“Should we come to you?”
“No, you’re safer there, Mom.”
“I don’t care about safe, I care about being with you, honey.”
“Mom, I’ll come to you if need be.”
“But your job, honey. You can’t leave with everything that’s happening.”
Frankie broke down at that point. She couldn’t blatantly lie to her mother. She told her about losing her job and being pregnant with Nick Geller’s child. Her mother did what any mother would. She consoled her child and kept her opinions for a more appropriate moment.
“There’s a countdown clock that just appeared,” said Frankie’s mother.
Frankie, feeling a lot better having unloaded her troubles to her mother. looked at her TV set.
0:59
0:58
She looked up at the wall clock and then down at the papers in front of her, detailing all of the transatlantic flight details for that morning. The arrival times started at just after 10:30 a.m. EST into the East Coast airports. It was 11:00 a.m.
She started to panic. They had underestimated Nick throughout the investigation. Why had they suddenly been so confident? He had consistently proved to be two or three steps ahead of them.
The counter counted down to 0:01.
The screen changed to the President of the United States, standing proudly but gravely behind the podium.
“Oh my God,” said Frankie’s mom, beating Frankie to it. She had never seen him look so serious.
Chapter 86
Major General Howard Carter climbed into the cockpit of the F15. It felt great to be back in the pilot’s seat again. He had missed the adrenaline rush as he hit the afterburners. It was an amazing machine and although he could have opted for the newer and even more exhilarating F22, his wife Jackie had fallen for him as an F15 pilot and in her memory it was that pilot who would try to do something to avenge her pointless death.
He signaled to his wingman, A US Marine pilot flying a new F35 Lightning whose young son and wife had died on 9/11, victims on one of the hijacked airlines. Their flight, American Airlines Flight 77 from Dulles to LA, had crashed into the Pentagon.
Both pilots turned east, powered into the bright clear skies and followed the route set earlier by the rest of the ad-hoc squadron. Carter and his wingman were the last to leave. Behind them, the maintenance crews would pack up and disappear back to where they had unwittingly and unexpectedly been pulled from. They would have no idea what they had been party to. Only the fighter pilots with a very personal interest in the proceedings would ever know what had taken place over the empty skies and empty waters of one of the most northerly and least travelled parts of the North Atlantic.
Running from the southern tip of Greenland to the west coast of Iceland, the Irminger basin stretched over one hundred thousand square miles of the North Atlantic’s ocean floor. Plunging to depths of almost three miles and well beyond the capabilities of any manned submersibles, it was the perfect location for the day’s events.
Major General Carter fixed the photo of his long dead but never forgotten wife to the inside of his window. She would give him the strength to carry out the task that only a select few had been offered and none had refused. Taking five hundred lives, no matter who they were, was never an easy task; it was, however, somewhat eased by the knowledge that the lives of those on board each of those flights were already fated. The moment they had boarded their flights, they were destined to die.
Chapter 87
Omar heard the announcement and stopped in his tracks. It was far clearer and louder than any previous announcement. Severe turbulence lay ahead and all passengers were to remain in their seats with their seat belts fastened. Restrooms were locked and trolley services suspended. Omar checked his seatbelt, as did everyone else around him same. With it tightly fastened, he assumed his previous position. He had been about to tour the plane, breathing and passing his now contagious germs throughout the length and breadth of the aircraft, but that would have to wait.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then they snapped open again. He had clearly understood the entire message. He didn’t speak English.
Walid had not settled since the flight took off and it wasn’t just that the seat was so worn it offered little support, everything about the flight from check-in, to the aircraft type, to the stewards — there were no stewardesses — to the seats, to the entertainment system, everything seemed off. Even the route they were taking was bizarre. After three hours in the air since leaving Frankfurt, the only thing below them should have been the ocean but all he could see was land. To still see land, they had to be flying a very northerly route. The North Atlantic Track, which Walid knew to be like a freeway in the sky, did not fly that far north. Each day, a number of flight paths were selected based on the current conditions that would minimize headwinds, maximize tailwinds and ultimately reduce fuel burn and flight time. All transatlantic flights would follow those same paths. East and west bound flights had separate paths. It ensured that the chances of mid air collisions in the radar and air traffic control-free mid-Atlantic were non-existent. Having spent his childhood in aircraft, he had learned a thing or two from the aircrew.
Also, from his own knowledge and with the help of the route map in the seat pocket, he knew that there was no logical explanation as to why, that far into the flight, he could see land below. Land which, as they were still flying in the correct general direction, according to the sun, he could only assume was Iceland. And Iceland was far beyond the North Atlantic Track and certainly not the most efficient route to Charlotte, North Carolina. He hit the call button. No steward responded. He hit it again and without waiting any further, he unclipped his seatbelt and went to find someone with answers.
Walking down and into the main cabin, the answer became abundantly clear, as the announcement that boomed out of the P.A. system confirmed his worst fears. Ignoring the instruction to fasten his seatbelt due to turbulence, he rushed back up to the business class upper cabin and made straight for the cockpit door.
The steward seat to the left of the cockpit was empty.
“Come and help me get through this door!” he ordered the men he had recognized as jihadists in the front row seats.
The rest of the passengers in the small upper cabin looked on, not knowing what to make of the actions of the men trying to break into the cockpit. After ten minutes of using a trolley as a battering ram, the armored door buckled slightly at one corner. However, without heavy equipment or explosives, the door wasn’t budging. Luckily the small corner offered Walid the gap he needed. He placed his camera phone’s lens in the gap and took a number of photos of the cockpit beyond.
“Mother fucker!” he screamed when he viewed the images.
As requested, Mohammed met Mustafa Ghazi at the restrooms located just in front of his block of seats.
“Have you not noticed?” he whispered urgently to Mustafa, careful not to be seen.
“Noticed what?” asked Mohammed.
“There are no women on this flight.”
“No I hadn’t,” he said, surprised. He hadn’t been looking. He had, as instructed, tried to keep a low profile.
“There are none, not one, nor any children,” continued Mustafa.
Mohammed looked around at the seats that he could see. Mustafa was right. Everyone he could see was a man, some were under blankets asleep.
“And tell me, Mohammed, what is everyone doing?”