Skyhammer Read online

“I can relay a message. He’d be in the middle of the meeting right now, though.”

  Searing thought about it, decided he had no choice but to tell Ryder.

  Afterward, Rydell was quiet for so long Searing wondered if he’d heard. Then, in a low voice Rydell said, “Are you sure about this?”

  “The pilot contacted us.”

  Again Rydell was quiet. Ten seconds went by, and Searing’s impatience grew. Finally Rydell said, “Could you give me your number, please? I’ll reach Mr. Farraday.”

  Searing gave him a direct line to the command center, explaining that he wanted the line left open to New World headquarters and that they’d switch it over as soon as Farraday called.

  Then he replaced the handset and looked at the clock on the wall and then at the TV monitors in the Operations room, on the other side of the windows. One problem was already solved, he realized. There’d be no football game.

  SEVEN

  Vienna, Virginia

  17:48 GMT/12:48 EST

  Brian L’Hommedieu was in the kitchen when the telephone rang. He went on carefully slicing the loaf of fresh dark-rye bread. Nothing would disturb him today, not calls from relatives or old friends or carpet-cleaning salespeople. He had already taken care of the half-dozen minor obligations Saturdays usually required of him—bundling the newspapers, helping his wife sort laundry, attempting to find the source of the squeak in the typing-chair in the den, and calling his mother. The slate was clean now, and he would spend the next three hours in front of the television, watching the Army-Navy game.

  People were always surprised to learn that Brian L’Hommedieu had graduated from West Point Military Academy. There was very little of the military about him. He was a gangling, rusty-haired man who wore wirerims and spoke in earnest bursts. He hadn’t expected to end up in the army, or in any career even remotely like the army. But his father had served in the Army Air Corps and pushed hard to get Brian to apply to West Point. There he had majored in Russian, and once out of the academy, he had been assigned to Intelligence. For two years he had been stationed in a small, West German town within spitting distance of the East German border, analyzing the radio transmissions of the Russian army and air force units stationed on the other side of the border. In other words, he had been a spy, though not the kind most people thought of when he told them that. It was a joke, in fact. In the same way his military duty had been a kind of joke. There was not a lot really to be learned from Russian tank drivers. And as the officer in charge of his small group of eavesdroppers, he’d let military protocol slip, partly because he’d been uncomfortable with command, partly because the enlisted personnel in his command were all intelligent men who did their work because they liked it, and partly because, after a few months, they were all his friends.

  The years in Germany were two of the most pleasant in his mostly pleasant life. He and Beth, along with the other radio surveillance specialists and their wives, had often toured the Western-bloc countries, where a strong dollar made them almost affluent. Leaving after two years, coming back to the States, they had felt deprived, at loose ends. What good did it do to speak fluent Russian in the midst of the cold war? Unless one wanted to work for the CIA, which L’Hommedieu did not.

  He had minored in psychology at West Point, and so he pursued that, spending two years in the graduate program at Georgetown. A month after getting his master’s, L’Hommedieu bumped into one of the men who had served under him in Germany. The man was working for the FBI and told L’Hommedieu of the Bureau’s anti-terrorist hostage negotiator team. With his military background, academic training, and facility with languages, L’Hommedieu fit their profile perfectly—except that he had never really been a team player. L’Hommedieu saw himself more as the special-situations type, like the field-goal kicker. Perhaps that was what a negotiator was supposed to be, after all.

  The telephone continued ringing. L’Hommedieu glanced at his watch. Eight minutes to kickoff. He wasn’t a football fanatic either, but he took keen interest in the annual game between Army and Navy. After all, hadn’t he stood in the stands at Michie Stadium for four years, a good plebe, cheering on the Black and Gray? It did not matter that Navy had the better team this year. That never mattered.

  If the call were for him, he decided, Beth would be smart and say he was out. Or she’d let the machine pick it up.

  He spread butter on the other slice of dark rye and then tested the skillet. He placed the first slice of rye down on the skillet and heard the telephone ring a fourth time as he began to stack corned beef onto the bread. He laid the swiss cheese down, then unscrewed the lid on the jar of kraut. L’Hommedieu liked to cook. It was an art. It was also process-oriented, like himself. He forked kraut from the jar, thinking as he often did that he liked making good food because it depended on the nuances. Besides, cooking was an art with a purpose: everyone had to eat.

  “Brian!” his wife called.

  L’Hommedieu finished arranging the sauerkraut on top of the cheese. “Right there!”

  Annoyed that she hadn’t covered for him, he positioned the top slice of rye and then put the lid on the skillet. He’d have approximately two minutes before he had to turn the sandwich. He checked his watch again. Still six minutes until the game coverage started. Perfect timing. He got a bottle of Watney’s ale out of the fridge to let it warm a little. In Britain he’d discovered Watney’s and had instantly preferred it to all the German beers. L’Hommedieu turned just as Beth came through the swinging door to the kitchen. The look on her face drained most of the energy out of him.

  “It’s Mac,” she said with a sigh.

  The last of L’Hommedieu’s energy evaporated. Pat McDonald wouldn’t call unless it was important. Not today, with Army playing Navy; Mac knew it was the one game he looked forward to more than any other.

  L’Hommedieu turned back to the stove, shut off the burner under the skillet.

  “Did he say why?”

  Beth shook her head. “Just that it was urgent.”

  L’Hommedieu pushed through the door into the front hallway and picked up the receiver from the desk in the alcove under the stairs.

  “Yeah, Mac. Brian.”

  “I’m sorry to have to do this,” Mac said, “but the FAA has a situation in progress, Homm. A real one, apparently.”

  L’Hommedieu shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. There hadn’t been a real hijacking in over four years, not even an attempt. Why, of all days, now? He leaned back against the stairway banister, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “You’re sure this is real?”

  “That’s what they say,” Mac answered. “And extremely urgent, and they’ve got a full lid on it, and they’ve had us send a car out to take you down there. You’ve got maybe five minutes. You’re to call in, but the car’s got a phone, so you can do it en route.”

  “Wait a minute,” L’Hommedieu said. “They want me at the FAA, not at the Bureau?”

  “That’s what the order is.”

  “Who’s there? Who’s running the ACC?”

  “Otis Searing.”

  “I see.” L’Hommedieu rubbed the bridge of his nose again, thinking. Otis Searing was the newest of the six supervisors, a black man with a faint southern accent, a former football player if he remembered correctly, not tall but imposing, solidly built, like a small bull. “You’re at the office?” he asked Mac.

  “With the line open.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  He went back to the kitchen and turned on the burner under the skillet again. He’d have his sandwich at least. He’d take it with him. The Watney’s would have to wait, though. He put it back in the fridge and then turned and sat down on the kitchen stool feeling his irritation give way to exhilaration. If it were a bona fide hijacking, it would be his first. And if they wanted him in the command center then they had to be thinking a negotiator was important.

  Beth had followed him back into th
e kitchen. “Do you think it’s real?” she said.

  He shrugged, told himself not to leap to conclusions. They almost always turned out to be inconsequential. “Probably some kind of hoax,” he said. “But I’ve got to go down there.”

  “I’m sure sorry,” she said. “I can tape the game.”

  L’Hommedieu nodded. “I’d better change clothes. Will you look after my lunch? Don’t let it burn?”

  He went upstairs, thinking about Otis Searing again, of the first time he’d met him, of how he’d been intimidated by the man’s physical presence. His first impression had been that Searing was antagonistic, but his second had been that he was merely single-minded, confident—that he had an old-fashioned-movie-hero ability to keep faith in himself. Which was probably a good quality for the principal to have, he supposed.

  When he came back downstairs, Beth was waiting with the sandwich in a paper bag. He went to the front window and waited nervously, tilting the blinds to look out. The day was bright, but it looked chilly. A dull green Ford Taurus rounded the corner. You could always tell a government car, but in this case the driver had already attached his magnetic, flashing blue light to the roof. He eased the car up to the curb in front of the house and got out and came up the walk double-time. L’Hommedieu took his winter jacket from the closet and slipped it on. He got his badge and Bureau ID out of the pocket of the suit jacket he’d worn to work on Friday and put those in his pocket, made sure he had his glasses case with his prescription sunglasses. The doorbell rang.

  “If I get a chance to call,” he said, “don’t even think about telling me who won.” He gave her a quick kiss, then went down the walk after the driver.

  Within a minute the Ford was accelerating up the ramp onto 1-66 eastbound, and he felt his excitement mounting again. He bit into his sandwich, took the cellular phone from its receptacle and punched in the number Mac had given him. It connected immediately.

  “Command center. Searing.”

  L’Hommedieu swallowed his bite of sandwich, identified himself. “I understand this isn’t just an exercise.”

  “Nope,” Searing said. “The real McCoy. Commercial. A New World flight. Hold onto your butt—the hijacker’s apparently one of the pilots.”

  L’Hommedieu had just taken another bite of his sandwich. He stopped chewing for a moment, incredulous, then chewed fast and swallowed. “You mean one of the scheduled crew-members?”

  “Pretty damn certain. Name we got from him checks with New World’s crew list. He says he’s the copilot. So far we don’t know squat to make us think otherwise.”

  L’Hommedieu put his sandwich down on its sack. Now his heart was racing. “What’s he want?”

  “That’s the tight part. So far, only thing he’s demanded is the line to Washington. We haven’t given him that yet. Waiting on you.”

  “What’s the threat?”

  “Uncertain—but he’s talked about crashing the plane in Phoenix. He has a bone to pick with Jack Farraday. You know the name?”

  L’Hommedieu placed it instantly. There was bad blood between Farraday and airline people in general. “Jack the Ripper,” he said.

  “You got it.”

  “You said this was a New World flight? Farraday’s airline?”

  “That’s affirm.”

  It was becoming clearer now. There had been some trouble between Farraday and the airline’s pilots—something involving a strike, or a merger. The driver’s eyes in the mirror had shifted to him. They were hidden behind amber sunglasses, but L’Hommedieu could see them shift away again. “You think that’s what the hijacker really intends to do? Crash the plane?” he asked.

  “It’s his stated intention. What we’ve got to go on so far. I didn’t talk to him. Controller in K.C. did.”

  “Interesting,” L’Hommedieu said quietly. “Publicity stunt?”

  “Maybe. Let’s hope to hell so.”

  “And so maybe he’s bluffing.”

  “Don’t ask me. That’s where you come in. I want you to be the first one he talks to.”

  “We’re coming up on the Roosevelt Bridge now. Be there in five minutes. How much time do we have?”

  “Two and a half hours, plus a bit maybe. He’s just west of St. Louis. Computer gives an ETA of fifteen fifty-two, eastern time.”

  “Are you going with established strategy?”

  “Affirm. I called New World myself. They’re supposed to be getting everything they can on him and faxing it in. Supposed to be contacting his chief pilot and Jack Farraday.”

  “Good. We’ll need a profile as soon as possible. The more the better.” L’Hommedieu paused. Searing’s voice had been sounding thick, nasal. “You sound like you have a cold.”

  “Bad-ass mother,” Searing answered. “See you real soon.”

  As he replaced the receiver, L’Hommedieu began to consider the situation. A pilot hijacking his own plane? That would be mutiny, technically. He recalled another incident a few years back, involving a regional carrier in California—a disgruntled baggage handler, fired for theft of company property, had used an old ID to smuggle a gun past security and boarded a plane along with his former boss. He’d waited until the plane was in the air at cruise altitude, and after shooting the boss had gone forward and shot both pilots. At least that’s what the analysts had pieced together afterward. The airplane had gone straight into the ground, killing all aboard.

  But the subject that time, he remembered, had been fired from the job weeks before the incident precisely because he’d shown clear signs of instability. That was how the system worked. Not only did the FAA’s screening tests sort out the wackos, but each airline had its own methods as well. And pilots in particular were trained to watch for serious personality disorders in their peers. Your chief pilot monitored you. The California killings just didn’t happen—the certified fruitcake who did them was a longtime loser, riddled with obvious psychological disorders.

  Still, it had happened. Someone had slipped through the net. And now L’Hommedieu remembered something else in the report on the California incident: Even though the man had a revenge motive, he had also committed suicide, pure and simple. The subject hadn’t contacted anyone. And he hadn’t been a pilot, hadn’t even tried to take control of the plane.

  So this one was different, in spades. This subject seemed to want revenge for something, but he wasn’t keeping quiet. Apparently, he wanted to talk, to make a some sort of statement. And that implied some degree of rationality. And maybe some hope still somewhere inside the man? L’Hommedieu had to think so, and he would have to find that shred of hope, though it probably wouldn’t be easy. The subject might well have hidden it, even from himself.

  He glanced out as they cleared the Pan American Union and the back of the White House came into view briefly in the distance beyond the ellipse. He thought of the motive again: Jack Farraday. What was Farraday’s real involvement? He should’ve kept up with the story, he realized. Searing or someone down at the ACC would have to fill him in.

  Now they were coming up on Ninth Street. In two minutes they’d be pulling up beside the FAA building. He thought of the time they had left—two hours, give or take. Time would be their main enemy. Since the New World flight was not scheduled to land anywhere for refueling, they would have to get him down, and two hours would make it tight. L’Hommedieu realized something else now, too. The subject probably didn’t fit either basic profile; he was apparently neither a certified fruitcake nor a professional terrorist, but a little of both. Unlike the fruitcake, he had a clear and logical motive. Unlike the typical professional—the Palestinian kid in his late teens—this guy would have to be in his thirties, maybe forties, well past the age when you believed in your own immortality, a foolhardy delusion a negotiator could often turn against the hijacker. And another important advantage wouldn’t exist: Almost all professional terrorists were actually afraid of flying, terrified of it, in fact. They wanted to land, desperately, and so getting them on the groun
d was usually no problem. This man, if he were indeed the copilot, would have no such fear.

  So he would need to find other weaknesses. The subject’s history would be of utmost importance. The only problem with researching his history was, again, time.

  The light had caught them at Independence Avenue, across the street from the FAA and its twin, the Department of Transportation, on the other side of Seventh.

  “I’m gonna take you down into the parking garage,” the driver said over his shoulder.”That way you can go right up the elevators.”

  L’Hommedieu nodded. That would save a minute or two. And every minute would count. Although he had to assume they would get the subject to land. As for the next step—getting him to lower his demands—they’d have more time, which was good since it would involve a combination of ego massaging and bashing. And if the subject wasn’t too looped out he’d begin to reason with them. That was the key to getting the demands lowered—getting the subject to see that his reasoning was invalid. Once you got that far, the hijacker would begin to lose resolve. That’s when you could start making your own demand, over and over until it became what he wanted too. By then, too, you’d usually found some other weaknesses that could be emphasized to wear him down. It was all a little like pouring drinks into a poker-game adversary while quietly stacking the deck. You bluffed, you cajoled, you let him win enough to keep him at the table, until finally he realized he couldn’t win, that he didn’t even want to win anymore; all he wanted was to finish the game.

  Could he handle it? L’Hommedieu thought so. He was good at negotiating. He knew the strategy inside out. But suddenly he realized something else he hadn’t thought of: He was facing one very serious handicap. Because the the hijacker was a pilot, his training would have included elements of the established strategy, the very tactics they would try to use against him. Was the hijacker fully aware of this advantage? Was it likely he’d planned the hijacking carefully? Had he developed a strategy of his own to counteract what he knew they’d try to use on him?