The Lion's Game (6 page)

He made a mental note to call home after the Trans-Continental landed. Then he’d have to speak to the aircraft’s captain on the phone, then write a preliminary report of the incident. Assuming this was nothing more than a communications failure, he should be on the road by six, with two hours of overtime pay.
Right
.

He replayed the conversation with Esching in his mind. He wished he had a way to access the tape that recorded his every word, but the FAA wasn’t stupid enough to allow that.

Again, he thought about Esching’s phone call—not the words, but the tone. Esching was clearly concerned and he couldn’t hide it. Yet, a two-hour NO-RAD was not inherently dangerous, just unusual. Stavros speculated for a moment that Trans-Continental Flight 175 could have experienced a fire on board. That was more than enough reason to change the alert from a standard 3-2 status to a 3-3. A 3-4 was an imminent or actual crash, and that was an easy call. This unknown situation was a tough call.

And, of course, there was the remote chance that a hijacking was in progress. But Esching had said that there was no hijacking transponder code being sent.

Stavros played with his two options—3-2 or 3-3? A 3-3 would definitely call for more creative writing in his report if it turned out to be nothing. He decided to leave it a 3-2 and headed toward the coffee bar.

“Chief.”

Stavros looked over at one of his tower controllers, Roberto Hernandez. “What?”

Hernandez put down his headset and said to his boss, “Chief, I just got a call from the radar controller about a Trans-Continental NO-RAD.”

Stavros put down his coffee. “And?”

“Well, the NO-RAD began his descent earlier than he was supposed to, and he nearly ran into a US Airways flight bound for Philly.”

“Jeez ...” Stavros’ eyes went to the window again. He couldn’t understand how the Trans-Continental pilot could have missed seeing another aircraft on a bright, cloudless day. If nothing else, the collision-warning equipment would have sounded even before visual contact was made. This was the first indication that something could be really wrong.
What the hell is going on here?

Hernandez looked at his radar screen and said, “I’ve got him, Chief.”

Stavros made his way to Hernandez’s console. He stared at the radar blip. The problem aircraft was tracking unmistakably down the instrument-landing course for one of Kennedy’s northeast runways.

Stavros remembered the days when being inside an airport Control Tower meant you’d usually be looking out the window; now, the Control Tower people mostly looked at the same electronic displays that the air traffic controllers saw in the dark radar room below them. But at least up here they had the option of glancing outside if they wanted to.

Stavros took Hernandez’s high-powered binoculars and moved to the south-facing plate glass window. There were four stand-up communications consoles mounted ninety degrees apart in front of the wraparound glass so that tower personnel could have multiple communications available while standing and visually seeing what was happening on the runways, taxiways, gates, and flight approaches. This was not usually necessary, but Stavros felt a need to be at the helm, so to speak, when the airliner came into view. He called out to Hernandez, “Speed?”

“Two hundred knots,” Hernandez answered. “Descending through fifty-eight hundred feet.”

“Okay.”

Stavros picked up the Red Phone again. He also hit the Control Tower emergency speaker, then transmitted, “Emergency Service, this is Tower, over.”

A voice came over the speaker into the silent Tower Control room, “Tower, Emergency Service.”

Stavros recognized Tintle’s voice.

Tintle asked, “What’s up?”

“What’s up is the status. It’s now a three-three.”

There was a silence, then Tintle asked, “Based on what?”

Stavros thought that Tintle sounded less cocky. Stavros replied, “Based on a near-miss with another aircraft.”

“Damn.” Silence, then, “What do you think the problem is?”

“No idea.”

“Hijacking?”

“A hijacking doesn’t make the pilot fly with his head up his ass.”

“Yeah ... well—”

“We have no time to speculate. The subject aircraft is on a fifteen-mile final for Runway Four-Right. Copy?”

“Fifteen-mile final for Runway Four-Right.”

“Affirmed,” Stavros said.

“I’ll call out the rest of the unit for a three-three.”

“Right.”

“Confirm aircraft type,” Tintle said.

“Still a 747, 700 series, as far as I know. I’ll call you when we have visual.”

“Roger that.”

Stavros signed off and raised his binoculars. He began to scan from the end of the runway and methodically out from there, but his thoughts were on the radio exchange he just had. He recalled meeting Tintle a few times at the Emergency Committee liaison meetings. He didn’t particularly like Tintle’s style, but he had the feeling that the guy was competent. As for the cowboys who called themselves Guns and Hoses, they mostly sat around the firehouse playing cards, watching TV, or talking about women. They also cleaned their trucks a lot—they loved shiny trucks.

But Stavros had seen them in action a few times, and he was fairly sure they could handle anything from a crash to an onboard fire and even a hijacking. In any case, he wasn’t responsible for them or the situation after the aircraft came to a halt. He took a little pleasure out of the knowledge that this 3-3 scramble would come out of the Port Authority budget and not the FAA budget.

Stavros lowered the binoculars, rubbed his eyes, then raised the binoculars and focused on Runway Four-Right.

Both rescue units had rolled, and Stavros saw an impressive assortment of Emergency Service vehicles along the perimeter of the runway, their red beacons rotating and flashing. They were spaced far apart, a procedure designed to avoid having a monster aircraft like a 747 wiping them all out in a crash landing.

Stavros counted two RIVs—Rapid Intercept Vehicles—and four big T2900 fire trucks. There was also one Heavy Rescue ESU truck, two ambulances, and six Port Authority police cars, plus the Mobile Command Post, which had every radio frequency of every affiliated agency in New York as well as a complete phone center. He also spotted the Hazmat—the Hazardous Material Truck—whose crew had been trained by the United States Army. Parked in the far distance was the mobile staircase truck, and the mobile hospital. The only thing missing was the mobile morgue. That wouldn’t roll unless it was needed, and there was no rush if it was.

Ed Stavros contemplated the scene—a scene he had created simply by picking up his red telephone. One part of him didn’t want there to be a problem with the approaching aircraft. Another part of him ... he hadn’t called a 3-3 in two years, and he became concerned that he’d overreacted. But overreacting was better than underreacting.

“Seven miles,” Hernandez called out.

“Okay.” Stavros began another patterned search of the horizon where the Atlantic Ocean met the New York haze.

“Six miles.”

“I got him.” Even with the powerful binoculars, the 747 was hardly more than a glint against the blue sky. But with every passing second, the airliner was growing in size.

“Five miles.”

Stavros continued to stare at the incoming aircraft. He’d watched thousands of jumbo jets make this approach, and there was absolutely nothing about this particular approach that troubled him, except for the fact that even now the aircraft’s radios were eerily silent.

“Four.”

Stavros decided to talk directly to the person in charge of the rescue teams. He picked up a radiophone that was pre-set to the Ground Control frequency and transmitted, “Rescue One, this is Tower.”

A voice came back on the speaker. “Tower, this is Rescue One. How may I help you today?”

Oh, God
, Stavros said to himself,
another wise-ass
. It must be the qualification for the job. Stavros said, “This is Mr. Stavros, Tower Supervisor. Who is this?”

“This is Sergeant Andy McGill, first guitar, Guns and Hoses. What can I play for you?”

Stavros decided that what he didn’t want to play was this idiot’s game. Stavros said, “I want to establish direct contact with you.”

“Established.”

“Okay ... subject aircraft is in sight, McGill.”

“Right. We see him, too.”

Stavros added, “He’s on track.”

“Good. I hate it when they land on top of us.”

“But be prepared.”

“Still NO-RAD?”

“That’s right.”

“Two miles,” said Hernandez and added, “Still on track. Altitude eight hundred feet.”

Stavros relayed this to McGill, who acknowledged.

“One mile,” said Hernandez, “on track, five hundred feet.”

Stavros could clearly make out the huge jetliner now. He transmitted to McGill, “Confirm a 747-700. Gear down, flaps seem normal.”

“Roger that. I got a fix on him,” McGill replied.

“Good. You’re on your own.” Stavros ended his transmission and put the radiophone down.

Hernandez left his console and stood beside Stavros. A few other men and women with no immediate duties also lined up at the windows.

Stavros watched the 747, mesmerized by the huge aircraft that had just passed over the threshold of the runway and was floating down toward the concrete. There was nothing about this aircraft that looked or acted any differently from any other 747 touching down. But suddenly, Ed Stavros was certain that he wouldn’t be home in time for dinner.

The van dropped us off at the International Arrivals terminal in front of the Air India logo, and we walked to the Trans-Continental area.

Ted Nash and George Foster walked together, and Kate Mayfield and I walked behind them. The idea was to not look like four Feds on a mission, in case someone was watching. I mean, you have to practice good trade craft, even if you’re not real impressed with your opponents.

I checked out the big Arrival Board, and it said that Trans-Continental Flight 175 was on time, which meant it was supposed to land in about ten minutes, arriving at Gate 23.

As we walked toward the arrival area, we scoped out the folks around us. You don’t normally see bad guys loading their pistols or anything like that, but it’s surprising how, after twenty years in law enforcement, you can spot trouble.

Anyway, the terminal was not crowded on this Saturday afternoon in April, and everyone looked more or less normal, except the native New Yorkers who always look on the verge of going postal.

Kate said to me, “I want you to be civil to Ted.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She said, with some insight, “The more you bug him, the more he enjoys it.”

Actually, she was right. But there’s something about Ted Nash that I don’t like. Partly, it’s his smugness and his superiority complex. But mostly, I don’t trust him.

Anyone waiting for an international flight is outside the Customs area on the ground floor, so we walked over there and worked the crowd a little, looking for anyone who was acting in a suspicious manner, whatever that means.

I assume that the average terrorist hit man knows that if his target is protected, then the target is not going to come out through Customs. But the quality of terrorists we get in this country is generally low, for some reason, and the stupid things that they’ve done are legendary. According to Nick Monti, the ATTF guys tell dumb terrorist stories in the bars—then bullshit the press with a different story about how dangerous these bad guys are. They
are
dangerous, but mostly to themselves. But then again, remember the World Trade Center. Not to mention the two embassy bombings in Africa.

Kate said to me, “We’ll spend about two minutes here, then go to the gate.”

“Should I hold up my ‘Welcome Asad Khalil’ sign yet?”

“Later. At the gate.” She added, “This seems to be the season for defections.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had another one in February.”

“Tell me.”

“Same kind of thing. Libyan guy, looking for asylum.”

“Where did he turn himself in?”

“Same. Paris,” she said.

“What happened to him?”

“We held him here for a few days, then we took him down to D.C.”

“Where is he now?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Why? Because it smells.”

“It does, doesn’t it? What do you think?”

“Sounds like a dry run to see what happens when you go to the American Embassy in Paris and turn yourself in.”

“You’re smarter than you look. Did you ever have anti-terrorist training?”

“Sort of. I was married.” I added, “I used to read a lot of Cold War novels.”

“I knew we made the right move in hiring you.”

“Right. Is this other defector under wraps or is he able to call his pals in Libya?”

“He was under loose custody. He bolted.”

“Why loose custody?”

“Well, he was a friendly witness,” she replied.

“Not anymore,” I pointed out.

She didn’t reply and I didn’t ask any further questions. In my opinion, the Feds treat so-called defecting spies and defecting terrorists a lot nicer than cops treat cooperating criminals. But that’s only my opinion.

We went to a pre-arranged spot near the Customs door and met the Port Authority detective there, whose name was Frank.

Frank said, “Do you know the way, or do you want company?”

Foster replied, “I know the way.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “I’ll get you started.” We walked through the Customs door, and Frank announced to a few Customs types, “Federal agents here. Passing through.”

No one seemed to care, and Frank wished us good luck, happy we didn’t want him to make the long walk with us to Gate 23.