He glanced at April, who was drained of color.
“What the hell was that?” she stammered.
“A near-midair!” he said. “Some sort of bizjet… I couldn’t tell.”
Scott could feel his heart racing and his breathing trying to catch up, but his voice sounded funny.
“You all right?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Below two thousand now, and thirty-fifty is set!”
The Gulfstream pilot’s words were clipped and urgent. The descent was continuing with only seconds left until they hit the water, when once again Ben felt the nose starting to come up as the descent rate slowed. He could see enough through the windows to know they were very low, but the horizon line — or what there was of it in the gathering darkness — was now nearly horizontal.
“Jeez, Ben! What was that?” the pilot demanded.
“Are we level?”
“Yes… at sixty feet this time. What on earth…?”
“Do you have control back?”
“No. It’s still locked, but we’re level and the power’s coming up.”
“Try to disconnect the autothrottles.”
More silence, then a yelp of triumph. “THAT worked! What’s it doing, Ben?”
“I still don’t know why, but it has to do with the altimeter setting. You reset them all?”
“Yes! Hell, you didn’t give us a choice, thank God. But what’s still holding on to this bird, if it’s not the computer?”
It was Ben’s turn to hesitate. His finger moved to the interphone button, but the pilot beat him to it.
“Wait! It’s the damned autopilot, isn’t it?”
An autopilot disconnect warning horn sounded through the interphone as the Gulfstream jumped and both pilots let out a war whoop.
“Got it!” the captain whooped. “By damn, that did it!”
“How?” Ben asked.
“The autopilot disconnect! Somehow the autopilot had seized control, and with all the modifications we’ve made, it couldn’t be overridden.”
“We’re back under control?”
“Yes! And climbing. Crown, you copy?”
There was a sigh from the test director aboard the AWACS.
“Yes. Stand by while we finish performing CPR on each other.”
THIRTY
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, DAY 5 SEQUIM, WASHINGTON
Arlie had noticed the dark blue Chevy van earlier in the afternoon, a utility version with no windows motoring down the road leading past his property. The van stopped for several minutes before moving on. Addresses were hard to find among the widely spaced properties in the area, but it was the third appearance of the same van within three hours that snagged his attention as unusual. When it showed up several cars back in traffic as he drove into nearby Port Angeles, Arlie realized he was being followed. He turned suddenly near the center of the downtown area and turned again into a hotel parking lot, racing past the separate lobby structure and around the back, where his car would be hidden. He sat, waiting for several minutes, before deciding to investigate on foot.
He reached the main street and walked several blocks in each direction, but the blue van was nowhere to be seen, and he retraced his steps to the hotel parking lot feeling slightly foolish.
I must be getting paranoid, he thought, as he rounded the corner of the building and looked up to see the dark blue van parked right next to his car.
“Captain Rosen?” A male voice startled him from directly behind, and he turned abruptly to find himself facing a broad-shouldered man with a weathered face.
“Yes? Who are you?”
The man smiled and looked around before meeting his gaze. His hands were stuck in the pockets of a long black leather coat, and he held himself with easy confidence. Arlie glanced at the broad pockets of the coat and wondered if either contained a gun.
“Consider me a friend, Captain.”
“Okay, but do you have a name?”
The man ignored the question and fixed Arlie with a cold stare. “I have a vital warning for you, and I did you the favor of coming a long distance to deliver it in person.”
“What, you couldn’t ring my doorbell?”
“I doubt you would want your wife to be as frightened as you’re about to be.”
“Excuse me?”
“Captain, you’ve blundered into something way over your head, and your daughter and her pretty friend, Gracie, are making some very powerful people very upset with their questions and lawsuits.”
“What the hell are you—”
A large right hand came out of the jacket, motioning for silence, and the accompanying look on his face stopped Arlie cold. “I’m not here to answer questions. I’m here to warn you to call your girls off, withdraw your lawsuits, fire your lawyers, and just hunker down. You will withdraw those legal actions on Monday and bring your daughter back now. If you do, your license will be reinstated in a few weeks. If you don’t, you’ll never fly again, and someone’s very likely to get hurt.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Rosen, the people you’re challenging will stop at nothing to protect their interests. Do you understand what that means?”
“Yeah. You, or they, are threatening my family. If you’re a government agent, I’ll have your badge for this!”
Once more the man smiled and studied his feet before replying. “Who I am is not important. What’s involved is. Stop your little war and you’ll get back in the cockpit. Keep it up, and lives will be changed drastically, jobs extinguished, and careers ruined. Especially your daughter and her friend. Do not tell them, or anyone else, about this conversation, or I’ll be back to deal with you.”
Arlie’s jaw was set and his fists clenched as he stepped forward, but he was unprepared to see the man’s left hand pull a silenced Glock 9mm from his coat in one unbroken motion. He raised the gun to Arlie’s chest, and just as quickly jerked it to the right and pulled the trigger. A surprisingly loud, muffled noise caused Arlie to jump and whirl to his left in time to see shattered glass falling from his side-mounted rearview mirror, which now featured a bullet hole in the very center.
“What the hell…” he yelped.
The man shoved the gun back in his pocket. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking this isn’t just as serious as I said.”
“Jesus Christ, man!” Arlie was backing up, his eyes wide with alarm as the man turned and walked past him to the blue van, turning at the rear bumper.
“We’re not kidding, Rosen. Don’t risk it.”
The voice in their headsets came from nowhere.
“Unidentified aircraft flying at two thousand feet five-zero miles east of Seward, come up on guard frequency, one-twenty-one-point-five, immediately.”
“Who’s that?” April demanded.
Scott looked to the left, then back to the panel, confirming that one of the radios was, indeed, tuned to the emergency “guard” frequency. He flipped a switch and pressed his microphone button.
“Who’s this?”
“This is a U.S. Air Force fighter, Husky Eighteen. You have violated restricted military airspace and we are intercepting you. You are directed to comply with our orders and follow us back to Elmendorf Air Force Base to land.”