Roger."

The aircraft was turning onto the taxiway by the time Gary crested the hill by the east end of the runway. He instinctively slammed on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road, flipping off his overhead lights as he checked to make sure anyone coming up behind would have enough room to stop without plowing into him.

There was a distant whine of turbine engines overhead, and he glanced up to see another jet, still very high over the airport, headed west. He wondered if they were inbound as well. The FBI had said someone was coming in another aircraft, so maybe that was the plane, and his position as de facto on-scene commander could be passed to the feds.

With no control tower at Telluride Region)al Airport, there was no way to quickly shut down the airport, which is what the FBI would probably want.

Gary tromped on the accelerator again and headed for the terminal building with his emergency lights off, calculating where to enter the fenced-off area and how close to get to the aircraft when it parked.

There was always a possibility of gunfire in a hijacking situation, and he let his right hand go down to his holster to verify the presence of his Colt.44 Magnum.

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90. 3:12 P.M.

"I know what you're probably thinking, Bostich. You're trying to figure how to escape now that we're down." Ken glanced at him. "Get this straight. You hold the lives of everyone aboard in your hands. If I see any attempt to escape, I'll let go of this trigger instantly and explode the weapon. Even if you're outside running, the shrapnel will kill you, as well as wipe out all of us aboard. Don't think I'm bluffing. I'm not."

"I don't think you're bluffing, Captain."

"Good."

"I also don't think you realize the FBI has the ability to neutralize that trigger with radio waves. They're hardly amateurs, you know."

"Yeah, they've had so much time to prepare a welcome here and set up all their exotic equipment."

Ken steered the 737 toward the ramp in front of the metal passenger terminal as Bostich spoke again.

"Don't sell the FBI short. I work with the Bureau all the time, and they're extremely clever. They're also honest, and if you cut a deal with them, they'll keep their side of the bargain. I'm always losing prosecutions because of some deal they've arranged to get bigger fish."

Ken looked at Bostich and snorted. "In other words, I ought to be so- o-o worried about their catching me I'll just surrender in return for their promise to, what, think real hard about someday arresting Lumin?"

"Look, what I mean--"

"I know what you mean, Bostich. You mean to look for a chance to save your miserable hide, and you hope the FBI will give you the opening." He shook his head. "Fact is, they don't even suspect the frequency this switch uses, because it was custom built. And, they run a huge risk of trying to find out by trial and error, because any radio energy focused on us could trigger the firing mechanism in the bomb."

There was a flicker of fear on Bostich's face. "I think they probably know that," he said.

"Oh?" Ken shot back. "And how would they know that, since no one, including you, has been close enough to this transmitter to accurately describe even the external housing?"

The fuel truck was waiting in front of the terminal, which sat on the north side of the runway. A fueler was in the cab just as Ken had ordered. He taxied the 737 past to the east, then turned to point the nose of the Boeing back to the west, putting the fuel truck by the right wing where the fuel receptacle was mounted.